At the stock exchange, many companies are naturally represented or, as we say, listed, ladies and gentlemen. And among them is also Mutares AG. An investment company — so ultimately Mutares buys company stakes or even whole companies, restructures them, and then sells them successfully. And with us today is our guest, the Chief Investment Officer, Johannes Laumann. We've had him on twice before, but today for the first time in person from the stock exchange. Herr Laumann, you've been on the board since 2019. You ultimately decide where the money from Mutares goes, what gets acquired. Please explain the business model to us briefly once more.
Yes, with pleasure. So, we buy companies in turnaround situations, which essentially means carve-outs. Corporations divest themselves of unwanted subsidiaries — to put it simply — and just want a solution for a problem. The problem can be that it no longer fits the strategy. The problem can be that it's loss-making. The problem can be that they simply want to divest from this line of business. So then we step in as problem solvers. We have our own consulting team of about 160 people — and I should correctly say men and women. And we go into the companies, restructure them, bring them basically from the red to the black, and after a holding period of roughly 3, 4, 5 years, we try to sell them profitably.
I noticed that — 160 employees in the team, working worldwide. So it could certainly be that a company from China, Asia, who knows, is among them.
Exactly. So, we have 13 offices worldwide, of which 10 are in Europe and three overseas — one in Chicago, one in Mumbai, and one in Shanghai. And we run this business model worldwide. We have companies everywhere, and the growth of recent years is clearly due to geographic expansion.
2023, you mentioned, the results were top. How does it look now for last year, 2024?
Top. We're satisfied at the company. We're satisfied. We had a guidance, and the projected revenue was 5.7 to 6.3 billion — that should work out, roughly around that figure.
Mhm. And net income, annual net income of 108 to 132 million. And for the long-term plan, 2028, it should already be 200 million euros.
Exactly. Exactly. Our revenue essentially comes from three lines of business. We've now guided 108 to 132 for '24, which should then grow to 200. It comes essentially from three pillars. The first pillar is consulting services being billed — so we get paid for consulting. The second is dividends. And we naturally plan exits as well, and the proceeds from exits, which we're targeting at approximately 200 million euros this year, 2025.
You've already completed two exits now — at the end of '24, beginning of '25 for the first time reported — the sale of Aster Facility Solutions. How did it go? Where did it go? What was the story there?
To the strategic competitor. It was a relatively small company. It was our first investment in Sweden when we set up the office in Stockholm, and in total we earned a low double-digit million amount.
Mhm. And how long does such a process take?
The process was relatively fast. The company was relatively small. The competitor knew us very well, of course. Due diligence. We managed to generate two, three interested parties. That gives you competition, that gives you price pressure, that gives you speed pressure. The process in total took about 10 to 12 weeks.
Yes, that went pretty quickly, one has to say. How should one imagine this? Do companies come to you, or are your team, your directors, assistants always out looking like scouts — who's in trouble right now? Whom could we perhaps take over?
Both. Plus we're approached by companies with whom we've already done transactions. For example, we've completed several transactions with Magna in the automotive sector. We're also in discussions with Deutsche Bahn, for instance, from whom we've already bought something. When we've done a transaction that worked, where the seller was also satisfied, where we took over the problem, they come to us proactively. On the other hand, there are the usual suspects — banks who get a mandate from someone to sell this asset, they come to us. But of course also the network — I have 40 bankers sitting worldwide, and they naturally bring a network with them, and accordingly quite a bit comes from the network. So you hear rumors, speculation, and then, as they say in Frankfurt, word gets around on the trading floor.
Yes, the second topic was Alcura France. You were also quite successful there.
Exactly. We bought Alcura France at the end of last year. And Alcura France consists of two parts — it was always the strategy. It consists of a service part and a part for bed rentals and product rentals. And we spun off the service part and have now sold it. The service part has just under 20 million in revenue, but it's medical care, medical services also for intensive care patients — you can imagine the multiple was extremely high, and there you tend to talk about multiples on revenue rather than on profit.
Mhm. Now you still have, if I've counted correctly, 33 companies on the website. And it's not as if you could say this is one direction like mechanical engineering or only medical technology — it's completely diversified.
Absolutely. So, we're in four segments. First, the classic automotive supplier business, where we have two large companies. One deals with plastics, one with metals. Both have roughly 1.5 billion in revenue. Then we have mechanical engineering, plant engineering, project business. Then there's the area we call Goods and Services — logistics companies, industrial service providers. We have the classic road maintenance in there with Terranor. And then there's Retail and Food, which is essentially a B2B, B2C business where there's always a brand behind it — starting from children's clothing, Pränatal as an example, all the way to windows and doors, Lap in France.
We just talked about the first company, which was sold relatively quickly in 3 months. What's the normal process like? Is there an average you'd point to?
When you start a sales process, from the moment I decide we're selling the company until it's actually sold, about 6 to 12 months pass. It always depends on the complexity — how the sales process is structured, is it global, is it complex, is it less complex. And then in the end it also depends on whether there are legal requirements, whether it's antitrust law or, if you're selling something in the energy sector, you need additional approvals. So somewhere between 6 and 12 months, such a process takes.
Does Johannes Laumann personally look at every company? Do you travel around the world and say, I want to know exactly what they do there? I want to meet the board and the management.
Always. It's important to me — we're buying companies that aren't doing well. We're essentially buying, if one may say so, failing companies, and trying to make them better again. And for me, coming from industry, it's important to get a feeling — can you pull this off? Or is it a stillborn? And it's very important to see that — to do a plant visit, to see a factory, but also to get to know the management. And actually, I look at everything.
Yes, I mean you want to have more tops than flops in your portfolio, ultimately. Well, as a top — and this is a topic I naturally have to discuss with you today — you can definitely say it's the Steier stake.
Absolutely. So, I haven't quite understood everything that's been happening at the stock exchange in recent weeks and months. But actually, we acquired Steier from Thales. Thales had acquired Steier to secure their supply chain and wanted to divest it again. And we bought the company from them within three months. We also acquired a loss-making company, accordingly only paid a nominal purchase price, and then carried out a restructuring so that the company became positive, sustainably positive. Let me give you an example. Steier builds engines, diesel engines, mainly for the defense sector. The big customers are Rheinmetall, Krauss-Maffei, and so on. They build the engines, but actually for a secondary drive — so simply put, when the tank turret rotates or the gun elevates, which is of course important. And at Thales there were efforts, they wanted to develop these diesel engines into hybrid engines. When we bought it, I stopped that, because I said, when a tank drives, I don't think exhaust emissions standards are the problem — there are other issues. And accordingly, we took actions like that. Steier was positive. And then of course this whole defense — a friend of mine recently said, defense is the new ESG. And Rheinmetall, you know the name, everything gets bought up, and suddenly Steier appeared on the radar.
Exactly. Also ThyssenKrupp, I believe, expressed interest.
Absolutely. And then came Steier, and we listed it on the stock exchange because we simply saw the upside over the coming years, and that upside can best be realized through a stock listing. And then gradually, the stock exchange, investors, institutional investors said, as long as you still hold such a large stake, the stock is illiquid and therefore difficult. They asked whether we wouldn't give up the majority, and we decided to go to 40%, which we then did. And in the interim, there was this one week where the price, I believe, peaked at over 400. From 34, mind you. From 34, exactly. We listed at 14. Yes, so I can explain the technical aspects behind it, but I don't think there's a rational reason why Steier should be worth 2 billion.
Okay, that would be a bit much. But those are of course price gains. The financial supervisory authority quickly gets nervous. Have they called you yet?
