DGAP-News: Balda AG: Balda with record results

08.02.2006

Balda AG / Key word(s): Final Results

08.02.2006 13:33

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Earnings before tax exceed forecast / qualitative growth in revenues

Balda AG, Bad Oeynhausen, again reached a record result with earnings

before tax of about 49 million Euros in the financial year 2005 (previous

year: 47.7 million Euros) and exceeded the own forecast of 47 million

Eu-ros by roughly 4.3 per cent. The specialist for precision components

made of high-performance plastics increased the sales by 5.1 per cent or

19,3 million Euros to 397 million Euros (previous year: 377,7 million

Euros).

‘The development of the sales in 2005 was substantially better than the

plus of 5 per cent expresses’ Joachim Gut, chairman of the management

board, stated. ‘Two mobile phone projects with a sales proportion of about

60 million Euros for bought-in electronic components were cancelled by the

customer. The Balda group more than compensated these forecasted sales with

new orders not containing external sales out of bought-in parts. Balda’s

value added in these orders was three to four times higher than in the

bought-in revenues. Our turn-over has grown qualitatively. Nominally we

slightly missed our forecast, but in fact we over-fulfilled the sales

target. This is also documented by the earnings before tax, which are

higher than the forecast’ Joachim Gut explained. These earnings before tax

already include not budgeted expenses for first-time project ramp-ups in

the new production plant in Hungary of about 3 million Euros.

Growth in the reporting year was mainly driven by the locations in China

and Malaysia. The European locations, on the other hand, recorded a decline

in sales. This was mainly due to the discontinuance of projects with a high

proportion of sales out of bought-in parts. Balda’s core market in 2005

once again was the Infocom sector with the production of parts and

components for mobile phones. ‘Last year we once again increased our global

leading position in technology with numerous innovations. Balda will

continue it’s globalization with the new factory near Beijing and the

production plant in India’, Joachim Gut added. The Balda group, active in

Europe, Asia and South America with 11 production sites, in 2005 occupied

8000 employees, 2400 of these in Germany. For the financial year 2006 Balda

expects a sales growth of about 15 per cent to between 450 and 460 million

Euros. The foreign production plants are expected to contribute about 65

per cent to the sales volume (previous year: 43 per cent). The earnings

before tax (EBT) should be in the range of 46 to 48 million Euros. Thus

the forecast for 2006 stays within the scope of the longterm forecast up to

2010, which was published in December. Joachim Gut is optimistic to open up

new growth potential with the planned technological diversification.

Any questions to: Balda AG, Cersten Hellmich and Kathrin Wiederrich

(Investor Relations), Tel: (05734)922-2706 / 2751, Fax: (05734) 922-2691,

Email: chellmich@balda.de, kwiederrich@balda.de, Internet: www.balda.de

08.02.2006 Dissemination of a Corporate News, transmitted by DGAP –

a company of EquityStory AG.

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

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Media archive at www.dgap-medientreff.de and www.dgap.de

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Language: English

Company: Balda AG

Bergkirchener Str. 228

32549 Bad Oeynhausen

Germany

Phone: +49 (0) 57 34 / 9 22-0

Fax: +49 (0) 57 34 / 9 22-2604

E-mail: info@Balda.de

Internet: www.balda.de

ISIN: DE0005215107

WKN: 521510

Listed: Regulierter Markt in Frankfurt (Prime Standard); Freiverkehr

in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Hannover, München, Stuttgart

End of Announcement DGAP News-Service

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