Ad-hoc announcements

The Executive Board of Kapsch TrafficCom AG announces that the outlook to the financial year 2022/23, which ended on March 31, 2023, will probably not be met.

Vienna, March 25, 2022 – According to the decision of the competent arbitral tribunal, autoTicket   GmbH is entitled to damages and reimbursement of expenses against the Federal Republic of Germany. This is apparent from the interim arbitral award delivered to the contractor parties today. Following the termination of the operating agreement for the collection of the infrastructure charge ("passenger car toll") in Germany, autoTicket GmbH, the joint venture of Kapsch TrafficCom AG and CTS Eventim AG Co. KGaA, has asserted claims for compensation in the amount of approximately EUR 560 million against the Federal Republic of Germany. The arbitral tribunal confirmed that the claims asserted by autoTicket GmbH in the arbitration proceedings for compensation of the gross enterprise value and for reimbursement of the costs incurred in the execution of the operating agreement exist on the merits. Accordingly, the Federal Republic of Germany, represented by the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, was not allowed to unilaterally withdraw from the contract without compensation. The arbitral award also rejected poor performance, as alleged by the Federal Republic of Germany, as a reason for termination. The first phase of the two-stage arbitral proceedings has thus been concluded. In the second phase of the arbitral proceedings that now follows, a decision is made on the amount of the claim.

10:47 CEST The financial year 2020/21 of Kapsch TrafficCom ended on March 31, 2021. Based on preliminary figures, the company expects revenues of about EUR 500 million. The operating result (EBIT) including negative special effects will be a loss of about EUR 124 million. The most relevant negative special effects account for an EBIT impact of about EUR 139 million and include: Despite the significantly negative result, the equity ratio still amounts to about 14%. As of March 31, 2021, Kapsch TrafficCom held liquid funds in excess of EUR 100 million.

15:20 CEST The main result is a EUR 21 million impairment of goodwill. In addition, for some projects in particular in North America, the project margin had to be adjusted and provisions for impending losses had to be made in the first half of the financial year. This had a negative impact on the operating result (EBIT) in the amount of EUR 32 million. In addition, negative currency effects reduced the EBIT by EUR 6 million. As a result of these effects, revenues will amount to about EUR 258 million and EBIT to about EUR -58 million in the first half of the 2020/21 financial year. Consequently, the company currently expects a negative EBIT in the higher two-digit area as well as a year-on-year fall of revenues of about 25% for financial year 2020/21.

12:48 CEST Based on initial indications for the second quarter the company expects no improvement of the revenue and earnings situation compared to the first quarter of financial year 2020/21. Consequently, the operating result (EBIT) of the financial year will likely be clearly negative. A negative two-digit million value is expected. An important reason for this is COVID-19: Revenues in the profitable components business strongly suffer from decreased traffic volumes. In addition – in spite of some pleasing project wins – there are more delays in tender processes and the award of contracts. Catch-up effects in a relevant scale are expected not before the next financial year. Possible impairments of non-current assets cannot be ruled out for financial year 2020/21. For the annual revenues, precise forecasts are also still difficult. Currently the company assumes a decline of 15 to 20%. As a result of the expected clearly negative results, the current dividend policy is being suspended until further notice. No dividend shall be expected for financial year 2020/21.

In der gestern abgehaltenen ordentlichen Hauptversammlung von Kapsch TrafficCom AG wurden die folgenden Beschlüsse getroffen.

16:06 CEST Based on preliminary numbers, Kapsch TrafficCom expects first quarter 2020/21 revenues of about EUR 138 million (previous year: EUR 186 million) and an operating result (EBIT) of about EUR -11 million (previous year: EUR 5 million). As already communicated in the course of the presentation of the results for the financial year 2019/20, the management expects that the challenges (and the respective costs) regarding the personnel shortage in North America will presumably last until the end of 2020. Furthermore, the management assumes that additional expenses for the implementation of new software will probably be incurred up to the first half of the year. These negative factors have turned out to be much more severe than expected, as the yet available results for Q1 2020/21 show. The significantly lower revenues and earnings compared to the first quarter of the previous year are also a result of the expiry of major projects – operation of the nation-wide toll system in Czech Republic and implementation of a nation-wide toll system in Bulgaria – as well as of the tolling projects in Germany, which have been terminated in the meantime. Already a few weeks ago, Kapsch TrafficCom initiated a cost cutting and efficiency program comprising both short-term measures and sustainable measures. It is one aim of the program to mitigate the negative factors impacting the results of the current financial year. The final results for Q1 2020/21 will be published on August 12, 2020, as scheduled. Until then, impairment tests are performed, based on updated estimates, for various long-term assets (intangible assets including goodwill as well as property, plant and equipment). As a result of the international COVID-19-maeasures, the visibility regarding new business is still very low. Because of this and because of the weak results for the first quarter, the Executive Board decided to refrain from the initial dividend proposal (EUR 0.25 per share) and to propose no dividend to the ordinary Annual General Meeting on September 9, 2020.

15:46 CEST The preliminary financial results for financial year 2019/20 show revenues of approximately EUR 731 million, hence, below guidance. The operating result (“EBIT”) is expected to come out at about EUR -38 million. Excluding one-off effects of about EUR -39 million, the expected EBIT would have been slightly positive. The one-off effects comprise: Impairments based on updated forecasts regarding the further business in Zambia (about EUR -27 million,) write-downs relating to the early termination of the German infrastructure charge projects (about EUR -7 million) as well as expenses to end the business activities of Streetline (about EUR -3 million) and regarding the ending of operations of the toll project in Czech Republic (about EUR -2 million). Other one-off effects (net) are expected to amount to EUR -1 million. In the operative business, significant additional costs for the challenging implementation of new software applications into existing customer systems caused major cost overruns. The negative share price development of a financial investment (15.4% stake in Q-Free ASA, Norway) had an impact of about EUR -6 million on the financial result. Furthermore, exchange rate turbulences towards the end of the financial year caused (almost exclusively unrealized) exchange rate losses of presumably about EUR -9 million. Due to the weak result for the period and as far as legally permissible, the Executive Board intends to propose a reduced dividend of presumably EUR 0.25 per share to the Annual General Meeting. For financial year 2020/21, the management expects the EBIT to be clearly positive again. Due to the current global situation (SARS-CoV-2), no concrete guidance can be given for the time being. Kapsch TrafficCom will announce the final results for the financial year 2019/20 on June 16, 2020.

22:56 CET On November 15, 2019, Kapsch TrafficCom informed to be best bidder for a tolling project in the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East, Africa). It was the tender for the Gauteng province in South Africa. The total project volume over its six year lifetime should have exceeded EUR 400 million. Kapsch TrafficCom has been informed that the tender was terminated. From today’s perspective it is unforeseeable if and when this project will be tendered again. The existing tolling contract scheduled to end on December 2, 2019 has already been extended for an additional year.