CTF Services Limited (659) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining CTF Services Limited Financial Year 2026 Interim Results Analyst Briefing. I'm Silvia, the Head of Group Investor Relations. Today, our management will go through the financial and operational results for the period, giving you an update on our key -- 5 key business segments and also have further elaboration on our strategic initiative. There will be a Q&A session following the presentation. [Operator Instructions] Without further ado, may I now invite Executive Director, Group Co-CEO, Mr. Gilbert Ho; Executive Director, Group COFO, Mr. Jim Lam, to kick start the meeting. Thank you.

Thank you, Silvia. I first will give a brief introduction on our results, and then I will pass on to Jim to give the financial updates as well as some updates on our business operations. Okay. So first of all, on the first half results, I give some highlights. Overall, we have delivered a solid earnings with steady growth. Mainly on the Financial Services segment, we delivered a very strong growth. Later on, I will go through the numbers. It is -- remain as a core earnings driver for our company. We continue on our portfolio optimization by streamlining our stagnant assets to strengthen the financial flexibility and support growth initiatives in our financial segment as well as our Logistics segments. Throughout the period, we have successfully restored our public float to over 25% via the CB issuance and also the subsequent conversions, which enhanced the market liquidity of our stock. With the effect on the 9th of March, our re-inclusion into the Hang Seng Composite Index will make us eligible to go to the Stock Connect and will further enhance the company's investor outreach. On the portfolio optimization, we have done a number of acquisitions. First of all, we have completed the acquisitions of 13% in uSmart in November 2025. uSmart is a leading technology-driven financial service provider. We also announced the acquisitions of 65% in Blackhorn Group, which is an external asset manager. The acquisition is still pending the approval from the relevant regulators. These 2 acquisitions, which profitable on its own, will expand the entire financial services platform beyond insurance, which give our customers a more full scope financial offerings and will target on high net worth individuals to give them more products that they can actually choose from our platform. On the Logistics side, we have completed 2 acquisitions. The first one is in December 2025, we acquired a logistics property in Dongguan. Second, we have completed 3 logistics properties in Shanghai, Ningbo and Changzhou in January 2026. All of these properties are completed logistics properties, which will start to contribute AOP immediately. With all these acquisitions, we expand our logistics portfolio to 12 logistics properties with the total GLA to around 14.5 million square feet, strengthening the entire group's presence in key economic region in Chinese Mainland as well as Hong Kong. At the same time, we also divest some of our investments. Most notably is our issuance of exchangeable bond in Shoucheng Holdings of $2.2 billion, 0.75% exchangeable bond due 2028. We also disposed various investments in our strategic investment segment worth over $300 million. Our investment thesis continue to be a diversified business to drive strong cash flow as well as enhance the long-term shareholders' return. With a number of initiatives. Firstly, is disciplined capital stewardship to pursue growth in strong fundamentals, cash flow businesses. Second is about the financial flexibility to navigate market uncertainties, and we will continue to do portfolio optimizations in terms of divestment as well as investments. We will continue to expand in our financial as well as our logistics segments to strengthen earnings growth as well as recurring income and cash flow durations. With a consistent dividend track record, we will uphold our sustainable and -- sustainable and progressive dividend policies. In terms of numbers, here is the AOP for the last 6 months. As you can see, our road segment has increased 1% in terms of AOP. Financial Services segment increased 19%. Logistics segment has a decrease of 14%. Construction decreased 21%. Facility Management, which includes HKCEC, Kai Tak Sports Park as well as Gleneagles hospitals increased 360%. Last but not least is our Strategic Investments segment increased 78%. On the business strategies as well as our outlook. For the road segment, we will continue to drive operational agility to manage changing traffic patterns. As I said in the last analyst presentations, we are not pursuing new projects. So we will continue to optimize our existing portfolio as well as to look for enhancement of our earning portfolio within the road segments. For the financial services, we will continue to capture demand from the Chinese Mainland visitors as well as other overseas markets to capture the cross-border wealth flows. For the Logistics segment, we will continue to pursue acquisitions in stable assets in GBA, the Yangtze River Delta as well as major metropolitan areas in Western China. For Construction, we definitely will leverage on the Hong Kong government initiatives in the major metropolis. We will definitely benefit on the continued warming of the property market in Hong Kong. On the Facility Management segment, HKCEC, we will continue to attract high-value mega events. GHK, you will see later on in Jim's presentation, which turned from AOL in the previous year to AOP, will continue its expansions in the clinics as well as its growth in the hospitals. KTSP, needless to say, we will capture on the initiatives from the government of Hong Kong being the events capital of Asia and continue the operational ramp-up and the development of the strategic partnerships with various segments. I'll pass it on to Jim on the financial update.

Thank you, Gilbert. On our first half fiscal 2026 financial results, AOP was up 3% to $2.3 billion. Adjusted EBITDA was up 1% to $3.6 billion. Net profit was up 15% to $1.3 billion. The stronger growth in net profit than AOP was mainly due to the high exceptional loss in relation to the Hyva disposal last year. The Board announced an interim ordinary dividend of $0.28 per share, which was up 3% year-on-year compared with the last period on a comparable basis. The total available liquidity of the group was $31 billion as at 31st of December 2025, which comprised of cash on hand of close to $21 billion and committed undrawn banking facility of close to $10 billion. The net debt balance was $13.8 billion, which translates into a net gearing ratio of 34% and net debt to adjusted EBITDA of 1.9x. It is worth noting that the net debt balance of $13.8 billion exclude the exchangeable bond that we issued in September 2025. And this exchangeable bond is now treated as financial liability at fair value through P&L. But we're actually quite hopeful that the EB will eventually be exchanged into Shoucheng shares before its maturity. As at 31st of December 2025, our renminbi debt to total debt ratio stood at 61% and renminbi liability to renminbi asset ratio stood at 76%. Since the risk of renminbi depreciation against Hong Kong dollar, US dollar is now considered low compared with 3 years ago, we have been reducing our exposure to renminbi borrowing since the beginning of this year. And we target to lower the renminbi debt to total debt ratio to about 40% to 50% by June this year and to lower the renminbi liability to renminbi asset ratio to about 50% to 60% by June this year. Fixed rate debt to total debt was 76%. We've been seeing a consistent decline in our average borrowing cost since fiscal 2024, and we further reduced our average borrowing cost from 4.2% a year ago to 4% in the current period. We project the average borrowing cost for full year fiscal 2026 to be similar to first half fiscal 2026 as HIBOR was abnormally low in July to August 2025, which was below 1%. As of 31st of December 2025, we had total debt of close to $35 billion, of which about 19% or $6.8 billion will fall due within the next 12 months. If you compare this figure to the $9.4 billion of short-term debt as of 30 of June 2025, we managed to reduce our short-term debt that will mature within 1 year to -- sorry, by 28%. We have diversified funding channels, which include onshore and offshore banking facilities, U.S. dollar bonds -- offshore U.S. dollar bonds, onshore panel bonds and also offshore convertible bonds. We maintained an A+ offshore credit rating with JCR and an onshore AAA credit rating with China Land. Just a quick recap on the EB that we issued in September last year. The issue size is $2.2 billion, and we issued the bond at a 3% premium to the principal value. So the total proceeds we received is $2.3 billion. Coupon is 0.75%, time is 3 years. It's exchangeable into shares of our Shoucheng stake, which accounts -- which comprise of about 10% of the issued capital of Shoucheng. Initial exchange price is $2.66. If we manage to -- if the exchangeable bond is exchange -- is fully exchanged into Shoucheng shares, we'll be able to book a disposal gain of HKD 1.2 billion. This chart shows the movement of our gearing ratio since fiscal 2019. The net gearing ratio increased from 0% to 31% in fiscal 2020. After the acquisition of CTF Life Insurance for almost HKD 22 billion. Since then, it has been on a steady declining trend down to 8% in fiscal 2023, thanks to the strong cash flow generation and the noncore disposal proceeds despite a series of acquisitions that we made during the years. In fiscal 2024, we announced a sizable special dividend, the aim of which is to optimize the capital structure and to boost our ROE. The net gearing ratio increased to 35% as a result. Since then, it has been maintained at around the same level. And our target net gearing ratio remain unchanged at 40% to 45% in the near to medium term. Over the past several years, despite the challenging market condition, we've been able to consistently grow our AOP, net profit as well as ROE. We have been committed to a sustainable and progressive dividend policy since fiscal 2019, the first year that we adopted this dividend policy. Since then, we've been gradually increasing our dividend per share from $0.58 in fiscal 2019 to $0.65 in fiscal 2025. As you know, we completed 1-for-10 bonus issue in December 2025. As such, all the per share data will need to be adjusted retrospectively to account for the enlarged share capital because of the bonus issue. The $0.30 interim DPS for fiscal 2025, therefore, should be adjusted to $0.273 after adjustment. So the interim DPS that we announced for fiscal year 2026 is -- represent a 3% increase year-on-year. We estimate the total interim ordinary dividend for the first half of fiscal 2026 would amount to about $1.268 billion, which translate into a growth rate of 6%. Again, this demonstrated our commitment to the sustainable and progressive dividend policy. The reason why the total interim dividend growth is stronger than the DPS growth is mainly due to the increase in capital base because of the CV conversions. We are glad to report that our company will be included back into the Hang Seng Composite Index effective from 9th of March 2026. As a result, we will be eligible to participate in the Stock Connect program pending final approval from the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchange. We believe this will further boost our stock trading turnover by attracting a broader base of investors from the Chinese Mainland. It is also worth highlighting that our average daily trading volume has increased by 51% for full year 2025. And if you look at the more recent data in January 2026, our average daily trading volume actually increased by almost 4.8x compared with January 2025. Next, I will briefly discuss the performance of each of our 5 segments during the current period. We have a total of 13 road projects with a total length of 880 kilometers, spanning 6 provinces. During the period, the AOP of the road segment increased by 1% year-on-year to $771 million. The daily traffic flow and toll revenue for our road portfolio was down 1% year-on-year during the period because of the partial closure on 2 Expressway currently undergoing expansion program. However, the AOP of the road segment actually increased by 1%, as I just mentioned, and that was driven mainly by the lower finance cost of the onshore project [indiscernible]. For the Financial Services segment, the segment AOP increased strongly by 19% year-on-year to $729 million, and that was driven mainly by the increase in CTF Life CSM released, which is supported by the new business growth and also favorable financial market conditions. The CSM release grew by 17% year-on-year to $665 million. And the CSM balance also increased strongly by 18% from 30th of June 2025 to HKD 10.8 billion as at 31st of December 2025. So this increase is actually very significant. Investment income on its fixed income portfolio grew further to 4.7% as compared with 4.6% a year ago. We think this return figure is actually very high as compared with our peers in the Hong Kong market. The overall APE growth during the period increased by 48% year-on-year to $2.3 billion. VONB increased by 39% year-on-year to $733 million. VONB margin also recovered from 27% in the second half of fiscal 2025 to 32% in the current period. Embedded value, which is the most important variation benchmark for life insurers increased by 10% year-on-year to $27.8 billion. CTF Life maintained A- rating with Fitch rating and A3 credit rating with Moody's. The solvency ratio remained very high at 282% despite the strong APE growth, payment of the dividend to the list code, thanks to its strong asset and liability management efforts. The agency force of CTF Life performed exceptionally well during the period. The agency APE grew by 32% year-on-year to $612 million, driven mainly by the improvement in agency productivity, which was up 24% year-on-year. Agency persistency was up 13% year-on-year to well over 90%. The MDRT number also increased by 29% year-on-year. In order to diversify its reliance on the CMV business, CTF has been expanding its overseas business in order to create a new engine for growth. During the period, the overseas business APE increased by 86% year-on-year to $191 million, which is supported by closer broker engagement and by leveraging on the broader CTF Group ecosystem. It's now expanding its customer footprint in the Southeast Asian country and also the -- among the high net worth customers through its new Bermuda operations. Its investment portfolio is now close to HKD 100 billion, of which about 68% is allocated to bond and 19% is allocated to equity investments. In terms of geographical distribution, the investment is actually very well diversified among Asia, North America as well as Europe. The vast majority of the bond portfolio with investment-grade bonds. Moving on to the Logistics segment, which comprised of ATL Logistics Center with a gross leasable area of 5.9 million square feet, 8 logistics properties in Chengdu, Wuhan, Dongguan with -- and Suzhou with a total gross leasable area of 6.9 million square feet and also CUIRC with 13 large-scale well container terminals in the Chinese Mainland. For ATL, the occupancy rate as of 30th of June 2025 was 80.7%. And as at the 31st of December 2026, it was 75.2%. The average rental rate increased by 3% year-on-year. In order to further improve its occupancy rate, the ATL has been diversifying its tenant base, intensifying its marketing and branding efforts in order to attract new customers and also upgrading the amenities and facility in order to enhance the service quality. For the logistics properties in Chinese Mainland, for the 7 logistics properties in Chengdu, Wuhan and Suzhou, it increased from 87.5% 6 months ago to 90.9% in December 2025. Occupancy of our Suzhou logistics property also improved markedly to 75.7% from 40.7% in June 2025 after we terminate the lease with subtenant. In December, the group further acquired a logistic property in Dongguan, which marked its first expansion into the GBA area. Overall, the average occupancy rate for the 8 logistics property in Chengdu, Wuhan, Suzhou and Dongguan stood at 91.2% in December 2025. Post the period end in January 2026, the group further completed the acquisition of 3 premium logistics properties in Shanghai, Ningbo and Changzhou with a cap rate of 6% and a total leasable area of 1.7 million square feet. The group will continue to explore potential investment in the next generation of digital infrastructure, i.e., in data center. For CUIRC, thanks to the strong demand for multimodal transportation services, its AOP increased by 19% year-on-year, throughput increased by 10% and the TEU number reached 3.84 million. For the Construction segment, the AOP was down 21% year-on-year to $310 million due mainly to the lower profit margin of the revenue recognized during the period and the absence of expected credit loss provision reversal in the prior period. The gross value of contract on hand was $65.4 billion. The backlog was $39.6 billion, and the newly awarded contract was $9.7 billion. And the newly awarded contract represent a year-on-year growth of 115%, which demonstrated the strong reputation of CTFS Construction Group in the industry. In terms of the split of our existing orders, 67% of the contract came from government and institution and 33% came from the private sector. CTFS Construction Group as a quick recap include Hip Hing Group, which is a building construction project management company; Vibro, which is a foundation company; Quon Hing, which is one of the largest concrete producer in Hong Kong; and Hsin Chong Aster, which is a leading E&M specialist. Going forward, we believe there's early signs of recovery in the private residential market, which should lead to a pickup in market activity in the next 12 to 24 months. While the government and institutional project remain the major growth driver in the near term, we are hopeful that there will be more project opportunity coming from the Northern Metropolis, especially given the pilot tenders, which has just been launched by the Hong Kong government. With a strong reputation and proven technical capability, CTFS Construction Group is well positioned to capture the emerging opportunities in the sector. Facility Management, the -- if you include the Free Duty, which was disposed of in December 2024, the segment AOP was up 360% year-on-year to $43 million. If we exclude the Free Duty contribution, then the segment AOP was down 12% year-on-year. For GHK, it turned around from AOL in the last period to AOP in the current period. EBITDA grew by 11% year-on-year and the number of inpatient, outpatient as well as state cases all grew steadily by 1%, 2% and 8%, respectively. We have built an extensive network of clinic in order to feed the patients to GHK and also to divert the traffic away from -- and also to direct the lower valued-added services from GHK to such clinic. For the HKCEC, the AOP declined due to increased depreciation and higher capital expenditure as well as subdued F&B revenue because of the fewer events. The number of events fell slightly from 426 in the prior period to 378 in the current period. Total attendancy was down 4% year-on-year to 4.4 million. Kai Tak Sports Park, it recorded AOL because it's still under the ramp-up phase. But since its grand opening in March 2025, KTSP has already became the flagship venue under the Sports + Mega-events initiative. During the 6-month period ended December 2025, the Kai Tak Sports Park hosted 2 live sports events as well as 11 entertainment events with a total of 7 million visitors. And KTSP actually ranked third globally and first in Asia in terms of ticket sales for 2025 despite KTSP was only opened in March, while the other venues actually report a full year of operation. For our Kai Tak Mall within the KTSP, the occupancy rate was 90% in December 2025. I will pass on to Karen to talk about our ESG achievement during the period.

Thank you. Thank you, Jim. For the ESG update, I would like to start with recognition we have received. They highlight the strength of our ESG strategy and dedication of our teams. We maintained strong rating across key benchmarks such as Hang Seng Corporate Sustainability Index, the S&P Global ESG Assessment and MSCI ESG Rating. And for the first time, we were honored with both the distinction award of the Hong Kong Sustainability Award and the ESG Excellence Award at the Hong Kong Corporate Governance and ESG Excellence Award 2025. This achievement validates our progress and show the impact of our collective efforts across the group. Beyond recognition, we have also advanced our ESG strategy through greater integration and sustainability investment. CTF Life released its first voluntary ESG disclosure report at the business unit level, enhancing credibility and strengthening alignment with group-wide reporting practices. Importantly, this disclosure also prepares to align with Hong Kong road map on sustainability disclosure, help us stay ahead of evolving standards and provide more transparent information for our investors. We also acquired industrial logistics property in East China, all which achieved LEED Gold certificate, reinforcing our long-term sustainability ambitions under Breakthrough 2050. Community engagement remains a cornerstone of our ESG journey. This year, we were honored with the Hong Kong Volunteer Award 2025, Outstanding Corporate Award as well as caring company and caregiver-friendly company accolades. This achievement reflects our sustained commitment to volunteerism and community care, while also underscoring our dedication to creating a supportive and inclusive working environment for our colleagues. Together, these recognition highlight the strength of our values and our ongoing effort to foster both social impact and workforce well-being. Looking ahead, we will continue to build on this momentum, strengthening disclosure practices, expanding coverage, investing further in sustainable asset and innovation and forging meaningful partnership across our value chain to support a just and effective transition. In particular, we will deepen our focus on climate and nature, not only by enhancing transparency in our disclosure, but also embedding this priority into our operation. Our ESG journey is ongoing, and this interim result reflects strong progress. More importantly, they demonstrate our shared commitment to shaping a resilient and sustainable business and operating model for the future. Thank you.

Thank you, Karen, Jim and Gilbert. So now we are moving to the Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] [indiscernible] from HSBC.

I have 3 questions. First, I would like to ask because I saw company has like multiple acquisition deals ongoing. I would like to know if there's any update and if there's the time line when the deal will be completed and these companies will be integrated. And the second question is regarding the margin of the Construction segment. I saw -- as mentioned, the margin is lower this period. And I would like to ask for the second period margin and also for the newly awarded contract, the margin compared to the existing contracts. The third question is the guidance on CapEx, if there's any update.

Okay. I will take the first 2 and Jim can take the last one. On the acquisitions, I assume you're referring to the Blackhorn and the uSmart as well as the acquisitions of the logistics properties, right? All of them already completed, save and except Blackhorn. For Blackhorn acquisition, the 65% is still waiting for the approval from SFC. So pending that, there will be no further CPs that we will complete after we get the approval from SFC. The second question is about the margin of the Construction business. Yes, it's because of the competition, obviously, and also the fewer projects in Hong Kong that the margin has been quite squeezed. I would say that the second half, I do not expect there will be further downtrend on the margin, but I wouldn't expect a lot of the uptrend either on the margin for the Construction business.

Sure. On CapEx, in the first half of fiscal 2026, we spent about $1.5 billion on CapEx. The major investment was made with uSmart acquisition, the expansion of the 2 Expressway, acquisition of the logistics property in GBA. And also, we put down some deposit for the acquisition of the 3 logistics warehouses that we acquired in Yangtze River Delta. But on the other hand, we also received a disposal proceeds of about -- of over $500 million from the disposal of the [ non-core ] asset. Moving into the second half of this fiscal year, the committed CapEx was about $850 million, which includes mainly the acquisition of the 3 logistics warehouses in Yangtze River Delta, which was already completed in January and also the ongoing expansion project of the 2 Expressway. Whether or not the actual CapEx will be higher than $850 million will depend on the potential investment opportunities. On the other hand, we also think there will be over $800 million of disposal proceeds from the [ non-core ] asset disposals.

Okay. Thank you. We received a question online asking about ATL. So does management have any guidance on the outlook of the ATL regarding the occupancy and also the expected rental change?

Okay. I think, first of all, as you can see, the occupancy has dropped from 80% to 75%. We do expect that will be stabilized. And we do see some new inquiries and new tenants coming to ATL. Obviously, due to the better environment -- economic environment. We've seen some new retail tenants, I mean, retail business tenants as well as some e-commerce tenants inquiring and actually confirming some of the new leases. And we do -- I think the guidance will be that, hopefully, the occupancy rate will increase for the second half of this year.

Okay. Thank you. Is there any question on the floor? I received another question online regarding dividend. So will there be any stock dividend in the second half? And also, will the dividend per share go back to $0.65 like before?

Sorry, what was the second part?

Okay. $0.65 is the last time...