Knorr Capital net earnings fall

Knorr Capital Partner AG, the Munich-based consulting and venture capital firm, announced today net earnings of E6.7m after taxes for the first half of this year, against E8.1m in the comparative period of 2000.

Knorr blamed “one-time write-downs on equity interests of E6.3m” for the decrease, resulting in a fall of earnings per share from E1.40 last year to E0.85 this year. By contrast EBITDA rose by 500,000 to E14.5m, whilst revenue jumped 66 per cent to E52.8m.

Good news for the firm was the E18.84m disposal of its stake in Neuer Markt-listed Systematics AG, which was sold to the US company Electronic Data Systems.

Knorr said in a statement it was happy with its performance at a time when “the entire venture capital market is undergoing a necessary consolidation phase.” Seeing “half of the companies in this sector” as takeover candidates, the firm added it wanted to play an active role in the transformation process.

As part of this plan, Knorr announced earlier this month the acquisition of IT-Adventure AG, the technology investment boutique.