Sales increased in spite of difficult market climate

Sales of the MVV Energie Group by Segment
Euro million	2004/2005	2003/2004	% change

Electricity¹	975	828	+18

District heating	250	252	-1

Gas²	366	263	+39

Water	106	86	+23

Value-added services	115	117	-2

Environmental energy	131	97	+35

Other/consolidation	15	9	+67

	1,958	1,652	+19


¹ including energy tax of Euro 92 million (previous year: Euro 84 million)
² including gas tax of Euro 61 million (previous year: Euro 49 million)

The MVV Energie Group increased its sales by 19% to around Euro 2 billion in spite of the energy market being characterised by a high degree of competition. This sharp increase is primarily attributable to our strong external growth. The full consolidation of the Stadtwerke Kiel AG (SWK) subgroup for the first whole year contributed Euro 336 million to the overall sales of our group of companies in the 2004/05 financial year. In the 2003/04 financial year, the sales of SWK had been included in the consolidated financial statements for only five months (May – September 2004).

The positive effect of the consolidation of SWK was dampened slightly by the negative impact of the sale in October 2004 of our Czech shareholding in Brno. This shareholding had reported sales of Euro 56 million in the 2003/04 financial year. Since its deconsolidation, this company's sales have no longer been included in the Group's figures. On a comparable basis, i.e. excluding the impact of Kiel and Brno, the sales of our group of companies rose by 8% compared with the previous year. All core business segments contributed to this sales growth, as did the new environmental energy segment, at which we have pooled our non-recyclable waste incineration and biomass activities.

Over and above the impact of SWK, the higher level of sales in the core business segments of electricity, gas and water is due on the one hand to increased turnover and on the other to price adjustments. All of the German companies in our network of municipal utility companies achieved higher sales than in the previous year. Overall, our group of companies in Germany, including Kiel, generated sales (before consolidation) of Euro 2,106 million (previous year: Euro 1,694 million).

Our foreign sales fell by 33% compared with the previous year to Euro 87 million, as a result of which their share of total sales declined to 4% (previous year: 8%). The sales growth of 17% reported by our Polish group of companies was not sufficient to compensate for the decline in sales at our Czech group of companies resulting from the deconsolidation of Brno. Excluding the impact of this deconsolidation, our Czech group of companies achieved sales growth of 17%.