The Executive Board will present TPG's five-year vision until 2030 and inform us on current M&A topics. Please note that in today's call, we will only provide the chats to take your questions after the presentation. With this, Dr. Benner, the stage is yours.
Yeah, thank you, Judith. Thank you for the introduction, and also a warm welcome to the audience from my side. Today we present our vision 2030, and this is quite an important part of our corporate strategy because we have a very strong growth plan for our group. Let's just reflect with the current position here. Nathalie and me will present today, and we will go through the next and following slides on this presentation. Here you can see the overview of our group. As you can see here, we had a pretty good and very successful development over the last years. We are almost for two and a half years at the stock exchange, and all our guidance we always delivered and all our outlooks for revenue, for profit, and so on, they were, I think, quite reliable.
As you can see here, we also had a good increase in our EPS ratio, and we also can increase our margins. The margins is a very important point today because we will outline how we will increase it, and we will show you how we can achieve higher margin levels in the next years. The background of our company, as you know, is very old. One of my ancestors started the business in 1882 with a brick-and-mortar store. In 2012, we changed the company completely towards e-commerce and platform strategy. This change was quite successful. Now, for 14 years, we run this business, and today we have the e-commerce activities for almost 16,000 partners. We do it because we now have almost 7 million customers in 28 different industries.
The key features is really that we are an asset-light model, so we do not have huge inventory. We can really scale it up with our software, and I think we have a pretty good process excellence established in our company. Nathalie, when we look at the stock, what can you say here?
Yeah, we are a scale-listed company in Frankfurt. That's the growth segment. We get into scale via a reverse IPO. That means that you can see in the chart, since 2023, we are a scale-listed company, and we started to entry fashionette in the year end of 2022. You see here we have a very good development since that, and we have six houses which cover us. You can see the research reports on our investor relations webpage, and you can trade us via Xetra, TradeGate, and Gettex. We have a market cap in average from EUR 200 million. Very interesting why we show you that what we see since the last year, since September 2024, we have a very good development in international trading that you can see in the chart. We have more than 50% more international trading.
On the other side, what you see, and I think that's very important for a scale-listed company, our liquidity continues to strengthen. That means we have now four times more trading volume per month than a year ago. In August, you see that the trading volume was a little bit higher. That was because we have news float with our figures and other topics. Yes, and we engage actually so much with international investors, and I will think our strategy rise in the international market perception will we see in the next years in the trading activities. Yeah, I hand over to Dominik.
All right, so let's start with our vision 2030. Here you can see the cornerstones of our development. We changed our strategy in 2012 with a digital transformation. This was quite successful. In 2025, currently, we run 37 platforms, and we have a huge customer base. With our platform and our software, we can enter new industries in a very simple way. When we decide to enter a new industry, we only need four months, sometimes five months. It is pretty fast, and we can expand there. Now we come to our vision 2030 because it is very important that you understand what kind of business we build here and what is our growth strategy. We plan for the next five years a total revenue of EUR 3 billion.
The most important thing is that we just do not want to grow because we want to grow. No, we also want to increase our margins. Right now we are around 8%, and we will really increase that with a lot of different measures. It is not coming by itself, so we really have to work on that. We are very optimistic to achieve that, and we will make double-digit margins in the next two years. We will achieve it. This is also possible in 2028, not in 2030. We will also increase it before. Additionally, we will also mention the leverage. I will come to that later, that we want to decrease our leverage factor. As you can see here, the basis of our growth is the number of partners.
If we have more partners, we have much more customer base when we have more products, and this is quite important for us. All right, how can we do that? I will show you that. Right now, in the last years, when you see that we have a CAGR of 30% each year, we expect more or less the same level for the next years. There will be not such a big difference here. We are quite optimistic that we achieve also in the next year our growth rate. As you can see here, when we started in 2022 with the stock listing, we had EUR 330 million revenues. Next year, we will achieve EUR 1 billion. The difference to the EUR 3 billion is just a continuous track with our CAGR rate. How does it come with the increased revenue?
We have three very important factors. One, it is scale. When we talk about getting new retailers, new partners, this is the most important thing of our growth rate. When we want to grow, we have to get more partners and more industries. This is the most important one. Coming with more partners, we will get more products. We will also increase our B2B share. I will show you that. This is the most important point. We expect EUR 900 million revenue additionally from this segment. When we look on synergies, we will enter new industries, and we will also enter the U.S. market next year. On the right side, you see also that M&A will also continue to be a relevant part of our company. This will bring additionally EUR 800 million in the next years.
Let's start with the first point, growth of partners. As you know, we work for retailers and for manufacturers. Right now, we have around 16,000 partners, and we will increase this number every year. In the last years, we had always a CAGR of around 15%-20%, and we will definitely continue with that track. Here you can see that with the CAGR, we expect another increase of 19% per year. We will achieve, we want to achieve 40,000 partners until 2030. Very important, and this is directly related to that, we will increase our products by more than 220% because every partner brings us new products and new categories. This is quite important for us to achieve this growth rate in an organic way. Next thing is the B2B share.
Right now, we are with 62% in the half year, in the nine-month figures. We are very much focused on consumer goods. This is B2C business. In future, we will focus much, much more on B2B. Here you can see our prediction for 2030 that we will almost achieve 60% revenue from them. All the other segments, like industrial goods, freight goods, and especially B2B, they will come to up to 60% from currently 38%. This is really important to understand that our growth rate is on all segments. All segments are growing, but we really want to add much more B2B customers and clients here, and they will bring us additional revenue and profit. Also important, right now we cover 28 industries. For 2030, we plan to expand it to 50 industries.
Each year we have to get more industries that we can run our software there and ramp up our platform there. Very important, and we also announced it at our Capital Markets Day. We will enter the U.S. market because it will be one of our core markets. We have a very specific plan now that we will enter it next year. We make it with a low-risk strategy because entering a market is always a difficult project. It is not free of risk, so we always have to manage it that we have to take a low-risk strategy. We have multiple small steps to enter this market. Now we have a very clear strategy. Our strategy is that we start with our own platforms there and start with delivering goods from Europe.
The next step is also next year that we will acquire two companies there focusing on e-commerce and platform. With these companies, we start connecting retailers and partners there. With this strategy, we can really do this expansion with a very low-risk profile. We really try to avoid any kind of cash burning because we do not want to burn any cash with such an expansion. Next thing is about our track record. We will also continue our track record with M&A. In the last five years, we had 35 acquisitions. On average, we had 3-11 acquisitions per year. When you see here, our return on capital employed was always above 20%. This is quite a good number when you compare it with our own loan costs, interest costs.
Very important is also to mention that we increased the EBITDA margin of our acquired targets by more than 42%. I think this is a very good track record. Not every acquisition is perfect. Not every acquisition is an easy case. Overall, we can be quite happy about our development here, and we will continue with that. Next point, and this is even more important than revenue, it is about our profit. To increase our profit and to get higher margins, we have several measures which we will do and which we will execute now. First one here, you can see our margin development. In 2023, we had 5% EBITDA margin. We improved it now to 7.5% as our estimation for this year. Maybe we will achieve a little bit higher. We will directly continue this track to achieve double-digit margins in the next years.
As I mentioned in the introduction, we will also achieve it not in 2030. We will achieve it before. We can also evaluate that in 2028. It is a realistic goal to already achieve double-digit margins with above 10%. Here we have our internal planning, and we are quite optimistic that we can already achieve it there. When you see on our portfolio list, and this is also a very clear thing to mention, we acquired a lot of companies here. We bought big companies, we bought medium companies, and small companies. We decided to focus much more on relevant subsidiaries. That means we think that very small companies with a very low contribution to our revenue, we will sell them. We think that they are not much more in our focus anymore. Right now, we think that there are three subsidiaries, very small ones.
They only have 0.2% of our revenue. They are okay, but they are not big enough for us in the future. They cost us too much management attention. We really have a clear portfolio focus to have much more discipline on that and to strengthen our portfolio and to say, okay, we focus much more on bigger companies instead of small companies where we do not know how long it takes to get them bigger. Next point is the AI first program. To be honest, two years ago, if you would have asked me how much is AI important for our company, I would say, well, we can use it maybe for some things, but it is not so relevant. We completely changed our mind there in the last 12 months. We took all our executives to Silicon Valley, to Palo Alto.
We really had great workshops and deep dive sessions with the leading companies for AI there. We realized how important it can be that we have to implement it into our company. This is just not a buzzword presentation here with AI. This is about changing our company in each of our processes. When we started it, right now, we have already optimized 12% of our processes in our group. This is not enough. We can absolutely not be happy with that. We really have to implement it in all our relevant departments and segments. This is the biggest project in our company internally. We never had such a big project here. It is affecting almost every process. Here on the bottom, you can see that we will directly change our software development.
That means we have to change with AI our coding system. This is not a thing for some weeks. It's a project for two years. We are very optimistic that we will make a good job there. The next thing is online marketing. Because as you might know, online marketing is a very automated and very efficient process already. AI will also change that. When you go on Google, you see all the AI results already. This will bring a tremendous change in the e-commerce world. Additionally, also in the content creation, you know that we make a lot of pictures, content creation with models and so on. We will ramp it down by 50% because we can do it with AI in the future. We already started with that. Yeah. The last point is HR and finance.
We think that accounting can be much more simplified with AI. We can use these people from the accounting department for much better things than just stupid things in the accounting system. The next part is the leverage, also very important. We think that we can decrease our leverage ratio by a lot. Right now, we have a 2.2 leverage ratio. That means net debt to EBITDA adjusted. We will decrease it in the next years. We can also decline the cost here for interest because I think we have a good cash flow. We have a good operational cash flow. We can use it much more to reduce our debt structures here. All right. That was it from my side. We also upload this presentation with some backup slides to give you more detailed information.
Now we would like to hand over to the Q&A session.
Yes. Thank you very much for your presentation and the infusion of your strategy, Dr. Benner and Ms. Richter. Ladies and gentlemen, it is your turn now as we move on to our Q&A session. We are happy to take your questions via chat box, as already happened. I will read them out for you. Dr. Benner, Christian Salis from Cantor. First question, could you elaborate on the scalability of the TPG One platform? How much sales would you be able to generate with the current setup? Second, could you provide some color on how TPG creates cost synergies when integrating new platforms and give some examples such as lower fulfillment costs per parcel, thanks to scale advantages?
Yes, thank you for that. Absolutely, you are right with that.
The scalability of TPG One is quite good because we developed it always with the perspective, how can we enter new businesses, new industries, and how can we increase the speed for that? Right now, we think that we can generate a very high increase here in the sales. This question is very broad. Maybe it is a good thing for our next earnings call to provide you more information with that. We can provide you directly more information about TPG One in the next presentations here. Your next question is about the cost synergies. Currently, we expect something between EUR 8 million-EUR 15 million directly within the next two years with our decreasing costs with AI. These are direct cost effects. I think this is a very conservative number.
We really just planned it on a very basic way that we go through every department, say what kind of process we can increase, how can we reduce costs in utilities and software, and also with HR costs, of course. We calculated this number with EUR 8- EUR 15 million. I think this is realistic where we can work with, definitely. The next question is about how much AI benefits is included in your EUR 20- EUR 80 million EBITDA for next year. Actually, we expect next year between EUR 8-EUR 10 million in EBITDA for next year. It is included. We expect this EUR 8-EUR 10 million cost savings for next year. Our guidance with EUR 70-EUR 80 million EBITDA, it is also reflecting this. We included it. Next question.
Uplisting. Yes. Yeah,
uplisting.
Right now, we are in the scale segment. I think next or the next two years, we will prove if an uplisting makes sense. Right now, we have no decision so far. The next question is about a capital increase or a new bond. Right now, we have no decisions on that. We will go our own way with the current structure and the current strategy. As you know, we make a lot of M&As every year. If we have a bigger target or if we have a big acquisition where we say it could be necessary to do that, of course, we will evaluate that. How is the acquisition closing of the pharmaceutical companies progressing? Actually, we have two portfolio companies already in the pharmaceutical sector. The other ones, we just can say we have a signing and the closing.
We expected a closing until December or January. That is what we communicated. That is our current communication here. Next question is about more color on our expansion on the U.S. market. How much of your future organic growth could be attributable to the United States? What are the key challenges there since the largest market for e-commerce with fierce competition? Oh, yeah, this is a complex question. First, yes, it is a big market. Yes, there is competition. To be honest, when you look on how many platforms you find for retailers with our business, what we do here, we do not find so many competitors. Yeah. As you know, we really much focus on niche markets. We do not want to sell t-shirts for $10. It is not our focus. We really want to sell niche segments like used machines.
It's a very big market in the United States. There are not many competitors there. When you look on the luxury sector, I mean, there are, of course, other players in the luxury sectors. There is no platform for retailers, for luxury retailers. I think we have very attractive possibilities to enter there and to make sure that we have a successful business model. We would not enter a market if we are not sure on that. As you know, we have still a very, we have 70% revenue share with Germany, Austria, Netherlands, and so on. We want to change it, and we will change it in the future. It is not a hardcore step from 70% to 20%. This will really go every year step by step. We think that the U.S. will definitely contribute to our future growth.
We are very conservative with our estimation. We always want to go low balling here and say, okay, we start with little steps. We make little revenue contributions here. When we see it's getting better and higher, we will communicate that. Next question, it's about our EBITDA margin. It's premium size E assortment with less SKUs and less discounts and less products contrasts to the core idea of the platform. This is wrong, what you ask me. We do not reduce the number of SKUs. We do not reduce the number of products. We just said in our vision that we definitely delist cheap products. We just make the decision that with cheaper products, for example, in the luxury sector, everything below EUR 80 or EUR 100, it is not useful for us. It's not too much contributing to our profit.
That is what we will delist and reduce. In total, we really increase the number of products by a huge amount. We expect an increase of 220% in the next five years. This is really a tremendous upgrade from the current status. There you can see how many new products we will get with our new partners. We will grow also in the number of products. Yes, we will deal with cheap products and products which are not bringing enough profits here. Russell Pointon from Edison, can you talk about TPG with more focus on B2B customers in future? Is there something inherently more attractive about them, less cyclical, or more profitable? Good question. Thank you for that. B2B customers in general are not more profitable. There is one big difference. We are focusing on software and e-commerce.
To be honest, e-commerce platforms for B2B, they are just in the beginning. It is like 2012 for B2C platforms. It is a very early stage there still, even in the year 2025. Most B2B business, they have no platforms for B2B players. This is quite an attractive market where we can have good growth rates. That is the reason why we want to expand more there compared to B2C. Of course, with B2C, we also grow. We have no fear that this is not going to happen. The next question is about now that I understand the EBITDA margins level better, do you have any idea of the magnitudes, rough percentage of each level? Do you see a particular one? Yes, that is a good question. Maybe we need a more detailed talk on that.
Definitely, the EBITDA margin levels are quite important for us. When you look on them, I think, to be honest, the AI one is the most important one. As I said, two years before, I made a big mistake. I did not realize what potential AI has and how much AI will affect our process. I realized this mistake the last 12 months. Now we changed it completely. When you really focus on the process, reduce workforces, and have better processes, you can definitely increase your cost structure. You can make it better, you can be faster, and you can do it with less people. Not everybody likes it, but that's the truth. What are the infrastructure requirements from investing in the United States? We have no infrastructure requirements in specific. Of course, we can use our software.
We will need no changes on our software. We need people there. We need good people, good companies there who we can work together with. That is what we have to do in the next 12 months. Our ramp-up plan also includes buying two companies there. That is our plan for next year. Also, to get the right people here to ramp up our platform business in the United States. That is the most important thing for the infrastructure there. Even if a target is promising, the evaluation of TPG shares is low. Given this, what are your thoughts on the capital structure and equity offerings? Basically, we think that, of course, our share can be higher, and we would appreciate higher share prices. I think it is not our job as management to comment on this if the shares are low or not.
We can only think that we are a good company. And our value of what we do is quite good. We will hopefully see higher share prices in the future. To be honest, I do not know any company in Frankfurt with EUR 3 billion revenue with such a low valuation level. Maybe when we achieve this revenue level in the next years, you will also see higher stock prices. Let's see if it happens or not. Next question, it is about the related to the change and the focus to non-consumer segments. Do you have an existing example? For example, I have the optics and hearing segment in mind. Yes, the optics and hearing segment, it is not a B2B. Of course, it is a pure B2C game. It is quite profitable. We have 25% margins there.
On the other side, we see the industrial goods segment as a very good growing market with increasing margins. We have not 10% margins here. We have lower margins. Every year, we can increase our margins. We are on a very good track with that. Actually, we think the industrial segment, like machine trade and other B2B segments, are very attractive here. Yeah. Interesting to see you expect a 50% cost reduction in content cost creation from AI. Are you able to quantify what content costs you have in percentage of revenue? That is a good question because in our P&L, we have marketing costs and we have other costs here. Including the other costs, we have our content creation costs. It is not in the marketing. Actually, we expect content creation costs of about 1.5%-2% every year.
We can reduce it by 50%, definitely. Because AI gives you such high options to create content in a much faster and easier way. You can reduce the number of models. You can reduce the number of photographers. You can also cancel all the contracts. We have some photo studios where we pay rent, where we pay a lot of utilities and so on. We do not need that so much in the future. It is really changing our content process, and we can save a lot of money there. Next question, would TPG consider listing on Nasdaq as a software company? Right now, we have no considerations to go to Nasdaq. To be honest, I am also not an expert in that, so I cannot really answer this. Right now, we have no plans to make a listing in the United States. All right.
These are all the questions. Thank you very much.
Yes, thank you very much. We will come to the end of today's business update call. Thank you, everyone, for joining and your shown interest in The Platform Group AG. Should further questions arise at a later time, please feel free to contact Investor Relations. A big thank you also to you, Dr. Benner and Ms. Richter. Greetings to Munich, to the Münchner [Foreign language] . I wish you all a lovely autumn time, successful businesses. With this, I hand over again to Dr. Benner for some final remarks.
Yes, thank you very much. Maybe for some of you who are in Munich today, you can visit us. When we thought about publishing such a vision in 2030, we were not sure to do that.
At the end, I think it was the right decision to give our shareholders a good perspective on our long-term perspective. Also, to show you what are our plans in the future, and not only for next year, also for the next years. I think from this background, we are very happy to share this vision with you. As you know us for three years now, we always delivered on what we promised. We also tried to do that here, that we will achieve these goals. That you join our journey here. Thank you very much.