Ori­gi­nal-Re­se­arch: Vec­tron Sys­tems AG (von GBC AG)

Re­se­arch | 2 No­vem­ber 2023 00:00

Ori­gi­nal-Re­se­arch: Vec­tron Sys­tems AG – from GBC AG

Clas­si­fi­ca­ti­on of GBC AG to Vec­tron Sys­tems AG

Com­pa­ny Name: Vec­tron Sys­tems AG
ISIN: DE000A0KEXC7

Re­ason for the re­se­arch: GBC Ma­nage­ment In­ter­view
Re­com­men­da­ti­on: GBC Ma­nage­ment In­ter­view
Last ra­ting ch­an­ge:
Ana­lyst: Cos­min Fil­ker, Mat­thi­as Greif­fen­ber­ger

acar­do ac­qui­si­ti­on and di­gi­ti­sa­ti­on stra­tegy have po­si­ti­ve in­fluence; risk from purcha­se pri­ce pay­ment prac­ti­cal­ly non-exis­tent

Af­ter the fis­ca­li­sa­ti­on ef­fect has lar­ge­ly ex­pi­red, Vec­tron Sys­tems AG is curr­ent­ly in a trans­for­ma­ti­on pro­cess. Their fo­cus is on the ex­pan­si­on of di­gi­tal ser­vices, so that in fu­ture the pre­do­mi­nant part of Vectron’s busi­ness will con­sist of re­cur­ring re­ve­nues. One-off re­ve­nues from cash sa­les are ta­king a back seat. The in­crease in re­cur­ring in­co­me by around 48% to € 9.6 mil­li­on is a clear in­di­ca­ti­on of the suc­cess of this stra­tegy. At the same time, the cur­rent fi­nan­cial year is si­gni­fi­cant­ly in­fluen­ced by the in­or­ga­nic ef­fects of the ac­qui­red cou­po­ning spe­cia­list acar­do Group AG. GBC ana­lyst Cos­min Fil­ker spo­ke with Vec­tron board mem­ber Tho­mas Stümm­ler:

GBC AG: At the be­gin­ning of the cur­rent fi­nan­cial year 2023, you ac­qui­red the cou­po­ning spe­cia­list acar­do Group AG. What in­te­rim con­clu­si­on can you draw about this ac­qui­si­ti­on af­ter th­ree quar­ters?

Tho­mas Stümm­ler: We are still very hap­py to have ac­qui­red such an ex­ci­ting com­pa­ny. acar­do ser­ves around half of the Ger­man cou­pon mar­ket wi­thin the food re­tail sec­tor. Fur­ther­mo­re, acar­do ope­ra­tes two po­pu­lar apps in this field, Cou­pon­platz and Scon­doo. In ad­di­ti­on, acar­do ope­ra­tes or sup­ports the apps of lar­ge re­tail chains, such as Ede­ka, with con­tent. acar­do soft­ware runs on the cash re­gis­ter sys­tems of many lar­ge re­tail com­pa­nies. This fits in per­fect­ly with Vectron’s stra­tegy. With acar­do we also seek to spread cou­po­ning th­roug­hout the gas­tro­no­my sec­tor and make our­sel­ves more in­de­pen­dent of in­di­vi­du­al in­dus­try trends.

GBC AG: What are the pos­si­bi­li­ties of a stron­ger co­ope­ra­ti­on bet­ween the two seg­ments ‚POS sys­tems‘ and ‚cou­po­ning‘?

Tho­mas Stümm­ler: We think that cou­po­ning will also play a big role in the gas­tro­no­my sec­tor. We also want to give re­stau­rant ow­ners the op­por­tu­ni­ty to mar­ket spe­cial of­fers via acardo’s end-cus­to­mer apps. Fur­ther­mo­re, we want to give the sup­p­ly in­dus­try the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ad­ver­ti­se be­ver­a­ges, for ex­am­p­le, not only in trade with cou­pons, but also in the field of gas­tro­no­my. For this, we want to con­vin­ce our mas­si­ve cus­to­mer base of the ad­van­ta­ges of cou­po­ning, while acar­do can mar­ket this new mar­ke­ting plat­form th­rough its exis­ting cont­acts to the in­dus­try.

GBC AG: In the first th­ree quar­ters of 2023, you ge­ne­ra­ted strong re­ve­nue growth of al­most 50% to € 27.9m (PY: € 18.3m). EBITDA clim­bed si­gni­fi­cant­ly to € 2.8 mil­li­on (pre­vious year: € ‑2.6 mil­li­on). What were the most im­portant dri­vers be­hind this?

Tho­mas Stümm­ler: In ad­di­ti­on to the ac­qui­si­ti­on of acar­do and the as­so­cia­ted po­si­ti­ve re­sults, a plea­sing in­crease in re­cur­ring re­ve­nues was pri­ma­ri­ly re­spon­si­ble for the im­pro­ve­ment in the group re­sult. We have re­al­ly only scrat­ched the sur­face of the po­ten­ti­al of the­se di­gi­tal ser­vices.

GBC AG: You’ve men­tio­ned the strong in­crease in re­cur­ring re­ve­nues which are pri­ma­ri­ly re­la­ted to the ex­pan­si­on of the di­gi­tal busi­ness. Which mo­du­les are to be in­tro­du­ced to the mar­ket in the near fu­ture?

Tho­mas Stümm­ler: To give you a few ex­amp­les:
* A web shop for ‚take away‘ with a con­nec­tion to the cash re­gis­ter.
* Or­de­ring by QR code and pay­ing at the ta­ble
* On­line ta­ble re­ser­va­ti­on
* Cou­po­ning for gas­tro­no­my
* …etc…

GBC AG: EBITDA in the first nine months was po­si­tively af­fec­ted by spe­cial ef­fects to­tal­ling € 0.9 mil­li­on. What are the­se re­la­ted to and what will its fur­ther de­ve­lo­p­ment be?

Tho­mas Stümm­ler: The­se were main­ly one-off ef­fects from pro­vi­si­ons that could be re­leased. This will, the­r­e­fo­re, not con­ti­nue.

GBC: Are the ‚af­ter­maths‘ of the im­ple­men­ted cost-sa­ving pro­gram­me now over and which cost sa­vings could Vec­tron fi­nal­ly rea­li­se?

Tho­mas Stümm­ler: We have re­du­ced our staff from about 200 em­ployees to about 150. This me­ans con­sidera­ble month­ly sa­vings, which, ho­we­ver, have only oc­cur­red slow­ly this year, be­cau­se many long-ser­ving em­ployees had long no­ti­ce pe­ri­ods. As you know, we have de­ci­ded to source hard­ware from ex­ter­nal part­ners in the fu­ture. The­r­e­fo­re, we have cut most of the jobs in hard­ware ma­nu­fac­tu­ring and de­ve­lo­p­ment and have not made any cuts in soft­ware de­ve­lo­p­ment, for ex­am­p­le. Our di­gi­tal growth stra­tegy was thus not
af­fec­ted by the sa­vings.

GBC AG: Back to the acar­do ac­qui­si­ti­on. De­pen­ding on acardo’s ear­nings per­for­mance, an earn-out in a wide ran­ge of € 4 to € 25 mil­li­on will be due in the 2026 fi­nan­cial year. What re­sult would acar­do have to achie­ve for the ma­xi­mum earn-out to be due? How should this be fi­nan­ced?

Tho­mas Stümm­ler: For this, acar­do would have to ge­ne­ra­te an avera­ge EBIT of € 5.5 mil­li­on in the fi­nan­cial ye­ars 2024 and 2025. If this is missed by a si­gni­fi­cant mar­gin, the earn-out could be as low as € 4 mil­li­on. Re­gard­less of how high the earn-out ul­ti­m­ate­ly turns out to be, we can pay a si­gni­fi­cant part of the cla­im from the ac­crued acar­do pro­fits and fi­nan­ce the rest, which should then be pos­si­ble with such a pro­fi­ta­ble sub­si­dia­ry. So, ac­tual­ly, every sce­na­rio has its ap­peal. You should not for­get that we can use the pro­fits from the cur­rent year and part­ly from 2026, be­cau­se we ex­pect to have to pay first in Q2 2026. Be­fo­re that, all the fi­nan­cial state­ments have to be available.

GBC AG: A fol­low-up ques­ti­on on this. What hap­pens if you do not have suf­fi­ci­ent li­quid funds at the time of the earn-out pay­ment? What risks do you face?

Tho­mas Stümm­ler: We have tried to struc­tu­re the deal in such a way that all con­ceiva­ble sce­na­ri­os re­main ma­na­geable. That’s why we agreed that in this case that we would NOT have to pay, but that the ex-ow­ners of acar­do could then buy the com­pa­ny back at the purcha­se pri­ce at the time. The ac­cu­mu­la­ted pro­fits would re­main with us. Should the ex-ow­ners then also not be able or wil­ling to pay this, the com­pa­ny would re­main with us un­til one of the two par­ties fi­nal­ly buys it.

GBC AG: Mr. Stümm­ler, fi­nal­ly a ques­ti­on for in­ves­tors with a long-term in­vest­ment ho­ri­zon. Whe­re do you see Vec­tron in five ye­ars?

Tho­mas Stümm­ler: We seek to be­co­me the lea­ding pro­vi­der of a com­ple­te di­gi­tal eco­sys­tem for re­tail and gas­tro­no­my. Di­gi­tal ser­vices can mul­ti­ply the tur­no­ver per cus­to­mer. If we con­sis­t­ent­ly and pa­ti­ent­ly con­ti­nue along the path we have now em­bark­ed on, then the lar­gest cash re­gis­ter base in the mar­ket should au­to­ma­ti­cal­ly make us the lar­gest di­gi­tal pro­vi­der. The growth of the­se di­gi­tal pro­ducts is al­re­a­dy cle­ar­ly vi­si­ble to­day and shows that the stra­tegy is working.

GBC AG: Mr Stümm­ler, thank you for the in­ter­view.

Die voll­stän­di­ge Ana­ly­se kön­nen Sie hier down­loa­den:
http://​www​.more​-ir​.de/​d​/​2​7​9​9​3​.​pdf

Kon­takt für Rück­fra­gen
GBC AG
Hal­der­stra­ße 27
86150 Augs­burg
⁰⁸²¹⁄₂₄₁₁₃₃ 0
research@​gbc-​ag.​de
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Of­fen­le­gung mög­li­cher In­ter­es­sens­kon­flik­te nach § 85 WpHG und Art. 20 MAR Beim oben ana­ly­sier­ten Un­ter­neh­men ist fol­gen­der mög­li­cher In­ter­es­sen­kon­flikt ge­ge­ben: (5a,6a,7,11); Ei­nen Ka­ta­log mög­li­cher In­ter­es­sen­kon­flik­te fin­den Sie un­ter:
http://​www​.gbc​-ag​.de/​d​e​/​O​f​f​e​n​l​e​g​ung
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Date (time) com­ple­ti­on (ger­man): 31.10.2023 (08:29 am)
Date (time) first trans­mis­si­on (ger­man): 31.10.2023 (10:00 am)
Date (time) com­ple­ti­on (eng­lish): 31.10.2023 (3:30 pm)
Date (time) first trans­mis­si­on (eng­lish): 02.11.2023 (10:00 am)

——————-über­mit­telt durch die EQS Group AG.——————-

Für den In­halt der Mit­tei­lung bzw. Re­se­arch ist al­lei­ne der Her­aus­ge­ber bzw.
Er­stel­ler der Stu­die ver­ant­wort­lich. Die­se Mel­dung ist kei­ne An­la­ge­be­ra­tung
oder Auf­for­de­rung zum Ab­schluss be­stimm­ter Bör­sen­ge­schäf­te.