Clas­si­fi­ca­ti­on of GBC AG to Ce­n­it AG

Si­gni­fi­cant im­pro­ve­ment in ear­nings ex­pec­ted af­ter tran­si­ti­on year 2025; M&A ac­ti­vi­ty to take a back seat for the time be­ing

In the past 2024 fi­nan­cial year, CENIT AG achie­ved a vi­si­ble jump in sa­les of 12.2% with sa­les of € 207.33 mil­li­on (pre­vious year: € 184.72 mil­li­on). The gui­dance ad­jus­ted in Oc­to­ber, which fo­re­cast sa­les of € 205 to € 210 mil­li­on, was thus ful­ly met. The first-time in­clu­si­on of sa­les from the com­pa­nies ac­qui­red in 2024, CCE and Ana­ly­sis Prime, was re­spon­si­ble for sa­les of € 12.95 mil­li­on, mea­ning that the com­pa­ny re­por­ted or­ga­nic sa­les growth of 5.2%. This is slight­ly abo­ve the in­ter­nal tar­get of or­ga­nic growth of at least 5.0%.

All pro­duct seg­ments con­tri­bu­ted to the in­crease in re­ve­nue with at least dou­ble-di­git growth. While both ser­vice re­ve­nue (+14.7%) and third-par­ty soft­ware re­ve­nue (+10.7%) be­ne­fi­ted from in­or­ga­nic growth, among other things, pro­prie­ta­ry soft­ware re­ve­nue also in­creased dy­na­mi­cal­ly by 14.8%. Alt­hough the re­ve­nue share of this par­ti­cu­lar­ly high va­lue-ad­ded pro­duct area is still be­low the 10.0% mark at 9.3%, the ac­qui­si­ti­ons of re­cent ye­ars had a di­lu­ti­ve ef­fect here.

Among other things, the M&A‑related in­ci­den­tal cos­ts (€ 1.12 mil­li­on) and the flat­ter in­crease in ear­nings in the tra­di­tio­nal­ly strong fourth quar­ter led to a dis­pro­por­tio­na­te­ly low in­crease in EBITDA of 5.2% to € 17.26 mil­li­on (pre­vious year: € 16.41 mil­li­on). Wi­t­hout ta­king into ac­count the spe­cial ef­fects, CENIT AG would have re­por­ted an EBITDA in­crease of 12.0%. Be­low EBITDA, the ac­crued PPA amor­tiza­ti­on of the last ac­qui­si­ti­ons is no­ti­ceable, which led to a de­cli­ne in EBIT of ‑19.9 % to € 7.38 mil­li­on (pre­vious year: € 9.22 mil­li­on). The fact that, con­tra­ry to ex­pec­ta­ti­ons, a ne­ga­ti­ve re­sult for the pe­ri­od of € ‑1.94 mil­li­on (pre­vious year: € 4.50 mil­li­on) had to be re­por­ted is ex­clu­si­ve­ly due to ex­tra­or­di­na­ry wri­te-downs on fi­nan­cial in­stru­ments in the amount of € 5.60 mil­li­on. A fi­nan­cial in­vest­ment (AS­Con) had to be writ­ten off in full.

For the cur­rent fi­nan­cial year, CENIT’s ma­nage­ment an­ti­ci­pa­tes a year of tran­si­ti­on in which in­or­ga­nic growth will be sus­pen­ded and the fo­cus will be on in­ter­nal pro­ces­ses to im­pro­ve pro­fi­ta­bi­li­ty. With the first-time full-year in­clu­si­on of Ana­ly­sis Prime in 2025, Group sa­les are ex­pec­ted to in­crease si­gni­fi­cant­ly bet­ween € 229 mil­li­on and € 234 mil­li­on and EBITA (EBIT be­fo­re PPA amor­tiza­ti­on) slight­ly to € 12.4 mil­li­on (pre­vious year: € 11.35 mil­li­on). This in­cludes res­truc­tu­ring ex­pen­ses of around € 4.0 mil­li­on.

For the 2025 fi­nan­cial year, we ex­pect sa­les re­ve­nue of € 230.22 mil­li­on, as­sum­ing sa­les growth of 3.0% in ad­di­ti­on to the base ef­fect of Ana­ly­sis Prime. For the two sub­se­quent fi­nan­cial ye­ars, we are as­sum­ing or­ga­nic sa­les growth of slight­ly over 5.0% in each case. Fol­lo­wing the res­truc­tu­ring ex­pen­ses in 2025, mar­gin in­crea­ses should be achie­ved again from the co­ming fi­nan­cial year 2026 (sa­vings ef­fect: ap­prox. € 5.0 mil­li­on). For 2025, we ex­pect EBITA of € 12.40 mil­li­on (EBITA mar­gin: 5.4%) and an­ti­ci­pa­te a gra­du­al in­crease in the mar­gin to 8.4% by 2027.

The DCF va­lua­ti­on re­sult is un­ch­an­ged at € 19.00/share. Mar­gi­nal ch­an­ges in the fo­re­casts for the fi­nan­cial ye­ars 2025 and 2026 are off­set by the first-time in­clu­si­on of the fi­nan­cial year 2027 in the fo­re­cast pe­ri­od, so that any va­lua­ti­on ch­an­ges can­cel each other out. We con­ti­nue to as­sign the BUY ra­ting.

You can down­load the re­se­arch here: http://​www​.more​-ir​.de/​d​/​3​2​2​8​2​.​pdf

Cont­act for ques­ti­ons:
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Dis­clo­sure of po­ten­ti­al con­flicts of in­te­rest pur­su­ant to Sec­tion 85 WpHG and Art. 20 MAR The com­pa­ny ana­ly­sed abo­ve has the fol­lo­wing po­ten­ti­al con­flict of in­te­rest: (5a,6a,7,11); A ca­ta­lo­gue of po­ten­ti­al con­flicts of in­te­rest can be found at:

https://​www​.gbc​-ag​.de/​d​e​/​O​f​f​e​n​l​e​g​u​n​g​.​htm
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Date and time of com­ple­ti­on of the stu­dy: 22/04/25 (08:12 am)
Date and time of the first dis­se­mi­na­ti­on of the stu­dy: 22/04/25 (10:00 am)