Thank you for standing by. My name is Kate, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to H1 twenty twenty five Earnings Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session.
I would now like to turn the call over to Nikos Malajores, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Theon's Half Year twenty twenty five Results Conference Call. Thank you for joining us today. I'm Nikos Malesiotis, Head of Investor Relations at Theon. Today, I'm joined by our founder and CEO, Christian Hajiminas our deputy CEO and business development director, Filip Menken and our CFO, Dimitris Parzenis. In this order, they will take you through the most important developments and the financial results for the 2025.
After the presentation, there will be an opportunity for questions. With that, I hand you over to Christian.
Thank you, Nikos. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining this call. Before providing an overview of the first half of the year, I would like to note once again the work and efforts contributed by our team toward achieving our organizational goals. Without our team, we would not be in the position we are today. 2025 performance was characterized by robust order intake, achievement of financial targets and solid progress in Theo's growth strategy.
Since June, we have announced several new strategic acquisitions, investments and partnership, which support our Theon next vision and strategy, which we announced a few week ago. This encapsulates Theon's ambition of becoming a trusted market leader in the next generation of optronics and a global player in the modern warfare era. At our announced Capital Markets Day to be held in Athens shortly, we will showcase the key growth drivers under TheoNext at what promises to be an exciting event. And I would like to add here that these acquisitions also underline the fact that whatever we promise, we deliver. When we did our IPO where we raised, as you very well know, €100,000,000, we said we will complete our acquisitions within eighteen months, exactly within this frame, working across very cautiously to find the right cost efficient, but also accretive to the extent possible acquisitions, we deliver them exactly at the end of the eighteenth month.
This for us underlines Theon's credibility and whatever we say, we do. I will now provide an overview of Theon's exceptional results in first half of the year as well as the strategic milestone achieved so far in 2025 before handing you over to Philippe Meniquen, who will highlight why we are in a prime position to drive continued growth by capturing the momentum of rising global demand. First half of the year performance this year has been underpinned by robust top line growth and sustained industry leading profitability, reflecting the strength of our business model and disciplined execution. As a business, we continue to benefit from a healthy order book, particularly in first half of the year when we saw a strong pipeline of contracts providing clear revenue visibility. As you already know very well, Q4 is always the best for booking new business in our business.
So in the fourth months until the year end, we expect accelerated order intake that is expected to be over two times the revenues of the year. During the period, the business successfully executed on its strategic priorities, advancing growth through disciplined M and A, driving product and innovation initiatives and accelerating geographic expansion to strengthen its competitive position through an impressive, I would add, industrial global footprint. In first half of the year, we made clear progress on all fronts. Our order intake saw an impressive 118% uptick on the previous years, highlighting the growth we have experienced, supported by new contract wins and deployments of existing contracts resulting in our soft backlog of $622,200,000 despite, of course, the deliveries already after taking account the deliveries in the first half of the year. We are fortunate to have strong relationship with long standing customers, which delivers a high volume of repeat purchasing to our business, adding to the strength of our order book.
We generated revenue of $184,000,000 in the period, which is up 20% versus the prior year. We delivered $47,000,000 of adjusted EBIT in the first half, growing our EBIT margin to 25.8% from 25% at 2024. We have strengthened our balance sheet, holding a net cash position of €34,700,000 at the end of 2025. This has enabled us to pay dividend of €0.34 per share in June in line with our guidance. Now I will let Mr. Menneken, our Deputy CEO, to take you through more detail on our recent acquisition of Capa Optronics, while I will explain our other strategic initiatives. Philippe?
Thank you, Christian. I would also like to extend a warm welcome to everyone. Kafka was founded in 1978 and is headquartered in Gottingen, Germany, home to both its design and assembly functions as well as management and administrative teams. Kappa operates an r and d driven asset light model focused on design, assembly, and quality assurance closely aligns with what we do at Theon.
With a team of 60 highly skilled engineers and a strong technological edge in platform products, the company is well positioned to contribute to Theon's innovative pipeline. Together with with its subsidiaries in The United States and Spain, Kappa employs approximately 200 people and operates out of approximately 3,000 square meters of operational space. Now Kappa brings not only cutting edge technology, but also a culture of innovation that aligns with our vision at Theon. We expect meaningful top line synergies, accelerated product co development, and valuable knowledge exchange across the companies alongside an AI ready integration with potential. This acquisition instantly expands our electro optics product offering, particularly for land and aerial platforms, which are key focus areas for Theon's strategy.
In addition, acquiring Kappa provides immediate accretiveness strong potential to scale sales rapidly through Theon's business development capabilities, complementing our Athens based team of around 80 engineers, ultimately highlighting the revenue and supply chain synergies which lie ahead. Capa is on track to exceed 37,000,000 in revenues in the financial year 2025 with an EBITDA of approximately €8,000,000, primarily driven by defense mobility and autonomous machines. In August 2025, the group, through Fion International PSC, acquired 100% of the shares and voting rights of Kappa Optronics GNBHA for an enterprise value of €75,000,000 and consideration value of €69,000,000 through a mix of cash and debt contribution. This transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to be completed in the 2025. Now back to Christian to tell you more on our other strategic investments in the context of See You Next initiative.
Thank you, Philippe.
Until today, we gained five new strategic investments across the group. And as I said, exactly within the eighteen month deadline that we have put ourselves and we have announced during the IPO. In July 2025, we acquired a 10% strategic equity stake in Andre Industry AG based in Berlin, Germany through a 1,100,000.0 share capital increase with options to increase its stake up to 24.99% within two years for a total consideration of €4,500,000 in order to expand further our presence in Germany. I need to stress here that Andre is a partner of Theon in several business opportunities that we expect to soon announce, particularly regarding our new thermal clip on iris. So this investment is related to our day to day business.
In August 2025, we launched our TheoNext initiative, a platform designed to drive the the development of next generation soldier systems through targeted investments, collaborations, and co development projects. The following investments and strategic cooperation form part of the TheoNext initiative. At the July 2025, we invested €5,000,000 in value technologies, a Finnish virtual reality, mixed reality specialist through a convertible loan with an option for an additional 5,000,000. I have to say here that this has opened the door for us in Finland, a very promising defense market. And it's not gonna be the only initiative of film in Finland, where there is a very rich ecosystem of technologies that can drive the growth of Theon in the future.
In August 2025, we entered into a strategic partnership with Kopin Corporation, a U. S.-based defense microdisplay and subsystem specialist through a total investment of $15,000,000 The investment will serve as the basis for a new European joint venture focused on augmented reality enabled systems and micro LED display production. This transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to be completed in the 2025. At the same point in time, we signed a renewable two year supply agreement with eMagin Corporation, a US also based manufacturer of OLED microdisplays securing the supply of high resolution displays using its products, including Iris, our new thermal clip on for which we stated several times, see a lot of business prospects and a lot of new contracts being generated. Again, at the same time, we entered into a strategic partnership with Alerion, a U.
S.-based leader in ultra wideband technology to integrate UWB into its ARM product line with production in Greece and exclusive promotion rights in Europe and The Middle East. More details will be provided at our Capital Markets Day taking place later on this year. Regarding the last two points I mentioned and investments, it's key to understand that this time, Theon has done a very cost efficient vertical integration at the same time for its future and current armed product line. In other words, we have secured our supply chain through those partnerships by also being able in a position to produce in Greece some very, very critical component. So we don't experience any future supply issues.
Last but not least, I would like to stress that all those initiatives with a total cost of less than €25,000,000 complement the almost €70,000,000 acquisition target, acquisition price of Capa and the 35,000,000 of acquiring harder digital. So that's about a 125,000,000 roughly in total investment, which is in line with what we have raised in the IPO. Also, I need to stress that, and I'm very proud of this and our team that we have managed regarding the TheoNext initiative with a total consideration of less than €25,000,000 to being able, as Theon, to have access to key elements of the future at a very low investment level, while at the same time being in a position to recover even this investment through the equity appreciation of companies like Vario and Kopin. Thank you very much. With that, I will now hand you over to Philippe.
Thank you, Christian. And moving on to a brief market and business overview starting by giving an overview of the markets by regions. The world continues to face new situations globally.
The world has changed and previous values and alliances are not necessarily guaranteed anymore. This has an impact on all regions in the world and for sure on Europe, Asia, and The US and provides further opportunities for Theon. As you know, Theon operates in growing markets which are driven by several supportive tailwinds. Firstly, the geopolitical lag global landscape means that there is a continuous and increasing demand for defense products. Governments are now placing much more focus on their defense capabilities, which is driving an increase in defense spending globally. Starting with The
US, defense expenses have been and are still to a certain extent being reviewed, but this is temporary. Global challenges require instead increased, if not more efficient spending. And for sure, we don't anticipate any decreased spending in The US in the coming years. The US is continuing to position itself as the one and only military superpower, marking a significant investment in developing next generation military systems. Europe sees defense spending increases in almost all countries in light of the continuous Russian threat and the realization that it must be able to defend itself independently.
This especially applies to Northern and Eastern European countries, while countries in the Southern and South Southeastern Europe must contend with both Russian and border threats emanating from the area. The situation in The Middle East is still fragile and dynamic with possible continuous local strikes while remaining still below the threshold of declaring war. In the absence of efforts to improve relations, countries in The Middle East with ongoing disputes are likely to invest in systems that provide early warning and increase domestic stockpiles. Countries in the Asian Pacific region are continuously concerned by potential short term conflict with China over disputed territory and in essential waterways. The Chinese Taiwanese conflict could draw in regional players with with battles forged by large navies, air force, but also land and marine infantry troops.
I'm now going to focus a little more on Europe specifically and its defense budget outlook. NATO states have agreed to raise the target for core defense requirements from two to 5% by 2035 with 3.5% to be spent on defense expenditure that includes procurement, sustainment, and personnel costs. Countries already meeting or nearly meeting NATO's 2% target in twenty three to twenty four are set to experience more limited growth in hitting the new 5% goal, while others are expected to strongly boost spending at much higher speed to ensure earlier readiness than 02/1935, like, for example, Germany. Europe is expected to remain our main customer based for the foreseeable future, and we continue to strengthen our presence in our core focus area. At the same time, we remain alert to new markets and opportunities to capture rising demand.
Turning now to our total addressable market by region and product. Our total addressable market is expected to grow by 13% annual growth over the next five years. Europe is obviously the largest accessible market with countries investing in the recapitalization of capabilities, upgrading legacy systems in the short term and procuring modern systems in the mid to long term. The North American market growth is mostly driven by The US and continued investment in armed forces, though due to political reasons and make in US initiatives, procurement shall focus on United States designed and manufactured products. Yet, this will tie up capacity of US defense companies and specifically in our business for critical components like image intensifier tubes.
As a result, this will strengthen the position of European companies outside The US such as Theon, Haber Digital and Exosense, which remains our largest supplier of image intensifier tubes. APAC and MENAT customers are rapidly increasing investments as regional security worsens, but begin from a smaller baseline than the European market. The optics market for vehicles, both standalone and for weapon mounted fire control systems, will grow as a larger pool of countries adopt advanced systems that require a greater range of sensors. Overall, there has been dismounted market growth driven by an increase in frontline military personnel and growing investment in sensors for specialist units to increase lethality. Now, providing a breakdown on the dismounted product category, helmet mounted devices account for the majority of the total addressable market value.
Whilst fire control systems drive growth complemented by targeting systems. Within the vehicle mounted product category, armored fighting vehicles dominate forecast, while investments into main battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, recouping platforms donated to Ukraine, and reorientating toward land warfare. Patrol and reconnaissance vehicles and sensor package increasing focus within fleet investment as users seek to maximize situational awareness. I look forward to speaking with all again of you at our Capital Markets Day later this year, who will provide more information on our TheoNEXT initiatives as well as further details on the business outlook. Thank you for your time, and I will now hand you over to Dimitris.
Thank you, Philippe, and good afternoon, everyone. Onto our summary financial highlights now. Feon's order intake reached EUR 168,000,000, marking a notable increase on the prior year comparative period. We anticipate an acceleration in our order intake as we go into second half, which is in line with traditional waiting and the pending demand in the market. Revenue grew by more than 20%, landing at 183,000,000.
This growth is driven by both new contracts and the deployment of existing ones. As of the end of the half, around 42% of our full year guidance is already delivered in line to what we had recorded at the same time last year. As a result of our strong performance and continued high levels of new contract wins, we stand well positioned to address any year end ad hoc demand that might appear as it typically occurs. Moving to our backlog, where we have achieved significant growth of 45%. This translates to a soft backlog of €622,000,000 at the end of H1 twenty twenty five, which provides solid visibility for the year ahead with an additional €378,000,000 of contractual options, providing further headroom for growth.
We are already experiencing strong traction in Q3 with additional orders expected to be announced. This will more than replace orders invoiced in H1 as well as those expected to be invoiced in H2 twenty twenty five. Of our current soft backlog, we expect to deliver approximately 40% in 2025 and the remainder in 2026 and beyond. H1 this year marks another period of strong profitability with an adjusted EBITDA of EUR 49,000,000, up 25.7% compared to the previous year. Our adjusted EBIT levels grew 24.4% to €47,400,000 This adjusted EBIT translates into a margin of 25.8%, in line with our guidance.
Please also note that from H1 twenty twenty five, share of profits from core equity accounted in the space are recorded within adjusted EBIT. Our net cash position as of the June 2025 was at €34,700,000, marking a slight decrease primarily as a result of an earlier dividend payment of €23,800,000 in June, while last year dividend was paid out in the beginning of H2. We continue to invest in company's growth in accordance with our strategy. In H1, CapEx increased to €6,700,000 in line with a guidance of €20,000,000 for full year 2025 to support the acceleration of the growth strategy. This amount includes investment in capacity expansion of hardware digital and development of new men portable and platform based products.
Given financial strength seen in the first half of the year, CEOM has a strong cash conversion rate of 85%, in line with H1 twenty twenty four. Turning to the next slide where I will take you through our guidance. Here, we reiterate and confirm our 2025 targets alongside with our medium term ones. For 2025, we have strong confidence in reaching revenue of $430,000,000 at the top end of the originally presented guidance of $410,000,000 to €430,000,000 We remain focused on maintaining an EBIT margin in the mid-20s, and we expect to spend €20,000,000 CapEx this year, the highest ever, supporting our strong organic growth plan investing across the globe. In June 2025, the company paid out dividend totaling €23,800,000 in line with our dividend distribution policy articulated at the time of our IPO.
In the midterm, we expect to continue growing in line with our addressable market and to maintain an EBIT margin in the mid-20s. CapEx is expected to reach a maximum of 3.5% of revenue, and we aim to maintain a 30% to 40% dividend payout ratio. Thank you for your time today, and we are now ready to take your questions.
Thank you so much for the presentation. I will now pass it to the team for questions.
Okay. Thank you all for attending today's call once again. We just have received receiving a series of questions. The first one is the following. What is the current status of your negotiations to extend the supply agreement with your main tube producer, Exoscience?
Yes. Thank you. This is Christian Hagimelas. Thank you for the question, Mr. Oskar.
We our supply agreement with Exocen is a renewable contract. So as soon as we approach the end of the year, then we extend this for one more year or two more years depending on the situation. So we don't expect any change on that at all.
The second one is the following. Did the post ABB ninety day lockup period of your controlling shareholders, Venerto's and CHRE investments expire? Is there an indication by Venerto's CHRE about further potential sell downs in Theon in the near future?
Hello. This is Dimitris. I believe it's expiring in a few days, if I'm not mistaken. And at the moment, we don't have any indication by Vinetus or CHRA about any further potential sell down in the near future.
And given our share repurchase program has been activated recently, have we already started share buybacks,
We have, but very small amounts. Of course, we are going to announce the the amount of of shares that have been purchased based on the regulatory framework.
The next question is the following. Given your recent Kappa and how their digital acquisitions, are you planning further M and A transactions in the 2025 or in the 2026, or you will mainly focus on integrating and expanding recently acquired assets?
Yes. No, we have not finished the acquisitions.
It's a good opportunity for me to state the following.
As I mentioned earlier, when we started the IPO, where we raised just to remind everybody, we raised 100,000,000 to do acquisitions in vertical integration, in expanding our range of products and in fire control systems and above it all, of course, on platforms on electro optics products, where we want to become a leader position in a leading position just like we have become on Man Portable. At the time of IPO, we said exactly eighteen months. And I'm very proud because we really what we say we do. And on the eighteenth month exactly, which was in the in August frame from the February starting point of our IPO, during the summer. And this may have come at a cost to us because during the summer, as you know, there's the people are less focused on reading news from companies.
However, since we have given a promise to the market for eighteen months within eighteen months, we will complete the acquisitions. We announced them and with a total expenditure of a total of about $125,000,000 in total, harder digital, Kappa and the TheonNext initiative. So we are spot on, near the levels with minimum increase in our leverage ratios. We were we deliver exactly what we set exactly at a time within the time frame we set. Having said that, the company is still has a lot of has ability to raise debt quite a bit because we have not really used these facilities.
We do look into a couple of acquisitions, especially which are coming slowly, slowly, but they will mature definitely before the end of the year. We're always these are smaller, as we have promised the IPO, smaller further acquisitions, but we do not exclude any major acquisition as well. We we are again, we are we are driven by the needs of our company, the needs of what we have right now and how we can cement it, like, with vertical integration or how we can strengthen our products. And that's why the ThionX initiative, if I may say so, although I'm sure maybe some some will ask us, that's why the ThionX initiative, although it it is for midterm, we expect results in terms of finished products. These technologies are already being implemented and being incorporated in our existing ARM products.
For instance, the Alerion the u dub UWB, which is which is a way which is a a way to to transmit data within short range approved by the National Security Agency of the United States, and it is a US company. It's already being incorporated as we speak in our Thea product, which involves our head up display and and eventually our fuse goggle. So all these technologies that we are we have acquired are all technologies that will be used right away being incorporated in our products, while at the same time, talking about mid midterm, while at the same time, we are preparing the versions of of the future. The future which may come much faster than the market believes. Thank you.
The next one is a Kappa specific and is the following. Does Kappa need any capacity or R and D investments in the near term? And do you see any cost synergies to be unleased in the future, such as moving some of the production to Greece?
First of all, I need to tell you that and, again, this is an accomplishment. We have, as you know, investment plan with Hanselt, which is a leading, as you know, German defense manufacturer. And we have a joint venture where we have, of course, 49% in Wetzlar. And this facility, we have managed to make it as competitive as our Greek facility is. This gives us maximum flexibility depending on the orders to produce in in either in this joint venture or in Greece.
Kappa, I have to tell you, is is really a spot on acquisition in terms of what we were looking to expand on the on platform based electro optics is is is a very reputable company. And the the interesting thing is even with the existing portfolio, Theon's global industrial food and commercial food very soon results of our supporting business development wise, Kappa. And then at the same time, the process of integrating our r and d teams is is has already commenced. I have to tell you that the synergies are already apparent with a different expertise. Capa has 200 people, of which 67 are r and d engineers.
As a as a comparison, TIM is about to reach the number of 80 people. So you can imagine how important it is to add another 67 people with a different type of electro optical experience and the ability to launch that those products in very demanding environment. Just like, for instance, the which is one of the main business of Kappa with the with the air refueling for Airbus. And so these are really very valuable human resources, r and d capabilities that's being added to field.
Thank you, Christian. The next question is the following. Will the supply of tubes be a bottleneck for growth?
Let me answer that again. The the demand the demand for tubes is is is is increasing. And sometimes even when we have independent, like, RAC that has has posted we are posting here their new estimates of the electro optical market, both helmet mount, the man portable, and the platform. In actuality, we see larger larger demand for tubes. There is no doubt that there are two things at play here.
It's the global demand and supply of tubes. The global demand keeps increasing, and we have not really seen the wave that we expect to see to to see from the Far East and The Middle East because the focus has been on Europe. And the other thing is that with the programs in The States, there will be less US tubes around. However, however, as we said, we expect that there will be no bottleneck because there has been adjustments on capacity from European and US manufacturers despite the increased demand. But again, Theon is placing we have this growth from the tube related night vision secured.
And mind you, Theon is increasing its market share, and it's and it's increasing it, and and it's increasing it not by taking away necessarily from other competing companies where we have more than 50%, but it's increasing it because the growth of this market is primarily driven by customers that we have already delivered that is mostly in Northern Europe. As a result, this additional add on add on demand goes to comes from countries that theory is very well placed. So we expect our market share to increase from 50% higher. However, and we have to stress this, Pion is putting a lot of emphasis for its future growth on ARM products. We have we may end up this year about 10% from digital products or products that are not related to night vision company.
However, next year, we know as a fact that this percentage, we've already announced, is gonna be more than 20% from existing business, but also tenders that we hope to soon announce. And our target is to increase this in to keep increasing it through the man portable ARM products in '27. But in '27, we expect a major impact of the electro optical platforms. So our trajectory so we will have two elements, and I will try to make it as simple as possible. One, the night vision, which will keep growing, but the one that will be growing even more will be the ARM products.
And just to remind some people, ARM products, we we talk about thermal and digital products like the one we want for the German future soldier. This will increase much faster. And on top of that, we will be adding sales of our own electro optical platforms that we've already developed and launched already as of late last year, this year, plus, of course, the sales that will come from electro optical platform companies such as, for instance, Kappa. And as I said, it's not gonna be in that domain. The electro optical platform is not gonna be our only investment.
We hope by the end of the year, we'll have at least two more acquisitions. Again, within with a very cost efficient manner.
Thank you, Christian. The next one, I think, is for Philippe, and is the following. Which key tenders announcements should we expect in the second half of the year, and where any major tenders lost in this the first half?
Yes. Hello, everybody. Philip speaking here. First of all, we haven't lost any any major tenders in the first half year.
Any tenders that we won, obviously, have been announced. And when it comes to ongoing tenders and announcement during the second half of the year, obviously, there are various large tenders ongoing. We cannot so I cannot comment at the moment in too many details on these tenders, but we should be able to announce some good news hopefully towards the end of the year, q three '3, beginning of or '4 depending on the opportunities that we are we are working on. But good news should come soon.
Okay. Thank you, Philippe. Moving on. 40% of the soft backlog is to be delivered in 2025 and would imply reaching your current guidance. Do some short term up of quarters in q four provide potential upside to this.
And what's the near term outlook for larger orders? And from which countries are you dealing with?
First of all, we will we are retaining our 430,000,000 guidance as before. We're not gonna change this. But as of September, where we started until the December, we expect to to announce some award tenders because we are we are in a very advanced discussions and finalizations. So we do expect this, but we will not change our guidance for 2025 because of that.
Now we have some more more focused on questions on the potential order in The US, the NPD next, and they ask if we have any visibility of other larger potential orders, including any from Asia and especially Japan. Okay.
Yes. In The US, we have a lot of challenges like a lot of non US companies because, as you know, the emphasis now okay. One thing is tariffs, but tariffs do not affect us or other defense manufacturer because as far as we know and so far, it's a reclaimable amount when it comes to an end an end user like the the US army or the US marines. So there's no effect from the tariffs. But where the there are challenges for any non US company is that the emphasis is clearly is clearly on US design products.
Regarding The US we we do not know yet what is the final outcome. Of course, the policy, and especially in this specific tender, is the US Army, and I can say that because that's public information. The US Army had already funded the last two years development products from two major US companies. They have already funded those products so that the products can be developed according to US Army specification. Again, we do not know the final outcome because we are not a prime on that.
Nevertheless, I can proudly tell you that in DSCI in London, but also in a USA, Theon will present a product that meets fully the US army specifications. We cannot know where the other two competitors are, but we believe that we may be ahead of everybody else in having the US army specifications already made and tested product. Nevertheless, as I said, there is a bias right now for US design products in in The US, and this is a big challenge.
The next one is also related to The US. It is the following. Andrew has taken over the iWAS platform. What risk does that represent?
I would rather think of it as an opportunity because, obviously, UnderReal will move and develop the Ibis platform further, which so far has not been the greatest success. Outside of The US, as as you probably know, we are very much ahead of many other companies in the field when it comes to augmented reality enabled systems, fused systems, connected systems as part of our armed ecosystem. And whatever The US developed and successfully developed is typically a good sign that there is need in the market. And we are ready not only to follow, but to lead to our next initiative to develop our own IVUS type equipment to to come out into the market over the next few years and provide the soldier with the with the capabilities of of the driver system. Important to understand though as well that the that's Goggle that has, of course, certain sensors, certain cameras that were providing imagery during night or other difficult conditions, but it is not per se a night difficult.
Nevertheless, we are working on the similar equipment, similar technologies to be able to provide such equipment with the focus, of course, of our European customers in the future.
You, Philippe. This is Christian again. I think these are very, very, very nice questions. And let me add to this. I've already alluded in my opening remarks.
This IVAS, for instance, Andriel and Microsoft, they had a lot of their efforts focused on Finland, for instance. And a lot of people who have left the companies there, and they have joined. And that's why, as I said, Finland has a very interesting ecosystem of people because it it has companies that have a reason from people that used to work on those programs, including ex under under under employees. This is this is really it comes to justify from another angle our ThionX initiatives. That's why I said in my opening remarks that our investment in value is just the beginning because in Finland, we feel that there is more talent.
And, we are not a CapEx driven company. We are an r and d and business development, of course, company. That's what we are. Therefore, in our quest to be able to to do the following things, being able to be ahead when when and if there is a breakthrough in technology that would make, for instance, digital products even night less expensive than the analog tubes based. We want to be there.
We have all the elements of the technology. Every single investment we did under TheonX, which, by the way, again, would be thoroughly explained with graphs and and presentation by by likely, I would say, by technical people so that it's understood by everybody. And you will understand the market will understand the field next initiative. And, again, whether it's IVAS, to go back to the to the main question, whether it's IVAS or it's an ARM product, which is about night vision or digital or thermal vision. In in both cases, the technologies that we have invested in, they have one element is the technology parameters.
So we think with copying value, and imagine, we have covered the basics. Right? But at the same time, I would stress it again, we already start using this technology. In our business, the the the way the history works in the past, but also in in in in today's world, There is no real breakthrough that one day we wake up and analog products are are are dead, and then something else comes through. All those things, even if something there's a breakthrough, it will take several years for this to materialize.
However, the evolution, and this is how Theon managed to become the market leader having more than 50% of night vision goggles, is because every year, we were adding a lot of you that have participated in our presentation, the IPO, and our road show. Every year, Theon, Theon did not become a leader in one year. It became over several years by getting more and more contracts and by adding more and more features. Like, now where where we are is that those technologies that we have access to, it is the technologies that will allow us to continue this thing with a direction even on the analog products, that is the standard night vision goggles, to add features like intercommunication and other technologies like, yeah, Alerion, we we are in a position with those technologies to continue this process that we have been doing the last ten, fifteen years every year, we become better because our goggle, the standard goggle, has a new feature, whether this is to to to measure how much life cycle is still in the tube inside, how many hours has been used, and other features. Now those new technologies of ThionX will be gradually being added to even to the analog products.
Of course, the emphasis will remain on ARM products, which is the present and the future.
Thank you.
Before we're moving on with financial questions, when should we expect the decision on NBD Next on The US tender?
The the decision would be made shortly. But as I said, we going to present in in in the ACI and AUSA. We will present our full US army specs. I cannot speak about the other companies, but we will have something ready. Okay?
But the decision is is is is shortly. We are not a part of the information flow on on final decisions.
Okay.
Thank you, Christian. The next one for the meter is the following. Your earning cost stepped up wide material in q four like, in Sure. What are the key drivers for this?
Indeed, we have a step up of admin cost in q two, and this will will continue in in q three and probably q four as well. These are associated with new hirings in finance and legal departments that all these are supporting our m and a and, of course, the size of the company that is expanding as you can imagine. And, of course, with third party costs, again, associated with M and A, with with the acquisitions, with the the respective due diligence and so on. Now moving to to next year, I think that this is going to decelerate as as a percentage on on the turnover.
Thank you, Dimitri. The last question for now is the following. Can we discuss the acquisition of Huddl Digital? Positive and negative surprises so far.
I I don't believe we had any surprises, positive or negative, because we have been close to the company for for many, many months. The plan is going as as we have initially thought. Already, the first machine for tube manufacturing, the new machine, is already in place, and it's only already fully operational. We expand to have another one operational within 2026. So the plan to produce around 20,000 tubes per year is is on track.
And at the same time, of course, we have some developments in in in the investment of some funds in Latvia, where we plan to have, first of all, a facility that will manufacture NCP's, which is key component for for cubes, and at the later stage, after a few years, a full fledged tube production.
Thank you, Dimitri. I'd like to invite you once more to tag your questions in the chat if you have any more questions.
I I would like to add a little bit more, if I may. So just to complete the analysis because there were two or three issues about The US, I have to say the following. Theon, when we've done the TheonNext initiatives, it had it's trying to attack a couple of interesting aspects at the same time. One was technology, which I think I've exhausted an answer on that, turning also the capital markets.
The other one is the geographical location. If you think about it, film all of a sudden, and I I hope the market has realized that, not only we've opened we put our first step in Finland, which has the largest army, and we will continue stepping up our presence there. We have also with the copping with with the copping production in in Scotland where it will produce all of copping's production outside The US. It will be done in Scotland. We found it very interesting that it is in The United Kingdom.
The United Kingdom is a country also we wanted to get in, and we sold in the past, and we sold some complicated thermal products. But UK is part of the European defense structure as well, as you know, and has been added along with Norway. As a result, this is another platform we we have set up in Scotland, which geographically is very important. But the most important geographical setup was what we have agreed with COPIN. For those of you who do not know, COPIM is working and is is is is a company that is working on several very advanced US US armed forces program.
The fact that we have selected because we have two coproduction facilities in in The States, but they were not ours, one at Eotech and one at Elbit System of America, which they continue very successfully. The the fact that we have in Reston, which is in Virginia, we we are setting up an industrial production that is gonna be fully owned by Theo, but at the same time, working with the r and d departments of of COPY, which is ahead is is about the present and and future, and we expect them to get some more contracts. And therefore, Theon, even if The US decides otherwise and they only want, as they show already, US designed products as well, We will expand our presence in The US. Coping is and and our cooperation with Coping is just an initial plant, let's put it this way. We will invest a lot in The US.
That's why we expect the next two or three acquisitions, small or or larger ones, to be in in exactly those countries that strengthen our geographical and market penetration, like, for instance, Finland and The US. Already in Germany, we have done has become a very important customer, and we are very grateful for that. And we returned to the country by doing four already investments in in in Germany. We have more or less completed our investments in Germany, and now we're these capacities and everything. But US and Finland and another European country that I cannot disclose right now has increased our global footprint, and and this would be our direction.
And, oh, by the way, I need to say a last thing so that people understand. The Baltics have and the Nordics have become very important countries because they are in they are basically the frontiers of NATO. Our new and this is another thing we have done in record time. Our new investment in Latvia via hardware digital is something that we plan to expand as well as seek opportunities in that area as well. We expect those countries to be not only because they have a very rich ecosystem like Finland.
We expect those countries to increase, which they've already done, by the way, the defense spending, But we also expect them to be hosts of larger European army as it has already started in Lithuania. So what I'm trying to say, unfortunately, with with as little words as possible I can, is that everything that we do is technology and geographically that is to be close to our our our large customers or potential customer. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Christian. Since we don't have any other questions and we are almost on time, we're about to conclude this meeting. Thank you again, everybody, for attending today's call.
Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.