Meyer Burger entirely rejects reproach by SIX Exchange Regulation regarding application of Swiss GAAP FER rules in the financial statements for fiscal year 2016 and first half-year 2017 Mittwoch, 13. Juni 2018 - 07:21

SIX Ex­change Reg­u­la­tion pub­lished a press re­lease today, an­nounc­ing that it has filed a pe­ti­tion with the sanc­tion com­mis­sion against Meyer Burger Tech­nol­ogy Ltd (SIX Swiss Ex­change: MBTN) re­gard­ing the ap­pli­ca­tion and in­ter­pre­ta­tion of Swiss GAAP FER ac­count­ing rules in con­junc­tion with the dis­con­tin­u­a­tion of ac­tiv­i­ties at DMT (Di­a­mond Ma­te­ri­als Tech, Inc.) and the treat­ment of pur­chases in its own 5% Meyer Burger straight bond.

Meyer Burger re­jects the re­proach by SIX Ex­change Reg­u­la­tion in its en­tirety.

The Com­pany pre­pared the fi­nan­cial state­ments for fis­cal year 2016 as well as for the first half-year 2017 in ac­cor­dance with the ac­count­ing stan­dards of Swiss GAAP FER. Swiss GAAP FER is a stan­dard based on prin­ci­ples that re­quests case-re­lated in­ter­pre­ta­tions, ac­count­ing and dis­clo­sures in ac­cor­dance with the Swiss GAAP FER frame­work, if Swiss GAAP FER does not ex­plic­itly and ul­ti­mately gov­ern a par­tic­u­lar ques­tion.

The pro­ce­dure and dis­cre­tionary de­ci­sions that Meyer Burger ap­plied in its fis­cal year 2016 and half-year 2017 fi­nan­cial state­ments con­cern­ing the recog­ni­tion and pre­sen­ta­tion of the events men­tioned below were all ap­plied ac­cord­ing to the frame­work con­cept of Swiss GAAP FER and closely mon­i­tored and au­dited by the com­pany’s au­di­tors Price­wa­ter­house­C­oop­ers Ltd. An ad­di­tional in­ter­na­tion­ally rec­og­nized audit firm con­firmed the ap­proach and dis­cre­tionary de­ci­sions taken by Meyer Burger as jus­ti­fi­able and in com­pli­ance with Swiss GAAP FER.

Dis­con­tin­u­a­tion of ac­tiv­i­ties / clo­sure of DMT in the fis­cal year 2016 con­sol­i­dated fi­nan­cial state­ments: Meyer Burger de­cided in its con­sol­i­dated fi­nan­cial state­ments 2016 to value the as­sets as well as li­a­bil­i­ties and eq­uity of DMT as at 31 De­cem­ber 2016 at resid­ual val­ues, as a con­tin­u­a­tion of DMT was no longer planned. As re­quested by the Swiss GAAP FER frame­work con­cept, the val­u­a­tion at resid­ual value was trans­par­ently dis­closed and ex­plained in the notes to the fi­nan­cial state­ments. The ef­fects of the changes from the val­u­a­tions at going con­cern to resid­ual value were recorded in the ex­tra­or­di­nary re­sult (CHF -11.9 mil­lion). In Meyer Burger’s view, the clo­sure of DMT un­doubt­edly had ex­tra­or­di­nary char­ac­ter in the mean­ing of Swiss GAAP FER 3/22 too. Ac­cord­ingly, the com­pany used the pos­si­bil­i­ties under Swiss GAAP FER to record charges and earn­ings for the DMT case in the ex­tra­or­di­nary re­sult.

Pur­chases and hold­ings of the own 5% straight bond in the fis­cal year 2016 con­sol­i­dated fi­nan­cial state­ments: These bonds (CHF 3.1 mil­lion) were con­sid­ered as se­cu­ri­ties in­vest­ments, both in the bal­ance sheet as well as in the cash flow state­ment (trans­par­ent gross pre­sen­ta­tion). The bonds con­formed to the cri­te­ria of an asset as listed in Swiss GAAP FER frame­work con­cept/15. Meyer Burger had pur­chased its own bonds in order to re­duce in­ter­est ex­penses and to avoid pay­ment of neg­a­tive in­ter­est on bank ac­count bal­ances. By pur­chas­ing these bonds, the com­pany there­fore made use of po­ten­tial fu­ture sav­ings. Swiss GAAP FER ac­count­ing stan­dards gov­ern the treat­ment of pur­chased own shares (trea­sury shares), but not the pur­chase of own bonds. As a re­sult, a com­pany ap­ply­ing Swiss GAAP FER is re­spon­si­ble it­self for in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the ex­ist­ing stan­dards and the ap­pli­ca­tion of cir­cum­stances that are not gov­erned by the ac­count­ing stan­dards. For the bal­ance sheet, the ma­tu­rity of the bonds was con­sid­ered. As the straight bonds ma­tured in May 2017, Meyer Burger had recorded the own bonds held within cur­rent as­sets (se­cu­ri­ties). The logic and con­sis­tent clas­si­fi­ca­tion in the cash flow state­ment was to record the pur­chase of these bonds as in­vest­ments in se­cu­ri­ties (within cash flow from in­vest­ing ac­tiv­i­ties).

Half-year 2017 con­sol­i­dated fi­nan­cial state­ments: The pre­sen­ta­tion of the con­se­quences from the re­struc­tur­ing / clo­sure of DMT in the con­sol­i­dated in­come state­ment of the half-year 2017 fi­nan­cial state­ments (CHF -0.6 mil­lion) as well as the trans­par­ent gross pre­sen­ta­tion of the pur­chases of the own bonds dur­ing the first half-year 2017 in the cash flow state­ment (in­vest­ments CHF 15.1 mil­lion; sale CHF 18.1 mil­lion) both fol­lowed the logic of the re­spec­tive treat­ment of these po­si­tions in the fis­cal year 2016 fi­nan­cial state­ments. A dif­fer­ent treat­ment in the half-year 2017 fi­nan­cial state­ments com­pared to the fis­cal year 2016 fi­nan­cial state­ments would have vi­o­lated the prin­ci­ple of con­sis­tency.

Meyer Burger is con­vinced that it has fol­lowed Swiss GAAP FER ac­count­ing stan­dards and the frame­work con­cept. The fis­cal year 2016 fi­nan­cial state­ments as well as the half-year 2017 fi­nan­cial state­ments fully re­flect the true & fair view prin­ci­ple.       

Con­tacts

Michel Hirschi

Chief Fi­nan­cial Of­fi­cer

Phone: +41 (0)33 221 28 00

ir@​meyerburger.​com

In­grid Carstensen

Head of Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions

Phone: +41 (0)33 221 28 34

in­grid.​carstensen@​meyerburger.​com