Diös Fastigheter AB (publ) (DIOS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and welcome to the Diös Fastigheter Year-End Report 2020. [Operator Instructions] Please go ahead with your meeting.

Good morning, and warm welcome to this web presentation of Diös year-end results for 2020. My name is Knut Rost, I'm the CEO. And together with me today, I have Rolf Larsson, our CFO. I can proudly start this presentation by stating that the results for this extraordinary year is very good. In this presentation, we will give you a brief introduction of Diös, guide you through the results and some of the major events during the year. We will enlighten the effects of COVID-19, our position as market leader in a market that shows stability and strength, and how we will reach our growth targets and continue to create shareholder value. If you have any questions, there will be a Q&A session in the end of this presentation. Listen for instruction how to ask questions. If you are listening on replay, you can always reach out to us if you have questions. Contact details are at the end of the presentation and on our website. Let's go to Page 2. Diös is the market-leading real estate company in 10 growing cities in Sweden. We own, manage and develop both commercial and residential properties with a concentration towards the central parts of the cities. We describe our market as a 15-minute cities, where you can reach work, home and any amenity within a 15-minute distance walking, biking, riding a car, where we offer premises for offices, urban service and residentials. Our key strength is our local teams with close tenant relationships and great market knowledge, closely tightened with our market-leading position. We have an average valuation yield of our portfolio of approximately 6%. We generate great cash flow, and we target to pay approximately 50% of our cash flow in dividend. Our vision is to create the most inspiring cities in Sweden. Let's go to Page 3. 2020 has been extraordinary in many ways, and we all have our own experience, both in our private and in our professional life. For the year, I can say that we have managed the challenges in a very good way, which we show in our key figures for the year. We are still in a world with great uncertainty, and we need to be humble and continue to take our responsibility. To highlight some of the key figures, I'll start with the net letting of SEK 51 million for the full year. It is a good heat map of the market and our tenant offer. Our cities differ from the major cities around the world with lower density of people and commuting is easier. In the fourth quarter, the net letting amounted to SEK 9 million with, for example, new lease contracts signed with the Police Authority in Luleå and Kunskapsskolan i Sverige. Our surplus ratio is the strongest ever for a full year and was 66%. And we managed to meet the lost revenues related to discounts and bankruptcy with lower property management costs. The Board proposes a dividend for 2020 of SEK 3.30 per share divided into 2 equally payments of SEK 1.65. The distribution dates for the dividend will be the 20th of April and the 4th of November. Let's turn to Page 4. To address some of the major events in 2020, it's natural to start with COVID-19. Second wave of COVID-19 pandemic hit us in the beginning of November. Compared to March and April, we and our tenants was better prepared. Our market has shown good resilience, and our diversified tenant base, with 31% of rental income from government-related businesses, has proven to meet current situation well. We see tenants in some parts of restaurants, cafés and retail struggling somewhat. We are very active and close to our tenants, which has proven to be a key factor to manage this situation. The effect on our results for the fourth quarter is fairly limited. We have settled 99% of the rental receivables for Q4. Rent payment for the first quarter 2021, which paid in advance, are at 97%. It is normal levels. We have been giving negligible discount for Q1 regarding COVID-19-related issues. We have received SEK 16 million from the government-related support scheme out of discounts amounting to SEK 33 million. The lease agreement we signed with Tele2 this fall is so much more than just a good lease contract. It set the start of a retail-to-office conversion that we will have in many more cities the years to come. We will rebuild existing B location, typical second and third floor retail into A location for offices. This is possible in our cities because of similar rental levels for these 2 segments, which isn't the case in prime areas in major cities. We both increased our operating surplus due to lower costs and more efficient use of areas, and we get higher property value. We introduced the 15-minute city as a concept for all our cities. Throughout this year, our markets and cities have been less affected of macroeconomic development. We believe our cities are in perfect spot and will meet an increased demand from both businesses and households who will take advantage of the -- of all the 15-minute city can offer. I will come back to that this later in this presentation. Now I will hand over to Rolf, who will present the results in more detail. Rolf?

Thank you, Knut. We can move to Page 5. As Knut said, we delivered a strong result for the full year. We still see high rental levels for offices, lower operating cost in our property management and continued good return on our investments. We're operating in a strong and stable market. We hear positive tones from many of our tenants, and demand for qualitative offices in central locations remains high. We have done and are doing several lettings at very good rental levels, which shows in our strong net letting, which amounted to SEK 51 million for the full year. There is still some uncertainty regarding some companies that currently belong to the most exposed sectors, which includes certain retail, cafés and restaurants. For this type of premises, we can see opportunities to convert B and C locations to other types of premises with good return and value growth. For example, as Knut said, we're converting 3,800 square meters of retail space on the second floor in the city on its own as well into a high-quality and modern office for Tele2. Reduced retail space in less-attractive locations also leads to increased demand and rental levels for retail in A locations. If we go ahead and look at the income statement. Income from property management increased by 1% compared to last year. If we exclude COVID effects, the increase was 2%. Like-for-like rental income increased 1.8% due to indexation, renegotiations and new lettings. Our operating surplus increased by 3%, resulting in a surplus rate of 66%, which is the highest ever. Net financial costs are higher due to higher interest-bearing debt and higher average Stibor. And property value uplift amounted to SEK 198 million. Continue to Page 6. If we go on and look at the development of our cash flow in the form of earnings per share and our management efficiency measured as surplus ratio, we can see that the upward trend for both measures continues. We have achieved this by making the right transactions. We have acquired high-yielding properties in central locations and sold nonpriority locations. We have increased the quality of our properties through investment, which has led to higher rental levels and lower vacancies. And we have reduced our financial cost over the year. Turn to Page 7. The property portfolio is well diversified in terms of segment and geography, and we have concentrated our portfolio to cities with strong growth. We have a low tenant concentration risk. Our 10 largest tenants, of which 7 are tax-financed, account for 17% of our total rental income, and 31% of our rental income comes from tax-financed operations. Our exposure to industries that currently belong to the most exposed is relatively limited. We have received 97% of rents for the first quarter this year, which is in line with previous years. The average lease term for commercial premises has increased during the year and amounts to 3.9 years. Continue to Page 8. The market value of our properties amounted to SEK 24.5 billion, an increase of SEK 1.6 billion since the turn of the year. SEK 198 million is due to property value uplift and the rest to investments. The value was positively affected by yield adjustments and lettings in primarily offices and higher rental levels than expected for residentials, while adjustment of yield and long-term market rents for certain retail has affected the value negatively. The average valuation yield was 5.7%. Turn to Page 9. Here are some examples of transactions we have made during the year. We have acquired high-yielding properties in central locations, containing mainly office and residential. And we have sold properties in nonpriority locations, containing mainly industrial premises. Go to Page 10. The trend of increasing investments continues. On the right side, you can see some of our larger projects. We currently have more than 100,000 square meters under construction with an investment volume of SEK 2.6 billion. The positive cash flow effect will mainly come during 2022 and 2023, and all our ongoing projects are proceeding according to plan. In addition, we have about 150,000 square meters in existing or possible building rights in central locations. Just over 60% refers to residential. Turn to Page 11. Here are some examples of our major ongoing projects, both new builds and major reconstructions. And we do not start any projects, except housing, until they are fully let. More than 60% of the rental income from our ongoing larger projects come from tax-financed operations. Go to Page 12. During the fourth quarter, we completed production of 85 apartments in Östersund, all of which are let. The investment volume amounted to SEK 147 million with a development profit of 12%. Move to Page 13. As you can see, our net debt to EBITDA is stable and amounts to about 11x over time. This again shows our strong cash flow. Our loan-to-value ratio at the end of the period was 54.3%, which is far below our covenant levels. Our interest-bearing liabilities amounted to SEK 13.2 billion, 81% of bank loans, 14% certificates and the rest are covered bonds. During the fourth quarter, we extended our fixed interest rate through rate swaps totaling SEK 3.5 billion. The average annual interest rate at the end of the period was 1.2%. In 2021, we will refinance 18% of our outstanding loans, corresponding to SEK 2.4 billion. We can see that the capital market is functioning again with falling margins as a result, which applies to both certificates and bonds. And we see opportunities to increase the share of capital market financing during the year. Overall, we have a strong financial position. In addition to existing loans, we have liquid funds and utilized overdraft facilities and unutilized credit facilities available, corresponding to SEK 600 million. Continue to Page 14. We report the EPRA key figures according to the new standards. EPRA NRV increased by 9% to SEK 79.7 per share. The interest coverage ratio remains strong and amounts to 6x. The growth in income from property management per share amount to 0.8%. The change is mainly a result of temporary rental discounts because of COVID-19 and higher financial costs. And then I will hand it over to Knut again.

Thank you, Rolf. I will now cover some points about our strong market and extend the reasoning around our 15-minute cities and explain how we should reach our growth target. Let's turn to Page 15. Like the first wave of COVID-19, this second wave has so far affected our markets less compared to, for example, Stockholm and major cities. People have been able to live their life in a more normal way and have kept their jobs. The Swedish community are relatively used to remote work. Looking at data comparing Sweden with other European countries before COVID shows that 35% of the Swedish employees partly accomplished their work remotely, and this figure is even greater for our own cities. Offices are therefore adapted to people partly working remote. I think this is one reason by which why we see the office market continue showing high demand. We define our 10 cities as 15-minute cities. You have all you need within 15 minutes from your home and all services are easy to access. We have actively chosen these cities, not out of the 15-minutes criteria, but out of the requirements you see on the slide. Growth and, of course, ambitions to grow is the key component for the future. We invest and expand our offering in places we believe will benefit most of the current trends. Before the pandemic, we saw people and businesses moving to our cities to change their way of life. This is something we already see accelerating as a, we think, reaction to the pandemic. If you can do part of your work remotely from a co-working place or some other location and then benefit from all positive features like more affordable housing, less crowdedness, nature on the corner and probably less stressful life, why not move to one of our cities? It will have good infrastructure, both for traveling, but also IT infrastructure and accessibility to all service needed, school, preschool, restaurants, grocery stores and so forth, within 15 minutes from your home. When more companies offer their employees to work remotely with more developed technology and the increasing importance of a more sustainable lifestyle, our cities are in a good place for the future. As evidence for the strong market we are referring to, we see increased activity in the transaction market with new players entering our market. This has led to lower property yields. We are seeing residential properties being sold below 4% in yield and offices around 5%. This gives us comfort in lowering our property yields in the portfolio and increasing our property value. We had an unrealized gain in property values by SEK 329 million in Q4. Let's turn to Page 16. We are not only a well-diversified real estate company looking at the portfolio, but we also have great diversification in our value creation. We repeat our target of growing the income from property management per share by 10% per year on average over a 3-year period. We will reach our target by contribution from all 3 parts. First of all, property management. We target lower vacancies for coming years. We have very good tractions in our new leasing but need to improve the turnover in the portfolio. A percentage point in reduced vacancies give SEK 20 million in additional income. Renegotiation has great potential. 16% of our lease contracts are up for renegotiation next year, and especially the office rents have been on the rise last couple of years. Another part is project development. We have several ongoing larger projects. The total CapEx of the sixth-largest ongoing project is SEK 2.2 billion. We just finalized the residential in Östersund, as Rolf mentioned, with very good return. The majority of the cash flow from these projects will come in 2022, and we see a total contribution from the major projects of approximately SEK 130 million by the end of 2023. We have more focus how to activate our building rights. We have approximately 150,000 square meters building rights unused or in early stages, and we are exploring possibilities to create value by starting construction or by divesting. We see great value in creating new building rights. We target to establish 30,000 new square meters of building rights each year. The third part is transactions. Increased activity within transaction will help us reach our growth target. By acquiring high-yielding properties within offices, residential and with government-related tenants, we can maintain our yield gap in the portfolio. The focus will not only be in the CBD location, but we will also focus in on finding locations that are attractive for our tenants. By divesting properties with limited potential or outside our prioritized location, we free capital. Our goal is to be net buyers. Let's go to Page 17. With the vaccine, it feels like we are on the right path even though a lot of uncertainty remains. We are living closely to our tenants, trying to assist in different ways and to capture new challenges they are facing. The government has released a new rent rebate package for sectors that has been most affected. It is difficult to predict how this can or will affect Diös at this stage, but fair to say then is that I will probably not reach the same amount as the previous stimulus package in Q2. The market and demand for offices and residential has increased since lows in April. And we are convinced, together with community service properties, that these segments have most potential going forward on the back of the ongoing and reinforced trends like urbanization, polarization, sustainability and demand for urban service. But we also see good demand for retail in the best location. We will continue to expand and convert less-attractive areas for one segment into very attractive areas for another segment, like the Tele2 case I described earlier. We are active in 15-minute cities. The density of people, especially within local transportation and commuting, is less. Infrastructure is different. For example, there is limited traffic jamming, and it's relatively easy to find parking lots. I'm convinced that our 10 cities can benefit from these qualities in the long run where people can, using a digital solution, work more remote towards the headquarters in the major cities around the world. I'm also confident that the need for people meeting at the office at a regular basis will be of great importance. The role of the office as a brand and culture carrying a meeting place will be strengthened. Digitalization can further increase the demand for satellite offices and for co-working hubs, something that we already have noticed. We are the full-service property owner able to capitalize on this demand. We see more interest from other real estate companies from foreign capital and pension funds to enter our market. This will affect the competition and yield levels. With our local presence and market knowledge, we are in a very good position to finding new business opportunities. 2020 was a year that will go into the history books. I'm proud to note that our drive and energy were crucial to the achievement of a strong result for the year. We repeat our growth target of 10% growth in income from property management. We have high ambitions, and I'm determined that we will do what it takes to reach our target. This will mean more transactions, increased activity within property management and reduced costs. It might bring the LTV somewhat higher for a short period of time, but our long-term target is still below 55%. With our high degree of activity and our unique position, I see great conditions for us to continue to deliver shareholder value. This takes us to the end of this presentation. Thank you for listening. We are now ready for questions.

[Operator Instructions] There are currently no questions from the audio line, so I'll hand over for the web Q&A.

Yes, there's one question from the web Q&A. I'll read the question. We talked -- you talked about the balance between the investment financing and dividend. Today's announcement regarding dividend per share, as a level, do you see this sustainable both in absolute and relative terms?

Rolf here. Yes, we see it as sustainable. We are a dividend company, and our goal is to be a dividend company even in the future and deliver a high yield for the shareholders.

Thank you. No further question from the web Q&A.