DARMSTADT (dpa-AFX) – Software AG (Software) did well at the end of the year and still met its own goals – but the targeted profits in the new year fell short of the expectations of experts. That’s why CEO Sanjay Brahmawar has now decreed an austerity program for the group that will also take jobs. According to the information from Tuesday evening, the demand for the company’s own software for use via the network from the cloud is running better than the managers themselves thought – more investments are now to be made here in order to push the offers further. After hours on the Tradegate trading platform, the share was around 1.7 percent below the Xetra close.
Brahmawar and the new CFO Daniela Bünger initially set their profitability targets for the new year as low. Adjusted for special effects and before interest, taxes and goodwill amortization, between 16 and 18 percent of sales should remain as operating profit. That is again less than in the previous year with 18.6 percent and also less than estimated by experts. According to a survey by the company, they had calculated almost 20 percent. Before Software AG bought Streamsets last year, Brahmawar had even announced a 25 to 30 percent margin in the medium-term plan for 2023.
The management is now counteracting this with a savings program that should deliver around 30 to 35 million euros in earnings. Of the downsizing With 200 employees, around four percent of full-time positions will be affected. “We will focus even more on the cloud, driving application and data integration and driving operational efficiencies to become a leaner company,” Brahmawar said, according to the release. The economic environment is difficult. Recently, many tech giants have cut jobs to cut costs, including software companies like Salesforce, Microsoft and SAP (SAP SE).
In the fourth quarter, the Darmstadt-based company gained ground in terms of growth. Overall, sales climbed by an unexpectedly strong 30 percent to EUR 303.8 million, also thanks to the boost from the weak euro and an acquisition. In the end, product sales for the year increased by 7 percent currency-adjusted without the purchase of stream sets, which was the last valid lower end of the forecast range.
However, the driver of the favorable development at the end of the year was once again not the declared growth division Digital Business, but the database business Adabas & Natural. There was also an above-average increase in bookings for software.
Earnings before interest, taxes and goodwill amortization adjusted for special effects rose in the fourth quarter by 29 percent to 58.3 million euros and thus fell short of market expectations – especially when looking at profitability. The corresponding margin fell slightly by 0.1 percentage points to 19.2 percent compared to the same period last year – analysts had expected an average value of over 21 percent. The acquisition of the company Streamsets had a negative effect, it said.
In terms of net earnings, the Darmstadt company recorded an adjusted loss of 14.3 million euros in the quarter, a year earlier the company had still earned 34.8 million euros. For the year as a whole, adjusted net income fell by more than half to 48.9 million euros.
Brahmawar wants to focus sales more on the products that have been doing well recently. Integration programs such as web methods and stream sets are to be sold even more as cloud versions. In addition, the manager wants to steer additional resources into the areas of cloud data integration and application integration. Starting with the large North American market, sales should be more specialized in order to become more effective. In the Adabas & Natural database division, the conversion to subscription models is to be continued.
In Digital Business with the integration programs, the Executive Board forecasts currency-adjusted growth in annual recurring sales of 10 to 15 percent. This means sales that come from subscriptions or ongoing maintenance contracts. The company is more or less assuming stagnation in the traditional database division Adabas & Natural, where the annually recurring revenues are likely to level off in a range between minus and plus two percent compared to the previous year. Overall, currency-adjusted product sales are expected to grow between 6 and 10 percent./men/jha/
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