Tinexta S.p.A. (TNXT) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you for joining Tinexta's Capital Markets Day in Milan. The presentation is about to begin. Let me turn it over to Josef Mastragostino, Chief Investor Relations Officer of Tinexta Group.

Well, good afternoon and good morning to the folks connected from abroad. Thank you for joining Tinexta's 2023 results as well as 2024-2026 business plan and thank you for being here. Let me start with the round of presentations. Here with me today, Pier Andrea Chevallard, the General Manager and Chief Executive Officer of Tinexta Group; Oddone Pozzi, Chief Financial Officer; and then on my right side, we have the Head of the BUs, which you all already know, starting from Danilo Cattaneo, InfoCert CEO; Marco Comastri, Tinexta Cyber CEO; and Fiorenzo Bellelli, Warrant Hub, CEO. For today's agenda, I would like you to draw your attention to this slide. We will start with a welcome and key focus points, which I will take care of. Following it will be Pier Andrea and together with Oddone in terms of state-of-the-art and 2023 results. As a reminder, the Board of Directors has just approved less than an hour ago, the full year results as well as the business plan. Then it will be the Business Unit's turn starting with Danilo, which will go over Digital Trust. Then it will be Marco with Cybersecurity and Fiorenzo will give us some details in terms of Business Innovation. Then Oddone and I will deep dive into the pillars of 2024-2026 business plan, and I will wrap it up with some closing remarks and leave it to the Q&A part for you guys to ask any questions. So given that this is an official presentation, please bear with me. We will have to go over the disclaimer. This is a company presentation that includes forward-looking data based on internal management assumptions that are subject to material changes, including changes such as external factors that go beyond the group's control. Management data when presented are identified as such and the business units data are divisional, remember, and they do not include the elimination of intra-group BU. For detailed information of Tinexta S.p.a, it is recommended that you refer to the company's documentation, including the latest interim reports, which is also available and the company's financial statements. So let me just start with this slide, which gives you an idea of where the group is. Our mission is to shape the future. If you look at this slide, comparing it to last year, I would like to draw your attention to some numbers. Last year, the countries in which we were, were around 9. This year, we are present in 12 countries. So the company is becoming more and more international. Pier Andrea will go over the international part, which is becoming probably the most predominant part of the business. Remember, we started from 100% revenue in Italy. And today, that percentage is also increasing dramatically. Remember, big attention to employees, to people. We are now over 2,500 employees at a group level divided into the 3 business units, which you're all accustomed to, and we currently have around 20 subsidiaries. Going forward, let's give you some key data, which I'm sure you all are happy to see. Revenues came in at EUR 396 million, growing 11% versus prior year. More interestingly is EBITDA adjusted. For the first time, we surpassed EUR 100 million in terms of EBITDA coming at EUR 103 million or growing 9%, fully organic growth, plus 9% versus prior year. Net profit came in at EUR 70 million. Remember, the net profit reflects the capital gain from the closing of RE Valuta, which was closed basically in March of 2023. NFP came in EUR 102 million. We will discuss about the NFP as of December 31, 2023. We always like to present this slide to give you a bit of a background. Some of you already know the company since its IPO, company has grown dramatically in terms of revenue as well as EBITDA, and we are now close to 30% CAGR if I look at 2014 to 2023 in terms of EBITDA. Leverage ratio has always been under control. We closed the year under 1x or sub-1x. These are some of the key milestones, which you all are very accustomed to. Let me concentrate on the right side of the slide, which is 2023. This has been a very busy year in terms of M&A. So big thanks goes also to the M&A group, which has been extremely active. We started the year by acquiring a company in the U.K. called Ascertia and then at the very end, as is custom in Tinexta's history in December, we always do another M&A deal, which was ABF, the largest M&A deal, which we concluded as of the history of the group. We also did a very strategic move. We entered Defense Tech and shareholding structure with a 20% initial consideration, and we also reached 100% ownership of CertEurope. So what were the results? How did they come in versus the planned targets, we can announce very clearly that we reached all planned targets. You can see on the top, the guidance, which is in gray, we were expecting revenue to come in again on an organic base, anywhere between 11% to 15%. We reached that result by bringing home 11% growth. More importantly, EBITDA was supposed to be anywhere between 8% and 12% as per the guidance, and we increased EBITDA versus prior year, again, on an organic base, plus 9%. NFP over EBITDA came in at sub-1, we'll discuss about that. Oddone will go over the reason why it's a bit higher than what you we had expected, but you can already see it here. It's mostly related to the put-call specifically Cybersecurity but let me leave it there. Net profit, we already commented. And let me draw your attention to the constant growth of adjusted free cash flow, which came in at EUR 57 million, growing 15% on top of last year's free cash flow. On the bottom, let's look at the different division, Digital Trust, a big round of applause with 30% margin again this year, which is another historic high, growing at 15% in terms of EBITDA and 16% in terms of revenue. Another big, I think, accomplishment by far, land slide result is Cybersecurity, growing 45% versus prior year, exceeding what we had actually given in terms of single BU guidance when it came down to EBITDA. And then Business Innovation, which given also the lower mix of revenue came in at 5% -- 4% revenue growth and a bit shy in terms of EBITDA, but still very around close to EUR 50 million of EBITDA. I'll leave you with this slide. This slide, I think, represents an important trajectory of growth and also gives you the cadence of our business. The fourth quarter alone registered EUR 46 million of EBITDA which came in close to 36% margin or 45% of the single weight of the quarter. So again, I remind you, again, for 2024, how the EBITDA plays out throughout the year, the fourth quarter obviously is the big player here. At this point, I will leave it to Pier Andrea with his comments.

Thank you very much, Josef, and thank you very much to everybody. I'm very -- first of all, I'm very pleased you could be here in presence in our new offices here in Milan. They are an important step in the reorganization of the group, and I'm very pleased that you are here. And thanks also to everyone is connected today is joining the conference from remote. Now we go over the state-of-the-art of Tinexta Group on the 2023 results highlights. I would start saying that Tinexta completed another year of major accomplishments. The results we achieved, both from a strategic commercial and financial point of view are even more significant even if we consider the macroeconomic scenario of the year and now the presence of to -- or so far away from us. Just a short recap of the major initiatives of this year. In 2023, in mid-January, we announced the successful acquisition of Ascertia, U.K.-based the leading company in cryptographic solution and digital signature with a strong specialization in PKI. With this acquisition, InfoCert grants entrance not only in U.K. market, but more important in Middle East and North African market. Later in February, Bregal milestone completed its investment in InfoCert, investing EUR 100 million for a 16% stake. In March, we completed the last portion of the sale of credit information management by selling 95% of our stake in RE Valuta. In April, we finalized the acquisition, as already as I mentioned, a 20% stake in Defence Tech with an option call we can be exercising in line next month. And later in July, we decided to exercise our call in CertEurope for the remaining 40% stake. By the end of the year, we rationalized the even part of the business unit, Business Innovation with Co.Mark being merged by corporation into Warrant to further bring efficiency and lean management to the business unit. Lastly, but I would say more important in December, we announced the acquisition of ABF Group. We made the closing of the operation in January, the largest M&A deal of history of the group for an enterprise value of EUR 155 million and we consider it very important because it's -- we have the chance to enter the French market in the area of Business Innovation with an extraordinary asset with an important marginality. We are fully convinced in -- actually, we are fully convinced there is a lot of value to extract from this new acquisition and in the months to come, we will be able to further develop synergies, both with Warrant and other company within the group. As already mentioned, the group today is made up of over 2,500 people, and we have grown very much, of course, because of the recent acquisitions. We strive to attract talent, and we foster human capital growth, making our group large and diverse in terms of competencies and know-how. There is a strong company belonging across the entire group and the recent investment in our office, both in Milan, where we are today. And the next in Rome, we will open in -- the new offices in Rome in where all the Roman base the company will be concentrated in July, I think, June or July. And the reason -- and in Rome we'll increase the activeness of our attention to sustainability. As far as financials are concerned, 2023 revenues came in very strong at EUR 396 million, posting an 11% of full organic growth versus prior year with an EBITDA adjusted of EUR 103 million, growing, I would say, a very important 9% versus prior year, confirming our trend to grow organically almost double digit. The marginality stands at 26%. Free cash flow continued to be strong at EUR 57 million on an adjusted base. Let me provide you just with an update on the dividend. We will propose to do an Annual General Meeting a dividend of EUR 0.46 per share, which continues to show the strong commitment we have in terms of shareholder return. It means that 30% of net profit will be made available for the shareholder. I would give you some qualitative comments on 2023 results. I repeat. We were able to close the year with very good results in a macroeconomic scenario, which remains very challenging. The increase in labor cost was more than reabsorbed by the group, posting no impact on the P&L. This is an important topic. It was not so simple. We were able -- in other words we were able to push down the value chain, the overall increase in costs without any impact whatsoever. It's also very important to highlight that the Cybersecurity business did extremely well this year, growing for 5 consecutive quarters and living on the ground and the group's about our execution in this business line. As far as Digital Trust business unit is concerned, I will keep my comment to the minimum as the numbers speak for themselves. Closing the year with a 30% EBITDA adjusted margin and hitting again for this year, historical highs represent proof of exceptional and outstanding business performance. In Business Innovation, subsidized finance was compensated by other business line revenues such as digital marketing and digital transformation adviser. The marginality of this business unit to -- is still very high at 37% reflects the different mix in revenues. Turning to Slide 14. Let's talk about some key important item in 2023. At the group level, we achieved a positive growth in most of our business units, strengthening our already important market position. Digital Trust business continued to grow this year, surpassing EUR 50 million in terms of EBITDA. Cybersecurity grew 45% versus prior year in terms of EBITDA adjusted and reached closer to 17% margin. Business Innovation closed the year very strongly generating very solid growth in terms of top line in the fourth quarter. At a group level, as Josef showed before, the fourth quarter was again outstanding with over EUR 46 million. In terms of EBITDA adjusted and margin over 36%, I think this is clear evidence of great execution from our side. The group in 2023 was also very successful in expanding internationally by entering the French, U.K. and Middle East and North African markets. And if you recall, we have said this exactly one year ago. Even in the Business Innovation business unit, we had said that we were actively looking at other assets in France. And with great pleasure, we can say that we fulfilled all the targets we announced to the market. 2023 guidance was an ambitious one. Tinexta Group was this year, again, able to reach it while continuing to accelerate on all key strategic goals. Moving to 2024-2026 strategy, let me start just by commenting one of the most recent acquisitions. Lenovys is a first step towards a larger project of market offering expansion of Business Innovation. The objective is to become a quality partner for SMEs in digital transformation. We plan to offer unique advisory service for Italy with vertical specialization in digital transformation. Lenovys actually provides strategic consulting in lean management divided in 6 competence centers. We will be able to serve a large number of our customers in small business. Looking more closely to 2024. The year will be comprised of 2 major phases. The first phase of acquisition and the second phase of integration. The year will see us busy in putting money at work having cleared the objective of shareholder return and value accretion. Staying on the medium- to long-term initiative. Let me provide an outlook in terms of other growth stream. This include open innovation to promote innovation processes, start up valuable ideas within the group. We reached an agreement with Digital Magics, I think in last October, we added a new -- we created a new co, together with Digital Magics, we put EUR 5 million to be invested in the next 3 years in start-up business obviously current with our business line. Integration includes the company rationalization to have one business per business unit and streamlining all horizontal integration. This year, we will have the chance to become 100% shareholder of Corvallis, Yoroi and the Swascan, and we will start with the possible integration of all the companies in order to make Tinexta Cyber more efficient. International expansion. We wanted to replicate the Tinexta model in the major European geographies in which we operate. We will be starting with France and Spain, and we are fully convinced we will get important results, monitoring of public administration market by increasing our presence as a group. As I said before, strategic consultancy for innovation and advisory practice to manage innovation projects for medium to large clients from rethinking the process to finding appropriate solution. And lastly, create a unique image that allows the group to be identified as a single player with an integrated narrative and communication. Now putting it all these together and translating it into numbers. We will have in -- we expect in 2024 to grow revenues about -- around 20% versus prior year. In terms of EBITDA adjusted, the growth will be even more significant, growing about 30% versus prior year. From an organic, this includes, of course, the result of acquisitions we made in the last months. From an organic perspective, anyway, revenues will grow high single digit and EBITDA adjusted, we grow more than 10%. The compounded annual growth rate from '23 to '26, we see revenues go from 12% to 14%, EBITDA adjusted from 17% to 19%. The leverage ratio will always stay under [ 2 pair ] and reach about [ 1 pair ] by the end of the plan. I think these are great numbers that confirm our intention to continue to grow in the month or year to come. I leave now to Oddone to present in a more detailed way, the number we are presenting.

Thank you, Pier Andrea, and good afternoon, everybody. Let's move to deep dive a bit on the results that has been commented so far. Like we said, the revenue jumped up 11%, mainly driven by the 2 business units, the Digital Trust and Cybersecurity, but also Business Innovation; posted a mid-single growth. EBITDA went up close to 9%. Also, we are, as already commented, important contribution came from Cybersecurity that grew in the range of 45%, while Digital Trust posted again a very solid growth in the range of 15%. Profit before taxes despite the quite important level of investment that we run out in order to support the growth and the continuous update of the products has been in the range of 12% growth. And already as mentioned, we continue to focus on the free cash flow that posted growth in excess of 15%, considering also that we were able basically to keep the net working capital at the level of the previous year despite a significant growth in terms of revenue. Like we said in the next page, we see what I already commented on the consolidated results. Let's move now to the P&L. The P&L here, you can see that basically, the results are like-for-like because we have only few amounts related to the consolidation of Ascertia. The growth that we posted was in excess of around 11% and as you can see here, you see that more and more, we are moving, as Pier Andrea said, as a consulting activity and company with the incidence of the personnel costs that went up to 39%, but partially compensated by the decline in incidents in services and other costs. We keep investing in activity for M&A. We completed 2 important M&A deals, basically Ascertia was completed in August. And basically, also, we invested also in other deals that we have made. Depreciation and amortization provision went up a little bit compared to the previous year. We have to consider that almost 40% of this depreciation is amortization of goodwill through the PPA. So basically, you're reducing our capital investment. Obviously, we are continuing to grow in terms of investment. Last -- in 2023, we picked the level of EUR 25 million a little bit above our expectation, but definitely it's a continuous support to our capability to have new and reliable products on the market. We improved quite significantly the net financial charges. Here, we were able to benefit from the cash in that we had from the sale of RE Valuta Innolva, we were able to invest on average more than EUR 100 million at a margin of 3-point-something percent per year while our debt was covered by some IRS that we put on our debt that allowed us to keep the debt in the range of 2%. So here, we improved like significantly this drove us to an increase of more than 10% of the profit before taxes. A result of discontinued operations were still in the range of EUR 40 million, EUR 35 million linked to the profit that we made of the disposal of RE Valuta. So we ended up with around EUR 70 million net profit that is driving a dividend of EUR 0.46. In terms of balance sheet, still we are -- despite a quite important investment like EUR 45 million for Ascertia, EUR 25 million for Defence Tech plus CapEx, we -- the net invested capital went up to EUR 550 million. Partially of this was compensated by let's say, an increase of total shareholder debt equity despite a distribution of EUR 33 million dividends and the net financial position is now at around EUR 100 million with a leverage of 1x. What is the change that basically we had compared for the guidance? The first change that we have to post more amount of debt for the put and call related to the Cybersecurity business, driven by the over performance that we did. But I have to say that at the end of the day is exactly the same amount that we estimated when we made the investment 3 years ago. On top of that, the management did not yet exercise the options for -- the stock options. So it means that we planned that inflow driven by that in the company that did not occur, but will occur in 2024 before the expiring of the stock option. I will move now to the 2 pages later. Yes, Josef. Let's go by business unit. Digital Trust, as we already said, posted a further important year. The revenue went up in the range of 15%, 16%, very, very solid, very strong. On an organic basis, it was 13% and the EBITDA on an organic basis was 15.2%. This is happening now. We can see this from 8, 9 quarters in a row. It means that the size, the capability and the strong approach of Digital Trust in the market is allowing to continue to deliver a very, very strong revenue with an even stronger EBITDA driven that the capability of leverage on this situation. Both OTS and digital transformation management sectors went up significantly. OTS, last year was slightly better than DTM, but driven by an opportunity we get on the market, what is called the Gara Consip we had there that help us. But still, the digital transformation management grew at 14% rate. That is a very significant amount because you have to consider here that we are talking about project on large customers, and this is driving a very important recurring revenue. The revenue -- the amount of recurring revenue is growing year-over-year. And this part of the stability of the result stability in terms of growth of the result that Digital Trust is driving. During 2023 for further focusing on customer and products, Digital Trust decide to outsource the infrastructure that was absorbing quite a significant effort and focus in order to be further focused on the market and on the development. Let's move now to Cybersecurity. The result has been extremely positive. Internally, we have been able to see this capability to grow at the pace that we reached already from Q1, mid-Q2 and obviously was a little bit less evident for people outside the company, but the company was able to grow significantly in the part of the Cybersecurity. Despite a year where the digital part of the business of Cybersecurity was shrinking a bit, we posted a strong growth in excess of 50% of the Cyber part that now is representing around 40% of the total revenue. This is very important because this is exactly driving what we announced since the early beginning of our investment so the fact that we were able, in the medium term, to move up the EBITDA margin from 13% and now we reached 16.5%. It means that this is a path that we are delivering, and we expect even in the future to improve this. Component like advisory basically doubled, so -- and Marco will go further during his presentation, but the Cyber Threat Intelligence Services grew up significantly as well as the sale of product. We have also a small part of resale here but our capability to bring product to our customer is very encouraging. So we completed a year close to 17% EBITDA margin, probably well above some estimates that were around -- and the growth in terms of EBITDA was very confident -- it's an important comfort for us also approaching 2024. Business Innovation. Obviously, this is the part of our 3 pillars that is exposed to a market that is growing a little less than the market that we are addressing with the other 2 business units. On top of this, we have to consider that especially the activity of Warrant is somehow linked to the budget law to the GDP of the country. And we have to say that it's very clear that the GDP expectation when we developed the plan last year was quite a little bit different from what happened. So here encountered a bit of difficult situation during the year, but we stay and remained very positive on the year-end. And in fact, what we were able to deliver a very strong Q4, especially in the area of the Business Innovation that allowed us to in total, deliver the results of the group as expected. 2023 has been also for business innovation, a very important year of consolidation. We merged into Warrant 6 different companies for value was moved from Innolva into the management of Warrant. So we have been also a bit involved in internal reorganization. Now new organization in place, merger has been done we are ready to address 2024 with a much more organized and lean organization. And looking at the split of our results, definitely other business line where the subsidized finance, obviously, driven by the budget load that has decreased the rates for the taxpayer, definitely has impacted a bit the business. But we were able to compensate with other business lines that we developed that allow us to definitely keep a very strong level of EBITDA, close to EUR 50 million with 37% EBITDA margin. Net financial position, I would say, I already mentioned here. So the 2 differences we had are only the part of put related to the best better performance of Cybersecurity and also we cash less stock option exercise compared to what we expected. Adjusted free cash flow went up 50% compared to previous year in a year where would have been very, very likely to have an absorption of working capital what we were able to manage it. I would not comment in detail the following page, made only a few comments on the M&A track record. 2023, it has been another important year on the M&A part. Basically, we acquired the majority stake of Ascertia and this has been an important step. We put -- we have now a position also in the U.K. with -- and some other countries, driven by this. We completed the acquisition of CertEurope and we completed the sale of RE Valuta. And at the end of the year, we did the closing of Studio Fieschi that is supporting the activity of Warrant and we signed the ABF deal that has been then completed early 2024. This is now the new picture of the group as we enter 2024 and therefore, when we are going to look at 2024, will be around the perimeter that you have here. Thank you. I leave now to Danilo.

Danilo, can you reach us -- up to you. If you want to go there or if you want -- up to you. Yes.

So good afternoon from me as well. We will briefly describe what happened in 2023 in the Digital Trust business unit and some early plan for 2024. So first of all, most of you already know what is our kind of services we offer to the market. But just to assume what are we doing? We help customers of very different sites in the digital transformation, namely, we give a digital processes, digital contracts, the same legal value of the contract ones based just on wet signature on paper. How we approach the market? Basically, the business unit is composite of the InfoCert Group with its companies in Italy and abroad and Visura, that is focused on professionals, namely lawyers and accountants, and they have also a specialized distribution channel for this very particular kind of targets. Our solution are roughly split 50-50 in 2 broad categories. One is what we call Off-the-Shelf. For the one of you that are working in Italy, we are quite famous for some of the share products such as the digital signature on a device, such as USB token or smart card or LegalMail, our best-selling PEC that is registered email very used in Italy or long-term archiving or the kind of time stamping. So these are very atomic services that still are required to have digital value on transaction. On the other side, we have what we call enterprise solution, there is nothing else than a workflow based on the -- sorry, on the same solution that we sell also as atomic solution. But in this case, they address end-to-end issue for medium- to large-sized customers. In this category, our best-selling solution is what we call the TOP, the sense for Trusted Onboarding Platform. But even solutions are really growing in the kind of electronic invoicing in here and abroad, as we'll see in one of the following slides, it has been the single product has the biggest growth in terms of volumes last year. And other kind of workflow, so many digital transformation that are used for in very different customer either within the company, within the group or in all the relation within the company and its counterparts, namely providers, suppliers or customers. A few words on what we did in 2023. As we have seen from my colleagues, we reached old numeric expectations. But it's important to say that we did the numbers because basically, we accomplished also all the strategic execution objectives. So starting from organizational targets, we added a new business unit that is in charge of international integration. We changed the management in CertEurope in France. And also from the organizational standpoint, we increased quite a lot in the number of specialists that are required to follow more and more large customers. On the other side, the market itself has been growing in terms of number of QTSP. So still, we belong to the Qualified Trust Service Provider category. The number -- in Europe is now 244. It's quite a big number. This means that it's quite a fragmented market. Among these, InfoCert used to be in 2022 and still unless there is some unrealistic surprise should be in 2023 still confirmed that this is the largest, the largest among European players, but even bigger in Europe compared to the large U.S. companies. This has been recognized by market analysts but also from some very large customers. As I already mentioned, I want to repeat, we went through a quite big acquisition, so we acquired a majority of Ascertia. They give us some very early, let's say, good surprises. So together, we managed to win some very large tenders. We moved to 100% of shares of CertEurope. And we made a couple of strategic moves in the field of onboarding -- digital onboarding, we were -- in 2023, already serving roughly 150 medium- to large-sized banks CRIF that probably most of you know as the Centrale Rischi. So the Italian let's say, monopolistic position for know your customers related to single citizens, also a solution on digital onboarding, serving roughly 40 customers, 40 banks. So we decided that being probably the InfoCert solution already much more mature in terms of scalability and features, we're receiving the 40 customers, so they will migrate on InfoCert platform. And together with CRIF, in fact, in this same room, we had a seminar 2 days ago, we were addressing Italian and European market with a solution that includes InfoCert platforms, so the InfoCert IT solution, together with CRIF services still require it for every onboarding in a bank. So numbers are growing, of course, even through acquisition. We are roughly 750 people, professionals, mostly roughly 50% in Italy, 50% abroad. We exceeded the 5,000 enterprise customer thresholds. And even thanks to Ascertia, a very effective channel, we are operating with enterprise customers in over 60 countries. So all of Europe, we were already quite present in Latin America, but we added North America, Africa, Middle East and some Far East countries. So we are really becoming a global operator. What next? Already in 2024, we made some important moves. First of all, in February, we announced a new organizational model, mostly focused on addressing, as I just mentioned, in a global market and to be very fast and effective in following the needs of very large and multi-country customers. Among other changes, we are now 50% of first-line directors mainly at 50% female. So this in Italy is going to be something we hope will be followed by more and more companies. We had some very important news in terms of functionality in our product set as you probably heard in Italy and in Europe, for parallel initiative, there will be a wallet-based digital identity. Interesting enough, since 2022, we are offering a digital signature based on wallet that has just been only announced from European commissioners. We're already selling this in Germany. And we are starting, selling this on a small, let's say, within customer contact in Italy. In the next few months, we will sell in Italy full features on all our distribution channels. Again, one of the sources for growth is also M&A, and we are actively working on few M&A opportunities with the mixed team with the help of our owners Tinexta and Bregal. If you go to next slide, we'll probably go with some more details of what I just mentioned. So we said, overall, we have seen the revenue growth roughly 15% with some very nice and promising for the future numbers exceptions. So first of all is public sector. In Italy and in Europe, there is increasing investment in the public sector due to next-generation EU funding. As you can see, we grow in the Italian public sector, roughly 39% in revenues but some of the very large deal we won in 2023 are not yet reflected in revenues because we signed many contracts that are just starting executing in customer site. So we are expecting more to come. Even abroad, we have roughly doubled this number, more than EUR 28 million growing in revenue 28%, but if we analyze the monthly recurring revenue, December was roughly 80% more than December last year because, again, in general, our services are recurring. As you can see, bottom left, not only the recurring overall amount increased roughly 3 points, so from 70% to 73% of revenues. But if we compare the revenues in December, the recurring revenues in December, they are very promising. So the acceleration in the last part of the year will be reflected in revenues for 2024. Again, in a market, I will not go in details, but we are considered by most international analysts among the leaders in digital signature, digital identity, especially when we talk about innovative solutions. In terms of products, these are also some other aspect of the growth. As you can see in all of the category, we are growing something like in the range between 30% and 40%. So we passed the EUR 1.4 billion signature per year. This was looking like impossible just 2 years ago. Again, EUR 1.4 billion digital time stamp, long-term archiving and electronic invoicing passed the 50% growth in terms of volumes and if you see the last few numbers. The first one is the number of eDelivery accounts that in Italy is what we call PEC, but we are also active in Spain with a different kind of eDelivery, listening to the local law. But it's interesting, if you read together the last 2 growths, it's true, the number of users, 80% growth. But volume -- message is roughly 50% growth. This means that even in a mature market, we managed to offer more services and to have our customers use these kind of services for different use cases. And this is more than promising. Last but not least, we invested quite a lot in sustainability. So we're obtaining a couple of important certification. One is the general quality certification, the PDR 125. And also the 37,000 ISO certification on anti-bribery. Again, within InfoCert, we also in 2023, offset the net zero consumption of electricity. So we planted a completely new forest in Zimbabwe on top of the initiative we are already going in 2022 and as you will probably remember, we are continuing adding to all our services, a sort of recap using our services to our customers from the very cheap and small solution to the large enterprises, what they are achieving in terms of sustainability. So we basically give a simple report in terms of water consumption, in terms of CO2 reduction, in terms of people impact, in terms of transparency. So this will help also medium-sized customers to grow in their impact on sustainability, and we are very proud about this. So just a word of what is the market we are moving in. As I mentioned, the market -- this is a European view. Market is quite fragmented, and we are very happy about this. So we have 244 operators like InfoCert. Of course, this is to see the total size of the market is moving from EUR 1.6 billion to EUR 2.5 billion. So InfoCert is roughly 9% of the European market. Interesting enough, this analysis, we show that we are investing with local branches in the 5 countries that individually are contributing most to European growth. So not only InfoCert is growing more than the market, but we are geographically position it with our customers in the fastest-growing countries. I would like to go, yes, on basically my final slide. So what is the strategy behind this growth? And what is next? First, good point. We are in a particularly solid pipeline momentum. We closed last year growing a lot, but we closed the last year with many large customers already InfoCert customer asking for more digital transformation project. So we are looking forward, a very strong first semester, the one just started. We are pushing a lot the one company approach in terms of integration of solutions, integration of processes and even more important integration of knowledge. So we are enforcing more and more exchanges between our branches in order to keep the best solution from one country to the other. We are also increasing the knowledge sharing with the Tinexta Cyber. Tinexta Cyber is already part of our revenue in the last couple of years. But more and more, we are offering our customers not only what we are obliged to offer, being a Qualified Trust Service Provider, but also some optional solution based on Tinexta Cyber efforts that are strengthening our solidity, our robustness. And of course, very -- more and more important, the more the transaction will go digital, the more we have to help our customers be safe. Yes, there's 2.0. For the one of you that are following the European community works on regulation is going to be finally announced in April. So end of March, there will be the final presentation and will be published on European Gazette in April. We have already many solutions that are compliant because not only we know this regulation, but we have been one of the contributor in the revolution. Last but not least, Generative AI. During 2023, we started offering this kind of capability on the support and on many features in our products. In the months to come in first semester, we'll offer most of the solution, more and more features are helping our customer utilize it is most -- this technology within our usual solution. With this I stop, but I'm available later for whichever question. Thank you.

Gracias, Danilo. Marco?

So Marco Comastri, Cybersecurity. The BU Tinexta Cyber enables digital transformation in a secure manner for small, medium and large enterprises. In 2023, we grew more than 15%. So when we compare our performance against the different markets we are in, even if we take the Cybersecurity market that has a compounded rate of 12%, we are outperforming the market growth. In terms of key accomplishment, we have strengthened our portfolio, managed security services, which is a distinguished offering we have and characterize what we do in the market. We have now more than 200 active customers with our security operation center. We have made strategic partnerships such as Google, in order to go together to the market very successful activity, too. And we have launched a new product in the Cyber Threat Intelligence, which is a very fast-growing market. In terms of asset development, Danilo already mentioned the common activity done with InfoCert. We are selling through InfoCert through the channel or InfoCert, a new product called Legal Security Premium, and we doubled the revenue here last year. We have launched a new cyber risk platform to support organization to deploy DORA, NIS2, and we have more than 10 customers adopting these kind of services. We have strengthened our proprietary platform to deliver on-demand our services, especially to small and medium enterprise, including the Cyber Threat Intelligence, the Vulnerability Assessment and we have more than $2 million of revenue coming from this new platform for small customers. Anti-money laundering, which is a product hold by Corvallis. It's becoming more and more popular. We have more than 30 customers adopting mostly in the insurance sector, opening up the banking sector where we have strong opportunities. Very strong delivery track record is represented by projects in the banking. One major bank in Italy has given us the reshape of the back office, more than 10,000 main days devoted to this activity. And in terms of security project, we grew more than 27% in terms of value. What to expect in 2024? We are going to have our continuing activities to strengthen our portfolio in one single portfolio. The 3 companies will be more and more included, integrated in one single portfolio. Same will happen for the sales force. We will have one single sales force to go to the market together direct and indirect. In terms of asset, artificial intelligence will be included in our offering, especially for the Level 1 security profession center for implementation services co-piloting for advisory reporting. Market channel, we are going to expand the opportunity represented by the public administration and defense. Going to the next slide. I'd like to take a minute just to explain a little bit better what we do. We basically operate in 4 major pillars. Advisory. We doubled the revenue last year in advisory. We have revenue coming in advisory in the low double digit in the low 20. We have a pipeline of 3x, and we provide services like consulting or offensive security, risk assessment and education. In the implementation services where the customers are asking us to pack together different solutions and take care of the implementation. We have a revenue in the low 50s here. We have a pipeline of around 2x big projects with big customers, either in the digital transformation or in the Cybersecurity. In terms of managed security services, we have 2 security operation center. One based on a digital asset developed by Yoroi, another one based on what developed by Swascan, and this is bringing to the market and activity based on a platform of vendors. Here, we do revenue in the range of low 20s, very profitable, it is part and growing a lot. The pipeline here is huge. We have more than 5x of pipeline versus the target of 2024. Finally, products. Our strategy is to develop assets based on digital activities that will be repeatable to customers. So a product like Yomi, Ryoken, the Cyber Threat Intelligence already mentioned, Provisio, which is the anti-money laundering solution of Corvallis. And more importantly, we have just launched a product called DefensYo, which is addressed to the small and medium enterprise to help the customer to manage the network activities. Just to close, the 2024 will be continuing the development of the proprietary assets already made this point. We are going to make investments here in order to make our development of proprietary assets stronger and stronger. In terms of offering development in integration, I think the opportunities represented by Tiber IT, NIS2, DORA are processes where they strongly need our competence, and we will make this offering even more compelling. The managed security services, it's distinguishing what we do. We have solutions that are different from the solutions that are in the market because we think that we need to push the quality. So our activity also including our CTI offering will be distinguished in the market. In terms of market, we are going to have one single sales force already made this point, strengthening the activity with the telcos that represent our entire sales force very successfully. And of course, we are going to expand this partnership to other potential partners. Finally, in terms of operational excellence, to sustain our growth, we have to make hiring in the market in an aggressive way. We're going to make it. We have also included an IT Academy in Corvallis, which produce talent within our company, and that's the way I think we are going to take on the market. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Marco. Fiorenzo?

[Interpreted] Good morning, and welcome. I'm Fiorenzo Bellelli, CEO, Warrant Hub. So, also 2023 was characterized as the last 2 years, as you could see in the slides, by a strong seasonality and we have concentrated a lot of sales and EBITDA in the last quarter of the year. In spite of the complex macroeconomic situation characterized by strong volatility, we managed to achieve our set goals, in particular, if we focus on Slide 38. Well, we should remember that we have started the streamlining of the companies incorporating 2022 and '23 5 companies Warrant, Innovation Lab, Plannet, Enhancers, Privacy Lab and Trix. And in this way, we managed to create a digital hub within Warrant Hub. The process was very much appreciated by the market. In December 2023, we took up the step forward and we incorporate Co.Mark within Warrant. Thus expanding our offering for small and midsize enterprises through -- for internationalization and digital markets. At the end of 2023, we acquired 100% ownership stake in Studio Fieschi, a company that has been upgrading in the sustainability sector for over 20 years. Always at the end of 2023, we closed the acquisition of the majority of ABF, a French company that operates in France. So they have 8 office sales branches. As Mr. Chevallard said, this deal was one of the largest one carried out in the Tinexta group. And they focus on national projects. In 2023, we saw -- we recorded a turnover carried out by credit assets 4.0, the European funding of digital innovation and also training area performed very well. While always focusing on the same slide. We see the guidelines for 2024. We have the theme of the national recovery plan. And over the last few days, we -- the 5.0 plan was approved with -- and we think that we, with our skills and competencies can do a lot here, can play a big role. Then another law as will be soon implemented introduction of the register of certifying bodies will be introduced. So in 2024, the goal is to have a further integration of all the companies. We have also focusing on digital manufacturing with companies with like Privacy Lab, Plannet, for example. We believe that this digital market and digital manufacturing areas also considering the order book theme that we had at the end of the year could play an important role in 2024. We have put in place -- so we have -- we would like to have one person concentrating on ABF growth in France because we expect to have put our results there, an important EBITDA, EUR 30 million to EUR 40 million. So we thought that we can have a person dedicated focused on the integration of this company into the group. Slide 39. Warrant is operating more and more as an app. And Warrant wants to be the partner of choice and offer more service sales to same clients. We would like to integrate the services of companies such as Plannet and others, together with the tax credit and subsidized finance. And this would offer more opportunities to commerce in internationalization for the next quota Co.Mark confirms the main 3 pillars on which it has based their operations. So we want to work together with our client. So we want to offer and sell more services, several services to the same clients. Second pillar, we want to design solutions that combine all of our skills. For example, sustainability, energy and training. And we want to offer services we have, so as to fill the gap of skills, our competitors do not have, and then internationalization. Next year, we have between France, Spain and Bulgaria. We expect to have a very high turnover around EUR 55 million. So the Warrant Group is moving towards internationalization more and more. Now on Slide 40, you have some details on our business verticals, subsidized finance. Here, we want to maintain a leadership position, the same we had for many years and that we have consolidated last year. Also with reference to 5.0 incentive investments. For all investments, we already, we have the internal skills and competence to do well here. Another important element will be to register for certification entities and then not the recovery plan. Talking about European funds. So with the acquisition of ABF, they could bring in around 100 clients, our European fund division area. Then we have another area in France, Euroquality. And we have the Bulgaria company Bunch, then we can be a point of reference for European funds and European projects. For Spain, for funds and we -- as to sustainability, we have an interesting product. We'd like to bring together sustainability, energy, training and Green Finance to provide services to companies with the supply chain for which they need a certified ESG scoring. Always, of course, including Green Finance, as I said. Talking about digital and innovation. It has grown a lot. We expected it to grow but not so much, as much. And I think we will -- we think we will perform well in 2024, also we have new activity in our pipeline, and we think we can perform well in training, 4.0, 5.0 internationalization, digitalization. And we are well equipped to -- for the new challenges of 2024, we have dedicated people for these activities. Thank you.

Thanks, Fiorenzo. So going now to the 2024, 2026 pillars. We will -- I think it's important to highlight that our growth strategy is costed also consistent with the equity story that you've seen in the last years. And obviously, most of these building blocks are reproposed on a yearly base. I will touch upon very briefly strengthening our leadership, which we have extensively discussed about coordination integration. Pier Andrea talked about this year is going to be a big year of coordinating and integrating also the companies that we've acquired, given that we've done excessive M&A throughout the year. And we're always looking at M&A and the internationalization. And we -- you guys are now very custom on how we carry out the M&A throughout the Tinexta history, right? Usually, we buy a majority stake and then we regulate the remaining 100% complement with put-calls options. Let me just deep dive instead on the last 2 building blocks with the last being obviously the financial policy, which Oddone will go over. So let me just give you an update. Last year, we did a large section in terms of ESG. I think this year it's important to give you guys an update. 2023 has been a very busy year. We did our first phase, which was mostly engagement and rapid assessment, which involved all of our key CEOs and all of the controlling entities. Remember, we started the ESG culture from scratch. There's been a big commitment on behalf of the committee, which is composed of HR with Silvia and Alessandra and myself. And we've been carried out throughout this year also an important identifying potential KPIs and at the same time, running the Gap Analysis behind that. I think we're very proud to have identified these for the program of 2024 and 2025, which will be the heart and soul of the ESG program, which will also identify the KPIs and at the same time, monitor them. Remember, these KPIs will be disclosed to the market once they will present in the nonfinancial statements which will be approved by the AGM in April. But just to give you a highlight, we're concentrating on the four major areas: people, climate change, governance, sustainability, in terms of the supply chain. But giving you just some very deep dive examples. We are looking at education and training, which we will monitor ESG training provided per capita, per single employee, ensure decent working conditions, which means looking at the percentage of employees with permanent contract, we're very fixated on this. We already have a very high percentage of permitted contract. Health and safety obviously becomes a key priority when it comes to injury and rate. Sustainability supply chain speaks for itself, sharing the adherence to the code of ethics as well as the group sustainability pass through all of our partners regardless of their origins and of their business and introducing ESG criteria also in the selection and evaluation of the suppliers themselves. Renewable sources of use, share of energy consumed from renewable energy. You guys are here in one of the most important buildings, which is a lead building. We are very proud of this, and we also will do that when we go into our Rome offices, reduction of emissions, speak for themselves, creation of models to measure GHGs as well as generate quality and ethics and integrity. For a matter of time, all of these are well detailed in the nonfinancial statements which again will be approved at the AGM. Let's turn quickly to the financial policy, Oddone?

Okay. Thank you, Josef. So let's move now to look at the overview of the plan. As Joseph mentioned, basically, we expect to continue in a consistent way in terms of growth. It means that we, on an organic basis, we expect to grow in the range of 10% per year. 2024 will be deeply impacted by the addition of ABF that will help us to increase significantly in terms of revenue, it means growing 22% with a much higher growth in terms of EBITDA driven by the better marginality of ABF. So basically, I think here, it's very important to share with you -- all you is that in ABF, on an organic basis, let's say, starting from '25, the organic growth will land in the range of 13%. It means that adding to a company that already is overperforming the market already is delivering a double-digit organic growth, moving up to 30% means something really unique and important. So this is the main chain. Obviously, as you know, it's going to be not easy delivering this, but we -- you had the opportunity to hear directly from Danilo, Marco and Fiorenzo, where how our companies and our business units are very well settled there. In the mix of the revenue, we do expect also the international revenue being a very important part of our revenue as already, Pier Andrea mentioned, we expect to be in the range of -- in excess of 25% by the end of the period of the plan. Our financial structure is very well set for the M&A, adding basically ABF, we are talking about the largest delever of the group, we will be still well before 2x ratio EBITDA, net financial position. So we expect to land in the range of 1.7x to 1.9x. Each business unit is expected over the period of the plan to improve the operational efficiency. This has basically happened in 2 of the 3 business units in 2023. In the future. Also adding ABF, this is a target that for what we are in a very well position to deliver as well as the cross-selling and the synergies if we are measuring internally the cross-selling that is growing significantly, I would say, doubling year-over-year during the period of the plan. As Mr. Chevallard mentioned, we are going to -- the Board has proposed to the shareholder meeting next to come to distribute [ 2% ] as last year on the consolidated results, including the results coming from the disposal of RE Valuta. The following years, we do expect to even further increase the percentage of the net income to be distributed to the shareholders. Cash generation is going to be more and more important. We are moving now close to 2x the EBITDA. We will continue to be focused obviously, in our capability to strongly increase the EBITDA, but this will be -- will go together with the strong monetary of the working capital. Obviously, with the addition of ABF, the working capital would be not possible anymore to keep at 0. But for the rest of the business, we will continue to be at 0. So we will have just a small assumption of working capital driven by ABF that is growing 20% per year, and this is driving absolutely some assumption of working capital. CapEx, we do expect to be reasonably aligned with what we have done in 2023 to support our capability to continue to renew the portfolio product to continue to be state-of-the-art. So if we move to the next page here, you can see the -- in detail our expectation. 2024, like we said, we do expect Digital Trust to be again in the range of revenue of 10% but slightly above in the EBITDA and with the full consolidation of Ascertia to deliver an EBITDA in the range of growth of 17%, 19%. Cybersecurity is going to be all organic. Again, a very strong year of growth here with an operating leverage, again, to be delivered. So also here, we do expect to grow above 20% in terms of EBITDA. Business Innovation, like I said, the market behind this is not growing as the other 2 markets. But with the addition of ABF, we do expect the revenue to grow already in a very large business unit in the range of 38%, 40% with the EBITDA to grow 43%, 45%. If we move -- is going to be a very strong year. We are taking a very strong commitment. This morning, this plan has been shared in the Board of Directors. And here, we are projecting a very strong growth with the EBITDA in total, growing in the range of 30% year-on-year. If we move to the 2026, you can see here the target of growth in terms of compound average growth rate for the 3 business units. And again, I would say, very similar Digital Trust and Cybersecurity to grow in the revenue, slightly above 10%, but the EBITDA growing much more strongly. Business Innovation. Again, I repeat, it's going to be a very important boost that at some extent in changing a little bit the picture of how we can grow organically. And here, you see we expect the revenue going up in the range of 20% with a further growth in terms of EBITDA. Group level, in total, like we said, were up to in the range of 21%, 23% in terms of revenue growth, let's say, it's 7% organic and 10% organic in terms of EBITDA but with the '24, we expect to deliver a strong EBITDA increase from EUR 103 million that we delivered this year to 30% more. Net financial position, EBITDA, like I said, will be below 2x. So still in the opportunity to perform other M&A deals. And we already talk about what the Board of Directors has approved to propose to the shareholder meet. Again, to complete the compound average growth rate being in the range of 12%, 14% in the 3 years and even more the EBITDA to be in the range 17%, 19%. This will allow us to drop the leverage below 1x and again, looking at the history of our group to further reinvest and to continue to grow very strong. And obviously, next year, the net profit that will not include as of today, any disposal will drop as a consolidated level, but we are planning to increase the percentage of distribution of the net income. As you can see, a very challenging plan let's say, that we set all our pillars to be able to deliver this. And I think that we are starting a very promising year. Thank you, everybody, for being here.

Thank you, Oddone, and maybe I think it's important to highlight that the guidance is related to all the announced deals, okay? So it doesn't include any extra M&A I think it's important to highlight. And let me close it with just a couple of closing remarks, and then we'll leave it to Q&A. The growth, as you can see, is clear. The group is much more cohesive than it was probably a year ago when we were all in this meeting. There will be important M&A that will be finalized. And obviously, the balance sheet remains very strong. Again, I think the commitment of management to grip 2024 and 2026 outlook confirms the beauty as well as the sustainable balance sheet and obviously, the plan that we have and profitability becomes key. At this point, I will leave it to Q&A. So it's your turn now to ask us questions. If Danilo, Fiorenzo and Marco can join us, you can guys sit here. So we are available for any sort of Q&A. Any questions are welcome.

All right. So thanks a lot for your detailed presentation today and ladders -- step up ladders for your forecast. Just a couple of questions. The first thing is in terms of your 2024 guidance, there's clearly a step down, whereas if I look at the individual components of your business, clearly, the guidance seems to be conservative. Is there anything you want to highlight there? Or has it got to do just with conservatism in terms of organic growth? The second bit is specifically on the Digital Trust side of things, you have some very interesting large customers. Clearly, the opportunity here is to become more pan-European, go after the pan-European customer base. Is there any concerted effort to go after these kinds of customers like Stellantis, example that you guys have highlighted before? What's the opportunity there? What's the feedback you're getting in terms of these large customers?

Yes. If you look at the revenue, potentially, we may say that as you look could be a bit conservative. If I look in terms of EBITDA, continue to deliver 10% organic growth, excluding ABF is still a quite challenging target. This year, we stepped up quite significantly in Cybersecurity. So we move from one level up. And obviously, also InfoCert grew quite significant, expecting a double digit without ABF in Business Innovation is not realistic because it's more linked to the global environment. So let's say, I can keep the comment on the revenue and less a little bit skeptical. Then if you will deliver 9% to 11%, I will be happy the same. So this is for the first question.

Danilo, you want to do on the...

I will get the second one. Yes. Probably I've been too fast in describing. But actually, the new organizational model is particularly defined together with 1 of the top 5 consulting firms to be able to satisfy very large customer in a multi-country, even multi-continent environment. So you know about Stellantis because it's one of the large deal last year that we published together with the customer. But we have a customer of the Banco Santander, for example, that we follow both in Europe and in Latin America. Even Enel in Italy were known as the largest Italian utility. Actually, they have 30 million customers in Italy, 30 million customers outside Italy, we follow Enel in 15 countries, where we take care of our compliance with local regulations plus, of course, European regulation. So we absolutely, we want to further accelerate the exploitation of these very large customers. And in fact, I mentioned that part of the deals or the very end of 2023 were upsell on existing customers that were requiring more and more, let's say, functionalities from us.

Do we have to expect the same seasonality trend for the Business Innovation in 2024? And also if ABF consulting sales follow the same seasonality of Warrant Hub and then always looking at business innovation? I would like to ask you if the potential opportunities arising from the recently approved transition, 5.0 are included in the targets you provided or are on top of the guidance that you gave?

So if we look at the seasonality of the business innovation in Warrant Hub, I would say, honestly, that we hope not to be such push into Q4. But honestly, if you go back as Josef presented before, I would say that it's reasonable expecting like this. We hope that the economic situation being a little bit better, maybe if some drop of the interest rates could occur this could happen clients to come and to be ready. But honestly, I would not expect significantly different. If we talk about ABF, I would say also there is a component that is more important towards the end of the year, but we will learn down the road how much is going to happen. But in general, this is -- honestly, as you can see from this chart here since the credit information exit the group. Basically, we have a little bit more stable business down the year with Digital Trust, but both Cybersecurity that has a component of IT as well as Business Innovation are in the second part of the year.

[Interpreted] As to 5.0. So we expected -- so the expectation has been there for some time, but the registry well, was read in July 2022, but there was no operational impact. So we -- however we can still play a part there also because we already have all clients from Industry 4.0. So we'll have Industry 4.0 clients with lower percentages. And then also -- we also have clients. Also in this new area, we already had information about what will happen. I think we will be able to play an important role here, but we decided to play cautiously, to be conservative because we did not have a lot of certainty. There are no stable measures here in Italy as well as we have in Spain. So we actually paid the price for this uncertainty and the implementation of regulations. I only think that we are still waiting for the implementation decreasing, which should -- so we have 30 -- basically we will come into -- after 30 days, but we are still selling, and we are still doing much more than we have put in our plan cautiously or conservatively.

So if I look at the guidance on an organic basis, it seems that there's a further contraction in margin expecting 2024. I was wondering if it is related to the business mix or if there is a pressure on the subsidized finance. And the second one is on ESG targets. I was wondering if the management remuneration in the future will be also linked to this component.

Yes, definitely, the margin that was coming from subsidized finance is something honestly not replicable. So we are planning to subsidize finance basically flat or slightly shrinking. As I mentioned before, what Fiorenzo said, but definitely, it's a mix. Growing through other lines, they still are delivering very high margins. Margin higher than the other 2 business units to be very clear, but this margin are lower than the margin of the subsidized finance. This is the -- so it's just a matter of mix.

Carlo, thank you for the question. Actually, management is already accounted on ESG targets. We introduced that last year in the remuneration report. So you're looking at around 15% to 20% of LTI being accounted for ESG that includes the CEO as well as all the main managers as well as the single MBOs, okay? So I think that kind of gives you a strong commitment on not just having ESG as a plan but actually reaching certain goals. And this will become even more live into 2024, 2025, where we have targets that need to be reached and need to be monitored.

3 on my end. The first one, maybe some color on the general trend you are seeing now in the first quarter of 2024, if the guidance you provided for the year is more or less in line. The second one is just in one of the slides, I saw you of course, said about the EPS growth that will normalize now that you don't have all these M&A disposals and acquisitions and everything. But to get this straight, let's say that you end up in the midpoint of your EBITDA guidance of EUR 135 million more or less. So what would be the EPS or net income, let's say, post minorities? And the third one is on the very last small acquisition, Lenovys. So it's very small, but just to understand whether this new let's say, business line is something that you expect to become bigger, a new division in the future or just a tiny thing to add up to your current, let's say, stream of income?

First thing, Lenovys is not in this plan. As we are including this plan only targets for which we already -- which the closing already occurred. So Lenovys is not in there. If we talk about the net income, we do expect something in the range of 8% of the total revenue. And obviously, we do have to consider that we are going to add both Ascertia and ABF PPA. So we do expect at least EUR 8 million, EUR 9 million, and then we are going to do the work on this. And unfortunately, we have to get some debt -- some new debt for entering this. So in the first year, you will have a little bit of not very good leverage on these 2. But -- so when -- so we do expect also the profit of operating activity to grow in the 12% compared to this year. So this is more or less the scenario that you have in front of you. The first quarter, like I said, is not -- is the less important quarter of the year. This does not mean that we are not focused on it. I would say that we do expect to be in the trend, then as it has been a very small quarter, maybe EUR 1 million more, EUR 1 million less can change a picture. But as you know, as we already told to all you guys after the Q3 of last year. As of today, we are definitely confident to deliver what we shared with you today and we will see down the road.

I think we have a question from the web from Russell. Can you go ahead, please, Russell?

A number of questions, please. First of all, could you just talk about what's happening in the cost base in the round in terms of staff costs, I'm assuming that you've already locked in the salary increases for the year. But could you just give us some overview of that? Just to clarify in business innovation last year, there's obviously margin mix. But could you just be clear that the underlying margins of each of the business is there in were positive? Or was there a decline year-on-year? Third, a question for Marco. And apologies if I've misunderstood this, but in a number of the revenue streams you said that the pipeline is 2x, 3x, 4x the projected 2024. I'm trying to reconcile that with the growth that you're expecting over the next 3 years. It sounds like the revenue potentially is much greater, but your guidance looks quite low in that context? And my fourth question is, can you just give some rationale behind the higher payout ratio for the dividend by the end of the 3-year plan?

Okay. Let's start -- I tried to be clear on the business innovation. To make it simple, the revenue grew by 4%, 5% compared to previous year. Subsidized finance was flat. It means that subsidized finance was flat but we have to handle more packages for the customers because as Mr. Bellelli already said, the rates of return for the customer drop driven by the budget law. What does it mean? That we had to keep, let's say, even more workforce to deliver the same revenue. And this means a shrinking of the margin on subsidized finance. This is the first thing. Second, as the revenue went up 4%, 5%, it means that other business lines went up, but the other business lines are delivering a lower margin than subsidized finance. I hope to have been clear on this Russell.

Was the margin on the other business lines better in 2023 than 2022 or lower?

No. The margin on the other business line were aligned. Yes, revenue mix. So if -- let's put an example. The contribution margin, these are not real numbers, but just to give you an idea. If we have 60% or more in subsidized finance, and this kind of revenue is flat. And I have on energy, a margin of 40%, let's say, and this is going up 10%. Obviously, the margin mix is not favorable.

No, I understand that, so if it's just more are the margins on the individual businesses lower year-on-year?

No. They are not lower year-on-year.

Okay, that's great.

Then there was another question.

In terms of pipeline. It's a matter of definition. So let me explain. We count for pipeline any stage of the opportunity. So we go from 10%. That means we have just identified an opportunity to be developed to 90%, which is final negotiation stage. Today, we have a win rate in the range of 30% so if we have 3x the pipeline, we "ensure" to make the target. So if we have larger, of course, we have additional opportunities if we have lower than 30%, then we have a potential problem. We are working on 2 directions. Number one is to increase the pipeline because our market share is relatively low. So of course, we can increase the pipeline to the part of the market we are not covering. Secondly, we are also working to increase the win rate percentage because, of course, in this way, we can improve our opportunity of success. I don't know if I answer.

That's great.

And I think you had a last question, Russell, on the rationale of the payout the beauty of our model is that we have a predictable cash flow, which obviously has the ability to pay out and fulfill all of CapEx requirements and at the same time, being able to pay a dividend, we were able to give you an outlook, obviously, in these last two years, given also the exceptional capital gain that we got from the sale of RE Valuta Innolva, now that we're now at a normalized level, we put a threshold. The threshold is 30% of net reported income that will go to dividends. And given that our plan is a growing plan, I think the response and the message to the market is that having a growing plan can fulfill the 40% threshold that we highlighted at the end of the plan. So I think it's a positive message to convey to investors.

And Josef, the first question on the costs, general, what is happening over the next 12 months in the plan in terms of staff costs, that kind of thing.

You're seeing the salary part, right?

This is the first question. Just general on cost. Yes. Cost Pressures.

2023, it has been here where there has been a pressure on salary. We have some contract renewal here and obviously, we keep continuing to keep a very precise salary pay because we need to motivate, incentivize and retain the best people. The group was able to act on the revenue side transferring basically the inflation that was around in the pricing, and we had no impact in terms of revenue growth. And on the other hand, we were able to challenge our supplier in the negotiation for products and services that we acquire. So at the end of the year, we were able to deliver the results without being impacted in a negative way from this to variables item.

Any other questions? Go ahead.

A couple of questions from this side. The first one is on the target on international expansion. How should we look at this? Should we consider it a current perimeter or including future potential M&A? So the 25% total share of revenues. Second question is more focused on Digital Trust. So you mentioned briefly some tenders, important tenders, one in the final part of 2023. Could you give us a sense of how much could the business coming from these tenders cover your guidance on 2024, specifically for Digital Trust?

So in terms of international, on the press release, we highlighted that there's a comment, obviously, Pier Andrea saying that by the end of the plan, the international exposure in terms of overall consolidated revenue will be around 25%. This is a very strong result on the announced acquisitions that we have. So what we're saying is that given the ABF acquisition and considering all of Ascertia for this year and growing fast forward into the plan to 2026, the considerable amount of international revenue will reach around 25% to 26%, which, as you might recall, has always been one of our desired targets. We want to be pan-European, we want to grow international. But how does that comply and how does that translate into numbers, 25% starts becoming a big chunk of international revenue coming from outside of Italy. Danilo, on Digital Trust, the tenders, right?

Yes. I would say we've been quite conservative for 2024 because some of this tender really takes time to start. Just to give you an idea, one of the tender we won in July 2023 is named SAC2 is from Consip and is EUR 1.2 billion overall tender. But this is not guaranteed money because it takes time from the public administration to start using this tender. So this kind of tender, we really consider a very, very small percentage in the budget creation. While other tender, we have been awarded in the very last few months of the year, for example, the new tender from the PEC, the Italian registered email for all the bodies in the public sector. That theory in that case, we just split it over 3 years, the total amount because the previous PEC, it still has been won InfoCert we used it until the last year, it was EUR 18 million over 3 years, we used EUR 18 million over 3 years. So to just give you the final number, the expectation is significant growth in public sector also for the coming 2 years. So more and more coming.

This means that our guidance is back solid.

I would say so.

It was not like this during the planned discussion.

We can consider 100% sure it would depends only on us. It depends on so many other external factors. We take an adjustment for external things that could happen.

Sorry. Just a couple of follow-ups. You've had a favorable pricing environment at least from inflation on Digital Trust for the last couple of years. What's the pricing that you've assumed for the medium term, any effect from pricing? And just a question in terms of your portfolio. You've gone through a flurry of M&A, one coming up as well with Defence Tech. But as you look ahead over the next let's say, medium term? Is there any specific gap that you would like to fill in your portfolio?

Yes, I can quickly answer for the first question. Thank God with a really significant volume advantage. So it depends on the solution. While on some solutions, we have seen we have 22 international patents. While, on some solutions, we are the only one providing that solution on the market because we are protected by one or more patent on the same solution. So we can make whichever price. If the customer wants that innovation, they have to knock at our door. In that case, we can have significant margin that will, in turn, allow us to improve our research and development. Another solution where there are many players in Italy and in Europe. Again, as you have seen, we have been growing 15% overall in revenues and some solutions where in some, let's say, products, we have been growing 40% on volume. But this is not a big issue because our let's say, production costs, our service delivery cost is marginal increase. So even if we discount a very large customer on the volumes, see we are more than IP as a first line margin. So as for the future, we will increase to give you an idea, only prices where we are still on a very strong position in the market. While even for our choice, not because of market pressure, sometimes we lower the price on very large customers so they don't even think of going somewhere else.

Okay. Well, in the Business Innovation, we are in a phase of deep transformation because Warrant Hub will become an advisory company dedicated to the small business in mostly concentrating its efforts in digital transformation. It means that we have a lot of new services to be integrated in the group. We are looking at different targets now just to make some example. There is a lot of things to do in the field of digital marketing, still to be integrated in Warrant Hub, the same training, for example. We mean we could see that in the next year, but we did not include in our '24-'26 plan, but we consider to have a space for new acquisitions in order to reach our -- in order to make broader our offering for digital to accompanying in small business in digital transformation.

Other questions?

A very quick one. Follow-up, sorry. If we were to make a sort of a pecking order of priorities of M&A, looking at the business plan horizon, is it fair to assume Digital Trust abroad remains the first priority? Or is this, say, a renewed focus on advisory taking the elm?

We have 3 priorities: Digital Trust, Cybersecurity and Business Innovation. We are trying to grow in the 3 business areas in a regular basis. For us, there is no choice of priority. The 3 -- we sold the business unit, we considered not properly fitting with our strategy. But the 3 business units, we have now our 3 priorities for the next signaling over the group.

Then it's up to me to find the money.

But we have no problem. I don't think it's the main problem.

Well, if there are no other questions, thank you very much for being here, and thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you. [Portions of this transcript that are marked [Interpreted] were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]