OHB SE (OHB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning from Bremen to OHB's Q1 earnings call. We are presenting here the results of the first 3 months of 2026. With me here is Tim Tecklenburg and online is also Markus Moeller. And I hope you have been able to download the materials we had published this morning on our website. I'll walk you through quickly through the slides what has happened, and then Tim will take over with the numbers. We had a very good first quarter. And I'll just recap quickly a summary of who OHB is. We're a European champion in the space market in Europe. We're the biggest pure-play space prime, obviously, with a very strong German heritage. Currently, the markets are developing very well, strong market tailwinds from all kinds of institutional and commercial customers. So we see ourselves as a company that with its strong track record, outstanding technology, strong customer relationship is on a very good way and on a very good trajectory to grow the business successfully. And when I say growing the business, we are increasing our footprint. Tim will show later a slide of the ongoing expansions that we are currently doing. And this will also be shown in the numbers that we have over the last years, but also especially now in this first quarter. Our activity in the 3 domains very briefly hasn't changed in the last quarter. Space Systems is our satellite and system development part where in the past, we have developed big satellite projects here in Europe with Galileo, with third generation on the military side, Sar-Lupe and SARah. Our access to space business actually has started because our customers needed launch services. So we started kind of a broker a long time ago when we started to build full end-to-end satellites. Now we are also in the business of developing a small micro launcher where we have a small -- where we have a significant share in company called Rocket Factory. We are hoping to see that launch taking place -- the first launch -- first test launch later this summer. And we are the largest supplier into the Ariane 6 system as a structural supplier and also similar product range for a number of U.S. rocket manufacturers, mainly the biggest one being Blue Origin, but also others. On the digital side, we are providing ground systems and operations and data analytics, and I will come to that later. Here's an overview of the company setup has not changed in the last 3 months with regard to what we published in the annual report 2025. Just a quick run through what has happened in Q1. A very big success was the signing of the EPS-Sterna constellation. So it's a 20-satellite constellation with about EUR 250 million, largest contract ever for OHB Sweden is on the success of the Arctic Weather mission that was launched 1.5 years ago roughly. And yes, we're looking forward to complete that customer here is EUMETSAT . So it's an operational constellation that will be operated as part of the EUMETSAT weather satellite network. Another important contract that we signed was the next planetary defense mission, OHB Italy signed with ESA Ramses contract. Ramses is a mission that will go to an asteroid that is coming pretty close to us within the GEO orbit. It will be launched by JAXA. Actually today, this afternoon, there will be a signing between JAXA, the Japanese Space Agency and ESA in Berlin of the agreement that JAXA will partner with ESA providing the launch. So we're very optimistic that we will be ready for a launch in '28 because the asteroid will not wait. The asteroid will come on, if I remember correctly, it is a Friday, the 13th. I think it's Friday, 13 in April '29. So by that time, the probe needs to be where the asteroid is and -- in order to monitor it. So it will not a collision scenario, but it will be a monitoring scenario. Another big success was the next step in our constellation Eaglet 2. We launched another 8 satellites. Now we have 16 operational. The remaining satellites -- the next 8 satellites will be launched later this year. So it's an Earth observation constellation with really interesting images. I looked at them recently. I'm very, very proud of the quality of the images that Eaglet is doing over the -- mainly over the Mediterranean for the Italian government. Another success was the maiden flight of Ariane 64. So we are very proud to be part of the Ariane community as a supplier. And of course, this launch marked the solid booster version and the strong version, so to say. Approximately 20 tonnes into LEO orbit, very good performance. Congratulations from our side. We did also have a new company established European Moonport company, which is our -- as the name it says, our approach of establishing a European moonport program. So the moon is obviously a very hot topic. We all have seen the exciting Artemis II images. We have seen how much excitement with the very successful Artemis II mission has created all around the world. And now Europe is also pushing very strongly to help to return to the moon. And just as a reminder, 20 years ago, OHB has been the first with a Smart-1 mission, first European mission to moon. It was built out of OHB Sweden. And actually, I'm not saying it landed, but it crashed on the moon purposely. So we are obviously strong moon aficionados. Another celebration we had 25 years ago, OHB was listed at the Deutsche Börse. At that time, at the Neue Markt, which was the growth market of 25 years ago. We are now part of the prime standard, and we have developed very well. If you look at the overall time line that you can see there, and I see on this chart, it's even the stock development over the whole 25 years. So started very low. It's almost not visible to see. But overall, much better performance than in the DAX over 25 years. Ownership, just as a reminder, 65-plus percent, the Fuchs family at 28.6% KKR, which holds it through an entity called Orchid Lux HoldCo. The free float is very small at 5.7%. And at the same time, we, as the founding family are very happy to have been contributed to this and still holding the majority of almost 2/3. So we're very happy that in the 25 years, we grew the company from very small with 125 people to now 4,000-plus people. With this, I'm turning it over to Tim to take the numbers.

Yes. Thank you very much, Marco. Highly appreciate it. And also thank you very much from my side that you are joining this call and also a warm welcome from my side. I'd like to provide you an overview on our financial figures as per Q1 2026. As Marco has mentioned, we had a good start in the year, and I will walk you through the key highlights from a financial perspective. Starting with the order backlog. We continue to grow our order backlog on a level of more than EUR 3.35 billion of order backlog. This is another record level for our company and provides us with already good visibility for the years to come. The arrows show when the ministerial conferences took place. As you know, in November 2025, even here in Bremen, the last ministerial conference took place. And already now, we see that the first contracts are now coming. And we also see, as Marco has mentioned, market tailwinds from the European Commission maybe and also from other nations here in Europe where we are present in order to further grow and have the backlog growing. For this record-high backlog we have already started to invest in the past few years. Right now, we have -- we are in 18 locations in 11 different countries. You're familiar with our structure. A few highlights of last year and ongoing investments is our expansion of our Bremen site, but also we'd like to highlight that we have already set foot in the U.K., starting with a new Bristol subsidiary. We have, in 2025, moved into a new factory in Sweden, also preparing for, for instance, already the Sterna contract that we just won in the Q1 2026. And we, as also communicated, acquired a company for electronic components in Germany, in Saxony in order to prepare ourselves for the future growth, especially with regard to the industrialization of our satellite manufacturing, but also for sure, we are continuing our ramp-up for our components in the launcher segment. Overall, as Marco has mentioned, around 4,000 people here. So that is we are growing and want to continue to grow and to hire. Here, the group in brief backlog, I already touched base up on our total operating performance, achieved a level of almost 280 million, which is really a 15% step-up in comparison to the Q1 2025. Our profitability measured in the adjusted EBITDA, has kind of grown also versus last year, showing that we are on the right track with a level of EUR 27.3 million, which is representing a 9.7% adjusted EBITDA margin. And we obviously want to continue this path, and we will do our best to continue to do so. Overall, the development in the last years with regard to the Q1 figures, you see that our company is growing. This is basically also then shown in the full year figures. As mentioned, almost EUR 280 million total operating performance with profitability of EUR 27.3 million adjusted EBITDA and also an increased level of adjusted EBIT on a level of about EUR 16.8 million, so representing a 6% EBIT margin. So that is also in the EBIT, we are continuing our growth path. And a quick outlook for the next dates that you might want to consider. On May 18, we'll conduct our Capital Markets Update. And on June 8, we will conduct our Annual General Meeting. And then the second half year is with the Q2 results, obviously, and then with the Q3 results in November. And basically, with that, we are kind of coming to the end of our slide deck. And thank you once again for joining and also for supporting OHB, which we really highly appreciate.

Yes. With this, I would like to start the Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] There's a raised hand already by Simon Keller from Numis. I would just add you as a panelist. Can you hear us?

I have a couple of topics that I would like to go through one by one, if that's okay. So firstly, on personnel, how are you progressing with hiring? Can you keep the order momentum? Like can you keep up hiring with the order momentum? Or are there any relevant challenges worth to be aware of? And also in this regard, I noticed personnel costs remain disciplined. Do you have any upfront expenses that we need to be aware of as you bring in new employees on board to ramp up for the super cycle?

So we are continuing to hire. You see the numbers. I always say we have more than 4,000 people because if we add the hires of April and up to now we are. So we are hiring quite fast. And we are hiring so fast that even our HR is not able to keep track of the hiring. I'm just laughing to myself because sometimes it's a time lag to find out how many people have been hired in that month, but we are doing it quite quickly. And obviously, it's difficult to hire good people because the space industry is booming. So everybody in the industry is hiring people. So it's not so easy to find the right quality. But we are obviously offering a very attractive proposition, good compensation and an exciting job and obviously also hopefully, a strong growth in the future. There's no extra expenses attached to that. Obviously, sometimes we might hire people through headhunters. Yes, this is taking place. So we do have sometimes consultancy fees for headhunters, special occasions, but this is not something that should change any model.

If I may add to that, Marco, I'd like to highlight that those hirings are taking place in our core function of operational -- in our operations. So that is really focused on kind of fulfilling the customer contracts. And with regard to support function, we keep this rather flat.

Understood. Maybe one follow-up here. Where do you get the people from mostly? Are they mostly graduates? Or do you get some from automotive? Or generally, is the space industry large enough such that you can absorb them from, I don't know, other countries maybe or...

It's a mixture of everything. We are hiring a lot of young people directly from university, and those come from everywhere over Europe. We still -- I mean, we have done this since the last 15, 20 years, still have a strong community of colleagues from Spain and Italy and France. So we are very, very diverse. I think we have about 40 different nations in the company. So very international mixture. We do also hire experts from the market. And sometimes, as you said, also from other industries. So it's really a mixture. Our HR team is very busy, and they're working on a long list. And again, we are an industry that is booming. Not all the industries are currently booming. So there are also people like [indiscernible], they are coming into space -- side entrants, they're coming into space and -- but it's a big focus on us, not so easy.

Okay. Next topic would be Bundeswehr orders. Broadly speaking, what capture rate do you expect from the German space defense budget? And is there maybe anything that has swung the needle in your favor over the last months?

Well, obviously, I think it's well known that, first of all, Germany spends a lot of attention and, of course, also money on increasing the defense efforts. Just I think, 10 days ago, there was a publication of the foresight of the German budget until the -- including the outlook until 2030. And you could see that there was -- it's foreseen -- this current government foresees a massive increase of the military spending up to EUR 180 billion per year in 2030, that's public is a public paper. And obviously, if you think back some years ago, we were EUR 50 billion to EUR 60 billion per year. So it's more than triple, and it will go on in the direction of the 5% target of GDP, which is the current target for NATO. So that's the overall environment, and I think it's going on, and it's a stable increase. And within this, space has been designated as a core topic, which is good for the whole space industry, including OHB. And we feel that a number of these topics are really well suited for us. So the bottom line is that the topics that the military, the Bundeswehr wants to do are really published. In November, they have published the space military strategy and it's online. And if you read this, you can see all the topics. And I can tell you that we are very much interested in almost all these topics. So we are teaming with one partner here and with another partner there, and we are looking -- sometimes we have already delivered proposals on other occasions, we are about to deliver proposals and on other occasions, we're just making thoughts about teaming options. So the bottom line is we are working hard on this overall opportunity, but nothing of that is already in the order book of this wave and nothing is in the current EUR 3.2 billion. This is something that is to come in the future. And knowing the process is, obviously, there is not just a proposal to be delivered, but also then a selection process, potentially, obviously, then negotiations and parliamentary approval and so on and so on. So long story short, this is not making us busy today, but we foresee this to be significant in the near future.

Okay. Maybe slightly more specifically, would you be willing or supportive of the statement where I say like 40% of this space defense budget from Germany could land up in your order book. Is that a fair assumption? Or do you think it's less or more for some reason?

I wouldn't call it a fair assumption. I would call it a great idea or a great statement. No, I don't know. I mean, honestly, we don't know. Honestly, there has been a budget publicly earmarked, which is said to be EUR 35 billion over the next 5 years, meaning on average, EUR 7 billion a year. And yes, we are one of the big space players in Germany, but others as well. So I don't calculate this in a quarter of that number because also after 2030, there's also a future within the '30s. So we will see also operating and replenishment and addition coming next. So my feeling is not -- I'm not looking of what the share of us is, but I'm looking that we are getting some of the topics that we are pursuing.

Understandable. Next topic would be Moonport. Do you plan to invest anything that is not funded, for example, to capture commercial activity?

Yes. Of course. I mean I don't believe that you can speed activities on the moon without any private activity. So yes, of course, there are institutional programs, and we are -- it's public that we are leading together with Thales Alenia space from [indiscernible] Argonaut. We have been involved in the moon, as I said earlier since a long time. But the whole idea of the Moonport company is also to attract private capital into the moon because the Moonport, as the name says, is the hub for logistics. So the difficult thing in the past has always been to safely land on the moon. And many of the missions, a high quota of the missions was not successful in landing. So we believe like 500 years ago in the exploration of the world, the first thing you have to do is stable logistics, safe ports. That is the starting point of every exploration that needs to be done. And that's why we believe there needs to be a starting point around a Moonport with a common logistics for that, it cannot be that everybody -- it is more efficient if you have a sharing of certain things like a stable ground, like energy and many other things. But yes, this is something we like to also invest in.

And last topic, Rocket Factory Augsburg. What are the key development steps ahead next to the maiden flight? And is there any consideration on your side to crystallize the embedded value, for example, via a separate listing?

The last question, no, we have no considerations on that yet. I mean we are focusing on the first launch -- I mean first test launch, as we should call it, because launching rockets is difficult. Launching rockets is risky, and we are humble people. We had -- 1.5 years ago, we had a -- let me say, I forgot the term, how people call it, but we had a faulty first stage test, an anomaly that destroyed the first stage when it was on the test site. So we are hoping for a launch later this summer. The rocket is already in Scotland in SaxaVord at the launch pad, but it's still lying in the hall. It's not yet erected into a vertical position, but the team seems to be very, very, very busy. We completed the engine tests. We're working hard on the logistics, building up the telemetry and finalizing that. So the focus of our attention on Rocket Factory Augsburg's attention has shifted to SaxaVord. This is where people are busy now. So everything is at the launch pad and we hope that it's going to be successful. We will see. Whatever we define as success, but this is something we will have to talk about briefly before the launch attempt.

I can't see any further questions for now. I don't know if you will just give people another minute.

Yes, we should give people another minute. And what I'm obviously doing is I'm using it for advertisement. We have upcoming the ILA show in Berlin from June 10 to June 14. We have a very exciting booth. Hopefully, I haven't seen actually the plans yet, but I'm excited, and I'm sure it will be great. I'm absolutely sure that the show as a whole is worth coming. So everybody who has the chance should obviously come to visit us there. We will all be there. Come to ILA and look into the future of space.

No further questions still. So I think we can conclude this call for now.

Very good. Thank you very much, and thanks for your time, and let's stay in touch. And yes, hope to see you soon again in the upcoming events that Tim just showed.

Thank you also from my side.