Borgestad ASA (H460.F) Q3 FY2025 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

[Technical Difficulty] With me, I have CEO of Borgestad, Pal Feen Larsen and CEO of Hoganas Borgestad, Bendik Andersen. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that if they want to ask questions, they can use the chat function in the webcast. So I will hand it over to you, Pal.

Thank you, [indiscernible]. It's a pleasure to be here. Third quarter is historically the best quarter for Borgestad due to the high season within maintenance and service business, within Hoganas Borgestad. So is also the fact this year, third quarter is the best quarter and will be the best quarter in 2025. Borgestad Group reports a year-to-date adjusted profit before tax at NOK 49 million. It's a decrease from 2024, but the decrease is due to a slower start of the year for Hoganas Borgestad, mainly first quarter was materially weaker. While it's important to highlight that third quarter was performing better than last year for Hoganas Borgestad Group and Borgestad ASA Group. Hoganas Borgestad delivered an EBIT margin of 15% in third quarter 2025, up from 13.5% in third quarter '24. This is a solid performance of Hoganas Borgestad Group. Our shopping center, Agora Bytom also maintained its positive momentum, posting an EBITDA of NOK 10.3 million, the same EBITDA result as Q3 previous year. Overall, the momentum has been good for Borgestad Group the last years, and the group expects the momentum and good results to continue further into the future. Before going into details, we will start with brief introduction to Borgestad. For those who are not familiar with who we are and what we do, Borgestad is a company with a lot of history with industrial and shipping routes dating back to early 1900s. Over the years, we have now evolved into an industrial company currently investing in commercial real estate and refractory business. Our current main priority is to improve and maximize the value of existing holdings. But looking ahead, we aim to take positions in niche segments with consolidation potential where we see that we can make a difference. We operate as active owners, meaning that we work closely with our investments and support our portfolio companies to drive operational improvements. A key part of our strategy is leveraging the network and expertise of our Board of Directors to identify and capitalize on new opportunities. Our current portfolio consists of the 2 key assets, Agora Bytom, a fully owned shopping center based in Bytom in Poland and the refractory supplier, Hoganas Borgestad, in which we hold a 69.7% shareholder stake. Agora Bytom is a modern shopping center located in the city center of Bytom in Poland. The center is a total of 52,000 square meter gross area with nearly 34,000 square meters of leasable space. With close to 5 million visitors annually, Agora holds a leading position in its primary catchments. Hoganas Borgestad is a manufacturer and supplier of high-quality refractory products, installation and services serving industries that rely on high temperature processes such as steel, cement, and pulp and paper. With a strong presence in Norway, Sweden and Finland, Hoganas Borgestad is the market leader in the Nordic region. Let's go into some details and start with Agora. Agora Bytom continued its positive trend with improvements driven by revenue growth. EBITDA increased from NOK 41.3 million in 2024 to NOK 43.5 million last 12 months end of September. Agora Bytom has a positive momentum on signing leases and as of today occupancy of 97% based on signed leases. As part of the increase in occupancy, also the total area for commercial square meters are increased by converting common area to leasable area. And for the latest signed leases, it's on plus 2 for those who are familiar with the center that we have been successful to increase the occupancy, and we recently signed a lease of 770 square meters on plus 2 with 1 tenant on very good commercial terms. The new signed tenants will open during first half of 2026 and will increase rental income for Agora Bytom going forward. Borgestad will forward focus on increasing rent levels by replacing tenants with too low rent levels with better performing commercial and terms -- tenants with better terms. As of September 30, debt stands at EUR 28.9 million in Agora Bytom, maintaining a sustainable financial position for the center. Tenant turnover at Agora Bytom increased by 3.7% in the third quarter compared to the same period in 2024. Number of visitors are stable in the period and last 12 months. This in total reflects a higher spending pattern among visitors contributing to improvement among tenant performance. Agora Bytom benefits from a diverse tenant base and a healthy weighted average lease -- unexpired lease term of about 4 years, ensuring low contract duration risk and high visibility for periods ahead. Lease expirations are well spread over time with the first due date for top 10 tenants in first quarter 2028. Local management is actively engaged in ongoing negotiations with both existing and potential new tenants for further strengthening the tenant mix and even the occupancy levels. With the occupancy level Agora Bytom has at the moment, it's challenging to fit in new leases in the puzzle of tenants. But with local management that is looking for optimization and is willing to benefit from a good standing and position in the leasing market, the potential to further optimize both occupancy but almost increase turnover and profitability is possible and expected. Each new lease is a bit more complicated, but our management will go the necessary rounds to complete it. Leave the word to you, Bendik.

Thank you, Pal. It's a pleasure to present the third quarter figures for Hoganas Borgestad, which was the best quarter in the history of the group despite somewhat lower revenue in the quarter, coming down from NOK 340 million to NOK 333 million from this year. We delivered an EBIT of NOK 49.6 million, up from NOK 46 million in the same quarter last year. This translates to a quarterly EBIT margin of almost 15%. Our subsidiaries in Norway and Finland are continuing to perform at a high level. And now we also see good signs of improvement in Sweden, where we have been struggling for a while. We, therefore, remain committed to our medium-term EBIT target of 10% for the group as a whole. As part of the actions to improve our profitability in Sweden, we made organizational changes in 2 of the subsidiaries effective from September 1. We are already starting to see the effects of the changes and building on this positive momentum, I generally believe that we will deliver good results going forward also in Sweden. The outlook for the remainder of '25 and also for '26 remains positive, supported by both our order backlog and the planned initiatives for improved profitability. As we have highlighted in previous presentations, the Nordic refractory market is highly seasonal with low activity through the winter and the activity then typically picks up through second quarter and peaks in third quarter when many of our customers are performing planned maintenance during and after the summer holiday. We partly mitigate the negative effects of this seasonality by relying on subcontractors and also temporary resources during the peak periods, which helps us control our fixed costs. After a weak start through 2025, especially in first quarter, activity improved in the second quarter as expected and continued through the third quarter. Although the revenue came in below third quarter's figures, as mentioned, cost-cutting measures and also the avoidance of less profitable projects helped improved our profitability, which resulted in an EBIT of NOK 49.6 million. If we look at our trailing 12 months performance, rolling 12 EBIT margin remained stable at 5.8%. And despite the fact that European and Nordic industry in general is in a low cyclical period where a lots of our customers are implementing strict cost-cutting measures, we are committed to continue delivering good quarters, focusing on our own operations and the things that we can affect. But of course, there is no doubt that the market conditions with both tariff uncertainty and a general high price sensitivity among customers makes it harder to perform well. But as a group, we know what we have to do in order to deliver customer value in an efficient way, which in turn will contribute positively to our profitability. And finally, there are no major updates on the previously announced new sale-leaseback agreement, but for any new followers, I will provide a brief summary. At the end of 2023, Hoganas Borgestad agreed to sell 2 properties in Bjuf in Sweden to the local municipality. We have an option to lease them back for up to 5 years while relocating our production. After a complaint about the sales price submitted by a local citizen, the Administrative Court in Malmo declines approval due to lack of insufficient -- lack of valuation documentation. The municipality appealed this decision in April this year, providing more supporting documentation. And in June, the court agreed to review the appeal. And this decision is expected by late '25 or early '26. And yesterday, we agreed with the municipality to prolong the long stop date through 2026. And we do expect the transaction to proceed and to be completed during 2026. But of course, we will provide any updates through stock exchange announcements.

Let's go into financials for the group and look at Borgestad Group as a whole. We start with the P&L. Revenue slightly decreased both in third quarter 2025 and year-to-date '25 compared to same periods in '24. EBIT increased in the third quarter compared to third quarter '24, even though the revenue decreased. And the EBIT increase is mainly only Hoganas Borgestad that is supporting that. For adjusted EBIT year-to-date, this decrease is expected due to slow first quarter 2025 compared to the same period 2024. Net financials improved by NOK 1.1 million in third quarter year-on-year due to lower interest rates in Sweden and Poland. Year-to-date, net financials are weaker due to the change of interest hedging in Agora Bytom after a change of hedging in first -- after first half of 2024. And from 1st of July 2024, the cost of interest hedging increased as a new agreement was introduced. And for those who are not familiar, 70% of the loan to Bank Pekao in Agora Bytom is hedged at any time. Looking at the balance sheet, the book value of the investment property decreased due to a stronger NOK against Euro. Working capital increased to NOK 352.1 million from NOK 334.8 million same date last year, mainly driven by increased trade receivables. For September 30, total interest-bearing debt stood at NOK 496.7 million. The property in view remains classified as held for sale pending the court decision as expected in the near future as Bendik communicated. Net cash flow from operating activities for the period was negative at NOK 63.4 million due to -- mainly due to high season. It's expected that inflow from high season will flow in during fourth quarter as high season is ending in the end of October, beginning of November. Cash flow from investment activities was negative with NOK 28.4 million, out of which NOK 16 million were related to the purchase of Emcothech AB that we announced end of June this year. Positive cash flow from Agora Bytom continues to be allocated to debt amortization in line with financial covenants. Per September 30, available liquidity stood at NOK 145.3 million, including NOK 26.3 million in undrawn credit facilities, meaning that Borgestad has a good cash situation for the group as a whole. Let's go into summary. Borgestad delivered strong financial results, both for third quarter 2025 and the year-to-date, driven by record high profits in Hoganas Borgestad in third quarter and continued improvement in both revenue and cost efficiency at Agora Bytom. Cash flow remained at a solid and net debt at a sustainable level. Borgestad expects the good development going to forward.

Okay. Let's move on to questions. So I would like to remind everyone that you can still ask questions using the web function. Okay. We have received a couple of questions here. How has the integration of Emcothech been developing? Any hiccups?

Yes. For new followers, we acquired Emcothech in June, as Pal mentioned, a small flue gas cleaning company in Sweden. And the integration is progressing as planned. The company performed well also in Q3 and we are in the process of integrating the operations together with the other subsidiary, Hoganas Borgestad Energi & Ugnsteknik. We're also looking into Finland for these 2 subsidiaries to working alongside also in the Finnish market where we haven't really had a presence in this flue gas cleaning market. So in overall, I would say that the integration is proceeding as planned without any hiccups.

How should we think about M&A going forward and maybe touch on divestments too?

Yes. In general, we are looking for and following what is on the market related to potential M&A at the refractory part, industrial part. But if we go into divestments, as we have communicated for a longer period, Borgestad is not a long-term owner of Agora Bytom. We have communicated that this asset will be sold in the future. But at the moment, we still believe that the -- we still review that, that the market is not as active as we want it to be for shopping centers in Poland.

Congrats on a strong result. Are you considering paying out dividends for '25 results?

Of course, we paid dividends for '24 financial year, first dividend since -- or for the last 12 years for Borgestad, that was a good time to pay it. But for '25, of course, that will be discussed depending on how fourth quarter will look. And of course, also if we have more information related to the sale-leaseback transaction.

And I guess this question is on the same topic. What is your main priorities when it comes to capital allocation?

When it comes to capital allocation from subsidiaries up to the Borgestad, we'll try to divest it or pay dividend as we did for '24. But of course, at the end of the day, that is a Board decision.

And then last question. What is your key focus areas to go from your current EBIT margin up to 10% EBIT margin target?

It varies a bit between companies. It's partly cost-cutting measures for at least one of the company -- two of the companies. We have already implemented cost-cutting measures, but we see further potential for cutting costs, operational costs. On the other hand, we are set up for doing more business, especially through Q1 and Q2. So that's -- the sales -- increased sales focus is also an important part of us turning this into a 10% business as the way we are set up with quite operational -- the high operational leverage. So it's both cost-cutting and sales improvements.

That concludes today's presentation. I would like to thank Pal and Bendik and everyone watching in.