HENSOLDT, your reliable provider for premium electronic sensor solutions.
Ladies and gentlemen, a warm welcome to all of you, both to you who attend here in Ulm personally, and to you who are attending virtually from all over the world. It is my pleasure to welcome you to HENSOLDT's first Capital Markets Day here at our production site in Ulm. My name is Veronika Endres. I'm the head of Investor Relations, and I'm happy to guide you through this event today. Today it's a very special day for me because since our IPO last year in September, we have not had the chance to meet any of you in person. That's why I'm even more excited that we are able to host our first live event with you here in Ulm.
With me today are our four members of the management board. Our CEO, Thomas Müller, our CFO, Axel Salzmann, our CSO, Celia Pelaz, and our CHRO, Peter Fieser. Now, let's have a brief look on today's agenda. Thomas will provide you with a business update and the latest strategic developments, and he will also give an outlook of what to expect from HENSOLDT in the future. Then Celia, our recently appointed Chief Strategy Officer, will have a detailed update on our strategic initiatives. Then Axel will follow with a deep dive into our financials, the full year financial outlook and the guidance. Finally, Peter will elaborate on our ESG strategy and how HENSOLDT will contribute to a more sustainable world. At the end of the event, Thomas Müller will briefly take over to summarize our ambitions and strategic initiatives.
Each presentation will be followed by a separate Q&A session to allow for focus questions on each topics. As we are broadcasting this event live via Teams, also those of you who participate virtually will have the chance to ask their questions. To do so, just raise the virtual hand during this Q&A sessions. Before we start with the presentation, just one technical remark, please note that this event will be recorded. Now over to you, Thomas, please.
Yeah. Thank you, Veronika. Dear ladies and gentlemen, this day is really special to me and my colleagues in the management board. I want to pass to you in this room a warm welcome from my side too, but also virtually to the people who are listening and looking at us all over the world. Warm welcome, I'm happy to show to you what we are, what we can do, and what are the business perspective of this company. It's our first Capital Markets Day, we are very proud to stay here and to present our baby to you. You might not know, but there is a birthday today. It's not my birthday, but it's the birthday of our namesake, Moritz Carl HENSOLDT, who created this company in the midst of the nineteenth century.
Thanks, Celia, when we have been carved out from Airbus, there have been the question, what is our name? Airbus had some ideas about our name. I will not name them, but we had the good luck, a big luck even, that, together with the Optronics activities, we bought HENSOLDT, and therefore we had a name which already had been placed on global markets very well, so we had not to face a lot of difficulties. By the way, today, on his 700th birthday, he's no longer alive. We can say HENSOLDT has become a well-known brand name to our customers worldwide. I think Moritz Carl HENSOLDT would be proud to see what we have achieved under his name in the past five years. We have invested heavily into the most cutting-edge portfolio in the industry.
We grew into a truly globally acting company and established, since the carve-out of Airbus, 19 independent sales offices and industrial footprints worldwide. In the last four years, we became more efficient through our HENSOLDT GO!, and we will elaborate more on this later on. We could improve even our margin by 500 basis points since the carve-out of Airbus. We acquired successfully and also integrated eight companies to strengthen either our technological products or to strengthen our global reach. We won big contracts that drove our order backlog from record to record in the past 18 months. Ladies and gentlemen, we went public. I can say today and in hindsight, we did all this much faster than we expected a couple of years ago.
It has not been our shareholder, KKR, who drove us and said, "Hey, go, go." It has been the performance of this company which paved the way to do what we have done. Let me briefly summarize on what we have achieved since the IPO on the 25th of September 2020, which by the way was the first successful IPO of a defense company in Germany in more than 70 years. We have Rheinmetall on the stock market, but it has existed. We have been the very first company going to the stock market in Germany since 70 years. Only a few weeks after this, we have been admitted to join the SDAX index in Germany, a great confirmation of our successful development.
A few weeks later, we won the German government as a shareholder in our company, and this underlines our role as a crucial technological provider and partner to our government. It is with great pleasure that I welcome personally Werner Frank, who unfortunately could only join us virtually today as representative of the German government here at our Capital Markets Day. Hello, Herr Frank. Grüße Sie [Foreign language]. In last April, the Italian Aerospace and Defense Group, Leonardo, announced to acquire a further 25.1% stake at HENSOLDT, which opens an excellent path towards a future strategic partnership. This partnership will support our clear ambition to drive the European consolidation process in our industry. We will see it in the next years to come. It's obvious. I'm very proud of this outstanding and, ladies and gentlemen, very well-balanced shareholder profile.
With the two anchor shareholder at equal level, a free float that includes the who's who of investors, and with KKR still being on the board, we have an excellent foundation for our future strategic growth. Let me quickly update you on where we stand with Leonardo. Leonardo becoming an important shareholder in our company, we can say with all necessary caution that we see a good chance for the transaction to close before the end of this year, even taking into account that we are in the transition phase of the German government. To our knowledge, the approval processes under antitrust laws have been finalized. The remaining milestone is now the Foreign Trade Act approval, where discussions, last information from this morning, seem to be ongoing between Leonardo and the German government in a very good spirit, Herr Frank. Thank you very much.
Leonardo can be more, by the way, and by the way, I say it on purpose, as a shareholder. Leonardo and HENSOLDT have been partners for many, many years in different programs, and our intention is to now develop a concept to deepen and extend the existing cooperation between both companies in order to combine complementary activities and skills within the regulatory framework of capital market and antitrust laws. They are an anchor shareholder. They are not defining what's happening in the business. They are a well-appreciated partner, and this is what we wanted to gain with Leonardo. Let me give you just one concrete example in terms of future cooperation potential. Both companies have a leading position in the Eurofighter defense electronics business. Both sides, Leonardo UK and HENSOLDT in Germany, are the key drivers of future, even next generation, AESA radars in this fighter.
The fighter will fly for the next 40 years as one of the European fighter platforms. Guess who will benefit from it, or from the upgrades in the defense industry? Jointly, together with Leonardo, we will become a key player in the next generation, in the next European generation fighter programs, the Future Combat Air System, the Franco-Spanish-German fighter system, and the Tempest program, the U.K.-Italian-Swedish program. Sooner or later, this is our clear view at HENSOLDT, by the way, not only our view, will join forces, not totally, but in some key areas where we have the way to use commonality in defense electronics, in sensor systems. Here we, as HENSOLDT, together with Leonardo, are playing a very, very key role in the future. Another important achievement since the IPO is the appointment, Celia, as you as our Chief Strategy Officer.
With you as such a highly experienced, very tech-oriented and widely respected colleague, we have strengthened our management board and put even more emphasis on business development and strategy. I'm happy that now we also have a real system engineering capability in the board. Dear ladies and gentlemen, since our IPO in September 2020, we delivered on what we promised. We walked the talk. We grew in all dimensions. We further improved our operations. We became even more innovative, and you will go much more in detail later on. Ladies and gentlemen, let me point out four important dimensions that will drive the success story of HENSOLDT in the coming years. The first dimension related to our significant, profitable, outstanding and now key reliable growth path due to the high visibility of our order book and pipeline.
The second dimension I will address is our cutting-edge technologies and benchmark innovation. Don't worry, I will not take the slices of your cake. The third dimension covers our continuous efficiency improvements as one key pillar of our strengths. Again, I will not take your cherry on the cake, dear CFO. Fourth, we live and breathe ESG. Same for Peter with the cherries. I'll leave the main message to you. Let me dive deeper into these four dimensions now. First dimension, we have an outstanding revenue visibility. We will continue to benefit from a very strong order pipeline in the planning period 2022-2024. Our order backlog increased to almost EUR 3.5 billion by the end of last year. It didn't stop there. You remember we said last year during the IPO, there is a huge pipeline.
What we achieved, we continued to win significant orders like the PEGASUS program with a contract value of around EUR 1.25 billion, and we accelerated our momentum once again. Today, our order backlog stands at a record level of EUR 5.4 billion. These activities never ever, even during the time of Airbus and its predecessors, has seen such a big order backlog. I am convinced that these strong figures are proof of our solid positioning as a pure play sensor solutions house. I repeat, a pure play sensor solutions house. We are not going into conglomerates or multi-technical things. We stay as a pure play sensor solutions house. This drives, again, our growth. As we said, pure play sensor solutions will be the heart of the heart of future systems, military defense systems.
During the IPO process, we mentioned a strong order pipeline of around EUR 10 billion for the years 2021-2023 last year. This pipeline has contributed significantly to our order intake this year, both domestically in Germany with further Eurofighter business, further business in the TRS-4D, our naval radars, medium range naval radars, the ones who could participate in this morning's visit have seen the TRS-4Ds and the TRML-4Ds. On top of this, we have a new radar which is a TRML for the long-range radar. The purpose is ballistic missile defense for the German Navy, but also the German Air Force. On top of this, the NH90 transport helicopter EW system upgrade. To mention the periscopes for the German and Norwegian U212CD submarines.
You have seen 3,000 periscopes already delivered, not mentioning the 1903, meaning beginning of the 20th century's periscopes HENSOLDT delivered as a first to military submarines in Germany. The 3,000 demonstrate our leadership. Therefore, we are world market leader in tactical submarine periscopes. By the way, the twin mast technology, which we are now having on the new Type 212CD boats, is our breakthrough technologically into digital periscopes and not only optical periscopes. A huge step ahead, which will further help us to be at the edge of these technologies. We also grow significantly in international markets. For example, with our observation system and reconnaissance system for the Dutch Fennek scout vehicles, tactical EW systems in your area, and also for the Dutch army spectrum monitoring systems.
On top of this, even in the Middle East, we had spectrum monitoring systems delivered from South Africa. We estimate the pipeline for our upcoming midterm planning period at the same level as we have seen it last year, meaning EUR 10 billion. Remember what we said, we will turn the soft backlog into real order backlog, and we go ahead with this. I will not harm actually your guideline. As we said, we are cautious people. We walk the talk. We want to be successful in the future. In the future, we will also see a greater balance between Germany and the European and the rest of the world market. Let's say roughly one-third, one-third, one-third. The pipeline is proof, and it really also shows to what extent we are participating in this step up in this business. It's for us a kind of super cycle.
I'm very careful using this word, but it is indeed being a defense electronics company. Looking into the future with more demand from our customers on military systems, we will have a huge business opportunity following the growth of the budgets. We will come to it even in Germany. Also being even in a growth sector within the growth because defense electronics will get more and more important. For example, we expect in the extension of our Eurofighter support contract with Airbus, this is the next business. Sorry, I have been too fast. Our services business is also growing at a very, very nice level.
It is the most profitable one, and I have to say I like it very much because it's not only following what Peter Schlote is doing, not only following the increase of our own products, but we are achieving, we are getting into even competitor programs to be maintained by our services business. Thanks to our daughter, HENSOLDT France former Nexeya. For next year we are planning a EUR 300 million order intake with Airbus for the Eurofighter. You see our business services is following the hard business or the traditional business in our business divisions. Strategic alliances like the recently formed AUKUS security pact between Australia and the United Kingdom, and for sure the U.S., will on a regional basis drive us to refocus slightly our dimensions in M&A strategy.
In the future, we have to be not only in Europe, but we have to also strengthen our activities in the APAC region and in the United States. I'm happy to answer your questions later on and Celia presenting our M&A strategy accordingly. The second pillar dimension we developed and acquired new and cutting-edge technologies which will drive additional growth. Our state-of-the-art technology portfolio has always been a cornerstone of HENSOLDT's business success and an important growth vector. We do not only master next-generation technologies, but we transform them into sustainable business.
Before I enter into some examples, I need to say that we have a very clear strategy behind. Closely aligned between head of strategy and head of finance, that if we discover a tangible company which helps us to save significant amount in own investment, and if we have a positive balance there, we go for it. We successfully performed this acquisition strategy in the past. The ones who listen or who could participate today have seen our HENSOLDT Analytics. Here we just recently acquired a company called SAIL LABS, which is in itself a small company, but with outstanding skills, and we had a very good market monitoring what could help us significantly to step into the next stage. On the other side, we have recently launched a new naval surveillance radar named Quadome, which is being developed by our colleagues in South Africa.
This cyber resilient, software-defined, and future-proof air and surface surveillance radar boosts our product portfolio in the Sensors segment. The new radar combines outstanding features with a very attractive price point, and we are convinced that this new product will find many customers in the offshore patrol vessel class ships. Now, to give you an idea, we have already a lot of customer requests for this brand-new radar because the price-performance relationship is outstanding, and it is like as if the market has waited for such kind of a radar. We published this in the DSEI London exhibition a couple of weeks ago. On top of this, we are thinking about technology, cutting-edge technologies. I'm really very proud. We talked a lot about a big pipeline in our passive radar, and now we have the first contracts.
We just recently signed a big contract with an export customer on the passive radars. I will not talk about the pipeline we currently see and the interest of customers to which we can export our passive radars. Here we have a tool, a sensor which is capable to get data even without emitting anything on its own. I'm very proud also to say that this radar detects stealth fighters very accurately. We had some trials in the U.S., by the way, very clearly securing our black boxes and the key knowledge. Yes, the Americans said, "You are right. You can detect them." It will be, again, one of our edge of technology sensors we are getting to the market, and we are in the market now. We have a huge challenge in asymmetric warfare.
In order to face this challenge, technologically wise, we are adding a next sensor system to our already existing outstanding sensors, which is the, as I said, data analytics. You have seen them. You have seen the technology. Incredible. It will complement based on open source intelligence, which with the data we are getting from our classical, traditional, even high-end cutting-edge sensors. The key question will be to get all the data. All the data from classical sensors, data analytics, being clearly focused on our customers' needs. We have to answer very precisely with high quality to the demands and requirements of our customer. The problem is for us as citizens on a global basis, we are facing changing nature of warfare.
In addition to more conventional conflicts, like unfortunately we see in Eastern Europe, and hopefully will not accelerate or aggravate, also in the South China Sea, we are faced on a daily basis with this hybrid warfare. We see it at the Belarus-Europe border currently, and we all experience on a daily basis cyber attacks. In all our companies, which creates a lot of effort to defend ourselves against it. It's safe to assume that the battlefield of the future will be much larger than in past conflicts and include all domains. While our portfolio of today mainly covers a classical electronic spectrum with radar, electronic warfare, and electronic sensor solutions, it will be crucial to extend this spectrum into the cyberspace and further develop based on what we already have acquired, what we already have as complement to our existing sensors, our capabilities in the cyberspace.
We see the digital domain as an important new growth area for HENSOLDT. It will be one of our key pillars in the future, in the longer future, medium and long-term future. Now, going to the third point, we will become even more efficient to ensure that we deliver our projects and order backlog on time, on cost, on quality as it has been specified. Operational excellence, continuous improvement, and an integrated supply chain have been a top priority for the management of HENSOLDT since we launched this company in 2017. The first two waves of our HENSOLDT GO! program, we implemented over 300 measures. Actually, we further go in depth in this, and we do not stop here. As I said, we improved our base margin by 500 basis points or our gross margin by 500 basis points.
We continue to identify further operational efficiency measures along the entire value chain in development, procurement, and production that should support our midterm planning. Executing our project efficiently and delivering our contracts on time, on cost, and quality will remain our key priority, especially if you take into account our huge order backlog and the future order intakes. We are very aware of our expectations and, we are especially more aware of your expectations as our investors that we are fully committed to deliver. The fourth dimension, be clear, we take a clear stand on ESG. These are not our new employees, by the way. By 2026, we will be the ESG benchmark in the defense sector, which is difficult for us because Peter will, in a couple of minutes, talk about where we are already today.
We have to get even higher targets than this one. For HENSOLDT, sustainability is a core part of our corporate culture. Detect and protect. As a company with the ambition to detect and protect, we have a special responsibility and a special commitment towards sustainability. This is why we have firmly embedded the issues of environmental, social, and governance in our strategy and continue to implement them in our daily business. We have committed to a five-year action plan with seven ESG clusters. We will address these clusters with targets, measures, and for sure KPIs that we can track and we will report. This is an ambitious plan to become a more sustainable company within the next five years. We as a management board, as a team, as HENSOLDT as a whole, see ESG as a decisive factor also for future growth.
On the other hand, you know where we have light, sometimes there's also fog and shadow. We see currently initiatives in the EU taxonomy for sustainable activities to rate businesses in the security defense industry as being neutral or even negative with regard to sustainability. In my view, very personally, but I think I speak for a lot of people in this country, a lot of people in Europe, this is just wrong and also potentially detrimental to societies becoming more sustainable. Security, ladies and gentlemen, security is a basic human right, like access to water, food, education, and is also a prerequisite for our societies to transition our life, our overall economy, more towards sustainability and future. If we waive the possibility to defend ourselves due to the fact that the defense industry is cut off from financial resources, it will be a disaster for all of us.
We don't have to look very far from here. Look only at the eastern border of the EU. Can you imagine that these guys are taking a single second thinking about sustainability? No. Let's keep it at this point because Peter will go more in the depths of ESG and will give you some ideas that we are very well on track with this. On top of this, with our sensor systems, our sensor solutions, we can contribute to clean environment. ESG is in our DNA, in our hearts. You have seen the nice polar bear and the rhinos. Thank you. The rhinos. We are securing a game reserve in South Africa, and 1,800 white and black rhinos are there. We securing this game reserve since four years. Guess how many losses we had due to poaching?
No single one. No single loss due to poaching. We are expanding this. It's not a big business. We're expanding these activities to other areas like securing sea avalanches, securing the polar bears, and so on. This is also part of our DNA because we say even if it's not big business, but we are doing something good with our sensor solutions we can provide. Dear ladies and gentlemen, before I conclude my presentation, I would like to share with you my assessment on the German parliamentary elections and what effects a potential but probable traffic light coalition and what may be the effect on the defense industry. There are some clear main paths. All three parties want a stronger EU cooperation in defense.
They have a positive view on NATO and especially on the Franco-German relationship as being a kernel of future cooperation with other European nations. We see the intention to improve defense procurement structures with cybersecurity and digitization as central topics. On top of this, all three parties say we have armed forces. We need armed forces to defend our security. I'm talking about Germany, not the EU. We need to equip our soldiers with the right equipment that they can perform their task. I don't want to say we are going up to 2% of the GDP, which means we talked about it yesterday, that we are going up to EUR 88 billion defense spending in Germany from EUR 50 billion now.
I think it's globally accepted that we have to spend more money for European programs, but also for some German programs which are desperately needed, like future transport helicopters, a couple of other things. We are looking positively into the future, be it a traffic light, meaning Social Democrats, liberals, and Green Party coalition, or whatever happens in the next weeks and months to come, we are looking very positively into the future. As I said, our basis is becoming more European and more global. With this, I'm happy to hand back to Veronika.
Thomas, thank you very much for elaborating on our development over the recent months and for outlining the broader picture of our segment development and of the importance of ESG for our company. With that, I would like to kick off the first Q&A session and ask for first questions either from our audience here on site or virtually. To do so, please just raise your hand. There's a first question coming from Ben. Magdalena just will hand you a microphone.
Yeah. Thank you. You talked in that about M&A, and you said you'd be happy to outline M&A over the next couple of years. Results yesterday, net debt EBITDA came in, you know, better than you were expecting. Is that an opportunity to be more aggressive in 2023 and 2024 around M&A? Any thoughts there would be great. Thank you.
Not more aggressive because we have a clear strategic path into the future which we will follow. As we said, we want to acquire companies, even of small size, if they significantly contribute to our technological basis and that we are not putting so much R&D money in it because we want to save the R&D money for other areas. Second, there is, as I said, this example of the AUKUS relationship between the three countries. There's also a certain refocus in the regions of the world where we believe we need to be more present. More present means in the APAC region. The question is M&A, what kind of M&A? This is currently under consideration. Certainly, we have an issue, not an issue, but we have a question, strategic question on M&A in the United States.
You remember what we said during the IPO. We will not immediately go into an acquisition of a U.S. company on a large scale. In order to have an access to the biggest Western market with our outstanding products, we need to have a footprint in the United States. The question is how. Again, we are currently talking a lot about what is the best way to have this industrial footprint in the United States. I cannot go deeper in the details.
Well, there was one further question from, Christian.
Thank you. Coming back to the ESG topic, two questions. First, I think you mentioned the draft of the EU sustainable taxonomy, and I think it even labeled defense to be socially harmful. It's just a draft. In case this draft will not be changed, this is not just a question of equity markets, but also debt markets. Do you have a plan B, like higher prepayments from your governmental customers? That's question number one. Question number two is, will ESG be part of management remuneration going forward?
I start with the easier part of your question. The second part, yes, it is already. We have clear targets in our management remuneration, number of female managers, percentage of female managers in our boards throughout the whole organization. And there are a couple of things like being CO2 carbon dioxide neutral, and so on. These are all in our long-term management goals included. ESG, as I said, is not only in our DNA, but also in our remuneration. Now to the second part of your question, which is much more difficult. The European aerospace, security and defense community is currently intensively starting a discussion with the EU Commission.
On the one hand, the EU Commission said to have a performant defense industry in Europe is a significant and obligatory question we have to take care about being more sovereign in the future. On the other side, you are rightly pointing out the eco-label of the social taxonomy which currently is on the way to be elaborated. We are not yet in a status where it's already written and already put in place. Therefore, we are working on it and saying, "Well, look, guys, you are ambiguous." Because if you're cutting up in the debt part the industry from financing, what do you expect? Bigger companies like Airbus, like Leonardo, like Thales, like even HENSOLDT, we have access certainly on a more global basis for resources.
The problem is very, very clear and very specific in medium-sized companies and small-sized companies because they don't have such a big access to financial resources. This is a problem for the whole industry because if some of our small and medium suppliers are breaking away or stepping out of defense, it will create a problem also for the big ones. Here we are currently really strongly fighting against it, I hope with some success. Closely supported by our French colleagues, by our Italian colleagues, Spanish colleagues, Swedish colleagues, Netherlands colleagues, Belgian colleagues, East European colleagues. Did I miss someone? No, it's really it is a mishap which is currently happening there. We are working on this. As I said, defense industry delivers to our society the tools in order to defend ourselves and being green. Much, much more sustainable than countries I didn't want.
I don't want to talk about more in detail. We know it. It's not only a question of being neutral or even being detrimental. No, we need to be the ones who are supporting sustainability. That's what we have to achieve, and that's what we're fighting for.
Yeah. Charles has a further question.
Thank you. I think I read somewhere about that there has been an agreement with QinetiQ to take sensors into the U.S. How does that work along with the M&A and, you know, talk about A, the U.S. strategy, and B, sort of more global benefits of being ITAR-free.
Now, Steve Wadey will kill me, but I hope I'm allowed to say that we are very complementary companies, and we are not at all there. It is an idea of two CEOs meeting each other, and you know sometimes what's coming out of the meeting of two CEOs. Nevertheless, it's an interesting idea to enter the United States via a joint venture. It's not necessarily QinetiQ, but it can also be another company who is already in the United States. Yeah, I would very much like to do it. As I said, it's an idea. It's not a given. There are a lot of others who also want to do it, so it's an idea. CEO hands out idea.
Aymeric has a question.
Continuing on the M&A opportunities. Some of the products you showed us today have parapublic or potentially even civil applications. Are civil markets expansions something you've considered, and could it be a bigger leg to the HENSOLDT growth story in the future?
Thank you, Aymeric. I'm very careful on civil adjacent markets because if this is not an adjacent market to our technologies or to our product portfolio, we would anyhow not enter into it. Civil commercial markets are driven by different rules and guidelines. It's difficult to enter into it. We have normally lower margins and higher volumes. We want to stick really to our business being to a big extent defense oriented and adjacent in security areas. Yeah, I think security and defense. We have very few commercial areas where we have such a high skill that we are providing, for example, to ASML, a super precise monitoring system of their big factories where we are a very good partner for ASML.
This is something which came out of this outstanding technology we have. Normally not.
Just as a reminder for our virtual audience, if you have a question, just raise your hand, and we will open the line for you to ask the question. It seems that,
There's one.
Sean has a further question.
Yes. Thank you. Just coming back to the Leonardo stake that was announced in April. Are you able to talk at all about how you think or what opportunities that you might be able to sort of capture in terms of the partnerships going forward? And do you see any opportunities at all, perhaps on the civil side, given Leonardo's exposure on the civil side at all? Maybe if there's anything you can say about how that partnership might look going forward in terms of opportunity set?
I think it's very early in the process. We even have not closed the deal to say what are the business areas we could think on top of what we have seen up to now as obvious low-hanging fruit synergy areas like we talked about. Yes, maybe there are due to our technology. I remember, Celia, and you will show it later on, that we have very small, super precise, navigation tools, again, edge of technology, which we are also using in. I will not take the cherries of your cake again. What we are using perhaps in the, in the next, air mobility, areas, and if there is an application possibility, yes. I think we should concentrate currently on where we see obviously synergy effects, and that's what we are following currently.
Okay
Okay. If there are no further questions, I would like to hand over now to our Chief Strategy Officer for providing you with an update on our strategic initiatives. Celia, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Veronika. Dear ladies and gentlemen, it is a great pleasure for me to talk about our strategy in this first Capital Markets Day after our IPO last September. This IPO was really a key milestone, also for me personally. I remember walking to the stock exchange the night before the event and remembering how it all started in 2017. At the time, we had a vision and a plan. We had the vision to become Europe's leading platform-independent provider of defense and security solutions with global reach, and a plan to grow and to list our company and create a platform for further growth. From a vision and a plan to reality in three years, the IPO was not only a lifetime experience for me, but also proof that a vision, a plan, and consistent delivery on it bring results.
You have already heard from Thomas about several of our great achievements since our IPO from last September. We do continue to prove that we don't only have a clear strategic vision for growth and a comprehensive framework to deliver it, but we also keep delivering on it. You might remember our four strategic growth vectors and our five strategic pillars for strategy implementation. Allow me please to start by shortly reflecting on some of the key strategic achievements along those pillars. We kept investing in our portfolio of products and solutions. We launched our Quadome naval surveillance radar. We reached important milestones in the development of multifunction jamming systems, Kalaetron Attack. We demonstrated our Detect and Avoid radar as a collision warning systems for civil and military drones.
Not only that, we also launched our new SPEXER 600 ground-based surveillance radar and the LYNCEA defense integrated command and control system for naval vessels. I believe these are good examples, very good examples of our focus investments in portfolio development. We also kept making sure that we are the preferred partner for our customers all around the world. I think the German government investing a 25.1% stake in HENSOLDT and us receiving more than 2 billion orders from our German customer really speak volumes about how we are a preferred partner in Germany. This status help us access platforms we have not been to up to now, partner also with other industrial players, and so win again in competition.
A great example of that is our cooperation with ELTA, with whom we provide the German customer with a long-range radar and initial ballistic missile defense capability, both on the F124, and the HADR NF program for air surveillance. Our strengthened position in European cooperation programs like FCAS or MGCS and our participation to EDIDP programs like EUDASS and REACT show how we also expand our seat at the European table. International wins like in the Netherlands, where we will not only provide our observation and reconnaissance system for the Fennek scout vehicles, but also our tactical EW systems are important milestones. We have expanded our footprint also in the U.S. market by winning a follow-on order for our laser range finder for the U.S. Army M1 Abrams main battle tank.
Here also expanded partnerships like, for example, with L3Harris to position our Twinvis radar on the U.S. market. These examples show how we provide our customers with the best technical solutions while we also keep an eye on their sovereignty and overall strategic ambitions, and so continue to boost our presence all around the world. In terms of improving operational efficiency, we stick to what we promised you in our IPO. We have set ambitious saving targets, and we are on track. We keep focus on time, on cost, and on quality delivery and on continuous improvement. With an order backlog of over EUR 5.4 billion in our hands, delivering on our promises is a key element of our strategy.
We are aware that delivery can either build or destroy our reputation in the markets, and therefore have heavily invested in ramping up not only our engineering resources, but also our program and subcontractor management capabilities while keeping a strong focus on end-to-end process improvement. We will deliver on our targets. We keep our very disciplined M&A approach with a clear focus on value accretive acquisitions that match our strategic criteria and expand our technology capabilities, portfolio, and market reach. Since the IPO, we have closed the acquisition of Tellumat, expanding with that our presence in South Africa. With the acquisition of Tellumat, we also built the industrial basis for the development of our Quadome radar and open access to new regional markets. We also concluded two other technology-related acquisitions.
MAHYTEC, a leading manufacturer of hydrogen storage tanks and renewable energy storage systems that will give us an edge to address key energy challenges of the future in defense and in non-defense markets. Also SAIL LABS, which some of you have seen today, our HENSOLDT Analytics, a leading provider of artificial intelligence-based open source intelligence solutions, which now forms the core of our HENSOLDT Analytics and is our springboard for bolt-on acquisition that will take us a further step towards becoming the leading data analysis house in the security and defense sector in Germany. Of course, we also kept our investment and commitment into making sustainability a core part of our corporate culture, and also on the well-being, energy and motivation of every single HENSOLDTian who builds the basis for our strategy.
Our first sustainability report back in April, and also the participation quota of 65% to our eco employee share programs are good, very good examples of that. As I mentioned before, we have a clear growth vision along four strategically defined vectors and a consistent strategy implementation embedded in a structured framework. Those have been key elements of our success. We follow the way that has made us successful, but we also develop it further. Our four strategic vectors, and I will come back to them in a minute and give you more color on how we have a strategic growth vision that answers market and customer requirements. We keep our strategic growth vectors untouched, and we slightly adapt our five strategic pillars.
Of course, that we keep seeing M&A as an enabler to accelerate our strategy by expansion of technology, capabilities, portfolio and market reach, but we now allocate M&A strategic actions within the pillars, drive digital and innovative portfolio, and convince customers with our solutions. M&A either dedicated to expand portfolio capabilities or geographical reach. Our sustainability strategy gets its own pillar for more visibility and a strengthened commitment to become an ESG sector benchmark. We want to be very clear that we don't pursue growth at any cost, but it is of utmost importance to us to foster business integrity, product responsibility, health and safety, human potential, community relations, responsible sourcing, and our planet and our resources. You will hear more about that from Peter later on.
Before going back to our strategic growth vectors, I would like to make a brief excursion into the bigger picture which sets the frame for our vision. While we have evolved as a company, the world around us is also changing and becoming more and more complex every day. Global security threats are unluckily on the rise. We see tensions growing in Eastern Europe and in the East and South China Seas. We see a growing number of asymmetric conflicts, like the most recent one on Nagorno-Karabakh, but also conflicts of lower intensity, like in Mali, for example. In addition, there is a growing wave of civil unrest leading to increased movement of people and more migration. We should definitely not forget the global cyber threat, where under others, we have to deal with ransomware attacks on almost daily basis, disrupting entire industry sectors.
This multitude of new and evolving threats impacts operations and drives development of armed and security forces towards new concept of operations, which require smarter and more connected platforms, higher investment requirements, and also closer cooperation in our industry, and also closer cooperation between traditional defense and security forces. Research shows that by 2030, three key drivers will particularly impact our markets. We will see an increased number of unmanned platforms, which will complement but also partly replace manned platforms. We will see a value shift from hardware to software. We will see more nations position their defense and security industry as means to secure their sovereignty and economic growth. The developments that I have just described, they offer both opportunities and risks for us, opportunities and risks to which we need to give an answer with our strategy.
We will see higher defense electronics content and a higher demand for integrated solutions between manned and unmanned platforms, no doubt. But at the same time, there will also be an increased price pressure, as not all unmanned platforms will require cutting-edge sensor technology. We will see a higher demand for artificial intelligence, data processing, and cyber protection. New technologies opening chances for us, as you have heard, but also making our market more attractive for big players from the IT world. We must also not forget that challenges in Europe and in Germany will be out there in terms of sensitivities about implementation of artificial intelligence or autonomous systems.
Nations will continue to spend more on defense and security despite all the COVID-19 impacts, and at the same time, as mentioned, see their defense industry more and more as means to their sovereignty and economic growth. Local industrial operation and international cooperation will be a conditio sine qua non for us to be successful in the worldwide market. Cooperation in Europe will gain in strength, as already visible today by the higher investment by the European Union in technology development, which will also drive market consolidation in order to keep pace with global competition. Good. In that scenario, let me explain to you now how do we exploit those opportunities and master the challenges in the frame of our strategic growth vision 2031. As I mentioned, our four strategic growth vectors remain in place, so let's go straight into each one of them.
The first one, we grow in solutions. Of course, we will keep growing also in sensors, but we will not only grow by complementing our strong sensor portfolio, but also by continuing our transformation from a sensor to a solution provider. We will be able to offer more to our existing customers, increase our footprint in future platforms, and expand our portfolio and capabilities to address new customers looking for comprehensive solutions to master new operational challenges. It all starts with understanding the concepts of operations of our customers, the needs of our customers, providing them with the solutions they require, and creating those innovative technologies that form the basis for these solutions. The good news is that we have started this transformation already some time ago, and we have laid a solid foundation.
Already today, we are offering packaged and partly integrated equipment for certain subsystems, like, for example, our arms self-protection systems or our complete integrated system for land, tactical, and strategic spectrum dominance. We have also taken the first steps in airborne and naval command and control integration capabilities, for example, with LYNCEA and Argosia, and have won big projects like PEGASUS. I think that speaks a lot into our solution capability. We give an answer to the concept of operations of our customers and their requirements for sovereignty. We will keep growing along this vector, ensuring that by 2031 we fully understand the concept of operations of our customers and have the capability to design and develop the solutions they need in order to master their missions. We also make sure our products are pre-integrated and plug and play.
Our solutions will deliver decision-relevant information rather than mere data. We will offer more solution-level software like command and control and sensor fusion. Of course, we will be offering by then also solutions, and we're already starting, for multi-domain operations. Give you a concrete example of that vision. At the Capital Markets Day in 2031, the successful delivery of projects like MK1, Pegasus, and the FCAS demonstrators will be history, and we will have proven our solutions capability to our customers. We will be positioned at the core of the FCAS and the MGCS sensor effector network development. We will be an integral partner in the development of the next generation rotorcraft mission system and sensor suite. We will be leading not only the development of the next self-protection system for the Eurofighter, but also its electronic attack capability.
Even driving the development of the German multi-domain EW cloud. That's my vision for 2031. Let us move now to vector 2, innovation. We will keep growing by making our portfolio more innovative and digital to ensure that we are stronger in competition, and we can keep pace with the changes in the nature of warfare. Our products are already becoming smarter and more software-defined. We have already integrated artificial intelligence and made important steps in cyber protection. We also started the journey of a more digital customer interaction with digital training and customer portals. Our growth along this vector will focus on keep working that our sensors are smaller, lighter, distributed, and interconnected. We'll keep investing on cutting-edge analysis and artificial intelligence capabilities for defense and security applications.
We will be offering cyber-hardened equipment already fully embedded in all of our solutions, and we will position our portfolio as an integral part of unmanned and autonomous systems. For that, we will also be building and nurturing an innovative and collaborative ecosystem and developing simulation environments for all our solutions. By then, the customer, our customer interaction will be fully digitalized. I see, for example, the first unmanned platforms flying with our cybersecure Detect and Avoid system, and customers all around the world being virtually taught how to operate passive radar technology for border security and air traffic control applications, for example. Allow me to please spend a moment on one of the key strategic targets within this vector. We have heard already about it, namely becoming the leading data analysis house in the security and defense sector in Germany.
We are well-positioned as the trusted key sovereign technology supplier in Germany. We have decades of experience in sensor data collection and processing. We continue to invest in sensor data fusion enhanced by artificial intelligence and have acquired artificial intelligence-based open source solutions. Combine all these elements, and you get the perfect ingredients for the development of a software platform that combines information collected from the electromagnetic spectrum with information collected from additional digital data sources in cyberspace to create intelligence on an entirely new level of quality and across all domains. Imagine future military and security operations where sensor data becomes more than information, where the automatic combination of information provides the user with intelligence, decision support, and even prediction at exactly the right moment.
The use of emerging artificial intelligence as a class of disruptive technologies and hence on leveraging its decades of experience dealing with sensor data, combining the information from all sources, is a unique advantage for customers and forces in the new scenarios. As I said, we have the perfect ingredients in hand with HENSOLDT Analytics already in place. Now we start a broader solution portfolio to serve more use cases on one European analytics platform. HENSOLDT Analytics is the nucleus, combining and leveraging all capabilities and strengths of HENSOLDT. In addition, we have set up partnerships with technology providers and identified further businesses for M&A to grow this sweet spot. We have developed a clear roadmap that will allow us to become Europe's leading one-stop shop for data analytics and digital sovereignty. Another important step to expand in key markets and in the solution business.
Moving on now to vector three, internationalization. We will keep growing by developing into an undisputed leader for sensor solutions in the European Union and a well-known and trusted partner globally. Our roots are in Europe, and we are proud of them. The important projects that we have won in Germany lay a solid foundation for further growth and create a reference that will help us in other markets. At the same time, we have strengthened our European base with our activities in France and the U.K. and have developed our international footprint in South Africa, in the U.S., and in Australia.
We have also established a multitude of strategic partnerships, like for example FCMS, a consortium in Germany, through which we have secured a good position at FCAS or the successful combo partner strategy that we drive with our Optronics business. Yes, Leonardo found HENSOLDT attractive enough to strategically invest in us. Leonardo has a strategic ambition, values, and a vision very close to ours, and it is a strong European partner. A partner with whom we are already cooperating and with whom we have now the chance to cooperate even more strongly. Our growth along this vector will concentrate on strengthening our position in Europe and becoming an undisputed European champion and a clear market leader in our home countries. Becoming as international, as diverse as our customer base is, or even more, still need to work on that.
Strengthening our footprint and capabilities in France, the U.K., the U.S., and Australia. Intensifying industrial cooperation with local players in other key markets, also in Asia Pacific and in the Middle East. We see our international business significantly growing by 2031. Of course, this will be visible in the revenue exposure and distribution. We will also keep growing by what I also always call mastering the European cooperation game, participating in all European collaboration programs relevant to our portfolio and capabilities, and ensuring that we get our fair share of the European investments in future platform and technology development. Now I come to our fourth vector, security.
We will also keep growing by bridging the border between defense and security and making sure that we can offer solutions to address hybrid conflicts, and we can show that our experience in adjacent markets has grown. Since we're IPO, we have established a dedicated security solutions business line organization, and we have developed a clear understanding of what works for us or what doesn't. I think Thomas' answer before was going a little bit in that direction. We do go into markets that are adjacent to us, but in those markets where we have a leverage, where we are either have a key technology or already an existing customer base that might need our technologies. We successfully entered the counter-UAV market. That is one good example of how we enter an adjacent market, for example, for airport security.
We are active in the security market for avionics and created HENSOLDT Cyber and HENSOLDT Analytics. Both entities serve both the need of defense, but also security clients and also some more civil commercial clients. Our growth along this vector will keep focusing on expanding our vision to detect and protect to the detection of threats and the protection therefrom in adjacent areas to the pure defense and becoming a recognized leader in the security solutions market. Here with specific solutions, like for example, in the area of border security or counter-UAV applications. We will continue to build our portfolio of hydrogen applications to address key energy challenges of the future, both in the defense and in the non-defense markets, and intend to become a European champion of hydrogen-based power solutions.
Also, we'll keep on working, becoming a recognized leader in the security airborne solutions market with our mission systems for helicopters and our integrated airborne solutions, and placing our portfolio as a part, as an integral part of urban mobility systems. Here also an adjacent market we do want to address. In summary, as you can see, we have reinforced and evolved our strategy. We keep our growth vision focused and our strategic delivery structured. All of this dedicated to become Europe's leading platform-independent supplier of defense and security solutions with global reach. By providing our customers with products and solutions dedicated to detection and protection, and helping them with their mission to keep all of us safe. Dear guests, I have had the honor and the pleasure to work on the strategy of our company since its inception.
I am tremendously proud of being a HENSOLDTian and of contributing to the success of our company. As I mentioned in the very beginning, I am convinced that by setting ambitious goals and a clear roadmap for implementation and getting our nearly 6,000 employees focused on its delivery, we have all the tools in hand to further grow this company. It was with great delight, but also with a sense of humility, that I accepted the offer of our supervisory board to become HENSOLDT's Chief Strategy Officer in our management board. It is my mission and my commitment to further pave the way for HENSOLDT's sustainable and profitable growth. Thank you very much for your attention, and I head back to Veronika for questions.
Thank you very much, Celia, for this detailed and interesting presentation. Now we are open for your questions again. Ben has the first question.
Yeah, thank you. So HENSOLDT Analytics, can we talk a little bit more about that? How big is it? What is the opportunity? Who do you sell those services to? I get that it's obviously very good, but what is the outlook there? Can we just talk a little bit more about, you know, the growth and the opportunity? 'Cause at the moment, I just kind of see it as a really interesting application, but who's gonna use it and What is the route to market? Thank you.
If you look at who would be using such a system today, of course, our intelligence agencies around the world, but also the military. Anybody that really needs to do any strategic planning would be using something like that. It is becoming something, and we are talking about those hybrid scenarios in which defense and security, in which the military world and our normal everyday life mix together. Getting that sort of open-source information, of being able not only to base your assessment of a situation on data from sensors, but also from all the data that you might get from the internet. There might be anybody out there making just a selfie and seeing in the background what is going on in an armed conflict, for example.
Those are elements that we see on all our customers, not only the intelligence agencies, but also military customers putting more and more effort into. That starts with only the platform, because in the end, what you then have is a platform. It is software, it is algorithms, it's artificial intelligence that allows you to just fuse data, more and more data. This capability you will need in any military action. If you consider, for example, FCAS in a system of system scenario in which you will have data coming from different platforms, from the new generation fighter itself, but also from ships, also from the Eurofighter.
You need really a data cracking machine and really algorithms that are going to allow to you not only to have information, have data, but also to really make this data as actionable intelligence. Currently, HENSOLDT Analytics is still a small nucleus, but that is why as we see it, as the demand for such intelligence platforms is going to be growing and bigger, and it's applicable actually to any customer, intelligence, military, you could go anywhere actually with it. We keep investing on that, and that is what you've seen. We have the roadmap for further bolt-on acquisitions to really create step by step a platform that is secure and that offers a European solution. Because, you know, there are all obviously other solutions existing around the world, but I think Europe is missing such technology in European basis.
That is, for me, a key sovereign technology that we really need to have available in European hands. That is why HENSOLDT believes that is the right way for our strategy.
Is it like a SaaS-type model? Like you sell it as like a service to a government, or is it kind of one time in nature?
Can be any.
Okay.
Any business model. At the moment, we have customers that want to have their server base with them, so they have more of a solution that's only for them. We can also host the solution for them, and in future, we could also really operate the solution for them if that is what the customers want. I would assume, though, that military and intelligence customers would prefer to operate it on their own.
Okay.
Well, another question to come from Aymeric.
In your presentation, you didn't mention returns on capital or free cash flow targets. Clearly your growth and all these initiatives will consume capital, so you need to have a funding mechanism to support your growth. How do you balance the, I would say, the strategic vision and the economic equation?
I have Axel for that.
Sure.
I mean, now I mean Axel.
I think it's very clear. We will have a very clear financial envelope, which we are monetizing, and that means each of these investments have to be, in the midterm sizing, accretive to the value of the company, and it should be in the midterm, also be cash positive. I don't know. I'm a very conservative CFO. Maybe that's a disadvantage to me, but I'm a conservative guy. Therefore, we are really discussing in detail where we would like to go for an investment. Talking about SAIL LABS, I'm deeply convinced that this technology will be one of the keys for the future, combining our classical sensors with the knowledge which we could achieve out of the digital world.
I have looked to a couple of companies which are doing that, which have, by the way, a tremendous value as a market. This is what the market is looking for. This is what our intelligence agencies are asking us: how could we improve the information on the next level? Therefore, I'm very happy that Celia has asked me to support it by our liquidity and financial positioning, and as you can see, I have given you money.
Absolutely.
One further question from Charles.
Yes.
Thank you. I sort of get the analytics. It's sort of the sensor as a unit and then going downstream. We've seen it with the vision things, and I can see how the analytics is a bit of a jump, but I can see that. Hydrogen, though, it's not sensors. It's not really-
Mm-hmm.
No comments.
It's not. It is not. But sometimes I think, you know, you have capabilities, or you have a nucleus of something that you see it's making a good business and you can expand, and we did have such a nucleus with previous Nexeya. We do look at sustainability as also everything we have discussed, but also as a business opportunity and looking at the requirements of our customers. In the end, we say we detect and protect. For being able to have an operation somewhere in the desert where there is nothing else, you also need energy. We are really looking at using such solutions to give our military customers the possibility to also, you know, have operations in situations in which otherwise they couldn't. I agree.
I would say it's a niche, more than or it's a specific area and not specifically maybe sensor solutions, but something that can be very much related into in the end being able to offer a sensor solution because you also need to be able to power it in difficult situations.
Welcome back. I hope you enjoyed the little break. Let me now hand over to our CFO, Axel Salzmann, who will guide you for our financials now.
Thank you, Veronika. Dear ladies and gentlemen, a warm welcome from my side. Maybe I introduce myself. My name is Axel Salzmann. I'm the CFO of this company. I have to say, it's really a pleasure to serve this company as the CFO. In my business career, I have seen a lot of companies, but I have to admit that it's the most enjoyable time. Why, you would ask? It's very simple, growing and delivery, and that is something which I'm really enjoying within HENSOLDT. I'm pleased right now to provide you with the details on our financials for the first nine months 2021 and some further insights. Overall, we have again managed a sustainable growth in our top line.
After our successful first half year with, most notably, the PEGASUS contract, thank you, Celia, and an additional order for the Eurofighter Quadriga program, we were again able to secure a number of big orders in the third quarter. I will mention the details in the segments, but you can see our pipeline further transforms into order intake. In total, orders summed up to more than EUR 2.8 billion, and thereby increased our order intake by 41% compared to the nine months 2020. This results in a book-to-bill ratio of 3.3 x. That again strengthened our excellent revenue visibility. Revenues are also growing nicely by 19% to EUR 850 million.
This is due to the sustainable growth in both segments, most notably of course to the key programs, just to mention it, PEGASUS and Mk1, and they are developing as planned. All this results again in a firm order backlog at record level. At the end of nine months of 2021, our order backlog was at EUR 5.4 billion and thereby nearly EUR 2 billion higher compared to nine months 2020. This covers more than 3.5 x our guided revenue for 2021. Overall, our bottom line follows the top line development and progressed well. Adjusted EBITDA increased to EUR 110 million and adjusted EBIT comes up with EUR 67 million. Relative profitability slightly decreased, which is clearly related to the lower project margin for pass-through revenue.
In addition, we further invest into research and development and increased bid budgets to ensure future growth. Per nine months 2021, the adjusted pre-tax unlevered free cash flow is at EUR 48 million. This is mainly driven by planned investments into working capital, especially in inventories to prepare our strong revenues, which we do see and will enjoy in Q4. To remind you, this reflects the typical course of our business, which is very much weighted to the second half of the year, more specifically to the fourth quarter of the year. Looking at the segment Sensors and Optronics, both contributed in terms of volume and margin. The Sensors segment, we booked many contracts following the approvals by the German government in June 2021.
The biggest contract in the third quarter relates to delivery of the long-range radars for the German airspace surveillance and the modernization of the F124 frigate. In total, orders in this segment summed up to more than EUR 2.5 billion and thereby increased our order intake by 38 percentage points compared to the nine months 2020. This results in a book-to-bill ratio of 3.8 x. Revenue in the Sensors segment increased by 19% to EUR 661 million. Main drivers are key programs such like Eurofighter Captor and PEGASUS as well as our legacy business. In customer service, we trade on a comparable level as last year. In addition, we recognize a high long-term growth visibility relating to an increased number of platforms to which we deliver our solutions.
The adjusted EBITDA of the Sensors segment was driven by the revenue increase, partly offset by pass-through revenues and project in the early stage of life cycle with low margin profiles. The Optronics segment has shown good progress in volumes and margin. Order intake increased by 70% and was driven by the Fennek Netherlands contract, which was booked in H1 already. Further highlights are a contract for the equipment of the German-Norwegian submarines and our high-performance optics FFM. Especially the U212CD submarine contract is a long-lasting program and will boost our new generation of Optronics products. Revenue development in Optronics shows a sustainable growth with a book-to-bill ratio of 1.6 after nine months in 2021. The entire business developed as planned with ground-based systems and high-performance optics as major drivers.
Adjusted EBITDA at Optronics was 4 percentage points higher at EUR 24 million with a lower relative margin than the previous year. This effect has temporary impact and relates to the ramp up of production in South Africa and new businesses such as security solution. In total, we are very satisfied with the development of both segments. We are fully on track for 2021 and will deliver all our KPIs. In terms of order backlog, we will see an increase of EUR 1.8 billion in comparison to 2020 and a book-to-bill ratio of 2.2 x. This is a further increase in comparison to 2020 and slightly better than we have guided. Our revenues will be around EUR 1.5 billion . This reflects a 24% increase over 2020. 24% increase.
Adjusted EBITDA margin, excluding pass-through revenues, will be above 18% and also slightly better than guided. We confirm our expectation on adjusted pre-tax unlevered free cash flow. Net leverage will be around 2x and also slightly better than we have guided. We stick to our dividend guidance of up to 20% of adjusted net income. Furthermore, we confirm short and medium-term guidance. Further details will be presented in our full year 2021 preliminary call in February 2022. In terms of deleveraging, we are fully on track. To be honest, I'm very proud about that. During the IPO, we had set out, to my interpretation, ambitious targets that we deliver net leverage on better terms, as we have mentioned in IPO, makes me very proud. We have reduced this value to 2.6x per fiscal year 2020.
Following our guidance for 2021, we will be around 2 x at fiscal year end 2021 and have beneficial margin ratchets for TLB and RCF in place. For you as an investor, the midterm development of the company is of utmost importance. Therefore, let me give you some insight on visibility. Following our recent order intakes, we have achieved a further record order backlog. Our firm order backlog at EUR 5.4 billion covers guided revenues for 2021 more than 3.5 x. In parallel, this is the highest order backlog in the history of our company and will stay on a comparable level until year-end closing. Besides the excellent revenue visibility, the order backlog is well-diversified between the Sensors and the Optronics segment. Guided revenues for 2021 are fully backed by order backlog.
Our revenue for 2022, where we expect a further mid-teens growth, are backed by more than 90% from firm order backlog and recurring short-term cycle business. Also for 2023, we see the highest coverage of revenues from firm order backlog in the history of this company. I have to take a little bit of water. Sorry for that. Right now, the bread and butter business for a CFO, cost control. Let me give you an overview of HENSOLDT GO! improvement program. We have developed four major pillars and will consequently work on these topics. First of all, we will further work on operational excellence. This includes improvements of working capital to maintain strong operating cash flow. Furthermore, we work on continuous improvement of our processes, in particular, monitoring all initiatives by dedicated dashboards.
We further work on cross-functional collaboration, where we have identified a huge potential to further optimize our processes. We have implemented multifunctional teams along the order to cash process to turn our plans into concrete actions. Last, but clearly not least, we work on the integrated supply chain. This includes the optimized synchronization of sales, program, engineering, procurement, and production. All these four pillars, we have given clear saving targets in euros. Coming to a conclusion, let me mention the following key financial takeaways. In terms of visibility, we see a high revenue coverage from firm order backlog. Our strong top line growth of +24% in revenue terms. It's a step change in growth momentum. Profitability stays on high level and combined by growth in absolute bottom line terms.
Liquidity of the company is in good shape, reflected by a strong operational cash flow, and our outlook is promising since the short and medium guidance is confirmed for all KPIs and our dividend policy too. Now I would like to hand back to Veronika.
Axel, thank you very much for the
It's a pleasure.
Yeah, let's directly step into the Q&A again. Sean has the first question.
Yes. Thank you. Hi, Axel.
Hi, Sean.
Ben mentioned earlier that your leverage came in a bit better than you expected at the nine months, and you've guided to getting to below 2x net debt to EBITDA. I just wondered, do you have-
We have guided for this year.
No.
Simply to be correct.
In the medium term.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. I just wondered, do you have a leverage figure in mind that you see as appropriate for the business, sort of on a sustainable basis in the medium term? Then I guess secondly, just on capital allocation, sort of as you deliver on your de-leveraging strategy that you laid out at the IPO and you think about cash generation, perhaps what you're thinking about in terms of what you will do with this cash. Are you thinking about sort of, is there an opportunity to increase the dividend payout ratio, for example? Or is the focus going forward on M&A and R&D investment, for example?
First of all, I have to say, yeah, I do have a figure in my mind. Will I share it with you? No, Sean. I will not. No. To be more serious about that. I think when you're talking about leverage, we have a midterm guidance which is below 2x, and we will simply sticking to that. On the other hand, we are very careful by how we would like to invest into the company by M&A. What is the right sizing? What could we really afford? What will you as an investor, after we have discussed it with you as an investor, been accepting? That is something which we would like to see in the future. First of all, and that is the headline, we will maintain our guidance on our leverage.
Having said that, there is an opportunity in M&A within the guidance we have given over the midterm, obviously we will take the opportunity. Should we, for whatever reason ever, let's say, have to adapt our leverage figures, then we will beforehand discuss that with our main investors and with you as our investor community. You know, when I'm talking about leverage and, I'm really an old private equity guy, so it's not something for you, but for private equity. I'm used to have really high leverage in place, which is not so good, but it gives companies the ability to grow very, very fast. The key question behind leverage is not the leverage in itself. Did you invest your money wisely? That is the key question. My learning curve in that is, you can invest, but be careful by taking your decision.
I think you know well that you were asking for return on capital invested. For me as a CEO, it's very simple. I have my overall figure in place for HENSOLDT. What is my return on investment? Okay, fine. Right now you have new technologies where you have to take some investments, and we are talking about tiny investments. We are talking about EUR 1 million or EUR 2 million, yeah? Don't misunderstand that. The key question for me is if the people behind this investment can convince me as an old guy, a conservative guy, that this investment will drive future growth and will have, in a certain period in time, positive cash flow and positive contribution to the company. That is the essential question.
When I'm talking with Celia Pelaz about this kind of stuff, then we are talking about very short time cycles, at least in cash terms. This kind of philosophy is driving me in the day-to-day business. There are parameters where you have insisted on. You have said, "Oh," they have said, "2x leverage below by the year-end 2023." That's clear. It's a statement. We have promised that to you. What is the right approach then in this period? You can invest the money which you have earned, not endangering your leverage target. Very simple. When I'm looking to my contracts and net leverage is driving me in this direction, sure, it's very simple. Right now I'm in a position where I could, if I would, renegotiate all the contracts. I'm at the very bottom line of my interest rate.
I'm highly ranked by my lenders. That is the way how I'm looking to that. If Thomas will ask me, "Axel, could we do that?" We will have an intensive discussion. I know Thomas only for four years, I have to say, but it sounds to me like eight years. Anyhow, four years, and these discussions are very rational. That is the beauty to discuss with management team, with Thomas about M&A. Long story. Hopefully it answers your question.
You go for it.
Couple of questions.
Oh.
First of all, on HENSOLDT GO!, let's call it cost reductions for the sake of argument rather than cuts or anything else. Is that to maintain the margin because of just deflationary pressures on the price side, or is it to expand it?
I think both. We have given you the margin guidance for this year, next year and the year after next year. I think we will see, not from next year I believe, but for the year after next year that we will have a better margin in place. Please do me a favor. Let's come to this point when we have achieved all these savings. I really hate it to communicate with my investors who have invested money into the company about positioning which I have not delivered already. Right now I'm in a very, very good mood when I look into all the projects, how they are running, how the engagement is.
It is too early to come to you and say, "Look, by the way, it will be X, Y, Z in terms of percentage increase, in terms of absolute improvement." Please understand that.
Another one. You've got a fantastic order growth. You've got a fantastic book-to-bill and a backlog. Over time, you're either going to start eating into that backlog because you've had a fantastic period now and, you know, these things tend to be lumpy. You grow and so forth. At what point as you start consuming that backlog, what, when is it just normal state of affairs? We've won lots of great orders, now we're producing them, and at what stage do we start thinking, "Ah, there's a problem.
As I said, as you should imagine, I have the figures in my mind for the next midterms, what we are planning to do in terms of order intake. When I'm looking at these figures, my impression right now is we are not eating into the order backlog. I will share with you obviously the concrete figures for 2021 and beyond during our full year closing communication.
Yeah. A follow-up on the question on M&A. The previous presentations, there was a lot of talk about M&A pipelines and building on that. Are we saying then there's no way the business would be willing to go above 2x net debt to EBITDA for the right acquisition that you felt gave you access to a region, et cetera? Or would you be willing to go above 2x for the right deal?
Right now, I'm not willing to exceed 2x.
Okay.
I have also said, and I'm sure you have listened carefully to that, if we have to for the right acquisition, the first step is to me that we both have agreed that could be really the right decision, and then we will talk with our investors about that. Then it's up to us, for the management team to convince you that our judgment on this investment is the right one. Right now, being very precise on that, right now we are sticking with 2x leverage and going down in the next year. Below 2x, which means one year earlier than we have communicated to you. Just remember, 2.25, 2x, below 2x.
There's one further question from Aymeric.
Sorry, Peter.
No problem.
You have to wait.
You are the guest, sorry.
Yeah.
Follow up on this question about funding. Equity is obviously a way of funding growth as well. You already started an employee share incentive plan, so that suggests some dilution for your anchor shareholders over time. Have you talked to your anchor shareholders about equity issuance once assuming there is a large deal that could be making sense for the group? Are they ready to get diluted in such a situation?
When I look to that, especially to our employees' shareholding, I'm very proud that we have offered this to our employees, and that our employees has taken this advantage to be part of the shareholding of HENSOLDT to this extent. We're talking, I think, about 60% or something like that. As normally, you are going to your supervisory board and presenting this and saying, "Okay, we would like to do that." I can assure you, I'm not disclosing what is normally behind the closed doors. All shareholders have supported this initiative. I think it's a great statement of our employees.
One more question from Sean.
Sorry. Just maybe one-
I'm sure you need the microphone. I don't want.
I had hoped that I have answered all questions yesterday, but anyhow.
Sorry. Just maybe one slightly technical question. You, the nine months you've your pension deficit or pension provision, I think it's just over EUR 400 million. I wondered, is there any sort of special contribution that HENSOLDT has to make over the coming years, related to that pension provision or-
No. That's the pension plan is a normal balance sheet driven plan. Part of that is going with our pension trust and it's simply normally we are looking to the risk-free rate and we are looking to the pension scheme out and all this kind of stuff. There's nothing specifically contributing over time as we have maybe realized in the U.S., where they have to contribute into this pension plan, but it's covered by our balance sheet or by the trust.
Thank you.
Welcome.
Well, it seems that there are no further questions. Let's go on with our agenda. Peter will now have a closer look into our ESG strategy. As Thomas and Celia have mentioned before, ESG is of utmost importance, not only for us as a company, but for our society as a whole. Please, Peter, go ahead.
Thank you very much, Veronika. Dear ladies and gentlemen, dear investors, dear analysts, in today's world of global challenges, complexity and pace, we at HENSOLDT take action for the transformation towards a safer and more sustainable world. Addressing ESG is a paramount for us as a company to ensure that we make a true difference in the world we operate in. Especially for our new generation of talents, ESG has become an important differentiator. However, we also see great potential in sustainability purely from a business perspective. How do we connect ESG, our business, and our talent management at HENSOLDT? It all comes back to one common dominator: our purpose. Without a safe and secure environment, there is no sustainability. We have set three ambitions how we will contribute to the society and on the other hand, how ESG can contribute on our business.
First of all, with a very strong workforce by leveraging our human potential. First point. Secondly, by the protection of our resources. Thirdly, by linking sustainability with our processes and products. With these three ambitions in mind, we have firmly embedded the issues of Environmental, Social, and Governance in our daily business, our culture, and in our updated corporate strategy you saw it from Celia. As part of this new strategy program presented by Celia earlier, ESG, together with our company culture, form two strong strategy pillars and help us to write the next chapter of HENSOLDT's success. Let's begin with the core of our company, as I said, our people and our culture. We currently employ about 5,800 people worldwide. This year alone, about 500 new employees joined us around the world.
As I said beforehand, a strong workforce is key, and the staffing of our major projects that we have won since the IPO is essential. We believe that only a diverse workforce can secure HENSOLDT's ambitious performance track record. For me, it is very clear that diverse teams are simply more creative and more successful, which is why we want to increase the number of women tremendously to 25% in the leadership team around the world and 35% in the executive committee. How we do that? To achieve these targets, we have established several initiatives, such as an in-house diversity and inclusion program, Elevate, with more than 250 participants around the world. I'm again talking about the full international approach.
We are also a member of the UN Global Compact and participate in the UN program Target Gender Equality. We are a member of the initiative Chefsache. This is a huge network in Germany, about 20 largest corporations. We are working together. One example, we make a lot of trainings on unconscious bias, which will contribute to this change of our cultural mindset. That means overall, HENSOLDT fosters openness towards diversity and inclusion. Diversity is only one pillar of several to become employer of choice. To be employer of choice, we need that because otherwise we will not get the talents and these very important engineers to fulfill our projects. A transformational leadership mindset is a must for the whole leadership team. Our purpose must be translated into each individual in the entire organization.
Building and maintaining a strong workforce and leadership team is the backbone for our company. We need to pave the way for the future pioneers, and therefore, we have numerous programs in place. Among others, we have set up an international and external talent pool feeding talents into our annual succession planning exercise. We keep a very, very close contact and link to our top talent using internal as well as external mentoring programs. Our ongoing cultural transformation initiative will have a huge impact on this, on the employer attractiveness. We are working for getting that also very close together with the University of St. Gallen and the energy factory St. Gallen. We will further strengthen on our unique company culture that attracts and retains talents. It's clear, sustainability can be the differentiator and energizer for our workforce.
It is not only about attracting new talents, but also about retaining them. I have two strong numbers that demonstrate the commitment and trust of our employees, and it all goes back to what's about our attractiveness as an employer. Kununu. Very important in Germany. This is a leading job community and employer assessment platform covering Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. We have reached a satisfaction from the beginning of four point two out of five and a 92% recommendation rate for HENSOLDT as employer. Really, honestly, this brings us the people to us. This is very important for us on our path to be employer of choice again.
The second number I want to highlight, and we just discussed about it, Axel mentioned it, is that we just made our employee share program in the last months, and you heard the number, more than 65% of our workforce are now HENSOLDT shareholders. We speak about 3,755 people which put money on the table to get part of HENSOLDT and to be shareholder. This is really an enormous acknowledgement for us, and we are very proud of the people that are fully committed to our company. These numbers reflect clearly the trust throughout the entire workforce in HENSOLDT, especially considering the past two years and the challenges due to COVID for you, for all of us. However the pandemic has not hampered us, it made us stronger.
Our COVID-19 task force has always been a step ahead, and this was really one essential success factor from the beginning last year. We started in February last year, and we all hope, I guess you are fully with me, that the pandemic stops then next year in spring. For us, we made really a very good project management and risk management to be, I have to say really clearly at the top how to manage it. Through the foresighted approach, the dedication and collaboration was very hard work, but we successfully steered our business through this pandemic. We ensured to keep our employees safe while maintaining our daily businesses during the entire time in this pandemic. HENSOLDT is resilient, and HENSOLDT is future-proof. This is exactly what ESG is about. ESG is about doing well as business.
Now we come back to our strategy framework, and I will look deeper into the next pillar, the pillar of ESG. We want to become ESG sector benchmark. We want to be the best in class. Now I'm going to show you how we want to make it. This year we have launched, you see it now on the screen, our group-wide ESG strategy for 2026. Our five-year action plan to fully embed ESG within our business, we have defined seven clusters. That represents our priorities. The first one is business integrity. The second one, product responsibility. Third one, health and safety. The fourth one, the human potential. Sixth one, community relations. And the seventh one is responsible sourcing, but last but not least, planet and resources.
We have over 100 actions and KPIs have been derived to not only manage, but also continuously improve our sustainability performance. With our dedicated ESG strategy program, we set a solid foundation for sustainability at HENSOLDT and aim to align our group-wide activities. Thereby, we make sure to meet our stakeholders' expectation, your expectation, whether it is requirements by the capital market, government, society, or our workforce, our own workforce, and our current as well as our future workforce to get the people on board. I would like to name a few targets to demonstrate our approach. A zero tolerance principle in compliance. The development of new products applications, as well as the responsible use for artificial intelligence. What is also essential, a very low injury rate below 0.75 to be very specific. The responsible management of our supply chain.
Lastly, our target of Scope 3 CO2 neutrality by 2035 or Thomas, hopefully earlier.
Earlier.
Implemented by our cross-functional sustainability team, the progress on our performance is regularly mentioned or monitored by our ESG committee on executive level. You can see it here on the screen. HENSOLDT established a very strong and solid ESG governance. Already contributing to these targets today, we choose some success stories to demonstrate to you our ESG activities. First of all, this is really brand new, Thomas talked a little bit about that, we proactively commissioned our first ESG rating with Sustainalytics, and we achieved a score of 18.1, and we are ranked number one in this aerospace and defense industry. Number one.
With this score, we are the first company in our industry to be classified in the low-risk range, and we are very proud of this achievement, which reflects our strong efforts in all dimensions of ESG. However, this score is not a reason for us to relax or lean back. It enables us to identify the gaps. This we will do in the next weeks to see clearly where we could be better and identify the gaps and become even better in the future. What do I say? Not better, HENSOLDT to be the benchmark for the future in this industry part. The second success story shows that our products not only enable security, and you know the polar bear from the presentation from Thomas, but can also be used to protect endangered species.
In October this year, we have launched a pilot project in Manitoba, this is in Canada, together with the NGO Polar Bears International. As a consequence of climate change and food shortage, the conflict between the humans and the polar bears is becoming more and more critical. Both the lives of the humans and the polar bears are at risk, showing several deadly incidents in the past years. Based on our high products, high-tech products, we developed an early warning system built of a radar as well as a thermal camera from Optronics to detect polar bears and keep them away from the communities in a peaceful manner. We are going to train our system and artificial intelligence in Canada before we move the system to Norway for a pilot project on community protection.
That means HENSOLDT products contribute to the protection of nature. One last story about what we are doing is that this refers to a matter of utmost importance, a matter that concerns us all. This is the climate change. This year we have analyzed our Scope 1 and 2 emissions, and we currently calculate our CO2 objectives in alignment with the 1.5-degree approach for the Science Based Targets initiative. In a second step, we will expand to our Scope 3 emissions, and eventually, as I said beforehand, we are committed to be carbon neutral by 2035 or earlier. Our approach is very clearly to reduce and compensate last. Reduce first and compensate last. That means clearly HENSOLDT takes action to prevent climate change.
To achieve our carbon neutrality target, we have identified a flagship project, and you can see it on the screen, that demonstrates the direct linkage between ESG on one hand and our business activities on the other hand. We talked about hydrogen earlier before. The technology of hydrogen power enables us to establish our first carbon neutral site in Kiel, and you can see it on the screen. This is in the north of Germany. Our site, we have around about 50 employees there. We start there with this flagship project. Applying state-of-the-art technology for sustainable purposes is only the beginning. For us it's clear, ESG is a value driver for us. Dear ladies and gentlemen, sustainability is ever-present in all aspects of our business and our daily lives. We must accelerate this spirit.
Our products and the security we enable build the foundation for our sustainable future. Without security, there is no sustainability. Thank you very much, and I hand over, Veronika, to you.
Yeah. Thank you, Peter, and for your presentation and also for your detailed assessment of our contribution to a safe and more sustainable world. With that, I would like to kick off today's last Q&A session and ask for first questions. Well, Sean has one question.
Thank you. I just wondered if there are any quantifiable sort of ESG metrics that are built into remuneration structures across, like, senior management, for example? Like really metrics that you're really focusing on over the coming years that.
Exactly
you build into.
We have in our remuneration 30% in the LTIP for the managers, yeah. Here you see we have in one part is the climate change, one part is the diversity. As I told you, this is 25% for the leadership part and 35% for the executive, the ex-comm part. We have clear targets in the LTIP program.
Charles also had a question.
I guess this is not a HENSOLDT specific question, but an industry question. Increasingly, we're seeing exclusion lists-
Mm-hmm
for investment. Is aerospace and defense, but you know, aerospace you're killing polar bears by flying. Defense, you're just killing. Is the exclusionary type mentality, what can be done about that?
That's a very good question. For the time being, honestly, we do all in our industry or in our part in HENSOLDT, we do all what we can now. What the others do, we deal in a lot of networking, and honestly, all thinking about how to do it. You know, there are all these ratings. You have, I mentioned sustainability, you have the Sustainalytics, you have ISS, you have the MSCI and so on, all talking about how we can make it and how can we bring it together more or less. Honestly, let's see what will happen in this industry, in our industry. As Thomas mentioned, taxonomy, we will see what means that in total. Yeah. Let's see.
Well, Sean has further questions.
A little bit linked to ESG, but around, it's around sort of talent acquisition or attracting talent to HENSOLDT in general. We've heard a number of presentations today talking about software development and how it's becoming a bigger part of your business. When we think about that, you are competing with other industries, for example, technology, for the same talent pool, effectively.
Yeah.
Also when you think from an ESG perspective, when those future employees are coming into the business, how they're thinking about defense in general. Do you have any concerns there about sort of, the ability to attract that talent into the company? Has it been a problem in the past? Just any thoughts that you have there.
Very good question again. This is, I have to say, you have to play in the Champions League, meaning you have to be in the network, LinkedIn, social media in total. You have to make marketing like hell. You have to communicate. For example, we have a program where we give money to our employees when they are bringing, for sure, out of the company, very good talents to us. One example. We started in the beginning saying, "Pfft, probably 10 will come." Now, I guess we have more than 70 or 80 very good talents from other companies via this way. You have to go this way, you have to go via social media, you have to make an excellent contact or excellent connection or network to the universities.
Our guys, for example, here we are today in Ulm, we have a kind of job rotation. I cannot say that officially, but that means people from us go to university, being professor there, coming back after five years, working here as a leader, for example. That helps a lot because they are making marketing. They are telling, "Look, HENSOLDT is doing that. HENSOLDT." This is what I mean. You have to be very fast, very attractive as a employer. You have to show all about your social aspects. You asked me about remuneration. You need a very good remuneration. Yeah. You need also a very good workplace situation.
I'm sure if I look a little bit in the next two years, what we did in 2019 just before, for example, the crisis or the COVID-19 situation, we had agreement with our work council that we can go into work office, into home office two days per week. This was one of the success factors to come through the COVID-19 situation. Exactly the talents from outside is exactly asking that. If you are saying, "No, we have no regulation for home office," then probably for the young generation, it's critical because exactly this is what they want to see. Does this help you?
Yes.
Okay. It's a very important thing. Very, very important thing to do.
Yeah. Thank you. It seems that there are no further questions at this point.
Thank you very much.
Let me now hand over back to Thomas for a brief recap of today and for your closing remarks. Thomas.
Yeah.
Please.
Veronika, thank you very much. Dear guests that are virtually joining us today, thank you very much. There has been a lot of stuff, a lot of information. Thanks for your patience to listen carefully to what we presented to you today. I want to thank my team, and you may have seen that HENSOLDT is like a big family. That makes us. That's a team spirit I hope we could bring over. If you go further down, further into our employees, the team spirit is prevailing everywhere, and this makes us strong. I want to come back on your question. HENSOLDT is seen, if you talk to the employee environment, as a very, very attractive employer due to security, but also due to edge of technology, due to a lot of other areas where we are really benchmarking.
This rating and sustainability helps again, that we are at the forefront compared to our peers, but also in industry as a whole. I have to say, when we started four years ago, You told me, my dear colleagues, "Don't talk about dreams." I had a dream shared with my team and shared with the whole family of HENSOLDT. We strongly believed that we are the first defense company, due to our performance, to be stock listed in Germany. The very first one after 70 years. It may take us years to be there. We managed to do it within three years. This is exactly a. How to say? This is exactly summarizing what we are all about. Tough targets. We are going for them. We are walking the talk. We want to be faster.
We want to be a benchmark. We want to be the best. This spirit is really all over in this company, and I'm proud to be the CEO, as Axel said, to be CFO, to have this outstanding team around me, and being part of this outstanding family. Thank you for listening to us today. It has been a big pleasure, and hopefully we'll see you soon. The people and guests, ladies and gentlemen, who watched us virtually today to be also physically next time, we really, really warmly welcome you next time too. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Thomas. Dear ladies and gentlemen. Capital Markets Day here in Ulm. After one and a half challenging years, it was really a pleasure to have the chance to meet you here in person. As Thomas said, also to those who joined virtually, we're looking very much forward to meeting you in person soon as well. As always, if you have any further questions, just reach out to our investor relations team. We are very happy to assist. Have a great rest of the day. Safe travels back home. Thank you and goodbye.