Hysan Development Company Limited (0014.HK) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you all for coming to Hysan Development's 2022 Annual Results Announcement Webcast Session. And let me introduce our panel for this afternoon: our Chairman, Ms. Irene Lee; our Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Ricky Lui; and our Chief Financial Officer and Company Secretary, Mr. Roger Hao. And we'll start today's session with a presentation from Irene, Ricky and Roger. And we'll follow that with time to take online questions. I invite Irene to start. Irene, please?

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you very much for attending Hysan's 2022 Full Year Results. Hong Kong's role remains important and strategic. The global economy in 2022 was impacted by COVID-19 and by macroeconomic factors that included geopolitical tensions, war, inflation, interest rate hikes, supply chain disruption, energy and food crisis. Hong Kong was not immune to external volatility. The travel restrictions and COVID-19 measures further dampened Hong Kong's economic activity during 2022. However, we are coming back stronger as the city looks to revive the economy. We now have pretty much COVID-19 restrictions all lifted. The Hong Kong-Mainland China border has now reopened. Hysan has an enduring appeal. We have a strong core portfolio complemented by strategic pillars. We are an unparalleled destination for businesses to thrive. It is a community-based business model. Long-term commitment to green and sustainable growth is our motto, strategic execution with a focus on financial discipline, risk management and dynamic asset enhancement. You can see a few pictures, picture of time. It is time for our core rejuvenation. We have started an area-wide rejuvenation, together with our Caroline Hill development. This will significantly enhance our footprint and reach. We are transforming Lee Gardens for the next century. We've just passed 100 years. We will be fully integrating and connecting the entire Lee Gardens community. So Lee Gardens for the next century. This is a map that we are rather fond of using. You will see 3 triangles -- or 3 squares, actually. Firstly, the trendsetter, Hysan Place, it is gateway to Lee Gardens. It sits on the busiest MTR station in Causeway Bay. Hysan Place offers a seamless vertical journey linked by a series of exciting destinations with a high level of urban vibrancy. The middle square is the home of luxury flagships. This includes LG1, LG2, LG3 and LG5. These are the exclusive destination for top international brands. Then the Green Square, this is our green-centric. This is our Caroline Hill Road project, which includes LG2 and LG6 as well. Our new project will be premium Grade A office space, and it will also offer 60,000 square feet of lifestyle park, which is an urban oasis for the community, very rare anywhere. Lee Gardens for the next century. We are a walkable neighborhood in a walkable community. We have covered walkways and footbridges connecting the high traffic from busy Causeway Bay MTR exit underneath Hysan Place, all the way to Caroline Hill Road development, which will be finished by 2026. As for our complementary strategic pillars, we are on track. You will see there are 5 big items here. Villa Lucca is our luxury low-density development in Tai Po. To Kwa Wan is a URA project, residential project. Lee Gardens Shanghai was launched. We have a GBA Flex business with our partner, IWG, and there is a medical and health investment in New Frontier. Sustainability is very important, and we want to make sure it is embedded now and for the future. We are committed to inclusivity, diversity, social well-being, climate change preparedness and livability within the communities we serve. A few words on outlook. The aftereffects of the pandemic and geopolitical tensions, combined with the recession, inflation and high interest rates, will remain challenging. The reopening of the border and the resumption of business and social activities will help revive our city's status as a financial trading and tourists hub. Our long-term prospect remains positive as we continue to develop and expand our core portfolio and pillars. I will now hand over to Ricky to talk about business and operation review. Thank you, Ricky.

Thank you, Chairman. Good afternoon, everybody. Let me give you some highlights of the 2022 annual results. For the group revenue, our total revenue is $3,460 million, down by 4.1%. The underlying profit is $2,129 million, down by 8.6%. The dividend per share will remain at $1.44. The year-end occupancy for retail is 99%. Office is 90%. Residential is 61%. As a key factors, the structural change accelerated by COVID-19 continued to put pressure on our office sector. The retail sector improved in the second half of the 2022 after a difficult first quarter. When we come to retail, the total turnover is $1,643 million, up by 1.4%; occupancy, 99%. The overall consumption demand in the second half of 2022 was supported by a generally more stable pandemic situation and a stronger labor market. Hysan continued to optimize our tenant mix and also a lot of effective marketing to help the business of the retail tenants. Hysan anticipate increased spending by both visitor and locals as Hong Kong move along the path to economic recovery. Our retail sales trend of Hysan was in line with the Hong Kong market trend. And also, the overall retail market showed resilience in the COVID period. We expect the resume of normal -- resumption of normal will help the retail sales. For office, our turnover is $1,578 million, down by 8.7%; occupancy, 90%. The global economic uncertainties, interest rate hikes and the COVID-19-related travel restrictions put pressure on the office demand, while the increase in supply, like those essential, also gave extra pressure to the office. So this was a challenging year for 2022. At the prospect of the market recovery, relaxing of the COVID-19 restrictions will help the market sentiment. The unparalleled appeal to multinational and local businesses, top-quality facility and management, a well-connected location and an integrated retail and office community does provide Hysan Lee Gardens with extra competitive advantages. As an overall performance, our vacancy is about 10%, which is lower than the average Hong Kong Grade A office market. About tenants portfolio, we still keep a fair balanced tenants portfolio. But this year, the wealth management as well as the new economy demand has better performance than the rest of the profile. Come to marketing. Hysan has been famous for about our loyalty program called Club Avenue, which is a very -- almost the first one in Hong Kong, targeting at the high spending group. We do aware, Hong Kong retail has shift in pattern, and there's -- the non-luxe sector is also very important. About a few years ago, we started to launch our Lee Gardens Club, which is we try to cover the non-luxe sectors. We do see a very strong growth over the last few years. Now we have the dual engine for loyalty programs. This dual engine has contributed over 60% of the sales for Hysan's retail sales. This form a very strong base to provide extra resilience and target for us to grow our retail business. The Lee Gardens Club is also a channel of grooming the future high-spending Club Avenue members that become a very good system of loyalty covering the complete profile of Hysan. Okay. We've been talking about O2O, our online-offline retailers. We spent effort on it, and we have built a hy! platform, which is a digital engagement platform for Hysan. It also carry a function of e-commerce in that platform. We have over 100 of our tenants already enrolled in our hy! platform. Just last year, we have 54,000 pieces or product was sold through this platform. And we -- and this will become another very powerful engine for Hysan retail business. Residential. As you are aware, the travel restrictions and macroeconomic uncertainties has dampened the demand from the expat. The situation will be better. If the economy have start resuming, we're expecting more expat will be back and more company will be back to Hong Kong. Then the performance of the group will be better. We talk about core expansion just now by Chairman. The vision is make Hysan a very comprehensive destination for all walk-of-life people and also for multi-generations. Looking at the most important part or the most famous part, the Lee Gardens part, the luxurious flagship will -- the luxurious flagship of top brands will occupy more than 50,000 square feet of space after our rejuvenations. It also attract other high brands to come to Lee Gardens area. And this really -- ultimately, it will form -- become the home of luxurious retails. But we -- just like our loyalty program, we do put a lot of effort to engage our non-lux consumers. Hysan Place has been a trendsetter. We determined to reinforce this positioning and has started the revamp of the Hysan Place this year. The first part we built -- the first part of it is the fourth floor to sixth floor, the urban youth-centric area zone. With the -- we have unveiled our very powerful 5 billion venue, which is called the Urban Park and is a skate park in the city of the center. So for that, the urban zone has drawn a lot of attention from the urban-aware tenants, and the responses were appealing. We are now also doing -- the second part of this is about the B1, B2 and the ground floor. We are going to turn it into a meeting place as well as interesting retails for the F&B, combined destinations for people who come to Causeway Bay. And this should be the place to meet as well as this location will be to attract all the traffic from the MTR station. The Caroline Hill Road development. Everything is on track. We obtained all the major approval from the government. The project completion is still a target at the end of 2026. The high standard of the -- this development will focus on the sustainability, spatial efficiency, flexibility and amenities. And this will be a premium Grade A office space within the Lee Gardens area and also in the Hong Kong office market. About the features, we have more than 60,000 square feet of public open space, which is where we are at the very center of Hong Kong. And also, we have the performing art and culture facility, where we'll draw a lot of traffic as well as the -- serving the society. At the rooftop, we have multi-green deck on the high zone of the -- and rooftop. This will allow the space to be used as the headquarter of some international corporation as well as some unique facilities like a business club. The green area also allow us to do a lot of alfresco dining as well as some very interesting like event like a weekend market, which is certainly missing in the Hong Kong for very long. When we talk about pedestrian link system or walkability, we don't just want to build a walkway for people to -- where to put walkway. We just -- we want to make sure the journey is a pleasant one. So natural sunlight, greenery, art installation, performing art places and even some convenience and grab-and-gos will all happen in their journey. On top of the bridges for walkabilities, we also have to think about the cause of the traffic, how to alleviate the traffic. We are planning to build some tunnel to connect all the car park, Lee Gardens One, Lee Gardens Two, Lee Gardens Three, and hopefully, Lee Gardens Eight. If all this can be realized, we will connect 4 car park with a total of 1,200 car park. So this will reduce about 70% of the road traffic. About the pillars. Villa Lucca has resumed and picked up some momentum after the reopening of the border. And the Lee Gardens Shanghai, similarly, we have resumed our pre-leasing after the COVID restrictions. And our first tenant has already committed in Q4 2022, and they just moved in for the fit-out work. To Kwa Wan leverage of Hysan's experience in retail and decorations. We have been taking care of the retail part from design to operations. GBA Flex with IWG. The trend of -- the structural change has created a trend of high demand for the Flex business in the area. We think this will be the part of the ecosystem, and Hysan investment on this Flex business stand-alone is it will be a good business to invest. At the same time, the experience of it as well has been a complementary tools for Hysan own office. It will make a very unique feature for Hysan as well. For New Frontier investment, New Frontier is one of the largest private health care group in China. This sector has been growing. This is a strategic investment for Hysan to tap into this kind of operation business. Sustainability. We mentioned about community business model. So we also put our sustainability under the same roof, under the community business model. We will curate sustainable communities with thriving neighborhood that are agile and resilient towards changes. We also foster connection between people, place, past, present and future. And the 5 columns, the 5 pillars to support this community business model is inclusivity, positive economic impacts, social well-being, climate change preparedness as well as livability. To do this, we just not do it alone. We do it with our partners. We will have a lot of collaborations. We will have high corporate governance to -- and be very disciplined as well as we need to have a lot of innovations, just like we put in the community with science park in our area. So this year, we maintained or improved in our rating. And we also received a lot of award about our sustainabilities, which represent all the effort of the team to put in this sustainability. The last thing we wanted to talk about is sustainable finance. This year, we have issued the largest green loan in Hong Kong, which is for Caroline Hill projects, with an amount of $12.9 billion. We also have other green bonds sustainability-linked loan, sustainable bonds and sustainability-linked hedges. With this, the total sustainable finance transaction as of the end of the year is $19.3 billion, which represented 48% of the total debt and facilities. So this is what I want to share with you all. And may I pass it to Roger on the financial management side?

Thank you, Ricky. Let me go through very quickly a few key metrics, and I think we can move on to have a discussion with our analyst friends. First of all, on this page, you can see a few key numbers. Shareholders' fund at $70.2 billion, and NAV per share is HKD 68.4, both reduced approximately 4% to 5% year-on-year, primarily reflecting the noncash accounting fair value change on our investment properties. And dividend per share, I think you all are well aware now, we -- it has remained flat at HKD 1.44. Next page is a history of our dividend for the last decade or so. And I think that's a very good example to demonstrate our stable and progressive dividend track record. So I just want to opine now that this $1.44 dividend is our fifth year in a row since the peak at 2018, which is followed then by social events and 3 years of COVID restrictions that gave us a very difficult operating environment. And then the next page, some of the key metrics. Again, I guess I just want to point out that Hysan's remained to have a very healthy balance sheet. Our net gearing has remained at around mid-20 percentage, well within the industry norm, and then effective interest rate at 2.8%. And then our investment grade credit ratings remained the same. And then finally, cap rate, that you may be very interested in. For this year evaluation, our independent valuer decided to keep the cap rate the same. So in the table, you can see that the range of cap rate remained the same. Yes, that's the table. Okay. So that's it for my part of the presentation. So Mark, back to you.

Great. Thank you, Irene, Ricky and Roger. So now it's time for questions.

And we will start with a question from Calvin, from Calvin Leung from Jefferies. So Calvin thanks the management and coordinator in this. And he says -- he actually has a 3-parter. The first one is, what is the expectation on rental reversion trend for retail in the financial year of 2023? And would shop relocation under Lee Garden rejuvenation negatively impact the outlook? And then the second part -- second question is, what is our capital expenditure plan for 2023? And what is the expectation on net gearing? The third part is of inquiry and sell-through for Villa Lucca improved after the border reopens.

Maybe I'll just answer question 1, and Roger will do question 2, and perhaps Ricky can do question 3. I think the general climate has improved, definitely has improved. Of course, since the border reopened and since COVID, I think really, COVID is -- as far as we are concerned, COVID is over. Hong Kong still has some restrictions. That's why we're all sitting there wearing masks, which is a little bit unlike everybody else. But I think that will go, too. But I think overall sentiment is positive. That is reflected in our tenants, both in terms of the number and quality of inquiries as well as the rental being negotiated. So we feel positive. We're not totally out of the woods because it's been a very, very long stretch of difficult and an unusual year. I mean, 3 years plus the social unrest, that's 4 years taken out in the last 4 years. It's been a big change, and I would not be surprised if consumption behavior changes. So it is good news that the border has opened. It is good news that we're moving on from COVID. So I would say overall, the sentiment is very positive. But there are no guarantees yet because we haven't really seen the big numbers come through. It feels much more active. And we -- of course, our malls are filling up again, which is all good news. And our restaurants are all doing well. So maybe, Roger, you can talk a little bit about the numbers, and Ricky can talk about Villa Lucca.

Yes. Sure. Thank you, Irene. And thanks for the question, Calvin. Regarding CapEx, there are 2 main parts of our CapEx in 2023. One is obviously the Caroline Hill center, which, as you know, we have a range of project financing and part of which is related to the construction cost. So as we incur the CapEx for that, that will be project financing and as you know, the normal construction hockey stick type of progress of the cost. So I would say that in 2023, that part of CapEx shouldn't be a very big number from that project perspective. Back to our own portfolio. Again, as we shared with you before, the -- we are undergoing a series of asset enhancement initiative. So depending on the progress of the work, we have already reserved around HKD 500 million to HKD 1 billion for our CapEx. And I want to stress that we have already prepared that fund and factored into our overall funding plan, which lead to the next question. Next part of your question is about net gearing. I think suffice to say at this moment, we don't anticipate any substantial increase in our net gearing. Of course, all these planned CapEx spend has been factored into when we planned our fund.

Villa Lucca.

Okay. About Villa Lucca, the process is very highly appreciated by the market about the standard. And with the North Metropolis plan become realizing, the demand on that part in long term, we think, is positive. And recently, after the opening of the border, we do see some transactions completed within these few weeks, which is encouraging. If the sentiment of the market -- on the residential market, we believe that Villa Lucca will be a very prime product of that part of Hong Kong.

Thank you, Ricky. So our next set of questions are from Ken Yeung from Citi. So 2 questions here. One is, how is the retail sales trending in January of 2023 post Mainland China's reopening? And what is the sales done in January versus the pre-COVID 2019 level? And another question is with regards to the office occupancy. That has dropped to 90%. And are we seeing that as a bottom? And any sign of an increase in office demand post reopening?

Maybe, Roger, you can talk about the numbers. Yes.

Yes. Why don't I share some of the data with Ken first on the tenant sales? In fact, for January, we see quite a reasonably good rebound. On a year-on-year basis, we see that the retail tenant of our portfolio achieved a mid-teens positive growth year-on-year. And of course, December is one of the busiest months. But January, we also see a month-on-month increase as well. So from a momentum perspective, obviously, we hope that, that will continue, but we have yet to see the numbers from our tenants. And just one supplemental information on that, Ken, is, obviously, our occupancy cost ratio is another key figures that we monitor. For the whole year of 2022, actually, the average occupancy cost ratio is around 19%, 20%, which from a historical point of view, even before COVID, I think that is considered quite a healthy level for our portfolio, which provide a reasonably okay environment for us and for our tenants. So that's about the retail sales. And the second part of the questions is...

It's about the office occupancy dropping to 90% and whether we see that as the bottom or any sign of increase in office demand after the reopening?

Right. Maybe let me give some background information first. From our office portfolio next year -- or this year, 2023, actually, there's about 1/5 of the space that is -- will be subject for renewal. And the expiring rent related to this 1/5 of our portfolio, generally, is 10% lower than the expired rent we need to deal with in 2022. So in a sense, we had a lower hurdle per se to meet in terms of the rental reversions. And so far, with just the first 2 months of the year, we have continued our discussion with our tenant on the renewal.

I mean, definitely, this -- we're seeing new supply coming on the market, which hasn't been the case for the previous many years and good quality supply as well from Central. So traditionally, Causeway Bay and actually Lee Gardens was very, very important. I don't want to use the word alternative because that shows that people have to weigh up. We were a very good destination for commercial tenants because we offer something which Central does not offer, which is a community which is easy access, easy commute and lots and lots of facilities, as in lots of restaurants and retail. So I think Lee Gardens has always differentiated itself as a destination for office. And as you can see from our portfolio, we're very, very conscious to actually curate segments. It is not just trying to find a tenant. So we target certain segments as in new economy, as in wealth, as in co-work. So we've always been quite targeted in the way we approach our segmentation. Now people have -- people's habits about how they work, where they work definitely has changed, and COVID really has accelerated that change. So demand is going to be, I would say, quite challenging. So you have to ensure that what you offer satisfies something more than going to work. And I think we do that very, very well. So in other words, I think pressure will be there, and it is up to us to differentiate, and I think we can. And in the end, it's very important to not just go for price because you have to offer value that people can see. So the holistic rejuvenation and refreshment of our portfolio can only help in that regard.

Great. We're going a bit late in the day. So how about taking another 2 more questions? Here, we have one from Mark Leung from UBS. And Mark's question is, have we experienced any cap rate expansions?

Well, thanks, Mark, for the questions. And as you can see from the very last page of the slide, there's no change in cap rate for this period end valuations. And based on our discussion with our independent valuer, it appears that they do not see any immediate -- imminent pressure to adjust cap rate, especially given the most recent discussions about the direction of interest rate. But again, we need to see come the next reporting period, that is the middle of next year -- or middle of this year, actually.

Thank you, Roger. Now the last one of the day comes from Bonnie, Bonnie from Haitong. So Bonnie's question is, what's your thoughts on new share issuance to lower company's gearing ratio?

Right. Well, maybe let me have a stab on that first. Well, first of all, in our view, as we mentioned earlier, we consider our current gearing at a -- well, first of all, within the industry norm and for our whole financial planning, I think it gives us a relative safe liquidity to do our long-term investment, while at the same time, we have managed to, for example, keep our dividend. So again, given our current capital structure, we do not see any need in the next year or so, any period for us to raise capital per se. And as you know, we had an investment-grade credit rating, and our access to the debt capital market is quite convenient and open to us as well. So again, we will continue to monitor the overall situation. One last point I want to stress to Bonnie's question is, Hysan is a prudently managed company, and we will continue to adopt a very prudent and disciplined financial management policy.

Thank you. And thank you, Irene. Thank you, Ricky and Roger. And of course, thank you, everyone, for participating. We certainly hope to see you in person when we have our next results announcement session. See you then.

Thank you.

Thank you. Bye-bye.

Take care. Good day. Bye-bye.