EANS-Adhoc: freenet AG / Executive Board raises EBITDA and FCF Guidance for the financial year 2012

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06.11.2012

Büdelsdorf, 6 November 2012 - In today's session, the Executive Board of freenet AG raised its guidance for the present year, which was published in March 2012 in conjunction with the preliminary figures for 2011. Against the background of stable ARPUs the Executive Board increased its forecast for EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) to 355 million euros (original: 340 million euros) and for free cash flow before interest to 255 million euros (original: 240 million euros). At the same time the Executive Board is expecting Group revenue of 3.0 billion euros for the financial year 2012 (previous year: 3.2 billion euros). This decline is mainly attributable to lower income from low-margin businesses. The remaining KPIs in the 2012 guidance are confirmed. The guidance for 2013 will not be modified, as the budgeting process has not yet been finalized. In the third quarter of 2012, freenet AG continued the positive trend of the first half of the year. In the first nine months of 2012, freenet AG generated Group EBITDA of 263.2 million euros (Q1-Q3/2011: 246.5 million euros) and free cash flow before interest of 195.9 million euros (Q1-Q3/2011: 184.3 million euros). Group revenue in the first nine months of the current financial year came to 2,269.6 million euros (Q1-Q3/2011, adjusted pursuant to IAS 8: 2,405.4 million euros). At the same time, the Group result increased by 53.4 million euros to 131.2 million euros (Q1-Q3/2011: 77.8 million euros). During the third quarter of 2012, the number of contract customers increased by 31,100 subscribers, for a total of 5.72 million as of 30 September 2012. Moreover, the number of mobile communications customers in the no-frills segment increased by 118,000 to 2.66 million during the quarter under review. This brings customer ownership up to 8.38 million subscribers at the end of the third quarter. The total number of mobile communications customers as of 30 September 2012 was 14.31 million. The complete freenet AG interim report for the third quarter of 2012 will be available for download shortly at www.freenet-group.de/investor.

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

   November 06, 2012 13:27 ET (18:27 GMT)- - 01 27 PM EST 11-06-12