annual Report 2009 - STRATEC Biomedical AG

Report of the board of Management
Report of the supervisory board
THE share
Corporate Governance
Group Management report
Consolidated financial statements
Service
1. Overview of business
performance and earnings
Alongside substantial sales and earnings growth, the
2009 financial year was characterized by the planned
market launch of a total of four new analyzer systems by
our customers (previous year: one analyzer system). The
Group successfully mastered a massive expansion in its
production output while at the same time significantly
boosting its development activities.
• EBITDA margin of 21.7 % well above industry standard
• Sales growth of 30.5 % to u 79.6 million
(previous year: u 61.0 million)
• Earnings per share (EPS) at u 1.03, as against u 0.72*
in previous year
• Cash flow from operating activities more than doubled
to u 10.9 million
• Proposed increase in dividend by 29 % to u 0.45
* Excluding a non-operating one-off expense of arround u 2.1 million
due to a valuation adjustment
Within the company’s implementation of its strategic planning,
the following aspects of outstanding significance
could be observed in 2009:
• Further substantial gain in significance for automation
of molecular biological applications
(share of sales: < 10 %; share of development > 55 %)
• Integration stage (integration of reagent and analyzer
system) increasingly gaining in significance
• Preparatory measures for production of a total of
four new analyzer systems in final stages or already
completed
• Development projects with market launch dates in
2011 and 2013 increasingly gaining in significance
• New development agreement signed for fully automated
molecular diagnostics system
The following key factors are of outstanding significance
for the company’s long-term growth:
• Safeguarding competitive price structures while meeting
the utmost quality standards
• Maintaining and expanding the processes required by
health authorities
• Smooth transition to next-generation analyzer systems
• Maintaining a fresh product portfolio with new products,
revisions and software releases
• Acquiring new projects within the company’s range of
core competencies
The relative margin contribution of the two largest individual
companies within the STRATEC Group, namely STRATEC AG
and Robion AG, developed in favor of Robion AG in the 2009
financial year. This was due to the products marketed by
Robion AG having shown stronger percentage growth than
the overall product portfolio in the 2009 financial year.
2. Market and sector
Market and sector:
Overview
The users of STRATEC’s analyzer systems, such as hospital
laboratories, do not constitute the direct customers of
the STRATEC Group. Our customers mainly include large
companies, including some of the largest players, and
rapidly growing companies in the diagnostics industry.
These generally supply the aforementioned end users
with reagents (that is tests to detect infections with the
carcinogenic human papillomavirus (HPV)) together with
STRATEC’s automation solutions. The analyzer systems
designed and produced by STRATEC are virtually all used
in in-vitro diagnostics (that is in the aforementioned laboratories
in hospitals, central laboratories or blood banks).
Following the inventory-driven weakness in turnover due to
a customer of STRATEC AG in the 4 th quarter of the 2008
financial year, the company returned to its accustomed rate
of growth in 2009. Alongside strong turnover in the core
business with serial analyzer systems, the sales growth
was driven by higher numbers of pre-serial appliances and
the expected growth in the consumables and replacement
parts business.
stratec Annual Report 2009
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