Networks again, on the occasion of the financial figures for the first half of the year 2025. I would like to welcome CEO Marc-Julian Siewert and CFO Jessica Nospers, who will take you through the figures in a moment. In the background and with us throughout this call is Director of Risk Management and Investor Relations, Dr. Kay Rathke. After the presentation, you will, of course, have the opportunity to ask your questions in the Q&A session. With that, I would like to give the floor to you, Mr. Siewert.
Thank you very much. A very good morning, dear ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the earnings call for the first half year of 2025, which my colleague Jessica Nospers and I are delighted to welcome you to. Before we talk figures, let's say three facts about secunet. At secunet, we do everything every single day to make the life in Germany and Europe secure, especially in the digital space. Second, we protect sovereignty and thus our democracy. Third, we try every day to make our customers happy and improve the experience they have when using our products and increase efficiency as a main factor of their work. We are delighted to look at the first half year of 2025, where we were able to achieve very positive, strong results in the national and the international market.
The outstanding business developments have led to very positive growth in sales and EBIT in the financial first half year. The outlook for incoming orders continues to develop at an above-average rate and is very promising for the rest of the year and going forward. Today, we are going to look at the financial figures, briefly at the strategy and our forecasts, and obviously then jump into the Q&A. With this, my colleague Jessica Nospers, our CFO, will take you through the main financial figures in detail.
Thank you very much, Marc-Julian, and also a very warm welcome from me to all of you too. When it comes to the financial figures, please, Ingmar, click to the next two pages exactly. We are very delighted to present a much higher revenue in the first half of 2025 compared to the first half of 2024. We have increasing revenue in both public and the business sector, and it is basically a very strong Q1, which pushed the first half revenue to this great height. We have growth in all segments, as I said before. Next page, please. And another one. EBIT also increased considerably from EUR 1.4 million-EUR 7.2 million. It grows much more than revenue, most of all a fixed cost depression and also expenditure discipline and a favorable product mix. Next page, please. We could also grow our international and domestic sales.
The share of international sales has increased a little bit from 9% to 11%, but also applied to a much higher revenue base. Next page, please. We can see growth in both the public sector and also the business sector, and the public sector continues to be the most dominant sector, representing 89% of our overall revenue. Next page, please. Cash flow is still strong, but as usual, as a seasonal pattern in the first half, where we have, let's say, using up the cash that we make in the very strong fourth quarter. We pay our dividends, which is reflected in the financing activities, and the CapEx for investing is also usually very seasonal in the second half of the year. Next page, please.
The order development, and it is reduced a little bit, so we have an order backlog of [192.5 %] , also reflecting the very strong first half and also the late decision on the German federal budget. This also explains why our prognosis stays the same, but we will come to that certainly at a later point. This is it, and I ask Marc-Julian to take over, please.
Thank you very much, Jessica. Thanks for the great numbers. On the next slide, it's very short. There's a little bit of background about me to answer some of the questions asked. I was delighted to join secunet as CEO on July 1st, and I'm currently meeting everyone. I'm really impressed with the people around here at secunet. The core asset are the people, after all, and also with our customers. I was previously six years on the board of Veridos GmbH and led the company for three years as CEO. Obviously, before I had many, especially international positions. Enough about me. More important, we talk about secunet going forward.
As a part of the new direction, we are developing our strategy as an implementation tool to achieve our ambition, which is really to safeguard the sovereignty of Europe and Germany as partner of the federal security partner of the Federal Republic of Germany and prevent cyber attacks in Germany, Europe, and around the NATO countries and official institutions. In everything we do, we focus on security, sovereignty, and our customers' needs. Some highlights from the different sectors are: first, secunet becomes a cloud-native platform provider, and secunet continues to support our customers with the most secure integrated hardware and software infrastructure, including the transformation into the cloud. Second, secunet helps Europe and Germany, as well as NATO, with technological security and sovereignty. We see great potential, especially in the defense and space sector, in the years to come.
Thirdly, we are setting a new standard in a multi-cloud landscape, as we are the only certified sovereign cloud provider for Red Hat OpenShift so far, and the first with an approved cloud offering for classified information. Fourth, secunet is driving the internationalization forward. We are developing strategic portfolio elements which enable us to create interoperability between European countries, EU member states, NATO, and other institutions, while always maintaining security and sovereignty. All in all, I believe that I have joined a remarkable company, and I'm really looking forward, together with him, to create the future which is full of opportunities and potential that we are going to pull up in the years to come.
We see on the next slide, the basis of all this is that we can shape the future, build on these several pillars by driving innovation, also from a very strong track record and very strong past. We are doing this and continuing the growth paths, but also controlling the cost, as Jessica mentioned before, based on the four most important points. Again, our employees, which are the number one asset we have, the secunet customers, which it is really inspiring to speak to these customers, to learn from these customers, and to speak and learn from our employees. Thirdly, you and the people behind you, the secunet shareholders. Fourthly, our sovereign and secure technologies stack out of scalable software, hardware, and cloud platforms.
We are designing the future based on these pillars in order to continue the growth of the company and in order to continue to shape the security landscape in Europe and protect our countries from the ever-increasing cybersecurity risks that we see every day. By doing that, we can also confirm our prognosis and outlook for 2025, as shown on the next slide, with approximately EUR 425 million in revenue, an EBIT margin of 9.5%- 11.5%, an EBITDA margin of 14.5% -16.5%, and we're looking at a dividend working towards a dividend per share of EUR 2.73. With this, I'm really looking forward to your questions. Thank you very much for being here.
Yes, thank you very much for the presentation. We now come to the Q&A session. For a dynamic conversation, please ask your questions personally via the audio track. To do so, click on the Raise Your Hand button. If you're connected by phone, please use the key combination *9 followed by *6. If you do not, however, have the opportunity to speak freely, you can also place your questions in our chat box. We have the first participant with a question. Mr. Müller, you should be able to speak now.
Yes, hello, good morning, and thanks for the presentation. I would have a question to you, Mr. Siewert. Probably it's your first call, so maybe a bit more vague, but if you could share your view on the whole government spending topic. When do you expect first orders to come, and what's your view of the new government? Also, beyond the first orders, maybe if you could share your view on the spending momentum. How do you see the cycle, and when maybe do you expect the peak of spending towards secunet solutions? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Müller. It's probably one of the most important operational questions that we face, that I learned about, that we face every day. The good news is that we had such a strong first half year, even though the official Bundeshaushalt has not yet finally been released. This is the basis for the actual spending that is going to come. We expect this to be confirmed in September, and the purchasing will start going forward for next year and the years to come, with a peak hard to define, in all honesty, yet it will definitely last until the end of this decade, as we see the spending increasing and the operationalization of the budgets in Germany, and then also subsequentially throughout Europe and the institutions over the next years. We are preparing ourselves to be ready to act fast, starting from in Q4.
I hope that answers the question to an extent.
Yes, very helpful. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We get to the next participant. Dr. Kalliwoda, you should be able to speak now and place your question.
Yes, hello, good morning. Can you hear me?
Good morning. We can hear you, yes.
Very good, very good. Yeah, Mr. Siewert and Ms. Nospers, this defense and space sector, can you give us some more details about the order volume you like to expect in the next one, two years? This would be my first question. My second question is, it's good that your margins are improving because in the last years, you had nice sales growth. You bought, you integrated companies, and the margins came back a bit. The integration activities, I think, are going well. Can you give us some more insight? You said the guidance on the EBIT margin will be between 9% and 11.5%. Do you expect then in 2026 and 2027 higher margins, please?
Dr. Kalliwoda, thank you very much for your questions. I would take these questions. First of all, we generally do not give too many informations when it comes to info that is related to non-segment information. We can say that the defense sector is roughly a 1/4 of our total sales. We understand from our defense customers that they are, let's say, getting ready for the new budget and that they are having a planning that is for more than just one year. We do not have actually concrete information on order volumes coming in. We have a good feeling, but we do not share the feeling with you. We are very certain that we are getting in the last quarter of the year orders that we are going to execute, and orders are incoming, let's say, on a daily basis.
When it comes to the margin, we confirm our prognosis. It is a bit difficult for us to give you more concrete numbers on this. I think the range is still valid for this year. Let me explain to you why this is the case. The federal budget was coming in very late. We have prepared ourselves for this, you know, because usually the budget is first, and then we see that the customers are, let's say, preparing and thinking about what they are doing with the budget that they receive. This usually happens in November and December so that customers have, let's say, plenty of time. They usually use three to six months to get their planning on their projects ready, and then they start ordering with us. For this year, the things are a little bit different.
They only have, let's say, six to eight weeks for their project planning, and they certainly did some of the planning before, but the concrete numbers are available to them only now. What we've done is that we had a little bit of pre-production for our defense customers because production for the defense sector usually takes a little bit longer. We are making sure that we are ready and stocked properly for the orders to come in the last half year and also quarter. We are also very much looking to the cash flow, making sure that we are not overstocking or stocking the wrong items. You can be sure that we are in a continuous discussion with our customers.
Nevertheless, an order in the defense sector might be between, let's say, EUR 10 million and EUR 20 million, and it will all be very focused in the last quarter and maybe even November and December. It is always possible that things are a little bit difficult, and we are working with the organization very much to be ready for November and December. We are used to it to a certain extent, certainly, but it will put extra pressure on the organization in this last quarter because of the late budget. We are not having any signs that we are not reaching our prognosis, but also we do not have any signs that we are much faster this year so that we could increase our prognosis or be more detailed for the EBIT margin. Is your question answered with that, or did I miss something?
Okay. You included my question with the margins. You said you can't say so many details about 2026, or?
For 2026, we are usually giving our prognosis in January 2026, and we are currently putting together our budget. Even I do not 100% know where we are going to stand in 2026. Certainly, we are working on giving you what you expect, growth, and also to a certain extent, we are looking to improve our margin, which we do not only do for you, dear investors and analysts, but also for ourselves because we are very focused on efficiency and growth and healthy growth also.
Okay, thank you. Danke schön.
Thank you, too.
Thank you very much. We move on to the next participant. Mr. Marinoni, you should be able to speak now.
Good morning, everybody.
Hello.
I'm with a Swedish private bank. To be honest, I have really followed up a question regarding your guidance. You mentioned that you confirm your EBIT margin target of 9.5% - 11.5%. Given the tailwind from the first half of the current business, where you have been better by roughly 3 percentage points, don't you think that your guidance is really very conservative and maybe that your true low-end off-season guidance may be at at least 10%? That's my first question. The second question is again about your order backlog. You mentioned that your current order backlog amounts to [EUR] 192 million. That's my question. Over which period are revenues generated? Finally, it's about your business segment. Obviously, your EBIT margin in this segment was below last year. Can you give a little bit of insight about this development? Thank you.
Yeah. Let me maybe start with the order backlog. I think in the order backlog, you can see very well that there was an impact of the late federal business to our numbers. We had some orders in late 2024 that couldn't be executed anymore in 2024, and they came into the first quarter 2025, increasing considerably the sales in the first quarter 2025. Now you see that, let's say, the preliminary federal budget is used up, and also in the defense sector a little bit, that our customers are preparing for a longer view. You know, they're not only preparing for the current year, but they are preparing for the special funds coming in. It is a different, let's say, preparation cycle.
You can see in our order backlog, which is below last year, that this is already reflected in sales to a certain extent, reflecting the federal budget delay, let's say. That is also why you might consider our margin development rather conservative. It is really difficult with this late federal budget, and the pressure is very much on the last quarter. As we know it from before, the seasonal pattern is very much usual in the fourth quarter, but also we have the issue that much more orders are going to come in in the third and fourth quarter and need to be executed. There could always, you know, be the same situation that not all orders can be executed in 2025, but they are going to go to 2026.
We are having a huge potential from the special funds and also from the new federal budget, but also as it is coming very late in this year, we see this potential to be realized rather in the year 2026 and afterwards. Order backlog margin conservatism. There was another question. Mr. Marinoni, which was it?
Yes, thank you so far. It was about your business sector. The EBIT was slightly below last year's. Maybe you can give a little bit of insight about this development.
Happy to do so. We see a little bit of an uptick in the demand in the business sector. Basically, our business sector can be divided into two, let's say, business units or two different businesses. First of all, the e-health business, which is healthcare, providing to healthcare. The second is, let's say, classic industry, which has a certain level of regulation. In the classic industry with a certain level of regulation, we see that there is an increased demand for our [SINA] solutions, which leads to a different product mix and also a higher cost of sales. That's the first thing that is, let's say, explaining the higher sales, but that's a little bit lower operating margin.
The second thing that we had is that last year, we could capitalize on some of the assets that we need for the e-health market, for the market that is turning to an as-a-service market. This capitalization also, let's say, pushed the EBIT margin a little bit in the last half, first half 2024.
Okay, understood. Thank you.
Welcome.
Thank you very much. We move back to Dr. Kalliwoda with a follow-up question, I guess.
Yes, thank you. You mentioned CapEx in the second half year will increase. Maybe you can give us some more information about CapEx, capital expenditure. You mentioned your foreign sales increased from 9% to 11%. Which countries did you succeed? Do you think you can accelerate this growth outside?
First, your questions to the CapEx. Our CapEx is a seasonal pattern that our CapEx is rather spent in the second half of the year. It is very much IT CapEx, as by now we are not a very CapEx-intense company. You know, we have the, let's say, the IT infrastructure that we need. This is usually our IT is planning a lot in the first half year, and then in the second half year, we are doing the CapEx. That is nothing unusual. Exactly. The second question, is that enough for your CapEx question?
Yes.
Great. What was your second question again? Sorry.
The foreign sales.
The foreign sales.
Yeah, yeah.
We have a very good footprint within Europe and also in the Middle East. I'm not 100% sure, but I think it was rather European sales that increased the sales. We think that we can continue the growth path and also expand the international sales. We focus very much, I always say, to the north and to the south, you know, because the European countries are very interested in our solutions, but also the Middle East and Africa is a very interesting market for us because they're very interested also in, let's say, European solutions. Was that okay?
Yeah, the sales and distribution staff, they travel outside to potential clients?
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.
Okay. Danke schön. Thanks.
Thank you very much. Before we move on to the next participant on the audio line, I'll read out a question in our chat box. Can you give an update on the telematics infrastructure business?
Yes, happy to do so. That is part of the business sector, so it is contributing to the business sector. A huge success story for us. Currently, we are on plan according to the plan we made for 2025 and beyond. We are also in a transformation for more solutions in the cloud and in the next phase, let's say, of the products being replaced. It is running according to plan and contributing well to the business sector.
Thank you very much. We get back to the audio line. Mr. Specht, you should be able to speak now and place your question.
Yes. Hello, good morning. Two additional ones from my side. First, on your cost side, you had only a very, let's say, small or underproportional buildup of workforce in the first half year, + 5% against double-digit growth on the sales line. Are you planning to, let's say, onboard more personnel to prepare for the higher workload in the years to come in the second half already? That would be interesting to know. The second one, probably on the working capital side, you already did some measures around receivables that we can see. Do you see more room to improve your working capital going forward?
Okay. Maybe I'll start with the first question. Thank you very much for pointing it out. Absolutely correct. The team is taking care really on automating and on managing underproportional growth of cost and buildup of personnel versus the increase in sales in order to deliver a proper margin to the shareholders. We have the ability with our own products to really automate more, which we are focused on. Going forward, the answer on buildup is that the buildup will be as necessary for the precise roadmaps of the two sectors and in order to facilitate the cloud transformation, yet rather underproportional. The second question, I think, Jessica, on.
Working capital. Happy to do so. Thank you. The working capital, I think we have a very decent working capital. The fact that we have a lot of public business translates into very quick payments of our receivables. We have very good back-to-back contracts with our long-standing suppliers, so that we are also having a very, let's say, nice coverage of the inventory. We work a lot with drop-shipment logistics, so that a lot of the business does not really, let's say, go in stock first, wait there for a certain time, and then go to the customer. We usually make it happen that it goes directly from our suppliers to the customers. I think the working capital is particularly low for a business with a lot of hardware that we do. There are always things that we can improve in the working capital.
I think that our colleagues from the [SCM] have done an incredible job. We have a very good sales prognosis for the next few months to come, and we are steering our working capital and the inventory levels with that, so that I don't think that we have a lot of options to lower working capital considerably. What we will see in the second half of this year is that we are going to have a, let's say, buildup of working capital, which is more than the seasonal pattern usually guides to. This is because of the fact that the budget was so late and that we are going in pre-production for some of our products that have a longer delivery time. Apart from that, we are always very much on the outlook to increase in efficiency of working capital.
Thanks a lot. All the best for half year two.
Thank you very much. At this point, we are waiting for some more participants with questions raising their hand or via the chat box. That's not the case in the meantime. Therefore, we come to the end of today's earnings call. Many thanks to you, Mr. Siewert and Ms. Nospers, for your presentation and the time you took to answer the questions. If any further questions arise at a later time, please do not hesitate to contact Dr. Rathke at the IR department. I wish you all a good day, a successful time, and once again, hand over to Mr. Siewert for some closing remarks.
Thank you very much, first of all, for the moderation. A big thank you to all of you for participating today in our earnings call for the first half year. I would love to leave you with some thoughts on really what we do, and that's how I started, is about protecting the sovereignty and the digital security and networks for Germany and Europe. We are continuing on this path. We are going to hold up our core business and expand substantially further into international markets, into cloudifying our portfolio while maintaining the main core of it and protecting Europe and Germany from everything that's happening outside in the cybercrime and cybersecurity market. With this, we aim to become one of the top players in Europe and drive the market or make the market for security solutions. We thank you for being part of secunet.
Thank you for being part of our way. We look forward to the next conferences, earnings calls, and to report good news going forward. Thank you very much and have a great day.
Thank you. Goodbye.