OHB SE (OHB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning. Welcome to OHB SE's earnings call for Q2 for the 6-month results 2025. I'm here in Bremen with Markus, Markus Moeller; with Sabine von der Recke; and Marcel Dietz, he's not on the screen, but he's there, and he's supervising everything. And Kurt is also there. He's connected in from remote. So -- and I welcome you all on this call. Like always, I will walk you through the slides quickly. And then obviously, we have time for Q&A. I hope you have been able to download the documents. Marcel is nodding. He said he put it all online and everything was okay, and that is very good. Maybe just to start, I think the first half of 2025 has been a good 6 months. I think the numbers are well underway. We are quite happy about this, and maybe Kurt will answer this a little bit later on, but I think we're on a good way to achieve our goals. If we look at the overview of the group, nothing has really changed this quarter. We had a few slight changes last -- in the beginning of the year with OHB Space U.K., and we regrouped OHB Austria. So this is currently our business segment overview. Of course, we are looking at it. We are seeing, of course, how to cope with the significant business that we have mainly in the Space Systems area. Of course, there is, I think, in Europe, but worldwide as well, but also in Germany, a lot of expectation for space work, satellite work. But for the time being, this segment is as it is and will probably be the same by the end of this quarter. And maybe we will look at it in the forthcoming months in the fall. Just a few highlights. The biggest highlight actually that we had was the prime contractor win that OHB System had for the Lisa contract. This is really a very, very special and very important win that we had with the European Space Agency. It's the first L-class mission that we are doing. It's a large -- L stands for large. It's the first time OHB has been selected to lead an L-Class. PLATO is an M class, M is medium-sized mission. So for us, it's in terms of size. And the contract is EUR 839 million. It's a long-running project. You see the mission will be completed in 2035. But if you look at what this mission is doing, it's really unbelievable and has really fundamental meanings for -- actually for mankind. I better read it. It's the detection of low-frequency gravitational waves and conclusions about the properties of their sources. So yes, I'm not sure if Markus is ready to take questions on this later but it's fundamental physics.

Hopefully, we will try to discover dark matter and do a new map of the universe. That's what we do in [ OHB ].

Yes. A couple of other highlights we had -- of course, we are moving along very well with implementing programs. The biggest success clearly was the MTG-S1 launch, the sounder, first sounder, very important mission for us. We work very long on it, and it has been successfully launched on July 1. And it's now also in the first couple of weeks, the operations go very well. Commissioning goes very well. GARAI-B is another satellite built in Sweden based on our InnoSat platform will be launched later this year. So we are moving along quite well. First -- for OHB Czechspace, a big success. First win of leading a space aircraft out of the Czech Republic for us. This is now a selection of 4 missions overall from the whole Czech space industry. We have been selected, but there will be a down selection following next year. So moving quite well. If we go to the Aerospace segment, MT Aerospace is doing okay. We had a couple of deliveries. Work on Ariane is moving along. We are waiting for the next Ariane 6 launch, which is supposed to be later this month. I think it's still scheduled for late August. And then we will see if there are more launches coming, so it moves quite well. And also in the digital segment, we're doing quite well. The Flyeye telescope, which is an unbelievable project, also similar, I guess, in many ways to the scientific things we're doing as we're watching from the ground has been first images of new earth observations. This is obviously now our pride, the development of order backlog. For the first time in the history of OHB, we have EUR 3 billion-plus order backlog. So you can see here this chart goes back all the way to 2008, '08. So it looks back for like 17 years. And you see how slowly the order backlog increased. But you can typically see these peaks and these valleys follow typically there is a cycle of ministerial conferences. And in a way, this valley between the last peak in 2020 and now is a little bit broader valley, but it basically -- yes, it came now with Lisa and with other things to the record high of EUR 3 billion. We will talk about this a little bit. Markus has a few slides on that one. So if I look to the numbers, to summarize, very good order backlog compared to last year, almost double. Total revenues for this first 6 months are good, 20% increase. The EBITDA significantly higher. Adjusted EBITDA also higher. You saw -- you see here, we have less adjustments. There will be another slide following on this. EBIT is good. Net profit after minorities more than double. So we are quite happy EUR 0.59. Headcount, by the end of June, we had 3,552. I guess now as we speak of today, it's 3,600 and something we are hiring all over. So company is developing well. This is what I meant when I initially said that we're on a good path forward. Here you see total revenues of the 6-month results over the last 5 years, actually this year and the last 4 years. Profitability, these are not adjusted numbers. These are the reported numbers. So you see obviously that the adjusted numbers are increasing more than the reported numbers, especially on EBIT level, but that's normal. We had massive transactions. We have significant one-off effects related to our transformational project we have since the change in our shareholding. And so we are quite happy with this chart, but we obviously also show the reported numbers as a backward-looking comparison. Here, you see the reconciliation of EBITDA to adjusted EBITDA. And I guess, if you compare the 2 years, you see what I just said that the adjusted EBITDA, first of all, is 13% up from EUR 40.7 million to EUR 45.9 million. And the adjustments are just smaller than they have been in the previous year. The transformation costs are down to EUR 2.5 million. That's less than half of what it was in the year 2024. So we believe we are on a good path to reach our goals, and we are happy with the EUR 45.9 million as adjusted EBITDA in this year. Financial outlook has not changed. It's the same set of numbers we are communicating since our Capital Market Day in mid-January this year. We feel comfortable about this. Of course, the projection of EUR 1.2 billion. And of course, the projection of 9% EBITDA -- adjusted EBITDA and profitability of EBIT of 6%. That's quite what we feel comfortable, and we believe that we're on a good path also to the main message of this is that we see now revenue growth, and this is obviously substantiated by the backlog record. But we also feel that margin increase is on a good way. So we'll see next year, there will be, of course, pressure to go to 10% and 12%, but we believe that this is something that is achievable. So this is the chart of -- Markus, do you want to explain this chart?

Yes, real quickly, just to give you an outlook on where we think the orders will go. As you know, we always do a very detailed planning a year ahead of the current year. And so we confirm that we see a positive outlook of growing order intake. We believe that this year, we could surpass the EUR 2 billion mark. We stand as of half year at EUR 1.5 billion out of the EUR 2.1 billion that we currently see in our scenario. So the pipe has been significantly front-loaded this year in comparison to the other years, and we believe there will be 3 larger deals that are under a good way, one in Italy, one in Sweden and one here in Germany. That will bring us close to the EUR 2 billion mark, which would be then also a growing order intake as we enjoyed that since 2023. Of particular attention is 2026 as we see that many of our large institutional customers have the intention to sign extensions of our program lines in 2026, specifically in ESA, the EU programs, but also the national customers that we have in the defense arena. So we'll review that number now in September with the decisions also that are being taken by our customers and then baseline by end of this year, the numbers for 2027 and 2028. The reason why we rebaseline is specifically that ESA has the ministerial conference here in Bremen by end of November, where the budgets will be set for the coming 3 years. So we'll take that into account. And also, we'll see now the first budget proposal from the EU for the MFF, so the multi-financial -- multiyear financial framework, where things like Galileo, Copernicus and also IRIS2 are being included. So we'll take that into account, too. And we will have by end of this year also a better view on what the national customers are planning for the next year so that we will be able to communicate a new outlook, I would say, early January on the order intake. But in general, it will stay positive. And our ambition is that 2026 will be around the EUR 3 billion mark in terms of order intake for 1 year.

Yes. Well, thank you very much. Thanks, Markus. Maybe 2 other things I'd like to mention. The first one that 2 weeks ago, we have completed a refinancing, which is obviously not part of the first 6 months, but in mid- to late July. So we were very happy that we have been able to do this. This has separately been communicated that helps us to have a long-term stability in the financing. We have increased our facility to EUR 350 million, and we are now having 5 years plus 2 years options on this. We have been able to improve our conditions there. We are very grateful to the banking consortium and to the whole team, especially under Kurt's leadership, Kurt's team has done a marvelous job in doing this. So thanks to everybody involved in that. I have also been supported by our advisers and attorneys on this. So this has been very successful as something, let's say, after the 6 months period, that's adding stability to the overall development. Obviously, that together with what you see here as a chart and what we all have seen in the past months, that Germany has changed its policies on spending, especially defense spending. And you all know very well that in between governments after the election, even the constitution has been changed to allow for much higher defense spending. And of course, now also with the NATO commitments that were done at the NATO Summit in Holland in June with a 3.5% plus 1.5%, total of 5%. The system, the defense industry system, the military plannings all over NATO, obviously, especially that accounts for European NATO members is very different. So money is available, and this is also reflected here in the growth changes a lot the perspective of money. It used to be the mantra that there was no money and time was not critical. Now it's the other way around. Now money is available and time is very urgent. So this has had a very positive impact on the outlook of business there. That's one thing. Maybe another information looking back to what also happened in the first 6 months in June, we had our annual meeting, our annual assembly, Hauptversammlung, where we had the dividends at the same level as before with EUR 0.60, and this is obviously following our dividend tradition. We have reelected 3 of the sitting Supervisory Board members. And it's now -- we are now at a situation where the overall shareholding with OHB with the Fuchs family 65.5%, KKR 28.6% and the free float 5.7% is for the time being stable. This is the good scenario that we work under. We are feeling very comfortable with this. We are, of course, also happy to have this framework of communication that we have here now with you, and this will remain in place for the future -- for the next future. So we will see -- coming to the financial calendar, we will clearly also see beyond this next Q3 earnings call, we will see also for next year '26 earnings calls as a listed company. So we will remain, for the time being a listed company. And Marcel, you have to take at our agenda that we have to fix those dates. I can also assure you that we will have another Capital Market Day in January. It has not been fixed yet. And -- but I can assure you that at the next Q3 date in November at the latest, we will communicate the dates for next year. So we will go on as a public company, as a PE company, as a family company, and this is something that we are very comfortable with. So now I'm moving to the Q&A session. And I look to Marcel to see if he has any questions so far if anybody is interested in asking some questions.

[Operator Instructions] Henry Wendisch from NuWays.

Can you hear us? I think you're still muted, Henry. I hear you -- thank you. Thanks for joining the call and asking us, obviously, since we're only having 5.7% free float, the public interest is not as big as it used to be, but I'm very grateful that you're still interested in Space and OHB.

Yes. Well, the stocks performed quite well over the year, I think also from the -- from the defense and infrastructure spending boost, it's one of the benefactors actually. I have a couple of questions. The first one, I think, is more to Markus regarding, I think ExoMars, it's back on track, and I was quite positively surprised because I was -- I always had the impression that there are some parts stuck in Russia and the collaboration obviously has stopped. So it looks like it's back on track and it's going to Mars in 2028. So what happened there cooperation-wise? Did Germany step in or U.S.A. step in to fill in the part of Russia? Or what's driving this positive transformation here?

Yes, ExoMars itself, it's specifically ESA in France that stepped into the mission to complete it from that perspective. Yes, we have portions of that mission, but it comes to -- I think there's a continued interest on Mars, specifically from the French scientific community and that helped to start to complete that program. Obviously, there are changes that have been -- will be made, have been made to accommodate for the new circumstances, but I think that is the essential driver in that program.

It's now called Rosalind Franklin, the mission, right?

Yes, it has changed name too.

ExoMars name was not appreciated by everybody, and then they decided Rosalind Franklin, she was a British scientist, right?

And there was a previous mission that was successful with a, let's say, a similar challenge on [indiscernible] on a foreign object with lower gravity. And so I think that's the reason why that name changed, yes.

So don't get confused. ExoMars will not be launched. Rosalind Franklin will be launched.

In terms of numbers, it's -- of course, it adds to contributions that we have in the -- for the scientific community. But in terms of the, let's say, overall outlook that we have in the numbers, it's a rather small part, yes. On our side as a partner, yes.

Yes, you're not a prime contractor on this year, like...

Yes, exactly, exactly.

Interesting. Okay. And then I think next time we will speak is November and shortly after that is the ESA Ministerial Conference, and you touched upon this briefly. I was wondering because I couldn't find anything yet publicly. There were like -- in the months before, there were like discussions or like first budget proposals or anything like this. Is there anything like this that we can -- or like any tangible things you can talk about here that maybe that could act as a positive surprise regarding the budget. I mean, we like to put this into perspective, I think over the last also 1 or 2 years, we've seen national budgets, for example, in Germany, they were about to decline for space spending, but they were about to increase at the European level. I think now national budgets with the debt break being gone are prone to rise again more, but maybe at the expense of the European budget. So how can we think of this development globally?

Well, obviously, we hope that that's not the case. I mean our aim is to, of course, promote a significantly increased subscription for the ESA Ministerial Conference in November. We believe ESA is the right forum. We believe ESA is very successful. We believe ESA has very interesting programs. And of course, it's the time now that every country, every company, every director at ESA is working on, let's say, preparing the ministerial conference with content. I believe there is a lot of interesting content, at least what I can see the countries where we are active, especially Germany. In terms of the money, I don't know. It's still this poker phase. Of course, industry and ESA leadership is asking for significant increases. Of course, in all the countries, they are not yet at committing level because in all the countries, there are discussions about which program they want to subscribe because as you know, we have the mandatory programs for science that will be the one thing. But obviously, optional programs, that's a question. I mean, so it's not clear. There are many proposals, and we support them. We like the idea, obviously, of a Lunar program. We feel this is something where we should be in the lead. We feel this is something where Germany should be in the lead. We feel this is the right time to -- for Europe to step to the moon because if we don't go, others will, and we have to be part of that. But that has not been decided, but that's something we are working on. There are other proposals in terms of earth observation, security satellites, we would welcome this as well. Obviously, we welcome the increases and the continuations. We have been very happy, very happy about our participation of Rocket Factory Augsburg, winning the European launcher challenge. So we hope that this program is also substantially funded. There have been 5 companies all over Europe, 2 out of Germany and 1 in France, Spain and U.K. selected. So we hope that this will also be funded. So many things on that agenda. But the German process of doing the budget, and Sabine can help me there, is obviously, in this year, a little bit different than in the previous years. So we have the situation that currently in 2025, we do not have a budget approved and the budget for 2025 is now under work. And what I understand is that in early September, there will be the so-called Beinigom system for 2025. And maybe, Sabine, you can outline what you believe is the process, how the budget of 2026 will come into power because that is then the real budget for the ministerial, right?

Yes. So usually, in the year of the election, we have -- that's similar to the year of the election. We have 2 phases of debates about the budget in the German parliament. So usually, this is for the budget of the annual -- of the year is in the beginning. But since we have the election in the beginning of the year, we have now actually -- these days, the debate of the budget for 2025. The so-called Berliner Sitzung will be held on September 4. In the week -- 2 weeks after, there will be the decision in the parliament. And so the -- and after the parliament, Bundestag has decided on the budget, they give it to the Bundestag. And so I think that the finalization of the budget 2025 will be by the end of October. But in parallel, directly after the decision in the Bundestag, the Erste Lesung for the budget 2026 starts in the week, I think, of the September 14. No, December 14, that's the a week where they have the final debate on the budget 2025. And 2 weeks later, we have the beginning of the debate on the budget for 2026. We have now seen the first draft of the government, government draft for the budget 2026. If you had a look on it, so where we have already the increase of the numbers for the budget for defense. The budget for Space is still not put together in the new ministry since the new ministry has not been finalized its organization. Therefore, we still have the numbers for Space in the budget from the [ Forschungsministerium ] and the [ Verkehrsministerium ] and the new ministry. I think that the consolidation will be done in the Bereinigungssitzung for the house -- for the budget 2026. So -- of course, for the ministerial, the budget 2026 is essential. And I'm pretty sure that the members of parliament and the committee of the budget will decide on that prior to the ministerial. And I'm very convinced since the coalition treaty gives us a very clear path where the coalition will go with the space in the next 4 years that we will see that the numbers will increase. And I'm sure that we will have a very, very good and successful ministerial held by the new Minister of Space, Dorothee Bär in Bremen in November.

Right. Got it. So maybe to sum it up from my side, the budgets might be put into different boxes than before, but the overall size will not drastically change or even go up according to the coalition.

We hope it goes up...

We hope that it will change.

We're doing everything. We're working...

He proposed that it should go up.

Yes. I mean with the new ministerium for space, I think the tone is set.

Yes, that's the assumption. I mean, that's the idea.

So part of the people have already been -- so the organizational chart for the new ministry is not yet finalized, but -- and there are still discussions since it's not so easy to just like in the industry to say to put people somewhere else who would just say, okay, I take the box out of the Ministry of Economic and I put it into the Ministry for Space. So this is obviously something that for public administration is a little bit more complicated. What we now read in the press is the debate about the new ministry for digitalization. And everything you read about this new ministry, you can copy and paste a little bit to the Ministry for Space. So it takes some time. But I know that in the background, they are already working not only on the organizational chart, but also on increasing or on putting the numbers together for the ministerial and therefore, we are really confident that the budget will go up. That's what we are working on.

Great. And then maybe to make the link between the budget and your operating performance, so from an outside view, it looks like -- and Marco, you said it before, there's less time for projects, but more money. And for me, this directly translates into bigger pricing power, maybe also margin increases coming from this. Is that something -- I mean, you're guiding obviously for EBIT margin increases over the next years. But is this something you also feel during -- when you bring your [Foreign Language] I don't know the English word afraid not...

Negotiations.

Negotiations exactly. That yes, you have actually more pricing power in negotiations? Or is that too far fetched from my view?

Of course, growth helps. And if there's more budget, it helps. And as you say, we are guiding for margin increases. If I mean, pricing power, I think it's more scale, right? I don't know, Markus, how do you feel.

I think, look, we're in an institutional market. So some of the markets have their rules, how you price and what are the profit margins. So -- and that is negotiated long term. And we just had recently concluded with our customer, ESA, a new agreement that's certainly reflected in those numbers. But we're not operating in fully free commercial market. So there are boundaries to that one. 80% of our businesses are with institutional customers and 20% are really with, I would say, so-called commercial customers in Space and elsewhere. where then the -- I would say, where we have open pricing negotiations. I think that's to be reminded. Nevertheless, we talked about the investments that we made in the transformation program, standardization of platforms, using the learning curves that we had in the recent years, the economies of scale that will come with the increase of the annual growth on revenue. And those 3 factors on top will make us believe that we will have the increase in margins. But it's hard work. We believe it can be done. But it's not as easy as saying there's huge demand. We're just increasing the prices. And that's an immediately bottom line result just because of the markets we're operating, which are guided and regulated.

Margins come from hard work, Henry, not just from pricing power. It's hard work to make the margins up.

So delivering on time, and I think that's what we always see in the experience and in budget as quirky as it sounds is the key to success. And hence, we're having invested a lot into the program management, yes.

Hard work, we'll never give up. This is what we're doing. Like you followed also on our program where it took a long time for us to make progress. So this is the story. I mean, space is hard. So it's not an easy scalable industry. Everybody who's successful in the space industries over decades like OHB has to work hard, and this is unfortunately something that also limits the margins. And so obviously, the margin expansion that you see here that we foresee will keep us very busy over the years, but we're optimistic we will achieve it. And of course, a bigger market with more demand is a good thing.

Yes agreed. Gives a bit more color on how this will play out. And then I think one question for Kurt to also keep you -- glad you joined the call with some content. I've seen in Aerospace segment that the EBIT margin has nearly doubled, and we've seen this trend also in Q1 already. How -- what -- is there like a single pinpoint reason you can pin this margin trend to in the Aerospace segment? My first guess would be that the cadence at the Ariane 6 production is going up, and therefore, you have better utilization rates. But maybe you have something to add or give a little more color on why the EBIT margin in this segment is performing well on a year-on-year comparison.

Kurt, do you want to take that? You are muted, Kurt.

Also the picture is frozen, maybe he's offline.

[Foreign Language].

My expectation is due to the increased cadence of Ariane 6 and due to the U.S. market where we have substantial revenues in the meantime, I expect for the upcoming years a stable margin, EBIT margin of 10% in Aerospace, what we had in the before 5 time, we had -- during Ariane 5 is running well. We had around 10% and the target is clear to coming [indiscernible] business in addition with the increasing military business coming back to a stable margin of 10%. And this is all -- we are already on the way to it. And I think this is really feasible and the business is now stable and increasing. And we have a really good outlook in this segment for the next upcoming years.

Great. That's a great explanation. And then maybe last question, I think more on a global level. We've seen this big order intakes at the defense companies. Now you have your record order intake, I think, of EUR 1 billion in this quarter or more. Then the question obviously arises that also if you guide for this order intake going forward that the book-to-bill ratio will probably be above 2 in the next 2 years. So how do you plan to stem this growth at the end? I mean this now order intake is one thing, but execution is the other thing. So yes, is there like big CapEx plans, big hiring plans? Or do you have enough capacity to stem this growth with your current plans that you have?

That's a big challenge, obviously, because scalability in our industry is not so easy. You need the people, you need experienced people, excellent people, you need the facilities. So yes, we are hiring massively on -- in many sites in Germany, but also in Italy, Sweden, U.K. Yes, we are hiring. So that's a big challenge, by the way, but we are. And with regard to CapEx planning, Kurt, I don't know. I don't think we have any significant change in that. But Kurt, you maybe know better on the CapEx scenario. No, Kurt doesn't know better. Do you hear us, Kurt?

His picture is frozen. It's a bad connection there.

Kurt, we can see you, but we cannot hear you. So I'll take the answer. No, I don't think there is a significant change in CapEx.

[indiscernible].

It was just a question if we foresee a massive CapEx increase, Kurt. You are hard to understand, Kurt, but I guess the bottom line is hiring is the biggest pain.

Henry, I mean, we'll just -- how we approach it in terms of capacity. So hiring, you've seen the numbers since 2 years, I think we increased by over 650 people. So there's a process. And we also hired a new HR Director, Juliane, who specifically focuses on that one. On the MT side, as Kurt said, we diversified quite a bit the business, which is good away from Ariane, and we still have capacity historically in Augsburg. And also for our U.S. customers, we can use that capacity for 2 reasons. We do have a pricing advantage over U.S. competitors, number one, and we're currently still exempt of the tariff discussion because space is strategic to the United States. So that can be -- continue to be used. And then in the ongoing projects that we have on the space side, we either optimize space that we have here in Germany specifically or if we have to extend, that's actually part of the program pricing that we suggest so that the CapEx investments that we have to do, for example, for IRIS2 have been always part of our program price to the customer.

I think I got a good picture now of what's going on and what's going to come.

I can't see any further questions.

Yes, I don't know if there are no further questions. And obviously, it has been a pleasure again. Thanks for being interested in OHB. Thanks for following Space. I can tell you, space industry is exciting. It will remain like this. And now it's really a booming industry, and we are very happy to be in the middle of it. We believe that our positioning is very good. There are new companies growing fast. There are traditional companies reshaping. But I guess our segment as, let's say, the one pure-play space company in Europe that does satellites, that does rockets, that does ground infrastructure operations, services downstream, we are very well positioned, and we feel very comfortable with this setting, and we are very happy that you support us and you're interested in us. And should you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to call any of us, maybe channel it through Marcel. Obviously, we're looking forward to see you again on our next call on November 13 for Q3. And of course, also then around those days at the Space Tech Fair, which is just a few days before the Ministerial Conference of Bremen in November 22, 18-ish. So anyway, there's good reasons to visit Bremen to get in touch with the space industry. And so I conclude this call. Thank you very much. Have a good day and hopefully, a good holiday season that, I guess, some of you still remains. Thanks. Bye-bye.