General Meeting 2024: ORBIS continues profitable growth in the 2023 financial year despite the economic crisis

The Annual General Meeting of the Saarbrücken-based software and business consulting company ORBIS SE (ISIN DE0005228779) was once again held virtually this year. The shareholders looked back on a profitable financial year 2023.

The Management Board and Supervisory Board proposed a dividend of 10 ct per share to the Annual General Meeting. The Annual General Meeting approved this proposal.

At the Annual General Meeting, the shareholders of ORBIS SE ratified the actions of the members of the Management Board and Supervisory Board for the 2023 financial year.

The shareholders' meeting appointed MSW GmbH Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft, Straße des 17. Juni 106-108, 10623 Berlin, as auditor and Group auditor for the 2024 financial year.

The shareholders then approved the remuneration report and granted authorization to acquire treasury shares with the option to exclude shareholders' subscription rights. Finally, an amendment to the Articles of Association was approved with regard to the registration deadline for the Annual General Meeting.

The Chief Financial Officer and Spokesman of the Executive Board, Mr. Stefan Mailänder, explained the business development for 2023 at the Annual General Meeting:

Despite the economic recession in 2023, ORBIS can look back with satisfaction on the financial year with a significant increase in consolidated sales, according to Mr. Mailänder.

ORBIS recorded a 9.7% increase in revenue at Group level in the 2023 financial year compared to the previous year to € 132,209 thousand (previous year: € 120,537 thousand). The number of employees as at December 31, 2023 was 907 (previous year: 888 employees).
The operating result (EBIT) increased by 5.9% to € 5,140 thousand (previous year: € 4,855 thousand).
The share of consolidated net profit attributable to the shareholders of ORBIS SE amounted to € 2,712 thousand after taxes and minority interests (previous year: € 2,389 thousand).
Cash flow from operating activities amounted to € 9,701 thousand in 2023 (previous year: € 5,455 thousand). Despite the investments in the expansion of the Saarbrücken site and the expansion of business operations, ORBIS still has cash and cash equivalents of € 16,367 thousand (previous year: € 15,825 thousand).
Mr Mailänder emphasized that the digitalization of business processes remains at the top of the agenda for all companies in order to achieve competitive advantages for the future. However, it must be assumed that the war in Ukraine and the development of energy prices and interest rates in 2024 in particular will have a negative impact on the business activities of our ORBIS customers and on their willingness to launch new projects.
Due to the current economic crisis situation in Germany and Europe, ORBIS therefore expects revenue and earnings (EBIT) for the 2024 financial year to be roughly on a par with the previous year.
Mr. Michael Jung, member of the Management Board of ORBIS SE, then gave a review of the operating business of the SAP and Microsoft divisions in 2023 and the prospects for 2024.

Mr. Jung emphasized that ORBIS also succeeded in acquiring numerous new customers and projects in the 2023 financial year and intensified its partnership with existing customers.

ORBIS can provide customers with a very comprehensive range of services in the field of digitalization and thus support companies in the automation of business processes, in particular now also through the use of artificial intelligence.

As a result of the transformation of IT applications to the cloud, ORBIS customers would expect cross-platform consulting beyond the boundaries of pure business applications such as SAP ERP or MS CRM in the future.
This offers ORBIS the opportunity to expand its consulting portfolio.

Mr. Jung noted that the topics of sustainability, artificial intelligence and interoperability, i.e. the ability of systems and technologies to communicate with each other, would become increasingly important.

ORBIS is also well positioned for the future in these growing areas.

Overall, according to Mr. Jung, ORBIS can thus contribute to strengthening the innovative power and competitiveness of ORBIS customers.