Wuppertal, 26.08.2019 - The Annual General Meeting of GESCO AG on 29 August 2019 will vote on changing GESCO AG's financial year - which has so far run from 1 April to 31 March of the following year - to the calendar year. With the approval of the Annual General Meeting, 2019 will be an abbreviated financial year. At the time of the annual accounts press conference on 27 June 2019, GESCO AG believed that this abbreviated financial year would include nine months of activity at GESCO AG and twelve months of activity at the operating subsidiaries, whose financial year corresponds with the calendar year. For this scenario, GESCO had forecast Group sales of EUR 585 million to EUR 605 million and Group net income after minority interest of between EUR 22.5 million and EUR 24.5 million.

Following extensive dialogue with the German Financial Reporting Enforcement Panel (FREP) and external accounting experts, GESCO AG has now decided to include only nine months of activity at the subsidiaries - from 1 April to 31 December 2019 - in the abbreviated financial year 2019. The operating result for the period January to March 2019 will be included in the opening balance sheet as at 1 April 2019. For the abbreviated financial year 2019 the company expects Group sales in the middle of the EUR 435 million to EUR 455 million range and Group net income after minority interest at the lower end of the EUR 16 million to EUR 18 million range (figures rounded).

This forecast for the abbreviated financial year 2019 corresponds on a nine-month-basis to the operative "as-if" outlook for a full financial year 2019/2020, which was concretized on August 14 and which includes both GESCO AG and its subsidiaries with twelve months each. This outlook, published in the interest of comparability of the financial years, recently provided for Group sales in the middle of a range of EUR 585 million to EUR 605 million and Group net income after minority interest at the lower end of a range of EUR 21 million to EUR 23 million.

From financial year 2020, the financial years at both GESCO AG and the subsidiaries will correspond to the calendar year.

The key figures of Group sales and Group net income after minority interest are used as stated in GESCO AG's consolidated financial statements as at 31 March 2019, available online at http://www.gesco.de/financial-reports.

Contact:

Head of Investor Relations, Oliver Vollbrecht
Tel. +49-202 24820-18
Fax +49-202 24820-49
E-Mail: [email protected]
Internet: www.gesco.de