03/03/2009

LYCOS Europe N.V. closes the financial year 2008 with a EUR (50.8) mln EBITDA loss mainly affected by decreasing revenues and liquidation costs

Adhoc

LYCOS Europe N.V. (“LYCOS”) today published its consolidated financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2008.

The following figures only refer to continued operations such as portal business and webhosting business and therefore do not include discontinued operations such as Jubii Denmark, United Domains and Shopping. Due to the strategic decision made by the shareholder’s meeting on December 12, 2008 these units have already been sold or are about to be sold. They represent about 60 percent of LYCOS Europe’s total revenues.
 
LYCOS Europe’s revenues for the year ended December 31, 2008 amounted to EUR 20.9 million, which is a decrease of 44 percent compared to the restated revenues of EUR 37.4 million for the year ended December 31, 2007.

The EBITDA for the year ended December 31, 2008 amounted to EUR (50.8) million compared to EUR (15.5) million in the reference period in 2007 mainly due to decreasing revenues. Further the liquidation measures had a strong impact of EUR (24.4) million on annual operating results.
 
The net result of the continued and discontinued operations decreased to EUR (52.9) million for 2008 compared to 2007 (EUR 40.1 million). The total liquidation costs amounted to EUR (32.8) million.

Cash, cash equivalents and other investments decreased to EUR 76.1 million as at December 31, 2008 compared to EUR 157.2 million as at December 31, 2007. This leads to a cash ratio of 1.6 (cash, cash equivalents and other investments divided by total liabilities). The significant decline was mainly caused by the capital reimbursement of EUR 50 million in December 2008.

 
 
 
Year ended December 31, 2008
Year ended December 31, 2007
(restated)
Revenues1)
in mln EUR
20.9
37.4
EBITDA1)
in mln EUR
(50.8)
(15.5)
EBIT1)
in mln EUR
(59.5)
(23.7)
Net Profit / (Loss) 2)
in mln EUR
(52.9)
40.1
 
 
 
 
Earnings per share (diluted and undiluted) 2)
in EUR
(0.17)
0.13
1) 2008 includes the continued business without the discontinued operations Jubii Denmark, United Domains and Shopping. 2007 has been restated accordingly.

2) Includes in 2008 and 2007 continued and discontinued operations.

 
In the meantime LYCOS Europe sold further businesses: the newssearch Paperball was taken over by Paperball GmbH, Munich. The search engine Fireball now belongs to Ambrosia AG, Zug (Switzerland). Trademark and domains of the French Email-Service Caramail were taken over by United Internet AG, Montabaur. Conversis hosting GmbH continues the free hosting service MultiMania. The LYCOS chat – worldbiggestchat.com – will be transferred to the new operator Noesis Systems Ltd., Lancashire (Great Britain) on March 9, 2009. The parties agreed to keep the purchase prices confidental.

Furthermore LYCOS Europe will continue working on the divestment of the shopping business and on the liquidation of European portal business and the webhosting business in 2009.

The company will continue to assess to what extent cash reserves and proceeds from divestments can be distributed to the shareholders.