Sedo Holding AG : publishes financial results for first three months 2013

• Revenue growth of 7.3% to EUR 36.9 million (previous year: EUR 34.4 million)
• EBT: EUR 1.5 million (previous year: EUR 2.2 million)
• Outlook unchanged: Rising revenue and earnings contributions for 2013

Cologne, May 14, 2013 - Sedo Holding AG (ISIN DE0005490155) has today published its consolidated financial results for first three months 2013. With a revenue growth of 7.3% the Company is in line with its forecast. Total Group revenue was up from EUR 34.4 million in the previous year to EUR 36.9 million. This growth was particularly driven by the Affiliate Marketing segment, which can look back on a successful first quarter due to its internationalization and major customer strategy. The Domain Marketing segment remained confronted by the challenges of a falling market and growing competition, by contrast, as well as new and price-aggressive providers, which is why the revenue decline continued, as expected.

In the Domain Marketing segment, EUR 7.3 million was generated in the period under review, a fall of 14.1% compared with the previous year's EUR 8.5 million of revenue. The number of domains tradable on the platform rose to 16.6 million as of March 31, 2013 compared with 14.9 million as of December 31, 2012. From this pool, around 4.1 million domains (December 31, 2012: 3.8 million) were available as of the reporting date for marketing in the area of performance-based domain parking. Both revenue and the related earnings decline within Domain Marketing reflect the overall fall in the domain parking market. The domain trading area remained at the previous year's level, by contrast.

In the Affiliate Marketing segment, on the other hand, revenue reported marked growth of 14.7% during the first three months of 2013, rising from EUR 25.9 million to EUR 29.7 million. The number of partner programs increased by 3.1% to 2,961, and the number of connected websites was up by 0.9% to 566,000. This growth is attributable to the strategy change (expansion of the major customer business and our internationalization drive), which had already been introduced in 2012, as well as specific improvements in the operating business. Further progress was achieved especially in the quality leadership that is important for major customers in this context: significant added value was generated for our customers with our quality review of the Affiliate Marketing technical platform. At the same time it was started to develop a new external profile that is set to be launched in the second quarter of 2013. We also achieved major progress with the integration of our Dutch subsidiary Cleafs B.V. that we acquired last year. The migration of Cleafs' customers to the modern and efficient affilinet platform will be concluded by the third quarter of this year.

Despite the positive revenue and earnings trends in Affiliate Marketing the effects of the fall in Domain Marketing couldn't be offset at Group level as expected, which means that overall earnings figures in the period under review were below the previous year's level. Specifically, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and write-downs on domains (EBITDA) fell from EUR 2.4 million in the previous year to EUR 1.7 million. Equally, earnings before taxes (EBT) were down from EUR 2.2 million in the previous year to EUR 1.5 million. Earnings per share amounted to EUR 0.03, following EUR 0.04 in the previous year.

Dr. Dorothea von Wichert-Nick, Management Board member responsible for affilinet marketing and sales, takes a positive view of the start into 2013: "We have successfully continued on our path with around 15% growth in Affiliate Marketing in the first three months of this year. Furthermore the acquisition of new customers succeeded, for instance we have gained STEG Electronics in Switzerland and Postbank in Germany. The development in Great Britain was particularly encouraging, where the sales revenues have significantly increasedwith our new major clients."

Sedo Holding AG lies within the scope of its budgets with the revenue and earnings growth trends that it achieved in the first quarter of 2013, and continues to expect revenue growth of around 10% of the full 2013 year compared with the 2012 financial year (2012 revenue: EUR 132.7 million), and earnings before taxes of between EUR 4.0 million and EUR 5.0 million - driven especially by the Affiliate Marketing business.

* EBITDA - result of operating activities before depreciation, amortization and write-downs on domains.

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