Brockhaus Capital Mgmt Stock

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Brockhaus Technologies AG Investor Update Call. Let me now turn the floor over to Marco Brockhaus.

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Brockhaus Technologies Earnings Call for the first quarter of the fiscal year 2026. Before we begin, I would like to point out that the slides we are presenting will be published afterwards in the Investor Relations section of our website, brockhaus-technologies.com. [Operator Instructions]

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 and 7 of BKHT's consolidated financial statements for 2025 on Page 84 onwards of our Annual Report 2025 or Page 14 of Brockhaus Technology Quarterly Statement Q1 2026 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 to the section on Risks and Opportunities in the Management Report 2025, starting on Page 57 of our annual report 2025.

Let's turn to Page 3. Let me give you an update on the sale of our stake in Bikeleasing. The closing of the sale of the Bikeleasing stake remains subject to the required owner control procedure by DEACTHLON PULSE and is expected to take place in the first half of 2026.

The German and Austrian antitrust authorities have already granted merger control approval for the transaction in January and February 2026, respectively. On February 26, 2026, Brockhaus Technologies Extraordinary General Meeting approved the transaction with a clear majority of more than 98% of the votes cast.

Based on an illustrative calculation as of September 30, 2025, the pro rata purchase price attributable to Brockhaus Technologies for the shares sold would amount approximately to EUR 240 million after preliminary transaction, cost and taxes. The final purchase price will be determined at closing using a customary closing accounts mechanism, taking into account the cash, financial liabilities and net working capital of the Bikeleasing Group at that time.

The Management Board in close coordination with the Supervisory Board is currently reviewing a combination of measures to return a substantial portion of the expected net proceeds from the sale to shareholders. By definition, this would mean more than 50% of the net proceeds would be distributed to our shareholders, subject to applicable legal requirements.

As all strategic options require careful assessment from both a legal and strategic perspective, we expect to present our initial considerations to our shareholders at our Annual General Meeting on August 19, 2026, at the latest. On the next slide, we provide an overview of the key performance indicators by segment, highlighting what we accomplished in the first quarter of 2026.

On the right-hand side, you can see the group KPIs in total. That means including discontinued and continuing operations, continue to show resilient growth even in a challenging economic environment. In sum, Brockhaus Technologies generated total revenue of EUR 47.9 million in the first quarter of fiscal year 2026, corresponding to organic growth of 13% to the prior year period.

The gross profit margin of 60% was above the comparative period levels of 56%. Adjusted EBITDA amounted to EUR 7.6 million in the reporting period, corresponding to an adjusted EBITDA margin of around 16%.

As mentioned before, for comparability purposes, the revenue and adjusted EBITDA figures presented here for the first quarter of fiscal year 2026 are reported on a consolidated basis and include both the group's continuing and discontinuing operations. The continuing operations comprise the Security Technologies segment, which is IHSE and the central functions.

Due to the disposal on December 23, 2025, the revenue as well as other income and expenses of the former HR Benefit and Mobility Platform segment Bikeleasing are presented separately as discontinued operations in Brockhaus Technologies consolidated statement of profit or loss for the first quarter of fiscal year 2026.

Accordingly, they are no longer included in the revenue and earnings figures of the consolidated statement of profit or loss in the Q1 2026 quarterly statement, but presented separately in one line as income from discontinued operations.

On the left-hand side, you can see the KPIs for the continuing operations. In the Security Technologies segment, IHSE, revenue in the reporting period amounted to EUR 5.6 million, down 14% compared to the prior year period.

This was primarily due to a generally cautious market and environment, which compared to Q1 2025 resulted in significantly reduced investment activity, particularly in the Americas region, driven by the prolonged government shutdown, U.S. tariff policy and the war in the Middle East.

Adjusted EBITDA amounted to EUR 189,000 in the reporting period, corresponding to an adjusted EBITDA margin of 3%. Despite significantly lower revenue and gross profit, EBITDA was only slightly below the prior year period. This was mainly attributed to substantially lower fixed costs in personnel expenses and other operating expenses.

In this regard, management had already initiated comprehensive measures to reduce fixed costs in Q3 2025. Moving two further columns to the right, expenses in central functions were in line compared to the first quarter of 2025. In the discontinued operation, the former HR Benefit Mobility Platform segment, Bikeleasing revenue increased by 18% to EUR 42.3 million in Q1 2026.

This was primarily driven by improved results from the resale business as previously leased bicycles and e-bikes through the subsidiary Bike2Future, which was especially specifically established for this purpose as well as the dealer commissioned introduced in August 2025. These factors also had significantly positive impact on the gross profit margin, which amounted to 58% in Q1 2026.

The number of new bikes brokered via the digital Bikeleasing platform in the first quarter of 2026 totaled to 21,500, largely in line with the prior year period. Adjusted EBITDA of the segment amounted to EUR 8.7 million in the reporting period, corresponding to an adjusted EBITDA margin of almost 21%.

The main drivers of the higher EBITDA margin were increased revenue and a significantly higher gross margin. Personnel expenses and other operating expense by contrast increased to a much lesser extent. Turning to the next slide. Let us look at IHSE revenue development by region.

As mentioned before, overall IHSE's revenue was below the previous year's level compared to the first quarter of 2025. In EMEA, revenue increased slightly by 4% year-over-year, driven by a growing defense business.

APAC also showed growth momentum. In contrast, revenue in Americas declined by 66% year-over-year, primarily due to the prolonged government shutdown, U.S. tariff policy and the war in the Middle East.

On the next page, I would like to run you briefly through our financial leverage structure. At the end of March, debt from loans amounted to EUR 66 million. When subtracting cash of EUR 27 million, we are left with a net debt from loans of EUR 39 million. Adding EUR 18 million from our financial liabilities and deducting EUR 8 million of net debt from lease refinancing, this brings us to EUR 49 million in total net debt.

If you compare that to the adjusted EBITDA for the last 12 months, this corresponds to a leverage ratio below 1, underlying the high balance sheet quality and resilience of our business. As our limit for this KPI is somewhat 2.5x EBITDA, we consider our current financial position as more than conservative.

This concludes the first part of our presentation. I'll now hand over to Paul, who's in charge of our acquisition team. Paul?

Thank you, Marco, and also hi, everyone, from my side. Let me start with an update on IHSE's cost program. The program was initiated in the third quarter of last year and completed by year-end. As expected, the related one-off costs still weighed on full year figures last year. However, we are now starting to see the first structural savings coming through in Q1 of 2026.

As you can see on the right-hand side, personnel expenses were down 16% year-over-year and other operating expenses declined by 13% year-over-year. So the measures taken in the second half of last year are clearly beginning to show in the cost base now.

At the same time, IHSE has further increased its focus on the core product suite and reduced exposure to noncore activities. Overall, this is an important step towards higher efficiency and the goal of bringing IHSE back to past profitability levels. On the next slide, let me now turn the topic to the management transformation at IHSE.

The new 2-headed management team is now fully in place, providing continuity for the next phase of the company's development. Frank Breitenfelder, who you can see here on the right-hand side, who already joined as Managing Director and CFO in April last year, is responsible for, let's say, everything internally, so finance, purchasing, legal, risk management or compliance.

And joining on May 1 of this year, Dr. Thomas Niessen, the guy you can see on the left-hand side, has now completed the management team as Managing Director and CEO, overseeing sales, research and development, product management and project management.

Thomas Niessen is an experienced manager and expert in industrial automation and network technology, who previously held global roles at Belden, Inc., also a publicly listed company, including VP of R&D as well as VP Change Management and VP Product Management in their Automation Solutions department.

With this new management team and a strong pipeline of product innovations, IHSE is well positioned for 2026 and beyond in our view. And with that short update, handing back over to Marco for our own outlook.

Thank you, Paul. Flipping over to the last page of today's presentation, our group forecast for the fiscal year 2026. The forecast for the group's continuing operation, IHSE & Its Holding for fiscal year 2026 remains unchanged. Revenue of EUR 30 million to EUR 32 million and adjusted EBITDA of EUR 0 million to EUR 2 million.

Due to the signed sale agreement regarding the stake in Bikeleasing, this business is no longer included in the forecast. For the continuing operations, preliminary revenue in Q1 2026 amount to EUR 5.6 million and an adjusted EBITDA of minus EUR 1.1 million. That concludes our presentation, and we are now happy to answer your questions.

For that, I would like to hand over to the operator. Thank you.

And we have first question by Lukas Spang from Tigris Capital GmbH.

I would like to start with the closing procedure of Bikeleasing. If we would imagine, for example, the 31st of March would have been the closing date. Can you give us an idea what would have been the cash inflow from the transaction just to get a feeling?

Can take the question. And the answer is quite short because we have no updated figure calculated. However, systematically, if that's what interests you, what you do is you have a fixed set of items that the net debt. So that's, of course, debt as a subtraction and cash as an addition, but some other items as well.

And then you have a, let's say, net working capital mechanism that looks at the net working capital of the company at the given closing date and normalizes it to a normal degree...

Okay. But assuming that now Bikeleasing since the closing has generated positive earnings, the cash inflow should increase versus the preliminary figure assumption.

Marco Brockhaus. Yes. Thank you. Sorry to say, but we don't imagine anything. We don't make calculations on 31st of March. We make calculations on closing and closing is yet not here. And when closing appears, we will make calculations on that date. Yes, sorry to say, but we don't want to imagine anything and we don't want to think what would happen if we would have closed on 31st of March, yet the deal is not closed.

Yes. But just from a mechanism perspective, if bike leasing is generating positive earnings, the cash inflow should increase.

Systematically, you are correct. So if there is, let's say, increase in cash, then this, of course, also increases the purchase price to be expected, if it's not at the expense of working capital optimization. So if you would push down unnaturally working capital, this, of course, is not a way of producing cash flow.

Okay. That helps. And then as you had published it and you repeated it today that you want to allocate or distribute the majority of the cash inflow from the bike leasing transaction? Do you also prepare for a sale of IHSE? Or how do you handle IHSE as the remaining company in the holding?

We do not comment on that, and we do not have any plans so far. As you can imagine, we would then have to ad hoc that and there is no ad hoc out. So we have no plans so far.

[Operator Instructions] At the moment, we have no further questions. There are no further questions.

All right. Thank you. As there appear no more further questions, thank you all very much for attending today's earnings call for Brockhaus Technologies. I would like to use this stage and moment to thank our employees for their outstanding work and performance as well as our shareholders for their continued trust and support. Goodbye, and have a great day. Thank you.

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Brockhaus Technologies AG Update Call. [Operator Instructions]. Let me now turn the floor over to Marco Brockhaus.

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Brockhaus Technologies Earnings Call for the fiscal year 2025. Before we begin, I would like to point out that the slides we are presenting will be published afterwards in the Investor Relations section of our website, brockhausminustechnologies.com. After our presentation, we will open the call to questions from your side. [Operator Instructions]. 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, 7 and 8 of BKHT's consolidated financial statements for 2025 on Page 84 onwards of our annual report 2025 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 to the section on Risk and Opportunities in the Management Report 2025, starting on Page 57.

Turning to Page 3. Let me give you an update on the sale of our stake in Bikeleasing. With the resolution passed by the Extraordinary General Meeting on February 26, we have satisfied a key condition for the closing of the transaction. We are pleased with the strong support from our shareholders and are confident that Decathlon Pulse as an internationally renowned company, will fulfill the remaining regulatory requirements as part of the ownership control procedures in a timely manner. All documents have been submitted and the closing of the transaction is now subject only to BaFin's pending approval.

With the expected cash inflow of approximately EUR 240 million from the sale of our stake in Bikeleasing after preliminary transaction cost, we are significantly increasing our financial flexibility. We have not yet made a decision regarding the use of the proceeds from the sale. What is clear, however, is that these proceeds are to be deployed in a targeted manner to further increase shareholder value. Determine how this objective can best be achieved is a key question, which we are assessing with due care.

In close coordination with the Supervisory Board, we are carefully and comprehensively evaluating all strategic options to ensure that any measures taken are fully compliant with legal requirements and in the best interest of the company and its shareholders.

In particular, we are evaluating measures to enhance the attractiveness of our shares, such as dividend payments or a share buyback program to enable shareholders to participate more directly in the company's success. Further acquisitions are also conceivable in order to continue fulfilling our corporate purpose of acquiring, holding and managing equity investments as well as a combination of different measures.

Each of these options is subject to specific legal and accounting requirements and entails particular advantages and disadvantages. For example, any distributions to our shareholders require that we first report distributable profits on the basis of which the Annual General Meeting can resolve on dividend payments. As all strategic options require careful assessment from both a legal and strategic perspective, we expect to present our initial considerations to our shareholders at our Annual General Meeting on June 11, 2026, at the latest.

On the next slide, you will find a summary of what we accomplished in fiscal year 2025. Even in a continued challenging macroeconomic environment, we performed well in 2025 and increased group revenue organically by 10% to 2025 -- to EUR 225 million compared to the previous year. The smaller increase in gross profit despite higher revenue was mainly due to a larger share of revenue from the resale of bikes at the end of the leasing term, which involves significantly higher material costs than other revenue components.

Adjusted EBITDA amounted to EUR 46 million, corresponding to an adjusted EBITDA margin of 21%. The margin was particularly impacted by a lower gross profit margin as well as higher personnel and other operating expenses to support Bikeleasing's long-term growth.

For better comparability with prior years, the key performance indicators mentioned include both the continuing operations, IHSE and holding company and the discontinued operation, Bikeleasing. However, in the consolidated income statement for the fiscal year 2025, the revenue as well as the other income and expenses of the former HR Benefit & Mobility Platform segment, Bikeleasing are presented separately as a discontinued operation due to its disposal on December 23, 2025.

Accordingly, Bikeleasing's revenue for the fiscal year 2025 is no longer included in group revenue. Bikeleasing's result is only included in the consolidated income statement as a separately disclosed result from discontinued operations within net revenue and net income, I'm sorry, within net income.

Proceeding to the next slide, let us look at how revenue developed on a quarterly basis. Starting with IHSE shown at the bottom of the page. While the first quarter came in below last year's level, we saw a strong recovery in the second quarter, with revenue exceeding the previous year by 13%.

In the third quarter, revenue declined by 30% compared to Q3 2024, primarily reflecting project-related timing effects and a general reluctance to invest across many industries. In the fourth quarter, however, revenue rebounded and increased by 19% year-over-year.

Turning to Bikeleasing, shown at the top of the page, we started the year on a positive note with Q1 revenue up 11% compared to last year. In the second quarter, revenue remained largely stable year-over-year. Growth accelerated again in the third quarter with revenue increased by 12% compared to Q3 2024. A key driver was the significant increase in revenue from the resale of bikes at the end of the leasing term.

In addition, the new pay partner participation model, which went live at the beginning of August, also contributed positively to revenue in the third quarter. This positive momentum continued in the fourth quarter when revenue increased significantly by around 60% year-over-year, marking the strongest quarterly growth of the year.

I will now proceed to the next page for the regional sales split. First to Bikeleasing. No surprise here, the company does business in Germany and Austria and growth in revenue was 13%. Overall, IHSE revenue was below the previous year's level compared to full year 2024. In EMEA, revenue declined by 11% year-over-year due to overall subdued investment activity in the market. The same applies to the APAC region. In contrast, revenue in the Americas exceeded the prior year level by 63%, driven by a growing defense business.

Turning to the P&L table. In the first 2 columns, we see that Bikeleasing's gross profit margin was below last year's level at around 59%. The main reason for this was the increased revenue share of resale proceeds, which generally has a significantly lower gross profit margin than the segment's other revenue components. EBITDA and EBIT margins were significantly below prior year's level.

In addition to the lower gross profit margin, this is due to planned higher personnel and other operating expenses related to the long-term growth strategy of Bikeleasing aimed to transforming the business from a single product company Bikeleasing provider into a multi-benefit platform.

Proceeding to the next 2 columns to the right, at IHSE, the gross profit margin of 75% was above the comparative period's level of 72%, mainly driven by an improved product and customer mix resulting from higher defense-related revenue.

The adjusted EBITDA amounted to EUR 3 million with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 11%. This was primarily due to the higher gross profit margin as well as lower fixed cost and personnel expenses.

In the third quarter of 2025, management indicated -- initiated comprehensive measures to reduce fixed costs, which are expected to be reflected in key financial figures, particularly in fiscal year 2026.

Moving to further columns to the right. In the central functions, expenses were higher compared to the full year of 2024, primarily due to increased consulting services. In conclusion and at the consolidated group level, revenue was EUR 225 million and gross profit margin was at 61%.

Adjusted EBITDA margin was 20%, bringing our group to an adjusted EBITDA of EUR 46 million. The group's adjusted EBIT of EUR 38 million corresponds to a margin of 17%. Free cash flow before taxes was EUR 31 million and below the prior year level due to higher expenditures related to investments to enable the expected long-term growth of Bikekeasing.

On the next page, I would like to run you briefly through our financial leverage structure. At the end of December, debt from loans amounted to EUR 66 million. When subtracting cash of EUR 39 million, we are left with a net debt from loans to EUR 27 million. Adding EUR 18 million from other financial liabilities and EUR 3 million of net debt from lease refinancing brings us to EUR 48 million in total net debt.

If you compare debt to adjusted EBITDA of the last 12 months, this corresponds to a leverage ratio of around 1x EBITDA. As our limit for this KPI is some 2.5x, we consider our current financial position as more than conservative.

This concludes the first part of our presentation. I now hand over to Paul Gohring, who's in charge of our acquisitions team. Paul?

Yes. Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. Let me start the operational update with a brief reminder of the role that Brockhaus Technologies has played in the development of Bikeleasing over the last years.

Our contribution has clearly gone well beyond providing just capital. Over the last years, we supported the professionalization of the finance function, including reporting, consolidation and the transition to IFRS. We also deeply strengthened the technology side by hiring a CTO and deciding on the internalization of software development, which was mostly done externally before our acquisition.

In addition, we completed 4 add-on acquisitions, thereby also internalizing the company's sales activities that have also been mostly external before and strategically expanded the management team around the 2 founders. With the acquisition of Probonio in 2024, we also started the transformation of Bikeleasing towards a broader multi-benefit platform.

More recently, this has been complemented by the establishment of Bike2Future as a used bike sales platform as well as by the strategic investment in Ridepanda as a satellite for Bikeleasing in the U.S. market. Overall, this slide illustrates the value creation approach behind Brockhaus Technologies. We identify attractive B2B technology and innovation leaders, actively support the operational development and help broaden the strategic options over time. This operational progress is also clearly visible in the key performance indicators of Bikeleasing.

Comparing the 9M figures at the time of acquisition with those at signing, revenue increased from around EUR 51.5 million to EUR 160.3 million, which means it more than tripled. Over the same period, adjusted EBITDA increased from EUR 24.2 million to around EUR 50.8 million, so more than doubled despite the substantial growth-related investments, especially last year that we mentioned before.

At the same time, the number of connected corporate customers increased by more than 3x from around 25,000 to 81,000 as of 9M last year, representing access to around 3.9 million employees in Germany and Austria. As you might remember from our very first presentation of the Bikeleasing acquisition in 2021, this was always one of the key strategic priorities we followed and communicated. So in our view, this transaction once again demonstrates our ability to identify, acquire and operationally develop technology and innovation leaders in attractive B2B needs.

Let me now turn to IHSE. As shown on this slide, the core business remained broadly stable despite a softer reported revenue number. Revenue was still down some 4.7% year-over-year, mainly driven by normal project-related fluctuations. At the same time, it is important to keep in mind that 2023 that you see on the right-hand side here included the largest single order in IHSE's history.

Excluding this, let's call it, one-off effect, the underlying revenue base has remained broadly stable over the last years. From a regional perspective, as mentioned before, EMEA and APAC were down year-over-year, while the Americas developed very strongly with growth of 62.5%, increasingly supported by defense-related demand.

Most importantly, EBITDA increased despite the lower revenue level. This reflects structural margin expansion as a result of a change in customer mix towards defense as well as a cost program initiated in H2 last year, but more on this on the next slide.

The operational stabilization of IHSE after a more turbulent fiscal year 2024 has been completed and that operating leverage is already becoming visible. First, the management transition has been completed. Frank Breitenfelder started as CFO in April 2025 and a new CEO, who we will announce in due time, has been appointed and will start in May 2026, ensuring continuity for the next growth phase to come.

Second, a cost program has been executed, as briefly mentioned before. While the related one-off effects that you always have with such programs still impact fiscal year 2025, the structural benefits should start to materialize and show from 2026 onwards. This development is already reflected in the OpEx ratio, which came down from 81% in Q4 of 2024 to 63% roundabout in the fourth quarter of last year.

Finally, IHSE has sharpened its focus on the core product suite and reduced its exposure to noncore activities, including KVM Tech.

Finally, on this slide, let me highlight a strategic development that is becoming increasingly important for IHSE. IHSE is more and more evolving from a diversified high-end KVM provider into a mission-critical defense and security KVM provider. In fiscal year 2025, more than 40% of revenue came from government and defense, which marks a record level for the company. This is the result of a deliberate strategy pursued over the last years, investing in secure solutions, obtaining relevant certifications and building dedicated business development activities for defense-related applications.

As a result, IHSE now has access to NATO and allied programs via certified secure solutions. The company's products are positioned for deployment in classified environments supported by the NATO NIAPC listing and common criteria EAL4+ certification.

In addition, the solutions are also aligned with NIA [ PP4 ] requirements. In practical terms, this enables secure operation across multiple classification levels and further strengthens IHSE's position in highly attractive security critical markets. This shift towards defense is also an important driver of the margin expansion discussed on the previous slides.

This concludes now my section and handing over back to Marco.

Yes. Thank you, Paul. Flipping over to the last page of today's presentation, our outlook for the fiscal year 2026. As mentioned at the beginning, the revenue and earnings forecast for the fiscal year 2026 relates to the group's continuing operation, consisting of IHSE and the holding company.

Due to the signed sale agreement regarding the stake in Bikeleasing, this business is no longer included in the forecast. We expect revenue of EUR 30 million to EUR 32 million in the fiscal year 2026, corresponding to organic growth of 0% to 5%. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to range from EUR 0 million to EUR 2 million. This implies an increase in adjusted EBITDA of EUR 3 million to EUR 5 million compared to the fiscal year 2025.

In addition to the moderately higher revenue, this development is primarily driven by a planned lower fixed cost in personnel and other operating expenses in the Security Technologies segment. Please note that this forecast assumes that there will be no further change in the scope of consolidation within Brockhaus Technologies. The reason for this approach is the difficulty in predicting the nature and scope of future acquisitions.

We do not believe that any estimates in this respect are sufficiently reliable, even though we are constantly working towards finding the next hidden gem in the market.

That concludes our presentation, and we are now happy to answer your questions. For that, I would like to hand over to the operator.

[Operator Instructions]. And we have the first question from [Costa Roberta].

We can't hear you at the moment. Maybe you have to unmute yourself.

Yes. Go ahead. Is that okay? Can you hear me now? Good Apologies. Nice to hear from you again after some years. [indiscernible] from Radisson.

I'd like to ask a question about your pipeline. You talked about continuing to look for the next champions.

Sorry, you are breaking up.

There is problem with the connection. Maybe you can dial-in again.

[Operator Instructions] . And there is one more question from Sebastian Weidhuner from [Paladin Investors].

Can you hear me?

Clear.

Okay. Perfect. So yes, we are very disappointed that Brockhaus did not meet its full year guidance again, and we are a little bit surprised that this hasn't become clear sooner for you because the bike season was already behind us. Maybe you can walk us a little bit through the process here. And could you also please help us to better understand these effects you mentioned in the press release on both companies.

Maybe I would like to start with Bikeleasing. You mentioned especially a lower-than-expected result from the retail of return bikes. What exactly was the issue here? Was it lower volumes of return bikes or were prices only weaker than expected despite enough or planned volumes?

This is Yannick from the Finance department. Covering your first question regarding the forecast. So the main reasons why we didn't reach EBITDA because revenue was reached on 2 main topics. First one is the resale of bikes, which was lower than expected for Q4. This was not planned. And the second one are higher consulting services in Q4 in the whole group. So these are the 2 main topics, which were not in forecast before.

Maybe on the timing of that, I mean, you need to do, let's say, an inventory analysis, et cetera, and you can only do that in hindsight, right? So we -- the result of the resale business in Q4 is, of course, something that we only get quite late in the process. So that's why there is some, let's say, uncertainty always towards the end of the year.

And maybe on IHSE, could you please elaborate on the development across the key end markets? I mean, defense and government, then air traffic management and broadcasting. So what trends did you observe in these segments in the past financial year? And what are your expectations for the current year? And in each of these kind of verticals, is IHSE keeping pace with the market? Or are there verticals where IHSE is losing market share?

I think we had this question already in one of our last calls. It's always -- it's a niche market. So it's hard to get market data exactly on how specific niche KVM verticals have developed each year. What we know is that we have gained quite a lot of traction in the defense market, which was a hypothesis already a couple of years ago when we invested in the certifications and business development activities there. So this is also what you can see in our revenue share that we mentioned before.

On the other verticals, they have, of course, been a bit softer. I mean if you just look at the absolute revenue level and see the strong development of defense, that means that the other verticals have automatically developed weaker. But is there a, let's say, a big shift in the other remaining verticals? Not really. So air traffic control, broadcasting still remain key verticals while the remaining verticals, and you might remember that they are quite diversified across different end markets are significantly smaller than that.

Do we know if our relative market share towards customers in specific verticals has increased or decreased? Hard to say because there's no public peer that we can look at. We are, again, the only ones that provide this transparency. What we know is that our market share in defense has, of course, grown because previously, there was no one except for one competitor, and now we are there as the second one as well. Hopefully, that helps.

And I mean, now you are adjusting OpEx you started with it in the last year. But in general, you adjusted OpEx quite late. So I think before that you had a basis on what are -- so you were expecting a recovery. So what has changed that this isn't happening now? Is it only the macro trends? Or is it something specific on either or yes, maybe you can say something here.

Sorry, I didn't get the question really. What OpEx adjustment do you mean?

So sorry, you started in Q3 or Q4 to adjust OpEx by IHSE to reduce the OpEx base, right? Because the gross margin...

And why we did that or why we didn't do that earlier? What do you mean?

Yes. Why you didn't do it earlier?

I mean because you might have remembered that 2024 and by this going into 2025 was a bit turbulent at the company. And we started the cost program in H2 last year, but of course, that also needs a bit of preparation, right? So point is that we have, let's say, resized the cost base to the revenue level, we see right now, refocused on the core product portfolio.

And there are, of course, always one-off effect associated with that. So it's a bit, let's say, hard to see this year. But hopefully, from this year onwards, you should see the effect -- why haven't we done it earlier? Yes, you can always ask that question, but this is, let's say, a management decision in the end in sparing with us, how long do you, let's say, give a company to reach certain growth targets or goals versus when do you need to, let's say, revise that opinion and do something different.

Okay. Finally, allow me one question on compensation. So according to the compensation report, both Board members received a short-term bonus in 2025. And as I said, the guidance was not met again. In addition, the compensation system was rejected by 77% of shareholders in the AGM in November. So we are very critical here on that. And Marco and Marcel, so why do you, as members of the Board consider this appropriate given that the targets have been missed again?

This is Marcel speaking. As you know, the remuneration of the Executive Board is always the decision of the Supervisory Board. So we are the wrong ones to address to. However, this compensation you just mentioned is part of achieving 2 out of 4 spot awards, which are part of the new system. This has nothing to do with the budget or anything else.

So we have a next question from Dennis Watz. The floor is yours, from Solventis AG.

Can you hear me?

We can't hear you at the moment. Maybe you have to unmute yourself.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you now.

Great. Yes. First question, you mentioned the closing conditions. If I get you right, all documents has deployed to the BaFin. So the time for the BaFin started, and we have now a deadline for the process. Is that right?

It's Marcel speaking again. So the BaFin now has roughly 60 days for getting back to us with end result.

Okay.

Sorry, business days, 60 business days.

Okay. And regarding the cash inflow for Brockhaus, you calculate a price based on net debt on last -- on 13 September. Did you do the math for the end of the year '25? Are there any significant changes?

Yes, we did a rough calculation, no significant changes there.

Okay. And then regarding your special items, I saw one compliance cost, EUR 3.5 million. It looks quite high. Could you elaborate a little bit what are these costs related?

Compliance costs should have been in connection with the annual report 2024, so not this year, but the year before, where you might remember that this was a bit of a turbulent process at the time, which took a bit longer with a lot of advisers involved, et cetera. So that's the adjustment there.

Okay. But that does only include the adviser costs, no penalty or something?

No, that's only advisers. So no penalties involved, but also typically, there was no penalty. Right.

Okay. Just to get clear. And other special item was the insolvency of one customer, I think, roughly EUR 1 million, a little bit below. Maybe you could say something about that.

Can you repeat that again? Which adjustment do you mean?

Insolvency cost.

Yannick from the finance department, there are costs for order obligations in the amount of EUR 380,000 and warranty provisions in the amount of EUR 350,000.

It was a customer of IHSE, I think.

Yes, for customers of [ CASA intake].

At the moment, there are no further questions in the queue. [Operator Instructions].

And we have one more question from [ Jerome Pouch from Reckham ].

I hope you can hear me. A couple of questions on my side. First one being, can you provide a split of the EBITDA guidance for the year, maybe between IHSE and the central functions?

No, we only guide aside on group level, Marco here.

Okay. And second one is, have you seen any specific change that you wanted to highlight in the market environment that will justify to resume an active M&A strategy with the proceeds that you get? Anything specific to mention in terms of changing valuation, in terms of specific opportunities that have risen in the last few months?

Nothing in specific, but we see that the, let's say, number of transaction opportunities or interesting opportunities that has always been there, is actually a bit better this year. This does not mean that the prices will automatically come down massively, right? So what we've seen last year is that many transactions have also not closed because there was no equilibrium between buy and sell side. But the quality of companies that we see is good. And this is just maybe an operational highlight. But I can't say that prices are, let's say, very, very low. So that's not observable yet.

Yes. Or maybe to add price expectations, right? Many, many funds have a lot of assets and no exits, right? And only exits bring cash in, right? So therefore, we believe that we are in a good position and awaiting the closing of the Bikeleasing transaction anytime soon in H1.

Okay. And maybe just one last one. Looking back at IHSE. Beyond the growth at the different sector that you had and the cost measures that are ongoing, can you highlight any strategic levers that you have more to add some value creation at IHSE today apart from those 2 items?

I mean we -- there are a lot of things going on, right? We had to change the management completely. This is quite some time that flows in there from our side as well to write to find team again. What is going on in parallel is something that we, I think, discussed in the 9M call in more detail or H1, I forgot, excuse me, which is the complete, let's say, update of IHSE's technology stack, in their core business in the proprietary KBM field.

So there's a lot of work still going in there because that should put IHSE from a technology perspective pretty much ahead of the pack. And that's something that's going on in parallel to defense activities, of course.

Okay. Great. And just you mentioned Q3 or I don't know whether it was in the con call, but you mentioned last time some market consolidation trends that were happening in the sector. Can you comment on that and evolution.

Marco here, I think that must be mixed up with Bikeleasing. I would agree to that statement in terms of the German job hard marked, there most probably will be a consolidation. But in the IHSE segment, no, I don't remember...

Knowledge...

Not to my knowledge, no.

And there are no further questions. So back to you.

Yes. As there are no more questions, thank you. Thank you all very much for attending today's earnings call of Brockhaus Technologies. I would like to use the stage a moment of thank our employees for their outstanding work and performance as well as our shareholders for their continued trust and support. Goodbye, and have a great day. Thank you.

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Brockhaus Investor Update Call. [Operator Instructions]

Let me now turn the floor over to Marco Brockhaus.

Yes. Thank you very much, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Brockhaus Technologies earnings call for the first 9 months of the fiscal year 2025. Before we begin, I would like to point out that the slides we are presenting will afterwards be published in the Investors Relations section of our website, brockhaus-technologies.com.

After our presentation, we will open the call to questions from your side. [Operator Instructions] 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 consolidated financial statements for 2024 on Page 93 onwards of the annual report 2024 and Page 13 onwards of our quarterly statement for the first 9 months of 2025 for a discussion on alternative performance measures as well as 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 to the section on Risk and Opportunities in the Management Report 2024, starting on Page 64.

So turning to Page 3. Let me briefly summarize what we achieved in the first 9 months of 2025. Despite the continued downturn in the economic and consumer climate, we were able to hold our ground. Bikeleasing continues to invest in its long-term growth strategy, transforming from a single-product company focused on company bike leasing into a multi-benefit platform. As part of its international expansion strategy, Bikeleasing has also taken a stake in the U.S. company right tender, seeing this as an opportunity to create valuable synergies and to leverage its own expertise in company bike leasing in the United States.

IHSE is driving the continuous development of its technology and increased its gross profit margin in the third quarter of 2025 through an improved product mix and customer mix, primarily resulting from the growing defense business.

For the current fiscal year 2025, we expect an organic revenue growth of 10% to 15% between EUR 225 million and EUR 235 million despite the persistently challenging economic environment, as said before. Against the backdrop of investments in Bikeleasing's long-term growth, we expect an adjusted EBITDA of EUR 50 million to EUR 55 million for the fiscal year 2025.

Brockhaus Technologies generated revenue of EUR 182 million in the first 9 months of the 2025 fiscal year, corresponding to an organic growth of 3.6% compared to the prior year period. Adjusted EBITDA and EBIT turned out to be 28% and 33% lower than last year, which was mainly driven by Bikeleasing's investment in its long-term growth strategy.

Flipping to the next slide, let us look at how revenue developed on a quarterly basis. At IHSE, on the bottom of the page, while the first quarter was below last year's Q1, in the second quarter, we saw a positive development and revenue exceeded prior year by 13%. The third quarter was down by 30% compared to Q3 2024 due to project-related shifts and a general reluctancy to invest in many industries.

Bikeleasing on the top of the page in the first quarter was up by 11% compared to Q1 2024. In the second quarter, revenue was mostly on the same level as in the second quarter of 2024. The third quarter was up by 12% compared to Q1 -- Q3 2024. The key factor for growth was a significant increase in revenue from the sale of bikes at the end of the leasing term. In addition, the new partner participation model, which went live in the beginning of August, also had a positive effect on revenue in the third quarter of 2025.

I will now proceed to the next page for the regional sales split. First, the Bikeleasing. No surprises here, the company has a business in Germany and Austria and growth in revenue was 6%. Overall, IHSE revenue was below the previous year's level compared to the first 9 months of 2024. In EMEA, revenue was down by 14% due to generally subdued investment activity in the market. The same applies to APAC, where revenue was down by 49%. In contrast, revenue in Americas region rose by 17%, driven by the growing defense business.

Turning to the profit and loss table. In the first 2 columns, we see that Bikeleasing's gross profit margin was below last year's level at around 61%. Main reason for this was the increased revenue share of resale proceeds, which generally have significantly lower gross profit margin than the segment's other revenue components. EBITDA and EBIT margins were below prior year's level in addition to the lower gross profit margin. This is due to planned higher personnel and other operating expenses related to the long-term growth strategy of Bikeleasing aimed to transforming the business from a single-product company like Bikeleasing provider into a multi-benefit platform.

Strictly prioritized growth initiatives in this regard manifested in higher marketing expenses. The rise in expenses primarily attributable to the acquisition of Probonio and the establishment of Bike2Future for marketing and broking used bicycles via B2B and B2C channels and the associated growth measures.

Proceeding to the next 2 columns to the right at IHSE at 83%, the gross profit margin was significantly above the comparative period level of 74%. The rise in own work capitalized had a positive effect on the gross profit margin. This was primarily attributed to an increase in development investments in the new product generations comprising hardware and software from IHSE and KVM tech. Even excluding capitalized own work, the segment's gross profit margin reached 74%, up well above the prior year period when it was at 69%. The main contributing factor was an improved product and customer mix, particularly driven by IHSE growing defense business, which had a positive impact on the segment's gross profit margin.

The adjusted EBITDA amounted to EUR 3 million with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 12%. The main reason for this decline was lower revenue, while fixed costs, particularly personnel expenses and other operating costs remained largely in line with the prior year period. In the third quarter of 2025, the management had already implemented significant measures to reduce fixed costs across personnel and other operating expenses, which are expected to take effect primarily in the fiscal year 2026.

Moving to further columns to the right in the central functions, expenses were lower compared to the first 9 months of 2024, primarily due to lower personnel and other operating expenses.

In conclusion and summing up on the consolidated group level, revenue was EUR 182 million, and gross profit margin was at 64%. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 27%, bringing our group to an adjusted EBITDA of EUR 49 million. The group's adjusted EBIT of EUR 43 million corresponds to a margin of 24%. Free cash flow before taxes was EUR 18 million and below the prior year level due to lower operating income and an increased refinancing backlog.

On the next page, I would like to run you briefly through our financial leverage structure. End of September, the debt from loans amounted to EUR 69 million. When subtracting cash of EUR 38 million, we are left with a net debt from loans of EUR 31 million. Adding EUR 19 million from other financial liabilities and subtracting EUR 5 million of net debt from lease refinancing brings us to EUR 45 million in total net debt. If you compare that to adjusted EBITDA of the last 12 months, this corresponds to a leverage ratio of around 1x. As our limit for this KPI is some 2.5x, we consider our current financial position as more than conservative.

This concludes the first part of our presentation. I'll now hand over to Paul, who is in charge of our acquisition team. Paul?

Thank you, Marco, and good afternoon, everyone. As usual, let me start the operational update with a brief look at Bikeleasing.

Bikeleasing continued to grow its customer base throughout Q3. The number of corporate customers onboarded to Bikeleasing's digital platform now stands at around 81,000 firms with around 3.9 million employees behind them, representing a year-over-year growth of 15% and 7%, respectively. As in the previous quarters, the growth was particularly stemming from SMEs, as you can see here.

At around 111,000, the number of brokered bicycles in 9M was below the previous year's level, primarily due to extreme discounts within retail and an increasing number of block customers due to deteriorating credit scores in Germany. I have already explained during our last earnings call why severe discounts are negatively affecting newly leased bicycles, but let me repeat it once again as it is not necessarily obvious at first sight.

Irrationally, a lot of retailers are not discounting bicycles that go into leasing programs anymore to counteract the commissions of leasing platforms. Consequently, if you get offered, for example, 50% discount on cash purchases compared to 30% savings on the nondiscounted price through leasing, it, of course, makes more sense to buy than lease, at least if you have the disposable income to do so. This dynamic is observable when looking at the average price of a bike financed through Bikeleasing, which has not seen a large decrease over the last months in contrast to the overall market, meaning that heavily discounted bikes are, in fact, not being leased.

In addition, to remind you of the strong seasonality of Bikeleasing's business, the 9-month period has usually accounted for 80% plus in the last year, even increasing its weight to 89% in 2024, as you can see on the right-hand side.

Finally, the growth of corporate customers at Probonio, the company we acquired in April last year for multi-benefit management, is also continuing its positive momentum. Since we acquired Probonio in April last year and started upselling at the end of August last year, we've grown the number of corporate customers by more -- by nearly fourfold from around 800 to now 3,100 by the end of September. Nevertheless, just looking at the number of Bikeleasing customers we have, you can see that there is clearly some significant way ahead of us.

Moving to the next page. Since the acquisition of Bikeleasing in 2021, just to remind you, we kept our 4 strategic pillars for growth unchanged. First, increasing the number of corporate customers onboarded to our platform. Just as a reminder, we started with 25,000 corporate customers, and we now stand at 81,000 customers; second, increasing the usage rate within employees of already onboarded corporates; third, adding other non-bike benefits to the offering, meaning Probonio; and four, internationalizing the business.

After having started internationalizing with the first organic step to Austria in 2022, where Bikeleasing holds a leading market position today, we are very happy to announce the next step with our investment in Ridepanda in the United States. Ridepanda today is the leading provider of micromobility employee benefits in the U.S. Through its digital platform, Ridepanda enables its corporate customers to offer their employees the flexible subscription of bikes, e-bikes and e-scooters.

In contrast to corporate Bicycle leasing in Germany, as we do it here with Bikeleasing, the U.S. does not allow to finance the monthly rates by way of salary sacrifices, which is why Ridepanda customers sponsor the monthly rates for their employees. Those customers, you can see here on the page as well and include the likes of Amazon, Meta, Google and also public entities like the city of Seattle.

Bikeleasing acquired a minority stake of around 7% in Ridepanda and is looking to apply its expertise from the more mature German and Austrian markets now also to the U.S.

With this, turning over to IHSE for a similar update. As presented earlier, revenue at IHSE was down 12% year-over-year. However, despite the revenue decrease, gross profit of IHSE was broadly stable in absolute terms, resulting from a significantly increased gross margin. You can also see that when looking at the gray part of the chart on the right-hand side here. This gross margin increase was significantly affected by IHSE's growing share of defense revenue, which reached around about 45% in the first 9 months of 2025.

As you might remember, some 3 years ago, we took the strategic decision to obtain specific defense-related certifications and also invest into business development activities in that market, which now start to bear fruits. Geographically, both EMEA and Asia Pacific were down year-over-year, but Americas again benefited from our decision to invest heavily into the defense vertical.

This concludes my section, and handing back to Marco.

Thank you, Paul. Flipping over to the last page of today's presentation, our outlook for the fiscal year 2025. As mentioned at the beginning, we expect revenue between EUR 225 million and EUR 235 million, corresponding to solid organic growth of 10% to 15% compared to fiscal year 2024. For adjusted EBITDA, the group plans a range of EUR 50 million to EUR 55 million. As part of the ongoing transformation of Bikeleasing from a single-product provider to a multi-branded platform, the fiscal -- the 2025 fiscal year is expected to include significantly higher expenses for personnel and other operating costs. These increased expenses are primarily driven by strategic growth initiatives, particularly the rollout of the digital multi-benefit platform Probonio.de and the development of the used bike sales platform, Bike2Future.de, established in 2024. As part of its international expansion strategy, Bikeleasing has also taken a stake in the U.S. company-wide panel, seeing this as an opportunity to create valuable synergies and to bring the experience gained from Bikeleasing's business model into the United States.

IHSE is and will remain well positioned for the long term due to its leading technology position in the KVM sector. With a fully packed pipeline of new product innovations, IHSE is focused on the future, in particular, the government defense segment is currently performing well.

From an eagle-eyed view, I would say our technology group continues to be well positioned for the future by keeping a scalable and cash-generative business model. Thanks to regular distributions, even also this year, we have been able to gradually repay acquisition loans and expect to reach cash compounding mode starting next year.

The development of the share price is disappointing and at the same time, difficult to comprehend when comparing the current market capitalization of our company with the value of our subsidiaries. I'm convinced that despite a very challenging economic environment, especially in Germany, we have set the right course to achieve sustainable growth and create long-term value. Please note that this forecast assumes that there will be no future change in the scope of consolidation within Brockhaus Technologies. The reason for this approach is the difficulty in predicting the nature and scope of future acquisitions. We do not believe that any estimates in this respect are sufficiently reliable even though we are constantly working towards finding the next hidden champion in the market.

That concludes our presentation, and we are now happy to answer your questions. For that, I would like to hand over back to the operator. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] And we have a question coming from Sebastian Weidhüner from Pelodin Asset Management.

So Marco, you mentioned the share price. And even after the goodwill write-downs, the auditor recognized valuations of Bikeleasing and either they're far above the current share price, more than double, I think. So what are you planning to do to finally close this gap because we have this now since a few years? And how do you think about to unlock the underlying value for these 2 companies for shareholders?

Yes. Thank you for the question. Well, to continue drive earnings and to invest into the future of the companies, right, as we do with Bikeleasing, as we do with IHSE. And as you talk, I think, frequently, if not every week with our Investors Relations Manager, Florian, you know well about what we do and what we plan to do in terms of what I just said, investing in the future of the companies, which we do, which we did and which we will do. And I do not understand that market doesn't see the lack of valuation. It's pretty obvious, as you just mentioned, but what can I say to the market? That's a good question. It is what it is. We can't rise the share price. We can buy back shares, what we did at EUR 22 a share a year ago or 2 years ago. And that unfortunately did not pay out, and we most probably will rethink that situation once we allow to do.

Yes. I mean we saw an M&A inbound in Q4, right? And maybe when there's a possibility to unlock the value, maybe it would make sense to think about it. But another point. So on LinkedIn, I -- yes, yes, please.

Sure. I mean we did very well with Palas where we made quite a fortune on that investment. And I think we were very happy, and I think we did very well, right? I mean what we invested and what we achieved with the company was amazing. We doubled sales and EBITDA within 4 years and more than threefold the investment. However, I mean, it's -- if there's opportunities, we will look at it, but this is for now what I can say.

I mean on LinkedIn, I saw very interesting. So in the Brockhaus Holding, you have hired Alexander. Previously, he was CFO, Group Germany at Volaris and Volaris is part of Constellation Software. So maybe you can say something what does this addition mean for your organization.

Just to back up the financial manager, Yannick Walter. It's just nothing does mean -- if you mean in terms of Constellation Group, we sold the business to Constellation Group a couple of years ago in the funds at business, but that's -- I wouldn't conclude any strategic shift or by his hire, not at all.

Okay. So maybe one operational question. So you mentioned the transition to the multi-benefit platform. And I mean in the case, it's Probonio. So you now reported 3,100 corporate customers. So maybe you can give us a number how many employees these clients represent? And for the moment, what is the annualized recurring revenue from these 3,100 customers?

We don't guide on...

Yes, Paul, you can jump in.

We don't guide on each company. So with 3,100 corporate customers, we did well, but we believe that the investment we just did will hopefully bring more customers to Probonio and with that more paying employees or paid employees for the software, right, using the software. So this is where we stand, and we don't guide Probonio.

Yes.

Just to add on there and also the employee number, we don't disclose. We can think about if we want to do that in the future, but there's also a difference between employees behind those companies and activated employees because we only earn, of course, fees on activated employees and not everyone. So -- but maybe a hint, if you look into our revenue splits that we have in the reports usually, there is a line called SaaS revenues, if I'm not mistaking. And there is no entity within Brockhaus earning SaaS revenues than Probonio.

Yes, I saw this, and I was surprised that this number was much lower than I would expect it. So maybe 3,100 customers times 30 employees times EUR 40 per employee would mean EUR 4 million revenue for Probonio, so annualized, but the number was quite smaller because of this, I'm asking, so how many employees and what revenue is behind this 3,100 corporate customers?

I think we are going in circles here. The revenues, you can see from our revenue splits in the report. And if you have had a look at this, you know the revenues. And on the employee number or actually not the employee, but the activated employee number, which is the relevant would want where we earn revenue on, we don't guide that.

Okay. But to get it clear, so are all 3,100 customers are paying ones? Or do some companies have kind of free plan?

There might be a couple in there from history where they are for some modules not paying something, but it's definitely the exception. But the difference is that even if you have a company with 100 employees and they just offer it maybe to 25 people in the beginning, you only earn on those 25 and not 100.

The next question comes from Lasse Stueben from Berenberg.

I would have a question on the EBITDA guidance for this year. Just given what you've achieved in the 9 months, it seems reasonably conservative, but maybe you could just help us understand the dynamics in the fourth quarter on EBITDA?

And the second question would be on Probonio. Would you be willing to share the number of customers that are new customers versus which portion you've essentially upsold from Bikeleasing?

And the final question is just on Ridepanda. I guess with the -- I think you said 7% stake, what do you -- can you give some more color on kind of how that relationship looks and what you're trying to get out of that in the future?

Maybe I'll start with the first question, and Paul, you can take the other 2. First of all, no, I think it's conservative, yes, maybe, but many costs of Bikeleasing related to the initiatives in Probonio, Bike2Future and so on and marketing backloaded in Q4. And as you know, Q4 and Q1 is always weaker than Q2 and Q3. We see our guidance as it is. And we believe, yes, that for now, this is what we will see for 2025.

Paul, maybe you take the other 2 questions.

Then on the Probonio question, we actually don't have the split at hand for who was upsold and who is completely new. Actually, there's also a third piece, right, where we win a customer simultaneously for both Bikeleasing and Probonio or the other way around where we just win a Probonio customer and they are later on upsold to Bikeleasing. So there are very different directions in which you can think, but we don't have the split at hand.

And the last question on Ridepanda. It's a percentage-wise small investment for us, but the market potential in the U.S. is, of course, pretty big. I mentioned on my slide earlier that their model is unfortunately not as beneficial as in Germany. So you don't have the salary sacrifice option for leasing bikes or subscription bikes over there. So you always need to find employers that are willing to subsidize the monthly rates for their employees, hence, also the very big names who can afford doing so.

So given that the market is not as favorable as Germany or Austria, Ridepanda has done a tremendous job in onboarding those corporates over there already. And we want to support them on, let's say, all fronts where we can help. So be it in relation to operations or be it in financing or insurance. I mean we have experience there quite a lot. And by this, also learn more about the market, right, because you can, let's say, hire 2 or 3 people over there that try to fight windmills, if one says like this and be, let's say, a satellite office without doing any revenue or you support a leading player on the ground. And we decided for the second option. So we are supporting the leading player in that market. We want to learn something from that. We can support them with our expertise. And let's see how the market develops in the future, right?

At the moment, there are no further questions. [Operator Instructions] And the follow-up question comes from Sebastian Weidhüner from Paladin.

It's me again. So the average price per bike, does it remain for the moment by EUR 4,000 gross?

Yes, around about that level.

And what happened to the bicycle dealers who have not yet agreed to the new partner program, where these dealers are still able to sell bikes via Bikeleasing? Do you have a transitional phase or where they blocked?

The transitional phase is already behind us. So if you have not agreed to the new partnership model, then you can't use our platform anymore. But to also say this, this is really applying to, say, a very, very low percentage.

All right. And in case of the gross profit margin, so in the pure bike brokerage business, this stands at 90.7% after 92.1% in the prior year. And given the introduction of the DDA fee, I would have expected a little increase. So could you explain why the margin declined from 92% to 90.7%?

I wouldn't interpret too much into that, to be honest. I think it's not a systematic deviation. It's more a seasonal deviation. So what we, of course, have is that certain parameters fluctuate upwards or downwards on a quarterly basis. So for example, the leasing factor can work for or against you on a quarterly basis because that's only adjusted on quarter-to-quarter, while refinancing rates are more short-term adjusted. So there's no real big reason for it. It's just normal fluctuations.

Okay. And in the Bikeleasing segment, the OpEx, so the difference between gross profit and adjusted EBITDA increased EUR 7 million year-over-year. And in the Q3 report, you mentioned I think that EUR 7 million related to Probonio and Bike2Future. So around EUR 10 million are relating to the core brokerage bike business, right? But why are costs rising here so much while, I mean, job cut is reducing headcount by 20% and the bike volumes are declining, too?

I couldn't follow your calculation, to be honest. So first of all, you have a gross profit effect. I'm not sure if you had that in your calculations right now. If you start with a lower gross margin, you already have, let's say, a lower basis to start from. Then you have the additional costs, as you mentioned, from Probonio and Bike2Future, which is an additional, I think, EUR 6.5 million, so around about EUR 7 million on top of that.

And Bikeleasing also continues to grow and invest, right? So it's not only the new ventures, but also on Bikeleasing, we are investing a lot into our product. And this is, of course, also having an effect on the personnel basis, for example, if you hire a lot of IT people.

You're absolutely right that the market leader is apparently reducing headcount. But also this is only apparently half the reality because also on their returning bikes business, they are hiring like crazy people. So I think they have reported on one entity and not on the whole group, but it's their cup of tea. We do what we think is best for Bikeleasing. And of course, we have also the unit numbers in mind, right? We have the customer onboarding numbers in mind, the utilization rates in mind, the actual bikes that are ordered in mind. So you can be sure we have them on our radar.

Yes, I took the difference between gross profit and adjusted EBITDA. So OpEx plus EUR 17 million year-over-year. And you mentioned EUR 7 million are going to Probonio and Bike2Future and then EUR 10 million are remaining for Bikeleasing.

Okay. And maybe one to IHSE. So on one side, the high defense and government revenue is good, but the business still reported a revenue decline, a huge revenue decline. So this maybe suggests problems in other verticals. Can you do a deep dive here? So do you see this only market driven? Or are there any structural issues? And have you lost maybe market share? Or is this intact?

I think there are 2 factors for that. One is, of course, project-related shifts that sometimes happen in a quarter and sometimes shift to a next quarter or next year. And the second thing is the market environment out there. I mean defense is helping quite a lot. And would we not have taken the decision a couple of years ago to go into that vertical, it would be, let's say, even worse. But if you look at everything nondefense, I think it's fair to say that it's not, let's say, very flowery times out there. So if you can see that in the EMEA development, especially that we had a revenue decrease there. So those 2 factors I would name.

And how is the situation in the aviation business, for example?

I mean it's -- we don't go on individual industries here, please. But you have air traffic control, you have broadcasting, postproduction as very big verticals. So if everything, except for defense is not going as smoothly as in the past, that means the other markets all have their slight or more issues.

Yes. I mean we have some other companies like Frequentis on the stock exchange, and the aviation business looks not so bad there.

Good for them. I mean it's one of our partners. So we do business with them together, but I can't comment on how their business is developing, to be honest.

Okay. And the last one, what further expenses do you expect for the ERP program? So since Q2, I think EUR 8 million has been incurred. How long does it go?

This is Yannick from the finance department. So these expenses, I expect it to go down significantly in 2026. There will be some smaller portions still remaining, but it will go down significantly.

There are no further questions.