Unfortunately, the pandemic in 2021 continued to prevent a normalisation of the framework conditions in which we operate. In addition to the professional challenges, Corona-related burdens also had to be overcome this year. The planned return of staff to offices could not take place, nor could the presence events necessary to revitalise personal contacts be held.
It should be noted that our preventative health concepts have worked well. These included the in-company vaccination campaigns we supported. It is also worth mentioning that despite the tense general conditions, short-time work was avoided again this year.
In March, the group company agreement “New Working Worlds” was concluded. This serves as the basis for both mobile working and the new office concepts, including the shared desk approach. The first office spaces have already been redesigned to take up this approach. The Hamburg location demonstrates how this strategy can be implemented.
Another challenge was collective bargaining, which was particularly important at the end of the second half of the year. Negotiations had to take place almost exclusively online. In addition to the dpa parent company, the newsroom subsidiaries and picture alliance were affected. Despite the high level of demands being made at the beginning, it was possible to reach agreements that were in line with the interests of all the companies involved shortly before the turn of the year.
The very satisfactory business development and acquisition of new contracts led to a significant increase in recruiting procedures in 2021. This trend is expected to intensify in 2022. In order to successfully meet the increasing demands on recruiting, a pilot project launched in mid-2021 has shown that the establishment of a central group recruiting unit in HR is having a positive effect. In particular, the “active sourcing” measures and the opening of new recruiting channels via social media have quickly borne fruit. This has demonstrably reduced recruiting costs, increased the number of suitable applications and led to vacancies being filled more quickly. We will therefore continue to expand these channels and at the same time sustainably strengthen the employer brand.
The average number of employees for the year fell to 660 (previous year: 669). The proportion of female employees in the company increased slightly and is now slightly more than 50 %. The number of part-time employees remained unchanged at 143.
Depreciation and amortisation amounted to 2.6 million euros, 0.2 million euros less than in the previous year.
Other operating expenses rose by 2.4 million euros to 22.1 million euros. Here, too, the expenses for the European Football Championship and the Summer Olympic Games played a major role, but in particular technical development and operating costs, which increased as planned by more than one million euros to accelerate important innovation projects of the agency, one-time expenses for construction measures at the Hamburg location as well as slightly higher provisions for litigation risks.
The financial result amounted to 18.7 million euros after 15.5 million euros in the previous year and thus increased by about 21 %. In addition to significantly higher earnings contributions from the subsidiaries with EAV, in particular news aktuell and dpa-infocom, it was also possible to reduce book value depreciation in the reporting year. Interest income showed a slight increase of 0.1 million euros, while interest expense remained almost unchanged at 0.1 million euros.
This resulted in a pre-tax profit of 2.6 million euros. The net income after taxes amounted to 2.0 million euros and was thus 0.4 million euros above the previous year’s value.
The management and supervisory board propose to the shareholders’ meeting that the net profit for 2021 of 2,039,468.03 euros be added to the profit carried forward as of 01/01/2021 of 4,268,472.52 euros to produce a balance sheet profit of 6,307,940.55 euros and carried forward to new account.