CapMan Oyj (CAPMAN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and welcome to this presentation of CapMan's Full Year Results 2025. Presenting today, we have Pia Kall, CEO of CapMan. And after the presentation, we will have a Q&A session, and you are welcome to send in questions at any time using the webcast link. So please, Pia, handing over to you.

Thank you, Charlotte, and welcome all to the financial results for 2025. CapMan had a very strong year in 2025. We reached new record levels on all key financial metrics. Our assets under management are for the first time above EUR 7 billion and also fee income and fee profit at new record levels. In assets under management, we had a 19% growth during last year, up to EUR 7.2 billion. We took in gross EUR 1.5 billion of new capital, EUR 600 million through our acquisition, EUR 900 million of new raised capital, but with good exits, the net growth then EUR 1.1 billion, but a strong 19% growth. Revenue at EUR 63 million, a 9% growth from last year. Looking at the recurring fee income, an 11% growth, so we had a stronger growth. Comparable EBIT, up 36% to EUR 25.8 million. It's driven by fee profit growth and strong fair value development in our investments. During 2025, we also took significant steps in our strategy implementation and strengthened our focus on real asset investments. In the first quarter of the year, our Hotels II fund doubled in size with the acquisition of Midstar's portfolio, raised an additional EUR 400 million of AUM to the fund. At the end of Q2, early Q3, we completed the partnership and acquisition of CAERUS Investments, a German real estate debt manager, one of the pioneers in the industry. And with this partnership, we also established Real Asset Debt as a new investment area for CapMan, further strengthening our focus on real assets. At the end of the year, in Q4, we had the first close in Natural Capital's flagship fund, European Forest Fund IV, which continues fundraising, aiming to reach a larger size than the predecessor. And with a strong year behind us, the Board proposal for the Annual General Meeting is a dividend of EUR 0.12 per share for 2025. Our vision remains to become the most responsible private asset company in the Nordics. And with the investments we do and the value creation in those assets that we do, we are building the society that we want to see in the future. As a responsible owner and investor, our reach in the society is broad. At the end of the year, EUR 5.7 billion of the assets that we manage are in real assets. It's a 30% growth compared to a year ago. And it spans real estate, where we have 258 properties in our funds, developing human-centric sustainable real estate. 10 portfolio companies in infra spanning energy, transportation and telecom sectors and a 240,000 hectare portfolio of forest in Natural Capital across 8 European countries. In Real Asset Debt, we are the lender to real estate owners covering 210 properties. Within private equity and wealth, we are supporting small, midsized companies in their growth journeys, a portfolio of 35 portfolio companies with some 10,000 employees. The value drivers in our business is fee profit and carried interest from our fund management, asset management business and investment returns from our balance sheet investments, primarily invested in our own funds supporting growth of the asset management business. And when we look at last year through these value drivers, fee profit at EUR 7.4 million, 6% growth compared to the previous year. Carry at EUR 3 million, somewhat down from the previous year. But here, we have large fluctuations between the years depending on when exits take place. And on the balance sheet investments, investment returns returning to normal levels. Our own funds, fair value uplift above 10% last year and in total, an 8.6% uplift as the external funds somehow -- somewhat weighted it down. Fair values of our investment portfolio at EUR 179 million at the end of the year. Looking at fee income and fee profitability. We have an 11% growth in fee income. Here, it's good to note that in '24, we had quite significant onetime retroactive fees when we had final closings in funds, something that we did not have in 2025. So if we only would compare really recurring fee income, our fee income growth would be in line with our AUM growth. Looking at fee profit, 6% growth, we have the same mechanism here that we had no retroactive fees supporting fee profit in 2025. And if we look at the underlying scalability, our operational expenses remained at the same level as in '24, except for the addition of CAERUS and the Midstar organization then transferred to us. So very strong cost control and looking at the recurring numbers, very strong scalability that will continue to come through in the numbers. In our balance sheet, we had at the end of the year, a portfolio of EUR 179 million fair value of a well-diversified portfolio in private assets. At the end of the year, remaining commitments or undrawn commitments to these fund investments, EUR 58 million, it's an unusually low number, and it will continue to increase when we reach first closes in our ongoing fundraisings and make commitments into those funds. When we look at '25, we had a positive cash flow from our fund investments, driven by good exits and secondary sales. And when we look ahead, this is a trend we expect to continue. So strong positive cash flow from our fund investments over the years when the current portfolio matures and exits realize. Looking at the fair value changes of this portfolio, all of our investment areas generated positive fair values during last year, specifically private equity and real estate being strong. And our own fund investments had a fair value uplift of 10.2%. External funds somewhat lower and leading to a total of 8.6% or EUR 15.5 million in positive fair value changes. It is a doubling compared to the previous year. Adding then up our EBIT components, we reached a comparable EBIT of EUR 25.8 million. It's a 36% growth compared to the previous year, and it is really fee profit growth and the doubling in fair value changes that is driving this EBIT growth. Our balance sheet remains strong. We have an equity ratio of close to 58%, cash and other short-term financial assets at EUR 65 million and in addition, undrawn credit limit of some EUR 20 million. This balance sheet gives us the opportunity to continue to implement our growth strategy, support the growth of our asset management business also in this continued uncertain market environment. And when we look at the market, there are no drastic changes in the short term. We are moving in the right direction, but it's still too early to say that the market would properly have turned. Fundraising times have shortened during last year compared to the very long extended fundraising processes the earlier 2 years. Transaction market is activating, but again, too early to say if the levels are really sustainable and they would still need to improve before we could properly say that the fundraising market has turned. At the same time, when we take a midterm or long-term view, the segment we are focusing on, so real asset-focused private market funds have a very attractive growth outlook with a double-digit growth expected in assets under management in the market overall. The general market sentiment continues to be uncertain with higher inflation, higher interest rate expected and geopolitics driving volatility. While it creates uncertainty, it's also in certain ways favoring private market real asset funds. Investors looking for diversification there. The private assets are a good sort of diversification and looking for less volatility, asset-backed investments where you have more controllable outcomes, controllable cash flows are also attractive. And against that backdrop, we continue to implement our growth strategy. In 2025, we took significant steps towards our objectives on gross level, adding EUR 1.5 billion of assets under management towards our target of EUR 10 billion and also significant steps across our CapMan WINS strategic programs. Looking at the assets under management development, 2025 was the second year in a row where we had close to 20% growth year-on-year. During last year, we added EUR 1.5 billion of new assets under management, EUR 600 million of that through our partnership with CAERUS, adding Real Asset Debt to our investment portfolio and EUR 900 million of new capital raised during the year, primarily into our open-ended real estate funds, Midstars and the Hotel II transaction there being the clearly largest one, but also the other open-ended funds and mandates taking in capital. In addition, we had the first close in our European Forest Fund IV fund in December and also our Wealth segment grew strongly last year. With good exits and distributing more than EUR 300 million to our investors, the net growth then EUR 1.1 billion, taking us to EUR 7.2 billion at the end of the year. Looking ahead for 2026 and 2027, we have several fundraisings ongoing, flagships across our investment areas. Within Infra, we are preparing to launch the Infrastructure III fund during 2026. In Real Asset Debt, fundraising for CAERUS VIII fund is continuing, and we're also looking at opportunities and exploring the market for Infra-related debt investments. Within Natural Capital, the Forest Fund IV fundraising continues after the successful first close end of last year. And in Nordic Real Estate IV, at the beginning of the year, we have secured the option for the first investment into the fund as a seed investment, supporting fundraising that's ongoing in that fund. For all of these funds, we are looking to raise larger fund size than the predecessor funds. In addition, the open-ended real estate funds continue to be attractive, and we expect to take in capital also in those during the year as we have done throughout the previous years. Within private equity and wealth, we have Nest and Special Situations raising their next funds. And when we look more into 2027, it starts to be relevant also for growth to come out with their fourth fund. Within wealth, continue with the investment partners programs, but also their continuously growing product portfolio. So a lot of activity and succeeding with these will take us to our strategic objective in assets under management. If you look at the assets we manage and the new capital we take in, at the moment, we have some 55% of our assets under management coming from outside of the Nordics, specifically Central Europe and to some extent, North America. When we look at the EUR 900 million that we raised during last year, it is a very broad mix where you have close to 40% coming from Central Europe, outside of the Nordics, a very strong intake from Sweden, especially for our real estate side and some 20% from our Finnish investors. Taking another cut at the same numbers, we can also see that 60% of the capital we raised come from new investors to CapMan. So we are continuing to broaden our investor base. This is also the result of very long-term work to build the relationships, which is now bearing fruit. So 60% coming from totally new investors to us and then cross-selling existing investors in one product, also investing in another strategy, some 20% and re-ups at 20% out of the total. Still good to note that when we look at individual funds, the re-up rates are clearly high, somewhere around 70%, 80% normally. But out of the total mix, 20% last year. When it comes to value creation in our funds, continued strong across all investment areas with good value uplift across funds. Also transaction activity got back to more normal levels, active levels. In total, during last year, 10 new platform investments spanning across especially real estate, where the Nordic real estate markets are offering really attractive opportunities at the moment. So 7 investments out of 10 across our real estate funds. In addition then on the private equity side, Special Situations, Nest and Growth making new investments in their latest funds. Exit activity, even more active, 15 exits completed last year and across the board with very strong stellar returns. Here, we have private equity being especially active with buyout exiting in total 5 companies, but also Growth and Nest making exits from their portfolio. Then several good, really strong exits from real estate and likewise, from the Natural Capital side. In Natural Capital, 3 different portfolios from Portugal, Latvia, Lithuania exited during last year. Sustainability work continues hand-in-hand with the financial value creation. Here, a lot of the data concerning 2025 is still being collected from our portfolio companies and assets. But one highlight already now is the progress on climate, where during last year, real estate validated their net zero targets and also achieved significant reductions in greenhouse gas emission intensity across their properties, 56% down and 80% down in their commercial and residential portfolio, respectively. When it comes to private equity and infra, so the share of portfolio companies with their own science-based emission reduction targets in place grew to 21% of the portfolio from 8% at the beginning of the year. And the sustainability work also showing in international benchmarks where the GRESB results for last year, we have across the board, improved our ratings in our funds, and we now have 5 funds with a full 5-star rating and no fund below 4. It's a significant step-up from '22 where the best rating we had was 3 stars and also less funds being rated back then. None of this would obviously be possible without the fantastic professionals we have at CapMan. And I'm very happy to see that we continue with a very strong employee satisfaction and inclusion index, eNPS last year at 51 and inclusion index at 81, both above our target levels. And here, obviously, the heavy lifting and the big thank you also goes to the management group, but also all of the team leaders in our organization for keeping the best people, developing them and together making great results. Looking at our long-term financial objectives. We have an objective to grow average annual growth of above 15%. Last year, 11% achieved. But here, looking at the underlying recurring revenue growth, clearly higher. Return on equity above 20%, last year landed at 9%. Equity ratio above 50%, and we were at 58% at the end of the year. Our distribution policy is to pay sustainable distributions that grow over time, pay more than 70% of the result, excluding fair value changes. And then when we see that we have excess cash in the balance sheet that we don't need for foreseeable growth initiatives and growing the overall business, we can also distribute that. The Board of Directors proposed to the Annual General Meeting that the dividend for 2025 is EUR 0.12 per share. When it comes to our outlook for 2026, given the nature of our business, there are a lot of external factors that impact exactly the timing of some -- when we can record some result items like fair value changes or carried interest. And given that what we give an outlook for is the growth of assets under management, where we expect them to continue to grow compared to last year and fee profit that is also expected to grow in 2026. Thank you.

Thank you, Pia. [ We also welcome Atte Rissanen, CFO, to the stage ]. So let's start with our questions.

Sauli from Inderes. About the natural capital for first close, can you give us the number?

We are not disclosing the exact number, but let's put it this way that the size is such that the fund can start to implement its strategy of making significant industrial size investments in the market.

Okay. Then about the real estate AUM, it grew some EUR 200 million in Q4. How much of that was net sales to the open-end vehicles and how much was like just value uplifts?

Majority is new.

Yes, majority is, I say that more than 90% is new intake. It's practically all.

Okay. And that goes to open-ended vehicles, right, social...

Open-ended and mandates, yes.

Yes. Okay. Then your AUM went down basically in all other lines that was due to the exits, right, mostly?

Yes.

Then about the real estate for -- do we have -- in the time line, you show that the final close would be in end of '26. Is that really valid considering the fact that you haven't done first close?

Well, usually, the funds are open 12 months from first close. So -- and we are obviously working towards the first close in the fund.

When should we expect the first close?

We are not giving a more exact time line than it's going on. But what happened there in the beginning of the year is that we have secured the option to make the first investment into the fund, and that is secured. And obviously, having a seed deal in the fund is something that is strongly supporting fundraising.

Okay. Talking about seed investments in the Dasos, you made EUR 10 million commitment for the fourth fund. Is that your total ticket to that fund?

For the time being, yes.

Should we look at that as a proxy when you are making other flagship investments?

It's not a proxy, but yes, it can be used as a generalization of those kinds of flagship strategies.

Yes. Just trying to get a grasp like how much you actually need to invest in the 5 years ago in the previous large vintage, you made some hefty investments there. So EUR 10 million is like peanuts comparing to those numbers, so...

It very much depends on the situation and also how we see that we can tactically utilize our balance sheet to facilitate, support the fundraising.

Can you talk more about the infrastructure debt option, so to speak?

That is exactly that. It's an option. So the core of CAERUS is real estate debt, and that's also where the VIII fund is being raised. But we are ongoingly exploring the option to expand it into infra debt, which will be a very natural expansion given our setup and for Real Asset Debt in general. So it's a combination of market opportunity, investor appetite and the right capabilities, getting them into the team.

And that -- just to make sure that would be for the Central European market?

That would be primarily for the Central Europe or European strategies. With the debt strategies, they tend to be more European than specific into certain -- just a couple of countries.

What about -- on the same topic, what about the real estate debt in the Nordics when you bought CAERUS, you floated the idea that it could be interesting to bring that asset class to the Nordics. Have you moved further with those thoughts?

So the mandate CAERUS has at the moment in their current funds is actually including also the Nordics. So what has happened since we joined up with CAERUS is that their deal flow has significantly increased in the market and also, of course, their ability to assess the Nordic opportunities with local teams, local understanding of the market here is significantly better. So it is definitely part of the scope.

Okay. And then finally, about the management fees in Q4, they were really high, where there's something special like one-offs or something? Or is that like should we look at that as a run rate figure?

That's a very good proxy for the run rate figure. I mean there's always some items that may fluctuate quarter-to-quarter, for example, based on acquisition-related fees or these types of, but nothing that would sort of tilt the picture in the same sense as, for example, a retroactive closing or not in the same magnitude.

So should we like maybe more use second half as a proxy since CAERUS is...

It's always better to use a longer time period than just a single quarter when it comes to our business.

It's Patrick Campbell from Nordea. Just going back to the high management fee in the quarter and perhaps the somewhat soft fee profit in the quarter, were there any noticeable cost items apart from bonuses that should not be extrapolated into the future?

I mean, well, you're correct in looking at the fee profit, but actually in Q4 versus Q4 last year, fee profit improved and fee profit margin also improved in Q4. But yes, I mean, in addition to bonuses, other operating expenses, there's always some variability between the quarters. But otherwise, if you look at the personnel expenses, take out the carry-linked bonuses as well as the other items impacting comparability, you should be pretty on a solid level.

All right. And then just going back to the presentation, you mentioned uncertainty. My question relates to that. So what is the current investor sentiment in the market? And are investors still cautious in regards to taking on more risk?

So I would say there's no drastic changes in the market sentiment from the end of the year. So it's clearly easing up and investors are looking to commit more capital than maybe in the past 2 years, but it's still too early to say that we will be back in a very strong fundraising market. So exit activity has picked up, distributions have picked up, but we need to see a longer track of that, I think, in the market before we can actually say that fundraisings and commitments are fully back. But in general, I would say the sentiment starts to be more positive. There's a lot of good ongoing discussions. Investors are clearly looking to allocate throughout the year now.

I could still continue on the cost. So just to make sure that I understand this correctly. So you booked the carry on the P&L, it's give or take, EUR 4 million and then you are talking about net carry, which is like EUR 3 million. So the delta there that, give or take, EUR 1 million, it's run through the P&L on the personnel expenses basis.

Yes, those are carry-linked bonuses and those are separated there in the -- when we present the APMs in the report.

Yes. Just out of curiosity, like usually, the carry-linked bonuses, they run off P&L. Why is this like some historical thing? Or this is all vintage, obviously?

This is mainly related to Kokoelmakeskus carry booked in Q4. And this is from -- in terms of CapMan in atypical arrangement, but one should take into account that CAERUS has basically all of the carried interest that is paid out to the investment team via the P&L. So that is a line item you will continue to see in the future as well.

And you continue to report the net carry, obviously?

Net carry, yes, because it is basically linked to the carry and not the fixed personnel expenses or related to the fee profit.

Okay. That's helpful. Then about the costs. Obviously, in the first half of '26, there will be some like year-on-year uplift due to the fact that you made the -- you did the Midstar and the CAERUS, of course. But looking at the H2 next year, what kind of cost pressure are you seeing like -- or you can look at the whole '26 just exclude the CAERUS and Midstar?

I wouldn't say that cost pressure right now is a similar type of topic that it's been maybe during the past couple of years. Of course, there's always cost pressure, but I think we're maintaining good cost control and look to do so in the future.

Do you expect your personnel level to stay flattish in '26?

I mean, yes, we are expecting that the scalability of our operations will improve going forward. And yes, that if there won't be any inorganic moves, then the organic growth of the personnel is -- well, should be quite moderate.

Then finally, what was the number of the employees at the end of '25? You reported average, but I mean the average is due to the structural changes, it's -- I guess it's not the right one to use here.

230, I think, is roughly the right number at the end of the year.

Okay. Thank you. Then we move over to questions from our online audience. So we still have some troubled open-ended real estate market in Finland. Are you seeing this potentially creating opportunities for you?

Definitely, we are looking -- I mean, there are opportunities in the market now, both might be because of that, some funds being in trouble. But in general, the markets are very attractive at the moment with valuations that have stabilized, and we also see strong value creation potential going forward. So we are definitely -- like you saw from last year as well, with 7 new investments across the real estate portfolio, we are definitely active on the investment side.

And you have successfully exited buyout targets. Do you need to activate also in Infra exits before launching the next fund?

The launch of the next fund is not dependent on exits in Infra. They have a very good track record. They have exits also in the past. But there are companies that are nearing maturity, and we will most likely see some exits over the coming months and 12 months.

And a question also regarding real estate. Could you provide any indication update on the ongoing real estate for fundraising? Is the first close for the fund realistic during first half?

So like we already answered in one of the questions. So the fundraising is ongoing, and we are definitely targeting a first close this year. We are moving closer to it as we also have secured the first -- the option for the first investment into the fund now in the beginning of the year. So active dialogues there with the investors.

And then a question regarding dividend. Why is the dividend down, not in line with the communicated strategy?

The proposed dividend of EUR 0.12 per share is actually exactly following our dividend policy. So what the policy says is sustainable dividends that grow over time, but not the year-on-year growth as such. What it is, is -- what we're looking at is distributing at least or more than 70% of the profits, excluding fair value changes. And then we're looking at our investment operations and what the need is going forward to support growth and create good returns in our investment portfolio and where we see excess cash possibility to distribute, that's what we distribute to shareholders. And the EUR 0.12 is a total consideration of this that the Board landed at.

Thank you. Any more questions in the room?

Yes. Sauli from Inderes. About the -- your own fund investments, are you expecting it to go up during the -- let's say, during this fundraising cycle? We are currently at EUR 180 million or so. Since obviously, you have some vintages, very large ones coming to exit mode. And at the same time, you need to make seed investments on the new ones.

It's slightly also depending on, of course, the investment performance, the underlying, if the fair values go up significantly, then that increases. But I'd say that the overall exposure should not be going up. Also, there's a significant part of external fund investments that are not part of the strategy. Those will be or should be over time, of course, decreasing. But -- and there is no similar type of EUR 30 million oversized commitments, which were made back in 2017 that play a large part right now in the balance sheet. So it is, of course, very difficult to say how fair values will develop during future years, but it's not in the plans to increase the size of the fund investments.

Yes. So if we look at the cash flow basis, then it's definitely -- cash flow basis should be definitely negative since it excludes the fair value. I mean, investments in...

Yes. So cash flow to CapMan should be definitely positive, yes, yes, yes.

And if I understood correctly, if I look further than just this fundraising cycle, let's throw the ball at the end of the decade or so, the fund investments should be clearly lower than right now since obviously, the old like the legacy Norvestia stuff is clean from the balance sheet, so to speak, and then the large vintages which you mentioned are on the books, right?

That starts to be a pretty long time horizon to guesstimate.

But yes, the relative share will decrease.

And a question here. The management fee had a significant step up from Q3. Could you provide color on what was driving this?

I think we covered it in very much real estate funds.

Real estate and also CAERUS was contributing to that.

Okay. Then we don't have any more questions. So we thank you very much for today. I wish everyone a nice day. Thank you.

Thank you.