DGAP-News: Aragon AG publishes preliminary results for 2008

ARAGON AG / Miscellaneous

04.03.2009 

Release of a Corporate News, transmitted by DGAP - a company of EquityStory AG.
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
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  - Aragon AG publishes preliminary results for 2008

  - Pro-forma revenues of EUR 80.0m (previous year EUR 78.8m), EBITDA EUR
    8.2m (previous year EUR 9.0m)

  - Stable sales despite financial crisis

Today Aragon AG -one of Germany's leading financial distribution companys'-
has published its preliminary results for the fiscal year 2008 according
with IFRS.

Pro forma -considering today's 47% shareholding of the subsidiary biw-
Aragon has achieved the following results:

Revenues increased from EUR 78.8m to EUR 80.0m despite economic and
financial crisis. Gross margin increased 27.4% from EUR 22.7m to EUR 28.9.
Earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) slightly decreased by 16.4% from
EUR 7.8m in 2007 to EUR 6.5m in 2008. This represents an EBIT margin of
8.2% (previous year 9.9%). Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and
amortization (EBITDA) resulted in EUR 8.2m (previous year EUR 9.0m)
representing an EBITDA margin of 10.2% (previous year 11.4%).

'We feel very comfortable with our results, given the historically
difficult market environment' explains Wulf Schuetz, COO of Aragon 'We
increased revenues and gross margin. Originally we had planned with a
stronger growth and costs basis leading to a slight reduction of our
profitability in 2008. In 2009 we expect to see a sharp decrease of our
operational costs, due to the effectiveness of our corporate-wide
cost-cutting programs.

The positive results -compared to the overall market performance- were
achieved by the combined effort of all Aragon business units:

The Retail Sales segment continues to be contributing the largest share of
revenues of EUR 78.2m (previous year EUR 78.2m) and earnings of all
segments. Jung, DMS & Cie. AG, the wholly-owned Aragon subsidiary, exceeded
EUR 1bn in product sales for the second year in a row despite the
challenging market environment.

The Banking & Banking Services segment is consolidated at equity since Q3
2008 (pro forma consideration). Our subsidiary Bank für Investments und
Wertpapiere AG (biw) managed to announce pleasing result figures for the
fiscal year 2008 following a successful year 2007. Compared to the previous
year, biw managed to significantly increase its number of customers of
about 52%. The number of accounts increased to 70,032 (previous year
46,057). The deposits also slightly increased to EUR 179m compared to EUR
177m in the previous year. Despite significant decrease in value the
custody volume hardly decreased by 2% to EUR 874m (previous year: EUR
893m). This positive development is also reflected in the number of orders
executed by the bank. With an average of 374,000 orders during Q4 2008 (Q4
2007: 292,000) biw continued to achieve record results.

Market environment stays challenging - market consolidation as an
opportunity

'In the light of the current financial and economic crisis, we expect the
year 2009 to continue to be considerably challenging for the whole industry
sector of independent financial services distribution. However, Aragon's
positive development proves that a diversified positioning leads to
satisfactory results in this difficult market environment', stats Dr.
Sebastian Grabmaier, CEO of Aragon.

'For 2009 we foresee a considerably accelerated consolidation of our
industry sector. Regulation pressure combined with the current market
environment will lead various sales firms to fail. We should benefit from
this development and continue to pro-actively acquire and integrate
interesting targets. Our recently announced takeover of the broker pool DVV
will not the last transaction to be seen in 2009. Organically, we expect a
double digit growth in revenues and significant improvement of our
operational profitability also due to our initiatives to optimize our cost
structure.

Aragon's annual report will be published on 31 March 2009.

The Annual General Meeting of Aragon AG will be held in Mainz, Germany on
29 May 2009.

About ARAGON AG

ARAGON AG is a broadly diversified financial services company, with the
divisions Retail Sales, Banking & Banking Services and Institutional Sales.
Aragon is active on the marketplace with multiple independent subsidiaries.
The company's aim is to integrate various distribution models under one
roof, without disturbing the individual identity of each sales company. The
result is a wide diversification across various asset classes and
distribution types, which generates a high stability in corporate earnings.
Further information about the company and its subsidiaries can be viewed on
the website: www.aragon.ag.



Contact:
Aragon Aktiengesellschaft

Ralf Funke
Investor Relations
Tel.: +49(0)611 890 575-0
Fax:  +49(0)611 890 575-99
E-Mail: funke@aragon-ag.de


DGAP 04.03.2009 
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