Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the Mutares Earnings Call for Q3 2023. On the call today, the CEO, Robin Laik, and the CFO, Mark Friedrich, will present the results and most relevant events of Q3 2023. After the presentation, they will be available to answer your questions. The presentation shown is available on the Mutares website after the call. Before we start, I would like to remind you that this presentation contains forward-looking statements, including projections, which may not develop as currently expected. I therefore kindly ask you to take note of the precautionary warning about forward-looking statements that is included in the materials on the website. Now, let me hand over to Robin Laik.
Yeah, good afternoon, dear investors, dear ladies and gentlemen. My name is Robin Laik, and, I'm the founder of the group. And, today, we are very happy to announce a very strong results. But before digging into these results, I wanted to share with you again, what do we, as Mutares, really do? So we are a company that takes over underperforming companies from big corporates. This is our USP, and we go to these big corporates and ask them: "Do you have companies that do not work? Companies that are cash losing, companies that are not core anymore." And then we enter with a team of about 140 people, operational manager, into the company. And then we want to make the turnaround, to make the company profitable again.
Our target is that we are, when it comes to these carve-outs of big corporates, first in mind, first in choice. It should be Mutares. Before a company decides, a big corporate, whether to close down a plant, whether to exit the plant, we want to be the ones who are selected. And you see here the development and turnover of our company. So I recall that when we had been in 2018 together, we developed a plan. We said we want to have a guidance, and at that time, 2018, we said until 2028, we want to have a company which achieves EUR 5 billion in sales and EUR 100 million net profit. This was the original target, our guidance for our, for our plan, a 10-year plan to 2028.
When you look at our results now in Q3 of this year, we already achieved EUR 100 million net profit. So how does this profit come from? Where does it come from? Actually, we have three sources of profit. The first source of profit is we send our own consultants into these companies, and we generate revenue with an in-house consulting team. So this is the first source of profit. The second source of profit is that we do take dividends out of companies which are profitable. And the third source of profit is that we take exit, and we have exit proceeds when the companies turn around and we are able to exit. And with these three different sources, our projection is that this year, our profit will be between EUR 92 million and EUR 112 million on a yearly base.
But the target, our guidance, our long-term target, is that we want to achieve EUR 10 billion in sales and EUR 200 million of net income on holding level. So where do we buy companies? So our corporates that sell us companies, they are mainly in Europe today, and that's why we have head office all over Europe. So we are really pan-European player. And what kind of companies do we buy? So today we have four segments. The first segment is an automotive supplier. So this is what we as, being original, a German company, what we like. Machine tooling, engineering, this is what we like. The second segment, where we do invest, is industries. Third segment is consumer goods. And then we define now a new segment, which is retail and food.
In these four segments, we want to invest, so this is our key investment criteria when it comes to segments. When it comes to turnover, so in the beginning, our first transactions were companies with EUR 5 million in turnover. So I acquired a sunglass producer from Uvex Company, which only had EUR 5 million in sales. What we buy today are companies between EUR 100 and EURO 750 million in sales. Why? So when we send our team in, the leverage is much higher if the turnover is higher, and we can do much more to bring efficiency back on track in these companies. And we want to be the guys seen and known as the turnaround investors.
All of our operational companies are held via shelf companies, so Mutares per se doesn't buy these companies themselves. They are all bought via shelf companies. That means that the losses, the operational losses of the companies, do not influence the result of the operational holding, where we generate this year EUR 100 million net profit. Maybe coming to the life cycle of our transactions. So in the beginning, we go to the big corporates, and we ask them: "Do you have underperforming assets?" And then we have the acquisition price that has to be financed. But in 90% of the cases, we ask the seller: "Can you give us a strong balance sheet?" A balance sheet which is rich of cash, which has assets like, like fixed assets, machinery, where there are premises involved, also a strong working capital.
Why do we ask for a strong balance sheet? So assuming the company does EUR 100 million in sales and EUR 10 million of losses, when we take over. Then we have to pay for the turnaround. In this turnaround phase, we try to take all cash or a lot of cash, which is sitting on the balance sheet, to do the restructuring to bring the company back on track. This is what we call realignment phase. In this realignment phase, we send our consulting team in, and we generate already our recurrent, ongoing turnover with our consultants. This is, for us, our use pieces, our backbone of our business, is our operational team. We want to increase this team. When we did our guidance in 2018, we had only 30 operational consultants.
Today, we talk about 140, and our target is to increase this operational team to make the turnaround happen. Then we are in the stage of optimization. This means the company is now back on track, is already working profitable. Then we think about: How can we improve the turnover? What can we do to make the company even more profitable? And that's. Today I had an investment committee in the U.K., then we look on what could be a potential add-on acquisition to make the company even more profitable. So this could be a situation where we do add-on acquisitions. This can also be a case where we distribute cash, where we get dividends of companies which are overperforming. And then we come to this harvesting stage. And harvesting means that we, from day one, when we buy, we have an investment committee.
In this investment committee, we already think, and before acquiring a company, we think about who could be the natural buyer finally. We do decide, we always, when we invest into these companies, EUR 1, our target is that we want to get seven to 10 times the money back. And when we do these investments, then we try to understand who could be the best buyer. And in the harvesting stage, company is profitable, company is back on track, then we wanna exit, and we had this fantastic exit of Special Melted Products, a steel producer in the U.K., which was in the aviation industry, which we could sell for more than EUR 150 million net proceeds in Q3 this year. So this is our portfolio today, which achieves an annualized EUR 6 billion.
I want to take you with me on a journey on the budget meetings, which are just now. So, maybe on the left side, I want to explain Peugeot Motocycles. So this is a company which we acquired from Mahindra, and we not only acquired Peugeot Motocycles, we also have the right to use the brand name Peugeot. And we have had our budget meeting there. The company was heavily cash losing when we entered, and then we took a team. So we have our Mutares consulting, which is like 10, in this case, really French individuals, which took over, and we took a very strong manager, Eric, who was working 30 years within Peugeot.
And then we entered to the budget meeting, and then I asked: "What is the key message that you give to the people? How do you make the turnaround happen?" And then I was told the people are very proud to work for Peugeot, for the brand. The heritage of the brand is so strong in France. But what you have done, Mr. Laik, is fantastic. You took an operational manager, Eric, and he went down to the shop floor, and he helped the people to bring efficiency to the production. And by doing, taking over this company, at the beginning, we had to lay off people, for there was too much cost involved. But then we were able now to launch five new , new products, which are today also e-mobility.
This gives you a sniff what we are doing when it comes to this Peugeot Motocycles. The next big step is now to bring this company back in the, in the Asian market, for this two-wheeler business is very much demanded, asked for, especially in Asia. Coming to engineering and technology, and here I would like to mention Steyr. Steyr Motors is a producer of engines for special vehicles, and the company was also heavily loss-making when we entered, and the customer were so disappointed that no new offer was placed. Then we had, with two individuals of Mutares, Julian and Sergei, we had two guys.
One was the CEO and one was our sales manager, who went to the biggest customer and who explained that in these times, and we have really difficult times, for engineering cost went up and energy cost went up. We had this inflation and all of these problems, so they asked for a price increase. But what finally was achieved by bringing back trust on the quality of our product is that we were able to increase the turnover by 30%. By bringing back trust, for us, it's important when it comes to this automotive, but also engineering and technology, that we are best in class when it comes to price, that we are best in class when it comes to logistics, but that we are also best in class when it comes to quality. And that's what this team achieved.
Going on to goods and services, we just came back from our Terranor and Palmia business, where we do service business, so asset-light business. We have a cleaning company. We also have a company which is not only doing cleaning, but also security, and which is also doing kitchen and food for example, for schools. And both of the companies were able to increase the turnover and to make it on a profitable base. This is always when we take over, what our target is, we take the Mutares people, and we have very skilled Finnish employees there, Mika and Mikhail, who helped us to do the restructuring. But then we also were able to hire the right CEO.
Which is a very experienced CEO in Terranor and as well in Palmia, who then make the turnaround really happen and makes the company strong, that we are then in this situation, that's already optimization. And coming finally to retail and food, so we decided to have this new, this new sector for us, for we see now that consumption is difficult all over Europe, and we see a lot of deals which are where the companies are in trouble. And so we just recently signed Prénatal, which is which has several stores in the Netherlands, and our target is now to bring back to a kids' fashion and a toys brand, to bring back profitability into the own stores that we own.
All of this what we do is very much based in all of the sector by entrepreneurship. When we take over, it is our target that we are the CEOs, that we are not an external consultant, we are not the external McKinsey guys. It's our company, we are the shareholder, and that's what we try to bring into these companies. We tell these companies that we want to run these companies from now on, like every individual runs his own household, that you cannot spend more than what's coming in. And that's exactly what we do over these four sectors, in today, a company which achieves annualized EUR 6 billion in sales. This is the example of Peugeot Motocycles, and you see here the brand was so strong, and we are a very leading manufacturer.
But of course, what was not done is to come to these new launches of five new vehicles that we introduced in the market. And our growth potential, you see here on the right side, is quite tremendous. The company losing 15% of EBITDA, will be profitable in 2024 in years, your next budget. Yeah, what has happened in 2023? So, at first, we did, on the buy side, we had communicated 12 transactions. So our team is very busy within 11 European countries and now also within Shanghai. We do have the target to buy at least one company a month. And that's what we already achieved for this year.
You see here on the left side, the companies that we closed already, Gläserne Molkerei, Redu, and Salsa. And we have had some signings, also an automotive company, CIE Automotive. And Steyr, this is on the signings, that means we are not on closing, we are not inside. Then on the south side, we recently sold, SABO, but also Special Melted Products. And just to give you some flavor, when I introduced to my supervisory board and to our investment committee, Special Melted Products, no one wanted to buy this company. This was a company heavily cash losing, with a lot of pension sitting on the balance sheet. And what our team did there, within only 24 months, we introduced the right CEO and the right M&A team, right operational team.
We went there with 10 individuals, and we were able to increase turnover, which was only like EUR 20 million to more than EUR 100 million, and EBITDA, which was strongly negative to more than EUR 10 million. And that's why we were able to sell this company to an Italian investor for more than EUR 150 million net proceeds. And our target is that we don't want to stop, right? You see here our expansion. Our target is that we want to grow now into, into, China, but also into, into the U.S., where we want to open up a new office within the team. And by this, I would like to hand over to our CFO, Mark Friedrich.
Thanks, Robin, for the introduction and the highlights. Robin already touched a couple of our portfolio companies and what we are currently doing. So pretty much looking back at the financials of Q3 and year- to- date, September, we see that we have a very decent development comparing it to last year, with approximately 30% increase in group revenues and a full turnaround of our KPI-adjusted EBITDA, where we have reached now almost EUR 20 million. We will go in detail why the Q3 figures are negative in terms of adjusted EBITDA and why it's lower in terms of revenues for the group.
On the other end, the holding, the Mutares holding, was influenced obviously by the closing of the exit of SMP, where we see here the net income now more than EUR 100 million for already Q3, where we already included also some adjustments on the variable compensation of the team, so that we have included already here some cost increases and are feeling quite comfortable with still communicating that we are within the range of EUR 92 million-EUR 112 million for the net result of the full year. Looking into the different segments, that we show here for the first time, including Retail and Food, as a separate segment, as communicated, in Q3. We see here, especially the Automotive and Mobility segment, that had set back compared to the previous quarters, especially in revenue, more than approximately EUR 60 million less.
It's a bit by nature that we have a weak Q3 because we have the summer break in our core countries in Europe, and therefore, a bit lower activity in the different participations. Nevertheless, looking ahead, Robin was already touching a couple of the entities. We are quite confident that we see a bit of a pickup here, some one-off payments that we expect also in segments for cost increases from customers so that we are confident to see here a better Adjusted EBITDA in Q4. Engineering and technology also, but by nature, a more stable segment, and together with goods and services, the ones that are contributing positively all the time.
And then we have retail and food, where we have now carved out part of the portfolio companies from goods and services, and this segment is quite dominated by Lapeyre, where I will explain a bit more once we look into the details here. Overall, compared to last year, that's, I think, more important. We see the turnaround in the Adjusted EBITDA, and that is pretty much across a lot of portfolio companies. And in the current budget tour, we also see that the teams are doing a tremendous job in the portfolio companies by adjusting the cost base so that we have a sound fundament, where we can then see the companies also growing, looking forward into 2024.
Running through the individual segments, starting with automotive and mobility, which is now the biggest segment by revenue, with more than EUR 1.3 billion, that will even increase more since we have closed now a couple of transactions for the FerrAl United , namely the seller transactions CIE and Walor recently, so that the FerrAl United is the most dominating portfolio group in this segment. We see a setback compared to Q3, but are confident that this will pretty much turn around in Q4 again. Then, coming to the next segment, engineering and technology, where we see quite a decent development in NEM, in the integration with Buderus, and also quite a nice performance of the Donges Group. Then we see here still SMP, that this has been sold now in September, or closed in September, and we have ADComms and Gemini.
That is a group where we currently look for add-ons, just at the investment committee today, and think that, this is something where we have the platform that we can start with in looking into add-on acquisitions from now on. Then we have here Steyr Motors, as Robin explained in more details. Guascor Energy, a company where we have a bit of homework to do, but still we think that the market is there, especially abroad in the U.S., that we want to enter. Also with our Motors branch in 2024, and then we have Clecim, that runs also quite well, and also looking ahead, will run quite well. Goods and Services, currently the most profitable segment that we have. Here, also quite a broad range of different industries that they are operating in, and countries that, that we see here.
We have been in the Nordics two weeks ago and visited Arriva, and Asteri and Palmia looks all well. Just yesterday, we talked about Ganter, who is in the construction business, that they provide for pretty much engineering services, when you want to build an office or a new store, showroom. And they see some headwinds, but still they feel very good positioned to increase revenue looking forward in 2024. And then we have here Redu, that we also visited in Finland, where we see that the team has touched the right topics and are confident looking ahead into 2024, that this will also be run quite well by the team.
The newly implemented segment, Retail and Food, with the first acquisition, namely here, Gläserne Molkerei in Germany, and the old companies, SABO, FASANA, Kiper, and Lapeyre. This segment is pretty much dominated by the development of Lapeyre, due to the size of Lapeyre, and the Adjusted EBITDA that you see here, pretty much, especially in Q3, mainly comes from Lapeyre. Since they are operating in the construction industry, and this industry is hit hard by the increase in interest rates, the team is currently preparing pretty much the adjustments that are necessary to adjust to the new environment. And we are quite confident that also here we see a nice development looking ahead into 2024. Summing up my presentation here with the life cycle now filled with the entities and the figures.
So overall, we, we are still convinced that it looks quite sound. We have a bit of traffic here in the Realignment phase, so quite full, in, in terms of number of entities. But like I said, I think we saw that teams have done really a very good job in, in starting and executing the turnaround initiatives, and therefore, we think that looking ahead, we will see some uplifts into the Optimization. Overall, the financials that you see on the right side look pretty much as a picture that we communicate all the time.
So loss-making in the realignment phase, at this break-even overall in the optimization phase, and substantially positive when it comes to the final harvesting stage, where we have some nice assets, especially in this phase, that we want to divest, but also, I think, in the other segments where life cycle stages, we see some portfolio companies that we believe are on a very good track and may be an attractive investment for external potential acquirers. And with this, I hand back to Robin for the closing of his presentation with the outlook.
Thank you, Mark. So dear investors, I think what we do have here at Mutares is super attractive. So we are a stock-listed company, but we do a real pure private equity. And when you look on, on our holding results, which were increasing over the last years from EUR 20 million to our expected EUR 100 million this year, this shows you how profitable this business is. Our track record when it comes to turnaround, but also when it comes to deal making, is fantastic. With 12 companies that we acquired only until now, and there are hopefully some more to come, we show that this company is heavily growing with our head offices now all over Europe. This is what we need. That's what we built up. That's where we invested, and that's why we also want to invest into China.
That's why we want to invest into Asia, and that's why we want to invest into U.S. It is still a family-owned business, so personally, I do have 25%, together with my family, of the shares, and the rest of the management has, like, 37%. What we try to bring to you, being in the Prime Standard, is a high transparency, transparency. It is, for us, important, it's not only for you as investors important to understand where do we make profit, how does the turnaround work? It's especially important for our sellers, for the guys who trust in us and give us their underperforming assets, and it's not only that we buy from big corporates. We do make a lot of transactions where we do privatizations from state-owned companies.
We had a very good development, both on the equity side and also on the share price, and Mutares and we as Mutares board are completely aligned with you as shareholder. By this, I would like to conclude this presentation. Thanks for your attendance, and I would like to hand over to the speaker.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press nine and star on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question again, press nine and star one more time. The first question is from Mr. Augustin Stefan, from Warburg Research.
Yes, hello. I have one question. Typically, the Q4 is the quarter where the equity distributions happen to a larger scale. When we now look a little bit into the economic picture here, is it fair to assume that your thinking is rather in the direction to create some, some buffers at the company level, in light of this upcoming macro scenario? Or can we envision a likewise strong uptrend of equity distributions as in the years before?
In the previous calls, we always said that the combination of dividends and exit proceeds will be kind of maybe offset themselves. So as soon as we have very high exit proceeds, we might not generate as much dividends as in the past. I said that on average, I think that out of a portfolio of approximately 30 portfolio companies, we should always be able to generate at least EUR 15 million of dividends, and that remains as target. And to answer the question then directly, if it's you know, if we can expect the same amount as last year, it's most likely not. It's most likely around the EUR 50 million that I just mentioned.
Okay, thank you. Maybe a word on how you see currently the market for exits. I mean, you still have some companies in the harvesting phase. You indicated that there are also some other interests here. Negotiations are never easy, but do you think that there is still the possibility to have deals announced in the Q4?
Well, actually, there is always the opportunity or possibility to exit, but we believe that we want to stick to our guidance, and but we have, of course, many companies in harvesting, and we are day and night trying to find good transactions on the buy but also on the exit side.
Okay, thank you very much. That would be it from my side.
Thank you. The next question comes from Zafer Rüzgar of Pareto Securities. Mr. Rüzgar, unfortunately, we cannot hear you. The next question comes from Marie-Thérèse Grübner, HAIB
Yes, good afternoon. I hope you can hear me. I have two questions. The first one pertains to basically the debt structure of your shelf companies that acquire the portfolio companies, or even the debt at the portfolio company level. I mean, if there are issues with respect to this debt, for example, covenant breaches, or even more serious issues, I'm thinking about maybe some of the more distressed companies in your portfolio. Obviously, not the ones where you have done already a lot of the turnaround work. How does this... What happens? I mean, do you have to inject more money into these companies? Are you able to extract less dividends from these companies?
Can you give us, you know, maybe, an overview of how this whole play between debt, maybe distressed debt and dividends to the holding plays out?
So in general, when an operational company, which is cash losing, gets a loan from a credit insurance or from a credit institution, normally it's not allowed to take out dividends. And this can appear that it's difficult to take out dividends. This can appear, but in general, it's always case by case, so you cannot generalize it. It is when companies are getting fresh money, then it is sometimes difficult to take dividends, which apparently should also not happen, for we need them, the cash of the company. When it comes to our holding level, we have some criteria how we can use our funds.
We have a bond facility of EUR 150 million, and we do have also to think about how can we use this cash. This is within the agreements of the bondholders.
Mm-hmm.
One addition, because you were asking about, I think, covenant breaches.
Yes.
Within the debt of the group. So we are not aware of any covenant breaches. And normally we also do not take over a big portion of debt. That can happen, but normally there's negotiated a substantial haircut before we take over.
Okay. Okay. So there, as of today's standpoint, there's no risk that you have to inject even more cash into any of the portfolio companies if, if the macro picture continues to deteriorate or anything like that?
So, your question is, if we have to inject money in case t he macro picture worsens, or?
Yes, exactly. Yeah. The question is, would you have to inject more money into any of the portfolio companies from today's standpoint, maybe that are more shaky because of the deteriorating macro picture?
That is always the decision that the board takes case by case.
Mm-hmm.
So if there's the company who's looking for cash, then we decide individually whether we want to or we don't want to inject cash.
Mm-hmm.
This is not. We are not legally bound to pay into this company, for there is no profit loss sharing agreement. All of these issues do not exist. When we buy, we buy via a shelf company, and then we decide case by case whether it's necessary to invest or not.
Mm-hmm.
But in 90% of the cases, the money flies from, or goes from the operational company to the holding.
Okay. And then my next question has to do with the run rate consulting fees. Unfortunately, in the streaming, I was not able to see all of the slides somehow. Where are you in terms of run rate consulting fees?
On the slide where we had the consulting fees quarter- by- quarter, it was actually a downward trend from EUR 27, EUR 25, EUR 23.
Mm-hmm.
We have now reached EUR 75 million as consulting fees, and the trend is towards EUR 100 million-EUR 105 million for the full year, 2023.
Okay, so you'll have a very strong Q4 on that front?
Yeah. Yeah.
Okay.
Exactly.
But is this a run rate, or is it just for 2023 that you will end up with 100?
No, no, we want to increase the turnover. Our target is that we have today 140 operational consultants- - and we want to increase the number of people working for us.
Mm-hmm.
We try to hire now Nordics guys, for example. We try to hire when we go to the U.S. guys, when we are in Asia, we want to have Asian people, and by doing so, we want to increase our turnover. This is definitely the target. That's a recurrent, ongoing profit, which always appears will be increased.
Okay. All right. Well, thanks a lot. That, those were my questions. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Mike Brown, from KBW.
Robin and Mark, hope you're both doing well. The expansion into China and Europe certainly presents you with a very strong growth opportunity. Can you just expand on your playbook as you approach those markets? You clearly have a strong track record and brand in Europe, so just how will you kind of port that playbook over to the U.S. and China? And then when you're considering deals, will you follow the same approach? And, you know, specifically, will you target the same industries, or will that be somewhat different in those markets?
Yeah, when it comes to the U.S., I think we have to go to a place where there is also a difficult labor law. So in the U.S., normally it's hire and fire, but it's not always the case. So especially when you invest into the Bible Belt business, where it's rusty, where there's a lot of metal manufacturing, where's automotive supply, there are many unions. It's super union, unionized. And, and we see that there are many corporates who want to invest. I personally, I went to the U.S. looking into an automotive supplier. This could be a perfect fit for us as well. In addition, what we have seen in the last years, that we do regularly deals, where an U.S. company wants to exit the European business.
That's why we believe it could be Chicago, for example, where we build up our office in the U.S., where we find then these American corporates who want to exit. Therefore, a presence in the U.S. is as well important.
And then, as you've now expanded your food and retail footprint, are there any other segments that you don't really focus on today that could be attractive to move into over time? And then, just broadly speaking, how is the competitive landscape evolving as you kind of grow, you know, and have seen some success, you know, good success here. Have you started to see any entrants kind of moving into your space more recently?
I mean, the entrants can be very easy for competitors. So you, you just say, "I want to buy a business, and I pay only EUR 1 as purchase price, and I don't - I take over all guarantees," this can be super easy. What is not easy is to build up a brand. And Mutares today is a well-known brand all over Europe. The last two years, we were selected to be best private equity company in, in Germany, and yesterday, we have been elected to be best private equity turnaround investor in France. And this, to build up such a brand, and for us, trust is important. This is something which I think unique, and this is what, I think Mutares stands for, right?
When we think about our history, growing this business from first year, EUR 5 million, to this year, EUR 5 billion, and this shows you what this team is about. We are the entrepreneurs, we are the guys who enter into the companies to do the job, which is difficult to do for a big corporate. For a big corporate cannot allow to let a company go down, go bust, or cannot close down plants, not only due to reputation, they are simply not able to change. In our version, our brand, is the word Mutares, which means you should have changed. That's what we want to bring into this company: entrepreneurship, good spirit to develop the company again.
Okay, great. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question comes from Zafer Rüzgar of Pareto Securities.
I will try it again and hope you can hear me now.
Yes, we can hear you.
Perfect. So thank you very much. My first question is on the Efacec acquisition. Can you provide some insight about the overall process of the acquisition? Because it was a state-owned company, and it seems that the privatization process at that time was not easy. What was, at the end of the day, decisive for Mutares being awarded to buy Efacec, and what will be your commitment here? I would assume that a former state-owned company should have some overweight, which should not be easy to get rid of it.
So maybe talking a bit about Efacec. So this company, in the past, had EUR 500 million in sales, was super profitable. And, then what has happened is, that due to operational mismanagement, the company was very, very bad and cash flow losing. And, we are very interested in buying this company, for we saw a lot of synergies within the group, right? So they, for example, they do the charging systems, which we might use now for our transaction that we did with the Deutsche Bahn, for Arriva, a former Arriva companies. We try to introduce it in Lapeyre. So we saw a lot of operational synergies that we can do with this, with this new Efacec business. How did this transaction work?
So this was a very long way from our Spanish team, run by Santiago, with Maria and with Jan Thöle from our legal team. We were able to convince the seller, showing to the Portuguese state what we were able to do and how we could do privatizations. And we take over their 2,000 people, and we know that we are, we are responsible for these people. And that's, that's what finally the government believed in us. And I was, and last week I was in Portugal, meeting the Minister of Economy, and he, he told me, "I did trust in your team. You didn't change your opinion during the process.
You're the guys who are constantly operating—operational, positive, and we showed also commitment, not only with our people, but also by money." And this made, this made this transaction happen.
Okay, thanks. The second one is on your net income guidance for 2023, which looks cautious, given the fact that after already nine months, you have reached the midpoint of this range. Are you cautious because you see some possible burdens ahead of you? Because the lower end of your guidance range would imply a negative income in Q4. And also in conjunction with that, what is the amount you invested in your new locations in China and U.S.? Can you share an amount with us?
Yeah. So what we did over the last five years, we promised and we delivered. And I think this is—even so they are big exits or not exits, we promised and delivered, and this is, for us, key. We want to achieve EUR 92 million-EUR 111 million net profit, and this is, this is, for us, the, the key, key thinking. When it comes to cash flow, we want to grow. So we want to use the cash that we are generating to buy into new companies to grow. And sometimes it's a commitment fee, like this in Efacec, or it can be a purchase price, but our target is that we want to grow this to a EUR 10 billion company. And for more—for us, it's important that we want to keep our promises, promise, and deliver.
When it comes to the U.S. and to China, of course, it's an investment. We have some individuals on our payroll. We want to have a nice, a nice office in Shanghai. We want to have a nice office in the U.S., in Chicago. Of course, all of this costs money. We were last week inaugurating our Dutch office, which was beautiful, at the Gracht. So this is the canal. So we really want to grow, and we know that marketing is important to grow, but we always want to keep our promises. Promise and deliver.
Okay, thank you very much.
Thank you very much. As there are no further questions, I give the floor back to Mr. Laik and Mr. Friedrich.
Thanks a lot for your attendance. Maybe I want to show you again, what is the development of this group, what we achieved in the last years. So in 2009, this was a EUR 1 billion company with EUR 20 million net profit. This year, our target is to achieve EUR 5 billion in sales and EUR 92 million-EUR 112 million net profit. But our target is that we want to have a EUR 10 billion company with EUR 200 million net profit. And until now, we had a dividend of EUR 1. This was called base dividend, and we said, now we have a minimum dividend of EUR 2.
So, I think this is for you as shareholder quite attractive, interesting, that we also want to let the shareholders, the investors, participate in our development. Thanks a lot for your attendance, and hope to speak to you soon. Thank you. Bye-bye.
Thank you very much for participating in this call today. We wish you a great rest of the day. Until next time, and goodbye.