Cibus Nordic Real Estate AB (publ) (CIBUS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to the Cibus Q1 2023 Report Presentation. [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to CEO, Sverker Källgården; and CFO, Pia-Lena Olofsson. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much. Once again, welcome to the Q1 2023 quarterly report by Cibus. Today's speakers, Sverker Källgården, the CEO; and with me today is Pia-Lena Olofsson, the Group CFO. Pia-Lena will take you through the numbers a bit more in detail later on. So please let's turn over to the significant events during the period. On March 17, we announced that further SEK 435 million had been hedged. This means that in terms of volume, the entire senior debt is now hedged and that the interest rate for bank loans, including the credit margin and derivatives can maximally amount up to 4.55% for the senior debt as a whole as of the 13th of September 2023 and through the first 6 months of 2025. Thereafter, the interest rate hedges will expire successively by 2027. And on the 23rd of March, we announced that we had implemented a directed share issue of around 8.8 million shares, raising around EUR 71 million. And the purpose with this is to use the proceeds to repay the September 2023 bond as well as other upcoming bonds and therefore, lower the interest expenses. We will also continue to invest in planned and value-creating ESG projects. The share issue was conditioned to approval on an AGM held on the 20th of April. Significant events after the end of the period. At the Annual General Meeting held on the 20th of April, the entire Board was reelected, and Patrick Gylling was also reelected as Chairman of the Board. And after the AGM, we held an extraordinary general meeting on the same day, which approved the directed share issue implemented on the 23rd of March. What is Cibus Nordic? Well, we are a real estate company focused on daily goods properties. 99% of our rents are linked to CPI development and over 90% of the leases are either net or triple net, meaning that the tenant bears a majority of the costs. Our sensitivity to the broader economic trends makes our operations more akin to infrastructure than to retail. And the infrastructure we provide together with our tenants are groceries to the population of the Nordic countries. This stability and the stability at our tenants has been proven both during the pandemic and now when there are more troubled times. Our tenants are doing extremely well, both in the pandemic and also now. We were listed in March 2018 and moved to the -- the mid-cap list in June 2021. At current, we have a clear Nordic focus, and we pay out monthly dividends to our shareholders. Current dividend is EUR 0.9 for the coming 12 months. And the story about Cibus is the story about diversification. Traditionally, these kind of assets were owned as either single assets or in small portfolios. And even though the tenants are super strong, owning 1 or 2 of these assets is a risk, you have a high risk concentration, if the tenant leaves, you lose all your cash flow. The weak negotiation position and the banks as well, so the bankability is low, which means it was a high risk but also a high-return business. What Cibus realized is that if you own more than 450 of these assets, you diversify the risk and lower the concentration. Only one of our assets stands for more than 1.5% of the combined NOI, which means that the concentration is super low. And when you own a lot of properties with a handful of tenants, you become an active cooperator instead of just a landlord. The banks realize this so the bankability is much higher, which means that you have lowered the risk but have the same return as for a single asset. We also set a part and other proofs why we are more keen infrastructure than retail is that we see a resilience towards e-commerce in the portfolio. We see a negligible negative effect when it comes to online trade of groceries. The share of online trade is around 4%, and a large share of that volume is click and collect from our stores. If you look worldwide, very few operators make profit on online food sales due to the low margins and the high cost of packaging and delivering good sell to the end consumer. On the other hand, we see a notable positive effect as our existing stores works at pickup points and the natural distribution network for other goods purchased online. Sustainability wise, Cibus are driven by the conviction that we and our decisions about our real estate portfolio can contribute to responsible social and environmental development. As we have a lot of net and triple net leases, we have to work together with our tenants. One example is solar panels on the top of our buildings on the roofs of our building. And today, around 10% of our building, 43 have solar panels. And we can see an increased interest from the tenants to buy more sustainable electricity from us going forward. And this is due to the volatile power markets, and we really look forward to start investing in these kind of ESG projects. We have a target of being carbon dioxide neutral in terms of scope 1 and 3 -- 1 to 3 by the year 2030. Looking at the shareholders list. On the last day of March, the largest shareholder was Länsförsäkringar Fonder, owning 6.5%, followed by Fjärde AP-fonden with 5.5%, AB Sagax, Vanguard, Avanza Pension, BlackRock and Marjan Dragicevic. In total, the 15 largest shareholders owned 43.8% of the company, and Cibus had 45,000 shareholders. Looking at the share price performance, we see an average daily volume of SEK 57 million, of which SEK 30 million is traded through NASDAQ and about 3,200 transactions a day. And the stock market unease and the turbulence experienced since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine as well as rising inflation and interest rate expectations have affected Cibus' share price. And the share price at the end of March was SEK 108.3. And today, around 9:30, we were trading at SEK 109.3. Then over to Pia-Lena for the financial overview.

Thank you. Here are some key figures for the first quarter. Rental income was EUR 29.7 million. Net operating income grew with 27% to EUR 27.6 million. Profit from property management was EUR 11.8 million and earnings after tax, EUR 2 million or EUR 0.03 per share. The lower earnings was due to the unrealized changes in property value of minus EUR 8.5 million for the quarter. If we go into more details, there are some items affecting comparability in the first quarter. Net financial income includes a redemption premium of minus EUR 173,000 and an exchange rate loss of minus EUR 1 million due to lower NOK and SEK compared to the Euro. Profit from property management, including the items affecting comparability and the exchange rate effect amount to EUR 13 million. Unrealized changes in property value was minus EUR 8.5 million and is due to increased yield requirements of about 10 basis points in the property portfolio. The effect was dampened somewhat by the increased rent levels due to indexation. The average yield requirement in the portfolio was 6.1% at the end of the first quarter. Our earnings capacity shows a net operating income of EUR 111.6 million, an increase of 9% on a 12-month basis, mainly indexation has increased the rate. The net financial expenses has increased significantly due to increased reference rates. The higher yield has also increased the cost of the hybrid bond. This has resulted in that profit from property management, plus expenses for the hybrid bond has decreased with minus 21% per share to EUR 1.05 per share, By looking at the net operating income in a comparable portfolio, you can see that the effect of indexation and other rent increases amount to 8%. If we look at our portfolio, we had 454 properties at the end of the first quarter with a property value of EUR 1.833 billion. Properties for the grocery and daily goods tenants contribute with 97% of our net operating income. These segments are countries. Finland is the largest market with 69% of NOI in the first quarter. Denmark, 14%; Sweden 13% and Norway, 4%. The countries contribute with fairly the same percentage of property value. Cibus strategy is to give its shareholders strong dividend on a monthly basis. The Annual General Meeting in April, decided on a dividend of a total of EUR 0.90 per share divided into 12 payments. The dividend yield on the closing share price of SEK 108.3 at the end of the quarter is 9.4%. Looking at the balance sheet, property value was EUR 1.833 billion. Secured debt, EUR 876 million, giving a loan-to-value on secured debt of 47.8%. Unsecured bonds amounted to EUR 244 million, giving a net loan-to-value of 59.8%. I taking the now completed share issue in consideration, the net loan-to-value proforma is 55.9%. And we aim to be in the lower part of the finance policy target. And this target will most certainly be lowered in the future. Our net asset value, EPRA NRV was EUR 698 million or EUR 14.4 per share. The share issue that was made 23rd of March and approved at the AGM in April, added 8.8 million shares, giving about EUR 71 million to Cibus. With the proceeds, we will buy back the September 2023 bond in June and buy back additional bonds on the market. By buying back the remaining of the September 2023 bond, we will lower the interest expenses with about EUR 4.7 million on an annual basis. The share issue and amortization will also impact key figures, such as net LTV and interest coverage ratio. As you also saw on the previous page, the net LTV will proforma decrease to 55.9%. Our average lease time was 4.8 years at the end of the first quarter, and it continues to be around 5 years, as you can see on the graph below. Regarding funding, 76% of our external funding is bank loans. They have a floating interest margin of 1.6% and an average loan maturity of 2.7 years. Cibus now hold interest rate hedges corresponding to 100% of the company's bank loans. The maximum interest rate, including costs of the caps for bank loans, once all the purchase interest rate hedges have been taken in effect in Q1 -- in Q3 2023 is 4.55%. Looking at the fixed infrastructure, now only 18% of total borrowings is exposed to a floating reference rate. Based on the earnings capacity, taking cap swaps and fixed rates in consideration, an increase of the interest rate with 1% would affect profit with about minus EUR 6.7 million, an increase with 2% would affect profit with about minus EUR 9.8 million.

Focus areas going forward. Well, of course, we are focused on buying back the September bond and also other bonds from the proceeds of the direct share issue. But we're also looking at ESG projects that will be value creative for the company when it comes to energy efficiency and also to become carbon dioxide neutral by 2030. And when the interest rate levels stabilizes, we look forward to continued growth in the Nordics, and we are also looking at new geographies. And last but not least, what are the primary reasons to invest in the Cibus share? Well, we produce a high and stable yield. Cibus have never lowered our dividend in euro per share from one quarter to the next. There is a potential for favorable value growth as 99% of our rents are CPI-linked, that will give a noticeable growth in our net operating income even without acquisitions. We pay out gradually rising monthly dividends. And we are also in a segment with long-term resilience and stability. The grocery and data goods sector has experienced stable noncyclical growth over time. And this has also, as I said, been proven during the pandemic, but also now in these troublesome times. That's about it for us. And if you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

The next question comes from Svante Krokfors from Nordea.

Perhaps a question. I mean your earnings capacity based EPS is obviously declining due to the interest rate development. Could you still elaborate a bit when you reset the dividend to 0.9% and intend to pay a growing dividend is -- how have you reasoned around the interest rate and the hedges? Should we now expect that given your hedges, you will be able to at least maintain the EUR 0.9 dividend.

Yes. I mean we have hedged the bank loans, so they cannot increase more than 4.55%. So we have hedged a large part of our interest rates. And as you say, the earnings per share is above the 0.90 that we're paying out. So we're still adding value to the company, to say.

And can you comment anything about bank's behavior? Has that changed during the last months when it comes to the bankability of your assets?

They're positive still to lend us money up to 50% LTV. And we're also having a discussion on perhaps topping up additional loans. So we have very good and constructive discussions with the banks. So no, we have not seen any more hesitation with the banks, they are very positive to see this business idea and see the stability in the business and that our tenants are performing really well.

And then on rent increases, have you run into any tough discussions there? Or do the tenants accept the CPI indexation?

They have paid all the CPI indexations this far, and we have no dramatical discussions at all. Of course, they are grocery companies. So they are never good times for them if you talk to them, but that's part of their business and of course, they complain about the rents, but they pay them and they have the ability to pay them as well.

And you haven't seen any kind of threatening from the tenants that they would relocate?

No. And the reason for that is that it's very, very hard to get zoning and the planning permission to build a new grocery stores. So it's a very, very sticky market.

And obviously, the rent would be considerably higher in the year.

Exactly. And if you look over time, the rents compared to sales have decreased as the grocery sector has grown more than CPI. That's -- and that's a fact, even now in these troublesome times. So the -- the cost of rents is decreasing when it comes to comparison with sales.

And could you elaborate a bit more on the caps on CPI indexations in Denmark?

Yes. Around 50% of our leases are capped and the caps are usually between 1 -- it's a floor and a ceiling on the CPI. It's usually between 1% and 3% or 2% and 4%. So 50% of the leases are capped at 3% or 4%. The rest is the rest of the Nordics.

Then on the transaction market. Have you seen any -- or how active is the market, I mean, to justify your valuation of 6.1%.

The market is not very active at all and that's in our sector as well as in many other sectors, people are waiting out to see the interest rates stabilize, so that they can price those acquisitions and, I guess, also bonds. So that's the problem now. We look forward to the market or the interest rates to stabilize at some kind of level so that we can start pricing again. But there are not much activity in the market. We have seen some smaller deals in Sweden and -- but these are off-market deals and they definitely justify the value we have at the moment.

And then Pia-Lena mentioned that you might change the LTV target. Would you like to elaborate a bit, obviously, 55% to 65% is -- you are at the low end of that range now, but what are your thoughts about that?

I mean, it depends on the cost of funding, so to say. In a lower interest environment, having a higher LTV was efficient and that we could grow fast and it was cost efficient and good for our shareholders. Now with the changed interest environment than we, of course, need to adapt. And that's why we are looking into lowering the target for Cibus.

Okay. We have an online question, what portion of your property valuation is internal versus external value in Q1? If 100%, what has driven the difference in property value between the Q4 and Q1? And we have externally -- external valuation on all our properties 4 times a year in each and every quarter. What has driven the 10 basis point general yield requirement change is, I guess, the uncertainty of the market. They are -- the valuators are conservative as well as Cibus are conservative. So we have discussions with the valuators and we never raise their valuation. So we have -- we have agreed with the valuators on the valuation for this quarter. So I guess, it's an uncertain market, and they want to be on the safe side, and we agree on that. We have no other online questions.

There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing remarks.

Okay. So thanks for listening in, and we hope to talk to you again in mid-July when we release the Q2 report. Thank you very much and bye.