Report of the Supervisory Board - tuv nord italia

The Certification business unit brings together
all certification activities. During the
business year under review, revenues of
€29.3 million were achieved. Product and
system certifications have proved themselves
to be the most important earners. In
the coming year, it is planned to expand
activities in the field of product and appliance
safety.
The Training and Human Resources unit with
its Academies generated revenues of €22.6
million in 2004; this amount was however
under budget. One particular cause of this
was the impact of the implementation of the
so-.called “Hartz reforms” on the labour
market. In 2005 it is intended to target new
groups of customers through an expansion
of seminar business and a concentration of
activities.
The sales revenues of the Traffic Psychology
unit were lower than expected at €14.2
million. Against this background, the Medical
and Psychological Institute (MPI), which
runs the officially recognised Appraisal Units
where people are assessed for their fitness
to drive, is strengthening its presence by
building up new appraisal units outside the
home areas of the company’s parent
associations. In addition, new services are
to be offered with the aim of gaining new
customers outside the field of road traffic.
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TÜV NORD Group’s domestic business
achieved sales revenues totalling €535.7
million (89.2%) in 2004; the share of
revenues earned abroad amounted to
€65.0 million (10.8%).
Earnings
The new TÜV NORD Group had a satisfactory
first business year. It succeeded in
generating earnings before tax (EBT) of
€17.3 million. Business development was
particularly encouraging in the Energy and
Systems Engineering, Systems and International
business units. Notable among the
downside factors were the costs arising out
of the need to harmonise accounting and
valuation procedures. In general, where the
predecessor businesses had chosen to
apply different accounting and valuation
procedures, the more conservative method
was selected.
Interest income and yields from securities
are included among the financial items,
which account for revenues of €1.2 million.
Group earnings amounted to €3.7 million
after the deduction of taxes on income
totalling €13.6 million.
Balance sheet structure
The TÜV NORD Group balance sheet shows
a sound structure. In general, TÜV NORD
Group adopts conservative accounting principles:
it has not, for example, capitalised
any goodwill, but has set it off against equity.
Total assets of TÜV NORD Group amounted
to €814.2 million as at 31.12.2004. The
non-current assets of our companies
amount to some €621.5 million, representing
around 76.3% of total assets, and
consist primarily of shares in guarantee