Archive notice: This article was originally published on December 29, 2007. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
The company announced this in Karlsruhe on Thursday. «A decision will be made at the appropriate time on the amount of the contribution value of the shares in the commercial balance sheet and any associated realization of hidden reserves affecting earnings in ComBOTS AG’s 2007 commercial balance sheet
will be made,» it said.
At the same time, the company announced that the entire stake in United Internet (Montabaur) held by the group is regarded as a purely financial investment. In October, ComBOTS had hinted for the first time at selling its stake in United Internet as part of its realignment. Since the sale of the portal business in 2005, ComBOTS has held a total of 23.2 million of the total 251.3 million United- Internet shares. At Friday’s closing price, these 23.2 million shares were worth just under 386 million euros. According to the information, the shares are currently valued at 6.65 euros each in ComBOTS AG’s commercial balance sheet. Based on Friday’s price, ComBOTS put the value of the hidden reserves of the 17 million shares transferred to the subsidiary at 169.5 million euros.
ComBOTS has been struggling with difficulties for some time. After a loss of more than 33 million euros in the 2006 financial year, the company expects a deficit of around 40 million euros in 2007. Last September, following the loss of tens of millions of euros, ComBOTS also admitted the failure of its ComBOTS communications software, once praised as revolutionary. The product, which found hardly any customers, will no longer be offered in future.
The restructuring and realignment of ComBOTS is to be completed by the end of the year. In future, the company intends to evaluate new online services with a small team and develop them further where appropriate. ComBOTS AG is the successor to Web.de AG, which changed its name after selling the web portal of the same name to United Internet in October 2005. According to its own figures, the company has liquid funds of several hundred million euros.
