Leonardo said it would look to improve competitiveness through digitalization, enhance cybercapabilities and focus R&D expenditure on innovative technologies, including Artificial Intelligence, on Tuesday as the Italian State-controlled defense giant presented its five-year plan for the 2024-28 period.
It said it expects a cumulative new order intake of 105 billion euros by the end of the plan, with revenues rising 6% on average each year to reach 95 billion euros.
"The Industrial Plan has defined a strategy for unlocking the business growth potential of Leonardo, delivering stronger top-line growth, double digit profitability by 2026 and doubled FOCF by the end of the Plan," said CEO Roberto Cingolani.
"This will be achieved through a massive digitalization and rationalization of products and services, group-wideefficiencies and cost reduction initiatives - targeting 1.8billion euros in gross savings over the plan time span - andinorganic growth.
"The world geopolitical scenario calls for a new Global Securityparadigm, where we aim to play a proactive role in the evolution of the European Defense sector." Leonardo also presented its 2023 financial results on Tuesday.
It said ordinary income was up 6.5% on 2022 to 742 million euros.
It said net income was down 25.4% to 695 million euros, stressing that the 2022 figure was boosted by capital gains sustained by the sales of the Leonardo DRS Global EnterpriseSolutions and Advanced Acoustic Concepts businesses.
The five-year plan went down well on the Milan stock exchange, with Leonardo's share price gaining 4.9% in early trading.
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