Entra ASA (ENTRA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and welcome to our second quarter presentation from a sunny day here in Oslo. Let's start with some highlights in the quarter. Our rental income came in at NOK 854 million this quarter, that's 9% up from same quarter last year explained by the finalized projects rolling in and also CPI adjustments of our rental contracts from January. We have also seen that higher interest rates are affecting our results and the net income from property management of NOK 350 million in the quarter versus NOK 445 million same quarter last year. Net value changes in the quarter of minus NOK 2.063 billion the property portfolio, which is valued by 2 external appraisers each quarter has been written down with a total of NOK 2.466 billion. And at the same time, our financial instruments have had a value uplift of NOK 403 million. Our profit before tax or a loss before tax then at minus NOK 1.739 billion. Net letting in the quarter of minus NOK 1 million. We have completed a total of 4 projects this quarter, and we've also started 2 new projects. We were pleased to see that we divested 2 assets with a gross asset value of close to NOK 1.5 billion in the quarter. And we have extended 3 bank facilities totaling NOK 6.5 billion in June and July. If you move on to our operations. We have signed leases of approximately 45,000 square meters in the quarter with a rental income of NOK 109 million, NOK 14 million of that in the project portfolio. At the same time, contracts with a rental income of NOK 34 million have been terminated in the quarter, leaving us then with a net letting of minus NOK 1 million. If you take a look at the table below, you can see the largest contracts signed this quarter, I'd like to comment on the first one there, in Brynsengfaret 6, Mestergruppen has signed 5,000 square meters. This is a building, which has been occupied by the Norwegian Road Administration, more or less as a single tenant building for 20 years. They have now extended their lease for the most of the building for the rest of this year. And from the first quarter, we will start refurbishment, changing this building also into a multi-tenant building and doing that in a step-wise progress. In Hagegata, the Norwegian Labor and Welfare Organization has prolonged for 2 years, 5,700 square meters. And also Schweigaards gate 6-14, Gouda Gjensidige Group has signed a prolongation for 3,900 square meters. Pilestredet 33, Advania, 2,600 square meters renegotiation. If you take a look at our occupancy, it's down in the quarter from 96% to 95.6%. This is explained by the projects coming into our portfolio with some vacancy. I'll get back to that shortly. We have, however, in the past, completed some 27 projects in Entra and the majority of these projects have been occupied with some 90% upon completion. And then we typically use a year or so to fill up the remaining space. So we will continue to work, of course, with these projects going forward, filling them up. Our average lease duration is currently at 6.4 years, including the project portfolio and 57% of our rental income in the management portfolio is from public tenants. Moving on to our projects. We finalized, as I said, 4 projects. It's been a very busy quarter for our project organization. Quite impressive. These projects have been gone through a phase where we have handled COVID restrictions and rather challenging market conditions in the construction market. Pleased to see that we have completed Vahls gate now, a building which was occupied previously by a public tenant, which wanted to prolong with us for a new 10-year period. However, the building needed a technical upgrade, and we arranged for them to sit in vacant space in 2 of our buildings while we did a complete refurbishment of this building. So they have now moved back to the building, which is 100% let. We have a target BREEAM-In-Use Excellent certification. And the total project cost now upon completion is NOK 723 million including the initial value. This is below what we initially started reporting on and the yield on cost, therefore, is up from 4% to 4.6%. So a good project for us. In Trondheim, we have completed 3 projects. The first one here in Brattørkaia. This is the final stage of the urban development on the seafront in Trondheim and this is a heritage building, which is yellow listed. Here, we are targeting a BREEAM-In-Use Excellent. This project has now been completed with a total project cost of NOK 271 million, which is above what we initially started reporting on, seeing that we have firstly put in some extra qualities, which has been compensated by increased rent. Secondly, I think we've set new records in the number of acceptances needed from the cultural heritage office in Trondheim. So the yellow listing has been more expensive than we initially anticipated. And thirdly, we've just had bankruptcy from one of our tenants, the restaurant, which is operating the first floor and we have, therefore, chosen to take on the investments in the kitchen and the restaurant area as part of our project cost. This means that the occupancy is down from 97% to -- 77% this quarter. And also, the yield on cost here is then 4.7% versus the 5% we started reporting on. In Kongens gate 87 in Trondheim, we have refurbished the building in the old part of the city. This is now 86% occupied, largest tenants being the municipality of Trondheim and also Microsoft. We will target the BREEAM-In-Use Very Good certification on this building. And the total project cost here is NOK 267 million. Yield on cost 5.8%, up from 5.6%. Finally, in Trondheim also Phase 2 of Holtermanns veg 1-13, this is a large project of 21,000 square meters. The occupancy is up from 67% to 75% in the quarter. Here, we are targeting BREEAM-NOR Excellent, and the total project cost is NOK 703 million. Yield on cost here of 6% versus initially 5.7%. And we do also have some ongoing discussions on the remaining space. So we'll continue to work on filling this vacant space in the year to come. If we take a look at the new projects which we have started in the project, we announced earlier that we had signed a lease contract with the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation for 60% of this Phase III, which is a total volume of 15,500 square meters. NRK will also acquire 49% of the section which they will be renting. This means that the proceeds from the sales to NRK will cover approximately 50% of the construction CapEx going into this project. Here, we are targeting a BREEAM-NOR Excellent, Energy Class A and the total project cost is NOK 684 million, including initial value. Yield on cost here of 5.7%, and we expect to have this completed in the second quarter of '25. In Sandvika, just outside Oslo, we have also started the project in Malmskriverveien 16. This is more like an infill project on top of an existing parking garage next to our existing building. Here, we signed a 25-year lease contract with the Norwegian High School and we will be targeting also here BREEAM-NOR Excellent and Energy Class A. Total project cost of NOK 175 million, including the initial value of land. Yield on cost here of 5%, and we expect it to be completed in the third quarter of '24. So moving on to a list of ongoing projects, which is then quite a lot shorter than it has been with the 4 projects completed. And we've added the 2 new projects, which I just talked you through. And the 2 ongoing projects, redevelopments in Stenersgata and Schweigaards gate 15 are progressing according to plan, and we will complete them within the second half of this year and also into the first quarter next year. We have continued to work on our divestment program to strengthen our balance sheet. We have earlier communicated that we plan to sell somewhere between NOK 5.5 billion and NOK 6 billion, of which NOK 4 billion now has been executed. Our portfolio is very attractive, and we do have quite a lot of interest for our assets. So if we obtain acceptable prices, we might also consider to sell some more. Now during the second quarter, we sold Akersgata 51 and Tordenskiolds gate 6 in Oslo with a total transaction value of NOK 1.473 billion, that was 1% below book values as of first quarter this year. As the transaction closed end of May, and the proceeds have been used to strengthen our balance sheet. A few words on the market situation. Let me start by saying that Norwegian economy has proven to be both resilient and also have the ability to smooth business cycles, well supported by the strong government finances. Currently, we have estimates that the Mainland GDP growth is expected to be around 1.3% this year. And according to the recent labor force survey from May, unemployment rates are currently at 3.5%. The CPI year-on-year came in -- June, came in at 6.4%. This was above what the Central Bank estimated. And with the tight labor market, putting pressure on wages and also a weak currency driving imported inflation, the Norwegian Central Bank chose to hike rates with 50 bps in June meaning that our key policy rate is currently at 3.75%. And they now state that they estimate that it should probably top out around 4.25% at year-end. A few words on the demand side. And if you take a look at working from home trend, what we see Norway is that it has had no material effect on demand. The activity in the workplace is currently for Norway as a whole, around 10% below what we saw pre-pandemic, meaning that people spend approximately half of the day extra working out of the office. Now at the same time, we clearly see that Mondays and Fridays are the favored days for working out of office and meaning also that the activity Tuesday to Thursday is pretty much at the same levels we saw before the pandemic. If we move on to the rental market, we have seen that the activity in the letting market is still good. However, with a more moderate expectations for market rental growth going forward than we saw in the very strong year of 2022. As you can see from the graph to the top right here. IDR statistic, which also tracks all contracts which have been signed every quarter, also confirms that the activity in respect of volumes signed in the second quarter were normal. And we there also saw that rental growth has been quite strong in the top segments, meaning the top 15% price segment and also for high-quality central located assets. However, in the lower price range and also in the fringe areas, the rental growth was more moderate in the second quarter. I'd also like to point out that the Norwegian market practice is that 100% of CPI is rolled into your rental contracts automatically on the 1st of January every year, normally based then on either the October or November index. Again, if you take a look at the graph top right, the vacancies have been low in Oslo, the recent years, around 5.5%, it's expected to pick up slightly towards 6% going forward. And finally, at the bottom right here, you can see that there is very limited new build volumes coming into the market in the near future. And with the current return rates and also construction costs still being pretty high, we clearly see that breakeven rents are below -- or sorry, above market rents in most of the areas where you potentially can add new volumes in Oslo. A few words also on the transaction market. The transaction activity has been low in the first half with volumes around NOK 24 billion in the first half. That's about 50% of what we had in the same period last year. The transaction we have seen within the office sector has mainly been value-add assets and also transactions where you have some kind of strategic interest. Now we clearly see that the volatility we are experiencing in the interest rates makes it difficult to align price expectations, and we expect that we need to see some more clarity in where interest rates are going before we can see that activity in the transaction market really picks up to normal levels. Now if you look at the market specialist expectations from our consensus report, you can see that they expect that transaction activity is going to pick up and be around NOK 70 billion for the year. And they also expect to see that prime yields will increase to 4.3% and top out at that level. If you look at the secondary yields in the market, we're currently seeing them around 4.9% to 5.5%, and I'd also like to point out that we still expect to see that inflation and market rental growth will have offsetting effects on valuations also going forward. So I think that leaves it for Anders. The floor is yours.

Thank you. From the P&L point of view, the operational part is pretty straightforward. So I will go fairly quickly through those numbers and focus on 2 topics in particular. The value changes and the financing situation, both in terms of cost of debt and also in terms of the funding and the debt maturities. If looking at the revenues coming in at NOK 854 million, so we're NOK 18 million down from the NOK 872 million in the last quarter -- in the first quarter. Reasoning being that we, in the first quarter, had a one-off settlement from a tenant that was -- that moved out. It was acquired by another company and moved out and they paid a settlement for the remaining 2.5 years of the contract period. So that was the sort of first quarter was NOK 60 million higher than sort of normalized. Comparing to the second quarter last year we're up NOK 71 million and -- coming from 3 different sources. We sold assets that has led to the reduction in revenues of NOK 16 million. Throughout the year, we have put up projects into operations, yielding another NOK 46 million in positive revenues. And then we have a like-for-like growth at 5.3%. It is lower than the CPI adjustment that was at 6.5%. The reasoning being that the occupancy is down by about 140 basis points. If looking at sort of like-for-like on the contract part alone, we're up by around 40 basis points in terms of the like-for-like. Then you will see that the net income from property management is at NOK 350 million, clearly impacted by the higher financing costs in the quarter compared to last year. And the profit before tax at minus NOK 1.7 billion. And then, again, as Sonja said, we had major larger write-downs in this quarter, NOK 2.5 billion on the asset portfolio, offset somewhat by the NOK 400 million in positive value changes on the hedges. In terms of the cash earnings at NOK 8.2 for annualized fourth quarter rolling, NRV is now at NOK 192, so it's down from the NOK 207 that we had in the previous quarter. Reason being coming from NOK 14 per share in value reductions or value changes negative. Paid out dividends on NOK 2.50 in May. And then we have a positive contribution of NOK 2 per share in terms of net income for property management. Looking at the P&L, operating costs coming in at NOK 67 million. So we're now at 7.8% operating cost to revenues, 8.2% if we take the first half year as a whole. So then pretty much in line with what we said we would deliver. We said like in the low 8s is a decent number for Entra. Net income or other income, other costs at a [ positive ] NOK 8 million. Admin costs coming at NOK 48 million, NOK 97 million for the full year -- for the first half of the year. We have previously communicated that we will be pegging towards NOK 210 million for the year. It might be that we're somewhat south of that for when we are doing the books for 2023 in total. Then we have a negative of NOK 28 million in the associated companies. This is due to a write-down of the shares in one of the companies that we own. We own 50% of residential company, and we took down the value of those shares by NOK 27 million. And then we have the financing cost approaching now NOK 400 million in the quarter. If you compare that to the second quarter last year, financial costs are 66% higher. And the reason is quite simple. The cost of debt, the average cost of debt has come up by about 147 basis points during the year. Looking at the next 6 quarters, top line. And again, this is based on what is known in the marketplace, what we have communicated. It's we have the effect of NOK 21 million of the assets that we sold in this quarter. And then we have a positive effect from projects being put into operations. And as you know, when we put a new build or a redevelopment into operations, it usually takes from 0 and up until 6, maybe 9 months before we get the full effect of the -- on the revenue side. So there will be a gradual effect of revenues coming from projects that always were put into -- that also put into operations in the first quarter and the second quarter. And then we have some negative net letting effect. So basically, we're coming down to about NOK [ 830 ] million. Then we see that it's coming up again in the fourth quarter, stemming from projects. And then we have the CPI adjustment from Q4 to Q1. We have in this graph assumed a CPI growth of 5% for 2023 into 2024. And as you know, we have a full CPI adjustment in our contracts in Entra or mathematically is 98%. But for operative purpose, 100% CPI adjustment with no discussions with tenants or anyone else. And then we expect it to be then fairly flat throughout 2024. Moving on to the balance sheet. We invested NOK 436 million in the quarter on our projects. It was NOK 950 million for the first half of the year. So we are on a sort of a downward trend in terms of CapEx. You will recall that we invested in CapEx of NOK 2.2 billion in '21 and we had NOK 2.6 billion in 2022 last year. We're expecting this year to be around NOK 1.5 billion and then for '24 to be around NOK 1 billion. So in terms of capital discipline, it also has effect on our CapEx going forward. Taking out the 3 assets that we divested in the quarter, and then we have the negative value changes of almost NOK 2.5 billion. And what we -- this is for operating purposes a result of the higher rate -- required rate of return that our 2 external appraisers put on the market as a whole. So this is like for on a broad-based on pretty much all our assets with a special focus or maybe a bit more on the fringe areas, i.e., outside city centers. I'll come back in terms of the attractiveness of the different types of assets later. When at our peak valuations in Q1 '22, the net yield on our portfolio was 3.88%, it's now 4.51%. So i.e., 63 basis points uplift in the net yield. Back then when we were at 3.88%, also the CPI expectations were around 2%, 2.5% in all the appraisers valuations. We saw now it was 6.5% for -- from 2022 into 2023, another 5% now for '23 and 2024. Taking that into effect, the portfolio is written down by some 85 basis points. So all in all, the write-down on our portfolio is a negative 10% since peak valuations in Q1. And as Sonja mentioned, all our assets are appraised by 2 external companies every quarter. Moving on to the financing. It has been a rather intense quarter. Every time you look at the Bloomberg screen, you get sort of a surprise. We are very pleased to have solved the re-extension of the bank credit facilities that we discussed in the last quarter presentation of NOK 6.5 billion, NOK 5.5 billion was solved in June, another NOK 1 billion now actually yesterday. If looking at the debt levels, we are now -- we've taken down the debt by NOK 1.3 billion. It still leaves us with an LTV at 53.5%. So higher than our target. If we use the Moody's definition with the total assets, we're at 50.5%. So still higher than where we want it to be. ICR is currently at 204 on the 4 quarters rolling. In terms of the covenant situation, we are at -- that is at 1.4 on the ICR and 75% of LTV. So we're still very comfortable in terms of the current situation. I'll go back further into the cost of debt. And clearly, as always, we show the historical average cost of debt, all in cost of debt for Entra and that's the hard line in historically at the end of each quarter. And then there are 2 graphs more. The green one is the applicable NIBOR forward curve. We fix the base rate either on a 1- or 3-month basis. This is a mix of those 2 applicable to our debt portfolio. So as you can see, that has moved significantly upwards during the quarter. It's now expected to peak around 5%. Then you see the dotted line, which is the -- our estimate on interest average cost of debt, all in, in each quarter going forward. And that one has also been lifted since the previous quarter. So we're now peaking at around 4.5% or slightly below 4.5%. The reason, of course, that the all-in cost is lower than the NIBOR forward curve because, I mean, our cost of debt is NIBOR plus a margin is, of course, the hedge situation. We have hedged about 52% of the hedge portfolio for 4.5 years. And that gives us some protection in terms of the expected uplift in the NIBOR in the months and quarters to come. Then finally, I think on the most positive exhibit in this presentation is on a debt maturity profile. And as you can see, we have about NOK 7.5 billion of available cash or cash and undrawn RCF facilities at our partner banks. When we look at the debt maturities for 2023 and 2024, there is only NOK 1.9 billion of debt that has to be repaid or part of that is also a small bank facility. If you take the next 2 years, i.e., from now and into mid-2024, is NOK 2.5 billion. And when we look back at what we have been able to achieve now in the last 12 months, and allow me for a sort of quick recap. We have gotten NOK 1 billion in new bond facilities that was done in January and February in bond debts. We have extended or actually, I've also gotten NOK 5 billion in new bank debt in September. And then we have extended a total of NOK 13 billion, 1-3, of bank facilities i.e., existing facilities that have been added sort of duration in terms of maturity. And that has been -- those extensions had done -- been done, we did NOK 2.5 billion in the second quarter last year. We did NOK 4 billion in the fourth quarter to another NOK 6.5 billion -- sorry, NOK 5.5 billion in the third quarter -- the second quarter and now another NOK 1 billion in the fourth quarter. So a total of NOK 13 billion of bank debt has been extended and as such, the blue part of the graph is the bank facilities, and we are comfortable that we're able to extend those further. We are not asking the banks for new funding. We don't need new funding, but we're asking them to extend existing facilities and that we have been successfully doing for the last year, and we expect that to continue. We had earlier in good times for CRE, spoken about the importance of relationships with the banks. And I mean Entra has business with 5 of the top Nordic banks. In alphabetic order, DNB, Handelsbanken, Nordea, SEB and Swedbank. And they stand with us -- by us and with us in good times and they also stand by us in more challenging times and we expect that to continue. So all in all, on the debt maturity part and liquidity part, which is really the key thing for balance-heavy or debt-heavy or asset-heavy companies like real estate, that is a key thing. Thank you.

Okay. So just a few closing remarks before we take some questions. First of all, the Norwegian economy is strong. And in the past it has proven its ability to both smooth out the business cycles. And with the strong government finances in Norway, it clearly stands out as a significantly more positive than most other countries. The activity in the letting market has been good, and we see solid demand for centrally located offices. We have favorable market dynamics particularly in the Oslo market where there is low vacancies and limited new build volumes coming into the market. Entra has, as Anders went through, a large liquidity buffer which will cover also bond maturities for almost the next 5 years. And we have an ongoing divestment program, which we continue to work on and also good interest for our assets. So I think that concludes it for -- now from our presentation, and I do believe we have some questions. So Anders, why don't you join me up here, and we can see if we have any questions.

First, a question for Anders. ICR seems to come under even more pressure. Do creditors and Moody's accept these levels you might fall to? And how are you planning to improve ICR?

Yes. If you take Moody's first. We had a Baa1 rating with a negative outlook from July last year. Then that was changed into a Baa2, i.e., BBB flat rating with a negative outlook now in May. We had expected to have the Baa2 downgrade due to our debt metrics. We did not expect the negative outlook to that. The reason is that Moody's changed the rating triggers throughout the spring. So the rating triggers for Baa2 are now the same as we had for Baa1. So that's why we had the negative outlook on the Baa2. That said, debt metrics account for 45% of Moody's rating grid. So clearly important. And the key ones are LTV and ICR. And Moody's has stated they want us to be at below 45% in LTV and 2.5 in ICR. The LTV part is -- can be fixed. That can be sorted out through asset sales. The ICR is more difficult because the effect of asset sales on ICR is very small. So we are currently at 2.04. We expected -- last quarter before the interest rates were going up, we expect it to be around 2. Now we will probably end up somewhat lower than that, more closer to 1.8-ish, if you're just doing the math. And there is nothing much we can do about it because asset sales do not change. That ICR will hit the bottom sometime early 2024. Then we will see it come up again above 2 following the CPI indexation and our top line development. So in terms, we will have a bottom and there's nothing we can do about that, but it will come back up again above 2 and sort of in the low 2s within the next couple of years. And in our discussions with Moody's, they state that they have a longer view perspective on basically how they look at it. It has to be a positive trajectory in terms of approaching these rating trigger targets. But we will, I mean, with a negative outlook, we will be up for review sometime during the autumn. Just to add, the most important thing for Moody's and for creditors is that the company has your liquidity available and are able to meet its obligations and Entra has that by very large standard. If you just remember the most positive exhibit on the presentation, [ I reckon ] with the debt maturities, very comfortable. That is the key thing. And also, there are the things into effect as well. We see that other companies have higher demands on their debt metrics, but because Entra has a high-quality portfolio with a high-quality asset in a positive market environment. So what we see is that, I mean, Moody's will make their own judgment or review sometime in spring. When we speak with bond investors, when we speak with banks, they seem very comfortable about the credit quality of Entra, as proven now in, again, we had the Baa1 with a negative outlook in January-Feb when we were able to -- when the bond investors put another NOK 1 billion into us or invested in us. And we were also able to extend the bank facilities with that Moody's view hanging above us. So in that way, clearly, our debt metrics should have been better. And we're working on the LTV in particular because that can be sold. The ICR is not -- it's not soluble. We will hit that bottom and then we'll come up back up.

It was stated that more assets might be sold than what has been communicated earlier. What criteria will be key here and what market assets will be considered sold?