location Dortmund, Date 2020.05.26

Internationally active IT consulting company Materna Information & Communications SE closed the 2019 business year very successfully with a group turnover amounting to 323.8 million euros. In comparison to the previous year, this represents an increase of 12.2 percent, which has resulted exclusively from organic growth. “We are delighted by this excellent result”, says Michael Knopp, CFO of the Materna Group. Materna is benefiting from the good market conditions prevailing in the IT sector as well as the continuing trend towards digitalization in Germany. The group also increased its workforce with 220 new employees and by the end of 2019 was employing a total of 2,356 staff.

“We are very pleased with the performance of the group. Last year the most important drivers behind the turnover were IT and digitalization projects for companies, the development of software applications for public sector authorities as well as global SAP transformation projects for industry”, explained Michael Knopp, CFO of the Materna Group. The first quarter of 2020 also saw business continuing to develop well with a growth in turnover of 9.7 percent compared to the same period in the previous year.
After the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing overall economic uncertainty, it is difficult to make forecasts for the year 2020 as a whole. However, Materna is confident that they will be able to deliver a respectable result. “We, as a group, consider ourselves to be well positioned with our range of services. This includes topics such as cyber security, Internet of Things (IoT), the automation of IT processes as well as artificial intelligence and data analytics. In the public sector we are also well positioned. We implement innovative IT and digitalization projects in areas such as customs, the judiciary, security and defence, healthcare, finance and traffic”, explains Martin Wibbe, the new CEO of the Materna Group since 01.04.2020.

Figures in detail

In the last business year, Materna achieved earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) amounting to 35.6 million euros compared to 36.4 million euros for the same period in the previous year. The EBIT for 2019 includes special effects amounting to 3.2 million euros which resulted from the release of pension provisions, revenue from the sale of shareholdings and an extraordinary amortization of goodwill. The EBIT of the previous year had included a special one-off effect of 12.9 million euros from the sale of the company headquarter premises in Dortmund. Adjusted to account for this, the EBIT for 2019 was 32.4 million Euros (2018: 23.5 million euros), which represents an increase of 38 percent. It was also possible to increase the equity ratio from 31.7 percent to 38.1 percent and to increase net liquidity (liquid assets minus financial liabilities) from 49.6 million euros to 66.4 million euros.

About Materna

Materna as a group currently employs more than 2,300 people around the world and generated sales of 323,8 million euros in 2019. Materna covers the entire service spectrum of a full-service provider in the premium segment: from consultation and implementation through to operations. Materna advises and assists companies and the public sector in all aspects of digitization and provides tailor-made technologies for agile, flexible and secure IT. Its customers include IT organizations and user departments in companies and the public sector. The group also includes various subsidiaries.