Clas­si­fi­ca­ti­on of GBC AG to Ce­n­it AG

Q1 mark­ed by an­noun­ced res­truc­tu­ring ex­pen­ses; gui­dance, pri­ce tar­get and ra­ting con­firm­ed

De­spi­te the chal­len­ging en­vi­ron­ment, CENIT AG in­creased its re­ve­nue by 1.9% to €51.51 mil­li­on in the first th­ree months of 2025 (pre­vious year: €50.55 mil­li­on). The de­cli­ne in sa­les re­sul­ting from the dif­fi­cult mar­ket en­vi­ron­ment was off­set by in­or­ga­nic ef­fects. The first th­ree months of 2025 also in­clude sa­les of Ana­ly­sis Prime LLC, ac­qui­red in July 2024, which are esti­ma­ted at around €3 mil­li­on.

This in­or­ga­nic ef­fect is also re­flec­ted in the re­ve­nue break­down. As Ana­ly­sis Prime main­ly ge­ne­ra­tes con­sul­ting re­ve­nue, this rose si­gni­fi­cant­ly by 11.5% to €22.15 mil­li­on (pre­vious year: €19.86 mil­li­on). This in­crease off­set the de­cli­ne in pro­prie­ta­ry soft­ware re­ve­nue (-1.4%) and re­ve­nue from third-par­ty soft­ware (-4.9%). The pre­vious year’s re­ve­nue from third-par­ty soft­ware in­cluded a high-vo­lu­me or­der from the de­fence sec­tor (3DS), which con­tri­bu­ted to the ex­cep­tio­nal­ly strong per­for­mance in the first quar­ter of 2024.

De­spi­te a slight in­crease in re­ve­nue, CENIT AG re­por­ted a de­cli­ne in EBITDA to €-2.44 mil­li­on (pre­vious year: €3.15 mil­li­on). An im­portant fac­tor in this de­ve­lo­p­ment was a spe­cial ex­pen­se of €3.35 mil­li­on in con­nec­tion with the im­ple­men­ta­ti­on of the an­noun­ced res­truc­tu­ring me­a­su­res. As part of the res­truc­tu­ring pro­gram­me, the num­ber of em­ployees is to be re­du­ced in the co­ming quar­ters (plan­ned re­duc­tion: 51), for which ac­cru­als were build up in the first quar­ter of 2025. This will have two po­si­ti­ve ef­fects on EBITDA in the fol­lo­wing quar­ters. On the one hand, the ex­tra­or­di­na­ry ex­pen­ses will de­cli­ne si­gni­fi­cant­ly (Q2 2025: ap­pro­xi­m­ate­ly €0.3–0.4 mil­li­on), and on the other hand, the first sa­vings ef­fects from the re­duc­tion in per­son­nel will be­co­me vi­si­ble. In ad­di­ti­on to the spe­cial ex­pen­ses, EBITDA in­cluded a ne­ga­ti­ve con­tri­bu­ti­on of €1.4 mil­li­on from Ana­ly­sis Prime. Ana­ly­sis Prime was af­fec­ted by post­po­ne­ments and a de­lay­ed start to cus­to­mer or­ders. Ho­we­ver, this should lead to stron­ger re­ve­nue growth and a po­si­ti­ve con­tri­bu­ti­on to ear­nings in sub­se­quent quar­ters.

In ad­di­ti­on to the ef­fects men­tio­ned abo­ve, EBIT of €-5.44 mil­li­on (pre­vious year: €1.24 mil­li­on) was im­pac­ted by ad­di­tio­nal PPA amor­ti­sa­ti­on of around €0.9 mil­li­on in con­nec­tion with the ad­jus­t­ment of in­tan­gi­ble as­sets (cus­to­mer base).

On a po­si­ti­ve note, ope­ra­ting cash flow for the first quar­ter was at its usu­al high le­vel of €11.66 mil­li­on (pre­vious year: €12.54 mil­li­on), which in­cludes ad­van­ce pay­ments re­cei­ved from cus­to­mers. Cash and cash equi­va­lents in­creased to €27.03 mil­li­on (31 De­cem­ber 2024: €16.46 mil­li­on). They should de­crease again in the cour­se of the year in line with the ser­vices ren­de­red for the ad­van­ce pay­ments re­cei­ved.

For the cur­rent 2025 fi­nan­cial year, CENIT’s ma­nage­ment con­ti­nues to ex­pect re­ve­nues of bet­ween €229 mil­li­on and €234 mil­li­on, re­pre­sen­ting a vi­si­ble in­crease in re­ve­nues com­pared to 2024. The first full-year con­tri­bu­ti­on from Ana­ly­sis Prime, for which re­ve­nues of USD28 mil­li­on (ap­prox. € 24.9 mil­li­on) are ex­pec­ted, is ex­pec­ted to make a si­gni­fi­cant con­tri­bu­ti­on to this. Alt­hough busi­ness per­for­mance in the first th­ree months of 2025 re­main­ed be­low this ex­pec­ta­ti­on, CENIT an­ti­ci­pa­tes a si­gni­fi­cant im­pro­ve­ment in the fol­lo­wing quar­ters. Ac­cor­ding to the com­pa­ny, a no­ti­ceable im­pro­ve­ment at Ana­ly­sis Prime was al­re­a­dy evi­dent in April. The com­pa­ny also ex­pects the cau­tious cus­to­mer de­mand to ease across the group.

The ear­nings gui­dance, which an­ti­ci­pa­tes EBITA of €12.4 mil­li­on, was also con­firm­ed. The co­ming quar­ters are li­kely to be cha­rac­te­ri­sed by a si­gni­fi­cant­ly lower-than-ex­pec­ted in­crease in ope­ra­ting cos­ts com­pared with the first quar­ter. In con­nec­tion with the res­truc­tu­ring me­a­su­res in­itia­ted, only spe­cial ex­pen­ses of ap­pro­xi­m­ate­ly €0.3 to €0.4 mil­li­on are ex­pec­ted to be in­cur­red in the se­cond quar­ter. At the same time, the first sa­vings ef­fects from the re­duc­tion in head­count should be­co­me vi­si­ble. Fi­nal­ly, Ana­ly­sis Prime should make a po­si­ti­ve con­tri­bu­ti­on to ear­nings with the ex­pec­ted ex­pan­si­on of its busi­ness ac­ti­vi­ties.

In line with the company’s gui­dance, we are kee­ping our fo­re­casts un­ch­an­ged and con­ti­nue to as­sign a BUY ra­ting with a pri­ce tar­get of €19.00.

You can down­load the re­se­arch here: http://​www​.more​-ir​.de/​d​/​3​2​6​4​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: 16/05/25 (10:04 am)
Date and time of the first dis­se­mi­na­ti­on of the stu­dy: 16/05/25 (11:00 am)