Annual Report 2009/10 Excellence in Retailing - Douglas Holding

Fig. 1
10 DOUGLAS HOLDING AG
Mission Statement
Letter to the Shareholders
Executive Board
Corporate Governance
Report of the Supervisory Board
DOUGLAS Share
Impressions
Human Resources
THE DOUGLAS SHARE
The international stock markets delivered an overall pleasing performance in the 2009/10 fiscal year of DOUGLAS
HOLDING AG. In an environment of historically low interest rates, the share prices climbed worldwide in the
wake of the emerging global economy, whose recovery was supported by extensive economic programs of the
leading industrial nations. For export countries like Germany, additional growth impetus came from the unexpectedly
high demand in import goods from emerging countries. In Germany, the higher consumer spending
also contributed to this growth. By contrast, the worldwide share prices suffered from doubts surrounding the
financial sector’s stability and from the credit rating and financial problems arising from high budget deficits of
some Euro zone countries. And in particular, the mood on the capital markets was impacted by the repeatedly
established recession scenarios for the USA.
Major European indices reported a positive performance
in the year under review: The German
stock index, DAX, stood at 5,682 points at the beginning
of DOUGLAS HOLDING AG’s 2009/10 fiscal year
on October 1, 2009 – falling to an annual low of 5,353
points by the beginning of November 2009. In the following
months the DAX succeeded in making up losses,
closing at 6,229 points as of the balance sheet date
on September 30, 2010. This corresponded to a plus
of 9.6 percent based on the fiscal year. An even better
performance was delivered by the MDAX, which
also lists the DOUGLAS shares. The index gained
19.0 percent over the same period, closing at 8,768
points. The performance of the German retail stocks
is tracked in the DAXsector Retail index. Following
the index’s drop of 3.4 percent in the preceding year,
it sharply climbed by 18.3 percent in the 2009/10
Fig. 1 · Indexed price of the DOUGLAS share in the 2009/10 fiscal year
140 %
120 %
100 %
80 %
fiscal year. The substantial gain in the DAXsector
Retail index reflected the good economic fundamental
indicators in Germany and the related optimistic assessment
of the capital markets regarding the further
performance of domestic demand in Germany.
Positive share price performance
In the improved capital market environment, the
DOUGLAS share gave a pleasing performance and
benefited from the sharp rise in expectations for consumer
spending in Germany. The DOUGLAS share
closed on XETRA at 36.83 Euro on September 30, 2010
after starting at 31.25 Euro at the beginning of the fiscal
year. This represented a gain of 17.9 percent following a
contraction of 3.8 percent in the previous year. Taking
Oct 09 Nov 09 Dec 09 Jan 10 Feb 10 Mar 10 Apr 10 May 10 Jun 10 Jul 10 Aug 10 Sep 10
DOUGLAS share DAX MDAX DAXsector Retail EURO STOXX Retail Supersector
Fig. 2