Picture of share prices

KPS publishes figures on the first quarter of 2018/2019 – sales and EBITDA are within the forecast

News

Unterföhring/Munich, 15 February 2019

Unterföhring/Munich, 15 February 2019 – KPS AG (WKN: A1A6V4 / ISIN: DE000A1A6V48), Europe’s leading management consultant for business transformation and process optimization, succeeded in increasing its sales by 16.5 % compared with the year-earlier quarter from 38.1 million euros to 44.4 million euros for the first quarter of 2018/2019. Earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) doubled to 6.6 million euros after 3.3 million euros in the equivalent year-earlier quarter. This corresponds to an EBITDA margin of 14.9% (Q1 2017/2018: 8.7%). Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) improved to 5.8 million euros after 3.1 million euros in the first quarter of 2017/2018. The EBIT margin was therefore 13.1% (Q1 2017/2018: 8.1%). This meant that KPS has now returned to the high level of profitability experienced prior to the negative impact on earnings caused by the M&A and due-diligence one-off effects in the previous business year.

  • Sales significantly increased by 16.5 % to 44.4 million euros
  • EBITDA increased twofold to 6.6 million euros by comparison with the first quarter of 2017/2018 
  • Attainment of important project milestones in existing projects with customers in the Scandinavian market and new opportunities presented as a result of internationalization

The sales growth is primarily due to attainment of important project milestones in existing projects with customers in the Scandinavian market. However, acquisitions of new customers and new projects with portfolio customers also played a role in increasing sales. New opportunities also opened up through access to customers acquired in Spain and the United Kingdom as a result of international purchases.

 

The newly acquired projects gained in first the quarter of 2018/2019 included the development of a patient and clinician portal for Europe’s leading pharmaceutical distributor. Projects from a range of sectors were completed: KPS assisted a leading Scandinavian manufacturer of pumps and water technology in successfully digitalizing its travel-cost system and travel management. Furthermore, a series of projects in the areas of customer loyalty, CRM and marketing were successfully concluded. The performance of KPS is also reflected in the positive perception by other organizations: The new Hamburg-based subsidiary company Infront Consulting was awarded two prizes in the “Best of Consulting” competition in the categories “Competition Strategies” and “Marketing & Communication”.

 

In the first quarter of 2018/2019, the development of the company was once again defined by the strategy of innovation and industrialization. In line with this approach, internal processes were digitalized in the areas of travel-cost management and human resources, and migrated to more efficient paperless procedures. In addition, KPS AG launched its new corporate website, which was developed on the basis of the Enterprise solution from Adobe. It has been designed to provide even better support for integration of acquisitions within the KPS umbrella brand as a result of more efficient and faster processes. Furthermore, the topping-out ceremony for the process factory in Dortmund was held on 8 February 2019. Accommodation for a design center is planned in the new facilities. This center will provide customers with the opportunity to gain a haptic experience of the transformation offerings and products of KPS on the basis of examples. Moving into the new facility is planned for the second half of 2019.

Leonardo Musso, Chief Executive Officer of KPS AG, commented on the development of the company in the first quarter of 2018/2019: “The results of the first quarter demonstrate that the strategic decisions of the past business year have paid off. We have established a more broadly-based international platform, and Infront Consulting & Management GmbH has empowered us to expand our product portfolio by including strategic consulting competency. Sales have increased by comparison with the year-earlier quarter. We have also returned to a high level of profitability with significantly increased EBITDA and an improved EBITDA margin. This is due to our consistent industrialization strategy that allows us to shorten processes and increase margins. We have also been able to further reduce concentration on individual major customers. We have got off to a good start in the new business year and I am confident that this trend will continue during the coming months.”

 

The Executive Board of KPS AG is assuming that stable growth will continue in the current business year and confirms the forecast for the business year 2018/2019 issued in January 2019. It expects a slight increase in sales to between 170 million and 180 million euros and a significant increase in EBITDA to an amount within the corridor between 22 million and 27 million euros. The Supervisory Board and the Executive Board are maintaining their strategy of continuing to drive forward innovation, industrialization, and internationalization.

 

The comprehensive quarterly report is available for download at www.kps.com.

 

15 February 2019

 

KPS AG

 

The Executive Board

Privacy settings

We use cookies on our website. Some of them are essential, while others help us to improve this website and your experience. With your consent, we use cookies to analyse the usage of our website.

We also use cookies for marketing to help us measure the success of our marketing efforts. In the settings you will find detailed information about the individual cookies, and you can refuse the use of cookies.

You can change or revoke your selection at any time on any KPS.com page in the footer under Privacy Settings.

Essential Cookies

Essential cookies enable basic functions and are necessary for the proper functioning of the website.

Cookie Banner

  • Cookie Name: kps-privacy-settings
    Value: PrivacyLevel_0#a
    Storage Duration: 4 weeks
    Description: This cookie is required to save cookie settings. It is a purely technical cookie.

HubSpot:

  • Cookie Name: __hs_opt_out
    Storage Duration: 6 months
    Description: This cookie is used by the opt-in privacy policy to prompt the visitor to accept cookies again. It is set when you allow visitors to disable cookies. It contains the string "Yes" or "No."

  • Cookie Name: __hs_d_not_tracking
    Storage Duration: 6 months
    Description: This cookie can be set to prevent the tracking code from sending information to HubSpot. It contains the string "Yes."

  • Cookie Name: _hs_initial_opt
    Storage Duration: 7 days
    Description: This cookie is used to prevent banners from being displayed every time visitors access your website in strict mode. It contains the string "Yes" or "No."

  • Cookie Name: __hs_cookie_cat_pref
    Storage Duration: 6 months
    Description: This cookie is used to capture the categories a visitor has consented to. It contains data about those categories.

  • Cookie Name: __hs_gpc_banner_dismiss
    Storage Duration: 3 months
    Description: This cookie is used when the Global Privacy Control banner is dismissed.

  • Cookie Name: hs_ab_test
    Storage Duration: Until the end of the session
    Description: This cookie is used to ensure that visitors see the same version of an A/B test page they were shown previously. It contains the ID of the A/B test page and the ID of the variant selected for the visitor.

  • Cookie Name: __cfruid
    Storage Duration: Until the end of the session
    Description: This cookie is set by HubSpot's CDN provider in accordance with its rate-limiting policies.

  • Cookie Name: ___cfuvid
    Storage Duration: Until the end of the session
    Description: This cookie is set by HubSpot's CDN provider in accordance with its rate-limiting policies.

  • Cookie Name: ___cf_bm
    Storage Duration: Until the end of the session
    Description: This cookie is set by HubSpot's CDN provider in accordance with its rate-limiting policies.

Functional cookies

Functional cookies are used by third parties or publishers to display personalised advertisements. They do this by tracking visitors across websites.

Google Analytics

Cookie Name: _ga
Storage Duration: 2 years
Description: Used to distinguish between users.

Cookie Name: _gid
Storage Duration: 24 months
Description: Used to distinguish between users.

Cookie Name: _gat
Storage Duration: 1 minute
Description: Used to throttle the request rate. If Google Analytics is provided via Google Tag Manager, this cookie is named dc_gtm<property-ID>.

Cookie Name: hide-cookieinfo
Storage Duration: 30 days
Description: Cookie set for querying the cookies.

HubSpot

Cookie Name: __hstc
Storage Duration: 6 months
Description: The main cookie for visitor tracking. It contains the domain, the user token (hubspotutk), the first timestamp (of the first visit), the last timestamp (of the last visit), the current timestamp (for this visit), and the session count (increases with each subsequent session).

Cookie Name: hubspotutk
Storage Duration: 6 months
Description: This cookie tracks the identity of a visitor. This cookie is passed to the HubSpot software when submitting a form and is used for deduplicating contacts. It contains an opaque GUID to represent the current visitor.

Cookie Name: __hssc
Storage Duration: 30 minutes
Description: This cookie tracks sessions. It is used to determine whether the HubSpot software needs to increment the session count and timestamps in the __hstc cookie. It contains the domain, the number of page views (viewCount, increases with each page view in a session), and the session start timestamp.

Cookie Name: __hssrc
Storage Duration: End of session
Description: Whenever the HubSpot software changes the session cookie, this cookie is also set. It determines whether the visitor has restarted the browser. If this cookie is not present when HubSpot manages cookies, it is considered a new session. It contains the value "1" if present.

External media

Content from video platforms and social media platforms is blocked by default. If cookies from external media are accepted, access to this content no longer requires manual consent.

LinkedIn Tag

Cookie Name: bcookie
Storage Duration: 365 days
Description: Browser Identifier cookie to uniquely identify devices accessing LinkedIn to detect abuse on the platform and for diagnostic purposes.

Cookie Name: bscookie
Storage Duration: 365 days
Description: Used for remembering that a logged-in user is verified by two-factor authentication and has previously logged in.

Cookie Name: JSESSIONID
Storage Duration: Session
Description: Used for Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) protection and URL signature validation.

Cookie Name: lang
Storage Duration: Session
Description: Used to remember a user's language setting to ensure LinkedIn.com displays in the language selected by the user in their settings.

Cookie Name: lidc
Storage Duration: 1 day
Description: To facilitate data center selection.

Cookie Name: sdsc
Storage Duration: Session
Description: Signed data service context cookie used for database routing to ensure consistency across all databases when a change is made. Used to ensure that user-inputted content is immediately available to the submitting user upon submission.

Cookie Name: li_gc
Storage Duration: 180 days
Description: Used to store consent of guests regarding the use of cookies for non-essential purposes.

Cookie Name: li_mc
Storage Duration: 180 days
Description: Used as a temporary cache to avoid database lookups for a member's consent for use of non-essential cookies and used for having consent information on the client side to enforce consent on the client side.

Cookie Name: UID
Storage Duration: 720 days
Description: Cookie used for market and user research.

Cookie Name: UserMatchHistory
Storage Duration: 30 days
Description: LinkedIn Ads ID syncing.

Cookie Name: AnalyticsSyncHistory
Storage Duration: 30 days
Description: Used to store information about the time a sync took place with the lms_analytics cookie.

Cookie Name: lms_ads
Storage Duration: 30 days
Description: Used to identify LinkedIn Members off LinkedIn for advertising.

Cookie Name: lms_analytics
Storage Duration: 30 days
Description: Used to identify LinkedIn Members off LinkedIn for analytics.

Cookie Name: li_fat_id
Storage Duration: 30 days
Description: Member indirect identifier for Members for conversion tracking, retargeting, and analytics.

Cookie Name: li_sugr
Storage Duration: 90 days
Description: Used to make a probabilistic match of a user's identity.

Cookie Name: _guid
Storage Duration: 90 days
Description: Used to identify a LinkedIn Member for advertising through Google Ads.

Cookie Name: BizographicsOptOut
Storage Duration: 10 years
Description: Used to determine opt-out status for non-members.

Cookie Name: li_giant
Storage Duration: 7 days
Description: Indirect identifier for groups of LinkedIn Members used for conversion tracking.

Cookie Name: oribi_cookie_test
Storage Duration: Session
Description: To determine if tracking can be enabled on the current domain.

Cookie Name: oribili_user_guid
Storage Duration: 365 days
Description: Used to count unique visitors to a website.

Cookie Name: ln_or
Storage Duration: 1 day
Description: Used to determine if Oribi analytics can be carried out on a specific domain.

Cookie Name: ar_debug
Storage Duration: Session
Description: Supports Google attribution reporting API integration to mitigate signal loss.

Lead Forensics

Cookie Name: __lfluuid
Storage Duration: 10 years
Description: The _lfuuid cookie allows a website to track visitor behavior on the sites on which the cookie is installed. Tracking is performed anonymously until a user identifies himself by submitting a form.

Changing privacy settings

Imprint

Data protection statement