Tinexta S.p.A. (BIT:TNXT)
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Earnings Call: Q2 2022

Aug 4, 2022

Operator

Good afternoon. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Tinexta Group consolidated results at June 30th, 2022 conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Josef Mastragostino, Chief Investor Relations Officer. Please go ahead, sir.

Josef Mastragostino
Chief Investor Relations Officer, Tinexta

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon and good morning to the folks in the U.S. Thank you for joining Tinexta's first half 2022 results presentation. Here with me today, Oddone Pozzi, Group Chief Financial Officer of Tinexta. As a reminder, all the relevant documentation of the first half 2022 results can be downloaded from our company website in the investor relations section. For the purpose of this call, I will go over the first half 2022 highlights and updates. Oddone instead will go over the first half 2022 financial results as well as the business units performance, providing us with a deep dive. The last part of the call will be dedicated to Q&A. A recording of this conference call will also be available on the company website, and it will be posted upon completion of this call.

At this point, I will kick it off by turning to page three of the presentation. 1H 2022 registered a good set of results, setting the base for delivery. Please note that in order to allow as complete analysis as possible throughout the presentation, 1H 2022 results are compared both on a like-for-like basis, as well as on 2022 base, which includes all of Tinexta's companies, in addition to the newly acquired ones. Also we must say that as we had mentioned during the last conference call, the financial comparison data has been restated, taking into account the disposal of the Credit Information and Management division and emphasizing the results on a continuing operations base. This, in other words, means that a more meaningful like-for-like base comparison has been carried out between the years 2022 and 2021.

On the P&L, for instance, you will find a line item highlighting at the net income level the results of discontinued operations. So turning to revenues. Revenues came in at EUR 168 million in the first half of 2022, posting a healthy +20% versus prior year. EBITDA adjusted came in at EUR 37.1 million in the first half of 2022, posting a mere 21% increase versus prior year, mainly driven by Digital Trust and Innovation & Marketing Services. EBITDA was EUR 32.6 million in the first half. EBITDA adjusted margin was 22%, mostly in line with prior year. EBITDA margin was 19%. EBIT was EUR 19 million, and EBIT margin was around 11%.

Net profit of continuing operations, which is the most ready and available performance indicator, was EUR 13 million, posting a very healthy +22.3% versus prior year. The net profit was EUR 16.6 million. Net financial position came in at EUR 266.7 million and includes all the recent M&A operations, but not the proceeds from the sale of Credit Information and Management. Free cash flow continuing operations was EUR 16.1 million, and this number includes non-recurring taxes and costs as well as greater investments. On an LTM base, free cash flow of continuing operations was EUR 45 million. All business lines continued to grow again in the first half of 2022. Digital Trust grew close to 21% in revenue. The EBITDA grew much more at around 35% versus prior year.

Cybersecurity grew 6% in revenue, and EBITDA came in around EUR 3 million, with a margin posting around 8%. Innovation & Marketing Services posted a very strong +32%-33% in revenue, with EBITDA rising close to 17% and a margin of 36%. Then following we have the recent events and updates. As you all know, yesterday we signed the closing for the sale of Innova to CRIF for an equity value of EUR 170.1 million, growth of Forvalue incorporation into Warrant Hub. We also gave some nice sensitivity on the total net cash effect on the NFP, which will be around EUR 228.8 million, and includes the estimated net financial position of ReValuta. Oddone will go into the details more about this during the presentation. Absolutely.

In terms of the recent events, we also had Plannet, which was a recent acquisition under Innovation & Marketing Services. This was for a total enterprise value of about EUR 6.5 million , fully paid in cash plus an earn out on 2024 results. We also highlighted a partnership between InfoCert and CRIF, which we'll talk about in a second. From a human resources standpoint, as of June 30, 2022, the group employed around 2,200 employees, which excludes Credit Information Management. Going to page four, we are highlighting some of the most recent acquisitions that you all know. Enhancers, for example, was signed back in 16th of March 2022.

More recently, we acquired Plannet in June. On June 21st of this year. The most important takeaway from this slide is that we are creating a digital manufacturing pole with which we basically are able to provide to our clients a one-stop shop, which is obviously a very important aspect of Innovation & Marketing Services business. Today, we offer them consultancy. We offer them the opportunity to actually fund the actual consultancy services throughout the classical linkers of Innovation & Marketing Services. Going to page five, we are highlighting a very interesting partnership that we did between InfoCert and CRIF. We have been very vocal about this. When we signed the actual partnership with CRIF, we said that in the sale, obviously, our Credit Information and Management, we would also envision some partnerships, and here we are.

We delivered a partnership between InfoCert, which is the first certification authority in the E.U., together with CRIF, which is, as you all know, a leading company in KYC services. The reason of the partnership focuses on the launch of an integrated onboarding and know your client platform in the financial services sector. More recently, in the 1st of August, so just a couple of days ago, even though it was not material in size, we also announced the acquisition from Tinexta Cyber, in particular from Corvallis, of two smaller companies, namely LAN & WAN SOLUTIONS as well as Teknesi.

Both of these are, as we always mentioned, part of the bolt-on acquisitions of the cybersecurity business unit. Now, let us go to page seven, where Oddone will describe in detail the transactions of the closing of Innova, which was signed yesterday.

Oddone Pozzi
Group CFO, Tinexta

Absolutely. Yesterday, we performed the first step of the sale of our business information division. You know, the deal was that, you know, we sold the 100% of Innova, 75% by Tinexta, 25% by Intesa Sanpaolo. The net proceeds from the deal of Tinexta's were under than EUR 70 million. That is. This is the first step of the deal. In the meantime, basically, before the deal, Tinexta Innova sold Forvalue to Warrant Hub that will be since now the company that will hold the Forvalue business. You know, as mentioned, you know, the reason, you know, the will to continue the partnership between Banca Intesa and Tinexta.

And then you know, we do expect reasonably that could be the opportunity to have an investment of Banca Intesa in order to continue the partnership where Forvalue is now allocated. So to make it simple, you know, when we have completed the full deal of the sale of credit information, as well as the move of Forvalue from Innova to Warrant, as well as the potential investment in Intesa, the net positive impact on the net financial position of the group is expected to be in the range of EUR 230 million. So the first EUR 170 million of the sale of Innova has been performed.

Then we do expect, as already shared with the market, that the 95% of the sale of ReValuta could bring to the group around EUR 52 million, including the net financial position of ReValuta. Obviously, the group got the acquisition from Innova to Warrant Hub for EUR 48 million of the sale of Forvalue. And then we do expect a potential investment of Banca Intesa that would could be in the range of equal to the divestment that they have done. So this all together could generate at the end of the process a net improvement of the net financial position of the group in the range of EUR 230 million. I will be available later on during the presentation if additional information will be needed.

Yeah. Okay. If we move to page seven, basically, you can see here what happened during Q1, as anticipated by Josef. Overall, if you look at the results of the first half, basically, we have all the key main indicators that we are performing in excess of 20% in revenue, in EBITDA adjusted, as well as in net profit of the continuing operations. So we see this first half as a very healthy semester that, you know, is really definitely helping us to look for a bright future for the second part of the year. All the indicators are basically overperforming the previous year performance. If we move to page nine, we can go through the P&L.

To page ten, sorry. We can go to the P&L, where basically you see here the revenue growth, it's 20.2%. Where, you know, the most part of the growth came, basically for Digital Trust, that is around 21%, and then we have IMS growing by 33%. Cybersecurity grew by 6%. That is not far from the market performance. The EBITDA adjusted grew by basically 20.6% with the EBITDA margin of 22.1% compared to 22% of last year. So we continue to improve our performance year-on-year with a slight improvement also as EBITDA margin.

The EBITDA grew at a lower pace because we faced quite often costs, non-recurring costs for enabling the M&A activity. Depreciation amortization still as a percentage of revenue are declining from 8.7% to 8.1%. And then we include, obviously, here also the amortization driven by the PPA in both years. In terms of financial charges, you know, we have to separate here between impact of the evaluation of earnings related to, basically to Euroquality that affected the results for, in the range of EUR 0.6 million-EUR 0.7 million. The rest of the financial charges is just EUR 100,000 above previous year.

This was because basically, we implemented a coverage of our, you know, financing. Basically 88% of our financing is covered, and therefore, you know, we were able to limit in a very strong way the change in the interest rate. In terms of income taxes, you see, compared to previous year in net profit of continuing operations, a strong decline because we applied to the Italian law of affrancamento that allow us, you know, basically, to improve our tax impact for the semester was impacted in a positive way for EUR 2.7 million. Performance of discontinued operation seems to decline quite significantly, but in reality, last year, the result was positively affected, again, by the affrancamento we performed in Innova.

On a comparable basis, the decline was from EUR 4.1 million to EUR 3.3 million in terms of net profit, with a very positive cash generation in the semester from the two days. I will move now to page 12. Here we have a net invested capital, net financial position, and shareholder equity. Net invested capital is not yet affected by the disposal of credit information. Even though in the detailed balance sheet, the credit information business has been reclassified in a unique line, and this accounts for EUR 150 million net. Basically, we have an increase compared to previous year, mainly driven by the acquisition we performed in the first half.

The acquisition we performed, I recall you evaluate in basically all the acquisition has occurred in Innovation & Marketing Services for a total amount of almost EUR 60 million. In terms of net working capital, the situation was basically flat with no impact. This was very positive if we compare this with the growth in the revenue in excess of 20%. Net financial position has a lot of you know different phenomena around them. That means we deliver a positive free cash flow for more than EUR 23 million, as well as you know the decrease of net financial position by the Bregal investment in InfoCert that occurred in Q1.

In the meantime, we went through acquisition of new companies for EUR 60 million. We distributed dividend, and also we had an adjustment on net financial position because of the new leasing contract for the rent of the new building in Milan that since Q1 2023 will be the new headquarters of the company in Milan. And you see here that also, you know, we had a positive impact on the net financial position because of the derivatives that we implemented, as I mentioned before, and this amount will face the increase of cost in interest rates. And so basically, our P&L will be very, in a very low way, impacted by this.

Shareholder equity improved obviously by the results of the period minus the dividends, and obviously includes also EUR 70 million, the increase of the Bregal investment in InfoCert. I would say that I already commented on the net financial position, the free cash flow. You know, we had another quarter of improvement of the free cash flow. If we exclude, of course, non-recurring cost and extraordinary taxes we paid in order to perform the affrancamento. And so this has been another semester with an improvement of the cash flow generation from continuing operations. I would say that I already went through the comments of the different business units. So I would move to page 17 in order to deep dive into the three different business units.

Let's go now to page 17, and we go to address Digital Trust. The first half for Digital Trust has been a very positive semester. So results are, you know, definitely outstanding. You know, the revenue went up by almost 21%, and EBITDA went up by 35%. This is a very strong confirmation of the quality of the assets we have in our portfolio, the commercial capability, and the capability of improving much faster EBITDA compared to the revenue. In this scenario, also the new acquisition of InfoCert, it has been extremely profitable, you know, even above the average profitability of Digital Trust.

So quality of our products, our capability to penetrate clients and to provide first-class performance to them enable, you know, Digital Trust division to go up on a like-for-like basis for more than 15%, and this is definitely a very outstanding result. If we move to Cybersecurity. As already anticipating during Q1 presentation, during last part of Q4 and Q1, we accelerated significantly, you know, our organization in the Cybersecurity. So we went through a massive recruiting campaign, both from the commercial sales standpoint, as well as the skill set and hiring here. And so we put together, we made an injection of several people in this area.

Results are, we already have seen our backlog of orders improving month after month. Definitely in terms of revenue, still we are growing 6%. If you consider that the market is going up in the range of 7%-9%, we are not far, but our backlog of orders went up more significantly. So we do expect in the second half of the year an acceleration here that will help us to overperform even in the EBITDA. The EBITDA is below previous year because of this investment in people. So basically, we constitute a new division in Corvallis for cybersecurity, and we do expect the delivery of results during Q2. So we do expect it to grow still significantly by the end of the year in the cybersecurity.

If we move to innovation and marketing services, in this area, you know, revenues went up from EUR 42 million- EUR 55 million . I would say a growth of 33%, with the EBITDA going up almost by 70%. Definitely, you know, the... Basically, Co.Mark and Quero went up quite significantly, while we do expect Warrant Hub that has delivered results aligned with 2021 in the first half. We do expect in the second half a significant growth from Warrant Hub. That should help us to deliver exactly the plans that we shared with the market at beginning of the year.

The result is positive, and even the new acquisition that we have done in Spain with Evalue has performed very well, delivering results slightly above our expectations. Also in this area, you know, the growth was very strong, and we delivered accordingly to our expectations.

Josef Mastragostino
Chief Investor Relations Officer, Tinexta

Okay, great. So turning to page 22, we have some closing remarks. Following obviously the performance of the first half 2022, we expect a strong second half 2022 performance, and we gladly confirm the guidance that we have provided. In terms of the guidance, we're actually giving you even greater detail this time around, providing you, first of all, with a guidance that is calculated on a restated base. That means that the 2021 restated revenues were EUR 301.5 million.

Restated EBITDA adjusted was EUR 76.5 million, and therefore, from this starting point, we guide the market to a 2022 like-for-like basis growth of revenue between 10% and 12% in terms of growth based on the numbers that I just said. EBITDA adjusted is expected to grow on a like-for-like base between 8% and 10% versus prior year. And with acquisitions, the growth is even greater, with revenues expected to grow in a range between 21% and 23% and EBITDA adjusted even more around 25% and 27% growth versus prior year. This will give us a result in terms of net financial position over adjusted EBITDA of around 0.6 x.

Oddone Pozzi
Group CFO, Tinexta

Maybe only on this point, you have to consider the 0.6 x is basically driven by the acquisition we have performed, and that was not included in the first guidance we gave to the market, the acquisition of Enhancers, acquisition of Plannet that we just completed a few days ago. Basically, without this, we were talking about the net financial position in a range of EUR 15 million -EUR 20 million, negative. This is driven by the acquisition. Driven also by this acquisition will increase the expected growth of the EBITDA that now is in the range of 25%-27%.

Josef Mastragostino
Chief Investor Relations Officer, Tinexta

At this point, the presentation from our side is over. We can open the Q&A session. Alberto and I will be more than happy to answer your questions.

Operator

Excuse me, this is the Chorus Call conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Renato Gargiulo with Stifel. Please go ahead.

Renato Gargiulo
Senior Equity Analyst, Stifel

Yes, good afternoon. Well, my first question is on Digital Trust. The division performed very well in the first half. I was wondering, looking forward, in the medium term, can we assume a double-digit growth +10% for organic sales as a sustainable rate? And what are in your view the biggest, let's say, upside risks potentially leading to acceleration? Just to name a few, maybe the Italian recovery plan or cross-selling synergies with Cybersecurity or an improving business mix. The second question on profitability. We have seen a strong operational leverage in the first half. Are there any particular reasons to be, let's say, more prudent or conservative going forward? Or we can assume a similar trend?

Then on Cybersecurity, you were citing a strong order intake, a strong order backlog. I was wondering how much visibility you have on this side until year end. Then a very last question on if you can give us an update on your M&A strategy, clearly, following the disposal of the Credit Information business, compared to your previous indication, you should have a potential firepower over the plan period of up to almost EUR 500 million. So if you can give us an update, are you still focusing on Digital Trust, Innovation & Marketing Services, or in terms of countries, where do you see the best opportunities in terms of M&A going forward? Thank you.

Oddone Pozzi
Group CFO, Tinexta

Okay. Thank you for your question, Renato. Let's say that we deliver a very strong first half in Digital Trust. You know, this is basically aligned to our expectation. I would say that we are still on the same guidance that we shared during the plan presentation. So basically, we do expect to be not far from double-digit in the revenue, but to overperform the double-digit in the EBITDA. Obviously, you can understand easily that you can have one deal falling in first half or in second half. You know, it's very difficult to predict at the beginning of the year. The point is that we share with the market a much faster growth in EBITDA compared to the revenue in Digital Trust, and this is exactly happening.

Then if by the year-end we will be 12%, 13% or 14% growth, honestly, you know, it's very difficult to set now. As of today, we are slightly overperforming our expectation. We are not planning to change our guidance here, but honestly, you know, probably we could deliver slightly more than slightly less. But this is the situation. We are honestly very confident, very positive and, you know, but we are not changing our guidance significantly. The second question is on the Cybersecurity. Like I said before, you know, it's a process. We deliver according to expectation last year. We following this, we decided to accelerate in investing in resources. We brought them on board, and now they are starting to deliver.

So our backlog is improving day by day. And we trust we will be able to deliver results in a significant growth compared to the previous year. Also here, if we are going to deliver half million euro less or exactly according to the plan, this is early to say. What we have seen is a trend that is encouraging. And you know all the three divisions are performing, the three companies are performing properly according to our expectations. So compared to our budget, we are on plan. So also here we are confident that the results by the year end will show a significant improvement compared to previous years.

Josef Mastragostino
Chief Investor Relations Officer, Tinexta

For that matter, Renato, in the second quarter, we already highlighted a very strong +18.8% in terms of adjusted EBITDA versus prior year, which is already, you know, reaping the benefits of these increased investments that we did between Q4 and first quarter of this year that Oddone was referring to.

Oddone Pozzi
Group CFO, Tinexta

Absolutely.

Josef Mastragostino
Chief Investor Relations Officer, Tinexta

We're pretty confident in, you know, getting there, as we said, by year-end.

Oddone Pozzi
Group CFO, Tinexta

Absolutely. As we talked from the M&A strategy, definitely. The sale of the credit information will significantly de-leverage the group. This is for sure. You know, already, like I said before, we are dropping our net financial position from this sale, including the acquisition of Forvalue from one company to another and potential investment by Intesa Sanpaolo by EUR 500 million. Now, our goal is to improve our international path in Digital Trust. This is priority one, definitely. We are looking at some targets and, you know, we are working strong on this subject. For Innovation & Marketing Services, you know, basically we completed the three acquisitions, bringing on board more than 300 people since January.

And so we need to, you know, to breathe a little in order to let them organize and integrate. But you know, we are very happy of the value acquisition and also the integration of Enhancers and Plannet is proceeding at a very interesting pace. So also here, we could complete with some small acquisition our portfolio of offers, as well as if the right opportunity could come at the international level, we will look at it very carefully. On the cybersecurity, the focus is basically on the Italian market as of now. We [audio distortion] as Joseph mentioned in his presentation, we completed two small acquisitions in order to enlarge our capability, let's say, on the infrastructure part and networks.

This is very important because this is combining very well the offer, our offer of Cybersecurity with networks. And this is important. We are looking at potential targets also here. So our M&A strategy is continuing. We have even more opportunity, but honestly, we have to balance the fact to invest with the capability to continue to deliver the right performance. So we are progressing. We already delivered by the beginning of the year, probably six or seven acquisitions, so it's 1 acquisition per month, and we aim to continue.

Renato Gargiulo
Senior Equity Analyst, Stifel

Perfect. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Oddone Pozzi
Group CFO, Tinexta

You're welcome.

Operator

The next question is from Russell Pointon with Edison. Please go ahead.

Russell Pointon
Director, Consumer, and Media, Edison

Hello, everybody. I have three or four questions, please. The first one is on CertEurope, where I think the revenue contribution was a bit lower in Q2. Is there anything that's a concern there or is that just so you know a bit of movement around in the quarters as you find in the business? Second question, perhaps at the risk of looking foolish, if you make an announcement in the next day or so, but it's nine months since you announced Bregal Milestone's investment in Digital Trust, and it's six months since you received the money. Could you give an update on what is happening there?

Because I think at the time you highlighted one of the potential benefits of the deal was access to a pipeline of deals, and I would assume that given what's happened in markets over the last few months, that prices have come down a bit. So you know, is the level of activity lower than you might have expected by now? My second question, just going back to the Cybersecurity. The type growth you need in half two is about 30%. Could you just give some indication of how big that backlog is? You know, how many months of that you've got visibility on? Because when you look at your cost base, I think year-on-year, the cost base is only up about 10%.

Is that indicative of the leverage in the business that a 10% increase in the cost base, you can get an effective 30% increase in revenue in the second half? My fourth question is, with respect to IMS, you talked about creating a digital marketing pole. Could you talk about how many more services and how much investment you think is needed there in order to create that digital marketing pole? Because digital marketing is an ever expanding market. Thanks very much.

Oddone Pozzi
Group CFO, Tinexta

Maybe I start with the Bregal Investment. Let's say we are, you know, the cooperation with Bregal is very positive. We are working together, quite frequently. Let's say that, you know, on potential deals and targets, we are looking together. We are working together, and, you know, we are very active in trying to find targets as well as to negotiate potential deals. This is something that is happening in a very positive way. On top of that, we are glad, you know, of the results delivered in the first half of CertEurope. Obviously, as we mentioned, we work together with Bregal team in post-merger integration.

We set up a plan of post-merger integration, and this went very well. We have a very good integration. We have and we are delivering very positive results, both in terms of revenue as well as EBITDA margin. So honestly, to me, being the investment in CertEurope, the boldest, you know, investment international, we are very glad of the result that has been delivered in Q1. In the first half, sorry. Please.

Josef Mastragostino
Chief Investor Relations Officer, Tinexta

I'll take it from there. I think we went over the Bregal question as well as the CertEurope. You know, this is to the point, going to the point and, you know, re-emphasizing what Oddone was saying in terms of the M&A. We're doing almost, you know, one deal a month, and at the same time, we're also making sure that these, you know, are delivering and they're bang in line, if not even over our expectation. That was the case of CertEurope. We're very happy on that. Remember, just to kind of complete the message here, in terms of CertEurope, we're also, you know, in the phase of completing the training for the products such as TOP and GoSign, which for us represents the big next step for the international market, in particular in France.

You asked questions around both the Cybersecurity as well as Innovation & Marketing Services. Let me tackle the Innovation & Marketing Services question. We are creating a digital pole. Absolutely. Yes. The idea here is, remember during February of 2022, we presented the three-year plan, and we said that Innovation & Marketing Services is also branching out and diversifying its sources of revenue. By doing that, what we're doing is we're buying other smaller bolt-on acquisitions, even here, to kind of complete the offer, which is already very wide. Here, the idea is creating a digital manufacturing pole, which means and translates that we are actually, together with the Enhancers deal and together with Plannet, we are not just providing to them the consultancy side, but we're actually improving their efficiency.

So we're giving them, on a first stage approach, the consultancy of how to improve via digital transformation, via digital manufacturing, you know, the technological component, their efficiency in manufacturing. At the same time, we are also giving them the opportunity to have and apply for that funding, both it being at a national level via, you know, the Italian budget law or European funding. So remember we had said that a way to diversify revenues was to increase the component of European funding, and this is what we're actually doing together with, for example, the training going in terms of diversifying revenues. The other question was around cybersecurity. We're very well aware of the fact that this will be a second-half weighted revenue generation business.

So we are, you know, putting together our commercial force, as we said, from an organizational standpoint. During the first half, we were able also to close some specific deals with, you know, important groups. So we're also trying to increase the amount of client sales that is servicing, you know, the Cybersecurity aspect. We're completing the offer with the recent acquisitions, but we are very well aware of the fact that we need to deliver in the second half. Now, as we said, you know, if we will finish at EUR 0.5 million over or EUR 0.5 million lower than what the target is, I think this doesn't really change the big picture because we are still growing double digits in terms of revenue. That's pretty much our answers.

Russell Pointon
Director, Consumer, and Media, Edison

Okay. Thank you.

Oddone Pozzi
Group CFO, Tinexta

You're welcome.

Operator

The next question from Andrea Bonfà with Banca Akros. Please go ahead.

Andrea Bonfà
Director, Banca Akros

Hi. Good afternoon to everybody. Thank you for taking my question. I got just one brief question, which is related also to one made before, and is, I mean, the multiples on the market have come down, and I'm wondering if that is slowing down to some extent your M&A, especially in Digital Trust, in the sense that, if you can elaborate with us and share with us what are the counterparties still expecting, in the sense that, I mean, they should now face the reality that to some extent in some sectors, in some niches, multiples definitely are now lower. So is that something you are seeing? Is that something that now makes you not willing anymore to pay certain multiples? If you can just elaborate on that and share some thoughts with us. Thank you very much.

Oddone Pozzi
Group CFO, Tinexta

Thank you, Andrea, for your question. Honestly, I have to say that, all the deals we have completed as of today has been, you know, basically have set the multiples before, let's say, January or February 2022. So honestly, so the multiple we use for, the acquisition we performed up to now were basically on a previous era. Let's say that as of today, still, you know, the sellers are looking for multiples, not far from, six months ago or, one year ago. We do expect, sooner or later that, they will drop a bit. On the other side, I would say that if we find the right target with the right synergy, definitely.

If the target could be part of the puzzle we are putting together in each one of the three divisions, I don't think we will skip it only because they are looking for high multiples. Crazy multiples are not for us, and we never done this. And as you can see, all the acquisitions we have done are performing well. We do expect, in the medium term, they will come down also because the competition from private equity, sooner or later, you know, will be impacted by the increase of cost of debt, and basically the returns. We'll see. In any case, we are continuing our path. As we said before, we have completed up to now one deal a month, and we are going to continue.

Andrea Bonfà
Director, Banca Akros

Thank you, Oddone.

Oddone Pozzi
Group CFO, Tinexta

You're welcome.

Operator

As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and one on your telephone. Any further questions, you may press star and one. The next question is from Gabriele Berti with Intesa Sanpaolo. Please go ahead.

Gabriele Berti
Equity Analyst, Intesa Sanpaolo

Hi. Hello, everyone. Thank you for the presentation. Just a clarification on the guidance from my side. I would like to understand if the target of a net financial position to adjusted EBITDA ratio of 0.6 include the potential cash in arising from the investment of Intesa Sanpaolo and Warrant Hub or not? Thank you.

Oddone Pozzi
Group CFO, Tinexta

Absolutely, yes. You know, even though, you know, is still to come, we reasonably have the expectation that could happen.

Gabriele Berti
Equity Analyst, Intesa Sanpaolo

Thank you very much.

Operator

There are no more questions registered at this time.

Oddone Pozzi
Group CFO, Tinexta

Well, thank you very much for connecting, and enjoy the summer break.

Josef Mastragostino
Chief Investor Relations Officer, Tinexta

Thank you. Thank you, everybody, for, you know, all the interaction we had during this period, and see you in September.

Oddone Pozzi
Group CFO, Tinexta

Bye.

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