Thanks for coming. Thanks for coming in good numbers. I must say it's a very exciting day, definitely a very exciting day, for me and my team because last night, our board has approved our new Strategy 2028. Getting together, and we're very happy to present to you what we intend to do. So, can everybody hear me? Would I have to speak up more? Is it okay?
Yeah.
Okay. Very good. So we'll talk about, of course, very brief introduction about the company, introduction to our strategy work that we have done. Then some of the core elements will be presented by my colleagues about organic growth, the market. Stefan will do that, Marco on operations, Peter will discuss M&A and midterm targets, and then there will be a quick summary and, as I expect, plenty of time for discussion. So let's start. Most of you, of course, know Cicor. So there's not too much to be said in general. This is just a few highlights. Cicor is, in effect, the fastest-growing manufacturer of electronics in Europe. You know, and we'll come to that in a minute, a few minutes. It's a big market we're in. It's a market of many players, and we are growing pretty fast.
You see that 25% average sales growth, partially, of course, from acquisition and also with a good organic growth. Earnings per share developing very well. That's the first-half number. So what you see, it's 90-95% up above previous year. Free cash flow increasing fourfold over last year as the result of net working capital reduction and EBIT guidance. What is especially important for me is if you look at sales and EBITDA guidance, despite everything that we hear from the markets, we did not have to change that. We did not have to revise that downwards. For us, it is about the markets we serve, the customers we serve, and the markets we serve. You will see that on the next three slides. We are, for years now, very focused on the key verticals that we are seeing as being the most attractive.
Here you will hear some more details from Stefan after this. Today, it's an almost evenly balanced split. We have seen a big increase in the share of healthcare technology and the share of aerospace defense. The share of industrial has gone down. Not that the business has shrunk. It has just grown more than the others. What do we mean by focusing on these verticals? It is about building strong platforms. It is about building platforms that are appealing to the customers, where a true competitive advantage, and where we can offer exactly what the customers need, and the acquisitions like the one acquisition of Evolution Medtec, an engineering firm that we completed in February. We do acquisitions to strengthen our platforms. It's not only about the numbers and the money. It's about strengthening of our platform.
And that was incredibly important to make us stronger as a development partner to our medical customers. We have in Europe, and that vertical already achieved number four, and clearly we are aiming for more. Now, aerospace defense, our position is much stronger, growth mostly from acquisitions. Here it is really something we are very happy about because these companies that we acquired, two of them, STS Defence and the sites of TT Electronics, they are already working extremely closely together. So you also see that across Europe, we are having a presence in Germany, Switzerland, and also the U.K.. Not in the southern parts of Europe, not in France and Italy. That's still for us a white spot in the map. And industry is a wide range of applications.
You see here, Cicor is involved in the manufacturing of the three-nanometer chips, by providing control equipment for wafer steppers, but it's also more mundane applications like control systems for machine tools. In this case, it's for plastic injection machines. Mostly organic growth, partially also by acquisition, but still, nice growth rate we have seen here over the last few years. Now, we have developed quite fast over the last few years. When I joined the company in 2016, we did roughly CHF 170 million-CHF 180 million. So I have to say that we have developed, especially since 2021, pretty fast. When I joined, we were about number 40 in Europe. It is a big market with many competitors. In 2021, we were number 28, and now this year, we are about number 10 overall in the European market. That includes all applications.
That includes everything. So number 10 here. In the U.K., already number one. Switzerland also number one, but I mentioned here, U.K. as a larger market and as we started there from scratch. I mentioned number one position in aerospace defense. Very clearly, what is our objective? Expanding the lead versus the number two. We have created here a platform in aerospace defense where for specific customers, we are pretty much the only choice where they would go. So it is very clear. Healthcare, I mentioned number four position, working towards number two. That's clearly the objective we have. There's a lot of growth opportunity in the medical space, and we will focus on growing that position. Now, if you look at the AS division, we shouldn't forget the AS division. It's small, but it's very strong.
It's a technology beacon and has enormous technological synergies with the rest of the business in hybrid substrates. So what we do in thin-film, we are number one. I don't know, three times about the size of the number two in the market and on par with the leading peers in the U.S.. So if you are growing in the world, the top three companies are two in the U.S. and Cicor in that area. Very important for highly miniaturized healthcare applications and also for high-frequency applications like radar systems. If you're looking into the PCB side, yes, we are a small PCB manufacturer, since recently a very successful PCB manufacturer. Number three position, worldwide in PCB for hearing aids and an incredibly strong pipeline of new medical products.
We have changed that business massively from a business doing broad applications to a business that is about 80% already in medical and healthcare technology. So, it's a very, very strong part of us. So we are these league tables, of course, that have a certain importance, but it shows that the strategy that we have given ourselves, it's, it is working. Now, if I talk about acquisitions, there are some acquisitions that are, that are seen, I think, as, as rather simple add-ons. STS Defence, incredibly successful business, combining manufacturing and engineering for aerospace defense. Evolution Medtec, just won a new customer, just heard, the past few days. We're in Romania at a competitive cost rate. We have rates. We have the ability to do complete medical devices. And that's an interesting one, TT Electronics. I got feedback from England saying, "Why on earth did you buy them?
They will never be profitable. They are terrible for 20 years," so we paid relatively little money. And I told you they are already almost at the same margin level as Cicor. This is the most beautiful turnaround I've seen in a long time. In six months only, they more than doubled their EBITDA margin. And why did that happen? Because with the way we operate and the culture we have, we give responsibility to the people, to our managers in the regions. We decentralize. We have, for example, decentralized the financial function. We really gave the managers responsibility, and they are really unleashed. They are running like there's no tomorrow. They love it, and they are so successful.
So, something I heard a few times, but very funny, you know, this company in Newport, the day we, they have always given calls to Marco, our head of marketing before closing, you know, and they asked, "Are we already allowed to order a new company sign?" And now they have the biggest company sign at the Cicor, amongst Cicor worldwide. And they're very, they're very proud. They're very proud and very, very successful. They are very solid double-digit margin already. Beautiful. So, the footprint, of course, it's evolving. It is evolving. There are the additions from the acquisitions. There is a rationalization that we have announced. But one thing that you might want to know is if you're going to Southeast Asia, you know, everybody wants to move out of China, not leaving China, but following a China Plus One strategy.
There's almost no one from our European peers operating, manufacturing in Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia is the preferred location to move out of China. Why? Good infrastructure, good cost, good logistics to the U.S. and also to Europe. Better, for example, than India is. It's an almost unique position. Electronica, the trade show, will be next week. We'll continue to promote this now very strongly. Very happy with the footprint we have. Now, let me spend just a minute about markets. That's what we reported: -3.5% year to date, Q3 organic growth. That is the Q3 results of our listed peers. You see ourselves and five listed peers from the Nordic countries, Scandinavia. Organic growth, Scanfil just reported -17%. Kitron, -16%. HANZA, pretty good, -6%. NOTE -11%. Incap, -20%.
So that is what is the market? Why is the market as such? Because there is a considerable element of destocking. You know, after everybody has increased inventory, now the destocking. The strategic reason is that our peers are much more active in automotive, are much more active in renewable energy and EV charging infrastructure and so on. And all these markets have collapsed. The EV market, because it's just down, the hype is somewhat over. And in renewable energy, just the equipment is now coming from China. The European manufacturers are really challenged. Look at Cicor. I like to say they are going down. We are going up. We are getting closer. And these are really the leaders, the leaders in Europe. We are working our way up.
I like that picture because it shows that despite the negative growth, we have won very significant market share in the first nine months of the year. So much about Cicor. I hope a few aspects that you did not know already. Others, of course, that you know. Let's now talk about Cicor 2028. We start from the basics. We start with the basics. Why is Cicor there? What is the purpose of the company? That is what you can read here. To provide high-end electronic solutions, being the partner of choice for product creation and manufacturing services. We are, and you will hear that again and again today, transforming the business from a manufacturing partner to a design and manufacturing partner of our customers. So really creating products from the beginning of the product lifecycle.
How do we see ourselves in 2028? To be the leading pan-European electronics design and manufacturing partner for the chosen markets we're in: healthcare, aerospace, defense, and industrial. An employer of choice committed, of course, to operating sustainably. Now, pan-European, why that? There is EMS firms larger than us. They tend to go with, as they grow, with bigger customers, which are more volatile, more cost pressure, margins are going down. And we are building platforms in the attractive European countries. We are in three, right now, very present, and we're expanding that. We're expanding our presence in other European areas. And we are really acting local for local. In the U.K., it's our British team that is in power. In Germany, it's our German team. And we are coordinating that through the functions like Sales, Stefan, and our COO, Marco.
So the leading pan-European electronics design and manufacturing partner. That is how we see ourselves. And we have a set of values. Now, we are in an industry where I see many competitors being very transactional, looking for the day-to-day, being more opportunistic about our business. We are, maybe it's because we are Swiss, we are more long-term oriented. For us, it's about building long-lasting relationships with our customers and other stakeholders. And so customer focus is really what our employees see. So we ask them, "What do you see as the core values that you observe today in Cicor?" It's that customer focus, working together, performance, integrity, respect, and trust. So this is what we see as the core values of Cicor. And now we have asked ourselves, "How can we summarize this?
How can we summarize in a simple and short way what we are doing and what we want to be?" And it is for us Creating Together because everything we do is creating products. We create them from scratch, by starting with the engineering work, and then we create them physically in the factories. And the element of partnership, of working together, is absolutely core to what we do. So when you look at Cicor, you will hear that Creating Together definitely much more often in the future. Now, about the strategy 2028. First of all, let's start with the market. That's the market development in Europe since 2013. You see, here, especially after COVID, some robust growth, and you see a shrinkage of the market. So if you look at the market, 2020 COVID, 2021 supply restrictions, but also high prices because materials were incredibly expensive sometimes.
That was the year of restocking. That was the year when everybody started to fill their inventories, continued in 2023, and then now what we see this year is really, as I mentioned, the destocking combined with, sorry, combined with weakness of several end markets like building. I mentioned already some of this. That does not change at all the long-term trend. We have the nearshoring trend. We have the trend to increase outsourcing. We are discussing with several customers right now outsourcing projects where they want to give up their in-house manufacturing. So we have several of these discussions ongoing right now, we see the normalization in 2025, and overall we see that from the base of 2023, the market really should grow 6.5%. So there is no reason for us to believe that this healthy market growth is changing because it's driven by very strong drivers.
Our strategy has a few elements. Most of these elements you will hear from my colleagues after this. Stefan will talk about focus on high-growth verticals. We are sharpening again our focus on certain key markets that are the most profitable ones where we want to grow. I will give you a very small peek into the transformation into a true product creation company. Marco will talk about business excellence, and he will also talk about sustainability. We have the AS division. I briefly mentioned them. They are a high-tech differentiator really supporting us in developing our EMS business. M&A, we'll talk about M&A specifically, many details about what we did and how we do M&A and integration. And Peter will discuss this. We do a big boost in our people strategy moving forward.
Peter will also discuss financial value creation and our new midterm financial objectives. We have a clear implementation plan, project management behind it to get this into practice. Let me focus just on or touch very briefly only two elements. One is the transformation into a product creation company or CDMO, contract development and manufacturing organization. What you are seeing here, that's the product lifecycle. It starts here. You define a business case, do the research and development, new product introduction. You assemble the electronics. You assemble the device. You're doing distribution and after-sales and lifetime services. On this axis, you see customer loyalty, but also pricing power. It is highest when you are right at the beginning of the product lifecycle because here you don't discuss price and you don't have competitors. You discuss the business case with your customer.
The device can cost so many U.S. dollars, Swiss francs, whatever. That's what you discuss. You develop the product towards the specifications and the cost. There's never a need for a customer to ask for competitive quotes because you fixed all that together with them. This is why if you are in this phase, there is a highest customer loyalty. That is why we are expanding our engineering resource so much. If you go to the assembly, that is actually the area with the least differentiation. The electronics assembly, there is clearly differentiation, opportunity. That's why we are pretty profitable in what we do, but it's much more here. This is why we are expanding the position and we are entering new regions.
A good way to enter a new country is to do it by setting up, or acquiring research and development activities. And this is clearly something we intend to do and we intend to do very, very short term. So do this by organically and of course through acquisition. And then this area, if you think about who we are and that we are already a considerable engineering business that you wish, it is generally a more profitable business than manufacturing. And you can calculate it. There's clearly a profit boost by expanding the research and development portion and to run it as a profitable, solidly double-digit profitable business. So that is a clear reason that getting stronger in this part on the left side of the product line is supporting the whole business, up to the end.
The second, I want to very briefly touch only because Peter will discuss more, why are we acquiring. I mentioned we are acquiring to build stronger platforms in our key verticals and to enter new regions. We still have a very fragmented market. So we are number 10 out of 1,700 EMS. And there is not so much consolidation ongoing. It's about 30, 40 transactions a year. So only 2% of EMS are disappearing each year. It's a relatively small number. So you can imagine that the consolidation will only continue to accelerate in the next year. Consolidation has just begun. In other areas like the United States, it has the U.S. consolidation is much further down the road. The number of competitors is lower. That is also why valuations of EMS companies are significantly higher in the U.S. than they're here.
We are in a growing market, as I mentioned. We are addressing a EUR 25 billion market, which is expected to grow. We are at a market with very high customer loyalty. I mentioned time and time again, what is our new customer win ratio to lost customers? And it's five to one. And Stefan just told me before this is even better than five to one. So for each customer we lose, we win more than five new customers. And that is true for the past two years. And I have the feeling it's accelerating now. So we are in a market with a lot of customer loyalty. And with each acquisition, we are acquiring top-notch customers. With each, even a small acquisition, EUR 20 million euros only, let's say in revenue, there are one, two, three customers which are absolutely great companies.
And with these, we are expanding our share of wallet. We are expanding the business relationship. That's what we do. And of course, we have clear economies of scale. You know, today we have a purchasing volume of about CHF 250 million, and that is growing. So we are working our way up not only towards the markets and sales, but also with suppliers. So we're gaining more and more importance, which allows us to get better payment terms, and better pricing. So that's why, that's why consolidation of the market just makes a lot of sense. Okay. That's my part. And I think more details on how we want to grow organically.
How we can achieve market leadership in our target market, how we can outgrow the market.
First of all, it is important to take a look into the EMS market where we are in. So you see here on the right, on the left side, on the top, on the left side, this is the electronic assembly market, the worldwide electronic assembly market. We talk about EUR 1,400 billion, one-third roughly covered by OEMs or ODMs. One third of it is the EMS market we are in. We are mainly focused on Europe. So that's the reason why we are actually interested in this EUR 85 billion, and our three target markets, as already mentioned, industrial, medical, and aerospace defense are roughly EUR 25 billion of this European EMS market. So it's still a quite big number, EUR 25 billion euro. So that it makes sense that we actually look a bit more closer, let's say, which sub-verticals are interesting for us.
Which sub-verticals, on which sub-verticals we have to be focused to have a higher growth than the market. We have here, especially on, on the left side in the industrial area, we have sensors measuring and testing. This is a very important subsegment because very much driven by automation, by the energy transition currently. The same with building technologies, home automation. Also here, the energy transition, which drives this market, energy, mobility, and rail, where we also see higher growth rates than, than the average in industrial. On the medical side, we see strong rates, strong growth rates in the field of medical wearables where we at Cicor already have a very strong position. This is, mainly hearing aids, but also other medical wearables, medical devices, not fancy gadgets. We really talk about medical devices. Other, very interesting sub-vertical is implants. So implants, they are more, more, applications.
Empowered patients with some kind of disorders. The third one, we talk about smart drug delivery devices with more diabetes patients. We also have other applications where actually electronics meet pharmaceutical. On the aerospace and defense side, we have defense very much driven by the crisis we have, but also by the backlog in our defense readiness in some countries and then satellite technologies and civil aviation. To know on which verticals we should be focused, we consider, on the one hand, the growth potential of the vertical. The target is for sure to be focused on the sub-verticals with the above-the-average growth potential. On the other hand, we are focused on the profitability.
I mean, when we have here the typical these areas where we don't want to be, we want to be actually in the areas which are growing fast and which bring us the needed profitability. And here, for example, typical markets are automotive, communication, consumers. They might grow fast, but don't bring the profitability we need. Okay. And so this helps us very easily based on growth rates and profitability to address the right markets and to sharpen our focus on the right markets. To see a bit, let's say, the performance, we had between 2021 and 2023 in our target markets. Starting with aerospace defense, we see a strong growth in aerospace defense. In aerospace defense, this grows from CHF 23 million to CHF 63 million between 2021 and 2023, mainly driven through acquisitions. In 2021, Axis Electronics.
Actually in 2024, we'll see even more because of the acquisitions we took in this year. As already mentioned, in aerospace and defense, we are in the meantime market leader, number one in Europe. The second one, medical, we also see a very strong growth between 2021 and 2023 from CHF 65 million to CHF 112 million. Here we have a bit another picture. Also strong growth through acquisition, roughly two-thirds, two acquisitions we made in Germany, SMT Elektronik and Phoenix Mecano Digital Elektronik. But here we also see a very strong organic growth, 35% of this growth stream organically through the different sub-verticals we have. As I mentioned, we already have a very leading position in hearing aids. We could win new customers in this field, and we could also further grow with our existing customer.
In the medical, it's also already mentioned we are number four now in the field of medical customers. Industrial, here we see a growth from CHF 104 million to CHF 154 million. And here roughly the same, 60% through acquisition, but nearly 40% organically. And here we see ourselves roughly number 10 in Europe. What is important, which elements we have to consider to drive our growth. The basis of our growth for sure is our existing customers. And if you, I mean, it's very simple. If you do a good job, if we have a high delivery performance, high OTD, high quality performance, then for sure, and then we can grow with our existing customers. We can win additional programs and we can participate in the growth of our customers.
And here also, as Alexander Hagemann already mentioned, the acquisitions play an important role because every acquisition brings us more customers. So this is the basis of our growth, growing with our existing customers. The second element, and this is very important, especially if you consider acquisition, is cross-selling. Cross-selling means we have a customer in Europe, for example, with a demand in Asia, and we can also supply from Asia to the customer. We have a PCB customer. We can also assemble the PCB. We can serve also engineering services. And here the acquisitions are very important, especially the small acquisition. So if you acquire a company, a smaller company, with maybe only one manufacturing site, they very often have very interesting customers, but they are limited because, for example, they do not have the best cost production operation.
Therefore here, every acquisition creates a lot of opportunities. Because we have in Cicor really a wide range of different technologies, and also here actually acquisition can bring new technologies. For example, the TT Electronics carve-out, we acquired also a power supply business. Actually this power supply business, we also can sell now, or the power supplies we can sell now to our existing customers. So a very important part, cross-selling actually, to accelerate the growth with our existing customers. The last element to really outgrow the market is finding new customers. You already heard, we find roughly five to one, maybe a bit higher, more customers than we lose. This is because we are very, very much focused on our target verticals.
We do only, let's say, what we understand, and we do. We try to say no as often as we can. Important for new customer development is also that we can expand our geographical areas by acquisitions. What are our plans to further drive this growth, especially the organic growth? This moving towards a true one-stop shop solution. This is what you already heard. It is very important for our customers. More important is getting more and more important to have one partner to cover the entire product creation process. Here we have some activities. One of it is we have additional engineering services we can sell to our customers. One is engineering team we are building up in Vietnam to support industrial customers within Europe.
We have this acquisition in Bucharest, which increases our capacities and capabilities for medical customers, and an important point as well. I mean, in the past we had engineering services mainly in Switzerland and for customers outside of Switzerland, in Italy, in Germany, and so on. Sometimes they are a bit more price sensitive. And with the support of Vietnam, we can also address those customers much, much better. Second one is we launch a prototyping shop next week at the Electronica. Prototypes are very important in the engineering phase, not only externally, also internally or to our own development engineers. It just reduces, if we can deliver the prototypes much faster, it reduces the time to market for our customers, so a very important element of this as well.
Our target is to deliver prototypes in six days to our customers, which is pretty fast and flexible, and then a stronger focus on our box build, so if we talk about development and integration, so not only manufacturing the PCBs for our customers, also doing more box build, being really a partner instead of only a supplier. We also have to further strengthen our sales activities in our target markets, U.K., Germany, Switzerland, and what we said already, we have to be more and more sharpen our focus to our sub-vertical, to our target market, and this is what I already mentioned, implants, smart drug delivery devices, medical wearables in the field of medical customers, and sensors, building technologies, mobility, and rail in the field of industrial customers, and the last one here is our partnership with Clayens.
This is also an element towards this true one-stop shop solution. So Clayens introduced last year, if I'm not wrong, at the Capital Markets Day, is a leading European injection molding company. And together with Clayens, we can address medical customers which need high-volume products, where we have a combination between with electronics and plastics. Here we also talk very often about smart drug delivery devices, but other active disposables. These are the elements we are planning to further successfully drive our growth.
Thank you very much, Stefan. So also welcome from my side, Marco Kechele, the COO of Cicor Group. And let's talk a little bit about operations. So you have seen before in the presentations that we have now 20 sites worldwide, right, in Europe and in Asia.
The question is, how can we help these 20 sites to be successful. So ones which are for a while in the company, but also the ones which are short-term with the company and the result of an acquisition. And so we decided about developing a business excellence model, which should give a framework between vision, mission, and values, what we have seen before, and key disciplines of being successful. So we started with doing a workshop and we figured out what are the most relevant disciplines being successful. And we figured out four of them, beginning on the left-hand side, customer focus, engineering competencies, a sourcing strategy, and manufacturing capabilities. These are the four ones which create value. This is what you can see in our service or in our products we deliver to the customer.
And then we have support functions on the right-hand side, support functions, people management, support function, compliance, support function, information technology, and finance management. And they are as important as the other ones, but they are supporting the value-add disciplines in a certain way. And what we did is we clustered now all of these disciplines and defined the six to eight most relevant aspects within this cluster. And this is what every site, every unit should represent, should work for. These are typically processes which these, which are defining ways of working in an efficient way. And complementary to these processes, there are KPIs where we measure where we are, right? And all of these disciplines have levels from one, very basic, we do typically things on demand, up to a level of five, which is an excellence level.
That means with a level five, we have implemented very, let's say, efficient processes, and we measure the result in a certain way. And there is a KPI in place which is growing and performing over time up to excellence or world-class level number five. And this is the business model every managing director agreed on, and we are doing regularly assessments and see where we are. And this gives guideline for the functional disciplines within the sites about where we are in this excellence approach. Now it's not only about a framework and a nice assessment, it's also about delivering real results. And this model is in connection to the strategic results or achievements we want to see at the latest in 2028.
So most important ones, I mean, there is a scorecard, right, which delivers on a monthly basis individual results in many disciplines like on-time delivery, first-class productivity, and others. But here as an executive summary for you, what are the most important ones? We strive for a productivity improvement, labor improvement of 4%-6% on an annual basis. Yeah? This is what the individual sites have to deliver with good methods and processes and tools in place. Next one is to achieve a net working capital benchmark level of lower than less than 25% of our annual sales, which is a good factor, and we are already improving year by year, month by month, and this is the objective we have on the mid-term. But here the costs are an important factor in our discipline, right? So in the company average around 50%.
It's not only that we have to improve our internal disciplines, we also need to improve our material costs. The growth path we have seen almost 25% at the moment in total per year helps us that we have growing quantities with the individual suppliers, and that helps us to make global contracts, frame contracts with terms and conditions, making a difference to maybe other competitors in the market. On-time delivery. No question about that. This is one of the most important factors beside quality where the customers are very sensitive about it. 20.95% on-time delivery is the minimum we want to achieve in every of our sites. Some of the sites are already at 98%-99%. This is a wide approach and a very sensitive factor, as I said, to the customer. First-class yield.
First-class yield is a reference for our process capabilities and also for most modern technologies we are working with. So with the newest technologies and the right process levels, we can achieve first pass yield rates of 99%. That means that our rework level or our scrap level is straight below 1% in our manufacturing capabilities and also a factor of profitability and differentiation. But also not to forget about what I said before in the support functions. One of the most important ones are people management. So we want to be an attractive, diverse, and secure company where people like to work with and people have the chance to grow. This is more and more important nowadays, especially in the Western hemisphere, right? Last but not least, also a clear commitment to sustainability and full compliance with all regulatory requirements.
That gives a framework in the question what we want to do to perform in the operational disciplines, right? But there is also consideration of technology trends and capabilities. So I can ask a question about that. Of course. How is this measured and implemented? Sounds very good, but what do you do to minimize these objectives? These are two elements. One is, there is more or less an A3 format you can think about. And here are the disciplines, and here is a description for each level: level one, level two, level three, four, five. And if you are, let's say, procurement manager of a site, right, you're owning here the sourcing discipline, right? And you are rating in these five, six, seven different disciplines, where are you today? And then the result is maybe here I'm performing on level three.
Level three means typically processes are in place, but the performance is on a medium level. Then this discipline within the sourcing, right, you say this is, level two, so I act on demand if a complaint comes or a complaint arrives from a supplier. So, but no really strategic intent how to manage this preventively. In the third discipline, you are already on level four, means you have processes in place, you measure and perform on high level. And then together with your managing director, you may make objectives as a procurement manager for the next year and say, "I want to, I want to improve in these, these and that disciplines." That means process implementation, KPI measurement, performance. And this is a little bit strategic intent on a site level, right, for a period typically of 12 months.
What we do as a group management is on regular business reviews, typically on a quarterly basis. We talk with the people, try to help where we have gaps, and also observe a little bit of progress in the individual sites. Yeah? This is how this model works. And on top, we have, as I said, operational scorecards, besides the financial scorecards, where we have a pure, let's say, numbers-driven performance indicators in the most relevant disciplines. Okay? Then let's say from the question how we want to create performance, the question is also where we want to create performance. And we identify these five most important technology trends, speaking with the people and reflecting the market requirements. And the two top level technology trends we want to consider, and we have to consider are miniaturization, high-tech, and precision as number one.
Just giving you an indication, at the moment we are working on a project with PC boards which are three by four millimeters in size, and we are integrating two chips on these boards, connecting it with the electric connections, and then pressing three of them together to one subsystem. Okay? This is what we are talking about, and there are many components on this three by four millimeter electronic chip. Now, I think it's easy to understand that this cannot be done with 15-year-old equipment, right? And this needs also to be efficient because this is not only a technical challenge, this is also that we have to be commercially competitive. And this is our commitment, and this is our positioning in the market.
We are available to develop with our customers together these high-end solutions, which make a difference for our customers in the market and which makes a difference for us against our competitors. The second one, our core industries we want to work with are medical and aerospace and defense, especially, but this is not only that we serve PC boards or electronic systems for these markets. We need clean rooms. We need ISO 9001 certifications for aerospace and defense, and ISO 13485 for medical. We need integrated quality documentation systems which are fully automated, documenting the result of each individual manufacturing and quality control step because all of these machines are connected to an automatic documentation system, and we cannot influence that. The machine by itself is automatically uploading the technical result of the test.
This will become automatically part of the documentation we hand over to the customer when delivering the product. Yeah? Flexible automation, digitization, and artificial intelligence, right? Artificial intelligence is a buzzword everywhere, right? But it's already implemented where we do visual controls. What we see on, if you take a picture from the parts in detail and we see shadows and lines and whatever, artificial intelligence has a big advantage against people looking at the defects or potential defects because this algorithm learns very, very fast, right? And after a while, the results and indications we get out of these tests are very usable for seeing good or defect parts. Box build assembly capabilities, Stefan mentioned it before. It's our chance to vertically integrate and to increase the value-add by customer.
This is also something we have to develop and strengthen our capabilities, working with cobots, automatic lines. This is in the trend of the industry. It requires capital investment, but it's also a format of differentiation against others. Last but not least, test engineering. I mean, every EMS company in the world says we are superstars in test engineering, right? And it's somehow true. But the differentiation is if you are allowed to work with a customer at the early stage of the product development because only in the early stage of the product development, you can influence the design of the product and the way of testing the different layers and levels in a way that it is beneficial at the end of the day. If somebody's developing a product and other people are doing then the test specification, you always have repetitive testing. Yeah?
Customers, suppliers are testing, you are testing, customers are testing, and all tests are the same. This can only be efficient if you are really invited into the product development process and you can work with these control plans integrated, right? This is much more clever and opens doors for being much more competitive on our customer side, right? Therefore our strategy to become a partner of choice also in the product development is very essential of being successful in the later on processes, right, like test engineering. These are the trends, but how to follow the trends, how to realize that. I mean, some information which I thought is most relevant here for the audience of today, right? First of all, what about our capacities we have in place?
With the latest acquisitions, we now have capacities available to grow another CHF 250 million without significant investments into new facilities, on top, right? This is a good thing for us because we do not have to spend our money in building. Yeah? There is really room for growth. You can see also that with our commitment of 2.5%-3% capital investment year-over-year, we have a budget of almost CHF 80 million until 2028, right? Now we did some analytics and said in the last years, what do we spend just to keep things running? We can say 40% of the annual investments are in the infrastructure and other costs, smaller things here and there, bits and pieces. This is a little bit given. Another 32% we have to do replacements, right?
Because some machines are outdated or it is not beneficial to go into maintenance and repair. So we just buy replacements to be up to date. But on top, there are 28% available, right? And this 28% is in the conversion of CHF 22 million investment until 2028. But we have the choice, what do we want to invest? And this is not that we blindly invest just because we, because we have to have it, but we can go to the customers and say, "We are available to invest also on strategic level. If there is a chance to buy something which makes a difference for you and for us." And therefore these technology trends are observed very carefully and gives us guidance and indications where we want to invest and where we can make a difference with investments.
Last but not least, even if we perform operationally very good and even if we have the right trends identified and do the right capital investments, this factor, compliance and sustainability, becomes more and more an essential part of our strategy. It's a must-have, right, and very clear that we have high-level commitment also to whatever is required and not only what is formally required, but also what is expected, and on the environmental side, we have a very clear commitment to a balanced carbon footprint in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement, which is relevant for all companies, and we are on the way to gradually move towards these carbon footprint approaches. Second one, we have a lot of initiatives now in our social engagement, so it's not only that we want to create a culture of equality, fairness, and respect.
It's also that, we don't forget about the trusting relationship with our shareholders, business partners, and the stakeholders of the company. Yeah? And this is part of our people-related engagements in ESG. Last but not least, governance. So very clear that we have to follow all regulations and laws. And what we do is our commitment. So regulations and laws of Europe are also relevant for all of our sites in Asia. So we do not make a difference because of a little bit different requirement of the regulations. So we have a commitment as Cicor company, and this is the same everywhere. And this has these external factors, but also the internal factors like policies, ethical principles in our own, like I just mentioned before. So how we do it? And here we are closing the loop a little bit. So we have developed ESG scorecard.
And this is a questionnaire about our formal and informal requirements in the ESG sector and the guidance for each individual site how to move forward and what is the right, right way to go. Because it was always, it was also not always easy for the managing directors in the different sites to identify what is the right thing to do, right? It's a complex arrangement. And therefore I'm very happy to say that this ESG scorecard is at very high level and very appreciated. At the moment, all of these assessments are running. Two-thirds are almost done now, and one-third is in front of us. So until the end of the year, we will have 100% of our units done this assessment. And the result of the assessment is a path forward.
What and when are the right activities to be fully compliant right on time? So in 2026, we are first time to report about 2025 with our CSRD, and we are on time also with the Supply Chain Act and all other formal and informal regulations in place. Yeah? So it closes a little bit the loop. This is our way of managing, giving a lot of decision rights and responsibility on the decentral level, but helping and giving guidance from a central point of view and having visibility via KPIs and transparency every day where we are. And this is a little bit of reflecting, our work, our way of management and working.
So, one more kind of slide from my side.
I'm Peter Neumann. I'm the Group CFO, and I have the pleasure to talk about M&A today. And, let me start with it.
I would say M&A has really transformed our company over the last four years. To step back, we have been growing about 15% on average over the last four years, and we are a very different Cicor today. And you saw it from the introduction from Alexander. We have the ambition to continue this journey. M&A is very core in the strategy. It's really core to the strategy so far and the future strategy. Alexander has talked a lot about the market and the strategic rationale of acquisition. What I want to focus on is really around how do we drive value? What's the playbook? What are the tools? What's the execution on one side? And then obviously, sorry, as CEO, I have to share some numbers. So give some results of the seven acquisitions we have completed over the last three years. Okay?
So, let me first talk about a bit the recipe of our value creation, and then I will elaborate on some elements more in detail. The first one is we are very selective on opportunities that we pursue. I always say the most important element of the strategy is the things we don't do, right? Because on M&A, there's a lot of destruction of value out there. By being very much focused and really not going after a lot of opportunities, we are able to deliver value with the acquisitions we are pursuing. It helps in the M&A process to be the acquirer of choice. I think we have built up an excellent reputation in the market, and I have a slide on later on why this is the case.
Obviously, this helps because in a lot of the processes, if you're an acquirer of choice, that the sellers trust and they see the future of the company, you're able to acquire companies at more moderate multiples and hence create value for us as a company. We have an efficient and trusted M&A process. So after seven acquisitions, I share some of the results. I can say, "Look, we have a good process. We have a good toolbox, and we are also very consistent in the results delivery." Yeah. And look, I mean, with this, we have part of it is a customer-centric integration. And the customer-centric integration really drives them that you're able to gain share, so grow fast and also create a significant profitability and cash pickups after the acquisition. Now, before going through some of the elements, I want to say, what do we have as foundation?
We have seen this in the half-year results. We are, despite seven acquisitions, still very moderately leveraged. We have a leveraged half-year result of 1.5. And we have announced the new credit agreement or a renewal of an agreement that if you look where we are today with the available cash, some of the cash we generate in the future, the facilities we have in place, and we have an optional facility that we can work with the banks, gives us ammunition to acquire companies worth CHF 150 million.
So we have the foundation and the firepower to grow further via M&A. It's a bit of a foundation. If you don't have this, obviously the strategy is not built on a solid foundation. Then in terms of strategy, we're very much focused. It's really around gaining and winning companies that have attractive customers in our segments and really build strong platforms.
Alexander and the rest of the team have said this one very nicely. But it also means, and I come back, what we don't do, we don't dilute, in terms of going into automotive, into computer communication, all the elements. We don't get overboard on multiples. If there are competitive processes, we remain really rigid to our principles, and we focus clearly on synergies. And if we don't see clear synergies in the path to value creation, we don't go after it. So that's the first one, being very choiceful on this. This is status Q2. When we looked at it and said, "Look, if we step back at the history, how much acquisition do we have to actually look at?" And it is a big number. We were really surprised. We have reviewed over 100 deals.
And I can say the more we get a trusted acquirer, the more we are currently getting offers for acquisition. And that helps also and gives us the confidence why we have increased our overall guidance. Because we have delivered over four years, and we have a very strong pipeline. So we review a lot. You see that only very small numbers, 10%-20% actually we pursue. And we go deeper and do an offer, a non-binding offer, and we engage personally. That is the big element where I say, "Look, we do a lot of things. We don't do a lot of things," right? We go after very selective where we say the customer's right, the culture is right, it's a fit, and the value creation is there. Once we are here, we are very quickly, if they accept the offer, we're going into exclusivity.
Most of our processes are exclusive. Obviously, you see here it's a step because sometimes you have a competitive process. I said if some numbers get carried away and go away with multiples that are crazy, obviously we are not going into exclusivity. But you see we have quite a chance of around 60% that they accept it. Once we are here, once we are here, we are normally very, very much going into execution and have a very high success rate. That helps the sellers and the buyers, as us, as buyers obviously. So very selective. It's a very, it's a very important element because really, if you would have done some of the ones we haven't done, I think we may have destroyed value and that one we have not done. Why are we the acquirer of choice? There's one element, the trust.
I can only say, being a Swiss company helps, so Swissness helps a little bit being acquirer, but there are also other elements that build a lot of trust. I mean, we have a track record of acquisitions. Sometimes we even offer, "Hey, you can talk to some of the acquired companies because they are the best advocates for us," right, because if they're happy, then, you know, they won't go on to the next buyer, and we have a track record in terms of industry expertise. We are a strategic buyer. We are not a financial investor, but normally in our industrial environment, it's highly, or it's well perceived, then we are working very closely with management and the sellers, so we usually try to understand where the win-wins are, and we have a lot of personal engagement.
I can only say that's also why we are traveling a lot because we are very often on the ground, getting to know the people, understanding what we're looking for as seller, what is important, right? And then, building up trust with management because then you really get to know them and you're also building to a solid foundation for the post-merger integration. And then, yeah, we have a very streamlined MVP. We have a good team that helps because in the end, I mean, the last thing is that a seller that wants to go through a long process and then at the end it doesn't work. So we like the deal certainty, the experience we have, the teams we have, and that helps again. If there's any choice between different buyers, that we are normally the acquirer of choice despite more moderate multiples.
We followed a very disciplined approach. I talked a bit about deal flow management. I talked around the personal engagement at all levels. I think we have fair and balanced in the negotiations after exclusivity, and then we go into deal execution. Deal execution is the part when we are in exclusive processes. There we do a hybrid approach. We take, I call it the best of both worlds, so the classical financial, tax, legal, we have a good external team that supports us. Internally, we keep the elements that we believe as strategic buyer we have the best knowledge because as we go again into companies that are in the same segments, that are having customers that probably are similar to us in the medical, aerospace, defense, and industrial segment, that is the real from a commercial and operational standpoint.
We can assess this much faster, much better than any of their external consultants or providers. We do, obviously, the standard SPA. And then the interesting one is here. I want to come at this. This is also differentiates a lot. And I talk more about it. It's a post-merger integration. We are building in the deal execution the post-merger integration plan. When we are coming to signing and completion, we have a post-merger integration plan ready. It's around here. It's less about squeezing the last element, but openly getting on what are the risk and opportunities and prepare for them so that on day one you can get value out of it. Because that is really important. And we have in some level of continuity because if you have a post-merger integration plan, everyone knows what to go after.
Once you can, you can really go full speed. And you see the results that we are very fast getting, very, very solid results. And then post-merger integration, it's built in this phase, but it's an important one. Post-merger integration, we are split into two areas. One is the foundation. It's just the things you have to do. Very important because obviously administration, I mean, look, we have from insurance and all these things, core HR, work contracts, certain elements, marketing branding, right? What are you doing in terms of branding? How do you approach it? How do you go with the customers as well in terms of marketing? Financial reporting and controls, getting this one up and running, as it is, as it should be for a company of our size and to ensure we can trust and you know the numbers that we have.
IT is important because IT means that the collaboration flows, on one side, and that is a critical element. But also it means that cybersecurity and all our cybersecurity activities are across all companies consistently implemented. That is the foundation. Then we have called in the main areas of synergies. The two biggest ones are obviously sales. As Stefan nicely said, right, you're acquiring every time new customers. It's beautiful. And these customers, you can offer all the other services Cicor has, the full production network that Cicor has. And by way, you can really then penetrate them more. And that is a big value driver. Second one, sourcing, right?
I mean, I don't need to explain this one, but if you are close to CHF 500 million company or a company of 20 million revenue, the purchasing power and the conditions you have to supply is significantly different. And it's different in two areas. The first one is obviously absolute cost. As a larger company, you'll get rebates, you get lower costs also. All this, the key suppliers. But secondly, payment terms, right? I mean, this is the typical, you know, sorry, there are lots of banks here. There is a thing of financing, right? Because we do an acquisition, but then we extend the payment terms to the suppliers from 30 days to 120 days plus.
And you get within the first couple of quarters within the first quarter or a significant cash back because you pay close to two, three months later. And that is a financing mechanism that is excellent, delivering significant cash pickup after the acquisitions. Obviously, engineering, manufacturing, their ones, and last but not least, others. It may be case by case, right? I mean, in Dresden, we had announced that this acquisition, we had one joint leadership team directly got the synergies. So PMI, really important. And it seems to be also we were recently at an M&A seminar with 210 people. Everyone was interested around both because that is where a lot of other companies seem to have a big headache. But I can say for us, it really works. Now, so that is the playbook. Let's talk a bit about results.
Because I think these results are excellent. Everyone has worked in M&A can just confirm it. We have closed seven acquisitions. Four have been pre-2024, and we have closed this year three. So I have obviously shared a bit, the one that is all the setup, but also, obviously the more relevant ones because they are really much more down the road. We have put three measures, and I go a bit more deeper after. One is revenue. We say, "Look, how much revenue have we picked up, post, well, if you take the pre-acquisition LTM revenue versus post LTM in local currency." Look, we have picked up for the four pre-2024, 30%. Obviously 2024, we look at 12 months rolling. I mean, it's very early, but nevertheless, on average, we would have 16%. Profitability.
So EBITDA, that's key because in the end, very often in the market, it's an EBITDA driven multiple. So if you can say that, you are tracking now 41% above pre-LTM, as of pre-closing LTM, you really straight have increased value because the multiple would go then on these numbers. There we have on the 41% pickup on the pre-2024, and in average, even 40%. So even on the there you see it actually even on the ones, and I show some more results later on. Some of the acquisitions this year, we have already done a significant EBITDA pickup and the last one I think is fascinating, free cash flow. And look, I people that know me, I'm very much focused on free cash flow. If you look at the free cash flow, the net cash outflow for our seven acquisitions, right?
If you take it together, the companies have today already reworked in 2024, accumulated 40% of this. Or I say in other words, the free cash flow generation of this company basically recovers the net cash outflow within five to seven years. So really that is core. And that's why also, despite some of the acquisitions, we are very moderately leveraged, right? Because EBITDA has been picking up and free cash flow has been delivered. And at net, you're staying at the same multiple despite the fact we are now twice the size, right? And it's a wonderful funding mechanism. And that gives also the foundation for future success. Now, I mentioned it. I think it's really around target selection division with PMI, and results are pretty consistent.
To also show this consistently, what I thought is I'll show you some of the more details on the M&A side. I didn't want to go into each M&A because each acquisition is different. So I said, "Hey, if you take the seven acquisitions, what has been the pickup that we've seen on revenue," right? So we said, in light blue, these are the most recent ones we closed this year. So in Q1 and then the dark blue are the ones that are pre-2024. So what you see is, in average on the dark blue, we had been above 30% in local currency. And on the light blue, well, in all together, at 16%. Now you see it, and you are all very good in numbers, so I don't have to say this one. The big swings here and there are obviously the ones with smaller ones.
If not, if this would have been, let's say, axis, then you would have been seeing a higher average. So obviously the smaller ones are the ones that are driving extreme. The one here is the one that is the smaller one in 2024. And I can only say in 2025, we are already by far above the screen line. So it's a great story for us as well. But very consistent in terms of revenue pickup. Looking at EBITDA pickup, the same. You see that the EBITDA pickup, same view. Interesting enough, and I don't want to disclose names, but you see obviously that already in the 2024 acquisitions, in some of them, we have delivered a massive EBITDA pickup and a significant turnaround of the profitability, that also Alexander referred to. But again, there's no massive outlier.
It's really the right one. Again, I know that next year it's far above this one. It's very, very strong. And look, and last but not least, free cash flow regeneration cumulated, we already recovered the 40%. So it's really nice. And even some of the 2024 acquisitions have already contributed this year. So, significant to recover. So again, that's where the payment terms, that's when some of the work on bringing down net working capital is really, really, implemented very successfully. And that's built back to what also Marco showed. This operational excellence program is critical on these areas because that's when you quickly can go and deliver significant revenue pickup on the sales side, EBITDA and free cash flow as we go with the operational implementation.
But also it shows that the cost, the PMI, the post-merger integration really is successful and is consistently delivering results. To wrap up, I think we have a strong financial foundation. We have an attractive external market, as Alexander said. We focus on, on really on core known businesses, obviously significantly reducing risk. We have a solid M&A process. PMI is, I think, is a real success driver. We normally within six months, 90% of our post-merger integration plan is completed. It lasts for at least, I mean, I, I think that for a solid, we are, we can say in what we've seen over the last four years, we have a proven track record to make M&A work. Okay. That's a bit on M&A. I will continue. It actually naturally flows over.
We have done over the last four years M&A and organic growth. Actually in the last four years, an average close to 10% organic growth, about 15% inorganic growth. And that gives us confidence that we also can increase further on the term midterm targets. It is all around the same umbrella, Creating Together, so establishing Cicor as the pan-European leader. There are some increases that I will explain. We will continue to focus on this, gain market share. The market is growing, as you saw in Alexander's section as well. But we will gain share because the CDMO approach, so really across, you know, from the early development up to the box build will help, but also the focus on our segments will help that we continue to grow above market. A 7%-10%, we feel very confident until 2028.
On revenue, we increased from CHF 600 million target over a three- to four-year horizon to above CHF 1 billion. Reason being is, I mean, we are just within yet one year before the audit, we actually close our next year to where this target was. And secondly, look, we have proven over the last four years that we can grow organic and we can grow via M&A. So this is including a balanced organic and inorganic growth. Simple logic, if you grow organically 7%-10%, I personally believe the Swiss franc will continue to strengthen. We lost over the last four years an average 2%-3% on the Swiss franc strengthening. Then this means organic, inorganic growth of 10%-15%.
That is below what we have delivered so far, but we feel very confident on the pipeline and the market dynamic that we're able to achieve this. On profitability, and other maybe a word, also what I read some of it of the first reaction. Previous guidance was on core results. Now we are talking reported results. So actually this is an increase because on EBIT, this means around 100 basis points higher. And if you take on 2023 impacts, right, the ROIC is a step up of 300 basis points. So we are, because of the results that we've been delivering and feeling strong that we can despite this accounting change, goodwill and equity, for once, just to remember, goodwill and equity, we changed accounting, that we can maintain the 15% that is effectively increased in our ROIC results.
Today we are 12%, but really from the progression we have seen over the last four years, this is a number that is really achievable from our side. The others, Net Debt, CapEx, EBITDA, we leave as it is. Again, we want to remain moderate leverage. We see the recipe that we have done works. So why changing it? And CapEx, we have spare capacity. We invest probably more cash into acquisitions. Normally the acquisitions and the operational excellence, we deliver also capacity. So CapEx will really be focused on the ones that Marco mentioned. So overall, this is the increase and the bold or going forward rebuilding. It is really a continuation and it is based on the strong four years of balanced growth of organic and inorganic, that gives us confidence that we now go out to achieve as well as financial objectives by 2028.
So that was already lots of stuff. So I won't keep you much longer here before we are going to the Q&A session. So if I do an outlook for the year, that is something, so we're going from 2028 back to 2024. You have heard our targets there, but you know, if you climb the mountain, you start with the first step, and it's important that we perform this year and now. You have seen that we had organic growth slightly negative in the first nine months, however, with significant market share gains. So, we do see. We did see commitment to that in Q3 already, order intake and sales to continue the recovery, and that continues into Q4, so we are actually quite optimistic about that.
That is important to see because if you look at the industry recession in Germany, for example, that industry recession is continuing, and there is no short-term signs it's abating. So for us, this is an excellent sign that we are seeing continued recovery of order intake and of course of sales. Then I already mentioned the progress in integrating the newly acquired company. I've already mentioned how satisfied we are with the three sites from TT Electronics. It is specifically important here that we are doing the margin pickup because it is large, about GBP 70 million, about CHF 80 million. Top line wise, very important. We don't want at all to have that acquisition to dilute our operating performance. Now I can say it is very good. Peter has shown one number.
Imagine one acquisition we did this year has already earned back in free cash flow 44% of the purchase price. That's just amazing. You know, that's, that's fantastic. So we are seeing that, that progress, and it's really proving the model that we have. So this guidance now stands since mid of the year. So we have increased our guidance when we announced half year result, and we have no reason to reduce it. We, we feel well on track to be in that bandwidth for, for both EBITDA and sales. So here we are really happy. Okay, provided there are no significant changes. Maybe we are now so late in the year that we can drop this, but it's, it is a disclaimer that we always put in. So we see the company strategically on the offensive moving forward. Whereas the day-to-day operationally, it's really about robustness.
It's about resilience also in difficult markets, also in times when as now the Swiss franc continues to strengthen, so in overall, if you look at our business case, I hope we were able to demonstrate to you we do have a long-term growth potential. We have the mega trends are not changing. They are there. The one area that is accelerating is outsourcing. I mentioned that we are in two active discussions about significant outsourcing projects from OEMs, and also we see, and we didn't mention it earlier, we see an acceleration of nearshoring and moving out of China. There is a very big latency, especially about the moving out of China. We have seen that, when former U.S. administrations have levied punitive tariffs, that has taken years until companies really take the strategic decisions to move out.
Most companies have accepted these tariffs, 20%-30% in the U.S. But now they're seeing that it doesn't matter who's winning tonight. It will not change. The tariffs will be there. You see the new tariffs for electric vehicles in the U.S. of 100%. And you see the tariffs will not go away. So getting out of China is now serious. And after two administrations, Trump and Biden, everybody now knows the next administration will absolutely not change anything. We are further sharpening our focus on the verticals and subverticals. And Stefan has mentioned that. On that, what is really most profitable and fastest going for us. This is one of the major elements that the company is so resilient today. Now here we are talking about the true U.S.P. We are moving faster and will continue to move fast.
So stay tuned to transform Cicor more and more into a true product creation company. We have done steps and we're going to do more steps in that way. Value creative, buy and build strategy. Peter has explained that very much in detail, what we are doing. And I think, Marco has also explained to you in a good way how we have a pretty disciplined approach to business excellence. And that is an approach that we are applying also to the companies that we acquire to drive value, to drive the numbers that we want. Yeah, we have done that. We enjoy it. We have fun doing what we're doing. I hope that this is also something that you see.
I'm blessed to have a team not only sitting here, but working worldwide, that likes doing what they do, that is really very enthusiastic. And that's also at the end of the day important that, you know, we at Cicor enjoy what we're doing. So thank you very much. That's it for now. Maybe my colleagues, if you want to stand up, join me here. We are open for your questions. Who wants to make a start?
My question, with your ambitious plans for the next couple of years, do I assume right that we're not planning any dividend for the time being? That's right, yes. Okay. Then second question.
One is we have better uses for the funds.
Yeah. Okay. Regarding, question for Peter regarding the loan margin. What can we assume the trade margin capacity at the moment is?
We, so target based, I mean, you can roughly calculate around three maximum percent, 3% closer. But all in, I said really all in.
Yeah. Thank you.
Is it right to assume that this plan will be executed without a major change to the capital structure, i.e., outstanding amount of equities, including dilution on everything? Or will you consider raising equity?
I can, yeah. Look, I mean, it's a good question. As mentioned, we have ambitions and like M&A funding worth CHF 150 million. If obviously, look, if you would go significantly faster in our 2028 plan, meaning like I would, I don't know, we would have a great opportunity to enter France, Italy, Nordics, and maybe another market at the same time, and we believe we can manage it, then we need to think through what is the financing strategy.
In the base scenario, right, that we are gradually executing M&A as we have done, we would not require equities. We can fund it from first existing credit facilities and then obviously, refinancing at the leverage that we are having. So the base scenario is a more gradual progression. But look, M&A is a lot about opportunities. If you see a great opportunity that creates value for you, then we would not probably say no because of this, but rather, try to go after it.
Yeah.
Do you find the access to credit difficult since credit has disappeared? Have you seen any change?
I have to say that it's a bit of history of the company that predates even me, that Cicor is very international, with the banks and the syndicates.
You see Austria, you see Germany, you see some Switzerland, but somehow the large Swiss banks, so the two large Swiss banks, UBS, Credit Suisse never played that role in the world, I think. I'm very aware of the whole discussion. It's a big measure of Swissness, you all know and other engagements I had, I was seeing that Credit Suisse was an excellent commercial bank, very business-minded and I see that many companies are suffering, but we at Cicor don't suffer because we've never worked too much with the two large Swiss banks.
The Credit Suisse news you told us today, it's a surprise to see the stock at the level as we are today.
Is that a liquidity problem or is it a market-maker problem or are you not efficient enough to make the necessary steps to get the stock more popular to investors?
Yeah. So, of course it's you who make the stock, if you buy it at 60, then the share price is at 60. That's why not. So that's very simple. But the total truth is that I see everything takes some time. I see that liquidity is about three, four times higher than it was one and a half years ago. So we have a significant increase in liquidity in the Cicor shares. We see that on the roadshows we are doing, for number one, we invited to more. Number two, we have more and higher quality contacts we are talking to.
But of course, everybody is checking first and takes half a year, maybe a year and a half before investing. So we see that the interest is definitely much more there. Liquidity is picking up and let's see what share price do. But at the end of the day, as I said, you make the share price for us.
I have a more strategic question. You talk about being number one in Europe, but thinking about your clients, there might be global accounts with product distributed globally and even assembled or manufactured globally. How should we think about this sort of, especially looking at that you have no U.S. footprint? Is it a disadvantage? How are you dealing with that?
Yeah. So first of all, we are more on the high end of technology.
We have certain markets that are not so interesting. For example, India would not be so important case for us, and then we have decided many years back already, seven years back or so, that we said it's better to be a leader in Europe than to be a nobody worldwide. That's why we focus on Europe. Now, what you're saying is very true. We started to miss a presence in the U.S., and I would expect that within the next 12-18 months, we make moves that will provide that will give us some U.S. presence manufacturing presence exactly for the reasons that you have mentioned. The customer portfolio is so broad now that we have more and more customers who are actively asking us to manufacture for them in North America. Your point is well taken. It's right.
I would assume that within 12 -1 8 months, we should have a solution.
That's a lot. Thank you.
I would have a couple of questions actually, one for each of you. I'll start with you, Mr. Hagemann. You indicated that you're working on two larger outsourcing deals with OEM customers. What would be the typical lead time until such a deal, as soon as it's agreed, translates into revenue for Cicor?
This can be anything from three, let's say typically I would say six to 18 months.
Six to 18 months.
It can be very fast if you are, if you are acquiring the manufacturing site or taking over, and then we would wind it down. It can take longer if, if a customer is winding down his own manufacturing.
So six to 18 months, I think, would be a fair assumption. Thank you.
Next question, Mr. Kechele. You described the benefits from your new business excellence program, and would you be able to put that into perspective relative to the typical price erosion taking place in your industry? Can you overcompensate price erosion with the measures you have initiated?
To a large extent, yes. Because we have different disciplines, right? We have price inflation on the material side, but we are strengthening our sourcing power. So we get better condition on the other end. The idea is to balance these. We have labor cost increase and we have productivity improvements. We try to balance these. What I mentioned before, we have room for organic growth in the range of CHF 250 million. So with every higher utilization of our factories, our leverage on the overhead costs is also going down.
So this is our target, that we at minimum compensate these price increases or inflation increases, let's say, with operational excellence.
Thank you. The next one is on the market, please. I understand that you are having a well-built pipeline in healthcare for example for drug delivery systems. Can you explain it in a bit more detail what applications these products are for? For instance, will you somehow be involved in these obesity things or is diabetes the main app lication?
We have different applications in the pipeline and also in our customer base. It's for sure. I mean, diabetes, insulin pumps, but there are also other pharmaceuticals to be applied by electronic devices, yeah. So it's not only really focused on one specific. So we see general growth in this market.
Thank you.
The final one for you. If I calculate correctly, then the idea is to acquire revenues in the neighborhood of CHF 250 million-CHF 300 million, possibly by the end of 2028. I assume that this requires larger transactions. So is the size that you did with the TT Electronics transaction, the size we should envisage for the coming deals, or would you target even larger transactions?
I would. It's a very good question. Obviously, we look mainly at the value creation we can do with the different transactions first. Secondly is, let's say, I think, an add-on, let's say, in a large market like Germany, U.K., or Switzerland creates a lot of value, but can be smaller, right? But if you would enter and you want to become European leader, if you want to enter Italy, France, Nordics, you're not going with an acquisition that's extremely small.
Or, as Alexander said, the U.S., right? Don't enter the U.S. with an acquisition of 20 million revenue. I mean, you just know what. So I think you have to think about rather from a strategic view, as you enter a new market, you probably will certainly scale because then we have with Axis an excellent platform in the U.K. that has been growing out. We have in Germany really built it out. And so we will enter new geographies for larger acquisitions. Now, smaller acquisitions in some markets are highly value-created because they are bolt-on. You can price scale, you can leverage certain elements. I mean, that is there. It's obviously also probably easier because a lot of the M&A integration work is straight with the local team, right?
I mean, the example we acquired SMT, and from day one we had a joint management team. Both sides are in Dresden. I mean, the synergies are flowing straight away. So that's how I look at more of it. It's not that I say, "Oh, I want to have a certain number and I want to now do a larger deal." It's not normally intended. It's more from a strategy, right? From a strategy. If you want to become a European player, we are in very attractive markets not present. So when you need a certain scale, and then if we create value with a smaller one, you have to look into the priorities and the complexity for the value, but we, we always look at it.
Thank you.
That's a good question. Thank you.
Do you use firms when you make acquisitions or if they're substantially created?
In one of the charts I mentioned, we are flexible in restructuring, so we look at what is the key element with the sellers, what do we really look for. Earnout is a tool, right, as others, to bridge some gaps maybe of misunderstanding. We have so far only used it once in seller, so relatively limited because you shouldn't forget with earnouts, you align incentives short term, right, in terms of delivering short-term results with the seller, but you also create a lot of complexity. I mean, let's be fair, in some areas, it would just not make sense, so if it is one tool, if it is a way to bridge gaps between the seller and the buyer, we can use it.
But if I don't have to because we can find a more simple structure, then we prefer the simple structure. It seems to be a trade-off between operational objectives and some financial objectives, especially when you, well, it's a trade-off. It's a combination. It's not a combination so the investments in technology capabilities, working with customers to develop new tools and so on, and maximizing free cash flow, reducing CapEx, and operational driving operational performance is absolutely key. Driving operational performance in all areas, be it on the sales side, on the operational metrics, or the financial side. Because you know, the day you are closing on a transaction, then it is organic business. Then it's all about operational performance, like my colleagues mentioned. It's interesting so it's, it's, we have to have both.
Yeah.
I would really say it's actually the operational excellence that drives the results, right? I mean, if you think big picture, and you're coming from some other companies that have massive CapEx, you're talking 2.5%-3% in the free cash flow statement, right? If you look into net working capital optimization, productivity, that is the funding mechanism that drives some of the results. I mean, the low leverage that we have today, I only have because Marco and his team have delivered cash flow improvements on procurement. He has delivered revenue on the, with the customers. And by the way, we have stepped up the profitability that then flows through to cash flow on top of some of the procurement elements. So I don't see where. I mean, especially now in this year, I don't see where a massive trade-off.
I think where we all agree, we would not make massive investment into a greenfield site and put CHF 50 million to a beautiful new site or a headquarters or whatever. I mean, but I think there we are very much aligned with in terms of priorities.
It was mentioned a bit, and it's very interesting. The way companies are valued, really, with enterprise values and multiples of EBITDA and that is a very modest number. You're getting so many potentials for free. The potential to improve on operations, so operational performance, we mentioned about doubling of EBITDA margin of the TT Electronics acquisitions we did, and to get capacity for free. It's amazing. It's amazing. We are buying capacity, and instead of putting up a factory or having to rent one, it's just for free as part of the deal.
So totally love it. And it's not only that. It's also that, you know, Marco. You promote a very rigorous approach on OEE, overall equipment effectiveness. Very often, the smaller companies we acquire, they don't run their equipment well. And by teaching them how to get more out of the existing equipment, or like you tell our managers to move with less, we are creating even more capacity. It's a beautiful model that is allowing us on top of the financial returns of the deal to get so much more.
Maybe as a follow-up on these CapEx, I mean, you mentioned one of your strategies is to come up with a new application. So, I mean, high precision. You want clean rooms. I mean, is that really possible if your CapEx is at 2.5%?
I mean, you have a lot of sites worldwide. I mean, did they invest more in the past, and now you don't have to invest for the next five years or, I mean, how do you reach that?
What we can say is that nothing is totally new. For more or less all of our technologies, we have already something in place in some cases, right? And first, we utilize what we have. And also answering a little bit the CapEx, I mean, all of our CapEx have a return on investment, right? This is not that we just invest for the sake of investing. And here it's very often, I mean, our customers work very often at the edge of the technology. They are home-based maybe in Switzerland, maybe in Germany, Northern Italy, or in Spain. They are not commodity.
They are working on the edge of technology, and they are looking for partners which follow them on the way to figure out what is possible, right? And therefore, some of these investments have quite a value because it makes a difference. And so return on investment is competitive against investments in others. And what was mentioned before, I mean, we don't invest in facilities, in things which are just there, right? And spare and buffer equipment, we can also get with acquisitions, whatever. So this is not our focus. It's more that we select very carefully where we want to invest and where we can make a difference.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, we should also add that talking about electronics, there might be misperceptions. So TSMC is also electronics, and Intel is also electronics. When they are investing, they're investing into making semiconductors.
The capital outlay is enormous. That's all the numbers we hear all the way. You know, if you think about the subsidies, CHIPS Act and whatnot, we're investing $10 billion, $20 billion, $50 billion into a wave of that. Our industry, which is about creating products, assembling products, is extremely scalable. So the required capital outlay is massively low. So that's why the scalability of our industry is very high.
Yeah. Competitive.
Most of our competitors invest between 1.5%-2%. We between 2.5%-3%. That means in average, we invest 1% more than our competitors in average. But this is maybe not relevant in one year. But if we say year after year after year, yeah, it's 1% of our revenue, we invest more in our technology and capabilities over time, it makes a difference.
Mr. Neumann, how is the relationship with your main shareholder?
Is it a financial one, or is it giving you some advice and instructions?
Our main shareholder. So, by the way, I think you will have the ability to have a good one-on-one discussion over Friday because we have our chairman down at the front here in the room. And we have also a representative and board member from our main shareholder, Konstantin Ryzhkov. So, and maybe he's the best to respond. But what they do, from my perspective, first of all, they have one representative on the board. So one OEP representative, the other three are independent. Then what they provide is, of course, let's say they are acting as a consultant. All decisions, of course, are taken by the board about an acquisition and whatnot. So they cannot take a decision. They can only advise. They can only advise management and the board.
And that's a service that under other circumstances would be quite expensive. We get it for free. It is a way for One Equity Partners to drive their return that ultimately, of course, they require and they want. And everybody else can also, of course, benefit from that. So there's definitely a clear element of advice, but no influence on decision-making because it's just the normal governance we have in the board, which is majority independent.
Maybe, I mean, you mentioned also that you want to develop more for your clients. So are you going to increase R&D personnel, or is this already included in your target operating model, or you have this 6%, I think, productivity improvement? So you can compensate with that, or you have to invest, and if you have to invest, I mean, in which part?
Maybe it's important to understand that we, if we speak about development, we are typically talking about co-engineering. So our customer engineers something together with us or gives us a concrete contract. So this is a contract where we have also reimbursement on what we are doing. It's not that we develop something, and then afterwards, in the recurring phase, we sell it or whatever. So we are paid for the development in a co-engineering or a contracted engineering mode. So we should be also successful in making revenue during the engineering phase. And then we are, let's say, in the full position also to be allowed to manufacture afterwards, right? I mean, it's sometimes independent. It's a different contract. So we get a contract for the development, and then, let's say, we are in a good position to offer also recurring production.
And typically, we get it, right? But it's not dependent, right? It is dependent. So we have a business case for the engineering. We have a business case for the manufacturing.
Okay. This is already in place. Yeah. Yes. So why don't you do this before in that case?
I mean, I mean, to a smaller extent, yes. We are developing these further. We have now new capabilities with the acquisition in Bucharest, for instance. We are developing an engineering department in Vietnam, very, very competitive on the cost structure. Young guys, right, really engaged and motivated to learn. So, and we have our main hub in Swisstronics here in Switzerland, and we do more system engineering and coordi nation projects and also.
The OEM outsourcing contracts that you announced, the large ones that you basically pre-announced now, how significant are they going to be?
I mean, are you going to do a press release when it happens?
No. So we are working on this. I'm not saying that they're already in the books. We're working on this. So I'm really happy to see from the 2.5%, or the CapEx guidance that we discussed before. I mean, we have to do. There's all different kinds of models that you can have. It's either just a transfer of manufacturing. You can take over some equipment, or you take over a complete facility. So what it is, it's if you take over a facility, it's very similar to an M&A project, if you wish. If you are taking over equipment, then we have done this.
Then, in a very recent case where a customer, a healthcare technology customer, has outsourced because he has shut down manufacturing, his own manufacturing in the Philippines and partially in Vietnam, and transferred to our factory in Indonesia. And what we do, we would, for example, acquire his equipment at book value. So and then move it to us. It's always a negotiation issue. So all the models exist. In that case, again, it was a modest capital investment. And then, yes, this was included in the 2.5%-3% in that case. It seems to be that 20 sites is quite a lot for the revenue that you generate. Yeah. One site is more of an engineering site. Yeah. It's more to combine some with one we have announced. So one is really not a full site.
For manufacturing, it's more engineering and headquarters. That's Singapore. So make it 19. And we have just announced the consolidation of one of our sites. So that makes it 18. And we are looking, of course, at the viability of each site and what are the economies of scale in coming to an optimum site. We should also, you know, in the business that we are in, we can run a site with extremely low fixed costs. We can run certain sites with very low fixed costs. And so we have really to consider the benefits. And so far now, we have decided to shut down one site, next year, one in Ulm. It was just announced a few weeks ago. And we are always assessing.
What we are doing about site consolidation is really depending heavily on our M&A, of course, because new acquisitions provide also new opportunities for potentially site consolidation.
If I can add on, I mean, when we started thinking about site consolidation 20, 30 years ago, we discussed about fixed cost reduction, what were the signals and what. Today, having people in place is a value by itself. I mean, in Switzerland, in Germany, in the U.K., if you consolidate sites and you close one site with 100 people, and you need therefore 60, 70 at the other side to increase just to absorb the volume, it's not easy to get them, right? So people are really a factor which plays a role in site consolidation in the Western Hemisphere. This is different in our Asian sites. Here we are ready to grow.
We want to go for volume. But the site consolidation, being close to the customer, having experienced people in place is a value by itself. Yeah.
When you acquire companies, you say you have a lot of capacity. So, and you also said you don't have high fixed costs. So do you normally then also reduce the amount of personnel when you acquire a company? I mean, is this one of the ways you can improve the margin quite fast? Or is it really just the productivity changes plus the cross-selling?
I would say it's more often than on materials. It's sometimes in the SG&A or really being able to better coordinate certain functions. If we see, sometimes you mentioned that in your presentation, we have the must-do, the admin stuff.
Sometimes I'm surprised how much some companies are paying for insurances and, and for example, for their auditors. So I think we've seen numbers that did surprise us. I don't know if there's not too many auditors in the room. But that is really something where we can drive a much, much harder bargain both on. And these costs are adding up. It's also on smaller cost elements like, like marketing. And if you're adding these very small items up, they can already give you 50 basis points of margin for pretty much doing nothing other than having them participate in group contracts. And then you start on SG&A. Peter has mentioned what we've done in Great Britain to combine the management team of two sites that gave us roughly CHF 500,000 in savings almost overnight. So that's what we're doing.
But again, that's why we need an approach that's very, very close to the operations and the business because the savings, with each acquisition can be totally different.
It's a case by case. That's why that's so important to do due diligence, to think what's the risk and opportunities. And not to know any easy wins on admin we take, right? But I mean, if there's a site where it's a really growth story, you rather wonder how can we accelerate maybe the staffing so that we get faster on the growth. I mean, that is maybe more than the question, but it's really case by case. Now, overall, these you saw significant profitability step up either by top line or by saving or by a combination.
You have done this acquisition without doing restructuring charges and things like this, which usually, or very often, is the case when companies do M&A. Can we assume that also executing this 2028 plan, what you have given us as a financial framework is that we don't need any restructuring charges? You do not adjust. We can measure you at the reported numbers. And what you do in this, post-merger integration is basically everything is included in numbers.
I would look, I mean, honestly, we have not planned out for any major restructuring. I mean, so I would say yes. But also this is the only thing. I mean, we have to see what happens. So the only thing is a one-off. We will probably disclose it by this. I'm not sure I would do a massive exit in our guidance.
So, it's coming back to your example. I'm not trying to kind of then separate it out and say our guidance was excluding. That's not the point. But we may disclose it. You see, like we have done half the reporting. I mean, we had upon 80 basis points of dilution the first half because of M&A, PPA step ups. So we are transparent. We believe the most important for you is to all in. So we will not create massive secondary reporting to actually, if you look into what we did with the One Equity, the whole intention was to make it very simple communication that everyone understands the value creation in very simple terms. You see the midterm guidance now, no core, very simple profitability. And look, I mean, I may elaborate.
If you do the math, if you take all the elements together around the guidance, you actually, if you take the CapEx, if you take what Marco said in net working capital, and so on, if you look at what we do in terms of progress, you'll not only get also the number, what is the free cash flow conversion. We already in our business have around 50% of EBITDA translating into free cash flow. Sometimes more as we reduce net working capital, maybe in a higher step up. Maybe some years that the supply chain crisis was challenging, but on average, that is a good assumption. And you can run a simple model with assumptions, and you will get to this. So I think, overall, we will continue around it. And for us, it's core coming back Mr. Neumann's question as well.
Why is the share price not up? We need to make it very transparent, simple what the value equation is.
So thank you very much. Thanks a lot for your input.