Corporate News 29 May 2018

Sixt SE: Sixt maintains its previous strong growth performance also throughout Q1 2018

Sixt maintains its previous strong growth performance also throughout Q1 2018

  • Consolidated revenue climbs by around 10% to EUR 625.7 million with strong demand in the Vehicle Rental Business Unit recorded at home and abroad
  • Reported earnings before taxes (EBT), including the proceeds from the sale of the DriveNow investment, come to EUR 244.2 million
  • Managing Board confirms outlook on full fiscal 2018 as upgraded at the end of April

Pullach, 29 May 2018 – Over the first three months of the current year Sixt Group maintained the already high speed of growth and once again substantially further improved revenue and earnings. Adjusted by the proceeds from the sale of the DriveNow investment, the international mobility service provider generated quarterly pre-tax earnings (EBT) of EUR 48.2 million, a gain of 30.9% on the same period the year before. Especially in the Vehicle Rental Business Unit Sixt recorded continually growing demand in Germany and abroad, combined with a correspondingly strong utilisation of the rental fleet. Based on the exceptionally good business performance, the Managing Board confirms the adjusted projections for fiscal year 2018 it had upgraded in its statutory ad-hoc announcement on 25 April 2018.

Today Sixt SE published its Quarterly Statement as at 31 March 2018 on its website at http://ir.sixt.eu in the section “Financial Reports”.

Erich Sixt, CEO of Sixt SE: “The first quarter exceeded our own earnings expectations. Particularly gratifying is the fact that we once again managed to improve earnings significantly above the level of revenue growth. For Sixt volume growth does not come at the expense of profitability. Over the course of the year we will not only continue to drive forward our numerous expansion measures, in particular those abroad. As we announced, we are working intensively on the further digitisation of our rental fleet so that we can offer our customers fully connected and seamless mobility services all from one single source.”

Key Group figures for the first quarter 2018

  • Consolidated revenue climbed 9.9 % to EUR 625.7 million (Q1 2017: EUR 569.3 million). The increase came mainly from the strong growth of vehicle rentals outside of Germany.
  • Consolidated operating revenue (excluding revenue from the sale of returned leasing vehicles) rose 10.1% to EUR 543.0 million (Q1 2017: EUR 493.2 million).
  • The Vehicle Rental Business Unit’s operating revenue rose 11.0% to EUR 425.4 million (Q1 2017: EUR 383.2 million). Revenue generated outside of Germany improved by 15.2%. Particularly positive performances were registered by the Sixt companies in the USA, France, Spain and the UK. In Italy, which became a new corporate country at the start of 2017, Sixt expanded its network of stations above all in the South of the country during the year to date. In Germany, equally strong demand meant that operating revenue grew by 6.6% to EUR 198.9 million (Q1 2017: EUR 186.6 million).
  • The Leasing Business Unit’s operating revenue (without the proceeds from sales) gained 7.0% to EUR 103.6 million (Q1 2017: EUR 93.3 million). Sixt Leasing SE continues to report ongoing strong growth in its contract portfolio, above all with private and commercial customer leasing transactions (Online Retail business field).
  • The Group’s earnings before taxes (EBT) came to EUR 244.2 million after EUR 36.8 million over the same period the year before. This figure includes a profit of EUR 196.1 million from the sale of the 50% stake in the carsharing joint venture DriveNow, which was sold in the first quarter to the previous partner, the BMW Group. Adjusted by this gain, Sixt managed to grow its EBT by 30.9% to EUR 48.2 million, which means that the growth in earnings significantly outperformed the growth in revenue.
  • Consolidated profit for the first quarter came to EUR 214.6 million, after EUR 25.6 million in Q1 2017.

Investments
Over the first three months of the current year Sixt added 69,700 vehicles to the rental and leasing fleets (Q1 2017: 59,500 vehicles) with a total value of EUR 1.86 billion (Q1 2017: EUR 1.61 billion). This equals an increase of around 17% in the number of vehicles and around 15% in the investment volume.

Outlook for the full year 2018
Following the encouraging development of the first quarter and the business performance recorded so far for the second quarter the Managing Board of Sixt SE on 25 April 2018 upgraded its earnings expectations for the full fiscal year 2018 and confirmed the previous revenue projections.

Sixt now expects to see in 2018 a significant increase in consolidated EBT over the previous year (2017: EUR 287.3 million). This statement does not take into account the contribution to earnings made from the sale of the stake in DriveNow. So far, the Managing Board had assumed Group EBT would increase slightly. As far as consolidated operating revenue is concerned the expectations are unchanged for a significant increase over the previous year (2017: EUR 2.31 billion).

Contact:
Frank Elsner
Sixt Central Press Office
Tel.: +49 (0) 89 / 99 24 96 – 30
Fax: +49 (0) 89 / 99 24 96 – 32
E-mail: pressrelations@sixt.com

The Sixt Group at a glance
(Figures according to IFRS; rounding differences may occur)

       
Revenue development     Change
in EUR million Q1 2018 Q1 2017 in %
Operating revenue 543.0 493.2 +10.1
       
Rental Business Unit 425.4 383.2 +11.0
Thereof rental revenue
384.5 341.3 +12.6
Thereof other revenue from rental business
40.9 41.9 -2.5
       
Leasing Business Unit 199.3 185.1 +7.7
Thereof leasing revenue
58.1 56.6 +2.7
Thereof other revenue from leasing business
59.5 53.4 +11.6
Thereof sales revenue
81.6 75.1 +8.6
       
Other revenue 1.0 1.0 +6.2
       
Consolidated revenue 625.7 569.3 +9.9
       

 

       
Earnings performance     Change
in EUR million Q1 2018 Q1 2017 in %
Fleet expenses and cost of lease assets 237.2 205.1 +15.6
Personnel expenses 91.5 81.3 +12.5
Depreciation and amortisation expense 123.1 115.7 +6.4
Net other operating income/expenses -114.7 -121.4 -5.5
Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) 59.3 45.8 +29.4
Net finance costs 185.0 -9.0 >-100
Earnings before taxes (EBT) 244.2 36.8 >+100
Thereof Rental Business Unit
39.6 25.6 +55.0
Thereof Leasing Business Unit
8.0 8.5 -5.3
Income tax expense 29.6 11.2 >+100
Consolidated profit 214.6 25.6 >+100
       

 

       
Other key figures for the Group 31 Mar. 2018 31 Dec. 2017 Change
in %
Total assets (in EUR million) 5,040.8 4,491.0 +12.2
Rental vehicles (in EUR million) 2,279.9 2,076.0 +9.8
Lease assets (in EUR million) 1,258.2 1,219.2 +3.2
Equity (in EUR million) 1,390.6 1,177.9 +18.1
Equity ratio (in %) 27.6 26.2 +1.4 Points
       
  Q1 2018 Q1 2017 Change
in %
Investments (in EUR billion)1 1.86 1.61 +15.5
Average number of rental vehicles (Group) 110,100 102,200 +7.7
Number of rental offices (worldwide)2 2,251 2,243 +0.4
Number of leasing contracts as at 31 March (Group) 133,500 122,500 +9.0
       

 

1 Value of vehicles added to the rental and leasing fleets

2 Incl. franchise countries

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