CORRECTION: Brunel International NV: "Strong fourth quarter in Europe; rightsizing the Energy organisation" ontvangen later.
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Key points Q4 2015
Revenue down by 19% to EUR 287 million
Gross margin up to 20.1% from 18.4%
Operating costs down by 14% to EUR 40 million; 21% down in Energy
EBIT down by 7% to EUR 18 million

Key points FY 2015
Revenue down by 11% at EUR 1,229 million
Gross margin at 18.7% from 18.0%
Operating costs flat at EUR 174 million, down by EUR 4 million in constant currencies
EBIT down by 25% to EUR 56 million
Net profit at EUR 38 million
Proposed dividend EUR 0.75 per share (2014: EUR 0.70) and a super dividend of EUR 0.75 per share.

Brunel International (unaudited)
P&L amounts in EUR million

Q4 2015 Q4 2014 Change % FY 2015 FY 2014 Change %
Revenue 287.2 356.7 -19% 1,228.9 1,386.6 -11%
Gross Profit 57.6 65.6 -12% 230.0 249.0 -8%
Gross margin 20.1% 18.4% 18.7% 18.0%
Operating costs 40.0 46.5 -14% 173.9 174.3 0%
EBIT 17.6 19.1 -7% 56.1 74.7 -25%
EBIT % 6.1% 5.3% 4.6% 5.4%
Average directs 10,604 12,041 -12% 10,894 12,101 -10%
Average indirects 1,539 1,663 -7% 1,601 1,624 -1%
Ratio direct / Indirect 6.9 7.2 6.8 7.5

a -16% at constant currencies
b -3% at constant currencies
c -22% at constant currencies
d -16% at constant currencies
Q4 2015 results

Revenue
Two top line trends are visible in the fourth quarter: the European top line continued to increase, with a strong increase in The Netherlands and Germany back to growth after three consecutives quarters of revenue decrease. Adjusted for the additional working days, revenue growth for Europe is 8%. The top line in the Oil & Gas division however continued to decrease, in line with the expectations and following the negative sentiment in Oil & Gas.

Gross Profit
As a result of the change in business mix with relatively high margins in Europe compared to Oil & Gas, the gross margin improved by 1.7ppt to 20.1%.

Operating Costs
We have been able to reduce the operating costs by 14% in the fourth quarter. Our Global IT implementation has been rolled out progressively, enabling us to improve service levels and become more efficient and cost effective. In addition, following the downturn in the Oil & Gas division, we have taken various fine tuning measures including redundancies to align the organisation with the reduced business volume. On top of that, our marketing spend has been reduced.

EBIT
The same trend is visible in the profitability, where EBIT in Europe grew significantly, while the drop in Oil & Gas was strong too. Overall EBIT decreased by 7% to EUR 18 million in the fourth quarter.

Effective tax rate

In 2015 the effective tax rate decreased from 35.1% to 33.6%, mainly as a result of tax adjustments relating to prior years.

Cash position
The December 2015 cash balance amounted to EUR 180 million, mainly driven by strong cash flows, partly as a result of the slowing down of the Oil & Gas division, freeing up cash.

Dividend
At the current level of activities, a cash position of EUR 80 million at year end is sufficient to support our business and pay out dividend. As a result, at 31 December 2015 we have around EUR 100 million of excess cash. We decided not to distribute this entire amount to be able to act in case strategic opportunities arise in the near future. Therefore we propose an additional super dividend of EUR 0.75 per share, on top of the EUR 0.75 of profit distribution.


Outlook
We expect the growth in The Netherlands to continue strongly and the growth in Germany to improve further. Given the negative downward headcount development in 2015 in the Energy division, we expect the negative revenue trend to continue in 2016. The revenue in the Projects division will strongly reduce next year, predominantly after the second quarter.



Jan Arie van Barneveld, CEO of Brunel International N.V.: "We are very satisfied with the results in our business in The Netherlands: highest headcount and revenue in the history of Brunel is a great milestone. We have put a lot of effort to optimise the sales organisation and are happy to safeguard the results of the investments in the growth in number and quality of our consultants. We are in the driver seat to keep this momentum going. In addition, we believe Germany's way back on the growth track is structural and will improve further.

In our Energy business we have strategically restructured the operations in various regions and are optimising our organisation on the back of our global IT infrastructure. We are confident that these measures prepared us for the new reality in the Oil & Gas markets."

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