High Growth Dynamics Continue for Nemetschek Group in 2016

The Nemetschek Group—the German parent (holding) company of AEC industry brands like ArchiCAD, Vectorworks, Bluebeam, Solibri, and Cinema 4D—continues to maintain high growth dynamics in the first half of 2016.

The company has reported recently that revenues for the quarter have risen to 22.2% to reach new top mark of EUR 83.8 million. This announcement came a day after the company announced its largest acquisition in recent times, the US $46 million purchase of US-based Design Data, a North American market leader in the structural steel design and detailing software space with an Open BIM-oriented set of software.

Indications Show Group’s Success

In the year ago quarter, revenues for the Group were EUR 68.6 million. The current quarter was EUR 83.8 million or 22.2% increase. For the first half of the year, revenue also increased by 19.5%.

01 – A web snap of part of the Nemetschek Group’s website. The German holding company has built a nifty “dozen brands” in AEC which all subscribe to the Open BIM philosophy.

The company also reported that its international alignment strategies have played out, with that segment of their revenues amounting to a 22.0% rise in revenues for the first half to the year compared to a year ago. The share of revenue coming from recurring revenues also amounted to 41.9%.

At the net income basis, the Group increased by a very healthy 56.1% to EUR 24.2 million compared with first half 2015 net income of EUR 15.5 million.

“In the first half of the year, we have further improved our competitiveness and market position in the AEC market,” said Patrik Heider, Spokesman and CFOO of the Nemetschek Group. “This puts us well on the way to having another record year for the Nemetschek Group. The continued internationalization as well as innovative solutions for our customers are the basic prerequisites for implementing strong growth and making optimum use of our opportunities in the markets,” Heider continued.

To read the full press release go here.

Architosh Analysis

The Nemetschek Group breaks down its AECO-centric brand companies into four primary categories, including Design, Build, Manage and M&E (Media & Entertainment) industry software. That latter group used to be a bigger part of the overall revenue picture but with the acquisition of Bluebeam in particular the Build category revenue is clearly number two.

Based on this latest acquisition of Design Data, the Group’s acquisition strategy looks firmly aimed at buttressing its BIM competitiveness in all sectors of the AECO industry. If we look at the Tekla-like latest purchase, we could see the company acquire the technologies to build a Trimble Connect-like BIM collaboration platform. That could be next and it would be smart. Another smart move would be to focus on the M&E market in the real-time rendering space. Immediacy and “interaction” are in competition with “visual fidelity” to real-life in the computerized rendering world; its competitors are acquiring or building out tools that utilize game engines to deliver faster-to-stakeholder-interaction (FTSI) of 3D models and environments. It’s all about time pressures on designers and faster iterative workflows where higher fidelity (that is higher quality photo-realistic) renderings are expected to be apart of the design feedback loop.