Welcome, dear ladies and gentlemen, to our Capital Markets Day here in Frankfurt. Welcome also o n the screen. I'm Robin Laik. I'm the founder of Mutares Group, also the main shareholder and the CEO. When I look back now on the last sixteen years, and maybe it's also interesting to share this with you, why do we do all this restructuring? Why are we so active in the turnaround? It's important to understand where I personally come from. For my dad, he came from a very rich Indian family. In India, we had several companies. We had copper mines, coal mines. We were running the Hindu temples. It's a Hindu priest family. Then the communism came, and everything was nationalized. My mom, she come from Berlin, in a lawyer family, also a very rich family.
The grandfather, he was in the Second World War, and then the grandmother, she left Berlin and came to Bavaria. Why? For the Russians were coming, and the communism came. So both parents lost a lot of money due to the communism. And I grew up in a rented apartment in Munich, and then I studied business, and I always wanted to make cash. So my mother, she sent me to the Aldis in Germany, not to the expensive restaurants, shops, and then I got DEM 50, and with these DEM 50, I did the shopping. I know how to save cost and how to buy as cheap as possible. And this mentality helped me to do the tax declaration of my parents when I was fifteen, and with the first money I earned, I bought my parents a house.
Then I came to different businesses. I started at L'Oréal Group, then I went to Escada Group, and I was always in charge for underperforming assets. What do you do with companies which have negative cash flows? This is my personal background. So then I was running a company, a perfume company for Escada. Company, fifty million in sales, but ten million of losses. What to do with such a company? So as a restructuring manager, what you do in the beginning, you reduce cost. So I had to close down the factory in France and went for external supply. Then I exited the U.S. market, because in the U.S., the marketing expense was so high and finally, after two years of restructuring, the company was, like, breakeven.
But then when a company is break even, you can think about, as a turnaround manager, as a task force manager, as a head of M and A, you can also think about an exit. What do you do? Can you maybe exit this company? And then we sold this company to Wella Group. And, selling this company to Wella Group doesn't only bring us a high purchase price, it brought us a long-term license agreement, royalty agreement, and all of a sudden, this was the most profitable business within the Escada Group. And that's why 16 years ago, I was, sitting on my kitchen table together with Wolf Cornelius, one of my senior employees today, and we were drinking a bottle of wine, and then we said, "Why don't we do it for ourselves?
Why don't we build up the structure, Mutares, and we go to these big corporates, and we ask these big corporates, "Do you have underperforming assets?" Companies that do not work, negative cash flows, profitability is not there anymore, and we take over the burden that you have to support the losses of these companies. We enter into these companies with our own teams. In the beginning, it was only him and me, and then we do the restructuring. This was the start of Mutares. We called today's Capital Markets Day, hopefully you can see here. We call it the Buffaloes of European Private Equity. Why have we decided for this name? For another personal story, my daughter. We have four children. I'm married, and my youngest daughter, she went to the U.S., and she was in Colorado.
As we have a house in the Bavarian mountains, we go very regularly skiing. So the first thing she did, she bought ski equipment, and she bought a season pass to go in the Rocky Mountains skiing. One evening, she called me, "Dad!" We all heard now about the thunderstorm in Florida and in the US. She said, "Dad, there's a thunderstorm coming," and a winter storm comes. In the US, the winter storms, especially in the Rocky Mountains, can be minus 40 degrees. She asked me what to do, and I said, "Darling, please take a room, stay in the hotel, and the next morning, you can go skiing." That's exactly what she did.
Then I heard a story, and the story is that there are storms, thunderstorms, winter storms in the US, and we have in the US two different herds. One herd is a herd of the wild buffalos, and the other herd is a herd of the normal, ordinary cows. And you know what happens when the winter storm comes? The normal, the ordinary cows, like 50% of the cattle, they die when the thunderstorm attacks them, and only 2% die from the wild buffalos. And the key question is: Why is this the case? And the answer is very easy. The normal, ordinary cow runs away, and five hours later, the storm attacks them, and they don't have any resistance anymore. The wild buffalo hears that the thunderstorm is coming, and he runs directly into the storm.
What we are doing here at Mutares, with our two hundred and fifty people, we go directly into the storm. For what we are doing, and this is what we all have to have always in mind: We buy companies which are not performing, where you have a substantial, severe issue, and we ask the seller to fund these businesses even with cash. This is what we are doing. We go directly into the problem. We bought now two companies, and this is for us really a challenging week. When I heard that we have Capital Markets Day this week, I thought, "This is also for Mutares tough." We do a lot of things, but this week, we already acquired two companies. You can see here Buderus, and you can see Metalltechnik.
Two companies, one EUR 350 million in sales, the other EUR 160 million. Big corporates. But we would not have bought them if there were not substantial issues with these companies. And our team is going to the supplier, is going to the customer, is talking to the unions, and has to convince all stakeholders. That's our job. We go directly to the people, and after 100 days, we know our plan. We bring transparency into these companies. And next to these big transactions that we did on the buy side, we also opened the books today for our IPO of our Austrian Steyr group. So the books for Steyr are opened. We want to sell, like, 5.2 billion of shares for a share price of EUR 14.
So if here investors are listening, and if you're interested, Hauck & Aufhäuser is our, our financial partner in this transaction, and we hope that, we still stay majority stakeholder as Mutares, for we believe that there's a big opportunity for all investors in this, in this transaction, and this transaction is open since today. What is our Mutares business model? So what we do, we go to these big corporates, and we ask these big corporates, "Do you have companies that do not work?" And then we show them our business plan, and we ask them, "Can you give this company to us?" But it's our business model per se is risk-averse. Why? For we ask the seller to fund the business with cash to do the restructuring.
We ask, and in 100% of the transactions, we have a badwill. What does it mean? This means that the purchase price that we pay is not as big as the equity of the company that we buy, and this, it's like in 100% of the cases, that's the case. We buy a company, and we don't buy the company as Mutares holding directly. What we do, all of these company are ring-fenced. We are not obliged to inject money into these companies. There is no profit-sharing agreement. All of these companies are held via shelf companies.
If we invest, and we have invested now EUR 600 million into the total portfolio and purchase price and acquisition and loans and so on, this is our free will to decide whether we go for an add-on acquisition, whether we want to invest, whether we want to inject, but we are never obliged, like a big corporate, due to a profit-sharing agreement, to put money into these companies. And we do not buy only in one industry. I mean, European automotive companies, they do suffer a lot. I mean, all of the German OEMs, but also the European OEMs. Why? For electric mobility is not working, and this is not only in Germany, this is all over Europe, this is tough. But we do not invest only into Europe, and we do not invest only into auto.
We have four different sectors: early cycle, non-cycle, late cycle, and cyclical business. This is important for us, for we want to avoid risks, and we do not invest. I started the business in Munich. Today, 12 European offices, an office in India, an office in China, and an office in the US. We are not dependent on one market, and we are definitely not dependent in one sector. This is, this is our business model, and we have generated last year EUR 100 million net profit. How can we generate EUR 100 million net profit with underperforming assets, with companies that do not work? What, what we do, we send our own team, and we have, like, 150 operational consultants on our payroll, and we send them. These are my buffalos and we send them into these companies to make the turnaround in these companies.
This is our consulting income, and we do generate more than EUR 100 million in consulting income on a yearly basis. This is the first source of our profit: our consulting income. Next stream of profit is dividends. In our calculation, we calculate, like, EUR 25 million of dividends that we generate on a yearly basis. And thirdly, we have exit proceeds. And by doing so, we were able to bring this company to EUR 100 million net profit. What is our vision? Our vision is that when a big corporate wants to exit a company, if it's now a globally, they should think about Mutares brand, and they should sell it to us. And this is first in mind, first in choice. We want to have a reputation of t his is very important, for you will see that we did a lot of privatizations from the states in the last years.
This is important. Important that this works out, for reputation of the Mutares brand is very important. How do we do this? Here we talk about entrepreneurship. We want to make the company profitable again with very logical measures. We put someone in from the Mutares team who sits on the cash position, and he tells the people, "We have amount X now. We have to restructure the business. I cannot spend more than what's coming in." Cash flow management is number one. I always say, we run the companies like I run my household myself. Every one of you will not spend more than what's coming in. This is principle number one. Then we go through the entire value chain.
We start with the customers, so we go to the key customers ourselves. It starts from the board, to BMW, to Mercedes, to Siemens. But then we go to the suppliers, and we talk to the people, and we try to negotiate and make it happen that the company works profitable again. This is the daily job, and this is what my team is doing, the 150 Buffalos worldwide. So who is my direct team? And I'm very really proud about my management board, for we work now, you see, since many years. Me, as the founder, of course, the longest, but also someone like Lennart Schley. Lennart is with me since 2011 .
Lennart was running companies as a CEO, then he was a sector head, and he is now in charge for our portfolio companies, for the development of our operational portfolio companies. We have Mark Friedrich, also since 2012 in the company, an auditor, and he is our CFO, who did a fantastic job to grow this business now to €5 billion. Johannes Laumann, super aggressive M&A guy, since 2016, in the company. Also, he started as an operational manager. I was always called from my German bosses when I worked for Escada or L'Oréal. I was his German terrier. You can send Robin, and Robin comes with money back from the subsidiaries. Johannes, he was always called the German bulldozer. You will hear him later on. This is our mentality.
We are the operational guys, and you as a shareholder, and we as a management board, we are completely aligned. Why do I say this? For I'm a 25% shareholder, and in my life I will not sell my share anymore. So this is, this is very clear. I have no intention to exit my share. In the contrary, I just signed a five-year contract, and my intention is to increase my share. And the rest of the management team has another 11%. So we, as a management board, we are completely aligned with bondholders and with investors when it comes to growth strategy and when it comes to the turnaround. Here you can see the global footprint. These are only the head offices. This doesn't represent where we are operationally active.
We are also active in Africa and so on, but these are only the head offices. What is a head office? A head office is an office space, and in this office space, you have your M&A advisors. Your own M&A team, they are sourcing and calling up then the big corporates, and they try to get a lot of potentials for us, that we can grow the business and bring more turnover to the company. And you see that we opened up now India. I'm very happy that the roots of my father in Mumbai will continue. But we also opened up the US and China, which is quite important for our global footprint. So who are our sellers? And as already mentioned, we bought a lot of companies from the state.
You see here, for example, the city of Helsinki. You see the Dutch Post. You see the Deutsche Bank. So these are corporates. When they, before they sell you a company, they check everything. That, are we the guys who only talk, or are we the guys who deliver on our promises? And as we are public, everything can be read. You can see on the internet whether we are successful or not in the turnaround. And we are very transparent, and this is super important for us, for otherwise, we were not able to acquire from voestalpine, a big corporate, a company that was, that we just did this week. So this is the first sector, is a state-owned company. Second sector are the big European corporates or worldwide corporates, global corporates. And here you can see Magna, you can see Siemens.
Also for them, it is, of course, important that they find a partner they can rely on, that we are not the gangsters taking away money, but we want to invest into these companies and make the company strong again. Our only intention is to make these companies profitable again. Finally, we buy also from private equity, but only if it's really dedicated and fitting to our growth story. In total, we did 16 transactions last year. Today, I have to pay attention that I count correctly, but we have bought now 14. Johannes, is that right? We want to grow the business to EUR 10 billion, as communicated. Looking on our portfolio, and, as already mentioned, auto is really tough these days.
And the key reason is that many European OEMs are not able to sell the same volumes of electric vehicles that they sold five years ago, when electric started and they only sold combustion. Here in Frankfurt, our office in Frankfurt is next to the BYD store, and I looked at the prices. Of course, this is super competitive. And if I'm in Shanghai, and I'm sitting in a BYD, and I ask the taxi driver, "How much is the cost of this taxi?" And there is a puppet talking to me, and everything looks like an S-Class, I knew it this will be super tough for the European BMWs to sell our- And this was the biggest market, or a very big market, to sell to China. And this is the key problem of European OEMs when it comes to e-mobility.
We have not the right product for the right price today. But I nevertheless, I wanted to start with an automotive company, and it is a company that we acquired from Cooper Standard. Cooper Standard sold us their sealing business for passenger cars. And we wanted to acquire the European business, like EUR 150 million, loss-making. We got a dowry, but we didn't want to buy the Indian business, for in India it was only EUR 40 million, and EUR 4 million of losses. So we tried to negotiate in the transaction not to take over India. And then we had to buy India, for this was the deal, right? Our seller wanted to have a clean cut, to take out all of these SFC out of their business. And then COVID came.
We only are successful if we send our own troops, our own team, into the subsidiaries. After COVID, we sent Nimit and the Indian guy to the subsidiaries. He was accompanied by ten other individuals, and they turned around the company. Today, we talk about a 70 million company, very profitable in India. I went to our key customers, Tata, Maruti, Suzuki, Volkswagen. I went to them, and I asked: "What have you changed?" They said: "Well, you know, you had unions and works council fighting each other in the different Indian plants.
What Nimit and his team did, they were able to calm down the situation, to bring in new works contracts for all the workers, to reduce one plant, build up a new one, and today we are on exclusivity for all Tata models when it comes to sealing products. So super nice turnaround case, super profitable business. India, where the market is growing. That's why it's so important for us to be global, for if we are only dependent on European OEMs, and if we don't see that the other markets are strong, this would be tough for us. But as I mentioned, we want to be risk-averse. We want to have early-cycle business, late-cycle business, non-cycle business, and cyclical business. T his is a good mixture out of this six billion. One other company that I would like to mention here is NEM.
We acquired from Siemens Energy in EPC, and they are producing power plants, and there was a big dependency in the beginning from Siemens, and we were able to make this company standalone profitable today, to increase the part of services and to integrate Balcke-Dürr into the business, and today, the company does EUR 180 million, with a quite strong profitability, and the last company I would like to mention is Terranor. This is a road construction company, repair and maintenance of highways in the Nordics, and we acquired with our Nordics team, with Carl Kestner, we acquired a small business in Sweden. Not small, but only EUR 100 million. Today, the company does EUR 300 million, and how come? So organically, they won a lot of tenders for this process, but the company was very much cash losing when we acquired.
What David and his team did, they changed all the contracts with each single supplier. They changed the contracts on the buy side, but also on the sell side, and these are state contracts, so quite difficult to change. Then we did some add-on acquisitions. The company will have more than EUR 20 million profit this year, with EUR 280 million. There will be three other companies, and I'm very happy that today three of our portfolio companies will present to you companies, and I'm looking forward to their presentation later on. We have decided ourselves. This didn't come from external. This was a board decision. After ten years, we have Mutares was in 2018.
I invited my team to a so-called offsite, where you gather around, and then I ask: "What do we want?" And at that time, the company had three years in a row, EUR 1 billion in sales and EUR 20 million net profit. And I had a vision. I wanted to have a company which will have EUR 5 billion in sales and 100 million net profit. Our profit, consulting income, dividend, exit proceeds. And then we said: "Okay, what can we do? Well, let's open up offices." We opened up Spain. I'm happy that Santi is today here. We opened up many other offices, 12 offices all over Europe. We opened up now India, the US, and China. And what we achieved, not until 2028, until 2023, we are a EUR 5 billion company with 100 million net profit. That's what we achieved.
Our guidance, which, whether there's a short attack or not, will not change, is 10 billion EUR in sales and 200 million EUR net profit until 2028. So we were asked about our cash flow. For you can show here maybe figures which can be fake. It's only P&L, and paper is patient. So what is about your cash flow? Why is your cash flow looking negative? And that's why I wanted to present today, also for the bondholders and for you as investors, our cash flow plan from the year next year onwards. This will be our cash flow plan for every year, for we have invested now 600 million into the portfolio, and we have 4.4 billion of assets in these portfolios.
We want to have at least EUR 200 million exit proceeds, and we want to have in consulting and dividends at least EUR 125 million. We have holding cost, and holding cost is including all interest for all bonds and all external financing of EUR 120 million. This pays all the offices, all the people. This are our stable holding cost, and we want to invest not more than EUR 50 million per year for all the transactions to do. By this, we want to generate EUR 155 million cash flow every year. This is our model, what we will execute from next year onwards. We know that there were difficult times where we had to inject, but we also wanted to inject. We wanted to buy today, Metalltechnik. We wanted to buy Buderus.
This is why we believe in the turnaround and on the exit proceeds later on. I—this slide, you know already, but I wanted to show how it works. We have these different life cycles. This is a time of acquisition where we want to spend EUR 50 million. Then we send our team in, our consulting team, and then we want in the realignment and optimization, we want to generate EUR 125 million on a yearly basis cash. This is my consulting team. These are the dividends to be paid out. You see here that we have—we expect that we have exit proceeds and harvesting of EUR 200 million on a yearly basis. This means with the holding cost, that we have EUR 155 million free cash flow operationally per year. What does this mean?
This means that we are, as a management team, very convinced that we are able to pay out an increasing dividend, that we are able to pay out, and we changed already from a base dividend of EUR 1 to a minimum dividend of EUR 2, that we are of course able to pay out all interest that we have to pay, and we are able to repay our bonds. This was my introductory speech. Thanks for your attention, and we have a coffee break now. Thank you.
... So ladies and gentlemen, let's continue with the part of the turnaround approach of Mutares. So, as Robin was mentioning earlier, we are and perceive ourselves very much as of the operational guys, and I would like to walk you through the next thirty minutes of what that actually means, what we are doing on a day-to-day basis as soon as we enter a company. Try to be as least technical as possible, but in the end there also is a Q&A session in case of questions. So it would be good if the slides moved. Okay. Here we go. Sorry. So you already know our portfolio. It is made up of automotive, goods and services, retail and food, engineering, technology. So when we call ourselves the operational guys, we mean we create value through operational improvements.
So statistics that I did some research for from other private equity companies who follow up on a very operational approach say that for the operational value creation has the biggest bucket, basically, of 30-50% in terms of overall value creation, directly followed by the deal team, which in the end negotiate the dowry, potential upsides, avoidance of downsides during the deal, and then in the end, actually want 10-30% of market influence that then impact the value creation. So this also clearly says that from an operational point of view, our approach is the right one. And what you see in the middle is that we basically deploy specialized operational work streams in order to generate value across the overall life cycle. And how do we do that? That is the overview.
We have 25 chief restructuring officers or operational directors, a very senior team, very experienced, coming from various industries, supported by roughly 150 consultants based on the various work streams across nine practices. So these nine practices are made up of the chief restructuring officer practice, transformation management office, finance, and some more. So the ones I just named, we perceive as the key drivers during the restructuring phase. So the CRO is basically our guy. He's in the driver's seat, he's sitting in the board of the company, he's responsible for the company, and he is running primarily our team. In the absence of a CEO, he has a dual track, but usually we have a CEO and primarily say the CRO is doing the restructuring and should not get biased from the day-to-day business.
He is running our team, he is focusing on the restructuring, full stop. So we have these teams, these practices, across our four segments, and depending on the problems we actually see at the acquisitions, we deploy these consultants to the project that we just acquired. We call them consultants, but we run them, and we also incentivize them basically based on the impact they have at the portfolio company. So they don't draw nice PowerPoint slides. Most likely, in the majority of the companies, this has been done many years before. They execute, right? So they do a quick analysis, and the most that we get is a crazy PowerPoint, but a good spreadsheet. This is how we run the companies with our consultants. And we gave you a snapshot of from which companies we basically recruit.
This is a good mix of really top management consultancies based on various work streams or practices they have been working there, but combined with good industrial experience. Give you an example why this is important, because, for example, a procurement project is different in how you run it if you have an automotive background compared to a consultant. He basically can do the analysis, but the execution needs to come from someone who is willing to go into the fight with the suppliers, fighting about payment terms, discounts, volume claims, whatsoever. So that's basically why we have a good mix of consultants' backgrounds versus industrial background. Robin was mentioning earlier the life cycles that we have.
Again, you see it here, and I very in more detail on the following slides wanna point out the two cycles, realignment and optimization, because these are the two cycles in which our CRO is primarily running the show. They, in most of the cases, differentiate from each other, that the first cycle, the realignment, we have an unstable, cash-bleeding, unprofitable situation. That's the main target, the main job of the CRO, to stop the cash bleeding and then move on during the optimization phase to basically only focus on the PNL because the cash bleeding has already been stopped. So the focus in the realignment is really cash and immediate turnaround activities, and in the optimization phase, it's more the EBITDA and the growth of the company. I'll get back to that later in a minute in more detail.
So the realignment, what I was already saying, cash, stop the bleeding, primary focus, lasts roughly from day one to at most 100 days, so six months that we basically plan for that. During that time, we should have initiated the most efficient cash-saving measures, stop the bleeding, and already came up with a strategic vision for the company, a strategic plan that we wanna lay out then during the optimization phase. But the most important topics in these phases is to set up a transformation team that is working close by the Mutares team. Because you also need to imagine, companies that we acquire have been loss-making for years, right? So the very, very good people already left years ago. The ones left with the company are not motivated.
They basically say, "Oh, there's just another shareholder just, pumping in some money and closing the gaps." And we have to change their paradigm. We have to motivate them again. We have to incentivize them to pursue our journey with us, because we can't do it on our own. We always say, as soon as we enter the company, "We are not smarter in terms of the industry experience. You guys are. You have been working with the company for so many years, but we know how to run a good company, how to apply basic economic fundamentals again that you have lost track of." So it does not make any sense to buy in tenders, to buy in projects with negative margins of 20% because you only think, "Well, I just wanna have some revenues." We look at the margins.
Revenues and growth in that situation is of secondary nature. At the same time, as I showed it on the previous slide, the carve-out topics in terms of IT become more and more important, and that's also a reason why, combined with CRO, TMO, and finance, our biggest practice is actually IT. It becomes more and more important to our sellers that we know how to carve out, within six months, a complex subsystem out of their server. They don't wanna have us on their servers for 12 months whatsoever. They basically push us for very short TSA agreements in order to keep us as short as possible on their servers and then move on.
So one option is basically doing, for example, a copy-paste of the overall SAP system, but as soon as we cannot do that any longer and have to implement a new ERP system, things get tricky, things get very time-consuming, and that's important, that's the reason why we have own people on our payroll in terms of IT. What does it actually mean in terms of strategic vision and showing operational value? This is now a technical thing, but shows how what business plan methodology we apply. We always take the actuals, the financial actuals of the company as of closing, right? Either based on the management accounts or based on their financial audits, we take this one.
And then we adjust it for the good effects and for the bad effects in order to derive what we call the so-called run rate. And the run rate for us is something like the financial KPI that we would achieve if we did not do anything, if we just sat at the sideline and look how the company would evolve and perform. That, for us, is the run rate. Usually, it's highly negative. Just wanted to, for graphic purposes, don't wanna show that here. That is the baseline for us, the run rate, and as soon as we have that, we add from the work streams, from the practices that we apply to the project, we add the impacts on top of that.
So we only think in terms of EBITDA impact and in terms of cash impact for a period at the beginning of no longer than two years. That is how we think in terms of every decision. How does that contribute to the bottom line of the company? How does that add value to the overall Mutares journey? And this is how we build our business plans on a yearly basis. So even in year two, we basically sit back again. What did we do good? What did we do bad? And then we adjust again the result and find new measures, new activities, and that is, on a consecutive basis, how we run from day one across all the life cycles, our portfolio companies.
That happens during the realignment phase, and now let's move on to the optimization phase, which will take longer, which basically is from six month, possibly to two to three years. We try, of course, to shorten this as much as possible, because we also don't wanna have our CRO, the full-time deployed at that company. Our target is to have our CRO with the company for no longer than eighteen months, and then this guy should move on to the next project based on his or her industry experience, based on also language. As we grow, it becomes more and more important. We cannot always send a German-speaking guy to Finland or to Sweden. We need to have someone locally there.
That means, so we don't wanna add too many people on our payroll. We wanna have short periods of CRO engagements within the companies. And within that period, we basically focus on execution of the business plan. So I just showed you the business plan methodology, and now it comes into execution. So implement a continuous improvement culture, further reduce variable cost, or execute the plan that we came up with earlier, and set up a clear vision for a commercial plan for the next three years. And that is the basis also, when we engage in discussions with financial partners. We need to convince them of our three-year plan, to show them what we already achieved within the first six month or twelve month, and what we are planning to do ahead.
So that is the key difference between, let's say, realignment and optimization. First, the pure cash focus, then in the second stage is the pure EBITDA and growth focus. So these are the key levers, basically, that we don't lose track during this two- to three-year journey. So I already was mentioning the CRO, who is supposed to be on site on a daily basis during his engagement, interacting with management, interacting with the people, showing face, showing the employees that they are not alone on their journey, so they need to be on site. So the CRO topic I was already mentioning. So we already added the layer of the financial control.
That basically means also from Munich headquarters, we check on a monthly basis the financials and review them, look whether they adhere to the budget or not, check the cash forecast for plausible reasons, et cetera, et cetera. That's already in place. Additionally, we have so-called operational audit. That means if a consultant who was basically executing a project in procurement or supply chain leaves the project, is supposed to come back twelve months in order to check whether everything is still in line, or whether possibly the culture fell back into old patterns because they didn't feel supervised enough any longer or controlled any longer. We have all these levers already in place, and we will add now a fourth lever, because we grow heavily, we get into regions where culture matters, so we wanna add an additional level of supervision, control, and coaching.
That's why we wanna have operational partners, which at the same time is CRO in a very late stage, so where they don't need to be involved on a very daily basis, and at the same time, coach, supervise three to four other portfolio companies, and that means that they also coach the CROs, coach the management team, share know-how, because it makes sense to have, for example, an operating partner with a very clear know-how and track record within the construction industry across our various segments, so we actually wanna add this as an additional lever to be closer to the, be close again to the companies, even in the later life cycles, and don't lose track.
As a summary, what we perceive now during this journey as the key principles or the key success factors for successful transformation, coming back to the points I mentioned on my very first slide of the 30%-50% value contribution of operational activities, and also the roughly 30%-40% transaction contribution. A good deal is also made during the transaction. For us, that means preferably a dowry deal, so basically a negative purchase price or a low purchase price as soon as we get into add-ons, carve-out from big corporates, under-managed assets from them, good balance sheet, weak PNL. That is where we most feel comfortable with. Then the second point is the CRO engagement. We wanna be quick, and sometimes between signing and closing, we have month that pass.
That's important that our CRO is already trying to engage, with the blessing of the shareholder, with the local management team and learn about the dynamics of the business and learn about the certain technicalities and also of the pitfalls that we might not have seen during the due diligence because we didn't have full access to the complete company. At this, the last point is, it will be a very much contributing success factor that the operational partners will accompany the company along the longer overall life cycle, even after the optimization phase. Third key success factor is the rapid implementation of our turnaround activities. We also leave room for error. We also make mistakes, but we don't do the same mistakes again, because these mistakes happen under pressure, and we wanna be quick.
We make quick decisions, sometimes at cost also of a failure, but we have a very good ratio in terms of this. But our track record also shows that we will always sacrifice the last euro that we save, not sacrifice the last euro that we save, at cost of speed. We need to be quick. We need to be quick because in the first six months, we have the momentum on our side, and we can implement these rapid changes. And the last point, one other point is that our team must not get distracted from the day-to-day business. They need to be focused on the turnaround and have good management, good teams on site that basically do the day-to-day business.
So we don't wanna do any body leasing whatsoever, so our team focuses on the turnaround, and the local team focuses on the day-to-day business, and together they form a buddy team and work closely together. And the last point is a very important one. In a situation of a company being in cash distress, you might be hesitant in spending money on talent. Because at the one hand side, you look for cost reductions, also with regard to the overall headcount, but you need to be willing to spend money on talent, which often has left the companies years ago, and that often comes with a cost. So this is also something that we need to do at the very beginning: set the team.
We will not be successful as soon as we get out of the company if we not have changed the paradigm of the local management and if we not have added good additional management on top of it, which do have a clear industrial background and a clear track record in order to help us to contribute to the overall operational value creation, and you will see now three examples of where this was executed very successfully. The first ones are still within our portfolio, and the third one is then later on Steyr Motors, which we are currently IPO-ing, and these two examples that we picked are different in the execution of the turnaround plan. Because along the road, not everything can be planned out, and you will face hiccups.
These are basically two good examples with Palmia, where we very much had a very straight and lean turnaround approach, where we turned the company around within even a year. And then we're able to hire very good management with this current CEO, Mika Matula, who is then growing the company. And at the other hand, we had keeeper, which is now with us for three years, and shortly after we acquired the company, we had things like COVID, we had the Ukraine war with spiking raw material prices.
These are exogenous factors which we cannot factor into our turnaround plan right from the start, but where we need to react then afterwards, and that's what we successfully did also at Keeeper, and really have a very profitable company, basically then set to grow to the next stage, and I'd like now to hand over to the Palmia CEO, Mika Matula, in order to give you a very good overview of what we did in detail at the company and how it's currently performing. Mika, over to you.
Thank you. So why am I here? I'm here because together with my Mutares team, we turned around a public company with a history of red figures into black figures, into a company with black figures in, let's say, less than two years, a bit more than one year. That's why I'm here. Why me? I've been working with the service industry in Nordics for all my life, which is actually quite many decades at the moment. And I've been working with companies that had bad figures, helping them to increase the margin and then in sales, growing companies. So quite a big history, also working with private equities, listed companies, and family farms. Those are probably the reasons. And why did I want to join Mutares?
Let's say four months after Mutares had bought, I met the team for the first time, and I was impressed, of course, by the plan. Very impressive, deep understanding of the business logics within these businesses. But I would say most what I was impressed by was that when we met in the lobby, actually, of the company, the team called the receptionist and the lady in the cafeteria by their first names. For me, that meant very big commitment and very good understanding, and I know from my experience that that also means that you get good commitment from the team by things like this. So that's why I'm here. Good. Regarding the figures, this is what we look like.
Simultaneously, as we increased the EBIT to a positive figure, we also got a growth that is much higher, actually, than the average in the market. So these two things were then done simultaneously. I would say that one, of course, key success factors would be that you need to understand quite fast what this business is all about. From my experience, I would say that the team, as they were on site from day one, and meaning every day since then with the people, they understood the business, and they understood the people. That was one key element. Of course, this enabled these people to make a very good plan of different elements. But they did parallel plans for growth and cost efficiency things, two things.
Then as part of being on site, that enabled them to have a very open discussion and communication with the team, which brings us a very good buy-in from the personnel. So you get the commitment from the personnel that this has to be done, and it needs to be, everybody needs to participate. That's good. And then very good discipline in following all the incentives that were planned, day in, day out, for every day. Not letting anyone not any of the initiatives fall off, or they were letting go. Those are important. And then with this, with reminding with the history, you need to understand, and you need to get a cultural change within the people. Of course, appreciating the good history that the company had.
I mean, as a public company, there was a very good commitment of doing what you promised. So that you had to keep, but then you need to make some red, black figures on this one. Good. The previous owner, as mentioned here, was Helsinki City, a municipal company. The municipals in, at least in the Nordics, tend to have a very, l et's say they're politically a bit sensitive, so they tend to do what they promise, day in, day out. So very high customer quality, and also a very good brand as an employer. So you had good people, but no focus on the results. Of course, that partially was assisted by the fact that you had an endless cash pool with no interest rate at your disposal. One thing.
As bureaucracy tends to grow by itself, that meant that you had quite a heavy overhead organization supporting the actual business. And then for, let's say, lack of purchase or control on the purchase part, meant that we were buying quite wildly things and not utilizing our big volumes. That's the history. Now, maybe a bit of the company. I have 2,200 colleagues in Finland working within these services, and now I would like to show you a short video so that you understand what we actually do on a daily basis. Welcome to Palmia. We provide customers with services like cleaning, food services, food services including lunch, restaurants, hospitals, kindergarten, schools. In addition, property services and security services.
We operate in the southern part of Finland, and we are more than 2,000 colleagues in the companies, providing our customers with good services. You could say we secure a good day at your premises every day, every week. We meet people every day. We meet our customers every day, more than once. And of course, the feeling you get from us is the feeling that basically ends up as the quality feeling of the whole service. For one and a half years, we have now been in the private market, let's say, owned by a private company. We have been gaining quite a lot of new private customers in the last years, but also, as our strength is within the municipalities, we have been growing very strongly within the municipal sector outside of Helsinki cities.
You have such a welcoming feeling when you come to the office or go to the sites. You see the people, they enjoy their work, and that, of course, you can see it in the face, you can feel it when you walk in.
Since Mutares bought us in 2023, Palmia's operational result has improved tremendously. It all started by them to establish a development program to search for efficiency initiatives in all parts of our organization. As a result, our net sales is now strong, with a strong sales pipeline going forward. We have improved our sales margin, and also we've been able to cut down our fixed costs. At the moment, we are in a very good shape, and the future looks very promising for Palmia.
So all this motivation will inevitably give us big new growth. That growth means new customers, but also it means us, we need people to do and satisfy those customer needs, new colleagues. So whether you're a new customer or colleague, I welcome you to Palmia. Thank you. So that's what me and my colleagues do. We safeguard every subway trip in the capital region in Finland. More than 200 colleagues doing it every day, every night. That's what we do. We feed more than 40,000 children every day, the children from age 1 year to 16 years. The school lunches, that we do. We take care of more than 1,000 patients every day in hospitals and elderly cares. All their meals, all these cleanliness of their rooms, all the maintenance things that janitorial guys do.
And we're only a bit more than two thousand. T hat's quite impressive. Good. So then back to the facts, so to speak. The plan, as said, done very swiftly by the team, included more than seven hundred different small items. Those combined into, let's say, key initiatives in this case. We talked about sales, and I said we made a growth simultaneously, so we centralized the sales. We had one group focusing purely on growth, which made it more easy for the rest of the group focusing on margin. That was the key issue why we also grew during this transition. That was good. And sales, as you probably all know, it's a discipline. It's not an art, as some sales guy might say to you. It's actually a discipline.
You need a pipeline, you need a systematic approach. You need to choose what you sell and what you don't sell. T his was a very good example when we chose which segments we are good at. We looked at our history and noticed that we're good with publics, we're good with quality, and then we picked segments that these two things are important. That's one. And of course, looking at the private market, where we haven't been yet, and now we are actually quite strongly in, we also picked the ones in the segment, in the private segments that actually appreciate high quality before price. Type hotels, shopping malls, things like this, where the quality actually matters. Good.
And then, we also, as we had a history of having quite a lot of services in the business. We took some out and picked the core ones. We had. We used to have electricians, we used to have event catering, we used to have things like this. We weren't very strong at it, they were not very good businesses, but we had satisfied some customer needs, so we picked them up. That gives us a good chance to focus in both sales and in operations. Those are the key issues in this one. Then in operations, I said we weren't very good at purchasing, so we retendered many. The biggest services, the biggest purchasing items that we did. For example, I buy groceries for more than EUR 20 million every year.
That's a big sum, makes me a quite bigger buyer in the Finnish market, as an example. And also, when we look at the operation, of course, it's easier to focus on one single service, such as cleaning, such as lunch restaurants. Taking out the event catering from that team made them to focus a bit more. Very good change. And then at simultaneous, we happened to have, I mean, I never made it to the corner office that my predecessor had. We reduced our office space by two-thirds or one-third, so we saved more than EUR 600,000 a year by just doing this. And I'm not that much at the office, so it would be wise, and very easily done. And then HR, we also had quite split functions within the business units.
Security had its own recruiting system, janitorial service its own. Now, we centralized it all. Meant two things: Of course, we got more efficient in the recruiting, but we also had more focus in the actual business when we could take out these things. And then we also had the luxury, or let's say, the luxury of having a public union agreement, which is a bit. I mean, it's not as good as the private ones when it comes to a specific service or market. That's work ongoing still, but there are lots of possibilities. But then from my experience, I would say the one of the biggest strengths I felt within this team. I had the liberty to work with Stöckl. They are my board now.
Was it, of course, we had the plan, a good understanding of the business, but I would say that there were two key things. First of all, the team had a good cultural mix for our company. We had two guys from Finland and one from Germany, one from Sweden, two from Germany, actually, sorry. So the team was a mix, but we had the understanding of the Finnish culture also embedded. And I mean, we have some limitation when it comes to service industry with maybe the linguistic skills also. The communication was good. And the other thing I appreciated highly, as I mentioned in the beginning, was that the guys were actually on site. They were meeting the people, meeting the blue collars every day on site.
For example, one of the Mutares team guys, he came in every Wednesday at 5:00 A.M., which is a bit early, but to be office hours, just to meet one of my shop stewards, who was always starting at 4:00 A.M. They had a good conversation, and they basically, I mean, there was a bonding, and you had a buy-in. You had a tremendous buy-in from this lady, and she was very committed to this, as an example. The other example I had was, one of the team got their firstborn, actually, and believe it or not, the whole company was proud and happy about that. You could say that they actually were part of the team, and the team, those two, let's say more than 2,000 people, were very much on board because there was person, persons in this.
Good. Then coming back to the, let's say, the hard step, the culture. I said a long, long history of not looking at money at all. That's something that you probably get accustomed to. So we have been, let's say, working on that everybody knows the figures, and everybody wants to know the figures. We're very open when it comes to our results. Every month, every day, we have an info. Every time when I meet someone, I ask: "How is your finances?" And then we talk about the small things. So we keep, let's say, keeping the eye on the ball and the simple ball, only finance at this point in time. So that's what we're doing.
Then, as said, I mean, it's good that we could split growth to one division and then have the rest focusing on margin. It's a very simplifies the things and speeds up things a lot. You don't have two issues to carry. You just need to focus on the margin or the growth. And then, of course, this means that as the service business has, I mean a ll businesses have their different logic. The service business is one thing, especially in these services I do, is that the I have first-level supervisors that lead the cleaners, that lead the guards. They need to make financial decisions every day. You have got somebody sick, do you need to take in a temp? Can you fix it by yourself? Something breaks, screwdriver breaks down, do you need a new one immediately?
How do you fix it? Small things combining to most of the financial decisions every day, and I got 150 of those. So we needed to also support these guys to understand their figures by having a very good, strong controlling team, but specifically good with communicating with the first-level supervisors. So that has been helping us a lot and leading us to even more and more profitable results. And then also, having a bit, I would say, a bit exaggerating the importance of something. For example, I approved all of the temp workers for the cleaning business for half a year. My CFO, Mika, as you saw, is still approving every headset, every pencil, everything that's non-related business by herself. She's a CFO of a quite big company, so might sound
But it gives the message to the people that these things are actually important. And same, I mean, as purchasing, we have a very simple system that if you buy something from somebody who's not on our list, we don't actually pay the invoice. Then you need to basically take the stuff back and say sorry. A bit exaggerating, but still a very simple thing. And then also, as said, we focus on what we're good at. We're not inventing new services at the moment. We're doing what we're good at, and that's what you can get from us. When you're a customer, I'll say, "You'll have a good service, but that's it." If you want an electrician, I'm the wrong guy. You have the janitorial services, day in, day out, but the electrician is not my ballgame.
Or event catering, I can fix you a small event, but I can't fix you this. Then we need a network. If I run - if I would run this canteen or bar, I would probably advise you to use somebody else when it comes to this. I need to focus on these businesses. And same, we had a very good, our history, compared to our competitors, is that our blue collars are very highly trained. We had a very efficient training program module for all of these. And that, of course, means that my people, my guys at the metro, cleaning the hospitals, making the kindergarten food, they have much better chances of doing a very good job when they're trained, which makes them proud, of course, and gives them a possibility. Good. So those were basically my key messages.
First of all, speed, then getting the people aboard by giving a personal commitment, being on site. Then also, I mean, keeping when you make a plan, you need to stick to it. You have continuity, and you have the discipline. It's a good message to the people, and it makes it much, much more simple. You need to have this implementation power all the way. And then the culture. You need to, on a daily basis, to change a culture, you need to remind it, and you need to have the focus on that specific system. Cool. Kiitos is the Finnish word for thank you.
Now, if you want some questions, I'm happy to answer them. Sir.
My name is Rüdiger Holzhammer. Having turned around the company, what are your plans to exit? Where does it fit in? Is it more a direct access to a competitor or would you like to give it back to the company you bought it from? Or would you like to float it on the market? Thanks.
Maybe, maybe I can take this one.
So basically, what we are currently looking at, we have now a profitable company which we can grow organically, right? That's what we're currently doing. As you have seen, it was a carve-out or a buyout from a municipality, from Helsinki. So we currently see that trend that other municipalities, due to legislation, need to roll off their service companies. So it's for us, it's a good chance, if we are early enough in contact with them, to have add-ons in particular regions, so that we have in other, in the southern area, that we have basically similar businesses that we could add on to the current Palmia platform. So that's the first thing.
Second thing is, of course, there are big competitors currently in the market, and facility management is, you might not believe it, but it's a well established and a very interesting business for big corporates, as soon as you adhere to the processes and if you stick to it. So basically, the option could be then to exit to a strategic partner, or which could also be an option as soon as we grow in size, and the first option we are able to execute with additional add-ons, also to do an IPO in Finland. So we don't have a clear guideline yet in terms of timing.
It will very much depend on the number of add-ons that we are able to close, and then we have basically the two options to exit to a strategic investor or, if we're big enough, also do an IPO. So then thank you, Mika.
Thank you.
Now you've seen a service company with 2,000 employees, a very nitty-gritty business, cleaning, catering, very much depending on union agreements, very much depending on processes that you need to adhere to, and now we come to a different example of our companies with keeeper, which is a production company where we, as Mutares, originated from. Because our DNA was always, you don't only have business guys, but also a lot of engineers or physicists, which know and understand the production processes, and by that, basically can execute also the change, and there was one of the earlier acquisitions, mid-2019, where the path actually took a little longer and get to the full turnaround.
So we are very happy now that with keeeper, we also found new management, which takes on basically a well-established business and is able to further grow it then in the next couple of years. So I hand over to Martin Bieri.
A warm welcome to everyone. It's a great pleasure to be here, and thank you for your time. My name is Martin Bieri. I'm the Group CEO of the keeeper Group. And, you might ask yourself: Who's keeeper, and what are they doing? You will learn more about it in a minute. Quickly about my background, I worked my entire life with consumer goods in various areas. So for huge retailers, for instance, like Walmart in the US, like Metro Group or Tengelmann Group in Europe. I worked for agencies like TCC in London, where I had the opportunity to work closely together with big entities, famous brands from corporate, lifestyle, entertainment, and sports. And finally, I moved to the industry, worked for premium brands like Fissler and Wüsthof. But back to keeeper.
keeeper is one of the leading brands in Europe when it comes to storage solutions. Let me show you. So all in all, we are offering four different categories. First is home, and because we are doing consumer goods, for me, it's easy to show you real products. So home means products to make your home nice and cozy. Second category is kitchen. We wanna improve your cooking experience. Third category is storage. We wanna organize your belongings, and it's really easy, not just for me. And that's it. Just as one example. And last but not least, also kids. Again, just one example out of 700 SKUs. So sorry, I'm not using this any longer. But anyhow, so here we are partnering with Disney and other very famous franchises.
Thank you, Eva. Some more key facts about us. All in all, every year, we are selling roughly 35 million products. This is huge. We are existing for 65 years, and 95% of the products are produced, are made in our own factory, which is in Bydgoszcz, in Poland. This is more or less in between Warsaw and Gdańsk. Already 20% of our whole assortment is out of recycled material, so-called regranulate. We have 600 employees, and we are distributed in 55 countries. You might have asked yourself, "Why do they spell their name with four e's?" There's a reason behind. Let me show you. The first e stands for ecological. The second one stands for efficient, the third one for essential, and because we wanna become a loved brand, a consumer brand, the last one stands for enjoy living. Let us show you a short video.
keeeper is one of Europe's leading brands for storage solutions. In essence, we help shoppers organize their life. We provide a wide range of products in categories like home, kitchen, storage, and kids. As a full-range supplier with our own manufacturing facilities in the EU, we are confident in our quality, offering 10-year warranty on all products. We won several prestigious awards, including the German Brand Award and the Red Dot Award. With over 600 dedicated employees, we serve customers in 55 countries. Our products are available at DIY stores, grocery stores, furniture stores, and many other retail outlets. I have a great team, which achieved a lot. They are the base for our future success.
Okay, so of course, there was a restructuring process. Mutares took over the company, acquired the company when it belonged to an industrial holding with a very unsuccessful strategy. So the key actions which have been taken were, for instance, that we moved the whole production logistics from Germany to Poland. A social plan, which was very important for us to also make sure during the movement and during this restructuring process, we still keep important employees, and we have, at the end of the day, a good development of the company. Price increases, we were lucky, we were happy, we were able to increase our prices by 15% on average, which helped us, of course, to improve the margin. And also important for us to optimize our customer bases as well as our assortment.
A lso slow movers or, for instance, some of our clients, which weren't really profitable from our perspective, and last but not least, also important for us when it comes to the production, we implemented some automotive standards. This was our factory in Germany, so this is no longer the case, and now you will see at this slide also the factory which we currently have with our own logistics center, what Lennart already mentioned before, so it took slightly longer due to COVID, due to raw material shortages and the war, for instance, but finally, we were able to achieve the turnaround, and this is our new factory. On the left-hand side, we have 18 truck terminals. We have a big warehouse, close to 18,000 sq m with 25,000 pallets inside. We have our own mold shop.
Also, 55 injection mold machines right now. More space for additional machines. PP silos; this is important, the granulate, this is our main raw material, and additional warehouse. Last but not least, really important because, as Lennart said, we wanna grow; also still space to expand the factory. N ow we are coming to the strategy. How do we wanna grow? There are five really important pillars for us, and we wanted to make the strategy quite easy, quite easy to remember internally and externally. First of all, it's about internationalization. Due to the fact that we are very automated, we are very competitive, even against the Asian, for instance, the Chinese. Therefore, we wanna enter into new markets, into overseas markets. Besides the 55 countries where we are distributed already, we also wanna enter into North America and Pacific. I'll show you later.
Please keep in mind the first letter, the I. Second one is about digitalization. I t goes without saying that it's important to digitalize your processes. Just to mention some examples, there will be a PIM, means a product information management system, which is really key for us when it comes to e-commerce, our own one, as well as the one from our omni-channel retailers. Then we will implement a customer relationship management system, and many more. Next one is emotionalization. We wanna become a love brand. I will show you some examples. We wanna tell stories, and we wanna have a much more lifestyle approach compared to the past. Next one is agility. This is always important.
You always need to know what's going on, what are the latest trends when it comes to consumer goods, and what is your competitor, what are your competitors doing? And the last one is longevity. Of course, we wanna make sure there's a long-term, successful survival. So if you put together those letters, it's quite easy. It's the ideal strategy, and this is what we are doing. So to show you some quick examples, we started a lot of key initiatives beginning of this year. Many of them are already executed, some are still work in progress. I just wanna share four of them with you. So besides all the products which we are producing right now in our own factory, we also started to develop innovative products outside our factory, which are out of other materials, also out of sustainable materials.
For instance, what I show you here, the next one, this is out of recycled plastic bottles. The fabric, which you see on the right-hand side, all products are foldable. Those are shopping helpers. They really help you to organize all your shoppings. Easy to wash, so this will be launched pretty soon, a whole lineup, different colors. There are insulation bags, for instance, which keep your belongings or your goods fresh, cold or warm, for at least five hours. And of course, it's really important that it fits to the core of our brand. This is just one example of many new innovations. Another important one, I talked about emotionalization, so we want to become a love brand. We did a brand refresh in September. Of course, we kept the name keeeper. We kept our little squirrel, which is called Keepy, but we changed a lot.
We changed our claim, colors, the whole corporate design. So our new claim is, "Keep what you love," and this is a very strong one. We had to change catalogs. Yes, we still have printed catalogs. And we have to change, or I had to change also our website, which will be available in five different languages. Next one is about our factory. So as you heard in the video, our main distribution channels are DIY furniture stores and grocery stores from 55 countries. So we wanna get a closer relationship to those buyers, to those key customers. So therefore, we are currently working on a 250 square meters showroom in our factory next to the production. I show you the first renderings. This will be done in January next year, because we wanna make sure that those buyers will visit us.
We can show them our whole assortment, new concepts, and so on and then we go to the production, and they will see how everything is produced, and at the end of the day, showing them our very impressive logistics center and the last one I wanna share with you today is about internationalization, so here you see where we are currently. The colored ones are our own offices, and we already signed agreements now for Mexico, for Canada, and the US. That means North America and the next step, and here we are in final negotiations, will be Australia and Pacific. Next year, of course, we won't stop. There are new initiatives, and besides B2B approach initiatives, there will be also some D2C or B2C initiatives. For instance, we will launch our own web shop and many other things, so this is the agenda for next year.
I'm pretty sure you also wanna see some financial figures. So when it comes to group sales, let's start with 2020. So in 2020, our group net sales were EUR 65.9 million, with a negative EBITDA. This year, we will end up close to EUR 80 million, with 9.7 EBITDA, and in three years, we wanna hit for the first time the 100, with an EBITDA of 12%. This is pretty much it, and please don't forget, keep what you love. Thank you very much. Questions? Exactly.
IKEA, same price range?
IKEA, they mainly do their own products. Of course, they also have storage products, but they are not really our main competitor. There are other companies who are doing pretty much the same like we, but not in so many different categories. That's the beauty about our business, b ecause we have not just the storage category, we have the kids, the kitchen, and the home category. But of course, there are some products also at IKEA which might also pretty much the same what we are offering. B ut IKEA is not our client. Our clients are other big DIY stores, for instance.
But in IKEA, they could buy everything you offer in this keeeper's storage chest?
So in theory, also IKEA could be a client, because besides offering keeeper-branded products, we also do OEM business. That means,
You produce for IKEA, for example.
Not for IKEA, but for others.
Okay.
For instance, for REWE Group or EDEKA, and so on. So then it also, in some cases, might be branded with a different brand, but produced in our company . It depends then on so-called MOQ, so minimum order quantities, whether we say: "Yes, fine, you can choose your own color, you can brand it with your logo," or whether it's a keeeper-branded product.
Anybody else? Okay, good. Thank you very much.
There was another example of a very diverse portfolio. On the one hand, you had, let's say, facility management services that were originally very, very anonymous, right? And then you get, on the other hand, a tangible product, which we need to fill up with emotions in order to to differentiate ourselves. Because it is, it was just mentioned, IKEA, it's hard to differentiate ourselves compared to IKEA, so it needs to be with emotions, license agreements, for example, with Disney, that we have or whatsoever. Now, the third company that we're gonna present to you is, again, of completely different nature, and for the introduction of that, I hand over to Johannes. And you heard the company already a couple of times today. It's gonna be
Steyr Motors. Thank you, Laurence. Warm welcome also from my side tonight here in a new location, which I actually like very much. So, thanks to the team for organizing that. I'm very proud that we can present to you Steyr Motors tonight. I recall the year 2022, when we got this opportunity in Paris. I was in Paris, and we received a call from an advisor together with the CEO of Thales, Thales Group, who said, "I have an issue in Austria." I said, "That's good, but how can I help?" It was Steyr Motors, where we were actually told that we have three months' time to help them solve their problem, and we have three months' time exclusively to strike a deal.
And if we cannot make it, they will bring it to the market. But they trust us. They knew us from the past. The advisor knew us. We're marketing ourselves in that position that we provide solutions for large corporates, and Thales was one of these examples. And then I also remember I came back in these days to Robin and Mark only, and I said, "Shall we invest in defense for the first time?" And it was day by day another opinion, if we should or not, if we should or not. And at the end of the day, we said, "Yes, we do it. We do it." And I'm very happy that tonight we have Julian here to present Steyr Motors. At the end, we strike the deal.
We acquired, finally, Steyr Motors in November 2022, for a little bit less than EUR 2. And, now we're here today, with a running IPO, where we have opened the books this morning, and we will close the books by Monday, 3:00 P.M. The deal size will be a EUR 22 million deal size, with a market cap post-money of EUR 73 million, share price of EUR 14. So I'm very, very happy, Julian, that you're here today after a big, hard week of road showing, with our partner from Hauck. But before you enter stage, I would like to give you the opportunity to have a little bit of sniff, what Steyr Motors is about.
Steyr Motors is global market leader for customized diesel engines in special situations. Our USP is our power-to-weight ratio. This means that our engines are much more lighter. This power-to-weight ratio can save lives, because in such RHIB craft boats for the US Navy SEALs, more people, more soldiers, more health soldiers in extreme situations can be on the boat. With our products, we secure everyone's freedom and safety. We are active in a highly growing market environment due to the current macroeconomic situations, which will last at least for the next decade. We develop a customized engine, which will be built in a completely new designed vehicle for the German Special Forces. We have been to the Himalaya Mountains to perform a high-altitude test.
But this is only the first step within our value chain. Second step, after the engineering services, is that we produce in small series. This means stable cash flow for the next 10 years. The third step in our value chain is our MRO services, including our spare parts services. We've just signed an 8-year contract with our customer, Siemens, for the MRO services and for spare parts for their locomotives. And again, this means stable cash flows, in this example, for the next 8 years. We are set for such services. No other company, except us, can perform such services. Steyr Motors has a clear focus on its midterm geographical expansion. We follow a structured process, in which regions we want to go, in which regions we see the most promising growth for Steyr Motors. First of all, there is the U.S., the North American market.
The second most promising region for us is Asia, and there will be much more growth in the next couple of years. There's the diesel generator market. We have here huge market opportunities. For that, I'm absolutely convinced that we can gain market share in this promising future market.
With our well-established and stable supply chain, we are more than ready to ramp up to cover the rising demands. As a long-term Steyr Motors employee, I'm really proud to go the next steps towards global expansion.
Keep an eye on Steyr Motors. Stay tuned, there's much more to come.
So, ladies and gentlemen, a warm welcome to Julian, mastermind and CEO of Steyr Motors.
Thank you. So you just got a brief introduction, impression about Steyr Motors. So we define ourselves as a global leader of customized, mission-critical diesel engines, not only for the defense industry, but also for civilian applications. On the left, you see a so-called RHIB craft boat, tactical boat for the U.S. Navy SEALs. Our engine is built in. On the right, you see a Leopard 2 main battle tank for p roduced by our customer, Krauss-Maffei KNDS. Also, here, our generators, our APUs are built in. In the middle of the slide, you see a vehicle below with a helicopter. This vehicle is currently newly designed by our customer, by our B2B customer, Defenture, a Dutch corporation. And also here, together with our customer, we develop the engine.
Our engine is built in such a vehicle, currently designed, currently manufactured for the German Special Forces, for the German Kommando Spezialkräfte. But let's get into some more figures. What is Steyr Motors? Some key highlights. We will achieve this year between EUR 41-45 million of revenues. And also, profitability-wise, we will achieve between EUR 9-11 million of adjusted EBIT. This means really impressive margins of 20%-25%. And even today, we are much more profitable than our competitors. So even today, this is a remarkable success. And already now, I have to say, our profitability will increase in the next couple of years. Forward-looking statement: currently, we have an order backlog for the next three years of EUR 150 million. In 12 months, I'm absolutely convinced that this order backlog will be much higher.
Twelve months ago, this order backlog was clearly below EUR 100 million. So you see, we have a growing business model, because, of course, we also are benefiting from the current market trends. Our focus is clearly the defense industry. Round about 60% of our revenues are generated in the defense industry. And our revenues are generated worldwide. We are generating revenues in Australia, in the US, in Asia, but also, of course, clearly in Europe. Round about 60% of our revenues are generated in Europe at the moment. What are the key investment highlights of Steyr? As we saw in this nice movie, our business model consists of three main parts, main pillars. With pillar number one, phase number one, together with our customers, we only have B2B customers. Together with our B2B customers, we design, we develop a customized engine.
In parallel, our B2B customers, they develop a new vehicle. We remember this vehicle below the helicopter, this is just an example. This vehicle is currently built, newly designed for the German, for the Austrian, for the Dutch, and for the Swiss Special Forces. So this is a perfect example, what we are doing in our phase number one of our business model. And the nice thing is, even this phase, we generate revenues. This is something we have introduced, that we sell our engineering service, even this phase. So our customers pay us, that we, together with them, develop the engine. But the uniqueness of our business model is that due to that, we are automatically set in phase number two of our business model.
If we are designing the engines, the Ministries of Defense worldwide accept, they certify a specific vehicle, and this vehicle is then accepted only with including our engine. And therefore, we are in business phase number two, only us, only we can produce the engines in such a military platform, in such a military platform. The duration of such a military platform is up to 10 years. And this is really an absolute advantage of our business model, that we are, in the end, protected because we are producing customized engines. Our customers cannot just say, "Okay, we replace Steyr Motors with a competitor." It's not possible, because our engines are customized, and they are certified by the MoD. So for the next up to 10 years, we have predictable, stable revenues, predictable, stable cash flows.
And last but not least, of course, we've also our phase three of our business model, the maintenance, the service, and the spare parts, phase of our business model. And also here, it's only us who can provide such services, such spare parts. We've just signed, as you also saw in the video, an eight-year contract with Siemens. Siemens is our B2B customer. They are producing such locomotives, including our aggregates, including our APUs. And also here, clear, for the next eight years, we clearly know we have predictable revenues, we have predictable cash flows. This is, in a nutshell, the business model of Steyr Motors, and this is clearly key investment highlight number one. Key investment highlight number two, we have an international established customer base, so we generate our revenues worldwide. Also, we will grow, we will grow heavily in the next couple of years.
The current order backlog is about EUR 150 million for the next three years, which is, given our current size, quite significant. Also, we are clearly in a defense super cycle at the moment. The defense industry will increase in the next couple of years, at least for the next decade. This is clearly what our customers tell us. And also, we are heavily growing, but we are really profitable, even today. Where does this growth shall come from? We clearly want to grow internationally. We have a clear structure, a clear process in which regions. We have defined three major regions where we want to grow, and this process, we follow strictly and already are quite successful following our strategy.
So here you see our products, our engines, our aggregates, together with the respective applications. We have on the left, the military vehicles. For instance, you see, the military vehicle, the so-called Hawkei. It's for the Australian MoD. Or you see the so-called VAMTAC, it's for the Spanish Ministry of Defense. In the middle, you see the aggregates, the so-called APUs. It's for the defense industry, for instance, for the Leopard 2 battle tank, for our customer, Krauss-Maffei, KNDS, or for Siemens. This is our major civilian customer, and they build our aggregates in their locomotives, and they sell such locomotives, especially to the Scandinavian countries. Why that? Because our engines are cold start capable, up to minus fifty degrees Celsius, and this, of course, is a huge advantage, given the sometimes quite cold and freezing winters in the Scandinavian countries.
On the right, you see our marine applications. We also are here in the defense industry. We are delivering the worldwide famous U.S. Navy SEALs, and they, I can tell you that I've been to the U.S. a couple of weeks ago, they are really keen to get new products from us because we have clear advantages in comparison to our competitors for the U.S. Navy SEALs, for the MoDs worldwide. And also civilian customers for instance, rescue boats for the AIDA cruise ships or rescue boats for the oil platforms. Our engines are so-called SOLAS certified, and can still run even after a free fall to the sea with 50 meters. We've talked a lot about customer and end and final customers.
Our customers are clearly international-based, blue-chip customers like Rheinmetall, KNDS in Germany, like Mahindra in India, Thales, the French corporation. We still have an active customer relationship with Thales, BAE Systems, UROVESA in Spain, and the final customers, more or less, each and every ministry of defense worldwide. On the civilian applications, our main customer, Siemens, the aggregates for the locomotives, and the final customers are, for instance, Shell or ExxonMobil. They're using our engines in their rescue boats on their oil platforms. What have we done in the last about two years? And what's the current status of the company? The roots of the company go back to eighteen hundred and sixty-four. I just want to focus on the last 10 years.
Don't want to bother you with further history lessons. I always say that the last 10 years are a lost decade for Steyr Motors because of the two owners Steyr Motors had. Steyr Motors had just the wrong owners, and it was from 2012 to 2018, a Chinese company owning Steyr Motors. This has been quite chaotic times. Multiple changes in the strategy, multiple changes in the management, multiple changes in the CEO position, so quite chaotic. However, the good thing, the advantage, was that the Chinese guys, they invested a lot, so we still have a really decent state-of-the-art production facility. This was the good thing regarding the Chinese owners.
In 2018 to 2022, the French corporation Thales was the owner of Steyr Motors, and the only reason why Thales has acquired Steyr Motors was because Thales wanted to secure their supply chain. Steyr Motors still has been the production company for the engine for Thales, and Thales was delivering the Hawkei vehicle to the Australian Ministry of Defense. And this also shows the strength, the USP, of Steyr Motors. If a multi-billion corporation like Thales is, in the end, forced to acquire Steyr Motors because they just cannot find any company else worldwide, it's only Steyr Motors who can produce such customized engines.
If a corporation like Thales is forced to acquire Steyr Motors just to secure their supply chain, this says a lot about the strength and the uniqueness of Steyr Motors. Then, at the end of 2022 , as Johannes just mentioned, we as Mutares, we bought the company in a carve-out situation. The status of the company was, it was clearly a restructuring case. So also based because of the last ten years. When I took over, when we took over the company, there was no corporate development in place, no sales department was in place. There have been no key account managers. What did I, what did we, as Mutares? First of all, of course, we had to do, perform some cost-cutting measurements.
So we had to perform a social plan, reduce headcount, also some working capital improvements. But then, after four months, we have been profitable, operating profitable, and then the only thing I did in the last one and a half years was corporate development. So increasing the sales team, I've hired a new head of sales, key account managers for Asia, for Middle East, new head for the service department, visiting each and every major customer by myself, going to defense fairs, activating potential customers. And we will see the figures. They are quite impressive, with a clear growth in the last two years. But given that, given the history of 10 lost years, the lost decade, and given the fact that we've just started to do corporate development, I'm absolutely sure that the future growth of the company, it has just started.
The positive development of Steyr Motors has just started, and we see we will see much more growth in the next couple of years. Thank you for your attention.
Thanks a lot, Julian. Y ou will dream about this presentation over the weekend after having that for a full week now. I'm pleased to give you the last point of today's agenda, and speak a bit about the outlook and the guidance. When we look back from 2021 to 2024, on the buy side and sell side, what we see is, in the four years, almost. It's not over yet. We have made 53 acquisitions with a global turnover of EUR 6.1 billion, and the five acquisitions which are signed but not closed yet are not included in there.
The acquisition of Serneke, the acquisition of Magirus, the acquisition of Alcura in France, the acquisition of this week of Buderus Edelstahl here in Germany, and the acquisition of today of SMA are not included in these numbers. So they need to be added up there with another five acquisition, and the total turnover of these businesses we acquired is roughly EUR 1 billion additional to that. Out of these 53 acquisitions, we had nine companies where we invested more than EUR 10 million at the closing date. An investment at the closing date means either we paid a purchase price for it because it was a strategic add-on acquisition we did, or we had to inject the money into the equity of the portfolio company, which was driven by an agreement in the, in the purchase contract. That is what we see a lot.
Large corporates divest to us and want us to have skin in the game and inject money into the business Day 1. In nine of the 53 companies, we injected more than EUR 10 million. We invested in the business, we invested in our portfolio. We have built up these large groups, especially on the automotive side, with FerrAI United and Amaneos, and we have built up this group with NEM, for example, on the engineering technology side. What we now see and what is now the strategy also, and was the strategy all the time, is once these groups are built up, the investment per acquisition significantly goes down. To give you an example, the 5 acquisitions, which are still outstanding in signing and closing, the average ticket size in equity for us as Mutares is less than EUR 3 million.
The total acquisition numbers continue to grow, but the ticket size and equity for us strategically planned goes down compared to the strong build-up we had for Ferro, we had for Amaneos, we had for NEM. When you look at what Lennart presented before, a typical holding period of our assets are three to six years. Everything we acquired in the year 2021, 2022, they are now maturing. These businesses we need to sell. We need to sell these businesses which we have acquired after having the typical holding period of three to six years. There's a lot of opportunities in the future to sell this business, and I come to that in a minute.
Looking at the sell side of the last four years, we sold 28 companies, roughly 2 billion in revenues, and almost 400 million EUR of gross proceeds, so the majority of the left side here on the screen, the buy side, still in our portfolio, and despite the fact we have sold almost for 400 million, 28 companies, I would like to give you a little bit more insight on what we have planned in 2000 until the end of 2025, and this is the 53 companies which we have bought in the years 2021 to 2024. We have planned exit, where we expect a gross exit proceed of north of 200 million EUR, and they are all over the 4 segments we have, so one in auto, three in engineering technology.
The first one after today, you should be able to guess who it is with the 50 million of turnover. Goods and services and retail and food. So all of these, which are o bviously, we can't name it. They are all in active processes, or we plan the process to divest the company in the time until the end of next year. So the investments we have taken over the past years, based on our typical holding period, starts now to materialize in the years 2025, 2026, 2027, 2028. Coming to our guidance, what we said and what Robin also mentioned, how we came to that guidance, how and how we accelerate the guidance. So we have a guidance in 2028 , we want to be at a EUR 10 million group revenue and a EUR 200 million net income for Mutares.
In next year, we want to be at the EUR 7 billion and 125-150. This is our guidance, and I can confirm the guidance. We stick to the guidance. We deliver what we have promised. We did it in the past, we're doing it today, and we will do it in the future, so our guidance stands, and the success of our investment and the growth will also be paid back to the shareholders and have a shareholder participation on that, and that's why, as Robin mentioned before, we also stick to our guidance of the EUR 2 minimum dividend, plus a bonus dividend if we are successful in more exits and overachieve what we have planned, and last but not least, we made the global expansion, which we see already materializing. We see great successes we had in China already.
We see great successes in the U.S., where we acquired already two companies and India is building up. That's the global story, the global strategy we had, but it's not the end of the global expansion. So we have further plans to grow globally in Asia and grow globally also further in Americas. Obviously, I can't tell you which cities and which countries. This will be followed in the next year. Only thing I can tell, it will not be Gotham, but the rest will be turning out in 2025. So we stick to our guidance, we stick to our commitment on shareholder participation, and we stick to our strategy of growth, which we have set out, which we have invested for, and which we are sure will get materialized next year and the years to come. Thank you very much.
I would like to conclude this Capital Markets Day 2024. Thank you for the guests on the streaming. Thank you for the guests being here. We will have here now a little reception with a little bit of food and drinks. You're all invited to stay here, mingle around with the Mutares employees. We will also be here, so whenever there are more questions, just run up and thanks so much for being here with us.