B2 Impact ASA (B2I.OL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone. My name is Trond Kristian Andreassen. I'm the CEO of B2 Impact. Together with me is Rasmus, who is the Manager of the IR and M&A; and André, who is the CFO of the group. I want to welcome everyone to this presentation. It is a rainy day in Oslo, and we do believe that the presentation will give you a glimpse of sunlight. On behalf of the employees and the Board of Directors of B2 Impact, I'm pleased to announce that Q3 marks yet another successful step in the B2 Impact journey. We are proud of our achievements, the results are a sound strategy and strong collaboration between the management team, the Board of Directors and not least our dedicated employees across Europe. After almost a full year as CEO of B2 Impact, I can confidently say there has not been a single day when we have not been focused on development and continuous improvement. In our previous communication, we have emphasized that our shareholders expect stable growth combined with strong returns. That is exactly what B2 Impact has continued to deliver, including this quarter. We hope this presentation will give you a clear understanding of our current position and outlook. I'm pleased to announce a continued very strong collection and ERC growth. The investment remains on track with NOK 3 billion committed for 2025. REO sales have reached NOK 622 million by the end of Q3, well within the revised full year target range of NOK 600 million to NOK 800 million. This achievement reflects excellent management by our secured asset team. Our latest bond issue has reduced annual interest cost by NOK 40 million. I'm sorry, everyone to have a short break because we are struggling a bit with the technology. I'm so sorry, everyone. I start again with Slide 3. I hope you catch most of the message from my introduction. So, I'm pleased to announce continued very strong collection and ERC growth. The investment remains on track with NOK 3 billion committed for 2025. REO sales have reached NOK 622 million by the end of Q3, well within the revised full year target range of NOK 600 million to NOK 800 million. This achievement reflects excellent management by our secured asset team. Our latest bond issue has reduced annual interest cost by NOK 40 million. Earnings per share is tracking ahead of the full year target and with almost 2 months remaining in the year, it is still a bit early to conclude on the final dividend for 2025. However, it will be at least NOK 1.7 per share, which is in the top end of the previous guided target. What I can promise is that our focus is to deliver growth in earnings per share, supporting a continued increase in dividends. Despite positive revaluations in previous quarters, our collection performance remains strong. Thanks to strict cost discipline and increasing use of automation and self-service channels, the number of FTEs is trending down, while collection per employee continue to rise. The positive trend is expected to continue and investment in technology remains one of our top priorities. The potential ahead is significant, leading to a highly scalable cost base with the capacity to handle increased portfolio volumes. As mentioned, REO sales are currently trending well within the revised full year target. The key of our accelerated REO sales strategy is that it supports deleveraging, while enabling to reallocation of capital into unsecured portfolios, driving substantial growth in ERC and earnings per share going forward. With NOK 3 billion already committed and seasonally strong Q4 ahead, we are on track to meet our investment target with attractive returns. B2 Impact's estimated remaining collection, ERC continued to develop positively despite the large REO sales. With our consistent overperformance in collections, we expect further strong positive revaluations going forward. As communicated in Q2, we remain confident that the actual ERC exceeds NOK 30 billion. I will then hand over to our CFO, André, for more flavor.

Thank you, Trond Kristian, and good morning to everyone. Apologies again for the technology challenges in the beginning. Now, we are pleased to be able to announce that our earnings per share is tracking well ahead of our initial targets for the year and the updated guidance we had in the second quarter presentation. The growth in earnings per share was 74% in the quarter compared to the same quarter last year. And during the third quarter, most of our key value drivers for EPS growth materialized. So, before we cover all the financial highlights, we would like to walk you briefly through the core value drivers behind this growth. We believe this is crucial in order to give you a clear picture of all the work and initiatives behind this growth, but also the potential to use these value drivers to grow EPS in the coming year. Despite a perceived moderate investment level over the last years, we are delivering double-digit growth in unsecured collections, and we have done that many quarters in a row. This is possible due to strict price discipline and focusing our investments in -- investment footprint in fewer markets. The return on our investments made over the last years have been very attractive and one of the most important value drivers for EPS growth. Collection performance continues to improve and the marginal increase in performance compared to last year is important for the bottom line. The strong performance is also reflected in positive revaluations of our estimated remaining collections and consequently increase in book value. Cost scalability is something the group has spent many years improving and moving from more manual tasks to a higher degree of automation and use of technology. And thanks to both cost reduction initiatives as well as the increased scalability of our cost base, we have seen growth in collection with a flat to declining cost base in the period. Consequently, the gross IRR on our investments have been more or less equal to the net IRR for the full business. This has a considerable positive impact on our EPS, and we expect this trend to continue in the near term. And of course, the lower interest rates following a successful refinancing process driven by consistent strategic priorities over many years and a well-coordinated refinancing strategy by our highly competent finance team. Looking ahead, our increased investment level in 2025 is set to drive further growth in earnings per share going into 2026 by utilizing this cost scalability with only a marginal increase in interest costs for new investments. So, moving into the financial highlights for the quarter. Cash collections were up 40% in the quarter compared to last year, driven by unsecured collection growth of 14% and high REO sales. Collection performance in unsecured was 108% in the quarter and 110% over the last 12 months. This indicates a notable upside in our ERC, reflected in the quarter by a positive revaluation of NOK 47 million compared to NOK 25 million last year. REO sales came in at NOK 468 million in the third quarter. And as of the third quarter stands at NOK 622 million, already well within our guided range. REO sales has a significant impact on cash, but the reported P&L impact is more limited due to the way they are accounted for. This is why you see revenue up 13%, despite cash collections being up as much as 40% compared to last year. Operational expenses as a percentage of cash collections are trending down, demonstrating the scalability of our cost base. The cost increase compared to last year is mainly related to high growth in collection and the onboarding of Zolva's platform in Norway. Cash EBITDA, up 50% compared to last year, driven by high REO sales. But even normalizing the sales level and adjusting for this, the underlying cash EBITDA in the quarter was up 15% compared to last year, showing the importance of growth in unsecured collections. Earnings per share growth was, as mentioned, 74% in the quarter, and the underlying EPS is up 61% year-to-date compared to the first 9 months of last year. At the end of the third quarter, EPS stands at NOK 1.49 per share, indicating a full year EPS well above our targeted range of NOK 1.5 to NOK 1.7. In terms of investments, we have seen a very active second half of 2025 so far. And we will share more details on this and full year expectation later in the presentation. Looking at more details of our collection performance. We have seen 14% growth in unsecured collections in the quarter with the performance over the last 12 months of 110%. We also collected our largest REO portfolio to date with REO sales of NOK 622 million year-to-date and an expectation of around NOK 700 million for the full year. The REO book value was consequently reduced by almost 30%. Moving to Page 11 and some more details on the cash flow in the quarter. Cash earnings came in at NOK 625 million for the third quarter, after investments, interest costs and tax, providing us with additional investment capacity. B2 is currently in a very unique position where our strong cash earnings are supporting double-digit growth in collection, attractive dividends, while maintaining a low leverage ratio. Over the last 12 months, we have invested around NOK 3.3 billion, distributed high dividends, but maintained a leverage ratio around 2. As mentioned earlier, we continue to see double-digit growth in our collections alongside solid cash contribution from REO sales, which consequently drives cash collection growth of 40% in the quarter. Operating expenses in the third quarter was up 9%, mainly due to the onboarding of the Zolva platform in Norway and of course, the mentioned high collection activity with 40% growth. The underlying OpEx ratio is consequently trending down, reflecting focused cost control and as touched upon, important value driver, increased cost scalability. On the investment side, investments came in at NOK 675 million for the quarter. And as Kristian already touched upon, we are seeing a committed level for 2025 of around NOK 3 billion with NOK 200 million related to part of the Zolva assets. Geographical split has been more diversified in the quarter with investments also in Western Europe. Around 30% of investments were forward flows in the quarter, and we have also signed important -- several important forward flow contracts also so far in the fourth quarter, securing a strong base of investments for 2026. If these forward flows have been one-off transactions, we would already be well within our guided investment target for 2025. During the third quarter, we have further strengthened our financial position by completing a EUR 100 million bond issue and fully repaying the 2028 maturity and consequently taking down the debt level by EUR 50 million. The bond issue was -- the bond was issued at a margin of 325 basis points, which is the lowest in the primary issue for B2 and reducing annual interest costs by NOK 40 million going forward. We currently have abundant liquidity to grow our investments, utilizing the RCF, at a low marginal increase in interest cost. Following the latest bond issue, our reduced funding costs, combined with increased cost scalability has improved our competitive position to win more portfolios at attractive returns for the business. Now looking at the updated financial expectations for 2025. We are seeing high investment activity, supporting further EPS growth going into 2026. REO sales is expected around NOK 700 million for the full year of '25, supporting high investment volumes with a sustained low leverage. Earnings per share is expected well above the targeted range of NOK 1.5 to NOK 1.7, supporting dividends in the high range guided of at least NOK 1.7 for this year with upside depending on investment activity. So, to sum up the financial part of the presentation, our performance so far in '25 as well as our indicative guidance on expectation for '26 demonstrate the successful implementation of our strategic priorities. With an increased investment level this year, we will take advantage of the value drivers discussed earlier in the presentation and target to grow EPS in the coming years. And we will be back with more tangible targets during the fourth quarter presentation.

Thank you, Andre. We trust this presentation has highlighted our unique position. We are confident in delivering continued attractive and increasing shareholder returns, while also remaining ready to capture other opportunities in the market. After another great quarter in, I would also like to express my gratitude to all B2 Impact employees for their contribution to our great results and for your commitment to developing the business. Thank you. With that, we continue to the Q&A.

[Operator Instructions]

We are waiting for any callers, but it seems that there are none. So, we will then continue with the questions posted in the chat. We will start with one question from Fredrik Støle from ABG. In terms of investment activity, you mentioned multiple ongoing transactions in Q4. Can you share some more details on this?

So, I think I covered that partly in the presentation. We have committed volumes so far this year of around NOK 3 billion. But as touched upon multiple transactions ongoing. But it's important for us to get across that many of the transactions are forward flows, which means the investment impact on 2025 will be slightly lower, but we secure volumes for 2026. And the annual investment impact of the forward flows that we have secured, it basically takes the full year committed investment level on an annual basis, well within our guided investment target. And these forward flows are an important base for us to have a good baseline for 2026. And in the fourth quarter, we can share more details on the magnitude of commitments for 2026.

Thank you, André. Then we actually have a caller here, Rickard Hellman from Nordea.

The next question comes from Rickard Hellman from Nordea.

I have a question regarding, REO. You had very strong sales this quarter, including a big asset sales. Can you hear me? Can you hear me?