Deutsche Börse Posts Further Increases In Second Quarter - 23 Percent Increase In Sales Against Previous Year - 19 Percent Growth In Earnings (EBIT)

Deutsche Börse AG posted another substantial increase in sales and earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) during the second quarter of the current fiscal year. On Wednesday, the company reported that sales during the second quarter had increased 23 percent to 182.9 million euros, compared with the second quarter of 2000. The EBIT of 70.3 million euros is 19 percent higher than the second-quarter performance last year. For the first half of 2001, sales of 374.6 million euros and EBIT of 160.5 million euros correspond to increases of 20 percent and 33 percent respectively. Mathias Hlubek, chief financial officer of Deutsche Börse AG, said: "Despite the difficult market conditions in the first half of the year we have exceeded our sales and earnings targets and proved the continuing validity of our business model. Going into the second half of the year, which is traditionally weaker, we remain confident that we will achieve our targets for the year as a whole."

The segmental report shows significant increases in sales during the second quarter for the derivatives market, Eurex, and for the systems house, Deutsche Börse Systems, as well as stable sales in the cash market (Xetra) and in Information Products compared with the previous year. Eurex made a sizeable contribution to the growth in earnings. The Xetra Segment, which comprises all of Deutsche Börse's cash market activities, shows stable second-quarter sales, with a figure of 60 million euros, as compared with 58.9 million euros in the second quarter of 2000. However, EBIT of 10.3 million euros, is about 50 percent lower than the second quarter of last year. Among other factors this is attributable to higher depreciation after new Xetra releases in the last twelve months.

According to Deutsche Börse, the cash market sales with participants outside Germany increased, more than doubling compared with the same period of last year. This underscores the increasing internationalization of trading on Xetra.

The Eurex Segment posted an increase of 65 percent in sales, rising to 62.7 million euros, achieving 28.2 million euros in EBIT after a negative EBIT of 3.8 million euros during the second quarter of last year. The rise in sales is due above all to the exceptionally high growth in the index products. The EBIT growth additionally results from the lower costs in comparison to the previous year. Last year, among other factors, the setting up of the joint venture a/c/e with the U.S. derivatives exchange CBOT was a burden on the performance.

In the Information Products Segment, the EBIT declined by 31 percent while sales increased by 13 percent. One reason is the costs for the parallel operation of two price dissemination systems, which was necessary during a transitional period: the new CEF system has taken the place of the old TPF platform in the meantime.

The Systems Segment shows an increase in sales of 21 percent with a 13 percent lower EBIT. According to Deutsche Börse, however, the short-term volatility of Deutsche Börse Systems' business calls for a half-year assessment: Here external sales increased 20 percent to 71.6 million euros while EBIT (on both internal and external sales) rose 50 percent to 56.7 million euros. Deutsche Börse gives as the reason for the higher sales with external customers new customers in the area of back-office operations and the operation of CBOT's electronic trading platform for the joint venture a/c/e.

Clearstream International, whose sales revenue is not consolidated, contributed 11.4 million euros to the EBIT during the second quarter, more or less on the same level as the second quarter of last year.