Very welcome. We're welcoming you to participate in our Q2/S ix-month results call. Of course, we would like to give you an update on the investment agreement with KKR that was published this morning. I hope you have been able to download the materials, and I would like to welcome you here on behalf of the whole OHB SE Management Board. We're sitting here in a little bit of different shape, but we're just doing it out of our little conference room. I hope the transmission is good, and you can hear it. I would like to walk you quickly through the slides, and then, of course, we would open the floor for Q&A.
I hope that the short notice was making it possible for you to join, and it's an unusual time at 2:00 P.M. B ut again, I think we have lots of news, and so I think it should be a very exciting and interesting call. Just to quickly go through the slides, of course, the OHB Group is identical as it was under the presentations most of you have seen in the Q1 results in May and our Annual Meeting. The three business areas, space systems, aerospace, and digital, are in the same shape.
What is important to remind everybody is our strategy, OHB 2025 - S haping the Future, because this is really the guideline that guides us through all our thinking, and it's the baseline also of our joint plans that we have developed with KKR, and will be an important discussion, I guess, that we will have. If you look at the content here, it has not changed. It's about developing OHB into an end-to-end system provider. We are planning to develop our portfolio. Of course, having extended also our business scope to small rockets on a full launcher scale is important. The other points I don't want to run through point by point, but it's all focusing on future growth.
We are trying to have organic and inorganic growth at the same time, the financial goals are also same that you are very well aware of in the past years, with the goal in the next couple of years to reach the goal of EUR 1.5 billion turnover. I don't wanna stay too long on this slide, what I would like to quickly explain to you, is the structure of the contemplated investment from KKR. KKR is investing as a long-term minority investor. There will be a capital increase, there will be also an offer for takeover or public takeover. Maybe I quickly go through explaining a little bit this chart.
You see here the existing situation with the Fuchs family, owning 70% of the stock and the free float being 30%. What now will happen are the three steps, which are shown here as A, B, C. KKR, through a bid company, a special purpose company, making the offer, will invest a 10% capital raise, capital increase, of OHB SE. That obviously means, since we are now having roughly 17.5 billion shares, and at a subscription price of EUR 44 per share, that will result in a capital injection of about EUR 77 million into OHB. That raise is at the same share price as the public takeover offer, it originates from the newest KKR European private equity fund.
It's called KKR European Fund VI. Separately, from this transaction described under A, there will be a voluntary public takeover offer by KKR for all free float shares at an offer price of also 44 shares per, per, per share, EUR 44 per share. Family members, our shareholding will not tender our shares, and we will remain a majority of a little bit more than 63% post capital raise in the so-called Fuchs Family Pool. On top of that, by the way, also, the shares of my sister, that is, that are part of the free float, about 2%, will also stay with the family, but that's a minor point.
On top of that, described under number C, there's a direct investment from KKR of EUR 30 million into Rocket Factory Augsburg via subscribing for a convertible bond. This overall, we feel is an attractive offer and attractive package, and the OHB Management and our Supervisory Board are welcoming the investment and also the public takeover offer. Obviously just summarizing what were the plus points with this enhanced financial flexibility. Of course, we are better enabled to implement our corporate strategy, that I quickly explained. We're strengthening the equity base, of course, in at a time where the interest rates have been increasing substantially. That's a, that's a very good point.
Of course, we're doing this at a significant premium. We believe that KKR is the ideal long-term partner for supporting us on our growth path, path. We believe that the increased financial flexibility that comes with the 10% capital, capital increase will position us much better in the space markets that are opening the big opportunities for privately financed, cost-efficient space solutions. We believe that, of course, space remains a very attractive area of investment. So we can invest along the lines of our OHB 2025 strategy. Of course, that means that the downstream sector with what we call digital, the OHB Digital sector will be part of it, but also the space system part, there will be some investments.
The separate investment from KKR into Rocket Factory should secure the successful development of the micro launcher, RFA ONE, until it really comes to the launch pad. Of course, that is that is dependent of technical risks and successful tests, and so on. Of course, this is rocket science, so it's our goal to must be as efficient as we have been in the past years. I think we have made tremendous progress at RFA with regard to developing a micro launcher at very, very attractive cost, unmatched cost level, compared to others. Again, we'll see when that ends in a successful flight. We, of course, are, as an independent partner for our government institution, very much depending on the support for that role.
We, of course, playing an important role in Germany's and Europe's security and sovereignty in space, as one of the leading companies. That is something that, of course, we need to strengthen, and that we believe can be very much supported and enhanced with this transaction. What is very important for me to say is that there will be a continuity in the majority ownership. There will be also continuity in the management. The management that you see around this table, this is, by the way, the reason why we are having here from the management side, the current sixth member of OHB SE Management Board. Actually, we're joined by Sabine von der Recke, who is at the OHB System Management Board, and taking care of the communication part.
The team currently in charge is also running the company in the future. Maybe I should welcome in this group Markus Moeller. I think he was not with us. No, he certainly was not with us when we met last. Markus is here with us, and I'm sure in the Q&A session, there will be question also asked to Markus, who joined OHB's Management Board at July 1st. The family will continue to hold the majority. We retain control. We will, of course, continue to be an independent German family-led business. I myself, I extended my contract actually yesterday, I signed that agreement for extra four years until June 2028.
We believe also this, this takeover offer is very attractive for our shareholders. It's not only good for the company and our customers and our other stakeholders, our employees, and the whole team, but we believe also it's very attractive for our shareholders. It provides an immediate realization of a significant value. We believe the price at of EUR 44 per share, with more than 36% premium over the closing price of Xetra closing last Friday, is very significant. It's even a greater premium if you go to the three months average.
Over the last three months, the average was at EUR 31.63, so that's a 39% premium, and it's even a premium of 19.9% to the highest price that the OHB share was traded at over the last year. That, we believe, is an attractive offer. There is no minimum acceptance threshold. Of course, there are regular, normal, customary closing conditions like merger control, like foreign direct investment control and approvals. We will then. We are intending to take the company private, and we believe that helps us to pursue our strategy in a more, let's say, direct and in a more effective way.
There is a delisting foreseen. There will be no diminution of, sorry about this, a profit and loss transfer agreement, which by the way, obviously KKR as the minority shareholder, could not do anyway on their own, but this even means that we are not intending, and we are not implementing even together with KKR and the Fuchs family such an agreement. That's not the plan. We're protecting the company itself, because the whole deal has the purpose of strengthening OHB and the operating entities to have a strong development and becoming really the leading player in the European space industry. Maybe a quick look at what we believe will be the could be a timeline, or could be the next steps.
We have now the announcement of the public takeover. KKR will submit an offer document to BaFin. A fter a review of BaFin, that will be obviously published. There will be a so-called reason statement by the OHB Management Board and also the Supervisory Board, a joint statement. Then there will be a period of five to six weeks as an acceptance period for all the shareholders. Parallel regulatory approval process will start, and after the announcement of the first results, there will be an additional acceptance period of two weeks, ending up in the final results that then will lead to the closing.
Again, as I said, subject to a careful review of the offer documents, and then, you know, that is obviously to be done in the future. Looking from today's perspective, Management Board and Supervisory Board, we intend to recommend the shareholders to accept that offer. That has been the quick overview of that. I'll just quickly run through the remaining slides, because I'm sure this will be the major part of discussion. Of course, we still have also Q2 results published today, this morning, and I hope you have been able to familiarize you a little bit with that. Just quickly, very quickly, the major achievements this quarter have been the Heinrich Hertz launch, which was launched actually in the first days of July. Very successful campaign, very successful project.
We're very proud of Heinrich Hertz being now in geostationary orbit. Just recently, there was another contract signed with OHB Digital Connect for the operating, first operating phase. That's just the first phase until mid-2025, about EUR 29 million. That obviously means that building a satellite also generates significant operating work for our OHB Digital division, because that's where this contract is then there. Another important progress was ODIN'S EYE second phase. This is an OHB-led consortium that received funding from the European Commission in an amount of EUR 90 million. That's a lot for a study. ODIN'S EYE is developing a space-based early warning and tracking system. Obviously, early warning for ballistic missiles. OHB is the leading European company for, for this.
Puts us in a very strong position for them being, also in the leading role when it is implemented. Germany is very strongly supporting that. Obviously, this is one of the first signs that we can see where the new threat scenario is playing, is just speeding up [audio distortion] in this context. Another important successful point that we had in the, the, the, the, Q2 timeframe was the successful integrated system tests that Rocket Factory Augsburg had in Sweden. Again, that's after last summer's demonstration that we have a working highly performant engine. This was the the full upper stage.
The test was very successful, that's really also the baseline of our decision to move on with the RFA and bring RFA to the launch pad in order to complete the whole rocket development for then a launch of RFA in 2024. Quickly go to the numbers. Backlog is the familiar chart you know. We have still in Q2, not been changing this significantly. Actually, it's slightly below the number that was by the end of last year. We're in the process, obviously, of working through the contracts and the biddings and the decision process for the ESA Ministerial Conference, additional funding that was generated in November at the Paris Conference. A quick overview of the numbers.
I don't want to spend too much time, but backlog, I was just saying, the total revenues compared to last year is slightly higher, EBITDA is slightly higher, EBIT slightly higher, EBT actually significantly lower. A couple of reasons for that, the high interest there, but I think we will talk about that later, and Kurt will answer questions on that. The earnings per share has been lower with EUR 0.79 compared to EUR 0.88 last year. Headcount is a little bit higher with 3,159 people as of June 30. It has been a record half year so far, slightly evolving. We're still, we still have quite a way to go in the Q3 and Q4.
As you all know, the first half is slower on that, we still have a significant path to go there. For the overall company, for space system, aerospace is a little bit uneven. Total revenues are up, profitability is slightly lower than it was at the last year, similar in digital. It's a, it's an unspectacular set of numbers, but the bottom line is we are confirming our guidance that we gave in January. We believe that we are on a good path of achieving that. You see the EBITDA and EBIT numbers of EUR 109 million and EBIT of EUR 70 million, and that's the number we're aiming at.
As you can see, EBIT was last year, if you, if you, look back at EUR 63 million, we believe that we will be able to move this year from EUR 63 million to EUR 70 million. Again, that's confirmed. It seems, it looks like an unambitious step when we look at the increase from the year 2021 to 2022 was 34%. N ow it's a little bit more than just 10%. Still, I believe that that's an ambitious goal, we, we're happy to confirm that set of numbers. I don't want to go in details on the balance sheet. Bottom line is that the structure of the balance sheet is pretty much the same as it used to, to be. On the asset side, you can see, no major structural changes.
A little bit more inventories. Overall, the balance sheet is a little bit longer than it was at year's end, which is normal because there's an increase in contract assets, which is the biggest thing that you have. As you know, typically, that will convert it into revenues at and close to year's end. On the shareholders equity and liability side, slight increase in equity. Of course, we had the dividend payment in Q2. Other than that, major changes here are that we have current financial liability significantly higher than at year's end. That's the normal cycle of mid-year's, the debtness increase. We can go through that and ask similar questions. Also, this set of numbers, compared to the previous test, has been unspectacular.
I don't want to go into all the details through this. Net debt has the typical cycle of being relatively high at the mid-year's point, as you can see. P retty much the same level as it was year ago, slightly higher, and the curve will be similar in terms of its shape of being lower by year's end. That's obviously what you're all familiar with. The investment spending is a little bit lower than it was last year at that point in time. Instead of EUR 11 million, we have EUR 8 million. B ut that's not a major change in terms of our strategy. Probably the most important one is that we have less IT or software projects, which used to drive this. The cash flow was again, weak, a little bit better than last year.
Free cash flow last year at this point in time was EUR -137 million, and we ended this year with EUR -14 million, 2022, and at this point in time, we're at EUR -112 million. We'll see how this will end. It's obviously not very precisely to predict, but that's the debate. I'm sure, of course, we'll be interested in answering questions. That was the quick run through the slides. Again, I think that the, the, the major point I'd like to discuss with you is the post transaction. Actually, the, the, the bid that is has been announced today, this morning, the KKR for going private plus the capital increase. I'd like to stop here after 20 minutes and open the floor for questions.
I'm looking to Marcel to announce the questions and of course, release them so that they can be asked in the call.
Yes, thank you. As Marco said, feel free to either raise your hand if you want to ask your question by yourself, or feel free to just type it in the chat, and I will read it out to the team. The first person is Alexander Hauenstein from DZ BANK. I will add him as a panelist, and then he will ask his questions. Mr. Hauenstein?
Yes, hello, can you hear me?
Yes. Hello, Hauenstein. Yeah, we can hear. Hi, how are you?
Hello. Hi. Yeah, well, more or less good. Congratulations, first of all, quite an interesting move and a powerful partner. I personally feel a bit sad as your company will probably disappear sooner or later from the listing table, but, yeah, I always enjoyed working with you. Nevertheless, I understand the move in, in certain ways, and I understand that it was quite interesting for you to pursue this opportunity. Maybe, maybe one question, if I may, on the plans for your business, maybe in the U.S., is that somehow related to your strategic plans that you're taking in the U.S. private equity company?
What exactly, in your view, qualifies KKR specifically, apart from being a very potential, po-potent private equity company. B ut what exactly is their angle for the space industry here? Maybe you can share your views here. I didn't do the deep dive to be frank. B ut maybe you can, you can help me out a bit.
Yeah, I start a little bit with the general overview. T hen I, I hand it over to Lutz for the question of the specific business opportunity. I, I believe that I mean, obviously, KKR is a strong name. A nd we're very happy and proud that they decided to invest at OHB. Of course, KKR is not a specific space investor in that respect. They have a strong aerospace practice in the U.S. And they have in Europe, they did investments like HENSOLDT, so technology obviously-
Yeah.
... is they, they successfully did. I believe what they really like about OHB is the fact that space is a booming industry. I believe that when you look from the U.S. to the European space industry, you see a lot of upside. Obviously, I'm sure that what was attractive for them is also the current valuation that OHB had before announcing this transaction. I think it just confirmed that from a, let's say, from a, from a top view, there you see OHB as a, as an attractively priced asset. If you believe in the long-term prospects of space industry, and if you believe in the...
That what, let's say, what is going on in the U.S. will also come over to Europe in a certain way. I think that explains why they believe this is an attractive transaction. They came to the conclusion that the stock is worth more than EUR 44 or that it's worth the EUR 44, and that has a lot of potential to come up. S o they see this offer as attractive for them. That's, I think, very good, and it confirms, I guess, at least what I have always felt that we are an attractive growth stock. With regard to the business in the U.S., maybe I hand it over to Lutz, if you have something to comment, what that may-
Yeah, perhaps let's start with the business in Europe to the extent possible, because it's honestly not too much. B ut to the extent possible, we, of course, checked with, with our European customer base, how they would see such an engagement. The fact that KKR has been in MTU, and then thus being involved in programs like the Eurofighter engine, has been in HENSOLDT, and so on, means it's well known to the customer, even if it's a bit of, of course, you, you have full systems, like full reconnaissance systems or so, or components, but every, everything we got from, from our customer side was positive. It is today, in particular, positive. I mean, now we can obviously speak openly, and the, the reactions we get are, are very, very positive.
I don't see that having KKR as a shareholder in which we would in any way damage our opportunities here on the European market. It's very appreciated that the Fuchs family stays in control and will stay in control. This is certainly something which is, which is with very low risk that we have any negative impact there. On the U.S. side, there, there's two aspects we should look at. One, one is, obviously, with KKR being in the company, and thus increasing the financial capabilities of the group, we are more in a position that we can afford investing in the U.S..
We have some U.S. customers, in particular in the area of aerospace, who are actually inviting us to come and combining the invitation with a, with a clear perspective that they would love to give significantly more business to us if we would be next door and not over the pond. Secondly, obviously, KKR is super well connected in, in the United States. From a U.S. business point of view, I can, can only see positive aspects in going together with KKR. Our valuation plan with KKR, the investigation of business opportunity in the United States is, is clearly part of the plan.
Sounds very promising. Thanks for sharing your views here. As I said, all the best, and, yeah, I think for the next couple of months, we still will speak a couple of time again. So far, well done.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Yes, thank you.
Next question comes from the chat by Gunter Greiner. He asks: "Please give more details about the delisting. What's the reason for it? Will there be a listing on Freiverkehr? Why do you want to get rid of other shareholders who want to go all the way with you during the next 10 years?
Yes, thank you for that. I guess what the last years have proven is that the interest in the OHB stock or the interest in very small stocks like OHB with about a Freiverkehr valuation of about EUR 150 million has become more and more difficult. We saw an unfortunate decline in our liquidity, and in our, the turnover has been much lower now in the last year than it was, you know, maybe 10 years ago. Of course, we very much value, and we're very happy that we have such a group of loyal and long-term shareholders. We believe that the offer with EUR 44, i t's a very attractive offer compared to where the stock was trading for the last year.
But now it's the tender offer. We will see how the path goes on after that. It has not been firmly decided, but obviously, the KKR wants the tender in a way that as many as possible of the free float shares will be tendered. Depending on that, then there will be a decision how to move on. Eventually, I believe that a small cap like OHB has to make a fundamental decision. Either it has to grow significantly to be relevant at the stock exchange, or probably the related costs and the related management attention and effort are not proportional to the gains that you take from it.
I believe that, again, and I personally did the IPO 23 years, 22.5 years ago. S o I, I, let's say a significant part of my life, I was leading a listed OHB. Looking back, of course, times have changed. In 2001, at the times of the Neuer Markt, there was a lot of enthusiasm for listed companies. I think for the- for this very small cap segment, where we are part of, that has, over the last years, changed in terms of attention, in terms of demand. Now again, I think it's-- we have to adapt to that, and growth for the company and the, the, the well-being for the company is our fundamental, let's say, guidance of what we do.
We want OHB to develop well. Again, for me, it was very pleasant and very exciting to be the CEO of a listed company. It's not an easy decision, but for the customers and the employees, I think the good perspective for the company is the major goal that we have to follow. In that respect, I find it easy to say that in the, in the private scenario, with a very long-term, let's say, orientation, it's easier to pursue that strategy.
I think, in a situation where we are listed transparent company that has to report every three months with a rather heavy debt on, on our balance sheet, and with the, the, requirements and covenants of the debt on our shoulders, it's not so easy to orientate the, the strategy on long-term goals. That's something that I believe for the next years will be very, very important in the space industry. I'm, I'm flattered by your, your statement to say, shareholders wanting to go all the way with us for the next 10 years. Yes, of course.
Again, I think we had a good value development with this offer now. B ut I believe that for the company, the interest is clear that growth will be easier and more dynamic on the path that we have now chosen.
Next question from Alexander Dominicos: Could you please provide some more color if KKR can help you to become more efficient, increase margins with regards to costs and processes?
Well, I mean, we are. Maybe I start on this, and you can add in. We're obviously an engineering company. The core and the culture and the DNA of OHB is an engineering culture. What we do very good, developing satellites. We're coming from an industry that is a project industry. In terms of efficiency, in terms of, let's say also, if we look at optimizing certain things on a horizontal level through the different divisions, but also having an optimization of the balance sheet, that's something where we can improve. I think our co-core culture comes from the space system division. In order to be successful also in aerospace and the digital, I believe a financial investor can add something.
I don't know who wants to add on this a little bit, if you want to come in, what, where you see the strengths of KKR coming in?
Yeah, in principle, what happened now is we, through this investment from KKR and OHB, we strengthen extremely our equity basis and extremely our flexibility concerning investments, also investments for improvement of operational business and of our structure. This help in each area in our group to improve OHB, to make OHB to a more efficient company. That's the basic idea.
I mean, we are a company under constant competitive pressure. When we build a satellite, there was a competition before, most of the times. We need to be efficient. We cannot afford to be not efficient. We cannot afford to lose too many proposals, and we want to win, and we want to maintain our cost advantage over our competitors, because we also have disadvantage in terms of size, in terms of broadness, in terms of balance sheet. We want to be the best and cheapest and most attractive satellite developer, and that's something we have to constantly improve.
Yeah. We have now a good and cooperative partner.
Sure ... Markus, you want to add something to that?
Sure. I mean, it's, it's, it's also someone who, you know, is, is known in the industry. I think he brings methodology as well. You know, bringing a method of, you know, how constantly improve operations gives us the chance basically to continue to organize our teams and, and, beat, beat the rhythm as well. I think, you know, it's important, you know, to have a sparring partner that runs with us and, and, and keeps us, you know, to new levels. That will get going the continuous improvement. We're looking forward to have them on boar, as they help us with the transformation under your leadership, Marco, to build the plan and execute the plan of improvement.
Okay. Thank you. Next question comes from Klaus Loter. Oh, it's actually two questions now. "How many seats will KKR get on the board?" is the first, and then the second: "Are you expecting a squeeze out of minorities at the end of the process?
The first question is KKR will get one seat on the Board out of five. We will stay, as long as we're a public company, we'll stay with the five Supervisory Board seats, and one of them will go to KKR. The second question is, yes, it is intended. It's not firmly agreed, but it is intended also to pursue a squeeze-out at the end of the process.
Thank you. Next question will come from Henry Wendisch from NuWays. I will add him as a panelist. Mr. Wendisch?
Yes. Hi, everybody. I hope you can hear me fine.
Yeah, we can hear you well.
Ah, perfect. Yeah, first of all, congratulations to finding a new investor, both for OHB and also for the Rocket Factory. Also, welcome, Mr. Moeller, to our calls here. Yeah, I was also quite surprised this morning, it seems like a sensible move for me. I have a question on maybe operative business in Q2. You reported a 2 percentage point increase in EBIT margin in the SPACE SYSTEMS segment. Could you give a little bit more color on how it came that the margin increased so much?
This essentially has to do with further improvement in our projects. We are more successful, more stable, and more cost efficient in our big programs at OHB System compared to the past. We get some good change contracts from our customers at the end of the day. The overall, the overall economic situation of our big programs are more and more improving. That's the main reason for it, but that is the reason for it at the end of the day.
Long promise, now it comes. Isn't it nice?
Yeah, record H1, right? Yeah, one more question from my side would be on the current bidding on IRIS² and maybe SATCOM Bundeswehr 3. If you have any more color on this, would be much appreciated. Maybe in terms of, of, of pro, time plan, and maybe a little direction on when we can give any more-- have any news flow on the SATCOM contract or bidding process.
I don't know. Markus or Lutz, do you want to take it?
We can start with IRIS. IRIS, actually, the initial bid goes to the Commission today. That's a super high level, I would call it-
Offer.
... a very, very rough ROM of ours. S o it's more an architecture of the system with some indicated numbers combined to it. The more interesting part will be the competitive dialogue, which will start from September onwards, where the system then will really will be defined. OHB, as you know, is part of the core team, is leading the MEO part. From my point of view, the contract award is unlikely this year. It will more be first quarter next year. This is more or less the same for SATCOM Bundeswehr, where I would expect the contract award at the very beginning of the year. If they are super fast, then it might move to December. I don't really believe in it. Again, we are very well positioned.
Again, there's only one bidder, which is a consortium out of AWS and us. It's an urgently needed capability. I can hardly imagine that they would not procure it. In particular, the feedback which we get on our part of the offer is, is very positive. The, the capability which we are offering is very much appreciated by the customer, including things which we offered as optional capability, which was not necessarily fully in the requirement, but the customer tends to take the larger capability, which we can offer on the satellite platform, which we have selected, which is Electra. The customer tends to take this into account.
It comes down to process.
Hmm?
It comes down to procurement process-
Yeah.
...you know, how fast the dialogue will.
All right. Thank you very much. One more follow-up question if I may. The Ariane 6 program seems to be very conservative in terms of communication with progress. Do you have any more color on that, for us? Maybe what is also the implication then for the AEROSPACE segment?
Yes. I mean, Ariane 6 is undergoing some very important tests now. There are some tests going on in French Guiana with the first stage, some engine tests planned to continue in Lampoldshausen. Obviously, as teams are concerned, to predict exactly time, the schedule before that is, let's say, confirmed how the outcome is. My information is that after the summer break, there will be a more firm prediction of calendar. Of course, people know that public, and markets, and governments are expecting a firm timeline, but I think the decision has been made that this will only be officially communicated starting from September onwards to see then exactly where to end. What I feel, what I can say, is there's good progress.
I mean, it's not so visible, but there's very good progress, and I think there's a lot of de-risking going on. Testing is important. Testing doesn't mean that things are critical and not going well. Testing is exactly what you have to do when you build a new rocket. I'm optimistic that Ariane 6 is moving along very well. Of course, I don't know exactly when the overall system is completed so that the first launch will be. I was a couple of weeks ago at the first launch attempt of Heinrich Hertz. That was in mid-June, late June, visiting the facilities of Ariane 6, and actually also the technological progress, the first stage there in French Guiana. It was very impressive. It was very impressive to see that.
The ground infrastructure is in an impressive status. We're all very confident that this will go well. Again, it's, it's rocket science. Who knows? There might be some flaws coming out, but we are well prepared at MT Aerospace with our production, and we hope that also the long-term contractual, let's say, contractual questions will be solved within this fall. The overall Ariane industrial consortium needs to unders- needs to get clarity how to produce and how to further develop it. Again, Ariane 6 is desperately needed in Europe, because after the successful launch of Ariane 5, and actually, I mean, there's no Ariane 5 left, and actually also Vega-C is out of operation.
Europe currently is very, very, very restricted with its independent access to space, and obviously Ariane 6 is the major answer for that.
All right. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Next question comes from Dennis Watz. He wants to know whether we can say anything about the evaluation of RFA for the EUR 30 million investment.
Yes. I mean, of course, RFA is seeking investment since quite some time. We have invested, others have invested. Of course, there's a significant share also from management and the team. The mechanics of the investment in Rocket Factory Augsburg have been over the last years, convertible notes, [Foreign language], as they call them in German, and that always implies that there is a stock price value, and then the [Foreign language] holder, the convertible holder, has a certain time period, while it's debt, and he receives an interest, and he has the right to convert it. That conversion rate has been put at EUR 15 per share, and the interest is 5%. It's a low interest and a conversion right, and so one can calculate from that.
Keep in mind that it's the [Foreig language], and there's a conversion right. There's not a conversion obligation. That's something. Again, this is the same what we did over the past years. We have done this over years. We tended to convert everything that became mature. I'm sure that that depends on a good progress. Everybody who comes newly to the to the team will take some time and see and take a look at the progress. Of course, we're very happy to have KKR joining RFA at that level of valuation. Again, the low interest number indicates that the upside is with the stock and the equity, and the upside is not the interest.
Okay, I can't see any further raised hands or questions. Maybe we just wait for a moment.
Yeah, I guess, maybe. Of course, you're welcome to ask more questions, and I, I, of course, understand that the process was a little bit surprising. B ut of course, we are very happy to have this call now, even if it's in the afternoon, and we're very happy that you have been able to inform yourself with regard to the Q2 numbers. Overall, I think looking back to Q2, I think it's okay. It's not great, it's not bad. I t's on track. W e feel comfortable with that. I think we have a good year. There're a lot of proposal preparations going on with Markus, and Lutz, been very busy. Lots of people are writing proposals because, as, as we said earlier, we have to convert these created budgets from the conference into further contracts. That's the, that's the theme of this year.
Yeah. It's a 12-month, yeah. Absolutely k eeps us busy. I think on the transaction, of course, we're there to answer more questions. I'm sure that also, on the investor side, there are people to ask questions. I guess that's the communication path that is out there. We hope that the, the, the offer finds your, your interest and support. We believe it's an attractive offer. We believe it's a, it's an enormous premium for a non-controlling share. You have to think we are a, a very small free float with, with limited liquidity, and we believe such a premium for a non-controlling share that has not a perspective of ever becoming a controlling share, that will remain a, a minority share, is very, very significant.
It's, it shows that there's an intrinsic value in the share that has already now been or is possibly realized now, that without such an offer, would have taken a very positive development and a very long time to reach it. I think it's a massive acceleration of value creation, and that's why that's why we support it. Of course, we're curious to see the next steps, as I explained it. Overall, I think it's an exciting moment for OHB that we have such a name like KKR making such an offer of EUR 44 per share, when the stock closes on Friday with EUR 32.2.
That's a very significant number, actually, I'm very excited by this because it created a lot of value, as we saw, 37%, 36.6% over Friday's closing. I don't see that such a value jump would have been possible, possible anytime soon. If you, if you look at what would have happened to happen in terms of order intake, in terms of successful launches of Ariane and the Rocket Factory and everything. A lot would have happened, have to happen to make that a reality, that's a massive value acceleration. I, I think that's something that hopefully most of you share that judgment. That was just my, my feeling speech while Marcel is looking for further questions.
Yeah, but there are, there are no further questions at this point.
Okay.
Also some, some great closing remarks, I would say. There's nothing to add from, from the rest of the team. I would thank you everyone for your attention. Feel free to reach out with further questions, and thank you. Thank you for listening today.
Yes. Thanks, everybody.
Thank you very much.
Bye-bye.
Bye.
Afternoon.