LPKF Laser & Electronics SE

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the LPKF conference call for the financial year 2021. My name is Bettina Schaefer. I'm head of investor relations and your host today for this call. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode. The conference will be recorded and published for a period of two weeks on our website after the talk. What's on the agenda today? Our new CEO, Klaus Fiedler and Christian Witt, CFO, will give you a quick overview of the business development in 2021 and an update on our current situation. After that, there will be time for your questions. Before we start, I would like to point out that any forward-looking statements are based on estimates and on information currently available. These forward-looking statements are not to be understood as guarantees of future performance and results.

Ladies and gentlemen, I now give you Klaus Fiedler. Thank you. I think we can't hear you, Klaus. Okay, is it working now? Much better, much better.

Okay, great. So, we got the IT issues out of the way. So, thanks, Bettina. Welcome, everybody. Thanks for joining our conference call. I want to get started as a new guy on board with a quick introduction.

Bettina, if you could move to the next slide. So, I'm newly on board with LPKF, started 1st of January.

My background is in technology, in physics, and during my career, I started in the medical device sector at Phillips, then moved on to NXP semiconductors, working in the MEMS field. And after NXP, I moved to NOLS electronics, working also semiconductor transducer field, a lot in the electronics and component sector. And lately, the past years, I spent a short material company, which most of you will know, basically in the field of identifying and then ramping up new business sectors. I spent a couple of years in the US, five years in China, always working very much on the customer market side, understanding where they truly have pain points, and then linking it with the technology capabilities of the companies, and I very much enjoy driving innovation, not in the sense of driving technology for the sake of technology, but really identifying where in a value chain do we see a need, a potential for disrupting, and then basically making a sustainable business out of it. That's my background. I'm newly on board at LPKF. I'm still in my first quarter. So, I am still very much drinking from the fire hose. But I want to give you just a couple of first impressions I had in my first weeks at LPKF. Bettina, if you could switch to the next slide.

Here we go. So, basically,

What immediately basically came to my mind when I talked to the people here, I visited the site, I looked at the product portfolio and technology, it's very obvious and everybody in the company radiates it. There's a strong innovation DNA in the company. Innovation in terms of identifying the market need, but then being really proactive with getting out a minimum viable product, a solution. And I find that in many areas, this is not just linked to corporate R&D or to a specific BU. Being ahead of the curve is part of the DNA, and that is something you don't find that often. And I really like it. I'm impressed by that. I see a broad product and application portfolio with all the pros and cons that come with it. But there are many markets and many different, let's say, application fields that LTKF addresses with its technology. I see very good customer relations when it comes to our core market. And clearly a challenge and a task of ours is to extend that now to new markets we are entering as we speak. Christian will give you a lot more details on how 21 went. and how we see the future going towards 22. But what I saw is a really impressive order backlog. For me, proving that there are strong headwinds in 21, but there is tangible interest in our products. What I also saw, and I think that's not that untypical of technology companies, yes, there's a strong, focus on technology, there's great competence in technology, but it needs to be balanced with a good, let's say, market focus. So that's something I'm already driving as we speak now. It's great to have a customer, but what you really need to address is the market, and you have to put effort into fully understanding that market, especially if it's a new one you are entering. And last but not least, there's a really solid ESG strategy in place that I would really love to drive forward. These are just some first impressions. I'm sure many of you want to know more details and would like to learn more. I would suggest we address this part in the Q&A. And with that, I hand over to Christian, who will give you more details about 21 and our outlook into 22.

Thank you.

So, thanks. Can everyone see me? I hope so.

So, hello, everyone, also from my side. I'd like to give you some update on the key figures and some more color on key underlying developments or facts on that. Starting with the key group figures, We only made revenues of 93.6 million euros this year, last year, sorry, in 2021. We didn't meet our own expectations of what we wanted to reach. There's a number of reasons behind that. Those reasons include the general macroeconomic and still COVID-affected situation on the one hand, but also very strongly, especially towards year-end, logistics issues, which prevented us from invoicing goods produced and on the way to the customer in the end of the year, which then fell into delivery January 2022 of about 8 million euros. That's about 6 million euros from solar and about 2 million euros from other areas, mainly in the United States. So when you look at the effect that has on profitability, We see that there is still some ebbets, so we have a black zero, as we would call that. However, that is not the type of profit you usually want to make. Looking at the comparison to 2020 or past years, there's basically three factors. Number one is volume, which in comparison to 2020 is a smaller effect. We have less subsidies, which we still got significantly due to corona conditions in 2020 from countries all over the world, including China, Slovenia, and to a not insignificant degree, Germany. And then basically, the biggest chunk, we continue to invest in live and aerialized in the teams we need to set up the equipment and also in the first year of our foundry operations, which we had in 2021, which of course gives us some higher fixed costs, which we are investing not in the classic business, which has a good structure profitability, but which we are investing into our new businesses for the years to come. Looking at the positive side, looking at order intake and orders in hand, that's a very positive In fact, we managed to achieve last year a 15% increase in incoming orders to nearly under 20 million euro last year, and about 60 million euros in orders on hand. About 58 or more will be delivered during 2022. That is also a strong base when we later on talk about the guidance for 2022. Looking at revenue and debit by segment on the next slide, electronics revenue is basically flat, especially due to the shortage on the semiconductor side. Our customers were halting investments on the classic electronics industry, and that basically led to that flat development in sales in 2021. Looking at the EBIT development, here you clearly see that we've invested additional money in live, and you see some of the other effects I just mentioned. Mostly here the subsidies, lower subsidies and lower short-term work. So that is the key effects why this year the electronic segment made a negative result. That is not common. We don't expect that to persist in the future. But at the moment, it is basically driven by the investments we are doing live, building up our capabilities to serve larger customers in the future. In development, very similar. Here, most of these 2 million euro US deferred revenue is hitting. Hitting in 21, benefit on the 22 side. We have a flat revenue development. Market is okay, that's clearly to be said. That was, as I said, about a 2 million euro delivery issue at the end. When you look at profitability, that is more or less the amount which we invest into Aerolize in 2021 in order to build up the organization, build up a bio lab here in Garbsen and so on. where we will see first sales to better customers this year and low volume and expect first more significant sales in 2023 onwards. Welding was a very successful rebound in 2021 after week 2020. Basically on the sales side, there's two key aspects behind that. One is a medium sized order from a large customer in the consumer electronics area, which we have once in a while. That was between upgrades and a couple of new products we delivered. That's about 5 million of the revenue growth. The other 5 million is building up business and business development, what I've explained a couple of times, started in 2020. with new applications and with rolling out existing applications to new markets and customers. And we see quite a successful increase here in the medical industry and in some other general industries and new applications. For example, on the automotive side, batteries, battery welding, battery packs for high power units, and a couple of other new applications in here. profit is purely driven by volume. Not purely, but nearly. That's the main driver behind the improved profitability of 3 million euros in 2021. Solar business, we had two revenue shifts here from 2021 to 2022. One, which I just mentioned, which was the late shipping or the late ship. Our shipping was okay, but the ship was a bit late. which made revenue go into 2022. That's about 6 million. And there's about 5 million order, which has been postponed by the customer to Q2 slash Q3 next year. So altogether, the business of solar would have been relatively similar in 21 versus 20 without these shifts. Given the shifts, what we also see is the impact on profits. which is basically volume driven here that we have been going into a loss situation in 2021. That will change immediately and directly once we start invoicing the orders on hand and the orders already produced. Looking at the next slide with free cash flow, couple of comments. Working capital, we've made quite some progress there. because we were able to improve our working capital, despite the fact that we've increased our inventory for about 89 million euros. And we've done most of that consciously in order to have enough stock of raw material when we get into shortage situations. We source our parts as early as we can. And we continue to do that in order to serve our customers reliably on time. as soon as the situation on the supply markets persist like that. Our current target for network and capital remains at 10%. That's not feasible, however, in the current supply situation. That is well feasible afterwards, and we've shown in 2019 that we have already been pretty close to that. Cash flow overall was neutral with about 700,000 Euro negative FCF in 2021. And the net financial position is basically slightly lower than 2020 because of the dividend paid. We have proposed to the or we will propose in the forthcoming publication of the AGM invitation to the to the AGM that no dividends shall be paid, because we shall invest the funds into the future growth and business at LPKF in the current situation. Looking at ESG focus areas, ESG has been and is an integral part of our strategy. And looking at two key aspects without going into too much detail, the key point is that our products help our customers either to produce more efficient solar modules for green energy, or to be more efficient and save energy and raw material by a more modern and more precise production process in welding, in electronics, and in a similar way also in the development segment. So what we are doing is contributing to those targets. And the way how we are set up as a company is as well, we treat our people well, We are relatively low energy consumption and carbon intense business. However, try to get better wherever you can. We've raised, we've started a project in Q1 2021. Key improvements, recycling rate, some of the CO2 emissions, some measures there. We've made sure that we start to have a fully sustainability assessment of all our suppliers. So we've started that process. We will continue this year. And we've managed to get the environmental management and occupational health and safety certifications ISO 14001 and 45001 both certified last year. That's a good progress was not too difficult for us. Because most based processes were in place and was rather a matter of certification than a matter of introducing the procedures. I think that's some of the key aspects in their sustainability report we published in the end of April 2022. And available for everyone for consultation. Looking at the guidance 2022. We've been quite cautious and conservative in our sales guidance and we've been consciously conservative there and careful. We've given, we're giving a guidance of 110 to 130 million euros turnover for group sales with an average margin of two to 7%. And let me show you some additional light on that, that you understand the context. because that's a very broad range. Our budget is above the guidance. And our budget is what we want to reach. However, we see two effects. We see the macroeconomic turmoils due to the COVID in China. I think the Western world is basically has left it mostly behind when it comes to economic impact. for what we now know in variants and current situation. However, in China, we still see lockdowns and nobody knows where it goes. Direct impact on us so far is very low, but we see what that brings. It's just an uncertainty. And we've learned in past years that these uncertainties sometimes show up in spring and then materialize. So we are careful there. Same for the potential economic consequences of the horrible war in the Ukraine. Nobody knows what the exact impact will be. Cable companies or cable manufacturers for automotive halt the automotive industry. Today there was news that Leoni has restarted their factory in the Ukraine. Let's see how that goes. These facts and Our absolute clear idea not to go below the guidance and not to have to correct that. These two facts have led us to be very conservative on the guidance and very broad and to have it from 110 to 130 million euros. We expect that we'll narrow that guidance in the course of the year, maybe Q2, maybe Q3. That's our expectation at the moment in terms of sales. In terms of profitability, let me do a quick comparison. Looking at 2 to 7% average margin for 110 to 130 million euro sales for us is low. When you look at history, at past years and so forth. However, the big structural difference, for example, to year 2019 is that on the classic business, we rather have a better structural profitability than three years ago. So comparing 2022 with 2019, but we are investing about 9 million euros every year, or at least in the year 2022, it's increasing actually, in the structures we've created for light and airlines and fixed costs. in the teams we need and in the equipment we need in operating the foundry in order to have the right foundations to serve fully professional customers in semiconductor, display and other industries in the years to come. So taking that into account and doing the numbers, one easily finds that the structure of profitability in 2019 was even a bit below than what we expect for 2022. Looking briefly at Q1 2022 of this year, we expect group sales of 22 to 26 million euros. Very most of which of it is invoiced already. We expect a balanced EBIT. And looking a bit into Q2 and Q3, we expect and Q4 just to give you a sense of how the distribution will be without giving any guidance yet. We expect relatively strong Q2 and Q3 this year versus last year and versus typical years for us because we'll have a significant part of our solar deliveries in Q2 and Q3. So that's it on the numbers. Thanks very much for your attention. And now I would hand over to Bettina so Klaus and I can take your questions.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are ready for your questions. Please click on your hand signal to show me if you want to ask a question, and then I can unmute you. And Jonah Emerson is asking the first question. I have unmuted you. Let's see whether you need to unmute yourself. Jonah?

Great. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Perfect. First of all, thank you for taking my question. So basically, I got two questions. My first question is, you have basically given us your outlook on 2022. However, with this, your mid-term guidance looks increasingly ambitious. Can you just elaborate a little bit on how you try to achieve your mid-term guidance? And my second question is, you mentioned in your earning news today that you formed an agreement with a leading semiconductor firm also in this month. Could you just, you know, give us some color on that as well? Thank you. Thank you.

I'm happy to take those questions. So let's first start, where do I stand? I spent my first three months basically getting to know the company, getting to know the business units, getting to know our markets, and putting all that information into the 22 guidance. I have not gotten yet into a deep dive into the mid-term outlook, but I want to give you some flavor of what I found specifically regarding our high-growth businesses and where we stand right now, which will also cover your second question. So, basically, what I see, technology-wise, checkmark. We are ahead of the curve. We can serve what the market needs. That's a good precondition, so happy with what I found. When I look at market interaction, what I like is that we are established broad. So, we have customers which we interact with in several applications, two of which we made already public so we can talk about it. That's the semiconductor field, specifically the back end, and that's the display sector. And you saw already the ad hoc that was published about the JDA with the large display manufacturer. Broadness, there's a third application which could become quite attractive, also addressable market-wise. We cannot share it yet due to customer confidentiality. That is good. And then we look at addressable markets in these applications. Very much in line what was given out as the midterm guidance. And where are we with these customers? So we have customers, as you know, that we are already in operations where we sell asset. That's good, but that's on a smaller scale where you can also basically get used to and get certain tweaks out of the equipment. I see that in the display sector, yes, we are in a normal phase of business development, which is highly credible with a very, very large account. And right now, we also made that part of our publication. Yes, we now have an umbrella contractual agreement with a very large and credible semiconductor account, which I happen to know, and it means something that you have that umbrella account. What I want to focus on in the coming months is now go one level deeper and basically translate what I found on where we stand market entry plans. I definitely want to visit these customers and talk to them face-to-face. I hope COVID makes it possible, but it should be possible. And then, of course, reach out to you with this is what we see. At the moment, I see no information I or we here have to make a change to any guidance we gave.

Jonas, does that answer your question? Yeah, it does. Perfect. Thank you. Thanks so much.

So the next question comes from Johannes. I have unmuted you. Let's see whether we can hear you.

Johannes, maybe you have to unmute yourself. No, we can't hear you yet. Maybe we can use chat Bettina.

Yes, you can also put your questions into the chat. maybe we'll if there are any further questions we can come back to johannes later but a moment let's see whether there are some further questions here yes there is another question from richard i have unmuted you mr schramm yes but it's a very bad language

Sorry for that. Okay. It works. Two questions concerning the investments in also the headcount you mentioned. Your headcount increased by about 8% year on year. Why this very strong investment here? You mentioned that you have to be prepared for the expected projects and growth in the years ahead. But on the other side, I think in light of the current environment, this looks a bit aggressive. So can you elaborate a bit why you think this is absolutely necessary and that this is only a temporary pressure on your margin development? That would be my first question.

Okay. Happy to take it. looking into where are we investing and where did the headcount go? Where did we put additional people into the company? Let's say about 80%, 70% of that is probably light. About 20% is error-wise and about 10% is other key growth areas. What are we doing in light and in error-wise? In Aerolize, we are building up the base capabilities to not only develop a machine, but also test the machine in the lab, do what the customer needs to do, and to be able to work with our customers in this new field. In Light, it's a bit different. In Light, we are building up the organization in R&D, in production, and in sales or business-related fields. in order to serve fully professional customers? And maybe, Klaus, you elaborate a little bit further on what that means, what we need there, and why do we do that? And then I'll get back on your profitability question.

Okay. Just to elaborate a bit more. The customers, especially the very large tier one customers we are targeting in the light field, this is the big leagues. And I happen to have some experience what it takes to get a qualified supplier at these customers. And you have to go in basically with a team that can check all the boxes they require to get you in. We made great steps in that direction. And getting an umbrella agreement, which is a highly credible signal that they want to use us as an asset supplier, is a big step there. We are operating cost-conscious, but we either play to win there, and then it takes a team to get into such a large Tier 1, or we don't play at all. There's no in-between in the semiconductor market. So we are watching headcount. We are watching costs very closely. But our clear ambition, and I see us on a good track there, is to get into these large Tier 1 accounts, and that's where the investments into personnel and others

Yes, and when you look now into profitability, and we've looked a bit deeper into our 2020 perspectives on profitability, as I mentioned before, about 9 million plus minus is what we are spending this year, 2022, in additional costs we didn't have three years ago for light and for aerialize. Yes, as Klaus said, either you play the game that you really play it or you can't. And the structural profitability of our classic business, we don't call it legacy, but it's classic because it's good business and it's not the runoff. It's good business where we also develop new stuff all the time. And that's good. That's our that's our way of working. And this classic business has improved our structural profitability. And in 2022, we will see that again. If you look at the middle upper part of the guidance, which is the aspirations about that very clearly. But even in those parts, you clearly see that we have profitable operations, despite the nine million euros we invest into new business. And that is the way strategically how we go forward.

Okay, thank you. Just a quick one, more technical to the cash flow statement. At the end of the day, the improvement we have seen here on the operating side was from other debt about 20 million, but I have not found at once What is behind this position? Can you shed a bit light on this one?

Okay. The 19.081, is that your question?

Yeah.

Yeah, that is very mostly advanced payments received. As advanced payments, we receive from our customers. So this is mostly solar, and this is much higher than it was last year. Why? Because we have not only two solar orders which we couldn't deliver last year, so we still have the down payments on the books. These down payments are plus minus 5 million, 5, 6 million. The rest and the major part is down payments for other solar orders we have received last year and will deliver in 2022. Okay, thank you.

Does that answer your question? Yep. Okay, many thanks. You're welcome.

Then we will go on and we've received a couple of questions in the chat. I will start with Johannes and this question is directed at you, Klaus. Johannes is asking, as you worked for a leading smartphone glass producer, especially in the foldable screens, how much can you confirm the advantage of the leader technology based on your background?

Well, I don't think I can state any information I should or could have from my previous employer in my new function as CEO of LPKF. I consider that a moral hazard, and I want to stay on the very safe side here. So, I can only state it not in a comparative way, but in an absolute way. In an absolute way, I see. like enabling the key functions that are expected and that specifically regarding to quality reliability in a foldable phone. And now I have to be careful with what I say in combination with using more established technologies of cover glass. So, sorry guys, I need to stay on the safe side here, but what I can clearly say is that I see

A very credible USP here.

Okay.

Maybe you want to expand a bit on the part, what's your impression of the different markets online, which you've gained in the first month here?

Well, it wasn't a question, but I'm happy to give the answer.

I think I know what Johannes Ries wants to know.

Okay. So, basically, I see several application fields that are really large, where the addressable market is clearly in the nine figure, and that's what we are interested in. First of all, there's, of course, the semiconductor backend. So, that's the packaging market, where you basically replace a substrate that could be Rogers material, that could be FR4, what you currently use, with a glass substrate, and then have your metalization layers and so on. That's a very strong market, and there I see us very well interlinked with the relevant players. Then there is basically filter applications. There we are also interlinked. I need to check, and I'm doing that as we speak, Is there more? Did we cover all relevant key accounts possible in that field? But that's on a smaller scale, but still attractive business that I see. You have the whole display sector that basically the light technology is used to, how shall I say, perforate glass in a very smart and high-tech way that you can fold it while still withstanding the standard reliability criteria of the smartphone industry, but there are significantly more applications. I cannot state them yet due to NDAs we have in place, but I hope I can share them. There, but also I want to say we are in an early business development phase, while display and semiconductors is already very advanced. We are already in contractual phases. So, but the third application from an addressable market point of view is also

solid eight figures, so very interesting.

Okay, then we move on to the next question from the chat. I will read them out for all of those who cannot watch the screen here. The first one comes from Bernd Lauf. The two LINE customers in the semiconductor area, are they both addressing the same package application? Do you expect further chip makers to follow those two LPKF lead customers?

First of all, we are interacting with more than two, but there are two very prominent ones you're referring to. No, this is not the same packaging application. That is, one is a filter application, and the other one is a classic packaging application. But we are addressing the market broad. From my view, when I did the first, let's say, Show me your market, show me your customers you're interacting with, and so on. I am confident that we are addressing the packaging market broadly and not leaving any large T accounts by the way. But sometimes it doesn't work directly with the OEM, but through the supply chain. So, sometimes the interaction is not directly to OEM. if they are more working on a design house business model. But that's normal in the industry.

Okay. And the follow up on that is, can you please also comment on market traction of LPKF's AMP active mold packaging technology? Can we expect meaningful AMP revenues already for 2022?

I expect revenues in 2022 that are still in the seven figure, so it's not moving the needle in a dramatic way. We are well interlinked with customers in that field. But we saw that these customers are not really putting the foot on the pedal at the moment in speed, but the projects are alive and kicking, which is good. So I expect that we gain good traction in 22, but as a preparation for more business in 23 and following. That's how I see the picture now. I haven't talked to these customers yet, and I will know a lot more after I have face-to-face discussions with them.

And then a follow-up from Johannes. I'm a little bit late in the call, but is the assumption correct that no large leader order is included in your 2022 guidance, but this does not include that you could get one this year?

That is fully correct. No?

There is leader in the 22 guidance.

But not what you consider is a large order.

But not what you consider now 50% of our revenue is leader.

No.

So leader is in an advanced, but still I would say in a business development phase when you look at the large accounts. But we are selling leader already, which is great because you don't want your first customer to be one with extreme volumes that carries high risk.

And just to add that on current developments, We've delivered the production machines to the semiconductor customer, which has placed the order mid-last year, which is the first serial production customer. Machines are there. Machines are being installed. Ramp-up is probably in Q2. So, ramp-up of the customer. So, I think Q2, Q3, we'll be able to, show others you and whomever what's being done with the light technology and so everyone else can draw the conclusions that's going on as planned the next question comes from robert young thunderhorst i have unmuted you mr thunderhorst thanks and thanks for taking your question uh most questions have already been answered so so i'll i'll have two boring ones uh if i may so one of them is

There were live applications in the display field that didn't result in the displays, like pencil cuts. Has there been any progress there when talking to customers, and how fast could these orders come in since they're, you know, just aimed at a much broader product base? The second question would be on, And Alex, it's not really towards to your midterm target, but just a quick update where we are and if there's some feasible timeline when this technology might actually generate some revenue. Thanks.

On the, are the pencil cuts closed as LTP? So, on the pencil cuts, let's not only talk pencil cuts. Let's talk about wherever we cut glass pieces for doing outline cut of glass pieces for display or similar applications could be displays of smartphones could be displays of smaller mobile devices you wear or something like that. So in that field, we have a number of projects and let's put it that way. There is a number of projects which is in the phase of being pre-industrialization phase, I would call it. Where the first, in one case, we are working on the contract manufacturer of our customer to get the first machine and process into his building. And in one, we are a bit We are still in the development area, rather, where we have good opportunities to make business there. Sorry we can't be any more specific, but that is basically as we see the situation at the moment, we are doing good progress there. On the first one I mentioned, it's a bit slower than we would like that to be. On the second one, it might actually be accelerating, but that's something we don't know. On our side, it's good progress.

Okay.

And on LCP, where do we stand there? LTP is now at the stage where we can actually qualify customers with their applications. We are doing that at the moment as we speak with selected lead customers in our two main application areas we identified. That's progressing well, and I expect that to be finished in the first half of the year. In parallel, we are working with the team on a broad go-to-market plan for LTP because we have identified the application fields. Lead customers are good, but now we want to address the market in a broad way. And this is a rollout we are preparing. I expect it to be launched to the market early second half. And there is a little bit of LTP revenue already in this year, but I would say it's like AMP. It's at the stage where we try it out, but we expect it to be the nice growth driver for the coming years.

Perfect. Thank you very much.

The next question comes from . I have unmuted you, Mr. .

Yes. Hi. Good afternoon, gentlemen. My first question is on the joint development agreement. Maybe give us a little bit more insight. I know you cannot talk too much about this, but in terms of the milestones, you go with a corporation partner in the next month. What can we expect there, and when could there be first revenues from this corporation if this corporation will be in a positive development?

Due to confidentiality agreements, ILF, and I apologize for that need to stay very superficial there. In this JDA, we are addressing a very large total market which splits into several applications. Some have a more accelerated timeline. Some have a more extended timeline. And we expect to reach important milestones there within this year, and we are tracking them very diligently. due to signed confidentiality agreements, I absolutely need to stay on the safe side here.

And then on the Q1 revenue guidance, I understood that you are cautious on the revenue side for the complete year, but if I take into account the shifts from Q4, I would be more in the range of 30 million of revenue in Q1. So are there also revenues or shifts which are more in Q2 or in Q3 that we don't see in Q1 or what is behind the more or less lower revenue guidance for Q1 compared to my calculation?

Let me briefly explain. I think the major factor in our seasonality as a company is that the seasonality Q1, Q4, it's more when certain solar orders will be delivered. Because if you have somewhere between 30 and 40 million revenue solar, solar revenue in a year, the relevant quarters there will get the relevant share of the revenue. And in solar revenue in Q1, what we'd have is 6 million, which were shifted from 2021 to 2022. They're invoiced, they're at the customer side, so that's all okay. But that is what we have in solar revenue. The large solar projects for 2022, regulated degree, will be invoiced to a large degree in Q2 and Q3. So that is basically the reason why called a cleaned Q1 is a relatively weak quarter one.

That's the key reason. And then Mr. Rees already mentioned it a little bit, the bigger lead order. Because last year in the outlook you already that there's a possibility to reach a bigger leader order. So what is about this order? What was within the last year with this order? Is this still on the table, or what happened with this possible order?

I think the nothing happened. And specifically, we are working on that with the customer on the respective project. As mentioned, we are bound by confidentiality on very most things of what we are doing. We are very happy with the progress we are doing. No roadblocks or anything we are seeing. And timing, in the end, is timing of the customer. So that is the key part there. The customer with his speed decides which speed we will go with him.

From my side. Thanks. You're welcome, Lukas.

And the next question comes from Richard Schramm. Mr. Schramm, I think you should be unmuted. Mr. Schramm, can you say something?

Sorry, my questions were already answered, so I have to raise the hand again.

Okay, no problem. And I'll have a look in the chat. I think we've got something in the chat. Again, from Johannes, probably. How much has your expectation for the Aerolife technology changed, improved after the first positive customer feedback?

Oh, I would say it's pretty much on par with our expectation. The business development, We took here the approach with a tried and trusted minimum viable product approach. So we identified a market need. We have a truly disruptive solution for that market need. We got a minimum viable product together and showed it to the world. That happened only a couple of weeks ago in Boston. We got good leads and high interest. That's great. And we are now in the face of the last being two, three, four, beta customers for a true cooperation. That cooperation will also fine tune our product to the true need of the one who uses it in the market. And based on that, we will then go for a broader market rollout. I was happy with what I got out of Boston and I was very curious when those guys came back and pretty much on par with what I expected. It's all right. highly attractive business opportunity, and again, a completely new market for us. But I love this bold approach. It takes some right people, as we mentioned, who have experience in that market. And yes, we got the phone calls and people want to work with us. So we didn't produce something that's totally away from what the market really needs. All on par is my assessment.

And I think the big advantage of the approach we were taking to do this early launch, pre-launch presentation to the market is that we've also learned where the interest in the market is. And I think these learnings are rather promising because whenever we had time to go somewhere deeper with the customer, there was very high interest. And when you have the right thing, the right value proposition, it's easier to adjust the marketing than to adjust the value proposition. So I think that's one of the learnings we took and we'll go the path as we said, no change.

And we have another question from Ben Glow in the chat. I'll read it out. In case you will eventually get a very large leader order, how long will it take LPKF to switch output from close to zero to max capacity? Can you comment on your capacity maximum in legal units planned for 2023, 24 per annum?

Yes, no problem to comment. Doing this business with these customers, you have to be able to provide a very high number of pieces of equipment in a very short time. That's their requirement. And if you can't serve the requirement, you can't serve the customer. So to build up a production capacity, which allows us to invoice, sorry to say it this way, about 50, 67 million euros per month, takes us about five to six months because we have the plan in the draw how we do that. That is an extreme and the most extreme scenario, but that is something that is the maximum we can do. I wouldn't call that in a per year figure because if the customer wants to run his product in January, he doesn't want to get the product somewhere between March and December. He wants to get them between November and December. And that is why that type of scenario, we've developed a type of scenario including all the necessary things we do. And that is more or less in parallel to the lead time we would need for such orders. So take five to six months, that's about right in order to be ready for that in terms of equipment, location and people.

If I may add some flavor to that, these are normally times in the semiconductor capital goods market. much more important than the lead time is that you absolutely deliver on time. That is what we need to focus our energy on because your asset could block a factory that's worth 10 billion and you'd never want to do that. So punctuality, being able to commit on an exact date and the machine is there on exactly that date, that is what we need to focus on. And that's what we are preparing for and where our customer is also assessing our core capabilities.

Okay. We've got two more questions in the chat. I'll read the first one. Mr. Fiedler, is there anything you intend to change at LPKS?

Yes, there is. Again, not even three months, I am still drinking from the pressure hose. But what I see is basically the classic setup of a technology company. Great technology foundations, Also very good in interacting with customer, but we can do more in working market driven. In truly saying I understand value chains in our key market. For each step in the value chain, I know exactly who the top 10 and 20 key players are. I have a proactive marketing approach to pitch what I can do for them to these 10 or 20 players. And then I diligently follow that through the whole sales funnel from early lead to conversion. That is something I find that this is done here. And I find also specifically when we come to leader that this is a very presentable result. But we can do more. And that's where I come from. And that's where automatically my energy flows, where we already made first changes. And where I definitely plan together with Christian to do more. Because the greatest technology is worthless if you can't make the rubber hit the road on the market. That is the one thing I think, yes, we can do better and we will do better.

Great. And another question from Robin Maxwell. Can I ask to what extent shares or options feature in closed contract? Did you purchase any shares since joining?

So first of all, I have a long-term incentive component in my contract, which also includes shares, not options. We don't have an option model in place. And as of yet, I did not buy shares because I first got to learn all the restrictions on when I can buy and sell and whatever when you are a board member. I'm on it, but it's definitely on my list. I have to watch my cash flow a bit at the moment because, of course, I'm moving my family up north close to LPKF now, and you all know what apartments cost these days. But I definitely believe in the company, and this will also show in how I manage my private assets.

Right. I can see a hand signal from Lucas Spang.

You can also extend.

Mr. Spang, did you have another question, or did you just have your hand up still?

No, I would have one quick follow-up, if I may.

Okay, yes, go ahead.

Fine. You both mentioned that there's a part of LEADER revenue in the guidance, so can you give us an indication how much you expect in your guidance from LEADER?

High single digits. A million digits, yes. A million, of course, yes. I think the digits is what we expect this year. Okay.

Thanks. Right. At the moment, I can't see any further questions.

I see one hand signal. Okay, that's already done. Okay.

In the chat, I think we've covered everything. And I'll just double check that there are no new hand signals here. No. So in that case, we are really good on timing as well. And I thank you all very much for joining this call. Our next regular conference call will take place already next month on the 28th of April at the release of our three-month figures. So thank you very much and goodbye.

Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.