HENSOLDT AG enjoyed another highly successful fiscal year in 2021. As the company’s Chief Financial Officer, I am very proud of everything that our roughly 6,400 HENSOLDTIANS achieved for our company during the year just ended, despite numerous challenges.

We successfully increased the pace of our growth on our key performance indicators again in 2021. Our revenue last year rose significantly with a 22% boost. The orders we received were about 25% up on 2020, which was already a very strong year, and are at a record value of more than €3.1 billion. This translates into our book-to-bill ratio of 2.2 and the €5.1 billion worth of orders on our books. This is €1.7 billion higher than in 2020 and represents a jump of 49%. We are therefore continuing to consistently translate our excellent business prospects into incoming orders and have an order book that covers our planned revenue for 2022 roughly three times over.

Our large number of orders received and high turnover are powerful evidence of the appeal that the HENSOLDT product and technology portfolios have. Our company’s financial strength can be seen first and foremost in our profitability and cash flow, with both of these key indicators having grown once again.

Our adjusted EBITDA rose by 19% to €261 million. Our adjusted EBIT reached €199 million, which also equates to a 19% improvement on 2020. Our adjusted EBITDA margin of 19.4% before pass-through business is almost one percentage point up on its 2020 level and therefore also exceeds our updated guidance from November 2021.

This margin growth is owed to higher volumes and a favorable product mix. As a result, we have more than made up for the opposing effects from projects in the early stages of their life cycle. Simultaneously, we have made further targeted investments in research and development and increased our proposal budgets to expand our leading position in technology and ensure future growth.

Cash flow as a key indicator of a strong, healthy company is of utmost importance to me. HENSOLDT again achieved persistently strong operational performance on this indicator in 2021. Our adjusted free cash flow of €252 million before taxes and interest was significantly above the previous year’s €196 million, exceeding our expectations considerably despite planned investments in our working capital.

Dear shareholders, it is my pleasure that we continued to deliver on our promise in 2021 and achieved or exceeded all financial targets for another year in succession.

We are very proud to have almost halved our debt-to-equity ratio from 3.1x to 1.6x since going public. This achievement has been enabled by our outstanding operational performance and our focus on continually strengthening HENSOLDT’s financial power. Our profitable growth also allows us to again include our shareholders in the success that HENSOLDT AG is enjoying. This year’s proposed dividend of €0.25 per share is approximately double as much as it was in the preceding year and is a clear testament to the success of our business activities.

Our outlook for 2022 is also confident and we expect that our business will continue developing positively. We are predicting revenue of about €1.7 billion for the Group as well as adjusted EBITDA of €285 million to €300 million. We are also planning to lower our debt-to-equity ratio further to under 1.4x. As you can see, we have a clear plan for maintaining and building on our success. We firmly believe that we will keep consistently achieving our targets in the future thanks to our operational excellence and the strategic foresight of all HENSOLDTIANS.
I am delighted to have you with us on this journey.

Yours truly,
Axel Salzmann