Good morning, everyone. This is J acques Esser from the Investor Relations Department of TKMS. Also, on behalf of the entire Investor Relations team, I wish you a very warm welcome to our full-year earnings presentation for our fiscal year 2024-25. With me in the room are Oliver Burkhard , our CEO, and Paul Glaser, our CFO, and we appreciate you joining us today to our first reporting event as an independent company as of October 20. With regard to that, please note that since we were only listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange after the end of our fiscal year 24-25, and therefore TKMS was not required to report updated figures as of September 30. Nevertheless, we want to always provide you with an up-to-date development of TKMS and have therefore decided to publish a voluntary condensed annual report today.
Our CEO, Oliver Burkhard, will start with an overview of this year's key highlights and recent developments shaping our market. Then, our CFO, Paul Glaser, will walk you through the detailed financial results and share our outlook for the year ahead, and together we will give you a clear picture of where TKMS stands today and how TKMS is positioned for sustained profitable growth. Finally, and before I hand over, please allow me some housekeeping remarks. All the documents from today's earnings release and for this conference call are available on our Investor Relations website. After the presentation, we will open the floor for questions. When asking a question, please state your name and institution so everyone in the room and on the webcast can follow, and to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to participate, please limit yourself to two questions at the beginning.
Now, I would like to hand over to our CEO, Oliver.
Thank you, J ack , and greetings and good morning from Kieler Förde. Actually with shining sun today. That is not always the case. But maybe it fits to what we have here. Because if I have to sum up, let's say this year and the key highlights, I would say you can see the strong performance and the strategic progress all across our business areas. It's been really a truly eventful year marked by great order intake, the start of fully ramping up our shipyard in Wismar. And finally, of course, as you know, the spin-off from TKAG, as Chuck mentioned, on the 20th of October. So in addition, if that would not be enough, we have been accepted to the MDAX, with the MDAX being Germany's second-largest stock index.
Joining it means that within the same quarter of our listing, we have already positioned ourselves among the country's major publicly listed companies, let's say the very first entry. This reflects the strong progress we have made and the growing confidence of the capital market and the path we are on. I hope so. We'll hear that later, of course. And it encourages us to keep executing our strategy with focus and ambition. A big thank you to our colleagues because that's their success, all now 9,000 of them. From a capital market perspective, TKMS will be more visible and investors who are restricted to DAX or MDAX companies can now include us in their portfolios. This will support higher liquidity and greater stability for our share. This gives us all a strong momentum as we look ahead.
And maybe, of course, for you, it's interesting to see how we see the German market, especially because this is our key customer. And just looking to Germany, you see the German defense spending continues to rise, reinforcing structural demand for naval capabilities. The defense landscape in Germany continues to evolve quickly with significant increases in spending and modernization. As the fiscal year is just approved by the parliament, it's not too long ago, you see concrete shape through parliamentary budget approvals everywhere. Just 10 days ago, it was in the past, the German government announced that total defense spending across the federal budget and the special fund, and it will rise from EUR 86 billion in 2025 to EUR 108 billion in 2026. I think this expansion underscores Germany's clear commitment to strengthening its defense readiness and fulfilling its NATO obligations.
Those recent developments include the expansion of the naval modernization program and the announcement, and this was special, of a EUR 7.8 billion allocation for a potential F126 alternative platform, which will be provided by us. As you know, the debate is still ongoing. We also see a consolidation opportunity, but I really clearly focus that it's not a must. It's an opportunity for us that maybe the consolidation with German Naval Yards Kiel, which is just our neighbor here on the ship side. For those who have been visiting us, you know that it's really close together here. We will try to find out and figure out in a fast way whether that is interesting for us or not. But I can assure you, this is nothing where we're doing just by accident.
We do this by purpose because for our recent order book, we have enough capacities. It would be an idea, maybe a solution for further order intake. But we told you we want to be, and we are still oriented on a prudent margin-oriented growth. So we're not doubling this company. But this is an opportunity when it comes to consolidation. Again, it's not a must. So all the speculation in the media is not yet, let's say, based on facts, which we need to make a final decision whether we want to go or not for that. Let's look at the full-year performance. The fiscal year 2024-2025 marked another record year for TKMS, highlighting our ability to deliver sustained profitable growth. I will only give you a brief idea of that. Paul will provide you much later details then on.
The order backlog increased to EUR 18.2 billion, representing 55% year-on-year increase and securing, and you know that from our Capital Markets Day presentation, a very long-term revenue visibility. Revenue grew by 9% to EUR 2.2 billion, supported by strong execution across the segments, all segments, submarine, Surface Vessels, and Atlas Elektronik and software. Adjusted EBIT rose by 53% to EUR 131 million, resulting at 6.0% margin, driven by an improved project mix and disciplined execution under the new target operating model, which is not anymore a target because it's an operating model. Free cash flow reached EUR 784 million, reflecting both the company's strong underlying profitability and the positive effect of customer prepayments under our overfund project structure. Overall, these results highlight the successful progress of our transformation and demonstrate a robust financial foundation, positioning TKMS well for the next phase of growth.
If we look into operations, technology, and customers, just one slide for you to see what had happened there. First of all, on the operations side, we successfully completed sea trials for the first Tamandaré-class vessel in Brazil, an important achievement that demonstrates our execution strength and global reach, and that we can deal with a shipyard which we hand over without any people because this is the same what we're doing in Wismar, ramping it up at the moment. So this one is ramped up and shows evidence that it's working. We further made, talking about Wismar, we further made strong progress in the ramp-up of our Wismar shipyard, and we will dive a bit into it one slide later.
But also, I think important for you to know, we finally just delivered the second of six Type 214 submarines to Turkey on November 27, which is out of our fiscal year, but I think an important information you should know. In technology, we have made significant progress in advancing our innovation agenda to position ourselves well for the future of naval warfare and bring our innovations to the market. We give you just some key examples from the past fiscal year. First, to drive and harmonize our interdisciplinary technology efforts in our organization, we established our so-called Ocean X Innovation Hub. Further, we integrated TCCT, as you may remember, this is the AI Hub, AI Hub, not IA, AI Hub in Munich with a strong collaboration with the Munich University.
With this, we accelerate our efforts in predictive and prescriptive maintenance and deepen the software penetration across our offering. Second, should be also mentioned, successful sea trials of networked operations for anti-submarine warfare. During various tests, we managed to communicate under and above the water surface. This generated superior situational awareness, enabling more efficient anti-submarine warfare through distributed tracking of submarines across vessels and resulting in faster, so-called, as you know this term, meanwhile, sensor-to-shooter cycles. Third, we are also proud of that. We successfully validated the hull design of our autonomous semi-submersible MEKO. This is a bad word for German, MEKO S-X . This half-diver, we call it, building in the insights gained in this phase will now progress towards large-scale prototyping of the MEKO S-X . This project amplifies the effective integration of interdisciplinary expertise from our segments, Surface Vessels, submarines, and Atlas.
From this perspective, it was our strongest year to date with a record of intake of EUR 8.8 billion. Including the existing order backlog, this gives us nearly a decade of revenue visibility. This growth was primarily driven in the last fiscal year by the segment submarine, specifically contract extensions for our additional two 212CD submarines for Germany and two for our customer in Southeast Asia. These orders demonstrate the trust of our long-standing partners and the enduring appeal of our technology portfolio. We also see a strong demand for our fleet servicing modernization as navies work to extend and upgrade existing fleets, which is one of the drivers of growth given the longer lead times for new builds. Here, we closed a sale for the modernization of the German Navy's 212A submarine fleet.
In the segment Surface Vessels, we sold the new Polarstern , an icebreaking research vessel. Our pipeline remains strong with ongoing campaigns, of course. Very prominent in those days, the Canadian Patrol Submarine Program, CPSP. TKMS is competing against one other bidder. A decision is expected within this new current fiscal year 2025-2026, which is faster than expected in earlier terms. In India, P75I submarine project, TKMS is now the only remaining bidder and is active. We are really in very active negotiations with a customer in these days while we're talking, honestly. In Germany, F127 frigate program, too. This is still there, and I think you know TKMS is the only remaining bidder. We have a special purpose company together with NVL, which will be overtaken by Rheinmetall, but they have one third. We have 2/3 , so we are the general contractor if it comes to a contract.
Further, we are preparing to offer an F126 alternative. As you may know, public media already published it up to four years delay in the project, which could be coped and covered with our MEKO A-200, which will be ready within 37 months, which we have shown in the past. I'm sorry. Talking about ongoing campaigns, this is news outside of this last fiscal year, but I think important for you to know that the Norwegian Parliament has made the way clear and gave the approval for another additional two submarines coming out of the 212 Charlie Delta program, which is for us also a big sign of trust and sums up the number of 212CDs boats, which we have to produce with our current facilities to meanwhile then 12. Let's just have a short view on Wismar.
Wismar is, let's say, very important for us because this shipyard will cover all that additional demand, which we have seen over the last years and brings us in a situation that we have two shipyards where we can build submarines, but also in Wismar, we'll call it a hybrid location also for Surface Vessels. So I think what you should have now, what we should have take away here is we have now the full responsibility because the so-called, no, it's not so-called, it's the name of it, the Disney Adventure, but it was an adventure, so so-called for Disney has left the shipyard. So we are fully responsible. We have there placed orders for long-term items, inclusive the pressure hull production line, which is built at the moment and will be finished in 2026.
So everything on green there, we start production in the next calendar year, 2026, starting with submarines, some current orders, and then enlarging it to, for example, the Polarstern, which is then to come. So that's more or less my part. And of course, I'm pretty sure you're curious about the financial figures and the deeper dive there. And therefore, I would hand over to Paul. Please, Paul.
Thank you very much, Oliver. And also very warm welcome from my side to our call here. Yeah, I'm going to give you a short update with regards to our figures for 2024-2025 and also outline our outlook for the running fiscal year 2025-2026. But before we deep dive into the numbers, I think this year we really delivered solid execution across all our business segments. And we very shortly stated a very strong financial discipline and also project execution discipline.
I think that TKMS is very well- positioned that we are going to continue our trajectory with regards to profitable growth and also to continuous margin improvement. And this is, and as we have shown, very strongly supported by our order backlog and also by the disciplined execution based on our new target operating model. So I said it before and I said it again. The transformation of TKMS over the past few years has been very exceptional. And this exceptional impact is shown here in our numbers and our financial performance. So let's look at those numbers. Speaking about order intake, we have increased order intake EUR 7.4 billion- EUR 8.8 billion. And this was mainly supported by major new contracts. Oliver mentioned before, and I'm really looking forward to also now then closing the deal for the two additional submarines for Norway this year.
The revenue rose by 9% to EUR 2.2 billion, and this really reflects our continuous order backlog conversion and very disciplined project execution within the last year. I'm going to speak about that in more detail. The revenue was driven by very strong performance in our segment submarines and Atlas Elektronik. This did offset a decline in the Surface Vessels unit, which results from a multi-year project reaching the end of the manufacturing cycle, and as we're accounting cost to cost, it's quite natural for us to see that decline. However, gross margin across the board improved by 8.1 percentage points, now reaching 17.6 percentage points. As I said, mainly strong execution across all segments here and also a higher share of the high margin projects in the submarine business and segment.
And we're going to speak about that in detail also as we have announced here in our Capital Markets Day, one of our key drivers reaching our midterm targets. With regards to the EBIT margin, also an increase here, a very solid 6% now we're looking at, not only driven by gross margin improvements, mainly and foremost, but also a very stable R&D cost development. So we could have a higher share from our customers here with regards to R&D funding and also the other higher other income that did help offset the SG&A cost. So now let's look into the submarine segments where the driver and the momentum has been particularly strong. With regards to order intake, I think order intake is crucial to see here, EUR 7.1 billion year- on-y ear. It's a very, very strong order increase that we saw.
It's supported mainly by four submarines for Germany and a new contract for a Southeast Asian customer. I'm not able to disclose, but I think most of you already know which country I'm talking about, but also service activities. I think that's very important to state here, especially for the German submarine fleet have contributed to that order intake. We saw a decrease in Q4 due to negative levels, but this is just due to an adaptation of the order book by globally lowering costs. The price indexing clauses, we are a little bit more conservative here and have that effect. Given a short remark, I think that a project is really driven by project milestones in revenue and profitability. This can also fluctuate from quarter to quarter. I do know and I do see that you're making this comparison.
I do understand also why. However, in a large scale and long cycle project business, quarter- to- quarter comparisons sometimes are not meaningful, so therefore, the trend within the fiscal year is something that I focus much more on, and when we speak about the trend, you can clearly see in revenue that we have first time exceeded EUR 1.1 billion in sales in the submarine segment, which is really fantastic. It's great to see that trajectory and with the job the team is doing there, and it's also that we can see the same momentum with nearly doubling our gross margin, and this is precisely what I said during the Capital Markets Day. Step by step, phasing out legacy orders like delivering the Turkish submarine in November and also increasing the output of our higher attractive new margin business is what you're going to see.
And this is what truly is reflected here within our fiscal year end results. Speaking about order backlog again, now within this order backlog, 26 submarines are booked across six navies. Which is really great. And this segment, as you know, it has multi-year revenue visibility. It has a very solid foundation for the continued growth path with regards to our margin. So it's truly important for us that we keep up that momentum here now and do that conversion successfully as we did it in the last year. Now shifting to the Surface Vessels division. Surface vessels also had a very solid financial performance. And you're going to see that especially in the very stable relative gross margin levels that we are seeing here. The order intake, however, was mainly driven by one program, which is the icebreaking research vessel new Polarstern .
This really highlights our technical capability and specialized shipbuilding capabilities as a system house. It's also a capability that we could utilize for future naval requirements, especially in the military domain. Speaking about revenue, I said it before. We yes do see a decline here, amounting approximately EUR 500 million in total, decline of 12% compared to previous year. This is especially we are now in a late stage and late cycle of the order book of that segment. As we have been very consistent in our strategy of prioritizing high margin orders, we have not booked as much as in the past. These multi-year projects are now in the end of their production cycle. So we already have delivered to the Egyptian Navy three MEKO A-200 frigates.
We are in the middle of constructing now the third and fourth vessel for the Brazilian Navy and still need some time in order to ramp up the sales for the new Polarstern program. The gross margin has been very stable, around 17%, which is due to the resilience of the segment's business model due to that fluctuations and has a very, very strong operational discipline within the last years, and even in Q4, we see a smaller increase now to 18.4% as we have been very successful with regards to warranty claim management, which is of essence in our business, as we have stated for our target operating model, so now let's have a closer look Atlas Elektronik because it truly has developed into a growth engine with regards to sales and order book.
We really see Atlas Elektronik a very, very consistent and very, very strong performance throughout the last 12 months and also with regards to the next fiscal year. Our order intake, although it had decreased by EUR 200 million, is a very high level. This has been due to a shift between the fiscal years and new builds into 2024-2025 to 2025-2026. Nothing to worry about here. But the key orders that we have booked last year with ATLAS is, of course, the modernization of the German submarines, the 212A, but also three ACTAS systems for the Danish Navy to mention here. More than 40 navies have continuously demanded products and services Atlas Elektronik, whether it's in the sonar area, whether it's effectors like naval weapons or integrated command and control solutions.
We very much see a strong demand with regards to the product portfolio of ATLAS. Revenue increased by roughly 20%, 19% that you can see here on the chart, EUR 700 million, also first-time record high for ATLAS as a segment. This is fueled by a very strong project pipeline, a very successful execution, and of course is supported by the business lines and services of ATLAS, but also submarine systems and vessel systems. Gross margin remained at a high level, but decreased slightly by 1.7 percentage points to 22.6%. This is resulting from an increased standardization of systems components and related to cost efficiencies and a growing business. In Q4, the gross margin experienced a drop to 19.6%, triggered by lagging performance in the naval weapons orders that's going to be resolved within the next quarters.
Atlas Elektronik is going to continue to combine very strong growth and very high margins and has a true technological leadership, which makes it a key driver for the profitability of TKMS. So having now covered all our three segments, we now can put their contributions into perspective. What you can see here in our gross margin bridge, and yes, this will be the last time we speak about gross margin bridges, I assure you that having EBIT then in Q1, what you really see here, what we have said in the Capital Markets Day, plus EUR 66 million from the submarine segment is the majority where the profitability boost comes from. As I said, Surface Vessels now in decline. However, new Polarstern is going to ramp up.
So also on the good side here Atlas Elektronik also adding to that domain then offsetting the minus 11 from the Surface Vessels domain. So I really think that our overall balance and strength in the TKMS portfolio demonstrates that each and every segment is contributing to that sustained margin expansion that we have communicated. And it gives a very strong quality with regards to predictable earnings. Now speaking about liquidity, cash, and CapEx, this is, and I really love that chart and every time I see it, it's really a very high cash generation business. And we have maintained a very strong balance sheet here. You see that we are running our business model now with a net working capital that has further improved now to - EUR 1.3 billion. So this really reflects our unique selling propositions towards the customers.
Of course, it is linked to advanced payments that have substantially been made with our new orders in the segment submarines and Surface Vessels. However, it's also structurally funds our operations and also reduces a minimum reliance on external financing, which is very great. Speaking about CapEx, CapEx is and will be driven, and you see that mainly by our investments into the Wismar sites and also the modernization of our production facility last year, looking at EUR 164 million, roughly 7.5% of revenue, and our financial position remains very, very strong. We remain a very high liquidity. We carry almost no debt apart from certain lease and pension obligations, as you know, and otherwise, our business is entirely equity financed and fully meets our operational needs.
Our negative net working capital, our very strongly focused growth-oriented CapEx and debt-free capital structure combine both worlds, growth and growth earnings, and also an excellent foundation for highly cash-generative operations. Now looking into our free cash flow development, also a significant and strong cash generation that was driven by our order inflows, but also about the operational discipline, realizing the milestones and project processes as needed as we are overfunded over the entire program life cycles. We can see here with regards to last fiscal year, roughly EUR 784 million. That's up EUR 355 million with regards to previous year. And the underlying operating cash flow of EUR 948 million, of course, was driven by the mentioned advance payments. And of course, the increase in our net income.
This and cash flow, and it really shows that we have delivered consistent progress with over the last financial years and that we also are very committed to carrying that momentum into the next fiscal year. So before I guide you through our short-term guidance, but also midterm guidance, let me add something here. And Jack, I think, mentioned it in his part. So today, for the very first time, we are including a short-term guidance. If we come to the next page, please. Yeah, thank you. Short-term guidance and our financial outlook. And this, of course, is also still on a voluntary basis. As I said, we are going to shift the segment reporting to EBIT by Q1. So this will also be the trigger where we further refine our financial outlook.
We fully reaffirm our strategic midterm targets that we have communicated to you during our Capital Markets Day, the end of this September. We remain our target for midterm sales of a CAGR of 10%. Of course, fully accounting here for our back-end growth acceleration, again, mainly coming from the investments needed into Wismar, ramping up submarine production, especially on that shipyard. We also fully confirm our target with regards to our adjusted EBIT margin of more than 7%. It's based on the same drivers that I brought forward during the CMD. We also confirm our targets for the additional financials of roughly EUR 200 million CapEx for next fiscal year. With our midterm target remaining a gradual decline to a CapEx spend of 4%, that is then on the outer range of our depreciation levels that we do see midterm.
We also, and lastly, will also confirm a dividend payout ratio of 30%-50% of consolidated net income attributed to TKMS shareholders, which we will start paying for the fiscal year 2025-2026, payable in 2027, and of course, is subject to earnings and free cash flow. Now let's focus on that voluntary guidance that we're giving for 2025-2026. We do expect a moderate growth within our revenue up to 2% and our EBIT margin within the range of EUR 100 million-EUR 150 million. Let me emphasize this again, a further increase of our relative EBIT margin linking us into the more richer area or more the upper area of our guidance that we're giving. Again, and most likely get this into Q&A, we are a project-based business, so there are certain effective date of contracts and it always depends on when they happen throughout the year.
I think we're going to have much more clarity within the next months. The good news about Norway is that we are going to see that very, very, very short term. This guidance considers a project-based profile, as I said, and a business along with a deliberate and very prudent planning approach that we have. Looking at our short-term guidance as of today, we expect to deliver results in the upper half of that range and further improvement in the EBIT margin. We expect to continue progress towards the midterm targets, which we hereby again reaffirm. I'm going to conclude my very short and crisp presentation here so that we now have time for your questions. Jack, back to you.
Yeah, and with that, let's start. We are ready for your questions.
As I mentioned before, when asking a question, please state your name and institution so everyone can follow. And please limit yourself to two questions initially. And the first question comes from John. Please unmute yourself, John.
Hello, hi. This is John from Morgan Stanley Investment Management. My first question is with regards to the Turkish submarines, which you mentioned that were delivered. Do you mind confirming how many submarines were delivered when that took place and how many remain in your backlog relating to the Turkish order? And my secondly, on the potential new business coming from India, kind of what's holding up the discussions there and what stance are they taking around pricing? And are there any kind of localization requirements tied to that potential order? That's all for me.
Thank you, John. Oliver speaking. I'll try to answer it very crisp. We have two submarines delivered and still four to go in Turkey. So two out of six. India, well, honestly, as we all know, there are sometimes long debates in India before it comes to final solutions, but I think we have really walked a long way now, but there's nothing holding us up at the moment. We do have already the negotiations with MDL more or less finalized, and now MDL, which is the general contractor, has to approve that budget with the government, and this is an ongoing process. But from my point of view, I think it's important to know that the fiscal year in India ends by the end of March. So I think there should be progress within the next year.
And again, where we're coming from, almost 20 years of debate, I think only once finishing the commercial negotiations and now being, let's say, a supplier for that big program, which also has, like any other program in the world, of course, demands of localization. But as you may have recognized, we have made a lot of MoUs with Indian companies over the last, let's say, years where we see a big progress for them and us. And I think it perfectly fits into the Make in India strategy, which is announced by the government in former times and still ongoing. So we are very optimistic. We are the last ones. It's not a competition like in Canada because the competition is already over.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
The next question comes from Adrien. Adrien, please unmute yourself.
Good morning. This is Adrien from Bernstein. Morning, Oliver, Paul, Jack.
I guess congratulations on your first publication. Two questions on your margins, please. First one, in the short term, you sound quite clear that you're going to have expansion in fiscal year 2026. Could you give us more details on what exactly you expect to drive this expansion? And then as a follow-up, given what you've achieved in fiscal year 2025 and your medium-term target, is there any reason to expect a slowdown of your margin expansion, or would you say that the target is looking maybe achievable earlier than expected?
Okay, Paul, do you want to? Yeah, sure. It's all about margins.
All about margins. What a surprise. No, thank you very much, Adrian, for your questions here. I'm going to start with your question with regards to short-term margin and what's going to drive that.
The main driver with regards to margin expansion will be our submarine business, and there's the conversion of the higher new margin orders into sales and then our revenue and then into margin. So precisely that what you have seen here in the previous fiscal year is going to continue. And second, Atlas Elektronik with a strong tailwind here, especially in the naval weapons domain. So this is something that we can observe across the board. In the past, there was not so much utilization with regards to torpedoes, and this is something that's going to pick up and it's going to drive Atlas Elektronik sales and also margin business. With regards to medium term, I do see us very well positioned to be here perfectly on track. We have seen a very strong momentum coming from the lower levels now to 6%.
As I pointed out, we see us with a further increase in margin within the next 12 months to go, or now it's only close to nine months to go. But this is going to sustain here. Whether it's going to be accelerated, it always depends on, and I think that's maybe some education for all of you on the call. It's not only about the customers awarding us contracts. As you can read in the press, you have to finalize negotiations. You need to make them effective. And this sometimes can worry once we are awarded when we can put them into our books and when sales are going to ramp up. So those are always, as I said, the project intrinsic project cycles that we have to bear in mind as we are a project-based company.
Thank you very much.
If you have a question, please raise your hand, and I have a look. There is one more question coming from Olfa. Olfa, please unmute yourself.
Hello, everybody, so I may have two questions. First of all, if you can give more color by division with regards to the guidance for 26, and my second question is around the top-line growth profile. For 2026, you are expecting something more or less stable, so when looking into the midterm guidance, it's around increasing about 10%, wondering how we should think about the growth profile. Should we expect more back-loaded growth profile for the midterm? Thank you.
Yeah, I'm going to start with the second question, if that's okay, with regards to the top-line momentum, so yes, as stated, with regards to our midterm targets, we have a back-end loaded profile. This is mainly coming from our Wismar ramp-up.
So in the next three years, we will have Wismar fully up and operational. In 2026, we are already starting the first stages of submarine production there, and this is going to gradually increase over the next three years. And it also depends when certain contracts where we are the sole bidders, so take India, for example, or F126, when they are awarded and how the sales curve is going to develop. I'm not going to fully rule out that we have a steeper sales development. However, what we're currently seeing with the needed design implications on certain programs, this is normally not high-cost levels that we see.
The real movement in revenue you always get when you have a lot of costs, and a lot of costs normally occur in the stage when you are starting welding, so steel activities, when you're outfitting with a lot of pipes, a lot of electronic components, when you're putting in motors. This is when we see an incline in the steepness of our sales curves, and this is what we can observe within the next two to three years. So this is what we mean with a back-end loaded profile. With regards to your question where we can give some more color by division into our guidance for the running fiscal year, we are going to publish our EBIT margins on segment level by our Q1 release. However, for the time being, at least in this fiscal year, it's not foreseen that we're giving segment-specific guidances. Good.
Then have a look. If you have more questions, please raise your hand. And the next question comes from Sriram. Sriram, please unmute yourself.
Can you hear me now? Yes, we can hear you. All right. Okay. Thank you for the opportunity, Sriram, from Deutsche Bank. A couple of questions from my end, please. So one, Atlas Elektronik, you did mention about the growth or the profitability improvement coming from Naval Weapons. But you also mentioned during the FY results that there was one contract which was an issue probably which dragged the margins at Atlas, probably, or maybe I misunderstood it. Maybe if you can give a bit more color around that Naval Weapons and what it does to the margin. That would be my first question. Second is with regards to the German Naval Yards, obviously.
I'm just wondering if you can give us a bit more color around this entire deal which is being considered, as you mentioned, that this is not probably your primary plan in which ways, and it came along your way, but can you give us a bit more color around what does it actually bring to you, and is it a loss-making? How big is this firm now? Anything would be pretty helpful from both from a financial and a strategic point of view, please. Thank you. Okay.
Maybe Paul, you start.
Yeah, I'll go with. And thank you very much for the question with regards to naval weapons. Basically, when you look into the naval weapons business of Atlas Elektronik, I would say last three to four years, there was nearly no or very, very reduced activity. Yeah.
So the area made losses, and we had a lot of restructuring going on there. And within this time, there were certain contracts that we had and wanted to book in order to sustain the technological capability of torpedo making, let's put it this way. Very simple. Naval weapons are torpedoes. Now, this has changed, and this gives the combination to the second part of the question. So how does this match that you have a Q4 deterioration? Yes, this comes from a very old contract that we had to book in the past, yeah, where we do not make a lot of profit. And this is going to, as the same with the submarines, going to wash out over time, so gradually declining sales portion with regards to that.
We're seeing a huge demand and also very successful and fruitful negotiations across the globe with a lot of customers. That is more than tripling the amount of torpedoes that we have produced in the last years. Therefore, utilization going to go up. Fixed cost degression is going to take place in that very specific area. This area was and still is the lowest margin area of Atlas Elektronik. Therefore, the lever that we're going to pull and the operational leverage effect out of that is going to be the main driver with regards to Atlas Elektronik profitability.
Maybe Sriram, I take the question regarding Naval Yards here, our, let's say, closest neighbor we have just on our facility. First of all, let me state that clearly and give you maybe a glimpse of how it is going.
Our existing capacities suffice to fulfill the current order backlog, so especially, and this was the case when we decided to acquire Wismar, though there's no need to have more facilities immediately because we cannot fulfill our order backlog. That's important because we can. Beyond that, I think, and you know that we stated that also in the Capital Markets Day, we are very cautious when it comes to invest in bricks and stones. I think this was a sentence Paul always mentioned, and he's absolutely right. This is our opinion, so we are not a growth, a super growth case, let's say. I mean, looking at the figures this year, it looks quite growthy, but we are not a super growth case. We want to have a prudent, margin-oriented growth and we want to avoid the typical trap of the shipbuilding industry, orders exceeding capacity or worse, vice versa.
This is not what we're aiming for. In this context, I think we have to understand that especially the owners of German Naval Yards Kiel, this was a very sensitive moment over the last months because the sons have taken over what father has left on his legacy. Honestly, they were not clear whether they want to keep it or they want to sell it. We started some loose talks in this context, and we have initiated those discussions with our neighbors here. We're not talking about an additional shipyard because for those who have been here when the capital market day was run on the first day, you have seen that we're very close and that we already use some of their facilities. We rent them from them because they do not have orders as we have in the past.
Honestly, they were suffering over the last years quite a lot. I don't know the exact figures, and this is nothing where we can have a debate on today. For us, it's important if we receive more orders than planned. This is what we stated. Partnerships and other shipyards that build submarines or ships based on our designs will be considered. It's more about talking about consolidation than expanding. You have to understand that we still believe that TKMS can be a consolidation not only for Germany, but also for Europe. What comes closer to speak to your closest neighbor first to go after such a strategy. Beyond this, we do not comment potentially additional capacity or any financial implications at that stage. We want to find out very fast whether it's worth following those debates or not, those discussions.
Of course, we will get a full picture. Of course, we will make our decision whether it's economically reliable or not. And we're not just taking over and don't know what to do afterwards with it. This is not how we work here. And as you may have known us so far, I think that's hopefully clear also for you. Thank you for the question.
Good. All right. The next question comes from Thomas. And Thomas, please unmute yourself.
Yeah. Can you hear me? Yes. Now we can hear you. Okay. Perfect. So my question is regarding the CPSP because as you are well aware, Canada lately signed up the flagship EU Defense Credit Fund. And so I was wondering whether your level of confidence in the CPSP has increased.
My second question relating to this is what kind of additional capacity will be required for this type of order intake? Thank you very much.
Thank you, Thomas, for your question. Yes, I really love to see that Canada joined this European initiative. Does it make me more confident? There are also several initiatives somewhere else in the world where Canada joined. I cannot say this makes it more clear for me. What we're doing is, yes, we are really in a heavy competition there. For us, I think we are well positioned with that 212CD class. Germany and Norway invited Canada to join this cooperation. The main competitor comes from South Korea. Canada is a country between two oceans. It's also a Pacific as well as an Atlantic nation.
But I think we have caught up within the last months because we can really show the full power not only of the German, Norwegian, let's say, business and their economic power. We can also add a European initiative on that. And well, we will see the Canadians are speeding up like hell, honestly. They really force us to be very present there and give a lot of input into it. It's, I think, from my point of view, already far beyond the submarines. You know what they're stating. They're saying submarine building is nation building. They want to see an economic benefit, which maybe has never been seen before when it comes to this big amount they want to spend, of course. And we do our almost best aligned, by the way, with the federal government in Germany, with all ministries which have to be involved.
There is no visit from a German politician or Norwegian politician which will not affect this topic when they come to Canada or vice versa. And I think we're in a competition there. And honestly, we love competition. We will see what to get the best output out of that. But I'm still confident. And yes, you're right, Thomas. Such small steps towards Europe may help to get a better alignment also with us as a German company.
Yeah. Now, the next question comes from John. John again.
Hello. Hello. Hi. This is just a follow-up and mainly relating to Wismar. You mentioned that you expect to begin production in 2026. Do you mind giving us a bit more color as to when in 2026 you'll start producing at that facility?
With regards to that, has your team had time to familiarize themselves with Wismar, or do you believe that there needs to be a period under which they familiarize themselves with the production process there just to avoid any kind of scenarios going forward?
Yeah. Thank you, John, for the question again. Maybe let me start with the last one is a more emotional one. I can tell you all these guys here, whether on the north or the east coast of Germany, they're all Nordic by nature. So when it comes to familiarization, I would say that they have all the same mindset. And there's no, and I mean, we're a growth case. So they are not, let's say, in fear that somebody catch their job from Kiel and put it to Wismar. We put additional jobs to Wismar and remaining with them here in Kiel.
So no one has, let's say, bad vibes on that. And what we see so far, you know, the distance is roughly 110 km. It depends on how you're driving. But in one and a half hour, very easy reachable. And we will have transfer of knowledge from Kiel to Wismar, which will help these guys as well. But we will also have, maybe this helps you, the one who was leading our shipyard in Brazil and has just done the same job. His name is Holger in Brazil because we bought an empty shipyard and then we ramped it up. And now we're showing the evidence and you see the sea trials were successful. This guy will come over to Wismar and we'll just do the same job as he did in Brazil.
So I'm also, from my point of view, we are on the more safe side when it comes to is this ramp-up possibly not successful? I would say yes, it will be successful. And it has to be, of course, because this is our ship, let's say, for growth. Just for the timeline for you, start of production in Wismar, as we said, is scheduled for 2026. It's focusing on submarines, followed by the start of construction of the new Polarstern , the Neue Polarstern, in 2027. And we expect to be fully operational as a, we call it Zebra or hybrid facility around 2028.
And maybe Paul has said it, this also on the Capital Markets Day, but I think it's always good to understand that the capital expenditure for the site is already covered and pre-financed by the German government because when they made the decision close to December 2024 to buy additional four submarines, you know, the pattern is always the same. They have more budget, but they want to have it in a shorter time or even this double amount in the same time. And this is why they also co-financed this CapEx there for us, very important.
Maybe you have seen that note also in that Norwegian declaration they made after the approval of the parliament that also the Norwegians will benefit. It will be beneficial, let's say, for us when it comes to investments in Wismar because we will also produce those submarines, whether in Wismar or Kiel is not yet decided because it's a second batch, but it will be a decision there. Both, let's say, shipyards will be involved in that. I think a good one, a lucky one, maybe when we bought this in May 2022, it was not so easy to convince people, but now I think everybody is convinced.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you very much. I think all questions are answered for this time. We have to come to the end.
With that, thanks again to everyone outside for being interested and for joining our first conference call today. If there are questions left, the entire investor relations team is available, and we look forward to staying in touch with you. With that, I would like to conclude our call for today. Thank you very much, and bye-bye.