NFON AG (NFN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of Montega, welcome to the earnings call of NFON AG regarding the publication of the half year figures of 2023. The CEO, Patrik Heider, and Friederike Thyssen from Investor Relations will give you a presentation on the results in a moment, and the floor will be opened for upcoming questions following the presentation. I now hand over the floor to you, Friederike. Go ahead.

Yes. Thank you, Alexandra, and good afternoon from our side, and a warm welcome to NFON AG First Half Year 2023 earnings conference call. As the operator just mentioned, I'm Friederike Thyssen, responsible for Investor Relations and ESG at NFON. Joining me today at today's call to discuss our results is Patrik Heider, the CEO and CFO of NFON. And we hope you've got the opportunity to review the news release and as well the report we issued earlier this morning. These documents as well as the following investor presentation are available on our website. So let me quickly outline the agenda for today's call. Patrik will start with a summary of his first 100 days, then he will take you through our financial results before he provides our business outlook for the full year 2023. This will take us approximately 10 to 20 minutes. We will then take your questions. So starting with the highlights. Therefore, I'd like to turn the call over to Patrik. Stage is yours.

Thank you very much, Friederike. Welcome to the NFON earnings call. Yesterday, I finished my first 100 days in business, and I collected very valuable insights to moving the business successfully forward. With our strong base of more than 640,000 seats, a stable ARPU, our low churn rate and the highly recognized stable technology, we have a great position in the European market for integrated business communication. Nevertheless, I identified some challenges in our operations. I would like to focus the next months to ensure continuing our unique success story. Only a foundation of operational excellence, we can build an innovative product development, a customer-centric best-in-class channel and valuable strategic partnerships and alliances. This mix will help us to ensure a profitable growth of our company. In my definition, profitable growth means keeping EBITDA growth stronger than revenue growth and own revenue growth stronger than market revenue growth. If we perform this, we will continue winning market shares with an increasing efficiency. Let's see on the next page, what operational excellence means to me. You can cut a company into 3 different layers. First and most important organization and employees; second, business processes; and third, business systems. After the strong growth in the last couple of years for NFON phone, it is normal to see challenges in all 3 layers. To remain a successful and leading software player, you need to ensure that you build a product and customer-centric organization. Only with such an organization you ensure to match successfully the outside-in requirements with the inside-out deliveries. Let's see which changes we have already implemented into our new product and customer-centric organization. There are and will be 2 Executive Board position at NFON the CEO and the CTO position. The Supervisory Board decided not to extend the contract with the former CTO, Jan-Peter Koopmann, who then decided to step back immediately in order to support the changes. The external executive search of the new CTO is ongoing. Deniz Beskök, former VP of R&D, is taking over the position on an interim base. The extended management positions were created to come up with a product and customer-centric organization of a modern tech and software company. Critical for our future success will be the perfect cooperation between sales and marketing, product management and development. With this strong combination, we will win back our innovator role in the markets and will become much faster in our delivery to our customers. This will generate future organic growth. Combined with strong support functions and operational excellence in our business, we can ensure this with a higher degree on efficiency, leading into a higher profitability. As our main assets are our people, for me, there was no question to bring the function of people and culture to see level attention. To become a data-driven organization, I decided to separate the finance area into accounting and controlling, especially strengthen the controlling area. The CFO position will be taken over by myself, who will be the main person communicating to our stake and shareholders. Marketing will be integrated into sales. Therefore, the CMO position will be not replaced. Given the importance of the German market, sales will be divided into sales Germany and a commercial function, which will own sales international, marketing and operations. With this new organization, we want to satisfy the following ambitions of ourselves. Profitable healthy growth of our organization, regain our role as innovator in the industry, become a true pan-European market leader, act as a winning team, become much faster and more agile as a team. Let's jump now into our financial figures, H1 2023. Let's take a look on the main KPIs for H1 2023 first. The recurring revenues growth is up by 5.1% with an increased high share of recurring revenues of 93.2%. The adjusted EBITDA improved year-on-year significantly to EUR 3.4 million. On the next slide, you can see the continuously growing share of recurring revenues up by 93.2% both by acquisitions of new customers and in existing customers, particularly in Germany, Austria and Italy. This high share of recurring revenues provides predictable revenue streams. And it also leads us into an improved gross margin of 84% despite an increase in sales, the cost of materials fell by 9% into the reporting period to EUR 6.6 million. Let's move to the personnel expenses. Through the measures implemented in the fourth quarter of previous year, the average number of employees decreased from 504 to 451. The adjusted personnel expenses decreased from EUR 19.1 million to EUR 17.6 million in 2023, which is a ratio of 42.7% of revenues. All those ratios leads us to a significant improvement of adjusted EBITDA with EUR 3.4 million with a margin of 8.2%. So you can see that all our measures showed a positive impact on profitability, and we will continue to work on that. Let's move now to the outlook for the remaining rest of the year 2023. As you already know, since mentioned in the previous calls, we expect recurring revenue growth in the mid- to upper single-digit percentage range and the share on recurring revenues on a higher level than 88%. Because of the positive development to date, we raised our guidance for adjusted EBITDA to the range of EUR 6 million to EUR 7 million. So what's next? In July, we set up the new management structure. In Q3 and Q4, we will launch the transition plan and defining clear targets and measures to continue to reaching profitable growth in the next periods. In Q1, Q2 next year, we will present the midterm road map for NFON, and I'm convinced that we can then already see first results from the new changed structure. I'm now happy to take your questions. Thank you very much for your attention.

Thank you very much, first of all, to you, Mr. Heider for your presentation. [Operator Instructions] We will start with the questions from Stéphane Beyazian.

Let me start with 2, if I can. The first one is regarding the revenue growth. So you maintained the revenue growth guidance. But on my math, that requires to grow the customer base or do some price action in the second half, but we've seen that in the second quarter, the customer base was a little bit under pressure. So are you confident to return to customer growth in the second half? Or this is not really your priority? And therefore, in that case, isn't there a little bit of risk on the revenue guidance? And my second question probably linked to this one is, can you explain a little bit the lack of growth in the number of seats in the second quarter? To what extent this is due to competition in the market or this is really due to the fact that you are starting strategic changes -- sorry, changes and you lower the marketing. And so it's more sort of an internal decision that are related to that.

Yes. Thank you very much for the questions. For the first one, I don't see any risk for the revenue guidance for the moment, with today's perspective. So all in all, we have different revenue streams, as you might know. We have the seat growth, we have also the voice, the airtime revenue stream, and there is also a pricing impact included. So all in all, what we see the seat growth might be not as expected for the moment, but we do have a pricing impact. Airtime is under pressure, as we all know, since the time of corona, 2 years ago, there is a certain for all in the industry and airtime pressure. So that means more voice minutes. And there, we do feel that the guidance for this year in terms of revenue growth is definitely from a guidance perspective is no risk with today's perspective. Second, we are already planning already for 2023 few measures and initiatives to go back to a stronger promise already in the organic growth as well. That's the target, at least, also in the seats perspective. So we do see a lot of potential when it comes also to operational excellence. I do see also the sales excellence and the product excellence. Definitely, we had some challenges to bring those together. So the typical outside and the inside out perspective, here, we definitely can improve. We can improve in sales excellence when it comes also to marketing spend and also how to use marketing in order to generate organic growth, and we can be much faster in the product delivery. We also have some product features identified, like, for example, European numbers for our customers, which we were not able to deliver so far, which definitely makes us confident already seeing maybe in Q4 some impacts, but also thinking already about 2024. In our business, as in every software company, you already need to think from half year to the next year. And we are already developing those road map items in our planning for the developments. So all in all -- and you asked also for -- I'm sorry, I forgot that about competition. When you see in the traditional cloud PBX market, you see players like, for example, Gamma. You can definitely compare our organic growth rates to Gamma. We are even slightly better here. I would say, and that's definitely something to do with the midterm strategic picture of NFON. The cloud PBX market is in that range where we are growing at the moment. The question is how we accelerate growth with future additional services, and we have one in the portfolio with CC Hub, you know that contact center solutions, even -- in order to accelerate future organic growth. But that's a picture I want to work with the team first. That's what I did not achieve in my first 100 days, and that's the picture I would like to give to the capital markets as well in Q1, Q2 next year combined with a midterm equity story of NFON. Hopefully -- I was a little bit long with my question -- with my answer. Hopefully, that answers your question.

And just a quick follow-up, if I may. Is there any specific churn or any customer loss also that could have explained the second quarter lack of growth in the number of years? So yes, it's just again the fact that you pretty much stop marketing or not stopped it, but very much limited it.

There is -- the churn rate is still below 1%. It's from 0.5% to 0.7%, which is really still good. the increase of the 0.2% is coming from one planned churn, we had with a customer that was a bigger one, and he was expressing -- this customer was expressingly using the solution only during corona. So no, we don't have this problem. And here, we are still confident and also happy with the churn rates.

We will continue with the questions from Knut Woller.

A couple of questions, Patrik. We have seen some recent management changes at NFON following that you took the helm. Should we expect any frictions for the operating business? Or is there a risk of frictions for the operating business on the back of the management changes? And secondly, also on the cost side. We have seen that severance payments have gone a bit up. Is that now all in the books? And do you still stick to your target of achieving positive free cash flow by the end of 2024?

May I have a short question back, what do you mean with frictions? And then I obviously answer your question.

A fair point. So I mean if there's management changes, of course, it takes some time until the new leaders take over the helm and get a picture of what's going on, what they need to do and to implement their plans. So do you see a risk here that is taking some time that could have a negative impact on the short-term momentum still in Q3, Q4? Or do you believe that's already in?

Got it. Thank you. No, I don't see that risk, because we have great people, and I was in a great opportunity to really promote people from the internal organization to those positions. So for example, Gernot is becoming the Chief Commercial Officer. Also Markus Krammer, he's becoming the Chief People Officer. In the people and culture area, we already have Heinke Bock, already leading that department. So we have really industry and company experienced people here. We have one new person joining us. That's Merano Mettbach. He is joining us in a week, but he's coming from the industry from Cisco, and he's really an experienced person. He's already integrated all the plannings for the next upcoming weeks. We have with Deniz Beskök, who is also long experience with NFON and an experienced person in the industry. I had the pleasure that he is taking over the interim position for the CTO. And that's the only external search, which is still running. And yes, of course, you're always losing our knowledge and you're always losing a brain when you lose people. That's always something what you need to catch up. But I am really confident that with the new setup, I catch that up that knowledge and can use it immediately to get all the things, which are in trouble into positive energy. So that's what I would phrase it like this. And I'm already recognizing we were very transparently communicating to the organization as well. The omni organization had very positive feedback on those changes. And I already can feel even despite the typical German vacation period that we are already feeling that energy. So that's good. I really like that. On the cost side, you see that in the difference between the -- in the adjustments from the EBITDA adjusted to the EBITDA you see EUR 600,000 into the severance payments or, let's say, in the restructuring, that's an amount where -- so it's all in the books to answer your questions. And we found all very clear and fair solutions. So that's all in the books. And the last one on the -- did I get all Knut? Help me.

The free cash flow, Patrik, whether they are -- you're still sticking to the goal of the former management to breakeven in 2024 on a free cash level.

Yes. you know that the operating cash -- the free cash flow is driven by the operating cash flow. The operating cash flow is already positive with around EUR 2.3 million. There, we need to consider then also the activations of own work capitalized and also the impact on the -- of the IFRS 16. And here, we do see then the bridge to the free cash flow in the future and the free cash flow that was already announced by Petra Boss, I think in the last call. We do expect clearly by the end of next year in a positive way. We obviously, that's depending on the planning also for next year. So the more, obviously, we get from organic growth in the better we will come up with a free cash flow. We are fighting hard to get that as early as possible, but the midterm forecast is to get that one mid of or end of next year into a positive -- also in a free cash flow perspective.

We continue with the questions from Gustav Froberg.

I just have one. It's also on free cash flow, because you talked about feeling quite confident about an acceleration of growth into the second half. You're also talking about seeing a pathway to accelerated growth in 2024 as well. And my question is, do you need to invest more in order to achieve this growth? Or do you see this growth coming to the -- or coming into the organization utilizing what you already have? So the question is, do you really need any more investments to accelerate growth? Or can you accelerate growth as is and that should then put you on a good path to the free cash breakeven you just discussed?

Definitely, I already gave -- thank you, first of all, Gustav, for the question. I do think that we can accelerate growth with the existing capacities we have. I already pushed my top line guidance to the organization, that we've given the capacity and you know that last year, we had some measures, and we had some measures into reducing personnel and staff. Obviously, we definitely focus only on top line relevant, highly top line investments, like, for example, marketing. But to answer your questions, I'm very confident, and this is why I mentioned in my speech, in the first 100 days observations that I want to grow the business, but profitability stronger. That means with a capacity we have, we need to be able to increase also the growth. This is coming all from operational excellence. The organization is -- and this is why I mentioned the 3 different layers. I mentioned business process organization. I mentioned also the systems. We have so much potential here to become better. We have great people, we have great ideas, but we need to link them now together. They were -- as a former CFO, I would say -- let's say, there is a reallocation of costs in our P&L needed. And they need to go all to the top line relevant parts. And there is more efficiency, definitely possible by just doing processes more efficient, more customer-centric, et cetera, et cetera. So I was a little bit longer with my answer, but I want to give you more insights. And I do believe that with the given capacity, we can accelerate growth.

Great stuff. And I assume we'll hear more about this around sort of Q1, Q2 next year when you give a strategy update.

Yes, absolutely, exactly. That's right.

We continue with the questions from Maurice Patrick.

First question, just on the gross margin side. So gross margins have been broadly stable at sort of 81%, 82% for some time. They're 84% in the last quarter. Is there a structural reason why the gross margins are going up and should we expect those margins can be sustained at the 84% level for the next few quarters? That's the first question.

Yes. Can I answer directly, Maurice?

Yes.

Okay. Great. Before you have maybe the next question. You see also the one-off revenue stream, and that was mainly hardware shares, they went down. And this is the reason why the gross margin went up. It caused the more gross margin relevant. The higher gross margin relevant revenues were up with 93.2%. And that's the reason why the gross margin overall is up. I would say, you can still see that in that range. Definitely, we have, for example, also some summer campaigns for hardware sales to accelerate and go back and reach the targets also in the one-off hardware sales. So there will be no major changes. It will stay in this range, but that was at least the reason for the first half year. If that makes sense for you.

That's very clear. Next question, please. Quite simple questions, hopefully. On the -- you cited the customer loss as one of the reasons why the number of seats declined. Just to help us understand the progression of growth, can you sort of help us quantify the sort of the broad size of that loss, so we understand sort of the underlying momentum of the core business rather than just looking at the sequential loss in customers?

Yes, you got me now. And I'm depending on an answer now because I don't have this information. But maybe you put your first question or your other questions first, I'm making sure that I get...

No worries. So the next -- the other question was around the head count reductions. So clearly NFON has seen a period of significant head count growth as you've been pursuing organic growth over the past few years and the head count has reduced. Just keen to understand whether we're at the end of the head count cuts or whether we should expect to see more reduction in head count cost in the coming quarters?

So first of all, my team is very efficient and very professional. I already got the answer for the former question, and this is 8,000 seats. Okay? And the second one is for the staff. We are at the end, I would say, we are now focusing on reorganizing and doing operational excellence. I would say without criticizing the past, it was a bit tricky and that's also reflected in the revenue figures, to be honest, because it's a typical approach when you cut costs on the HR side that you normally cut them all in various -- in all areas. And you also cut costs in top line relevant areas. And that's what I would do different. I'm a strong supporter of strong and highly efficient budget processes. We are clearly top line relevant costs having priority. That means I definitely take a look on -- as a former CFO, that's at least coming from the heart. I'm taking a look on the highly efficient budget process, and we're going to invest only into those areas where we can see a payback immediately. And from the other side, I would say, we are at the end of getting people out. And as I said, with the given capacity, we are just growing the business now into the right direction.

That's very clear. Sorry for all the questions, but it's very interesting to have the opportunity to hear from you, Patrik. So on the point around investing where you see immediate payback, the way I've always -- we've struggled to understand what NFON is, of course, you have a very profitable German operation. In Austria is kind of fairly sizable, but you seem to be subscale in many of the other businesses, and I think you were taking more white-label wholesale approach in these markets. I never really understood the route towards profitability out by Germany and maybe Austria. Just curious to understand getting your points about investing in a media payback? Whether you would -- where you sit on that on that front?

I mean yes, okay. For the international dimension, I would say, we are very successful now in Italy. That is really making a pleasure to look at them, how they grow the business. We are really successful also in terms of what you said in Austria. Obviously, given our share and our market size in Germany, we are not as strong growing from a percentage rate like in Austria and in Italy. We are also definitely a significant player in the U.K., which is highly important for a software and tech player to be in the U.K. represented as well given the competitive environment from all the Americans meeting in the U.K. as well. And all those markets tend to be very soon profitable. Definitely, it's Germany, of course, and then Austria as well. And we are on the bridge to do so also in the U.K. and in Italy. What I want to focus on first get the markets profitable, but going via top line and with the given capacity, of course. Because I do see tech companies -- I once got the question on the AGM. Patrik, you are now focusing on profitability -- now you are talking about revenue growth, but the former management talked about profitability focus. I believe there's no way to separate those 2 issues. In tech industry, you need to definitely grow the business stronger than market, because otherwise, you're losing market share. That means if you're not growing the business stronger, then you are -- what are you doing then? You definitely will have a long-term impact on profitability. This is why it always goes along. The question is how efficient you do that. So I would like to give priority in those markets to become first profitable and then think about other markets. I don't make the mistakes to go to other countries now. As you might know, NFON was already represented in former years in France and Spain and we closed those markets. If you would ask me which market of those both is more interesting. It's definitely Spain, because we have an Italian operation, which is also maintaining the business in Spain. We have an Italian Managing Director, who is capable to also act in Spain. He is speaking Spanish language. But I'm not going into this mistake to do everything on the same time. So first of all, making every market profitable via revenue growth with a high degree of efficiency and which solutions in which markets we are selling. That is obviously very different. So we have different markets, and it's like in my former industry in construction software, every market is different and every stage of digitalization is different. Cloud PBX is still a high potential for growth. Definitely, it doesn't give us for the future the double-digit growth, but there are segments like Contact Center hub. We are really happy to see in every of those countries, the Contact Center Hub solutions. By the way, there was also a pre question of today's call that we are working also with strategic partnerships. Contact Center Hub is a strategic partnership with Daktela, or we are working with AC together. That's the voice recording solutions we are offering. And that's very intelligent, what NFON did in this aspect that we are also with tech corporations. And then we can use those tech operations depending on the market needs. And there might be different solutions for different markets. Also a longer answer to your question, but I hope that helps. But we can always have a separate call on that.

We continue with the questions from [indiscernible].

Patrik, congrats to the nice results. First of all, you talked about marketing spend and I talked about the spend that is relevant for top line. We've seen now the ratio coming down heavily. Do you think that is a level that you can sustain going forward or other frames? What is the marketing level you think is adequate for your targets?

Yes. That depends also on the planning of next year in terms of revenue ambitions. But what we do actually is that we reallocate the marketing spends into directly top line relevant measures and activities. One example is, for example, channel support. We definitely have some advantages when we use marketing as a service to our channel partners. And those channel partners, they can directly use that, because they are sometimes so small that they don't have any activities in marketing. They don't have any competence in marketing. So what they do and help us to have their existing customer base, knowing that they are only having NFON solutions. And it's much easier for us to sell those NFON solution to an existing customer base of them. So the closing rate is much higher in order to have, let's say, new customer wins. So channel support and marketing, we reallocate that. Instead of doing some nice rebranding and things for getting our brand well known. That doesn't bring us too much direct revenue back. So this is what Gernot and the team does at the moment that we're really making sure that we use every marketing dollar or euro into the really top line relevant. But obviously, when we grow stronger, then obviously, we would also increase the marketing spends again. And -- but at the moment, we are really reallocating the whole marketing. As you know, NFON became big also via the marketing area. But for me, it makes sense. It was also questionable from the very first beginning that there was a C-level position for marketing, but sales was not represented on a C-level. So this is why I want -- and this is what I did together with Gernot that I really put them together into commercial, but because they need to go aligned, they need to work like a Swiss watch. And this is what we do. And -- but from that it's definitely a nice start to start but you definitely will also hear from us in terms of organic revenue ambitions that also marketing spend will then also on an absolute way, will increase again.

Yes, yes, for sure, makes sense. Another question maybe on the CC. You launched your CC Hub last year with talking also with your predecessors much about it. Can you maybe give us a bit more color on segment sales on growth in that segment? And what are you expecting maybe in the midterm perspective of 2 to 3 years, what share of revenue you can generate with this premium solution?

If you would -- we've not -- apologize or excusing myself because I don't have the right answer. But I would like to take a look deeper into this topic. I just visited the team of Daktela and Bragg before the summer vacation. I only can say that we have now an accelerated business and there's really business coming in. We have a lot of agents already closed for this year. We have defined certain exclusivity for markets with them and we definitely reach those markets, because they are binded to a certain kind of agents called seats. But I don't want to jump out with figures without having really a sustainable view at the moment. If you allow me, I would integrate that in the -- in the midterm view for NFON, and that will be communicated in Q1, Q2 next year. But together with the guidance, of course. Yes, I'm very confident that CC Hub is one of those plants. We need to grow in order to increase the overall revenues. When you remember times in typical software business where you had that move from perpetual to subscription business, then I would say we would make the same from a structural perspective. We would keep obviously our Cloud PBX recurring revenues as an organic engine, but then in order to get accelerated growth, we need additional things like CC Hub to get the overall revenues up. And that's what we're planning. But I would feel uncomfortable to jump off with some figures and not -- they are not backed if that makes sense for you. But I'm very positive about that solution.

Fair enough, totally fair. So I understood it also correct that you will put out a midterm guidance in the first 2 quarters next year, not only for the full year?

Absolutely. And combined with, I would call it -- I already talked to Friederike, I want to generate an elevator pitch for NFON. And I'm very open and transparent here. I felt in my former positions like, for example, at Nemetschek, I felt very comfortable when I can explain the company where I'm working for and responsible for in 30 seconds. And this is difficult for NFON. I have an idea in mind, but I want to back it with the overall management team. So we have off-sites planned for that. And this, combined with a midterm equity story, this will be taking place then in Q1, Q2 next year. Obviously, with the guidance for next year, et cetera, et cetera. Yes, I would like to do this.

Got you. Very good. Understood. Maybe one last, if I may. So you were talking about an elevator pitch also bringing this story to people. When I look at the share today, although it's up 30% again, on a very low volume. You're known as a great communicator also to the stock market. What is -- what are the measures and actions you want to take? Which events do you want to take part into let the people know where NFON is heading and why this is a nice, nice equity story?

Yes, definitely. With Friederike, I'm really happy to have her on board. And to be honest, and it's not criticizing my predecessor, but he didn't have the focus to communicating to shareholder market. Obviously, I don't even like it only. I, of course, like it additionally, but it's also my duty. So definitely, we are jumping off to different conferences, the well-known conferences. We're doing also road shows, but in a way which is appropriate for the size of the company. And that's exactly what we're starting from September. Obviously, September Q3 and Q4, you will hear a lot about our transition plans, the status where we are in. I will be very transparent with that. And then also in Q1, Q2 next year, you obviously hear more. But definitely me as a person, I'm the one who is responsible for communicating to stakeholders. So if I don't do that on different conferences, I don't know where I should do this. So with Friederike, I definitely starting to do that from September on. And then obviously, we come in, hopefully, a good relation again in communication for the company. And yes, to the share price, you already mentioned that. Overall, I do believe that -- the share price is always -- the capital markets are always fair. They do recognize good results. What does that mean good results for NFON? Good results means exactly my formula. My formula means that we need to grow the business stronger as we do today, and we need to do it with a higher profitability. If we're going to deliver that, you will see a reflection in the business -- in the share price. If you don't see that, you also see it -- you see it actually.

[Operator Instructions] There's a follow-up question from Stéphane. Please go ahead.

Yes. Just 2 if I can. The first one is, are you aware of any, let's say, difficult customer renewal in the pipeline for the second half that, again, could have an impact on the number of seats. Yes, just wondering if there is anything that comes to your mind? And second question, and sorry to try to anticipate a little bit on your presentation. But without being too sharp. I mean when you're looking at competition, when you're looking at some of the listed players in the industry. And that will obviously depend on your growth in the future. But where do you see the potential for the EBITDA margin to set off, let's say, a couple of years from where we are today? And again, that's not an easy question, because it will depend on revenue growth. But what are your sort of aspiration there?

Okay. Clear, Stéphane, thank you. The first question, I have even the opposite. So we had quite a big one in the U.K., which was extended right now. So that's positive. And I don't see any bigger ones, which at least are not on my table and they should be on my table. So I don't see one. Second question is, obviously, when you look to different, let's say, in the peer and it's always difficult, there are different methods and ways to work, for example, with own work capitalized, et cetera, et cetera. but I do see a proper margin. And now it's obviously also the challenge when I jump over with a figure but 18% to 20% of margin in the midterm -- longer-term view, I definitely see reasonable for such a business. Why I'm saying that? I compare our business model a bit with the ERP model. And here, you definitely see also margins in between 18% to 22% on an EBITDA basis.

Very clear. But obviously, that requires a little bit of revenue growth ahead, I guess?

Yes, absolutely. I mean there is no way to reach those without growth. And definitely, yes. But that's our challenge. I mean, this is why we are here.

We did not receive any further questions in the meantime. So it appears that everything is at least answered for the moment. Thank you very much for your interest. And again, to Mr. Heider, of course, for taking the time answering all those questions. I hand over to you and Friederike, for some final remarks before we close off.

Yes, I just wanted to say Friederike and I -- we agreed on that I'm doing the, let's say, the end. And thank you very much for your attention. Thank you very much for the team for preparing my first call back in the public markets. I'm really happy to be back in the public markets. I'm really happy to meet you guys all from September on the conferences and I will keep you really close to the company's progress, and I'm really confident to have, hopefully, some good news by the year-end and also next year. Thank you very much for your attention. Stay safe, and all the best for the rest of the day.