Download Annual Report 2003 - Mühlbauer Group

ence of 1.0 million EUR resulting from the retrospective
plan amendment will be spread over a period of 54
months beginning on January 01, 2004.
Shareholders equity amounted to 97.9 million EUR to
December 31, 2003 (previous year: 98.3 million EUR).
Equity yield is at 78.0 % and has improved by a further
2.1 percent points compared with the previous year (75.9
%). Compared with other companies the Mühlbauer
Group accordingly continuos to have above average
market equity source.
The cashflow from operating activities moved on a higher
level despite the missing once only effect of tax reimbursements
to the amount of 5.0 million EUR compared
with the previous year and amounted to +16.1 million
EUR (previous year: +23.4 million EUR) in the report year
2003. The positive financial economic result resulted
primarily from the clear increase in earnings and at the
same time expresses our efforts to reduce the capital
employed. As a result the working capital was reduced
from 45.3 million EUR in the previous year to 39.6 million
EUR in the report year. Parallel to this the intensity of the
working capital declined by 49.6 percent to 41.6 percent.
The cashflow from investing activities increased compared
with the previous year (-1.9 million EUR) to –7.3 million
EUR and includes apart from the net outflow from securities
out of the long-term financial assets and current
assets (-1.3 million EUR) the primarily expenditure for
setting up a own company competence centre for high
security identification card systems as well as equipping
both production locations with rational production technologies
(-6.2 million EUR), that this was balanced out
with the payments made from the sale of plant assets
(+0.2 million. EUR). The cashflow from the financing activities
was reduced from –10.2 million EUR in the previous
year by 1.3 million EUR to –8.9 million EUR. The
main outflow resulted primarily as a result of the scheduled
redemption of long-term credits (-1.1 million EUR),
and the balance from the acquisition and sale of own
shares
(-0.6 million EUR), the dividends paid in the report year
(-6.0 million EUR) as well as the percentage occurring
tax additional amounts to the personal liable shareholder
(-1.2 million EUR).
ACQUISITIONS
Project company for complete solutions
founded
In the course of the report year the Mühlbauer Group was
strengthen by a further company. From the newly founded
Mühlbauer ID Services GmbH the technology concern
attends to accompany potential customers in the
conception and realisation right through to turnkey realization
of ID projects according to their requirements for
the production of innovated and forgery safe identification
and passport systems for security-oriented applications
with a dynamic and professionally set up project
team on the concern allegiance. As a result the new
company profits from the long years of experience and
competence of the Mühlbauer Group in the production
of innovated top technologies and the worldwide distribution
and service network as well as from the high
strength of the capital of the concern in the financing of
larger projects. The large selection of high-carat experts
from the concern allegiance ensure in addition competent
consultancy and support.
PROCUREMENT
Further optimalisation of purchasing and
logistics
In the procurement sector we were again able to increase
our efficiency in the year 2003. Decisive in this
connection was the cooperation with our suppliers on a
partnership.
The loyalty and the ability to supply our suppliers could
be improved further through location overlapping coordination
in our procurement through the further extension
of the consignment warehouse both at the suppliers as
well as in our own works and in addition through the increased
standardization of our bought-in parts and optimalised
matching with external suppliers. In this way it
was possible to increase procurement reliability and
avoid bottlenecks in supply.
The procurement of production materials and investment
goods are made worldwide at the most favorable terms.
In this case our purchasing strategy is determined by the
group purchasing department. The appropriate buying
conditions are negotiated centrally, checked regu-
Cashflow in Mill. EUR from
2002
2003
25
20
15
10
5
0
Operating Activities
Investing Activities
Financing Activities
Free Cashflow
-5
-10
30