Good morning and welcome to DEUTZ conference call on the acquisition of Frerk Aggregatebau GmbH. Please note that this call is being recorded and a replay will be available on deutz.com later today. By participating in this call, you are consenting to this. Now, I am pleased to welcome DEUTZ CEO Sebastian Schulte, who will provide an overview of the acquired company, Frerk Aggregatebau GmbH, and the transaction. Afterwards, we will open the floor for your questions, and for your information, we are planning this call to last 30 minutes. As always, please note the disclaimer, especially regarding forward-looking statements, and with this, I'm handing over to you, Sebastian.
Yeah, thank you very much, and also from my side, good morning in the last week before Christmas to our analysts and investors' call. Because yesterday we signed an SPA to acquire Frerk Aggregatebau in Northern Germany, and Frerk, as I will point out later, is an established German system integrator, and the rationale, and again, I will point that out later in more detail, is to really build up or strengthen our position as DEUTZ in an extremely fast-growing market for backup power solutions, particularly in the field of data centers, critical infrastructure, so all verticals which are growing strongly and where we have a very, very strong right to play and right to win. What I will cover in this morning's short presentation is the market perspective, tell you a bit about the growth in that market, obviously with a focus on data centers and critical infrastructure.
I'll tell a bit more about who is Frerk, actually, what's their footprint, their technology, their positioning, and of course, what's the strategic rationale why we picked Frerk as a company to be acquired and how Frerk fits into our growth strategy. Let me start with a few words on Frerk. I said it before, it's a German-based system integrator, diesel-gas gensets, and we're talking about an output/revenue in 2025 of a bit above EUR 80 million. They also have, Frerk also has a service share of roughly 10%. The remaining 90% is actually new build. So their activities, the core activities is obviously they design, they engineer, and then they package, as we say in the field of power gen, turnkey genset systems that includes containerized solutions. They do the project management, the installation, the commissioning, and obviously also the long-term service and maintenance contract.
Frerk today is owned by families, so it's private ownership, and that's why we are especially pleased to get on terms with the families currently still owning Frerk in handing that fantastic company over in our hands. The output of Frerk is currently pretty dominated by German revenue, 85%, and then let's say by other European countries. We pointed out here on the right-hand side, France, Switzerland, Norway, and others, but we can see here the main focus at the moment still in Germany, but that also gives a nice growth perspective under future DEUTZ ownership, as we will point out later. The market for gensets in general is growing. We talk here on that picture, we have got the European growth, so we see a 9% annual growth rate expected until 2030.
But if you look a bit more detail, we see that sort of the general market is expected to grow around 3%-5%, but the market for data centers, well, gensets for data centers is expected to grow well above that market CAGR of 15%-20%. So we talk about in 2025 for Europe about a total market of $3.5 billion to be expected to grow up to $5.5 billion by 2030. And the data center, obviously the growth for the data center vertical is coming a lot from artificial intelligence and everything and all the requirements from this market which are currently developing. When I look at the data center segment, and we see on the left side of that chart the current capacity in megawatts, right? And we see that Germany here is centered on that map with above 1,000, is already quite strongly implemented.
However, we still expect a CAGR of 10%-20% even in Germany, despite that large installed base, but driven by the hyperscalers as well as critical infrastructure on top. There is a stable and resilient growth to be expected. If you look at other countries in Europe, it's a bit of a mixed picture. So we still have already quite a strong capacity in France, in Spain, in the Nordics with a bit of pickup potential in Eastern Europe. I didn't mention the U.K., which is also obviously mainly driven by data centers in London, already quite well established, but with a bit of pickup by Eastern Europe as well as Portugal.
That's actually very interesting also for the strategic rationale, which I will later point out that we do see European markets with an extremely high growth potential in Southern Europe, and we see it here on the right in the bottom part. So cut a long story short, it's a lot of growth potential, growth perspectives in Europe pretty much across the continent. Frerk, once acquired by DEUTZ, will position us very well to capture that data center and AI boom in Europe. Today, Frerk, the output, this is 24 million, but 25 million are fairly similar. Roughly 50% of that gensets go into data centers. Then we've got another 25% going into critical infrastructure, 10% service I mentioned earlier, and other sort of smaller but still interesting segments, industries, and others.
When we look at the customer exposure here, the data center operators, they typically have the highest requirements in terms of availability, redundancy, and ultra-low latency backup power solutions. And I said it earlier, it is driven by the ever-increasing AI workloads and the cloud expansion. When we look at the second largest customer group, operators of critical infrastructure, what I mean with that, hospitals, utility companies, network operators, they do have long investment cycles and the regulatory requirements are increasing. The KRITIS is a good example, German law, which will ensure that a lot of operators of critical infrastructures, in fact, will need to install backup power capacity for situations when the prime power may be interrupted. And then, of course, we have here the third largest group, industrial energy customers. They just require reliable decentralized power solutions across a very, very wide range of applications.
So the entry barriers are not that low, so they're quite high actually to enter into that market because customer relationships are typically long-term and the margin profiles are also extremely attractive. That's why that's what was the reason why we said we want to invest here, we want to purchase in order to then jointly with Frerk, and I will point that out later, build that business even larger and more successful in the future. When I look at Frerk in particular, we're talking about, we showed you about the output. It's a growth story, 2024, 2025, solid growth rate. We expect 2026 to be well above 2025. Frerk has a stable order backlog, good order book right now, and the momentum in data center growth, which I pointed out earlier, will drive here the output also going forward.
Revenue currently is expected to be around 10% of total output because typically when you install such a backup genset, it goes along with a long-term service contract. So that's a very stable relationship between new installation and service. So when we put Frerk together with DEUTZ, we are really creating synergies, we're really creating something attractive, something very attractive. So first of all, Frerk comes or joins DEUTZ, will join DEUTZ with a strong underlying business as a leading position, high-end backup power systems for data center and critical infrastructures. We understand and we believe that Frerk is extremely well positioned in these structurally growing markets, as I said earlier, which are benefiting from that AI-driven expansion of data centers.
DEUTZ and now it's becoming actually very interesting. Frerk, on a standalone basis, I would never say has reached sort of the peak of what they could do in terms of growing. They would go on a standalone growth, go on a standalone basis, also grow going forward, but we believe with what DEUTZ can bring to the table, we can jointly certainly accelerate the growth because we bring scale, we bring industrialization, we bring global reach, so we as a company at DEUTZ, we know the engine, we know all about the engine, we have system expertise. We do also bring manufacturing and sourcing capabilities to the table with our facilities in Germany, but also in Spain. Remember earlier, the Spanish and Portuguese market is also quite interesting.
That may be the strongest bit we bring to the table here is our globally, but in the case of Frerk, particularly European service and dealer networks. Typically, when you want to win a contract, let's say with a data center operator for the backup power, one of the questions they will ask is, all right, do you have the capabilities in that region where the data center is being operated to provide like 24/7 technical customer support? When you're based in Germany, like Frerk is today, obviously very strong in Germany with seven service points, the answer for Germany is yes, but the answer for other countries in Europe at the moment without using our network would probably be still no. With our particular European footprint all across the continent, we will be able to immediately answer all these questions with yes.
And that's actually where really one and one adds up to more than two. So that's the European perspective, the DEUTZ scale and sustainability and reach perspectives. We also will now be able to combine the platforms we have already in the field of power generation because I remember a bit more than a year ago, DEUTZ acquired Blue Star Power Systems in the United States, a company also in the field of gensets, which is running extremely successful in their sort of, in their niche, in their strong niche. But now with the competency we acquire via Frerk, fully integrated turnkey backup power solutions, we're bringing in competency into the group, which we currently at Blue Star do not have yet. That includes advanced control and switching systems and these critical requirements for data centers. That's something which we now bring into the group via Frerk.
So we can here transfer the knowledge, technology, and the products from our European setup future going always over the Atlantic also to our U.S. part. So all in all, when we add these puzzle pieces together, Blue Star Power Systems, Frerk, our Magideutz, also our Chinese sourcing opportunities or options in our group, we are now really creating a globally scalable energy platform. We've got strong manufacturing and market presence in the US. We've got the capabilities now in Europe. So now we are actually putting pieces together to become a very relevant player in that field. And that's why, yeah, that's the reason why we acquired Frerk. That's the reason why we're excited, very excited about Frerk. And that's the reason why we called all of you this morning to walk you through our rationale and the details. And our Business Unit Energy, I mentioned it already.
We've announced when we started it two years ago that by 2030, we want to build a business with EUR 500 million revenue. We're moving well toward that number now. These platforms, I said it earlier, Magideutz, cost-efficient production in North Africa, Blue Star in the U.S., and Frerk in Europe, and with all these pieces together, we are on a four-year basis in 2026. We expect already a revenue of a bit shy of EUR 300 million , EUR 280 million . And so we're well on track with further growth, organic and inorganic, to achieve that 500 million number by 2030. Blue Star is working very well, top line and bottom line. You know that from our regular earnings calls. Frerk adds the capabilities and also profitable business, and when I look ahead with our Business Unit Energy, we are really entering now the other or the structurally growing market driven by data centers.
The EUR 500 million, just said it, well on track, and DEUTZ Business Unit Energy, yeah, becomes relevant in that market, so we're extremely pleased with that and in terms of process, yesterday was the signing of the agreement. Now we will have to wait for the regulatory approvals, which is not expected to take too much time, so we expect a closing of that transaction somewhere, let's say early or first half of the first quarter 2026, and with that, I thank you for listening, and obviously we are very much looking forward to receiving and answering your questions.
Thank you for the update, Sebastian. We will now move on to our Q&A session. We're very happy to take your questions in person via audio line. To do so, please click on the virtual raise your hand button and unmute yourself.
Kindly note that participants dialed in via phone cannot ask questions. Ladies and gentlemen, this is your floor now. And I will hold the room for a moment if you decide to place your questions. Yes. And the first question coming in from Stefan Augustin. You should be able to speak now.
Yes, good morning. Thank you for the call. And I have just a question, Sebastian. Can you outline a little bit how the product ranges of Frerk and Blue Star fit together? And is there actually an easy point of cross-selling Frerk into the U.S.? So is that usually working with the dealership structure that you have in the U.S., or is that something you would need to build up at direct sales for the larger products?
Yes, let me start with the second question, Stefan. So we would typically not sell products produced by Frerk in Germany.
We would not produce them in Germany, ship them to the U.S., and sell them there because logistics costs, and I will not talk about tariffs, but logistics costs are obviously quite large for machinery of that size. What we would rather do is we would bring the capabilities, the designs which we developed here in Germany by Frerk to Blue Star in the U.S. and do the assembly locally because in principle terms, the packaging of a genset is extremely similar whether we talk about the models here produced by Frerk or the ones produced in the U.S. So it's rather transfer of capabilities in order to be efficient in terms of logistics. And in that sense, we would use the established dealership in the U.S., plus of course our own dealership. So there is something we already have.
It's a bit like what I said earlier on the European footprint, which is very strong. Our U.S. footprint is equally strong. That's actually not so much of a challenge from an operational, from a supply chain point of view. Moving on to your first question there. Frerk provides power gensets on the largest side. Blue Star is on the lower and middle side. There's a certain overlap. But Frerk is going up to, I believe, three to four megawatt. And Blue Star currently is going up to two megawatt, but there's an overlap a bit in the middle, but the capabilities are very, very comparable. Yeah, these assets fit well together.
Okay. Just to clarify that both products are sold through dealerships?
Well, in the U.S., we're using both dealerships, but we also have a couple of direct customers, very large direct customers. And Frerk sells mainly directly to, when I talk particularly about the data center, the data center companies. They sell directly to the data center companies. So that's the dealership, the benefit of the dealership and the service providers in Europe, which I pointed out earlier, is more in terms of servicing, maintaining the gensets rather than selling them. But in the end, I believe we will actually use various existing sales channels in order to go to the market in the right way.
All right. Thank you very much.
Thank you for your question, Stefan. And ladies and gentlemen, let me know if you should have any further questions. And that doesn't seem to be the case. One more from Jorge González.
You should be able to speak now.
Hello, can you hear me?
Yes.
Audible. Clear.
Amazing. Thank you, Sebastian, for the presentation. My first question, sorry if you already commented on this because I had a couple of issues. Can you share with us what are the profitability levels you are expecting or if the business is doing something similar to Blue Star? That will be my first one, please.
Yeah, we are here on an EBITDA level in the low double digits.
Amazing. And in regards to the future growth in Europe, is this transition in Europe also helping your plans to expand outside Europe? Is this a company that also is helping you to place these products, for instance, in Asia or other regions?
Focus for now is to use Frerk as the platform for Europe and Blue Star as the platform for the United States.
We would never obviously rule out to go beyond, but similar like I'm not sure whether you had already joined when I said that earlier, but similar like we wouldn't sell products produced in Germany into the U.S. because of logistics. We may well use the capability we acquired with Frerk also outside Europe, let's say in Asia or other regions. But then we would require local assembly capabilities in order to be efficient. But this is sort of for us rather a second step because the market growth in Europe is extremely attractive, as I showed on that one chart, and so we see possibilities with putting DEUTZ capabilities to what Frerk has to actually ensure that the Frerk business is growing well above the general market growth purely by adding these capabilities.
Thank you very much for the color.
And maybe last one, when you were commenting on these direct sales in Europe, so this means that you are seeing a strong potential for cross-selling with the current structure of DEUTZ and with other also verticals for the business?
Yeah, it's more, I mean, the direct sales, I mean, we know that Frerk has a very good reputation in the market, particularly here with operators of data centers. So when we bring our footprint, the DEUTZ footprint here to the table, it's rather adding the capabilities for service and maintenance, which fills potential white spots in the capabilities that Frerk today has because the go-to-market, they've been pretty good, right? So it's more like adding the capabilities for service and maintenance.
Okay. Thank you very much.
And very last one, Sebastian, in terms of the number of engines that you can sell from DEUTZ to the new acquisition, is there potential also to place your own engines? Or for the beginning, you plan also with Blue Star to maintain the current lineup of engines, and this is not the priority?
Yeah, selling DEUTZ engines is not the focus for that acquisition. The issue is, or the situation is that we talk here about significantly higher power ranges than the majority of the DEUTZ engine portfolio. So that's not the main field for synergies. We also talk here with Frerk. Frerk is not buying or is not selling thousands of gensets. These are high-value products. So we are here in the low hundreds rather than in the thousands. So establishing another distribution channel for DEUTZ engines is not driving the acquisition.
The main synergy potential comes really from our global service footprint as well as from production capabilities. So it's a bit comparable to the logic we applied with Blue Star successfully.
Very clear. Thank you very much, Sebastian, for the call. You're coming to the line.
Thank you for your questions, Jorge. And ladies and gentlemen, we have a few minutes left if you have any questions on the table. We have received no further virtual hands, and therefore we will come to the end of today's conference call. Thank you all for joining, and also a big thank you to you, Sebastian, for your presentation. I wish you all a wonderful pre-Christmas season and hand over to Sebastian for some final remarks.
Yeah, thank you very much, and also thanks for joining us. Thank you for listening to the rationale behind our acquisition.
And I would also conclude with what you just said because it's very unlikely that we'll hear each other before Christmas again. Don't worry, we'll not have any other surprises coming up before the 24th of December. So thanks for accompanying us on that journey. Wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year. And as you said, with many moving moments, we'll try to bring some of them from the business perspective. We're looking forward to interact and talk with and talk to you also in 2026. Thank you very much. Happy Christmas.