Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the B.O.S. conference call. All participants are at present in listen-only mode. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded and will be available on the B.O.S. website as of tomorrow. Before I turn the call over to Mr. Cohen, I would like to remind everyone that forward-looking statements for the respected company's business, financial condition, and results of its operation.
This meeting is being recorded.
Are subject to risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated. Such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to product demand, pricing, market acceptance, changing economic conditions, risks and product and technology development, and the effect of the company's accounting policies, as well as certain other risk factors, which are detailed from time to time in the company's filings with the various securities authorities. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Eyal Cohen, CEO.
Thank you. Thank you for joining our call today. On the call with me, with me today, Mr. Ziv Dekel, Chairman, and Moshe Zeltser, CFO. I'm excited to launch our new conference call format through Zoom, which is aligned with the management presentation. The result of the first half of the year 2023 were above our expectation. Compared to the first half of 2022, revenues grew by 11%, EBITDA by 56%, and net income by 168%, and the EPS by 144%. In 3 years perspective, our performance has been improved consistently. Compared to year 2020, our last 12 months revenue grew by 31% to $44 million.
Our EBITDA increased by 342% to $3.1 million, and net loss of $1 million in year 20 turned into income of $2.1 million in the last 12 months ended June. Our balance sheet has significantly strengths over those years. Our shareholders' equity increased from $12 million at the end of 20, year 20, to $18 million on June 23. Our bank loans remain roughly the same, around $2 million. The business trends that impacted our business results in the first half of this year were intense demand from the Israeli defense market that have positively affected the growth of our Supply Chain Division . Those demands are attributed to the military conflict in Europe and in the Middle East.
Those demands will probably continue to support our Supply Chain Division growth in this year. Our Robotics Division is in transitioning toward the Israeli defense market, and currently, most of our project in process are attributed to one of the major defense companies in Israel. There are signs of slowdown in the Israeli civil market, which negatively impacted our division revenues in the second quarter of this year. Our growth strategy is based on both organic growth and M&A. The key elements of our organic growth plan are strengthening our competitiveness by adding more brands to our existing offering, developing new markets by extending our offering with the complementary technologies, and keeping a high market presence through trade shows and digital marketing. At this stage, I want to turn the call to Mr.
Ziv Dekel, our Chairman, who will elaborate on our M&A strategy. Thank you.
Thank you, Eyal, and good morning and afternoon to everybody. The second dimension of our growth, planning is, as Eyal mentioned, the M&A strategy. Within this framework, the typical profile of the target acquisition is of five criteria. The first criteria will be that the company, the acquisition company, is, has a strong competitive position with last three years of profitable results track record. The second one, the second criteria is that in terms of the company's business model, it will be of a significant high portion of recurrent revenues and not projects. Market dynamics should reflect an attractive market conditions such as growth, level of innovation, fundamentally high margins, and so on and so forth.
The fourth and fifth elements are, one will be the size of the target, of the target company, of which we wish it would be, it would exceed $5 million of annual revenues, and our planned investment is up to $5 million, with target equity share of around 51%. Thus, we're also hedging our forward-looking risk... To define the scope of our research, we first need to categorize BOS, our business scope, as it will be the basis for leveraging hard, soft, and high-level synergies. This element is very important due to, you know, comparing or keeping our risk profile intentions. RF, RFIDs are our traditional hardcore business.
Automation comes next, supply chain, and higher above is the improved technologies of innovation process, representing the highest, the broadest scope of our capabilities, know-how, and fine expertise. This slide is describe our BOS's specific scope of M&A, in which we are going to focus. The scope is defined by the derivation of BOS around business, around our scope of business and scope of client. Our strategy is to include targets around our core business. Also, we will look for targets in the adjacent to the core, and it may be that we'll find some opportunities in the, in the, in the higher level, in the next core area. These targets will require, are required to be very, very attractive.
We run a structured process with the comprises of 6 phases. I will now take you along of each phase in order that you could be all aligned. The first phase, engage with an agent. This is, this is done. We are currently engaged with 2, 3 agents that are doing the search, intensive, and comprehensive search for us, along the criteria that we, that, that I elaborated further. The second phase is defining the scope of M&A. We're doing it currently together. Third phase is to have to acquire a list of target companies. Phase 4 are the most attractive one. We will do meetings, and then, of course, due diligence and raising the equity.
Sixth phase, also is, of course, the closing, the closing phase. To look on a broader view, I trust all BOS team, led by Eyal, to win this challenging, this very challenging process, actually, and on the broader perspective, actually, of the overall to run and manage the overall company strategy and operational plan. Thank you all for your attention. I will now hand over back the presentation to Eyal.
Thank you, Ziv. Q&A. At this time, we'll begin the Q&A session. If you have a question, please unmute and present your question. Okay. Usually, Todd ask a question. I see that.
Hey, guys, can you hear me?
Ah, yes.
Yeah.
We're glad to hear you and to see you.
Hey, congratulations on another great quarter. You know, I was a little surprised that the revenues were that high, given the devaluation of the shekel. Can you talk a little bit how that has affected you? I, I know a lot of your contracts are done in US dollars, but I thought it would have more of an effect on your revenue.
Actually , most of our revenues are quoted in dollar, and the effect of the devaluation of the NIS, again, the US dollar, is mainly on our operational expenses, on one side, and on the other side, another direction, the effect on our current, on our financial expenses. When there is a devaluation, our operational expenses decrease, but our financial expenses increase. For the, from the financial report aspect, the strong dollar is good for the performance because of the effect on the operational expenses, which has a higher effect than the effect on the financial expenses.
On the long term, I think that the devaluation of the NIS causing to a inflation, then after we have to upgrade and to update our employees' payroll.
Yeah.
Okay, that, that's helpful. Was also wondering if you could comment on some of your growth. I know a lot is coming from the Israeli defense industry. In the last couple of years, you've had some new business with countries like Saudi Arabia and also moving into some new verticals, I think, retail and clothing lines. Can you kind of talk about the growth and where this is coming from?
Okay. The growth in the. We are working in two segments. One, the different segment, which is mainly come from the supply chain, recently, also the Robotics Division did the transition to the defense market. This market is growing by the sales to the Israeli players. We are not selling directly to the client of the Israeli manufacturers. We are selling to the Israeli manufacturer, to their subcontractor out, around the world. In the recent years, there are growing demands. All this industry growing very fast and consistently. We have a very strong player leg in this segment.
In the civil segment, we have the it's the main business of the RFID ivision. In the recent years, there were huge investment in logistics center, centers, this pushed the growth of this division. As I mentioned, in the recent quarter, in the second quarter of this year, we faced a sign of a slowdown. We hope it's temporarily. We are doing a lot of actions to strengthen our competitiveness position in the market and to expand our product offering in order to continue the growth of this division.
Okay. Thanks. I'll hop back in the queue. Congratulations to you and your team on an outstanding quarter.
Thank you, Todd.
Thank you very much. Any other question?
Any other question?
Hi, Eyal, it's Shuki. How are you?
Hi, Shuki. Good to see you.
Thank you. Long time no see.
Yeah. You had hair in the last time that we talked.
Yeah, you know, time is doing the job. Eyal, I wanted to ask you about the intelligent Robotics Division .
Yes.
I see that in the second quarter, you are around breakeven. Do you see another improving in the second half, let's say, to be a little bit profitable, or what's the near future that you see for this division? I wanted to ask about the RFID division, which in the first quarter was much better than the second quarter, as you said. Do you see it stabilizing, or do you think it won't be profitable in the near future, or it will be stabilized on small net income, more or less? What do you see?
Okay. Thank you, Shuki. First, regarding the Robotics Division , it's today, it's a small division. It had a lot of business risk because it's automation and it's project, so we minimize the risk, and we reduce significantly the size of this division. Still, it's a very important unit to be in the group, because it had a great offer to our customers in the industrial segment and in the logistics segment. We are in transitioning to the defense segment now, and it's going very well. Still, it's a project, it's a, it's a company with that works on project with a high risk, and our plan is that this division will be profitable.
We reached to a breakeven point, and we, we hope, and we work very hard, that it will continue to be so in the next quarter, and in the then after, in the fourth quarter, to generate profits. As much as we will extend the penetration to the defense market, I believe the ability to generate significant profit from this division will increase because we learn the customers. The negotiation in this industry is a little bit easier. They have a lot of budget. They are very rich. It's different world, different than the civil industry, that they are very, very tight budget and a lot of competitions.
Yeah.
We are licensed to work with the defense industry, and we open a vendor there, so it's advantage. Regarding the RFID division, it has a direct link to the Israeli GDP. If the Israeli economy is going well, it's growing. If it's not going well, it's not growing. Currently, the civil market in Israel is in a standby, and we feel it. We see it in the investment in the logistics centers, in the amount, in the number of logistics centers that opened. We hope that it's temporarily and we will see the continuing growth in the Israeli civil market.
Still, in this situation, we are working very hard to strengthen our competitive position, advantage, and to expand our offering to continue to grow. I don't see the risk of this division to turn into loss.
Okay.
I don't see much a scenario. Yeah.
Great. Thank you, Eyal.
Thank you. Any further questions? Okay. Thank you for being with us today, and looking forward to meet you again on both third quarter call. Thank you again.
Thank you, everybody.