MBB SE (MBB.DE) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, and warm welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to today's earnings call of the MBB SE following the publication of the financial year figures of 2024. I'm delighted to welcome CEO Dr. Constantin Mang and CIO Tom Teichler. So the gentlemen will guide us through the presentation and the results shortly. And as always, following the presentation, we will move on to our Q&A session in which you will be allowed to place your questions directly to them. So having said this, Dr. Mang, I hand over to you.

Thank you, and good afternoon. My name is Constantin Mang. I'm CEO of MBB, and I'm looking forward to presenting our full year 2024 figures to you. Today, I'm very grateful that I'm joined by Tom Teichler because not only do I have a slight fever, and it feels good to have a backup in the call, but especially because Tom is a dear friend, and he will take over responsibilities as CFO from July 2025 onwards. So Tom, please introduce yourself.

Yes. Thank you, Constantin. My name is Tom Teichler. I'm with MBB for 8 years now almost. I've been on the Management Board since 2021 so that's also almost 4 years now. I have a background in investment banking. I actually was an equity analyst for quite some time. And yes, accompanied the Aumann AG CEO back then from the bank side, and that was the reason why I changed to MBB. As I said, I've been with the company now for quite some time and from July, I'll take over the finance department and Investor Relations as CFO. So I'm very happy to be on the call today with Constantin Mang to present our full year 2024 figures to you.

Thank you, Tom. As always, I'd like to start with a very quick recap on what makes MBB special. And as you know, MBB offers long-term succession solutions to sustainable Mittelstand companies. And we do that in a pretty unique way because, first of all, we are a family business ourselves, and we share the DNA of the businesses that we want to acquire. Secondly, we are fans of the capital markets. That's why we are here today in the end, but that's also why 3 of our subsidiaries are stock listed as well. Maybe some of you have been to the earnings calls of Friedrich Vorwerk and Aumann just before us, and you know that we have a very special relationship with the capital markets. Thirdly, we have a long-term focus. When we buy a new business, we really don't have the intention to sell the business, but we want to develop and to grow the business over the long term. And lastly, we focus on sustainable business models. And with that, I don't only mean that we -- I mean that we don't have an environmentalist agenda, but we believe that trends like the energy transition will offer enormous business potential in the next decade. And that's why we like sustainability. And with that, let's jump into our full year figures. And it is quite remarkable that in 2024, we broke several records. First of all, we broke the revenue record of EUR 1 billion, that mark was very symbolic to us. But to be honest, I don't think it's the most impressive figure here on the slide, but it feels good to have finally reached the EUR 1 billion revenue status. Much more impressive, I think, is that we also broke the EUR 100 million EBITDA mark and we broke it not only by EUR 1 million or EUR 2 million, we broke it by almost EUR 50 million. Our EBITDA grew by 86% to EUR 149 million last year. I think that's a very impressive figure. And last but not least, we also broke our net cash record and for the first time, have reached more than EUR 550 million in net cash. And to be honest, this figure is actually lowballing the actual situation because as we will later see we also invested almost EUR 60 million last year into shares of our own group. If you would add that, you get to net cash of way beyond EUR 600 million. If we take a look at how this compares to our forecast over the year, you see that we clearly reached that EUR 1 billion revenue target and exceeded it. And with the EBITDA margin, we actually had -- we raised our forecast 3 times last year, then we had preliminary figures in January. And we broke all these EBITDA margin forecast and also the preliminary figures and ended up with 14% EBITDA margin, which is an absolute record for us. It's 5 percentage points larger than -- more than 5 percentage points larger than last year, and it's 1.5 percentage points higher than our previous high mark. And if we are looking at where we were standing in the fourth quarter, we see that the fourth quarter had an EBITDA margin of 19%. So the fourth quarter of 2024 was by far the strongest quarter that we ever had, more than EUR 50 million in EBITDA. Also revenue grew to over EUR 300 million, which is a 15% increase compared to the previous year. Where does that come from? Well, actually, in all 3 of our business segments, EBITDA grew substantially last year. And that's because in each of our 3 segments, we had one absolute champion. In the Service & Infrastructure segment, it was Friedrich Vorwerk, of course, and Tom will elaborate a little bit on their success in the last business year. In the Technological Applications, we had Aumann that had an absolute revenue and EBITDA record. And in the Consumer Goods segment, we had Hanke, which showed the strongest EBITDA margin in the last years. And with that, I would like to hand over to Tom, who will talk a little bit about the developments in each and every of our subsidiaries. Tom?

Thank you, Constantin. Yes. Looking at these numbers, we -- and diving now into our portfolio companies, we really had a remarkable year in the sense that we really broke several records not only at the group level, but also at our major portfolio companies that's particularly Friedrich Vorwerk but also Aumann which both at the same time delivered really strong results. And looking now at Friedrich Vorwerk here on the left side, you see that the company grew revenue by 33% to almost EUR 0.5 billion with an EBITDA margin of more than 16% and thanks to good working capital management, but also because of that very decent profitability level, was able to generate a net cash position of more than EUR 150 million. So that's really confident for us that this profitability is not only an EBITDA margin figure, but it's actually translating into cash flow. And that gives us a lot of confidence on the quality of the orders we're working on at Friedrich Vorwerk. So looking at the company in 2024, we've seen smooth execution in general across most of the projects, and that's clearly a marked improvement from 2023. So we've gotten better in executing all the projects the company is working on. And beyond that, we've seen good progress on a number of important projects such as [indiscernible]. But most importantly, actually, the gradual ramp-up of the A-Nord project that large electricity highway project, which was really driving, especially in the second half of the year and also very, very good Q4 turnover which allowed the EBITDA margin to reach 19% in the Q4, which overall is more than 7 percentage points higher compared to last year. So as you can see, we're slowly getting back to the margin levels, at least on a quarterly basis we've seen in the IPO and that is giving us a lot of confidence in the company in general. And looking ahead, we have a well-filled order book with, of course, the A-Nord playing also a very important role in 2025 but also projects from all sectors pretty much. So from the electricity side but also the gas sector with the EWA and WAD pipelines in the order book now as well as electrolyzer projects, which are all providing for tailwind and really, yes, give us confidence on the outlook for this year and beyond. So for this year, we expect solid growth in terms of revenues to EUR 540 million to EUR 570 million with an EBITDA margin of 16% to 17% so that from my point of view, we're going to see decent double-digit growth and slight improvement in the EBITDA margin. And yes, so that is obviously providing for a good backstop for our group guidance, which will follow after this chapter. Looking at the right side, you see DTS. DTS has seen a good start into the year 2024, actually. However, starting in the second half, we've seen order postponements, unfortunately, into this year which were basically resolved on the one hand, hesitance by German SMEs to invest amidst the U.S. election, which created certain uncertainties and on the other hand, we had new elections in Germany, which led to weaker public sector investments. However, we're optimistic on 2025, given that IT security is becoming an ever more relevant topic for companies and also government agencies and the regulatory incentives such as NIS2 for example, but also very importantly, the German government spending intentions, which are primarily focused on infrastructure, defense and digitalization looks to be a major tailwind for local German players such as DTS. So additionally, DTS has used the year 2024 to continue to develop its own software and security services. And that not only improves the company's competitive positioning but also its underlying profitability. So after, let's say, transition year 2024 at DTS, we're quite optimistic about 2025 and look forward to the development of the company in this year. Turning to the next page, the Technological Applications segment. We see on the left side, Aumann, which has delivered really a record year 2024, both in terms of revenue and EBITDA, reaching EUR 312 million in turnover and an EBITDA margin of 12%. And while the order intake unfortunately has come down due to a slowdown in the e-mobility rollout, we're convinced that Western OEMs will continue to invest into new e-mobility lines in order to prevail in the global market. And our impression is that the consolidation we've seen on the order front has actually been used by many OEMs to, well, become a bit more strategic in terms of what kind of platforms they want to pursue. So our hope is that we'll see an improvement on the order intake front in the course of 2025. But beyond hope, Aumann has been quite actively addressing opportunities in other sectors outside the automotive industry, particularly clean tech, aviation, but also life sciences. And we believe that there is structural growth potential in these sectors going forward. And in order to institutionalize that Aumann repositioned its classical or former classical segment into next automation. And in our point of view, that's a very important step to have institutionalized that also inside the company. So looking at 2025, Aumann still has a very solid order backlog and that secures the guidance of EUR 210 million to EUR 230 million in revenue, with an EBITDA margin of 8% to 10%. So this guidance looks well secured, I would say, but there is a certain chance that we'll see improvements in the order intake in the course of the year. And at the right side of the segment, we have Delignit, Delignit has seen a year with overall lower demand in 2024 especially in the caravan business, which was affected by cancellations by OEMs, resulting in revenue decline to EUR 65 million. Nevertheless, the company reacted very quickly and already early on took action to adjust its cost base and finished the year now with a solid EBITDA margin, at least given the significant sales decline, which is at the upper end of its guided range of 4% to 6% and looking ahead, we see first cautious signs of improvement. And well, the company is also here working on addressing opportunities outside of the automotive industry. So we expect actually to have seen the trial in 2024 and hopeful improvement now in 2025. And last but not least, moving on to our Consumer Goods segment. We saw a strong turnaround at Hanke Tissue, especially on the profitability level, which was thanks to more stable energy prices overall but also the expiration of energy price hedges, which had hurt us in the past. So this has a lot of profitability to rebound in the current year, but also the company really has taken the year to invest into new converting capacity and that will, going forward, allow us to convert almost all [indiscernible] production of the company into converted tissue products and that is obviously good for profitability. So we're very much looking forward to 2025, yes, with the prospect of this capacity ramping up and supporting the very strong EBITDA margin we already saw in 2024. Last but not least CT Formpolster had a muted year 2024, but also here, we expect to see in the bottom and see very cautious positive signs now going into 2025. So with that, I hand it back to Constantin for the group guidance for 2025.

Yes. So if we add up all the forecast that Tom already presented on the individual company level, we expect that in total, we see a rather stable revenue in 2025 with an EBITDA margin of between 11% and 14%. As you heard from Tom, there are definitely 2 different effects this year. On the one hand, we have the weakness in the automotive industry which will lead to a lower revenue at Aumann, but on the other hand, we expect significant growth, both from Friedrich Vorwerk and DTS primarily, but also from others. And the question is basically how these different effects will net out each other? The other big question, of course, and that explains why the EBITDA margin range is relatively large for 2025 is the economic uncertainty. Of course, we don't have any special insights in how a trade floor might end if it comes to that. And for that, I think we have a little bit room to maneuver here with this rather large EBITDA margin guidance of 11% to 14%. No matter what happens, I think we still have a more than robust balance sheet, thanks to the strong conversion also in the last year. We have a 65% equity ratio, we have EUR 554 million in net cash and out of that, EUR 281 million net cash are in the holding MBB SE. So I think we do have a lot of room to maneuver here and taking into account what we have invested into our group companies over the last 2 years, namely EUR 40 million in MBB just last year or in total, EUR 40 million in Vorwerk shares over the last 2 years and also in Aumann shares. You see that the balance sheet is very strong. We have record net cash, even though we increased our share in our subsidiaries. We actually acquired 14 percentage points for ownership in Vorwerk over the last 2 years and are now at 50% the same as at Aumann. And if you take the EUR 110 million that we invested into stocks of our portfolio companies and MBB itself, the value of these 110 has actually doubled until now. And this is especially due to the strong stock price performance, but also underlying value performance of MBB and Vorwerk. I personally think we wouldn't have managed to achieve a similar return with any M&A transaction over the last 2 years, right? I mean, doubling money in 2 years is quite a success, especially in the market. And I think it pays off that we know our subsidiaries very well. We know what we have and therefore, it clearly made sense that we increased our shares in these companies. If we take a look at the dividend, you might have seen that we propose a dividend of EUR 3.33 for 2024, so being proposed to the next Annual Shareholder Meeting. And that consists of an increase in the base dividend to EUR 1.11 and that's actually the 15th base dividend increase that we propose. Very few companies in the German market have achieved that, that they pay a very steady base dividend that is increased basically every year. On top of that, we propose EUR 2.22 anniversary dividend to celebrate MBB's anniversary in 2025 and also to share our success with you, our shareholders. Looking at the sum of the parts valuation, you see that MBB is still valued very attractively. If we take our shares in the publicly listed companies, Vorwerk, Aumann and Delignit, you end up with EUR 575 million, you add up to EUR 281 million in net cash in the holding, and you see that you're already above our market cap. And that's why we decided to also continue buying back shares and actually increasing also the price up to which we are going to buy the shares back and our share buyback program runs until end of April. Before we come to the Q&A, please let me add a few personal remarks. You might have read that after 10 years with MBB, I've decided not to prolong my contract as CEO. The contract would have been due for renewal in end of June. My time at MBB was incredible. I learned a lot, of course, from my colleagues, but also from you, our shareholders. But I believe now it's time for me to start a new adventure and luckily, we have an excellent team at MBB. First and foremost, our largest shareholder and Executive Chairman, Christof Nesemeier, but of course, also Torben and many others. Until the end of June, I will remain at your full disposal. So please feel free, as always, to contact me or to contact to Tom, who will take over Investor Relations from July onwards. And with that, I think, Tom, we are very happy to answer any of your questions. Thank you.

Yes, definitely.

Thank you so much for the presentation and the dive into your financial figures of 2024. [Operator Instructions] And let's have a quick look. So by now, there are no questions. I guess you explained the presentation so well. So let's wait a couple of seconds.

That's a good thing about releasing preliminary figures early on, so many shareholders had the opportunity and took the opportunity to ask questions between the release of the preliminary and the final figures.

Absolutely, but there's one person who's dialed in, who have a question. [Operator Instructions] Unfortunately, we cannot hear you.

Hello? Can you hear me now?

Maybe you can write the question into the chat box?

Can you hear me now?

Yes.

Hello, it's Gerhard from Berenberg.

Hi, Gerhard.

It's very complicated. Star 9, star 6, so a lot of things to push here, so...

I'm very glad you managed.

There's 2 numbers I have to remember. I was wondering whether you're looking at any kind of new industry, anything in mind apart from bolt-on, share buybacks, et cetera, anything else that could excite us over the next year or so?

Yes. Of course, I mean, we -- I think there's lots of opportunities that are arising from the infrastructure investment package by the German government. I think there are also lots of opportunities in the defense sector. So we generally look at anything that offers a lot of growth potential. And unfortunately, many of the traditional German industries are not the ones offering the most growth at the moment and best prospects. But I think it would also be wrong to say that nothing in Germany has any future. There are lots of interesting industries that have become actually more interesting over the last few weeks and months. And we are identifying companies in these sectors and always looking at opportunities. So sure, that remains part of our strategy.

Okay. And maybe on DTS, what kind of like -- to launch an IPO process for DTS, how big does that business need to be to make sense?

I mean we don't have a clear threshold there. The bigger the better, but at the moment, we have no intention to IPO DTS or any other of our private businesses. I think that DTS just become -- became much more valuable in light of the whole security, the investments into security that we are going to see. I think American IT security vendors who have been in the past treated as just as safe as European have really a harder time at the moment. So someone that offers local solutions that are developed, maintained, hosted and everything here in Germany has become much more valuable to the whole industry.

So in the meantime, we received a further question in the chat box from David. I would be curious to hear a bit more about further plans to capital allocation, which, in principle, consider investing as a minority shareholder in or outside of Germany, also with regards to the change of leadership.

Tom, I think maybe...

Yes. Yes, I would say to the question of minority shareholders, I don't think we're really interested in investing as minority shareholders. We have good experience with becoming major shareholders in companies where we can actively involve and develop the businesses. And we see that to be more difficult if you are in a minority shareholder position on the one hand, and on the other hand, it's also, I think, a question of capacity we are a fairly lean organization and obviously, spreading our capital in several minority investments and then having to manage those obviously binds more capacity than sort of focusing on one majority investment. And so I don't think really minority investments are going to be part of the plan, just as they haven't been part of the capital allocation process in the past. Investing outside of Germany, I think that really depends on which level you look at. So if you look at our portfolio companies, which operate in certain industries, we very much also look at opportunities outside of Germany and try to diversify and expand into attractive regions. But from an MBB perspective, I wouldn't categorically exclude it, but our focus clearly is Germany or at least DACH region where we believe we have a high competency in executing on these things. So prospectively, maybe we might look at very interesting things, we'll definitely look at things as they come along, but the focus generally will remain Germany. So looking at the capital allocation strategy also going forward, I think we'll stick to our strategy, which has driven the success of MBB and obviously, with Christof Nesemeier also coming back, we go closer again to the operating business, I think we will sort of pick up and continue on the strategy, which has driven this development in the past. And I'd also like to thank Constantin very much for the great couple of years we had here together and his great insight and also leadership in developing the company over the last 4 years. In particular, we'll miss him very much. But I think looking at the figures we've seen today, the company is very well set up to also take the challenges and the opportunities which are lying ahead of us.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for answering Mr. Teichler. So then we have a follow-up from David. Would you consider ramping up stock buybacks even further? If we look at rough figures, MBB stock seems strongly undervalued right now.

Well, I mean, at the moment, we do have a stock buyback program running. After this program has run out, we will have our AGM and then we take careful look again on where our stock price is and where our valuation is and then decide if we will continue with another program. But for the moment, we have one program running, and I think there's no need to stock anything up at the moment.

Thank you so much. So, in the meantime, we have received no further questions. So therefore, we come to the end of today's earnings call. So thank you, everyone, for participating and for your shown interest in MBB. So should further questions arise at a later time, please feel free to contact us. So, yes, Mr. Mang and Mr. Teichler, thank you to you, too, for your presentation and the time you took today, so all the best for 2025. So from our side and on behalf of MBB, thank you again. Have a great Monday and see you soon.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Bye-bye.