AS Tallinna Sadam (TSM1T) Q4 FY2025 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, dear investors, analysts. Welcome to our webinar. My name is Valdo Kalm. I am in charge of Port of Tallinn Group, and Angelika Annus is our leader of Investor Relations.

Good morning.

I would like to start as usually with events from Q4. Very generally speaking, the whole year was quite okay. Then also happened a lot of events during the year, but now let's focus on last quarter. There was increase of cargo volumes up to 6%, coming mainly from dry bulk and Ro-Ro. There was also high number of passengers in passenger business, supported by Helsinki, but more from cruise. Also, our ferry business showed increase in passenger numbers in vehicles and made quite a stable result. Again, back to cruise, the last quarter was, I would call very successful because we got 10 big and huge cruise ships to our port. That shows very clearly that there is a prolongation of cruise season all over the world, same here in our basin or in the Baltic Sea, and hopefully that will continues this year, at least we see the bookings for the year. We finalized technically, and we completed South Paldiski Harbor new quay. Nowadays, we have already license fixed to use that, and we starting to use it now immediately. That means that, we're waiting quite a huge ship already end of February, beginning of March, to a new quay. That mean there will be revenues from that quay. For us, it's very important that we got the EU support for construction of Onshore Power Supply for the cruises, the investments all together with transformation center or the stations is up to EUR 40 million, and EUR 10 million for that we got as a support. It helps a lot for the future business case for [indiscernible] Onshore Power Supply. Then we got approved price list of electrical network charges from Competition Authority. That's also important step, increases our revenue by EUR 0.5 million for this year. Continuing with events on Q4, we got back 50 hectares property in Muuga Harbour from a court dispute, and now the land is our again, and we're now preparing for the new international tender. It's an old coal terminal area. We use the quays all the time, but the land was basically occupied, but now we will try to find a new use, and that's definitely good news for us. We signed MOU for transit of Kazakh grain. Technically, everything is ready. We are talking about the couple of millions of tons. We really prepared transit the corridor for that. We have excellent conditions in Muuga Harbour. I mean, a quay for huge bulkers or big ships, and then very efficient terminal. Therefore, technically, is everything ready. There was also an important visit a couple of weeks ago from Kazakhstan to Muuga Port, and now it's all about how Kazakhs will get the permission or license to go through Russia with the trains. We signed in November, Swedish-Estonian Green Corridor contract. That's not only a green project, it's definitely our infrastructure project, but also the activity list, how to increase the passenger and cargo numbers between Port of Stockholm and Tallinn, between Kapellskar, Paldiski. Now from next week, we're starting to steer this project, and we're working in a good hope to really increase the volume speed between our two countries [indiscernible] Botnica started their summer job quite late autumn this year, but then they got very good job in Canada waters with high charter fees. Everything went well. It was very special rescue work, but they executed it very well. Some changes in our daughter companies. There is now new member of Management Board in the shipping company who owns the Botnica, new Marketing and Sales Director with very good experience from offshore business, Margus Raak. He works already heavily with new leads and new contract possibilities for Botnica. And then we prolonged also the contract for Katrin Aron from TS Laevad for another 3 years. And our sister company, Green Marine, was nominated as a Circular Economy Promoter for the year 2025. Now then to the segments more precisely, as we mentioned, we had a nice increase in cruise vessels, but also increase of cruise passengers, more than 100%. That supported our total passenger number. Although we had small increase in Helsinki link, and altogether, then we increase in revenues, 3%. On cargo side, I already mentioned that there is increase of volumes, less vessels -- vessel calls, but the vessels were bigger, the tankers were bigger, dry bulk or bulkers were bigger, and then we also managed to increase the revenue, 2.4%. Ferry shows -- ferry business shows very stable numbers. Of course, they had increase in passengers and vehicles also. And Botnica made a couple of days less charter days than in last year, Q4. Therefore, there is small decline also in revenues. There are more precisely passenger volumes, as I mentioned, and if we're talking about yearly basis, then we continuously try to restore the number, the magic number, 10 million, what we had pre-COVID time. Last year, we gained an 8.3 million, and for us, it's very important to have stable vessel calls, passenger vessel calls. Of course, there are quarters are different because there are docks for the vessels, but very important, this overall number, that is 5,500 calls per year. On cargo side, of course, we also follow [indiscernible] volumes. In Q4, we mentioned that the biggest increase came from liquid bulk and Ro-Ro. If you take the whole year, then again, biggest increase came from liquid bulk, some 45% even, and from bulk, dry bulk cargo. Ro-Ro stayed almost on the same level, but again, important to have stable cargo vessel calls what we also saw in 2025. Ferry segment doing very stably. If you take whole year, then again, another increase of passengers and vehicles, these are record numbers again. Our Regula, the fifth vessel, made many additional trips. Therefore, we have increase on revenues also in our ferry segment. Botnica, unfortunately, had quite a low utilization rate last year due to the quite late start as I mentioned. We tried to sell it more this year. Of course, it depends a lot on overall strategy in green agenda. Therefore, there are some pros and cons, of course, but also Botnica is an excellent ship for special different offshore jobs as we did this rescue operation in last quarter, Canada. Therefore, we would like to see better numbers on utilization this year. Future outlook. There are a couple of important main trends and strategies. We believe that we can still increase the number of passengers supported by cruise. We see the bookings for this year. We see that the season also in a share prolonging trend. Therefore, that's important to support that. On cruise side, we personally working very heavily on sales, and last year, for example, we had 11 new, totally new ships in our harbor and one new operator. We hope that we will have also this year some new players. Very important to negotiate and also sign certain agreement with new Ro-Ro and container lines. Last year, we managed to have container line one in Muuga. We have continuous negotiation with signed 4, 5 companies. It's of course, heavy competition between the ports, but we have excellent infrastructure now. Thanks to this new quay in Paldiski, we have capacity now in Paldiski. We have had capacity in Muuga. There is a separate free quay for Ro-Ro, therefore, we have infrastructure in place. Now it's important to really work hard on sales and negotiations. Strategically, we will develop further maritime transport corridors. We have to support Estonian export with maritime corridors. We have to support Scandinavian import/export with our corridors. Therefore, 2 years ago, we signed Finnish Corridor, and there are not only Tallinn and Helsinki involved, there is also Vuosaari, same with Stockholm Corridor, where we also in a scope, we have Tallinn and Stockholm plus Kapellskar, Paldiski. Now we're negotiating German Corridor between Tallinn or Muuga and Hamburg, and Paldiski, Lubeck. That's under the negotiation, and definitely, the aim is to increase the volumes, to do it in sustainable way. And of course, as I already mentioned, more utilize new quay. It's a multifunctional quay, as I said, explained first contract already in force, but definitely now we have possibilities to serve also Ro-Ro ships, military big ships on this quay, and of course, we know negotiating the bigger contract, longer contract with offshore wind farm developers or component producers. That's under the negotiation. We are quite in an interesting phase on this real estate business in Old City Harbor. There are two detailed plans now for the final resolution in city council, and hopefully, that happens before the summer, and then we are immediately ready to introduce first developing tenders for the 7 hectare, what we have on this called The Terminal Detail Plan. Efficiency in a place is still every year and continuously, it's process reengineering, lot of digitalization. We have some 70 IT systems already in place. It's all about digitalization and automation, and I guess we are quite good on that. There are more to develop. And finally, to have results from 2025 on table, where we see clear increase of EBITDA and net profits, then we have outlook for this year, all allows to continue with dividend policy and even to exceed that. That's the final message. We will be preparing definitely based on that the proposal for our Supervisory Board and then to the AGM in the nearest future. Thank you. I would like to give the floor now to Angelika.

Thank you, Valdo. Okay. Let's start with the fourth quarter. In the fourth quarter, the revenues were higher compared to the last year by EUR 360,000. All segments gave better results except for other, because of reduced number of charter days of Botnica. Adjusted EBITDA, however, decreased by approximately EUR 1 million, and the decrease was seen in all segments of activities. Mostly, it was related to maintenance and repair works, which took place in the fourth quarter as they were postponed throughout the year. Adjusted EBITDA margin declined by 4.1 percent points. Operating profit reduced EUR 1.3 million -- 1.25 million, so almost the same amount as adjusted EBITDA. However, profit for the period was declining less, only EUR 700,000, and the positive effect came from smaller interest rates on the loans. For 12 months, we see, however, decline in revenue, approximately EUR 900,000, but on the positive side, we can say that the results at the end of the year are really good. So the revenue declined mostly in segment other due to Botnica. But all the other segments faced really good results. And the most of increase took place in passenger fees, cargo charges, and also lease revenues in all segments of our activities. Adjusted EBITDA was better by EUR 3.4 million and it increased mostly in passenger and cargo harbor segments. Also there were one-time effects from insurance compensation for Botnica maintenance charges of last year. And the second one of change in into our results was due to sales of property in Muuga for preparations to start building Rail Baltica terminal by the state. Adjusted EBITDA margin increased by 3.2 percent points. Operating profit was even higher than adjusted EBITDA. It was EUR 3.6 million. We can see that income tax has increased in 2025, and it is due to changes in the legislation, where we cannot anymore use reduced amount on income - [indiscernible] rate of income tax. Profit for the period increased by EUR 3.3 million as a result of all these changes, and it is really good result what you can see, also affected by reduced interest costs of approximately EUR 2.5 million. Investments in fourth quarter were higher due to ending the works of construction works of the quay in Paldiski Harbor, but in 12 months, you can see that the total amount of investments has reduced by approximately EUR 1.5 million. In addition to Paldiski quay, we have invested into reinforcement of Muuga quays into ships of our shipping segment and also into IT and other facilities. In the fourth quarter, we can see, as I told you, that the only segment that had less revenues was other, related to Botnica charter days. And adjusted EBITDA fourth quarter was reduced in passenger harbors, cargo harbors, and also in Botnica segment, but remained almost the same in the ferry segment. During 12 months, we can see that all segments are positive again. Only the other segment carried less revenues than last year, approximately EUR 4 million, which is quite a high amount, but 12 months results in passenger and cargo segments are showing really good results from EBITDA point of view. For example, in passenger harbors, it was mostly influenced by our cruise ships, which we had more vessel calls and also more cruise passengers. In cargo harbor, although the vessel calls number was reduced, the ships that visited us were larger and with higher capacity, and therefore we received more charges from those calls. In the first segment, we see a little bit -- a slight decline in the adjusted EBITDA, and it is related also to some one-off consulting costs related to our ferries, where we try to find out if we can make them more effective, so this research works were paid for. Cash flow. Cash from operating activities increased by EUR 5 million approximately, and it is mainly influenced by 2 issues. First of all, we received more payments from our customers, and we paid less to our suppliers, so that's the main difference. The negative effect to this line was from payment of income tax, which was paid in dividends, approximately EUR 2.3 million. Cash used in investing activities, you can see quite a big difference. At the end of 2024, we deposited EUR 22 million for a longer period to earn some interest. And in the beginning of 2025, we received this amount back, so this is the major influencer here on this line. And also, we received EUR 1 million -- approximately EUR 5 million from sales of the land in Muuga, and there are minor differences also on other lines. The free cash flow in total has changed EUR 47.6 million, and cash used in financing activities, you can see that it was much higher this year than last year, the difference of EUR 20 million, but it is influenced also by the fact that in 2025, we did not take any additional loan, which we did in 2024. And we have repaid some loans, and we paid also dividends of EUR 19 million. So net cash flow remains EUR 14.8 million, and the net debt has reduced by EUR 26 million approximately, and remains EUR 142 million. The balance sheet. We can see that total assets have declined a little bit. Cash has declined, excuse me, by EUR 7 million. The decline was also in other current assets, which was related to non-current assets ready for sale, which we sold at the beginning of the year. There's that difference coming from that. Non-current assets have increased by EUR 8 million, which is the difference between investments and the amortization. We have also reduced our debt by EUR 11 million. Other liabilities remained at the same level, and the equity has increased by EUR 3 million, which is the difference between EUR 22 million profit earned during 2025, and EUR 19 million dividend payout. On the rest of the slides, you can just take a view to the revenue generation and EBITDA generation within our different segments during different quarters. Thank you for listening, now you have possibility to let us have the questions, if you have any. We'll take a couple of minutes and come back to you.

We are back. We got some questions in advance. There is question about the dividend proposal. Have you already proposed a dividend payment? Not yet, but just recently, we are planning to do that, the our council meeting. Then, of course, it goes to the AGM. As I mentioned in my presentation, by the results from last year, by trends, prognosis to this year, we are definitely making proposal at least 70% from our profits for the dividends, but it's really a bit up to our council to decide what is the final proposal for the AGM. Another question, would you be able to provide some updates on falling areas, industrial parks in Muuga and Paldiski? In Paldiski, we have already situation that many plots are booked, and there is no big space free. But in Muuga, we still have free plots. We had one tender. We finished a month ago. We got one interesting proposal. We're negotiating that. Then just in the beginning of the year, we got back 50 hectares from bankruptcy case land in eastern part of Muuga, and just now we're preparing that for the new international tender. What about the new south harbor, the keys in Paldiski? I covered that already. There is one contract ongoing. That means we will have revenues from this quay already in Q1. Then, we're negotiating bigger contract with offshore wind developers or element production companies. That's definitely takes a little bit time, of course, we inform them these kind of contracts via our stock system, how to say. What is the timing for the first tender of old harbor development? If everything goes well, then we would like to announce this tender before summer. Then question about the progress of the JetGas LNG terminal development in Muuga. JetGas got development or construction right last end of last year. If, again, everything goes by plan, they would like to start investment this year.

We have a few questions online.

This is from that. Yes, please.

Could you clarify outlook of exceeding the every dividend policy? Well, as we have quite good results made in 2025, and our outlooks for 2026 are also positive, then we might decide, or management might decide to pay out more than 70% from the profit.

What are the main risks for 2026 in terms of revenue growth and profitability? Yes. Of course, the risk is how passenger business will grow. It's up to macro situation, but also demand of the passenger customers owned by shipping operators, of course. But there are still some smaller risks. On profitability, again, I would like to mention that it's still difficult to estimate what kind of profitability we will have on the shipping or in Botnica side. It depends very much on the job. Maybe there will be higher revenue, but it depends what kind of equipment we have to install, and that's quite costly. What is the manning on the ship for the special jobs in offshore? Therefore, there are small risks also in terms of profitability. That's it.

What is a reasonable investment amount for 2026, given the Paldiski quay is now completed? What have we estimated for investment in 2026? I think it's EUR 30 million, EUR 35 million approximately.

Yes, correct.

Okay, a couple of more questions. Please remind us, how will the real estate tenders be set up with Tallinna Sadam take development risk?

Yes, the main model that we are not going to be developer. We are announcing the tender, that will be definitely international tender for the investors, for developers, they will invest. We will invest some small infrastructure investment, but that's it.

The last question. Oh, okay, there are some more coming up. Let's take this one first. Do you expect to get an offshore developer tenant for new Paldiski quay in near future? Actually, you all replied already.

Yes. It's under the negotiation. It's very difficult to predict, but we working heavily on that.

Okay. There are three more questions from me. It appears Botnica capital margins were positively impacted this year by maintenance and repairs being EUR 6 million versus prior year, EUR 8.5 million. Was this lower amount just a one-off? It's complicated to say because the ship is not very young anymore, so we hope that there are not that we don't have to face any unexpected works, so.

Correct.

What is the current demand for the new onshore electrical charging system, and are there many fully electric and hybrid vessels currently being built that will use the port?

Yes, there are. There are on a shorter distance and we can say the shorter distance is lower than 100 kilometers. There are these kind of systems, and it's -- I guess, well known already, the Viking Line preparing for such a ship also in Tallinn-Helsinki link. Therefore, of course, we consider that. We have to be ready for the certain date. Of course on -- from Viking Line, there is not final decision taken, but they anyway will build certain hybrid type of vessel, we again have to be ready for that. Onshore Power Supply for the cruises, that's from our perspective, one solution and one investment.

And the last question: Could you provide an update on how cargo and passenger volumes are tracking currently at today? Well, we cannot give you any, how to say, estimates or prognosis. Our KPIs we will publish at the beginning of April, then you will see the results of first quarter. Thank you very much for your attention.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Bye.