Poolia finalises restructuring measures in Hamburg and incurs a goodwill impairment loss on German operations

Poolia is concentrating the operations it conducts in Hamburg exclusively on professional services and thus incurs an impairment loss of SEK 48 M on the German shareholding. In addition, a provision of SEK 11 M will be posted to finalize the restructuring of the company’s operations in Hamburg.

“We have decided that the operations conducted in Hamburg are to be concentrated on Poolia’s core business, meaning the temporary staffing and permanent recruitment of professional white-collar workers. As a result of this decision, we will now finalize the process of restructuring our operations in Hamburg,” says Poolia’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Erik Strand. The restructuring will give rise to an impairment loss on the goodwill attributable to Poolia’s previous acquisition of A&Z Arbeit und Zeit GmbH by SEK 48 M of the total remaining goodwill value in Germany, which amounts to SEK 52 M. The impairment loss does not affect Poolia’s cash flow. In addition to this impairment loss, a provision of SEK 11 M will be posted during the fourth quarter of 2005. This is regarded as the maximum cost of completing the restructuring measures. Discussions with the local EWC council have been initiated and the employees concerned will be informed in the near future. The operations conducted in Frankfurt, Mannheim and Munich are not affected by the ongoing restructuring. “It is, of course, no pleasant task having to announce news such as this just before Christmas. However, we are compelled to act now to stop the negative trend in Germany. The units concerned in Hamburg account for half of Poolia’s sales in Germany, which means we will still have a solid base upon which to build healthy operations in the future. Within our core segments, the German market is developing well, and we believe that Poolia Germany’s development potential for the future is considerable,” says Erik Strand.