Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to HENSOLDT's second Capital Markets Day. Thank you all for coming to London today, it's lovely to see so many of you here in person. I'm Veronika Endres, head of investor relations at HENSOLDT, I'm very pleased to guide you through this event today. With me are our four members of the management board, our Chief Executive Officer, Thomas Müller, our Chief Financial Officer, Christian Ladurner, our Chief Strategy Officer, Celia Pelaz, and our Chief Human Resource Officer, Lars Immisch. Before Thomas kicks off the presentation, let's have a brief look at today's agenda. We will start with a review of HENSOLDT's development since the IPO by Thomas, who will then also elaborate on the new defense environment and what this means for HENSOLDT.
Next, Celia will answer the question why HENSOLDT's strategic way forward perfectly serves the requirements of this new defense environment, not only today or tomorrow, but for many years to come. Following this, Lars will explore how we will attract the right people to manage the growth which is in front of us. Finally, Christian will show how all this will be reflected in our financials. He will give an update on our short and medium-term targets and an overview on our financial strategy. Of course, we have planned enough time to answer all your questions, so there will be one Q&A session after Celia's presentation and a second one after Christian's.
We have planned a coffee break after the first Q&A session. Most of you have already seen we brought also a small collection of products here to London, so you can also have a closer look on that. We will conclude the day with a reception and light dinner at the Hide and Seek Wine Bar at that hotel. There you also can exchange with the members of the management board, but also with members of our executive committee. Before I hand over to Thomas now, one final remark, please note that this Capital Markets Day will be recorded. We will publish a video shortly after the event on our website. Thomas, please.
Dear ladies and gentlemen, dear investors, dear analysts, a warm welcome to our Capital Markets Day. We are so happy to have you physically with us today, that we are capable to explain to you what we as HENSOLDT, as a team, can do. It's a privilege for me and our management board to welcome you in person. This welcome I want to link with also a warm welcome to new members of my management board, which are presenting to you our HENSOLDT story the first time, which is our dear CFO, Christian Ladurner, and our dear HR, human resources head, which is Lars Immisch. Celia, you know already. Well, maybe some of you remember last year's Capital Markets Day.
At that time, in November 2021, our main concern has been the COVID pandemic and how to deal with travel restrictions, and that a new Omicron variant will endanger all of us. Little did we know that only three months later, a war would break out in the heart of Europe, a war that would affect us all in ways we simply could never imagine before. This war impacts all of us as individuals. It impacts our societies, and it impacts our businesses. I would like to talk to you about this new defense environment today and what it means for the further growth of HENSOLDT.
In a nutshell, without giving away the rest of the presentation, I would say that being invested in a leading defense electronics company like us with a large market share in Germany, in Europe, and having a global ambition based on the German footprint, on the European going global. That we will see a multi-decade sustainable high growth. For you as investors, we are sure that this high growth visibility, profitable high growth visibility, is a very good asset for you as investors. Now, before I dive a little bit deeper into the new defense environment, let me recap what we have achieved since our IPO two years ago. It's fascinating. It's only two years ago. For us, it seems, a decade. I'm proud to say that we walked the talk and delivered on our ambitious IPO guidance.
Revenues have grown by 15% year-over-year, and we enjoy a healthy and stable EBITDA margin of around 19%, and we have paid out a nice dividend over the past two years. On top of this, we have significantly deleveraged the company to below 1.6x. The equity story of our IPO has stood the test of time. Going forward, HENSOLDT will continue to be a unique, high-growth defense and security investment. Please remember, we are a pure-play defense electronics company and focus on a very attractive market segment without being disseminated. Our platform-agnostic approach and our customer-centric business model are laying the foundation for long-term, high-growth investment platform. These were the core elements of our equity story at the IPO. Dear ladies and gentlemen, we will continue to focus on these strengths of deliver on our promises.
I think this is first key buzzword. We will continue to deliver on our promises. This equity story will be even more relevant in the next defense environment or in the new defense environment today and the future battlefield driven by multi-domain operations. HENSOLDT is focused on a market that combines healthy growth with a very long-term perspective. It's not a lumpy business. It's an absolutely long-term, lasting growth, profitable growth we will see. And we are benefiting from this super cycle. Remember what we talked about in the IPO. We are in the super cycle now, and we are benefiting from this super cycle. The defense electronics market shows attractive growth with a CAGR of 6% between 2019 and 2022. This growth will accelerate further.
With our advanced technology portfolio, we have managed to outgrow this market, both in order intake with an impressive cumulative order intake of EUR 7.6 billion in the last three years, and revenues, which are driven by this large order intake, also significantly. Revenues, as you see, have grown by 15%, and if you take the numbers, order intake by 22%. What does it mean? We grew faster than the market due to our pure-play sensor solutions portfolio, and we will continue to grow further and grow faster than the market. With the Eurofighter Mk1 radar and the PEGASUS, we secured two landmark orders, and we call them binary programs in 2020 and 2021. Why binary? If it comes, it's shooting through the roof.
If in the future it will not come, then you will always be sure that this company, HENSOLDT, has a rock-solid bottom-line planning with a long-lasting growth. We will talk about later to what extent we are growing. The impressive order intake over EUR 7 billion in the last three years has driven our order backlog to over EUR 5.3 billion today. Maybe even more important than securing the orders is also to deliver them and to deliver them on time, on cost, on quality. Some of you have asked us if we can handle this strong growth, I think our revenue development gives an impressive answer to this.
We have put a strong focus on project execution and converted the order book into profitable revenues that have grown from EUR 1.1 billion to around EUR 1.7 billion this year. Importantly, for you as our shareholders, we keep profitability and cash generation at a very, very high level, not to say benchmark level. Dear ladies and gentlemen, since our IPO in September 2020, we delivered on what we have promised. We walk the talk. We grew in all dimensions. We further improved our operations and the investors, the analysts, we became even more innovative. This was also my message to you in the capital market day last year. What's different today? Since the 24th of February, as we all know, the world has changed dramatically and created a Zeitenwende or watershed for our entire defense environment.
I even expect the Zeitenwende will be in the English language like kindergarten or something like this in the future also, a standing wording. The entire defense environment has changed, and it will shape our business for the next decade, if not to say decades to come. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is only the most recent, yet undoubtedly the most dramatic event in a much bigger trend that led us to the new security world disorder of today. It's more than a decade now, we have seen an increased asymmetric situation in conflicts, mainly in Africa and the Middle East. Civil unrest spreads in many countries, and the Chinese power play to become a global superpower will create further geopolitical instability, especially in the AUKUS region.
We will see later on when Celia is presenting our strategy that it is also one of our dimensions we are investing in. On top of this, the number of cyberattacks is going up exponentially and sabotage on economic infrastructure is becoming more widespread, as we have seen just recently. If all of this wasn't already enough, we also see a global disruption of supply chains, rising inflation, the threat of famine in Africa and countries in the Middle East, potential new waves of refugees and migrants, to mention only a few challenges. I think we can all agree that our challenges have increased dramatically in the past few years. For me and for our management board of this company, this increasingly complex threat environment has led to our four fundamental implications.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine and all the related events of the past few months led to a clear shift in global security perception. We, as HENSOLDT, we are very well aware, we are also keen to see that the environment, political environment in our countries, especially in Germany, is getting more and more aware of security as a basic human need. The war in Ukraine is a human tragedy and a key political issue for Europe, it underlines our mission to work for our freedom, for our liberal democracies, and for a safer world. This change in mindset is especially due in Germany. I think in the U.K., in France and other European countries, in the U.S., it has been a much more longer tradition to secure with defense their liberal democracy. In Germany, it has changed since the 24th of February significantly.
Russia's belligerent actions are once again bringing NATO countries much closer together and we see a renewal of the alliance's mission. Finland and Sweden will become new members and strengthen the alliance. Defense spending of NATO members has accelerated, with more and more countries reaching or exceeding the 2% GDP spend target, and this is also our market. A strong Europe that stands together and can actively, sovereignly act is more important than ever. This requires a deepening of political and industrial cooperation in which we, as HENSOLDT, will play an important role. We see a focus on increasing conventional capabilities, mainly in the land domain. After long and sometimes painful discussions, both on the political and industrial level, Pan-European projects like the Future Combat Air System are picking up momentum.
The recent signatures for the important demonstrator phase of Future Combat Air System is an important milestone for a project which will shape our growth for the decades to come. Lastly, ladies and gentlemen, the war in Ukraine has shown in a very dramatic way that sensors, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance capabilities combined with self-protection, electronic warfare, and open-source intelligence capabilities, you have seen it, I think, outside, are decisive force multipliers and that we are, as HENSOLDT, very well positioned with our portfolio in the middle of this development. Already today, Ukraine uses pricks of multi-domain operations by networking sensors and creating a battle management capability across domains. Our high-tech portfolio and our ability to deliver has also contributed to our business in the short-term.
As part of the German commitment to support Ukraine, we have proudly delivered two high-performance sensor systems to the armed forces of Ukraine. Already a few weeks ago, one COBRA artillery detection radar has been delivered and will help Ukraine to boost the efficiency of targeting capabilities of their artillery. More recently, we have delivered the first of a total of four TRML-4D air defense radars as part of the IRIS-T air defense system. We have seen, dear investors and analysts, an impressive performance of this system in defending Ukraine against recent Russian missile and drone attacks. I'm proud to say that in combination with our partner, Diehl, with their missile systems, we are capable to get down nearly 100% of the targets. Very precisely above 99% of the targets hit by our system.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is HENSOLDT together with a partner. This is performance. If you look at other systems, they are far, far behind this 100% performance we can deliver to our armed forces and to our customers. If these modern technologies, the core of our business, that help to defend ourselves, help to defend our democracies, then we are on the right track. Now, at the same time, we are developing future capabilities for the German armed forces in our own vision to detect and protect. Let me just mention the Pegasus project, where we have passed several critical milestones this year. Pegasus will provide Germany's strategic reconnaissance command with a long-range airborne surveillance and intelligence-gathering system that will be key in achieving information superiority and also provide NATO with a much-needed capability.
We are very happy to get ideas from our customer that, yes, three Pegasus planes will be certainly not enough to cover operational capabilities. This is a binary program, and we are very careful to plan for things which we don't know when they will happen. We started to think about the battlefield of the day after tomorrow. Many experts agree that space will be the domain to see the steepest increase in defense and security capabilities in the next decades. We as HENSOLDT are ready for this. We've seen an increase in defense budgets around the world with an overproportional increase in our market segment of defense electronics. You may remember that I talked about the super cycle for our industry during the IPO.
Today, I would go even further and talk about a super cycle 2.0 , given the further acceleration of growth in our market segments of defense electronics, which creates an extremely strong outlook for HENSOLDT. Budgets are growing, especially in our German core market. Remember we always said it's not a very much a question of what is the part of the German defense budget in our overall planning, but we, as being mainly German, are the one and only core pure player in Germany in sensor solutions. Based on this market, we extending our force to Europe. For sure, will be on a global ambition. Let's shortly talk about the EUR 100 billion. The EUR 100 billion in Germany are written into the constitution.
This is a very fascinating thing because the Germans have to spend it, the purpose on what to be spent is equipment. They can't do it differently. For us, it's a clear commitment of the Germans to go in the direction of 2% GDP. With EUR 100 billion on a lasting basis, you should think about an EUR 80 billion, roughly up to an EUR 80 billion spending in Germany if we go really up to 2%. It's incredible. It's after the U.S. and other, well-known countries, one of the biggest spendings in the world. The war in Ukraine has clearly shown how important sensors for intelligence surveillance, a digitized battlefield or electronic warfare capabilities have become. We will see over-proportional growth with a CAGR of around 9% in Germany and the rest of the world.
I have mentioned that the German defense electronics market accessible for us as a pure-play company will grow with a CAGR of 9% by 2027. The air segment, where we are traditionally very strong with products ranging from airborne radars to signal intelligence, electronic warfare, and self-protection systems will grow at more than 10%. We see a number of programs in the pipeline where HENSOLDT is in the core of the programs and very well-positioned to win our share. You see some of them on the right hand of the slide. We have highlighted the Future Combat Air System as this is not only a multi-billion euro program, but also Europe's step into multi-domain operations.
A huge part of the Future Combat Air System is networked sensors. We are confident to win a significant share that will be driving our future growth. To mention two things, look, there's like a cross or like a crossing path. We as HENSOLDT with an anchor shareholder, which is Italian, British, beside the German government at the same level, being part of the Future Combat Air System, which is German, Franco-German. Look who is in the middle. If we ever talk about the Europeans not being capable to have two future combat systems in Europe because money is simply not sufficient for two, then what are the parts who are the most important ones? These are the electronic and sensor parts within the programs.
I don't want to be a prophet, but it can be that in a couple of years from now, not too far away, the two systems in the defense electronics may merge because this is the most valuable part. We as HENSOLDT, as I said, it's like in the crossroads, we are in the middle. There is a huge opportunity on top of what we have said for us to win. Now, since 2019, we have more than doubled our order backlog, creating a very solid foundation for multi-decade sustainable, consistent and profitable growth. The growing budget in most of our markets and the need for an increase of conventional capabilities in new platforms with ever-increasing electronics, as I've given to you an example, will further drive our order pipeline.
During the IPO, we stated a pipeline of EUR 10 billion for 2020-2023. Today, we can show a pipeline of EUR 17 billion, not weighted, for the next three years, which is also a very positive development. Looking further ahead, the picture continues to improve with an identified line by line pipeline of around EUR 30 billion in the next five years. If you're asking me EUR 30 billion, wow, HENSOLDT is going through the roof. Be careful because remember what I said on binary programs. You never know when these binary programs will materialize. I always, and our management board want to be absolutely sure that we will get no negative surprises. Imagine we are planning for a EUR 1 billion program next year, and it will not materialize. You will kill me. You are to kill me.
We will give you no negative surprises. The only thing what you are expecting from us is a positive surprise. Promise. The war fighter in the future will greatly rely on interconnected sensors, providing him with a superior situation picture. We are laying the technological foundation for this battlefield of the future already today, ladies and gentlemen, and we will capture the various pockets of growth in the coming years. With this, I'm happy to pass to our Chief Strategy Officer, and Celia will present our strategy now to you, and not only taking the vision of the CEO, but saying how we do it. I think that's very valuable. Thank you.
Thank you, Thomas. Great to be here with all of you and sharing this day together. I'm very happy to present how we are developing our portfolio capabilities and international presence to turn that growth ambition into reality. Allow me please to start with the big picture and the long-term strategic vision. Thomas mentioned it already. HENSOLDT is a key enabler for the future of warfare, multi-domain operations. What are multi-domain operations? It is the idea of a fully interconnected and networked battlefield. Essentially, we are talking about the synchronization of aircraft, ground forces, vehicles, satellites, and ships, their systems, and all sources of data. Together, they deliver a complete picture of the battle space and empower armed forces to quickly make decisions that drive action. As you may imagine, sensors play the key role here.
There will be more and new sensors in more domains and platforms, which will be all digitized, connected, and communicating with each other. This is not a science fiction and is not happening in the distant future. We can observe elements of it already in the war in Ukraine. The Ukrainian army has networked many of its sensors, be it radars, cameras, or even the scouts that are observing the enemy. They connected all these sensors to a battle management system that then uses the Starlink SATCOM system to communicate and reduce a typical targeting cycle from hours to just some minutes. Of course, this is just the beginning. On the battlefield of tomorrow, every platform, military or not, every soldier will be a sensor and contribute to situational awareness and information superiority.
The ultimate objective is to enhance reconnaissance and intelligence before an attack happens, if possible, to deter it, support situational picture, protect assets during operations, and of course, increase the speed of reaction to those attacks. We at HENSOLDT are at the sweet spot of multi-domain operations. We provide the most performant sensors and sensor subsystems. We are investing in cyber intelligence applications and solutions to fuse sensor data. We are working on campaigns for future sensor solutions on platforms such as FCAS and MGCS, which are the blueprints for European core assets in a multi-domain battlefield. The key takeaway, our strategy is not only geared to deliver on the immediate growth that we see ahead, but also to prepare us for the future of warfare. Dear guests, a vision without a strategy remains an illusion, and a goal without a plan, it just remains a wish.
Let me now show you how we are planning to achieve our goals. As you can see here, we are already very well-positioned for the future of warfare. Firstly, we have the right configuration to start with. We are 100% pure-play defense electronics. We are active across all domains, and we are platform independent. Our sensors enable platforms to be mission capable, and we work together both with OEMs and with customers to provide the necessary cross-domain platform-independent capability that is required for multi-domain operations. Of course, this enables us to play over a large array of different platforms. Secondly, we leverage our deeply rooted technological know-how of over 150 years and our investment in our portfolio with EUR 100 million invested last year by our own in the portfolio. Additionally to that come customer and funded R&D.
Continuous investment in innovation has ensured that our sensors are among the most performant in the world. Thirdly, we are active in some of the most attractive and fastest growing markets. As Thomas mentioned already, our key home market, Germany, is growing fast. As the German sensor solutions house that we are, we are clearly recognized by our customers as a provider of key national technologies. We are fully trusted by our customers and understand their operational needs. This strategic position in our key home market obviously gives us also a strong tailwind to capture the European and other international markets. I will come back to that later in the presentation. First, let's look now on how we plan to capture the strong market growth ahead of us. There are two main drivers for this growth. They affect both volume and value.
First one, an urgent need to refill, upgrade, and even increase the number of platforms and systems. You can observe this especially in Germany, where the number of available and actually working assets has shrunk dramatically given decades of underinvestment in the past. A current study by the Royal United Services Institute here in the U.K. clearly states that significant stockpiles of equipment and capabilities like training are key lessons learned in the war against the Ukraine. We now face a period of enlarged and accelerated investment driven by the EUR 100 billion special fund commissioned by the German government, as well as its reinforced commitment to spend 2% of GDP in defense. A lot of the spend is going into defense electronics, and it is not only a German story.
We see that the same is taking place all around the world in all regions and all countries globally. The second driver is investment into new battlefields, or what I called during my introduction, multi-domain operations. This is about even further growth in the number of sensors and electronics content. Of course, this drives investments into multifunctional distributed sensors, sensor networking, and sensor data fusion and analysis. Key examples of that are programs like FCAS or MGCS or the digitalization of the land-based operations in Germany. While some of this growth is reflected in the market growth numbers that we are showing here, a lot of it is happening also past the next five years, accelerating the growth outlook in defense electronics over the long-term, the multi-decade sustainable growth trajectory that Thomas was talking about.
Our strategy is geared to ensure that we capture those pockets of growth. You might recall our strategic vectors. They outline the direction in which we want to grow. Yes, following those market growth drivers and priorities of our customers, obviously. We will keep expanding our solutions capability. This means investment in know-how, capabilities, and partnerships at solution and system level. Why? This is the way how we can increase our footprint per platform. I will come back to this with some examples later. It is important to mention that with this, we do not mean that we want to become a system of systems or platform prime. That's not our objective. We do that only in very selective cases where we feel strong, like it is the case of Pegasus.
Investment in our portfolio, of course, remains key to our strategy to ensure our position as an innovation champion. Internationalization remains also essential. With the strong portfolio of innovative solutions that we have and further investments in our footprint and partnerships, we can capture the growth that we see in international markets. Finally, on security, even the focus today is on our defense activities. We continue to grow our security business, whether it is border security, hydrogen, open source intelligence, or our industrial business. All those are strong growth markets. As you see, the lines between defense and security are increasingly blurring as we see hybrid operations, fake news, misinformation campaigns, and cyberattacks becoming part of the battle. Let me dive a little bit deeper into the first growth driver, increase and upgrade of conventional capabilities.
Here we have three concrete examples of where we see increasing demand. In Germany and Europe, as Russia is firing thousands of missiles and drones to terrorize Ukraine, European governments are realizing that they have far too few land and air defense assets to counter such a threat and are now investing heavily. Examples of this are the upcoming NNbS air defense programs in Germany or the European Sky Shield Initiative. We as HENSOLDT have the right portfolio and partnerships to give an answer to that need. Our medium-range radar TRML-4D is proving to be a key asset for air defense systems, and this success is proven by successful delivery and operation with international customers, one of them being the Ukraine, as Thomas mentioned. TRML-4D is just but the start of our contribution to air defense.
This is a good example to show what we mean with solutions and how our solution and in-innovation strategic vectors come into play. We partner with other companies like Diehl Defence in this case, and so we're able to offer a common solution to our customers. By understanding and having access at the system level, we bring more and more elements of our portfolio into the system, into the solution. Our short-range radars, our cameras, our passive radar. Not only that, we with that understanding and with this customer access on system level, we can keep developing our own portfolio, either by our own or also in partnership.
As you may know, we are developing ballistic missile defense radar, longer range, together with ELTA, which is already under contract for two different German projects, one in the naval area, F124 frigate, and another one for airspace surveillance called HEDAH. As mentioned, land vehicles are another area where we see a big demand increase both in Germany and Europe, I come to that with an example later. Asia Pacific, we see a significant demand in the maritime domain, both above water and in the subsea, of course, driven by the increased tensions in the region. We are already present in that market and are successful with our naval radars and submarines periscopes. We see not only increased quantities and upgrades in this area, but also increased requirements for coastal and airborne surveillance solutions.
In the MENA region, Middle East, North Africa, we see how countries are looking to protect their borders and are investing in such infrastructure due to increasing refugee streams, fueled also by the fallout from the Russian attack on Ukraine and the food situation in the region. Here we are also very well established in the region, and we are present with our border security solutions. This is just a few examples, which underline the strong growth driver that we see out of the need to increase and upgrade conventional capabilities. These examples already show that the number of sensors is increasing and that we are increasing our share, and that solutions and innovation strategy really works to capture higher serve per platform or system.
Let me dive a little bit deeper into the second driver and show how the next-generation capabilities will over proportionally increase the number of sensors per platform. Sensors and defense electronics are key to the digitalization of the battle space and the strengthening of deterrence and defense. As I said before, sensor solutions are what brings mission capability to the platforms. Reconnaissance, intelligence, situational awareness, target acquisition, tracking, identification, self-protection of platforms and own forces, denial of use of the electromagnetic spectrum to adversaries. The sensors and electronics content will only keep increasing, and with that also the amount of data and the need for that data to be quickly fused and translated into actionable intelligence across all domains. The beauty of it, we sit on multiple platforms in all segments and are getting onto further ones.
We don't only provide the most performance traditional sensors and sensor subsystems, but are also investing in cyber intelligence applications and solutions to fuse sensor data and increase the observe, orient, decide, act loop speed. This in all domains: air, sea, land, space, cyberspace. As a result, we do not just benefit from an increase in the quantity of platforms sold, but also from more and higher value of sensors per platform, which obviously explains why the growth in defense electronics is outpacing the growth in overall defense spend. Let me walk you through a couple of examples to make it more clear. First one is the Leopard tank.
Looking at Thomas back in his days at the Bundeswehr, where he was serving as an officer on that platform, he knows very well how it felt, when you only were dependent on very limited information on what's happening outside on the battlefield. Back then, the only sensor available on the Leopard tank was a pure optics sensors. We show here already an example later in 2017 with our driver vision system, SPECTUS II. Today, the tank man benefits already from electro-optic capabilities like a digital commander sight combined with a digital gunner sight and an integrated laser target designator. Our sensors integrated into the Leopard tank provide unique operational advantage that has been proven in multiple threat scenarios.
In the future, our See Through Armour System, SETAS, will provide a tank man with a full situational picture, merging information from various sensors and enabling the tank to detect and react much faster to outside threats. The next step, our Ceretron solution. This will get the electronics in the tank networked and the sensor data fused across our sensors and also third-party sensors. We will turn this into a product in the next years, and it will be a key stepping stone into capabilities required for multi-domain operations. I think this example also very well shows how we are greatly positioned not only to capture the short and mid-term increased demand for land vehicles in Germany and Europe, but also to capture the overall international demand for next-generation ground systems.
Let's look now at a second example that shows how we are capturing additional parts of the value chain. As mentioned already, we are doing this very selectively only in those areas where we are strong and understand the risk well, and here too, leveraging partnerships and developing our capabilities over time. Based on the positioning that we had in the EuroHawk, where we applied our competencies in payload development and we deepened our know-how in airborne certification. With focused investment on further system-level capabilities and partnerships, we successfully acquired a contract for the PEGASUS long-range airborne surveillance and intelligence gathering system, as you know. We drive this approach further on FCAS, where we lead the German Industrial Consortium to develop the sensor and effector network together with our German consortium partners and the key leading sensor solution companies in Spain and France.
This includes payloads, integration work, and seamless interconnection across sensors and with effectors. These are key elements of multi-domain operations which are being developed over the next few years, firmed up and fueled now by the recent agreement on FCAS way forward between the involved countries and industry partners. We are very happy that we are moving on with FCAS. As the examples have shown, innovation remains key to our strategy and our success. The investments made in R&D over the last five years have allowed us to develop a portfolio of products and capabilities that answers today's increased demand for sensor solutions, and it is at the core of future battlefield needs. As mentioned, we will keep investing to ensure that we keep this position, and our customers will keep investing in us too.
We see an increase on the customer-funded R&D driven by those European cooperation programs like FCAS and MGCS, but also by the increased investments by the European Defence Fund. It is always difficult to put an exact figure on the expectation for customer-funded R&D, but I see potential to the customer-funded R&D to double our own in future. We will keep driving the digitalization of the battlefield with our innovative sensor solutions, and as images are much more worth than words, please let me stop here and play a short video that very well shows some key areas of our investment in future. Impressed? I hope so. I think it shows how we at HENSOLDT are prepared for the future. We have looked at the strategic vectors, solutions and innovation and now I like to turn into our vector more and expanded international.
Our total order pipeline over the next five years is around EUR 30 billion. This comes on top of our existent order backlog of EUR 5 billion. The largest single country in our pipeline is, of course, Germany. Two-thirds of our pipeline are outside of Germany in our three key growth markets, Europe, Asia, Pacific, Middle East, North Africa. This underlines that we are an international company and will become even more international as we position to capture the large pipeline available outside of Germany. Let me first walk you through the German pipeline and come to the international part and explain how we want to get that to order intake in future. One of our key assets is our strong customer intimacy with the German customer. This has helped us to achieve a strong position on the major platforms in all domains.
We support our customer from the early stage technology deeelopment to a product, a ready solution, and of course, a strong and long service support over the overall life cycle. This translates into long-lasting recurring contracts, as you see in the overview here. There are many running programs with existing platforms being upgraded, and there are many new programs with new platforms. I could talk for hours about this slide, but I will refrain to just say this proves that what I have been talking about. We are very well placed to win contracts in all domains, both in the area of refill and upgrade, where we already have existing frame contracts and just waiting for further orders like, for example, Eurofighter, Pegasus, NNbS, Leopard, Puma, K130 corvette, and the U212 submarines.
In the area of new capabilities, like for example, FCAS Eurodrone, the digitalization of the land-based operations, and the F127 frigate for the next generation of naval air defense capabilities. Our contribution to each platform and system and domain will only increase over time. Of course, all these programs open the door not only to the European market but also to the rest of the world, where we see the need for the very same capabilities. International. International growth requires international presence. We are present in all of the largest markets globally. We use three levers in our go-to-market strategy. First, our owned industrial footprint in our home markets, which include Germany, France, U.K., South Africa, and Australia, and which we also use to export to other geographies subject to portfolio and accessibility.
For example, our South African subsidiaries do only minimal business in South Africa itself and mainly export to international markets like Middle East, Asia Pacific, and also here to Europe. Second, we have our own sales offices, and we partner with local companies which have very good customer intimacy and understanding and complementary capabilities to us. This allows us not only to complement our solutions but also to reduce the risk and to increase local content, which is a key requirement of most international defense customers today. Third, we are very successful in partnering with OEMs, leveraging their access to certain markets, as we have seen in previous examples. Airbus, Dassault, KMW, Diehl Defence, just to name a few. We are using key accounts to work with them, and we support them with the sales efforts as when they win, we win too.
Overall, we are very well-positioned globally, but we want to do more. The key objective is to ensure that we capture those 2/3 of sales pipeline that we see outside Germany and even more. Let's have a look at some of the international opportunities ahead. You see them behind me and of course unmentioned. Platforms with our products and solutions are sold to many international customers. Prominent examples of that are the 21 nations already using the Leopard or the nine nations operating the Eurofighter, and we participate when those are sold internationally via export campaigns. International growth is not driven by German platform sales.
Our strategy to remain platform independent pays back. We are selected by international customers when it comes to upgrades or even new platform programs, and we see examples of that in this slide and think they show that we see a lot of interest and very good potential for our products and solutions in all domains and many platforms and all around the globe. Our strategy is not restricted to organic growth. We have already shown that we are an experienced and disciplined acquirer with eight completed transactions in the past. We will continue to pursue value added, adding M&A growth, and we see multiple routes to it.
For example, when it comes to portfolio expansion, we look at opportunities to invest in disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence and analytics, which are important for the future of warfare, but also in terms of our solution offerings where we want to strengthen areas like sensor fusion system capabilities and additional complementary sensors to our portfolio. We are investigating the possibility to also increase our contribution to the space domain. In terms of strengthening our international positioning to drive a more balanced geographical presence, we especially look at opportunities to enhance our footprint in the AUKUS region, Australia, U.K., U.S., as the region shows quite a lot of growth and potential, and we think that we could selectively strengthen our presence in the region. Finally, there are various drivers of closer cooperation in Europe which might also lead to more consolidation.
Believe that we are ideally positioned to participate and drive this consolidation given our strong and German and international presence, our attractive technology portfolio, as well as our strong financial performance situation. Dear investors, dear analysts, ladies and gentlemen, let me conclude on our strategy with our strategic growth ambition for the next years. As you saw, our markets are growing between 8%-9% per annum over the next five years, with the strongest growth being in the German market. We see potential to even outperform this strong growth organically over the next five years. I have already laid out the why. We have a record order backlog of more than EUR 5 billion and are looking at a record order pipeline of EUR 30 billion, which gives us a great visibility into the future.
We are in some of the most attractive German and international programs with some of the most attractive sensor solutions, are capturing additional platform share, and are developing our portfolio for the future of warfare. We are driving strategic partnerships and our own international presence to win business in key growth markets such as Asia-Pacific, MENA, and North America. In some of which we are coming off a small base, so I think we have a very good potential. On top of that comes M&A-driven growth. We want to participate in European defense consolidation, want to grow internationally and add new solutions and technologies to our portfolio. Of course, this is always subject to available M&A, which is not always under our control, but underlines our commitment to pursue value-adding M&A growth.
Against this background, we are very confident that we have the potential to double our top line by 2027. Looking back, we have done the same in the last five years. We have doubled our revenues. Today we're even in a better position, and we have an even better market environment, which underlines our strong conviction to deliver on the same growth going forward. Beyond the five-year horizon, of course, that is looking really now quite far away, but we see no reason why we shouldn't be able to continue to grow at the same pace. As Thomas laid out, we are looking at a strong multi-decade growth, and we are here to stay. We look forward to this journey together with our people, our customers, our partners, and our investors. Thank you very much. I hand back to Veronika for questions.
Thank you, Celia. Thank you, Thomas, for your insights on the new defense environment and why we are so well-positioned for this upcoming long-term growth. I would suggest that we directly step into the Q&A. If you have a question for Celia or for Thomas, just raise your hand and someone of my team will quickly equip you with a microphone. The first question comes from Sesh.
Thank you very much indeed. Sash Tusa, sir. Agency Partners. A question, actually it's probably for a combination of Celia and Thomas. Celia, you talked about wanting to remain a sensors and a platform-agnostic company and not in general become a prime contractor. I wondered if you could therefore describe what the thought process was at the board level about the risks as well as the clearly the opportunities of bidding for PEGASUS, which is taking you exactly into the area that you probably would not naturally want to go.
Yeah. I think as I mentioned it before, we are ready to move that steps in areas where we feel really, really strong, we believe as a management board that we understand the risk involved, and we can count on partners that make us also come to the level where we think this is a program where it is in our home market, we understand the customer, we are best positioned, we have a very strong partner, and we believe that we can do it. I think that is the consideration we do. When I say don't expect in the near time that we would do something like this in India or in Australia or... I think that answered the question, so I don't know if Thomas wants to complement.
I think there's one answer beside what you already said. Thank you. We are using these kind of programs like the PEGASUS to expand our electronic warfare, in this case, solutions proposals to our customers. For example, due to the PEGASUS success we have up to now and the milestones we followed successfully, we got a study to develop for the Eurodrone a SIGINT pod, which is based on a similar technology and which will create this network-like operations you talked about. It's also a promoter-
Mm-hmm.
Of future business. That's exactly what you said. Well, we will not shift the business model into OEM model.
When it comes.
If there are more Pegasus to come, if we even have export Pegasus to come, this is a little bit more like in Germany we say baking pretzels.
Thank you. I mean, just a follow-on on Pegasus. I mean, there's at least three components to the project. I mean, there is the sensor content, the systems integration, and the aircraft conversion and integration itself. How do you manage, as a company, the risk of that last part, which is clearly outside your competence? Can you fully offset or co-fully outsource the contractual risk for that?
First, of course, contractually we take care that we are protected. Nevertheless, in this case, we are a prime contractor, and I said it before as well, we go strategically into such topics, and we build our capability over time. We have recruited a lot of capability as well that can judge and drive our subcontractors in this case, and that is how we manage that risk.
Good afternoon. Christophe Menard, Deutsche Bank. one question. We met last year, and we didn't have the war in Ukraine. Now you are facing a lot of opportunities. We haven't discussed what areas you could dispose of to focus on what matters most because you won't be able to do everything, I guess, or unless you manage to recruit many people. Are there any areas you have to dispose of? That's the first question.
Oh, no. I think as we have said, we are a pure-play solutions company, and we have concentrated on what we believe and what we are sure about will be the future you have seen in the presentation of Celia, what is our strategy. There is nothing we want to dispose. If you ask me what is our key in the future, it's exactly what we have seen, which is a new battlefield, and we are preparing with our sensor solutions network for the new battlefield. I think that's all about it. The question, are you capable to get the necessary resources? I'm happy to ask you to wait for the impressive presentation of our new human resources member of the board because you will see, yes, we can.
Another question on your growth ambition. You at the beginning of the presentation, you clearly showed that you outgrew the market. You would probably get to this later, but your financial guidance is in line with more or less what you're seeing for the German market. I mean, if I take a shortcut, how conservative is this? Because if you managed to outgrow the market in the past three years, you could be in a position to do it again in the next five years.
Well, let's do or let's say the following. Growth. First of all, we see a strong, consistent, and sustainable growth for the decades to come. I think this is a key information. You know, in the past, we said we will have a single digit, perhaps a higher single-digit growth. Now, we say for the next year, we very clearly see, then, our CFO will talk about it, we have a 7%-10% growth target for next year. If the Germans once get their boots on the ground, which I believe even today we have a budgetary committee which where there are a couple of programs passed, then we will go closer to the 10% next year. It takes time. You will see it in the presentation of our CFO.
And this is a key element. In the future, we said we will stay with the single-digit growth. Now, what we are saying is, after 2023, definitely we will be beyond the 10%. 10% and beyond. Because you see, in our business, it takes some time until things materialize. I hope I could answer your question.
Thank you.
Hi. Charles Armitage at Citi. This is much more of a German defense question than necessarily HENSOLDT. I'm still, the German defense is what? Sort of EUR 50 billion a year. Maybe a third of that is-
Mm-hmm.
Procurement. Sort of 15, 10-20, that's close.
Yes.
We've got EUR 100 billion somewhere that is somewhere else to re-arm or re-fleet or re-capable. I'm just trying to square off how much of that EUR 100 billion is being used to get to the 2%? It, you know, is it in addition to? How, just how does it all.
Over time.
No.
Over time.
No. Clearly no. First, we are so happy that we got the EUR 100 billion, because it will be on top of the EUR 50 billion. This is clear, because it's a separate budget. It's written into the Constitution. It's separate from the so-called single Plan Fourteen, where you have the EUR 50 billion. In the EUR 50 billion, you have everything. You have running costs, you have maintenance, you have. There's a small part of new procurements, as you said, not, but let's say 30%. The EUR 100 billion is a pure equipment buy part. If with the EUR 100 billion, we will be at 2%.
Yeah.
We will go up to 2%, this is really for procurement, and this is good news. Yes, it will be spread over the next years. It will not be, the orders will not come in with a big bump next year. It will be spread over the next years because there is forth and back going. Do we need 100 tanks? Do we need 50 tanks? Do we need six additional submarines? Do we need five additional submarines? All of this will be more and more materializing in the next couple of years. This big order intakes we are expecting will come. I even expect the first smaller ones after today's Budgetary Committee until the end of this year, which we have planned for. Next year and the years afterwards.
Overall, the Germans will, with this EUR 100 billion, go up to the 2%. Then there is an intention, which is the first time ever, it's a real written intention to stay at the 2% GDP. Imagine, 2% GDP in Germany means EUR 80 billion yearly, which is incredible amount of money if you compare it to the situation as of today, even after the EUR 100 billion single Sondervermögen or what it is called. It will come, yes.
I guess just an additional question is, as we say, 30% is procurement. When you go from 50 - 80, presumably that procurement proportion goes up, given that you need more kit. Is that.
Yes.
This is a good assumption.
There will be money for big binary programs. Again, as we said, if you ask the Germans, what are the ones, especially we as HENSOLDT will benefit from? It's a big, not a usine à gaz, as we say in French, but it's a huge cloud where inside this cloud, everything is moving. Sometimes it's, "Yes, we need six additional PEGASUSes." Now we go for a Sky Shield Initiative. This is half a billion only for us. You know, this is all moving targets, and the materialization of this we will see in the next two to three years. I think this is a key element.
Yeah, that's him. Okay.
Yeah. It's Aymeric Poulain from Kepler. In an inflationary world, the 9% is less variable than, you know, what it used to be. What's your view about inflation in this outlook, and what's what actually do you have here? When do you see the kind of big inflation effect translated to your into your P&L?
Well, I would like to pass this question later on to our CFO because he will talk about it, but we didn't plan in inflation bigger than as usual. You will answer this very much in detail later.
Any further questions? Oh, yeah, David.
David.
Oh.
Thanks. Yeah, David Perry from JP Morgan. The potential to double sales by 2027, is that purely organic, or does that assume some M&A?
No, no. As mentioned, we see good organic potential with the EUR 30 billion pipeline, which is the pipeline that we see today. Every year it will be increasing, we also look at M&A opportunities.
Reasonable M&A. It's not transitional M&A. Will be reasonable M&A like we did in the past years.
As mentioned, anything that is additional technology for the future of warfare, anything that will complement our portfolio, anything that will increase our market reach. Our M&A pipeline is strong, and we are well-exercised in acquisitions, and we continue to monitor the market. I think we have shown how with our acquisition we add value. Acquiring Tellumat, for example, and now developing a new naval radar or acquiring SAIL LABS and bringing this new capability there. We look at everything. It could be several sizes of M&A that we are looking at, bigger or smaller.
Okay. I guess we're all sort of laboring the same questions, but if I go back to Charles, I just can't reconcile the 9% growth with the German defense budget. To me, it just seems way too low. What am I missing?
You always have to. If we are talking about growth, we are not talking about order intakes, we are talking about revenues. If you're talking about revenues, you will see when Christian will present the financial part, the revenues in our business after order intake will spread over a couple of years. In the optronics business is one a year book-to-bill. A little bit longer sometimes, but a little bit less. Like the PEGASUS, we have up to seven years. If you look into this, the basis we have is long-lasting and growing profitably. You will not have these big bumps.
As I have to admit, in the ammunition part like Rheinmetall, where you have to produce now 10,000 of guns or ammunition parts, you have a faster peak but less enduring. For us, it's a lower ramp-up, which by the way you will see help us a lot because we are not exploding, otherwise we would have a big problem in our high-skilled employee force. We will have a sustainable growth which goes over the next years, and I think you will talk about it. This makes a difference between what other companies are expecting as kind of peak out of the ammunition and then going down. We are not expecting this. We are expecting a long-lasting growth over the next decade or decades even. Profitable growth.
If we took that potential slide, if we didn't have any M&A, where do you think you are in 2027 in terms of the starting point of the EUR 1.7 this year?
I think it's very difficult to say. We stick to our guidance. We see what happens over the long-term. I think what we can say today is reflected in our guidance.
Which means 10% after 2023, and as we said-
I guess the final one is then the implication is that you've got some quite big M&A ambitions.
We do. I mentioned it during the presentation. We are looking at all kinds of M&As. Some of them also looking at bigger capability in terms of European defense consolidation. We do look at several sizes that can be, I wouldn't call them fully transformational, but would really help us grow nicely.
If you calculate, David. Sorry. If you calculate it, if you calculate the growth, an annual growth of 10% for the next five years, you will quickly calculate, yes, there is a certain delta to the doubling, but it's not so big. If we say if we are even above the 10%, it comes down to the number we have already invested in the past. It's not so significant, I think. Over the years. It's not in 1 year. If you take this M&A in one year, yes, then it's more significant, but it's over the years. I don't like the string of pearls theory because I had a boss in the past in Airbus who talked about the string of pearls, which didn't very well work out. If we are investing in What you said.
I think it's also important to say, and we have proven in the past, we acquire value-adding M&As. Which means that whatever we would acquire, we would always do at looking how does in combination bring more than on two parts separates. I think it's also important to consider that.
Just on the M&A, you talked about some of the technologies you're interested in. What about geographies? Are there any Should we be thinking Germany, Europe, or global?
Yeah. Europe remains important. I think we have already a base in France and the U.K. is strengthening that. Could be an option. I mentioned that we are looking also at AUKUS, Australia, U.K., U.S. We all know that it is subject to available opportunities, no? It remains an area we would invest. Yeah.
Yeah. U.S., we always said, U.S. is a difficult market to get into. Either you're partnering with someone or you're buying an asset, then you have huge risk as Europeans that either you have to restructure or you're paying a fortune to get into it. Then you need to even perform this asset in the U.S. as a European. We have several examples where it has showed that it has been quite difficult. Not in the U.K., but in other areas of Europe. We are careful in the U.S. If we find a good partner in the U.S.-
Which we do, I think. Organically, we have a very good business in the U.S. Of course, we organically will not be able to expand the business to be something like Europe or Germany. We are very well-positioned. I think you know from last year with our laser ranger designator position in the Abrams, which has also been selected for further platforms. With our passive radar, we see a lot of opportunity. We have been the only company selected by the FAA to go into a research and development program in order to analyze the potential of the passive radar for air traffic control operations. I think organically in the U.S., we h ave a very good potential as well.
Yeah. I think there was a further question coming from Anand.
Just maybe one question as a follow-up to what they've already asked before. If I look at your order intake, the CAGR of that has ben much higher than the growth in revenue. At some point, that should translate into much higher revenue growth, right? At what point should we start seeing that on a more steady basis? That's the first part. Second part is going back to your last slide of revenue doubling every five years, that means roughly 14%-15% of revenue growth every year for the next five years, right? That would-
Mm-hmm. Considering both organic and inorganic.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yes, you have to.
Going back, I think to David's observation that that implies that you're still looking at a pretty chunky acquisition-
Yes.
potentially. Help us understand your comfort level with the balance sheet and the capital structure, and how comfortable are you levering up? Because clearly you've delevered since your IPO, if you had to do a chunky acquisition, can you talk about-
I would love to answer the question, but I'm not going to step into the toes of Christian. I think he will prove to you that we can do.
Yes.
All right. Thank you.
Yeah. Yeah. As I said, it's not that we are, and this is, you will see it in our guidance. It's not that we are clever, like, that we are really bound to the 10%. We say it's 10% +.
Plus.
Yeah. Then you're very fastly at the, what we said, doubling with reasonable M&A, as we said. I think the second part or the first part of your question is what is a, let's say, delay between an order intake and the final delivery of a program. I think Christian will very clearly show later on in the presentation how we calculate this. Yes, you are right, it is for sure going up significantly, but with a certain timeline.
I think it's important to mention as well that we are planning ahead with less pass-through, better core revenues, which means really more valuable business for us.
Yeah.
I think we're all beating around the bush with some of the same questions. I mean, the third element that you've got your organic growth, you've got your acquisitive growth, but you've also got those binary contracts that you alluded to, of which PEGASUS is already in year 2022 to a certain extent.
Mm-hmm.
Could you just help us quantify what the binary contracts either including or excluding Pegasus, how that feeds through to the big numbers?
If you take the EUR 30 billion, there are binary contracts included as one to zero, as we say. They are not weighted. There are binary contracts included where we clearly see a good opportunity to get them. Just frankly speaking, we didn't plan for in our operative planning, which is going for three years. You never know to what extent these binary programs may come in. At the end of the day, yes, we are expecting some of them. Now what we are focusing on is to really make our rock solid bottom line growing business. The business which will have positive surprises but not negative surprises. Here we have a real good view what's happening in the next three years.
The 10% growth, no additional binary contracts.
No.
The 14. 5 that was worked out over there. There might be some in there and there might be some acquisitions. Is that the way?
Yes, exactly. That's absolutely correct.
Thank you.
Any further questions?
I think...
It doesn't seem so. I would suggest that we stop here now for our coffee break and let us meet again at 3:30.
Thank you very much for the questions. Great. Thanks.
Thank you. Welcome back, everybody. I hope you enjoyed our little coffee break. Let me now hand over to Lars Immisch, who will focus on HENSOLDT's ability to attract high qualified people and also on our ESG achievements in 2022.
Thank you, Veronika. Thank you very much. I also hope you enjoyed the little break and the discussions. Dear investors, dear analysts, ladies and gentlemen, I'm happy and proud to be member of the management team and now in charge to help you to understand how we manage the growth from a people perspective. You have, and I think somebody re-emphasized the phrase platform to double the revenues every five years. I think it's carrying all to essence, saying it can be done without people. We are not yet in a world where everything is virtually and an idea is going to be materialized in a product solution or service without people. Insofar, are people the bottleneck or one potential bottleneck amongst probably others? Yes, of course it is.
The question is, are we confident that we can handle this bottleneck? From my point of view, as an HR director, I should have an opinion on that. The answer is clearly yes. We will be able to attract the talent of the future. Why I'm saying that? The first thing is, coming a bit back, Thomas, what you have been saying, HENSOLDT is an old brand. It's true. The business itself is 150 years old. Does anybody of the young generation care about that? Probably not. What they know is, what they see in the social media, and what they probably know is that HENSOLDT is existing since five years, and it's two years at the stock market. That's it. This is the outside-in view.
Within kununu, we are already, after such a short period of time, ranked as number two in the electronic sector of the industry. I think it's quite remarkable. Who can say this, even the big players from themselves? I think very few to none. The second one on what is it based? It is actually based on feedback our employees are going to share with the outside world. If you look a little bit deeper, 4.3 out of five, this is the scoring of our employees, means they are favoring HENSOLDT as an employer. They favor what they do, how they can work, what we offer to them, of course, what are the challenges, do they feel comfortable? Is it a nice workplace? Whatever you, whatever it is. It's relatively free what you can rate there.
This is also quite remarkable. By the way, the industry averages 3.4. I think this tells you something. On top, more than 90% of our employees with this rating would recommend HENSOLDT as an employer to friends, family, or to unknown people. I think this shows two things. First of all, how we are coping with our people, positively spoken, and, of course, it also make HENSOLDT as a brand attractive. More and more people also in our industry, especially if they have an engineering background, a program or project background, are keen to look what we are doing. And technology-wise, it is fascinating, and if the work environment fits to that, I think it's the best marketing you can do. What are the drivers for this impressive score? I mention only a few, of course.
You can make an hour elaboration of three hours. I think it's much too long. First thing is, purpose. This is a buzzword which circles around for many, many years, and especially in Germany, purpose and defense company didn't work. I'm working in defense environment since 99. We always try to be under the radar screen. Nobody was mentioning publicly, I'm working for. No. Better not. Better not. Maybe in your family, and even there you had a discussion. Today, and by the way, it comes from our employees, they develop their purpose. Together we are making the difference for a safer tomorrow. Meaning even our people are starting to be proud what they are doing, and they are also transmitting this to the outside world. It's not only the what I'm doing. Of course, they do fantastic technology.
There is no doubt about this. This is the basics of the basics. On top, they are asking why I'm doing it, and they find the answer themselves, and they are more and more proud also to stay for this in the public. Of course, we are all doing this from the management board down the road, I would say, to our employees. Of course, this is also mirroring a bit that we, with the Ukraine threat or Ukraine war, that we have understood we have to do something, and we have to contribute to securing our way of living and our democracy. That's very simple. I think this is also appealing to a new generation. You can still have a debate on defense industry in general, but people understand better the why we are here.
Second one is, for engineers, this is something which belongs to the core, how do we keep the qualification alive? Competence management, also from a strategic perspective is of course key, but in a market where resources are scarce, we have also to re and upskill people, of course. Insofar skill development, as you cannot change the full competency overnight, skill development very focused to comply with the needs of the business, be it in engineering, be it in programs, is one of the routes we are going. On top, also internally, we are paving a bit the way and doing our share in filling the competence gap, if you may say so. We have decided just recently to increase our apprenticeship and dual students program by 25% in 2023.
Of course, we have started to implement because the lead time, so they start usually in September, and the lead time is approximately 10 months. We have started. Today we have, for the open positions, we have staffed already half of it, and I think we have not even end of 2022. I think we will make it. I'm quite sure. Of course, what is also important that I would say the core competencies in the company, for example, system engineering, for example, program project management, product management, is going to be subject to very specific qualification programs, which are done together with external partners, but also being done by our experts in system engineering and program and project management. Insofar, we are also having a system where the knowledge in the company is transmitted to the next generation.
I think also very important. Health and well-being, of course, is also a buzzword. Everybody wants to know it. If we are honest, if you wanna go to work, if you go to work in the morning, you want to be healthy and you want to come back in a healthy manner also in the evening. That's quite normal. Everybody wants this. We recently did a health check, and interestingly enough, not a surprise, but interestingly enough, I would say the general health status of our people is above average, physically and mentally. Nevertheless, this health check is not just to display and showcase that we are a fantastic company. It's more, I would say, a beginning of an action plan.
We are discussing the results in the teams, and we are undertaking actions individually, of course, to be even better. I think this is what a modern company needs to offer to its employees. Fostering inclusion and diversity. We are an industry, and this is not unknown to you, which is probably from a diversity standpoint, not benchmark. Maybe in the banking sector is a bit different, I guess. Defense industry, voilà. Today, and this is one of the KPIs, by the way, we are following also up in our long-term incentive plan for the management, not only for us, but also for the executive committee and the executives, is to increase, I would say, steadily, the at least gender diversity in our leadership team. Today we have 19, so we have to reach the 25 in 2024.
We are climbing up the ladder gradually. The aim is not to do it because it's fashion. It is very clearly if we are part of the society, and I think we are, we have to mirror the society, which means also we have to be attractive for non-male, I would say CEOs, which are all tank commanders, or was in special forces, whatever. We have to completely to rethink the way we work. I can tell you this is already a step forward. When I started 99 in DaimlerChrysler defense part, it wasn't under Schleißheim, don't tell it to anybody. As I think the number of female may be 10, out of which eight may have been maybe secretaries.
Insofar it has something moved, but it's a long way, and it's also a way to be attractive. Of course, it's also limited by the fact that the female ratio, I would say, in engineering for studies is still very limited. Voilà. Of course, we are focusing also on leadership in, I would say, diverse times. Three years ago, everybody was coming to the office. We are sitting around the table talking, executing the programs. Done. It's no longer the case, even in our industry. With some limitations, of course. The production is still difficult to work in a mobile manner, but a lot of our engineers have the ability and we have the means, I would say, to offer such a workplace as many, many other companies, and I'm sure for you it's the same.
The question of leadership, especially how we are still securing that we are delivering on quality, on time, and on cost, this is something we have probably to relearn, all of us. We are on that way, and so far you see it in the financial numbers. I think we are not unsuccessful. Voilà. There are, of course, many more initiatives which are combining the qualitative element, I would see as HENSOLDT as an attractive employer. Voilà. Reflecting a bit on myself. I joined HENSOLDT in October, and a couple of days, weeks, I think weeks later, you ask me what did I recognize or what did I observe?
You have to know, when I started in 99 at Daimler, I started exactly in the electronics part, and I was in between also CFO of the French defense electronic activities. The remainder is HENSOLDT as I is today, by the way. I know it a little bit. Was also part of the management team who made the carve-out decision, by the way, also together with Thomas in 2014 indeed, then executed a bit later. What I observed are two things from the beginning. People are super proud of where they are working. They have forgotten where they are coming from. I would say the a word is even a non-word.
Very interesting. The second one is, I think it was given the fact that the A company pulled the plug in 2017, they had to develop a different way of working, a different agility, which is no longer mirroring the big monster, which is more linked to how a midsize company ideally should work. This is what we need to keep. This is also part of the attractiveness. If you are part of decision-making, if you really can feel what you do and if you can influence and impact a decision. This is the case at HENSOLDT, and honestly, I'm super proud to be part of the team, very clearly. These are the qualitative elements. The question is now, okay, understood. Quantitatively, does it work? Voilà. In the past five years, is it five? Yes.
We have increased, I would say, the workforce. These are not people, this is full-time equi-equivalence, even a bit more with part-time working employees and so on and so forth, by 1,700 net, which means more because usually people retire and so you know the story. This one has always been compliant to the business planning. We have, what I can say, we have no, I would say, resource gap which is hindering us to execute the programs. This is the first important message. It has been matched with the planning.
Being, I would say, short in some areas of resources is not completely untypical. It's more driven by very, very specific competencies where simply the lead time of getting them on board, be it experienced system engineers, flight safety engineers, is a bit longer than I would say if I address, for example, the early career market. The good thing is, and even today, this is valid also for the big programs, PEGASUS or Eurofighter Mk1 radar, we are on a level that we can say we have the resources on board. This is not the bottleneck, and I'm sure, I would say I did it also in the past for the other company, that we will cope with the challenges tomorrow as well. We will make it without any doubt.
Now the next topic, and I think we had a discussion on this topic already, ESG. Today basic. If you are not placing yourself in the middle of the society, with all the challenges which are outside your fences, you are not an employer of choice. Just forget it. Nobody will come to you or maybe the ones you don't wanna have. For us, I would say the interesting part of the ESG story is this with the, with the Ukraine war. I would say a discussion has started, which is sustainability and defense, which we never had. I think you have the discussion as well, and whatever the answer finally is, we have understood that, I would say, without security, there is no democracy, there is no future for the planet, there's nothing. How do we embed this?
This a part of discussion, Being part of that is also a good thing, a motivating part also for the people, by the way. ESG was from the beginning important. Of course, you can say it's important because you aim to be a listed company. That's why you have to do it, whatever. No. What I can say is more and more of the young talents joining HENSOLDT, and I think it's the same for other companies asking effectively that question. What do you do for the environment? How do you do something against corruption? Whatever. These are questions which are indeed coming. Insofar, it is quite natural to understand that behaving as a good citizen is a must. It's not what we need to do.
It's a must, with or without legislation. Insofar, ESG is really, has been flooding in a positive sense the organization and has achieved to be the fifth pillar or one of the five pillars, not the fifth pillar, probably the first. One of the five pillars of our corporate strategy. This shows how we are placing it and that we are also aligning our initiatives in many respects exactly to this goal. If you are looking now, how we are rated. Again, we are the second or now in the third year of being a stock listed company. Where are we? Last Sustainalytics report, I think it's three, four weeks old. Cannot remember exactly the date. Shows two things. First of all, an improvement year-on-year from 2021 to 2022.
We improved from score 18.1 in 2021 to 15.5 in 2022. The second one, we are seen by them as sector benchmark, which is quite remarkable because we are not, I would say, a big company who is investing, I would say, everywhere in people, in whatever. We are very focused, and we are doing the things I would say in an integrated manner across the organization. I think this is, and probably the space now of, I hope at least. If you are looking a bit more in depth into the rating, we achieve full score on S.
What I've been saying about workplace, about atmosphere, about people perceive HENSOLDT as a place to be at least 50% of their daily time when they are not sleeping, is absolutely positive and even Sustainalytics sees it exactly in the same manner. If you go beyond to business ethics, there's also a remarkable thing. Very high score first, and we have also full scoring in our anti-bribery and corruption programs, which I think is a must for a company like HENSOLDT. It's a must. There is no doubt. There's a clear tone from the top, but we also see that what we are doing and how and how it pays off in practice is recognized, for example, in this case by Sustainalytics. Honestly, I'm very proud of this as well.
We have the remaining E-part. Environment is key, and we have several initiatives where we are really focusing on becoming more CO₂ neutral. We have a clear target defined in the strategy being on net zero in 2035. Within the Scope 1, Scope 2 targets, we have, as a first step, a 42% CO₂ emission reduction by 2030. There is a clear plan behind how we are going to come to that and all the investments being done in the company in the E-part, of course, is aligned with, of course, with Christian, but he's happy to spend the money, is aligned exactly to that target. Voilà. Insofar, fully consistent. If you look the others, there was a bit more in-depth because this is the youngest result.
Also MSCI, S&P, Refinitiv rated us low risk, rated us, I would say amongst the top 10 in the aerospace and defense sector. This gives as a result, something which I think we have probably been dreaming of, but we made it already. Sustainalytics, we are among the top 11% performers worldwide. If you combine it with the others, we are in the top 16%. For such a young company, I think it's quite remarkable. Voilà. What are we going to do in order to keep the ratings or progress even further, which is a clear goal? We want to be sector benchmark. This is, I would say a tick in the box. Voilà. What did we do?
The first thing is, of course, what is of utmost importance, communication transparency. By the way, not only to you, it is also necessary to our people. We have to explain, and we do it, how we are doing, what we are doing, and what do we aim at. This are we doing, of course, this is then reflected also in some positive ratings, which I've mentioned before. First thing. Second one, we have, actually in 2022, this year, linked a dedicated ESG strategy into our corporate strategy in order, I would say, to focus what we are doing and how we are doing very clearly to that target. This, I would say, strategy comprises a five-year horizon, 2022 to 2026, so that we really can do it in an executable manner.
Of course, some challenges are embedded. First thing is, and this has also, in-depth started this year, a full adherence to human rights. We have a human rights policy. We have a human rights officer, which is not me, by the way. It's our general secretary and, corporate secretary and general counsel, sorry. We have also, I would say, linking the responsibility functionally from a bit of a supervision and challenger, position. I think this is very important. Of course, we link all the discussions of human rights policy, due diligence, not only to what is happening in the fence of our company, we link it also to the supply chain.
There is a driver with the German Supply Chain Act very clearly, I think this is just formalizing things we have to do, and we have to look our direct and indirect supply chain, which we are going to do. We have prepared, of course, the legal part, we will fully implement and roll out the supplier screening in 2023 to be, I would say, fully compliant with our expectation and the law by end of the year. Of course, we have already started. We have a supplier code of conduct, there is nothing we don't start from zero, but we bring it now in a structured order. Second one, I mentioned the CO₂ topic. Of course, we have very clearly set the baseline on SBTi basis, we are working against this.
There is some which is transparent, has been in the sustainability report 2021 already. This is something you can, of course, read and the topic inclusiveness and diversity, I've mentioned it already once. It is also linked a little bit to our workforce, a little bit more than only a bit. We have to work. We are representing the society. We are, I would say, a fantastic company, but we have also to reflect a little bit that society is looking a little bit different on us and unconscious biases and those things. We need to accompany them. We will make people aware, and if we want to grow, and we will grow internationally, this is a sort of basic. Let's start to understand how others are working.
It's a fantastic journey, and we have a good basis that we can be, we can be successful, of course. Voilà. Again, we are proud of the performance. We commit to continue to do, I would say, our not only efforts, our results in the same manner as we have been doing in the last two years. For us, ESG is a clear value driver, huh. It is not only something esoteric. It is something which has a clear impact on the business. It is even an enabler of business. It is showing that we are again part of the society, and by the way, it makes us attractive at the employment market, so not to forget completely. Insofar, I think we have all the ingredients as to draw the next chapter of HENSOLDT.
Thanks for your attention, and Christian will now show you probably how financially all of this is supported. Thank you.
Hello, hello. Okay. Thank you very much, Lars. Ladies and gentlemen, a very warm welcome also from my side. We had already the chance to discuss the one or the other thing, and I'm happy to have you all here in person. I really appreciate that you're here today. Thomas, Celia, and Lars have elaborated on what means growth for HENSOLDT and how do we address growth at HENSOLDT. Now I will provide you some insights what this means from a financial perspective, what this also means in terms of our KPIs, and there are also discussions about what is the right KPI, but let's discuss on that. Of course, talk about the short-term and the updated medium-term guidance from our company's perspective. Before I will elaborate on that, let's have a quick recap as where we stand as of today.
A couple of weeks ago, we presented our 9M results, and we showed a quite impressive performance of our key KPIs. Starting in order intakes with almost EUR 1.4 billion, we were quite in line with our expectations and our guidance. Also, in the revenues, we had a quite good progress with EUR 1.1 billion, and these were, as you might remember, mainly related to key milestones in PEGASUS and in Eurofighter Mk1, as Thomas has already mentioned. Here we laid the basis for a down payment flow down in Q4, and we are also on track with all the programs for the future milestones. This is very important in these key programs. Looking to our bottom line. Our bottom line grew nicely by 14% to an adjusted EBITDA of EUR 126 million.
Before pass-through, 14.4% EBITDA margin. Due to our strong cash conversion we had in Q3, we were able to reduce further our net leverage to 2 x per 9M. Let me point once out again, and it's noted also in the slide, we are fully on track with our delivery of the full year 2022 guidance. Having said that, let's look into our future and also repeat some of the core messages which were stated today. Thomas has pointed out before we are at the beginning of a new era in defense environment, and this gives us a significant growth potential for our company. HENSOLDT, we are at the center of this, and Celia has outlined the multiple growth pockets which can be addressed by us.
We are the German defense provider in electronics. We have a strong footprint in Europe and globally. This provides us with an excellent positioning and an immense potential. This can be seen by two aspects. One aspect is the order backlog, and you see the progress always related to landmark projects, but also of the entire business, which has developed between 2019 and 2022 in a, from my point of view, very remarkable way. Then there is the pipeline. I remember quite well in 2019, because I was part of the IPO team in calculating all these figures, we talked about EUR 10 billion. Now look at these figures, and this is now has grown to EUR 17 billion.
When we expand this figure to 2027, we talk about, and Celia has mentioned it several times, EUR 30 billion addressable pipeline for HENSOLDT. For this reason, we as a management team, and especially I as the CFO, I'm very excited about the business to come and to book into our accounts. I can only repeat what I said during the 9M analyst call. This is the best time to be in defense, the best time to be in Germany, and the best time to be in electronics business. We all know that the growth is coming and there were a few questions already arising today, and this is why I just want to briefly explain to us how our industry works and what is the nature at the end of the day of our business.
To be very clear, we are all impatient, and some of my colleagues here know and are part of the management board, I'm the most impatient person in this room. Sometimes we have to accept the nature of our business. Here I want to briefly explain you how this works. First, a political decision has to turn into an order. When you remember this year, we had 2 big political decisions. One was the speech of Olaf Scholz end of February with the Zeitenwende, and the second one was the budgetary approval of the EUR 100 billion of the German parliament and the political will to come to a spend of 2% annual budget. The planning process starts, and then we know in which domains and which programs the EUR 100 billion should be spent.
Once this is clear and the budgets are allocated and the programs are allocated and the numbers of systems are clear and all this kind of stuff, the tender progress starts. Then, of course, it has to be negotiated, this has to be selected. Then if all this process is done, the order can be booked at HENSOLDT. As we've seen in the past, and as we also currently see, it can last between one and two years, and this is nothing special in our industry. Then we have to remind ourselves that in our business, a project lasts between three and five years. When we talk about the big programs such as Pegasus and Mk1, it's even six years or seven years.
That means until the full order is completely booked in revenues, profit and cash flow, it could be that another three to five years turn by well knowing that from the order, from the moment we book the order, we then track and do revenue recognition and cash flow, but it takes some time. Now I do not wanna fall over thing or everything to talk down, and we do not have to fall into big depression now. Please do not do that. Why? There are two main reasons. The first is it is every time it has been the same. It has nothing changed. We as HENSOLDT, we are very aware of these processes, and believe me, we can deal with that. We understand how this works.
There is one topic I really like to mention, and it was mentioned today two or three times, the ground-based air defense system, IRIS-T SLM, where we delivered our TRML-4D radar. When we look at this example, it has shown that we see acceleration and we see improvement in the procurement process. In this program, the German Ministry of Defense has acted quickly and decisively, and the industry was able to deploy the system in the shortest period of time to support the Ukrainian forces against the Russian invasion. This shows also that procurement processes sometimes are very slow. We can achieve improvements.
Secondly, yes, it takes time until the order is booked, with our backlog of EUR 4.3 billion-EUR 4.5 billion end of this year guided, it already paves the way for the short and the medium-term guidance of this company. The German defense budgets and the environment and the resulting orders will give us a significant tailwind for a decade to come with strong, sustainable growth. Ladies and gentlemen, let me now, and keep the last slides, please, a little bit in mind our updated guidance short-term. There are two main aspects I really wanna focus on. The first biggest change is that we expect the first orders of the German special fund and increased budget to come in 2023. That means we expect a faster growth in order than before.
The second, and this is the most more important to me, the quality of revenues will improve. This is due to the fact that we expect a stronger growth in core revenues, whilst the pass-through share will be lower than in 2022. As a result, we expect a book-to-bill of 1.1x-1.2 x, and we expect revenues to grow between 7% and 10% with a stronger growth in core revenues. In terms of profitability, we still expect an adjusted EBITDA margin of around 19% before pass-through, and our adjusted pre-tax unlevered cash flow will be at around 70%, leading us to a net leverage of lower than 1. Dividend payout ratio will be between 30% and 40%.
There is no change to the old guidance, it is an increase of 2022 by almost doubling the payout ratio. To sum it up, we expect budget increases, especially in Germany, first quarter orders coming in next year, and this will lead us to a high quality of revenues with higher reported margins. Ladies and gentlemen, we talked a lot about sustainable decade-long growth potential for the company, this is why the midterm development and the updated medium guidance until 2025 is almost more important for me. Here are the items I wanna specifically highlight. We expect a continuously high order intake over the next years, with orders to significantly grow faster than revenues.
This will lead us that the annual organic revenue growth of 10% on average for the midterm. Secondly, we expect the adjusted EBITDA margin to come above 19% before pass-through revenues. As a result of this, the reported margins come up as the share of the pass-through revenues goes down. We will further invest in working capital discipline and elaborate on that. We'll be able to convert 70%-80% into our cash flow, pre-tax unlevered, and we will stay with 30%-40% dividend payout ratio in the medium term. On the next slide, let me briefly explain to you, and this is very important, a very important asset of our business model, and this is visibility.
Since the midterm development of this company is naturally of high interest of you investors and of you also the analysts, I want to give you a feeling on how the order backlog translates into revenues so that you get a sense of how much visibility we have in our guidance. When you look now at 2023, we have a value of around 85% revenues covered already. This is consisting of firm order backlog plus short cycle and after-sales business. Especially in our business, we have, until the platform is delivered, customer service business in it, what is then short cycle business, where we are very sure that it'll come in. That means that in theory, we only need a few more orders next year in order to deliver the 2023 guided revenues.
When we look now into 2024, again, based on guided revenue growth, then the value is around 65%. When we look at 2025, we talk about 50%. This gives you, and this makes it clear, that you have an excellent visibility and our guidance is very well backed by orders we have already secured or are expected very probably. Now there is one or two topics remaining, and these were also questions I think we as a management team had to discuss and have discussed. How do we handle this growth? There are two pillars I wanna focus on today, and the one pillar is clearly efficiency. You know when you look at our margins, then you see that HENSOLDT is a cost-conscious company, and we've been since 2027.
Maybe you also know our HENSOLDT efficiency program called HENSOLDT GO! Look, HENSOLDT GO! Wave one, what was the content? Getting independent from Airbus, being a self-sustaining company. This was the focus at HENSOLDT GO! Wave one. We successfully implemented this initiative, and then we started Wave two, and this was much more focused on end-to-end processes. Order to cash, end to end. On improving working capital, cash conversion cycle, profitability, optimize these figures, and to support our business plan and to deliver the growth what we did. That means HENSOLDT GO! Wave two, which will be closed on end of this year, has fully paid off because we delivered our business plan with the further growth, with our profitability and the respective cash conversion. We are now entering, at the beginning of 2023, in a new wave of HENSOLDT GO!
with a working title of HENSOLDT Wave three. That means we will extend all the initiatives in HENSOLDT GO! Wave three to all geographic regions in the world and to come to end-to-end process across the globe, because when we want to go for solutions, we need to have integrated processes across HENSOLDT. Excuse me. On top of them, and you know it, and you're very well aware, we have two macroeconomic factors which influence almost all industries, and this is supply chain and this is inflation. We know that both topics, inflation plus supply chain, we were not really affected this year and we are somehow also limited in this regard. Thank you very much, Veronika. This is not a given. We have to focus on these topics and manage all these topics with regard that they are so limited as enough.
Furthermore, we will also focus on efficiency in terms of working capital, in terms of overhead, and in terms of engineering efficiency. To illustrate this, I want to briefly give you an example. It was mentioned several times today already. It's the TRML-4D. Again, I want to highlight this system is one of the most advanced ground air-based defense systems on the market available today. It can detect and track a wide range of targets, ranging from cruise missiles, drones, aircraft and helicopters. As mentioned, it has proven its capabilities in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Due to the high demand, we have decided to set up a batch of 10 lot production in 2023. That means from March onwards, every month, a TRML-4D radar will leave production and go to testing.
You wanna reach this goal, you have to work on that. This is why we review and track the whole production and supply chain process. What will we do? We will further industrialize. We will further shorten the production process, removing buffer times, minimizing non-value-adding activities, and continuously improving the work stream. This will show us significantly savings in hourly costs in addition to the economy of scale in the production. Here we have a classic series production then where we can reach economies of scale in our industry. The second pillar I want to focus on today is the rollout of the harmonized ERP system based on S/4HANA. Maybe you know that all companies which are on SAP have to change and migrate before 2027 because the service is then simply closed.
We decided to go for a very special greenfield approach in combining the necessary change in S/4 by optimizing also our organization. This will provide us with significant advantages in terms of data management, in terms of business insights, in terms of analytical capability. This will allow us to handle the growth we envisage much more smoothly and much more efficiently across all regions. As a result, we are moving to a real end-to-end organization, and the data will flow through the organization end to end regardless of any functional silos. What is very important, we have to have the right information at the right person at the right time. This is what we get to do. I'm personally very excited about this project because this will turn HENSOLDT into a real-time company.
Let me share in the next minutes a few thoughts how we will design this project. We are fully aware that this is not an easy project and it will last a little bit, but we have everything done to de-risk the expenditure side. First of all, we had a very good alignment in the management and also in the ExCo, and we had very good discussions with our supervisory board. I will now cite one famous member of our supervisory board who said, "This is one of the best IT projects prepared," last week. What we're gonna do? We are now in the finalization stage with our partner with whom we will then do the implementation.
This will be closed end of the year. Then we will turn into a project ramp up where we staff the team, and this will be closed mid of 2023. By 2023 June, we will have a dedicated project team in place who does then the implementation. Why is this de-risking? Because we've learned from other companies that it does not help if a FTE has to serve 20% in this project, or 30% or 40%. This does not work. That means we will invest here, as Lars has said, in our people, that we have a dedicated project team. Once this project team is set up, the definition phase will start and it will end mid of 2024.
We will have the global template with the defined standard processes, and then this will be implemented in our pilot entity until end of 2024. There will be two phases. One, mainly the core entities in Germany and then the further entities in all areas of the world. We will roll out this in mid of 2027. We will be then the end-to-end real time HENSOLDT company. Of course, as an invest, we plan EUR 120 million-EUR 140 million. 65% of them were capitalized. Due to the nature of the project, the costs will be clearly back-end loaded. I want to mention here that we have planned the costs very conservative, and this allows for enough security margin from our point of view.
We are absolutely convinced, as HENSOLDT, that this implementation will allow us significant efficiency gains in all areas of this company in the midterm, as well as support our strong outlook of growth. Let's move on to another very important aspect for you as investors and analysts. What do these guys do with their capital? The first area, of course, is, and we talked today much of growth, and we have to fund this. The first priority is clearly funding our growth. That means we have to and will invest in our workforce, in our technology, also in our IT, and to a lesser extent, also in facilities. As you might have understood, we are a CapEx-light company. That means facilities will not be the limiting factor in our business.
Second aspect, our shareholders shall participate in our success and in our growth, this means we will have dividends as priority number two, with a dividend payout ratio of 30%-40% guided, this reflects our will. Third, of course, M&A will be an important topic where we are active in. As Silas outlined before, it is one potential to follow our long-term development and our long-term growth of HENSOLDT. Of course, we see HENSOLDT still as the natural European consolidator, and therefore we are in an excellent position to do that. Please remember that it's always three aspects we are looking at: geographical expansion, technology portfolio, and it has to be value accretive.
From an innovation point of view, because HENSOLDT is an innovative company, and you've maybe seen today the analytics topic, we'll continue to invest in these technologies: big data, cyber, artificial intelligence, because this is the future also in a military scenario, as you have seen today in many, many aspects. For all M&A activities, we predominantly focus on a conservative financial debt profile to allow our midterm guidance of 30%-40% dividend payout ratio. Before I close now and coming then to your questions, three financial highlights. The first highlight is we've an excellent visibility on our short and medium-term guidance. Second, we are entering in a new defense environment where we are strongly positioned to see long-term sustainable growth. Third, we are able to handle this highly profitable and highly cash generating to deliver both dividends and M&As.
Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, and now I hand back to Veronika.
Thank you, Christian. Thank you, Lars. I would suggest to directly jump into our second Q&A session. For this, I ask you all on stage, please. It's the same concept as for the first Q&A session. If you have a question, just raise your hand. There's some question from Sash coming.
Thank you. I mean, first of all, I've got a question for Lars. You talked about effect of increasing the number of full-time equivalents from 4,300.
Mm-hmm
... 6,000, which clearly involves recruiting many more just given natural turnover. How do you have to increase the rate that you're going to have to recruit at to achieve the growth targets, particularly out beyond 2025, that you've been talking about today? Or can you recruit at that rate? Is that sufficient?
We will stay around that rate, which will be from 500, 600 approximately per year, 700 maybe. This we can do with the, I would say, with the current assets we are having. We even shift a little bit in the focus because, we have mentioned the serious production of TRML-4D. Instead of, I would say, overloading us with an onboarding of many new engineers, because the onboarding is one of the subjects we have to cope with, we have a more diverse hiring profile. We're looking for production people, looking for IT colleagues to backfill, I would say, our organization for the SAP S/4HANA project. This we can do. I would say, we prepared for that with the current means.
I don't expect in the next three years Even coping with the challenges of the revenue growth, I would see a steep and I would say exponential, hiring need.
Okay. Thank you. Just a question to follow up on the point that Christian made about the radar production next year. Are these radars that you are producing without a current customer because you know that you will be able to sell them or is this an existing contract?
I would say partly.
Partly. Okay.
We have some in the contract pipeline, so to say, but we see the demand in the market is so high and as we said, customers are really realizing they need to invest now. We see a lot of orders coming up and want to be prepared for that.
Should we expect some sort of probably transient working capital hump before you actually deliver those?
Not an amount where I say it is visible in our accounts.
Thank you.
Charles Armitage again. First of all, I'm just wondering what a radar white what color a radar white tail is. Just Christian, on the ERP rollout, someone described it as 18 months of root canal work, and it looks as though it's gonna be five years for you. Good luck. Just as regards to, so EUR 40 million-EUR 50 million hit to the P&L, should we just sort of look through that EUR 10 million a year sort of numbers?
It will start with a mid to high single-digit amount in the next two years. And then go up to a number as you have stated.
On CapEx, you said it's gonna be back-end loaded. Previously I think you've said 2% - 2.5% of sales being CapEx. Is that which is presumably, what? EUR 40 million-EUR 50 million.
It's without the ERP.
that's an additional spend.
That's an additional spend.
of probably not very much in the near term and EUR 15 million-EUR 20 million in the out years.
Ex-exactly.
Thank you.
Further questions? Everybody's thirsty. Yeah.
Just one quick question on the numbers. Can you give us any color on the cash tax rate for 2023 and also on the pass-through revenues? I know you've mentioned it's gonna be single- to mid-single-digit percentage of revenues.
Yeah.
Would that be fair to assume like EUR 150 million, EUR 100 million going down with the years, or is there any color you can give us on this? Thank you.
Yeah. cash tax rate is around 28%. It's a fair assumption from next year onwards. Regarding pass-through revenues, this year we will be at around EUR 250, and they go down to EUR 170 around.
Any further questions? Oh.
Sorry, I.
Sorry. Didn't see you. No, Sash, go ahead.
Okay, thank you.
Yeah.
Go ahead.
Better visibility for me. I'd wondered if I could ask a broader question. Something that Celia brought up in her talk about R&D, and you're clearly benefiting at the moment from a particular wave of customer-funded R&D. I just wondered what proportion of customer-funded R&D ever not makes it into your portfolio, i.e., it is so specific to what the customer wants that you can't then reuse that product or that skill or that particular piece of technology thereafter? Or is it all effectively paying you to?
Very little, Sash. I think everything that we get as customer-funded R&D, we can leverage on European and international markets.
Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you.
Thank you. Could you talk about the payment terms of the upcoming order intake that you're gonna get in Germany, and how it look going forward versus going backward?
Yeah. Raphael, many thanks for this question. This is a very valid one. Currently, we see that the profile of our customers' behavior has not changed. Yeah. Advanced payments is currently not a topic what we currently see. Yeah. We have talked many times to the customer and now you see, yeah, there is a bit, a little bit movement in it, yeah. It's inevitable. Yeah. We have EUR 100 billion special fund. Yeah. Now the customer has two topics. He has to increase and speed up the whole industry, yeah, and has to spend the money.
One big instrument to do that is prepayments, because if he does give a prepayment to us, we can to give it to the supplier, and then he secures the respective lots for defense. The problem in defense is that our lots are relatively slow. Yeah. If you compete and require to a car manufacturer, they can assume where the supplier of yours gives the lot to. Yeah. This is why we are heavily debating in Berlin, especially Thomas Müller and Celia Pelaz, to move the customer again towards prepayments. Currently, I have to say I do not see it in my books.
Mm-hmm.
It could be that from next year onwards, we will have some movements. If this is the case, then we will inform you because this would have then an impact on our financial profile.
Chancellor is convinced.
Yeah, we have to do something to speed up the process. Defense Minister, not yet. As Christian said, we are in the middle. I think, knowing Germany, if the Chancellor says we do it, doesn't mean that it's done. It's in discussion. The good thing is they learn about, yes, in the past, what has been the oil and the gearing, it has been the advance payments without interest rate. This is exactly what you said, in order to speed up the supply chain, this we may see starting next year. It's not a given. It's again, one of these uncertainties we are facing, but we are fighting for every day.
Right. Tom, there's, Tom has a question.
Hi there. Sam Burgess from Citi. It's a question on ESG. We've seen the French government being very vocal in its view on defense's penalization and exclusion in ESG taxonomies, in particular in the ongoing kind of formulation of the EU Commission sustainability taxonomy and the perhaps someday social taxonomy. Do you get the impression that events in Ukraine have made a significant impact on the German government's perception of how defense should be treated in a future taxonomy? Are they gonna be similarly vocal going forward?
No. There has been a change. By the way, this question of governmental taxonomy, which you very well refrained to, led to is off the table currently. We are very vigilant that it may come up again. Currently, and thanks to France, it has been off the table even before the Ukraine war started. Currently, it's really off the table. There are investors coming back, which haven't been in the scheme up to now.
Great. Thank you.
Yeah. Aymeric has questions too.
Aymeric.
Thank you. You mentioned M&A as an ambition. How far are you ready to re-leverage the balance sheet for that strategic ambition? That's one question. Second is on the competition for staff. I mean, the numbers are not big in absolute term, but I guess a lot of other engineering companies are gonna compete for similar talent. We had a recent negotiation, wage negotiation in Germany, which was successful, I guess, from your side. How do you see salary negotiation going forward? I think I asked the previous Q&A about your inflation assumption and how this affect the order flow right now and eventually your sales growth assumption. That will be useful. Thank you.
I take the first and the third question. The first question was around M&A. Yeah. Okay. Deleveraged. We've guided this year for below 1.4. We guide next year for below one. I think then we are in a very good situation regarding leverage. Now it comes to the question, and this was also, I think, your question, what is a leverage grade where I or we feel comfortable as a management team? When you now look at a typical stock-listed company, then a leverage between two and 2.5 would be in a size where I personally feel comfortable. Yeah. That means we stay with our financial profile. Yeah.
If there is a target which is attracting us in these ways we have defined in geographic, in geographic aspects, in technical aspects, and in value accretive aspects, then it would be a possibility to raise up with that. This is not a topic for the near term. I have to be very clear on that. The potential and the scenarios we have already in place.
On wage expectations, you, I think you did reference to the last collective bargaining agreement in Germany. By the way, average impact for the 24 months duration is 4.61%, with the different phasing effects. This has been fully covered by our planning, by the way, and so far, we are not worried about. I think for the wage expectation is, the question is whom you ask. At the end, it's gonna be a mixture of both. It's, how long these, I would say, massive inflation is going to last on the one side, and on the other side, the affordability by companies. I think with these around 5% in current terms, 4%-5%, I think we have to live with that expectation very clearly.
This is factored in in a way. You have, of course, other developments that certain competencies are going to be scarce and maybe expectations are even beyond, but not for everything and everybody.
Then the question of inflation. Maybe to get a broader picture about inflation in our business. There are always more components we have to keep in mind. The first is what contract structure do we have in the backlog? Because when you have escalation clauses in the backlog, you do not have a problem. Yeah. The second is, if you do not have an escalation clause, what is in your inventory, in your stocks? Because due to the nature of our business and the relatively long stock, yeah, we did not see any impact this year, yeah. Even if you have an escalation because you have your material in stock. The third one is what allow your terms and conditions to renegotiate with your end customer.
Currently, we see that due to our market power, yeah, we are in a relative comfortable situation. The fourth is the cost structure. When you look at our characteristics, CapEx light and so on, you see that around 50% - 60% of our cost base are wages. As Lars said, we had a quite reasonable negotiation results with the unions, which goes quite good with our plan. Then there might be the one or the other effect, but in a low double-digit amount where we can mitigate currently from our plan. That means that the gross impact from inflation on our business is not very high, yeah.
If it's then really visible in a percentage of growth revenue, then it will be in a very, very low, single percentage coming from 2024 through 2025 due to the nature and structure of our programs. Does it answer your question?
We have still the competition question. You ask for what is about our competition?
It's, what Lars.
No, no.
Oh, okay.
It has been on.
Yeah, yeah.
Sorry.
Thank you. The company, I'm guessing, benefits a lot from customer-funded R&D. You generate a lot of IP that you can use and monetize, right? Can you give us a rough sense of how much that amount is on an annual basis? Very roughly. You don't have to disclose who they are, but.
I won't give exact numbers because it changes. As I mentioned before, I see the potential to double our own. You see, if you look at our plan, our R&D investment has been around 7% of sales. It's going down a little bit in the next years because we expect that actually it will be recovered by customer-funded R&D.
Strongly, even more than.
Our own is around EUR 100 million, and I see the potential that it can be doubled from the customer side.
I see. Thank you.
I think David has a question too.
Sorry, what was the question?
Yeah. Hi, David Perry again. These questions are gonna sound a bit nasty, so apologies.
All fine.
Just to be clear, you've made it clear about the three to five year lead time. More or less, you're saying that there is no uplift at all in year one and year two versus whatever we thought the day before the German announcement in mid-February. There should be no change in our expectations. Is that what's implied by the guidance?
You see all of us. No, no.
I think, what you have to understand. Until now, we did not get one single order of the EUR 100 billion Sondervermögen. Now we are at end of the year 2022. That means as soon as we get the orders next year, yeah, there will be a certain amount, but a very low one in 2023. Then, and this is from my point of view, at the point of the guidance update is then the long and mid-term development. Here we increased from 5%-10%.
Yeah.
This is how we currently look at. That means first we will see the dynamics in the book-to-bill, which is higher than before, 1.1-1.2. Then in the outer years, it will comes to revenues. We do not see a bump the next year due to the nature of the business.
You remember what I said, huh? We are not in the ammunition where we have a peak. We will definitely see a peak in some of the ammunition companies. No, we are on a lasting growth path, I think this makes a difference. Because for you, it's a reliable, rock solid bottom line growth, profitable growth.
Okay.
Which is better than in the past. Our last guidance, as Christian rightly pointed out.
Is mid-single.
It's lower. It's mid-single. Now we are saying it's at least 10%. Midterm means after 2023.
Yeah, I guess this one's a bit nasty, but.
No, there are no nasty questions.
Because, there's a problem with having laptops and Wi-Fi. I've got your IPO presentation here, and your medium-term guidance was mid to high single digit. It wasn't mid.
That was for 2023, though.
Well, it was just medium term, it said.
Yeah, so to say.
Yeah. When you go for 2019, 2023 is midterm. Now we are three years ahead. After midterm, we said it's a single digit.
Single digit.
Now we are at 10%. This is, David, honestly saying, this is currently our view on the business, and we give it to you. This is our best estimation we can give to you. If there is next year a better dynamic in the business, let's talk about that, and we will update the guidance. Currently, from our currently best plan we have, this is our view.
Please always take into account that as we said, we expected the EUR 100 billion coming much faster to industry. Now it starts. Some of you heard what I said. I just got an SMS from our Berlin office that even today, just today, the German Budgetary Committee gave green light to eight programs like the FCAS, like the F-35, like the upgrade of the PUMAs trust. I just got it today, which then turns, as Christian pointed out, into orders, into first orders. The process took some time. Until the revenues will go up following the order intake, will take some time too. Therefore, we said the revenue growth will really start 2024 onwards. For next year, yeah, we will see. If we are lucky, that's what we expected, 7%-10%.
If we are lucky, even next year we will be at 10% revenue growth. It depends how fast the EUR 100 billion-
Depends on timing.
Yeah. Will go into order intake. Let's cross our fingers.
All right. Thank you.
Can I ask about the competitive landscape? The fact that Korean tanks and aircraft potentially are gonna be sold to Europe, is that a good thing or a bad thing for HENSOLDT, long-term? What about new NATO membership? How could that impact the competitive landscape long-term?
Well, the K-2, what has been the reason why the Polish went for the K-2? South Korea has produced the K-2 on stock, they are very fast available. The German Leopard 2 had to be produced and would be available in two to three years, the last version. This has been the reason why the Polish went for the K-2. What does it mean for HENSOLDT? Two weeks ago, we got a request for information from South Korea about the SETAS system Celia talked about. I don't tell you what is the volume behind. If we really succeed in getting on the platform, great. The Norwegians currently are considering K-2 or Leopard 2. They're in a less pressed situation, though I can't say who will win at the end of the day. Well, let's say I'm not too concerned about Norwegian.
For us, in any case, it's a business opportunity due to our outstanding optronic skills and performance. As Celia pointed out, also in South Korea, where we successfully already have been with our businesses, the South Koreans very much appreciate our technology. F-35, very precisely. F-35, the Germans will procure F-35 on the nuclear participation. They clearly told us, "You will not be part of the acquisition process, but once we have signed the contract with the U.S. government, you will participate in the maintenance." Which is very good news for us too, because the very first F-35, which is in Germany, after they finally build up the airport, you know that they're currently stocking or the F-35 have to go to Italy because the Germans are not ready, and we will see.
Nevertheless, in any case, we will be part of the maintenance. For us, it's an outstanding business which starts, we expect 2026 onwards. This has a very short book-to-bill then, because maintenance starts in the very moment the fighter is there, even if it's in Italy. In the very first moment the fighter is given to the German government, then our maintenance starts. We all know what's happening if there is no maintenance from the very first moment onwards. There is a business opportunity, and on a lasting basis, it's a great opportunity because in the past, as you know, we have been participating in the CH-53. We have been participating in the Phantom with very good margins. It's an upgrade business, but not until 2025. It will be beyond the planning period.
It's real good.
Thank you. I think with our platform independent.
Yes.
-strategy, I think it's a risk and opportunity at the same time because other platforms like the F-35 coming into Germany help us also to position products that then are used internationally by those OEMs. I don't think the dynamic's changing with that.
More questions? Yeah, Harry.
Maybe a quick one for Christian. It's Harry Breach here from Stifel. Christian, this might be one that's a little difficult to answer, but given the importance of PEGASUS and EFA Mark One, can you tell us how execution versus cost at completion is going on both of those? Secondly, looking sort of across the portfolio generally as a kind of, you know, as an important measure of execution to cost. If we look in aggregate at the portfolio over recent years, would you say that sort of aggregate cost at completion has been on existing programs that are in place one year after the next year, it's been about stable or you've done better cumulatively against cost at completion? Sorry, they're horrible questions. You don't have to answer.
I have to give it to the head of accounting. No, no, I won't do that. Okay. First of all, we had in the IPO, this analysis. Where did we turn in the ESC zero? It's the first ESC when you get the contract, and where did we end? When we looked at our biggest eight to 10 contracts, it was also mentioned in the prospectus, not remembering quite well. It was an upside of 2%-3% in gross margin. That means, from our margin projections, we are relatively conservative, and this is what we see also when we look at our ESCs. This is also how we treat the big projects. We do not treat them differently as the other projects.
This gives us and gives you maybe a feeling how we treat all these topics. We see in most of the programs mainly catch-ups at the end of the period. That means we foresee a certain risk profile in all these projects. I've not seen so many downsides until now.
Thanks.
Good. It seems there are no further questions at that point. Thank you very much. I would like to hand over to Thomas now for a brief recap of the day and his closing remarks.
Thank you, Veronika. Ladies and gentlemen, dear investors and analysts, what should I say now at the end of our day after you have all the questions, and I hope that we could answer most of them to your satisfaction. Well, it's a great company. I'm so proud being part of this story from the beginning up to now and in the future, and I can tell you it's an outstanding team and outstanding company with a very visible, reliant, reliable growth in the years to come, with very high profitability, benchmark profitability. We learned a lot today on guideline, on key performance indicators, what we should do better. David, thanks for giving us some hints there, really. Well, thank you very much for being with us today.
I'm looking very much forward to see you again at the latest next year in our next year's Capital Markets Day or in between. You are warmly invited to visit our premises, to visit our Ulm. Even if you want to go to South Africa to have a look what we are doing there. Really. Believe me, it's not only rhinos we are protecting. We are protecting a lot of other things, too, and we have outstanding technology down there. One of the answers, Lars, I think, mentioned to get people on board is also to take benefit of our South African capabilities and capacities and skills there. International ambition based on Germany, based on Europe. I think that's it. On a lasting profitable growth, and thank you for joining us today. Well, that's it.
Yeah.
Veronika, please.