Deutsche Beteiligungs AG (DBAN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hi. Good morning, and welcome to our annual results conference call. I'm here sitting with Brigitte, and we are happy to share our latest results with you. We have met our latest guidance, but I'll come to that later, yes. So key highlights this year was obviously the acquisition of Totalmobile by our portfolio company, Solvares. We're highlighting it here not because we are singling it out as a transaction, but the transaction itself allows us to double the size of the Solvares Continuation Fund and thus double fee income to now a really, really meaningful position here. So that's a very beautiful transaction where we -- and it's ideally also a blueprint for some other structurally growing transactions given that the economics are quite attractive for the shareholders. We have continued our very -- despite our subdued results, we have continued our friendly shareholder policy. Indeed, with -- on a group net income of EUR 24.7 million, we distributed EUR 36 million to shareholders via a mix of dividends, a steady dividend and share buybacks. It was an incredibly busy year on the investment front. I think with EUR 149 million invested, it is one of the most active years of DBAG ever. It was split roughly 2/3 between private equity and 1/3 private debt investments. And we continue to see a promising outlook for this year. Our guidance is on the cautious side, and a lot will depend -- we can move over to the next slide. A lot will depend on the outcome of some sales process we are currently launching. On Page 6, you see our portfolio. And I would highlight here that on the top 5 position, you know that I want to have a granular portfolio, no big risks inside. The concentration looks high on the top 5 position with 38%. But duagon alone, where the transaction has only closed in January and also the cash has only received in January, is 12.2% out of this. Taking that out of the equation would significantly alter that. And if you are reading the German, [indiscernible], you know that we will follow up, hopefully, the sale of duagon with potentially the sale of freiheit, where we are in the market, von Poll and also Green Datahub, which are all among the top 10 positions. Our diversification by sectors, and I said that already in the last conference call, we have hit peak IT service and software exposure, give or take, 5%, but we're pretty much there. And with all what's happening out there, we are mindful there. We also saw that -- and I alluded that with the transaction we have made in the last conference call, our sector exposure was achieved basically. Where we are concentrating right now is we're actively looking a bit more to add more on the health care space and are following up on some opportunities there. I will also -- I'm happy to report that we will report later today a small sale -- a successful sale of another portfolio company. You will hear more about that during the course of this day. Key transaction highlights 2025. Obviously, if I want to single out the largest items, the transformational add-on we did with acquiring JUMPtec from Kontron, a transaction which was a win-win for both sides. And it's a transaction which also continues to please us very, very much. We are super happy about the transaction. And also, we are reaping some significant synergies north of EUR 10 million EBITA for both companies, and they are coming in quite nicely, which is not always the case, if I may say so, yes. On the LTI program, we did a high-profile transaction with the acquisition of minority acquisition of stake in FinMatch. And obviously, on the buyout segment, the large transaction of MAIT, which we acquired in the bilateral situation with 3i over summer before any process began was a very strong highlight for us and also a transaction given the sheer size of it, which was very well noted and [ recepted ] in the market. Obviously, the biggest item of the year was the sale of duagon to Knorr-Bremse, and that will -- I will come to that later, also significantly change our net liquidity position. Combined with the sale, which will hopefully happen today, we are in a more than comfortable position right now. If I come to the next slide, that's just a bridge in terms of how we see our net asset value development per share would have developed if we add back the dividend and the buybacks. You see that we continue to be very, very generous with our shareholders. But the way Jannick and myself, we see it is that the first 5% return on NAV should go to the shareholders anyway. And that's what we're continuing to do. So even if the results are not up to our standards, but we hope that this is only a transitionary year. And I don't see any reason why we should change that for now. Going forward, we will also -- given that it's more stringent, we will probably change the KPI -- will not probably the KPI has been changed to NAV per share. as a guidance because NAV as such, is always impacted by buybacks and we would be in a position where we would need to go talk if we have not planned a larger buyback that we would miss our gross NAV metric because we do a large buyback. And so that we think that for shareholders, NAV per share matters much more than gross NAV. In terms of gross portfolio, you see that our portfolio has increased quite a lot given the frenzied investment pace. As I said, roughly 2/3 in private equity, 1/3 in private debt. Disposals was only a minor part, again, because duagon only closed in January and is not in these figures here. With that, I would move over to the next slide. There you see that our change in earnings is driven negatively by the change in net debt of our portfolio companies. One of the largest items in here is also the acquisition of JUMPtec, which we were able to do barely without any additional equity. As a matter of fact, we didn't use any equity last year. So -- and we think that's a very, very accretive acquisition. So it's not because the company's situation is deteriorating. Quite the contrary. It's because we used debt available for add-ons in congatec mostly, but also Avrio and operasan to a lesser extent. Multiples and valuation change was a big driver. But here also, I know that this is the least comfortable number for you in terms of earnings quality, but the multiple change was mainly driven because we were able to earn a significant multiple uplift on duagon. And hence, that definitely changed the nature and quality of the earnings on that KPI. Moving over to the next slide. We were able to come in better than expected on our income from fund services, and also on the cost base was controlled. The main reason I must say so is that we are a bit behind in terms of exits and realizations because sometimes we are below -- past the investment period and any disposals will lower the management fee base. So -- and that's why we are guiding this metric quite cautiously this year because we plan to do some significant exits, and that would have a negative effect on these earnings, but obviously, hopefully show up as earnings and also liquidity on the balance sheet. As I said on the next slide, we have and continue to have a very good financial basis. The situation on December 31 is actually the very low point given that, again, the transaction in duagon closed only in January. And right now, also with the transaction closing, that will have significantly improved. On the other hand, the beauty of it is that we are or were until December 31, fully invested, and that should bode well for NAV accretion going forward. With that, we come to our guidance going forward. As I said, this is the last time we will guide net asset value. It's just here for comparison purposes. Going forward, we will go to NAV per share. We aim to come in at between EUR 35 to EUR 38. I will not withhold that over the last couple of years. Our earnings guidance came in on the lower end. And personally, I was also disappointed by the lack of traction in the earnings guide. So I think this guidance is done with a pinch of caution so as to at least come in at the higher end of the guidance or maybe even have a chance to exceed it. But it's still very early days. And you also have to keep in mind, we have 24% software allocation, which obviously, on a look-through basis, at least February didn't look too good. But we are -- this guidance was done with that already factored in. And so we still -- despite the situation currently out there in the market, we feel comfortable with that guidance. But it's still early days. Going forward on the next slide, you see also our guidance for 2028, which has also been taken down a bit. But we think that the guidance, which is quite achievable. And pardon, I was misguided before because I thought that the EUR 35 to EUR 38 were our guidance for this year, my mistake. So obviously, our guidance is EUR 36 to EUR 40 per share this year. You will have also noticed that we have extended our old share buyback because we still had some leeway under our former program. And obviously, we want to -- the money which we tell our investors, which we want to spend and give them back, we just intend to give it back to them, yes. In the name of Brigitte and myself, thank you, and we will conclude this call. Goodbye, and have a nice day.