• Total sales amounted to MSEK 46,811 (45,343)
• Income before taxes amounted to MSEK 1,379 (1,542)
• Net income after tax amounted to MSEK 560 (1,063)
• Earnings per share amounted to SEK 1.53 (2.91)
Comments from the President and CEO, Alf Göransson:
“The strategy for the future, aiming to flatten out the long-term trend of declining gross margins, was rolled out throughout the Group in the third quarter. In general, the business is running as expected, except in certain areas in Loomis and primarily in the United Kingdom cash management operation.
In Security Services North America, the margins for guarding services continue to improve and the organic sales growth remains stable in the range of 3–4 percent. Security Services Europe is showing a high organic sales growth in the range of 7–8 percent with stable margins. New contracts are coming in with a lower gross margin than the average contract portfolio, however, and this therefore remains a concern and a focus area. Investment in additional sales resources has continued within Mobile and Monitoring in order to speed up the organic sales growth.
As a result of our annual impairment test of all cash generating units, the book value of the goodwill in the Services and Mobile operations in the Netherlands has been adjusted through impairment losses of goodwill of MSEK 350. The impairment does not affect the cash flow.
Loomis is negatively impacted by the problems facing the Loomis Cash Management (LCM) operation in the United Kingdom. Firstly, the investigation costs and the legal costs related to the exit negotiations with HSBC and Barclays, secondly the audit and legal investigation costs related to the non-compliance with Note Circulation Rules in the United Kingdom and finally the LCM operation being loss-making. Negotiations and investigations are expected to be finalized in the fourth quarter 2007, by the time it will be possible to finally determine the financial outcome. Excluding the LCM costs and the LCM operation, Loomis’ operating margin for the first nine months was 6.5 percent (7.3).”
For further information, please contact:
Alf Göransson, President and CEO, +46 8 657 7400
Gisela Lindstrand, Senior Vice President Corporate Communications and Public Affairs, +46 8 657 7332
Micaela Sjökvist, Head of Investor Relations, +46 8 657 7443
Information meeting
An information meeting will be held on November 9, 2007, at 9.30 a.m. CET.
The information meeting will take place at Securitas’ head office, Lindhagensplan 70, Stockholm.
To follow the presentation via telephone (and participate in the Q&A session),
please register in advance via the link
https://eventreg2.conferencing.com/webportal3/reg.html?Acc=932373&Conf=180087
and follow the instructions or call +44 (0)20 7162 0125.
The meeting will be webcasted at www.securitas.com
For a recorded version of the information meeting please call
+44 (0)20 7031 4064 and +46 (0)8 505 203 33, access code: 766696.
The full report including tables can be downloaded from the enclosed link:
Securitas AB Interim Report January – September 2007
Published
09 November 2007 08:00
