CENIT Aktiengesellschaft (CSH) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. And I warmly welcome you to today's earnings call of the CENIT AG following the publication of the Q3 figures of 2024. With me today is CEO Peter Schneck and CFO Axel Otto, so the gentlemen will speak shortly and guide us through the presentation and the results. And after the presentation, you can ask your questions directly to them if you may have. So having said this, Mr. Schneck, I hand over to you.

Yes. Thank you very much. And a very warm welcome and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. And thank you very much for participating in today's CENIT earnings call for the Q3 2024. As you all know, I have to refer to our ad hoc message that we launched last week, Thursday, where we increased our guidance on revenue but also had to reduce our EBIT forecast for this year. I will come to this later on and maybe also explain a little bit the ratio of this. As usual, I would like to run you through the Q3 figures and, of course, the year-to-date figures so that you have a pretty good view and maybe also some explanations on those figures. And then at the end of this session, I would like to leave enough room for any questions, where Axel and myself will respond to all your questions. So starting with our financial figures Q3 2024. We have a kind of mixed messages. As you might have seen, we have increased our revenue by 13.6% year-to-date from EUR 133 million to EUR 151.4 million. So not as a secret, of course, one major reason for this increase is related to the acquisitions that we have done this year. There was the Analysis Prime in the United States which we acquired in August of this year; and already by the beginning of this year, CCE, which is fully included now already for this year. And this is why we have a major portion of this increase in revenues, due to these acquisitions, but there's also, of course, an organic growth of our team. So what we can, as of today, provide is we're at 4.3% organic growth, which is a net figure. That's why I mentioned here on the slide, "Despite the churn in licenses." And what do I mean by this? We are facing the situation that, of course, we have customers that are quite under pressure, cost pressure, but in some cases also facing Chapter 11 situations. So we have, just in Q3, faced 12 bankruptcies/Chapter 11 situations, which was the highest number that we ever faced in a quarter. Honestly speaking, I don't recall any year where we had that many Chapter 11 situations. And the result out of this is, of course, that those customers that are coming in this situation, they want to cut costs. And for this, they have the opportunity to pause licenses, which means we have an immediate effect in not receiving sales or licenses fees anymore. Or they even reduce the number of users, which they can under the current contracts. And this is, of course, a situation that we faced, so our growth of the sales team, if you want to say so, is slightly above [ the ] 5%, but if we net this with the churn that we have at the same time, we end up with this 4.3% organic growth figure as the net figure. So that you just understand why I'm referring to this one. Then as, of course, mentioned, we have the inorganic growth that is included in those revenue figures, as I mentioned, CCE and Analysis Prime, but of course, also we have now the full year figures of ABC and PII. As you recall, in 2023, they were only part beginning of August of last year, and July, the other companies. So this is the situation we're facing here. A very positive message is the ALC. So the annual licenses growth, we have a 10% in the same period compared to last year, which is of course not related to acquisitions. This is real growth of our organic team. And then we have a YLC growth of 18%, which is also, I think, a pretty good number and shows that we are doing a good sales job on this side. So overall, the recurring sales increased by about 12%, which was of course related to the fact that we have more and more customers switching from the PLC licenses to now the SaaS model. And this, of course, down the road will also allow us to avoid the hockey stick situation that we have, as you all know, typically in Q3 but especially in Q4 so that we can plan much better and then have a much -- a more accurate situation. Now if you look at the EBITDA, you can see that there's also an increase of 9.9% from EUR 9.4 million to EUR 10.4 million. I think this is also impressive. And of course, this number is biased also by the M&A costs that we had for CCE and for Analysis Prime which resulted in EUR 1.1 million. As I mentioned, I think, already in the last call, reason for this high number is the onetime fee that we had to pay to a partner in the United States to identify and to find Analysis Prime but, of course, also related to the increased legal costs. Typically that's what I always say, is we plan 100,000 for an acquisition in Germany, but of course, here in the U.S. this was much higher due to this legal impact, consultants and then the onetime fee. So this is biasing our EBITDA otherwise. And you will see this then with the adjustments. It would have been better. And then of course, this applies also to the EBIT figure, as you can see here. And this is, of course, the major reason why we have this drop of 13.8% from EUR 4.6 million in 2023, down to close to EUR 4 million, so EUR 3.97 million, that we have, that we are showing in those figures. These are not adjusted. These are the real figures. Now coming to the adjustments so that you get a better understanding. And when you look at those figures, please bear in mind this is a comparison of adjustment versus adjustment, so -- and I will explain this especially on the EBIT figure because what you see here is, with the adjustments, we have on the EBITDA side an increase of 26%, which is I think a very positive message. And the same applies to the EBIT, which is an increase of 18.2%, adjustment versus adjustment. So what are the reasons for those adjustments? And where are we coming from? In 2023, as you'll all recall, we had EUR 871,000 positive impact due to CENIT Japan that we adjusted now in this figure. So this was a onetime effect due to the sale of CENIT Japan. And of course, what we deducted is the EUR 0.2 million positive M&A effects that we had last year, so if you calculate this then together -- so it's -- that's the closely EUR 900,000 minus the EUR 200,000, so there's a EUR 700,000 difference. Then what we have this year as a onetime M&A cost, as I just mentioned, is the EUR 1.1 million that are, of course, affecting us now in these Q3 figures. And what we have done is we deducted from this figure because it would be then otherwise close or higher than 5 million, but we deducted about EUR 400,000 for the research allowance called in German forschungszulage. Because we just said that this is not the real operational performance. So when we adjust this, we also have to do this negative adjustment. And that's why we really have here like-for-like a comparison. And there you see this very positive situation of the 18.2% in EBIT increase. Now you will, of course, come up and say, "Well, why did you send out an ad hoc message? You have kind of positive figures." Yes, but we also know that the last quarter is always the one where we have to -- the big jump or we have to catch up. And from the current figures, as you can see here, even the adjusted figure to the EUR 12.2 million, that we had a maximum in our guidance as an EBIT forecast for this year. This is quite a jump. And honestly, with the current economic situation that we see, there is no chance that we will get to this level. So we are facing a situation that, major customers that have framework agreements with us, especially in the aviation industry, they have announced that they will not -- although that there's a contractual obligation, that they will not fully use our services, which for us will be a 1.6 million EBIT impact in this year. So basically in the last quarter, where they will not provide our -- or not ask for our services. And then we have, of course, another big airplane or aviation provider, as you know, that is under strike, where there is no services going on at all. The same applies to the automotive industry. In the automotive industry, we are facing the situation. As I mentioned before, we have mainly automotive situations like these 12 insolvencies. 1 of them is, for example, BBS, the one that is providing tires. That is falling out for this year. We have to replace this. And we see also with other customers that are in a situation that they will not take decisions this year. So companies like Volkswagen, Porsche and others that are our customers, [ MAN ]. They have reduced services that they are getting from us, but we don't expect them to take a decision this year, so on our Q4 expectation, there is very little or, I would even say, no chance that we will get to this EUR 12 million. And that's why we have adjusted it to the figures that we can see today and that we are very confident that we will achieve them. Now when we come to the Q3 figures, again just to give you an idea on just Q3 now. We have an increase in sales of 13.6%. The EBITDA went up by 23.9%; and then of course, the adjustment. And then we had an EBIT basically almost the same. You see, of course, also that there's an EPS in -- that is lower just in this quarter. And when you see the full year, it will be even more drastic, which is then close to 61% in EPS decrease. And I will explain it [ on this side ]. What you see on the revenues, I think, very likely is the third-party software. We have an increase, this is mainly of course everything around Dassault, of 9.1% compared to last year, but bear in mind that we also have the acquisition of CCE that falls into this one. And then of course, we have a major increase in consulting and services, which was also related to the fact that we have now Analysis Prime that is falling in this segment. Now if we come, and I think this is more interesting, to the total year-to-year figures that we are at this point, we can see that we have 13.6%, as we just mentioned, in revenues and sales. And the gross profit went up by 12.5%, which is nice [ and likely ], but for our plan, this is ways too short. So we are expecting that we will -- versus our plan that would result into this EUR 12.2 million EBIT, that we will run short in the area of about EUR 6 million to EUR 8 million just in gross profit, which means this is basically EBIT, so -- with a small deduction. And we have to recover this. And fortunately, we have done major savings already in our organization by the organizational changes that I announced. So this will be definitely in the area of EUR 5 million-plus on savings, which will help us to cover this, but of course, we cannot fully cover this. And this is basically the gap to our new EBIT forecast as we announced this one. And then of course, you see also the -- as I mentioned before, the EPS in cents. That is going down by 61%. And main reason for this is we have 900,000 more bank interest. You will see this also in our quarterly reporting that is a little bit more extended. So where this is coming from. And then of course, some impacts from the minority rights of ISR; ABC; and now especially, of course, ABC that was -- Analysis Prime, sorry, that was not included before. So all of this results into this major decrease in EPS and, of course, then also in the dividend drop as you can see in this one. What is very positive to mention. On the bottom line of the slide, you see that the order backlog went up by 44.7%. And of course, there's Analysis Prime in there, which is a major portion of this. There is also CCE in there, but there are unfortunately also delays in our services. So we cannot provide the services. As I mentioned before, we have customers that are on strike, where we cannot deliver our services that we would have loved to do this year and then, of course, to show this in our revenues and, finally, EBIT figures. So this is increasing also our order backlog, as you can see here. And then there's a slight effect also: We have introduced a new system where we can much faster and easily, basically, see the orders incoming also on our subsidiaries. So this is a slight impact in this one, but I think this will level out over the year, anyhow. So due to the fact that we have Analysis Prime and, on top, also the situation with some delays, I expect this order backlog even to go up by the end of the year. And you will see this increase in order backlog also percentage-wise, but again this is a mixture of positive and then, of course, negative effects like the delays. Now if we go on the right side of this slide, what you see is there is an increase in the goodwill of about EUR 6 million, which is of course related to the acquisitions that we have done this year. And what you also see is that we have slightly reduced our bank loans. And this is now, of course, something that is, during the year, the equity ratio went up to 32%, but the comparison figure that you see here is, of course, the one by the end of the year, so please bear this in mind. Then looking at the operative cash flow, we have an improvement here by EUR 1.4 million. We have an higher CapEx. And again we as CENIT don't really have CapEx in the understanding of normal CapEx because we're not doing major investments in any infrastructures. This is basically the investments in acquisitions, so this is, of course, Analysis Prime and CCE that is reflected in those figures. And that's why you see also this increase in here that is, of course, due to the major acquisition in United States with Analysis Prime. And as a result, the free cash flow went down to minus EUR 5.2 million. Now if we look at the sales by revenue type, you can see an increase in consulting and services. This is, of course, organic growth, but the main portion of this is the consolidation of Analysis Prime since April -- sorry, since August 2024. Then you see a nice increase in the CENIT software, so our proprietary software, by 17.5% from EUR 11.6 million to EUR 13.6 million. And here I have to mention, of course, the SAP portion. So our own proprietary software that we're using to connect with PLM solutions and the SAP world. Then some EIM effects, which is our documentation department, but I think the main portion here is, for the first time -- because they're quite well recovering and had quite some success also in this Q3, is the Digital Factory Solutions. As you recall, that's basically communication platform for the different bots, where we had some very nice deals done in this Q3 and which also shows that this team is recovering. They were, for quite a while, negative. And I mentioned this also: We have done some restructuring in this team. We have a new team lead in this organization. And we are now in a situation that we will end up, by the end of this year, in an area of about 400,000 to 500,000 positive EBIT compared to the last year's negative impact of this entity. So there, we are, I think, heading into the right direction. And then of course, the third-party software. There's an increase of 12%. Please bear in mind again there is organic growth included. There is SAP included in some portions because ABC is also selling now some SAP licenses. And then of course, this is Dassault software that is included in this portion. Now if we look into the segments, you see an increase of EIM of 5.5%. This is basically organic only. And then you see on the PLM side an increase of 15.8%. This is, small portion, organic growth but, of course, CCE and Analysis Prime that is falling into this division. And then of course also, in our world, PLM includes, at least this segmentation, also the SAP area. That is running quite well and at the moment also slightly above our internal plans. So the one that is below our internal plan is the Dassault software. And as you know, Dassault has also had some warnings this year. And I think they were a little over-optimistic, let's say this way, in their forecast, but an impact is, of course, also what we're seeing now and which might also impact Dassault then down the road much further. All the partners as well as we CENIT, we are facing an economic situation where we, at the moment, are faced with a market that is reluctant in taking decisions, although that we still think that this is the way forward, to cut costs and to go into the right direction. But companies like Volkswagen and others are, at the moment, not taking those decisions. They are more likely resolving internal issues before they go for the next step, where we expect also orders in this environment. Now to provide you, at the end of this presentation, just some customer highlights that we had this year. So far in Q3, just in Q3, we have introduced at hansgrohe, which is, as you all know, a kind of bathroom provider and manufacturer that is based in Germany. We have introduced the new 3DX platform, with some new roles. So roles, what this means is there are new functions in the organization for different team members. And those team members now can collaborate much, much faster in all their different production plants and, of course, develop new products, so which is a major advantage for hansgrohe; will result in more competitive products, reduce their costs and be much faster in providing new solutions to the market. Then we have in the aerospace industry. Outside of the well-known and larger ones, we also have one complete new customer who's running now into some new cloud services with its current CATIA V5. So they still have to do the switch into the 3DEXPERIENCE, which is the cloud solution. And we're providing them, of course, also those services down the road, but the major order that we got from this aerospace company is basically just structuring and sorting out their existing CATIA 5 world to enable them to use this in a much more scalable way; and then down the road, to do the transition into 3DEXPERIENCE, which is at the moment not part of our order. So there's quite a good potential. And then we have won a very nice customer in the area of high-frequency technology, if you want to say so. So in the fiber optic environment, where this customer basically is connecting his SAP system into his production world. They don't have Dassault solution today, but they have -- well, we are providing them a solution where we're basically helping them with their current SAP system to use, by our own software, certain functions that bring them on their way to the design world, let's say this way. And hopefully, we can turn this customer then also down the road into the CATIA/3DEXPERIENCE Dassault solution. So these are the 3 major highlights that I would like to mention. And now I would say I leave it up for any kind of questions so that you still have enough room [ to find out about our last forecast ]. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your presentation and the dive into your numbers and the highlights. So we will now move over to our Q&A session. [Operator Instructions]

And we already received the first virtual hand by Cosmin Filker.

Can you hear me?

Yes, I can hear you.

Very good. Just a few questions regarding the future development of the company. And I mean everybody knows the economic environment now is very difficult.

Yes.

And you already mentioned it in your ad hoc news last week, but what makes you confident that the environment and the investment environment will be better in the coming year? And also is it fair to expect a revenue increase besides the inorganic effect of prime analysis (sic) [ Analysis Prime ] for the next year?

Well, to my opinion, yes, Mr. Filker, but of course, we are always talking about the crystal ball. But what I can say is, if I look at the major drops that we have now -- and as we all know, we have major aviation companies that we're working with and that also sent out warnings. And if I just stay in the aviation industry: Airbus is not facing the situation that they do not have enough orders. They are facing the situation that they don't have enough turbines which are provided by the airlines. And without those turbines, the airlines cannot do the acceptance testing for the planes. So there's no handover, which means the production and all the parkings for the planes are full at the moment. And this slows down our services because we are basically -- I always bring it down to an easy way and saying we are paid by planes. So the more planes Airbus is producing and delivering, the better it is for -- now the situation is we have this delay because of the worldwide shortage of turbines. So there are only 3 providers in the market, and all of them have problems with parts. And this is something that has to be resolved and will be resolved down the road so that the drop that we have now will go up again. So it's basically a delay that we are facing that is impacting us in this year. And like I said, this is a EUR 1.6 million EBIT impact for us this year, which I -- since we are providing services, I cannot catch up anymore by doing faster service by the end of the year or anything. And by the way, I don't expect that, up until the end of the year, this shortage of turbines is resolved. On the other hand, they have more than 12,000 planes in the order book. So it's very likely that this will result in increases of production. And of course, they want to catch up, so in this situation, we will be there and we will be again -- provide our services and even in an increased number. The same applies to Boeing. Boeing is an existing customer of ours. They are on strike, so there is basically nothing happening. This is a situation that we're in. This strike, as I understand, is on the way for the resolution and will be resolved. I hope, after the election, that there will be a certain decision and then it will go forward, but this is not a permanent situation. In this case, we expect that Boeing will -- besides their tolerance management, also invests into new planes and new systems, which will be an opportunity for us that we are facing. Now if I switch to the automotive industry. We are facing the situation that some of the suppliers are heavily under pressure, as you just heard. Some of the suppliers are investing because they see that, if they want to stay in Germany, the only way they can do this is by cutting costs. And this means they have to digitalize. This is the situation that we're facing. The same applies to the big OEMs. BMW has taken the decision, by the beginning of this year, to switch into the 3DEXPERIENCE world. They have slowed down in the process, so of course, this is affecting us also because of the current situation. If you look at Volkswagen, they have to take a decision on how they want to improve their performance in the German production sites or at least the ones that are not closing. And also this means they will have to take a decision and an investment into the future, means the digitalization. So the market is ready for us. There's a reluctancy. And there's the challenge that the companies don't have the money at the moment. They have to find ways how they fund this, but if they don't do this, there's -- honestly, there's no big future for them in Germany. So with the production costs that we are facing, you have to take a decision whether you stay in Germany. Then you have to digitalize. Or you leave Germany then you have to migrate your data, which also means that you will work with CENIT and then maybe in a different country. So that's why I'm very positive about the future. I'm not too positive, of course, but I see that there will be investments. And honestly, I think Germany is facing now the situation and the result of not doing the digitalization of their production world in the past. And this is something that we have to catch up. The industry has to catch up. And if they don't do this, we will face more critical situations.

Okay, got it. What does this mean in respect to your CENIT 2025, especially also regarding the EBIT margin? I mean you already wrote something about internal measures to cut the costs. Will this contribute for the -- for reaching the plans within CENIT 2025?

Well, let's say it this way. At the moment, there are 2 portions of this CENIT 2025. There is one that is revenue. That's EUR 300 million. We will, next year, end up in an area, without acquisitions, of EUR 240 million, something in this area. And again this is not a guidance. This is at the moment a kind of estimation that I'm looking at. And we will not do major acquisitions next year because of the current situation and, of course, also the interests that we are facing. And you've seen this also, a portion in our results. So we might not hit the EUR 300 million. And we might end up in this EUR 240 million, EUR 250 million maybe, with a small acquisition. On the EBIT side, we are doing a lot of internal changes in organizations. We are still planning, but again this is not a guidance because we are now in the budgeting process for next year. But we are still planning at least to be at the lower end of our 8% to 10% EBIT forecast that we had foreseen. And this is still something that we're fighting for. This will be very tough given the current situation and the starting point, but we haven't dropped our plan yet and we will do our best to get to this figure. And again due to our changes that we have done already, we have an at least EUR 4 million. I expect this even to be higher, OpEx savings this year compared to last year. So if you would have not had this drop of gross profit, it would even look better than what we had forecasted, but this is, of course, if when the situation is different. It is what it is and now we have to work on this one, but we will adjust our cost level. And given the situation that maybe also in the aviation industry -- I don't know how long they will face the situation, but we will use all kind of tools that are out there in the market, including shortage work and all these kind of opportunities, to reduce our costs. This is definitely what we have to do. If we don't have the workload for the team, then it's, I think, a clear mathematical consequence, what we have to do. And this is, of course, cutting our costs means maybe also cutting team members in different areas.

And just one last question. What is the environment for Analysis Prime? I mean they are in the U.S.A. Are they facing the same problems that we are facing here in Europe? The last time, you expected sales of EUR 11.5 million for the -- for 5 months in 2024.

Yes, yes. So first part of your question is they are not facing the same problems as we have here. They are facing a very positive market that is investing. As you've seen also, there is a portion that goes into our order backlog now and which is also mainly driven by Analysis Prime, so they have full order books. Now what they have is -- and they're facing a slightly different problem is due to the election that is happening today. They already faced in the last 2 months, I would say, a very good order entry but not the start of the projects. So a lot of those projects are delayed. And we had planned for this year, as a full figure, USD 24.8 million in revenue, and then of course, 1/5 of this to our revenues. And at the moment, what we see is that they will have a delay of about 5 million, 6 million. So the order backlog is basically 7 million that they are pushing now already into next year. And they will end up this year in the area of 20 million, so they're running 5 million shorter than what they had originally planned. That was also part of our case. The positive impact for us is that there's no earnout based on those figures. The negative impact is -- and this is also what you see by this additional adjustment that we have done with the 1 million that we basically cannot cover. So my original plan was that, by their EBIT contribution, we would cover the M&A costs. This will not happen. That's why we dropped down from -- that's why I was also showing in the ad hoc message this operative result and then the drop down of 1 million to this EUR 8 million to EUR 8.5 million EBIT. And it is basically they cannot cover these costs as we have expected, so we have these costs. Their contribution to EBIT is a very little one. And the nice part is that, of course, for next year, they already have a pretty good order book. Overall, I think Analysis Prime is very positive. They have a huge market. And United States is different than here in Europe, much more enthusiastic and also investing into digitalization. We see this. And we see a big opportunity for the gentlemen in the U.S. Though, we also have already customers from Germany requesting this and also SAP pushing us to introduce this technology to the European market, but due to the delay that we have now and the drop in figures, we have slowed down this activity and have said they first have to focus on achieving their plan in the U.S. And once they have done this, then we might, by maybe mid of next year, decide to bring them also then to the European market.

[Operator Instructions] So we have Yannik Siering.

I would have 2 at this point. Maybe first one: Could you provide some color on the guidance cut again? I must say I had assumed that the range is pretty kept, partly due to the contribution of Analysis Prime, which I thought would be like in the "low to mid-single digit million euro" area in terms of EBIT. So yes, basically the question like what exactly has turned so much more negative in the past couple of months, like something that you didn't see in late summer. And then the second one would be on your cost savings potential. Like how much more cost savings potential is there without hurting the top line, also looking into 2025? So that would be it.

Okay. So looking at -- and I think that I mentioned already some figures on Analysis Prime. We're running short 5 million towards the full year plan. Again, full year plan, so please bear in mind that this is only then 1/5 for us for this year, but we're running short there. And then of course, their EBIT contribution is basically 0. So that's why we cannot cover those expenses that we have for the acquisition itself. So that's basically the gap that we're facing here. For next year, we expect them to be in the range as we have planned this one. And this will be in the area of 30 million-plus for the full year. So this is on the revenue side. And on the EBIT side, as you know, I will not mention here any EBIT figures, but we typically buy companies that have at least 10%. And they are better than the 10% EBIT margin, so then you see that we will be in the range of 3 million to 5 million EBIT contribution that we expect from Analysis Prime, U.S. dollars now, to our results for next year. So this was a reason for this drop. And as I mentioned before, Analysis Prime may be too enthusiastic, may be too aggressive. That's why we already included a lower plan that they originally had planned, [ and still this was ] maybe higher. On the other hand, they are facing delay due to the election. So the customers have ordered. And they have now 7 million backlog that we are pushing into basically next year because they will -- as we all know now, the election -- we don't expect that this year there will be a lot of stuff happening anymore in the U.S. Then there's -- for some of you that are familiar with the United States, you know that, once there's the turkey showing up and they have their parties, then the year slows down. And I expect this, especially now with the election, that this is basically happening now, so I don't expect in Q4 a big catch-up. And that's why we're a little negative maybe on our U.S. figures. If I look at the rest. We -- especially with Airbus, we have a current contract, a framework contract. And at the moment, we are facing the situation that, although that we have this contract, the customer is pushing us to reduce certain services, which results then in this 1.6 million impact on our EBIT side. This is just EBIT side. So this is reduced services. There is some opportunities that we typically have. And I mentioned already last time that I'm not very positive that there will be this opportunity of providing additional services and solutions. And this is now clear because they basically have in the last 2 weeks -- as you know also, they had quite some turbulences in the organization. They have announced this and we are facing now the situation, yes. And then the last situation that we're in is there are a lot of customers that are interested in digitalization that want to go this way, but overall due to this economical situation, we sense a certain reluctancy. And that's why I'm saying, other than in the last years, I'm very -- well, it's very difficult for me to believe that we will have a outstanding Q4, with the given situation. If this happens, then we would be proven wrong, but at the moment, I have no indications for this. And this is why I wanted to indicate this as soon as possible and in the moment that I got this feeling that we're heading into this direction. So that's, I think, to your first question, Mr. Siering, the answer. Now to the second question, on the cost savings. We have, so far, cost savings of about EUR 4-plus million OpEx that we expect for this year. This will be next year, of course, then also included and increased because we had a lot of measures that we introduced by beginning of this year that, of course, then only had the impact by mid of the year. This was related to some cost cuttings with certain team members. There were no replacements for people that left the organization. There were some organizational changes that we have done that released some team members to use them maybe in different areas. And to increase our revenues, we stopped certain services for some of our editors that were not really providing us an EBIT figure. And that's why we stopped this one. So this is, I think, also a major portion of this. And then of course, what we also have introduced is, I think, a heavy measurement of utilization rates, where we also have identified team members that are not performing. And we have used them either in different situations. Or we have controlled them better, or we have pushed them to increase their contribution to our organization. And some of them left, so it is what it is. So for next year, I still expect some savings, but of course, as you just said, there are some limitations. We have to make sure that we do not endanger our possibility of achieving and increasing our revenues, but I still think that, an organization that is about 30 years now grown, there are still some areas where we can cut and improve, so we're not at the end. As I said, after the acquisitions that we've done for the first 2 years, 2.5 years that I joined the organization, now we're focusing on improving the organization with some shaking measures, with some improvements that we're doing. And the cost cutting or cost saving is not finished, but we do it intelligently so we're not endangering the revenue increases. We're trying to use our forces in a more intelligent way. Let's call it this way.

So now we will move on with Tim Wunderlich.

I have 3 questions. First of all, could you tell us the contribution of Analysis Prime in Q3? You said, for the full year, you don't expect positive EBIT, so is it correct to assume that also in Q3 you didn't have a positive EBIT contribution from Analysis Prime? That's the first. Then what is the additional PPA burden that you had in Q3? Because evidently D&A increased year-on-year but also when I compare it to Q2. So that would be interesting. And then you said you're not very optimistic for Q4. Now I understand that seasonally Q4 is always the strongest quarter, but nevertheless, to reach the low end of the new guidance, you would need a significant EBIT improvement in Q4 compared to Q3. And could you just give a bit of detail and information what makes you confidence -- what makes you confident that you can achieve this?

Yes, okay. Mr. Wunderlich, your -- coming to your first question. The contribution of Analysis Prime in -- just in Q3 is -- as you basically just said, it was not a positive EBIT contribution. So this was not the case. And then of course, on the revenue side, what you can say is that on a monthly level it's in the area of $1.5 million in revenues that we are facing here at the moment, so...

USD 1.5 million.

U.S. dollars, yes, yes, dollars, yes. And this is also what we expect up until the end of the year, so there will be no changes to this one, but there will -- also no increases. And again like I said, we're running short here 5 million to the plan that we originally had given to Analysis Prime. As I said, the good portion is we don't have to pay an earnout, so they're going to miss it. And this makes this acquisition cheaper for us, but on the contribution side, it's basically affecting our results. Then on the PPA increase, we will -- like always, we will provide, I think, in the coming days -- maybe beginning of next week because we are running short here at the moment because of some vacation/sickness, let's say, of some of our team members. We will provide you with a PPA view like we did also last time. And what you will see is that we have here an increase to what we had forecasted for Analysis Prime in the area of about 400,000 that we have on the PPA side, but this will be then disclosed to you. And then you will see the final figures because we had now the pre PPA. Now we have to adjust this with the new figures, and there is some movement in this area...

And it's -- sorry, Mr. Schneck, for jumping in. It's fair to say that Analysis Prime would have made a positive EBIT contribution without the incremental PPA.

Yes, yes.

Okay.

The original plan was that at least that would cover the EUR 1.1 million M&A expenses, which they are not doing now. And we expected, of course, also assuming that they do 5 million more revenue, that of course there would be a positive contribution on top, which we are not facing now, so which -- basically missing.

[ Understood ].

Then coming to your Q4 EBIT. Yes, I'm very confident that we will achieve the forecasted figures. And I think, yes, there's still some work required for this one, but as you all know, the last year -- the last quarter of the year is our hockey stick. And we had in the past always a pretty good year. And what I can see is that we have enough orders. You see also now the order increase we have. Yes, there are some delays in there, but there are also a lot of potentials that we will achieve and there are still a lot of stuff happening. And you see also that we have increases in our organic growth that we are heading the right way. It's just not, versus our plan, we're a little lower. And if I look at my plan and I say that in my plan we are missing 6 million to 8 million gross profit, I doubt that we can completely catch up this by, on one hand, savings or, on the other hand, by additional license sales in the different segments. And what we can also see is that the PLC sales are affected because more and more people are heading into the SaaS business. We've seen this already last year, where it started, where we for the first time had EIM customers switching from PLC into the SaaS models. And I still see this continuing, so that's why I don't expect this to be an extraordinary outstanding quarter like we maybe had this in 2021, where we overachieved massively. This will not happen. So it will be a very good quarter. We are very confident and we have enough indications for this one, but it will not be an extraordinary one that will cover this miss of gross profit that I see at the moment. And that's why I would say we're very confident to be at the lower end, if you want to say so, so at -- in the area of what we have forecasted, but I don't see us in the area of 11-plus million EBIT as we had originally forecasted. So there's no way that we're going to do it that way.

Yes, understood. Maybe one last question.

Yes.

CENIT is, every year, generating very nice free cash flow. And that is being driven by the recurring fees that you benefit from.

Yes.

And beginning of the year, you get the cash in, yes. Now I'm just wondering when we look towards 2025. The weakness that you're seeing now with the customers, is that endangering your free cash flow strength? Or should we still expect a very nice cash inflow from all of these contracts to happen in Q1?

No. I -- honestly, I don't see that this is endangered. I still see -- and there's -- again there's no indication that it would go contrary. I still expect that we have a nice operating cash flow, yes, also next year. There is a lot of -- I mean don't forget that, those customers, they are using the tools. And unless the total industry and major companies would drop down and cut all their licenses, but -- the reality is, at least in our eyes, they even have to increase license fees and have to digitalize more. So that's why I see it not happening. I see this more likely increasing, so this is there is no problem on the cash flow side.

So we will now move on with the questions from Hannes Mueller.

2 for me. First of all, on the bankruptcies you mentioned. So could you maybe give us an indication of how much revenue we are talking about here? You mentioned 11 bankruptcies in Q3, so maybe you can give us an indication of how much revenue CENIT is missing because of this. I mean maybe also on the timing of this. So was this late Q4 -- Q3, September the customers filed for bankruptcy, so now in Q4 you're missing the revenue? Or did this already hit Q3 performance as well? And then the second topic would be order backlog. So you mentioned some delays and other factors there. How high do you see the risk of canceled orders now within your order backlog? That would be it for me.

Yes. Thank you very much, Mr. Mueller, for your questions. So coming to the first question, regarding the bankruptcies. If I look at the 12 bankruptcies, they happened already in Q3 and affected also Q3. What happened is, in the beginning whenever these bankruptcies are announced, of course, we don't know whether the customer will continue. And it doesn't affect us other than maybe delayed payment times, which is the case with some of those customers that basically just extend their payment terms from 30 to 60 days. Or in some cases, they ask from 60 to 90 days, if they have some special situations. So this is the, I would say, limited problem because it's just cash flow [indiscernible]. What we are then facing is customers that are stopping completely or pausing, if you want to say so, because the incoming lawyers basically review everything and stop it. So if it is not a core solution where they need our, in this case mainly, Dassault systems, then they can pause them. Or they can cut them completely. So if they, for example, cut the number of engineers from 100 to 60, then of course, they cut 40 places and 40 users. And this affects us immediately once they cut it. And they can, depending on what kind of contracts they have. It's either by the end of the quarter or by the end of a month. And this is a situation we faced already. This was in Q3. At the moment, I don't -- I mean it will continue in Q4, yes. I also have the hope that some of those customers will go back, in Q4, to reuse the licenses. Because in some cases those lawyers just review the situation and then understand that's basically core for their production. With customers like BBS, the tire producer, as far as I understand, they are going really into bankruptcy and basically will close the company, so in this case, of course, there is no catch-up. If they come back, of course, this would be great. If they're acquired by any other company, they need our solution. So that's the good portion of this, but if they really go south, then they're gone. So I don't expect additional licenses that are -- quit in Q4 unless there are other companies going into bankruptcy, but at the moment, I just have these 12 that I'm aware of. And they affected us already in Q4 -- in Q3 and will continue mainly also in Q4 with the situation. Now your -- sorry.

How high would you say the impact has been? And has this been a factor as well for reducing the EBIT guidance?

Yes, yes, yes, of course, of course. Now on the EBIT guidance, these are smaller companies that we're talking about. So the EBIT that we are losing until the end of the year will be in the area of 250,000 to 300,000, EBIT, on the EBIT side. And revenue-wise, we're talking here about 1.8 million to 1.5 million in revenues.

Okay.

Yes. Then your second question, regarding the order backlog. I don't expect cancellations, neither in the U.S., where there's a major portion of the order backlog, nor here in Europe. The companies that take such a decision, they do this over quite a while. So when I spoke before about the reluctancy, the decision process that was in former times maybe from 3 to 6 months, in extreme cases 9 months when this was a large company, has extended now from 6 months to maybe a year until they take such a decision. Once the decision is taken, we have -- at least this year, I'm not aware of any order cancellation that we faced. So this is very unlikely to happen because they have prepared this project. They have funded this project. And don't forget, with our solutions, they expect also major savings. So they are not doing it just for technology reasons, because they like it and it's a nice gadget. It's, in most cases, to improve their performance; to reduce their costs/number of employees that are working on certain things; reducing costs on prototyping, on testing, on all these kind of things. So there is a cost saving behind this. And that's why I see this as very unlikely that there will be any cancellations in our order backlog. That's, with the delays, also like I mentioned, I expect in the last quarter of this year our order backlog still growing and going up, maybe not on a percentage as you've seen us now with 44%, but it will be still growing.

So we will extend our call a bit, as we have a couple of questions in the chat box and some virtual hands. And I know, Mr. Schneck, you want to cover all the questions.

Yes.

So we move on with the questions from [ Olof Korevsky ]. If not, in the meantime, we move forward with the questions from Christoph Hoffmann.

So I'll try to be quick, 2 questions from my side today. So firstly, I would like to speak about price increases next year. So will you increase the daily rates of your consultants and also the price of your own software? Or do you think it's quite difficult, in the current environment, for your customers? And secondly, I would like to hear your thoughts about the current demand of your defense customers. Is it the best vertical in the current environment? Or yes, what do you expect here also next year?

So coming to your first question, Mr. Hoffmann. There will be price increases, definitely, because we also have increases in our costs, as we all know. And I think it's a normal procedure that we will do this. We are running on top a program with an external company. We're reviewing all our existing customers to make sure that nobody is dropping out and that we have increases also in contracts that maybe haven't been touched for a while. Because sometimes, the sales forces, they are a little reluctant because -- they say, if a customer is not using one or the other license, maybe we don't do an increase. And because they are afraid that these customers might terminate. So that's why we will review this. This is about more than -- yes, I will say, at this moment, close to 2,500 contracts that we review in this manner, where we will definitely have increases and we might lose one or the other customers. We also have identified in this project that there are some customers where we send invoices for EUR 100. So we will increase those prices heavily for them that they either drop out or they are highly profitable. Because if we have 3, 4 people working on an invoice, the EBIT impact is basically 0, so we have to make sure that we get a better cut out of these contracts. So this is part of a project that we're running again and that will result also in further increases on the revenue side but especially, I expect, on the -- then on EBIT side because it will make contracts more profitable and drop out those customers that are maybe not interesting for us, so -- but we will do this with an external company, to do this slightly with their experience and also making sure that we're not losing strategic good customers, [ where we ] maybe, on the first view, say, "This contract is not good," but we're dropping 2 other opportunities or contracts that we might have with this customer. So there will be increases, and you will see this impact. And this will result also in our EBIT increase for next year. This was also planned that way. Then we have your second question, on the defense, the defense customers. I don't expect increases in this area. I expect that they will continue the way as they are. As you know, and I mentioned this also in the past, we have covered some of the automotive sector now with more and more defense contracts. And we will continue this way, but I think they are now on a level, and sometimes this is not helping us, they have full order books and they are on the -- in the production mode. So it means they are producing like crazy and not introducing new systems as much that we would like, so we have to be very realistic. And that's why I would say this is a very good segment for us, but it's not a -- and I think this is where your question is heading to, Mr. Hoffmann. This is not an area where I can indicate for next year a 30% increase in sales or something like this. I think it will be on the same level, with some very good opportunities, but also bear in mind that there are customers behind this like Airbus defense, like Boeing defense that are, in the moment, a little reluctant in investments and fundings.

So we come back to [ Olof ].

Can you hear me now?

Yes.

Yes. Yes, we can hear you.

Great. Sorry for blundering with un-muting.

No problem.

First one is pretty straightforward and kind of top line. I understood that you do not expect any cancellations or anything on kind of the legal front also from customers like Volkswagen, but is there kind of a risk of softer issues? So for example, if they ask you, they say, "Okay, we're closing down plants. We're laying off so many people," like everyone has to contribute and -- for the sake of a long-term relationship. "Although there is no legal ground to stand on, we expect you to lower your fees, at least temporarily," blah, blah, blah. Do you see soft issues like that, Mr. Schneck?

Yes, [ Olof ]. I -- we are already facing this, yes, so this is already part of our dropping. That's why also we have reduced the forecast for this year, because we are already facing this. So the Airbus situation, as I mentioned before, the 1.6 million, this is this type of situation. We have a legal obligation, if you want to say so, on the hard line, but we have a gun on the -- at the head that basically says, guys, we have to contribute. And if we don't provide services, you cannot invoice for those kind of services. We have the same situation with [ MAN ] in the Volkswagen [ concern ], which is our customer where we have some reduced services, though it's legally everything is correct, but typically we have additional services that we provide in this environment, which makes the contract interesting for us. This is dropped down to the legal situation that we're in because all the rest is stopped. And we're running currently a situation with Porsche, which is also part of the Volkswagen [ concern ], where they already asked us, I think, 2 years ago to drop prices, where we now are in a tender situation and we are providing pricing on our level. And yes, there we're facing quite some pressure, but to be honest: At a certain point, we might also then to -- decide to use our resources for different customers because we still have to be profitable. And if this is not the case, then we might lose one or the other brand, but then this is the case. With Volkswagen brand or -- so company and not the group, we are more likely in situations where we are bidding so that we cannot lose anything in this environment. So it -- we might not get the order, but other than that, we are not facing a situation like this.

Okay. The second one is a bit on your future strategy. And I'm -- I don't want to complain about the past, although, of course, I mean, a large part of your business is dealing with SAP. And if you look at the 5-year chart, of course, there is more volatility in a small cap, but by and large, until the start of the final quarter of last year, you were kind of always at arm's length. And since then, CENIT has underperformed SAP by a staggering 10,000 basis points in a single year, which given the connectivity of the business is quite stunning, of course. And as said, I don't want to complain. I'm only stating facts. However, I mean looking to the future from now on, yes. I mean your last purchase order yourself was in August at like EUR 3 higher than we are now, yes. And I mean, as said, compared to SAP, the stock is nothing but dirt cheap. And I'm a bit concerned that you are talking about further acquisitions from now on. I mean given that huge underperformance, minus [ 35 ] versus plus [ 65 ] in a year; that you kind of consolidate; and maybe even use cash that is on hand, not for further acquisitions but for stock repurchases, especially given the fact that you yourself personally bought much higher.

Yes, absolutely. So [ Mr. Korevsky ], coming to your first statement, about the underperformance towards SAP. Absolutely right, absolutely correct, but you have to bear in mind that SAP is an editor, so providing their own software, where our software portion is unfortunately too low. So I'm trying to increase this because this is where you make the margin. With the services that we are providing, we have a certain limitation, but we -- on the pricing and on the EBIT margin that we can improve, but we have not a real scalability, not maybe as you might have as an SAP, so it's difficult to compare us with SAP, although that -- of course, I have to accept this as a kind of benchmarking. And they have very well performed. If you compare them now to other software companies in the German market, they are the ones that have major outperformed. If you look at the [ DACs ], they are 1 of the 6 companies that have outperformed; and all the rest has lower performed. And if I look at the IT companies, I think we are all facing a situation that is not happy and not nice and -- but we're not on this level as an SAP. SAP also have done, to my opinion, the right decision, where they're hated for, to go, on one hand, on the cloud; and on the other hand, to force the customers to move into the next world. So they have to do the investment, whether they like it or not. This is a situation that we do not have because we are -- Dassault is not pushing this way. And we, with our solutions, also cannot push this way because we don't have this market power maybe as an SAP have. So this is not an excuse, just as an explanation why I see this and why I'm also saying I would like to get more and more into this software editor situation and pushing our own software. That's why we have this target of having 20% and, down the road, hopefully, more, because this is where you make your margin, definitely. The second thing, about the -- and then of course, the underperformance related to the share pricing is a result out of this. You're absolutely right, total underperformance, no doubt about this one. Now on the further acquisitions using our money. Now first of all, our strategy, we have changed it the way that we slowed down a little bit with our acquisitions. And I -- as I mentioned before, I expect, for next year, maybe to do 1 or 2 smaller acquisitions as we have done before but not to buy another Analysis Prime like we've done this year. So we will use our money differently. At the moment, we focus on improving our EBIT by reorganizational changes. And the other thing is what you also see on our acquisitions that we have done in the past and I always said so, why have we done these acquisitions. Number one is to buy revenue and to buy EBIT, to have a certain time to do certain restructuring. The second and major reason was, if you look at the acquisitions that we've done, we tried to get out of the dependency from Dassault. Where in the past we did 2/3 of our revenues with Dassault, by end of this year, we will do close to maybe half of it, maybe even less. And my target would be that down the road, though we increased the revenues with Dassault. And I think it's an outstanding product, but we also have to find and to develop different legs where we stand on. And one of those legs is SAP. And that's why we also have done the acquisition of PII in Berlin, which is an SAP company. We have done the acquisition of ABC in Vienna, which is an SAP company. We have done the acquisition of Analysis Prime, which is also an SAP analytics company with a very bright future. So this is the reason we're trying to move out of this Dassault dependency and maybe technology area, to participate in the success of SAP. Though, we are in the middle of this. And yes, our performance at the moment is not very good; total underperformance, absolutely right. And I would love to have it on a much better level because, as you rightly mentioned, I invested also at mainly EUR 15 and EUR 14, but I think that we are doing here a reorganization that is happening on the open heart. Like I've always said, we did the acquisitions. And we will do this to buy time, to buy revenues and EBIT. If I would reduce or cut out the EBIT of the acquired companies, the core organization of CENIT would be on a very low level, EBIT level. And this is what we're trying to change now by changing the organization while we're doing these acquisitions and basically onboarding those acquisitions to put us in a different situation for the future.

Okay. And final one, maybe from the shareholder side. So I understand that finally Otus is out completely now.

Yes.

That's good to hear. And secondly, are you -- I mean, given the situation and given the profit warning and everything, yes, are you in contact with the other larger ones? I mean I heard that MainFirst cut down on a lot of positions in the small cap sector lately. And I might want to add, of course, I understand that SAP is a huge big cap and small caps are performing much worse. And I didn't benchmark you against it. I just thought that the direction should be roughly the same, yes, not the extent but the direction, please.

Yes, yes, absolutely.

Yes. But that having said: So are you in contact with the other large shareholders that we should not have to expect on that level some kind of marginalization, be that in absolute terms because the cap is too low or be that in relative terms compared to the fund managers' fund volume, yes, that others sell basically regardless of the price because you are just a marginal position anymore. Are you taking care of that?

Yes, yes. Yes, I am taking care of this, [ Mr. Korevsky ], so number one is I'm attending. And I will also attend, also given the situation. Even if it is tough now, I'm going out to the investor meetings to meet also potential investors but also our current investors and talking to them about this. That's definitely what I will continue to do. So this year, there are still another 3 upcoming. Then of course, I'm talking to our major investors or shareholders. So there's Primepulse that I'm in close contact with. And as you might recall, Regina Weinmann is part of our Supervisory Board, so we are in close contact. She's aware of the situation. And also Klaus Weinmann, as the one running Primepulse together with Regina, are fully aware of this. So they are holding at the moment 28.8%. So now the second largest has been MainFirst. I've been in contact with them all the time...

Well, excuse me, Peter. Sorry to interrupt here, but the last Montega [ still ] says 28.1%, so does that mean that they even bought additional shares?

No. I -- the number that I know is [ 20.08 ]. So this is a number that...

I just understood 28.8%. And in the analysis of Montega, it says 28.1%, so that would be 0.7% additional shares that was...

Yes, but to my opinion, there hasn't been any change in this area in the last weeks or months, so we might have to review which -- maybe I'm referring to an older or to a newer figure [indiscernible] I don't know. I would have to check, but this is the figure that I'm aware of. And I'm not aware of any major changes in their position that they have done or that they are planning. So that's the situation with Primepulse. On MainFirst. They had 8-point-ish percent. And it dropped down, as you mentioned, not only because of CENIT. I think they had a problem in their total view and they dropped down below the 5%. And I would expect to see them also announcing maybe that they will be passing the 3% at a certain point. So I don't know if they're selling, but over the past months, you've seen that there were still quite a number of larger sales of [ 10,000, 20,000 ] during the day, which I assumed might be in this area whenever there's somebody needing a cash or whatever. So I'm in contact with them. They have indicated that they don't want to go below the 3%, but this is my last information that I have from those guys. Now the second largest at the moment, with 5-point-ish percent is the versorgungswerk Tierärzte und Zahnärzte in Baden-Württemberg. And I'm meeting those gentlemen in the coming weeks. I will visit them and we will talk about the current situation. So this is that I'm in contact. And then of course, below the 3%, there are several investors that I am in contact as well with. And I'm trying to give them the information and answer all the questions that they have so that they stay, of course, invested or, hopefully, cross the 3% since the price at the moment is, yes, ridiculously low, but it is what it is.

So last but not least, we will not miss the questions from [indiscernible]. "So can you describe if you have any restructure issues? And do they have effect in Q4 and in 2025? And can you give us a bit more color on your dividend policy?"

Okay, so when I get this right: The first question was on restructuring issues...

Yes.

Yes, okay. So then coming to the first question, the restructuring issues that we have in mind. Number one, we will change a little bit the -- how shall I call it? We will have changes also in the management. We're going to face this one. Second thing is we will change some of the sales approaches that we are doing today because I think we can do much better. And we will have a sales team that will join forces and work together, especially on key accounts, which we're not doing very efficiently today. And related to this, I'm not happy with the results of the cross-selling opportunities that we have in our organization, which I think we can still improve. So this is all a change or an improvement in our sales activities. Then we will have a sales -- sorry, a service department that will cover now more customers and will basically provide services for our total organization, which will put us in a situation that we can provide now 24/7 services, hotline services, which we could not do in the past. Part of this is, of course, also the acquisition of Analysis Prime's, that we are working in different time zones and can help each other by switching from one to another hotline, which will then, of course, increase our opportunities. Next thing that we're facing, and you just heard this, we will have a change in our pricing increasing system, if you want to say so. So we are reviewing now all our existing contracts with our customers. We'll include automatic price increase or CPI clauses, which was not the case for all of them in the past. This will be something that we will introduce with this external company and will increase, of course, also our activities in this area. Next thing is we are in the middle of reorganizing these service teams, where I think we have a utilization issue. And I want to improve the real utilization of our teams, so in the middle of this, in some cases, this also means that we have to change some of the team leads. And we'll get people in with a different understanding on how to run those kind of things. And then of course, we will also focus on the U.S. market a little more than we have done, so far. This was one of the ideas also of introducing Analysis Prime into our organization, so -- and I want them to be also a hub to provide services in the United States and to be present in a market that is fastly growing and to prepare ourselves also for maybe a difficult year 2025 in Germany or in Europe but at least to have a different opportunity on top so that we have a different parachute, in case that we're facing here some difficulties or expect some difficulties still in 2025, so that we have other markets. So these are, in a nutshell, what we're doing. And then of course, bottom line is always as part of the utilization, where we will also review some team members still and whether it makes sense to keep them or not or to push them into other jobs in our organization or maybe also outside of our organization.

All right. Thank you...

And then -- sorry. There was still the dividend...

The development policy.

So the dividend policy. On the dividend policy, we don't have any change. As we did in the past, what we would like to do is spend 50% of our balance EBIT of the AG, yes. So CENIT AG. Please always refer to this one, not the total group but of CENIT AG. 50% of this EBIT is typically spent as a dividend. As you have seen in the forecast, it looks like that the dividend will not be -- or the EPS will not be that high for this year. So we still keep the policy, but at the moment, I don't see that there will be a dividend for year 2024 that we will pay next year. This is the current situation that I'm facing, but again, there is no change in our dividend policy. I want to continue like this. This year, we did an exception to our dividend policy because we were in the middle of the acquisition of Analysis Prime and another opportunity in Hungary that we finally dropped because we faced a difficult political situation also there, but this was right before our meeting. And that's why we decided at that point not to spend a dividend and then, at the same time, to go for a loan at the banks. But again, this was an exception. The general rule is 50% of our profit is spread as a dividend to our shareholders.

Thank you so much. So ladies and gentlemen, this is it. We covered all your questions, so we will now come to the end of today's earnings call. So thank you, everyone, for your participation and for your strong interest in the CENIT AG. And a big thank you also to you, Mr. Schneck, for the presentation; and for you, Mr. Otto, for joining. So from my side, I wish you all a lovely remaining week. Fingers are crossed for your remaining Q4 quarter. And Mr. Schneck, I hand back to you for some final remarks.

Yes. Thank you for hosting us, Sarah. And a big thank you for -- to all of you for your trust, of course, in our organization and your questions. If you have any additional questions, remarks, feel free to contact me via e-mail, Teams or whatever is convenient for you. And I will make sure that we will find time and respond to all your questions. Thank you very much. And have a nice week. Take care. Bye.