ANNUAL REPORT 2008 | 2009 - SinnerSchrader AG

22Joint Status Report of SinnerSchrader AGThe basic trend driving the business of the interactiveservices sector remains stable despite thecrisis. A new growth spurt even appears to be underwayin the e-commerce segment. According to theNew Media Service Ranking published in April 2009by the German Federal Association of the DigitalEconomy, German interactive agencies can expectaverage business growth of 8 % for the year 2009despite the economic environment.4Business Development andGroup SituationIn light of the comparatively mild effects of theeconomic crisis on the Internet industry and theinteractive agency sector as a whole, and thanksto SinnerSchrader’s good position in the Germanmarket for interactive services and its focus on infrastructure-orientedservices, SinnerSchrader was ableto continue growing in 2008/2009 despite the difficultoverall economic situation. Gross revenues rose in the2008/2009 financial year by 14.5 % compared to theyear before to reach € 27.7 million.This revenue growth did not lead to an increase inthe operating result in the year covered by the reportbecause, since SinnerSchrader is convinced that themarket for interactive services remains promising, itdecided to expand its portfolio to include ad servingand e-commerce outsourcing services, even thoughthis initially affected its overall operating performance.These advance payments caused the EBITAto decrease by around € 0.9 million in the 2008/2009financial year to € 1.4 million. Without the advancepayments, the EBITA would have risen slightly byaround € 0.1 million.The establishment of new business fields caused theconsolidated income to be allocated to SinnerSchradershareholders to decline by € 0.03 per share to € 0.11per share. The liquidity reserve fell by around € 1.1million to € 8.0 million as of 31 August 2009 onaccount of investments in the expansion of the rangeof services and the strengthening of existing businessin the year of the report. Due to this expansion, theequity rate was also down 3 percentage points as ofthe balance sheet date but still amounted to 62 %,which is a testament to the Group’s solid financialsituation.The development of the key indices for businessdevelopment and the Group’s asset and financialsituation in the period covered by the report aredescribed in the following.4.1 RevenuesIn the 2008/2009 financial year, SinnerSchraderachieved gross revenues of € 27.7 million and net revenuesof € 20.9 million. This means SinnerSchrader’sbusiness grew by 14.5 % and 14.1 %, respectively,compared to the year before. However, due in particularto the financial and economic crisis, these growthrates remained below those of the previous financialyear, in which SinnerSchrader grew by 30.0 % and29.6 %.Of the € 2.6 million increase in net revenues, around€ 2.2 million can be attributed to the project andoperating services in the Interactive Marketing segment,which achieved total revenues of € 19.7 million in the2008/2009 financial year. The media business, includingad serving services, grew by € 0.5 million to reachnet revenues of nearly € 1.4 million. Revenues of nearly€ 0.2 million arose from the first project of the newlylaunched e-commerce outsourcing business. Therewas a contrary effect from the services exchangedbetween the segments, which led to the eliminationof € 0.3 million in the total account.The rise in net revenues in the media business wenthand in hand with a € 0.9 million increase in the mediabudget SinnerSchrader manages for customers.SinnerSchrader’s gross revenues therefore rose inthe 2008/2009 financial year compared to the yearbefore by a total of € 3.5 million.€ 1.4 million of the growth in the Interactive Marketingsegment can be attributed to the fact that spotmediaAG, whose business falls entirely within thissegment, contributed revenues and earnings to theSinnerSchrader Group for an entire twelve months forthe first time in the year under review. In the previousyear, spot-media was part of the Group for only sevenmonths after the takeover in February 2008.