Exor N.V. (EXO) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome, and thank you for joining Exor's Half Year 2024 Results Conference Call. Please note that the presentation materials and the related press release are available for download on Exor's website, www.exor.com under the Investors and Media Financial Results section, and any forward-looking statements made during this call are covered by the safe harbor statement included in the presentation material. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Exor's Chief Financial Officer, Guido de Boer. Sir, you may now begin.

Thank you, Melanie, and good afternoon to everyone, and thank you for joining us today for this presentation of Exor's half year results of 2024. So starting with the main highlights for the half year. Our net asset value increased to EUR 38.3 billion at 30th of June, up from EUR 35.4 billion at the 1st of January. And the main driver of this has been the positive performance of our listed companies as we'll see later in the presentation. Net debt was equal to EUR 3.7 billion at 30th of June, down from EUR 4 billion at the beginning of the year. This decrease is due to the cash flows from dividends being concentrated in the first half of the year. And with that, also our loan-to-value improved to 9% at 30th of June, down from 10% at the beginning of the year driven by a lower net debt as well as obviously the increase in our gross asset value, net of cash and cash equivalents. And finally, as we previously announced, as of the 1st of January, Exor reports as an investment entity under IFRS 10. And later in the presentation, we'll provide details regarding this change and reporting, as mentioned, which will make our financial report more concise, clear and aligned with the way in which our stakeholders, including you, our analysts and investors evaluate Exor. So moving to the NAV per share performance compared to our benchmark. Our main financial objective is to grow NAV per share and outperform our benchmark MSCI World Index. In the first half, our NAV per share increased by 9% compared to 40% delivered by the MSCI World Index. If you look at the graph, unfortunately, just before the half year-end, the Ferrari share price dipped a bit, and given the weight in our portfolio that reduced our NAV per share. I'm very happy, obviously that Ferrari performed very strongly since then and definitely outperformed MSCI. So we should be well on track for that. And that's obviously a measurement for a half year and 9% for half year is nice, but we aim to deliver long-term compounded results. And if we look at our track record since inception, NAV per share has been growing at a compounded annual rate close to 19% compared to 12% for the MSCI World Index. We also measure our absolute performance based on total shareholder return, which has been growing at a compounded annual growth rate of 20% since inception. So we've moved into the composition of NAV and starting with drivers of change in our gross asset value. Our gross asset value increased by EUR 3.3 billion or 8% in the first half, out of which EUR 2 billion came from increases in valuations and EUR 1.3 billion was driven by dividend inflows. If we look at its components, listed companies presented around 80% of our GAV and the main drivers of performance also for growth in the period, with an increase in value of EUR 2 billion, while we made additional investments of around EUR 0.6 billion. The remaining increase has been driven by other components of GAV, which are unlisted company investment and others, which we will detail further in the coming slides. So if we move to the bulk of our gross asset value, our listed companies. The increase in value of our listed companies of EUR 2 billion or 6% has been driven by a very mixed performance, not a single company that 6% of growth. The main contributor has been Ferrari going up 25% in the first half. Philips performing very strongly with 12% up and Iveco with 29% up while Stellantis declined by 13% and CNH by 15% in the first half of the year. In this first half, we also increased our investment in Philips by EUR 622 million, out of which a bit above EUR 500 million was through additional share purchases and EUR 121 million came through a dividend, which was paid in shares. So with that, we reached shareholding in Philips of 17.5% for which we spent approximately EUR 3.3 billion and which at today's share price has a value of EUR 4.5 billion. So in a bit over a year of when we crossed 15%, we're now sitting at approximately EUR 1.2 billion gain on this investment. Also in the first half, we became a long-term investor in Clarivate, reaching 10% shareholding and the Board seat. And due to that, we reclassified Clarivate from others to companies. If we then move to the Unlisted Companies, which went up in value on our balance sheet by a bit below EUR 70 million or 2%. This change was primarily from additional investments in TagEnergy, Nuo, Lifenet and GEDI for approximately EUR 124 million, which was partly offset by fair value adjustments that we did on our portfolio. And as you know, as an investment entity, we report our companies all at fair value and in line with the past unlisted companies are valued using the method that best reflects the company's most recent fair value. And in general, this is done, especially for the larger companies by independent valuator also to ensure the consistency and the primary valuation methods are market multiples combined with other valuation techniques such as STCF, for example. So moving to the performance of investments and others. Investments, which includes both Lingotto as well as our venture activities, increased by value by EUR 281 million or 10%, largely because of the positive performance of the public funds of Lingotto by EUR 228 million. And also, we continue to invest in Lingotto as well as in ventures for a total of EUR 75 million. In the Others category, which includes liquidity and other assets, the changes were driven by the positive performance of the reinsurance vehicles, which we received as part of the transaction with Covéa to sell PartnerRe. We partly monetized this for an amount of EUR 287 million and the remaining reinsurance vehicles have been performing very strongly with a mid- to high teens CAGR since receipt. And you'll see a small positive translation effect due to a favorable euro-USD exchange rate. The negative performance of the listed securities for EUR 280 million, which is partly Clarivate and a bit of Forvia, was partly offset by the sale of securities for EUR 74 million, which was principally disposal from the bulk of the Masimo shares that we have. And further, there was an increase in cash and cash equivalents for EUR 691 million, which was driven by free cash flow generation as well as proceeds from the reinsurance vehicle redemptions I mentioned earlier as well as sales listed securities and the bonds that we issued earlier in the year, partly offset by the investments we made in the period. If we move to our net financial position, at the half year, we had a net position of EUR 3.7 billion, which was down from a net debt position of EUR 4 billion at the start of the year. The main driver of this positive net change has been the strong free cash flow generation during the first half, which includes EUR 1 billion of dividends received from companies and EUR 400 million of proceeds from the reinsurance vehicles as well as sales of listed securities. During this first half, we continued to maintain a disciplined capital allocation. And this came for EUR 900 million from deploying capital into company's Lingotto and ventures, buying back shares for EUR 130 million as part of the EUR 1 billion buyback program, which we announced a year ago as well as paying dividends for approximately EUR 100 million to our shareholders. Other changes include a negative EUR 57 million, mainly financial income -- sorry, mainly financial expenses for EUR 24 million, management costs for EUR 10 million and other net changes for EUR 23 million. And obviously, we pay close attention to our expenses, and we have an aim to keep management cost below 10 basis points of our GAV and based on the first half performance on an annualized basis, we're approximately around 6 basis points for the estimated lending of the year. If we then go to the investment entity reporting that we apply from the start of the year, we prospectively apply this reporting, so no restatement of the 2023 accounts with first-time application in this half year results. So in line with IFRS requirements, we deconsolidated our portfolio companies where we exercised a significant influence or control and we account for them at fair value with changes recognized in the income statement and subsidiaries that provide support service to N.V. in relation to management of the investments, they continue to be consolidated on a line-by-line basis. So the real holding activities are still consolidated and all our investments are at fair value on the balance sheet and flow through the P&L. As I mentioned earlier, figures for June '23 have not been restated, but to facilitate comparability of measures, NAV and its components, at 30 June '24 are compared to 1st of January 2024 to have a like-for-like comparison. The result of this investment entity change is that the metrics that we use to represent our financial performance. So GAV, NAV and gross debt are now equal to IFRS measures. So GAV is equal to total assets, NAV to equity and gross debt to borrowings and other financial liabilities which are all audited. And the other benefit is that our financial statements are much easier to read with relevant information for you. Obviously, this change in reporting has had a material impact on the consolidated financial statements. And in the next slide, we show the details of the one-off positive impact. This positive impact is EUR 11.8 billion positive, of which EUR 12.15 billion results from the difference in carrying amount of the investment previously consolidated or accounted for using the equity method and their fair market value. And for a negative EUR 374 million, resulting from the reversal to the income statement of the OCI reserves of the entities deconsolidated and no longer accounted for at equity. As we mentioned during our last call, this new reporting presentation is aligned with the way we measure our performance and on the basis of which we take capital allocation decisions and is based on the KPIs included in management incentives. I hope it will give you a more clear insight in our financial performance. This concludes the formalized comments that I wanted to make. And with that, I'm pleased to open for Q&A. So Melanie, please proceed with the opening for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Jon Pérez from Kepler Cheuvreux. As there's no response, we'll move to the next question. [Operator Instructions] There are no questions at this time. So I will hand the call back to Guido for closing remarks.

I'm very pleased that it was so clear, but I already saw some notes, I think you needed message in the half year. Press release came across well. So I hope that we disclosed more transparently for you. If you have any further questions, please feel free to reach out to the IR team directly, and we can address any questions that you have. So thank you for joining this call and look forward to speaking to you again at the year-end results or any time earlier before that. Thank you.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's conference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.