Financial situation

Net financial debt

* Mostly bonds, bank borrowings, EUROFIMA loans and commercial paper.

In total, Federal loans decreased by € 844 million to € 2,092 million (as of December 31, 2010: € 2,936 million). Using IFRS as a basis for calculation, the present value of interest-free Federal loans fell by € 679 million to € 1,927 million (as of December 31, 2010: € 2,606 million). In this respect, the early repayment of interest-free loans from the Federal Government2 particularly helped to reduced this value. In the year under review, interest-bearing loans from the Federal Government in the amount of € 165 million were also repaid.

The liabilities from finance leases declined in the year under review due to the continued repayment in installments.

Within the scope of capital market activities, nine bonds with a total volume of € 2.1 billion were issued in the year under review, while five bonds with an equivalent value of € 1.4 billion were redeemed. Due to the refinancing of interest-free loans that were repaid early, there was a shift in financial debt from Federal loans to bonds.

Financial debt fell by € 202 million to € 18,351 million in the year under review. The decline was a result of the continued positive cash flow from operating activities that significantly exceeded the cash outflow from investment activities. However, the first-time dividend payment in the amount of € 500 million had a dampening effect in the year under review.

As of December 31, 2011, cash and cash equivalents and receivables from financing had increased by € 145 million to € 1,759 million. Accordingly, at € 347 million, net financial debt had a sharper decline than financial debt, at € 202 million.

The structure of financial debt securities was almost unchanged as at December 31, 2011. There was a slight shift to long-term financial debt, as its share of financial debt increased from 88 % to 89 %.

The composition of financial debt has changed as of December 31, 2011, due to the early repayment of interest-free loans and consisted primarily of bonds at 69 % (as of December 31, 2010: 64 %) and Federal loans at 11 % (as of December 31, 2010: 16 %).

As at December 31, 2011, 75.2 % of our outstanding bonds were fixed-interest euro-denominated issues, 23.1 % were fixed-interest bonds denominated in a foreign currency, 1.2 % were variable bonds denominated in a foreign currency, and 0.5 % were variable euro-denominated issues. To avoid exchange rate risks, we entered into interest rate/currency swaps with identical maturities for each transaction.

Last modified: 16.05.2012