Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our Q3/9 months 2023 results presentation. I'm Valeria Ricciotti, Head of Investor Relations and Credit Rating Agencies. Today, our CEO, Roberto Cingolani, will take you through our recent progress and actions in key focus areas, and then our CFO, Alessandra Genco, will take you through the 9-month results in more details and the outlook for the full year 2023. We will then welcome your question, and I will now hand you over to our CEO.
Thank you, Valeria. Hello, everybody. Let me start with this, birthday. It's six months today, ninth of May, ninth of November. We're happy to be still here, and, I want to thank you for this opportunity. Today is particularly nice to tell you what's- what has been done so far in this first, in this first six months. So, as usual, I have notes that are not readable, so I will try to get the key points and to, to tell you primarily, the key, the key numbers of the last nine months, so the third quarter.
Then I would like to go deeper into the path for the modernization of Leonardo, particularly what we promised you at the very beginning, six months ago, is our path to become, to make Leonardo the future, and what we're going to do and what we need to do, and what is, what will be, strategic in terms of, commercial activities and, financially, for the future of the company. So if you can go to the next slide. I would say, the third quarter has been positive. All our, KPIs, year-over-year, are positive, are growing.
I'm not sure a representation quarter by quarter makes sense for such a long-term business like we have in the Aerospace and Defense, but for sure, nine months, over nine months, 2023 over 2022, we can be satisfied. We continue a good commercial performance. The group order intake is now EUR 13.3 billion, and has been growing by 14.8% without jumbo orders, so this is actually a clear representation of reality. The growth is very interesting year by year. We have a backlog of EUR 40.2 billion, with a book-to-bill in the range of 1.3x, which is also a good figure.
The revenues have reached EUR 10.3 billion and are growing by 4.8% year-over-year. The EBITDA has reached EUR 644 million, growing 6.3% year-over-year. Aerostructures is fortunately on track with the recovery plan. This is what we promised you, and it's progressing in the right direction, and we are fully committed in maintaining our investment-grade profile from the three main agencies. So the results are in line with the plan, and there is a progress with the core business, as we promised at the beginning, six months ago, and we can confirm, therefore, the full 2023 guidance.
Alessandra will cover the results in more detail later, talking about the helicopters, achieving good momentum and progress; Defense Electronics, which is growing in volume and profits; Aircraft, which is continuing the growth towards the breakeven point. Sorry, Aerostructures, which is continuing the growth towards the breakeven point. We are successfully managing inflation and cost pressures on the supply chain, which is affecting of course, all the compartments. And we are now in a good track for the improvement of the free cash flow that we promised at the very beginning to be one of the priorities. Concerning future actions, as we said six months ago, we've been working on governance and organization, the geopolitical strategic positioning of the company, and products and technology for the future.
So let me update you on the progress in those three areas after six months of work. Concerning organization, we have moved quickly to make our organization leaner, stronger, simpler. It's completed now. We have reduced the number of direct reports to the CEO from 26 to 10, with 50% women. There have been new appointments that are very strategic to the company. The most important, for sure, is the direction, the co-general directorship given to Lorenzo Mariani, with a specific task dedicated to business operation, creating a closer customer proximity, and I have to say, Lorenzo is doing a terrific job around the world, and I'm sure this... We will see, we will see the results very soon, starting from next year, I'm sure.
We have appointed the new managing director, director of cyber division. We need to reinforce substantially the approach to cybersecurity, both cyberattack and cyber defense. And we trust this is, this has been a very good technical choice. We're now writing the new industrial plan, and there are a lot of new things that I will tell you later. We have appointed a new Chief Innovation Officer, a guy coming from the digital world, which is absolutely necessary at the moment for the digital transformation of the company. We have a new Chief Strategy and M&A Officer with a strong financial background, but also a very strong product background. We have a new Chief Sustainability Officer, because sustainability matters now, and it's very important.
We want to keep our outstanding position in the international ranking of the sustainability in the Aerospace and Defense compartment, but not only there. And we have separated legal and compliance because it's a best practice to keep them separated, not unified under the same person. Looking at the people strategy, we are really focused on building a knowledge-based company. We need to invest on talents, young people. We need to renew the basic competencies in several domains, including cybersecurity, digitalization, artificial intelligence, cloud, and data analytics. And we need to make our product portfolio more competitive, and to enrich our platforms with new services. This is what we are committed to do with people. Let me go now to something that is very important, I promised you at the very beginning, which is efficiency of cost and capital allocation.
I know this is something you're watching carefully. So, I'm not going to give you the numbers today. This, this will be those, those numbers will be very clear with the new industrial plan, which is due by the beginning of next year. But for sure, I can tell you what we are doing, so you have a map, and you have a clear picture of the strategy. First, we are very focused on reducing corporate costs. Reducing people in the headquarters is a must. We're gonna cut 400 positions that will not be replaced, and this is, this is, through a, a pre-retirement program, and this will be an important step towards efficiency in the HR compartment. We have optimized logistics and real estate. We were supposed to stay in three different buildings.
We have canceled one, and we have redistributed people in existing buildings. That is an important simplification and an important reduction of cost. We have rationalized the portfolio of participated companies. For your information, we reanalyzed the portfolio of participated company. We had 151 participated companies. 101 were just abroad for commercial initiative. Those are, I mean, kind of mandatory for an international company, but many others were kind of old or maybe not so central at the moment, so we have decided to cancel or close and merge 24 of those participated companies. The saving will be modest, maybe EUR 2.5 million-EUR 3 million, but this is very important to simplify the overstructure. We are optimizing travel costs and corporate costs in terms of sub advisory companies.
This is something which we have already produced guidelines to all our executives and all our divisions. Saving will be substantial in this respect. We are assessing the global procurement and the real estate performances that are at the moment carried out by Leonardo Global Solutions, which is a controlled company of the group, managing the entire almost entirely the procurement pipeline of the company, so those are really big numbers. We're talking about EUR billions, and we're gonna make efficiency there, changing the procedures to make them very much more effective than they are now, and of course, trying to save quite a substantial amount of money. I will give you numbers by the end of the year, because we are actually running on those things and working on those things.
Now, a long-term contract for energy supply has been signed recently, so we have guaranteed quite an amount of energy for the next 12-18 months, I think, at very reasonable fare. In this moment, this specific moment, having a supply of energy at a reasonable fare for a manufacturing company like Leonardo, is very important to have effective manufacturing and saving of money. Finally, we revisited our, our equity participations and products, which are non-profitable or far from the core business. Just a few examples, Skydweller, one of the unmanned systems, has been canceled as a program. We are finalizing the closing of the Industria Italiana Autobus, which is a company participated by Leonardo to build electric buses. This is absolutely outside our core business. We cannot afford for that.
We are reshaping and streamlining our unmanned activities in view of the future directions that Leonardo will carry on. We have decided not to participate in any form to the manifestation of call of interest done by Piaggio Aerospace. We don't want to be in the business of small aircraft. That would have been a distraction. We cannot do this. Let's go now to the second promise, to the second activity, which is geopolitical strategic positioning of the company. Well, to be very clear, I'm strongly convinced, and of course I discussed this with all our collaborators, executives, and people in the company, there is no future for a domestic aerospace and defense company in a global world like the one we live in. So we have to create strong European alliances.
The concept is, we have to create European giants in strategic areas, where Leonardo must be the engine. It can be the catalyzer of strong alliances that often are not possible because there are competition state to state, which is somehow detrimental to the efficacy of the European policy, continental policy. So the competitors are in U.S., the competitors are in the East. We cannot have domestic markets and domestic competition within Europe. We have to create giants. I mean, the model to do this is a kind of MD, MBDA-like model, you know, this joint venture, one-third, one-third, one-third, with different companies in different member states, in which we really can influence and impact on the global strategy. For sure, we are working on different fields.
I mean, clearly, there are some low-hanging fruits. Imagine a combat giant company for ground defense technology at European level. This is something we are now negotiating with KNDS, the leading authority, industrial leading authority for the Leopard tanks. Imagine the HENSOLDT business, which is growing. We recently had very direct discussion and contacts with both the governors, in this case, in Germany, and the CEO of those companies, and we are progressing quite well. We are quite satisfied with how this is progressing. And of course, everything will be written down with precise number and roadmap in the industrial plan... but we are progressing quite well in these fields. Another thing that for sure you remember is GCAP, the Global Combat Air Program. I'm just back from Japan.
I came back to Italy last night, and I was three days in Japan, where I met the Minister of Defense, Minister of Economy, and Minister of Digitalization, and then I met the CEO of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which is supposed to be one of our, of our three partners, together with BAE in U.K. So the concept was, rediscussing, in a very effective way, what should be the role of Leonardo within the GCAP consortium? I'll be very clear, if the challenge is to make a sixth-generation aircraft that is supposed to be a system of system, that is, an aircraft controlling a number of drone, in the next 15 years with approximately EUR 40 billion funding, okay, this is a big challenge, and we need to have a clear technical statement behind that.
Italy has granted now EUR 8.4 billion for this program, so we have, how to say, the governmental support, such as Japan and the U.K., but I think we need now a very detailed description of what we want to do. There is a school of thought that... and a way of thinking this program, like, we want to make a new aircraft. There is another way of thinking, we want to make directly a system of systems. Remember that we have the Eurofighter, which is a fourth generation, the F-35, which is a fifth generation, is a stealth aircraft. Now, the challenge is having a stealth aircraft, very supersonic, and on top, controlling drones. So this means having very advanced AI, very advanced system of systems into this technology.
So we need to know exactly where to go, and this discussion in Japan has been very fruitful. There will be a continuation in the next two weeks, and then, of course, we will close the loop with our U.K. colleagues. I'm confident we can end up with a joint venture signed by the end of the year, and from then, we can start the design of this very challenging program. I also promised you that I would have discussed in great detail our role in the Space Alliance. You know that since many years, Leonardo and Thales are committed into the Space Alliance. It has been a very fruitful period. We had a couple of meeting with the CEO of Thales, Patrice Caine.
That was absolutely fruitful, and as I told you in our last discussion, the target was to renegotiate a little bit the symmetry of the alliance, consolidating the finances of Telespazio within the balance of Leonardo. And I have to say, we ended up with a very fruitful discussion and collaboration, so we are now we have redefined the article in the statute that are dealing with the symmetry for the consolidation of Telespazio. This is over, and our colleagues in Telespazio, in Thales have been absolutely collaborative. We also had a discussion, and as we have opened a working group, in the next few weeks, we will have a continuation about the future of satellite services.
As you know, we have another joint venture, not only Telespazio, but also Thales Alenia Space, that works on space exploration, but also on satellite services, and there is a part which is dedicated to Satcom, so communication, satellite communication, and part which is dedicated to other services. So with Patrice Caine, we decided that we should revisit a little bit our strategy as a joint venture in the satellite services, because maybe the Satcom at the moment is suffering a little bit. Other services have an immense potential of growth, and this is something we have to discuss together. Clearly, there is no hope for Italy itself, and Leonardo itself, and Thales itself, with France itself, to compete in the global space challenge.
So we really have to reinforce our collaboration and make a clear technical statement on new product, new services, of course, associated to satellites. And the good news are, in this respect, that we recently found an agreement also for managing the launchers, Avio versus Ariane. So we are restarting the European activity, and there is a new agreement in which the two launchers will be more independent. Avio has 18 launches already granted. They, they are developing the new engine. We are discussing at European level how to reinforce, reboost Ariane. So even in terms of launches, we are finding our way. This, I think this is a very good news, because the international collaboration is mandatory in this respect, because as I said, the competitors are very few in the world and are very big.
Let's go on product and technology portfolio. As I told you at the very beginning, first of all, we have to ensure continuity and consolidation of the core business, aircraft, helicopters, electronics, that are growing well. I mean, as I said, the year-by-year numbers are all good, all positive, but I think there is a lot of room for substantial improvement and rationalization of the portfolio. We are working on that. You will get everything written in the new industrial plan with all the numbers. However, let me tell you that, the keywords will be digitalization for the next years, because this will make our products more competitive and our services newer and attractive for the market. Digitalization is a key tool in connecting our core businesses to our newer growth areas for the future.
The process began in 2019, 2020, when we installed the largest facility for HPC, high-performance computing, and fast cloud computing, and we created the Leonardo Labs for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Technology. That was a big investment. It's done already. It doesn't cost very much to keep it updated. It gives an immense added value in terms of brain, new concept, new capability to our products. So we like to define a new approach, which is the Digital Continuum, but that is encompassing, it's an encompassing wave that conveys Leonardo Labs' most disruptive technology through the entire company, organization, and value chain, enhancing our industrial heritage and delivering the best solution to our customers.
Please be aware that this doesn't touch only new products and old products, but even the administration, in terms of business intelligence, capability of forecasting models. So it's gonna be very transversal because we do have the capability and the competencies for doing this. The Digital Continuum is mainly based on four pillars: artificial intelligence, quantum computing, deep digital technologies, and Digital Twins, where Leonardo has developed distinctive competencies in several business applications. And I'll list them quickly, but of course, you will find a very clear organization in the plan. Of course, I will be happy to answer your question whenever you want later. So the first thing will be Digital Twins, Digital Continuum implementation from product development to validation and certification, up to predictive maintenance. Our helicopters are now fully digitalized, with an innovative approach as flight condition recognition.
This is a track to follow also for the other flying products. We're also working on digital design of our aircraft, a technology framework that allows the digital design of complex systems. Thanks to the application of the digital twin approach, it is now possible to evaluate the dynamic response of platforms in terms of performances and detailed behavior of the system during mission. Obviously, this is one of the most important assets we have for our competitive positioning into the GCAP initiative. I want to go back to the GCAP, but clearly, one thing is to build an aircraft, one thing is to build an aircraft which has been designed since day one as a system of systems. And that means it's not only aircraft technology, but it's also AI, digital control, cybersecure organization of the network that is a flying network.
So this is really something that makes the difference. Quantum technology are now a solution in positioning, navigation, and timing, sensing and imaging systems, and we need to develop specific quantum technology for some of our products. Not going to be very expensive. A small group of very talented young people, but we know exactly where to apply those technologies and to which specific programs, including cyber resilience, crypto, and digitalization applied to cybersecurity. Another pillar is autonomy-enabling technologies, which is application, advanced sensing, and artificial intelligence technologies, to have higher level platforms and system autonomy. Once again, GCAP is gonna be the landing runway for this activity. Even Aerostructures, that is recovering its breakeven point, has now optimized some of the processes to reach structural optimization and outstanding precision and crashworthiness assessment.
I mean, I can say clearly that at the moment, Aerostructures has a quality level that is unsurpassed by competitors. I mean, we've seen the crisis, the crisis of Spirit. For sure, Aerostructures had problems, but in terms of quality now, we've been investing on very relevant technologies in the past, and now that Aerostructures is recovering at the right pace, we are much more competitive than others. It goes automatically that we plan to renegotiate with our colleagues at Boeing, the future pipeline of orders, as Spirit did. So this is something that we are doing now, and in the next couple of months, there will be a proposal to be discussed with our Boeing colleagues soon. Multidomain system and system integration will be actually accelerated.
We need to develop network resiliency for all our future wireless communication, including GCAP, but not only. Of course, in space application, whenever we talk about exchanging data and exchanging images or transmitting data, all those things will be mandatory. We can't have a space activity based on satellite services without having a cybersecurity, a cybersecure network, which has to be developed according to the most recent technologies. We will ultimately exploit our digital technology, particularly big data and AI, to enhance and advance our finance and operation analytics system, to enable the most advanced business intelligence in order to have better and more informed and timely managerial choices. I think this kind of artificial intelligence or business intelligence for planning and control can be really an asset for a diversified and complex group such as Leonardo.
Next slide is gonna be about working on the new industrial plan. Okay, guys, of course, you understand at the moment we are working almost 24, 24 on preparing the new industrial plan. Most of the work I've been describing to you so far is functional to do two things: setting the new mindset, but also recovering resources that will be dedicated to the implementation of the plan. I'm not going to do any new debt. We are trying to do with a massive amount of money that we plan to save according to the optimization, efficiency of cost, and so on and so forth. So this is a part of the plan. About reinforcing and strengthening the core business, I think you don't have doubts, helicopters, aircraft, electronics. I told you what we are doing for digitizing, digitalizing the product.
I told what we are doing for the new program, national and international, like GCAP, like the giant in electronics European space of defense. In electronics, I'm happy to communicate that we recently, just a couple of weeks ago, signed a big agreement with Fincantieri, which is the alter ego of Leonardo in the naval area. This alliance will be very important because there will be a massive transfer of our sensors, radars, electronics into the maritime area. That was not trivial in the past because the two companies were not going very well along each other. But now, I mean, this alliance is fundamental because, once again, the competition is outside, is not within the domestic market.
This agreement has been signed, and now we're going to constitute the Orizzonte Navale company, which will be a joint venture led by the, of course, by Fincantieri. They are building ships. We are doing flying things and electronics. But this will be a very preferential way to share the best technologies in the maritime area, both civil and military. About the cybersecurity, well, I think clearly, for the future, we have to think something new, where there is a big market, I mean, targeting EUR 240 billion in the next years in cybersecurity, and, you know, EUR 1 trillion in space, cyber will be the kind of catalyzer or the kind of glue that will keep all technologies together.
Our priority is enhancing cyber resilience in all Leonardo platform, all of them, by design or new platform we're gonna create next. We would like to become the market reference in secure-by-design products, in the defense, especially. We are developing a new generation of AI-driven services and solutions that provide our customer in the field of cyber information and operational superiority in a multi-domain command. And this is gonna be fundamental for the future application of our simulators, of our control systems, of our command and control technologies. We need to support our customers and institution, defense, space, strategic, national, and European organization, for end-to-end protection of strategic assets. We need to ensure technology sovereignty with full spectrum of cyber capability, from defensive to counter-defensive, in response to hostile attacks.
We've realized that one thing is to make a product which is a cyberattack product, another thing is to make a product which is a cyber defense attack. So this will be separate, separate teams developing different platforms. Last, we are providing our customer the... And we are investing in the development of secure, sovereign cloud solutions. We need to ensure protection, integrity, and availability of data in multi-domain, multi-dimension, multi-classification, mission-critical context. Last but not least, we are participating in the national pool of data with our cloud. That is gonna be a safe cloud for citizens, for military, sanitary, and financial information. This is not going to be public, like, purchasing cloud space from other companies. It's gonna be really a protected cloud. Finally, in space, I think I told you most of the news.
Actually, we are creating this new Space Division. The good news is that we finally consolidated Thales Alenia Space in this. We have created a new business unit, and that will be now moved, even financially, into this division. We have a number of assets from all optical systems. We have, we are reinforcing the launchers activities, as I told you before, and we are developing new services associated to satellites. I'm not going to make you a list now. That will be boring and maybe too much detailed for the stage at which we are. But for sure, what I can tell you that two days ago, it was signed an agreement with the French partners about making much more flexible the relationship between Avio and Ariane Group for the launchers.
That helps a lot in having a parallel development of the launcher technologies and in exploiting the base launch in Africa. So this is a considerable improvement. What I can say is that in the last three months, there have been very important improvement in the international relationship and facilitating the progress of the industrial plan. So the takeaways are, for this quarter, so comparing 2022 with 2023, at the third quarter, all data are positive, with plus sign. That's an accepted good information. The takeaways are, we are committed in maintaining our investment-grade ranking from the agencies. We really want to improve. We confirm the full-year guidance, and we are strongly committed.
We're making a big effort in developing our international programs, because, as I said, Leonardo can be the catalyst of large-scale international industrial activities. There will be no point to be just a domestic company. We have to think international, we have to think big. You will see all this in the next industrial plan, at which we are working day and night, I should say, in this period. With this in mind, waiting for your—looking forward for your questions, I pass the stage to Alessandra, that will tell you more in detail the numbers and show the tables for the financials of the third quarter. Thank you for your attention, guys. I'm pleased.
Thank you, Roberto. Our key group metrics show a solid performance in the first 9 months, delivering on track, with our plan for the year. We have seen good performances across helicopters, defense electronics, and aircraft, with Aerostructures progressing in its recovery path. The results again confirm strong commercial momentum for the group, with new orders of EUR 13.3 billion, as you have heard from Roberto, up almost 15% year-over-year, with a book-to-bill of 1.3 times, growing our backlog to an all-time high of EUR 40 billion. With revenues at EUR 10.3 billion, up 8% with the seasonal free operating cash flow outflow in the first 9 months, lower by almost EUR 300 million, benefiting, as we expected, from a higher level of cash-ins earlier in the year, due to a concentration of cash milestones.
All this leads us to confirm our guidance for the full year. We continue to focus on strengthening our financial position and deleveraging, and as the CEO said before, we are now rated investment grade by all three rating agencies, Fitch, Moody's, and S&P. We are proud of where we stand today, and we're strongly committed to maintaining this position. Let's first look at the performance across the group, across three metrics. Starting with order intake, overall good performance, and we continue to see good commercial momentum. We're seeing and capturing opportunity domestically and internationally. Group orders at EUR 13.3 million are up almost 15%, and that's without any major jumbo orders. Book-to-bill is at 1.3x, and the backlog is over EUR 40 billion. All of this is providing us long-term visibility, especially on the platform side.
You can see strong commercial performance across our core main businesses. Helicopters, in particular, booked 9-month reorders of EUR 4.2 billion. Remembering that last year, we had a very high comparator, which included the Polish 149 order for EUR 1.4 billion. We continue to see good demand for our products, well-spread geographically, both domestically and internationally, especially on defense and governmental, as well as on customer support. New orders in the period included 18 aircrafts for the AW169 for the Austrian Ministry of Defense, 13 MH-139 for the U.S. Air Force, and a number of orders on the civil side, mainly related to the AW139. All of this is further evidence of the recovery, steady recovery, on the civil side.
Moving on to defense electronics in Europe, the business delivered an excellent commercial performance with orders at EUR 4.9 billion, a year-on-year increase of 39%, with growth in all business areas. We're seeing strong demand continuing for both sensor systems, defense system solutions, and importantly, we signed in June a major U.K. order for the Mk2 game-changing new radars for the Royal Air Force Typhoon fleet. In other domestic markets, we took orders for the Italian Army command post and an order for Kronos radars for the Italian Air Force. In the cyber sector, we were pleased to see more orders, including the order for the establishment of the Joint Operational Center, the JOC, for the Joint Operational Command of the Joint Forces, COVI, of the Joint Defense Forces.
Defense electronics in the U.S., with Leonardo DRS, stepped up new order intake to EUR 2.3 billion, or $2.5 billion in dollar terms, up 17% in dollars. This demonstrates again, the great positioning in key DoD programs of the company. Winning additional orders to supply electric propulsion components for the next-generation U.S. Navy Columbia-class submarines, which was just announced by the company about a week ago. Order that covers most of the components for the remaining 7 Columbia-class submarines. In addition, orders for the supply of infrared countermeasures for the U.S. military. In aircraft, we saw increased orders at EUR 1.8 billion, winning an important export order for the C-27J aircraft, increasing orders for the Eurofighter logistics component, as well as for orders for the JSF program.
In Aerostructures, new orders grew to EUR 526 million, up from EUR 342 million last year, benefiting from growing demand across a range of programs, mainly B787 and ATR. Overall, a very strong group commercial performance and growing new order intake. Now, let's move on to revenues. We see continued growth on our top line. At group level, EUR 10.3 billion in the first nine months, up 4.8% on a perimeter adjusted basis, and on track with plan. This performance is leveraging our strong backlog and the important long-term programs on which we have been delivering.
Looking at sectors, in helicopters, the first nine-month book revenues of EUR 3.2 billion, slightly ahead of last year, with a strong contribution from dual-use platforms, as well as customer support and training, and with a lower contribution from NH90 Qatar, as we had expected. Electronics. Helicopters continue to deliver well on its major programs. Same for defense electronics in Europe, which recorded a EUR 3.3 billion figure for revenues, up 4.6% on the back of growing demand and continuing to deliver well on its backlog. In the U.S., DRS reported revenues of EUR 1.75 billion, or $1.9 billion, ahead of last year. Then in Aircraft, revenues just under EUR 2 billion, in line with last year and with similar volumes.
While in Aerostructures, revenues grew by over 30% to EUR 462 million, on the back of rising levels of activity by our OEMs. Moving to profit and performance, overall, we delivered an EBITDA of EUR 644 million, an increase of 6.3% on a perimeter adjusted basis, with a return on sales of 6.3% in line with last year. We saw solid performances from all our main businesses. Helicopters grew EBITDA to EUR 250 million, up 6.8%, due to higher volumes and business mix. Return on sales increased to 7.8%.
Electronics Europe grew EBITDA to EUR 326 million, up EUR 27 million, up 6.9%, with good performances across all its business areas, and return on sales increasing to 9.9% in the first 9 months. We also had a good contribution from MBDA, noting that last year's comparator was very strong. MBDA's underlying trends continues to be very positive to date and looking forward into the full year. DRS reported EBITDA of EUR 146 million ($150-$158 million), on a perimeter adjusted basis, showing solid improvement, thanks to better program execution, favorable business mix, and higher volumes. Aircraft EBITDA was EUR 242 million, in line with last year, showing continued strong profitability with top ROS of 12.5%.
Aerostructures showed gradual recovery in line with the plan, reducing losses to EUR 127 million in the period. ATR was slightly better than last year, negative EUR 2 million versus negative EUR 4 million, with last year's comparator, including a one-off customer settlement. The business is now seeing recovery in its main markets, and it has been increasing deliveries on track for the full year. More specifically, deliveries at September 30th were 21 aircraft versus 10 last year. Space reported a lower contribution as previously flagged. The satellite service segment, Telespazio, is in line with expectations, with growing revenues and solid profitability, while in the manufacturing segments, there were continuing pressures. There, we had sales affected by some ongoing supply chain pressures. We're working with our co-shareholder, Thales, in Thales, with a view to improving its future performance.
So overall, we have delivered a solid improvement in group EBITDA, with profitability in line with last year and showing that we have been successfully managing cost pressures. Moving to below the line, you can see an EBIT of EUR 537 million in the first nine months, slightly down on last year due to the expected impact of restructuring costs related to the accelerated pension scheme applied to corporate and staff functions, as well as the PPA linked to the RADA acquisition. The net result before extraordinary transactions at EUR 290 million, versus EUR 387 million last year, reflects one-off positives in 2022. These market rates, and the one-off positives last year were linked to the performance of non-strategic equity accounted holdings, as well as the fair value on our FX hedging activities.
The net result was EUR 301 million, with the previous year having included the profit on disposal of GES and AAC from Leonardo DRS. Importantly, we have continued to make progress this year in improving our cash generation. You can see improved free operating cash flow at -EUR 604 million for the first nine months, an improvement of almost EUR 300 million year-on-year, with better quality and lower factoring, and benefiting, as expected, from a higher level of cash-ins earlier in the year due to a concentration of cash milestones. It underpins our confidence in our full year target of positive free operating cash flow of EUR 600 million. We're also pleased to see the rating agencies have recognized our efforts in terms of deleveraging. We're now rated investment grade by all three rating agencies, Fitch, Moody's, and S&P.
With the recent upgrades by Moody's in May and S&P in August, all of this reflects the improving financial strength of the group and our strong commitment to use cash flows to reduce debt while maintaining constant shareholder returns. Now, looking at our guidance for the full year, you can see that we have delivered a good performance in the first nine months. We're achieving good commercial momentum across the group, with a book-to-bill solidly above one. All this means we're comfortable at this stage, reconfirming our full year guidance on our key metrics. Our confidence is underpinned by the progress we have made and the sustained demand we are seeing throughout the group and throughout geographies. We are on track with our growth path in revenues and EBITDA, seeing good progress on delivery of programs.
We're confirming our targets with a balanced contribution from all the divisions, with electronics being a key contributor to growth. Aircraft maintaining its top profitability levels, helicopters performing strongly in line with plan, and Aerostructures continuing on track consistently with its recovery plan. All of the divisions have been absorbing the macro inflation pressures into their margins, thanks to mitigation measures we have taken. These measures include pricing on contracts, renegotiation with suppliers, and we can maintain, in such a fashion, solid control on profitability. We have also been managing pressures on supply chain and skill and labor shortages, which we, as well as the rest of the industry, have been facing. As you have also seen, we have been stepping up our cash flow, on track and in line with plan, strengthening our organic cash generation and showing a better quality. Also progressing on our deleveraging path.
In summary, we have achieved very good commercial momentum, strong order intake, book-to-bill above 1, providing growing future visibility, delivering on strong backlog, improving EBITDA and financial performance, and improving free operating cash flow. Actively managing challenges in the external environment, on track for our full year targets and positioning well for the future. Thank you.
Okay, let's start the Q&A.
Thank you. Our first question comes from Alessandro Pozzi with Mediobanca. Your line is open.
Hi there, good afternoon, and thank you for taking my three questions, if I may. Thank you very much for giving us a good overview of the potential opportunities that lie ahead for Leonardo. And on the GCAP, I believe you mentioned that potentially there could be a JV sanctioned by the year, by year-end. And I was wondering if you can give us maybe a timeline of what could be the progress of the project, and whether you can confirm whether Leonardo will be an equal partner in the consortium. Also, in the past, we've seen potential in terms of other parties joining the program from the Middle East, but even Germany. And I was wondering if you can give us your thoughts around that as well.
The second question is on the Italian DPP, where the document where the government basically show the funding across programs for the next two years. There has been a substantial increase for the GCAP, but also for the Leopard 2 and the MGCS. And I was wondering, I think that probably Italy will try to keep as much of those funds within Italy, and I guess whether that could mean that Leonardo can enter the Leopard 2 program of the MG, MGCS. I was wondering if that it could happen anytime soon. Final question, you're six months in the job, what are your impressions compared your to your initial expectations? And do you think there are areas that require a stronger effort to make them more effective? That's all for me. Thank you.
I'll be fast in answering. Concerning GCAP, the roadmap that we shared today with the Japanese colleagues, and I will soon meet the U.K. colleagues, is to sign the joint venture, so this triple group of companies under the government-to-government agreement by the end of the year. Of course, we have to negotiate a little bit some of the technical details and roles, but I think we are on the right way. The government, the Italian government, has allocated EUR 8.4 billion for the GCAP program itself.
But, during the ministerial meeting between U.K., Italy, and Japan, it was stated by our minister that, of course, the country will allocate what necessary, depending on the progress of the program in the years to come. And as you know, those things are not limited to a financial law, but they go through multiyear planning. It's just one of the few things that can work this way on a domestic level.
...About the rumors, Germany joining the GCAP consortium, this is a, this is a rumor in the press. I spoke to our colleagues at the moment in Japan. At the moment, it's just rumor on the press. We know that the competitive program, the FCAS, if I remember correctly, Germany and France is gonna be quit. So there might be some, some, in the future, some inquiry, but you know, we're going much faster at the moment. We're finalizing the program, so I'm not worried about that. To be honest, even other countries in the Middle East would be like would like to participate. But you know, this is still at the chatting level.
Concerning other allocation for defense, we are aware now. We've been told that there is EUR 0.8 billion on the special 808 law, which is dedicated to defense and aerospace application, primarily defense. So this is quite a large investment, more than in the past. So I think the Italian state is trying to keep on track for increasing the percentage of the GDP, which is dedicated to defense. I'm not sure we go to 2%, but, you know, there is an effort to increase this. About the Leopard, yes, you're right. Of course, I confirm, the combination of turrets, guns, and electronics and command and control could become a very important part of the next generation Leopard.
And as you know, there is a huge market for the renewal of the land defense fleets, not only in Italy, I think Italy has EUR 20 billion for the next 20 years or 10 years or so, but also in other countries. And of course, improving the Leopard technology will be very important in the future world landscape, because the only competitor will be the Abrams in U.S. So this could be a very, very important business. Last but not least, you asked me an impression for those 6 months. Very good. Impression was very good. The team is very committed, and all the work we're doing, I mean, at domestic level, I think, okay, we have to work a lot on the optimization and the efficiency. We're doing this very seriously.
I have to say, at the international level, maybe because of my background, but I found it very easy and normal to talk to the colleagues in Thales, in Japan and so on, to explain our reasons, to present our technical ideas, and to find immediately an agreement. So I think the important thing is that we have to I mean, we are a knowledge-based company, okay? As long as knowledge is good, I think it's easy to talk to the people. And then if you do to the people, I mean, abroad. And then if you do good alliances, a good strategy, I think even the market will be happy with this. So just continue, working like crazy on the efficiency and optimization, and just continue working like crazy in innovation and knowledge. That's the recipe for me.
Okay. Just on the Leopard 2, so potentially we can take a work share in the Leopard 2 through Otokar, that could, like, how it could work, basically?
Yeah, I confirm that we are working in this direction. Actually, the expectation extremely good. The negotiation is doing very well. Please, allow me not to give you more details at the moment, but I confirm we are very on a very good track.
All right. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
To Virginia Montorsi with Bank of America. Your line is open.
Good afternoon. Actually, good evening, Roberto, and thanks for taking my question. Just a quick one. On space and your agreements with Thales, have you reached actual final agreements with them, or are you still discussing? I'm just asking because last week on the call, Thales had said that I think nothing had specifically been re-agreed or renegotiated. So just wanted to get a sense of where you are in the process. Thank you very much.
Very good. So yeah, last week it was ages ago. No, I'm joking, of course. But we exchanged now a shared and agreed change of a specific article in our agreement, which is related to the deadlock, and our legal offices have found a specific agreement that satisfies both partners. So this is now written on paper. We are finalizing the little things. And then in the call I had with the Patrice Caine, we discussed about this issue that, I mean, it's now over, we're refining details, but the new article is agreed. And then we decided to open a discussion about the, as I said before, the SATCOM and the perspective of the joint venture for satellites.
This is to be done, actually. Well, there are other minor agreements concerning the financials of the joint venture, but this is more technical, and the CFOs are working quite well together and trying to fix everything.
Perfect. Thank you very much. Very clear.
Welcome.
We now turn to Victor Allard with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.
Good evening. Thank you for taking my question. Actually, just to follow up on the prior one, I found your comment on bringing more symmetry quite interesting, and was wondering if you could get a bit more elaboration around that point, and if we think we should think about this in business term with new revenue and referring terms as part of these JVs, or more holistic in terms of how you sort of envisage the business with Thales down the line in the future, but not as sort of as part of a sharing agreement. That would be my first question. The second one, I think Mr. Cingolani, you have mentioned as part of your introductory remarks a plan also to renegotiate the future work pipeline in Aerostructures with Boeing.
I think you said quite soon, and at the same time, I can see that the order intake has been quite strong in the business year-to-date, and you say partly driven by new 787 orders. So I was wondering if you could help us bridge these two data points and perhaps share with us some color on the nature and volume size of the contract that you typically engage with Boeing in that business. And also curious to hear to which extent you can pass on current inflationary pressure that we're seeing as part of these ones. All right, many thanks.
Thank you. So concerning the symmetry, let me answer in a very simple way. We have to joint venture two-thirds Italy, one-third Italy, Thales Alenia Space, and the other one is TAS, one-third Italy and two-thirds France. Okay, when I say Italy, France, I mean Thales and Leonardo, of course. Right? So in the TAS, Thales consolidates the two-thirds, plus the Italian one-third. In the Thales Alenia Space, we don't consolidate our two-thirds. So the first symmetry is to make this symmetric. And we found a very open approach and a very helpful approach by Thales, and this is what I was mentioning to the colleague before. So we found a way on the deadlock article to fix the problem.
So now it's been just small details by the lawyers, but I was very happy because the position of Thales was extremely constructive, and it was very good. Other symmetric things, other symmetries deal with the technology and the products. So one of the discussion we had with the colleagues in Thales is maybe we should ask ourselves, where is the future business in satellites? Is this more Satcom, or is this more services, monitoring, or many other possibilities? And since we have to admit that lately, over the last few years, it was not very successful, the Satcom business, primarily because of the pressure of the telco companies that are, I mean, targeting selling one kilobyte for one euro cent. So obviously, the margins in this market are very small.
We decided that in the common and joint interest, we should discuss which kind of perspective we foresee for satellite services. There are so many opportunities at the moment that we decided to discuss this, and actually, to be honest, the ball is in my field now because I promised my colleague Patrice Caine to catch him again over the next week and establish a couple of video confs and then meeting, because we have to do a little bit of brainstorming. I mean, this has nothing to do with the financial 2023, okay? Of course, this is now the heritage of what we've been doing in the last years.
But we plan to give new breath to the collaboration to the joint venture, and I'm sure we will do this. Sorry, the Aerostructures, you asked me. So, as you probably know, Aerostructures is waiting to reach series 1,406, to increase the revenues per order. I think we are 300 deliveries before, no? Something like 100... 1,100 now. But of course, after having seen what Spirit has done, I mean, you know, I think better than I, that Spirit has $5 billion revenues and $3.8 billion debt, and $560 million red, at the moment, it's in red.
So due to the inflation pressure, due to quality problems, they went to the main customer, Boeing, and they wanted to renegotiate. Boeing was very open, gave them higher prices and also some cash. Aerostructures has very good quality. We don't have the same problem. We do have, of course, we do feel the pressure of inflation. We are waiting to reach fuselage order number 1,406 to increase the price, but we think now that we should also go back to Boeing and renegotiate a little bit the conditions. I mean, to be very clear, our new manager of the Aerostructures is already in contact with Boeing to reanalyze the entire package.
The idea is that by the beginning of next year, the first couple of months, to go directly to the at the Boeing headquarters in Seattle and try to finalize this. We hope we can get better conditions. I think we deserve them, also because the quality of the manufacturing in Aerostructures is very high. Let me say something also to be absolutely transparent and fair. I think quality, our quality is very high compared to competitors. Maybe some small competitor can do something better, but big competitors, our quality is outstanding. We do have, in Italy, high cost of the workforce. Well, this is Italy, but not that in the States it's cheaper. And also, of course, we suffer inflation because this impacts several percentage points on the total cost.
We had the problem with the yield, so how many hours we need to produce a component, which has been improved now by the recent investment. So one of the things that Aerostructures is doing now is trying to quantify the improvement. So we go with precise number in this renegotiation. I think we are fair in the request and we are fair in the analysis. We'll see what happens in the next 6-8 weeks or so.
Very clear. Okay, thanks.
Our next question comes from George Zhao with Bernstein. Your line is open.
Yes, hi, good evening, everyone. On Aerostructures again. So in Q3, the loss is worsening year-over-year, despite the higher revenue. So, you know, what drove that, and what do you still need to do to get the losses to narrow as volume picks up, and when could we see that benefit? And the second one, you know, to your last question about, well, to the response to the last question regarding discussions with Boeing, do you need to do that to get to this break even, right? I mean, what are the risks that, you know, if you don't, the new set of contracts, can you still get the losses to narrow as the volume picks up?
Alessandra, you go, please, please answer this.
Okay, sure. On the three-month, you know, we should not be focusing on that single quarter because it's a matter of phasing. As you know, the mix of activities changes quarter-over-quarter. We should rather look at the nine-month, and then what the nine months tell us is that there is an improvement from EUR 134 million to EUR 127 million of loss. And this improvement is what we plan to see projected into the full year. So as we have provided guidance at the beginning of the year, in 2023, analogously to 2022 and also forward-looking 2024, we see gradual improvements in performance, both from a cash flow as well as from an EBITDA standpoint.
On renegotiation with Boeing, well, we have a contract, an existing contract, as Roberto was saying, signed by Boeing, allows, entitles Leonardo to have a different price, upward revised from shipset 1,407. So that's contractually already defined. What we are looking into is to have a better alignment to the current environment of cost inflation that we are all living through, and see that reflected in a new agreement with our customer.
Thanks. On the, so the losses being lower year to date, is that the case with the cash burn as well for the nine months?
That is the case, yes.
Okay, thanks.
Sure.
We now turn to Martino De Ambrogi with Equita. Your line is open.
Thank you. Good evening, everybody. Roberto, starting from your statement, no intention to add debt, but you want to do a lot of things, particularly concerning alliances, joint ventures, and so on. So my first question is, will you need or would you be willing to inject money into new joint venture alliances? And the second question, always related to this subject, is what is the level of ideal debt you have in mind, or the maximum debt, in your view, is the right level for Leonardo? And third, on this subject, probably part of the cash to be eventually used for injections in the joint ventures may come from divestitures.
My personal feeling is that whatever you are looking to sell is probably small in size. So just to have an idea if I'm right on this. Thank you.
My ideal debt is 1.5-2 times the EBITDA, roughly. I mean, under the control of my CFO, but I think, given the revenues are, I would like to have an EBITDA which is at least 10%, free operating cash flow at least 65% of the EBITDA, and the debt in the range of 1-2 the EBITDA. I mean, this is just reference numbers that much better than the one we found when I came. We hope we can do better, of course. Concerning merging, joint ventures, and so on. So first of all, most of those things are done, like in the case of MBDA, where it works extremely well.
MBDA has outperformed now Raytheon and Lockheed Martin with EUR 8.3 billion this year, so they're really, it's really doing very well. Being done sharing the assets, so that the capability, the industrial capability of the group, and yes, of course, we will need money, either for acquisition or for participation. But of course, we are considering now selling some asset we have in a moderate way, just to reach the target. We are now working on those things, so as you imagine, this is all at the moment very confidential, so I cannot say more, but I confirm no debt.
Okay, thank you. And the follow-up is on the order intake, so short-term question. But what is the reason why you did not revise upward the guidance for the current year, considering that the implied Q4 means more or less a 30% decline year-on-year? But maybe it's just that I clearly understand that there is not a recurring flow in order intake, but just my curiosity on this, considering the stronger performance in the first nine months.
Sure. Well, Martino, I think you answered, you answered the question. As you know, orders are lumpy, and they're not linear quarter over quarter. So at this moment, we feel that confirming guidance of EUR 17 billion for the full year is, is the fair approach to take.
Martino, let me, let me say something from a personal point of view.
Okay.
I came here six months ago. Leonardo is big, it's complex. I thought from my side, it would have been very much acceptable, say, we confirm, we do our best to confirm the government, the guidance. Maybe it would have been, how to say, too hard to say, well, we increase... Now, I might feel a bit more confident, but, okay, give me the six months beginner period to be prudent. Okay?
Okay. Very clear. Thank you.
Thank you.
We now turn to Gabriele Gambarova with Banca Akros. Your line is open.
Yes, good evening to everyone, and thanks for taking my questions. The first one is on the performance of the RS Technologies, because in Q3, I think, the EBITDA, EBITDA performance was pretty outstanding, +32% year-over-year, and margin improving by 210 basis points. So I was wondering if you could share with me what were the...
The DRS, I mean, they benefit a lot of the RADA acquisition. I think that was the quantum leap, was with the RADA acquisition. So of course, we're very happy that it's doing, they're doing well. And this was a correct acquisition, I think. Yeah, so in some sense, it was a successful operation. Alessandra, if you want to add something?
Yes, yes. Absolutely. That, that was clearly, you know, a key component, and DRS continues to perform well across its businesses. And in particular, you know, the naval power business is progressing well on the Columbia-class submarine, where the company is producing the electric propulsion. And you see the results of progression in program mix, as well as continued improvement in execution of programs, which is what we have planned to see throughout the course of the year.
Okay, so we can assume, regarding RADA, sort of, structural improvement in margins with the past?
Definitely. Definitely.
Yeah. Yes.
Okay, thank you. And the second question, and last one, is on the B787. News was circulated in Italy, here in Italy, that the Grottaglie plant basically could ramp up production to 10 units a month by the end of 2024. Is it possible to have an understanding? I mean, what would be a reasonable, let's say, average production rate for 2024, if possible?
No, I think, Gabrielle, that must have been a rumor with no particular foundations. We are following the official Boeing schedule, and the achievement of the 10 series per month will occur at the end of 2025, when the series delivered to Boeing will get to that target. Beforehand, we will have a gradual progression, 2024 over 2023 and 2025 over 2024, with no specific jumps.
Okay, thank you very much.
So that is the plan, at least. Maybe by the negotiation that we will do in the future, some good news will come, but at the moment there is nothing like this. We go according to the plan.
Okay. Thank you, Roberto, very much.
Welcome. Welcome.
This was the final question, so thank you very much.
Thank you, gentlemen. This concludes our Q&A, and-
Thank you for your attention. Roberto, if you want to...
Guys, thank you very much. That was a pleasure. As always available, any questions you might have, and thank you for your attention, your support.
Thank you. Bye-bye.
Thank you. Bye.