B2 Impact ASA (B2I) Q4 FY2025 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Q4 presentation. I'm pleased to announce that Q4 marks yet another successful step in the B2 Impact journey. Before we begin, I'd like to take a moment to reflect on the journey of B2 Impact. Quarter-by-quarter, we have delivered on our financial targets and created strong returns for our shareholders. More importantly, we have built momentum, and that journey is far from over. It will continue with even greater speed and ambition ahead. We are often asked why we don't invest even more. The simple answer is that we aim to remain a solid company with a well-balanced capital structure. This enable us to combine attractive dividend yield with solid growth and moderate leverage. In our view, the ideal setup. Importantly, the market is large and the strategy gives us the flexibility to continuously prioritize and select portfolios that fit our setup and meet our return requirements. I would also like to emphasize that such a solid setup places us in a strong position to consider larger opportunities as they arise in the market. Our strong shareholder base has high level of confidence in our strategy and will be supportive if value-accretive opportunities should arise. In this presentation, we launched our new financial targets for '26 to '28. As we have consistently communicated, our ambition is to deliver sustainable growth combined with strong returns. These new targets clearly demonstrate that B2 Impact will continue to deliver on this ambition. I'm pleased to announce our achievements well ahead of our communicated targets. 17% cash collections growth with a flat OpEx due to increased automation and other cost reductions. A strong collection over-performance of 110% supports a conservative ERC. Very strong investment activity with NOK 3.7 billion invested and already NOK 1.2 billion committed for 2026. Earnings per share growth of 57% makes a dividend for 2025 of NOK 1.9. Our strong investment performance ensures attractive returns going forward. Despite the large REO sales in 2025, B2 Impact's Estimated Remaining Collections, ERC, continued to develop positively from NOK 25.5 billion to NOK 28.8 billion. With our consistent over-performance in collection, we expect further positive revaluations going forward. In Q2, we stated that we were confident actual ERC exceeds NOK 30 billion. I can assure you it's substantially higher. Despite positive revaluations in previous quarters, our collection performance remains strong. Thanks to strict cost discipline and the increasing use of automation and self-service channels, the number of FTEs is trending down, while collection per employee continue to trend up. This positive trend is expected to continue as 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. This slide illustrates our clear focus on shareholder distributions, combined with a disciplined approach to credit risk. Looking first at dividends per share, you can see a strong and consistent upward trend over time. After a period of lower distributions during the pandemic years, dividends have increased materially from 2023 and made possible by the change in our dividend covenants due to our solid financial performance. This reflects improved earnings capacity, stronger capital generation and increased balance sheet flexibility. It's also worth highlighting that during the period '21 to '24, we executed a share buyback of 42 million shares at NOK 7.95, further creating shareholder returns. As we move into the 2026 to 2028 period, our financial target clearly support continued distributions. We are targeting earnings per share growth at least 30% over the period, return on equity above 16% within the period and a leverage ratio below 2.5, while targeting total investments above NOK 10 billion. Based on these targets and our capital allocation priorities, we expect total dividends of approximately NOK 9 per share for the period '25 to '28. This is a clear demonstration of how strong earnings growth, disciplined risk management and capital efficiency translate directly into attractive and sustainable returns for our shareholders. I will then hand over to our CFO, Andre, for more flavor.

Thank you, Trond Kristian, and good morning to everyone listening in, including many of our colleagues across Europe. So we are pleased to report that the earnings per share growth is developing strongly and supported by clear sustainable value drivers across the business. In 2025, these value drivers have continued to materialize and provide a solid foundation for further EPS growth. I want to briefly walk you through the key drivers behind the underlying 57% growth in EPS for 2025 to provide a clear picture of the operational progress that sits behind this earnings delivery and why these drivers will continue to support our long-term financial targets. First, we continue to deliver double-digit growth in unsecured collections, up 12% for the full year. This is made possible through disciplined investment approach and focusing our investments in fewer markets. The return on investments made over the last years have been highly accretive to our back book and one of the most important value drivers for EPS growth. Secondly, our collection performance has improved throughout the year, and the uplift in performance continues to be an important contributor to EPS value creation. The strong collection performance is also reflected in positive revaluations, but for the full year of 2025, slightly lower than in 2024. Thirdly, our cost base is becoming increasingly scalable. Cost scalability is something the group has spent many years improving from more manual tasks to a higher degree of automation and use of technology. In the near term, further cost reductions and scalability mean the gross IRR is effectively the net IRR impact on the P&L, supporting stronger earnings conversion from new investments. This has had a considerable impact positive on our EPS growth and will support our long-term financial targets. And of course, we have achieved significant reduction in interest cost, strengthening both the earnings growth and our competitive position. To sum up, the growth in unsecured collection, combined with incremental increase in collection performance will be a key driver for EPS growth in our updated financial targets, supported also by increasingly scalable cost base and a strong funding position with only marginal increase in interest cost for new investments. Moving to the full year '25 highlights. We have delivered strong cash flow throughout 2025 and a significant EPS growth, as already touched upon. This is supported by strong unsecured collection performance above 110%, with growth in collection for the full year of 12% and unsecured ERC up by close to 20%. In terms of collections in the quarter, I want to highlight that we had a one-off positive putback of NOK 64 million impacting reported collections with a corresponding revaluation of NOK 64 million. The impact on reported revenue and profit is consequently neutral, and we have excluded this putback from the collection figures in the presentation in order to focus on underlying growth. The cash is expected during the first half of 2026. Operational automation and efficiency remain a key priority throughout the organization. Operating expenses was flat during 2025 with 17% growth in cash collections, demonstrating the cash -- sorry, the cost scalability value driver from the previous slide. We also saw a positive trend in the fourth quarter with operating expenses down 3% compared to the same quarter last year. Cash EBITDA growth of 16% in the quarter and 22% for the full year was driven by unsecured collection growth and the strong REO sales of NOK 681 million, well within the guided range of NOK 600 million to NOK 800 million for the full year. We have taken advantage of the strong cash flow in 2025 and accelerated the investment level to support continued EPS growth while maintaining a leverage of 2.1. We have also committed investments for 2026 year-to-date of NOK 1.2 billion. Finally, the Board proposes a dividend for 2025 of NOK 1.9 per share. This reflects a 100% payout ratio of the adjusted net profit, in line with our unique dividend covenant where we are able to combine high payouts and low leverage. Moving to further details on collection performance. Again, unsecured collections were up 12% for the full year and unsecured performance remained above 110%, a strong and consistent trend in over-performance despite positive revaluations. January has started very solid as well, trending above the collection performance in the same period last year. We delivered strong secured cash collections as well throughout 2025 of NOK 1.26 billion, including the REO sales of NOK 681 million, compared to NOK 330 million of sales last year. Following strong sales activity, the REO book value is now down by 30%, reflecting continued progress in monetizing the REO book and reinvesting mainly in unsecured portfolios. Moving to Page 11 and some cash flow details for the year. Cash earnings came in at NOK 383 million. This is after paid investments, interest costs and tax, demonstrating our ability to grow the business without issuing new debt. We are currently in a unique position where our operating cash flow is supporting double-digit collection growth, ERC growth in unsecured of close to 20%, attractive dividends while maintaining a leverage ratio of 2.1. Turning to cost development. Our cost actions and automation initiatives continue to come through in the financials. Operating expenses in the quarter was down 3%. And the last 12-month costs were down 0.5% with the last 12-month cash revenues up 8%. The underlying operating expense ratio is consequently trending down, supporting profitable growth as we grow collections. Turning to investments and ERC development. Investments in the quarter came in at almost NOK 1.7 billion and NOK 3.7 billion for the full year. Geographical split has been well diversified in the quarter. Almost 90% of investments were one-offs in the quarter, reflecting a seasonal active period for larger transactions. We also have a strong base of forward flow agreements, making up around 90% of the NOK 1.2 billion already committed for 2026. We do see an active market already in a seasonally slow Q1 with some solid transactions signed already. Total ERC is up 15%, driven by growth in unsecured ERC of 19%. Unsecured now make up more than 90% of the estimated remaining collections with REOs down to only 3%. I would also like to reiterate what Trond Kristian said regarding ERC earlier. With the consistent over-performance we see in unsecured, we expect positive revaluations to reflect an ERC well above NOK 30 billion. On funding and liquidity, we have completed a bond tap in January this year of EUR 200 million in the '31 maturity, combined with a buyback of EUR 150 million in the '29 maturity. The tap was done above par, indicating a margin of 3.22%. Hedging ratio currently stands around 70% with more than 2.5 years of duration. And we hold a liquidity reserve of approximately EUR 400 million in addition to operational cash flow. We consequently have ample liquidity to grow investments, utilizing the RCF with a low marginal increase in interest cost for new investments. So coming back to the updated long-term financial targets for 2026 to 2028. I will add some more details and guidance to what Trond Kristian already shared. We target an EPS growth of at least 30% in the period or above 10% per year, utilizing the key value drivers described on Slide 8. We target a return on equity above 16%. We target investments above NOK 10 billion for the period or an annual investment level of approximately NOK 3.5 billion. We also continue to target a leverage below 2.5 to facilitate attractive dividends. As an additional guidance, we also expect annual portfolio revaluations, as also guided in previous quarters, to be on an annual level of NOK 150 million to NOK 200 million in the coming 3 years. Now this target reflects a unique combination of sustainable growth, attractive direct return through dividends, solid return on equity despite a high equity ratio and low credit risk. I also want to highlight that not reflected in this target is the possibility to be -- to opportunistically consider larger acquisitions of back books or targeted M&A, similar to the acquisition of the Nordic back book from Zolva back in 2024.

Thank you, Andre. Some key takeaways. We trust this presentation has highlighted our unique position. We are confident in our ability to deliver continued attractive and increasing shareholder returns while remaining well positioned to capture opportunities in the market. Over the period through '28, we plan to distribute approximately NOK 9 per share in dividends. After a great year, I would also like to express my gratitude to all B2 Impact employees for their strong contribution to our excellent results. Thank you. And then we move to the Q&A.

[Operator Instructions].

Thank you, AI, and thank you Trond Kristian and Andre for a very good walk-through of the Q4 presentation. For the first time, we actually have no questions live. So -- and there are very -- just very few questions in the activity feed. That's probably a good sign that the presentation was all clear. So we actually have one question from Jakov Semaskevic from SB1 Markets. First question is what profitability metrics, e.g. money multiples or net, gross IRR are you currently observing on new investments?

I think we've made it clear that we don't communicate the return levels and multiples. But I think you can clearly see from the growth in ERC in the fourth quarter compared to the growth in book value that the multiple on new investments have been very accretive.

Second question here, which I know you're not a huge fan of answering either, but maybe you can give a more high-level response. Could you share your NPL cost to collect and how it vary across geographies?

I think the clear answer to that is no, we cannot share country-by-country cost to collect. And since you mentioned it, Rasmus, cost to collect is not my favorite metric. We focus on the total cost. We always focus on reducing costs and optimizing the cost base in an absolute -- from an absolute cost perspective. So -- and I think it's also quite important to note that the cost base has changed materially in B2 over the last 5 years from a lot more manual work, which is more direct collection costs to more technology and automated processes, which, yes, has a more fixed nature, but it's significantly more scalable than the cost base we had some years back.

Very good. Thank you. And a question here from private investor, [ John Beveridge ]. I guess this one is also tricky to answer, but I can still pose the question. Are you currently working on any M&A targets or back book purchases?

We are always screening and we are always monitoring the market. And we will always look into attractive deals, but to comment on more concrete than that, it's nothing we will do.

That was actually all from the Q&A. Thank you to everyone for joining this Q4 presentation. We hope to see you back on the 21st of May when we present our Q1 '26 numbers.