During the period under review it can be seen that ~ “we have put to work” the cash we gained, as follows:
- RON 7.9 million placed in investments:
- RON 4.9 million acquisitions of participating interests (goodwill)
- RON 1 million acquisition of assets (IT equipment and platforms)
- RON 1.8 million – acquisitions of “mark to market” holdings
- Investments generated cash inflows of RON 4.3 million:
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- RON 3.6 million sales of financial assets
- RON 0.7 million interest and dividend income from the companies in which we invested
- Thus, the net cash invested in investment activities is RON 3.7 million in these 9 months.
- The financing activity was approximately cashflow neutral:
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- We attracted capital of RON 10.4 million
- We repaid bank loans and bonds in the amount of RON 6 million (thus reducing our indebtedness)
- We paid interest and leasing instalments (including rents) of RON 3.5 million
- The most important element – operational activity generated a cash “outflow” of RON 9.4 million, influenced by the following conjunctural elements:
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- The semiconductor crisis generates not only longer delivery times for goods to be purchased from distributors, but also a preference of distributors to confirm orders to partners who can pay on shorter payment terms. In this situation, our strong financial position has been of real advantage, as we can use some of our cash to finance purchases to increase deliveries.
- In line with our strategy of offering integrated services, we have carried out several projects that have allowed some very solid customers to pay in instalments over an atypical period for the delivery of IT solutions. In this way we increased the average gross margin of these projects by about 5 percentage points (25-30%), which could not have been achieved if we did not have the cash available to advance to suppliers.
- Part of the item “trade and other payables” refers to M&A transactions related to IT Prepared and Nenos (RON 4.7 million). These amounts are taken into account in the cashflow valuation, but will not be subsequently disbursed as cash – but by conversion into shares.
- In October we collected receivables of about RON 5 million, which significantly changes the operational cash flow overview.