Dividend raised from Euro 0.27 to Euro 0.47 per share
Nuremberg, May 20, 2011 – hotel.de AG is distributing a dividend of Euro 0.47 per share for the 2010 financial year, equivalent to a 74.0% increase compared with the previous year. This proposal was approved with a large majority by shareholders at the company’s Annual General Meeting held today in Nuremberg. “With this planned dividend increase, we are complying with our previously announced intention of distributing the annual net surplus in full. Where future profits are not required for investments in the company’s further development, we plan to uphold this dividend policy without amendment in the coming years as well”, explained Dr. Heinz Raufer, CEO of hotel.de AG. Based on the current share price of around Euro 14.00, the dividend yield thus amounts to 3.4%.
The Annual General Meeting also approved all other agenda items and supported the corporate strategy presented by the Management Board. This involves maintaining the internationalisation of the company’s business activities and extending the scope of its product. A further focus in the current year involves expanding mobile applications, an area which Raufer also presented in greater detail in his presentation. Investments in this area, some of which were brought forward to the first quarter of 2011, were one of the reasons for the negative quarterly earnings at the beginning of the year.
In his outlook, Raufer was nevertheless optimistic about the year as a whole. "As the year progresses, we expect the stepping up of our marketing activities, the acceleration of our IT development and the international scaling of our business to generate positive momentum. For 2011 as a whole, our current budgets foresee sales growth in a low double-digit percentage range and a year-on-year improvement in EBIT."
About hotel.de AG
hotel.de AG operates a global hotel reservation service for companies and private customers at its www.hotel.de and www.hotel.info addresses. Available in 37 languages, these websites enable customers to book accommodation at more than 210,000 hotels in all categories easily, quickly and at optimal prices. More than 4 million private and business customers from all around the world now place their trust in this service to book hotels. When selecting their hotel they can refer to more than 1.5 million personal hotel evaluations. Well-known companies such as BASF, SAP AG, Texas Instruments , Ernst & Young AG and many more use hotel.de’s corporate application to book hotels for business travel.
Based in Nuremberg, hotel.de AG also has a branch in Hamm (Westphalia) and sales offices in the UK (London), France (Paris), Spain (Barcelona), Italy (Rome), China (Shanghai) and Singapore. The company was founded in 2001 and was publicly listed in October 2006. In 2010, the company mediated reservation volumes in excess of Euro 390 million.
Press contact:
hotel.de AG
Aleksander Szumilas
Hugo-Junkers-Str. 15-17
90411 Nuremberg
Phone: +49 (0)911-59832-0
Fax: +49 (0)911-59832-11
E-mail: press@hotel.de www.hotel.de
