Berlin, 04.11.2008. Eckert & Ziegler Strahlen- und Medizintechnik AG (ISIN DE0005659700), a globally active specialist for radioactive applications in medicine and industry, increased its sales in the third quarter of 2008 to the record high of more than 18.6 Mio. EUR (+31%). The nine month sales figures rose by 12 Mio. EUR to 51.5 Mio. EUR which equates to approximately 95% of the sales figures of the whole fiscal year 2007.
The earnings after tax and other shareholders' interests in the first three quarters increased to 11.0 Mio. EUR or 3.51 EUR per share. The earnings before special effects from the consolidation of the Belgian company International Brachytherapy (IBt) were 3.0 Mio. EUR (+39%). The adjusted revenue for the first nine months of 2008 is higher than the profit for the entire year 2007. For this reason the Executive Board rises its outlook for the earnings before special effects for the year 2009 from 1.00 EUR per share to 1.10 EUR per share.
The segment with the highest turnover in these three quarters was the Nuclear Imaging and Industry segment whose sales increased by 3.1 Mio. EUR to 22.2 Mio EUR (+16%). The increase can be mainly attributed to the good economic situation for oil well logging and other industrial sources and happened despite the EUR/USD exchange rate, which remained roughly 0.10 USD/EUR lower than in 2007.
The Radiopharmacy Segment could nearly double its sales in the nine month period from 5.4 Mio. EUR to 10.4 Mio. EUR. The main part of this growth was recorded by the Modular-Lab product group (1.5 Mio. EUR) and the radioactive diagnostics for the positron emission tomography (PET) (3.5 Mio. EUR). In the Therapy segment sales increased by 4.1 Mio. EUR to 18.9 Mio. EUR (+ 28%). The strongest growth with 69% was recorded by the prostate implants mainly due to the first-time consolidation of IBt in March 2008.
The Board of Directors