Quarterly sales rise 24 percent

TAKKT AG's success continues

The positive performance shown recently by TAKKT AG of Stuttgart, Germany, continued in the third quarter of 1999. Compared to the previous year, the sales generated from July through September were 24.1 percent higher, up from EUR 121.0 million to EUR 150.2 million. TAKKT's sales totaled EUR 461.3 million for the first three quarters combined, an 18.2 percent year-on-year increase. The company became an autonomous corporate entity on July 1, 1999, and its stock was listed on the Frankfurt and Stuttgart stock exchanges on September 15, 1999. TAKKT AG leads the business-to-business mail-order market for office and warehousing equipment and operations in Europe and North America.

The key contributors to sales growth were the new acquisitions made in 1998: the Scandinavian Gerdmans Group and Conney Safety Products of the United States. Sales of the U.S. part of the group increased over the previous year by 37.1 percent in the third quarter in dollar terms. The increase is mainly due to Conney Safety Products being consolidated in the financial statements as of October 1998.

The KAISER + KRAFT Europa group showed a sales increase of 1.4 percent in the third quarter, to EUR 76.5 million (up from EUR 75.4 million in the same period the previous year). The tail-off in third-quarter growth relative to the 4.6 percent increase attained over the first nine months of the year is due to the consolidation of the Gerdmans Group as of May 1, 1998. The Topdeq Group also performed well, attaining July-September sales a full 11.3 percent higher than in the 1998 period, at EUR 17 million (compared with EUR 15.2 million).

TAKKT AG's third-quarter earnings figures are the first to include depreciation and interest charges resulting from the spin-off from its former parent, which came to EUR 3.5 million. Earnings were also adversely affected by EUR 1.9 million in costs of the stock market flotation already incurred.

EBITDA, which indicates the underlying operating performance of TAKKT AG, moved ahead by 20.6 percent in the third quarter of 1999 after adjusting for the expenses and stock-exchange costs arising from the spin-off, and reached EUR 17.4 million (up from EUR 14.4 million).

Chief financial officer, Felix A. Zimmermann, makes no secret of being pleased with these results: "If you consider that the economy has not yet picked up speed in most of the countries where we operate, the sustained increase in group sales is an excellent outcome for us. "As these economies pick up, Zimmermann expects operating performance to remain positive in the final quarter of 1999: "We anticipate that we will at least match our 1999 sales target of EUR 613.5 million (or DM 1.2 billion)."

Stuttgart, October 20, 1999

Contact:
Georg Gayer
Tel. +49 (0)711 5001-239

Dr. Felix A. Zimmermann
Tel. +49 (0)711 5001-861