Mutares SE & Co. KGaA (MUX) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the Mutares earnings call for the full year 2022. On the call today, the CIO, Johannes Laumann; and the CFO, Mark Friedrich, will present the results and most relevant events of the full year 2022. After the presentation, they will be available to answer your questions. The presentation shown is available on the Mutares website after the call. Before we start, I would like to remind you that this presentation contains forward-looking statements, including projections which may not develop as currently expected. I, therefore, kindly ask you to take note of the precautionary warning about forward-looking statements that is included in the materials on the website. Now let me hand over to Johannes Laumann.

Good afternoon, good morning, good evening, all of you. A very warm welcome to our conference call for the financial year 2022. I'm very happy to be able to kick off the presentation by introducing you to a new record year of the history of Mutares in 2022 and also later on, looking forward into '23, which looks very promising that we will continue that we deliver what we promise. So I will guide you through the company, remind you again on our business model. And then my colleague, Mark Friedrich will take the financials before I will close the sessions on the outlook. So a small introduction. Phases should look familiar or unchanged, unchanged is also the shareholding. We currently have -- has a Management and Supervisory Board. And we are very happy with that. And we have no plans to change that. We have no plans to divest this. We have no plans to deal with this on the contrary. I think we believe in the company, and you will see when it's possible that this share potentially also might increase in the weeks and months to come. Let me take you to the key highlights of 2022. And I think we -- again, we delivered what we promised, we delivered what we said, and we delivered also what you are out there expected. So on the transaction buy-side, we conducted 13 buy-side transaction, which is more or less one a month as we did, all over our segments, all over sizes, all over our countries. We'll come to that later on as well. On the sell-side, we conducted 6 sell-side transactions. The largest one was the Nordic sell-side transaction and the year, we finalized with the Royal de Boer sell-side transaction, which we sold to Turntide, a strategic player from America. When we look at the portfolio development, and Mark will go a deep dive into that in the financial segment. We faced 3 challenges in 2022, which are very obviously, but I would like to remind you on this. So the first one was the start of the war beginning of 2022 in Ukraine, which also consequently had obviously an impact on certain other things like the energy prices, which significantly increased. Just to give you a flavor, we -- in part of our companies, energy heavy companies, we saw increases of energy cost of 300% to 400% compared to previous year. And last but not least, the whole supply chain topic, the whole global supply chain topic, shortage of material and especially also on the auto business, constant change of call of constant change of production planning from the OEMs, of course, causes also some difficulties in the market. No significant capital market transaction happened in 2022. However, we already did the preparation for the refinancing of the bond, the Nordic bond facility, which has striked a couple of weeks back with a refinancing of the existing facility and a slight upgrade to [ EUR 100 million ]. Overall, Mutares Holding has 200 people, has grown to 200 people, which is another increase of 40 to 50 people, Mutares Group close to 20,000. And this is our key asset. That's why I want to mention it here. And I think it's also a good moment to thank these guys and girls to -- for the contribution and for what's happening on the growth side. So without our people, without our employees, without the team spirit we have, it would never be possible to have this steep and really unique growth path we are going since 2019, and we are following what we said, and we delivered what we said. So thanks to the guy, thanks to these 190-plus people and thanks to this 19,000. Without them, I couldn't present you the results I'm presenting you. For this call, I would like to give you a little flashlight of the Nordics. So the Nordic office in Stockholm was created in late 2020. And I think the path we have set here proves our concept of we want to be local in order to grow the business. We want to be local in order to make transactions. And what you have seen, what Carl Kistenmacher, who is leading this Nordic enterprise. And what Carl has done with his team have 8 transactions signed. We have built up a team of 12 professionals, M&A and operational. We have opened up the Helsinki office again and have our main one in Stockholm. And we have a business in operation, which is above EUR 1 billion of turnover. And with Nordic, we have conducted already and proved the concept. We have already conducted our first exit in Nordic. So a very, very strong development and Nordic stands for 20% of our total business at Mutares Group. So I would like to give you this flashlight because also with Frigoscandia, with Terranor, with Palmia, with Arriva, which is a business predominantly in Denmark acquired from Deutsche Bahn, transaction will be closed in mid of May. We really, really have a very strong footprint there, and we are one of the key players or the key players in the Nordic market when it comes to turnaround. So in a very short period of time, a super great achievement from our team in the Nordics. Very happy to see it. Let me quickly go in our business model, and I would like to cut it in a slightly different manner than we did before to not annoy you. So on the numbers, we still have the target of 2025, where we want to be at EUR 7 billion and then the EUR 125 million to EUR 150 million of profitability on holding net income level. And this guidance is confirmed. I am super confident that we will achieve that, that we, again, will deliver what we promised. Mark will go a little bit detailed. And later on, we also see the 2023 guidance more in detail. But let me focus on the left slide, what we do and why we are so successful and why -- what is the basis for all these numbers. So we have now opened with Warsaw, our 10th office in Europe. We are all over the continent, and we want to be the #1 when it comes to turnaround special situations in the European market. And by doing this, we want to have a position in order to decide if we want to make the transaction or not. And maybe a quite interesting story. We are currently working on a deal in France where we got to know from the advisers before we get granted exclusivity on the buy side, there was one of our competitors asking if we are in the deal or not. And by a positive signal from the adviser that we are in the deal, our competitors pulled out because they believe if we are in the deal, they will not win it. So this is a great sign. This is the first in mind, first in choice, DNA, I would like to have in the team, and I would like to have as a perception. Then the 3 diversified segments, the auto segment, the engineering technology and the goods and service. This is a really great driver also from a risk mitigation point of view, not only from a growth where we see different segments, early cycle, late cycle, but also from a risk mitigation. And when you see, and Mark will come to that later as well, the auto segment was under heavy pressure in 2022. So it lost almost EUR 50 million in operating results. However, what we see is this is recovering. So Q1, we see quite a strong income on the auto business, which we expect also to continue in the rest of the year. So the diversification of our segments is good for the buy side. It's good for the sell side, but it's also really good for the risk diversification within the portfolio after acquisition. On the company side, I think we have moved our sweet spot on. So EUR 100 million company in turnover up to EUR 750 million is what we say, this is the area where we are in. And when you see the buy sides of 2023, if you see MoldTecs, if you see Cimos, also if you see Arriva, which is going to be closed now in May, there's all businesses in the EUR 200 million, EUR 300 million, EUR 400 million, EUR 500 million turnover size. So this is our new sweet spot where we think we operate in all the countries quite successfully. And this is, for me, the Mutares DNA, corporate carve-out, European and quarter-based, 3 segments, company sizes in this range. And this DNA is something we will always respect and we will not let go because this is what made us strong and which what, in my view, also will make us even stronger. On the next slide, I would like to give you a little bit how we interpret this on a daily basis and how we take decision on a daily basis. So our DNA is the European focus, the turnaround. And at the end of the day, the 3 segments and the size of the company. And whatever we invest, whatever company we acquire, we ask us the question, can we support the DNA? Can we support our targets? Can we support our guidance? And what we want as a kind of a gatekeeper is, whatever we invest, can we make 7 to 10x the return over the life cycle? And the investment is roughly in 10% of the case is it's a purchase price. In 90% of the cases of our investments, we talk about commitments, we talk about equity injections at closing date in the company. We talk about providing financing lines at a certain period of time for restructuring efforts. So this is the investments we take. And the decision based on this investment is, do we get 7 to 10x our money. And then we start off in the first phase, which we call the realignment phase. And the realignment phase is the heavy restructuring phase, where we put our forces together. We put our consulting team, more than 140 people as we speak today are flying out on a Monday are returning, Thursday so Fridays back to the families and trying to face the company. So I believe the first 6 months after acquisition, those are the crucial months in order to separate the company to carve it out and to make the important steps to turn it around. And then the second one is the optimization phase, what we call. This is when the company is turned around and we are able to provide dividends to us. So -- and in 2022, we had some very strong dividend payers, which are at the end of the optimization phase or even in the beginning of the harvesting, which also contributes positively to the return of the 7 to 10x. And then last but not least, the exit proceeds. The exit proceeds are coming over our average holding period, which is 3 to 5 years. And you will see later on the outlook that 2023 is the year where the, let's say, the adopted Mutares way of working, which happened in the mid of 2019, that this pays off now. We have the strongest sales pipeline ever because we started to grow 2019, 2020, 2021, heavily where we make -- since then, we make 1 transaction in a month on average. And this one buy-side transaction a month, when you respect the holding period, this is now what it starts to materialize in 2022. So later on, you will see 2023 will be a super strong year when it comes to the exit, and we have already done 4 in the first 4 months. So I'll come to that later. But it's important to understand, when we acquire, that's a day-to-day decision of Robin, Mark and myself, do we get the money back 7 to 10x. Firstly, we take it back through our consulting management fees, which is predictable. We know exactly what we want. And here, we will be in 2023 on a run rate above EUR 100 million. Optimization is the dividends taking out of outperforming portfolios. And last but not least exit proceeds when we provide an exit and when we conduct an exit after we have finalized our holding period. When we come to our portfolio, and I will only deep dive in a few. You see a quite good leverage on automotive, engineering technology and goods and service. When it comes to the turnover, you see the balance, what I said before on early cycle, late cycle, non-cycle. And this is basically the development how we -- how our portfolio looks today. And let me pick out one of each, which I would like to mention. So the first one in the automotive, I think it was also public. It was announced. It was launched with the [ M&A ] group, a group where we focused especially on the e-mobility when it comes to plastic injection molding parts. We had a new kid in this segment. We had a new kid in the block, more than EUR 1.2 billion of turnover, and this EUR 1.2 billion are all over the world. So we are in every continent, India, Asia, U.S., South America, Africa and especially also Europe. And we have all OEMs on our customer bank. So this is the new kid on the block, and I think the lounge and taking the synergies and introducing this to the customers, I think Mathieu Purrey, who is running this as a CEO has done an amazing job when it comes to this. Second, segment engineering technology. I think here I would like to highlight in 2022, we acquired 2 businesses from Siemens Energy. Siemens Energy itself in a transformation typical seller, putting themselves up in a new strategy, half businesses, which doesn't fit a strategy, complex carve-out of a large corporate not maybe the most agile company in the world, but we made it happen together with them to carve out the business. And I think especially NEM, which is a business in the Netherlands, and we acquired and we combined with the Balcke-Durr Group lately. I think this was a big, big effort to carve it out to make it happen, and it already materializes in 2023 positively on the holding level. And I think Fatmir Veselaj from the operations team there did a fantastic job in order to put all this on the street and put the horsepower there. And then last but not least, goods and service. And I'll obviously take Lapeyre here because a lot of questions from the shareholders are running through that, so I used the opportunity. So Lapeyre is performing to budget. In 2022, we exactly met the budget what we have put ourselves there in 2021. And as the numbers, we see a very nice development in the main segments of Lapeyre. So we have stabilized the operations, the plans we have, we have sold the plant. We have consolidated a bit. So the operation is stabilized. We have absolutely skyrocking improved the customer experience, the shops, the way we're selling products, which is very nicely done. And then obviously, last but not least, we have really catched up on the CapEx backlog introducing new products to the market. So I'm very optimistic that 2023, Lapeyre for the first time since more than 10 years, will reach an operational positive result of the business in 2023. When it comes to our ESG approach, which is obviously not only valid for the holding, but also valid for all our portfolios where we try to align our targets and our highlights there. I would like to stress out maybe 3 things here, if you allow. So first of all, when it comes to the CO2 emission, with LMS, one of our automotive, one of part of the Amaneos group. It's a big plant close to Frankfurt, roughly EUR 350 million of turnover, main customers, Mercedes, for example, here and Audi. We have put a strategy in place to become this plant, which is a plastic injection molding part, including a full-fledged paint line. We put ourselves a target to put this CO2 neutral within the next 5 to 6 years. So this is happening. We work on the CO2 neutrality. This is our main focus when it comes to the environment here. And then the middle segment, I would like to stress out the community engagement. And it's not only what is mentioned here donation to children's hospice, which we do. I think whatever the business does to us and whatever results we delivered, and I know we delivered the best results in history, and I'm also sure that this will continue. We live on the bright side of life, and we should not forget about people who are not there. And our main engagement here in 2022 really, really was our plant in the Ukraine and our employees in the Ukraine, which we heavily supported. And before I come back with the outlook, which will be quite intense and more detailed than in the past, I would like to give you a deep dive and Mark can much better facilitate than I.

Thanks, Johannes. So coming to the financials, starting with the overall development. We, as a group, are quite pleased with the development that we saw in 2022. We were able to increase the number of portfolio companies and thereby also increased the revenue of the group to almost EUR 3.8 billion. EBITDA decreased to EUR 180 million compared to 2021, and this is mainly due to the biggest acquisition that we did in 2021 with Lapeyre where we acquired the biggest bargain purchase income of more than EUR 400 million that is included in 2021. More important for us is the development of the adjusted EBITDA. So the underlying performance indicator of the existing portfolio that improved substantially, even though we added more portfolio companies to the group and normally, we acquire loss-making companies. And this shows quite strongly that we were able to execute the restructuring programs that we initiated in the different portfolio companies and were able to execute this kind of restructuring programs. In the following slides, I will go into more details when it comes to the different development in the segments. And here, you will see then the different developments of the adjusted EBITDA. The holding key KPIs, namely the revenue and the portfolio income and net income pretty much followed the development of the group. So we were able to increase again the revenue that we generate with management fee and consulting to EUR 71 million, so a bit more than 40%, but even more important for us is that the run rate that we already saw in Q4 of 2022 indicates that we have now a portfolio income to be to expect for 2023 of more than EUR 100 million, much likely to receive EUR 110 million in 2023 as the revenue of the holding. Portfolio income increased quite substantially. We were able to generate much more dividends than expected across portfolio. Johannes already mentioned, that the dividends are coming from a couple of companies across the life cycle from harvesting where we have dividends from Terranor, Clecim, La Rochette, but also from companies in the other stages here in optimization and also in the realignment phase. The net income then finally was EUR 72.9 million in the range that we communicated all the time. Looking at the quarterly development in the different segments, you see again here that we had a quite challenging environment in the automotive and mobility segment, especially in the first quarter and saw then a gradual improvement in the quarters here until almost 0 in Q4. And this is continuing in 2023. So we are quite optimistic to see here the expected ramp-up of volumes, but also to see that our restructuring efforts are now contributing to an improved profitability. And when we talk about restructuring, we normally mean that we refresh the management that we streamlined the organization that we renegotiate supplier contracts and we reorganize the shop from. But in 2022, it was also important and one key element here in the development that we were able to renegotiate the prices with the customers. And there is a bigger time lag between the cost increases and the rollover to the customers in the automotive segment, and that's exactly what you see here, whereas we were able to roll over the price increases in the goods and services segment, much faster. And therefore, we are able to preserve the profitability here in a way better manner compared to the automotive and mobility segment. Engineering & Technology was quite stable throughout the year. We will see that there are some companies performing better than others. So there are some lights and shadows in the segment, but overall, it was close to 0. Starting with automotive and mobility. Here, we increased revenue again by more than EUR 400 million - EUR 300 million, mainly due to the acquisitions, but also saw the organic growth, which came from the increased volume, but also from the increased prices with customers, especially in the Q4. And you see, again, that we were able to narrow down the adjusted EBITDA close to 0 until the end of the year. So the significant cost increases that we were experiencing, especially in the first half of 2022, we -- were impacting the profitability, and then we were able to roll them over to the customers with the countermeasures that we were initiating in terms of streamlining the cost base where then contributing to the almost back in EBITDA. Engineering & Technologies segment, were quite stable throughout the year, around 0 all the time where we had some companies who are operating in the project-driven businesses, Donges, Balcke-Durr, NEM, but also ADComms and Gemini. And then we have companies who performed quite well, like La Rochette, Clecim but also the newly acquired entity, Steyr Motors. The profitability that you see here was almost EUR 4 million negative was impacted quite heavily by the newly acquisitions of S&P, VALTI and Guascor, they combine a negative adjusted EBITDA of minus EUR 14 million. And on the other hand, we had a quite good development in La Rochette, which is the main contributor to the organic growth that you see here. Clecim, but also at S&P that we acquired in May 2022 and was contributing quite negatively in 2022, but the run rate, especially in Q4, was already improving substantially to a positive number. And in Q1, is now fully on track in terms of the budget figures that we have agreed here with the company. And therefore, we are quite pleased with the development. And here, we have the segment also where we divested Royal de Boer together with Japy then in January and the Nordic Group. Last segment, goods and services, the segment that was able to roll over the prices, the price increases much faster than the other segments. And therefore, you see that the profitability improved then in Q4 quite substantially to 4%, more than 4% in these segments we have with Lapeyre, the biggest company in the group. And especially Lapeyre was also one company who contributed quite positively with approximately EUR 8 million adjusted EBITDA to the Q4 figure here. And on the other hand, we saw also at Frigoscandia, also especially at Terranor, but Keeeper and Ganter were also companies that were contributing quite positively and show that we were able to execute the restructuring programs, the optimization programs here and then also see the fruits of the work that we have done here in the past. Coming to the last view the life cycle view of the group where we always reclustered the companies into the well-known 4 phases. So the acquisition phase is the one that we normally have not shown so far. We have only one company in the bucket as of now, which is Arriva, the acquisition from Deutsche Bahn to be closed mid of May, like Johannes said. And then we have the realignment phase, which is, by nature, negative because we acquire loss-making companies, and it's quite packed. And that's good because that means that we have a lot of work to do for the team and also a lot of chances looking forward when it jumps into the development in the group and to the final harvesting stage. Optimization phase here is a phase where that is supposed to be closer to 0. We see here that we were already able to cut down the profitability to minus 1.8. We have a couple of companies in that bucket that are performing well, but also had here with SFC Group and KICO, ISH Group, 2 companies that were from the automotive segment heavily impacted by the trends that I explained before. Harvesting stage, final stage, we see that the profitability increased to almost EUR 50 million in adjusted EBITDA in 2022 with just 5 companies here. With this final stage, we normally signal to the market that we are willing to divest within the next 12 months. And today, we also have this slide here in the deck that shows the development along the different quarters. And here, you see that the optimization phase was able to become positive in Q4. Also something that we want to see here from the group. So this was driven by what we saw, especially from the automotive companies that contributed then, again, not so negatively like in Q1. And on the other hand, we also saw that we were able to narrow down the negative impact in the realignment phase, that is attributable, especially also here again to Lapeyre. But most important, it shows that the business model works. We are able to acquire loss-making companies. We are able to then bring them to 0 profitability in the optimization phase. And then finally, also bring them to a positive operating indicator adjusted EBITDA in the final phase, and then we want to divest. So overall, we are quite pleased with the development and the restructuring efforts that we were able to execute and that what we have seen here in the financials, especially in Q4. And with this, we come to the outlook.

Thank you very much, Mark. I would like to take you on the outlook quickly of 2023. And would like to give you a little bit more insight on our expectation or my expectation, what will happen in the remaining 8 months. In a nutshell, I'm very sure, and this will also be detailed out in the next slide. I'm very sure that 2023, again, we will deliver what we promised, and we will face another record year in 2023 since the firm was founded in 2008. So why do I think this? Basically, we see a portfolio development, which Mark has already a little bit indicated. We went quite well into Q1. We haven't done the final number yet, but what we see so far for Q1 is very much promising and continues, I think, the good, good operation in the portfolios, which have started already in Q4 last year. So we are quite pleased with the development of the start in the year of the portfolios. That's number one. Number 2, when I look at the buy side and the buy side, what we see currently in 93 projects with a total turnover of EUR 13.3 billion. I have made a track, this is the biggest buy-side pipeline since I'm in-charge and become in-charge in mid-2019. So I'm very confident that our target to grow that our target to transact, that our kind of running story to make a transaction per month also continues in 2023 because in simple terms, there's a big, big pipeline ahead of us. Deals are starting to materialize now in quarter 2 and especially in quarter 3, building up, continuously building up pipeline is growing and not going down. So the buy side is really, really a tick-marked. And why is that? What we see is the full impact of inflation will only come this year in our view. That is what is built up. Interest rates are going up and the material impact comes in 2023. And then in price situation, like we had in '22 coming out of COVID, now the war happened. And corporates typically go back to their core business, and they try to divest things which are left and right of the core business. So they concentrate and focus on the main asset of a business. And this obviously is a fantastic news for a turnaround investor who is specialized in carve out situation of loss-making business. So this is one of the trigger. And then we see more and more in Europe privatizations going on. One of them, for example, is what we have acquired from Deutsche Bahn, Arriva, one of the prioritizations, but we also see that now more and more coming in countries where privatization was not so active, for example, looking at the moment in one in France. Now -- so this is the buy side where I -- next to the portfolio, which is going quite well in Q1 and started in the year, the buy side looks really, really promising for 2023. And then as I mentioned before, taking the life cycle, taking the holding period, when you look at the sell side, I think this will be a super intense year on the sell side. We've already done 3 sell-side transactions to strategic. So FDT, [ Dante France ]. FDT, we -- for example, we divested to Holcim. And then Japy Tech, #4 of the sell-side transaction already in the first 4 months. And what we see on the sell side, and this is why it keeps me so confident that it will run also much, much larger than in the years before is we have now more and more of the companies which we started to buy starting from 2019, 2020 onwards. That's number one. And number 2, what we see on the sell side is 2 things. So on the quantitative side of the bidder field, this has reduced and especially reduced on the financial sponsor side. So the time where you just distribute information memorandums in the pop later in the evening and then you get the bids in under a certain deadline. This time, it's not happening. That's over. But what we see is that the qualitative side of strategic bidders and currently, we have 4 life processes out there in the market in an advanced stage. And what we see is that we have competition on strategic bidders. So strategic bidders became more and more -- much, much more serious on transactions and much, much more active on transactions than they were during the COVID times. So quantitative bidder field went down, qualitative, especially the strategic bidders significantly increased in the last 6 months. And this is what we see in the 4 life processes we are currently running in an advanced stage where we see the strategics really interested in the targets we have out there in the market. And that makes me also confident that the year 2023 is a year of significant and successful exits, and that also makes me more or less confident that we can already have part of this executed prior to our annual meeting in July. So in a nutshell, portfolio, the start of the year was promising and continued a very, very good operation of the quarter 4 last year. Secondly, the buy side, largest pipeline in the last 3.5 years since I'm monitoring that. And very, very promising on the exit side or even for 4 life processes in advanced stage, and I'm very happy and very optimistic that this continues with our harvesting portfolios. When you look at the geographical development as the last point on the outlook, we can confirm, and this is unchanged to target of '25, to be at EUR 7 billion and EUR 125 million to EUR 150 million of net holding income. We are confident that this is still the right guidance, and this is the guidance we can achieve. And secondly, we have executed Warsaw now to go to Poland and Eastern Europe. And we have always said in the second half of 2023, we will go to the United States of America, not necessarily to go for the local deals in the U.S. and transport our business model to the U.S. but more for American corporate divesting or carving out global operations. Those deals are not made -- even though it's a global operation, those deals are [ make in ] America. Secondly, European corporate selling their U.S. business. Even though it's a European corporate, those deals are [ make in ] in America, not in Europe. And secondly, large industrialized transaction on the M&A side, the large cap business in Europe is more or less down at the moment in Americas still life. So on the large-cap transaction, there are always poison pills in the scope, and we should be the one having a solution and taking those poison pills out of the scope of the last cut transaction. So those 3 are the main motivators and the main ideas when we go to the U.S. in the second half of 2023. So thank you very much for your attention. And before I give back to the moderator, again, the slogan on the slide before was, we deliver what we promised. And I'm very sure also in '23, we will deliver what we put here on paper and what we promised. And why I'm confident to do that? It's very simple in one sentence because I have the best team in the world. Thank you very much for listening, and back to the moderator for questions.

[Operator Instructions] And the first question now comes from Zafer Ruzgar, Pareto.

I hope you can hear me?

Yes.

Perfect. My first question is regarding your net income target and the contributions to that. Just to be clear here and to get a feeling what can be realized from the exits this year. And if I do the math correctly, and I assume holding revenues of EUR 100 million and, let's say, OpEx of EUR 65 million and dividend proceeds of, yes, let's say, EUR 25 million. I think you would need exit proceeds of around EUR 60 million to end up at a net income of EUR 100 million. And taking into account Mr. Laumann's statements regarding the fact that 2023 will be a strong year with exits. Doesn't this look a bit conservative for this year with the EUR 60 million of potential exit proceeds?

Maybe starting with the first question. And you saw that the ingredients of the net result of the holding in 2022 and '21 were coming mostly from the dividend side. And we have said here also in the quarter and in the call before, that we think that we are now in a position to deliver much more exits in 2023 and the years to come and are really focusing on this. So therefore, in the years 2023 and also then looking forward, we expect a much higher contribution from exits and usually now calculated EUR 60 million. Like you said, it's maybe a bit conservative what we did, but we have learned that the exit process are not under our full control. That's why we have now a couple of extra processes in the market. And then we maybe have to update our guidance for the net results throughout the year, maybe after Q2, when we have executed a couple of exits. But for now, we have stick to the communication that we did in the past that we are between 1.8% and 2.2% of the expected group revenues. That's the expectation towards the net income of the holding. And for the exit proceeds, Johannes, maybe you can add a couple of words.

I'm typically a very conservative guy. So no, I think I can confirm what Mark is saying. Obviously, we have them out in the market now. And at the moment, the number seems conservative compared to our expectation, but we have not delivered yet. We have not -- the ink has not dried. So we decided rather to keep on the conservative side now and then have potentially a positive deviation later than the other way around.

Okay. Good. And the second one, a short question because we haven't yet seen the balance sheet figures at the holding level. What would be the amount you need to pay out a dividend of EUR 2 per share?

We said that we want to execute a substantial exit until that. And EUR 1 more would mean that it's EUR 20 million. So the exits that we have or the processes that we are currently running, they are all our expectations towards these processes is that it's much more than EUR 20 million. So technically, we need EUR 20 million, maybe EUR 25 million, but we rather focus on the execution of the exits and let's see which one goes through until the end of Q2.

And the next question comes from Marie-Therese Gruebner, HAIB.

Can you hear me well?

Yes, we can, Marie-Therese.

Regarding the companies in the harvesting phase, you have 5 of them, and those will contribute an EBITDA of roughly EUR 50 million this year. Can you tell us at least can you give us a bit of range of the kind of multiples you are getting for this bracket of companies and the process and the sell -- laying on the exit processes, which you are currently running and especially given the fact that you are mentioning that strategic buyers are more playing a role this year, I would assume that those guys are probably willing to pay higher prices. Can you elaborate on this point maybe?

Obviously, you can't answer that very generalistic because each and every process is an individual piece of art, so to say. However, I think at the end, and I'm -- I know all these multiple tables of the industries. I believe in a process at the end of the day, the multiple is driven by competition. And you can have a high multiple in an industry. If you only have one bidder, the multiple will be lower than the -- was probably lower because we don't have the competition. So that's why it's very difficult to answer. We have not seen so much deviation in expectation from the starting point of a process when they bid, okay? So you are still when you talk about logistics or service, you're in a multiple range, which is somewhere between [ 6 and 9 ] when you are in the production side, more CapEx intense businesses, you're more -- it depends on the USP you have. It can be between [ 5 and 10 ] actually. So the spread is longer. Auto, I think, at the moment, forgetting to divest, and we don't need to speak about this at the moment. So -- but it's a very individual process. So the more competition you have, obviously, the easier is it to drive a multiple. But at the end of the day, we have to say the qualitative interest of strategic went up in the last -- in the current processes we are running, number one. Number 2, that obviously is very individual than on the multiples, how much -- how a process is facilitated. And at the end of the day, I think it's always a deal when we divest, it's always a combination of price, a clean exit for us and a good best new owner for the business that we also have a kind of a full-fledged life cycle story. And this is what we try to achieve with the current processes out there in the market.

Okay. Maybe a follow-up on that. What's the average level of leverage on the harvesting bracket? If I look at -- when I get to a market value or subtracting net debt, what is on average the leverage that would be put on these companies or that you're getting rid of in terms of that.

Looking at the 5 companies, Clecim, Keeeper, Terranor, Donges and SABO, the debt -- the net debt of these 5 companies is less than EUR 50 million.

Less than EUR 50 million for all 5?

Yes.

Okay. Great. And then last but not least, the net income guidance you're giving for next year of [ EUR 92 million to EUR 112 million]. Does that mean that you are substantially increasing your dividend payout ratio? Or what should one expect in terms of basis dividend? I know it's very, very early in the year to say anything. But given the kind of lead we will see in net income, what are you intending to do with this cash?

I think you're asking for this year, Marie-Therese, right? Because you said next year, but the [ EUR 92 million ] is this year. So the payout, it will be messaged. It's the 2 things. I think -- let us do our job first. And then I think we have shown in the past, and we have also shown this year that if we are successful and if we deliver the potential or the expected growth that we also let participate our shareholders equivalently. So -- and this is also what we want to do when we are increasing now, our shareholders will participate. So we have no plans to spend this money in different business models or in different capital market setups or in a fund or god knows what. So we do our business, we do our core business. We grow internationally. We grow the segments, and we deliver what we said. So obviously, if you have more income with the same number of shares, then the chance is very high that the participation of the shareholders will also go up.

Right. But is there an intent -- I mean, given that you are targeting on average bigger companies that are with less bargain purchase income, is it fair to assume that at least some of this cash will be reinvested simply in the next transaction and will not be distributed on a linear path, let's say, to shareholders?

I think the level of investments we do in the last 3 years is quite stable, went slightly up last year. And I mean, it's always about -- it's a dynamic market. So it's depending on the opportunities you have. I think we're -- we're currently looking at a business where I have the opportunity for a purchase price, which seems to be significant, but it's onetime EBITDA. So I think and I have synergies in my portfolio, it's an add-on. So if I have the chance to buy for onetime EBITDA and add-on, even though the purchase price is whatever EUR 8 million, EUR 9 million, EUR 10 million, I think it's a good deal. And so this is really depending on the dynamics of the market on the opportunities you have. And you cannot have the linear math that you say the larger the deals you make, the more cash you need in order to make this transaction up. So this is not a link you can make actually.

The next question comes from Stefan Augustin, Warburg Research.

Just 2 quick ones. The first one is actually on your consultants and your employees, do you consider that you have a very good ability to get especially the specialists that you now need on the market? Or is there any, let's say, larger constraints or difficulties to get people in the team? That would be the first question. And the second question is actually also quite quick. It is on Lapeyre. And if you look at your budget until the end of 2024, can you make a statement on your expected free cash flow from now to then is there, let's say, significant cash out to be expected still? Or are we more or less even in the phase where we have a positive free cash flow.

Okay. Starting with the first question, how we can build up the team. We continue to build up the team. We want to add this year between 20 to 30 professionals across the different countries across the different practices. And we have now -- we have built up a team of more than 125 professionals in our operations and try to add now team members and fill those gaps in terms of the different practices, but also in the countries that were -- or where we see gaps, we heard from Johannes today, that the Nordics has become an important market for us. And here, we see that in Sweden and also in Finland, we could add some professionals, and we will find them. We will find them through the network of the existing team and with headhunters working in the different countries. And here, we have built up in the last couple of years, a decent network of headhunters that very well understand our culture, our way of thinking, our way of working and what kind of characters we are looking for. And therefore, I'm quite confident that we will be -- that we will be able to add these 20 to 30 professionals in the course of 2023. And we find them with the right persons who are willing to walk away with us.

Okay. That's good. The second question was a little bit hard to get, but we understood it was about the cash flow, the free cash flow of Lapeyre. Is that correct? Yes. So as I said before, we are quite happy with the development of Lapeyre, and Marc Tenart and the gang, I think, conduct the right measures and counteractions in order to bring this to the plan we have. As of end of March, Lapeyre holds a cash position of EUR 192 million. And obviously, there are plans for more CapEx and investments here, but we do expect that this cash position is not significantly melting until the end of 2024. Also because Lapeyre is expected to be operational positive. So actually, the only cash flow or cash burn, you have comes from investments and not from the day-to-day operations. So that's the status of end of March, and we are not expecting it melting down too much until the end of '24 because the operations is positive.

So at the moment, there are no further questions. [Operator Instructions] So there are no further questions. I'd like to hand back to the speakers for some closing remarks.

We are 3 minutes ahead of time. So very good timing. Thanks a lot for participation. As I said, we are very pleased with 2022. We are very happy to have this team on board we're having. And we are super confident that 2023 will be again a record year and portfolio is going nicely, nicely starting the year. Again, I repeat myself, buy side looks super promising. And sell side, I think it will be the best year in -- on the sell side ever. So I'm very confident to deliver what we promise and potentially even surprise you positively. Thank you very much. Enjoy the rest of the week. And we see each other for Q1 in May. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Thank you very much for participating in this call today. We wish you a great rest of the day. Until next time, goodbye.