05/07/2012

QSC gets off to fiscal 2012 as planned

• New orders of € 36.4 million in Direct Sales
• Revenues advance to € 116.0 million in first quarter of 2012
• EBITDA reaches € 17.5 million
• Guidance reiterated for full 2012 fiscal year
• QSC investing in growth for the coming years

Cologne, May 7, 2012. QSC AG started fiscal 2012 as planned, making progress in its transformation process into an ICT provider. The company brought to market its first entirely self-developed Cloud product with the cospace communications platform, broadened its sales partner network by more than 20 prominent IT players and won requests for proposals for numerous large ICT projects.

ICT revenues up sharply in Direct Sales

Revenues rose by 10 percent to € 116.0 million in the first quarter of 2012, compared to € 105.1 million for the corresponding quarter one year earlier. Progress in the transformation process is illustrated by the differing development of the business units. The Resellers Business Unit, which accounts to a large extent for conventional TC revenues, saw its revenues decline by 15 percent to € 45.2 million during the past quarter. ICT revenues in Direct Sales, on the other hand, advanced by 78 percent to € 42.1 million as a result of the consolidation; QSC had acquired the majority interest in INFO AG on May 2, 2011. Revenues in the third business unit, Indirect Sales, improved moderately to € 28.8 million, compared to € 28.0 million in the first quarter of 2011.

Rising revenues and a strong level of new orders, most of them having a term of three to five years, and a volume of € 36.4 million in the first quarter of 2012 necessitated expansion of the workforce, especially in IT Outsourcing and IT Consulting. Overall, the QSC Group employed a workforce of 1,366 people as of March 31 of the current fiscal year. Moreover, the major success that Direct Sales is achieving necessitated the temporary employment of external IT specialists. The costs this involved, together with the costs that are necessary for operating two fully functional headquarters of publicly traded corporations since the acquistion of INFO AG, as well as ongoing integration costs, pushed EBITDA down to € 17.5 million, in contrast to € 20.5 million in the especially profitable first quarter of 2011.

EBIT reached € 4.0 million, as opposed to € 8.1 million the year before, while consolidated net profit totaled € 2.3 million, compared to € 6.5 million for the same quarter one year earlier. "These results are right in line with our expectations," notes QSC Chief Executive Officer Dr. Bernd Schlobohm. "2012 is a year of preparation in order to achieve the full strength and power of the QSC Group. These preparations involve direct costs, such as the costs of greater collaboration within the Group and the development of new products and services, while the revenues will not be generated until later."

These preparations also include expansion of data center capacities; during the first quarter of 2012, the company opened another highly-modern data center in Munich on 5,000 square meters of floor space. Consequently, capital expenditures rose to € 8.7 million in the first quarter of 2012, in contrast to € 6.4 million for the same quarter one year earlier. Free cash flow reached € 5.8 million in the first quarter of 2012, enabling the QSC Group to reduce its net debts by 18 percent within three months to € -27.3 million.

QSC continues to anticipate revenues of between € 480 and € 510 million for 2012

In view of the fact that QSC started the fiscal year as planned, the company is reiterating its guidance for the full 2012 fiscal year that it had announced in early March: QSC anticipates revenues of between € 480 and € 510 million, an EBITDA margin of at least 16 percent and a free cash flow of between € 22 and € 32 million. The QSC Group views the current fiscal year as a year of preparation in order to achieve its full strength and power and to drive the integration of subsidiary INFO AG. At the same time, the company is targeting its investments toward growth in subsequent years. One focal point of activities, in addition to expanding the workforce and winning new IT sales partners, is the in-house development and marketing of Cloud-based products; the company plans to bring a total of four to six products to market by year-end.

Notes:
The 3-month report is available for download at www.qsc.de/en/qsc-ag/investor-relations.html. This corporate news contains forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and forecasts of future events by the management of QSC AG. Due to risks or mistaken assumptions, actual results may deviate substantially from those made in such forward-looking statements.

Further information is available from:

QSC AG
Claudia Isringhaus
Head of Corporate Communications
Mathias-Brüggen-Str. 55
D-50829 Cologne
Fon: 0221 6698-235
Fax: 0221 6698-289
E-Mail: presse@qsc.de