Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the update of Leonardo's Industrial Plan. I'm Valeria Ricciotti, Head of Investor Relations and Credit Rating Agencies. Today, our CEO, Roberto Cingolani, will update you on the key initiatives and progress for strengthening our core business areas, plus the new initiatives that are paving the way to the future. The presentation is planned to last approximately one hour, then our CEO, together with our CFO, Alessandra Genco, will welcome your questions. Please note that we'll take questions from both the conference call as well as from the web. The supporting slide presentation is available for download by registering to the webcast, and all the Industrial Plan update materials are available on our website under the Investor Relations section.
Please note that throughout the presentation, we will be making forward-looking statements, so I invite you to refer to our Safe Harbor statement. Now, I will hand you over to our CEO, Roberto Cingolani.
Thank you, Valeria. Hello, everybody, and welcome to the update of the Industrial Plan. It's one year after the presentation of the plan. There's a lot new. We had good news with the business and also a big change in the geopolitical scenario. Today, we'll try to tell you what's going to be the future of Leonardo over the next five years. First of all, let me recap the data of 2024 and the original idea underlying the Industrial Plan. Our 2024 financial KPIs are shown here. The orders have been increasing by 12% from EUR 18.7 billion to EUR 20.9 billion. Revenues have been increasing by 11% from EUR 16 billion to EUR 17.8 billion. EBITDA has been growing from EUR 1.35 billion to EUR 1.52 billion, with a growth of 13%. Return on sales has been increasing from 8.5% to 8.6%.
The free operating cash flow has been growing from EUR 0.65 billion to EUR 0.83 billion, with a remarkable growth of 27%. Recap of the Industrial Plan. I mean, the vision, you remember, is very simple. We are going to develop a multi-domain interoperability that essentially puts together our legacy platforms: aircraft, helicopters, electronics, maritime technologies, with new technologies in the area of cybersecurity, space, high-performance computing, and cloud computing. There is a twofold strategy under the plan. The first one is bridging the transition from defense to global security that you see here. The second one, Leonardo wants to act as a catalyst for the new European defense space. Now, the two pillars of this vision are strengthening the core business. We have to make sure that our traditional products, our aircraft, nanotechnologies, and land technologies, electronics, continue to be competitive and are continuously improved.
In the meantime, this means rationalization of our product portfolio, boosting our efficiency plan throughout the company and the corporate, and increasing the capability in digitalization across all our businesses. The second pillar of the strategy is paved the way to the broader challenge of security, global security. This means inorganic growth, new technologies in emerging markets, creation of global alliances, and particularly cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, space technology integration in our platform. Overall, this is the picture that you remember from last year. Let's see how we go for the implementation of the vision. I'm sure you remember we were separating the organic growth, so R&D, innovation, and new product introduction, digitalization, and servitization, so increasing the capability to have digital services associated to our platforms. Efficiency boost was based on group-wide efficiency and corporate cost reduction, business and product focus rationalization. That was very important.
You remember we quit some off-core business last year, and optimization of operations. Now, this list that you see here is a list of accomplishments in green and ongoing activities that I do not have the time to comment, but you find those things in your slides, so I am sure you can see them later. The last important point for the implementation of the plan is the inorganic growth term. This means for us primarily creating global alliances and accelerating merger and acquisition in emerging technologies and emerging markets. You have seen the new space division establishment. I will introduce you for the next years the new joint venture with Baykar on unmanned systems, the Leonardo Rheinmetall military vehicle joint venture, which has been established, the signed agreement for the JV on the GCAP.
There are a number of other activities that I will describe to you later in the course of the presentation. Let's see the first part. How do we strengthen the core business of the company? Digitalization, efficiency plan, and then a focus on Aerostructures. We start with digitalization. To simplify, the digital continuum that we created in the company has been exploited in artificial intelligence and advanced simulation capability. This basically means extending the digital twin technology to most of our platform. We started with helicopters, but we are now extending those technologies to all other platforms. Integrated business solutions means creating a digital backbone in the enterprise. We have now planning and control based on digital technologies. We are trying to make the entire administration sector digitally based with advanced AI capabilities. The third area is the factory of the future.
Factory of the future means smart manufacturing for product and process digitalization. This improves efficiency and flexibility in production. It's a long way. It's nothing you do in a few months, but we start seeing some interesting and encouraging results. Integrated digital simulation. We will see later on the GCAP, the ISANKE, and the ICS, the integrated communication systems, and the non-kinetic effect integrated into the sixth-generation machine, the digital continuity and the simulation for aircraft and helicopters, which has been now routinely used in all our productions. Another important action in the digitalization process has to do with the AI in defense operation. This is the core of the dynamic cross-domain command and control to enhance the digital asset interoperability, which will be transversal to all our products. Finally, increasing the number and the quality of services, which normally have a larger margin.
Of course, they enrich the business offer of Leonardo, which is no longer only hardware, but it's also hardware plus software, so platforms plus services. Concerning the efficiency plan, we have interesting news. You remember we had a plan for EUR 1.8 billion savings over the five years of the plan. The first year, we accomplished a bit more than expected, EUR 191 million. That was an encouraging result. Approximately EUR 125 million are coming from efficiency in the procurement, EUR 15 million are coming from efficiency in the corporate expenditure, EUR 23 million from travels, and EUR 28 million from business disposals. Now, this means that this year we were a bit faster. We have a wallet for next year. We don't plan to increase this number. This has been evaluated to make efficiency, but letting the grow continue because we are growing.
Just as an example, I want to give you a focus on the procurement savings. You see, this is a very exemplifying plot. Can you go full screen, please, guys? Thank you. You see here in the picture that we have the expected curve for inflation, which was this one. We were supposed in the last year to operate at average inflation in the range of 5.4%. Then, due to the long-term agreement negotiations done by our procurement organization, we could expect somehow better performances, like having approximately 4.5% inflation. We started the efficiency plan, the saving cost plan that was very strong, very rigid. This is actually the effect. You see that the forecast was to go down in average cost, like if the inflation were 3.3%. The green line now is the actual result of the year.
As you can see, we accomplished the results that we expected with the saving plan. So far, our saving plan essentially is equivalent to an average inflation rate of 2.9% on average on our expenditure. That is encouraging. We plan to continue this way, working on long-term agreement, putting very stringent budget targets to our divisions and people, and controlling the expenditure in a very rigorous way. Now, let's go to the possibly most important part of the efficiency and, let's say, organic growth of the company, the Aerostructures. Aerostructures is a topic of top priority in my agenda. It has a direct impact on optimizing our business organic structure and the financial performance of the company. This issue has never been addressed in a strong way, in a very committed way over the last years.
I think now we have something really new that we can present to you quickly. We made a due diligence. We started in September 2024. We made a due diligence in order to see what was the picture, the real picture, the actual picture of Aerostructures in 2024, and trying to find, to select a group of international investors or industrial partners that could be involved in the aerospace sector and could participate in a joint venture with us to create a new champion. Now, the working group included the strategy and innovation, the Aerostructures division management, the HR group, the finance group, and two international advisors, particularly it was Bain and JP Morgan. We have been working very hard. We started the internal due diligence with this dedicated task force. We screened a number of potential partners. We have identified several of those that are interesting.
We have been advancing the discussion with the most promising partner. Now, detailed analysis of commercial industrial synergies are ongoing. Co-development of joint industrial plan and implementation roadmap is ongoing. We actually launched a multi-generic industrial plan, which is based on business diversification into new programs, revision, makeup, make or buy policy, and industrial setup, enhancement of the industrial efficiency, and supply chain restructuring. Those are the key pillars of the action. As you can see, we are creating a strategic partnership for Aerostructures. We want to create a global champion in the Aerostructures sector. We want to pursue all commercial and operational synergies unlocked by partnership to ensure a solid and sustainable business. Now, which are the partner selection criteria? Volumes have to increase in the civil sector enabled by the partner levers. Expansion in the military sector must be possible. Business must be diversified.
For instance, MRO for civil and military fleets. Investment sharing to support industry and plan implementation. Enhance cost efficiency by leveraging combined industrial capabilities. Additional industrial synergies, such as privilege access, cost for strategic materials, better supply chain distributed in country with lower cost, and so on. Now, as you can see, we have assembled a high-caliber team that includes both Leonardo personnel and top external advisors who've been working for this for quite a while. We have a clear strategy to build a global player, which necessarily involves a partnership that we have already identified. Our timeline is well-defined with specific milestones. Now, we need time to execute the program. I will provide timely updates at every key milestone during the future quarter's reviews. For today, my disclosures are strictly limited to what has been stated and presented.
In full compliance with the confidentiality agreements, we have signed an intent to fully respect this confidentiality. We are strongly committed. By the end of the year, I'm sure we will give you a very clear picture for the solution, the definitive solution of the Aerostructures division. Let me go now to the second part of the agenda, which deals with paving the way to the future, which are the new initiatives that are supporting the consolidation of the core business, that is the organic growth, if you want, of the company that I've quickly summarized so far.
First of all, I will tell you more details about the new space division, then the joint venture on unmanned system with Baykar, the joint venture with Rheinmetall, the status, the joint venture with GCAP, and the establishment of a new line of business that we named Leonardo Hypercomputing Continuum that you will see in a few minutes. Let's start with the paved way to the future, the strategy, which is shown here. You remember, because this was already mentioned in some of the previous meetings, in the picture of the multi-domain, the new things were the sixth-generation fighter, the unmanned systems for the sky domain. We have the land domain where there are the new initiatives for main battle tanks and infantry vehicles, the naval combat system for the sea domain, and then the new space division for the space domain.
In the middle of that, we have the digital space of high-performance computing and cloud, where we develop the HPC facilities in the combat cloud, and in the cyberspace, the cybersecurity by design strategy. Now, to show you what this means, this is what happens in the last year, basically. A number of international initiatives have been launched, and the joint ventures have been created with important partners. Concerning the sky domain, the sixth-generation fighter, the GCAP joint venture, has been launched, and it's up and running now. It's accomplished, green mark, together with BAE Systems and Mitsubishi. I will give you an update in a few minutes. There is a news about the unmanned systems. We have launched a new joint venture with Baykar, which is the first drone producer in the world. You will see this in short time, in a few minutes again.
About the high-performance computing and digitalization domain, we have launched the Leonardo Hypercomputing Continuum, the line of business that you will see is dedicated to sell products that are related to AI and high-performance computing. The combat cloud, we are working on combat cloud, having launched the multi-domain innovation app in the electronic division together with the main army and with the Chief Commander of the army, because we need to develop the requisites of the multi-domain together with the army of Italy. Now, concerning the land defense, the Leonardo Rheinmetall military vehicle joint venture is up and running, and you will see the update in a few minutes. The Orizzonte Sistemi Navali, which is the joint venture between Leonardo and Fincantieri, in which we provide weaponization and command and control and electronics to the ships, has been reestablished, and it's working right now at full regime.
In the cyberspace, we have a campaign of a merging acquisition that I will show you in a bit. Finally, in the space domain, we have the launch of the new space division. I will show you the program for the creation of the Leonardo Constellation of low-orbit satellites for Earth observation, and a few news with our colleagues in Thales for the Space Alliance related to the end-to-end satellite services. This is what happened in one year since we introduced the industrial plan for the multi-domain interoperability, having a clear idea that we have to develop this vision, as I described at the very beginning. For doing this, we need strong alliances because no one can make it on its own.
I think the history of the recent year, of the recent months, is really confirming that we need alliances, we need synergies, industrial synergies, because apparently the geopolitical situation is very complex, and this is a way to accelerate development and to make the continent much safer than in the past. Now, let's see, first of all, the new space division. The Leonardo space division intends to catalyze the group capabilities and to offer end-to-end solutions. The space market is growing at 7% CAGR by 2030. There are untapped opportunities that are based on the use of advanced digital analytics, new business models, and new satellite services.
On top of that, there is a very promising military and governmental end-to-end solution market that is expected to generate considerable momentum in the space business for defense and intelligence, as well as in the multi-domain environment, which is the strategy underlying the plan. Finally, with our colleagues in Thales, we are now studying how we can capture those new opportunities because the market is really important. We are now discussing how to upgrade what we did in the last 20 years, the Space Alliance, in a sort of Space Alliance 2.0, because the market is growing, the needs and the requests and the demands are different, and we want to be ready to intercept most of those needs in the years to come.
One thing that we are planning to do with our own investment, you will see in the capital allocation section at the end, I want to launch our Leonardo Constellation, which is a low-orbit constellation. It consists of approximately 18 military LEO satellites that are primarily funded by the Ministry of Defense, supposed to be a dozen of standard satellites plus six infrared satellites with infrared vision capability, a budget ranging in the range of EUR 900 million, of which EUR 508 million are already allocated by the Ministry of Defense, + 20 civil low-orbit satellites for civil application, primarily in Earth observation, geolocalization, and services related to monitoring. This is going to be something in the range of EUR 450 million in three years that comes from our successful fuel print cash flow availability and from our capital allocation, but I will be more precise in a minute.
Of course, I have to acknowledge the fact that our smart factory for satellite construction in the Space Alliance frame will be up and running in July 2025 with the capability of producing two satellites per week nominal. That really gives a big impulse to our technology capability. Launches are expected in the window between 2027 and 2028. We are going to work on those things in a short time. The strategic rationale for this idea is, first of all, our strategic positioning as a European leading space player and key contribution to national security. We plan to have full control of data policy, so we are not limited by specific time slots or span windows.
Of course, in conjunction with our ground services, AI services, and all the technology we develop in the Space Alliance, this enables all of us to provide an end-to-end solution to any kind of customer in the export market, as well as in the G2G prospects. We can develop distinct space as a service or satellite as a service offers, and we can leverage on public and private partnership. This is very important because there is an increasing demand for end-to-end satellite services all around the world in many different fields, from climatology to agriculture to observation, infrastructure monitoring, and of course, security and military applications. This is something that is unique in Leonardo because we can offer from the satellite to the AI, to the cybersecure transmission of data, to the analysis, the imagery construction.
This kind of end-to-end service will be one of the most important drivers of the space economy over the next 10 years. We created, therefore, a space backbone architecture. We can integrate all the space layers with sensor capabilities that we have in the company. This is fundamental for multi-domain integration across all segments: Earth observation, connectivity. These solutions are coming also from other divisions of Leonardo. Of course, it means that we can really integrate the technology offered of Leonardo in different fields in view of the multi-domain integration. Leonardo earth observation satellite constellation is pictorially represented here. You see there are optical satellites, satellites with RF antennas, edge computing capabilities. The entire span of technology will be integrated in those technologies. I'd like to remind you that we have the ground segment center that is already available and up and running.
We can benefit from our capability in AI development and Leonardo data lakes. Of course, we can also benefit from our capability in cybersecurity. One thing really new that we want to try, and this we believe for the future is very important, is to introduce cloud computing capabilities. Putting in orbit storage and computational capability, which means developing new HPC nodes in the satellite, new storage server in the satellites. Of course, all our satellites will be provided with a link for inter-satellite communication. This is not going to be a small constellation isolated, but will be interacting and interconnected to any other constellation that could collaborate with us.
The launch schedule, as I told you before, is supposed to be—we are watching on the windows—could be in the 2027 ground delivery, and then the first launch, you see, and the second one, ground delivery and launch in the mid-2028. Now, to give you an idea, we evaluate the upside because of this investment in the range of EUR 1.3 billion over the budget plan. Of course, you have to consider that we are creating the future. We are building the future of the company. We should now watch only at the next four years. For the budget plan, this is the upside we expect. I will show you some longer-range forecast, but this is a remarkable number already. Concerning the second joint venture that I mentioned before, this is a brand new thing.
We signed the agreement just a few days ago after five months of very intensive work. It's a joint venture between Leonardo and Baykar. Baykar is the first producer of drones in the world at the moment. Basically, what Leonardo is contributing: cutting-edge electronic systems, integration of payloads and effectors, swarming, and everything dealing with the control capability in the drones. Of course, the fact that some of that technology will be developed in Italy, this simplifies EU certification. On the other hand, Baykar is designing and developing advanced UAV platforms, any payload, any size, different performances. They have an extensive portfolio offering all relevant UAV segments, and they have advanced in the efficiency manufacturing process and capability that basically let us start the job immediately.
We are already collaborating since a few years with Baykar because we are integrating some of our sensors in some of their drones, but this becomes something bigger. It becomes a consolidated structure in which we expect the import-export market to be quite big. At the moment, as you know, Baykar has delivered more than 700 UAV in recent times with approximately EUR 2 billion revenues in 2024. This gives you a clear picture of what we do. Actually, the first column has to do with the first row has to do with the payloads. We're going to develop an immense amount of payloads for different drones. So the compilation of electronics you can find here, this is due to the capability of our electronic division to produce all those devices, all those electronic devices and sensors.
The second, so integration of payloads done by Leonardo with the UAV platform done by Baykar. The second pillar of the agreement has to do with the integration and creation of mission. We call missionization. I'm even not sure this is the right wording, but anyway. Mission system development according to the request of the customer and payload integration, interoperability for multi-domain operation, navigation in environments where there is no GPS signal. Basically, autonomous swarm drones that can find, they can locate themselves on the trajectory, on the pathway in the absence of GPS signal, and advanced capability in swarming motion. This has to do, of course, with the use of AI and related technologies for controlling the swarm motion of big groups of drones. The third pillar of the collaboration is certification. As I said, some of the integrated production could also be moved in Italy.
Therefore, within the EU and NATO certification, we can exploit our approval capabilities. We can, of course, reinforce production organization, design organization approval, and system capability for detection and avoidance. All those things will accelerate both Leonardo in the market of UAV. I just want to remind you that Leonardo was not effective in the UAV market so far, and this is a way to accelerate, to close the gap, basically. Also for Baykar, it's a win-win situation because the integration of all our payloads really helps a lot in terms of more competitive machine to be exported on a broader market. To give you an idea, there are different classes of drones that Baykar is producing. As you can see, there are different applications for actually monitoring, electronic warfare, strike systems.
All those drones produced by Baykar have now identified the correct payload from Leonardo for the integration. We expect this market to generate an upside of approximately, this is the initiative, an upside of approximately EUR 0.6 billion over the budget plan. This is just the beginning of a curve that is going to grow, of course, because we know the demand is extremely high and is a growing demand. The integration of all our electronics and with the different platforms of Baykar at the moment could represent the widest offer on the market for the years to come. Let me go now to the third joint venture, the one with Rheinmetall that has been finalized not a long time ago. You remember the last quarter I mentioned you. You know the story. I'm not wasting so much of your time for the description.
This is a 50/50 joint venture in which we have to develop new multi-domain main battle tanks based on the Panther platform and new armored infantry combat system based on the Lynx platform. You remember because we already discussed how we can take mutual benefit by the collaboration with Leonardo and Rheinmetall. We leverage on Leonardo's extensive capability in mission systems, electronic suites, and weapons integration, pretty much like we did with the drones, but in this case on land defense systems. Now, the good news is that the company's Chairman, Executive Chairman David Hoeder, those are two young, very talented guys, very committed. The governance of the company is very agile, and the company is now working. We already delivered one machine that was already delivered to the Italian army. And one you see here. So in red is the infantry vehicle, more than 1,000 units.
In gray is the main battle tanks, approximately 20 units-70 units. The delivery profile is the one you see here. We expect for multi-domain and will be state of the art in any respect. For the joint venture for GCAP, you already know a lot here because we informed you in the previous meetings. For the time being, it's important to know. Future intelligence-assisted decision-making, digital twin native, integrated in combat cloud, and cyber attack resilient by design. Those are things that will be the challenges in the development. GCAP will drive the evolution of the combat systems in the next decade. You understand leveraging on GCAP to generate strong progress in autonomous systems. Development of AI-assisted decision-making capabilities, flight system integration, crewed and crewed interaction. That's a very important thing. It has to do, of course, with.
About one-third is from the Italian Ministry of Defense. The expectation is to sell approximately 300 platforms, 300 aircraft when the demonstrators will be tested and approved. Now, fifth, they want to develop their own dedicated AI routines. They don't want to go to the hyperscalers, primarily for security, but also because they want to have the control of their own infrastructure. This is true in the public as well as in the private. In recent years, we have based predictive analytics to anticipate trends, but also to anticipate maintenance and services. Finally, we developed specific algorithms for space applications. This is what we did so far. Now, let's see what the, and get everything in a black box, and you want to really understand what you need, what you do, that's the way to offer on-premise HPC design and setup. Second, high-performance computing operational management.
This means system management, production management, and support. It's crucial. Solution. The high-level support on HPC technology, code development, and other service application in identification, deployment of the technologies, HPC competencies, and training of internal teams. Now, why this is important. Technology, AI-based technologies. This is actually a true market analysis we did because of the experience we had over the last few years. We evaluated the upside of this initiative, this new line of business that will be very likely integrated into the cyber. Let me summarize now what is the upside. Because as I told you before, the consolidation of the core business was successful, was clear, but was relatively incremental, but inertial. Now we're talking about the upside that we expect by. In red, the hyperscale, the hypercomputing facility.
Just for your understanding, the GCAP has been already introduced into the organic part because it was launched before, and it's already introduced in the growth plan of. Upside we expect in terms of order and revenues due to the inorganic activities that was launched this year. It's one year of work with a specific strategy in terms of improving our capability to deliver on the multi-domain interoperability. Now, to be honest, this is actually what follows the commercial profile of the GCAP, the commercial profile of the Rheinmetall, the land defense systems, the commercial profile of the demand of the UAV. We expect this to be a very solid order, EUR 17.8 billion revenues, EUR 1.5 billion EBITDA, EUR 0.83 billion free operating cash flow. In 2029, this is what we expect only due to the organic growth.
We expect the orders to grow up to EUR 24.4 billion, revenues EUR 22.6 billion, EBITDA EUR 2.6 billion, the return on sales double-digit at 11.7%, and the free operating cash flow EUR 1.44 billion. If you compare 2029 to 2024, the growth is remarkable. It is in the range of 17% for the orders, 27% revenues, 73% EBITDA, 3.1% ROS, and the free operating cash flow growing 73%. Now, this is only the organic part without the upside that I have shown you before. The upside that we have shown before, that I have shown before, is a conservative upside. It is only based on what we have now in our hands. If we include the upside that I have shown you before, we go to those numbers: EUR 26.2 billion orders, EUR 24 billion revenues, EUR 2.8 billion EBITDA, ROS 11.8%, free operating cash flow EUR 1.53 billion. This is our expectation, and this is the upside that I mentioned to you before.
I like to say conservative because this does not make any assumption on future expansion in terms of export and other things. It is just based on what we have now in our portfolio. Let's see, therefore, how we can represent the entire evolution. Those are the orders for the entire group from 2023 when we started to 2029. In green, there is the upside part that I mentioned so far. In red, the organic. We expect basically in the one year ago when we presented the plan, 2024-2028, we had a CAGR of 3.9% and a cumulative order expectation of EUR 100.5 billion. Now, with the new evolution in terms of organic as well as inorganic growth, we have an expectation 2025-2029 of EUR 118 billion and a CAGR of 5.8%. This is for the orders with a backlog that should pass EUR 50 billion already in 2027.
In terms of revenues, same trend. One year ago, we had a forecast at the end of the plan of EUR 9.5 billion with a CAGR of 5.9%. Now, with the inclusion of the inorganic part, which is the green and the red, the organic, we expect a cumulative revenue target of EUR 10.6 billion with a CAGR of 7%. None of those things rely on jumbo orders or important countries where we concentrate most of the business. It is rather smooth and transversal, well-distributed. EBITDA will grow by 13% up to EUR 2.83 billion. This is the green is again the inorganic forecast. The return on sales is going to be double-digit between the end of 2026 and beginning of 2027. We expect to go 1.8, we have a multiplication factor of 1.8 of the EBITDA compared to 2023.
Finally, the free operating cash flow growing 15%, being doubled by 2029 compared to 2023 with a CAGR of 15.2%. Now, guys, I want to be very clear with you because I think we need to be extremely straight on those things. If you see here, imagine that with this growth, that is due primarily to the good financial performances of most division, we could largely compensate even the losses that were coming from the well-known exogenous effect connected to partly the Boeing crisis in aerospace and partly to the Satcom business in the Space Alliance. That for us is a very important point because the company was growing so well that we could neutralize, almost cancel the exogenous effect that were reducing our EBITDA and our free operating cash flow.
Yet, we are very optimistic now because, as I mentioned before, though without giving details because of the confidentiality we had to guarantee to our partner, the aerospace situation we believe is going to be changing in a disruptive manner. We are working quite intensively with our colleagues in the Space Alliance to recover promptly this exogenous problem of the Satcom. Despite those two exogenous problems, our EBITDA and FOF have been growing very much. That means that our organic growth and inorganic growth have largely compensated the exogenous effect. We are going to improve for sure. This is something that we are happy for this year. Meanwhile, we find the solutions to the exogenous problems, but I think it's also very promising for the future.
Now, I don't think this is enough, however, because many of you often ask what could be the future, what is the geopolitical situation, and so on and so forth. We attempted an analysis of what should we expect from the surrounding world. Now, let me try an exercise, a very conceptual estimate of upside from the EU defense expenditure increase. You all heard about the momentum that Europe is giving to defense in terms of market, investing more money, trying to pass to overcome the fragmentation among the 27 member states, and so on and so forth. I want to give you a very simple criterion, a very simple algorithm to estimate what could happen to our financial KPIs. Let's imagine Italy increases next year or in the next years by 1% of GDP, the expenditure in defense.
Our GDP is EUR 2,000 and some billions, so 1% is approximately EUR 20 billion. Normally, between 30% and 50% of that is procurement, and the rest is just salaries for the army. This 30%, let's say, of procurement is captured by Leonardo. Normally, one-third of that procurement is captured by Leonardo. Basically, we expect that per one point of GDP increase of defense expenditure in Italy, because of the fraction that goes into procurement and because of the expected capture rate that we have of that procurement fraction, we expect an increase, an upside of approximately EUR 2 billion-EUR 3 billion per point of GDP. That's a very simplistic analysis. I mean, if we change the procurement rate or if we change the capture rate, you just change the multiplication. As a criterion, it's very simple. One point GDP extra investment in defense, EUR 2 billion-EUR 3 billion upside in our forecast.
Now, if you do the same calculation for Europe, 1 point GDP of Europe is approximately EUR 160 billion. With 30%-50% procurement and a capture rate, which is approximately 4% at the minute, we expect another EUR 2 billion-EUR 3 billion upside per point of European GDP invested. Now, this 4% is going to grow because I'm not considering any export, nothing. We are even not considering how we could be more competitive with the joint venture. Just taking now a picture of the situation. That means, obviously, that we have a basic analysis to perform. Now, what is happening now? We are moving from defense, so increase of defense spending driven by geopolitical threats and urgent needs for the EU strategic autonomy, to a new normal in which government will reinforce critical infrastructure using innovative technologies.
We believe that at the moment we have the expenditure, which is this line here, this one, the expenditure in conventional defense, which could grow, let's say, 1%, only Italy, 1%, let's say, of GDP over the next years, every year. In the meantime, there will be another growth, which is the one of the non-conventional defense technologies, which are cybersecurity, global monitoring, receiving broadband communication, data valorization, HPC, AI, and so on. Now, even with the progressive stabilization of an international conflict, let's say that we hope the wars will finish. Anyway, we will have to refurbish the arsenals. We have to make our defense effective because we know that after the wars in Europe, we have to protect ourselves much more than in the past, especially if the relationship with the NATO alliance will change and the Americans will give less effort in protecting Europe.
We should really take care of our own security. Of course, in the meantime, we have to give time to the digital technology to grow and to be integrated into the defense. Standard defense is going to saturate maybe, but it is going to grow anyway. In the meantime, digital will grow. This is the new normal. The new normal will be a continent in which digital technologies and conventional platforms, conventional defense, should be integrated. Both markets will grow with different pace, with different synchronicity, but will grow. Even if tomorrow we stop all the conflicts, we are going to refurbish the arsenal, make defense effective, and give time to the digital approach to defense to grow. This means that we cannot stop investing in defense, but we should consider defense, as I said one year ago, not a standard conventional.
You, our forecast, how to reach 2040, even though not with a high precision. You have to know that these things are growing and are growing in a solid way because the future of the defense compartment in the new normal and, of course, the future of Leonardo is strongly linked to those concepts. We cannot ignore that this will be the way to pursue for Leonardo, for sure, but I think for most of the other defense companies because this is a transformation we are experiencing now. The transformation is ongoing. We have to merge, to integrate the two approaches. Therefore, if you get this point, of course, it's very general, very qualitative.
If in 2024 we had revenues for EUR 17.8 billion, if we add the organic growth EUR 4.8 billion, and if we add the EUR 1.4 billion of upside from the new initiatives, we land in 2029 at EUR 24 billion. This is what you have seen today in a very schematic way. Now, imagine that Europe and Italy as well are increasing 1% today GDP, 1% investment in defense, 1% of GDP investment in defense. That could easily bring another EUR 4 billion-EUR 6 billion per year onto this account. That means we reached EUR 30 billion roughly. Now, the question is, are we able in 12, 24, 36 months to be a company that goes from EUR 17.8 billion into EUR 30 billion or so? That is the basic question we have to answer. That's why we need to start thinking to what I call the capacity boost. We need to strengthen our delivery capacity.
We need to launch a dedicated program to reach full capacity while improving profitability, of course. This is actually what we call the capacity boost. We have to think to a capacity boost in the new normal, which is very cross-disciplinary. It goes from digital to hardware platforms because under the umbrella of the multi-domain interoperability, this is what we need. If the demand will be so big, we have to deliver on time. As you know, one thing is that you increase by 20% your orders in five years. One thing is that you double them, almost double. This is something we have to carefully consider. Of course, stay tuned. I do not have an answer now, but since we analyze the geopolitical situation, I think it is time to think about those changes for the future.
One year ago, the multi-domain interoperability sounds like something new. We were trying to make the saving plan, the efficiency plan, try to strengthen the core business, and in the meantime, to pave the way to the future. In one year, we have the joint venture launched. We do see the future with a different perspective. We are more convinced that this is the way to go. Of course, we have to be ready. We have to be ready to face this future. This is something Leonardo has to do. There is some urgency, and this is something Leonardo has to do very well. I close with a few things that I'm sure you are very much interested in: disciplined capital allocation. That was one of the mantras and stays as one of the most important things.
This year, we got EUR 5.6 billion operating cash flow, and the sale of the UAS, the undermarine business, brings us to EUR 6 billion available. Paving the way to the future while strengthening the core, this is always the same issue. Therefore, we believe approximately EUR 3 billion, including the constellation of satellites, including the improvement of all our legacy capability or legacy products, including the improvement of the digital part. Then, 15%-20% inorganic growth. This is approximately EUR 1.5 billion focused on strategic areas of growth, including M&A. Our proposal is 15%-20% shareholders' return, which will be approximately EUR 1 billion. By the way, I'm talking in three years. Sorry, I should have said this before. This is for the three years, 2025-2027, of course. So approximately EUR 1 billion in shareholders' return.
This year, the proposal you will see in a minute is to increase dividend by 90% in 2025 with commitment to rise remuneration over the plan, also through share buyback. Finally, less than 10% will be in debt repayment for approximately EUR 0.5 billion . As you see, we are strongly committed to growth, organic and inorganic, because we want to pursue the strategy we told you before. We also want to bring Leonardo at the level of the average European dividend that our peers have. Of course, taking care of the debt repayment because we want to keep our rating with the rating agencies as good as possible. Because I told you about the inorganic part, let me inform you about how our M&A approach is growing. Actually, only 11 months and three weeks passed since I proposed to you the plan.
In this year, we identified 20 targets, 20 companies that could be suitable for our M&A with the criteria, you remember, not being more expensive than 15%-20% of the turnover of the division that was interested in the purchase. The focus was on cyber and space domain and finding distinctive technologies or products that could fit with the Leonardo portfolio strategy and trying to improve our international footprint to access the global market. We made three offers, and we lost. Competitors made better offers, so we've lost. Five offers are still ongoing. 12 due diligence were stopped because we didn't find those companies promising enough or useful enough for our strategy.
We will insist in there was a lot of work in less than 12 months, a lot of work for the due diligence, the analysis, but we're now confident that some of those are close to the good news. That's why we want to keep a remarkable amount of money, about EUR 1.25 billion-EUR 1.3 billion for inorganic growth because the M&A will accelerate further our new technology strategy. Concerning the shareholder return, this is our proposal. In 2023, we were spending EUR 80 million every year. You remember last year, I doubled on the EUR 60 million. This year, I proposed a 90% increase going to EUR 300 million every year. That means that the dividend per share will go from EUR 0.28 to EUR 0.52 with a 370% increase.
This brings us to the payout ratio of 40% and the dividend yield of 1.7%, which is on average with the good peers at European level. That was my target, to be in the average of the European defense companies because it was a shame not to be competitive in this respect. As you have seen, this is possible because the numbers are good despite the exogenous effect that we canceled, fortunately, but we will improve anyway. I believe this is a good signal to the market on one hand, but also is fully compliant with our idea to invest in growth, organic and inorganic, while keeping the debt definitely under control. I conclude with a snapshot on sustainability. Leonardo is keeping, wants to keep its leadership in the sustainability ranking at large.
Today, we are in all the most important rankings, highest score in S&P Global, Dow Jones. We are confirmed for the 15th consecutive year in a row, highest score in ISS, ESG. You know, we have a fantastic track record, I should say. Top 1% in Ecovadis, higher score in CDP. What we did, actually, we cumulated CapEx and OpEx investment for EUR 28 million in the sustainability plan. Those are real numbers. It is a real commitment. There are 20 top projects that account for 85% of the total investment. We expect approximately EUR 140 million revenues from space and cyber sustainable solutions in the plan. Actually, I want to give you some targets. We accomplished 70% of major tenders, including ESG criteria by 2028. More than 500 key suppliers are trained on strategic sustainability topics by 2027.
In terms of digitalization, we are increasing by 40% the computing power per capita and the storage capacity per capita in 2025 versus 2020. - 53% scope one and two emissions by 2030 versus 2020. - 52% emission per flight hour equivalent from our solutions in 2030 versus 2020. This is biofuels. There's a number of technologies we are developing. 58% suppliers by emissions with science-based targets by 2028. A reduction of one quarter of water withdrawal in manufacturing by 2030. -1 5% waste production by 2030. Those are versus 2019. Those are actions in progress. Those are already up and running and accomplished. We believe that we are trying to do our best to make Leonardo a strong company with a very solid future, trying to fix the last couple of things that have to be fixed. We call exogenous problems. We are going to do this for sure.
We're creating a vision and a technology concept that today should be oriented to guarantee defense, but must evolve into something much more important, which is global security. We should see in the future global security as a combination of defense, of course, but security in the cyberspace, in the energy space, in the food space. You will see there will be a strong, will be difficult, of course, but will be a long journey that we have to do all together to guarantee security in the continent. I think under the NATO umbrella, to be a much more reliable partner of the United States to guarantee the Western society, a secure Western society, and hoping to have a more peaceful world around us. Thank you very much for your attention. We go for the question and answer as soon as we can now.
We will now begin the question and answer session.
We knew. I would start from the conference call. Yes. Yes, please, Operator. Go ahead.
Alessandro Pozzi, your line is now open.
Okay. Good evening. Thank you for taking my questions. Very helpful presentation. We knew the bar was going to be very high given the value that we've seen in Leonardo shares, but also, of course, across the sector. I believe your long-term financial targets were anyway above expectations. Now, you provided sensitivities and to the long-term plans. I was wondering how much of the ReArm EU you have captured into your 2028 to 2029 targets? Are you assuming in your base case that defense spending as a percentage of the GDP is not moving, or do you expect some sort of, let's say, acceleration in the defense spending across the years?
Also related to that, you talked about capacity boost. You mentioned potentially up to EUR 30 billion of revenues in 2029, 2030. Not sure if you can deliver that given the capacity constraints at the moment. I was wondering, do you think Leonardo can, let's say, unlock the supply chain and deliver those revenues within a few years by investing in new capacity? That will be the first question. The second question on area structures, can you maybe talk about basically what your assumptions are behind the 2025 EBITDA for the division? Also, we've read in the newspapers that potentially there could be another partner as well, Saudi Arabia. Can you potentially talk about how that could help the recovery of area structures as well? Maybe if I have time, just the last one for Alessandra.
Clearly, there is an increase in cash flow generation driven by top line and EBITDA. I was wondering also what are the factors including potentially tax payment, interest payment, and working capital, or what should we assume for those in the plan? Thank you.
Yes, thank you. Concerning the first question, of course, the numbers of the so-called ReArm EU are still very tentative. Apparently, the overall number is something between EUR 600 billion-EUR 800 billion, but part of those from the cohesion funds. It is difficult to make a forecast. If you assume this to be on a five-year span equivalent to 1% GDP per year, I think the very simplified algorithm that I presented during the presentation is that we could expect an upside in the range of EUR 2 billion-EUR 3 billion per GDP point, excluding any export or any other positive contribution.
This is just a minimum estimate, very conservative. Yes, indeed, I confirm the point could be how to on time in case the size of the orders and the sale of the business would grow so fast over the next two, three years or so. That is why I confirm that the reason to introduce the concept of capacity boost was meant to be to tell you that we are ready to face the problem if there will be such an increment of the volumes, such an increment of the demand. We have to be ready to improve our delivery capability. This is why there is a team now which has been formed in the last few days that over the next couple of quarters, by the end of the year, should present a sort of internal due diligence and identify the right actions.
Of course, we do have to invest. That's why the capital allocation this year has a clear scheme, and over the next years organic will mean primarily investing on capacity. I mean, needless to say, what is inorganic today will become organic in one year or two years. We don't plan to have forever inorganic growth at that size. We will definitely over time reinforce the organic growth. This will include for sure investment to improve our capacity. It's a big challenge, of course, but in the end of the day, it's not a bad problem to have at the moment. Concerning air structure, we plan to have a definitive solution by this year. I can't say more as you understood from what I said before.
The main criteria, the main accomplishment we want to propose are volume increase in the civil sector through the partnership, expansion to the military sector, maybe not in the first year, but rather quickly, strong diversification of business depending on the characteristics of the partners, investment sharing, and of course, enhancement of cost efficiency. Those things must be accomplished in parallel by tuning and properly designing the partnership. We are working for that.
Alessandro, building on what Roberto was telling you.
2029, for example. Yes, please. Go ahead.
Okay.
On the 2029 revenue. Yeah. Sorry, go ahead.
No, Alessandro, go ahead. Otherwise.
On the 2029 revenue target, is that based on an increase in defense spending across Europe and to how much?
No, as I said, when I've shown the table figure on the third slide, slide number 30, the forecast of 2029 actually includes only the conservative upside that comes from the joint ventures, the inorganic growth that I described before. There is no inclusion of any other extra upside due to the ReArm EU or everything because we don't have numbers. As well, it would be at the moment very unprecise to assume a specific increment spending in Italy without having the numbers. All the numbers that you've seen from 2024 to 2029 are based on our organic growth plus the upside given by the joint venture that I've described one by one during the presentation. There is nothing else. I hope I clarified.
Thank you.
Welcome.
Okay, Alessandro. On the drivers of the EBITDA structures in 2025, as you know, Boeing has declared officially that it's ramping up production on its main program, the B787. What you will see, and you will see reflected in the number, is the result mainly of a lower underabsorption of fixed costs in the division due to a ramp-up in the production rate, which we expect to rise to seven serials per month. We have a solid relationship with Boeing. As you know, we are in constant dialogue with the company. We do feel that the production profile that they have put forth for the current year is one that can be achieved given where Boeing stands on its recovery path. Now, moving on to your question on free cash flow drivers, certainly along the plan.
As you have seen, we plan to double free operating cash flow throughout the plan time. The main drivers are certainly operating leverage, higher profitability on the programs, and control on working capital on programs, while supporting the growth that we are experiencing throughout all our core businesses, from helicopters to defense electronics to aircraft. While also continuing to invest in the direction of boosting our capacity and our capability to deliver the growth plan. That is an element that I want to stress because in our investment plan, we actually have higher levels of commitments versus the previous plan, and we are delivering the same amount of cash. That is by virtue of the really strong performance that our core businesses have projected both in the year-end 2024 results as well as moving forward throughout the plan.
Okay, thank you very much.
Let me take two questions from the web, both from David at JP Morgan. The first one is, thanks for the sensitivity analysis of the Italian defense spending. Please, can you share with us what the Italian government is currently thinking on defense spending in the next few years? Thanks a lot. The second one is, for your divisional guidance, is the starting point 2024? If I add up all the guidance per division, I get to higher than EUR 24 billion sales, EUR 2.8 billion in 2029. Am I doing the math correctly? Should I assume the CFO has included a buffer in the group guidance?
Okay, I'll start with the first question, David, and then I will give the stage to Alessandra. As you might have seen from the news, every day we get some piece of information, new piece of information about the ReArm EU and the contributions of the different member states. Just a couple of days ago, our Minister of Finance has announced the possibility to allocate quite an amount of money for defense expenditure. However, at the moment, details have not been released. Whether this is kind of borrowing money or a grant, we do not know. In this moment, it is difficult to make predictions. We have presented our ideas to several institutional representatives in the Ministry of Defense and, of course, the Minister of Finance, as he is our major shareholder. They know what we are doing. Over the next weeks, I think we will clarify different possibilities of investments in different strategic sectors such as space, land defense, and so on and so forth.
This is going to be done in the next few weeks.
Okay, David. Divisional guidance, we start to look at the 20, we start from 2023 because that's where we started the journey together with Roberto. That's our starting point. The horizon of the plan is throughout 2029. You are correct. This is what we're doing at group level. This is what we're doing starting from division one after the other, consolidating the group. You are correct. There is a buffer that we're keeping centrally, and that's the result of mainly two things. One is that there are natural eliminations across divisions. Let me give you an example.
When the aircraft division or the helicopter division, as platformist, buys from our electronics divisions, sensors, electro-optics, radars, and communication equipment, and they put it on their platform, there is an intra-company revenue stream that has to be netted out to avoid double counting. That is a portion of the elimination effect. Clearly, in a world where multi-domain will be the case for Leonardo, that is going to grow. That is also going to encompass new divisions such as space that will be contributing to the overall development of the business and revenue generation, as well as cyber, to a minor extent, a key contributor to the overall solution suite that we are offering to customers. The second element beyond elimination is the central buffer that is a result of an assessment that we run on risks and opportunity as associated with the delivery of the plan.
As we know, as CFOs, we like to keep it always in our planning.
Okay, let's take some other questions again from the web. Both Carlos from Bank of America and also Ian from UBS are asking to provide some color about the EUR 500 million M&A in 2025. Whether you have targets in mind already for 2025, that means you can be precise, or should we see this level as indicative? Is this cash to potentially set up the joint venture on our structures?
Yes, thank you for the question. In slide 38, when I made the focus on the M&A activity, I mentioned that there are five offers that are ongoing, meaning that we have non-binding offers already launched to five different companies. Those have been analyzed in detail during the due diligence phase, mostly dealing with cybersecurity, not exclusively, but mostly cybersecurity.
Yes, indeed, should those offers be accepted, all of them would even exceed EUR 0.5 billion. I would say we do have a pathway for the year. I don't think we should consider at the moment any payment for the solution of the air structure problem. On the other hand.
T wo questions from the web. Nick from Agency. Could GCAP entry into service be accelerated? 2035 feels slow in the context of recent events. Is there an opportunity for European suppliers, including Leonardo, to take market share in future from U.S. defense contractors in Europe? Which segment offered best opportunities?
All right. Honestly, I think the technological challenge of the GCAP makes it very difficult to anticipate the service of the aircraft before 2035. I think the challenge is to have, if I remember correctly, 10 prototypes flying by that time.
Of course, testing them and seeing which are the pros and the contrasts, problems to fix. Of course, in the meantime, I think we should also start being operative in the development of the AI part of the drones, the adjunct fighters. In some sense, I do not see this very realistic. I have to say that this is quite normal in the development of such a complicated platform. I am not aware, at least, of other programs for sixth-generation fighters that are ahead of us. In some sense, the challenge is really high, and I think the timing is even short.
Okay.
Sorry, there was another part of the question. It was about the market share of the American companies investing in Europe. Honestly, I am not sure this is simple at the moment.
I would suggest waiting to see the development within the NATO alliance of the relationship and of the collaboration among the two continents. For the time being, I think we are already fully committed in creating big enterprises at the European level. I'm not sure we can manage at the moment similar initiatives with American companies. Of course, we are flexible. We have to be very quick in the response. Should any very good opportunity for the business show up, we will be ready to catch it.
Okay, let's take a question from the conference call now.
Our next question comes from Martino De Ambroggi with Equita.
Thank you. Good evening, everybody. My first question is on the capacity boost in view of the ReArm plan. Where do you see the most likely bottlenecks in which division?
In your slide number 38, you talk about organic growth financed to EUR 3 billion. I imagine this is the CapEx plan, so roughly EUR 1 billion per annum. Is it enough to sustain the growth coming from ReArm? I suppose there is also the hiring of engineers as another issue to be considered. The second is still on the IRA structure. I do not know, Alessandra, if you could share with us what is the trajectory of the free cash flow for this division standalone over the break-even point of arrival. I imagine it is difficult to say today, but the definitive solution that could be announced by year-end would mean break-even anticipated to 2026, maybe 2027, just to have an idea in terms of free cash flow in particular.
Okay. I will start with the capacity boost. Generally speaking, where we do see the most relevant difficulties is in the hardware, particularly the very complex platforms where the footprint in a plant is very important. I mean, if we have to deliver 170 tanks or infantry vehicles by 2032, 2031, I mean, those might need an expansion of the plants. For electronics, in terms of volumes, we have to increase substantially sensors, cameras, radars production because, as you have seen, we're involved in the GCAP, we're involved in the land defense program, and the drones. There, I mean, increasing the production volumes is slightly different compared to the case of the aircraft or the tanks production. Software is less a problem, is more brain-driven. I would like to remind also that there might be some bottleneck in the production of specific devices such as high-power electronic devices.
That's why we're planning to build our own foundry facility, expanding our electronic foundry because we need to fabricate chips and electronic circuitry with high-power materials and stuff like that. In general, I would say that the next few months will be dedicated to a very tight discussion with our production division to see which are the most delicate elements in the production chain. Of course, investment could be either in terms of expanding the plants or in terms of efficiency in the production or, as I mentioned before, in having capability for the chip fabrication. This will be clarified over the next few months. What is clear now is that we have to ask ourselves, how can we improve our delivery capability in the shortest time possible? Yeah, this is concerning the issue of capacity boost. You want to say something about the structure?
Sure. On the EUR 3 billion, if you want me to add, Roberto.
Oh, yeah, yeah, sure. The EUR 3 billion.
EUR 3 billion of investment. The EUR 3 billion that we have, Martino, are encompassing the initiatives that we see in the baseline plan as well as the new initiative that we have identified and that Roberto has described to you in detail stream by stream. With respect to the boost.
Satellites, the satellite constellation and part of the high-performance computing upgrade, which is, by the way, not very expensive, mostly the satellites, and then all the other CapEx distributed over the divisions. Sorry for interrupting.
Thank you for complimenting. Absolutely, that's the general framework. Now, we will start an exercise that will go in detail, division by division, and understand what kind, if any, what kind of investment should be made by Leonardo as well as by its supply chain.
Because as you well know, bottlenecks sometimes can be outside of the prime contractor within the supply chain. We need to identify where those bottlenecks potentially, if there are bottlenecks, are residing and help throughout the chain smoothen them out and get to the delivery in due course. On Aerostructures and on the free operating cash flow trajectory and on your question, Martino, whether the break-even could be anticipated. As you well know, the break-even of the division is mainly driven by the production pace of the B787 program, which is anchored on an exogenous factor, which is the Boeing operational level. That is outside of Leonardo's control.
As much as we have, as I mentioned before, a very constructive and continuous dialogue with the customer, what we do now see and what the customer is telling us is that 2025 will certainly be a year where there will be a step up compared to a really trough year such as 2024 has been. It will take some time for the production line to go back to its full potential. Considering that aspect, considering also that we're talking about programs that have experienced a certain rise in raw material costs that are part of our cost base, imagining to anticipate the break-even, it's something that as of now, we do not have in our projections.
Okay, thank you. If I may just comment on M&A you discussed before because multiples in the sector are becoming more and more expensive every day. Does it jeopardize your targets and how the market is asking for this kind of assets?
Yeah, look, that's a very, very good question. If you see on slide number 38, at the very bottom, there is a square where we said, actually, we did an extensive scouting, but our effort was not yet materialized with an M&A. We were always overcome by some competitor around Europe. Targets identified sometimes lack technology or product maturity, yet they have multiplicating factors that are increasing 13, 14, 15, 16, especially in cyber. I mean, we might possibly consider for very specific cases in which the added value of the acquisition is really important for Leonardo. In those specific cases, we could be a bit more flexible and eventually offering a bit more than the 15% of the turnover of the division.
We want to be very careful with this. I mean, we believe that discipline and the capital allocation is a fundamental parameter. If we find something really super, we might breach a little bit, putting slightly more than 15% or so. So far, we did not find anything like that. However, I should say, out of the five offers that are still alive, let's say, non-binding offers that we launched, these are all abroad, no one in Italy. We actually found a couple of very, very interesting value propositions. Let's see what happens now, but maybe some of those could be valuable for an extra effort. We have to be very.
Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Again, question from the web, Ross at Morgan Stanley. How quickly can you add the capacity across each of your divisions if defense spending picks up?
How much would that cost you in terms of additional CapEx? On Aerostructures, has there been a delay to your plan? I think many were expecting you to announce a partner today, but instead, this is now expected by the end of 2025. The reason for it taking longer would be helpful. GCAP, the status of Saudi Arabian GCAP and Bybec, what do you need to see before considering launching this?
Okay, let me answer first of all on Aerostructures. I'm not supposed to announce any alliance by the end of 2025. I'm supposed to give the solution up and running by the end of 2025. At the moment, we are strictly bound by a confidential agreement that was required by the partner in a non-negotiable form, and we have to respect this.
Please allow me not to give details, but I'm not going to announce a partnership. I'm going to announce a solution which must be up and running by the end of the year. I'm sure you understand that in this big international operations, sometimes a strong confidentiality is required, and we guarantee that we would have been absolutely respectful of this requirement by the partner. Now, let's go to the other questions because I didn't want to leave anything ambiguous. I'm sorry if I gave this impression.
Okay. GCAP.
Okay, GCAP Saudi Arabia. Our position is unchanged. Leonardo believes that any contribution from fourth countries, fourth, fifth partners could be very valuable because this is a global challenge. We were in favor for Saudi Arabia to enter in the team, but this is, of course, a political decision.
The industries can only help in evaluating what could be the additional value and the synergy among the companies. We do have ideas in this respect, but of course, it's a political decision that we can support in case there will be an opening, and we will support in case of opening. The first question was, oh, consider the capacity boost. Oh, consider the capacity boost. Now, the answer, how fast can we? To the question, how fast can we in view of the ReArm Europe or any other increase of defense expenditure? I mean, I believe that on space can be okay. On cybersecurity, we can be fast. It's primarily software-oriented. Electronics, we are already working on the capacity increase, primarily because electronics is a division mostly involved in the new joint ventures.
Obviously, where we might have slightly longer times is where the hardware is very big, like aircraft or like helicopters, because there, you understand, making a new production line is a huge investment, not only not necessarily in terms of money, but in terms of logistics. You need a new space, you need new areas to build. I think this requires a very careful analysis done together with the division. I'm not able to answer in detail because we realized over the last few weeks that this could have been the next challenge for Leonardo, and we are reacting as prompt as possible.
About the buyback.
About the buyback? About the buyback, the position is very simple. We reported that to our board that we're going to increase the dividend this year.
This was, for us, an important target because Leonardo wants to be in the average of the European peers in terms of dividends, basically. Now, we very transparently announced to our board that it could be good to know that we can propose to the assembly the possibility to have buyback over the next years during the plan. For this, we will follow the rules that are standard. We will make a proposition to our assembly in the next weeks. For this year, what we plan is an increase of 90% of the dividend to reach the average value of the European peers.
Okay, next question from Charles at Citi. To ask the percent of GDP spend a different way. Are your 2029 forecast based on 1.5% of GDP for Italy as per 2024 and circa 2% for the rest of the EU plus the U.K.?
Now, at the moment, with an even simpler approach, the baseline is 1.52% of the GDP, which is what today Italy is spending in defense. We simply said every 1% increase of GDP increase in spending in defense would correspond to something like EUR 2 billion-EUR 3 billion and simply added over the years. It is the lowest level analytic approach you can have, yet without considering export, without considering any other upside, with a very conservative approach, the really minimal, yet this clearly indicates that we need to ask ourselves how to increase our delivery capability, which is on one hand good news, on the other hand, is a challenge that we have industrially faced and solved.
Another question from Gabriele at Intesa San Paolo on aircraft. Does your updated plan factor in a margin slowdown due to the end of the Kuwaiti contract like the 2023-2028 plan, or the situation has improved?
Okay, Gabriele. Let me remind us all that the margins at the aircraft division are top margins, both at Leonardo level as well as across benchmark of peers aircraft producers. We are very, very happy with those margins. Every year we see that they consistently deliver what they have mentioned and potentially what they have projected, and potentially they do even better. The mix is the element that is resulting into the margin that you see at division level. There are higher quotas of proprietary products versus the Eurofighter Kuwait that is now coming to an end.
I would also, though, like to remind you that aircraft is anchored on a very strong position throughout the fighter business, both in Eurofighter, which, as you have seen lately, has experienced a second life between 2024, 2025, and going forward, we do see additions: Germany, France, and more recently, Italy, in sizable numbers. What we have told you last year is confirmed in the actual report, and I can confirm you that it will come to fruition throughout 2025 and going forward, as well as the export opportunities on which all of us as partners of the consortium are working very strongly and with strong determination, our avenues for continued growth and continued support of the aircraft divisions throughout the plan horizon.
A question again from Nick at Agency Partner. Would incremental revenues from defense budget growth be likely to expand overall margins, or would you expect customer governments to limit margin expansion?
I would say that the volume effect will be determinant as what we have experienced and what we have shown you is that by leveraging a higher level of volumes, we have an ability to improve our margins. As we stand today, we are not aware of any margin caps put by governments on potential new contracts. We are clearly here to serve our main customer needs in the spirit of serving the major core that as industry, we are serving for our core nations. We will be having a constructive negotiating dialogue with our customers in the future, and I would think that we have the potential to have reciprocal benefits and synergies.
Okay, can I add something?
Of course.
I mean, obviously, you have to consider that generally the government doesn't put margin caps, and we've never seen this in the past, in the recent past. Not forgetting that there are extra opportunities at European level because this is also something we have to consider that we could call export in some sense, that were conservatively not included in our forecast, but I think that those could also be promising in terms of margin. Last but not least, I think we should not forget that digital expenditure will also increase on the same footing as military platform purchase. There, the margins are much higher by nature. They are more related to services. If you put all things together, I would be very surprised to see the margin are decreasing with such an increase of volume.
I would expect a reasonable amount increase of margins, especially because we have servitization that is increased into the platform business, basically. Which is the new normal, by the way, what we said before, hopefully.
Okay, next question from Yannis at Aperture Investors. We have spoken a lot about upside from the new JVs, but what about upside potential from the existing organic business? Where do you see the most upside potential in a two-year view and from which product line or application? Could you please rank the top three that are seeing the highest demand?
Yes. Clearly, Space has a nice pathway now on its own. Cyber is growing. I mean, very likely this will not be the largest in absolute value, but the derivative is very promising. Helicopters is continuously improving its efficiency.
Revenues to cash conversion, order to revenues conversion, and it is a constant improvement that helicopters is doing. I would say aircraft at the moment is in the situation that Alessandra described just two minutes ago, but we know that at the European level, there is quite a batch of Eurofighter that is going to be ordered over the next few years by different member states. That will be quite a boost. According to my vision, electronics will grow more and more because it is the glue at the center of the joint ventures at the moment. Helicopters is growing because of the increasing efficiency. You will see year by year improving. Aircraft, looking for the track of the Eurofighter, will have for sure big benefits. Cyber and space, they have their own new story, and I think they're promising.
In absolute value, maybe this will not be the largest number, but the derivative is very promising.
Okay. Second question again from Yannis. I'm surprised you show more upside from Spain's space division than the joint venture with Rheinmetall or the joint venture with Baykar. Why do you see such strong upside from the new space division? What will the new space division look like? Do you intend to compete more directly with SpaceX, for example, for the Italian contract that was recently in the press?
Okay. Thank you for this question. It's very interesting. It's very important. In slide number 22, the last slide dealing with the Rheinmetall joint venture, I quickly reported the Italian delivery schedule for the infantry vehicles and for the main battle tanks. I mean, it's this one. You've seen this before.
It is very interesting to see that the peak of delivery will be in 2030, 2031, 2032. Right now, we are here because now we are developing the integration. Actually, numbers are not so big. The upside is going to be maybe EUR 1 billion. I do not remember my memory, but it is something like that. You see the peak after the integration will be at the beginning of the new decades where we expect to deliver 160, 171, 120, 130 vehicles. At that point, you will get a much bigger number in terms of revenues, margins, and so on. This is inherent in the difficulty of integrating such a gigantic platform with a lot of payload. Concerning space, it is a totally different business because this is services.
After having fabricated the satellites, most of the business is services, and therefore, it is inherently faster than any hardware platform-related activity. Concerning Baykar, our forecast at the moment is very conservative. The agreement was signed March 6, so five days ago. We just had the possibility to introduce the microscopic in the big numbers, but the technical tables are now working on the war share in a very detailed way. I am sure we will have a few corrections, but of course, the global volume, the total volume during the budget plan in the period, let's say the four years, will be approximately the one we have seen with a different distribution. Also there, you will see a bigger number by the time the integration will be successfully completed.
At the moment, integrating a lot of payload with the new platform, either flying or ground platform, it takes a bit of time for the integration and some refinement and adjustment. You will see a much better number in a couple of years. Let's say that we are preparing a solid future. You don't measure this in the next 24, 36 months, but we are preparing this. That is why we were plotting a forecast up to 2040.
I am putting together two questions. On Leonardo's Leo constellation, can you please expand further on what public and private partnerships entails? Would you be seeking partnership with the existing European satellite operators to some extent, like Eutelsat, for example?
Oh yeah. The constellation that we are designing is meant to be, first of all, primarily an Earth observation constellation.
All the satellites will be designed and produced with inter-satellite links. The idea is that this will be interconnected to any other constellation, no limit. I mean, we can be interconnected to whoever we want. Being part of several networks, this multiplies the positive effect of having a constellation in the low orbit for all the services. Having said this, the constellation is meant to provide the basic opportunity for us to offer end-to-end solution. In principle, we can make a product package that gives data, that are our data, all the analysis of the data, ground services. This is something that very few in the world can offer. We believe it is a very convenient and attractive business model for many countries, not only for Italy. We count on export for this model.
Of course, we are going to do this with our partners in the Space Alliance, the Thales partners, because obviously, this is something we develop within the Space Alliance.
Okay. Final two questions again from Yannis. First one, on your JV with Baykar, is it a 50/50 split? What is the commercial scope of the joint venture? Will you jointly sell to the European market or also international market excluding Europe? On Aerostructures, do you expect the partnership will make the division break even by the second half of 2025?
All right. Concerning Baykar, yeah, we are inspired by the Rheinmetall joint venture that was also described in detail to our Turkish partners. In principle, it should be something like 50/50 with a very clear war share. This once again relies on the strong synergy. They make the flying platform.
We make all the payloads, weapons, radar, sensors, command and control, and everything. Now, the integration actually makes, of course, it makes a much more advanced unmanned system, and this can be custom tailored depending on the demand. Of course, it can be produced also in Italy, not only it can be integrated also in Italy, not only in Turkey. We can for sure accelerate certification and simplify the procedure to sell in Europe as a certificated drone. We do not have any limit about import-export, but the standard geopolitical rules assigned by the states. Of course, we believe this can be a very aggressive approach in terms of UAV technology. The idea is to distribute those machines in Europe as well as abroad. The second question, sorry, was about
Aerostructures. Break even point Aerostructures. Break even second half of 2025.
Let us work on the finest solution of the problems and together, along with the finest solution, there will be a very well-defined business plan. I don't think I can answer now. Actually, I don't have enough visibility on the numbers to make a forecast at the moment.
Thank you. This was the final question. Thank you for your time today. As usual, the IR is available for follow-ups. Thank you.