EQS-News: AUSTRIACARD HOLDINGS: A strong multinational technology company in payments & digital security

AUSTRIACARD HOLDINGS Group is today one of the oldest Greek companies, having more than 125 years of history, and with the Group's journey starting in 1897 as a printing house under the name "Lykos". After almost ninety years, in 1982, when Nikos Lykos, a representative of the 4^th generation, took over the management, the company was transformed and repositioned strategically from the traditional printing sector to the Information Management sector, and as a consequence the company was renamed INFORM P. Lykos S.A.

Since 1982 and the beginning of its radical business transformation, the company has been constantly growing and gradually transforming into a thriving multinational company with a global reach and an international business footprint. In this continuous growth path, a key milestone for the company was in 2007, when it proceeded with the acquisition of AUSTRIACARD from the Central Bank of Austria, a company that supplied Austrian banks with bank cards and their operating system. This strategic move marks the beginning of the Group's exponential growth, which, combined with organic growth, as well as a sequence of acquisitions in Romania (NEXTDOCS in 2019, PINK POST in 2023), Andorra (TAG Systems in 2019), USA (TAG USA in 2019), Cyprus (CLOUDFIN in 2021) and UK (NITECREST in 2021), completed its portfolio of service offerings while expanded into the markets of South East, Central and Western Europe, Scandinavia, Türkiye, Middle East, Africa and USA.

As a result of this strong growth, at the end of 2022, the cross-border merger between the Group's parent company, AUSTRIACARD HOLDINGS AG and its Greek subsidiary INFORM P. Lykos S.A. took place, which led to the listing of the shares of the entire Group on the Vienna and the Athens Stock Exchange in March 2023, thus enabling investors to participate as shareholders in the entire business of the Group.

The Group's international customer base currently benefits from a complementary portfolio of B2B products, services and solutions, including high security services, smart cards, personalisation and payment solutions, as well as secure data management and digital transformation solutions. The Group has a very strong pan-European operational footprint, from the UK to Greece and Türkiye, with seven manufacturing facilities and seven personalisation centres in Europe, plus an additional personalisation centre in the US, and currently employs around 2,500 people. Indicative of the Group's strong growth momentum is the fact that it is rapidly expanding into markets beyond the ones it traditionally served, such as the challenger/neon bank market worldwide, in the US through a new personalisation centre, and in the Middle East and Africa, where sales units have been developed, significantly expanding the scope of its activities.

A dynamic, global presence as a trigger for strong economic growth

As a result of AUSTRIACARD HOLDINGS' growth extroversion and good management, impressive financial performance has been achieved in recent years. Comparing the financial results between 2017 and 2022, we observe that revenues increased at a cumulative annual growth rate of 21.4%, from €119.4 million in 2017 to €314.7 million in 2022, Adjusted Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization (Adj. EBITDA) increased at a cumulative annual growth rate of 31.0%, from €10.2 million to €39.4 million, and Adjusted Earnings Before Taxes (Adj. EBT) increased at a cumulative annual growth rate of 79.9%, from €1.1 million to €20.7 million.

In 9M 2023, the Group continued its strong performance with a 13.1% increase in revenues, reaching €261.5 million, 11.6% growth in adjusted EBITDA, which reached €36.5 million, and 33.2% growth in net profit, which reached €14.6 million. This strong growth in the 9 months period was driven by a significant increase in sales of payment products and services in the Turkish market, as well as printing and postal services in the Romanian market, which more than offset the decrease in sales in security forms related to the Kenya elections project (€25 million) implemented in 2022.

Notably, as part of the Kenya project, AUSTRIACARD HOLDINGS undertook the production of 120 million ballot papers, which met all modern security standards, their special packaging and dispatch, and the monitoring of their safe delivery. A similar type of project was previously undertaken in Nigeria, as the company is constantly seeking to undertake one-off projects of this magnitude, as activities of this type are part of the Group's strategy to expand into new markets by leveraging its high level of expertise and production infrastructure in the security forms printing sector.

Excluding the impact of the Kenyan election project, from the 2022 comparatives, Group revenue, adjusted EBITDA and net profit after tax increased in 9M 2023 by 26.6%, 36.9% and 133.3% respectively.

Regarding stock market issues, during last August the company carried out a capitalisation of reserves resulting in the doubling of the number of its shares, a development that enhanced the marketability of its shares, while in December 2023 the company's share buyback program was activated.

In December also the Group's refinancing was completed, with a financing agreement for a total amount of €186.6 million signed with a consortium of 10 European banks led by UniCredit. Through the refinancing, all of the Group's debt is concentrated at the parent company level, simplifying its structure, extending its maturity and at the same time significantly enhancing the funds available to achieve the company's strategic growth objectives.

Conclusion

AUSTRIACARD HOLDINGS AG is a technology company that draws upon more than 130 years of experience and innovation in the fields of information management, smart card production, printing and communications to provide transparent and secure experiences for its customers. With a leading position in the industry, through its flexibility and comprehensive portfolio of solutions offered to its customers, the company is growing rapidly, and as a result of its strong upward trend, the AUSTRIACARD HOLDINGS Group now has a presence in 17 countries, commercial activity in 50 countries, and production facilities in 8 countries.

Capitalizing on this global momentum, in recent years the Group has been experiencing excellent growth and profitability, thus offering a very attractive, but also rare, combination of value and growth properties for investors.