Net operating cash flow was €265 million for the 2015 first quarter, compared to net operating cash flow of €182 million in the year-ago quarter. The growth in net operating cash flow benefited from an increase in working capital in the current quarter.
At March 31, 2015, the Company’s net financial position increased to €1.15 billion, compared to €825.5 million at December 31, 2014. Cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments increased to €1.50 billion and long-term debt was €350.0 million, compared to €1.18 billion, and €350.0 million, respectively, at December 31, 2014.
Cash Dividend Recommendation, Annual Shareholders’ Meeting Date and Filing of Regulatory Annual Report
The Board of Directors has scheduled the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting for May 28, 2015 and is recommending a dividend per share equivalent to €0.43 per share for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2014, representing an increase of approximately 4% compared to the prior year. In addition, as in recent years, it will also be proposed that each shareholder be granted the option to choose to receive payment of the dividend in cash or new shares. Shareholders may choose payment of the dividend in cash or new shares between June 3, 2015 and June 16, 2015, inclusive. Shares will trade ex-dividend as of June 3, 2015, with the ex-dividend date June 3, 2015. Dividends will be made payable as from June 25, 2015.
These recommendations are subject to approval by shareholders at the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting. For further information, see the Company’s 2014 Document de Référence filed with the French Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) on March 24, 2015. The 2014 Document de Référence and an English language translation of this document are available on the Company’s website.
Summary of Recent Business, Technology and Customer Highlights
In early March, the Company announced the general availability of Release 2015x of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, offering a simplified and improved user experience with powerful enhancements that significantly increase productivity on premise as well as on public or private cloud. In addition, R2015x introduces groupings of applications called ‘roles’, designed to cover a broader set of activities users need to accomplish in industry-specific domains. In R2015x, there are 219 roles on premise, 115 roles on public and private cloud. Importantly, R2015X continues the Company’s focus on further advancing ease of interface enabling V5 customers to benefit from their existing deployments while also taking advantage of V6 applications, as well as powerful openness and coexistence capabilities for a heterogeneous environment with a user’s suppliers and other software.
Dassault Systèmes acquires Modelon GmbH, a new milestone to achieve Ready-to-Experience mechatronics systems. With this transaction, Dassault Systèmes reinforces its portfolio of industry-leading content, applications and services. Modelon GmbH’s proprietary, multi-physics modular and reusable content—based on the Modelica open standard modeling language—brings industries beyond digital mock up to deliver functional mock up, transforming the engineering and experimentation of connected vehicles. From electric power storage to electric power distribution, its portfolio delivers a unified picture of complex product subsystem interaction and performance. This accelerates virtual product development and ensures the relevance and quality of Transportation and Mobility industry projects.
El Corte Inglés, a world leader in large department stores, has selected Dassault Systèmes “My Collection for Fashion” industry solution experience to accelerate time-to-market of its private-label fashion collections. Dassault Systèmes’ “My Collection for Fashion” industry solution experience applies collaborative innovation to product development and the consumer experience in order to enhance a brand’s identity. Brand retailers can rely on applications that encompass global sourcing and global collaboration, consumer-led design, virtual prototyping, virtual stores and channels, integrated merchandise assortment planning, product development and social analytics.
Business Outlook
Thibault de Tersant, Senior Executive Vice President, CFO, commented, “All in all, we delivered a strong first quarter with organic software revenue growth increasing to 9% in constant currencies. These results well illustrate and support our 2015 financial objectives.
“Importantly, our first quarter performance underscores the value brought by our multiple growth engines. During the quarter revenue was driven by a diverse set of industries, including Transportation & Mobility, Industrial Equipment and Marine & Offshore in our core industries, well complemented by increased activity in Life Sciences, CPG and Energy, Process & Utilities. We benefited from strong growth for SOLIDWORKS and SIMULIA. And our revenue results also demonstrate that our acquisitions, most notably BIOVIA and QUINTIQ, are delivering on plan.
“Looking forward, we are confirming our 2015 full year financial objectives and updating them for currency. In total we see a year of organic, double-digit new licenses revenue growth, improvement in our underlying operating margin of about 100 basis points, leading to a non-IFRS operating margin of about 30% and earnings per share growth of about 15% to 17%.”
The Company’s second quarter and full year 2015 financial objectives are
as follows:
