Abu Dhabi National Oil Company for Distribution PJSC (ADNOCDIST) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, and welcome to the ADNOC Distribution Q3 2024 Earnings Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Athmane Benzerroug. Please go ahead, sir.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to ADNOC Distribution Q3 and 9 Months 2024 Earnings Conference Call. I'm Athmane Benzerroug, Chief Strategy, Transformation and Sustainability Officer. Joining me today, Bader Lamki, our CEO; and Wayne Beifus, our CFO. In today's call, I will start with the key highlights and also speak about the company's outlook. Our CEO will then discuss progress on our growth strategy. Then the CFO will take you through operating and financial results. After the presentation, we will turn to Q&A. This presentation includes forward-looking statements relating to our business. Such statements involve a number of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations. For more information, please refer to the International Offering Memorandum relating to our IPO and to other investor communications, all of which are available on our website. I would like to start by sharing with you the key highlights of our attractive equity story. Since IPO, ADNOC Distribution has nearly doubled the value for its shareholders. Our recently announced 5-year dividend policy provides payback visibility and offers upside for future earnings growth. Our objective is to generate incremental growth after delivering our commitment of $1 billion EBITDA and additional cost savings. In line with our recent announced strategy, we have identified key strategic initiatives to achieve further EBITDA growth by leveraging on our market leadership and operational strength. First, invest in highly profitable UAE market in both fuel and non-fuel. Two, we are doubling down on non-fuel retail offering and transforming our stations into destinations of choice. Three, invest in digital and AI for superior hyper-personalized customer experience. Also, future proofing our business by unlocking new revenue streams with a focus on regulated high-margins EV charging business. Finally, grow contribution from existing international operations while exploring inorganic opportunities to increase the international footprint. Finally, predictable cash flow generation and strong balance sheet enable us to invest into future growth to create incremental value for our shareholders. Now turning to our results. I will start with the key achievements and then briefly talk about the outlook for 2024. We recorded the highest fuel volume and delivered solid non-fuel segment performance, achieving record 9M EBITDA. Q3 2024 EBITDA of $275 million and net profit of $182 million, up versus Q2 2024, but down by 9% and 20%, respectively, compared to Q3 2023, which benefited from exceptionally high inventory gains of $62 million in the rising oil price environment and the UAE tax impact in 2024. We expect solid outlook for the full year of 2024 and beyond, supported by the volume growth momentum, continued growth in non-fuel retail, higher contribution from international activities and further efficiency enhancements. We aim to digitalize customer experience through the success of our ADNOC Rewards loyalty program, which now covers more than 2 million drivers in the UAE. Delivering on our commitment to the market, in 9M, we achieved our target to add 15 to 20 stations to our network in 2024 by launching 19 new stations. We are also on track to reach 150 to 200 fast and superfast charging points this year after more than doubling their number in 9M. Finally, we expect CapEx in the range of $250 million to $300 million in 2024 with a focus on allocating capital towards sustainable growth, upgrading our non-fuel retail assets, continue to invest in technology and deploying EV chargers across our network. As a core part of our growth strategy, we are using AI advanced data analytics to drive top line growth, efficiency and deliver exceptional customer experience. We are using cutting edge AI cloud technology to analyze more than 240 million annual fuel and non-fuel transactions, along with external data sources to develop advanced and secure models to create business opportunities. With more than 20 new AI projects underway across our value chain, we are transforming our business to ensure ADNOC Distribution becomes the best-in-class AI-driven convenience and mobility retailer. Let me give you a few examples. First of all, the company is continuously working on enhancing the customer experience through innovation and digital transformation. Fill & Go technology uses computer vision-enabled license plate recognition and enables our customer to preorder fuel and convenience store products seamlessly through the ADNOC Rewards app. Also, we are embedding an innovative AI-driven fuel demand AI model that provides predictive demand analytics and allows us to optimize fuel delivery across our network. This technology has led to a 10% reduction in fuel truck emissions through improved delivery scheduling. On the sustainability front, AI and technology are critical aspects of the company's target to cut Scope 1 and Scope 2 carbon emissions intensity by 25% by 2030. The key identified initiatives of our decarbonization roadmap which we unveiled at the beginning of 2023 include energy intensity optimization, installing energy-efficient equipment and PV solar panels and use of biofuel in our supply fleet. I'm also pleased to share that during the first 9 months of 2024, ADNOC Distribution continued to enhance its ESG scores and was rated above the industry average by several key ESG rating agencies, including S&P Global, MSCI and FTSE. Furthermore, a new ESG subcommittee at the Board level was recently established, reinforcing the company's commitment to driving long-term sustainable value for all stakeholders. I will now hand over to our CEO, Bader Lamki, who will walk you through the delivery of our growth strategy. Over to you, Bader.

Thank you, Athmane, and good afternoon, good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. ADNOC Distribution's priority is safety, which is embedded in our core values. The company follows the highest safety standards in the delivery of its products and services. Since the beginning of the year, we've achieved strong safety record through the ongoing investment in our facilities and training programs and the collective responsibility of our staff. Let me talk about the progress we have made towards achieving our growth plans. In the fuel business, we've achieved a record high quarterly and 9-month volumes. We have been leveraging on a sustained momentum in the region's economical activities and strong mobility trends. We have expanded our network and gained market share. We also saw a higher contribution from our operations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Egypt. After a 9% year-on-year growth in the 9 months of 2024, our fuel volumes exceeded 11 billion liters. Non-fuel retail segment, which includes convenience stores, car wash, lube change and property management, is growing faster than fuel as we're successfully delivering on our strategy to doubling down on NFR. In the first 9 months of this year, we've demonstrated again a double-digit growth in the NFR gross profit, which was driven by management's initiatives in convenience store, car wash, car care services and the property management. We have seen higher footfall and margins following the upscaling of our stores in the United Arab Emirates, of which 90% are now new or upgraded as we are bringing the convenience store to the next level. The use of digital tools to analyze customers' preferences and spending habits allows us for more personalized marketing and promotion tactics. This targeted approach can significantly boost conversion rates by offering customers what they want, when they want it. We've recorded the highest level in 5 years convenience store conversion rate of nearly 26%. This represents an increase of more than 100 bps compared to last year. The conversion rate has been supported by around 35% increase in the number of Barista prepared drinks. We expect growth to sustain supported by our initiatives to drive higher footfall in our stations and beyond. In the first 9 months of this year, we've launched 10 new convenience stores, including 5 standalone stores, capturing incremental revenues outside our stations. As part of our car wash strategy, we are rolling out new tunnels, which have a significantly higher capacity, and progressing with the upgrade of our existing automatic car washes. In the property management business, the number of occupied and awarded properties increased by 10% or by more than 100 units compared to the end of 2023. The new properties include Burger King restaurants operated by the company and the franchising model as well as anchor brands, including McDonald's, Starbucks and others that bring additional footfall to our service stations. We are on track to double the number of property units occupied by top international and regional food and beverages brands by the end of 2025 compared to 2023. We are future proofing our business by establishing a nationwide EV charging network, leveraging on our extensive real estate and leading network position to generate new revenue streams. Over the next 5 years, we plan to increase the number of EV charging points by 10x to 15x based on the current estimate of -- for our On-the-Go EV charging demand. The rollout of chargers will be calibrated on a quarterly basis depending on the actual EV uptake and using best-in-class technology. We aim for similar profitability in the EV charging business as in our existing fuel business, assuming On-the-Go segment captures 20% of EV customers charging demands. This will be achieved by offering the most accessible, available and convenient network in the UAE, ensuring the best EV charging journey for our customers through the ADNOC Rewards app. Our ADNOC Rewards program is a key driver of incremental growth. Through enhanced customer experience and loyalty, customers are more likely to make additional purchases when they feel valued and rewarded. By leveraging AI and advanced technology, ADNOC Rewards offers seamless digital experience that enhances customer satisfaction and convenience. It has also a tremendous potential in enhancing data monetization across our entire retail operations. ADNOC Rewards continues to grow, welcoming more than 340,000 members in the past 12 months. And at the end of September, we had 2.15 -- 215 million members. The program supports the company's strategy of doubling down on non-fuel retail offerings and transforming service stations into destinations of choice. I will now hand over to Wayne to present the highlights of our financial performance.

Thanks, Bader. Good morning and good afternoon, everyone. I am pleased to share our third quarter and 9-month results, a period in which ADNOC Distribution has demonstrated very strong operating performance. Total volume, including Egypt, grew by 9% compared to prior year, while our combined UAE and Saudi volumes have grown by 7%. This represents our strongest volume offtake on record. We have also made solid progress in our non-fuel retail business, recording our highest level of non-fuel retail transactions of 36 million transactions in 9 months, up 9.4% against last year. In addition, we have recorded our strongest rate of customer conversion from pump to the convenience network during this period. Now turning to our financial highlights. Supported by the strength of our operations, we have delivered our highest 9-month EBITDA since IPO with underlying growth of 11.6% versus the same period last year. This consistent double-digit growth in underlying EBITDA further evidences ADNOC Distribution's solid fundamentals and the progress we are making against our strategic objectives. It is worth noting that the discrete Q3 2024 EBITDA and net profit comparator has been negatively impacted by the exceptionally high inventory gains of $62 million recorded in the third quarter of 2023 in an environment of rising oil prices. In addition to this, our third quarter 2024 net profit has been impacted by the introduction of the UAE Corporate Tax. For the 9 months to September 2024, if we exclude the $50 million impact of the UAE Corporate Tax, our like-for-like net profit has grown by 5.1% year-over-year. Let me now expand on our gross profit by operating segment. Our 9-month 2024 fuel retail gross profit increased by 4% year-on-year, driven by the strong volume growth, while our Q3 discrete fuel retail gross profit decreased by 10% year-on-year due to the lower contribution of inventory gains. In Q3 '24, we recorded inventory gains of $8 million compared to $48 million in the prior year. Our non-fuel retail gross profit has increased by 13%, driven by the successful delivery of new initiatives in our convenience stores, property management and car wash business, amongst others. Our 9-month commercial segment gross profit has increased by 11% year-on-year, supported by strong volume growth and margin improvement. Our Q3 fuel commercial segment gross profit increased by 5% year-on-year despite lower inventory gains versus the comparator period. I'm now turning to our operating expenditure. Our commitment to achieving further operational excellence through efficiency improvements across all business units continues to yield positive results. In the 9 months to September '24, we have achieved like-for-like OpEx savings of $13 million and we remain on track to achieve our $50 million savings target over 5 years. In 2024, we have increased our network size by 19 new stations and expanded our convenience network and car wash business. In addition, we are consolidating our Egyptian subsidiary acquired February last year in the 9 months results this year. Our overall OpEx has increased by just 2% versus the same period last year, benefiting from our OpEx savings and offset by the investment in our network expansion. Now turning to EBITDA by operating segment. Our total underlying EBITDA for the 9 months has increased by 12% compared to the prior year to $721 million. It is worth noting that our underlying EBITDA excludes any inventory movements or one-off items. Looking at our headline EBITDA, our 9-month EBITDA for 2024 has increased by 6% year-on-year, supported by our volume growth, our higher contribution from non-fuel retail and international growth. More specifically, our retail EBITDA has increased by 6% year-on-year to $558 million, and our commercial segment EBITDA is 5% higher to $230 million. Now looking at cash generation. Our overall cash on hand has increased by $63 million in the 9 months to September 2024, driven by free cash generation of $537 million, offset by net finance costs and dividend payments. In line with our plans to continue the expansion strategy, during the period, we have invested $238 million in our CapEx initiatives, and we remain committed to investing between $250 million and $300 million in 2024. We have closed the 9 months with a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 0.56x, which underscores our strong financial standing and favorably positions the company for future growth and shareholder value creation. I will now hand back to Bader for his closing remarks.

Thank you, Wayne. Before opening the floor to the Q&A, I would like to highlight our key priorities and reiterate our outlook for this year. Number one, we are on track to execute on our 5-year strategy and deliver on the next phase of our accelerated growth communicated to the market earlier this year. Strong operating and underlying financial performance, including double-digit growth in the first 9 months of this year, underlying EBITDA and strong cash generation are a testament to the company's solid fundamentals. They reflect our ability to execute against strategic objectives and create value by exploring and capitalizing on new strategic opportunities. Number two, our focus remains on the UAE by growing our non-fuel retail business and sweating the real estate assets, increasing the contribution of our international platforms, future proofing our business by rolling out EV charging infrastructure. Finally, I want to reiterate that we will continue to pursue our expansion plans in a disciplined manner, including exploring inorganic opportunities supported by a strong balance sheet and confidence in our cash flow generation capabilities. The implementation of our new strategy will help us sustain this growth momentum, enhance value and continue attractive shareholders distribution. In October, we distributed USD 350 million for the first half of 2024 dividend in accordance with the new dividend policy, which was approved in March 2024. The second half or H2 2024 dividend is expected to be paid in April 2025. Over the next 5 years, ADNOC Distribution aims to distribute an annual dividend of $700 million or a minimum of 75% of our net profit, whichever is higher. This dividend policy provides shareholders payback visibility and offers dividend upside for future earnings growth. This concludes our presentation. We are now ready to take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] We'll move to our first question.

It's Anna Kishmariya. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay. I have two, if I may. First would be on the working capital build for this quarter. If you can explain what drove it? And should we expect some reversal in fourth quarter? And the second question would be on non-fuel retail. It looks like, like 9 months, it's very strong performance. But in third quarter, we saw a small decrease in conversion rates and also there is some pressure on gross basket quarter-on-quarter. So I wanted to ask whether -- what is your outlook into fourth quarter and maybe for 2025? Do you plan to accelerate on the number of convenience stores opening? And what is your outlook for conversion rates and gross basket growth?

I think let me first address the question on the working capital in the discrete quarter. I think it's fair to say in a business like ours, there will be quite a little -- quite a bit of turbulence quarter-by-quarter when we're looking at working capital movements. If you do look at the 9-month free cash flow and the 9-month movement in the working capital, you'll notice that we had a significant reduction in working capital in 2023 9 months, and we've been successful in keeping that lower level of working capital throughout 2024. So we're cycling over a one-off benefit in 2023. In terms of the discrete movements in Q3 2024, we are seeing slightly higher levels of inventory. We are seeing slightly higher levels of receivables. But these do tends to unwind from quarter-to-quarter or build up from quarter-to-quarter. Could you maybe just clarify, please, the second part of your question?

Yes. The second part was on non-fuel retail and what is your outlook for fourth quarter and 2025? Would you expect to accelerate on the openings for new convenience stores? And what is the outlook for conversion rates and gross basket, please?

Okay. Let me answer this question. So in Q3, actually, the conversion rate was roughly 26%, in Q2, 26.1%. So the difference is quite marginal, I would say. And of course, our aim and target is to improve the conversion rate from fuel transactions to the C-store transactions. And we're going to roll out actually a couple of initiatives to improve actually the conversion rate. Regarding actually the C-store, as you know, part of our NFR strategy is to continue to build on the non-fuel retail momentum. And one of the key drivers is C-store, but you have also car wash, lube change and property management. And in the coming quarters, we'll continue to open some new C-stores, which are, of course, compared to the fuel business, more profitable and attract actually footfall in our stations.

We'll move to our next question.

This is Afaq from International Securities. I have a couple. Firstly, on the finance cost, if you could elaborate what exactly happened there? And I understand the movement that has been made, but just a little bit of further clarity on that would be helpful. Second, I wanted to ask your experience on the EV chargers so far since 2024 is the year where you have sort of accelerated that space. How is that infrastructure developing? And how should we see the next few years panning out?

The second part of your question, it wasn't clear. Could you please repeat that?

Sure. So I was just asking on the EV charger space. So 2024 is the year where you have sort of accelerated on that front with doubling the number of chargers in place. Just wanted to understand the experience so far with that? And how should we be seeing the space developing over the next few years?

Okay. Let me first address the first part of your question, which is the interest cost. One of the items that you'll notice in our statutory accounts is that we've adopted the International Accounting Standard 21, which deals with our subsidiary in Egypt and the inability to obtain convertibility in that market. And as a result of that, in the first quarter of '24, we had some FX losses, which hit our interest line. And in the third quarter, once we adopted that International Accounting Standard, those were all reversed, okay? So that's probably the main factor that you see coming through there, and that's clearly set out in the statutory accounts. In addition to that, we are in an environment of falling interest rates now. We have seen a reduction in the actual interest costs. And we do have a $1.5 billion loan that is on a floating rate. So again, that's clearly set out in our statutory accounts. So those 2 factors together would really explain, first of all, the 9-month performance, but also the discrete Q3 '24 performance, where you see that sizable reversal of the FX impact once we've adopted that accounting standard. And for the second part of the question on EV, I'll hand over to our CEO.

Yes. If you remember, in our strategy outlined during the Capital Market Day earlier this year, we've unveiled our ambition to continue to play in this sector, to be a leading mobility and retail player. And these sustainable mobility choices that are emerging in the region are very relevant for us. We have a network of more than 540 stations today. We have convenience stores of -- 365 C-stores. So we believe we have value to and a role to play to enable EV. And today, we've made a choice to play in the fast and superfast EV charging space, On-the-Go charging, whereby the customers will continue to transact with us. We provide them the charging facility, whereby they can charge up to 80% of their battery capacity within less than 20 minutes. And during that time, they are also transacting with us in the C-store. And of course, through the app, we have the data. We are able to promote for them services to their satisfaction be it car wash or long-term packages from our loyalty program. So we have unveiled a target to roll out up to 500 charging points within the coming 5 years, and we're already on track with more than 100 EV chargers installed at the 9-month mark this year.

We'll move to our next question.

This is [ Jusak ], Morgan Stanley. I have two, if I may. The first one is about stations. What's the outlook for station opening in the fourth quarter? How many stations should we expect you to open? And the second one is about the new -- the format in Dubai, the partnership with the RTA. How do the economics of that format differ compared to the standard stations?

Sorry. The guidance we gave earlier this year is 15 to 20 new stations. This year, we've already delivered 19 stations. So we are well within the guidance provided to the market. We are continuing to look for volumes and expand smartly. Smart growth remains a key principle for us. The layback stations in -- truck lay-by stations in Dubai are also a smart way of also gaining further volumes in Dubai. And this has been in good partnership with RTA. So this also fits into building a strategic partnership with them. But of course, there's incremental volume and there will be elements of additional services to be provided to them, to the users of this lay-bys, as we progress in our growth in Dubai.

[Operator Instructions] We'll move to our next question.

I noticed that in your press release, you emphasized the steady progress made by ADNOC Distribution in expanding its domestic retail presence and market share over the first 9 months of the year. Could you share with us some updated data points on some of your key market share metrics such as the number of stations as a percentage of the total in the UAE or the retail fuel volume sold?

So the way we approach, actually, the market share gain is, first of all, looking at the number of stations that we have within the market. So we have data that we unfortunately cannot share, okay? But this is the reality, that today we have gained market share. Two is the evidence through the numbers that you can see about the conversion rate and the volumes that you see. So the volumes, first of all, where we are growing much faster than the market, and then competition, and we can tell you especially for Dubai, for instance. And the third and last element is, again, the conversion rate at our stations that is actually today at the highest in the past 4 years, I would say. And also the last point is the number of transactions. As you can see, we are processing roughly 240 million transactions, fuel and non-fuel, which is substantially higher than what we had last year. And the way to put it into perspective is if you just look at the proportional growth, vehicle numbers on the road, we are beating this substantially. And sorry, I should have added another element, sorry, is the -- of course, our ADNOC Rewards app. Today, you can see that we have more than roughly 2.2 million rewards customers. And you can estimate the total number of cars in the UAE close to 3.84 million in the UAE. So you can understand clearly after 20% increase this year, another 20% last year that we are gaining market share. So all these elements can help you.

That is all the questions that we have over the phone at this time. I'll turn the call back over for web questions.

We have a few questions. Many of them have been already addressed during the call. One more question is about the QSR. How many QSR do you aim to be under your management?

So I guess that -- thanks for the question. It's a very interesting one. And actually, it brings back the announcement that we did in March during this new strategy 2024, 2028. I guess the strategy is very clear. We want to focus -- one of the pillars is to focus on UAE market. This is a highly profitable market with a lot of visibility on the fuel side, but also upside with all the initiatives that we are putting to gain market share. On the quick-service restaurant, this is part of the non-fuel retail. And non-fuel retail today is roughly, I would say, 12% of the gross profit. And under the non-fuel retail, you have the C-store, the car wash, the lube change and the property management. And what you are mentioning here is the property management business. This is a key focus for us and it's a strategic, I would say, vertical given that we want to ensure that we have the -- that we extract the maximum value from this business. And what does it mean? First of all, in terms of making sure that we have in our tier 1 stations, i.e., the stations that have the highest throughput, best locations, we are pushing actually the tier 1 tenants. So international brands mainly and then some here actually that, first of all, pay high rent, but more importantly, drive footfall. And this is what we have seen through robust data analytics, is that when you have an anchor actually, this drives -- sorry, this drives actually footfall in the station and activity increases and it sustains. So we will continue to deploy quick-service restaurants. And another part of quick-service restaurant is the real estate optimization. And what we want to ensure is also wherever in our stations we have space to add quick-service restaurants, we are developing this and we are executing this to ensure, again, a higher share of the quick-service restaurant and overall NFR business.

I believe that we covered all the questions. Are there any other questions in the audience?

We had no one else queue up over the phone at this time.

So thank you very much, everyone. And I hope to meet you with the management team at ADIPEC. For the people who are going to attend, we'll send an invitation. I guess it's a good opportunity to see what -- how ADNOC Distribution is leading the sector from an offering perspective, but also from a technology perspective, and be able to meet the management and the business owners here. And I just say goodbye. Thank you very much.

This concludes today's call. Thank you again for your participation. You may now disconnect, and have a great day.