MBB SE

XETRA:MBB

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q1

[Operator]

Welcome on behalf of Montega to today's earnings call of the MBB SE. In today's call, we will delve into the Q1 figures for 2024. Warm welcome to the CEO, Dr. Constantin Mang, who will start with the presentation shortly. After the presentation, we will move forward with a Q&A session. And with this, let's start, Dr. Constantin Mang, stage is yours.

[Constantin Mang, executive]

Thank you, and good afternoon from the Lending. My name is Constantin Mang, I'm CEO of MBB, and I'm looking forward to presenting our Q1 figures to you.Before we jump into the results, let's start with a very quick recap on what makes MBB special. MBB offers long-term succession solutions to sustainable middle stand companies. And the way we do that is pretty unique because, first of all, we are a family business ourselves. That means we share the same DNA with the businesses that we want to acquire.Secondly, we are fans of the capital markets. That's why we are here today, and that's why 3 of our subsidiaries, namely greatly Friedrich Vorwerk, Aumann and Delignit are also stock listed.Thirdly, we have a long-term focus that means when we buy a new company, we really don't have any intention to sell it but to develop and to grow it for the long term. And last but not least, we focus on sustainable businesses because we believe that sustainability is one of the greatest growth trends over the next decades.And with that, let's talk about our first quarter, which was really a quarter full of profitability growth. My favorite trigger this quarter is 64%. That's the growth rate of the EBITDA in the MBB Group, and I think that's quite an impressive figure.My second favorite figure is 89% because that's the growth of Aumann EBITDA. And my third favorite figure is 21%, that's the growth rate of the EBITDA of Vorwerk. So, as you can see, these figures mean we were able to increase our profitability quite significantly and this is something that we really saw across the whole group. Every segment of the MBB Group was able to increase profitability.If you look at service and infrastructure, profitability increased from EUR 8.8 million EBITDA to EUR 10.4 million, that's 19%. The technological Applications segment grew from $6.1 million to $8.1 million. That's 33% and then the Consumer Goods segment, which had a rather low profitability last year, managed to get really back on track, had a double-digit EBITDA margin and multiply the EBITDA compared to previous year.So, let's take a look at the company's and stories behind this improvement. And let's start with the Service & Infrastructure segment. In this segment, we have Friedrich Vorwerk, which is the energy infrastructure specialists that benefits a lot from the energy transition, and we have DTS, our IT security company that benefits from the increasing demand for IT security.And Vorwerk had a pretty remarkable EBITDA margin recovery in the first quarter. Why is it remarkable? Well, because usually, the first quarter is a seasonally weaker quarter for Vorwerk. So, seeing already in this weaker quarter profitability to pick up compared to the previous year is, I think, a good sign. And for the next quarters, we expect the profitability to raise further. Why is that the case? Well, mainly because some of the legacy projects are Vorwerk that lowered the profitability in the last 1.5 years are gradually being phased out, and they are replaced with projects that have higher EBITDA margin.And that's kind of an automatic effect that we saw in the first quarter to start, and we believe that this is going to continue and will lift the overall margin level of the company back to where we would like to see it.We saw a moderate revenue growth at Vorwerk that this revenue growth was with a higher value add. So, Vorwerk really was able to do more of the work with its own resources. And this is, of course, also one of the lessons learned from the previous years that Vorwerk is at its best when it uses a lot of its own resources and doesn't have to rely on third parties that might not be as performant as Vorwerk itself.And then we saw an order intake of EUR 120 million in the first quarter, and that also underlines the very strong market dynamics that we are seeing, especially in the electricity segment. DTS, on the other hand, saw quite some demand pickup and a lot of positive momentum in the first quarter, and that boosted both revenues and also EBITDA margin.The revenue increased by 10% to EUR 22 million in the first quarter, and EBITDA margin reached 17%, which is another increase compared to the previous year and quite a significant increase compared to the last quarter.For the rest of the year, DTS expects further growth. We actually think that growth will pick up a little bit now. And one of the drivers behind that is the software solutions that DTS developed themselves and brought to market last year. So, these products are really picking up slowly, and we think that this will drive growth in the second quarter and the rest of the year 2024.And with that, I'd like to turn to the technological application segment, which consists of Aumann and Delignit. Let's first talk about Aumann, the automation solution specialist for e-Mobility applications. And Aumann was able, for the first time since COVID really, surpassed the 10% EBITDA margin threshold. That means they almost doubled their EBITDA in the first quarter.At the same time, order intake was also pretty strong at EUR 76 million, which is actually more than last year. And all of that was possible with a very high cash position of EUR 138 million. And this strong balance sheet gives a lot of room for further investments, but also for M&A, which might be quite an interesting option for Aumann in the current environment.So, overall, the company came out at EUR 65 million in the first quarter, which means 16% revenue growth at an EBITDA margin of 11%. Delignit, on the other hand, delivers system solutions for ecological raw materials and many of these solutions go into light commercial vehicles. And the demand from the automotive customers, the customers that produce the light commercial vehicles declined in the first quarter. And that meant that revenue of Delignit also declined.There was actually quite some positive momentum in other business segments of the company, but this positive momentum couldn't completely compensate for the weak demand from automotive customers. For the rest of the year, Delignit is more optimistic as we think that demand from the major OEMs is going to pick up over the year. And that, combined with a positive momentum in the other business segments should result in better figures in the coming quarters.So, let's take a look at our Consumer Goods segment, which consists of Hanke Tissue, the tissue product specialist and CT Formpolster that produces mattresses, especially for e-commerce brands.Both companies had pretty difficult the last 2 years. But finally, this year, they have the EBITDA margins that we are used to or were used to before the previous 2 years. We have a combined EBITDA margin of 13% in the first quarter, and that's a very good sign. And it reflects really the lower price volatility. And in the case of Hanke, also ending energy price commitments which basically locked in pretty high energy prices in the last year.And as they have been running out now, the energy cost base of the company is much more competitive. On the demand side, we saw a bit of weakness, especially in the furniture and mattress market and that led to revenues declining at CT Formpolster. But nevertheless, also the margin of CT Formpolster was pretty stable, especially thanks to cost discipline and also more favorable material prices.If we are taking all of that together, we end up with a slight revenue growth from EUR 201 million in the previous year to EUR 205 million this year and a substantial EBITDA margin improvement by 4 percentage points from 7% to 11%.For the full year, we expect to surpass the $1 billion benchmark in revenues, which is quite a significant milestone for us, and we expect EBITDA margin to be at 10% and EBITDA to be around EUR 100 million. And as we have seen on the last pages, I think we are on a very good and a very good way to reach these targets, especially with the EBITDA margin coming in already so strong at the beginning of the year, we expected actually a slower increase in the margin.But since the first quarter has already been so strong, we think that the target here of 10% for the full year actually looks conservative. And because we think that there's a lot of potential, we invested more than EUR 100 million in shares of MBB companies since the beginning of 2023. $45 million of that went into MBB shares, EUR 38 million of these EUR 45 million were actually the public buyback offer that we did a few months ago. Then NBB increased its share in Vorwerk. That's where we invested another EUR 37 million in Vorwerk shares.And then we invested EUR 23 million in Aumann. A large chunk of that was through Aumann's own share buyback. And, of course, besides these big buybacks of shares, we also want to distribute a dividend to our shareholders. For this year, we proposed a dividend of EUR 1.01. And as you can see here on the page, this might not be a big increase, but the important thing is, it is a continuous increase.And in fact, MBB has been able to raise its dividend for 14 consecutive years. That makes us, I think, a true dividend aristocrat. And as it turns out, only 2 companies in Germany have increased their dividend for a longer time period than MBB.In fact, only 10 out of more than 600 companies in Germany have continuously increased their dividend for more than 10 years and that's what actually has been recently reported by the press, such as the [Indiscernible] and we think that this is actually something to be proud of.Despite all dividends and all share buybacks, we still have a very strong balance sheet. At the end of the first quarter, we had cash of EUR 467 million and a net cash of almost SEK 400 million in the group. And out of that EUR 400 million, roughly EUR 280 million were at the holding MBB SE. And, of course, we are not holding all this cash just for fun. We are holding it because we want to invest it into new companies.And we think that the environment for M&A has become better than ever. We saw in recent months that private market valuations finally came down while public market valuations continue to rise and MBB's positioning in the market has actually further improved. Why? Well, the high interest rates really make it more difficult for investors that rely on financial leverage.Companies like MBB that rely on equity-based finance become much more competitive. And the fact that we can pay with equity also means that we have created flexibility and more speed in transactions. So, you can imagine that we are actually getting quite a few phone calls at the moment.Lastly, let's take a look at our sum of the parts valuation. If you take our shares in the company's Vorwerk, Aumann and Delignit, you end up with EUR 310 million. If you add our holding cash of roughly EUR 280 million, and you said it in comparison to our market cap, I think you see that there is still lots of room in our current price. And that's why we are quite optimistic that we will see some further uplift in our share price.And with that, I would like to start with the Q&A, and I'm looking forward to your questions.

[Operator]

Yes. Thank you so much for the insightful presentation. [Operator instructions] And we received a first person in the chat, which of your holdings currently rank furthest below its potential? And what improvement measures are underway?

[Constantin Mang, executive]

That's a difficult question. I mean, I could tell you a lot of stories, but I think the most telling one is probably this slide because you are supposed to put your money where your mouth is. And we wouldn't invest in Vorwerk and in Aumann as we wouldn't think that the companies have a lot of potential.And if you look at the sums here, we have invested slightly more into Vorwerk, recently because we think that Vorwerk still has quite a lot of room for margin improvement. We saw that EBITDA margin in the first quarter reached 9%, but that's not where we think the long-term margin of this company should be.I believe that the margin of Vorwerk is going to pick up further quite significantly. And, of course, we are doing everything to support the company that, that will happen. And a lot of the lower profitability that you saw in the last 1.5 years was really due to the legacy projects that were affected by inflation pressure because they didn't have price pass-on clauses in the contracts.We have a lot of much more attractive orders in the backlog right now. I think Tim just said in the call that the share of legacy projects in the order backlog is only 3%, but the maturity of the attractive projects, such as the A-Nord, are only about to pick up. So, I think that's where I would see a lot of potential at the moment.

[Operator]

Thank you so much for the question. And also thank you so much for the also answer, Mr. Mang. And we have another question. Could you describe the DTS performance in more detail as it still an IPO candidate?

[Constantin Mang, executive]

Well, I'm not sure if it's a trick question. There's still an IPO candidate. DTS is not an IPO candidate at the moment. And to be honest, it hasn't really been our plan to IPO the company anytime soon. The company is developing fantastically. We are quite happy with the margins that we are seeing with the growth rates picking up again this year.So, from our point of view, there's no reason to think about selling shares in DTS. So, no, that's not on the agenda.

[Operator]

We have another question. M&A markets are showing new dynamics. Do you expect MBB to make at least one acquisition this year?

[Constantin Mang, executive]

Well, I hope so. I think the environment is as the person asking the question is already suggesting it's becoming quite interesting. Our pipeline is pretty good, and I hope we make an acquisition. But in the end, every M&A process is pretty binary. And either, it works at the end or it doesn't. But what I can tell you is that we have the deal flow. We have price levels is becoming more interesting. The positioning of MBB is better than ever.So, I think it should be possible to make an acquisition this year.

[Operator]

[Operator instructions] And we have another question, which is, I'm just going to read it actually. You have been on the hunts for acquisitions for some years now. Half you narrowed down the list of candidates, which sector sizes are you looking for? And are you still looking for very cheap deals or more for high quality, higher priced options?

[Constantin Mang, executive]

Yes. It is true that we are always on the hunt, and opportunities can arise in good environments and in not-so-good environments. That's why even in the last 2 years, when we believe price levels in the private market were not as attractive, we've been hunting, right? We are always on the hunt.Nevertheless, if you're hunting in a less fertile hunting ground, the likelihood of success is obviously lower. And it doesn't really have to do anything to do with a list that has been slowly narrowing down over the last years. It simply has to do with finding the right company at the right price. And I also don't see this binary decision that the person asking this question suggested, do we look for great companies or attractive purchase price? Because usually, these 2 things are on a continuum.And you have companies that have great price and great characteristics or the other way around. And we are always looking at great companies. That much I can tell you. We are not looking for restructuring cases. We are not looking for I think as Warren Buffett ones put a fair company at a great price, that's not what we are looking for.But, of course, we don't want to pay too much. And in the last 2 years, I think generally, you have to pay too much for many of the companies that were on the market. And I'm happy that we didn't buy anything for too much. And now I think the environment is much, much better.

[Operator]

We have another question. What is the share of software revenues at DTS? And what was the growth here at rate year-over-year in Q1 for Software? Additionally, is software margin accretive for DTS at the superior to the average?

[Constantin Mang, executive]

So, the last question is clearly, yes. Of course, margins in software much more attractive than the other fields, especially for software that DTS developed on their own. So, to clarify, DTS is not only selling its own software. It is selling software products of different vendors, but it also sells its own software. And, of course, the software that DTS develops itself is more attractive because you can only have basically 0 marginal cost and that makes the whole business of selling software quite interesting.Regarding the shares and the quarter-over-quarter comparison, this is not anything we are publishing or that DTS feels comfortable to publish at the moment. What I can say is that, the share of revenues is increasing, that's for sure. And what I can say is that, the share of revenue is much smaller than the share of EBITDA or even EBIT.So, that's also obvious, but so much I can tell you, DTS doesn't publish the exact revenue figures for software.

[Operator]

We have another question. If Delignit itself did not communicate the specific Q1 revenue development, which seems to be below the guided full year revenue decline. With the regards to the communication, if this is not a little bit unfortunate, could you elaborate on this?

[Constantin Mang, executive]

Well, it's basically what I said before that Delignit expects the next few quarters to be better than the first quarter. And the company expects that it has a very good chance of compensating for the rather weak start into the year and therefore, is capable of reaching its forecast. And in the communication to the financial markets, I think that's what matters, right? And does not publish quarterly figures. It never has.So, the important question is, will it be able to reach the figures it has forecasts for the complete year? And the answer of Delignit management is currently, yes, we will. And therefore, there was no need for a separate communication.

[Operator]

As no further questions have come in. [Operator instructions] And as no further questions have come in, we come now to an end of today's earnings call. On behalf of Montega, thank you so much, Dr. Constantin Mang for the insight representation for the Q&A and also to you, dear audience. I wish you a beautiful day. Should any questions arise in the future, please contact the Investor Relations team. And I wish you a beautiful day. Thank you so much.