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

Good afternoon, and a warm welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to today's conference call of the MBB SE following the publication of the Q3 figures of 2025. Therefore, I'm delighted to welcome CFO, Torben Teichler. So he will speak in a moment and guide us through the presentation and the results. And afterwards, we will move over to our Q&A session. And having said that, Mr. Teichler, I hand over to you.

Yes. Thank you very much. My name is Torben Teichler. I'm the CFO of MBB. A warm welcome to you. I will take you through the Q3 results today. But before I do that, let me, as always, start with a very quick recap of what makes MBB special. MBB offers, as most of you know, long-term succession solution to sustainable Mittelstand companies. And the way we do that is, I think, unique because in many ways, we share the same DNA with the companies we acquire and with the entrepreneurs we typically buy our companies from. And that is because we are a family business ourselves with 2 founders who are still the major shareholders and active in the company. And I think that's a very strong differentiating factor, which is helping us in a lot of conversations with entrepreneurs and companies who would like to acquire. Secondly, we are fans of the capital market. That's why we're here today as a stock-listed company, obviously. But as you know, we have 3 of our subsidiaries who are also stock listed for that Aumann and Delignit. And having brought all of these companies to the stock markets ourselves in order to finance their growth and development is, in my view, a special differentiating factor for us. Thirdly, we have a long-term focus. That means we buy to develop our -- develop and hold our companies for the long term and grow them and hence, remain the anchor shareholders in these businesses. And lastly, we focus on sustainable businesses, and that does not necessarily -- is not necessarily met in an environmental sense, but we like structural trends like the energy transition, IoT security, for example, which offer enormous business opportunities as you will see later in the presentation. Today, we are a group of 6 companies with more than EUR 1.1 billion in revenue and double-digit EBITDA margins. And with that introduction, let's move into the 9 months results. Yes, overall, we had a really strong 9 months performance with revenues growing by 13% to EUR 862 million and once more an extraordinary EBITDA increase of more than 50% year-on-year to EUR 144 million. And that, by the way, is almost as much as the entire full year EBITDA, which we had last year, which was EUR 149 million. So our EBITDA margin really increased substantially by 4.5 percentage points to 16.7%, which is an all-time high and is, of course, something we're very excited and proud about. Looking at the quarters, it was especially the Q3, which brought us the significant EBITDA ramp-up, as you will see here on the following slide. Yes, Q3 EBITDA grew by a phenomenal [ 80% ]to EUR 67 million, which boosted the EBITDA margin of the quarter to 21%, while revenue grew by a good 6% to EUR 317 million. And well, where is all of that coming from? I think the easiest way to explain it is by looking at our segments. And as in the previous 2 quarters, the key driver was once more our Service & Infrastructure segment. And here, especially Friedrich Vorwerk, which has really had a tremendous development in the third quarter. delivering excellent results and a more than 100% increase in EBITDA. But also DTS continued its strong revenue and profitability growth trajectory, which eventually allowed this segment, Service & Infrastructure to grow by an additional EUR 64 million in revenue and EUR 28 million in additional EBITDA. And hence, the segment or these 2 companies more than compensated for the lackluster development of the 2 other segments. So let's dive into some details now on the following slides. And looking at Friedrich Vorwerk here on the left, the company kept up its really exceptional growth momentum, boosting revenue by 39% to EUR 202 million in the quarter, while the EBITDA margin reached an impressive 25% or EUR 51 million in absolute numbers. So this quarter, things really went smoothly from fairly good weather conditions and sound execution to solid personnel and capacity ramp-up this year, but also no major hiccups in projects. And that not only in terms of the larger projects, which you remember, [indiscernible], but also with view on a whole range of small and medium-sized projects, which are also very interesting also from a commercial perspective. Yes, looking ahead on Q4 and beyond, the order book of EUR 1.1 billion obviously provides us with confidence on the outlook and recent order wins from the electricity, gas and hydrogen, but also adjacent opportunities I for, I think, the positive dynamic of Friedrich Vorwerk, but also the energy and infrastructure market in Germany in general. Recent projects in the gas sector, for example, were not only ETL 182, which is a mid-triple-digit million euro project, which we already talked about last time and is relevant for LNG distribution, but also an adjacent project, which was just mentioned in the earnings call of Friedrich Vorwerk, ETL 179.2. That's a low triple-digit million euro project for an 80-kilometer long high-pressure gas pipeline, which is an important piece in expanding the LNG grid from the LNG terminal north of [indiscernible] in Northwest Germany. So you see really a lot of dynamic around new LNG connections. And obviously, these 2 projects are a very good reference for what's going on and that Friedrich Vorwerk is obviously able to win such projects and participate in them. A further milestone, I think, is the mid-double-digit euro order for hydrogen gas pressure regulating and metering station, which forms part of the hydrogen backbone and which is gradually taking shape. So also a very interesting development. And lastly, Friedrich Vorwerk just won an additional double-digit million euro district heating project in Hamburg, which shows you that also apart from the super large projects, there are multitude of smaller and midsized opportunities, which can be commercially very attractive and which -- Friedrich Vorwerk is also eager to win and participate. Also, there are interesting perspective in terms of the expansion of the [indiscernible] grid and also a CO2 storage grid, which are at least politically taking shape now. So I think there will be lots of works and projects to cover in the next couple of years. But looking at 2025 as a whole, I think the outlook is strong and management has recently, for the second time, already increased its guidance to EUR 650 million to EUR 680 million of revenues with a new EBITDA margin range of 20% to 22%. And that obviously bodes well for the fourth quarter and maybe already provide some flavor also for next year. Now turning to DTS here on the right, the second star, so to say, in our portfolio. The company continued on its growth trajectory with very strong Q3 revenue growth of 35% to EUR 32 million and a good EBITDA margin of around 15%. Demand here really continued to remain sound in Q3 with good momentum across many customers, which is driven by hardware and services, while the company obviously continued to promote its proprietary software offering. So the overall performance remains well and especially in contrast to the fairly weak second half of 2024, I think this is very encouraging and also with a view on the full year overall. Last time, we already discussed that DTS had one major IT security solutions contract, really a milestone in the low to mid-double digits with a duration of 5 years from a public sector client. That project has gotten off to a good start and is now progressively worked through over the next couple of years. So looking ahead, we are optimistic on future dynamic growth for DTS this year and generally expect the company's focus on IT security, but also the fiscal spending plans for the German government to provide tailwind for DTS and that the German government part, especially looking also at 2026. So again, if you look at the segment, Service and Infrastructure overall, Friedrich Vorwerk and DTS have done -- have once more been the 2 growth engines this quarter, and we expect this strong dynamic to continue also in the quarters to come. Yes, turning to the Technological Applications segment. The lackluster automotive environment has unfortunately continued to weigh on both Aumann and Delignit -- at Aumann here on the left, revenue came down as expected by 46% year-on-year to EUR 49 million. But thanks to really proactive cost measures and good management of the projects, EBITDA remained strong at 14% EBITDA margin, which I think really speaks for the company and how well they've adapted to the current environment. Nevertheless, order entry has remained quite weak in Q3 overall, reflecting the temporarily weaker automotive environment. And given that Q4 is an important quarter, also with a number of orders still out there in the market, management has remained cautious and reiterated its initial guidance of EUR 210 million to EUR 230 million of revenues with an EBITDA margin of 8% to 10%. Looking ahead and especially with view on 2026, we hope that rising EV registrations and a more stable macro environment will eventually improve the overall investment sentiment again, and Aumann will obviously continue its successful diversification drive into other end markets such as cleantech, defense, aviation, but also general automation with the -- next Automation segment, which has delivered really an encouraging order intake development with growth of 35% in the first 9 months. And I think that underscores that Aumann's diversification push is gaining traction. You remember mainly in the first half of the year, they grew 20% in order intake in that segment. So the Q3 has really propelled us forward and brought some of the sales effort to fruition. And obviously, that it's encouraging to see that there is room for Aumann to gain a stronger footprint also in other industries. Yes, thanks to the company's very strong net cash position of EUR 160 million, management is able to continue to expand into these new end markets and that not only organically, but potentially also through acquisitions. Delignit on the right side, yes, also here, the environment has remained challenging with LCV demand still mixed and OEM customers having volatile call-offs. As a result, revenues came in at EUR 14 million in the quarter, up 5%. So that's already a good sign, although on a lower base. While profitability has held up quite well, thanks to management's very proactive cost management. So the company has definitely done a good job in navigating this environment. And outside the automotive industry, there are positively some opportunities such as in the rail business, which the company is focusing on as well as a number of M&A opportunities, which, yes, Delignit continues to look at. Nonetheless, the guidance for 2025 remains cautious at this stage with EUR 68 million in revenues and an EBITDA margin of 6% to 7%. Yes. And last but not least, the Consumer Goods segment. Here, the consumer environment in general has remained muted as in the first half of the year, which you see at both Hanke and CT Formpolster. At Hanke, you remember that we have a temporarily lower productivity due to the installation of a new converting machinery, and we expect this now to be finalized in Q4, which would finally increase our converting capacity for next year to around 100% from currently around 80% and that looks set to provide Hanke with additional revenue and also profitability potential as we move forward. Yes, CT Formpolster, demand really remained seasonally weak over the summer months, but has modestly improved as we moved into autumn. So we might have seen the bottom and hope that as we move into the fourth quarter now and then 2026, the market will gradually improve again. So all in all, while the automotive as well as consumer goods businesses are currently facing some temporary challenges, our 2 growth engines, Friedrich Vorwerk and DTS continue to perform strongly with good visibility as we are moving into Q4. And on the back of this, we recently decided to increase our guidance to EUR 1.1 billion to EUR 1.2 billion in revenues at an EBITDA margin of 15% to 17%. And I think if you look at our 9 months figures, they back this up quite nicely so far. So we are quite confident -- yes, on the last quarter. Turning to our balance sheet, of course. It remains rock solid, as always, with EUR 527 million of net cash at group level, of which EUR 318 million are attributable to the holding MBB SE. And yes, one key driver of this was clearly the strong operating cash flow in the quarter of almost EUR 60 million, which I think is very encouraging because it shows you that the EBITDA is also translating into cash flow. And looking at the balance sheet overall, I think our companies continue to have ample room to maneuver the current environment and to pursue M&A and focus on capital allocation in general. Yes. And finally, that brings me to our share price and our sum of the parts valuation. MBB is clearly undervalued in my point of view. If you look at the value of our current portfolio, we've tried to illustrate that here in that speed meter graphic. I think the charming thing is that the value of a large part of our portfolio is actually quite transparent. And what you see here on the left side of that speed meter is, first of all, the net cash at holding level, which alone already accounts for around EUR 60 per MBB share. Together with our shareholding in Friedrich Vorwerk, that implies a value of almost EUR 220 per MBB share. And if you add the rest of the listed portfolio, you arrive at a value of around EUR 234 per MBB share, which compared to our share price of EUR 188 today implies a discount of almost 20% on our liquid portfolio alone. And that obviously does not reflect the value of our private portfolio, first and foremost, DTS, but also Hank, which together, in my point of view, account are worth several hundred million euros and basically come on top for free. So I think this makes the MBB stock very attractive right now. And while the market has started to narrow the discount timing a little bit lately, I'm quite optimistic that our share price has the potential to pick up further with our underlying value. Yes, I hope I was able to give you a brief walk through our Q3 figures and our portfolio, and I'm happy to take your questions now.

[Operator Instructions] So Mr. Teichler, it seems -- by now, you explained everything so well. And having said that, we received the first virtual hand from [indiscernible], we are happy to take your questions.

Perfect. Just a quick one on your stakes on the 3 listed holdings. In Q3, you reduced slightly stakes in Friedrich, Aumann and Delignit. Can you shed a bit light on it? What was the reason to reduce the stakes? Because I think you generated cash flows -- cash inflows in about EUR 50 million, although you already have a very stable amount of cash. So maybe what's the idea behind it?

Sure, of course. So maybe let's start with Friedrich Vorwerk. We -- it's true we slightly reduced our shareholding in the third quarter by around 1.5%. But maybe if you look at it holistically, I mean, we are still a 47% shareholder in Friedrich Vorwerk. And we are highly committed to the company because it's simply the fastest force in our stable, and I think at least we have a lot of confidence in the company and also the market as we look into the future. So for us, this is clearly a key shareholding, and there is no question that we will change our position fundamentally. But, as you know, we've -- in the past, always sort of fluctuated and we're breathing in our shareholding. And in the case of Friedrich Vorwerk, it was simply the case that since the SDAX entry of Friedrich Vorwerk, we -- the company has received significant investor attention, and we've been approached a couple of times now by larger institutional investors also from the U.S. and were asked if we were willing to provide some of the liquidity for that demand. And on one or the other occasion, we decided to do so also because we think it's important to develop the stock and have the free float to, yes, develop the share price. So that's the reason basically for these changes in shareholding. But as I said, I mean, for us, this is clearly the major -- one of the major growth drivers of the group. So yes, we remain very happy anchor shareholders of the Friedrich Vorwerk. And looking at Aumann and Delignit, yes, these were some slight opportunistic adjustments. Honestly, if you look at it in absolute terms, we're talking about EUR 1.6 million -- for Aumann and less than EUR 1 million at Delignit. So yes, it obviously isn't a huge magnitude either and rather an opportunistic adjustment on that level. So for us, basically no change in the overall setup. And yes, that's how we look at it.

All right. Thank you. And then we have a further question in our chat box and the participant would like to know why were some of the holdings sold in the last quarter?

Yes. Well, I think I just tried to answer that question. If there's a follow-up, just -- yes, let me know. But as I said, I mean, for us, this was more opportunistic and not strategic really also if you look at the dimension of the adjustments.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, it's possible to ask questions if you would like and maybe there are some open topics you would like to discuss. Otherwise, we would come to the end. But having said that, so a reminder is always good. We will come back to [ Mr. Bayer ] because he has a follow-up question. So [ Mr. Bayer, ] just go ahead.

Thank you very much. And I would just like to ask a follow-up about Aumann. We've had the call earlier the day. I was thinking the EBITDA margin looks very conservative for me for the Q4. Do you expect any major effects in Q4 that will -- that leads you to this low guidance because I think the upper end of 10% seems to be reachable? Or what is your intention on that?

Clearly, I mean, in the 9 months, the company had a margin of 11.6%. So that obviously is a good figure for now. But I think what the management of our one is also aware of is the current order intake situation and that -- or the current market environment, and that is overall fairly weak at the moment. And so I think also the Q4 is not over yet, and it's definitely an important quarter also in terms of order intake. And that obviously is necessary to get a good feeling for how we move into next year. So there's definitely some caution in this guidance because I think at this stage, there's really no reason to become too euphoric. But yes, I would agree with you that the guidance is conservative. And yes. But clearly, in the current environment, it's, I think, better to remain on the cautious side for now than to promise things you can't hold.

And then we have further questions in the chat box. What are the intentions with the cash mountain? So the participant is not a fan of dividends. Is the cash a sign of cautious behavior considering tariffs and high share prices or from lack of investment opportunities?

Well, I mean, I think you can't blame us for not distributing cash to shareholders. You correctly noted dividends are not necessarily our major strength, but we have obviously resorted to share buybacks quite often whenever we felt that our share price is significantly undervalued and there is a mismatch between what we believe the stock is worth and where the share price is. So that's definitely one topic in capital allocation, which I think we've always used as a tool and we will, of course, continue to look at also going forward. The other thing is that we definitely look at M&A targets. Clearly, for our subsidiary companies, but also MBB itself. As you know us, we are quite cautious and conservative when we look at especially stand-alone companies, we definitely don't want to overpay and really understand the business. So we are not necessarily a serial buyer. But I think the acquisitions we've done in the past, I think, have been overall very good investments and large part of that is buying these companies at attractive prices and then developing them further. And that's what we continue. And I think one of the charming things of being largely family-owned is that we don't have to do a deal just to do a deal, but we can carefully look at M&A targets and yes, continue to keep that approach, which has been one of the backbones of the success of MBB over the past 30 years.

Thank you so much. Another question in the chat. What are the main sectors you're looking at complementary with Friedrich Vorwerk, Aumann future energy or a complement -- a completely different sector to offset the risks?

I think overall, we look at a whole range of things. So in a sense, we're opportunistic in what we look at. Maybe it's easier to say what we don't look at, and that's clearly things we don't really understand or where you really have to be a specialist to fully judge what you're doing and be good at that business. So we wouldn't move into biotech or whatever, things like that. But otherwise, we look at a whole range of industries. I think what we don't do is restructuring cases, at least not as a stand-alone for MBB. I think we more than in the past, prefer capital-light business models. And yes, clearly, if you look at our portfolio today, we definitely have an inclination not to add another automotive business to it since we already have quite a significant exposure in that area. So clearly, things in the infrastructure market, maybe the aviation market, but potentially also things in maybe the DACH region in general could move into focus. So yes, we do -- we keep the scope quite open in order to see as much as possible and then decide what we want to focus on.

Thank you so much. And then we have a quite popular question. Can you give us an update on current M&A opportunities for MBB?

M&A opportunities, yes or...

M&A.

Okay. Yes. So as I said, we have 2 tracks of M&A. One is add-on for our portfolio companies. There, we are looking at quite a lot of things at Friedrich Vorwerk to expand the regional scope, also to add maybe 1 or 2 technical expertise in certain areas, which are complementary to the existing business. At Aumann, we are looking at the aviation sector, for example, which I think is an interesting market to address via M&A. But it's also a regional topic for Aumann where we also look at the U.S. Obviously, the market there is also under some pressure right now. But who knows? That might also create opportunities for us. Then at DTS, it's mostly smaller competitors or companies in the software business. As you remember, we've done an acquisition of software companies a couple of years ago, and that has really propelled the proprietary software development of DTS. So this has been a really good experience, which we would like to replicate. And yes, Delignit, it's probably more in terms of vertical integration, either or maybe end markets which we address at the moment, such as the rail market where we look at ways to increase our footprint in those end markets. So there are quite a lot of things out there in terms of add-on M&A. For MBB itself, we clearly have a pipeline of deals we're looking at. There was one thing we looked at in the infrastructure market. There are 1 or 2 other opportunities we look at, yes, and try to move these processes along. There's nothing which is going to be signed in the next 2 weeks, but we do have a pipeline. And I have the feeling actually that the quality of leads and also the pricing in the market has definitely become better than what we've seen a couple of years ago. So I think the change in interest rates has overall improved our position as a potential buyer. And that's, I think, a good sign so far. So yes, we are fairly optimistic that we will have interesting targets to look at as we move forward and hopefully push one of them across the finish line soon or later.

Thank you. So let's cover quickly the final and last question. Is there a risk or even a plan to consolidate Aumann after the sale of few shares Q3 as you are now below 50%?

No. It's the simple answer because we still control the AGM. And Yes. As I said, I mean, we're committed to the company. We've actually been below 50% already for quite some time. So it's actually not really a new situation. So for us, it remains part of the group. And there are no plans to deconsolidate Aumann.

Thank you so much. And this answer concludes our call for today. So dear participants, thank you so much for joining the MBB call, and thank you for your shown interest. So should further questions arise, please, yes, feel invited to get in touch with Mr. Teichler. And also a big thank you to you for your time today and for answering the questions. So from my side, it was a pleasure to be your host today. Wish you all a lovely evening. We say thank you, and goodbye. See you the next time.

Thank you very much. Take care. Bye-bye.