Let me leave the floor to Mr. Josef Mastragostino, Chief Investor Relations Officer of Tinexta Group.
Good afternoon to all of you, good morning to the folks from the U.S. and connected remotely. It is a pleasure to have you here finally, live and in person. Please have the presentation changed on the screen, please. Thank you. Let me do a round of presentations today. Here with me, Pier Andrea Chevallard, General Manager and CEO of Tinexta. Oddone Pozzi, our Group Chief Financial Officer. From the companies, we have Danilo Cattaneo, InfoCert CEO. We have Marco Comastri, Cybersecurity CEO, Tinexta Cyber. We have Fiorenzo Bellelli, Warrant Hub CEO. Let me turn to this page. You guys should all have the presentation. This will be the agenda for today and the way we'll carry out the works.
We will have Pier Andrea starting it up and kicking it off with the state of the art in 2022 results with the support of Oddone. This year, we actually provide the actual results. We're not giving preliminary results. The board of directors has just approved 2022 results a couple of hours ago. It will be the turn of Danilo, which will go over the Digital Trust business unit. It will be cybersecurity's time with Marco Comastri, and Fiorenzo will wrap it up with Business Innovation. As a reminder, Business Innovation is now the new business unit. It was formerly innovation and marketing services. Just to be clear, it is now called Business Innovation for a more effective communication. Oddone and I will go over 2023-2025 pillars, as well as shareholder return.
Oddone will go over the actual guidance as well as the 2023, 2025 expectations in terms of plan. I will wrap it up with some closing remarks. Going forward, given that this is a public presentation and is official from the company, we have to go over the disclaimer. Bear with me a second. This company presentation includes forward-looking data based on internal management assumptions that are subject to material changes, including changes due to the external factors beyond the group's control. Management data, when presented, are identified as such. Business unit data are divisional, do not include the elimination of intra-BU items, which are instead eliminated at a group level. For detailed information on Tinexta S.p.A., it is recommended to refer to the company's documentation, including the latest interim results as well as company financial statements. Okay, let's kick it off with this slide.
You guys all know the background of Tinexta today. It is an industrial group that offers innovative solutions, in particular for the digital transformation. It helps grow companies as well as professionals and institutions. As you obviously are aware, it is listed on the Euronext STAR Milan. We are proudful to be also included in the Europe's Tech Leaders Index as of last year, which is the equivalent European Nasdaq. It is now based in Italy, as you all know. It's also present in nine countries, ranging from Europe all the way to Latin America. We employ over 2,000 employees. We're concentrated in the three divisions that you all know, Digital Trust, Cybersecurity, and Business Innovation. Let's go directly in the heart of it. Key data. Revenues came in at EUR 357 million, growing 18% versus prior year.
Even more healthy was EBITDA adjusted, which grew 24%, showing obviously the operating leverage of the group and closed at EUR 95 million. I think this is extremely interesting because in the fourth quarter alone, we registered EUR 40 million of EBITDA alone, growing and reaching what we had planned in terms of guidance. Net profit was EUR 78 million, growing over 100%, mostly on the proceeds from the Innolva sale alone. ReValuta, as you all know, has been closed just a couple of days ago. That net profit does not include the capital gains for those proceeds. In terms of net profit, net financial position, It came in at EUR 78 million, as you can see. Again, it does not include the proceeds from ReValuta, but only the proceeds from Innolva.
This slide is a slide we present every year. We're proud to present this slide because, as you can see, the growth versus prior year in terms of, in terms of revenue was 18, but even more so in terms of EBITDA. The takeaway is CAGR, 21%, 2014, 2022 in terms of revenue, and 30%+ in terms of EBITDA. We already commented, but as you can see, the leverage ratio is extremely attractive at 0.8x. In this slide, we are actually wrapping up the milestones of Tinexta. I just bear with me for a second looking at EBITDA. The EBITDA in 2014 was around EUR 10 million. We closed the year basically in 2022 at around tenfold.
The actual EBITDA came in very close to what was the actual EBITDA in 2021, not on a restated basis. That means including the actual companies that we sold. Worthy of mention are all the activity of M&A that we did in 2022, which was extremely important. We did the biggest disposal, as you guys know, of credit information. And between the end of the year and the beginning of 2023, we did two very important deals ranging between Defence Tech and also Ansercya. Pier Andrea will go over them with great detail. In this slide, we actually give a recap of what we did. We substantially reached all planned targets. As you can see on the top, revenues, EBITDA, we already commented.
I think it's worthy of mention for a matter of time, adjusted free cash flow came in at a very healthy EUR 49 million for another year, so we're continuing to generate cash. At the bottom, we give divisional both revenue and EBITDA. As you can see, in the case of Digital Trust, the growth was around 20% in terms of top line, and margin hit its historical high at 30%, growing 200 basis points versus prior year, and EBITDA versus prior year grew 30% at EUR 47 million. Cybersecurity, as you can see, grew a healthy 6% in terms of top line, reaching almost EUR 80 million in revenue, around EUR 10 million of EBITDA. Business Innovation at last, grew 28% in revenue and 23% in terms of EBITDA, which is still very positive and healthy margin at 41%.
This point, I will leave it to Pier Andrea, which has his with his comments.
Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon to everybody. Thank you very much for being here. We are finally back alive and in person, this is a great thing. Thanks, welcome also to everyone who is joining this conference call remotely. I am happy to present to you now the current situation of the Tinexta Group and the highlights of our 2022 results. Beginning with slide 12. Let me start by saying that Tinexta has completed another year of major accomplishments. The results we have achieved, both from a strategic and commercial and from a financial point of view, are even more significant if we consider the macroeconomic scenario of the past year.
As we also have already mentioned, at the end of May 2022, we announced the successful completion of the disposal of the Credit Information & Management division. The sale represented a very important deal for us, as it was one of the largest disposal ever made by the group. We were able to sell the division at very attractive multiples and spent a great deal of time and effort on it in order to bring value to all our shareholders. The result was that we were able to achieve more than EUR 80 million of capital gain. We also continued to successfully pursue our international strategy by expanding our presence in countries such as Spain and U.K. At the beginning of 2022, we bought Evalue Spain under the Business Innovation business unit.
For the digital trust division, we also entered a new and very interesting geography, the United Kingdom, while continuing to operate at full speed in all other countries in which we are present. It is worth mentioning, in particular, that InfoCert recently purchased 65% of Ascertia, a leading U.K. company in cryptographic solutions and digital signature technologies. I think Danilo after will give more detail on this. Ascertia also operates in the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan, and it is recognized by Gartner as a reference player in the public infrastructure market. This acquisition is a strategic one for us. We expect to strengthen our presence in areas where we have not been historically.
For example, we will be able, as I said before, to expand into the Middle East and North African market, as well as to reach new ones by using Ascertia sales network. They will be achieving several strategic objectives and developing industrial and commercial synergies. Turning to the cybersecurity business unit. We were able to strengthen this unit throughout the year by investing in people and reinforcing its sales, marketing, and corporate structures. The end of 2022, we signed an agreement to purchase 20% of Defence Tech, giving us the opportunity for further increase our presence and influence in the cybersecurity market in Italy. Defence Tech is a strategic asset with national security clearance, which has three main business areas: cybersecurity and technology for intelligence, communication and control system, and microelectronics.
The reference markets are those of cybersecurity, both government and corporate, and also the domains of defense and space with a predominantly national identity. We believe we can work together to provide both the cross-selling and upselling opportunities while accessing the public administration market in a better way. The closing for the initial 20% is expected soon, as early as the end of this month, in fact. Carrying on to other important elements, let me remind you all that Intesa Sanpaolo confirmed its strong partnership with Tinexta by reinvesting the proceeds from the sale of Credit Information Management division in Warrant. Following, actually they bought 12%, of Warrant Hub. Following the transfer, of Forvalue from Innolva to Warrant. This represents a great commitment, testifies to the important role Forvalue will have for the group going forward.
We want, in fact, to strengthen the Forvalue network as it constitutes a compelling distribution channel for the entire group, and the nexus point of all the needs of SMEs. From an organizational point of view, we have been very proactive in continuing the diversification of the business in Innovation business unit by expanding our digital marketing, as this represents an area of great focus for companies that they are either growing needs for innovative products and services. Warrant, an important rationalization with five companies being merged by incorporation. Enhancers, Plannet, Privacy Lab, Trix, and Warrant Innovation Lab have all been merged into Warrant just in last January. This has helped to create a linear organization with a specialized area dedicated to digital, while at the same time allowing us to continue with the regular course of our business.
A couple of weeks ago, we also announced a strategic partnership with Il Sole 24 Ore Business School to structure a training offer dedicated to companies. This partnership aims at creating digital training content with high added value on the main topics of innovation, with the objective of guiding and accelerating integrated learning path to support the growth of Italian companies. The group today is made up of nearly 2,400 employees. We have grown significantly, in particular because of course of the recent acquisitions. We strive to attract talent, and we foster human capital growth in order to make our group large and diverse in terms of competencies and know-how. There is a strong sense of company belonging across the entire group. Both attractiveness and attention to sustainability have become important focuses for all of us.
As far as financials are concerned, Josef has already mentioned that in 2022 revenues came in very strong at EUR 357 million, posting a 19% growth versus prior year. With an EBITDA adjusted at EUR 95 million, growing more than revenues at 25% versus the prior year. The margin is, I think the highest ever registered by the group, it stands at 27%. Free cash flow continued to be strong at about EUR 50 million on an adjusted basis. Lastly, for the financials, let me provide you with an update on the dividend. We will propose to the Annual General Meeting a dividend of EUR 0.51 per share, or a +70% versus the prior year's dividend, showing the strong commitment we have to shareholder return. Turning now to slide 13.
Let's talk about some other key features of 2022. At a group level, we achieved a faster growth in most of our business units, strengthening our already strong market position. We increased our presence in the digital trust business even more, created solid ground for cybersecurity by investing in people and securing key clients and contracts. Business innovation closed the year very strongly, generating very solid growth, not just in terms of top line, but more importantly in terms of EBITDA. At a group level, the fourth quarter was outstanding. With over EUR 40 million in terms of EBITDA adjusted and margin of 36%, I think this is testimony to great execution on our part.
The group was also very successful in expanding internationally by entering the French, U.K., and Middle East and North African markets, and we are actively looking for other interesting and compelling targets in the Nordics, in France, as well as in Germany. In the business innovation unit, we are looking at other asset in France after having completed our entrance into Spain. At the same time, we have spent a good deal of time reorganizing the group to create a leaner structure in order to improve operational efficiency. I would like to make it clear that one of our priorities is that of improving the group even more from an operational standpoint. We sold the Credit Information Management division in order to reposition the entire group in highly growing business areas. This is an ongoing project for us.
We aim at growing internationally while achieving important synergies both from a cross-selling and up-selling perspective. The 2022 guidance was an ambitious one. The Tinexta Group was able to mostly achieve it while continuing to accelerate on all key strategic goals. Lastly, I think it's worthy of mention that since 2014, the group has constantly been growing, achieving on average double-digit on all major KPIs and setting annual year-on-year track records. Turning now to slide 14. Let me give you more an outlook both for 2023 and for the mid to long term. 2023 will be a year where we will focus on strengthening our leadership position in the three business line, increase the level of coordination and integration, continue our growth via M&A and internationalization, as well as focus on our people and sustainability.
During the rest of the presentation, we will expand on all these elements. I mention them here because they all represent key elements for the growth for 2023. In terms of other growth stream, themes for the medium to long term, these include training, in which we, the company will provide B2B services, technology management consultancy to manage innovation projects for medium to large group, the use of Forvalue as a key distribution channel, in particular for the business innovation business unit, fintech opportunity in which Tinexta can participate as an industrial partner with a fintech bank. Lastly, open innovation to promote startups within the group. At this point, I thank you again very much. I will leave to Oddone to further explain the numbers. Thank you for your attention.
Thank you, Pier Andrea. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for being here. You know, after the long list of activities that Pier Andrea shared with you know, we were able also to deliver the results that we committed in early 2022. The situation at the time we presented our guidance was really different. You know, the war was not there. Tax interests were very low, and inflation basically was nowhere. The year has been quite challenging for us as, you know, for some businesses, the impact of the external situation was impacting quite significantly our performance. We have seen during the year that the first few three quarters were we were a little bit, let's say, fighting against a macroeconomic situation that were not helping us.
In the Q4, as anticipated by Pier Andrea, we were able to deliver the best results ever of the group, and at the end, we were able to meet all the goals that we set in the early part of the year. In our opinion, this has been a great achievement. Great achievement also because you can see here the both revenue and EBITDA, you know, were delivered in the range of 20% growth. That was an important goal. I would say from the operating standpoint, we were able to further improve our operational performance as the EBITDA margin went up by 1%. Going down to the P&L, obviously, the profitability increase and the extraordinary profit we were able to deliver via the disposal of Innolva.
Free cash flow was extremely positive. We consider that most of the big part of the revenue came in the last couple of months, we were able... Still we are starting 2023 much better than we have done in 2022 because of this difference among quarters. If we move to the next page, we see here, you know, the revenue, it has been a high double digit solid growth, we had a very strong contribution both from Digital Trust and Business Innovation. Two companies went up for more than 20% in revenue, this has helped quite a lot to achieve the result. EBITDA was going up even faster at 24%.
You know, especially digital trust was able, and we will go through later on, went up from 27% to 30%, improving already a very strong performance that year-over-year digital trust is delivering. Cybersecurity delivered a healthy, you know, 13%. I would say that business innovation with 41% EBITDA margin deliver a very important result, especially, you know, with the activity of subsidized finance in the last quarter where we were able to catch up a very difficult year. The cash conversion has been again, very strong. We were able to limit a situation where also the collection was struggling a bit because of the external situation.
If we go in deep, in-depth on our KPI, we were able to improve even between in the middle of the retail situation. We have to add that we push further in CapEx this year, especially in digital trust as and Danilo will go deeper later on. We are going to invest in order to provide to our customer even a better performance. If we move to the P&L. Here you can see that, you know, we talk about revenue and EBITDA, important to us is to confirm that the EBITDA went up 1 point percentage and the EBITDA adjusted. EBITDA was at EUR 86 billion as we encountered a lot of cost of for M&A.
You know, the long list of activity we delivered this year has impacted for this cost that are going to P&L, but, you know, these are non-recurring costs, and they are one-shot costs. Depreciation increased, because we have the change of perimeter, also because, with the new acquisition, we went through the PPA, and we have, now we have a EUR 70 million per year of PPA amortization, and it is going to reduce the risk of, let's say, further impairment that, with these new rates, are, you know, is a point of focus for us. Financial charges here are impacted, let's say, but by the improvement of performance of some companies as we will owe more than out to our minority shareholders, and this impacted for EUR 2 billion.
Net profit is EUR 32 million on a continuous operation, improving by 13% compared to previous year, and the net profit was delivered EUR 78 million. Let's move now to the balance sheet. The balance sheet has changed quite significantly. The repositioning of Credit Information division allow us to drop our capital investment, but in the meantime, we were very fast in investing, you know, the proceeds in acquiring especially two companies in the area of business innovation and Plannet that we will be part on a very important new strategy in the area of business innovation. In the meantime, also, as already anticipated to the market, we set a new.
Two new headquarters in Milan and Rome for all the entities present in the two major cities, Italy, where we are going to concentrate all the staff of the company in one single location. This will enable a much better cooperation. Net financial position dropped dramatically, driven by the disposal of Innolva. While we continue to distribute dividends and we continue to run acquisition for EUR 73 million in the year. At the end of the year, the net financial position of the group has EUR 250 million cash.
Out of them, we have EUR 170 million debt with the banks, EUR 120 million earn-outs and put and calls that are going to be exercised in the next two years. We have a full liquidity to address the future and full liquidity to address, as usual, a policy of expansion in M&A. Shareholder equity increased also because we have two new shareholders in InfoCert and Warrant through the entrance of Bregal in InfoCert with a share capital increase as well as Intesa enter in the share capital of Warrant. Maybe we can switch to the next slide. We go now to comment Digital Trust. Digital Trust deliver an really unbelievable year.
You know, the growth in term of revenue has been close to 20%, 10% on organic basis. Was a very healthy growth. You know, all the companies, this business unit went up in term of profitability and the overall EBITDA margin went up close to more than 2 points, achieving a record EBITDA margin of 30% as well as a record in EBITDA in term of absolute value. There are several activity has been performed during this year in order to expand our products and solution as well as to continue to renew our products to be ready to face not only our customers in Italy, but also our customer around Europe, starting also with the acquisition of Set Europe. If we move to cybersecurity, this has been an important year for cybersecurity.
After having achieved the results of 2021 as expected, the company step up with further investment in term of resources and capability in order to enable the future growth that we are going to see in the next three years. Basically, the cybersecurity business unit that deliver a result with a slight increase compared to previous year, was able to further reinforce their capability of go-to-market, to further reinforce their products and their solution, but I would say even to further reinforce the structure in term of people. We do expect after the investment of 2022, better results and the significant growth in 2023 where, and Marco then will share with everybody. Business innovation. Again, also here we had a significant jump, both in term of revenue and profitability.
Revenue went up above EUR 100 million and peaked EUR 125 million with a growth 28%. This was together with the growth in profitability. You can see here that the quality of services that the companies within business unit are delivering is very important. You know, customer are keen to pay pricing that allow us to deliver 23%. It means that the customer are recognizing our capability and the quality of our services. We were able to keep a 31% margin in a situation where subsidized finance this year was offering a lower margin compared to the past. We were able to increase also in other areas, and we have also here a small contribution from the companies that we acquired during 2022.
I think that we have already shared the net financial position activity. We have also to consider here that we have completely hedged our financial debt, and you can see here that we got a profit of EUR 8 million not going to the P&L from the coverage we have. This will allow us in the next future, in the next three years, to have a cost of debt around 2%, well below the current situation, allowing us also with the extra cash to get better margin in the time deposit. Very important is the free cash flow that has been again very strong. This year we were not able, as we have done in the future, but it cannot be recurring, to have a positive free cash flow from working capital
This has been driven by the fact that the revenue came in the last quarter. I will go to the last page. Here we are. You can see what, you know, the group has been able to do. Despite of delivering all the financial performance, we were able, in the last three years, to complete a significant number of deals. If I look at all these here, I have to say that all the company are basically performing according to our plans, according to the plans that we shared in our board, according to the plans that we shared with the market, you know. This is very important.
This is the capability of Tinexta to address the M&A activity, to address them and to quickly bring them on board and being able to contribute to the profitability of the group.
Okay, now I think I'll leave the floor to Danilo to go over Digital Trust.
Thank you, Joseph. Good afternoon from me as well. First of all, just one focus. Exactly how we approach our market. What is our mission? Basically, we increase security and reliability on digital transaction, any kind of digital transaction, any mix and match of citizen, business, government, and more and more important, IoT devices. We can add reliability. In most cases, we can add legal value. As you can imagine, the more we go towards remote and digital transaction, the more it's important the role of a company like InfoCert that is a trusted third party. It's not the one offering an identity. Okay, it's me. It's the one certifying the identity. We are likely to be in a growing market for both number of transactions and value for our customer. This is our company structure of the business unit.
We have a couple of company, namely Visura, Sixtema, that are specialized to address specific segments of Italian market. All the other companies are our branches in specific countries. In Spain, in France, if we talk about the 2022 structure, and as you can see on the right of the slides, in 2023, we will add Germany because we are planning to go 100% of Authada, that at the moment is a minority investment. In early January, we invested, signing for the moment in a U.K.-based company, Ascertia, as mentioned by our chairman, Pier Andrea. How we offer to our customer this solution? We have a mix of different solutions, products that are in between technology and regulation. Most of our solution are depending on specific regulation at the European level or a country-specific level.
Namely, it's important, for example, for Italy, what do we call it? PEC, Posta Elettronica Certificata or certified electronic mail. There is electronic signature, electronic identity, electronic invoicing, and some high-level solutions for enterprises. The most important for us is our TOP, Trusted Onboarding Platform. That is nothing more than a mix of these atomic solution depending on regulation.
On this slide is just few accomplishment of what we achieved in 2022. More to come in next slide. In all the year, we working on the carve out of Cert Europe. Cert Europe, when we make our final offer, was part of a larger IT group, we working on making it autonomous. Of course, more and more integrated with InfoCert, let's say, technology stack in order to achieve all the synergies we are planning. We worked quite a lot on, let's say, pushing the value of our solution to our customers, especially large customers. Differently from some of our competitor, especially some U.S.-based competitor, we always had a value-based selling.
In 2022, while some competitors, they were used to offer, let's say, below price just to enter a new customer, had difficulties because it was not possible to get authorization for their quarter to make the bid. We were usually selling the value. As you have just seen from Oddone presentation, we didn't have any issue on revenue and especially on margin. Few more interesting activity we completed. We have been, especially in Italy, achieving some large tenders of NextGenerationEU. At the moment, we just received the tender. This will bring more revenue on 2023 and coming years. The nice thing is that we have been called in this tender with the largest system integrator, the kind of Accenture or DXC.
They are really willing to expand this innovative solution on many countries. What we are planning to do in the next future, as I just mentioned, in January, we started our M&A activity with an offer for 65% of Ascertia. Ascertia is very interesting because their tech is quite complementary to our solution. We are offering solution more, as I mentioned, value-based and for, let's say, high-level solution customer onboarding, digital signature workflow, while they are among the worldwide leaders in backend digital identity solution and signature solutions. While the kind of Gartner IDC consider InfoCert among the top three in the world in the solution, the business solution, Ascertia is mentioned by most analysts as a leader in the backend.
Together, we can cross, let's say, fertilize our solid base, absolutely we can offer end-to-end solution for most customers. On the small end of the partnership, we made something very interesting in 2022 that is accelerating in 2023, is our particular kind of open innovation partnership program. Basically, we help many startups or scale-ups to use our API-based solutions together with their innovative solution. In so doing, we very often have some rights, let's say, to enter in the capital if we find that the solution is interesting for us. This will help us in growing in promising, but of course, high-risk, niche segments, basically, having very small percentage of risk. We only help this company using their best of our technology.
If we go to next slide, I would like just to better specify in one slide some achievement, some highlights of 2022. Here you can see some numbers. Basically, we've been growing in terms of enterprise customers, especially abroad. Some 20% or more enterprise customer. I like to mention among these, some, let's say, traditional banks such as Santander or CaixaBank, but also some challenger bank, Lydia in France or Revolut. Revolut is a nice story because we have been awarded a tender early 2022 for six countries in Europe. After starting with this, let's say, first partnership, very end of the year, in December, we've been awarded a new contract for much larger, for 20 countries and with a big, good commitment for them in growing the usage of our technology.
Some other interesting name is Stellantis, is, you know, known in Italy as the Fiat, now it's more French than Italian as market. They're using our technology for in a new place for us. We are very present in the banking segment. We are serving 70 banking groups in 33 countries. While Stellantis is starting using our digital solution to sell remotely and digitally also cars that used to be more, you know, old economy fashion sales. Other interesting numbers, we are growing significantly on our e-commerce platform that over passed 1 million individual customers, and as you can imagine, with very interesting margin. Also the mentioned Trusted Onboarding Platform had a very interesting year. Plus 33% of new customers among the other the banks I mentioned.
Very interesting year in terms of sales. For the market appreciation, already last year I introduced that, now InfoCert is always in the top 3 or top 10 report from all the major analysts. IDC mentioned InfoCert as the among the 3 top in the world, the only one from Europe. The other two are U.S.-based. Also the other analysts are really spending important words on InfoCert solution. This is absolutely key. Not in the country where InfoCert, let's say, is established player, but also in the additional countries where we are entering. You know, analyst opinion is often key to enter a new market. Last but not least, we are by far the largest qualified trust service provider in Europe. The second is more or less half the size of InfoCert on both revenues terms and transaction terms.
Also the scalability of our products is has been shown important improvements last year. Let's say market proven. We passed the billion, let's say, threshold on the most important metrics. More than 1 billion transactions in terms of digital signature, more than 1 billion timestamps sold. More than 2 billion long-term archived documents. Also on these kind of numbers, you can feel the scalability we achieved, and it's absolutely key to serve multinational large enterprises. Last but not least, we spent quite a lot in 2022 in improving ourselves from the ESG point of view on sustainability. Even more important, we invested in proving the advantage of our solution to all our customers. While our large enterprises that are usually listed on stock exchange, they already have some non-financial reporting.
They were sure of the advantage of the improvement in using our digital trust solution. We made an embedded reporting of the improvement in using such solution for all customers, even for professional, you know, lawyer or accountants. Every time you use a digital signature of remote mailing, such as the Italian PEC solution, but also something that we launched at the end of last year, that is the electronic delivery with the legal value. We have a report of how much we're improving and this is having really good appreciation from the market. What is on the near future on our horizon? There is lots of disruption, positive and potentially, let's say, that needs attention on the regulation point of view.
As I mentioned at the beginning, our solution are enabling digital transformation because they are leveraging the regulation that gives more and more value on many transactions that are fully digital. From this point of view, there is a new version of eIDAS, the European Regulation of Digital Signature and Identity, the so-called 2.0 , that we are almost there for the final version. This will introduce the European Digital Identity Wallet. This is a significant step in, let's say, digitization of European citizens. While now there are many digital identity schema, in Italy, we have the so-called, we are a 5 in Italy, but we have 2, actually, digital schema. One is the digital identity card, one is, our, sorry, the name... SPID. Yeah, sorry, SPID system. I was forgetting the name.
These systems are interoperable at the European level. In two years' time, there will be a new standards where there will be only one, let's say, system, so-called wallet, because it will be hosted on mobile. There will be no interoperability. There will be just one approach all over Europe. For us, this is a good opportunity because we are investing on the wallet six years now. We started with many financial projects for European Community. We are the only European player in the self-sovereign identity that started in Australia and U.S. Let's say that we can prove our, let's say, investment more than other operators. This is been acknowledged by European Community because in December we have been awarded three tenders that will help create the use cases for the digital identity.
Interesting, two of these tenders are from Nordics, 1 is from Eastern Europe. We've been called by Ministry of Innovation or Innovation Consortia of University from very remote countries because they recognized our investment in the years in this technology. If we go to this slide, this is my last slide. What do we see in the next few years? More than reliable prediction is that we will continue with an organic growth, sustained organic growth, more or less, the same we did all the previous year, the last 5 or 10 years. Why? Because the market is growing, and because we are very well-positioned on the market. Not to mention that most of our revenue, in the order of 70%, are recurring revenues. It's easier to grow why you have...
When you have already 70% of next year revenues already with the contract. We will in increasing way, leverage group strengths. The company that are already majority-owned from InfoCert and the one, as I mentioned, that we just signed, will give us not only a local presence that is important to sell digital trust. We say the solution is global, but the trust is local. Even more important, each of these companies some excellent point. This will be offered to the sales structure of all the group. While every single country, we sell all the solution of the group. This will give increasing synergies the more we grow. In fact, we are pushing, potentially, some additional M&A operation. We are looking for some of these opportunity, the interesting one.
I am happy to share that all the last opportunity we pursued. We were facing a company that were happy of InfoCert as a counterpart, because they were sure we were an industrial player, not only a financial player interested in, you know, acquiring new revenues and new EBITDA, but we are known to create a pan-European leader. If we go on the positioning goals, still same vision of last year, with additional ESG that I mentioned. We are working on the digital trust space in following, and in some cases anticipating, the opportunity of the evolving regulation at both Italian and European level. Also in Italy, there are new regulation evolution that we are working on it with the government. We are, I would say, in a good position to fully exploit the opportunity.
From the compliance point of view, digital trust is more and more required also for some, let's say, side regulation evolution. As you can imagine, GDPR, that is asking all the company to be more precise on privacy topics. We had more growth in revenue because they are using very often digital trust solutions, such as the signature. There are also other regulation and directive, just to mention the AML directive, that is helping us in growing in more processes in the banking space. We are there, helping our customer with the compliance expert to transforming digital and getting value from both sides. On the cybersecurity space, as you can imagine, the more the transaction are transforming digital, the more the cybersecurity is a hot topic. We are working on two level.
In some cases, adding security features to our solution. In some cases, helping the customer understand the importance of security when you have so many processes based on digital transaction. Basically we act as a medium with the cybersecurity business unit to increase our cross share of the budget of our customer. Last but not least, ESG for us is an opportunity, because sometimes if there is a customer that is in dubious if transforming or not in digital some processes, now we can prove with a third party certified report, which are the advantage on this kind of reporting. Sometimes this is helping us in accelerate the sales penetration. I stop here, but I'm available for whichever question. Thank you.
Thanks, Danilo. We'll leave it to Marco for the cybersecurity side.
Good afternoon and good morning. The business unit represent already one of the most important cybersecurity center of competence in Italy to manage projects and deliver products and services to the Italian market. We operate in several market segments, such as small and medium enterprise, financial services, telcos, and we enable digital transformation with a secure approach to allow companies to better compete and perform in the modern world. We work with three brands, Corvallis, Yoroi, and Swascan, controlled by Tinexta Cyber, and we are harmonizing their activities into the market. The offering we have as an unit is composed by advisory, activities for education, vulnerability assessment, penetration test, governance, agile methodology adoption. The second area of business is implementation services, where we do projects for OpenAPI, cloud security, infrastructure security, application development, and so on.
Products like the anti-money laundering solution we have in Corvallis, secure payments, networking, identity, et cetera. managed security services, which is one of the core offering through the activities we do with the Security Operations Center H 24, that's the name of our offering, the Defense Center, and certainly many other activities like the threat intelligence, which is representing a new boundaries of the cybersecurity. In 2022, we have achieved major accomplishment related to expansion of the offering portfolio through the following services. SOC H24 is providing a 24-hour services leveraging the platform of choice of other vendors, and more than 60 customer has been adopting this platform. The Defense Center, based on a proprietary asset of Yoroi, is supporting already more than 80 customers.
E-learning platform is providing readiness for employees of more than 50 customers. We have just launched this platform in the second half of 2022. The asset-based new development. Legalmail Security Premium, as Danilo just mentioned, is already defending through the sell we do together with InfoCert, more than 300,000 mailboxes of our customers with the sandbox technology of Yoroi. Swascan platform, now certified by AgID, is adopted by more than 350 customers. Recently, we launched an EDR managed and developed within Yoroi. We have just made available in the late 2022. We have already activated more than 3,000 endpoints with this kind of technology. We have also strong cyber delivery track record.
We have performed more than 200 project in penetration tests, and we have delivered more than 30% of projects with our main customer during 2022. Final, the digital transformation. We have implemented the center of delivery for payment for the banking authority in Italy. We have implemented the redesign of old application for an Italian leading bank, and our AML, Anti-Money Laundering solution, has been installed in a major Italian insurance group. Moving to the next slide, I will come back on to expect in 2023 a little bit with more details later. This is representing the market. As you can see, I have represented two markets, the system integration market and the cybersecurity market. We are marginally present in the system integration market through the former activities of Corvallis, and our focus is in the cybersecurity market.
The system integration one in 2023 will exceed EUR 53 billion, while the cybersecurity in 2003 will exceed EUR 3 billion. The reason why we like to represent the two market, because we continue to see a strong connections between the two activities. We see as an opportunity to have a marginal presence in the system integration because through this presence, we can address solution in terms of cybersecurity, which will continue to be our market of place. That's exactly where we are going to play. I think we will continue to help the customers which embrace the digital transformation through our security shield. This is the reason of the connection of these two important areas.
Just going to the final part of my presentation, let me talk about 2023, I give you a little bit more details in terms of what has to be expected. We will continue to develop the asset-based strategy activity, which will be based on implementation of the back-end process of a digital bank. We have developing and creating new IP assets for the digital bank of a leading Italian bank. This will create an opportunity for us to go over and beyond the opportunity that we are working with this specific customer. We have made significant investment in our AML platform, and we want to address, hopefully penetrate the banking sector market.
We already have several opportunities. We think and we hope that this will become a new asset and a new driver for growth. Finally, we have just launched a solution for local public administrations called Defensio, which is a solution to provide security for the networking of the local public administration. With this solution that has been certified already by the portal of the government, of the Italian government, we think we can give a strong help to the administration, which has the IT system under attack, as we can see from the news of these days. The second main areas of driver is the expansion of the sales channel. This will happen throughout reinforcing our offering with selected partnership.
We are going to identify and announce, very briefly, partnership with the international partner in order to help them to be better perceived in terms of localization. Our role is to be the local partner, to be the trusted advisor for Italian customers, and the country-based approach for cybersecurity is a value. We are going also leveraging the Tinexta Group commercial channel, fostering the synergies with the Digital Trust BU and Forvalue, as well as with the Bellelli business unit. Certainly, we will enhance our value proposition with the national telco operators. We already work with telco operators, and this will become a driver of growth in terms of sales. The threat intelligence, which I already mentioned, will continue to be evolved.
Specifically, we will be leveraging the membership and the inclusion of our solution in the Cyber Threat Alliance, which is the largest international community of threat sharing. We will be leveraging also the enrollment into the forum of incident response for security team as our first. We'll be boosting dedicated Swa scan threat intelligence solution for the small and medium enterprise. Finally, the offering verticalization will represent another driver. The regulators are enhancing things like TIBER-IT and EU, DORA, NIS2 will represent for us an opportunity. We have created already packages for enterprises that will be involved in this new kind of re-regulations in order to support and to help them to become better compliant with the resources and the indication coming from these new rules. With that, I will be of course available to any comment or questions later on.
Thanks, Marco. I'll leave it to Fiorenzo, who will go over the business innovation. Fiorenzo?
Thank you. Sorry. Good morning. Sorry, but I don't speak English well, and I prefer to speak Italian, okay? Prefer for the for the ask, if you will meet after. Warrant Hub in.
I was starting in English, but then. Warrant Hub this year, as every year. Every year is different. There is no easier or more difficult one. It is always a challenge. I come from the enterprise world, I'm here as a manager, but my soul is that of an entrepreneur. It has been a difficult year, as every year. Warrant Hub has been a decrease in revenue in Q4, but we have, however, met the our objectives, our goals that are increasingly challenging.
The year has been very interesting. We have changed our paradigm, we have not focused only on subsidized finance, although this, the latter, has given a very important contribution. Also, our sales network last year, although is part of the worst and difficult situation, has been able to identify 1,400 companies that have invested and benefited from subsidized finance. Let's now talk about the use of European funds in Italy and Bulgaria and France. They have certainly done many things. We were able to have also the new entry, Evalue, focus work with the this European finance plan. Spain might become...
Evalue, this is the company we have in Spain that we acquired at the beginning of the year and which relies a lot on incentives. It could follow the same path as the one followed by Warrant. I think that there is a lot of opportunity for growth and improvement there. Another thing we have done is the following: We have changed our paradigm. Together with Mr. Chevallard, we have decided to meet another challenge. Introducing two digital companies into Warrant, Enhancers and Plannet. They are two points of reference in reference companies in their own industry, and certainly they are above the average of their sector. We have worked a lot, but we have reaped the fruits of this effort.
As to 2023, well, I think. We could consider the glass half full or half empty. We can have tax credit until 2023. I think we will be able to acquire new customers. We are market leaders, we need to pursue this strategy. However, positive news. There are positive news, for example, the new patent box that can be extended to other companies. We also consult with these companies, so that companies increase the protection of their intellectual property, something intangible, something they tend to forget. We advise them on the patent opportunities and so on and so forth. Small and medium-sized enterprises in particular do not tend to neglect this. We have a lot of potential, unexploited potential there.
The percentage of patents in Italy is one-third, one-fourth of what we have in Germany. For example, if we could spread the culture, also our culture and spread our consulting, bring our consulting services also here, we could have a big potential business. There are new laws that will be passed to create a register for tax credit in the research, development and innovation field. We can play a part there too. It will be another activity we need to organize, to structure. This is something I like. I want to pursue. It is a challenge I want to take up.
I think that as we have merged all companies into Warrant, they have been listed by the previous speakers, then we can integrate, I think. We can go to our clients offering not only a subsidized finance options, but we can also intervene on their internal processes. Subsidized finance becomes an enabling factor, a facilitator. Together with our technical staff, we now have the opportunity to offer these services. We can, of course, it will be also a challenge to put together all these technical skills from merging into one company, skills that were in different companies. It is another challenge, but we wanted to...
I think I see some potential here, and this is something we have already verified over during the last few months. There is another company, Forvalue. Innolva has a 100% stake in the company, so it can become an enabler of a range of services for SMEs. SMEs that have relationships with local banks, especially banks within the Banca Intesa group. We can have here a potential market of many made up of many companies from small and medium-sized to large organizations.
We can have direct relationship with the local banks through Forvalue, and this enables us to become an enabler of a range of services for SMEs, services we already have, we are already specialize in. This is another aspect. What is important is that Intesa Sanpaolo becomes our advertises our services, so that we get referrals from them. Warrant, where will Warrant focus on this year? We were called Group, and then when Tinexta became the Tinexta Group, then we changed name and became a hub. Being a hub, we can activate a range of services. I don't want to list all the services because it would take up too much of our time.
However, we have important, we serve important clients, I cannot name them, offering them several services. We should be able to put together the subsidized finance solutions and systems with the digital finance services we have through the various companies, Enhancer, Trix, and so on and so forth. In a family where you have separated companies or activities, then you tend to take decisions by yourself. This is something that we are facing, but we will have this merger, which will be very, very important for Tinexta's strategy, so as to simplify, streamline internal processes. I think that, as for, looking forward, we will focus on integration, as I said. Digitalization and sustainability.
We have a minority stake there, but we can do a lot on sustainability. We have seen the, we have seen some results over the last few. Then internationalization. Evalue in Spain is the company Warrant Hub was 15 years ago. The EBITDA is excellent, and they can really. They have, it has incredible customer clients, and through our experience, they will be able to carry out several transactions based on regional finance, local finance, European finance. Because now they're focusing on credit, on loans, but now in Spain, there is a stable re-regulation, so they don't have many changes, and they do not pass laws with a retroactive effect. something that. Situation there is different than we have here.
Here, we have some, only some of the business lines of the activities we carry out and that we tend to integrate. We don't want to offer customer only one service. We offer them Warrant. We have merged the companies because we wanted to approach clients as Warrant as an entity. Warrant is your partner. This is what we tell clients. You can use Warrant to make investments useful for your company. If we can support you, if you need support for find subsidized finance transaction, Warrant can help you. Important foreign companies have approached us lately to have some consulting services here.
This is part of the value of our brand, and this is what we wanna do also in the future. We can grow further. As to subsidized finance and as to this register of certifying bodies, we hope that the law will be passed. Of course, we are a bit the victims of this ministerial decrease. Sometimes we were promised it will be passed. We will be able to offer certification with penalty protection. We're already promoting this because we always tend to anticipate to... If we wait for the laws to become final, we had waited for the laws to be finalized, we would not have been as successful as we were actually. We are trying to anticipate and offer this product already.
As to the European-funded division, this is an area that will grow going forward. I'm an optimist here. We have already several projects underway on sustainability. I don't see any problems here. We also have energy. Imagine all the projects linked to the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. All these projects are linked to subsidized finance, digitalization and energy. Overall, we believe that today we are well-positioned to look to the next three years, 2023 to 2025, with a positive outlook. I think I've given you full picture of the situation, and that is all I have to share with you. I'm here, of course, now and also later, if you need further clarification.
Thank you. We'll now proceed quickly on the strategy as well as the guidance, which I'm sure you guys are very interested about. Let's walk you through very quickly the growth strategy. Strength and leadership has already been discussed directly by our CEO, so we will not discuss. We'll talk about coordination, integration, M&A and internationalization, people, ESG, and then we'll leave it to the CFO for the financial policy side. Quickly going to coordination and integration, obviously the company has grown a lot. We've completed more than 29 deals since 2013, and therefore the company is now larger, more complex and needs integration, needs post-merger integration. That's one of our main trajectory of growth for the next couple of years. We have already discussed about the simplification of the corporate structure, right? We are now...
You've seen the example of Warrant. We combined five companies directly into Warrant. Obviously, one of the key areas is centralization of the customer relationship management part. We will directly go to the customer, having everything we need to know about the customer. Cross sell and upselling, obviously in terms of synergies, becomes a priority, even more so now that we are a larger company and have dealt a lot in terms of M&A. The other items have already been discussed about. I'll quickly move into the way we approach M&A. The way we approach M&A, we like to call it the Team X recipe, which means that we usually target companies that are growing in their market segment. We don't need to turn around companies.
We buy companies that have been showing track record in terms of growth, in terms of revenue, in terms of EBITDA. They have a strategic fit and finish. Among more, I would say, is the plan of synergies. When we actually look at the companies, do the due diligence, we actively look at what the synergies that we can extract from the targets. More importantly, they need to generate cash. The way we carry out, you guys already know it, but we like to stress the fact that we usually buy a majority stake at least or the 100% ownership of the company. We then agree on a strategic business plan for at least two years, if not three years.
We maintain the key customer, key managers on board in order for everybody to be aligned. We regulate the 100% completion in terms of earn-outs or put calls. As we said, Pier Andrea just mentioned, the key strategic markets for us are Spain, France, Germany and obviously the Nordics, which are becoming more and more important for us. Going forward, let me give you a nice overlook of people in ESG. We really wanna give more, you know, disclosure in terms of this side of the equity story. The company, as we said, now employs over 2,000 employees. We're in nine countries, the three business unit you guys have. Let me draw your attention to some key KPIs.
97% of the employee population of full-time or full-time workers in Italy, 39 are women, 39% are women, 18% are under 30. We have a very strong talent acquisition funnel. In terms of academy, we carried out more close to 30,000 hours company-wide training, which stem all the way from business continuity, sustainability, cybersecurity with courses that are suited for our employees, obviously. Definitely, there's a lot and a great deal of work that we're carrying out. Moving to ESG. ESG has been an important pillar of the strategy. We did a significant leap forward in addressing all major ESG topics at a company level. We established an internal and permanent ESG committee, which is comprised of myself, the head of HR, and the head of external communication.
We report directly to the Risk and Sustainability Control Committee, as well as the board of directors every three months. Last year, during to 2022, we approved six ESG policy at a group level. We published the sustainability policy directly on our new and, I would say, very exciting cutting-edge website, which will give you a flavor in a second. We involved all corporate functions. The main priorities are the ones that you see on the bottom. Ongoing activities include data collection in terms of non-financial reporting, which is gonna be obviously approved by the AGM at the end of April. We are defining the environment management process as well as monitoring and measuring CO2. Objectives in 2023, straightforward. Reception and application of all the group policies within the companies. That means all within across the business units.
Let's move to a report card that we like to provide to the market. These are all the completed successful actions that we carried out during 2022. Among which we highlight carrying out a gender pay gap. We actually completed all of the fiscal policies, environmental policy, anti-corruption policy, and most noticeably, we introduced ESG KPIs, both at an MBO level as well as an LTI level, which will be announced to the market exactly with the approval of the AGM at the end of April. At this point, let's give a break with what you see here. That was our corporate identity, cutting-edge website, trying to give a much better positioning in terms of Tinexta and ThinkNext, obviously, as a brand. This is the last slide on ESG. I'll quickly run over it. The three verticals are environment, social, and governance.
The two actions are the ones that you see here. We are very devoted on this, and we will dedicate all of our strengths in 2023 to make significant progress. At this point, I'll leave it to Oddone for the financial policy. Oddone?
Thank you, Josef. You know, here is the main drivers of our financial policies. I think they are not going to change compared to the previous year. The group has always been focused on quality revenue. I will see also with the last acquisition, this will go farther and deeper in the next years. We have a very solid financial structure. Definitely, as I mentioned before, our positioning now after the sale of Credit Information put us in a very strong position to address the future growth through M&A. We will continue to improve the operating leverage we have done this year for 1 point more in as a percentage of revenue, and we expect to continue over the next three years, as well as we will work more and more on cross-selling and synergies.
Now we reach a size where synergy could become even more important. As shared around this table about the our opportunity to merge our different companies will enable us and will help us to be more efficient, I would say being faster. We will continue to invest quite significantly, but as a percentage of revenue, we expect the D&A to be aligned with the previous year. You know, at least for this year, we do expect how, driven by the coverage of our debt, you know, basically to have better financial income than financial expenses. This is quite a unique situation.
Earnings per share this year has been at peak ever, and also I mentioned in 2022 and also 2023 will be a very strong year in terms of profitability also given by the sales of ReValuta. Definitely dividend per share this year increased, as Mr. Chevallard already said, but we will continue to keep a very solid dividend policies. Cash conversion is something that is leading us on a daily basis. You know, we are aiming to convert our business in cash as quickly as possible in order to enable future M&A and to capture all the opportunities in terms of investment. Obviously, within this policy, the networking capital management is I would say even also an obsession for us.
Let now move to the guidance of the group, and which are the goals that we set up and the board approved this morning. Obviously, as you can see here, we have in front of us a very strong challenge. You know, revenues are expected in all three divisions to grow, I would say, much faster than the market. We do expect that Digital Trust growing 10% next year. Cybersecurity, as already explained by Marco, is expected to grow 30%, well above the market. During 2022, we set all the condition to deliver such revenue. Already indications are telling us that the backlog is improved, and therefore we aim to achieve the goal.
Business Innovation, as Fiorenzo said before, we were able to add additional businesses, additional line of business. We have seen that the catalog of offering of Business Innovation is very wide now. We expect to increase the revenue on top of our absolute leadership in Subsidized Finance. EBITDA, as you can see here, is going to improve as EBITDA margin in Digital Trust and Cybersecurity. Having, you know, so the EBITDA is running faster than the revenue. For Business Innovation, obviously, the business we are adding to Subsidized Finance cannot have the same margin of Subsidized Finance, but definitely we will add in absolute value a significant portion of our other EBITDA. Are the goals for 2023 of the three division. Very clear. We are focused on that.
We set up all what we need to deliver this. It's gonna be a tough year, but definitely these are our goals. If we look on a 3-year basis, the situation is not changing significantly. We do expect overall to continue to grow in Digital Trust 10% per year as in 2023. With the EBITDA to accelerate in the second part of the plan, especially in 2024, 2025. At the end of the plan, Digital Trust is going to deliver 3-point percentage more than now. It means already now we reach 30%, it means a significant growth.
In cybersecurity, after the first significant jump that we expect during 2023, cybersecurity expect to grow faster also in the two following years and to enjoy a much better profitability, during the range of the plan. Also, we are with the improvement of EBITDA of 3-point percentage. Also, business innovation is expected to grow very fast, at 30% per year with EBITDA that is basically growing not far from the growth there. As you can see here, this is, as I mentioned before, a very ambitious plan. As in the past years, we are ready to do it, we are ready to deliver, and we are ready to achieve what we are sharing with the market. If we go to the consolidated guidance, we are here, we are keeping a little bit of range.
We do expect to deliver revenues with the growth in the range of 11%-15%. It's a very strong growth. The EBITDA to grow 8%-12%. This is more driven by a mix because you have seen most of the business unit are improving their profitability. We expect with no acquisitions to end up the year with a cash positive position. Definitely, if some acquisition will come, this is gonna change, but this is the size of our capability to generate cash.
Dividends are expected to be 30% of the net profit, basically not far from this year. For the three years, we do expect to grow low-mid double-digit in revenue, double-digit in EBITDA adjusted, obviously, to continue to be positive, with by the end of the plan, 30% of net profit as dividend.
Okay. Let me wrap it up with one last slide in terms of closing remarks. We have a growth path that is secure with robust fundamentals, clear business plan and strong management commitment, which, yeah, you can see is entirely present here today. M&A is already in place. This year, obviously, we have the balance sheet ready with, as Oddone said, EUR 250 million cash on the balance sheet. New targets that have been identified in terms of further growth for international expansion. The 2023 and 2025 outlook is very, very strong. We're confident about it translates into revenue and solid profitability growth. At this point, I will leave it to Q&A, reminding everybody that the actual video and the recording of it will be available on the website.
You will be able to look at the replay. The Q&A section is obviously open to financial analysts and professional operators in the financial community as a reminder. For the people that are connected from abroad or from the web, there's a function tool to raise your hand. Even here, obviously, please raise your hand. We have two people that can help us and they're very kind, as you can see. Gabriele, hi.
Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for your presentation. It's Gabriele Berti from Intesa Sanpaolo. I'm breaking the ice with asking you a clarification regarding the guidance. You provided the growth range, but I do not understand exactly the starting point. I mean, you calculated this growth range, including the on the reported figures which we have just discussed or on the pro forma figures, including the 12 months consolidation of the deal you closed in 2022?
From the actual results reported, this is the growth that we are going to expect.
Okay.
Definitely, the growth is not 100% organic, this kind of growth. We are talking about definitely a very small portion because we consolidated Enhancers since April 2022 and Plannet for June, July 2022. The two companies, what we consolidated this year is you can find.
Evalue in January.
No. Evalue was already 100%. We are talking is not, but probably is changing 1%, something like that.
Okay, thank you very much.
Yes, good afternoon. Well, my first question is on Defence Tech, if you have any update on that? I can imagine that your new targets are not including yet any contribution on that side. The second question is on cost inflation and cost of labor. You showed your assumption of 6%. I was wondering how much of that is related to the labor costs? On M&A, I also can assume that your strategy is fully confirmed. Can you give us an indication about your potential firepower after the disposal of the creating for business?
Very last question on Forvalue, if you can give us an update about the potential synergies, let's say cross-selling synergy with the other divisions of the group? Thank you.
Okay. Maybe I go with the inflation and then. The inflation has been part, you know, of a full and deep analysis from our group. Definitely, inflation is something new, you know, because it's almost 20 years that nobody was dealing with this. We went through a deep analysis, both in term of revenue, in term of cost, and each group companies went through a possible approach on this. We have to say that we incorporated in our revenue a reasonable portion, let's say in excess of 60%-70% of capability to transfer on the market the inflation. As we will have definitely an impact on cost side. You know, if we look at expenses, if you look to rents, you have inflation there.
If you look to energy, if you look to services, everybody is increasing their price list. At the end of the day, we were able, our plan is to more than offset the potential impact of cost of labor and cost of services we are receiving from third party, increasing our price list. Definitely, this is different company by companies, and each CEO has evaluated, you know, their capability to transfer this to the market. Inflation is there, and we have to deal with this. We try to anticipate, and we are dealing with this. A portion is incorporated in our plan and the capability to offset it. The second question.
The second question.
No. On Defence Tech.
Defence Tech
No, just if you have an update about the partnership, and just a confirmation that your targets were.
We plan to have the closing of the 20% in.
Second half of this month, end of March. As you know, we have a call option, we call after the approval of 2023 balance sheet, we will decide on the basis of the results and of the... We are starting just now, we will of course accelerate after the closing, the analysis of cross-selling, upselling opportunities of industrial synergies. Just now it's maybe too early to give some precise data. The third question was about.
The last question was on Forvalue.
Forvalue. On Forvalue.
About the potential cross-selling synergies, if you have already.
The possibility that we have with Forvalue are cross-cutting with all the group, and specifically for Warrant and also Infrastructure, Fastcom, and also the area of cybersecurity, the area of digital trust. As for Warrant, all the area of subsidized finance, because it addresses small, medium-sized enterprises at the moment. We are addressing small, medium-sized enterprises. We want also to stress the theme of digitalization, digital marketing for internationalization with Co.Mark, that was already threatened in a very positive fashion. That's cross-selling with all the companies of the group. Furthermore, Forvalue has agreements with other subjects for the promotion of other services, including Intesa for Rent and other services.
Thank you.
You ask also for the five power we will have. Yes, it is, you know, obviously, we went through this analysis and the group always set a policy where we are, you know, we are looking for a maximum leverage of 2.5x . You know, if you consider that if we are going to complete also the acquisition of Ascertia and that are not in these figures that we share with the market, probably we could have roughly EUR 150 million of more financial debt with an improvement or EBITDA in the range of EUR 8 million-EUR 10 million.
I think that, you know, up to EUR 400 million being in a leverage of 2.5x , so potentially other EUR 250 million. Again, you know, this has to be done step by step, looking at the targets. Definitely, as every year we share with the market, these are reasonably at 2.5 x is the maximum range that we expect.
Thank you very much.
I think there's a question from the audience, on the web, if you can send it over, please. Russell, do you hear us?
Yes.
Yes.
Yes. Hello, Josef. Sorry. thanks for the presentation. I have four questions, if that's okay. first of all, on digital-
Can you speak clearly, Russell? We can't really hear you. Go ahead.
Okay. Is that better?
Yeah, try.
My first question is on digital trust. Past the presentation highlighted the continued focus on international expansion. I'm not sure that too much has happened following the investments from Bregal. I appreciate that's relatively recent. Could you just give some indication of what's happening behind the scenes on that?
Are you asking...?
Second question is on.
Yeah, we are breaking up, Russell. Are you asking if there's updates from Bregal given their investment in digital trust? Is that what you're asking?
Yeah. Is this better? My microphone is closer, so I think.
Say it again.
Yeah, it's kind of. You highlighted international expansion for digital trust and, you know, you've got a relationship with Bregal. What is going on behind the scenes? You know, is there much progress? My second question. I have two questions on cybersecurity really. First one is, when at the time of the Q3 call, very similar comments today in terms of the backlog was increasing, and you expected that to reverse in Q4, I think. That didn't obviously come through. What is, you know, what changed in Q4? A follow-up question on cybersecurity. I think the numbers came through a bit lower than you anticipated at the start of the year. Your three-year growth target now for cybersecurity is lower than what you had this time last year.
Could you just give some indication of, you know, whether the outlook is, what has driven that change in the outlook? My third question is, in your group level-adjusted EBITDA guidance, it's double-digit, which is quite wide. If you look at the sum of the provided organic growth rates. It's for the divisions, you get to sort of mid-teens. Just to try and pin you down is, are you expecting greater growth because deleveraging of central costs as well, or are you expecting lower growth at the group level because central costs may go up?
Okay. Let's try to answer the question because that's a lot to take in. I'll leave it to Danilo for the updates from Bregal, for Marco to comment a bit more on the Q4 and on the expected growth that we were doing or were expecting in terms of cyber. Danilo?
Hi, Russell. I can answer you only on a qualitative way because, of course, some details are very reserved. I will assure that the collaboration is very effective on two main sides. First of all, Bregal being part of the private equity community can bring us candidates for M&A operation quite early in the process. Of course, they are very effective in quickly assessing this opportunity. We are working in parallel on more than one large and significant opportunity. Having said that, as you can imagine, this is a very reserved topic because of the market abuse regulation. As soon as there will be something that we have to communicate officially to the market, we will do. At for the time being, I cannot go further than that. We are more than happy of the help and the collaboration we've established.
I acknowledge that last year it came a little bit shy versus our expectation. Let me drive you on the reason. Most of this lack came from the most traditional part of our business, which generally has been affected by many IT companies. Last year has been a year of struggle for many IT companies, while we have seen the cybersecurity pure business coming strong as we expected. We have already created a strong pipeline. The reason why we have the plan as we showed is because we believe that during this year, also with the transformation of the traditional business into a more into the newer cyber part, we will be in condition to perform.
Okay, I think we have another question from the web, please.
Right.
Can you open the line? I think Timothy has a question.
Oh, hello. Can you hear me?
Can you hear me?
Hello, can you hear me?
Yes.
Yeah. Hi. Just to go back to the 2023 EBITDA growth guidance. The range is 8%-12%. Oddone quickly touched base before saying that there are different dynamics at play, including a mix effect in terms of what's contributing towards that growth. Can you just go back to this comment? Like, give us a bit more visibility in terms of, yeah, which levers or effects we need to think about when thinking about your EBITDA growth for this year, please.
It is purely an effect, a mix effect because the business unit that is growing is supposed to growing faster. That is, cybersecurity currently has the lowest EBITDA margin. This is the reason why. The second reason, as you have seen in the guidance, the business innovation is expected to grow significantly, but again, on the part of the business with the lower marginality. You know, subsidized finance is not expected to grow significantly. As Mr. Bellelli said, the rates next year will drop, we will compensate that revenue with the revenue with the lower margin, but still a very enjoyable margin in excess of 40%.
understood. If, if we need to think about the sort of bottom end of the EBITDA growth range, this again is assuming...
The bottom, I would say we will be not very happy if we are going to deliver the bottom. Let's say that, you know, you should look at in the mid of the range is what we really expect to land.
Okay. I guess the width of the range is to account for the variability of growth of the three divisions relative to each other, basically.
Absolutely.
To accommodate
Sure.
Okay, understood.
As you can see in the slide that we showed, I miss it. Any case, you can see there. No, the previous one, please. You can see. Digital trust is improving the EBITDA margin. It's clear because it's running faster. Cybersecurity is improved the margin. Business innovation is worsening the margin as a percentage of revenue. In absolute revenue is growing. The mix is what you find in the following page.
Yeah. Got that. Thank you.
You're right.
Thank you. I think we have a question from the floor, Aleksandra.
Thank you for taking my question. Aleksandra Arsova, Equita. Just some follow-up questions from the previous ones. The guidance, again, sorry. Just to understand if I got it wrong, if the starting point is EUR 94.8 million, that has to be the midpoint of the guidance, as you were mentioning, +10% at the day. It means that the midpoint in absolute terms is EUR 104. That's correct? Okay, great.
Yes.
No, no. Just to be sure that it's the absolute number you meant. On division level, Digital Trust, the guidance is relatively fair to me. It's quite aligned with past growth. Just curiosity here, how much of this +10-+11% is So you mentioned including company profitability, how much is increased in revenue due to inflation and how much is actually higher contracts, volume of contracts? On Cybersecurity, we understand that for now there will be a boost after this idea of preparation with payments. Again, are very, let's say, challenging numbers. Doing the demand, it seems +30% in revenues means EUR 100 million revenues in 2023 from Cybersecurity.
How much together taken into account hard back log and soft backlog, how much you already have covered of this EUR 100 million? Then the business innovation. Here, the growth rate here seems to me a little more challenging than, because it's higher coverage and higher than last year. Mr. Bellelli mentioned that it will be challenging relative to several factors. Do you still expect to have difficult rates because you already see now in Q4 2023 difficult rates? You still expect in 2022 to have back on a little bit growth, so maybe a slower like flattish growth in the first quarters and then an acceleration at the end of the year? Okay. A very last one, more strategic. This is more qualitative for Mr. Cattaneo.
You were mentioning all the activities about the digital ID wallet, the European Wallet, and we are also reading on the newspapers about the issues with the government. I know your revenues does not depend that much on SPID, at the end, we are reading that maybe the government intends to put maybe from June 2023 onward the SPID and the Carta d'Identità Elettronica on the same app. This is part of the European Digital Identity Wallet. In my understanding, what is the aim of the entire regulation, not now, but maybe in few years, is to put all the digital ID, the main at least features of a digital ID into the EU Digital Wallet, so including maybe the PEC, the certified. Just to understand better, how will your business model change?
Of course, now you have your offering, you sell your PEC at whatever EUR 10 and everything, and you do the marginality, the profitability you want at the end, depending of course on how, more aggressive you want to be. If we think of a unique single digital wallet with all the activities inside, how will the stream of revenue work and what kind of profitability in the future we should expect from this activity? If even temporary, we should expect some cannibalization of your past, your existing revenues in PEC when this migration will occur. Thank you.
Maybe I go very quickly on the question of pricing slash volume. Let's say that around 70% in digital trust is driven by volume, a portion by pricing. To hear the question, just for the sake of SPID, I went very fast on that. Italian government announced in December that they wanted to shut off SPID in a few months. They discovered that over last year there had been over 1 billion transaction with SPID, while 70 million of CIE, Carta d'Identità Elettronica. It was not really feasible. Now, I'm very happy of that, we are actively discussing with the innovation that of Italian presidents of the ministry.
They understood, they say that was not their declaration be wrong, but the press that wrongly reported it. Fine for that. 2 points. As for SPID, we would be even happy if SPID would be shut down, because while it will participate in a small percentage of revenue, his participation in margin at the moment is almost 0.0.0%. Not really worried about that. While if they shut off SPID, we will increase more profitable services. The most important, and what I'm happy about your question, most important part of this, let's say, transition to the EU digital wallet, is that there will be many form of monetization that in this case, we are working on that with the European Community.
Just to mention, there will be also some verifiable credential on the wallet, starting from the university credits, you know, driving license, many things about, health.
The kind of company like InfoCert that are qualified as trust service provider, they will have 2 forms of monetization, helping all the provider of information inserting in a safer way this information in the wallet, while having a portion of the amount that the user of this information, let's say, the one that will require this information will pay. The monetization will be much in our vision, but also we discussed it with European Community, will be, let's say, a small per unit monetization, but a huge monetization overall with good margin, because there will be a significant increase in volume of this transaction. The sooner the better for us about this evolution that in any case will take between 2 and 4 years from the current state of the regulation.
For the question on cybersecurity, let me take you on some math. I think we have to do a little bit of something like EUR 20 million, right, of growth. Eight of these, EUR 20 million are already in our backlog. We have created through the activities of last year, this kind of. Plus we have a strong expectation on the launch of the Defensio product, which I mentioned before, which will provide several additional millions. The rest should be gained in the market. Of course, if you take out the backlog that is already in our end plus the new product, the rest is at reach, I would say, through the activities we do in order to make the inflation activities in order to gain market share.
I'll remind you that the two companies, Swascan and Yoroi, are fast growing. We believe.
Already in the first quarter or later on?
We try to make it from the first quarter. The market will also give us some indication. It doesn't look to be very strong, the market yet. We have also some good indications from early 2023.
Yes. Go ahead.
Hi, Isacco Brambilla from Mediobanca. Thanks for taking my questions. I have a couple. The first one is on, again, a follow-up on the full year 2023 guidance. If I take some simple math of the assumptions I see on the screen on a division by division basis, it looks to me you could lend to a year-over-year growth from revenues much closer to 20% rather than 15%. Unless we have a discontinuity on the infra group eliminations, I struggle a bit to reconcile to the real bottom end of the guidance. If you can help me a little bit on this, if I'm losing something. Second question is on the cybersecurity, more on the midterm prospects. You are targeting growth, which is almost double the one of the market. Just wanted to know if this higher.
This outperformance is somehow cross-selling from different stack or cross-selling within business units, or if this should be seen as a sort of pre-options to your current, 3-year targets.
Okay. Just to handle the cybersecurity question. On the midterm, we think we can outperform because our unique position in the market. As I indicated, we will be hopefully the stronger operator in cybersecurity in the market, fully dedicated, country-based, and with the ability to address large enterprise and Small and Medium Enterprise, thanks to our solution. We think that through this kind of condition, we will be in a situation of stronger compete versus the other. Of course, we think also we can leverage the Defence Tech, but for the moment, because of what explained before, it hasn't been exactly engineered in our plan.
The defense market is a market where we don't operate, and therefore we see this as an opportunity to leverage the assets we have into the Tinexta Cyber conglomerate into this new market that will represent for us a big opportunity.
Maybe if you go back to the. The question was the. You have, you have to weight them, you know. On a weighted basis, the growth is in the range that we explained. It's in the range between 11%-15%, then in this range. Cannot be 20% because the 30% growth of cybersecurity is the smallest portion of our revenue, and the same for EBITDA.
Yeah. Putting aside the, say, 20% I mentioned, fact is that it looks to me, the high end is much at reach, considering the business by business assumptions you have been presenting here. This was just the sense of question, not necessarily pushing to 20%.
20, I do see it a little bit.
... challenging.
As you know, we try to be prudent.
Yeah, yeah.
On our outlooks. Any more questions from the floor? Daniele.
Good afternoon to everybody. Daniele Ridolfi, Kepler Cheuvreux. I have a couple of questions, if I may. The first one, on M&A. I was wondering if you could give us an update on the pipeline of potential M&A deals. What is your priority in terms of business area, and what could be a likely size and timing for a deal? This is the first question. The second question is on cybersecurity, on the acceleration of the profitability of the cybersecurity. I was wondering if you can provide more color on what should drive these improvement going forward. Is it mainly driven by increase of revenues, or is it more related to a better saved needs, or are you also considering some action on costs?
If you can elaborate a bit on this point, please.
Let me take the questions for a second, Daniele. The first question was definitely about M&A opportunities. I think we laid it very clear what the markets that we are looking are. Nordic, Spain, France, that's a must for us.
Germany, as obviously Pier Andrea is just suggesting. The point here is, we can give you as much as we can in terms of disclosure. The priorities have also been addressed in terms of business units. If you look at digital trust, Danilo went over it, there's a priority in going Pan-European. If you're looking at business innovation, there is a priority in going Pan-European. Cybersecurity, for now, is mostly a national business, and we will to see to expand it going forward. I think the questions on cyber have been mostly answered, Daniele. We, you know, the Marco was already discussing about the backlog and what we are expecting to play out already in the first quarter. It's obviously being aggressive on the market, trying to outreach clients and trying to actually sell those products and services that are needed.
Was there anything else? Okay, Carlo.
Good afternoon, everyone. I just have a three question. The first one is on CapEx. In the past, you always spent around EUR 50 million of CapEx. In the future, do you think it will be necessary to increase this CapEx to pursue these growth rates? The second one is on put option. In your cash flow, you had a positive contribution of about EUR 14 million this year. Is related to some companies underperforming, so cybersecurity probably, or is any other explanation? Okay, the second one on the put option adjustment in the cash flow.
Put option adjustment.
Yeah. The EUR 14 million, these are explained by the underperformance of the cybersecurity companies or there is any other company underperforming. The final one is a clarification on the dividend policy. You guided for a 35% dividend payout at the end of the period. I was just wondering if it is related to the adjusted net profit or the reported net profit. Okay, thank you.
Let's go through the three questions. Yes, for the CapEx, I think you should consider to move up from EUR 15 million to EUR 20 million per year. I would say this is gonna be, you know, we are encountering significant CapEx in all the companies of the group. We need to sustain, especially in digital trust, significant innovation and enhancement of the process, and even in cyber, but as well as also in business innovation. On top of that, I think, you know, for example, this year, we went through the new platform from accounting with the SAP. This for sure has to be increased. The further question was.
On the put option.
The put option is very clear. Yes, there are two main drivers of this. First of all, I would say not the underperformer, but the delay in delivering the plan from the cybersecurity. This obviously has impacted this. This on top of this, there is the WACC that is improved, so the discount, because of the time, is increasing. This is the other factor. In term of dividends, you know, the board of director today proposed to the general assembly that in shareholder meeting that is going to happen next month, to keep the 30% percentage on the net income at the end, so including the extra profit driven.
In these figures that you have seen also, we, the management is proposing to the board to keep the 30% also next year, and potentially the following year, where there will be not extraordinary profit to go back to 35% as occurred in 2021.
Thank you.
At this point, we can close the presentation. Thank you for being here. There are refreshments outside. We can go ahead and walk out.
Thank you everybody for coming.
Thank you very much.