Hensoldt with significant sales growth

Countries around the world are increasing their defence spending. Hensoldt AG, which manufactures radar equipment and optronics for military purposes, among other things, is also benefiting from this. In the past financial year, the order backlog rose by 55 per cent to a record 3.4 billion euros thanks to a series of new major projects. The turnover generated increased by 8.3 per cent to 1.2 billion euros. Despite start-up losses in the early phase of major projects, the adjusted EBITDA margin (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) improved to 18.2 percent, which corresponds to EUR 219 million. As a result, the adjusted free cash flow also increased from 75 million to 196 million euros.
CEO Thomas Müller said at the presentation of the figures: "We are very proud of the successful development of Hensoldt AG in this extraordinary year 2020, which was characterised by the coronavirus pandemic. We delivered a strong operating performance and met or exceeded our expectations for all relevant key figures. This gives us the financial leeway to continue investing in our core business as well as important future and key technologies." Müller believes that the development pipeline is well-filled and hopes that new projects will result in incoming orders of around 10 billion euros between 2021 and 2023. The resulting revenue will also be used to further reduce the company's debt, which currently stands at 571 million euros.
The Hensoldt Group is a spin-off of Airbus Defence and Space and was founded in 2017. 5500 employees worldwide develop and produce solutions in the fields of radar, optronics, avionics and electronic warfare. Hensoldt only went public in September 2020 and was listed on the SDAX shortly afterwards. For security policy reasons, the German government decided to exercise a previously agreed option to acquire a 25.1 per cent stake. This gives Germany a blocking minority in the company. Among other things, Hensoldt supplied the AESA multifunction radar TRS-4D with four fixed active antennas for the frigate 125 and is equipping the future corvettes of the 2nd batch K 130 with the TRS-4D Rotating.

Text: mb; Photo: Hensoldt AG