Hanover, 19 January 2012 – For Delticom (German Securities Code (WKN) 514680, ISIN DE0005146807, stock market symbol DEX), Europe's leading online tyre dealer, 2011 was again a successful year. According to today's preliminary figures, revenues in the fiscal year increased by 14.4% to € 480.0 million and EBIT by 9.6% to € 52.2 million. Earnings per share grew 8.4% to € 2.99.
Q411: Successful quarter despite mild winter The harsh 2010 winter had resulted in a superior business performance for the European tyre trade. Last season, though, the business was hurt by very mild winter weather conditions. At present, industry experts believe that winter tyre sales have dropped substantially below prior-year levels.
After taking the new warehouse into operations in Q211, Delticom stocked up ahead of the season. As a result, the company was able to offer attractive prices to its customers throughout the fourth quarter. Despite the very strong base, Delticom sold more tyres than in Q410. Quarterly revenues increased by 12.1% to € 182.3 million (Q410: € 162.6 million).
While the 2010 winter had seen massive price hikes driven by market-wide scarcities, Q411 prices developed in a more orderly fashion, as expected. Consequently, gross margin (trade margin ex other operating expenses) retracted to a less inflated 28.4% (Q410: 30.6%). The Q411 EBIT margin came in at 13.2% (Q410: 15.2%).
Fiscal year 2011
Revenues. Over the course of the year, selling prices developed favourably, the mix was stable and volumes were fairly satisfactory. All in all, Delticom was able to generate revenues of € 480.0 million, a plus of 14.4% from prior-year's € 419.6 million. Revenues in the E-Commerce division were up year-onyear by 12.9%, from € 403.7 million to € 455.6 million. The revenues of the Wholesale division lifted by 53.4% to € 24.4 million, after prior-year revenues of € 15.9 million.
Gross margin. The cost of goods sold increased in the reporting period by 16.3%, from € 300.1 million in 2010 to € 349.1 million. Delticom generated 2011 a greater share of revenues with own inventories, compared to the previous years. In an environment of rising purchasing prices, the company was therefore able to cushion the hikes by early purchasing to a good extent. Thanks to the increased volume Delticom also benefited from economies of scale in the procurement function. Still, the full-year gross margin came down from 28.5% to 27.3%, primarily due to the closing winter quarter.
Personnel expenses. Thanks to the highly efficient operating workflows, the company has been able to keep staff levels low in 2011 despite increasing transaction volumes. In the reporting period on average 116 staff members were employed at Delticom (previous year: 101). Personnel expenses amounted to € 7.2 million (previous year: € 6.8 million). Compared to the prior-year period, the personnel expenses ratio (staff expenditures as percentage of revenues) came down slightly from 1.6% to 1.5%.
Other operating expenses. Overall the other operating expenses totalled € 77.7 million in the past financial year, an increase of 11.8% over the prior-year value of € 69.5 million.
Among the other operating expenses, transportation costs is the largest line item. It grew in line with the increase in business volume, from € 34.5 million by +8.5% to € 37.5 million. The share of transportation costs against revenues declined from 8.2% in 2010 to 7.8% in 2011. The reason for this was the significant price effect in the revenues for the last financial year. In addition, economies of scale arising from the centralised warehouse infrastructure helped to further drive down costs.
In the reporting period, costs for advertising totalled € 9.9 million, after € 9.0 million in 2010. This represents a marketing expense ratio (marketing expenses as a percentage of revenues) of 2.1%, flat year-on-year.
Depreciation. In line with our gradual warehouse capacity expansion and the parallel investments into warehousing infrastructure, depreciation rose by 62.3% from € 1.3 million in 2010 to € 2.1 million. The low absolute level of depreciation underlines the low capital intensity of Delticom's business.
Earnings performance. EBIT improved from € 47.6 million by 9.6% to € 52.2 million. Due to the extraordinarily margin-strong closing quarter 2010, the management had expected a deterioration of year-on- year profitability for 2011. In the end, the EBIT margin showed only minor decline from 11.3% to 10.9%. The continually low Euro money market rates led to flat financial income of € 0.1 million. This was balanced by almost the same amount of financial expenses arising from provisions as well as interest costs for the short-term utilisation of credit lines.
The expenditure for income taxes was € 16.8 million (previous year: € 15.1 million). The tax rate was 32.2% (2010: 31.6%). Consolidated net income for 2011 grew from € 32.6 million to € 35.4 million. This corresponds to earnings per share (EPS) of € 2.99 (undiluted, 2010: € 2.76), a step-up of 8.4%.
Working capital. From an exceptionally low prior-year base of € 52.2 million which was affected by market-wide shortages, inventories in 2011 increased to € 106.5 million. As of 31.12.2011 this equates to 64.0% of the total assets of € 166.5 million. The company is well positioned for the upcoming summer business. Accounts payable grew at lower rate of 29.0% year-on-year, from € 53.6 million to € 69.1 million. Delticom management intends to continue its policy to pay off a significant part of the liabilities ahead of schedule. Taken together with accounts receivable of € 10.1 million (31.12.2010: € 10.9 million), the net working capital amounted to € 43.6 million at year-end (31.12.2010: € 1.8 million).
Cash flow and liquidity position. Due to more funds being tied up in working capital, the operating cash flow from ordinary business activities was € –9.6 million (2010: € 51.7 million). In 2011 Delticom made investments of € 8.4 million into property, plant and equipment, most of it into the infrastructure of the new warehouse, which was taken into operations in Q2. With a year-end liquidity of € 22.2 million (31.12.2010: € 67.8 million) and access to currently unused credit lines, the company has enough funds to grow the business in the months ahead.
Outlook
Over the preceding months, economists have gradually revised growth estimates for Europe. The general expectation is that austerity measures and rising unemployment is going to depress consumer sentiment further. Industry experts believe that the European tyre trade will not remain unaffected.
Independent of those short-term developments, the share of online sales in the tyre market continues to be comparatively low. More and more drivers are turning to the Internet in search of lower-priced alternatives. Delticom as the leading online tyre dealer will be able to capitalise on this trend. Even for a scenario where market and weather do not improve over 2011, Delticom management regards a revenue growth of 10% as achievable. Assuming margins at prior-year levels, earnings should grow in line with revenues.
The full report for the fiscal year 2011 will be published on 22 March 2012 within the "Investor Relations" section of the website www.delti.com.
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