We continue our video interviews from Incap's factory in Karlsfeld, Germany. Now I have the Managing Director of Incap Germany, Ralf Hasler, here with me. Welcome to Inderes TV.

Thank you.

Since you are a new face for our listeners and viewers, could you please give a short introduction on your background and also describe a little bit what you are doing here at Incap Germany?

Sure. I'm 60 years young, I'm married. I have three grown-up children and, from my education, I'm a mechanical engineer, and I acquired Licon in 2005 within a management buy-in, with 20 million euro sales at this period. Basically, I grew it to the size it is today, and there were some major milestones, for example in 2006 we founded the Romanian operations. I just returned from the 20th anniversary of the Romanian operation, which was a big party, and in 2009 we introduced ERP systems. This was another very important milestone. In 2018 we teamed up with a private equity company and then eventually in 2025, we were bought by Incap.

Very impressive progress over a long time, congratulations. Incap published some financial figures from the last five years at the time of the acquisition. They were relatively flat when it comes to top line and also margins. Could you please elaborate a bit how the operating environment was in the last five years in a former Licon unit?

That was quite challenging. I mean, the EMS market, the German-speaking EMS market, was shrinking during that period quite significantly. However, since we hardly have any exposure in automotive or in consumer electronics, we did not suffer, but we went flat and we kept profitability.

I see. As you said, you have been here a long time as an entrepreneur, and then also with private equity. Could you elaborate a bit how it is different to work for Incap, like in this decentralized model, compared to private equity for instance?

Especially this decentralized model. Basically, it makes it possible that I can keep my own entrepreneurial mode, so when I was acting on my own behalf as an entrepreneur, I always was seeking profitable growth. The same with Incap. So it did not change too much.

One thing, you know, maybe.

Only difference, I have a boss now, with whom working is quite fun.

I can just imagine. Now, knowing these units for a very long time, could you please discuss a bit what are the strengths of these units compared to your competitors?

Well, we have this, it is not customer proximity, it's even customer intimacy. So we are very close to the customer. We have tons of backstage services, so it's not just pure PCBA, but we call it industrial engineering, so really optimizing the bill of materials, helping when it comes to substitution of obsolete components, or even doing designs for our customers.

Understood. In which areas do you see the most room to improve your business performance in these three units?

So from a pure operational perspective, I think we are quite good set up. I think it's a matter of increasing sector expertise. So we are not doing assemblies for medical devices, but we are the experts for doing medical devices. Same applies to other verticals like railway, like defense.

Defense industry is definitely a hot topic among investors nowadays, good. Anyhow, describe how significant a part defense is in your business in these units in Germany and Romania.

It is growing more and more important and, as I would put it, we are harvesting currently what we have built up in the last years, so in this phase of consolidation, while we went flat, we developed our skills for being a good partner for defense products, which means that in the meantime we are not acquiring projects, but we are asked to do projects. So our sweet spot is electromechanical devices for armed vehicles, and there we have a very solid order book and we're expecting strong growth in the next years.

However, we do not want to become a defense company, so to my understanding the share of defense projects in Incap Germany should not exceed 30 percent of the sales.

Yeah, it's logical because there would be some kind of risk, as exposure would be much more significant than that. The German economy has been struggling in the last years. As you said, and especially the automotive industry is in difficulties. You are living locally and leading a business in Germany. So I would like to ask, how does this operating environment in Germany look from your perspective?

Nowadays it remains challenging. Also, we are not in the automotive business, it means that automotive OEMs, they don't acquire any more equipment. That means less industrial robots, less industrial control systems, and this, for sure, is affecting also our businesses. So this is why we put our focus on things like medical devices, railway is a very good and interesting vertical, then for sure electrification takes place in Germany all over the place, which means inverters, battery management systems, electrical vehicle charging devices. So these are the areas where we expect strong growth and where we are very present and have very good references.

Thank you very much for the interview, Ralf, and looking forward to following the journey. You're welcome.

Thank you.

Thank you.