BAUER AG expects significant impact on earnings due to necessary impairment of assets and the winding up of subsidiaries

Schrobenhausen, Germany – The Executive Board of BAUER Aktiengesellschaft (ISIN DE0005168108) has decided today to adjust the earnings forecast for the financial year 2022, which was last updated in the announcement dated September 13, 2022. The background for this is the ongoing preliminary audits by the auditor and preparatory work for the preparation of the annual and consolidated financial statements.

In the course of this, an initial assessment was made of the extent to which the Group will be affected by an impairment requirement in the valuation of its subsidiaries and their assets on the basis of the weighted average cost of capital (WACC) and the changed assessment of country risks.

As a result of the changed interest rate environment due to further rising interest rates and the resulting significant increase in the weighted average cost of capital (WACC), as well as the changed assessment of country risks resulting from the generally more difficult development of the global economy, it is expected that there will be a significant impairment need on non-current assets and current assets at the end of the year. As a result, the Executive Board of BAUER AG now expects this to have a significant non-cash negative impact on the Group's EBIT in the range of an estimated EUR 55 million to EUR 70 million for the financial year 2022. Due to the fact that the financial year has not yet ended and the further development of interest rates is still unknown, the range cannot be specified more precisely at present.

In addition, the Executive Board of BAUER AG today decided to sell or wind up further subsidiaries, which have delivered persistently negative earnings contributions in recent years – including the well drilling company of the Resources segment in Jordan. This is related to the portfolio streamlining initiated several months ago in the course of focusing on the core business and improving profitability. The Executive Board expects this to have an additional negative impact on the Group's EBIT for the 2022 financial year in a range estimated at EUR 25 million to EUR 35 million.

In the last forecast adjustment, the company still assumed that EBIT would be significantly below the previous year (year-end 2021: EUR 36.0 million). Taking into account the valuation effects described above, the Executive Board now expects EBIT for the financial year 2022 to be between EUR -65 million to EUR -90 million. The forecast for total Group revenues remains unchanged.

The methods for calculating the total Group revenues can be found in the notes to the 2021 Annual Report on p. 102.