Following recent conference attendances, we are under the impression that Hoenle is well on track to reach its current FY guidance and gradually gain traction across several new application areas. Here are the key take aways:
Decent current trading. Hoenle looks set to report preliminary FY24/25 figures next week (final figures due on January 29th). For Q4, we expect sales to come in at € 23.2m with and EBITDA of € 2.2m, ultimately meeting the mid to upper ends of the company's FY guidance (€ 92-94m sales and € 5-6m EBITDA) at € 93m (-5.8% yoy) and € 5.8m EBITDA, eNuW. In particular, the implied margin of above 9% underpins the company's successful efforts to right-size expenses but it also reflects the business' seasonality. The FY margin looks set to improve by 3.1pp yoy to 6.2% despite challenging end markets with cautious order behaviour, the key reason for the full year's lower top line figure.
FY25/26 to return to growth. Despite ongoing uncertainties across the group's key end markets, we expect Hoenle to grow sales by 8% yoy to roughly € 100m next year. With this, the company would return to growth following three consecutive years with a declining top line. This should be carried by further improvements of the Disinfection business, which already grew 6% during 9M 2024/25 thanks to good demand from several product groups, including ballast water and food industry. Further, across the group new product offerings, such as ultra-pure water (Disinfection), LED-based UV curing, In-situ UV dosage measurement (both Curing) should continue to gain traction.
At the same time, the EBITDA margin should also further improve (+1.2pp yoy to 7.4%) thanks to an improving product mix, a better fix cost coverage and the recent cost saving initiatives. However, this margin increase looks set to be slower than we had initially expected (eNuW old: 9.9%) as Hoenle is seen to face higher initial expenses (vs. our expectations) related to those new products, e.g. R&D, sales, etc.
Importantly, the mid- to long-term prospects remain unchanged. Until 2029/30e, we expect the EBITDA margin to gradually increase to 15% with sales of € 137m (6% CAGR).
Conclusion: Hoenle's mid-term prospects remain bright, carried by the already ongoing strategic transformation. Mind you, the company already successfully divested the unprofitable sun simulation business, reduced SG&A expenses and is beginning to gain traction with new solutions. We hence confirm our BUY rating with a new € 15 PT (old: € 16) based on DCF.
ISIN: DE0005157101