Welcome to the Q3 2025 report conference Call. I'm Moritz, the course cooperator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in a listen only mode and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and 1 on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press and 0. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast at this time. It's my pleasure to hand over to Amin Papega, CEO of Rheinmetall. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Good afternoon everybody and thank you for joining us for the Q3 results call today. With me on the call is our CFO Klaus Neumann. Klaus will walk you through the financials. Before we start, please be reminded of our legal disclaimer on page two. Now let's move on to page number three. On page number three you see that on the sales side and I focus very strong on the defense side we have a growth rate of 17% on the defense up to EUR 2.3 billion. The total sales is EUR 2.78 billion. The operating results on the defense side is EUR 361 million. A plus of 7% and it's EUR 360 million in total of plus 19%. Operating margin is on the defense side 15.7% and it's lower on the total sales. Operating margin is 12.9%. The people still want to come to Rheinmetall.
So we had more than 200,000 applications operational free. Cash flow is going down on the defence side minus 286 total minus 168 million. And capex is growing because of all the new factories that we build up at the moment to 8.9% and Rheinmetall nomination. And the issue that we have a minus of 36% is as you know the election period that we had in Germany so that we have. We had delayed order intakes but that's very normal because the government was not able to give these order intakes to us. But Rametal backlog is still very healthy with 63.8 nearly 64 billion. We have a plus of. Of 23%. Let's have a look to slide number four. And here we have shown some innovations.
We presented the innovations on the DSI in London and we have shown together with Lockheed Martin the Chagm Tank Hunter on a new Fox Mobile. But it can be implemented also on other vehicles. Then we have a growing family of our Sky Rangers, the Mission Master which is SkyRanger762 and the next generation ship protection with the MAS Nova 2, there are a lot of more innovations that we have shown on the dsa. It's a small overview about that, what we did in London. On the right side you see the Telford gun Shop groundbreaking ceremony. And we will invest in total about 100 million. And we will create 100 highly skilled jobs. And it's important for us to produce the caliber range of 120- 155 on the large calibre side. But we are also able to produce medium caliber.
The need for that gun over the next year is huge. We create up a capacity of more than 150 large caliber guns per year in the United Kingdom. Let's have a look to page number five. Here you can see that.
The.
Parliament made good decisions. So at the end of the day 2025, finally we will have a budget of 95 billion. There is a growth rate of 23%. And in 26 the draft and we expect nearly 120 billion where 83 billion is coming out of Entel Blandfordsen EPL 14 than the special Fund and the Ukraine Relief Fund. So the decision on the budget in 26 budget has to be passed in November so that we are able to plan really fix then for the next years. Let's have a look to slide number six. On slide number six you see two new activities that we have inside the Rametal Group. One activity is that we reached an agreement with Luzern family to take over the naval vessels from Luzen. So we had the signing and we expect that the closing is latest end of January in 2026.
The potential sales that we see in 2030 is up to 5 billion. Next year the expectation is that we can grow up to around 2.5 billion, but then double the sales. And the order intake potential that we see over the next five years is between 20 and 30 billion euro. Because there are huge programs also from the German navy, but also international navies. On the right side you see our EISAI Corporation. We formed a 40:60 joint venture between EISI and Rheinmetall. So Rheimetal has the majority and we signed it on 23 September. In 25, the first market is Germany. But we look for more markets and the immediate need we see is at the moment 40 satellites and Rheinmetall. The expectation on nomination is about 2 billion Euro.
And if everything is working well, we can have an order intake also this year of that 2 billion. So the first big contract on satellites for Rametal. Now let's have a look to page seven. And here you see how Rheinmetall weapon and ammunition is creating this European ecosystem and the expansion of existing capacities in Spain, doubling or in some areas tripling capacities in Spain. The same in South Africa and in Australia are in progress. In Germany we started the trial production for the 155 projectiles. And we are only also on a good way. And the first stage is ready on the powder production in Bavaria. And we will double and in some areas triple also the productions in Bavaria on the powder side. So we are on a very good way in that area. We had the groundbreaking in Lithuania for artillery ammunition.
We signed an MoU also for propellant, to create a center of competence of propellants in Lithuania. Signed also where the president of Lithuania was with us. A new ammunition plant in Latvia is signed. Bulgaria, joint venture for powder and 155 millimeter is established. In Romania a joint venture for powder production is also establish. On the Romanian side we plan at the moment, and it can be also very fast in the first quarter next year a package deal with the Romanian government not only about ammunition, but also about tanks and other equipment for the Romanian army. Now let's have a look to page number eight. Here you see what happens now with the power systems. The process of selling our automotive business is going forward and submission of final offers will be in quarter four.
We expect over the next four weeks that we get binding offers and if everything is running well, we can finalize the process in the first latest in the second quarter of next year. Now I take over to my colleague Du Klaus, and he will give you an overview about the financials.
Thank you, Amin. Yeah, we had a strong quarter in which our sales grew by 13%. Defence sales grew even stronger.
Sorry.
Which now make up 2.3 billion euros, or 83% of the total sales of 2.8 billion. Our operating result grew even stronger than sales to 360 million euros, which a margin of 12.9% for the group and 15.7% for defence. MA activities, as you can see on the slide, contributed to the size, but only there was only a limited impact to profitability, because we still had have some integration costs for some of the acquisitions we did this year. Please move on to page number 11. Let's have a look at developing the different segments of our business. In vehicle system sales increased by 8% quarter to quarter to 1.3 billion euros, driven by more tactical vehicles, including services. As you know, there's some truck Sales was slightly lower than in previous quarter because of the delayed deliveries to the German customers.
There is a small negative mix effect and different regional splits compared to the previous year. So we have a margin of 12.5% in this quarter compared to 13.1 in the previous year. Now let's move on to weapon and ammunition. Again we saw the highest growth rate in this segment. Sales grew by 38% to 691 million euros. Important sales relate to tank ammunition and medium caliber. As you know, artillery ammunition was held back to some extent by the delay of the new government permission. For our production site in Murcia, the operating margin decreased by 3.3 percentage points to 23.2% in the third quarter. In electronic solutions, sales growth was very strong with 32% reaching 516 million euros. Main driver was increasing contributions from multiple digitization programs as well as increased air defense sales. Operating margin went up to 11.0% after 10.9% in the previous year.
Lastly, our power systems division showed slightly decreasing size compared to the previous quarter. As you know, the auto market is a very difficult environment at the moment and the division is fighting hard to basically keep its ground in that difficult market. Despite the sales decrease, operating result stayed stable compared to the previous year at 18 million euros, slightly increasing the margin from 3.6 to 3.9%. Let's turn to page number 12. As mentioned, hymen nomination was lower in Q3 2025 compared to previous year due to the delay in order placement, especially by the German customer. Also keep in mind that last year we booked a large framework frame contract for trucks of 2.9 million. Just to give a bit of perspective of the development from year- to year.
Overall everything is going as expected and you might see in our press releases, we are gaining additional order momentum on several big tickets now in the current quarter. Q4 More on this in the Outlook section. Our ametype backlog rose by 23% to 63.8 billion euros year- over- year. Let's move to page number 13 to look at our cash flow and our working capital development as order intake in Amita nomination was lower than the previous year.
We also did not see the large prepayments that we enjoyed in 2024 so far as a result and also as a result of the buildup of inventory for upcoming sales in the fourth quarter and in 2026, our cash flow was negative at minus 813 million euros for the ninth month in 2025, the higher inventories again relate mostly to vehicle systems and are also impacted by the later truck deliveries compared to 2024. Let's move to page number 14. While we have a negative operating free cash flow this year so far we have a strong support on the financing side. I just want to give you an update on this situation with our convertible. We had no conversions of the Series B convertible bond and our total number of shares is now standing at 46 million shares. Our equity ratio improved and is now at 32.9%.
This conversion support our net liquidity position on strengthens our balance sheets due to the lower level of customer prepayments. Our net financial position nevertheless is now at minus 1.9 billion euros. And just to give you another example of our balance sheet situation, Net debt to ebitda ratio of 0.97 is still very strong and puts us in a very comfortable position to finance the upcoming MA transaction. With this I would like to hand over back to Amin.
Thank you, Klaus. So I want to give you on page 16 an outlook about the nominations and the expectations that we have in Q4 after having the German government machine running again. So we are in negotiations and we had the first successful, the first success on the Jackal. Let's start on the vehicle system side after nine months. So we had, as Klaus said, also nearly 64 billion backlog. Our expectation is on Jekyll. 3.4 is booked. The other point is Puma. And these are always net values that we have only for Rheinmetall, not in cooperation with others, the puma. The expectation is that on the PUMA side we have a potential of 1.4 billion.
On the links side there is another potential that that we have one from the Italian side, but also maybe from Romania, where if everything is going good, only the Italian side will be a level of about 400 million. On the Leopard side we see half a billion, 500 million also and the support vehicles. On the leopard is another 300 million. And there are negotiation on the trucks. But it seems it can be that the trucks are also going into 26 into the first quarter into their negotiations. On the truck side we are in negotiations at the moment to enlarge the frame contracts and which are then fixed contracts of more than 4 billion euros. A very positive point is also, and maybe not in Q4 because it's a huge contract. This is a Boxer contract. The government calls it Arminius.
This Arminius contract is a total contract number. There will be nominations of 40 billion euro. And from this 40 billion euro we expect more than 22 billion euros. Also for Rheinmetall. But this will happen very safe in 26 and not longer in 25. But if it happens in Q1 or Q2, I will be very happy. Next point, let's go to weapon and ammunition. On the weapon and ammunition side, there are the final negotiations on the 155 fixed contract. And there are different numbers at the moment in discussions. First of all we discussed about 1.7 million rounds. Then 1 million round, maybe it's in this year a little bit reduced because they want to bring something to this year and to next year to create fixed contracts. But the expectation in total on the ammunition side is an expectation of around 6 billion.
So if you count it up everything, it's 5.5 to 6 billion for the vehicles, minimum 6 billion on the ammunition. Then we go to electronic solutions. On the electronic solutions side we see the satellite program and the contract that we expect this can be around 2 billion. The Sky Ranger is implemented in the program Arminius. And then we have Lux 2 weapons and weapon stations, about 300 million laser light modules, 300 million loitering ammunition. This is what you have seen in the newspapers over the last two weeks. The first bigger contracts for drones and also some other smaller contracts so that we see potential of 3 billion that we can reach this year. The rest will be in first quarter and second quarter.
And this is the big bunch then, which is coming in the first and the second quarter next year, if you count up everything. So we are still in the range of around 80 billion euro. How we expected at beginning of the year. Don't hit me. If it is, let me say 78 or 82 or if the big contract is coming early on ammunition, it's a little bit more, but let me say around 80 billion is a fair value. Now let's go to page 17. On page 17 on the outlook, a positive signal is also that 95% or more than 95% of the backlog coverage we have, let me say in our books, so we are confident about the full year guidance. On the sales side, we think that on the defence we can grow between 35 and 40%.
There is no growth rate on the civilian business, maybe a little bit shrinking business in that area. And the operating margin will be around 15.5%. And it depends a little bit for sure about the down payments. But because as you say, at the moment the operational free cash flow on Q3 is very negative. But with the new German contracts, usually we expect between 20 and 30% down payment. So that then the cash Conversion rate would be positive. If the down payments are delayed, we will get the cash in the first quarter so far. And now we can start the Q and A. Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and 1. On the touchtone telephone you will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and 2. Participants are requested to use only handsets while asking a question. In the interest of time, please limit yourself to two questions. Anyone who has a question may press start one at this time. One moment for the first question please. And the first question comes from Sebastian Grover from BNB Paribas exam. Please go ahead.
Hi everybody. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one would be on the nominations and the chart that you presented on page slide 16. So the question here for me is as you also made reference to the frame contracts in the wake of the trucks business in particular, I think on earlier occasions you said that you were expecting probably an upgrading from the 20 billion of frame contracts by the 50% option, that is 30 billion. You have been putting the trucks potential at 4. So how should we think of the latest developments in this frame contract conversion? And then also with regard to the down payments that you mentioned at 20 to 30%, you also said on prior occasions that you are in discussions with the customer to eventually also think about special timing to put this way. So what's the latest in this regard?
And can I then finally ask one very quick high level question around the guidance? It seems apparently that on the safe side things are in flux and it's not these coming down probably to Spain, the restart and then also to the truck deliveries to the German customer. So my high level question simply is, are you confident to reach the operating profit target of around 2 billion almost irrespective of what's happening to the top line? Thank you.
Yeah. So let's start with the nominations on the nomination side. As I said, we are in discussion to get fixed contracts also on the trucks for up to 29. This is what we are in discussion and we hope we can reach that. And you are absolutely right. If everything is going well, there is a potential which is 50% to the nominations that we had at the moment. I want to reach the first step to change nomination into fixed contracts and also to get the down payments. This is on the truck side and this is also on the ammunition side. So this is if we let me say have smaller. This was a discussion that we had.
Is it good if we get the huge contract to have it on, let me say in one shot, or is it better to get it in two or three shots? Also the down payments at the moment we take whatever we can get and we are in negotiations that for everything at the moment, which is going from frame contract to fixed contracts or in new contracts to get between 20 and 30%. Second point is on the. On the guidance. Yes, there is an impact, still an impact on the Spanish side, because we are still have not the permission. We are in the last stage to get it. But the government is. It's a governmental decision when they give us this damp. But we expect we get it. We stay on the sales side, because as you know, the impact is an area of 150 million euro.
But I think we are able to compensate in different areas because there are such the businesses in between so big that it is possible to compensate it. But to at least we are able to compensate on the operating margin. This is exactly what we expect. And we expect to go up to this 2 billion target. So that should be possible. If not extraordinary things happen. But at the moment we are in line. Is that fair enough, Mr. Grove?
It is. Thank you so much and see you then soon. Thank you.
Yeah, happy to see you.
The next question comes from Chloe Lemarie from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Yes, hello everyone. Thank you for taking my question. So I had one on Marcia, but yes, that was already answered. The other one is actually on free cash flow. So assuming you get those 20 to 30% and obviously with the reversal of the inventory buildup you've done over the.
Past nine months, how high could free.
Cash flow conversion get if you do reach the all the contract that you expect by year end? Thank you.
Yeah, as you mentioned, we do have a negative cash flow up to the end of September. It highly depends on what kind of contracts will be placed in 2025 and also what kind of prepayment arrangements we will be able to negotiate. As Amin mentioned, in some cases the actual cash in might be might fall into Q1 2026. So it might. There's a huge volatility at the moment and it's quite difficult to exactly predict. But if everything is ordered already in 2025 and we do get all the payments already in 2025, it would be substantially above the 40% that we mentioned.
But it's easy to calculate. Claus, if I can help. It's 15 billion that we will have in order intake and therefore 3 billion is, let me say, the potential of down payment.
Very clear. Thank you.
The next question comes from Sam Burgess from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much for taking the question. Two, if I may. Firstly, there's obviously been a big pickup in interest across Europe on air defence over the last quarter. Could you just talk us through the opportunities you see here? At the moment your portfolio is quite focused on short range air defense. Do you see any opportunities to expand the portfolio maybe into something more medium range? And then the second question would just be about, I guess, interoperability between the operational domains. You've got pretty good coverage across five operational domains now. Do you see an opportunity here for Rheimatile to be prime integrator of battlefield software? Thank you.
Yeah. So on the short range air defense, we are focused at the moment from the gun side, but as you know, we also offer the missile solutions and we implement the missile solutions into our gun solutions. So the Skyrenzer for example will have also a gun solution. But also our Skynex solar system has gun and missile solutions. So yes, we focus on both on the drone side. And this is the big numbers that you have. As you know, Germany is looking for 600, 650 systems. It's not 100% fixed, but we have now also Denmark, we have Austria, we have a lot of other, other European partners who buy that system. And our expectation is that we are able to sell much more than 10 than 1,000 Sky Rangers. Skynex system is very successful.
I can give you that information that on the Skynex side in Ukraine we are also able not to fight against drones, we fight it against missiles. And we had the first success of also to shoot down missiles in the Ukraine. So everybody is very happy about that things. So in a nutshell, yes, we focus on the big pieces which are the total systems. Second, yes, we focus also on the missile implementation and we won't later, but this will happen in maybe two, three, four years. Produce also some missiles then by ourselves, if our rocket motor and missile center is ready in Undulus battlefield, on the battlefield management system is, I think the best thing is what we are doing at the moment in Germany and we want to implement that on other European partners. On Germany we create the infrastructure, we create the battlefield management.
In total we have the huge digitization contract of more than 15 billion to do this digitization from the German side. There are needs in other countries. The Netherlands is looking for such a system, Hungary looking for such a system. So there are opportunities for us, but we are not at the moment in the situation that we said we will sign over the next six months contracts in this area. So. But yes, we are prepared and yes, we want to do it.
Great. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Sven Weyer from ubs. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one is just coming back to the list of projects. We had a debate in Germany recently about maybe last minute changes on the FUC successor where there's quite a few local, you know, state presidents have lobbied in favor of you guys in terms of getting into the project, despite the fact that it had been kind of awarded to Patria already. So that would obviously be a big change and a big project. I mean, what is your latest take on this one? Thank you.
Yeah. The Fuchs point is it's an initiative of the premiers and it's not an initiative of Rheinmetall and it's at the end of they a political decision. The minister was very clear to say, okay, we want to have the first lot to do that together with our friends from Finland and we will see if there is a split or is there no split? I'm open for everything. We are ready. We are ready to perform and we are ready to perform also on Fox 2. But it's a political decision. There are no further news. We are not at the moment in negotiations with the government. The premier's initiative is a political initiative and we are here and we are ready to perform.
Though it's not too late for this one.
Look, at the end of the day, I always said it's never too late. Yes. You always have to try to try your chance. And at the end of the day you never ever should give up.
Yeah, that sounds fair. Thank you. The second question I had was just, I mean, there's a bit of discussion lately with the upcoming CSG IPO and competition from Eastern European companies. I mean, as a matter of fact, you are striking all the deals in Eastern Europe on these ammunition and powder plants. I mean, for the sake of the audience, I mean, what do you think still differentiates you from those kind of competitors which also seem to be quite a bit aggressive? But you take the contracts. That would be interesting. Thank you.
Yeah, I think that. And it must be because the governments, if you see Bulgaria, Romania, Lisbon, Lithuania, Latvia, the governments show that. I think we are able to show these governments that we are very trustful partners. This is number one. The second point is that they see, and this was a good example, what we have shown In Wagner Sachsen that we are performing, that we are able to make it happen in 12 months and maybe not in three or four years. So this is the second point where we say, okay, we have to hurry up, there is a budget. And the other thing is that the financing and this is a positive signal also for us from the governmental side will be mostly done via safe money from the European Union.
So I think the combination between a huge player, a trustful partner and a company who has shown the performance in different areas are positive. Another positive thing is that we have the newest technologies that we want to produce there. So we produce, we have all these technologies on powder. There are not a lot of companies around the world who have these technologies of powder. The newest technologies of for triple based powder or even harder, the surface coated powder technology, nobody has that. But we want to do this also in that countries because we see that all these factories will be guided from rametal. IPRs are also under Rametal control. So there is a combination of newest projectiles and newest powder technologies that we implement in that countries and the countries are happy with that.
And on the other side, I think that we are able to create all the things because we have our own planning, we have our own real estate company who is going forward in these areas. We can do it very fast and we can do it for a fair price. I think that's a combination. The four or five aspects that I told you that here that we win the contract. I'm not unhappy about that.
And is it also the input that you have from South Africa from the engineering capabilities that you have down there?
Yeah, it's a small part also, but it's part of the ecosystem that we build up that in South Africa with the, with our companies that we have there, because we have two companies. One company in South Africa is doing the shell production and implement all that things the same what they also did in Untoluz. And the second one is doing that we bought these chemical components and so we are not dependent from other companies and there are not a lot of companies also in the world who are able to do this chemical stuff. So how to build RDX plants, how to build powder plants, how to build these chemical converters, etc. Etc. And this makes us reliable, this makes us fast. And I think this is the decision making process of the governments.
But at the end of the day, the governments, I'm happy if they share, if they say, okay, Rametal is a reliable partner, let's do it with them. But at the end of the day, as I said, they are in the driver's seat.
Makes sense. Thank you, Mr. Papberger, and see you in two weeks. Thank you.
It's a pleasure.
The next question comes from Christoph Lascavi from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. The first one on M and A, you just said the idea is to double revenues of NVL in 2016. If I understood that correctly. It's obviously quite a big step up. Is that already in the books or do you need to see some business wins in Q4 for that one to happen as well? And then on Iveco, it seems that Leonardo is still pointing to some uncertainty. If it makes sense to carve out the defence trucks business and sell it to you, where do you see the likelihood of that deal coming through next year and if it makes sense. And then the second question would be on the order intake with the Last call in Q2, you said the potential that you highlighted to some degree is conservative.
If we think basically today, how does the potential look versus the communication around Q2, was there still more business opportunity steps that emerged? So even better, or is it essentially unchanged? Thank you.
The last thing I didn't get, do you think for next year, the one up to Q2 next year or.
Yeah, correct.
Yeah. Okay. Order intake and on business. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, let's start with that on Q2 or up to Q2 in the next year. There is, I would say every week is there are new businesses coming, coming up. What we told you is still valid. What we want to do also in the. In the next year. And I think the next year will be a very strong year also for. For order intake. It's not bad what we do this year. Yeah. And if we can grow up to nearly, let me say 80, 80 billion, I think it's not a bad value. But if my expectation is that up to Q2, and this is always what I thought, there is really a potential to grow up. Potential to grow up to 120 billion backlog.
So it's a very strong Q1 and Q2 next year trucks on the Italian side is look, for me, it's a point that we have a handshake agreement and that we will, first of all, that Leonardo takes over and then we have the opportunity to go in. I have no glass ball. I cannot tell you what happens. First of all, there is a process at the moment. What's going on. I read the comment also how to go forward. Anyway, it's a potential but we have it not in our business plan. And I still think that the handshake agreements are agreements between gentlemen that work. Next point is NFOL on the NFOL side. Yes, it is in the order books and the order book is a good one. And we can grow with the order book and there are smaller contracts for sure coming in.
We are able in 2026 to grow up to more than 2.5 billion.
Thank you very much.
Then the next question comes from Marie Angelico from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for taking my question. I just would like to come back on Germany because obviously we have seen the 25 different budget passed and now we will have a new budget for 26. So I just would like to know if there is any update on the addressable market for you. So what do you see in terms of budget allocation, how much likely to go to equipment and if German companies are clearly the priority for the government and if you still see potential for 50% market share. So that's my first question. The second question is on capacity expansion because you have announced several capacity inflation in weapons and emissions since September with Laja, Bulgaria, Romania. So I just would like to confirm and to know if it's incremental to your previous target that you gave and if it's incremental.
If you can just update us on the capacity outlook now. Thanks so much.
Yeah. Let's start with the ammunition side. On the ammunition side, we always said, and we calculated, and you know, when we discussed, Marian, that we calculated that in 2027 we want to grow up to 1.1 million rounds. And we speak always about this artillery technologies. Yeah, there is also medium caliber technologies, but 1.1. And in 2030 we will have a total capacity, if everything is running 100% to 1.5 million rounds. But at the moment we do not plan more because we think that then we have an overcapacity and we want to fill these factories up, let me say also up to 2035. So I don't want to have overcapacities in these areas. So no, it is not at all. It is exactly what we expected. This is exactly what we planned. And Lithuania is. Is in the plan.
Bulgaria, these are not so huge factories that we have. So and we speak then if you have 1.1 or 1.5 million, we speak.
About.
100,000 rounds about that. So it's less than 10% of that is going on. Is it possible to do a little bit more? I think yes, but it's not in my expectation. So I stay with the figures that we had before.
That.
Okay.
Yeah, perfect. And just from Germany.
Yeah. On the German side at the moment, all the expectations are that we have are running. So we have huge negotiations. My teams are every day at the moment in with the government to make this huge numbers also of negotiations. There is for sure one thing that will be the news on the capital markets day. To give you a detailed overview about the naval business, what we are doing. Because the naval business for sure was not part of the discussion that we had over the last month. And there is a huge opportunity and we want to go give you in detail then the opportunities that we have on the naval business side. So I still think that we have the opportunity to grab a big piece of that what the government's contract is giving out.
Okay, thank you so much.
Thank you.
Then the next question comes from Marco Vitale from Mediobanka. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. The first one is on the space JV that you have announced you were targeting. You said that you're targeting the German market, but also looking at other international opportunities. I was wondering if you would provide us how do you expect to position the JV compared to the other, say, big European JP that's been announced by Thales, Airbus and what could be the.
Competitive landscape going forward for this business?
The second question is. The second question is about Ukraine. We read from local press articles that you are planning to strengthen the operation for the vehicle system. If you could provide us some additional details on this. Thank you.
Yeah. So on the space side, we are newcomers in this area. We know that very well. But I think we started on a smart way because we are not starting to develop huge satellite programs. We are starting to make more from the same what is still in the market. And this is what we do with our joint venture with eisi. The German government asked us that they want to have German production line and we build that up at the moment. And if we are able over the next four weeks to sign the first contract on the satellite side, then we see a huge opportunity also only for the German market. Because Germany wants to invest 35 billion into satellites. This is not a small number.
And we are starting with the SAR satellites, but we will go also into the electro optic and also into the communication satellites with other partners. I still cannot give more details about that because this is not signed at the moment. But even if we can pick up a big part of the German contract, it's an attractive business for us. But if you have the satellite then in the orbit you can use that satellite also for other partners.
Okay, thank you. Kriya.
Yep. And Ukraine on the Ukrainian side is. Yes, we build up more capacities also on the vehicle side. Absolutely right. And what we want is we are now because the Ukrainian government gave green lights also now for the infantry fighting vehicle, for the links, we stay with Marder, we stay with the leopard, maintenance, etc. Etc. But now the green light for the links is there and it's the first. It's small numbers, it's only five links where they want to start. But I think the government is now very convinced about that. This is a very useful vehicle in this conflict with Russia. And then we want to build up also capacities to build the links in Ukraine. Is that okay, Marco?
Yes, very clear. Thank you.
Then the next question comes from Adrian Rabier from Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. First I'd like to ask a follow up on your margins please. You had positive mix but on a division by division level your margins have been contracting slightly in Q3. So are you still comfortable with your targets there? Do we expect a bottom up inflection in Q4? And then question on Capex please. It's great to see all these new projects. You were talking about doing more partnerships in the US this morning. Are you still expecting CAPEX to normalize in the coming years or are expecting more investments?
Yeah, on the margin side you know that the big lever will come in Q4 and on the margins we stay where, where we, where we were and this is we have our target margins and the people has had to reach this target margins. As you know, we have the ability because of the vertical integration between 20, 25 and 30%. On the ammunition side we want to reach on the vehicle side between 12 and 15% where we are. And electronic solutions will have a strong growth rate over the next years with digitization.
We will also have a look, a very sharp look on the air defence side which where we see also opportunities because we also have very strong vertical integration in this area where we can make between 15 and 20% so that our target that we are over the next years can reach the 20% EBIT. Profitability in the defense side is still valid. So therefore from my side, absolutely tick in a box. Now I lost your second point, Adrian.
On CapEx, please.
CapEx, CapEx. So on the Capex side we will have, as you know, this year and also next year we go on the Capex side up to an area of 10%. This is what we need because of all the investments on ammunition and also the optimization that we do on the vehicle side. But this capex will be over the next two, three years going down. Is it going down back to 5%? It depends a little bit about the contracts that we say maybe it is between 5 and 6%, but I think we can overcompensate that things if the down payments are really coming in. And this is what we want to do with our customers.
Thank you.
So next question comes from Benjamin Heilan from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Yeah, afternoon guys. Thank you for taking my questions. First was Armin, you have a statement in here about in your presentation about strength of the balance sheet and that supporting your M and A. I think you say ambitions or something. Could you talk a little bit about where you want to deploy capital over the next couple of years post the naval deal? And then could we get a bit of an update in terms of where we are on both Anduril and the Lockheed ventures? That will be great. Thank you.
Okay, let's start with Lockheed and Rheinmetall, but also a lot of others that we have. So we are working very hard at the moment with our American friends to create a European business also or a transatlantic business between United States of America and Europe. I think the best way for that is really to have this joint venture. We are looking at the moment also with other companies to do it. It's not a summit very open that we see speak with Honeywell, we speak with Raytheon, we speak with others in that area because the product portfolio is very different also with the U.S. companies, but now especially also with the naval stuff where we are investing, there is a huge opportunity also for naval missiles and others. Lockheed is usually not the producer of that, but Raytheon is it.
In a nutshell, it's going very, very well and we are very, very happy strengthening our naval business. If I understood right then also are there investments or other things that we have to do in this area? I think that the shipyards that we take over, that these shipyards are at the moment really, really in good shape, that we are able to use it immediately and that we are able also to grow strong in that point. Did I miss something?
I think the other bit was basically how we are looking at capital allocation over the next couple of years. And as we always said, we are continuing to look into MLA targets and it's always a preference to basically basically to A first finance our organic growth, then look at good business opportunities for acquisitions as we have proven in the last years and only at the very last thing it would be to basically use cash for share buybacks or something else. At the moment we don't see that happening.
Yeah, very clear. There are opportunities to buy companies and that, that's at the moment, that's good for the growth.
I guess. Armin, sorry, just to follow up, I guess my question was you just said the opportunity is to buy companies. Which other areas within defense are you looking at buying companies now?
Yeah, the first thing is we want to stabilize. Very clear. Now the naval business, is there something what you can use around electronics and other things? What we did on the land system side, we are looking for that. We have no fixed target at the moment. The second point is digitization. On the digitization side we have to grow. We are looking for startups, we are looking for investments also in digital companies. Even if we start with the minority and later to take over, there are a lot of companies where we see at the moment where we can fill smaller gaps that we still have inside the Rametal group and we are looking for it.
But we said we all, as you know, Ben, we are very careful in these areas and first of all we check it a lot and I think all the acquisitions we made over the last few years, five years were not so bad.
Very clear. Thank you both, appreciate it.
Thank you.
The next question comes from David Perry from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi Amin. Hi Klaus. Sadly I can't make the cmd. So my questions are a bit in that context. First one, back in about six months ago, Armen, you started talking about 40 to 50 billion of sales potential in 2030. Has anything materially changed in the last five, six months that would change your view up or down there? And then the second question is if it is still 40 to 50 billion, can you just help us think about the cadence, the journey from 25 to 2030 in terms of percentage growth? Is it even, is it front loaded? Is it backloaded? Thank you.
Yeah, yeah. This is David, this is exactly the story I want to tell you on the capital markets day. So it's really bad that you are not able to come there because I need a long time about that because this is division per division and we want to see exactly, want to tell you exactly on the capital markets day how we make it happen. So but in the calculation at the end of the day it's simple where you want to go. So and this is this days and on the ammunition side we have the ability to grow up to more than. More than 10 million, maybe up to 15 billion. On the vehicle side, at the end of the day it's the same. So it will be more than 10, but also up to 15. So we are on a level of 30 billion.
So electronic solution. Yeah, this will be, will be. There will be a possibility also to grow up, if I make it conservative, between 5 and 10 billion, but maybe more on the 10 billion side. On the air defence side we go to a level of 3 to 5 billion. And on the naval side we want to be more than 5 billion. So if you count up and if you see 30, 40, it's 50 billion maximum. And this is 40- 50. So now the point is, you can ask me now if you have now more M and A in this area, is there more in. Yes, this is in a nutshell, the story that we will tell in the capital markets day. But I'm very unhappy that. I'm very unhappy that you will not come. So this is.
You will see, you will see live firings, you will. Drones flying, you will see everything about that, everything. Life. Nobody will show you that.
Right now I'm very upset. My colleague Lucy will be there. I just have a clash. Can I just ask though about. Because now we've all seen kind of some of the releases from the German government. I know they're not all formally into law yet, but I was just wondering if you had a little better feel for the phasing because some of the vehicle programs look like they'll take time to ramp up. So will we see more of the growth in 28- 29 or could we see more in 2627?
No, you are right that it is more backloaded and 2829. And the reason is we need next year for automation, the same what we need for the ammunition side. We need one year, maybe 14 months, 15 months to make all this automation, street welding, street. We will give you also an overview in capital markets day what we do on optimization in detail. And so then if we are ready, then we start with the productions in 27, in 2829 we will run the business. So 29, I think Full Throttle the vehicle business. 27, as we said, we start with the ammunition side. So this is good. Vehicle is one and a half, two years later. Electronic solutions is the same like vehicle systems.
Air defense will also, let me say is in a ramp up curve in 28, but 28, 29 and 2030 are three years now where we book our business, where we are very well equipped. And that makes me happy to reach this 40- 50 billion.
All right, thank you. It's really helpful.
Thank you.
The next question comes from George McWhirter from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. I've got two, please. Firstly, on the NVL business, can you just update us on the potential to gain more workshow on the F126 frigate program? And the second one is on supply chain. Please, can you just talk a little bit about raw materials and raw earth minerals and any potential bottlenecks you're seeing there? Thank you.
Yeah, NVL F126, you know, there are some bigger contracts, but F126 is a, is a real big one. I think that the government will make a decision how to go forward and I personally think it's not a decision done at the moment. And to be fair enough, I cannot go operationally at the moment because it's not. We have no closing. So I can only say if the closing, if the closing is positive, we for sure will help the German government that the F126 will be a successful program. I cannot say more about that legally. Is that fair?
That's fair, yeah.
Second point supply chain. On the supply chain side, we make weekly a stress test on these areas. We have a bigger problem on the supply chain on automotive than on defense. And the reason is because on the defence side we stocked everything up. So this was a point that is rare earth, everything. What we spoke about, Leinterns, blah blah, blah. It's for years. Let me say in the stock, we have billions in our stock at the moment. The second point is that because of the smaller numbers, if you go into the auto business, you have to produce millions and millions. If you go into the defense business and if you don't need it, on the ammunition side, this is the only thing. Ammunitions are millions that we are producing. But for vehicles and for other electronic components we usually have no problem.
What we can do is if there is something that we don't have in our stock, you can go to these technology traders and this technology traders take care about that. If our purchasing department is not able to, to bring it, you pay maybe a little bit more money. But with these small numbers it really doesn't matter. At the moment we see no obstacles that there is that, for example, China can stop us. On the microprocessors we have different sources. We have 10 different sources. And I think that we have a very professional sourcing system on our purchasing now. Purchasing director is doing a great job in this area, so that we are on the safe side.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Then the next question comes from Afonso Osorio from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hello.
Thank you for taking my questions. Just coming back to the long term margin ambition you just mentioned. So you. You quoted 20% again on the defense side. I just want to double check this. So does that mean that you expect to keep the margin on the ammunition side above 25% in the long term, or do you expect that to see that normalizing down the line and then maybe on. On the business mix as well? You can see you will split Electronics Solutions division into two new ones from next year. Can you perhaps tell us the growth profile and margin differential between the Air defense division and the digital division going forward, please, as well? Thank you.
Yeah. So on the. On the ammunition side, I believe that we can stay on this 25 to 30% of our vertical integration. We discussed that several times. And the point is that I have different companies. One company is producing, let me say, the raw material. The other company is producing the powder. And this is the same what our competitors are doing. But they do not have everything in their own hands. And we have everything in our own hands. And so therefore this is the reason that the margin or high diminution by themselves has a margin like you have, you have, let me say, after the rules and regulation of the government. But profit on profit is an opportunity. Is the opportunity that we can make it. Will it stay in this area? Yes, we will stay on that area.
Because now with automation, we still reduce the personal costs on that. So that we are. That we are able to stay in that area even if over the next years. And that is what we are doing at the moment. For the huge contract for Germany, we will give discount. And also with that discount, we are able to stay on a very profitable way, air defense. On the air defense side, if you see air defence and digitization, Air defense will be faster, has faster, a higher profitability than the digitization. Because the. Sorry, the investment on the digitization at the beginning is high, but later, then the digitization will be on the same level or higher than air defense. But on air defence I expect also up to 20% EBIT. And on the digitization, not tomorrow, but for the day after tomorrow, I expect the same that.
Okay, Alfonso, thank you very much.
Thank you.
So it seems there are no further questions at this time. So I would like to turn the conference back over to Amin Papega for any closing remarks.
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Like always, it's a pleasure to discuss with you about the things. I'm very happy to see nearly every everybody from your side on our capital markets day in unterluss. Very happy to show you live but also in presentations what we are able to do. Take care, stay healthy, all the best. Bye bye.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over and you may disconnect. Thank you for joining and have a pleasant day. Goodbye.