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Ad hoc-Service: buecher.de AG Englisch
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buecher.de: First quarter sales and profits exceed all expectations
– Sales increased in the first quarter nearly five-fold
– Figures planned for 2000 have been corrected upwards by 20 percent
– Profits earned in the first quarter from the investment of available
funds in special investment funds
Munich, 30 March 2000. buecher.de, Germany’s largest independent online
supplier of books and music, publishes preliminary figures for the first
quarter 2000.
In the first calendar quarter of the year 2000, now drawing to a close,
buecher.de reports sales of some DM 7 million – nearly five times higher
than in the comparable period last year. For the business year 1999 total
sales amounted to DM 16.4 million. As a result, buecher.de is raising its
sales figures planned for the business year 2000 from DM 37 million by
over 20 percent to DM 45 million. According to the CEO, Baron Richard
von Rheinbaben, this move is prompted primarily by the excellent
continuing high level of sales which the company has been witnessing
since the end of 1999.
According to von Rheinbaben, the considerable investments of the previous
year in marketing, acquisitions and the expansion of the product range are
already showing dividends. Added to this is the additional business being
pulled in through more than 13 strategic co-operations with important
Internet portals, such as Infoseek.de, Lufthansa Online or the publishing
group Milchstrasse, and other well-known partners, such as Sisis, a
subsidiary company of Siemens, or the Brockhaus publishing company.
In addition to the excellent operative business, results are also showing
an extraordinarily positive development. As Richard von Rheinbaben predicts:
“In the first quarter of 2000 we will be in the black both with regard to
the financial accounts and to the whole Group.” This development is due to
a newly oriented investment strategy implemented by the company for funds
that were acquired from the public offering in the middle of last year and
which have not yet been invested. In the interests of shareholder value,
some of these funds are not earning low rates of interest in investment
accounts, but have been placed in a special investment fund offering a
much higher yield.
The special investment fund has been launched by a well-known and successful
German investment trust company. The investment risk is minimised by a strict
investment strategy that is constantly being monitored. The portfolio
consists of funds and fixed interest bonds where the fixed-interest part
is clearly predominant.
As Richard von Rheinbaben emphasises:” We had to make a choice between
temporarily parking these available funds at minimal interest rates or
investing them at attractive conditions but with minimal risk. In the
interests of our shareholders and the company, we decided on the latter
course of action. As a result the Group will probably already be operating
at a profit during the first quarter of the year 2000, whilst at the same
time the additional income increases its investment capacity.”
As was also the case after the IPO, buecher.de has decided to funnel the
temporarily invested money into the expansion of its online business, i.e.
for spectacular marketing campaigns aimed at acquiring new clients, for
the expansion of the product range or the acquisition of promising companies.
buecher.de still aims to make a profit from its day-to-day business operations
on the World Wide Web by the end of 2001 at the latest.
For further enquiries, please contact:
buecher.de AG strittmatter & jacobs
Julia Hofmann Communications and Investor Relations
Hofmannstrasse 7a Bunzlauer Strasse 1
81379 Munich 50858 Cologne
Tel: +49 89 724414-26 Tel: +49 2234 4053-0
Fax: +49 89 724414-89 Fax: +49 2234 4053-40
email: jh@buecher.de email: info@suj.de
http://www.buecher.de
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