The executive board and the supervisory board propose to the shareholders’ meeting that the net profit for 2023 in the amount of 1,360,444.66 euros be added to the profit carried forward as of January 1, 2023 of 7,479,941.11 euros to produce a balance sheet profit of 8,840,385.77 euros and be carried forward to the next accounting period.

In addition to its core business, dpa operates a large number of business units and new business areas in independent subsidiaries. Due to the chosen structure, dpa’s earnings are highly dependent on the economic development and the associated earnings contributions of the subsidiaries, which are generally affiliated via profit and loss transfer agreements, as well as other shareholdings. In 2023, they once again generated a high net income for the year and delivered a total earnings contribution of 19.4 million euros (previous year: 18.7 million euros), a new record.

As part of the existing profit and loss transfer agreement, news aktuell GmbH made the largest single contribution to the success of the dpa group with 11.2 million euros. The increase in the annual result was positively influenced in equal measure by the performance of the two core business areas ots- distribution and zimpel, but also by significantly lower operating costs.

In 2023, dpa Picture-Alliance GmbH once again succeeded in stabilising sales in the highly competitive image market and achieved a positive net result for the year before profit transfer, which at 1.6 million euros was actually 0.2 million euros higher than the previous year.

As expected, the graphics subsidiary dpa-infografik GmbH was not quite able to maintain the previous year’s sales level in a persistently difficult market and remained slightly below the previous year’s figure with a marginally positive net profit before profit transfer of 62 thousand euros.

Last year, dpa-infocom GmbH had to cope with the loss of a major customer in the curation product area and adjust its cost structure accordingly. However, further product innovations in the area of data products and fact checks made it possible to stabilise sales at a level of over 15 million euros and to achieve a net profit for the year before profit transfer of 3.4 million euros.

The service company dpa-IT Services GmbH closed the financial year at a slightly higher level than in the previous year by expanding its business volume, while Rufa Rundfunk-Agenturdienste GmbH and English Services GmbH closed at roughly the same level. dpa-IT was mainly influenced by the bundling of activities of the dpa group and the takeover of the corresponding employees from other companies in the group, while Rufa and English Services were mainly characterised by the continuation of business activities at almost the same cost level.

dpa-AFX Wirtschaftsnachrichten GmbH, in which dpa holds a 76% stake, managed to maintain its sales level of 5.0 million euros in the past year despite a difficult market environment and to increase the previous year’s profit by 0.1 million euros to 0.8 million euros.

mecom Medien-Communikations-Gesellschaft mbH (50% direct dpa shareholding and 10% indirect shareholding) was once again able to achieve sales well above the long-term average, particularly due to the project business in the growth area of protected networks. However, it was not only the project revenues that increased, but also the more sustainable operating income. mecom achieved a net profit for the year of over 1.8 million euros, only just below the previous year’s figure of 1.9 million euros.

The two investments in Switzerland, awp Finanznachrichten AG (50% dpa shareholding) and news aktuell (Schweiz) AG (100% stake in news aktuell GmbH), again performed very positively in 2023.v.

awp Finanznachrichten AG again developed very positively in 2023. ­Although the changes observed in the Swiss financial sector were noticeable, the company once again managed to close the year with a small increase in revenue and a profit of 1.8 million Swiss francs, on a par with the previous year.

In contrast, news aktuell (Schweiz) AG suffered a small decline in sales and was therefore unable to maintain the previous year’s result. Following 0.7 million Swiss francs last year, the net profit for 2023 only amounted to 0.5 million Swiss francs.