Globe Trade Centre S.A. (GTC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I believe we can start the meeting. My name is Malgorzata Czaplicka. I'm the Investor Relations Director of GTC S.A. And it's my pleasure to welcome you to today's call. We will be discussing our 2020 results. And as traditionally, there will be a presentation conducted by the management, Yovav Carmi, the CEO; and Ariel Ferstman, the CFO. [Operator Instructions]. Please note that today's call is being recorded and it will be placed on the GTC's website after the call. Yovav, the floor to yours.

Thank you, everybody. Should we -- yes. Okay. So thank you for joining us. I would like to start with a few -- some general words. 2020 had been a challenging year for us in 2 different dimensions. The first dimension is, of course, having to handle the challenges that were brought by the COVID pandemic. And this has been an experience for all companies across the region, across the world, actually. And we had one additional challenge in the course of 2020: GTC changed hands. The majority shareholder -- previous majority shareholder, Lone Star, sold their stake to Optima and... [Technical Difficulty]

Everybody on mute here.

Okay. I will continue. So in addition to the COVID challenges, as I said, Lone Star, the majority shareholder, sold its stake to Optima. And there's no majority shareholder. As a result, there was a handover from the previous management Board to the current management Board that has been appointed sometime in the summer -- in the course of the summer last year. And since we took over, we are now bringing to you the results of the year, which I think, I would say -- carefully say that those are very good results, bearing in mind circumstances. In this first slide, what we can see is that GTC was able to maintain a healthy gross margin of EUR 119 million versus EUR 128 million in the previous year. We've maintained a strong FFO of EUR 66 million comparing to EUR 70 million in 2019 before the COVID. And we have been able to maintain a very healthy and solid financial metrics, with LTV at 45% and a record low interest -- average interest rate of 2.3%. The COVID pandemic had an impact on our income of EUR 15 million loss of income that was a result of several lockdowns that occurred during the year, plus rent discounts that we have given to tenants in the course of the year. The effect of this started in the second quarter until the fourth one. So on average, this is roughly EUR 5 million per quarter. I think we will come to that a bit later. But within this context of things, I think it's important to mention that now, today, as of today, with full lockdown in Poland and in Bulgaria, about 30% of our retail GLA is allowed to trade. And of course, this will roll into -- the effect of the COVID will roll into 2021. I think coming back to this slide, we have been able to preserve our cash and accumulated cash. And at the end of the year, we have a strong liquidity position with EUR 272 million. A big portion of it is thanks to a bond raising exercise that we have conducted in Q4. Last year, we obtained an investment grade of rating BBB-. [Technical Difficulty] was 33% oversubscribed. We have complemented this with a subsequent exercise similar in March this year, '21, which was 25% oversubscribed. I think this oversubscription element shows the confidence of the banks and the strength of the company to attract investors. Moving to the next slide. If we look at the office performance, I think, actually, the most important point here is that we were not facing any collection challenges with the office sector. We have been able to maintain strong occupancy rate of over 90% as of the end of the year. However, given the COVID pandemic, the whole activity slowed down. So occupiers are slower in making their decisions. They are slower in executing decisions and the whole cycle is slower. Nevertheless, we have been able to secure 70,000 square meters of leases during the year. Most important of them are mentioned on this table. If we move to the retail sector, what we see here is the evolution of the footfall throughout the year. Of course, the first 2 months is before COVID, which we can -- which we show that our performance exceeded the period in 2019 before the COVID. And then since March to May, this was the first wave, the first full lockdown. And this, of course, severely affected our footfall in the malls. Post the lockdown, we saw the pickup of the footfall up until late September, where we have managed to get almost to 80% of previous year in terms of the footfall. And since second half of October, we've been seeing a second wave of COVID, which is visible on the decline in footfall with full lockdown in November and December and January. I think whenever we reopen, you see a sharp jump in the footfall, meaning that people wanted to get back to the mall to shop. And I think the next slide even emphasizes more the performance because you see that the ratio between footfall and the turnover shows a high conversion rate. So people were coming back and really shopping with -- if you compare to previous year, where in -- sometime during the summer, in August, September, we were almost at 90% performance of turnovers compared to previous year. So this is almost normal levels. Unfortunately, the second wave came in November, December. And again, if you look at February when things reopened after the closure in January, again, it jumped almost to 85%. So this, I think, is an encouraging signal that the impact of COVID is temporary due to the closures and restrictions. And once people are free to go, we immediately see the turnover is normalizing. Another signal that is important here is that we've been able to maintain a high occupancy rate of 95%. Please go back once again. And another one is the confidence of retailers during the COVID. We were able to attract flagship store in Polnocna. Sinsay and IKEA and Bershka were willing to commit in Mall of Sofia. So it shows that the larger retailers are still confident in our centers and willing to commit to long-term leases. If we move to the next one, those are measures that we have taken on the retail sector in order to minimize the impact of the COVID. So the first one is renegotiating the contracts with the retailers, especially after the lockdowns. All of them knocked on our door and asked for help. We've been negotiating with them temporary discounts for a limited period of time. And against that, we asked them to prolong the leases. This helped us in maintaining a long WALT of 3.6 years. We -- thanks to being able to renegotiate and settle with them and support them. I think this is mirrored by a very good collection rate of 97%. So we have the strong collection ratio here. As I mentioned previously, unfortunately, all those other items that I mentioned resulted in a EUR 15 million loss of income in 9 months in the -- yes, in the whole year. But the COVID started in Q2, so it's a 9-month effect. And then in the next slide, I think what we did as management across the board and the whole company is we were looking for means in order to take defensive measures or means to preserve the cash and ensure that we have sufficient liquidity for the very volatile times. I think one important measure is that we suspended the dividend distribution in 2019. Another one is towards the end of the year. We have issued green bonds in the amount of EUR 110 million, complemented by another round in March of EUR 54 million. In the course of the year, we sold one office building in Budapest, generating EUR 41 million free cash. It's not just EUR 41 million. It's another EUR 41 million that is not appearing on the slide. The EUR 41 million that you see here is active asset management that we conducted. One important element is rescheduling development projects that were planned to start in the course of 2020. Being prudent and listening to the demand on the market, we decided some of those projects should be rescheduled for later stage. And by doing that, we saved EUR 32 million. The other items are on the operational level, reducing some operating expenses in the amount of EUR 2 million and postponing some CapEx investments that are not time critical, will not hinder the daily operation of our buildings and could be carried out at a later stage. So that helped us preserve EUR 7 million in cash, altogether, EUR 41 million. Moving to the next slide. I think what we can see here is the intensive activity we've been undertaking in -- during this time in reshaping and working on our portfolio. We concluded the sale of the Spiral office building, as I just mentioned, in the course of 2020. At the beginning of the year, we completed the last phase of the Green Heart. This is 5,500 square meters of offices in Belgrade. We completed by the end of the year ABC II in Sofia and Matrix II in Zagreb. And we -- towards the end of the year, with the success of the leasing -- on the back of the success of the leasing of ABC II, we were comfortable enough to launch construction of Sofia Tower. This is an office tower of 8,000 square meters on top of the Mall of Sofia. This, in terms of activity, continued into 2021. First quarter, we have signed an agreement to acquire an office building in Budapest, 15,000 square meters on the Vaci ut called Vaci Greens, fully let, generating EUR 2.9 billion. And we acquired land plots just next to Green Heart in Belgrade for further development. This has potential development, right, of 75,000 square meters. I think the next one is a picture of how our portfolio looks like in terms about the diversification towards the various markets, the split between retail and office. So what we can see here is not very different to what we've seen in previous presentations. About 90% is cash-generating, income-producing versus 10% development. Out of the income producing, about 60% is office and 40% retail. Let's move on to the next slide, and I think what we would like to say here is a few words about the tenant base. We have high proportion of blue-chip tenants and we have no dependency on tenants or no tenant has any major impact on our activity. We have been able to maintain the high occupancy and high level of retention of our tenants. Post disposal of Spiral, all our income is in euro or linked to euro as of October when we completed the sale of Spiral. One more thing to mention on this slide. We have been achieving a very high ratio of green certification for our assets. 84% of our assets have obtained green certification. We -- we've just announced a couple of weeks ago, we completed the whole portfolio in Poland. Everything has green certification in Poland. We're working on the rest of the portfolio. In the long run, our aim is to have as high as possible ratio of green certified assets. In a month or so, you will also see the first ESG report coming out from us as we have decided as management to adopt such reporting obligation on a voluntary basis. Moving on, I always prefer the next one with the pictures. Yes. So here, what we can see is our development pipeline that requires immediate [indiscernible], I think. We have here Pillar office development, which is currently under development. We have not encountered any restrictions due to the COVID lockdowns, and it's moving ahead as planned in terms of time and budget to be completed by the end of this year, 2021. It's fully let as per previous presentations we mentioned. We launched, towards the end of the year Sofia Tower, to be completed by mid next year. Total investment is EUR 13.5 million. So we are taking advantage of the fact that the shopping center is closed, and we're moving ahead with the development with as minimum disruption to the mall as possible due to the fact that it's closed. And I thought that it's worth mentioning here that part of our asset management ongoing task is to upkeep the older assets on our balance sheet. Here, we can see Center Point 1 and 2. This is an asset that was completed some 15 years ago. And now it's relocated with tenants. We are taking the opportunity to renovate it to -- we have -- are planning an investment of EUR 10 million that will help relet it and reposition it. If we look at -- going forward, what is on the menu for commencement in very near future. We have 2 assets. One is Center Point 3. That building permit is imminent, and we expect it very soon. And we have GTC X in Belgrade that already has obtained the building permits. The 2 of those assets launching are really subject to marketplace demand. So I think I've finished this part of the presentation. If any questions, I'm happy to answer or otherwise, I will hand over to Ariel to talk about the financials.

So thank you, Yovav. So like Yovav mentioned, it's been a challenging year. In spite of the loss that we posted for the last year, I think we end up the -- our operational numbers remain strong. And I'll explain in a few seconds why. But if we're zooming in the numbers, we posted a loss of EUR 71 million for the last year, mainly driven by the losses on the revaluation, EUR 143 million. If we zoom in, the EUR 143 million revaluation, if we go on to Slide 19, you can see the breakdown of these losses. This is split 70% on the retail assets, 30% on the office. We have done 2 valuation exercise, one in the first half of the year and then the second half of the year. As you see, Poland, with minus EUR 55 million on the retail side, Polnocna and Jurajska. The reason was mainly driven by the slight expansion on the yields, decline on expected rental values. And of course, overall, with the microeconomic environment of the COVID-19, Belgrade would post minus EUR 30 million on the other shopping center. And also in the Avenue Mall, EUR 6 million and Sofia Mall is minus EUR 10 million. In the office sector, we had also some slight adjustment on values also as a result of certain slight expansion on the yields and certain degree of negative sentiment on the office sector, which was posted by the end of the year and the Q4 valuations in our portfolio in Poland, EUR 22 million, and mainly in Belgrade, minus EUR 13 million. Just to point out that our Budapest market remained very strong. And as Yovav mentioned out, we posted EUR 13 million profit. This is without counting our profit from projects under construction, which is mainly Pillar, which we booked around EUR 5 million during the year. But in Budapest, we booked EUR 10 million of uplift profit as a result of the sale of Spiral and some positive revaluation on our office. The market -- the office market in Budapest remains very strong. So going back into the income statement on Slide 17. We -- as Yovav mentioned, we took some measures to try to minimize as much as we extend the operating expenses and as well also the G&A and the selling expenses. So we posted a decline of EUR 5 million on a like-to-like basis between 2019 and 2020, EUR 17 million in '19 versus EUR 12 million in 2020. And if we zoom in regarding the gross margin of operations, we have a decline of 8%, driven mainly by the EUR 15 million losses from the lockdown, the rent reductions and the COVID influence. But however, if we need to explain the difference on the bridge on the gross margin on Slide 18, we see -- we post a gross margin of around EUR 128 million in '19 and -- versus EUR 190 million. The main reason is minus EUR 15 million for COVID-19. This was offset by EUR 9 million contribution increase on the income as a result of the largest and extended activity we had from the development side in 2019 with the completions of Green Heart, Ada Mall, ABC I and Matrix A, which contributed in the course of this year to offset that impact of the COVID. Of course, it remains to see also that also the new completions that Yovav mentioned will contribute positively in the next coming quarters to offset any potential losses on the COVID for the first quarter as well. Minus EUR 4 million decline on the gross margin as a result of the sales, net to White House and Spiral. And we remain strong with a very strong operating margin of 74%, 75% versus 2019. So we still, in light, in spite of the COVID, we remain very strong and very efficient as a platform. And this is one of the major points that was praised by our rating agency when they were rating our bonds also in December. Going on Slide 20, Malgorzata, and the balance sheet. As I mentioned before, we had a decline around 6% of our -- the asset value as a result of the losses from the revaluation. We ended up with the investment property of around EUR 2.1 billion versus EUR 2.2 billion last year. The main -- driven by the losses, EUR 143 million; the sale of Spiral, minus EUR 63 million. This was partially offset by our development activity, mainly in Pillar, the completion of ABC II and Matrix B, EUR 68 million, and the recent acquisition of a land plot next to Budapest will secure the future pipeline in -- for EUR 22 million for a potential 65,000 square meters office space in the future. As Yovav pointed out, we remain very strong cash position at the end of the year, EUR 310 million including our restricted cash, EUR 272 million free cash. This was driven mainly as a result of the successful placement of the bonds at the end of the year, EUR 110 million, plus the top-up that we took out at the beginning of the year from the refinance of Galeria Jurajska, EUR 46 million, partially offset by the repayment of the bond, EUR 69 million, and investment in different development projects around EUR 31 million. It's important to stress that this strong liquidity position will allow us to prepare the company for further growth and potential acquisitions in the future and also to weather any eventualities that might come regarding the COVID-19 in the next few months. Going to the strength of the debt metrics. As Yovav pointed out before, we remain on our long commitment of low loan-to-value. In spite of the decline of our asset values, we remain with 45% loan-to-value, which is a great achievement. We are very careful on any potential development or potential refinancing, not to overleverage our assets. One more pointed out that Yovav mentioned is the record on the minimum and average interest rate, which was driven by the fact of the successful placement of the bonds, which was placed at the end of December, 2.25% fixed coupon, which was swapped, fully euro at a rate below 1%. Regarding the debt maturity, as we mentioned -- as you see, you have EUR 135 million loans to be recycled in the next 12 months. Out of the EUR 135 million, we have already successfully signed and prolonged EUR 112 million, and we are in the course of signing the next EUR 25 million in the course of the next few months, which -- that will end up with the activity. And all -- basically all that you see those EUR 135 million will be prolonged at least for 5 or plus years. Regarding our financing activity. It was a very intensifying intensity here in terms of the financing activity. We really worked very hard. We tried to basically secure our very strong liquidity position. And that was, as a result, the successful green bonds that was placed at the end of the year, which continue in the course of the -- in the last few weeks with the last one of EUR 54 million, both oversubscribed about 30%. Both, as I mentioned before and is published also in our financial statements, were fully swapped. The first one to the euro below 1%, and the last one was swapped by 0.93% for the full term of the 10 years. Regarding the cash flow statements in slide -- the next slide. This is, I think, in spite of the minus EUR 15 million that we lost on the operational, we have remained steady on our cash flow from operating activities, $69 million versus $68 million, almost no change. And this is as a result, as mentioned by Yovav before, we really focus our efforts on collection. And of course, we did support our tenants. We tried to renegotiate those leases very quickly, but we remain with a focus on collection, collection and collection. So I think overall, it was a very challenging year. We're looking for more challenging years in a different way, more positive. And I think Malgorzata, we are ready to open the floor for a Q&A.

[Operator Instructions]

This is [ Peter Braven ]. Can you hear me?

Yes, we can, [ Peter ].

Can you please share some light what was behind the revaluations or devaluations of office, especially in Poland, Belgrade and Bucharest?

Thanks, [ Peter ]. I think, as I mentioned before, when we did the exercise with evaluators at the year-end, I think that COVID indeed impact significantly on our retail portfolio. However, we couldn't -- we are not -- we cannot avoid the fact that also had certain degree of impact in our office in terms of the investment activity declined in comparison to previous years. So the valuers were a little bit more conservative on their valuations. So there was, especially on the portfolio in Poland, there was a slight change or expansion on the yields. And our portfolio in Belgrade, there was a decline also on the expected rental value as well. Regarding Romania, I think that the main reason was the fact that the Romanian office market slightly changed. It's becoming a little much more competitive. And in fact, in light of the COVID, it remained much more competitive than it was before. There was too many completions and too many developments at the same time, and that also affected the expected rental values on our valuations. Plus the fact that certain assumptions such as vacancy or also the downturn of the tenants were prolonged also as well as a conservative method as well. I hope that answers your question.

Yes. And maybe there was a recent acquisition that you made. I cannot recall the number -- the name of this project. Can you also maybe give more color on this one?

I think we mentioned 2 acquisitions. One is land plots in Belgrade for development, just next to the Green Heart office project in Belgrade. The success in development and leasing the activity in Belgrade resulted in our confidence to continue our development mode in Belgrade. So we secured this land plot for another 75,000. Altogether, of course, in phases, but altogether, 75,000 square meters of -- potentially in offices in Belgrade. So this is one acquisition that was highlighted in the presentation. And another one is an office building on the Vaci ut street, 2 blocks away from Center Point 3 up the road. Vaci ut street is the main office corridor in Budapest. There is a metro along that street. And we have acquired 15,500 square meters office called Vaci Greens D. It has green certificate and signed the contract just a few weeks ago. And this is a relatively new building, 3 or 4 years old. So that's the second acquisition that we mentioned.

And what kind of yield do you get on the acquisition price on this one? And is it fully occupied?

It is fully occupied by tenants like Avon and Ford. And it is generating...

Unilever.

Unilever. And it's generating just below EUR 3 million per annum. The acquisition yield, I'm not sure this is something we publish.

The acquisition price is EUR 51 million. You can do the math.

And what is the net operating income?

EUR 3 million, roughly.

I have one question from [ Pavel ] [indiscernible]. Could you please comment on green bonds? It seems that those green bonds hadn't been offered publicly? Is it true that the final buyer was Hungarian Central Bank?

Well, the green bonds were issued by the -- we issued 2 series of green bonds. There is a program, which is sponsored by the National Hungarian Bank. It's called the bond growth program. It's a program that any company can apply in -- which is a Hungarian company, as operation of Hungarian company and certain parameters such as volume and asset base and so on.

And rating.

And rating as well. And in order to participate on this program, we have to achieve certain rating, which is a minimum B+. So we were investment-grade BBB-. As part of the program, the National Bank of Hungary purchased at least 50% of the proceeds of the bonds. And 50% of the proceeds of the bond has to be purchased by private investors. So that was offered to the public or private investors who can basically apply to those kind of bonds. Who are those private investors? Mainly, we're talking about financial institutions, banks, insurance companies, asset management companies. And of course, those loans were oversubscribed, one by 30% and 25%. So it can give you the flavor of how much was the demand from the private investors also as well.

It's also worth adding that the bonds were issued in Hungarian forint. So as a result, the distribution was limited mostly to the Hungarian finance institutions.

So maybe one question from my side. If you can hear me first maybe?

We can hear you fine, [ Tarek ].

Great. Okay. So [indiscernible] group. So like a follow-up on the green bonds because from what I understand, the coupon is like around 1%. So it's like significantly below what you got on average on your balance sheet for the moment, which is like 2.3% as far as I am concerned. So the question, are you planning more issues? I think it's like a rhetoric question. But in a way that you can exchange the project financing with the bonds. I know that some of the companies are doing it, are planning it. And the question in another way around is whether you see some upside potential when it comes to the average cost of debt due to these potential issuances.

That's a good question. First of all, the coupon was not 1%. The coupon for the first bond was 2.25%. It's in forint.

Okay, in forint. Okay.

It was swapped. When you convert that fixed coupon from forint to euro, you basically benefit from the difference of interest. So we managed to swap that to a euro-for-euro bond below 1%. The second coupon was issued recently by 2.6%. So that gives you the flavor, and that was the coupon in forint again. And we managed to swap also that for rate below 1%, 0.93%. So it's not that we issue fixed eurobonds in below 1% because that will -- probably will not be something which we could achieve. So in respect of what we believe -- how we see the debt structure, I think there is certain potential. We have proved the market that we can raise unsecured financing and there is the demand and the trust from the private investors. And I think we will strongly consider in the future, perhaps new issues, not necessarily Hungary, but probably in other markets, and subject to the demand. Something that we're certainly exploring.

Okay. Great. And one more question. Just a technical one. I just wanted to ask who was the valuer of the portfolio at the end of 2020, which valuer?

I don't think this is something we publish, Malgorzata? Or...

It was a number of different valuers, right, Ariel?

It's a number of different valuers. At least 3 different valuers. 3 different reputable valuers, let's put it this way.

My name is [indiscernible], and I'd like to ask you for a comment about transaction markets. Are there investors willing to buy the buildings? Or is it a problem? And what's the activity on the market right now after the coronavirus?

I think investors are -- the same sentiment that I mentioned on the tenancy side, on the occupier side. I think investors are also slower, much slower in taking decisions, much slower in -- traveling restrictions are making an impression because it's very difficult to handle transactions if you cannot physically come and visit and inspect assets from the side of the investors. So physical traveling restrictions are not helping the investment markets. There is a limit to what you can do on Zoom. And therefore, we see the activity much, much, much slower, much -- less active. However, we do see some transactions pulling through on a selective basis. We have not seen significant movements on pricing of transactions. And I'm talking mainly about offices because on the retail side, I think we do not see any transactions taking place at all. I hope that answers your question.

Yes. Thank you. So maybe one more question from my side. [indiscernible] again. When it comes to the new projects, the acquisitions you are thinking about, you mentioned you got like pretty strong balance sheets and there's space to do it. Are you considering countering any like -- any, let's say, old/new segments like residential, for example? Like part of the companies, part of the competitors is actually moving the entrance into resi more than there used to be? You've been on the Polish residential market for a while, pretty successful. And are you considering it?

I think in the overall context of things, our expertise lie with office assets and retail assets. And this is where we have been focusing our activity in the course of the last several years. And I think this is where we will continue to have the vast majority of our activity, whether you will see from us here and there some, let's call it, opportunistic kind of projects that are a bit outside on a very small-scale, immaterial to the whole context. You might see something like that. But again, this might be on a small-scale opportunistic kind of basis. And where we see ourselves focusing our activities is really on the office and retail sectors.

[Operator Instructions] Okay. As I see no more questions, thank you very much for the participation in today's call. If you have any more questions, I will be more than happy to give you any answers I can give you. Or if you need a meeting, personal or online with me or the management, we are available as much as the restrictions allows. Thank you very much, and have a lovely day.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Bye.