Haci Ömer Sabanci Holding A.S. (SAHOL) Q3 FY2025 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

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Good afternoon, good morning, depending on your time zone. Welcome to Sabanci Holdings Third Quarter Earnings Webcast. I have our CFO, Orhun Kostem with me today. And we will have a Q&A session after the presentation as always. Before we start, please refer to our disclaimer page. I now would like to leave the floor to our CFO, Orhun.

Thank you, Kerem. Good morning, good afternoon, everyone. We are very happy to be with you in Sabanci Holdings Third Quarter Results discussion. We are also pleased to report another quarter of substantial positive momentum in our business. If you could turn to Page 3. Between '24 and '25, there has been a substantial and positive swing in our bottom-line, either in the 9 months or the third quarter as you look at it. I'm also happy to say on the nonbank side, especially, there has been a significant cost discipline that generated the majority of the EBITDA margin uplift, which suggests that our businesses are responding as they should in the macro conditions that are prevailing. Nevertheless, we're not there yet, meaning our bottom line at the end of the 9 months are not positive yet, even though we are quite close to breakeven, but we're happy with the momentum we're seeing quarter after quarter within 2025. We are managing our cash flow quite disciplined way -- in a quite disciplined way. And I'm going to touch base on them a little bit more, and Keren will walk you through the segment details. We manage a very healthy balance sheet and a substantial cash flow generation, which also enables us to continue investing through our strategic targets. That you see in this quarter alone, we have continued to expand our footprint in the U.S. by putting down Oriana, our second project, Oriana has started generation, basically. And we have planned to include up to 300 megawatts of additional solar capacity through Pepper and Lucky 7 solar projects under Sabanci Climate Technologies, which has taken us -- taken the Sabanci Holdings capital commitments to this business to $362 million by the end of the third quarter of 2025. Now in this quarter, again, you've seen us supporting Kordsa. Kordsa, if you listen to their webcast, the composite business that Kordsa owns does quite well this year as Boeing continues to churn out planes and hopefully, it will continue to do so. However, Kordsa has to rearrange or restructure itself to the global changes in the competitive environment on the tire and tire cord industries. And hence, with our support, Kordsa also has started to streamline its balance sheet to support such restructuring that has been initiated in the third quarter of 2025 as well. As you're following, Enerjisa Üretim continues its gigawatt wind capacity expansion in Turkey. We are already at 414 megawatts of new capacity of the gigawatt. And the total capacity -- generation capacity of the business is now at 4.2 gigawatts already. Cimsa, on the other hand, has commissioned its 600 kilotons of gray cement capacity in the U.S. This was started back in 2023, which actually significantly improves Cimsa's competitive position in the U.S. market. And Bulutistan, our recent acquisition in the cloud space and the digital space continues to expand its presence, not only, of course, what it does in Turkey, but obviously, it started new operations in the U.K. and Uzbekistan, which obviously are the developments that we could provide you with in terms of our progress to our strategic targets. Now moving forward, as always, I would like to first talk a little bit about the environment under which these results have been generated. First, the geopolitical risk index, as you've seen at the very right end of this graph, has somewhat easen since the last time we've spoken. Hopefully, between Israel and Gaza and many other places, things are becoming better, but we're not there yet. As you see, the risk index has not necessarily been -- it's been higher than its lowest ever places. So that's something for us to continue watching with care. The trade policy risk index, as you say, have shot up quite significantly in 2025. It has implications, as you know, through tariffs and everything. Lately, of course, we're happy that U.S. and China might have come to terms and the dust may settle. But this is also on the global scale, let's say, some elements that we watch very closely. Now coming back to Turkey, we're looking at a -- since the end of the first quarter this year, we've gone through a very substantial monetary tightening period. And as the Central Bank has quite recently started lowering the interest rates again. Nevertheless, as you see in these graphs, there is still a relatively high-interest rate environment in Turkey, obviously impacting the bottom line performance of many of our businesses. And finally, of course, the inflation continues to outperform the average devaluation, which not only impacts the competitive advantage of the export businesses in general, but also, of course, together with the high interest period is -- creates quite a challenging environment for operation for such businesses. Now under these circumstances, if I could take you to Page 6, that you see here in the third quarter of 2025, we've seen our combined revenues to come down slightly by about 3%. The combined EBITDA is up, and the nonbank is slightly less, more or less at the same level. I think what's critical is, again, we've seen another quarter where the nonbank combined EBITDA margin has grown by 34 basis points. And there, you see on the right-hand side, the positive swing I was referring to earlier especially at the banks, the bank's positive swing has been substantial on the bottom line. And on nonbank businesses, we moved from a breakeven to TRY 1.3 billion and overall delivered a positive bottom line. Now if you listen to Akbank's webcast for the third quarter, I'm sure you heard them saying that their net income margin was relatively better in the third quarter. Their fees and commissions generations were better even though the cost of risk they perceive is increasing. Now obviously, the disinflation program, the pace of change in the policy rate, the macro prudential measures will continue to not only impact Akbank's performance, but the banking sector's performance as a whole in the remainder of this year. Otherwise, on the nonbank side, I'm happy to report, except for the material technologies business, all other major businesses have delivered margin expansion. If you look on the next page, on Page 7, it's quite relevant where here, we see 134 basis points EBITDA margin expansion on the nonbank side, where EBITDA is more or less flat, but the combined revenue this time increases about 1%. But again, you see the same substantial swing in our bottom line on both our nonbank and bank businesses, obviously. Now again, as we discussed for the bank for the remainder of the year, as the inflation comes down, the monetary gains and losses that we're recording in our P&L, mostly coming from our banking business, obviously, is going to be eased. But still, it's a function of how fast interest rates are coming down or the policy rate is changing. Having said that, as I said, we're quite happy with the momentum that we've seen quarter-on-quarter throughout 2025. Now in this period, obviously, what's quite critical for us is to make sure that we remain -- our businesses remain healthy. Our balance sheet and operations remain healthy. And one way to follow for us is how we're managing our cash flow. As you see, we continue to generate a very healthy operating cash flow on our nonbank businesses. Our return on equity is close to breakeven on the nonbank side, but negative still on a consolidated basis. But this disciplined cash flow management allows us to maintain a balance sheet with 1.7x net debt to EBITDA at the end of the third quarter of 2025, which is well below our policy rate. Even after the capital increases that I was referring to earlier that we have done in the third quarter of 2025, we still hold a very healthy balance of available cash in Sabanci Holding and continue with our strategic investments. This financial flexibility on one hand of maintaining a healthy balance sheet, on the other hand, of generating good cash flow is key for us to remain flexible under either times of duress to respond to any macro challenges or capitalize on any opportunities that we may see that this environment may bring. And finally, if you look at the next page, our net asset value stands at TRY 9.4 billion. This is a touch higher than our lowest point in 2025. And now the Bank and Financial Services share versus Energy and Climate Technologies share has been equal. We don't believe that's a good reflection of the value of our businesses, even though under current conditions, the discount to NAV still poses a very substantial opportunity basically. So, with that, I'll turn the conversation over back to Kerem, which will walk you through the segments.

Thank you. Let me begin with the bank. And just to remind, the banking numbers presented on this page are based on BRSA financials as the banks are exempt from inflation accounting. Akbank's agile balance sheet management and strong adaptability to a challenging regulatory landscape, coupled with net interest income momentum and resilient fee performance will be key contributors to its 3Q profitability. Akbank delivered healthy loan growth accompanied by across-the-board market share gains. The growth was quality driven, fully aligned with disciplined and selective lending strategy as well as regulatory requirements. Robust market share gains in widespread consumer-only deposits as well as demand deposits during the quarter continued to enhance its strong funding base. Meanwhile, the bank's fee OpEx ratio further improved to 104% as of 9 months from 86% year-end 2024, demonstrating scalability of operating model and the strength of noninterest income streams. Prudent underwriting standards, proactive monitoring and well-diversified portfolio continue to support the resilience of asset quality. The share of Stage 2 and 3 loans representing potentially problematic exposures remains low at 9% of the gross portfolio, while coverage ratio stands strong at 34%, reflecting disciplined risk management practices. The bank remains committed to enhancing its recurring revenues, supported by disciplined risk management and cost control to ensure sustainable profitability. As for the core metrics of the bank, swap adjusted net interest margin expanded by 7 percentage points quarter-on-quarter to 2.7%, following temporary margin pressure in the second quarter due to the pause and reversal in the rate cut cycle. Margin improvement was supported by both improved funding dynamics and well-positioned loan portfolio. Well-structured balance sheet forms a scalable, resilient earnings platform with strong momentum and long-term growth potential. Additionally, with a total capital adequacy ratio of 17.2% and Tier 1 ratio of 13.6%, Akbank continues to maintain solid capital strength, anchoring resilience and long-term profitable growth. On financial services business, in life, gross written premiums reached over TRY 23 billion in the first 9 months of 2025, up 52% year-on-year with doubling in 3Q on an annual basis, which also benefited from increasing contribution of the health business. Maintaining leadership among private companies in both private pension assets under management and life and personal exiting premium production, assets under management, excluding auto enrollments grew 20% year-on-year to TRY 336 billion. In Non-life, the selective and sustainable profit-driven approach prevails, supporting the improvement in capital adequacy ratio, which reached 178% in September from 120% in the same period of last year. Meanwhile, gross written premiums declined by 31% and assets under management declined by 16% compared to the same period last year. Segment's inflation adjusted top line contracted by 11% year-on-year in 3Q, driven by lower premium generation in the non-life business, partly offset by the positive contribution from the life business. EBITDA increased by 21% year-on-year, mainly driven by higher technical profit supported by volume growth in ROP products. In addition, the risk reclassification of deferred income from a nonmonetary to a monetary liability had a positive impact, offsetting part of the monetary losses under inflation accounting. The segment's net income contribution remained positive in 3Q with profitability supported by the continued strength of life and pension business. The main driver of the year-on-year improvement was the turnaround in non-life business, which shifted from a loss to profitability. Let me now turn to our largest nonbank segments, energy and first provide a quick overview of the operational landscape in 3Q. On the generation side, production volumes increased by 5% year-on-year with additional wind capacities offsetting lower outputs, particularly hydrology. Spot electricity prices declined by 6% year-on-year in USD terms, averaging $71 per megawatt hours, which was not enough to cover the 25% year-on-year increase in natural gas prices in TRY terms, which is effective since April. Meanwhile, the regulated price cap remained unchanged at TRY 3,400, equivalent to $82 per megawatt hours based on September-end USD TRY exchange rates. The generation company continued to expand its capacity, now reached 4.2 gigawatts, driven by the progressive commissioning of wind projects under YEKA-2 program. By the year-end, at least 2 more power plants are planned to be commissioned. Net debt to EBITDA increased from 0.9x last year to 2.8x this year, solely to fund ongoing capacity expansion. Separately, Enerjisa signed a contract with EUAs to sell electricity produced from its domestic coal plant at a minimum price of $75 per megawatt hours. This agreement valid until the end of 2029, which will enhance the FX guaranteed revenue base and further support EBITDA. EBITDA contribution of climate technologies was also visible in this quarter, supported by additional volumes following the commissioning of Oriana projects. Enerjisa Enerji delivered robust operational and financial performance in 3Q with the distribution contributing positively to the operational earnings, while retail's contribution remained soft. Key drivers behind core contributors were efficiency and quality gains and higher CapEx reimbursements despite lower financial income in distribution. Investments totaled TRY 7.6 billion in 3Q alone, keeping the company on track to reach TRY 21 billion to TRY 24 billion for the full year. Time spendings benefited from lower financing costs, which support strong underlying net income of almost TRY 6 billion. This performance led a guidance revision of 2025 underlying net income to TRY 7.6 billion from TRY 5 billion to TRY 2 billion. Looking at the overall performance of the energy segment, top line declined by 5% year-on-year in 3Q, while EBITDA margin remained broadly flat at 15%. The bulk of the slight improvement came from distribution, which largely benefited from efficiency and quality gains. Generation's EBITDA was lower year-on-year due to a combination of factors, including weak hydrology, lower pricing and the reduced contribution from trading activities. In the distribution and retail business, as mentioned in the previous slide, underlying net income improved substantially, mainly driven by lower tax expenses. Bus operations contribution remained limited within the segment. Turning to the material technologies segment. In the building materials, total cement sales volume increased on an annual basis, mostly driven by international operations with Cimsa providing the main lift with its international footprint, including Mannok. Domestic volumes slightly increased year-on-year as Akçansa regained sales volume momentum in 3Q, although demand in its core regions continue to lag earthquake affected areas. Cimsa's international operations continued to support segment's margin performance together with Mannok, which added around TRY 19.5 million to the EBITDA in 3Q. Contribution of trading operations added further support in this quarter as well. Although inflationary environment kept price over cost performance under pressure versus last year's strong base, higher alternative fuel usage, disciplined cost management, plant level efficiencies and the contribution from international operations limited margin contraction and supported a visible recovery in operational profitability. In tire and tire centering solutions, the replacement channel was the largest contributor to domestic sales growth, mainly driven by consumer segments. Consumer market share eased due to widening inflation FX gap. However, the company became the market leader in its premium segment of HRV and captured share in OE commercial, leveraging differentiated quality and effective pricing. Building on this market positioning, annual margin recovery in 3Q was supported by product mix, price actions and strict cost OpEx discipline done by raw materials relief as price increases in both domestic and international markets continued to lag inflation. Entirely reinforcement, the severe impact of food in Indonesia, combined with intense price competition and weak global demand weigh on the overall performance. The negative impact of Indonesia float, including insurance proceeds and impairment charges was $11 million in 3Q. A strategic shift towards higher-margin products and tighter cost efficiency in the composite segment acted as a buffer, helping to limit the contraction. Looking at the overall performance of the materials technologies segment, top line grew by 6% year-on-year in 3Q, while EBITDA margin contracted by more than 200 basis points to 15%. With the segment -- within the segment, building materials account for a larger share compared to tire operations and most decline in profitability compared to last year can be attributed to margin contraction in this business, mainly due to last year's high base. The increase in the segment's net income was solely driven by higher monetary gains, particularly at Cimsa and lower tax expenses recorded in building materials and tire reinforcement operations. In retail electronics, the market showed early signs of recovery in the third quarter following a weak first half, while the focus of electronics business remained at higher-margin categories rather than volume-based revenue generation. Despite this environment, profitability improved significantly, supported by disciplined pricing, effective inventory management and the continued shift towards higher-margin categories. These efforts, along with more efficient channel and product mix drove a solid improvement in profitability. Gross margin increased by 1.3 percentage points year-on-year to 13.7%, while EBITDA margin improved by 2 percentage points year-on-year to 6.3%, marking the highest level of the year and supported by ongoing network and operational optimization efforts. These improvements were driven by a strong category mix and disciplined cost management. In the food retail segment, with consumer demand remaining weak, the share of alternative channels in total revenue increased by 2.6 percentage points year-on-year to 12.6%, supported by 113% rise in the number of stores with online sales, partially offsetting the pressure on the top line. Ongoing optimization efforts continued during the quarter, creating temporary pressure on the top line and profitability. In digital segment, revenues dropped by 13% year-on-year in 3Q, while EBITDA moved from a negative to positive territory, supported by improved efficiency and cost discipline. Despite operational improvements, financial expenses weigh on the segment's bottom line with net loss narrowing further on an annual basis. In the other segment, top line contracted by 5% year-on-year, reflecting softer consumer demand and continued pricing pressure across retail operations. EBITDA declined by 16% compared to last year as the improvement in retail electronics was offset by lower profitability in food retail, reflecting the negative impact of ongoing optimization efforts. Higher financial expenses, particularly in food retail, continue to put pressure on profitability, while lower monetary gains provided limited support, resulting in a net loss. This concludes our segment operations. Now I would like to leave the floor to Orhun and we continue with Q&A.

Thank you very much, Kerem. Again, in the third quarter of 2025, as you listen to the details of our business segments, obviously, Sabanci Holdings diversified portfolio has been able to generate a very substantial positive momentum. and we're happy that we have been improving that quarter-on-quarter throughout 2025. This concludes our formal presentation. We'd be more than happy to take your questions now. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] We have one question. Can you please share your future possible plans relating to Akbank and Akçansa cement? Is there any thought action to take just as Teknosa and Carrefoursa for better synergy or operational performance?

Thank you. I'll try to respond the way that I understand it. First, we have not taken any action on Teknosa or Carrefoursa, basically. In Teknosa, as you heard from Kerem as well, the business -- we've launched a marketplace back in 2022, and Teknosa has been in the process of growing it to make sure that more of the business commercially goes through the marketplace. Now to the extent, obviously, that we're successful with that, Teknosa may be part of our digital efforts. Carrefoursa is a food retailer. And in both of these businesses, obviously, we'll have to make sure that they deliver the best they can in our portfolio. For Akbank and Akçansa Cement, frankly speaking, we don't have any plans. These businesses for Akçansa's business, as you know, it is on one of the most advantageous market segments geographically in Turkey, basically. It's a joint venture with Heidelberg. Therefore, Akçansa also enjoys Heidelberg cement systems, global systems in terms of its export sales in addition to its position in the Turkish market. So, for the time being, actually, we don't have any plans whatsoever other than continuing to manage these businesses so that they deliver performance.

We have another question. What steps are we planning to take over the next 12 months to reduce the NAV discount? What is the potential timeline of Enerjisa Üretim IPO?

Thank you for the question. Now let me start from the second one. The Enerjisa Üretim IPO potentially does not go through a definitive deadline, obviously, the business is in good shape. We're happy that the capacity is growing and hopefully will add on to the potential value of this business going forward. And obviously, as we discussed in numerous times in these calls as well, based on our alignment with our joint venture partner, we would very much like to be able to capitalize on the best possible market conditions to potentially affect a public offering of the business. So the good problem to have is for us to continue growing the potential value of the business in the meantime. Now if you look at the NAV and historical NAV discount, if I remember correctly, the lowest that we have reached was back in 2023, maybe May 2023, roundabout, where we've hit 20% or maybe a little lower. Now if you look back as to how it happened, -- that was a time when we have divested our tobacco business, reinvested the proceeds, obviously, to areas of growth, initiated the capacity expansion in the U.S. for renewable capacity and execute on our strategic plan. So that's more or less exactly what we want to do because we know that it works towards the reduction of the discount going forward as we can hopefully deliver on our strategic road map.

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] It seems we don't have any further questions. Once again, thank you for participating in our 3Q earnings webcast. Hope to see you in the next quarter.

Thank you very much. Goodbye.