ecotel communication ag: An extraordinary financial year 2022

Financial year 2022 was extraordinarily successful for ecotel communication ag. The business operations have withstood the geopolitical uncertainties, and the new focus on cloud and fiber is well received.

In addition to the operating business, financial year 2022 was influenced by the following special effects:

Due to sale of the holding in the easybell Group and the transfer of usage rights to Internet resources the ecotel Group achieved one-time income totaling EUR 68.3 million before taxes. Unforeseeable high expenses for energy in the months from May to September 2022 had a negative effect of EUR 0.3 million on earnings. Towards the end of the financial year and at the start of 2023, expenses for energy are once again at the level originally forecasted by ecotel for financial year 2022.

Altogether, ecotel closed the exceptional financial year 2022 with EBITDA (including special effects) of EUR 77.1 million, which resulted in consolidated net income of EUR 67.5 million or earnings per share of EUR 19.24.

Excluding these effects the financial year can be summarized as follows:

Revenue increased by 32 % to EUR 93.3 million (PY: EUR 70.9 million), primarily due to higher revenue in the ecotel Wholesale segment (EUR 46.5 million; PY: EUR 22.4 million). Revenue in the core segment ecotel Business Customers segment fell slightly short of the original forecast, totaling EUR 45.6 million (PY: EUR 46.3 million). The Ukraine conflict and the related macroeconomic uncertainty has led to significant restraint among decision-makers regarding large-scale projects. As of the end of 2022, however, the segment was able to acquire significant project orders, which will have a delayed positive effect on revenue in 2023.

Despite higher expenses for energy, the ecotel Group achieved a slight increase in gross profit of EUR 0.1 million to EUR 31.2 million. The ecotel Business Customers segment contributed EUR 0.6 million to this increase in gross profit.

Considering the growth of gross profit, the higher personnel expenses (+ EUR 0.4 million) – essentially due to salary increases and payments to compensate inflation – as well as a higher balance from operating expenses and income (+ EUR 0.3 million) resulted in adjusted EBITDA of EUR 9.1 million (PY: EUR 9.7 million).

After deduction of declining scheduled depreciation and amortization totaling EUR 5.7 million PY: EUR 6.3 million), the ecotel Group achieved EBIT of EUR 3.4 million, which is commensurate with the previous year’s level. Including revenue from discontinued operations, the financial result, and after deduction of the minorities, the consolidated net income totals EUR 67.5 million, adjusted by special effects – EUR 4.9 million (PY: EUR 4.8 million). The Management Board and Supervisory Board will recommend to the Annual General meeting on April 21, 2023, in addition to an ordinary dividend of EUR 0.82, a special dividend of EUR 18.00. and hence a total dividend of EUR 18.82 per dividend-bearing share.

Also taking into account this high dividend, ecotel is in an outstanding starting position to invest in growth. The German telecommunications market is dominated by the two trends of cloud telephony and broadband expansion. For these two growth sectors, ecotel is ideally positioned with its own cloud.phone product group, as well as multi-carrier based Ethernet products, and therefore is decidedly focused on »cloud« and »fiber«. Due to delays in the expansion of fiber technology, the cloud telephony market in Germany is currently not quite keeping pace with the international development. These two growth sectors are therefore interconnected and present an excellent opportunity for ecotel to offer both services to existing and new customers.

The Management Board and Supervisory Board are convinced that ecotel’s strategic positioning offers good opportunities to grow faster than the market in the coming years. Against this backdrop, the company is pursuing the goal of driving growth not only with the existing organization and existing resources, but also through targeted investments, above all in sales and sales-promoting resources, as well as the development of new sales channels.

The Management Board expects these investments to pay off as early as 2024 and 2025 as disproportionate sales growth and sustainable earnings increases.

Due to the large number of one-time effects on the one hand, and to ensure comparability and transparency on the other hand, ecotel will report operating EBITDA in the future. The following headlines are subject to adjustment effects:

• Income and expenses from changes in the investment portfolio and directly related transaction costs (including deconsolidation result, effects from purchase price allocation, expenses for due diligence, legal advice, notarization)
• Unplanned income from the transfer of rights to Internet resources (including purchase price, exchange rate effects, performance commissions, transaction costs)
• Expenses for non-cash valuation effects (e.g. stock option plans)
• One-time expenses for reorganization and restructuring measures
• Other income and expenses that were unforeseeable in nature and/or amount, limit the comparability of operating activities and cannot be directly influenced by management (e.g. unforeseeable temporary fluctuations in energy prices, or unforeseen retrospective price adjustments of wholesale products due to decisions of regulatory authorities or courts)