Hello. Good morning, everyone. This is Andrew Thomas. I'm the Chief Executive at Cohort, and I'm joined by my colleague, Simon Walther, who's the Group Finance Director. And we're here to talk this morning about the acquisition that we've just announced of EM Solutions by Cohort PLC. So, to allow as much time as possible for questions, and because you've had a chance, I hope to have a look at the presentation materials this morning, I'm just going to use the executive summary slide to talk through the key points of the acquisition. And we'll be very happy to dive in as much detail as you would like into other matters in the Q&A. So, without any further delay, I'll take you through that.
The business we're acquiring, EM Solutions, is based in Brisbane in Australia, and it is a developer and producer of satellite communications terminals for defense users. The product is called SOTM, Satcom on the Move, because it is intended for use not just in fixed satellite communications, but also on moving platforms, which brings a whole set of different challenges. That means that they're pretty high-technology products. The consideration with the usual adjustments is AUD 144 million, which works out at approximately GBP 75 million. In fact, Simon, I think it's exactly GBP 74.2 million.
Yes, yes, that was the deal we did.
We did a bit of a deal on the currency. So, the rationale behind the deal: a number of different factors. There's a very strong strategic rationale. It's a new capability to the group. It's complementary. At the moment, we don't do anything in satellite communications, although it's something we've looked at a few times. However, we do provide communication systems for ships and for submarines through our subsidiaries, EID and SEA. And both of those kinds of systems actually interface to satellite terminals. So, there's a nice touchpoint there with the technology that's provided by EM Solutions. And in fact, EM Solutions has been already in discussion with our subsidiary, EID, because its products are being supplied to Portugal onto ships, which EID is supplying the communication system for. In terms of technology, it's quite complementary as well.
One of the important things about these SOTM terminals is that on a ship that's moving in heavy seas, they've got to be able to stay pointing precisely at the satellite and keep a very close lock on it. And what's intrinsic to doing that is having a stabilized platform that stays steady as the ship moves. And of course, that's something that our subsidiary, Chess, is very experienced at providing for its own electro-optic tracking and surveillance systems. So, there's the potential there for some technology crossover. For instance, if EM Solutions is successful in selling it to the United Kingdom, Chess could do some of that local manufacturing. And then, very importantly, there is a geographical benefit that works in two directions. EM Solutions has supplied quite extensively into NATO Europe. That's one of its most important market areas.
But at the moment, it only has a small support footprint based in the Netherlands, only with one person at the moment. But by becoming part of the group, it will have a home base in the U.K. and in Germany and in Portugal. And it will benefit from our close relationships with many other of the NATO Europe countries, which it sells into. So, it'll have much more visibility and much greater ability to support through those operations. And it will also be able to take advantage of our very strong marketing and sales relationships with customers in Asia, with customers in the Middle East, and also with customers in South America and North America, in particular in Canada. So, it'll work for them. And for us, the rest of the group, well, we've been looking for some time for a way of increasing our footprint in Australia.
It's a very important market. It's been growing pretty rapidly in terms of its defense expenditure, and we've been doing more and more of that. So, for example, EID recently upgraded the communication system used by Australia's submarines. SEA has supplied a number of its KraitArray sonars into Australia. And Chess is providing the electro-optic surveillance for the new frigates, the Hunter-class frigates that are being built in Australia at the moment. But we're very keen to build on that. And we've talked for a while, but it's going to be difficult to do that without a proper permanent presence in Australia. And of course, that's exactly what the acquisition of EM Solutions will give us. It'll give us strong technology capability, production capability in Australia, as well as adding value and creating high-quality jobs in Australia, which are very important to the Australian government authorities.
The strategic rationale really works in both directions from a geographical perspective. Financially, we see it as being a good transaction for Cohort and for its shareholders. We expect that it will be materially accretive to adjusted earnings per share in the first full financial year of ownership. That's the year which our financial year, which is beginning in May 2025. The tax-adjusted return on invested capital should exceed our weighted average cost of capital, which is approximately 10.6% in the third full financial year of ownership, which will be 2027-2028. Interestingly and importantly, it will also help us make a major step towards our medium-term goal of increasing our operating margin, that's to say our adjusted operating profit margin, up to the mid-teens level. As over recent years, EM Solutions has been delivering EBIT margins well into the 20s%.
It'll accelerate our progress towards that important target. We're financing the acquisition by means of a combination of a GBP 40 million placing, which has been announced this morning, arranged for us by Investec. Additionally, through our existing debt facilities and through our existing cash position. Between them, those will be consideration of approximately GBP 75 million. In addition to that, we're putting a GBP 1 million offer through PrimaryBid to enable our retail investors to take part if they wish to do so. The price of that placing is GBP 8.75 per share. That's about a 4% discount on the closing price yesterday. The reason for using the placing, I mean, we could have stretched ourselves and purely used debt or cash, of which we've actually got rather a lot on the balance sheet at the moment.
But we were very keen to ensure that post-transaction, the enlarged group had a strong balance sheet to enable us to make investments in increasing our product range, developing new products, potentially further investments in acquisitions if good opportunities arise. And very importantly, to continue to give our customers confidence that we're able to deliver and that we've got the financial strength to be able to meet our obligations under their contracts. So, that's a quick summary of the acquisition and how we see it going. We'd be delighted to take any questions that you've got and fill in any further detail about the business or about any aspect of the acquisition that you'd like further details on. So, if you like, I can open for questions.
Thank you, so as a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please type it into the questions box at the bottom of your screen. We currently have no questions on the webcast, so we can wait for another minute or hand back over to you.
Okay, let's give it another minute or two. I'm sure someone's typing furiously.
Yeah. Probably can't find the box.
Okay, and we have one question from Robin at Shore Capital Markets. She says, are there any regulatory hurdles to overcome? Timescale?
Yeah, thanks very much for the question. Well, the main regulatory hurdle in making acquisitions of this kind in Australia is that one needs approval from the Foreign Investment Review Board, which takes a careful look at anything involving security or defense companies. And the news here is actually we've already got that approval, which came as a bit of a surprise for us. We actually applied for it as soon as we agreed to enter into exclusive negotiations with the vendor. And that was back in September. And we were thinking that probably we wouldn't get approval until maybe the end of the year or perhaps into 2025. And then it popped up earlier this month, in fact, on the 5th of November. So, that was the major hurdle to get through. There is a further additional regulatory hurdle related to security of information.
Our understanding is that once the FIRB approval has been received, that is a formality. But we couldn't apply for it until announcement of the transaction. So, we'll be doing that imminently. And we would hope to get a response on that fairly quickly. The other conditions precedent relate to agreement from customers where there are change of control provisions in certain major contracts and agreements from customers in certain matters in relation to ongoing contracts. We don't see those as being major issues at all. And as a result, we're quite optimistic that we will be able to close at the end of the calendar year. Of course, that does hinge on us being able to really close down those issues over the next month or so from now as Australia will go off on summer holidays from sort of mid to late December.
So, there's a possibility it may slip into the new year. But overall, we see it as being a fairly quick process from here on in.
Brilliant. Thank you. And the next question is from Mike at Equity Development. He's asking, "A range of geographies are mentioned. Do you have any particular targets, for example, Norway, NATO, etc.?
Yeah. So, one of the really good things about EM Solutions is that as well as having a good relationship with its domestic customers, it's also been very successful on export markets, and that's a pretty unusual thing for an Australian defense technology company, and it's one of the things that really attracted us to the business in the first place, so in terms of its domestic customer relationship, in fact, it's got a contract, which it won last year, to supply new satellite terminals for pretty much the entire Australian Navy fleet, and that was valued at AUD 150 million. But it's also been very successful over the last two years in supplying into NATO Europe, so the Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium, Norway, Germany, as well as customers in Asia, Japan, and in the Middle East as well.
Those, in fact, in the last year of which they reported, delivered more revenue than the Australian market did. Looking forward, undoubtedly, there are going to be a lot more sales into NATO Europe. I mean, I think the Netherlands has fulfilled about half its requirements so far, but it's buying in small amounts at a time. But there's quite a bit more to come. We know there is more to come from Portugal. Obviously, we're active in Portugal through our subsidiary EID. And there are a number of ships being built there, I think six offshore patrol vessels and a multi-role vessel, all of which will need satellite communications. And there are plans for more coastal patrol vessels as well. Beyond that, there are plenty of a lot more opportunities in the domestic market beyond the existing fleet because Australia is buying a lot more ships.
Increasing defense expenditure very significantly. A lot of that money is going on six Hunter-class frigates that I mentioned earlier, as well as 11 general purpose frigates and a number of smaller and auxiliary vessels too, but in the slightly longer term, I think I'd highlight two opportunities. One is the Japanese Navy, which has a very substantial fleet of ships where they've already acquired some of EM Solutions products. They've acquired a certain number of Cobra terminals already, and we're expecting to get an order, if we haven't already, for King Cobra terminals very shortly as well. The EM Solutions products are named mostly after snakes, which I guess is probably an Australian thing, but they're looking to refresh their entire fleet of satellite terminals in the next few years, and they're already in dialogue with EM Solutions about that.
So, there's no certainty it'll be a competitive process, no doubt. But EM Solutions has been very effective at winning competition so far, as you've seen in NATO Europe. So, I think that is a very important prospect for us. And the other one, of course, is the United Kingdom, the Royal Navy, where they're also looking at replacing the satellite terminals in the existing fleet. There was an initial look at doing that a little while ago, a bit over a year ago. But that in the end didn't sort of proceed. I think there was a review of strategy. But that's now restarted again. And we would expect that perhaps over the next year or so to evolve into a full program. And there's already been discussions between EM Solutions and the Royal Navy on this subject.
I think one particular important point is that the Royal Navy is acquiring quite a large number or planning to acquire a large number of uncrewed surface vessels. And EM Solutions products are particularly valuable for those. They've got a number of proprietary technologies which make them more effective. And one relates to the ability of their terminals to stay locked onto satellites even as the platform that they're on moves around quite radically. And that's certainly the case with those uncrewed vessels, which move a lot even in relatively calm seas. So, the UK is certainly a good opportunity. And by becoming part of a UK group and having a significant UK footprint that can help provide support and maybe even manufacturing, that has to be helpful to their chances of winning that opportunity over the next few years.
Yeah, we see plenty of very interesting opportunities looking forward is the short summary.
Brilliant. Thank you. Next, we have a couple of questions from Robin again. Is any additional CapEx required under the acquisition in Australia? And do you anticipate any significant integration costs being required?
I'm going to ask Simon to respond to that one if that's okay.
Thank you, Andy. No, we don't expect any additional CapEx. Their CapEx runs at around GBP 1.5 million per year. It's what I would call maintenance CapEx. So, it's primarily IT test equipment. Particularly demonstrators, like many businesses with a product, when these navies want to try the thing out, they want to actually have a physical asset to try rather than seeing something in a catalog or on a PowerPoint. In terms of integration costs, again, this is a standalone business. What we have allowed for in all our modeling is obviously the extra costs Cohort for travel. And we've also allowed for probably one or two more heads, but we'll see how that goes.
And in the business itself, we've allowed for some extra IT costs because the one thing they've been reliant on their parent for is some of the sort of general software licenses like Microsoft licenses and servers. But all that's been in the process of being put into the business. So, we will need to put some costs that was allowed for again in the modeling. But no, other than that, it's a fairly simple transition. Thank you.
Great. Thanks. Next question from Jamie. Hi both. Congrats on the acquisition. Do you have any color on revenue growth expectations for EM Solutions going forwards?
I'd refer you to, well, there's some modeling available that Ben has done. But what I would say is that they've grown rapidly over the last three reported years. Revenue growth at over 31% CAGR. EBIT growth at an even faster rate of over 37%. Now, we don't necessarily expect to see this rate of growth continuing indefinitely. But there's a very strong order book. We expect it. I mean, we can't say exactly what it's going to be until completion, but we expect it to be of the order of £90 million. And a very strong set of prospects, which I've already just talked about. So, and of course, we are in what is now a growth market for defense expenditure more widely.
As you'll see from the presentation, MarketsandMarkets have forecast growth of 7.9% for the military communications market as a whole, with faster growth in long-range communications, which of course means satellites, and also faster growth for uncrewed platforms, as I was just referring to a moment or two ago. So, I wouldn't want to give too precise a forecast on this, but I would say that we do see the prospect for continued growth and for some time to come.
Great. Thank you. Next question. Great deal. Sorry, this is from Andy. He says, "Great deal. Was the move to exclusive negotiations with a vendor indicative of other potential buyers not having the same appeal as CHRT?" Cohort.
Yes, I think that that played a major part in it. It was transparently an extremely good fit with Cohort. I mean, it's a small, innovative, agile defense technology business with a clear degree of competitive advantage over its rivals, which I think is more or less the wording on the front page of our website. So, yeah. And we've also been looking for some time for, as I said, a footprint in Australia. So, yes, I think the fit was a major factor. The leadership team is very excited about the prospect of becoming part of Cohort. I mean, the background to this is that they were acquired by the vendor back in 2019 when it was pursuing a radically different strategy. And the ability to design and manufacture satellite terminals was intrinsic to that strategy, which they've now moved away from.
And so, it's been at a bit of a loose end, whereas it'll be absolutely core to our future ambitions within the Cohort group. So, yeah, I think all of those factors were very important. We made what we feel was a competitive offer, but also one which offers very good returns for our business and for shareholders as well. So, yeah, overall, we feel it's the right financial deal.
Brilliant. Thank you. And there are no further questions from the webcast. So, I'll hand back over to you.
Okay. Well, thank you very much, Tilly. And thank you very much, everyone, for joining us. I suppose in conclusion, I'll just say that this is a really exciting opportunity for us. And we really can't wait for it to complete and for us to start working with EM Solutions to really turn these growth opportunities into reality and deliver on some of the great benefits that we can see strategically from having this very complementary business in Australia join us. As I've explained, it's financially very beneficial from the group's perspective, as well as strategically beneficial. And we're delighted to have been successful in making the acquisition.