Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our full year 2024 preliminary results presentation. I'm Valeria Ricciotti, Head of I R. Today, our CEO, Roberto Cingolani, will take you through the important progress that we achieved during last year, and our CFO, Alessandra Genco, will then take you through the full year 2024 preliminary results in more detail. We will then welcome your questions. Please note that the call will last no longer than one hour. Throughout this call, we may be making forward-looking statements. I invite you to refer to our safe harbor statement in the presentation slides, which also applies to this call.
Please also note that the approval of the draft statutory financial statements and the consolidated financial statement of Leonardo as of December 31, 2023 is scheduled for March 11, 2024, and therefore the data reported in this presentation should be considered unaudited, as the audit process by the appointed auditor has not yet been completed. Lastly, as you know, on 11th of March, we are planning to present an update of the Leonardo Industrial Plan, and included in that, we will then also be presenting our 2025 guidance plus our updated medium-term targets. And now I will hand you over to our CEO.
Thank you, Valeria. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Happy to be here again and to meet you though digitally. As last year, we're going to introduce you to the results of 2024 slightly before the presentation of the Industrial Plan. We just want to decouple the yearly activity with the future activities. For 2024, we're quite satisfied, I should say. New orders this year have broken the barrier of EUR 20 billion, in particular EUR 20.9 billion, the preliminary data for the orders, which is 12.2% higher than the data of fiscal year 2023. Actually, this generates a backlog of orders that exceeds EUR 44 billion, which represents quite an improvement compared to last year. Definitely, revenues are growing substantially from EUR 16 billion last year to EUR 17.8 billion this year, with a change, a positive change of more than 11%.
This actually, it's quite an important increase in the transformation of orders into revenues that depends primarily on the work for the efficiency that we have done throughout the company and also an improvement of the situation of the supply chain, which was quite generalized through all the products. The EBITDA has increased up to EUR 1.52 billion as opposed to EUR 1.35 billion in 2023. So the increase in the EBITDA is 12.9%. The return of sales has increased by 0.1% to 8.6%. And we should say that the performance, which is quite good, compensates the losses that were generated by the exogenous problems that we had, particularly with the Aero structure division because of the Boeing crisis and with the SATCOM business connected to the Space Alliance with our colleagues in Thales.
In some respect, this means that we were managing quite well those two exogenous problems, and the number seems to be very encouraging. The free operating cash flow increases by 26.7%, reaching EUR 826 million. Just to remind you, our guidance was EUR 770 million. This is a substantial increase. The net debt is reduced down to EUR 1.8 billion, starting from EUR 2.3 billion last year with a reduction of approximately 22.7%. I mean, to be honest, guys, though the numbers are very encouraging and well above the guidance, we still feel the urgency to find solutions primarily for Aero structures. This is something we will discuss in detail with you on March 11 at the occasion of the presentation of the new plan and, of course, reducing the problem in the Satcom business together with our partners in the Space Alliance. This is actually already in progress.
Let me recap the main points of the plan, the vision, and the corresponding actions. You remember the plot at the center of the slide. This is dedicated to the vision of the cross-domain interoperability that merges all the platforms that are created by Leonardo that are immersed into a digital continuum supervised by central artificial intelligence that means primarily high-performance computing and cloud computing, supervised by a space cloud and a space network of satellites that actually control the actions of all the platforms, and of course, in a volume space, which is cybersecure by design. So that was the, let's say, pictorially presentation of the vision of the strategy. In order to implement the strategy, we had two main actions. The first one is strengthening the core business.
So we've been working to the constant improvement of our product portfolio, making our platforms more interconnected and more and more innovative and competitive. And of course, we made a specific focus on enhancing effectiveness and operational efficiency across all the businesses of the company. Actually, we have closed a number of low-margin or off-core business activities. And of course, we've been facing the challenge of Aero structures, as I will tell you in more details in the days to come. We believe we have identified an international investment partner that is involved in aerospace and defense to co-invest in a possible new industrial initiative about Aero structures. So stay tuned because this will be hopefully communicated in more details very soon. Within the Industrial Plan that you've seen already March last year, the implementation highlights are reported in the slides.
You remember, I'm sure, that strengthening the core business was based primarily on what we call the organic growth, that is, improving research and development, technology innovation, introduction of new products, introducing a massive digitalization throughout the portfolio, and increasing servitization and customer proximity in all our platforms, helicopters, aircraft, and so on and so forth. But the second pillar of this part of the plan was applying an efficiency boost, that is, increasing the efficiency group-wide and a corporate cost reduction, rationalization of the product portfolio, particularly in electronics, and also withdrawing programs that were not very strategic or off-core business, and optimizing the operations at the industrial level. In this slide, I'm sure you don't want to see item by item this list of accomplishments. In green, those are the completed actions. In yellow, you find the actions in progress.
Those are not all the actions, but are some of the most significant just to witness the kind of activity that we carried out in the last 12 months. The second part of the implementation plan that was paved the way to the future basically is dealing with the inorganic growth that we planned for the future of Leonardo. This will be developed through steering of global alliances, pursuing merger acquisition strategy, and tackling emerging markets and developing new technologies in different fields. Here again, you see the Leonardo Rheinmetall joint venture was established just a few months ago, going to start soon. The new partnership we're going to develop over the next weeks with the team, the BAYKAR team for advanced drones.
The joint venture agreement finally completed with the GCAP Consortium, Japan, U.K., and Italy, and the new space division that has been constituted and the renegotiation of some of the collaborative agreements with our partners in Thales, so those things belong to the future, and on March, you will see how this will be developed, and of course, you will see all the numbers that are connected, financials, KPIs that are connected to such a group of initiatives. Now, the efficiency plan you see in this slide has been pursued with a lot of commitment by all the company. We're supposed to accomplish EUR 150 million savings in 2024. We did slightly better. We computed EUR 191 million savings. So we are slightly ahead on schedule, but we confirmed the EUR 1.8 billion saving plan that we communicated in the plan.
Actually, interestingly, you can see that procurement, a reduction of EUR 125 million in procurement, about 40% of that, about EUR 74 million of that was in the divisions and about EUR 51 million through the central direct procurement. About EUR 15 million savings coming from the corporate just making efficiency in the headquarters. About EUR 23 million savings are coming from travel efficiency and EUR 28 million from disposal of old businesses. This is actually what we did during the year. It's interesting to see in the small plot that you see on the right-hand side of the slide that if we compare our procurement profile, our expenditure profile with the inflation profile, which is the gray line, the negotiation of long-term contract by the Leonardo procurement structures already ensured some savings, the red line versus the green line.
But the additional pressure made on cost savings is represented by the dotted line that was really quite a sharp initiative done internally to the company, resulted in a substantial and remarkable saving, which you can see through the thin green line. And basically, if I could make an indirect comparison, this is pretty much like the inflation where 2.7%, rather than three or four. So we are quite satisfied about the organization of the saving plan. And we will continue in applying the pressure on the division, on the headquarter to improve the efficiency boost and, of course, to ensure the proper global saving that is reported in the histogram. Next year, we're supposed to have extra EUR 110 million on the actual numbers. If we go to the next slide, you see in a few snapshots what the divisions, the performance of the divisions, those are quite encouraging.
Electronics has been growing by almost 12% in orders and about 9.4% in revenues, and the EBITDA has been growing by 21%. Primarily, this is because of the strong commercial momentum and delivery across all domain, land, sea, Eurofighter, and now the forthcoming main battle tank and infantry vehicles. The portfolio rationalization has been completed in phase one. About 13% of the products have been withdrawn. And then the disposal of the underwater armaments system to Fincantieri, the ship company, was also a remarkable achievement for the electronic division. Finally, we have to account for the strong performance of DRS and the start of the Rheinmetall joint venture. Helicopters has now collected EUR 5.8 billion orders, plus 6% compared to last year, exceeding the barrier of EUR 5 billion revenues, the growth of 11%, and the EBITDA growing by 10% up to EUR 465 million.
This is primarily connected to the good performance on most platforms with the first firing campaign of the AW249 and the new launch, the performance improvement program on cooperation and customer support programs that have increased the service level throughout all our platform. This, of course, increases, progressively increases the margins of our helicopters. Aircraft has been growing by 20%, almost 21% in orders. Revenues are slightly reduced, but this is because some big orders, specifically Eurofighters for Italy, Spain, has shifted to the right. It's slightly anti-phase with the financial profile. Anyway, EBITDA is plus 10%. We have to actually know, sorry, EBITDA is almost constant, but we have to remember that there is a solid order intake for the Eurofighter that will be materialized next year with Italy, Spain. There is an increase in GCAP contribution.
On top of that, there is a new initiative for the 346 aircraft, which will now be ordered for the new acrobatic fleet of the Italian aviation. On top of that, we should also mention that IFTS, so the training facility in Sardinia, is growing constantly and has reached now the 100th degree delivered to the pilots. About Aero structures, despite the Boeing crisis, numbers are slightly better. There was a top-level improvement driven by the progressive commercial aviation market recovery despite the Boeing issues. So we have agreed a repricing of the B787 fuselage. And there are new strategic plans ongoing, however, that will be presented soon. So cyber has been growing substantially, plus 20% in orders. It's approaching EUR 1 billion revenue, EUR 0.8 billion this year. It's a remarkable growth. Revenue is EUR 0.6 billion, plus 9%. And the EBITDA has been growing by 36%.
I think the solid commercial performance of this year is due to the focus of the industrial plan of the cyber division in defense, government, and police forces, and those are strategic markets where the business is by far well focused and with high margin. The portfolio of cybersecurity has been streamlined, and now we are starting to develop our own products, so the new product release is coming, and finally, there is an increased leadership on sovereign cloud applications for the public administration, which seems to be extremely promising. There's more than 470 customers only at national or domestic level that need cyber protection and cloud technologies for the future. Finally, space. The space division, as you remember, was launched at the beginning of last year. After one year, revenue orders are around EUR 0.9 billion, with a growth of 25%.
Revenues around EUR 0.9 billion with a growth of about 30%, 29.2%. And EBITDA, which is growing by 21.2%. Telespazio is fully consolidated. We continued our improvement across all business lines. And the new space division is established with a brand new team, brand new top management. And then the industrial plan, the industrial plan with financial KPI will be introduced to your attention on March 11 at the occasion of the update of the plan. Those numbers seem to be very encouraging. And of course, they gave rise to the global figure of Leonardo that I gave you in the opening of this call. Last but not least, I'd like to mark the significant progress towards sustainability targets. All our KPIs in sustainability have been growing. Actually, we still keep the top positions in the most important sustainability ranking around the world.
Upstream and downstream Scope 3 decarbonization targets have improved. Scope 1 and 2 market-based emissions have been reduced by 4.4%. Water withdrawal has been reduced by 5.7% compared to last year. Waste production has been reduced by 1.5% compared to last year. There is a boost on innovation that you can quantify by an increase in data computing power per capita, which has been increased by 12%, and data storage capacity per capita, which has been increased by 49%. And the total R&D spending has been increased up to 13% of revenues of the group. Gender equality, with a lot of effort in this direction. 17.7% of female managers increased by 15% in 2023. And 23% women hired with STEM degree, which is a substantial increase compared to the past.
We achieved this year the UNI/PdR 125:2022 gender certification, which is a good accomplishment for sure in aerospace and defense. Finally, 64 of our financial sources are ESG linked, which means that our sustainable finance program is progressing with some success. I conclude just telling you that on March 11, we will discuss the future. The numbers for 2024 are encouraging and promising. We have identified the small problems that we have and we're targeting and finding solutions. We will tell you more in detail how the organic growth has been accomplished. We'll give you a bit more details about the efficiency boost and the solution we are envisaging for Aero structures. I can't say much more now for obvious reasons. There is work on the way.
And then we will dedicate a lot of room to the second part of the program, Pave the Way to the Future, the new initiatives. So details on the program, on new space division, the new line of business in AI and high-performance computing, the international joint ventures about drones, land technologies, sixth-generation fighter. And finally, we will introduce you to our targets and capital allocation strategy, defining the 2025 group guidance. I hope this was not too synthetic, but I think most of the big stuff will come in a couple of weeks. I leave the space, I leave the stage to Alessandra that will give you more details and more explanations and will stay waiting for your questions later. Thank you very much for your attention, guys.
Thank you, Roberto, and good afternoon, everybody.
I'm very pleased to be presenting to you this afternoon our preliminary full year numbers. The 2024 group results are very solid. We continued our stronger commercial and financial performance, especially in our main defense and security businesses, seeing orders coming through at good pace and leading to good growth in order intake. We also continue to deliver off a backlog now at EUR 44 billion, driving volumes and single double-digit top-line growth and operating profit growth, as well as improving free operating cash flow driven by better core business performance and good cash management, also reducing net debt, so we're continuing the positive trends that we have reported to you in November last year.
We saw stronger performance in our defense and security business, and we accelerated our efficiency plans, as you have heard from Roberto, meaning that we are able to offset the external challenges in the B787 program and the space telco segment. And this has enabled us to meet or even exceed our full year group guidance on all our key metrics. So you see this solid performance with group order intake growing 12% to EUR 20.9 billion, better than expected commercial performance across electronics and helicopters, offsetting some postponements in aircraft, and better than expected performance in DRS driven by broad-based customer demand. All of this reflecting good momentum in domestic as well as export markets. And growth in orders is again well balanced with a good spread geographically and across business areas, and without any concentration in any single country or customer and no jumbo orders.
Book-to-bill was 1.2 times. Group revenues increased 11% to EUR 17.8 billion, and we delivered on our solid backlog across the group, increasing volumes also thanks to a more normalized supply chain allowing the ramp-up of our activities and a special boost in DRS reflecting a supportive market in the U.S. and increasing international demand combined with the translation effect. Our EBITDA on this basis is in line with our guidance, EUR 1,452 million, driven by core businesses and acceleration of savings, offsetting external challenges impacting Aero structures and the space telco business. We also show you here the EBITDA at EUR 1,525 million, 1.525, up 12.9% with return on sales of 8.6%, slightly ahead of our EBITDA guidance. This is with the new view we're taking. I'll explain this more in detail later.
Essentially, going forward, we will be using this approach so that we can align the accounting treatment of our joint ventures, strategic joint ventures with the rest of the consolidated entities, and we are now. We will be from this 2024 report onwards coherent in our reporting approach, and as this represents the way we as management look at operating performances throughout the group, both at our joint ventures, strategic joint ventures, as well as our consolidated entities, taking out any volatility experience on non-recurring items. As you have seen, we have also continuously improved our cash flow and reduced net debt. Free operating cash flow was EUR 826 million, up 26%, in line or above our group guidance.
Net debt was down EUR 0.5 billion from EUR 2.3 billion to EUR 1.8 billion on the back of improved free operating cash flow and notwithstanding the fact that we doubled the payment of the dividend in 2024. Now let's move on to the discussion of the single sectors. Helicopters, we saw positive momentum where order intake was EUR 5.9 billion, up 6.4%. Revenues exceeded the EUR 5 billion threshold for the first time and grew 11% to EUR 5.2 billion, with EBITDA up 10% to EUR 465 million and return on sales steady at 8.9%. Order intake continued to be strong in both governmental and civil sectors, in addition to the defense market.
Revenues grew above EUR 5 billion for the first time, mainly driven by the delivery of backlog, which now stands at over EUR 15 billion, with further increased activity on dual-use helicopters, as well as customer support, service, and training.
EBITDA growth reflects higher volumes and also a more normalized supply chain. During 2024, we delivered 191 new helicopters versus 185 last year. So good performance and strong commercial momentum. Next, defense electronics in 2024 showed a standout performance across both Europe and the U.S. through Leonardo DRS. Strong double-digit growth in new orders and revenues and a material step up in profit. As we showed at the half year, the number of these slides for defense electronics had been restated to exclude Cyber & Security Solutions, and also the space line of business now accounted for in the space division. So starting with electronics in Europe, very strong new order intake, EUR 6.6 billion, up 11.8%, book-to-bill of 1.4 times, showing good growth across all domains and leveraging on our key strength in our integration capabilities.
Revenues up 9.4% at EUR 4.8 billion, reflecting mainly the delivery of backlog across segments, and EBITDA growing to EUR 714 million, an increase of 21%, with return on sales stepping up to 14.9% thanks to growing volumes and the good performance of MBDA, which we recall is included within the performance of the sector. Electronics Europe was again a key growth driver for the group with continued good performance. Moving on to DRS, also this company had a very strong year thanks to a broad-based demand both in the U.S. and internationally, with significant increases in new orders, revenues, and profits. Revenues also stepped up 14% to $3.2 billion on the back of delivery of programs and strong execution in key strategic areas such as advanced infrared sensing, force protection, and tactical radars, as well as a more normalized supply chain.
EBITDA grew to $325 million and increased by 19%, with the ROS growing to 10%, reflecting higher volumes. Moving now to Cyber & Security Solutions. You can already see in last year's results, a fast-growing business with new orders of EUR 833 million, up 20%, revenues of EUR 648 million, up 9%, EBITDA EUR 49 million, up 36%, book to bill well above one, and continuing its positive trajectory with increasing volumes and profitability. Order intake growth was mainly driven by domestic markets across the board, while revenue growth reflected the higher order volumes and improved profitability was mainly driven by operational leverage. Moving then to aircraft, here we continue to see good delivery of profit and high margins driven by fighter programs.
Order intake was EUR 2.9 billion, up 21%, and revenues were EUR 2.9 billion, broadly in line with last year if we exclude passive activities and postponement of orders to 2025.
Profitability continued to be very good with EBITDA of EUR 470 million and return on sales of 14.6%. The division continues to be very profitable, anchored on its strong fighters business, both Eurofighter and JSF, with Eurofighter experiencing a renewed boost from additional supplies and upgrades to Italy, Germany, and Spain, and potential export campaigns as well. Turning to Aero structures, over the year, order intake increased and revenues of EUR 746 million were higher as activity increased. Volumes on the B787 were higher in 2023, with 49 fuselages delivered in 2024 versus 39 in the previous year, but still below the rate we would want that to be. The division recorded a loss in 2024 of EUR 151 million, including the effect of ATR. The recent challenges faced by Boeing that have been widely reported had a consequent impact on Aero structure profitability as cash flow.
Specifically on ATR, we saw deliveries of 35 aircraft versus 36 the previous year and a slightly higher contribution. Now moving to space, here we have been putting in place the building blocks of our new focus business division, which we see as a growth area for the future with sizable opportunities for us. We now include the full consolidation of Telespazio plus the space line of business previously accounted for in the electronics division. We saw a good commercial performance in 2024, and in the consolidated perimeter, including Telespazio and the space line, new orders were higher at EUR 957 million. Revenues grew to EUR 906 million, and the performance was solid throughout the business that belongs to the division.
The lower EBITDA of the division as a whole reflects the performance of the telco satellite segment in TAS, which continues to face the same challenges that we have discussed in previous quarters, with some complex development programs in a highly competitive market. As we expected and mentioned in the half-year results, the TAS operating performance impacted materially the division. Importantly, we've continued to make good progress in improving our cash flow generation overall at group level, with solid cash flows across core defense and security businesses and good cash-ins across the group as we delivered on contracts. We accelerated the savings plans, and we had a tighter control and prioritization of investments. All of this mitigated the higher than expected cash absorption in Aero structures.
On the debt side, as I mentioned to you, we continue to be executed on our disciplined financial strategy, and we are fully committed to maintaining investment-grade status while supporting growth and shareholder returns. In 2024, you can see that we recorded strong operating cash flows leading to EUR 500 million of deleveraging, and we reduced gross debt in the two-year timeframe from EUR 3 billion to EUR 1.8 billion, keeping our cost of debt at circa 3%. So that's the operating and financial performance all across the group businesses showing solid results. I mentioned earlier the new approach for joint ventures within EBITDA. Going forward, we will be aligning the accounting treatment of our strategic joint ventures with the rest of the consolidated entities of the group. So it better represents the way we look at operating performance, excluding volatility of non-recurring items.
You can see more details of this adjustment here.
The main effect is the exclusion of extraordinary non-recurring costs and PPA from the proportion of net income of the strategic joint ventures. Going forward, these costs will be recognized among the items accounted for between EBITDA and EBIT, so below the line, as we do for all the other controlled entities. So we're now making a coherent representation of the phenomenon. This change will have no impact on cash flow or on any other KPI. You can see the change here. In 2023, there was 25 million EUR of restructuring, non-recurring, and PPA of the strategic joint ventures, which was included in our EBITDA number. For 2024, these items were exceptionally higher at 73 million EUR, mainly due to the decision to stop the development of the ATR STOL v ersion, plus some additional restructuring in TAS and some non-recurring costs in MBDA and HENSOLDT.
Going forward, we'll be including these costs below the EBITDA line, consistent with what we are doing on the other consolidated businesses. And from 2025 onwards, we expect the level of these costs to normalize at circa EUR 30 million per annum. This new accounting approach for our strategic joint ventures will also upset the consolidation of the underwater business at EBITDA level. Going forward, please note that we will be deconsolidating our underwater activities, accounting for approximately EUR 30 million in terms of EBITDA and free operating cash flows per annum. So to summarize the key points, we have delivered a very strong 2024 set of group results and achieved or exceeded our 2024 targets and guidance. Our preliminary 2024 results demonstrate progress throughout the group.
We saw stronger performance in our core and security businesses, and we accelerated our efficiency plans, meaning that we were able to offset the external challenges in the B787 program and the space telco segment. We are pleased with the commercial momentum in defense and security, and we continue to see good prospects for new order intake. We expect performance this current year to be consistent with the plan we set out last March. While our top line continues to benefit from the easing of supply chain pressures, meaning we expect revenues to be slightly higher this year or almost in line with 2024. On EBITDA, we expect a solid performance across the core defense and security businesses to continue to offset the ongoing impact from the external challenges in Aero structures and space telco.
On Free Operating Cash Flow, we continue to see solid cash generation in progress in line with the plan we set out in March 2024. We will be giving you more detailed 2025 guidance on March 11, 2025, along with the roll forward update of the industrial plan. We have also been making good progress on strategic steps, as you have heard from Roberto, which will be reflected in our future results. Thank you, and we're now happy to take your questions.
Our first question today comes from Alessandro Pozzi from Mediobanca. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hi there. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two. The first one is, well, I'd like to try to ask one about Aero structures. In your opening remarks, you mentioned that you have ongoing negotiations.
Without naming names, though, I was wondering whether the plan is the same as the one you announced in Q3 and in the carve-out of the divisions, or is it planned to have maybe multiple partners involved in different programs to diversify away from the 787? And also, on this point, I was wondering whether you have received the new delivery schedule from Boeing on the 787. And the second question is more broader. I think Munich has been a bit of another wake-up call for Europe. Probably the European Commission is activating the escape clause, which could see much higher defense budgets in the coming years. And I was wondering how fast this could translate into order intake for Leonardo. Italy, for example, as well, is also thinking about anticipating the 2% target of defense spending versus GDP.
I was wondering, compared to a year ago, I guess the outlook is substantially different. I wanted to maybe have your thoughts on how fast this could translate into order intake for Leonardo. Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you for the question. Concerning Aerostructure, please allow me not to give details. I mean, last quarter, third quarter of last year, I was very clear about the strategy. Now, we keep the promise. We have identified a potential co-investor that is involved in aerospace and defense. There is a very tight negotiation ongoing. So this is, unfortunately, I cannot disclose more, but we are fully committed, and I hope I can disclose very soon how things are developing. If I may, I mean, you can stay on what I said on the third quarter. I was very clear, and we are working in that direction.
This is a state right now. We are talking something that is in progress in these hours and in these days. I hope you understand. I can't do more. I can't say more at the moment. Concerning your second question. Excuse me?
Yeah, that's okay. Fair enough.
Okay. Thank you very much. Yeah. Concerning my second question, your second question, the good news seems that there was a wake-up call, as you said, because of the geopolitical situation, what Trump is doing with Russia, the role of China, and actually the actual embarrassment of the European institutions. I think the good part of this is that it seems clear that Europe now has to increase the spending in defense, very likely reaching or passing 2%.
This is not only a need because Russia is a threat at the border of Europe, but also because if you want to be a stronger leg in the NATO alliance, in the Atlantic alliance, we need to be stronger, more reliable partners of the NATO team. With this in mind, I'd like to tell you that Italy, for sure, will be increasing the defense expenditure, especially because now Europe seems to have accepted the idea that the extra investment in defense will not be included into the Stability Act. So it will not be a part of the national debt, national deficit, yearly deficit. So this means that there is much more freedom. There are more degrees of freedom to invest in defense. This is not only Italy. It's the entire Europe, basically. So you can imagine a rather massive investment from different countries in Europe in defense.
With such a scenario, you have to consider that Leonardo is quite a big operator. We absorb large parts of the procurement and of the investment in defense in the country, but we're also very competitive at the European level. So not limiting Leonardo at the domestic market, but considering Leonardo as a European entity, the higher will be the investment at the European level. And of course, the higher will be the possibility for Leonardo to grow fast. Now, concerning the time for order to revenues return, which is basically what you said, I think this depends very much on the kind of procurement and the kind of orders we are dealing with. I mean, platforms such as main battle tanks or infantry vehicles, aircraft might take two, three years for delivery at the moment.
Other technologies such as sensors, radars, light weapons, satellite services might be much faster in terms of return after the order. So I think as long as there is more action, more activity, more availability of funds Europe-wise, we're going to have a very favorable and positive situation. With this in mind, which is favorable for Leonardo as a group, I'd like to point out that I think you've seen this by my travel agenda. This is in the press very often. We are widening our geographical footprint. We are opening discussions with Saudi Arabia, with the Emirates. I'm back from the Emirates. Last night, I was traveling back from Emirates. We have a domestic market in the U.S. that is full of perspective.
I think we are expanding our geographical footprint, and this is exactly what we need to increase the export capability of Leonardo, especially now that we are very competitive on a number of products, and we are very competitive on the application of digital technologies, AI, swarm intelligence on the multi-domain. So I believe this is a very promising landscape for Leonardo.
Okay. Just a follow-up on the Aero structure. Did you receive a new updated plan for the 787 delivery in 2025?
Yes, of course. The roadmap of the 787 delivery plan has been very difficult over the last 10 months. We had a number of revisitations with Boeing, but then the delivery pace was reduced several times. There was a renegotiation on the price. But of course, this depends on how many shipments you do every month.
Right now, the rate is very low, much lower than expected by this time of the year. But of course, it does not depend on us. It depends on the situation of Boeing. So we are actually continuing our delivery, but the delivery is quite low at the moment. The repricing has been agreed, but this is not enough. I mean, the problem is getting more substantial than shipment and pricing at the stage. It's getting much bigger.
Okay. Thank you.
A ll right. Thank you.
Let's take a few questions from the web, putting together some of them around defense spending. Jeff from Blue Grotto Capital is asking whether we have already begun to see an acceleration in orders from EU countries given plans to increase defense spending as a percentage of GDP.
Andrea from Banca Akros is asking, do you think that the defense industry and also its supply chain are ready to face a so huge increase in military spending, or new plans have to be opened and the production increase will be more gradual?
So can you say that again, the first one that I missed?
Is whether we've got an acceleration in orders from other countries.
Okay. No, we don't see yet an acceleration of orders in the EU, primarily because the EU is now trying to find a strategy to face the complex geopolitical scenario, but notwithstanding this, I believe that Europe soon will grow the demand. I mean, of course, you've seen many countries, especially those at the border with Russia, are very worried.
We heard about, well, I mean, okay, without entering the details, but we know that some of the border countries are rushing to increase their investment because they want to have a solid army and solid defense system because they're afraid of a possible invasion by the Russians. This is the case of, for instance, the northern countries in northern Europe. So this is serious, I mean. Concerning the second question. The second question is the production increase. The production increase and supply chain pressure. Well, I mean, obviously, should the volume increase by a factor of three, four, obviously, we will need to have more production capability, and not necessarily this means investing on new plants.
In most cases, this means making joint ventures and industrial alliances not only within Europe, but also outside Europe, because there is a lot of production capability in other countries that, I mean, they have the capability to produce, but they don't have basically the orders. So alliances among industries in different countries can help this. The supply chain is recovering after the terrible period of COVID. Part of the supply chain is doing much better now. Once again, it depends now whether the increase in orders will be a factor 10 in one year or it will be doubling in two years. We will see by acting over the next months. I think Leonardo is ready to increase the production rate because of the massive digitalization, the efficiency in the production, but we're also ready to invest in something new if needed.
Of course, it has to be a long-term strategy for investing in new productions. I think our numbers at the moment, our financial capability allows us to have limited but well-designed investments for enhancing our capability in production.
Thank you. Question from Ian at UBS and then from Christophe Menard at Deutsche Bank. The first one is, great to hear progress is being made on 787 partner. Have you signed an agreement or are you in advanced discussion currently? And then.
Yeah.
What is the implication of the first phase of 787 fuselage repricing, and can you update us on the progress made on potential acquisitions?
No, guys. I mean, I'm really in a condition that I cannot disclose details on the Aero structures because we are discussing seriously what to do next.
I beg you to be patient for a few days because I'm not talking about something we're going to disclose in three months. We're working in these days to see whether there is the possibility to get a long-term agreement for something which is industrially very serious. If not, of course, we will go back to the simple negotiation of shipment and the single components pricing, but I wouldn't be satisfied because I think we need a new industrial view of the Aero structure problem, and this is what we are working to at the moment. Please stay tuned. You don't have to wait very much, hopefully.
Okay. Another question from UBS. Ian, can you give us any high-level comment on the conversation you had with the Ministry of Finance in November? You mentioned this on the Q3 call as being important on the capital return potential.
Yeah. I mean, we have maximum support with our main shareholder. Of course, what I told simply was that we were struggling to make our best effort to have good financial KPIs by the end of the year. I think we accomplished them. We have a good free operating cash flow, good cash flow at the end of the year. We have now, you will see in the revisited, in the updated plan, a well-focused capital allocation scheme. Of course, I have to discuss this with our main shareholders. We got all the support for that. We had all the support in boosting our international joint ventures. I think our main shareholders, which the MEF was extremely supportive, extremely supportive, 100% supportive without any attempt of control.
I mean, they just wanted to see which was the strategy we were going, and we got actually all the support for that. And I think the numbers we have presented today are very good to start immediately with the new year, a smart capital allocation with selected investment for the future growth, a solid, long-standing growth in new areas that are crucial for the multi-domain interoperability picture vision that the industrial plan presented last year. We are really on the track.
Let's take a question on the call. Our next question comes from Ross Law from Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hi everyone. Thanks so much for taking my questions. Two pieces. The first is on Defense Electronics Europe and the margin at 14.9%.
I realize there's a bit of an element of distortion due to the new EBITDA definition, but it is very strong. It's well ahead of your medium-term guidance set at last year's industrial plan. So the question is, is this sustainable at around 15%? And the second question is just on the update to the industrial plan on the 11th of March, when you're going to present your targets. Will these bake in an assumption that Europe spends above the 2% of GDP on defense, or will it simply reflect progress that you've made over the past year in terms of order book efficiencies and so on? Thanks.
Okay. So I will give you a short answer to the first one, then I give the stage to Alessandra, and then we'll be back to the 2% and to the financial forecast with or without 2% in investment.
I definitely believe that our electronic effort is sustainable. This is the easiest area where we can increase production. It does not need massive CapEx investment for production. By the way, we are investing in a new foundry because for some specific electronic components, we want to be completely independent. Small numbers, high-end components that we better fabricate on our own rather than purchasing from other countries. So yeah, I'm optimistic in this respect, very optimistic, and we have also collaborations throughout Europe that can help, but I don't think we will have a bottleneck for electronics. So those numbers are sustainable. I give the stage forward to Alessandra whether she wants to add something about that, and then I go back to your second question.
Yes. I completely support what Roberto said on the potential defense electronics.
Just a technical qualifier, as I said in my original remarks, the margin of defense electronics Europe includes the results of MBDA. So there is a comparison that you have to make apple to apple, which is between the number that we have shown last year and the industrial result presentation, which has only the defense electronics Europe division, and in the annual report on March 11, you will have the breakdown of the individual component, what is the contribution of MBDA as well as HENSOLDT within the sector performance, so that margin is reflecting on both MBDA and HENSOLDT.
Okay. I go back to your second question, so first of all, everything has been done. All our financial forecasts for the updated plan are done under the existing conditions, so we're not having any doping in the forecast.
So, present conditions, just our portfolio of orders, just the new joint venture that I will explain in detail with their forecast in terms of orders, revenues, cash generation, margins, and so on and so forth. This is without any favorable assumption. On top of that, I would like to mention that everything you've seen today did not include, of course, did not include any inorganic growth. And we will show you next week not only the data of the organic growth, so what we would have accomplished anyway. And then on top of that, we will add the inorganic growth that comes from the new joint ventures, the forecast, financial forecast, joint ventures, and new initiatives. So it will be very easy to distinguish what is new and what is just incremental to the legacy production.
With this in mind, should any increase in the GDP in the defense investment happen over the next six months, of course, I expect numbers to increase. But this is not included because we will give you the bear case; we will present the bear case clean data that are with the present geopolitical situation.
Great. Very clear. Thank you both.
Good. Thank you.
Our next question comes from Martino De Ambroggi from EQUITA. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good evening, everybody. The first question refers to one of your last statements concerning inorganic growth because in the press release, you mentioned that bolt-on acquisitions are delayed, not specified. So my question is, is it due to valuation reasons considering the sector environment, or are you looking to larger acquisitions rather than the small bolt-on acquisitions that you indicated in the business plan?
Another question on this is, could you eventually use paper considering current prices and maybe also considering asset swaps, referring to other divestitures in size considering the underwater system like or something similar?
So yeah, thank you. Let me tell you in short, when we were last year proposing, let's say, a disciplined capital allocation strategy, we said, "We're going to have a merging acquisition, very prudent, keeping the size of the possible acquisition below the 15%-20% of the turnover of the division that is making the purchase." Okay. So in general, if I have a division that has a turnover of EUR 1 million, I don't want to have that division to make an acquisition for another company that is half the turnover. It should be within EUR 100,000 to EUR 150,000. That was just for mere prudence to have everything under control.
Then, of course, joint ventures, those are much bigger. Normally, they don't need money. It's just an industrial joint venture based on a very clear board share like Rheinmetall, like the others you will see. So that's a different story. Now, during this year, we had the M&A team working on more than 20 due diligences in, let's say, small, medium enterprises, primarily in cybersecurity space and some managed technologies. Now, to give you an idea, the cybersecurity division this year has turnover of approximately less than EUR 1 billion. So the size should have been typically EUR 100 million. Sorry. Space is also below EUR 1 billion at the moment. So the size of the acquisition, the range should be around EUR 100 million to EUR 150 million, not more. You understand that that was a basic constraint to be disciplined in the allocation of our capital.
We made 20 due diligences. We made eight non-binding offers. Three were lost because the competitors were offering more. Five are still ongoing, and of course, 12 were stopped. The due diligence was not favorable. We're not evaluated as interesting opportunities. Now, let's see what happens with the five ongoing non-binding offers, but of course, I have to say that in the meantime, our financial capability has been growing a little bit. The size of the division has been growing, so we have more flexibility to buy something bigger, so I think for the next year, we could be more flexible. We have less stringent constraints, stringent requirements, so we could be even more brave. It could be stronger in the action and then maybe trying to buy something which is bigger, more expensive, but we have to see what happens with the five non-binding offers that are presently ongoing.
To be honest, it was a hell of work for the 20 due diligences. We expected this to be easier. But when you go on such a fragmented market with many small companies, it gets very difficult to make the analysis and to decide what is good and what is not good. So that was a lesson learned. We can be more ambitious looking at something slightly bigger, maybe. But we have also learned a lot about this comparative analysis with more companies in the specific domain of cybersecurity space. So I believe very soon you will see something happening also for M&A of small companies.
Okay. So no need to divest assets for these kinds of acquisitions.
Yeah. No, for sure. I can say that I see very hard at the moment to exchange paper, even shares. I don't think this is something we can do at the moment.
We have enough capital to do what we need for the time being. Then we will see in the future. Okay?
Okay. Thank you. And if I may just on the jumbo order for armored vehicles for the Italian Army. Mr. Mariani mentioned that the signature and the process is accelerating. So just to understand first if it was already in which way was already included in the previous business plan, if it was included, and what are the timespan?
As we said many times, there was no inorganic inclusion into the financial forecast last year. Now, the point is what Mariani said is that we are now converging towards the identification of the requirements of the army, specific requirements based on which the bid will be the tender will be launched. We have constituted the joint venture.
We're looking forward to receiving what's called the security allowance for the company to purchase for a foreign company to purchase military equipment. In the meantime, we have made a temporary; it's called RTI. It's a temporary group of companies that acts on behalf of the joint venture because this temporary group of companies has the certification for the security. We believe that the deal will start in the next few weeks because the army is accelerating. There is a lot of urgency in that. For your information, one machine has been already delivered to the army because they're already practicing on one of the infantry vehicles. So the time is very short. I mean, it's not a matter of months. It's a matter of weeks.
Okay. Thank you.
Welcome.
This was the final question. So thank you for your time today.
As usual, the IR team is available for follow-ups, of course, all related to full year 2024 preliminary results. Let me remind you that the plan will be presented on the 11th of March, including the full year 2025 guidance.
Thank you, guys.
Thank you. Bye-bye.