“Capital follows confidence” as defence courts private money
Outside investment and the direction in which venture money flows may reveal what defence will buy years before formal programmes begin.
Lufthansa Systems 2009 revenues down, but still in profit
Despite a 7.9% decline in revenues, Lufthansa Systems ended its 2009 fiscal year with a profit of €16 million.
The revenues decrease took the income down to €605 million. Of this, €361 million was generated with companies in the Lufthansa Group, while revenues with customers outside the Group fell to €244 million (a 12.5% decrease). This decline, described by LSY as “disproportionate” is attributed in part to former external companies now being part of the Lufthansa Group. The operating profit of €16 million was a decrease from the previous year’s €40 million, on account of the lower revenues.
”The fact that we achieved a profit despite a significant decline in revenues shows that we are well positioned with our structures and products,” said Wolfgang Gohde, CEO and chairman of the Executive Board of Lufthansa Systems. ”The changes we initiated during the past few years have made our company leaner, more flexible and more customer-focused. We were therefore able to respond quickly to market developments, adjust our capacities and reduce our costs.”
LSY believes that the total airline spending on IT services will grow only slightly in the coming years due to the carriers’ strained economic situation. However, it sees the market for IT outsourcing growing because airlines will increasingly replace their own systems with external solutions.
The company expects revenues to decline again in 2010 on account of economic influences and the ongoing streamlining of the portfolio in the Infrastructure Services division. The measures initiated in 2009 for reducing material costs and aligning internal personnel capacity with the production volumes will probably cause the operating result in 2010 to be higher than that of the past fiscal year, says LSY.
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