Brockhaus Technologies AG

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Brockhouse Technologies Investor Update Call for Year 2023. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode. The floor will be open for your questions following the presentation. Let me now hand the floor over to Marco Pokhals.

Thank you and good afternoon, everyone.

Welcome to Brockhouse Technologies Earnings Call for Fiscal Year 2023. Before we begin, I would like to point out that the slides we are presenting will afterwards be published in the investor relations section of our website, rockhouse-technologies.com. After our presentation, we will open the call to questions from your site. To be fair to everyone, please limit yourself to one question plus one follow-up. Thank you very much in advance. Before we present our results, I encourage all listeners to review the legal notice on page 2 of our presentation, which explains the understanding of forward-looking statements. Additionally, please refer to note 6 of our annual report 2023 on page 94 onward for a discussion on alternative performance measures, as well as the reconciliation of non-GAAP figures. For information on risk factors that could cause actual results, To differ materially from forward-looking statements, we kindly refer you to the section on risks and opportunities in the Management Report 2023, starting on page 65. Flipping over to page 3 and to give you a brief summary of what we have achieved last year. 2023 was another record year for our technology group. we have once again delivered highly profitable top-line growth across all treatments, and this despite lasting global macroeconomic and geopolitical tensions. Rockhouse Technologies generated revenue of €187 million in the fiscal year 2023, representing organic growth of 31% compared to last year. Fueled by the growth contribution of both segments, we once again exceeded our forecast 2023 by around 7%. Adjusted performer EBITDA grew even stronger by 41% to 67 million euro, corresponding to a high margin of 36%. Adjusted performer EBIT increased equally strong by 41% to 62 million euro, corresponding to a margin of 34%. We are once again reporting performer figures as Brokaw Technology successfully completed four highly accretive add-on acquisitions within the financial technology segment last year. To enhance the comparability with the period to come, the performer view shows our numbers as if the acquisition would have already taken place on January 1st, 2023. From a non-performer perspective, revenues unchanged. However, adjusted EBITDA grew by 31% to €62 million and adjusted EBIT altered by 31% to €58 million, corresponding to a 33% and a 31% margin respectively. Even though I keep repeating myself, the operating development in 2023, as well as the growth forecast for the full year, as well as medium-term outlook for 2025, which we will cover later in this presentation, clearly underline the resilience of our business model and strict focus on technology and innovation leaders, and nothing else besides that. Lastly, our financial reserves remain high at cash and cash equivalents of €54 million, despite having made significant investments for the four add-on acquisitions our share purchase, repurchase program, and further repayment of debt within our segment. Let me come to EPS and dividend. Moving over to page four and a new overview that we have added to our presentation and which we will feel should be in the center of attention of our shareholders. We always promise and preach that our interest as a team are deeply aligned with those of our shareholders, namely to create shareholder value. Why? Because we ourselves are shareholders of Rockhouse Technologies ourselves, insiders, meaning our team, supervisory board, and management of our subsidiaries, all around one-third of the group. Our focus to continuously increase shareholder value can be best displayed by showcasing the developments of our adjusted EPS over the past three years. Over this period, adjusted EPS increased by a tigger of 77%. That means that the adjusted net income per each stock of technology share is almost three times as high as two years ago and twice as high as last year. This, of course, is calculated on the basis of net income attributable to shareholders. So the 48% of bike leasing income that belongs to minority owners of bike leasing are excluded from this figure. Personally, I do not know of many companies that were able to achieve such a strong development, especially over the challenging last three years. Also, as we get this question a lot, it always makes sense to look at the adjusted PTAs. as the non-adjusted figures are completely diluted by purely consolidation-related PPA amortization that has no capex need in the future. They only exist because our core business is to do NMA. Please always keep that in mind when looking at our EPS. Given the strong liquidity position, the very successful operative performance in 2023, and the positive outlook, we would propose to the AGM to pay out a dividend of 22 cents per share for fiscal year 2023, sooner than we had predicted when founding Brokerage Technologies. The rationale behind this is manifold. A, underline the profitability and high cash generation of our business. B, reward longstanding shareholders with their trust in us. C, extend the addressable investor universe by dividend-seeking asset managers. With a corresponding total distribution volume of 2.3 million euros, this dividend would however be small enough that it does not hinder us to further conduct additional acquisitions in line with our acquisition strategy or do additional share buybacks. With this brief summary, turning over to the next page and ending over to Harald, who heads our finance department.