HomeToGo SE (HTG) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the HomeToGo Analyst and Investor Conference Call. I am Josef, the Chorus Call operator. The conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Sebastian Grabert, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you so much, Josef, and good morning, dear analysts and investors, and welcome to our analyst and investors call on HomeToGo's acquisition of Interhome, Europe's second largest vacation rental management company, as well as the successful placement of the EUR 85 million capital increase. My name is Sebastian Grabert, Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Finance, and I'm pleased to be joined today by our Co-Founder and CEO, Dr. Patrick Andrae, as well as our CFO, Steffen Schneider. Together, they will walk you through the strategic rationale and financial highlights of this landmark acquisition, the most transformative deal in HomeToGo's history. As a reminder, this call is being recorded and will be made available later today on our Investor Relations website. With that, I'd like to hand it over to you, Patrick, to provide further insights into this exciting transaction. Please go ahead. The floor is yours.

Thank you, Sebastian. Dear analysts and investors, thank you for joining us today on this very special day. Before we dive into the details of this transformative transaction, I'd like to briefly draw your attention to this disclaimer. So diving into the essence of this landmark transaction, we as a team have been extremely dedicated to this next phase in HomeToGo's growth. With this acquisition, we are further progressing on our goal to build Europe's leading vacation rental platform. HomeToGo has built an exceptional track record as the fastest-growing global player in the vacation rental industry. With our cutting-edge SaaS-enabled and AI-powered marketplace and a proven history of successfully acquiring, integrating, and scaling businesses, including 15 previous acquisitions since 2018, we are uniquely positioned for this next transformative move. The acquisition of Interhome is the landmark milestone in HomeToGo's history so far. As Europe's second largest vacation rental management company with more than 60 years of heritage, Interhome brings a portfolio of over 40,000 high-quality and in-demand rentals in key European markets, largely under exclusive management. Interhome focuses on a full service offering. So basically takes care of everything from renting out the property over guest relations to cleaning and maintenance. Basically, they offer a peace of mind solution for their property owners. And they do that with great success, which becomes also visible in its high customer satisfaction, resulting in an impressive average service contract lifetime of 9 years. So the customers have a stickiness a lot of software companies would be envious of. With its continuous track record of revenue growth, positive EBITDA and strong free cash flow generation, Interhome is the perfect strategic fit to accelerate HomeToGo's growth trajectory and to turn the company's B2B segment, HomeToGo PRO, into the most important revenue contributor of our group. This transaction is both operationally and financially transformative. By acquiring Interhome, we would increase HomeToGo's group pro-forma IFRS revenues for the financial year 2024 by approximately 55%, to over EUR 330 million. At the same time, on a pro-forma basis, we are adding significant uplift in profitability by tripling the pro-forma adjusted EBITDA and comfortably exceeding the EUR 30 million threshold. And plus, we instantly become free cash flow positive already on a 2024 pro-forma basis, a goal which we would have aimed for anyway for 2025 on a stand-alone basis. We identified significant potential to increase Interhome's contribution to overall group results. The synergies unlocked by this deal will propel us to new heights, leading to mid- and high double-digit million euro pro-forma adjusted EBITDA in the short and medium term, respectively. Further, Interhome builds an excellent platform for future acquisitions in the vacation rental market at attractive valuations as we have successfully done multiple times before. So to summarize, this is a defining moment for HomeToGo. We are not just expanding. We are advancing our position as the leading technology-driven vacation rental powerhouse in Europe. On this slide, we provide a clear side-by-side comparison of HomeToGo, Interhome -- and Interhome, illustrating the complementary nature of this acquisition. HomeToGo on the left side, founded in 2024 (sic) [ 2014 ], we publicly listed the company in 2021, has rapidly grown into a leading vacation rental marketplace. With over 800 employees, a gross booking value exceeding EUR 1.5 billion on the marketplace, plus an additional EUR 2.5 billion of enabled GBV by our software and tech-enabled service solutions in our B2B segment, HomeToGo PRO, we have built a technology-driven, highly scalable platform for vacation rentals. And on the -- at the same time, our marketplace on-site take rate improved significantly over the last years, nearly reaching 13% in the first 9 months of last year. We demonstrated rapid IFRS revenue growth of more than 30% over the course of the last 3 years, making us the fastest-growing publicly listed player in the vacation rental vertical. Profitability continues to expand with adjusted EBITDA expected to exceed EUR 11 million in 2024 at a margin of over 5 percentage points. On the other side, Interhome brings nearly 6 decades of operational excellence to the table since its founding in 1965 and has been owned by Migros Switzerland, Switzerland's largest retail company since 1989. It employs around 650 employees and manage an impressive portfolio across 2 -- 28 countries, with a gross booking value of approximately EUR 500 million annually. And that's an important point because please note that under Swiss GAAP -- so if you look for public numbers of Interhome, the GBV is considered revenues. So that's why you find CHF 300 million to CHF 400 million probably there. Under IFRS, though, only the net revenues for the take rate or commission are considered revenues, as you can see in our line and consistent with HomeToGo. With a strong take rate of approximately 30% on average and projected IFRS revenues of EUR 125 million for the fiscal year 2024, Interhome is the second largest property manager in Europe. It also shows an adjusted EBITDA margin exceeding 16%, generating more than EUR 20 million of adjusted EBITDA during the fiscal year 2024. Together, we already have a long-standing and trusted relationship with Interhome as one of HomeToGo's earliest partners in the marketplace. So bringing these two companies together creates a really highly complementary business with powerful synergies. HomeToGo's marketplace expertise, cutting-edge technology and demand generation capabilities will significantly enhance Interhome's high-margin service-driven model. Now we quickly dive deeper into HomeToGo's track record and how we have scaled, innovated and positioned the company as the fastest-growing public vacation rental player globally. As a quick reminder, an overview on our two distinct business segments, most of you are already familiar with. On the left side, the marketplace segment is HomeToGo's AI-powered B2C platform, offering the world's largest selection of vacation rentals, including brands like HomeToGo itself, but also Casamundo, e-domizil, that are loved by travelers globally with local websites across more than 30 countries. With the strength in both our booking on-site and advertising businesses, the marketplace drove more than EUR 1.5 billion in GBV in 2024, contributing approximately 70% of the group's IFRS revenues. The HomeToGo PRO segment on the other side consists of our B2B software and service solutions for the whole travel market with a special focus on SaaS for the supply side of vacation rentals. With HomeToGo PRO, we are aiming to solve pain points for vacation rental suppliers and provide best solutions to substantially improve their business. The segment has developed very dynamically over the last years, now accounting for around 30% of our IFRS revenues and enabled our partners to generate more than EUR 2.5 billion of gross booking value in 2024 alone. This slide is a simplified view of the vacation rental market, although it doesn't look that simple. So the market is highly fragmented with roughly more than 90% of the properties owned by private people. So the real estate really is in private ownership. And half of these owners -- so half of the market manages the properties themselves, with the smart ones using software solutions like our smooth booking utilities, Smoobu, that you're probably already familiar with, a very successful SaaS product of HomeToGo. The other half of owners uses the help of a property manager like Interhome to get, as we discussed in the beginning, peace of mind to their full service offering. With the acquisition of Interhome, we are now significantly expanding our Service Solutions business area. Importantly, we are not starting from scratch in this area. With Kraushaar, a company we acquired on the German Baltic Sea Coast, we have already gained valuable experience in professional property management. This has provided key insights into scaling service-driven solutions alongside our marketplace. And now with Interhome, we are taking the strategy to the next level by expanding our footprint. Finally, we have our own distribution engine, the B2C marketplace segment. Before we go further into the deal, looking back at our journey so far, we have consistently delivered on our commitments, achieving significant profitability improvements and remarkable growth, with IFRS revenue more than tripling since 2019 pre-pandemic, reflected in our outstanding compound annual growth rate of 31%. Equally important, we have met both of our key IPO promises, successfully reaching adjusted EBITDA breakeven in 2023 as well as driving up the IFRS revenue share of our HomeToGo PRO segment to more than 20% of the total revenues by the end of 2023, growing our B2B segment faster than the overall business. And as we have published with our preliminary numbers for 2024, we continue to increase both further, while accelerating growth. And now let us shed more light on the acquisition of Interhome itself, which marks a defining moment in HomeToGo's journey. As already said before, this is not a new partnership. Interhome has been a trusted partner of HomeToGo for over 10 years, giving us deep insight into its business model, strength, operational people and growth potential. As Europe's second largest vacation rental management company, Swiss Interhome brings over 60 years of expertise in property management and a strong, well-recognized brand with presence in top vacation destinations across Europe. And with a geographically diverse portfolio of more than 40,000 high-quality properties, the majority of which are exclusively managed, Interhome delivers exceptional property management service quality across 28 countries. The strength of Interhome's business is further underpinned by average contract tenure of 9 years. As said, a duration that many SaaS companies would be envious of, and reflecting the quality of their service resulting in deep owner loyalty and the resilience of its operating model. Finally, with a take rate of approximately 30% on average, Interhome is a profitable and scalable business that fits seamlessly into HomeToGo PRO, allowing us to capture more value, drive recurring B2B revenues from a growing demand for full-service property management and expand our footprint as a leader in the European vacation rental market. Taking a look at Interhome historic financials in more detail. Over the past 4 years, Interhome has grown IFRS revenues at a notable 19 percentage CAGR. Profitability is scaling as well. In 2024, Interhome was expected to generate more than EUR 20 million in adjusted EBITDA. Actually, the current numbers, we look at more than EUR 24 million of adjusted EBITDA, reinforcing its ability to deliver strong margins and positive free cash flow. This provides an excellent foundation for future growth, and we see significant upside potential. Looking ahead, our short-term ambition is clear. We are targeting an adjusted EBITDA of more than EUR 30 million for Interhome stand-alone, leveraging operational efficiencies and synergies. Over the midterm, we aim to scale adjusted EBITDA beyond EUR 50 million, more than 2.5x today's levels. But Steffen will now elaborate more on the additional growth potential and the specific measures we plan to take. So thank you from my side. Over to Steffen.

Thank you, Patrick. Good morning, and thank you all for joining us today. Here, we look at the pro-forma combined financials as if we would have consolidated Interhome as of January 1, 2024. As you can see, the IFRS revenues for the combined group would have been more than EUR 330 million, with the HomeToGo PRO segment now being the biggest segment with more than 55% of group revenues. Even more impressive is the impact on profitability. Our adjusted EBITDA will more than triple, growing from over EUR 11 million to more than EUR 30 million, demonstrating the highly accretive nature of this acquisition. Additionally, our adjusted EBITDA margin will double instantly, rising from 5% to approximately 10%, thanks to the enhanced operating efficiencies and increased scale. This 5 percentage point improvement in adjusted EBITDA margin from 0% in 2023 stand-alone, to 5% in 2024 stand-alone, to 10% in 2024 pro-forma combined is also the goal for the next year until we reach an industry margin of 30% with the industry being defined by the big OTAs, Booking, Airbnb and Expedia. As you have seen before, Interhome is already a strong and profitable business. We see a significant untapped potential, and we have a clear plan to unlock it. Having worked with Interhome for over a decade, as well as following significant due diligence and setting up value creation plans, we are confident that we can more than double Interhome's adjusted EBITDA in the coming years. We will start by capturing immediate short-term synergies. First, cost optimizations by eliminating EUR 3 million to EUR 5 million in intercompany costs currently charged in implementing HomeToGo centralized group resources. Second, directly integrating some of HomeToGo's existing assets and contracts, unlocking an additional EUR 5 million to EUR 7 million in adjusted EBITDA with minimal overhead or personnel costs. Beyond the short term, we see three additional key levers to drive sustained profitability and long-term value. First, boosting marketing efficiency by leveraging HomeToGo's advanced software, technology and data solutions to drive higher traveler conversion, and conversion as well as to increase cross-selling opportunities. We see a significant potential to increase the share of own bookings to an industry benchmark, which could lead to low double-digit million savings. Second, optimizing occupancy and dynamic pricing, i.e., some of the Interhome inventory gets booked out too fast, others gets booked out too late, opening opportunities to increase revenues and profits across Interhome's property portfolio. Third, expanding supply organically as well as inorganically by adding smaller property managers across the Interhome network, i.e., 200 units in Spain or 500 units in Italy. These transactions can be completed at low single-digit EBITDA multiples. With this clear synergistic road map and structured approach in place, we are confident to scale Interhome's adjusted EBITDA to over EUR 30 million in the short term and more than EUR 50 million in the midterm. On the HomeToGo side, we also expect the biggest profitability levers in the marketing efficiency. As you might recall, the profitability of a repeat customer, so a customer who books with us for the second or third time, is significantly higher than a new customer because we save to [ Google cache ]. Our repeat customer share is currently between 15% and 20%, compared to a high double-digit share for the big OTAs. While it will take us some time to increase this to this level, we have a very good visibility to reach 30% and 40%. Looking at the impact on profitability, we expect our adjusted EBITDA margin to exceed 15%, translating it into mid-double-digit million adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow generation. In the midterm, we aim to push adjusted EBITDA margins towards industry benchmarks, creating a structurally more profitable business with significant free cash flow generation. Looking at the purchase price for Interhome and how we plan to finance it, we will pay an upfront cash consideration of about CHF 150 million or roughly EUR 160 million, which will largely be financed through a EUR 75 million senior debt facility, which we signed before Christmas, as well as EUR 85 million equity raise against cash, which we have successfully announced and placed last night. We are thrilled about the support we have received from investors, which has led to a successful placing of the new shares. On a 2024 basis, this initial purchase price translates into an EV adjusted EBITDA multiple of 6.5x. Clearly, this multiple would be substantially lower if we were to take the 2025 expected figures. Roughly 1/3 of the total consideration will be paid in deferred payments. We plan a total of CHF 85 million or roughly EUR 90 million converted in today's foreign exchange rate, which is scheduled to be paid out from 2026 until 2029. We expect the deferred payments to be financed through operating cash flow and ordinary financing activities. On the equity raise itself, and as already mentioned, we are very happy to announce that our capital increase was a great success. In total, we have raised EUR 85 million by way of a private placement in an accelerated book building, which was announced last night and already successfully closed shortly thereafter. As a result, our share count will increase by 53.125 million new Class A shares. Also interesting to note that this successful transaction follows the latest update of the EU Listing Act. According to the new standards, listed companies like HomeToGo are allowed to issue and admit shares to trading on an exemption from the prospectus requirement. And with that, I would like to hand over back to Patrick for the conclusion.

Thank you, Steffen. So let me quickly recap. This acquisition represents a truly unique opportunity, one that positions HomeToGo to become Europe's leading vacation rental platform. By combining HomeToGo's cutting-edge marketplace technology, SaaS solutions and demand generation expertise with Interhome's unrivaled supply, deep operational know-how and strong owner relationships, we are creating a powerhouse that is far greater than the sum of its parts. Beyond strategic fit, this transaction has transformative financial implications. It significantly enhances our scale, accelerates our path to higher profitability and creates a structurally more resilient, high-margin business. Basically, we are transitioning HomeToGo into a true market leader, one that is built for sustainable and profitable long-term growth. Simply put, this is the right deal at the right time with the right partner. Together, we are not just expanding, we are building the future of vacation rentals in Europe. And with that, I thank you all for your attention on this historic day, and we will now open the floor for your questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from the line of Christian Salis from HIB.

First of all, congrats to the great acquisition and the capital raise last night. I've got three questions, please. On the top line and the sales synergies. So as you said, you already cooperated with Interhome via your on-site business. So could you please elaborate a little bit on how the acquisition is going to improve the utilization of Interhome's properties? Second question would be on these deferred payments. Could you maybe provide a little bit more detail on the requirements of these payments, and, yes, what they are linked to? And the third one is on the pro-forma figures. So highly appreciated that you provided numbers on the top line and also adjusted EBITDA on a pro-forma basis for the new company. Could you maybe also give an indication on the net profit line of the combined companies? So would it be fair to assume a net profit margin in the range of mid-single digits? Or would this be a little bit too high? So should we run more of a low single-digit net profit margin?

Thank you for your question. This is Patrick. I will take the first one, and the second and third one, Steffen will answer. So in regarding your question around like sales synergies. So obviously, Interhome is fully integrated into the HomeToGo marketplace already today, running also on the highest level of integration, including HomeToGo payments. Yes. So obviously, this is something that works already well. And as I said, right, like for more than 10 years, one of our longest, but also most successful, partners on the marketplace. Yes. So with that, obviously, there's -- especially as we pointed out also during the presentation, a lot of potential for Interhome on direct-to-consumer sales, where you can see that -- currently, that's one of the largest opportunities. They are not where what we would consider market standards in terms of directly selling to travelers. And obviously, Interhome with HomeToGo being a powerhouse in technology and marketing, they would be equipped with a HomeToGo full software suite that is more than just website, but also like marketing tools that are almost automatic and all these other things. CRM state-of-the-art technology with which we would aim for bringing them to the market standard, and that would already increase a lot on that side, plus, obviously, being even deeper integrated in the HomeToGo distribution network, allowing to access like even more topics than today.

Christian, with regards to the deferred payment, so it is -- just to state it again, it's really a deferred payment. So it's not an earn-out. It's not depending on any performance metrics. And it is -- we have written it there, it is subject to certain regulatory changes. We do not expect any regulatory changes. Therefore, it is our expectation that we pay that deferred payment, as written there, over the years '26 to '29. And so you might want to include that in your model. With regards to the pro-forma figures and the net profit margin, so we expect to be net income positive in 2025, but it will be a very low percentage initially, and then we will increase profitability.

The next question comes from the line of Wolfgang Specht from Berenberg.

Two additional ones from my side. First, on the growth you stated for Interhome, can you give us some confirmation if this was all organic? And the second one on your synergy expectations, you're mentioning short-term and long-term. So does short-term mean '25-'26? Or could it already be valid for 2025?

Wolfgang, so the Interhome growth we show there is all organic. Not quite sure, but the latest inorganic growth is already quite some time ago. So that's all organic. And the question on the synergy expectations. So short-term, think about 1 to 2 years. It depends a little bit on when the actual closing will happen and the midterm will be like 2 to 5 years.

The next question comes from the line of Bharath Nagaraj from Cantor.

Congratulations on the acquisition. Just a few questions for me, please. Could you explain how a typical contract with the property owner would look like and the revenue mix of Interhome at the moment? I'll go one by one, if that's all right.

Yes. Thank you. So a typical contract, right, like so I would rather say it that way, right? Like so they focus on this full service. What does full service mean, right? So it means basically a peace of mind solution for the property owner. So you can get up to that you don't have to do anything with your property that you're owning, yes, except for you tell Interhome when you want to stay there on your own and basically get the money wired. What does it mean? So Interhome takes care of even like making descriptions of the property, pictures, bringing them online, renting it out, making the guest communication, then on-premise, [ running over ] the keys, cleaning, maintenance and all these types of things, and you can have that -- all that up to completely full service from them. So really like a peace of mind solution for property owners, yes? And the revenue of Interhome comes from this model, right? So like mainly coming from exclusively managing with full service like most of the inventory.

Sorry, a follow-up on that one. Thanks, Patrick, for that. Just a quick follow-up on that one. So are you saying like if you, as a pro-forma group, managed to book, let's say, more, let's say, bookings per year per vacation rental, you get to keep the upside? Or does it work on a per booking basis, like in terms of what the homeowner gets paid versus what you get paid?

Yes, that depends on the contractual agreement, I would say. Yes. But more, we are not making public.

Okay. The second question I have is around the property management market itself. I noticed you said, just earlier, 19% organic growth. Is that like typical for the industry because -- or was that kind of boosted because of COVID? What are the future expectations for the pro-forma group?

Yes, so that I would -- for going to the future and your modeling purposes, you should assume like a low double-digit organic growth rate. So think about like 10% to 15%.

Okay. Was that kind of 19% kind of growth was boosted because of COVID? Or is that like what you normally would expect in the property management market?

So, I mean, I don't want to exclude that there was also a COVID effect in there, but I wouldn't really call it boosted.

Okay. Sure. The last one is on the -- I know you say that there are 650 employees in Interhome. Could you give us like some color on the split in terms of the function for the employee base?

So I mean, the split is that there are -- there's certain people in the headquarter and the traditional headquarter functions. And then, of course, you have people distributed all over Europe, as you have seen in the slides with the geographical distribution around Europe. And then, of course, they are also using the help of subcontractors. So yes, for cleaning during peak season, et cetera, they then use the help of subcontractors. And then there's the support staff. Yes.

[Operator Instructions] Next question comes from the line of Ben Kohnke from Stifel.

Let me continue with a bit more details on Interhome, please. So thanks for sharing the numbers around the growth profile, which actually looks pretty good in my view. But the -- can you just maybe be a bit more -- or provide a bit more color here on the composition of that growth? Is it all kind of volume driven, i.e., is Interhome sort of winning more and more property owners as customers? Are they internationalizing their business? Are they moving into sort of new countries? Or is this predominantly price increase driven? So a bit more detail here would be helpful. And around the margin profile, I mean, it stands at 16%, if I'm not mistaken, for this year -- sorry, for 2024. Now, obviously, for a company that is not managed very efficiently, if that's the right way of framing it. But -- and if you would already add those EUR 2 million, EUR 3 million of low-hanging fruit kind of synergies, you get already closer to 20% for the Interhome businesses. Is this a margin you sort of say you feel comfortable with as a starting point for Interhome before actually reaping all those, let's say, revenue synergies that you talked about? Third question, and sorry if I missed it, I was a bit late to the call, but could you talk about integration costs and what you expect there and if they're all going to be cash relevant or not? And then my fourth and final question is just on M&A going forward. And apologies, I don't -- obviously, don't want to push you too much here, but you talked about the opportunity of consolidating the property manager market even more with sort of a number of smaller bolt-on acquisitions, low single-digit EBITDA multiples and so on. Just trying to gauge the opportunity here. Would you feel ready to do this sort of immediately? And how many of those -- I don't know how many of those are around, how fragmented is that market? And how quickly could you pull this off?

Sure. So with regards to the growth, very sorry to say, but it's really all of the reasons you mentioned. So they are expanding the inventory. They're expanding the service levels. They are also expanding on a geographical basis, but all within Europe. So it's really the mix of these factors which was supporting the growth. With regards to your question on the margin, I mean, as Patrick has said, that more than 20% is actually more than 24%. So we are already in '24, close to 20%. And therefore, you should rather put these short-term savings, which we have outlined on top of the 24%, and that gives you an idea why we feel so comfortable to reach the more than 30% within a short time frame. With regards to the integration costs, you might have also seen that on the slide where we talked about how to improve profitability with the biggest levers in marketing efficiency, where we, in the short term, don't expect any savings in G&A and R&D. And we -- the very reason there being that we assume that savings will equal out with integration cost. But then longer or midterm, there will also be savings, in particular, coming from economies of scale. With regards to M&A, if we would have had our M&A colleague on the call, he already has a list of potential targets. And they are -- that list is quite long. And always remember that we know everyone in the industry because basically everyone in the industry is already on our marketplace. So we really have a good idea on how good is the inventory, how good is it getting booked, et cetera. And that puts us in a very good position to constantly screen the market. The experience over the last years has shown that we -- it's always good to be in contact and see what opportunities arises. These smaller property managers I talked about, very often family-run businesses. And very often, it's like the owner couple is retiring, the kids don't want to take it over. That's when they are thinking about selling, then you talk to them and then they say, well, actually, our daughter changed her mind. She now wants to take over the business. And then you say, "thank you, okay." And then half a year later, you get a call and the daughter changed her mind again and now they want to sell again. So that's the kind of dynamic. And now with the Interhome network, we can really do that on a European basis, because it's very easy to put just like 200 units here, 300 units there, on an existing structure with effectively no additional cost, and that is really giving a big boost to profitability and revenues.

That's great. Thank you very much for that. Sorry, one very last one, apologies, just came across it. The -- what's the interest rate on the senior loan?

That's 575 basis points over the 3 months Euribor.

Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Sebastian Grabert, Director of Investor Relations, for any closing remarks.

Dear analysts and investors, thank you very much for your attention and questions. Should there be additional questions, please feel free to contact us. We wish you a great day, and hope to see you soon. Many thanks.

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