Eolus Aktiebolag (publ) (0R8F.L) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to the Eolus Q4 2023 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to the speakers: CEO, Per Witalisson; and CFO, Catharina Persson. Please go ahead.

Welcome all to the presentation of Eolus Q4 report for 2023. And with me here to present is also Catharina Persson, CFO of Eolus, and I'm Per Witalisson, CEO of Eolus. Today is a really good day. We conclude a strong fourth quarter and the best year so far in Eolus history. So to start with a few words about Eolus and our business model before we dig into the presentation of the fourth quarter. So Eolus is a developer of renewable energy. We've been in business since 1990, so for more than 3 decades. We are growing significantly. We're more -- now more than 130 employees. We have doubled the headcount in the company over, I would say, the last 18 months or so. We're active in 7 countries with projects spread over 2 continents. We are developing projects, being onshore wind, offshore wind, solar PV projects and energy storage projects. We have a large and diversified project portfolio now amounting to almost 27 gigawatts and spread over 250-plus projects in various stages. We develop project from a greenfield through permitting, through procurement until we're ready to build where we market the projects, selling them to investors, constructing them on behalf of investors who are mainly financing construction and then we hand over the operating assets to the investor. So we are not -- we do not have any operational assets ourselves. But we're also entrusted by our customers to provide them with technical and commercial asset management services. So we have [ soon ] gigawatt of operating assets under management. Turning to the project portfolio, as said, almost 27 gigawatts. You can see to the left, how it is split by technology, where offshore wind is now the largest share of the portfolio. Of course, the offshore wind projects are much larger than the other projects in terms of megawatts. So adding offshore projects, of course, adds a lot to the portfolio. Onshore wind accounts for about 1/3 of the portfolio per megawatt. Onshore wind is the most valuable projects of the different techniques. And roughly or slightly below 1/4 of the portfolio is solar PV projects and around 10% is energy storage projects, mainly battery storage projects. And going forward, there will be a lot of hybrid projects, meaning combinations of different techniques being constructed. In the middle section, you can see the growth of the project portfolio. We are investing heavily in project pipeline and in organization to handle this portfolio to reach our long-term growth targets. And to the right, on the map, you can see how the portfolio sits in the different countries. A little less than half of the portfolio in Sweden, about 20% in the U.S., mainly in the Southwestern states of California, Nevada and Arizona, and also 20% in Finland, boosted by the acquisition of the YIT Energy that we did during the fourth quarter. The rest of the portfolio is mainly split the Baltic countries and in Poland, where we have grown business. So turning to the fourth quarter. Net sales amounted to SEK 155 million and SEK 2.3 billion for the full year. The net sales is going down compared to previous years. If you look -- compare quarter-over-quarter, it's mainly due to our asset-light business model where we don't have the gross project costs going through our profit and loss statement now to a larger extent. So you can -- going forward, you can expect a lower net sales but much higher project margins from Eolus if we can maintain that business model. We have a net profit for the quarter of SEK 71 million and SEK 573 million for the full year, meaning that the earnings per share amounted to SEK 2.85 for the quarter and SEK 23 for the full year. Financially, we're in a good position, I would say, with an equity-to-asset ratio of 56%, well above our target level of at least 30%. The Board of Directors will propose an increased dividend of SEK 2.25, and that is an increase of 50% compared to last year. The result from the fourth quarter mainly comes from the completion of the construction of the Swedish wind projects, Skallberget/Utterberget, Tjarnas and Rosenskog, that was constructed -- sold to and constructed on behalf of the Swiss utility BKW. And the remaining revenues mainly come from the ongoing construction project Stor-Skalsjon also a Swedish wind project. For the full year, a significant part of the results comes from the construction of the mentioned wind projects, but also 2 American projects have contributed substantially to the full year result. And that is a milestone payment collected from the Centennial Flats project and the completed battery energy storage project, Cald. So going a little bit more into detail. We completed the construction of the wind projects Skallberget/Utterberget, Tjarnas and Rosenskog, delivered to BKW. And it's 19 turbines split over these 3 projects. And we have constructed them and delivered them on time and within budget to our customer. So all revenues are recognized in the Q4. But when it comes to collecting the outstanding construction management fee, that will be recorded in -- we will receive it, and it will be recorded in the first quarter of 2024. And that is one of the main reason why the cash flow may look weak for the fourth quarter. Stor-Skalsjon is then our ongoing construction project. All turbines have been constructed, 41 out of 42 turbines are in -- have started generating electricity as we speak. And there is an intense work ongoing to complete and hand over the project to the owners, MEAG and Hydro REIN within the first quarter. And this is a project that we own together with Hydro REIN. So Eolus share of revenue and profit is 51% corresponding to our ownership in the company. We have also started construction for our American battery energy storage project, Pome, located in the San Diego area. We have made large investments in the projects in down payments for the battery system. And the project is expected to be sold during the first half of 2024 and to be completed by the end of 2024. So this is -- during Q4 and during the beginning of 2024, a lot of capital will be deployed in this project until we have sold it. We boosted our Finnish portfolio through the acquisition of YIT Energy Oy in December. It is the largest construction company in Finland. So we acquired their renewable business. The acquisition included a portfolio of Finnish projects, mainly onshore wind projects amounting to 2.3 gigawatts. That is the total potential of the portfolio. And we also got 16 new colleagues really boosting our Finnish organization. And out of the total potential portfolio, 1.1 gigawatts are projects that are -- that mature, that they have been included in Eolus project portfolio in Q4 already. The acquisition price was a fixed purchase price of EUR 25 million. We paid EUR 10 million upfront and will pay the remaining EUR 15 million during 2024 and beginning of 2025 in 2 milestones. And in addition to that, there is an additional purchase price based on project sales and completed projects up until 2032. We have submitted permit applications for 2 offshore wind projects during the fourth quarter. It's the project Najaderna, Northeast of Uppsala. It's a project with a size of up to 1,700 megawatts that could provide 4 to 5 terawatt hours of yearly electricity production to be fed into the grid in [indiscernible]. We've also submitted the permit application for our Arkona project South of the [indiscernible], also a project of about 1.4 gigawatts with a potential electricity production of about 5.5 terawatt hours per year. Continuing on the offshore projects. The Vastvind project located west of Gothenburg. It's a project of about 1 gigawatt. We entered into a partnership with Volvo Cars with the ambition that Vastvind will supply electricity to Volvo Cars' operations in Gothenburg, including the new battery factory being -- that they are constructing in Gothenburg together with Northvolt. Government have processed the -- our application and forwarded to the County Administrative Board to review and prepare the decision. In the report, we present an update on our financial targets and our -- the outcome for 2023. To start with, we have a sales target of selling 1,000 megawatts per year on average during the years 2022 to 2024 that are the years that our 3-year business plan is covering. During 2023, we only sold 125 megawatts. So we were way below the target. During 2022, we sold just over 1 gigawatt. So on average, we are -- we have so far reached 568 megawatts. Still, you see we have the best result in the history, which is, of course, much due to the sales transactions that we did in 2022. We are growing our organization and our product pipeline to reach the long-term sales target of 1.5 gigawatt of sales on average per year from 2025 and onwards. And during 2023, we expanded our project portfolio by roughly 5,000 megawatts to support that. Return on equity at group level shall exceed 10% per year on average. We were way beyond that. We are reporting a total return on equity of 46%. And also when it comes to our target to have an equity -- asset -- equity-to-asset ratio exceeding 30%, we were way beyond that as well with a 56% ratio. And when it comes to the dividend policy, we have a policy that dividend should correspond to 20% to 50% of the group's profit after tax, of course, considering the funding needs, et cetera, of the company going forward. And the Board of Directors proposes a dividend of SEK 2.25 per share totaling SEK 56 million as a dividend. So it follows the dividend policy. And if you look back at the last years, we are within that range. And with the dividend policy of 20% to 50%, that means also that we are willing to invest 50% to 80% of the earnings into projects and organization to handle projects. Based on the Finnish acquisition we made, we are focusing a little extra in the report on the Finnish renewables market. And the market has grown significantly in recent years and a lot of projects have been constructed in Finland. And Fingrid, that is the owner of the national grid in Finland, forecast that Finland's total installed capacity of renewables will reach 20 gigawatts in -- by 2030 compared to that we have 7 gigawatt in installed capacity as of today. Compared to Sweden, I would say that there is a higher acceptance, local acceptance for wind power project. And one big reason for that is that there are local real estate tax, for instance, that goes to the municipalities. So there are really large local benefits. And Eulos in Finland, we've been active in small scales since 2014. We have scaled up significantly since 2022. And now the operations are led by our Country Manager, Tiina Partanen since August 2023. And really now with the jump start with the acquisitions that we have done, both the YIT acquisition and also the cooperation with Finsilva, a large Finnish forestry owner that we announced a cooperation with earlier during 2023. Looking ahead, we are presenting, at our web page, the projects that we have in late-stage development, where we expect commercial operation until 2024. We have -- from the top, Stockasbodarna is a project -- a wind project in the Sundsvall area, which we expect to be able to do a transaction in the -- hopefully during this year. The projects #2, 6 and 7, Fagelas, Dallebo and Boarp are the projects next in line, and we communicate that we expect to do both sales, transaction and procurement of turbines for those projects within the first quarter. But if I should mention -- just highlight one project, I would choose to -- the Pienava project, our first Latvian project. It's 158 megawatts where we have all permits ready, and we expect to do both procurement and the sales transaction at least during the autumn. Okay. Then I would like to hand over to Catharina for commentary regarding the reported figures.

Thank you, Per, and Hi, everyone. And just flipping to the financial slides. For the quarter, I can start to highlight that we -- the handover of Skallberget/Utterberget, Tjarnas and Rosenskog to the owner is the main driver and contribution to the result in the last quarter for 2023. And as Per also mentioned, in total, 2023 was a record year with the best result in Eulos history. Net sales was SEK 155 million, and it decreased with SEK 211 million in comparison with the same period last year. And according to plan, we'll finalize the construction of Tjarnas, Skallberget/Utterberget and Rosenskog and hand it over to onshore wind farms, BKW before year-end. And most of net sales in the quarter is referring to these projects. Overall, the projects were on time and within the budget and have contributed to the margin and profitability in the quarter. And the final payment will be received during first quarter this year, 2024. Then we have revenue recognition from Stor-Skalsjon based on the degree of completion. It's included in the net sales and had also made a contribution to the margin. And the degree of completion increased with 13%. And as informed, the degree of completion is lower than expected due to the delay. But we are working hard to finalize the project and aiming to be able to hand over the wind farm to the owners by end of first quarter 2024. And in total, Stor-Skalsjon had a percentage of completion of 79% by year-end. And our assumptions are still that we will have enough reservations in our project budget for Stor-Skalsjon to secure that Eulos margin will not be materially affected negatively by the delay. And in comparison with the fourth quarter last year, the operating profit has improved from SEK 27 million to SEK 99 million, which is an increase of SEK 72 million. Net from financial items for the quarter was minus SEK 5 million. It is referring to interest for cash positions and interest for loans. And the items have also been impacted by revaluation of positions in other currency than SEK. And net profit for the quarter was SEK 71 million and has increased by SEK 30 million compared to the same period 2022. And the consolidated balance sheet. Total fixed assets amounted to SEK 305 million, and the property, plant and equipment has increased with approximately SEK 215 million compared to end 2022. And that is referring to a land lease agreement in the U.S. battery storage project, Pome, and future payments according to conditions in that agreement. Work in progress and projects under development was SEK 1.2 billion and advanced payments to suppliers, SEK 183 million. And major investments have been made when starting up the construction of Pome project in California and also the project portfolio has grown with the acquisition of the Finnish projects from YIT made in December. And also other investments in the product portfolio during the quarter has contributed to the increased work in progress. Cash year-end was SEK 575 million compared to SEK 568 million year-end 2022. We had total asset amounts to SEK 2,808 million, and the total equity is SEK 1,579 million, whereof SEK 69 million is related to the minority stakeholders. Interest-bearing liabilities was SEK 692 million compared to SEK 310 million same time last year. And the previously mentioned land lease agreement for Pome is included in these liabilities with SEK 250 million. And that sum will be removed when we are -- we have sold the Pome project. If we go to key figures. We have net sales for the quarter divided into the 2 segments. We have Project Development with net sales of SEK 148 million with an operating profit of SEK 97 million. And then we have the other segment, Asset Management, and net sales for that segment was SEK 7 million and operating profit of SEK 2 million. Earnings per share for the quarter is SEK 2.85. And when we have the cash flow from operating activities during the quarter, that was negative by SEK 407 million, and that is referring to investments in the projects. Equity per share, about SEK 61 and we had a net debt of SEK 118 million, and that's due to capital tied up in the projects and also pending payments for wind farms handed over in December. And we will receive those payments during Q1 2024. And for the financial year 2023, the Board of Directors proposes a dividend of SEK 2.25 per share. In total, that will be SEK 56 million. And the proposed dividend is 50% higher than last year. And that -- and also follows Eolus target that dividend over a period of time should correspond to 20% to 50% of group's net profit. And the decision regarding the dividend will be made at the Annual Meeting, 16 May in Hassleholm. During the last years, we have been investing heavily in employees to grow the organization at all our markets where we are present. And average number of full-time employees for the full year 2023 is 107 compared to 76 the year before. And in total, we are over 130 employees at Eolus today. We have order backlog of about SEK 665 million year-end and compared to end last year, the order backlog is lower. And one of the reasons is that customers have signed the relevant agreements with the suppliers directly through the project companies that they have acquired from Eolus. And the agreement the customer is entered into with Eolus is a so-called Construction Management Agreement, CMA. And this means that Eolus leads the construction on behalf of the owner. And during the construction time, we use the percentage of completion method for revenue recognition from the CMA. Previously, the structure of the transactions was that Eolus signed the contracts with the suppliers of wind turbines, construction works, et cetera. And therefore, the total value of the construction of the wind farm was included in Eolus profit and loss statement and the order backlog was, because of that, higher. We have also asset management assignments of 941 megawatts, and we have also signed agreements for coming 268 megawatts. And Eolus has, after this record year, an even stronger balance sheet with equity assets ratio of 56%. And we have a very solid foundation for future plans. And return on equity after tax for 2023 is 46%. And we have degree of completion on this slide, 368 megawatts were under construction year-end 2023 and the degree of completion for project Stor-Skalsjon increased by 13% for the quarter and is now, in total, 79%. And the remaining degree of completion will be accounted for beginning of 2024 is the plan. And as you can see, the battery project, Pome, is not fulfilling the requirements for percentage of completion method as it has not been sold yet. And revenue recognition will start when agreement with customer is signed and when the predefined construction milestones are achieved. And now, I will hand over the summary to Per.

Thank you, Catharina. And just to summarize, it is a really strong quarter that contributes to 2023 being a record year for Eolus, the best year in the more than 30-year-long history of the company. So we're pleased to present the net profit of SEK 71 million for the quarter and SEK 573 million for the full year. And the results from the quarter mainly comes from the construction and handing over of our Swede wind projects. So it has been an exciting quarter where we have completed and handed over these projects to BKW. We have acquired the Finnish company, YIT Energy, boosting our portfolio and strengthened our position on the Finnish market. We have submitted permit applications for another 2 offshore wind projects and invested heavily in the construction start of the American battery project, Pome. We have grown our product portfolio significantly and in total by 5 gigawatts for the full year to a total of almost 27 gigawatts. So I look forward to an eventful 2024. And I think Eolus is in a very good position to take on the opportunities and challenges in the markets. And based on the mega trends of sustainability and electrification and the increased focus on security of supply, combined with a great interest from investors to invest in this sector, gives me a very positive feeling that we enter 2024 with. So thank you all for listening in to the presentation.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Olof Cederholm from ABG Sundal Collier.

Per, Catharina, good report today. I have one bigger question sort of on the projects and Centennial Flats was obviously an important driver of the 2023 earnings with milestone payments there. What do you think about the outlook on further milestone payments from that project in '24?

We will receive next milestone payment when the customer takes their financial investment decision. We expect that to be either late 2024 or beginning of 2025.

Excellent. And do you know roughly what an investment decision would mean in terms of milestone payments? Or is it a range of outcomes here?

It's a range of outcome definitely. When calculating our order backlog, we have used the lowest value in the range that we have indicated in the press release when we sold the project.

Okay. Excellent. Then, I'm wondering a little bit, just curious on the offshore portfolio. Could you maybe expand a little bit on what kind of time line you see for these projects? Do you think there will be any material news coming in 2024? Or should we think about this for later years?

Yes, we expect definitely news regarding the offshore portfolio, both when it comes to development and progress of the portfolio since the 3 projects now are on the government's -- Swedish government's table. We also expect to be able to present some news regarding teaming up with the partners to make sure that the projects get the best possibilities to be realized and constructed. And there are -- many of our offshore projects, mainly the Swedish projects, are located quite close to shore, close to strong grid connection points and in shallow water. So they have been developed with the idea that they are the offshore projects that should have the lowest cost of [indiscernible].

Excellent. And maybe just a question on general pricing on projects. Do you see any pressure on pricing when you're out in sales processes? Or are you able to keep good profitability, do you think?

We see that sales processes takes a longer time than before. We see that there are quite wide ranges in the bids we receive that, of course, indicates uncertainty in the market. We see more utilities placing attractive bids on the projects compared to the pure financial investors. That, of course, is due to the higher interest levels. And so far, prices are still high, and that is also needed due to the increased CapEx prices, but the long-term forecasted power prices are also higher than if we look back a couple of years. So we see that the projects with the best quality -- that we definitely can keep up our expected margins and make them profitable, both for us and for our customers.

Excellent. And then just a housekeeping question. The first payment to YIT, can I find that in the cash flow statement? I don't see anything on acquisitions.

You go ahead, Catharina.

No, it's investment in the project portfolio instead of investment on that line.

[Operator Instructions] There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any written questions and closing comments.

Yes. Thank you. There are some questions posted in the chat. We'll try to answer a couple of them. And there are some more detailed questions, so we will make sure to get back in the e-mail to you about them. We have a question about the commercial landscape with the higher interest rates. And yes, it affects, of course, return expectations from the investors. It leads to increased CapEx, but it is, as I said, compensated by higher expectations for future power prices. So we still can make our projects profitable for ourselves and meet the return expectations of the investors. We have some questions about the long-term sales target on 1.5 gigawatt on average and compared to the projects we present as the late-stage projects. And with a portfolio of 26 gigawatts, 27 gigawatts, to sell 1,500 megawatts a year on average, that means that we have to have a turnover rate of 6% of the portfolio. And to reach this target, it definitely means that we also will need to have to sell offshore projects that are in earlier stage and not presented yet as a late development stage and also some of the larger U.S. projects that are maturing quickly, I would say, in the pipeline. And we have a question about the offshore wind portfolio and the strategic review, if it would be -- lead to that we sell specific projects or that it could be that we are looking to sell the whole portfolio. We have quite an open mindset about it to bring in partners on portfolio-level or in specific projects, and it could be either financial investors or industrial players with, for instance, construction and operation competence of -- from offshore wind. So still early to say what we can achieve, but we're going into this with an open mindset and with -- to achieve the best conditions possible for the projects to be realized in the end. Catharina, [ are there any of that ] more -- other questions that you want to comment? Or should we get back in writing for the more detailed ones?

We can just say a few words regarding the cash flow that was negative during the quarter. There are 2 specific reasons. The first one is that we have not -- we had not received payment for -- the final payment for the wind farm that were handed over in late December. So that one will better the cash flow during quarter 1. And the other reason is the acquisition of the YIT portfolio, that was payments made during December. And then we also have to start the construction of the U.S. battery project, Pome, that started up late 2023. So that's like 3 specific reasons why the cash flow was negative during the quarter. And as soon as Pome has been sold, we will, of course, receive payments and also compensated for the payments that we have made during the start of the construction. That, I think also answers to a couple of the questions written in the chat.

Good. Thank you all for listening in. I wish you all a nice day.

Thank you.