Theon International (Euronext:THEON) — Investor Presentation

0:00 Good morning, and welcome to THEON INTERNATIONAL PLC investor presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and could be submitted at any time via the Q and A tab situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll. I'd now like to hand you over to the management team. Philippe, good morning, sir.

0:31 Well, Lily, this is, Dimitris. I'm the group c CEO CFO. So I would like to make this introduction. So good morning, and thank you all for joining us. We are delighted to host our second IMC session following, Philippe Melichem, which is our chief executive CEO and business development director, who is with me today, hosting our first session in early March. We are very pleased with the feedback and viewing numbers from that session, particularly given that we are listed on Euronxt Amsterdam and maybe less familiar to some of, our UK audience. THEON has been highly active since our IPO in February 2024, transforming and scaling the business, and a great deal has happened since our first IMC session.

1:18 We have rapidly evolved to a much expanded and cutting edge product offering. THEON has a global footprint and important local fulfillment capabilities, including in The United Kingdom, where we have now a manufacturing facility in Scotland through our partnership with, COPPA. Additionally, and, before we get in a bit, I'd like to highlight that THEON is now available on the High Riff's Lansdowne with UK investors able to trade our shares through this platform. In March, Philippe provided a detailed overview of THEON, a deep dive on our products and the dynamics of the market in which we operate in. That session remains available on the IMC platform for viewing on demand.

2:04 Today, we will focus more on recent developments and go through our guidance and targets that are supported by a solid investment case.

2:13 The essential point about THEON is that we are ambitious in high growth. In 2022, our revenue was $140,000,000 In 2025, it was $440,000,000 And this year, it's expected to exceed $570,000,000 We fully have reasons to achieve our stated ambition of $1,000,000,000 revenue by 2029, supported by much diversified revenue streams and expansion into new areas of the market, all while maintaining a best in class margins. We look forward to the Q and A session at the end of this presentation. Before we begin, I will just remind attendees that we are currently in a closed period ahead of a scheduled Q2, trading update on the July 27.

3:01 So therefore, we cannot comment on Q2, first half numbers and current financial performance. However, I can say that we remain very confident, in both our full year 2026 and longer term guidance, which I will reiterate in detail towards the end of this presentation. I will now hand over to Philippe for a quick catch up on the recent developments, and we'll be back with you for the financials. Philippe? Thank you, Dmitry, good morning or good afternoon, depending on where you are in the world. Yes. Welcome from me to this webcast. So turning to slide three.

3:49 Let me briefly recap who we are and to begin with as a short introduction, to myself, I'm Philip Mencken, the deputy CEO and business development director. I've been with THEON, for more than fifteen years. And, yes, and, of course, we have Dimitris, our group CFO, who's been with the company, I'm not mistaken, for more than eight years, but, obviously, he has previous extensive experience at private and listed companies. Moving to THEON. So THEON, we design, develop and manufacture high-tech military electro optical systems for both manned portable and platform based use. Just to explain for those who are not really familiar with and our products, manned portable is anything that the soldier carries during the operations, goggles, sides, and platform based optronics, or as we call it nowadays, ISR, is anything that is mounted on onto a platform.

4:53 Man portable still represents the lion's share of our revenues, while a platform based equipment is a small part of our revenue, but obviously with a lot of potential to grow. As I said, in platform based optronics, we're now shifting basically to the the the correct term, internationally used term of ISR, which stands for intelligence surveillance and recognition of optronics. So you will hear this term ISR more and more instead of the the platform based optronics as well during these presentations. With over twenty years in the market as a pure play defense supplier, we have established ourselves as a global leader in man portable night vision equipment, where we have around 6050% to 60% of the global market for night vision robots.

5:49 And in the past few years, we have dynamically entered the ISR product segment on one hand, but we entered as well the digital age in our man portable equipment with the armed product portfolio. More about especially the ISR product segment a little bit later in this presentation. We are a disruptor in the sense also that we are more agile and faster than our larger competitors. So we have fast and efficient execution, the ability to capitalize on opportunities and a quick product to market time due to our extensive in house R and D capabilities and now also in cooperation with the R and D teams of our newly acquired companies.

6:39 All of this, of course, we do it in very close cooperation with our customers. This combination of our R and D team, global user network and close customer collaboration delivers customized specifications and customized products at speed. And this also contributed to our Star of Innovation Award last November at the European Small and Mid Cap Awards, which were held as part of the European Commission's SME Assembly. And this award acknowledges organizations that bring pioneering technologies to market, transform operations through advanced methods and demonstrate sustained potential for growth and competitiveness. Now we have delivered more than 280,000 systems across 72 countries, including 26 NATO member states.

7:33 Historically, over 90% of our revenues have come from night vision equipment, in which, as I said, we are the world leader, and we have sustained high growth alongside market leading profitability. Now as we will go into more details later, our revenues are set to materially diversify while growing, of course, as we enter new market segments. Underneath all this is our strong financial foundation with long term growth visibility and an asset light model. Having achieved over 50% revenue annual growth over the past six years and maintained our market leading mid twenties margins, we are targeting now minimum 15% annual organic revenue growth over the medium term and a 20% to 30% dividend payout.

8:24 With our cash generation and asset light model, we are able to support both investments in the business as well as dividend payouts. If we move to the next slide. A few words about the business model. We apply a proven business model where we control the full process, that is to say design, development, testing, production and assembly. For this, we draw on a pool of high caliber engineers here in Greece and now globally as well. All of this at a highly competitive cost. So when I mean globally, I mean that that we leverage the existence of strong and experienced engineering teams of our acquired companies and investments because we've done this with some minority technology driven investments in certain companies.

9:15 This allows us to have the complete oversight of engineering and production producing thus high quality, but at the same time cost efficient solutions. We are differentiated by customization every customer as long as this is desired, of course, and as long as it's possible by the laws of physics, so to speak. We have short delivery times, leading technology and the capacity to support growth with high operational leverage. We are also recognized for our on time delivery, which in the current environment has become a critical differentiator. And here, I I like to to refer to what top officials at OKAR and the German government always say that we are, if not the only one, one of the very, very few companies that do what we say and deliver always on time.

10:13 And especially European armed forces now place significant emphasis on suppliers' ability to deliver on schedule because there's no time to waste. And this makes program execution a key driver of customer trust and building of long term relationships. And this is reflected at THEON in the consistent conversion of order options into firm contracts where we have never really missed out on any option and the high level of repeat business that we get from our existing customers. We currently have sufficient capacity to meet demand and we are investing further to accommodate further growth. And this business model is only possible because we are more agile, as I said before, than our larger peers.

11:04 And this is something that despite our rapid growth, we are very, very determined to keep. Now when talking about global presence, it is really a global platform which we have successfully assembled across four dimensions. So geographic, operational, technological, and commercial, and all this in a way to be ready to quickly scale up. As you probably know, our headquarters and main facilities are in Athens where we employ around 300 people across around 8,000 square meters, and we are currently building our third factory in Athens actually just behind behind me outside.

11:53 The the workers are are are raising the third factory up and we expect this new facility actually to come online in the second quarter of twenty twenty seven, which further obviously increases our production capacity. As I put in our previous session, just as the ancient Greeks established trading outposts outside of Greece, we also established local presences worldwide wherever it makes sense, and especially industrial presences. We want to give something back to our customers, to the economy, and to the country that places orders with us. And this can be seen across the map. In Germany, which is a very important, if not the most important and trusted customer right now for us, we operate a production site as a joint venture with Hensold, along the two companies of our group, HARDA DIGITAL and KAPA OPTRONICS.

12:50 In Denmark, another example, we operate a repair and maintenance hub, which also do do now does now assembly work. In Belgium, we have THEON INTERNATIONAL which was inaugurated a few months ago in the presence of the Belgian defense minister and which focuses on thermal products. In The Middle East, we have co production capabilities in certain Gulf countries, and we have also a production line deployed in South Korea, extending our industrial footprint across Asia Pacific. And not to forget also Shock Eos in South Africa, which is more on the design side, of course. Across the group, we now employ close to 1,000 people and is expected to grow with increasing presence and investments, especially in France and in Eastern Europe.

13:41 In The UK, we have manufacturing facilities in Scotland through our partnership with Copin. And we see all these hubs as important for the group and ensure we can leverage local fulfillment as a competitive advantage. Just touching briefly as well on The United States. We need and we are in the process to strengthen our presence in The US as is and remains an important growth market for us. The US is and is most likely going to remain the world's largest defense spender, and we want to grow it from a currently moderate revenue stream. You may be aware that the current administration in The US is prioritizing domestically designed and manufacturing products.

14:29 Nonetheless, we have in place a contract with the US marines since 2023, extending at least to 2027, and we are now focusing on strengthening our presence and relevance in The U. S. Through a combination of organic and inorganic growth initiatives, also using our new and extended product portfolio. Moving to the next slide. Basically, this slide shows the market opportunities that exist for THEON as a summary. So decades of underinvestment in defense is is is beginning to to be rectified, especially in in Europe, with budgets and investments increasing pretty much everywhere. The world, as sad as it may be, is becoming a more dangerous place where all the alliances may not be valid anymore in the future.

15:28 So everybody has to make sure that the country is is secured and can be defended.

15:36 In man portable optronics, where we are the global leader driven by our share in the market of night vision goggles, the market is around €1,700,000,000, growing at around 10% annually to 2,030. And in the ISR segment and I'm sorry, there's a mistake on the slide. It's not inspection surveillance reconnaissance. It's intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance. The market is much, much larger, not much larger, approximately at €6,000,000,000 and growing at around 7%. Now obviously, figures are, as you can see at the bottom of the slide from September 2025, And these have changed in the meantime, most likely going up, especially in light of the recent and ongoing events actually in The Middle East.

16:31 Our excellence in operations and business development has made us a leader in the band portable section. Building on that, we intend to replicate this success now from a position of strength also in the ISR sector. We ended this business with an initial focus on land related applications, armored vehicles, so to speak. But we we very quickly identified the rising opportunities in the sea and especially in the air domain. And we acted accordingly where with the recent acquisitions and investments as well as certain internal initiatives, we are effectively expanding our total addressable market via our entrance into drones and airborne products.

17:23 Move to the next slide. I want to give you a a brief summary so what has happened since the the last IMC update. So while only four months has passed since we last spoke to you, there has been significant activities. So and and looking above the line, we haven't we haven't slowed down. We have expanded our footprint. We closed previously announced deals, and we received new orders. For some that might be enough, you know, just do what what you have what you have to do, but that's that's not the case for THEON. Outside of the the typical business, we announced four strategic investments over the period over the four month period.

18:17 In May, we entered into binding terms to acquire 80% of MEERIO at an accretive EBIT multiple. It is expected to generate around €15,000,000 in revenues in 2026 with projected EBIT above €3,500,000, and it strengthens THEON's platform product suite, increase our footprint in France, and then marks our entrance into the drone market. Also in May, we invested €3,000,000 in the to WindPrime, a US based frontier AI lab with a plan to form a Greek based joint venture to integrate artificial intelligence across our product portfolio and expand our footprint in The US.

19:07 If we're moving to next slide, going now to touch on our two most recent developments. The first of which was an agreement to establish a joint venture with Safran Electronics and Defense to address the growing demand for ISR products with a focus on airborne applications, that's to say, Gimbals, where we want to foster the strength of both companies, that is to say, in short, muscle and agility. This JV will be based in Germany with THEON holding 51% stake and Saffron 49%. The management responsibilities will be shared equally between the two partners and MERIO, our recent acquisition, will be integrated into the setup and serve as an accelerator with its existing product portfolio.

20:04 We are very, very proud of this decision to establish the joint venture with Safran as this partnership represents yet another endorsement by a leading global defense prime of THEON's technological capabilities and our overall strategic and business development approach. Now the second, and so far our largest investment, was the agreement to acquire 100% of HGH for an enterprise value of around €300,000,000. A few words about HGH. They operate in essence under the same asset light business model as THEON, so they design, develop, assemble and market their systems.

20:55 They have actually three business lines. They have an industrial product line, which is similar to Kappa, who have as well a small industrial product line. They have as well test equipment for man portable for for night vision goggles and and other such system, which is complementary to our business of man portable products. And then they have the counter drones solutions, which is really their key expertise and the key market.

21:21 Their counter drone solutions, in a few words, is based on a passive optical infrared camera, which basically rotates and and and constantly scans the the sky. The importance here is that it is passive. It's not an active systems like a radar. And as it is passive, it's it's undetectable, basically, by the enemy. This is this is a a key feature of of this specific technology. But what makes HGH even more unique is their software expertise and the proprietary data they have accumulated to develop an an artificial intelligence model that really allows to detect and categorize flying objects at a at a at a very far distance, which if you look at the image with your bare eyes, for example, you don't see anything. But the software, which has been fed with more than fifteen years of data, is able to detect, recognize, and then as as well classify what is this, what is coming there, what kind of drone basically is approaching.

22:27 Now, with appropriate adaptations and these models, so this AI model and software can be deployed across both our ISR product portfolio, but as well our man portable product family, and we're working on this. And this is a significant milestone in our strategy to rapidly establish ourselves as a leader

22:50 in ISR electro optics, and it complements our growing ISR product portfolio. This agreement with HGH also reinforces our strategic commitment to France, further expanding our industrial base and strengthening our connection to the French supplier and customer communities. We expect France actually to become an important export hub for THEON as well as an artificial intelligence r and d center, which we're gonna build at HGH, and where, obviously, we're gonna build on the existing AI capabilities that HGH possess. From a funding perspective, the acquisition will be initially financed through a bridge facility provided by BNB Paribas, which is intended to be fully refinanced with debt.

23:41 No equity capital increase is expected. And this will take our leverage position to around three times at completion, and we expect leverage to come down to around 2.5x by the end of next year.

23:54 We will continue to update the market, of course, on the progress of this acquisition as we approach expected completion by the end of the year. Now just a small parenthesis. Our M and A playbook, because you see that we have been quite active on the acquisition side lately, and our m and a playbook is is is very clear. We increase and enhance our product offering and access to key technologies. With this, we increase, obviously, the total addressable market, and we expand our global footprint.

24:32 I may be repeating myself explaining this M and A playbook, but this is crucial and very, very important for you to understand and that's basically why I like to repeat this. Moving into next slide. Yes. As I hope that you have seen from the previous slides, we are at the the forefront of the new wider market being created. Warfare is changing, as we have been saying for some time now. And we, as THEON, we are changing too. We have to change, and we're adapting ourselves to this new reality. We listen to our customers, and we provide the new products and solutions with cost efficiency and speed so that our customers, which basically are the end users out there, are able to meet their individual new and changed operational requirements.

25:26 Our strategy is is actually simple. We target investments and partnerships that provide synergies or access to adjacent growth areas, only invest where incumbent management teams are performing,

25:42 and keep them in place and combine capabilities to pursue global business development together. We do not seek to run the business we invest in. We we don't have time, but we enable their management to grow alongside us realizing synergies over time. This, and this is important to understand and to keep in mind, leads to a low integration risk due to our collaborative approach and incumbent teams becoming part of the group. As I said, we do not have time to run the business of our newly acquired companies, but we are combining capabilities and working together on global business development, making us stronger together. This approach, and I'd like to give you a couple of examples, allowed us to capture new opportunities quickly.

26:31 We demonstrated this before with CAPA. Only a few months after joining the group, we secured the first order for the products through our business development efforts. The order value that we got for Kappa's products was close to the total $20.26 revenue amount we had initially expected to consolidate. And we saw the same pattern with the shock years, our South African development design development house in which we invested. Within months of this investment, we accelerated the commercialization of our new PHILLAX stabilized gimbals, ultimately leading to Rheinmetall awarding an initial contract of around €40,000,000 for this product. And this is exactly what we expect to achieve now through our new partnerships with MERIO,

27:20 HGH, and of course, Zafram. We are working on this as we speak at high speed and where we target to have a similar success as we've shown in the past with our other partner and acquired companies in the coming months. Needless to say, we are not leaving our core business behind. That is to say, man portable business, which as you know represents the vast majority of of our revenues. There is still a very high demand for night vision. And, definitely, the initial focus we had for land ISR opportunities, especially the land vehicles besides the drone area in which we are moving into now, still stands as well. We will not abandon this for sure. With this, I hope I was able to give you a brief update on what we have been doing recently. As you can see, we've been quite busy.

28:21 And with this, I'd like to pass over to Dmitry for a quick catch up on the financials before we then jump into the question and answers sessions a little bit later. Dmitry, the floor is yours. Thank you, Philippe. So, yes, now if we move to the financial slides.

28:39 So 2025 was a transformative year for THEON, another record year, both financially and commercially leading to a materially enhanced platform. Revenue reached $443,000,000 growing 26% year on year, while maintaining a market leading margin with our adjusted EBIT of 26.2% continuing to expand. Importantly, our net profit increased significantly, enabling us to continue distributing dividends. While the dividend per share may appear lower due to the increased number of shares following our capital increase back in November. The total dividend distribution was in fact increased rising from $23,800,000 to $24,400,000 We achieved a record order intake of $1,300,000,000 up 182%

29:34 supported by the largest single order ever placed for night vision man portable equipment. This is the new car project coming from Germany. Our soft backlog stood at $1,400,000,000 at the year end, providing revenue visibility for the first time beyond the typical eighteen month horizon. And we saw net working capital absorption decline to 41%, a substantial step towards our medium term target of 35%. In December, we raised 150,000,000 through a share capital increase, refinanced our borrowings at improved terms and signed a $300,000,000 revolving credit facility in October, maintaining the flexibility to fund future organic growth and inorganic growth.

30:28 One thing to note is that we are fully utilizing our strong balance sheet and listing to pursue our ambitions and the considerable growth opportunity opening to us. You will see our leverage temporarily increase as we do certain M and A, but we have clear deleveraging plan supported by our cash flow generation and operational gearing. Our normalized leverage target is in the area of two to 2.5 times RPD.

30:57 Moving to the next slide. So in 2026, we continue to maintain strong momentum with robust Q1 results and resilient margins confirming our consistent execution of our growth strategy. Revenues reached 120,100,000 representing 32% growth year on year, while we continue to deliver industry leading profitability with an EBIT margin of 25%. This margin performance remains resilient despite ongoing investments to scale capacity and strengthen innovation with investments such as Kappa. At the same time, we have transitioned into a net debt position, standing at approximately 1.8 times, LTM EBITDA in the at the end of Q1,

31:49 thus reflecting our strategic investments while maintaining a balanced capital structure. Now if we move to the next slide, please. Yes. So as stated during the introductory remarks, we are confident in our growth trajectory and continue to expect to achieve $1,000,000,000 in revenue by 2029. We are focused on operational gearing and strong profitability, benefiting from, an asset light business model, allowing us to both invest in our business while also providing shareholders with dividends. For 2026, we expect revenue of $570,000,000 to $600,000,000 an increase of approximately 30% on 2025 continued market leading mid-20s EBIT margins capital expenditure of $30,000,000 around 4% of our revenue, this is to support our continued growth obviously, and a dividend in the range of 20% to 30% of our net income.

32:55 For the midterm, we expect sustainable double digit organic growth to continue higher than the market growth rate supported by our new product pipeline, into an expansion into higher growth segments and increased total addressable market of around €8,000,000,000 which is two times larger than a year

33:17 ago. Our order book and backlog is increasingly characterized by longer term framework agreements and program related orders, significantly increasing revenue visibility and quality repeatable demand.

33:36 Our diversification strategy remains the same, continue being a global leader in night vision with continuously growing revenue, but equally platform revenue begins contributing substantially in 2026 with the aim to reach around 20% of the total mix. Both on acquisitions will accelerate this diversification. In parallel, revenue from digital MEN portable capabilities is targeted to grow to around 30%. So, non night vision products are targeted to account for approximately 50% of revenue in the midterm. In 2026 specifically, the combined contribution from new digital products and platform electronics is expected to more than double to between 2025% of our Overall, our financial trajectory continues to evolve as expected.

34:29 We remain firmly positioned for growth and look to the future with confidence. And with that, I'll hand back to you Philippe. Thank you, Dimitri.

34:43 So, yes, before we head to question and answers, let me just summarize where we are heading. We have a very strong momentum through compelling combination of much expanded product portfolio and thus total addressable market, strong global market dynamics and penetration opportunities and a high backlog and revenue visibility. We have successfully assembled a global platform geographically, operationally, technologically, technologically, and commercially, which is ready to scale. Commercial traction is building across all newer product areas with multiple commercial and financial proof points to come through from the near term.

35:31 We expect sustainable double digit organic revenue growth to continue supplemented by further strategic M and A and we are highly confident in our guidance. We are firmly focused on rapidly growing from being the leader in night vision equipment to becoming the leader in defense optoelectronics, including reaching 1,000,000,000 revenues by 2029 as already said by Vinitri. And we expect or you can expect basically multiple commercial and financial proof points to come through over the near term. With this, I think we can open the floor to questions as they are.

36:18 That's great. Thank you very much for your presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just by using the q and a tab situated on the right hand corner of your screen. As you can see, we have received a number of questions throughout today's presentation. And if I may just start off with the first question here, which reads as follows. Can you elaborate on the current tender pipeline and business development opportunities for h two? Do you expect any deceleration due to budget constraints or shifts in spending prioritize priorities towards other product categories? Yes. I mean, as you know, and and and historically, obviously, h two is always an acceleration in terms of defense budget spending and and and order work and and contracting. So, yes, there are a number of opportunities and as well as some large opportunities that that we are working on and and that we expect to close during h two. There is obviously a lot of attention being drawn to drone and anti drone equipment, and that's one of the reasons why we are moving into this area as well.

37:27 But it's not like drones will be only the future warfare. It's soldiers are still here to stay, and traditional equipment is still here to stay. And thus, our our man portable and platform based equipment is is still here to stay because to defend the position or to to take a position despite what anybody says, you still needs you still need soldiers. So this is not to go. We can see attention to other equipments, but the budgets and the the needs and the demand for our traditional business is is there, and there is more to come. Perfect. Just turning to the next question. Was the acquisition of HGH a competitive process? Are you comfortable with what you were paying?

38:22 Yes. It it was a a a competitive process process, and that's that I I can confirm. And and and, yes, we are we are comfortable with with with what we paid. Don't forget that we believe that HGH have a unique product, unique technology, have a unique software, the artificial intelligence enhanced software that I mentioned earlier on. And and all of this obviously comes comes up at a price, and and we are clearly focused on increasing HGH business over the next year or two and and bringing, you know, then justifying even even more the investment that we made.

39:11 That's great. The next question we have here reads, what should we expect on the m and a from the next six to twelve months considering your recent activity and the new leverage position? Are there any priorities now in terms of products, technologies or geographies? I mean, obviously, I cannot I cannot go into details or or tell you anything specific. But but, yes, we are constantly looking at opportunities, and and we're pursuing, and we are we're now analyzing these different technologies, different geographical areas. The US, and I mentioned it, is is one area that that we're looking into. But when, what, and and how big any any further m and a activities will will will come, I I cannot I cannot say anything more about this. Yeah. If if I may add, here, we need to pause for a few months because, obviously, we need to start, you know, giving emphasis on the integration of the companies that we have acquired or that we are about to acquire.

40:24 Obviously, we are looking into many opportunities around the world, mostly in The US, which is an area where we want to penetrate even further. We don't have any plans for the time being, let's say, for the next six to twelve months for any acquisitions. And even if we do so, then it will be something that is going to be it should be very meaningful for us, for our business, for R and D and for penetration to new territories. But at least for the time being, we don't have anything on our menu. You. Just a couple of questions here. What is the total volume of the market you now produce systems for? What is your market share on visual systems you now produce? And what volume will be the market for which you then produce systems? And what part of it do you project to be THEONs?

41:18 Okay. I'm I'm not really sure I fully understand the questions, but I will try to answer as as as as good as I can. So if we're talking about the traditional vision system, night vision systems that we have, we we are the global market leader. We we have around 50 to 60% of of the the the global market. When it comes to platform based optronics, visual systems there, obviously, we are we are much much smaller in terms of market share, but the market share is growing. This is a business. It's a little bit more longer term or longer delivery times or lead times than than on the man portable business, which has shorter cycles. But in in as I said before, we're not gonna abandon any of this traditional business even though we're moving now into the the especially into the drone segment, which as as a total addressable market appears to be a very, very large tool. For sure, it's it's gonna grow at at high growth rates.

42:28 But we're not gonna abandon the traditional market where we want to at least maintain in the night vision segment our markets and and and global market leading position if if not increase this. And and, obviously, we want to increase our presence on anything that's land related besides the naval and the air applications. That's great. The next question we have here reads, many NATO countries are creating dedicated drone commands and expanding UAV fleets. Belgium, for example, recently appointed a dedicated drone commander as it restructures around unmanned systems. How much of the demand pipeline that you see for Mario and HGH coming from such opportunities? Yeah. As as I said, there are very, very big opportunities in this field. MERIO and SAFRAN is all about drone optronics, and and what we really intend to do here is to become the European champion for airborne gimbals, airborne optronics from from very, small gimbals to to the larger type of gimbals.

43:41 Europe, as you know, has a clear focus on procuring European equipment. And at the moment, we identify that there is there is a gap. There is there is a place to establish such a champion, and we believe that we have the the the right ingredients to take this place and to grab a big share of this market in Europe, but obviously not only in Europe. We're looking as well as at at worldwide opportunities. And then HGH, it's all about counter drones. When you're talking about drones, you're talking about counter drones. It's a cat and mouse game. And HGH, as I said, has a unique technology. It is passive.

44:27 It cannot be detected by the enemy. It provides, obviously, this specific advantage, and it has this AI supported software that we believe gives us a big advantage compared to similar systems that exist in the market, which, as I said, don't have the performance, are not as much developed and and and especially don't have the the software that the HTH system comes with. That's great. Just turning to the next question. Kurope plant to be operational in q two twenty seven. What will the impact on THEON's production capacity as a percent increase in this facility going to produce only ISR products? Dmitry?

45:18 Well, we cannot let's say, we are going to anticipate that the COLOPRI expansion will bring us to a level to accommodate our ambitions to reach $1,000,000,000 by 2020, as we have already guided. Now as far as it is planned, this facility is indeed being manufactured to serve the production of ISR products, but also it's going to accommodate other functions of the company. That's great. Just moving on here. With the continued fast m and a and JV speed, how can you ensure or manage the key strengths you claim across all different products, countries, and entities?

46:10 The original culture weakness or cultures will continue to diverge. Yeah. That's that's that's a good question. As I said, we are we are determined to keep what we call the THEON DNA, which is all about, number one, business development. It's about speed. It's about agility. And what we what we try to do is to to infuse this DNA into the the management teams and our new coworkers and our new companies that that that we acquire. Obviously, we're dealing with with different nations, different cultures, German nationalities, French, South Africans, and and so on. And every every nation has their own culture and their own differences and and and philosophies of of approaching things and and and and working.

47:06 But I can tell you that so far, our experience with Kappa, with HARD, with Schochius, but only recently with me MARIO and and and with HGH to a certain extent is that they all welcome this fresh air, this fresh wind coming from THEON with with our with our approach, you know, not setting up complicated structures, complicated decision making processes. Being efficient, being fast, go for it, and and focus on getting the business. Focus on on business development using the advantage that we have. And we can see that there is a this is this is well done. Obviously, we have to find the right mix. We have to get our our new employees convinced that this is the right approach. It's not gonna happen overnight, but we are determined, as I said, to keep it that way.

48:03 And from what I see so far, I'm very, very confident that we will be able to do so. That's great. Just turning to the next question. Any recent progress on your application in France to get a BOD seat at Exersons? When do you expect this process to be finalized? And, please, can you confirm that once you have a board of directors seat, Exersons state will no more be treated as a financial investment, but will be consolidated as per equity pickup methodology? K. If I may, what what I can say is that we have already started the process for the old respective applications to various authorities around the world. This is a process that will take some time. It's hard to say when it's going to be finalized.

48:49 We were hoping that it would finalize by the end of the year. To be more realistic, I would say, Q1 next year. Now to your question, if the if we can confirm that the the treatment, the IFRS treatment is gonna change, I can confirm that this is our intention. However, this is, also going to depend on, the auditor's approval. So there's gonna be, you know, an extensive discussion around it with them. Perfect. Just moving on. Can you help us separate recent MVG demand into three buckets? Direct procurement by Ukraine, European governments buying equipment to donate to Ukraine, and countries buying for their own forces as part of higher self use penetration and readiness.

49:42 In terms of percentages, it's difficult to answer, but definitely, countries buying for their own forces is the biggest part, especially in Europe. European armed forces have done a lot in over the past few years. Not not all countries, but obviously the countries that are, let's say, the closest to the threat have been the most active, and and in particular, Germany, basically, realizing the underinvestment for for for decades, basically. Germany, for example, they you know, we we signed this contract for a 100,000 night vision goggles in December, and I think the total number on the contract through the OKA vehicle is is around 160 to 170,000 goggles. But if if you look at if you look at the the growth of the German Armed Forces, the predicted growth over the coming years and the announcements by German defense officials that every soldier needs to be fully equipped.

50:42 And in theory, what remains to be seen as well, the reserves, you're looking at a lot more to come. And this is just as an example. It's it's a similar picture in in many European countries, and and therefore, this is definitely the biggest the biggest share. The Ukraine is buying night vision equipment directly, but I would say it's it's rather rather small quantities. And European countries or other countries donating night vision equipment is is definitely bigger than what Ukraine is procuring directly themselves. But in the bigger picture, compared to what countries are buying for their own defense needs, in in Europe especially, but not only Europe, Middle East, Asia, and The US, this is this is definitely the the largest part.

51:31 That's great. And just perhaps the last question we've got here reads, as MVG's order sizes increase, how should we think about the balance between customer volume discounts and THEON's own scale benefits? In large framework contracts, do customers get benefits from lower unit pricing, and can THEON offer offset that through better IIT procurement terms, non IIT supply discounts, assembly efficiencies, and fixed cost absorption? Yes. I mean, obviously, the the larger contract is, we are able to to grant better pricing because of the economies of scales, and and this applies to to to everything that's been mentioned just on supply chain, all all the components on the image intensifier teams as well, but as well that we we are able to introduce more efficient assembly procedures basically due to the the sheer volume that goes through through the factory. But one one one important thing to remember here is as well that the demand, especially on on on our traditional best selling business, the night vision, is still very, big, and there is still a shortage of image intensifier tubes. So it's to a certain extent, are determined by by by what is available and and and what can be delivered. As you know, we we have signed the long term supply agreement

53:02 with our good partner, Exosens, through which we have secured a very, very large amount of tubes. We have our own tube manufacturer, HARDADIGITRAL, which it's it's smaller than, obviously, in production capacity than EXONAL or The US tube manufacturer, but it's it's it's still there as a as a strategic reserves if if if you may call it that way. But still, the demand is is is is very, very big. And in many cases, if a customer wants equipment with fast deliveries, we have to juggle our our production production capacity and and slots and so on to serve this. And and, obviously, this this comes at at a premium. So and this applies even for larger contracts because it's not like there's a shortage in the next few months. It's it's a shortage for for for the next two, three years, maybe even further depending on on on how the market will go.

54:02 That's great. Thank you for answering all those questions you can from investors. And, of course, the company can review all questions submitted today and will publish those responses on the Investor Meet company platform. Just before redirecting investors to provide you with their feedback, which I know is particularly important to the company, Philippe, could I please just ask you for a few closing comments? Yeah. First of all, thank you to all of you joining today's webcast. I hope it has been interesting for the newcomers, but as well for for those who who know us for and and follow us for quite some time. As as you could see, we have been quite busy over the past few months since the last webcast, especially on the m and a front, following our vision, really, to become the leader in defense optoelectronics from being today's leader in night vision equipment.

54:59 As I like to say it, today, you really see a new THEON. It's not the THEON that you used to know, but it's a THEON with a much, much broader product portfolio where we go into new areas. We don't abandon our traditional business, the man portable night vision. We focus as well, and this is something that we haven't spoken much about it today, but this is an it's still an important pillar for us, the armed ecosystem, which is the digital new area era of of of man portable equipment. We're still focused on the land segment in platform electronics, ISR, and now we are strongly moving into drone and, counter drone business.

55:48 Doing all this, as I said before, we will, we are determined not to drop our speed, our agility, and our BD approach, trying to infuse this approach to the newly acquired companies and to our new colleagues. And whatever we do, trust us. We have a a master plan in in in our heads. So stay tuned over the coming months for more news to come, especially on the order intake as things pick up towards the end of the year. Thank you very much. That's great. Thank you for updating investors today. Can I please ask investors not to close this session as you'll now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations?

56:39 This may take a few moments to complete and I'm sure be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation and good afternoon to you all.