CENIT Aktiengesellschaft (CSH) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and a warm welcome to today's earnings call of the CENIT AG following the publication of the financial year figures of 2024. The CEO, Peter Schneck, and the CFO, Axel Otto will speak in a moment and guide us through the presentation and the results. After the presentation, we will move on to a Q&A session where you have the possibility to place your questions directly to the management. We are looking forward to the numbers and the presentation. And with this, I hand over to you, Mr. Schneck.

Yes. Thank you very much, and a very good morning also from our side, everybody. Thank you for joining us and of course, your interest in the CENIT AG. As usual, Mr. Otto and myself, who will run you through the figures for year 2024, as well as some operational information that we would like to share with you. And then of course, after our presentation, we will grant the opportunity to ask questions and comments. So please keep all your questions for the end, which makes it then much easier for us. So let's start with the figures for year 2024. As you all know, this was a quite challenging year not only for CENIT, but for everybody, not only in the IT industry, but even beyond. And of course, the first figures that we would like to bring up are the revenue figures. As you can see, nicely, we increased our revenue from 2023 to 2024 by 12.2% to EUR 207 million. The reason behind this is, of course, and I don't want to -- I mentioned this, we have done some acquisitions in year 2024. Right at the beginning of the year, we had the German company, CCE, that joined our team. And then by July, we had the team of Analysis Prime, U.S.-based company in the SAP analytics area that joined us. So of course, those figures are partially included also in those revenue figures. But -- and this is the other good message that I would like to bring up, as you can see here as a side note, we have also achieved an organic growth of 5.2%. To avoid any confusion when we talk about organic or inorganic growth, we have the rule that if a company has been consolidated for a full business year then it shifts into organic growth. So of course, ISR and other acquisitions that we have done in the year 2022 and 2023 are mentioned as now organic growth and then, of course, only the newly acquired companies stay in the inorganic growth. This means also for year 2025, Analysis Prime will be considered as inorganic growth. Now shifting to the EBITDA. As you can see also here, we have a nice increase of 5.2% to EUR 17.26 million EBITDA. And then coming to the EBITDA, a new figure that we would also like to focus on and that you will also see in our guidance figures for year 2025. But I think the EBITDA is representing also our activities on the M&A sector in a much better way than if we focus on EBIT because as you will see, in EBIT, of course, we have costs for acquisitions and the purchase price allocations that are included, which dilute a little bit the success that we have with our activities. So what you see the shift from EBITA to EBITDA and then later on to the EBIT, we have several impacts that we would like to point out. The first one is in our figures for year 2024, we have done a provision for unused office space in our Stuttgart office. Some of you may know because I shared it during our presentations that we're trying to find a new location for our offices because our offices are quite large, close to 8,000 square meters and we would like to get down to 3,500, so we have some unused office spaces at this moment, which unfortunately, we were not able to sublease to any other parties since here in Stuttgart area, we have -- or we are surrounded by a lot of unused spaces. And that's why since the contract is ending in 2026, we were able now also to argue with our auditors that we can build a provision of EUR 425,000 in our '24 figures. Then what we have is, of course, a depreciation, which is depreciation, basically also the leasing that we have built into this are of EUR 5.9 million. So this, of course, explains why we're going down to an EBITDA of EUR 11.3 million. And then, of course, we have -- and you will see this now when we shift to the EBITDA. We have an amortization and, of course, the PPA, which is the main focus of this one here of EUR 4 million really related to M&A. So the acquisitions that we have done. And you will see for the 2025 figures, this will even go up due to the acquisition, some reevaluation of the Analysis Prime figures. If we then look at the EBIT. So the second slide is unfortunately not that nice as the first one, so where everything was going up. So what you can see here is, of course, the drop if we come from the EBITDA, as I mentioned before, so there's the purchase price allocation, and that explains this. But then, of course, what we have also included is here a kind of -- yes, market situation, as you all know, and we mentioned this, the original plan of the EBIT for year 2024 was EUR 12.2 million. So I would just like to mention this again and to remind you. So yes, it is close to 20% dip in the EBIT figure from year 2023 to '24. But if you compare this to our plan, to our original plan, this is, of course, a disappointing figure. Now there are some different effects into this one. Some of them, of course, the costs related to the M&A, to the acquisitions, especially in the North American market, which were quite expensive. As you know, consultants and especially also the lawyers are quite expensive. So our typical rate of EUR 100,000 for an acquisition went up to a much higher amount. And this, of course, had a major impact on our EBIT figure. But the second effect is, of course, also the market was in a difficult situation. We mentioned our ad hoc in last year, end of October, already the situation with Airbus that from one day to another, basically reduced their activities in the production as well as the services that we are granting to them due to some supplier problems in their supply chain. And of course, this by itself had a EUR 1.6 million effect on our EBIT. And then, of course, we had a strong Q4, but unfortunately, not as strong as we were used to it in the past years where we have the hockey stick and then we had different effects to this one, of course, Analysis Prime, that did not achieve their figures as we had planned. But again, this was a newly acquired organization. But then of course, we had also some errors in the 3DS segment, so the Dassault segment where we're not achieving our originally planned figures since some of our customers were just in a situation that they shifted their project or paused them due to the election in the U.S. This was one fact, but then, of course, also the difficult situation in the French and also in the German market and the politics related to this one, which hopefully now by end of Q1, with the new government in Germany will allow us then also to be optimistic for the future and to see also some effects in this area. The second point to mention is a major drop in our earnings per share. Here, we have 3 major effects, as we have mentioned in here, as you can see, the financial results had to basically cover now about EUR 8 million in additional costs. The first one is the interest that we had to pay. As you all know, we have a syndicated loan and in this to basically finance our acquisitions and the interest that we paid in year 2024 went up from EUR 1.7 million to EUR 2.4 million. The second effect is due to the very positive developments in our ISR business, which is the documentation business where we did the acquisition in year 2022. We have a put and call option for the remaining 25.1%. And due to the success of ISR, the reevaluation of this put and call option resulted in EUR 1.8 million. And then we had an effect that basically happened now in year 2025. But before closing our figures for year 2024 and of course, also the report, we had to inform the auditors, and this is why they, of course, also included this in the year 2024 figures that a financial stake that we have in a company called Ascon Holdings, which is a company that is more likely in a robotic sector and that is based here in Stuttgart. They filed a bankruptcy 2 weeks ago. And of course, we had to mention this to the auditors and included this and we depreciated the full amount of the shares, which is a 3.77% share, which resulted into this EUR 3.8 million that we have here. So we basically had to write it off or to depreciate the full amount so that we have now really depreciated down to 0. So this altogether results into a financial negative result as you can see here. And then of course, we have also taxes that come on top. So that at the end, we have a negative result and this relates to the fact that we have also a negative earnings per share, as you can see here of 23%. So this will result then in a proposal of the Board, not to grant any dividend for year 2024, and I will come to this later on, but just to mention this already at this point and that you understand where this is coming from. Now if we then look on the performance that we have done over the last 2 years because I think 2024 is, of course, a difficult one, but to see what we started off, 2022 where I joined, we increased the EBITDA of 55.5%. You can see that our activities overall, they are really moving forward. We're creating a value for our shareholders. And then, of course, also on the EBIT side with even the increase in 2023, and now the dip in 2024, we still are up 16.9% compared to 2022, which I consider as the starting point that I run against. So as mentioned, the EBIT figures are highly affected by the acquisition costs, especially in the U.S. And then, of course, as I mentioned as well, we had in year 2024, a quite challenging year on our customer sites. As you all know, we have the Airbus effect. But the other one is, of course, also the automotive sector is struggling, is waiting, there are risks and chances. And when we talk about year 2025 and the guidance, I will come to this and explain maybe a little bit on how we see this forward go. Then if we look at the figures in a summary, I think the first one I mentioned, up until down the dividend. But if you go on the lower left corner, you can see that the order backlog went up by 41%. This is, of course, an effect also of Analysis Prime, but also an effect of the other businesses where we see an increasing backlog. And so this is, first of all, of course, due to increased sales activities, this is very positive. But the other effect is, of course, also that we see a shift from the plc, which is the onetime licenses into more and more SaaS business, which allows us then, of course, to have a backlog. That's a recurring business, but is spread over several years. So this is a positive effect. That is also included in this one. But I think important to say also our sales activities are resulting in a higher backlog, and we're still working on this and improving this on top. Then if we go on the right side, what I would like to raise this, of course, we have increased our balance, some by close to EUR 3 million. But I think important to mention is the equity ratio went up from 29% to now close 30.3%. So you see also here, we stay in line. We try to stay away from our covenant that is agreed in the loan and the syndicated loan agreement, the covenant with the banks is 20%. Our internal one is 25%. So we see there's still some room, but we want to be on the safe side and of course, keep some distance, and I will also mention then this in 2025, what the result is also for our M&A strategy going forward. If we look at the cash flow, also positive effect, you see almost doubled to EUR 10.3 million. And then, of course, the CapEx investments went up. This is mainly, of course, the acquisition of Analysis Prime and, of course, also CCE. But the Analysis Prime is the major portion of this. And then as a result, of course, we have a negative free cash flow. But as you can see, we are on an operative cash flow side, very positive and growing and improving our operative cash flow for the future as well. So if we then go into the different segments and we just look into the sales by the revenue type, and then of course, also the segment as you can see here, also very positive development on the consulting and services side, is an increase of 14.7%. So I would like to raise here the fact that this is mainly, of course, also driven by Analysis Prime because their results go into this area here since Analysis Prime is more likely providing a certain service around SAP analytics, and they are not so much selling SAP modules because this is typically done directly by SAP. And then SAP brings in the colleagues from Analysis Prime to structure the data and to present this on a share -- on a dashboard. So major increase here in consulting and services related to Analysis Prime. If we then go into the CENIT software, which is our proprietary software that we provide. As you can see, a major increase of close to 15% to EUR 19 million. This is heading into the right direction. As you all know, we try to increase this portion on our overall software sales to, of course, make sure that the margin goes up for us because here, in this area, we don't have any dependency from our third-party suppliers, as you can see in a third-party software role. Also here, you see an increase of 10.7%. So this includes SAP, this includes IBM, FileNet, and of course, the Dassault software, which is the major portion of this. And what I can say is if we break it down, we have here in SAP, a strong growth also on the third-party software side. So the pieces that are SAP related. And then, of course, we also have the increase in the IBM area, but also though that the market is difficult, we even have an increase on the Dassault side. If we then go into the segments and here to provide you a full view on what we consider as EIM and PLM. So EIM is anything related to documentation. So this is typically ISR. This is the company MIP that we acquired 2 years ago. And of course, our CENIT core documentation team. So here, you see they have an increase of 4.7%. There is no acquisition, nothing included in this one. This is pure organic growth. And then we have on the PLM side, all the other divisions in our organization beyond documentation. So this includes not only Dassault, which might be first effect that you would think of when you hear PLM, but it also includes SAP and also includes our proprietary services that we have around the robotics and, of course, also services that we provide in digital business services. And here, you can see an increase of 14.3% in this area. Again, major increase here and also very promising for year 2025 is the SAP PLM Solutions division that is growing and entering also large segments -- or large customer segments that we did not support in the past in this majority. If we then come to the dividend, as I mentioned before, the dividend proposal that we are providing for this year due to the negative results or financial results will be not to provide any dividend. Last year in 2023 already because of the acquisition of Analysis Prime, we provided basically just the legal minimum dividend of EUR 0.04 and this year because of the negative results, of course, we will propose no dividend. Again, this means -- this does not mean that we will change our policy. This is really based on the results. So for the future, we will still stick on our dividend policy. And of course, we will provide dividend in the way as you are used to it and as we did in the past, which is always in the range of 50% of the results of the AG means our core business without the acquisitions. Then if we just mentioned some operational sides from the customer highlights, I would just like to raise 3 major projects. On the first one that I would like to start with is [indiscernible] German provider for building and construction modules in more likely the prefabricated housing and this project is quite strategic for us. You will all see later on, on the revenue side that we have a different share split for the different segments. And here, we're trying to enter with this customer into a complete new segment for CENIT, which is the construction or building segment. We will not be in competition with Nemetschek. This might be one of your first questions. They do a totally different solution that we do. What we really are introducing here is the PLM business, so the Dassault software, and [indiscernible] would like to learn from the aviation and from the car manufacturing or automotive business on how to standardize their modules and how to standardize the building of prefabricated houses to increase speed, save costs and, of course, to have a competitive advantage in the market. So what we hope is that by running this project in year 2025 now, that we will be in a position that we can attack also other companies in this area, like [indiscernible] and others that are headquartered very close by to us. And then, of course, we have a success story, which might be very interesting to them and also cost saving and hopefully, also changing the way on how to build houses in future. The second major operational highlight that I would like to mention for you in 2024 is Airbus. As I mentioned before, unfortunately, the services that we could provide were a little bit reduced. But what we did with Airbus is we managed to become a Tier 1 supplier as CENIT company. Some of you might recall that in the past, we were doing this business in a kind of consortium together with CenProCS. So this was, of course, CENIT then it was ProStep and it was DS which is -- or CS, which is a French defense company. This defense company has been sold beginning of last year 2024 to Sopra Steria. And since then, of course, the question was up who will be the supplier in future running those services and running the contract since CS as well as [indiscernible] have very little business with Airbus. Airbus approached us and said you should be our Tier 1 supplier. We would like to reduce the number of suppliers, and we will shift from CenProCS to CENIT. So this means that in year 2026, when the contract is finishing with Airbus, we will sign new agreements under the name of CENIT directly, which I think will be a major advantage for us in this competition. What we already have now as an advantage for year 2025 is we have expanded our portfolio in the Airbus business. So we are considered also now beyond the PLM services with additional services that we can grant and which will allow us then maybe also to pick some contracts in year 2025, in addition to our existing contract that we have on the PLM service side in the production of Airbus. And since the question will come up, I will already answer this now in Q1 we see that Airbus is back on track. We are back on track with our contract. And what Airbus granted us as compensation for the difficulties, I would say, the losses that we had in EBIT in year 2024 is that they extended our contract until the end of year 2026. The contract was about to end in the beginning of the year, and now they have extended this by at least 1 year more or close to a year until the year or the end of 2026. So there's also a goody for our side, which shows that we have a quite good and close relation with Airbus and are treated in a very fair way. And then, of course, the last one I would like to mention is TASCO, which is a trimming company for high-quality exteriors, and this company has completely switched on the cloud with their 3DEXPERIENCE, which is the Dassault software. So this is for us very interesting because they are showing also to other automotive companies on how to move this, reduce the costs and have a competitive advantage. And of course, this can be, and this is what we are providing an option for some of the European companies, having a European production side on lowering the costs and making sure that they become even more competitive than they have been so far. So in a given environment, this is a very strategic one also for us in the automotive sector, and that's why I mentioned this in this context here. If we then look at the overall revenues, by segments, the split that we have on our revenues. And I think this is also interesting to mention, you see that we have reduced our share in the automotive sector by 2% as well as in the defense sector by 2%, slight growth in the, what we call typical manufacturing. So this is anything beyond or that is not automotive and aerospace defense. So that we had a slight growth, but what is also interesting to see is that we had a growth in the, what I call, the accidents. You see these other sectors in the upper left corner, the segments that in the past, the customers approached us. That's why I call it the accident. This was not an active approach from our side. But now we're shifting this. We're going more aggressively also in those areas to mitigate our risk on automotive and in some cases, also aerospace. COVID has shown that the 3 pillars that we're working on are risky. And that's why we would like to spread a little bit more on our revenue share, and we were successful in this one. In the energy and utility sector, we could grow by 1% compared to last year, the same shipbuilding and heavy industries. And then, of course, also other by 1%, and this 1% is basically ALHO, so entering into a new segment with the construction business. So you see we're shifting also our activities. Now coming to year 2025, because it's always also a question, I think in the past, we haven't done this explicitly, especially not at this time of the year. We did it in the past somewhere in our shareholder meeting. But I think given the times the current view that we have, and this is what I have to say by given times, we are forecasting revenue of EUR 229 million to EUR 234 million. This is the range that we think we're going to end up. This is including, of course, now a full year revenue of Analysis Prime and only operational -- sorry, organic growth besides Analysis Prime. So there is no additional acquisition included. And given the situation that we see in the market and the difficulties, but also our covenants that we have in our syndicated loan, we would like to be on the safe side to keep a certain distance to this covenant, that's why I always say one to none acquisitions for this year. Basically, we are planning no acquisition. We have slowed down our activities in this segment. When I say one, if there is something that is exceptionally well and exceptionally cheap and fitting exceptionally well into our portfolio, then, of course, I don't want to shut the door. But at the moment, I don't see this. And again, we're not seeking for it. We have no partners or anybody in the market looking for this. And that's why this would be the organic plus inorganic Analysis Prime revenue figure that we're targeting for this year. And this will, of course, still mean that this is a 2-digit growth compared to year 2024. So we're still heading forward. Then when you look at the EBITDA figure, we're envisioning a EUR 12.4 million as the EBITDA figure. And there, of course, I have to explain, this is a figure after restructuring costs that are in the area of EUR 4 million. So the EBITDA figure would be EUR 4 million, of course, better. So what we have planned is in this segment, we have a program in our organization, which are also announced, by the way, already when I started in 2022, we had a challenge that we had the core segment of CENIT that was in a kind of -- I've always called it the dormant beauty. And of course, with structures and processes that were a little bit -- had to be refreshed, let's call it this way. We've done it over the past years already. And now we have done a program on top finally, restructure team members that do not fit either by their performance or maybe also by the knowledge into our organization. And this affected 51 employees. If you look at the core business and the moment that I started and if you add and all the acquisitions that we have done, we have reduced the number of employees by now by 101 employees in the core business. So still growing, still, of course, making sure that we have the team with a very low attrition in all the acquisitions that we do. This means 101 in our core businesses of CENIT. So this affects when I talk about the core businesses, our French business, and of course, also the major German entity of CENIT core. So then the next figure as a result is, of course, not the EBITDA of EUR 6.8 million to EUR 7.3 million that we envision to achieve again after the restructuring costs that are all already the figures that we would like to achieve in this year after those restructuring costs, again, which are in the range of about EUR 4 million and which will result already in the first year, so year 2026 in a range of EUR 5 million to EUR 5.5 million additional EBIT. So I think it's worth it to do it at this point, and we had to do it to be on the right range. So these are the figures for 2025 as a guidance. And maybe to give you a first glance on 2025 Q1. Q1 was not a -- which is typically not a good first quarter for us. So we have planned it already on a lower level. and it will not be a good Q1, as usual, I have to say. And on top, of course, we have a lot of customers that were struggling. I hope that this will change now with the announcement of the German government. But as you can imagine, the automotive companies were struggling on the fact whether there will be a special power price, whether there will be a special support for electrical vehicles and of course, whether there will be also a stop for the original engines or former engines or whether we would shift this. So I think there are now some positive news, and we know already that some of our automotive customers will take decisions that are now ongoing forward going with a production site in Germany. And this means, of course, also for us, quite some potential also to catch up Q1 and to get those figures. And hopefully, there's always room. So then falling back into year 2024. Sustainability. I know due to Mr. Trump, this is maybe not anymore in the main focus. We still consider this. We have done a so-called ESG or CSR report, which has not been audited. This was just basically, because it's legally not required and saving costs for us, but we will provide an ESG report on our website and, of course, also for year 2024. And we have also passed the EcoVadis test again for year 2024, which we successfully continued again with the silver medal. We missed the gold medal by 1 point, but to be honest, this is not our main focus. So whether we are silver or gold, we will focus also on more likely the EBIT performance than on this one, but of course, it's a necessary portion of our business, and we will continue doing this. Then when we look at our team, just to give you a view on this one because there's also still some work to do. We have, at the moment, 22.4% of female in our organization, which is not unusual. It's not a high-class figure. But as you know, the IT business, it's not the preferred business for ladies. And unfortunately, the major portion of our team members are in the HR, so people and culture business, or in the marketing areas. We have, of course, also developers and female team members in other areas. But this is definitely a way to improve. Then at the moment, we have 57 students and trainees. We still believe that it's important to continue this. As you all know, we have in Germany a special apprentices program, which is of advantage for us, which allows us also to get young and fresh and new team members on board, new blood in our team because as you can see, we have a team that is in an age of an average 46 years. This was before the project performance, which I mentioned before, where we basically had to lay off 51 employees. And of course, we did not focus on the young people or the people that joined lately, like typically last in, first out. So what we have done is really by performance and by the knowledge that we need in our portfolio also for the future, which resulted in also in the fact that we have several team members that were close to retirement or mid-aged that were affected by this program and had unfortunately to leave, but this will lower our average age to hopefully something that is close to 40 or even below 40 years in year 2025. Again, this is the average figure for year 2024. Then as you can see, we have 13 years average period of employment, which is in the IT industry quite high and quite good and the share of women I mentioned already. So if we then look at the financial calendar for those who wants to talk to us and wants to chat with us, as you can see here, the next one is the shareholder meeting. And then, of course, I will join also some additional shows and conferences. If you compare this to the last 2 years that I joined, it's a little reduced. This is a reaction to the given share market or overall share price, as you know. Of course, in a certain way, it reflects also our performance. But on the other way, there's effects that we can't influence. And then, of course, it doesn't make sense to be present on too many of those conferences, and this is why we reduced our presence on those shows. Beyond this, as always, if you ask questions, if you have any comments, you're more than welcome to join us directly, either by phone, by Teams session or by e-mail or even to visit us here in Stuttgart and to have a discussion with us. So we're open to this, but please understand that we're using our time this year in a different manner and are not that present on the conferences. So that's it from my side to year 2024. And I would like to give you now the opportunity to ask questions and maybe to get further explanations on our figures and maybe also in year 2025. Thank you very much.

[Operator Instructions] So we have some people putting their questions, raising their hands. The first one is Mr. Wunderlich. Mr. Wunderlich, you should be able to speak now.

My first question is on the cost savings when it comes to the EUR 4 million of restructuring that you are going to incur this year. Did I get you correctly, I think you said EUR 5 million, EUR 5.5 million of cost savings? And when will this become effective? Is it partly already going to be in the second half of 2025? That is my first question. Then my second question is on the organic performance 2025. The expectation, maybe you could quantify what you expect in terms of revenue growth? And then my final question is on Analysis Prime in the U.S. Evidently, we're seeing some volatility now in the U.S. market. And I would say a lot of uncertainty. So what is Analysis Prime saying about the current trading in the U.S. And that would be it for the moment.

Yes. Thank you very much, Mr. Wunderlich for your questions. So first question that you had concerning the cost savings. So the full effect of the EUR 5 million to EUR 5.5 million will be, of course, in year 2026. And then there is a slight effect, of course, in the second half of the year. So the overall cost, that's why I mentioned this EUR 3.77 million, we expect an effect, of course, in the second half of the year in this one. But at the moment, I'm a little reluctant because it depends also on how fast, how quick some of our team members are joining this program. So in Germany, we're basically done with it. In France, as you know, it's a little bit more complicated. We have the union participation. And based on their response, the impact will increase or decrease. So that's why I'm reluctant in giving any figures for this year. But the second half of the year, there will be definitely an impact on the savings, which are already reflected in a certain way also in our forecast. But for year 2026, the full effect is the EUR 5 million to EUR 5.5 million on the EBIT line adjust on the savings. And of course, those savings is staff costs. Then on the organic growth, the question that you mentioned is, I mean, the goal that we have for this year is, of course, only organic growth. So if you take out the Analysis Prime, the organic growth is again beyond the 5% because it's the minimum that we have as an internal goal for our team. Though what you have to bear in mind, and this is something that is challenging also for our sales teams is we have a net organic growth when we talk about this. So our teams, our sales teams are doing a tremendous job at the moment, because when you call up especially in automotive company, and as you know, we have customers like ZF, Bosch and Mahle and Continental, whoever, when you call them to do a sales talk and to sell them additional licenses or services, the first question is, of course, on how can we reduce our cost. What happens if I reduce now the number of licenses. And by the way, I fired 5,000 or 6,000 people and thousands of them were engineers, so they don't need the licenses anymore. So we have quite some catch-up for our sales teams. And if we would be in the range of this 5% for this year in a net view, I would say this would be tremendously well and nice. But apart from Analysis Prime, the portion is just the organic growth. So from the EUR 207 million then to the EUR 200 million plus/minus EUR 30 million. You see that this is quite a bridge to go and the portion of Analysis Prime compared to 2024 of this is in the range of about USD 8 million, and of course, now we are talking about euro. So you see, depending on the currency, there's a growth included that is above the 5% for our team. Q1, of course, is not our big organic growth area. So if we can get here, the 2%, 3% growth, I would be already happy camper because again, as I mentioned before, there's quite some reluctancy in Q1 in the market, especially in Germany since most of the people wait for the decision of the government and basically to see where it's heading. The message that we got yesterday and today are already very promising in -- based on this we expect that many of those automotive customers will also relish some of their activities and start the project with us that are already in the pipeline. Then coming to the -- to Analysis Prime. Yes, Analysis Prime is, of course, in a challenging market at the moment. We -- the gentlemen were just here this week on Monday and Tuesday, we had discussions with them, and we're reviewing the forecast for this year. They had delays last year, as you know, which were shifted into the first quarter and still the first quarter was not rushy first quarter, which is also normal in their area because many of the customers still are setting up the budgets and then start running the project. But there's a good and bad side. Given the times, a lot of companies would like to analyze even better the figures and since they help them to get a better view on their figures, there is investments. We can see, as I mentioned already to you and others in this round that they have quite a good pipeline for this year. There's a lot of promising projects happening. And that's why we still stick on this forecast also with Analysis Prime. Now the tax issue that might be a question that somebody will bring up does not affect us that much. SAP is selling directly their licenses. So not our team is selling it. So if ever there would be an IT tax coming in one or the other direction, at least directly, it will not affect the colleagues from Analysis Prime. And on the other side, the services that the team members are providing our services that they're providing either with teams from Colombia or Canada, but the main portion of the team are based in the U.S. and are doing services in U.S. Given the current situation, we have paused and not planned to expand the business of Analysis Prime to Europe. So this was something that we had up in mind for the mid of this year. Depending on what the situation will be by then, we will raise this question again, and we will discuss this with the team. But at the moment, we consider this as pause and would say, let's focus on achieving our figures in the U.S. market, and let's stay within the U.S. market. And I must say that the team is at least at the moment, not struggling with our customers in U.S. market.

We now move on to a question from our chat box. I'll read this out to you. One question is regarding the comment of a weak Q1, are you expecting nevertheless, an increase in EBITDA over Q1 in 2024?

Well, if we clean it up by any of the effects of Analysis Prime, of course, because this is organic growth and will be consolidated for the first time. So if you really clean this up and we have a year-over-year view, I would say, that if we are doing a site move, this would be already a good development, a good situation because as I mentioned, many of our customers in France, but also especially in Germany, they were a little reluctant. We could run some projects. We started also some projects in certain segments that are not that much affected. But the automotive sector, which, again, as you've seen, represents 28% of our revenues is quite reluctant and disturbed. I also must say, by the current market. And of course, now we also have to see what the impact is of the taxes to this one. So as you know, we have a customer like Porsche. If 1/3 of their cars is going to the U.S. and there's now a major tax attached to this, then of course, it will indirectly also affect us. So if we do the site move, and again, there will be an increase. You will see this, but this is related to this Analysis Prime effect. And if we clean it up, I would say, it should be a site move with maybe but 1% to 2% but not more of increase. And again, this is typically also not our quarter. We will then in Q2, Q3 and especially Q4 catch up.

And the question was, can you quantify the impact of a less M&A-related costs in 2025 compared to 2024?

Yes. So again, like I mentioned before, typically, when we do M&A, the cost attached to this one is EUR 100,000. And this -- what I mean by this is in the German market. So this is -- these are costs that are well known to us and that we are used to. If I compare this now to year 2024, in year 2024, we had just one acquisition in Germany, but of course, we had the major acquisition in U.S., which was for us for the first time in the North American market, which is quite challenging. And of course, attached to this, all the consulting fees and legal requirements. So I would say that this kind of cost will be -- or have been in an area of about EUR 800,000. And this would, of course, be something that we do not see in 2025 if we don't do those -- these acquisitions. And again, there is no acquisition planned at the moment and especially on the U.S. So this would be compared to 2024, if you want to say so, a saving. But again, this is included in the figures that we have presented. So there is no additional one-off or anything that you can build in.

And we now move on to a participant with a question via the audio line. Cosmin Filker, you should be able to place your question now.

Hello, Mr. Schneck, I hope you can hear me.

Yes. I can hear you. Hello, Mr. Filker.

Can I ask my question not in 1 block, 3 or 4 questions. First question regarding the Page 3 of the presentation. I was just a little bit confused. You show on Page 3, the EBITDA, the new figure that you are now communicating.

EBITDA.

Also showed the amortization of the PPA amortization that had an effect on the EBITDA. But as my -- from my understanding, the PPA doesn't have now an effect on EBITDA. It just shows an effect on the EBIT. Or am I wrong in that assumption?

No, no. Absolutely. What I just mentioned is this was basically to transition on Slide 3 to Slide 4, transition to the EBIT, so that you understand why we're jumping down from this EUR 11 million down to the EUR 7.38 million. So this is basically just the translation. So sorry for the confusion.

The EUR 4 million PPA, are there the PPA for all the M&A of the last year or just for the M&A conducted in '24.

This is the figure for all acquisitions that we have in here for the last year. So this is the full PPA figure.

So just for the last year?

Yes.

Okay. So okay, then it's fair to us to make the assumption in this year, the PPA will be at the same level as it's shown here on the Slide 3?

No. It -- honestly, it will go up a little bit because there's a reevaluation of the Analysis Prime view on this one because there was a shift in the customer base because, as I mentioned, there was a certain delay in some of the projects, which increased, of course, also the order book of Analysis Prime, and this results in the fact that we expect that the PPA will go up to 5 points at the moment, 3. So I don't want to say too much before we have the final figure from the auditor, but it will go up by EUR 1.3 million, at least what I know at the moment in total, although that we have already some effects on a decreasing side with KEONYS from 2017, the acquisition and also a little bit on the down going from ISR. So the range will be EUR 5 million to EUR 5.3 million PPA for year 2025, the given moment.

I didn't understand or perhaps I didn't hear it. What are the revenue forecast for AP in this year? Last year, they achieved revenues of EUR 70 million. And are there no further earn-outs for the first 60%?

Yes. So yes, to your last question, there are no further earn-outs. There was a onetime earn-out that was foreseen for Analysis Prime last year, which they missed because the earn-out started by USD 22 million only because the last year goal were the USD 28 million, which they did not achieve. So they ended up with USD 19.4 million, which relates then or translates into those EUR 17 million. And for this year, the target is again the last year figure, which is the USD 28 million, which is given the current trading, I mean, depending on where it goes to, but between EUR 26 million to EUR 27 million target for 2025. And there's no earn-out attached to this. So the only thing they would get is the dividend payment for their 40% that is still holding.

And my last question, is it possible to say what sales volume was affected by the Airbus, the problem?

The sales volume was in the range of about close to EUR 3 million overall for the last year, resulting out of the miss, of course, of the contract and what we had in our plan, where in the past, we typically had some additional jobs that we got aside of our framework contract. And this, of course, we missed, as I mentioned, the EBIT effect was the EUR 1.6 million because we had covered already all our costs or certain cost side, as you can imagine. And then, of course, when you go beyond this one, then, of course, there's a higher EBIT that we can collect, which missed.

And we now move on to Mr. Siering.

May I make one correction regarding the PPA? Because there's a figures Peter mentioned were correct, but maybe to make it clear, the EUR 4 million PPA we presented for 2024, includes all acquisitions we did in the past. We have a jump to a higher portion of PPA for 2025 to EUR 5.2 million, EUR 5.3 million. But it's due to the fact that the Analysis Prime is part of the group for the whole year and instead of the part of the group for just a couple of months. So the jump is due to the fact that the Analysis Prime will be consolidated the whole year. The figures are correct. But the increase is due to the fact that Analysis Prime is consolidated the whole year instead of just for 5 months. And therefore, also the PPA will be in the books for 12 months instead of 5 months. And that's the reason why we jumped from EUR 4 million to EUR 5.6 million. Sorry.

We now move on to Mr. Siering. Mr. Siering, you should be able to speak and place your questions.

Yes. Two questions from my side. The first one, you already alluded to it a little bit, but could you again talk about if you have seen a change in sentiment already maybe in the order entry in recent weeks that has maybe reflected already the slightly more optimistic mood macroeconomically speaking? And then the second one would be on your bottom line for this year. Could you provide some color on the building blocks and maybe also your view on when we will see margins of more than 5% EBIT again in the future?

So thank you for your question, Mr. Siering. So the first question regarding the order entry, we see -- or we have already seen last year and -- by the end of the year. a higher interest than we had in the years before, and I'm not saying orders, I'm saying interest. So there were increased discussions with several companies, especially also automotive companies because the concern is, of course, whether you can stay with your production in Germany or whether you have to move or I would say, Europe, it even goes beyond this or whether you have to move maybe to other areas like Vietnam, Eastern Europe or even the U.S. to a certain degree. So -- and of course, the question was how can we reduce our costs, how can we increase efficiency how can we be more innovative and faster and maybe also use our current resources in a much more efficient way or even also fight the miss of high qualified talent. And of course, we have responses to this. As you all know, the digitalization is key to this. So we have quite a lot of customers that have ideas and projects in the pipeline. In the first quarter of this year, we have seen already order entries, but I wouldn't say an increased number, but we still see an increased interest and a lot of discussions that we have with our customers now to do strategic moves on the digitalization. So this is one side. The other side that we should also never underestimate, which is a part of our business as well. That's anything that is related to the documentation business. So this is mainly financial services, but more and more ongoing also the public services that we are focusing on. And then you can imagine that there's also a high interest, there's high demand for digitalization. And now we expect that based on the current governmental changes also in Germany and the release of some of the ideas and maybe also funds that are available that this will also have an impact on our side. So what we have in a situation, if I just go into the SAP business, the SAP business or SAP PLM business, we have, for the first time, a lot of large customers. And when I say a lot, these are more than 10 large customers that are planning on the digitalization and especially on connecting the SAP to the PLM business, which is, of course, our core business. And we were never in a situation that we were talking to such large companies, first of all, at all, and the second thing at the same time to that many. So there we see a major shift. And I think the starting point was the JLR project that we did more than 12 months ago. So it was not last year, in 2023, we started this, JLR is Jaguar, Land Rover. And this was quite a very successful project, that is used now as a blueprint for the automotive industry. So that's why we expect also in this area quite some move. So there is some stuff in the pipeline. The order entry, it's getting -- yes. Then coming to the second question that you raised, Mr. Siering, that's the -- when will we achieve the 5%. I think in 2026, we have several positive effects, of course, coming together. There, we are already targeting in being in an area of the 5-plus percent. And then, of course, also in heading, and this is something that we should never forget. Our original plan for this year 2025, with the 8% to 10% in EBIT. Now with the restructuring and some acquisitions that we have done and of course, also the current situation, I would say that we have here a delay of 2 years until we get in the range that comes close to what we were targeting for before. So I hope that this answered your questions.

And we move on to Mr. Mueller. Mr. Mueller, you should be able to speak.

Yes. Thank you for the presentation and the answers so far. I would have 2 more questions. First one is also utilization. You just touched on that a bit. So I mean, I would assume that it was quite low at the end of last year, correct me if I'm wrong here. But -- so what is the basis utilization rates for the guidance this year? So basically saying if the utilization stays rather low, would you still reach your EBIT guidance this year? Or is there some improvement already baked in, given restructuring and all that? And then the second question would be on pricing and the competitive landscape or projects in the current environment. So do you observe more bidders or more companies pitching for projects and maybe also pricing aggressively. And then would you consider lower prices to win projects in this environment, so basically growth over margins? Or would you not look at projects like this?

Yes. Thank you for your questions, Mr. Mueller. So your first question regarding utilization rate. Yes, the utilization rate went down over 2024 for different reasons. Number 1 is, of course, Analysis Prime was -- in their area was targeting for high utilization, didn't meet their goals. So they were not on the highest level. And then, of course, we had the Airbus effect. So the team is existing, and you cannot shift those teams that easily to other teams because they have a very special knowledge. And of course, they are very much focused on Airbus as their customer, and in some cases, also based on the side of Airbus, so either in Hamburg, in Toulouse, even in Spain. So this is difficult to change this that fast, but we have done this because what we have done now is part of this project, and this was, of course, also one of the reasons why we call this project performance. For the sales people, of course, we looked at the last 5 years, and you could see whether the sales performance was and how good, but for the service and consultant team members, we looked, of course, at the utilization rate. And this resulted then in the fact that we had to reduce some of our team members and actually then cutting now 51 team members. So these are team members that did not have the knowledge anymore that was required in the market, and that's why we couldn't sell them anymore or the teams were too big and the demand too low and that's why we had to adjust the utilization acquired on those teams. Now we are triggering, of course, the utilization now as the main trigger, especially for the service and consultant team members. And we're making sure that we're even cross-selling them now, which we haven't done last year. So we're cross-selling now over our different divisions. We have now a platform where you can see the different knowledge and skills that the team members have so that maybe somebody from the Dassault business can also be used in the SAP business or vice versa because still we are in the SAP PLM business. So there's a certain relation to this one. Our target is, of course, that we keep the team on the full steam. If this is not happening, then, of course, we have this heat map where we see immediately in which team the percentage to utilization rate is not achieved. And then of course, we will run further measures. But at the moment, I would say we're running in a good way. We don't want to lose further people because at a certain point, and of course, you also have to ask a question whether you get off a certain business in a certain area because you don't have enough resources anymore to cover certain demands. So utilization is in our top view and is improving and will be in the main focus for 2025. Then on the pricing side, well, of course, the market is more aggressive no doubt about this one. Fortunately, we are in a situation that we have certain areas where we still are in a niche market, and there are not too many players. So this allows us to stay somehow on the same price level. Of course, our partners are sometimes under price pressure and then pushing this towards us. So if we mentioned Dassault, Dassault has squeezed their partners last year a little. This year, fortunately, so far, this did not happen, but they are, of course, under pressure with their pricing, with our services pricing, with our prices that we have for our own software. We run a project even that is called Boost, which we run in year 2024 already, which will have for this year an increase -- an effect of about EUR 200,000 as an EBIT effect where we increased prices, and we have introduced standardized automatical measures in our contracts, but also in our sales activities to make sure that we have now annual adjustments based on the market development and, of course, also our staffing costs, which in some areas were not given in the past or maybe not checked in a kind of very strategic way as we do it now. So there is no contract that is slipping now because, again, we have structurized, standardized it and automized also certain effects in our contractual situations. So that's the -- that's this effect. And then if I look at the situation, as I mentioned before, with the large entities, we are in a situation where we fortunately are recommended by either SAP or Dassault because of our special knowledge. And I don't want to say that we are -- we can ask for any price, but at least we're not in a situation where we have to be -- that we have to be squeezed and especially if you can pick a little bit the project in the SAP area and this helps us. And the last thing, when I look at the EIM business, so the documentation business. There, we are partnering now with larger entities or even former competitors. You might have seen in the news that we have now our partnership with our former, I can't even say -- I mean, competitor, but at least sportive market partner, let's call it this way, with the company Develop. Develop is very much into public and financial services, and we are partnering now with them on the sales of a bit simple, but also other activities. So you see that we're forming more likely partnerships to avoid pricing situation and to offer on larger deals and then also in tendering situations that are in a larger environment where we can keep our prices. And the other company that we will mention in the next days is a partnership with Matana, which is a German company, very strong in the public services as well. And this will also allow us to enter into certain customer relationships that we do not have today or because of our size, we cannot participate in this tendering. So we will be the sub-partner of this larger entity, again, also to avoid the pricing discussion. So at the moment, I would say we're not under unusual price pressure. Of course, everybody has price pressure, but it's not an unusual one, and we're not running a pricing strategy in cutting margins. Our goal is to increase our margin, and we have to improve our EBIT. So this would be totally counterproductive.

Well, thank you and due to the fact that we are already in over time. I would ask Mr. Schneck, if it's okay to get 3 more questions via the audio line.

Of course.

Wonderful. We switch back to Mr. Wunderlich for a follow-up question.

Yes. Mr. Schneck, you spoke about a change in the contract with Airbus regarding CenProCS. Could you tell -- so basically, you're going to supply them directly going forward? Could you give us an indication of what this would mean in terms of revenue contribution from this customer?

Yes, Mr. Wunderlich. So the contract -- the current contract that we have with Airbus continues until end of next year under the name of CenProCS because it's an existing contract that we cannot change. So the contract is a consortium that we have formed I think more than 10 years ago of these 3 entities. And actually, this company CenProCS or the consortium, CenProCS is headquartered in our Stuttgart offices. So it's really just a bidding consortium that we had. But now of course, what we are doing is we're preparing already for the tendering situation of the existing Airbus contract that we hold for the future extension starting then by 2027 for hopefully another 6 to 10 years. So in this one, we will offer as pure CENIT. And this is why it was key for us to be registered as a Tier 1 supplier. Otherwise, you are not allowed to participate in the tendering process and even to receive the documents that are required for this. Now what we're doing at the moment, and this is also something what Airbus is already testing is, of course, we are bidding and getting all the contracts already under the name of CENIT as direct Tier 1 supplier. At the moment, we're talking about smaller contracts, 300,000 to 400,000 things that fall off on -- of the major contracts with Tata or Accenture or others where Airbus is not satisfied and basically looking for a niche supplier and then ending up with CENIT. So at the moment, there is not a large amount that is running through our books on the CENIT side, but from a strategic standpoint, it's very important. And then when we look into the contract situation for year 2027, if we then are able to extend our existing contract, then of course, we talk about contract amounts that are beyond EUR 15 million to EUR 20 million. So this is key for us. But at the given moment, we're talking about small amounts less than EUR 1 million that are running through CENIT direct. And again, the CenProCS contract with what Airbus is existing and has to be fulfilled. So in 2025, you will see some smaller add-on ones on the CENIT side, but the current contract will stay as it is, and there is no change attached to this and also no change in margin attached to this.

And we quickly move on to Mr. [indiscernible], you should be able to speak.

I just have one follow-up on the restructuring. So far, you have focused on your core operations? And do you see any further need to restructure maybe some recent acquisitions from the last years?

Yes, Mr. [indiscernible], this is a good question. Let's turn it the other way around. If we look at the acquisitions that we have done, all of them were in the moment that we acquired them, they had more than 10% EBIT and this was also one of the reasons or one of the conditions that we acquired. Because as you recall, I always said, we're buying revenue, we're buying EBIT and we're buying time to do the restructuring that we do by now. So our main focus has not been those companies. Over the time, what we see is, of course, that there are areas where you can improve. So when I look into ISR, which is an entity of 200-plus employees, of course, you always have opportunities of improving, but I wouldn't call it restructuring because for restructuring, there's no need. These are well running companies. And if I just look at ISR, they're running an EBIT of 16-plus percent. So sitting in the glasshouse and fighting on our core business, I think it's not fair. And I think also not right if you step up and say, I want to do a restructuring another company that is running at 16% EBIT margin. So there is no restructuring plan on any of our other entities other than the core business that we have. And also to give you a certain figure is if I look at -- and this is why I was saying we bought time, EBITDA and revenue. If we would have not done this, the core business of CENIT would be in a situation of close to 1% EBIT. So there you see already that we still have a way to go. But -- and this is absolutely clear. We have learned quite a lot of things in our restructuring phase and reviewing of our core business. And of course, we will adapt this also to our entity. So this Project Boost, as I mentioned, this standardization and automization of price increases is something that we are transferring now to our entities and ISR is one of them that are actually looking into this one. The utilization rate, this is something that they also start looking now even more intense with certain trigger points attached to this one, which they have not done in the past. So this will lead maybe to another 1% or 2% that they can improve. But again, this is improvements and no way of restructuring. So to answer very clearly, there is no restructuring of any of our entities required, and we're not doing this. There's improvements like always, and this will be ongoing.

Well, thank you, and we quickly move on to Mr. [indiscernible] you should be able to speak.

Just have one quick question. You mentioned that the SAP PLM business is developing nicely. We have a lot of major customers who want to connect the SAP to the Dassault. I just want to ask if this is going to increase the share of your own software sales and what we can expect in time as a share of revenue for this area?

Yes. Thank you very much, Mr. [indiscernible] for your question. So number 1 is, yes, it will increase the share of our own software solution because what we do in here is mainly this connection, which is 100% software portion. Attached to this one is, of course, always when you look at the total amount, consulting and, of course, also some implementation services that we are providing around this one. So if we have a customer contract that is maybe EUR 2 million, then the software portion is in the range of 40% and 60% is implementation work and consulting work, just to give you a sense of what we're doing here, but it will definitely increase the portion. When we look at the SAP business overall, if you recall, when I started, CENIT did EUR 15 million of revenues of EUR 146 million. So 2/3 of our revenues were basically done by the Dassault business. We have shifted this now, if we look at year 2024, more than half of the business is not anymore Dassault only. So the SAP pure solution. And again, it's considered in the PLM business when you look at it, but the pure portion is now EUR 50 million, and it's growing, so 5-0. So as you can see, it's more than tripled by the acquisitions. So this includes Analysis Prime, this includes PI, this includes ABC in Vienna. So there already by this, you see that we're moving and heading forward in this direction. I would say at the moment, this is the fastest growing, not only by acquisitions, but also by organic growth division that we have in the PLM segment. And I expect that this will become even more interesting portion for us. And already margin-wise, it's definitely beyond the range that we're targeting for when I say the 8% to 10%. The SAP PLM business is in an area that is beyond the 2 digit, so more than 10% EBIT margin. And, of course, related also the fact that we have quite some proprietary software, and we will increase this. So this is what I can say at a given moment. And then, of course, beyond this, Mr. [indiscernible], I can provide you figures when we are in discussion -- personal discussion, but I will not share any further figures than this because sometimes we have competitors and of course, also partners in this -- in those calls that are interested in EBIT figures in more details, which I cannot and will not provide them in this context. I hope that this answers your question. And beyond this, Mr. [indiscernible], I'm always willing to share with you then on a call or a team session.

We have one last question from a participant. Mr. Olof, you should be able to speak now.

Thanks a lot, Peter, for the insight. Let me just ask basically one question regarding the big picture. Quite some competitors are very well above the level of our last elections. To find the CENIT prices of roughly EUR 7.5 on a substantial basis or on a prolonged time, you need to go back like 12 years. The stock is very cheap. I understood that it came down greatly because of basically the wind down of [indiscernible] funds, but that is past pain. Your figures may not look brilliant for 2024, but hugely affected by one-offs that don't come back, you don't do an acquisition, things should be fine. The last time you yourself picked up stock was like 12-ish and you picked up many more shares at higher prices than even that. So that's really, basically, there's huge room for upside in the stock price, not so much your operational performance. Are you in some talks to amend that or to find new investors of the scale of the [indiscernible] vehicles to kind of make use of that situation? Because I mean, basically, you're turning the old CENIT around. You're doing a good job and still the stock is ailing like 12 years ago. So let's be frank. I mean, I understand that you have your KPIs and so on, but at the end of the day, for the shareholder, it's the EPS and the stock price. To me, as I said, not having done a really deep dive into it, the stock really looks very cheap. So are you in talks here? What are you going to do about that?

Yes, Mr. Olof, thank you very much. And I can confirm that I did purchasing of some of our shares at EUR 15 and just a little bit of I think, EUR 13, so even the EUR 12, I didn't touch. But anyhow, it is what it is. Yes, as you mentioned, one of the effect is, of course, that we had the main first effect that the irrespective of our share and also what other shares they had to close the portfolio and to sell all their shares, which, of course, was a major jump. If you consider that we have 8.3 million shares and close to 800,000 are on the market, within 6 months, this was, of course, a major dilution. The second portion attached to this is we are in comparison or in a peer group that is overall as well going down, although that I think that the peer group comparison is not always fair because the data groups and CANCOM and [indiscernible] of this world are IT infrastructure companies, and we're not providing IT infrastructure. We're a highly specialized team that is looking into digitalization, which is the business for the future. So -- but this is the fact that we have. And then the third effect is, and this is something that we should not underestimate is. Of course, we're doing restructuring, we are doing here quite some changes in this organization. And this is shaky with all the acquisitions that we do, the integrations or onboarding that we have to do and our performance has not been the best in this context. So we had forecast, and like I said for last year, we had EUR 12.2 million in EBIT. There were reasons for this, but we missed it. And this is not always a good result on -- of course, then on the EPS, as you can see, but definitely also not on the share price. So it's a mixture all of this and we have to face it. I think it's important to say that in this kind of situation, it's important that you have the captain that stays on board and is fighting the storm, though I think that we are in preparation of a perfect storm because the market itself, the digitalization market is something that is up ramping. And if you want to stay in the German market, if you want to have your production site in Germany, you have to digitalize because you cannot afford to keep your production cost at the level as we are facing the competition and the tax challenges that we have in future. Now coming to your question on the -- what we're doing. Of course, we are talking to some potential additional shareholders. But as you can imagine, the interest from some of the Anglo-American investors is low but increasing because some of them realize for quite a while, it was interesting that everybody was focused on U.S. market and now they see that their shares are also decreasing or under heavy struggle. And this is why they're focusing back now on the European market. And of course, now they see a lot of excellent companies that are very cheap, and we're one of them, and they are interested. And as you might have seen in the last days, there have been certain share acquisitions in an amount for us, still high 20,000-plus over certain days where somebody is building up a certain package, and this is an Anglo-American as far as we can see and as far as we know from the talks, again, nobody has mentioned this because they haven't crossed the 3%. But from the talks and all that, it must be some Anglo-American company. What we are not considering at the moment because this might be also the intention of your question is, we are not planning at the moment a share buyback program. This is not considered we hope. And again, we are working on this, that we get additional long-term investors on board. Like we have already now with the [indiscernible] for the dentists and yes, dentists in [indiscernible], they have crossed the 5%, and we have others that are close to cross 3%. So I think you will see changes in the coming months. And again, like you just mentioned, I think we're very cheap. But at the moment, it is what it is. We can just fight it. We can just perform. We have to continue doing our business to get out of it, and to finish our restructuring. Again, I think everybody that invested in CENIT new and this is what I said right from the beginning, we have been a dormant beauty. And now we have to make sure that this diamond is well seen now and that we will get to the old performance on the share price and hopefully much better. So we have seen the 17% and I personally strongly believe that we will be at this point and even higher in the future. But this is still a piece of work that we have to do.

Okay. But you're not considering taking or you as the major shareholders, are not considering to take the company private?

If it would be that way, I think I would not be allowed to mention this in this context here, but honestly, I'm also not aware of any activities of our major shareholder, which in this case is Primepulse. So I'm not aware of any activities in what they are planning. And as you can imagine, because of the governance, they will not talk to me first. They will just do it and then inform me of what they've done.

Well, not necessarily so. I mean we've seen quite a lot of takeovers by private equity firms in the recent past, because it's pretty new that the valuations in the private market are higher than in the small and microcap market, not the other way around as it should be. So personally, I was involved with taking private of the Pontis, which was too cheap anyway, but still, it is a possibility to make use of the dry funds of the private equity giants.

Absolutely, and I fully agree Mr. Olof, but I will kindly ask for understanding, I will not comment on this.

Well, we thank you. And for those who put a question in our chatbox, I will make sure that I forward them to Investor Relations of CENIT. And we, therefore, come to the end of today's earnings call. Thank you for joining and all your questions, and thank you very much, much, Mr. Schneck and Mr. Otto for your time to answer all the questions in over time. Should further questions arise at a later time, please feel free to contact Mr. Schneck Jacques or Tanja Marinovic from Investor Relations. I wish you all a lovely remaining Thursday and hand over to Mr. Schneck for some final remarks.

Yes. Thank you very much for your questions and of course, also your patience with us, with CENIT, with the share price, like you just mentioned, Mr. Olof, I think we're totally below our real value. We will work on this. We have to perform. Year 2025 will be a transition year, given the current situation that we face and also our restructuring program, but I think we're shaping and setting up so that in 2026, the rocket can reboost up. And I'm very confident that we will get there and that you will also, during the year, already get some positive news that are heading into this duration. So thank you very much, and I'm looking forward to see you all, and of course, to answer any questions that are beyond our session here today. Please feel free to contact us.