Chief Executive Officer, Frequentis
Interview mit Herr Norbert Haslacher, Vorstandsvorsitzender FREQUENTIS AG
About Norbert Haslacher
Norbert Haslacher, CEO of Frequentis, stated in a May 2026 interview that he sees no growth constraints for the company as it aims to become a billion-euro enterprise. He said that an unstable global environment primarily leads to increased national budgets, from which Frequentis intends to benefit across its three main business areas: aviation, transport, and critical infrastructure. Haslacher described the company's strategy as focusing on serving a growing market rather than taking market share from competitors, asserting that technological leadership would enable global market leadership. Haslacher noted that Frequentis has pursued ten acquisitions since its 2019 stock market listing. He said the company's M&A strategy is focused on acquiring specific capabilities and products to expand its portfolio for existing customers, rather than seeking new customer access. Haslacher added that his current contract runs until March 2028 and that discussions with the owning family about its extension are planned for the following year.
Transcript (5 segments)
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Norbert Haslacher0:26
Naturally, the pandemic somewhat influenced the achievement of our plans. Nevertheless, one must understand what Frequentis does. We deliver systems and applications for national security and critical infrastructures. These infrastructures are generally indispensable, regardless of a pandemic scenario. They must continue to be supported and kept alive. Our customers, authorities in 140 countries worldwide, provide a certain robustness in this business model that other industries may not have. But there was an impact on our project execution because we were massively restricted by grounded air traffic and travel restrictions. We quickly switched to virtual acceptances, and thus managed to virtually accept two-thirds of the milestones. In sales, there were delays due to customer lockdowns, extending award processes. As for why EBITDA and EBIT actually benefited, lower travel costs and savings from canceled trade fairs had a million-euro impact. We see this year improving slightly, with most trade fairs resuming from autumn. Those were the main drivers of the top line and at the EBITDA and EBIT level.
In 2020, we invested in two companies. One is the German firm Tricks, which has software products that optimize airport traffic and reduce CO2 emissions. They contribute significantly to our remote tower technology, where airport operations can be conducted from offices using Frequentis technology. The second investment is in the area of public safety and transport segmentation. We believe LTE infrastructure for safety-critical applications, especially for police, fire, and rescue control centers worldwide, will play a major role. Dedicated software will enable voice and video transmission, a great development for emergency control centers, as digital radio was a bandwidth-limiting factor. This allows video transmission and new interaction with citizens. We strategically invested in Legend in Spain, one of the few manufacturers of these safety-critical software components.
This acquisition of L3 Harris in the USA is the largest in Frequentis' history. It will contribute approximately €30 million in revenue anorganically to our top line from 2022. The transaction is complex, with units in Australia, Canada, and Germany, and will take place at different times depending on regulatory approvals, possibly two to six months. With these product lines, we can enter the US defense market more strongly, and with the Australian and German products, we can increasingly offer cloud-based solutions for optimizing air traffic worldwide. The acquired company is the world market leader in level management, broadening our product portfolio. Our market is about €13 billion, and with our current portfolio we can address €2 billion. This acquisition increases our addressable market potential, which we will fully utilize from 2023.
We see in our markets... Frequentis is a global company. Our headquarters are in Austria, but we are highly international, employing 35 nationalities at headquarters and serving about 500 customer authorities in 140 countries. We focus exclusively on safety-critical control centers for civil aviation, military aviation, emergency services, railways, and maritime. Two major megatrends apply: transport and security. Passenger air transport growth may slow, but freight transport by rail, air, truck, and ship remains a stable megatrend. Security affects everyone, and recent urban incidents drive technology investments in police, rescue, and fire control centers. The trends are intact. We grew at about 8% per annum, excluding the pandemic, and have always grown twice as fast as the market (3-5%). We are confident we will grow similarly in the coming years.
2021 will certainly continue to be shaped by the pandemic. We are dependent on lockdown situations in customer countries. A key component will be vaccination speed to enable work. That uncertainty is hard to assess. We have a well-filled pipeline for 2021. Authority budgets are in place, and there are large infrastructure projects in the EU and USA. The EU's €90 billion recovery fund supports investments, and the US has a $1.7 trillion program announced by Joe Biden, much going into infrastructure. We are very confident about 2021, but dependent on vaccination rates and pandemic development.