Logistea AB (publ) (LOGIB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to Logistea Q2 Earnings Call 2026 [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to CEO, Niklas Zuckerman and CFO, Philip Lofgren. Please go ahead.

So good morning, and welcome to the presentation of Logistea's first half of 2026. As always, to present myself, Niklas Zuckerman and Philip Lofgren. And also, as always, we are happy to take any questions after the presentation. We have during the first half of 2026 continued to deliver on our strategy to build a portfolio of long-leased properties within logistics and light industrial. We today own 170 properties at a value of SEK 17.6 billion, the occupancy stands high at 97%, and we are reporting a net initial yield of 6.8%. Focus for the growth has been the Nordics and will continue to be the Nordics, and we'll come back to the transactions undertaking -- undertaken during the first quarter of this year. Highlights for the first 6 months include that we are reporting income of SEK 622 million, representing a 22% increase compared to last year. The NOI stands at SEK 559 million and the income from property management is up 27% to SEK 313 million. The income from property management per share is up 20% to SEK 0.61 per share. And we have so far during this period, acquired properties at a value of SEK 1.4 billion. We have had a high net letting of SEK 22 million following a very active first quarter of this year. And the income from property management per share in the run rate is up 13% year-to-date. And we still have a large cash balance of more than SEK 500 million, and that gives us room to continue to expand when and if we find interesting investment opportunities. As I said, we have reached a portfolio of almost SEK 18 billion, reporting a stable yield and a stable yield gap of, as you can see, 2.4%. The transactions during the second quarter includes 2 properties in Finland. The first one is located in Helsinki Vantaa. It's located close to the airport and built in 2023. The property is fully leased to a strong Finnish tenant within the food industry on a 12-year lease. We're expecting closing end of August, and the property is valued at SEK 142 million, representing a net initial yield of 7.5%. The next one is located actually on the airport of Turku, leased to tenants like FedEx and DHL slightly shorter leases 3 years in average, but the tenants have been in the premises or in the properties for 25 years. And Turku has a large exposure to air freight due to many companies within the pharmacy business in the region. Property value, SEK 114 million, representing a net initial yield of 8.5%. The next one is the most recent transactions that we have done in July. It's 2 properties located in Tampere and Oulo. Both properties are leased to or on 7-year leases and Vianor is owned by Nokian Tyres. Both properties are built to suit for the tenants in 2008 and 2012, respectively. Here, we're talking SEK 145 million and a net initial yield of 8%. And on this one, we're also expecting closing in mid-August. And adding the properties that I just mentioned on the previous slide, we have now reached SEK 1 billion worth of properties in Finland. Finland is an important market, as you can see on this slide with the flags. And not only have we reached SEK 1 billion worth of properties, we also just recently hired an asset manager that will start after the summer. And if we summarize what we have done in the first half of this year and the property just presented on the previous slide, we are up at SEK 1.7 billion at an average yield of 7.3%. And these acquisitions are in total, adding SEK 0.17 per share in terms of income from property management. As we mentioned on the previous call, we are continuing to work with the site in Lockryd outside of Borås it covers some 730,000 square meters of land, which equals some 470,000square meters of building rights. And as we have said before, we also have an agreement with Vattenfall for delivery of 150 megawatts of power. We are in ongoing discussions with potential tenants for development. And obviously, we'll come back when and if anything is signed and reported to the market. The NOI in the run rate amounts to almost SEK 1.3 billion. And income from property management amounts to -- or SEK 678 million. We have added CAGR. And as you can see, for the past 2.5 years, it's been 28%. And the increase for the past year is 19%. The portfolio composition has obviously changed slightly over the past year. We are now up at 94% of the property value located in the Nordic countries. And as I just said, we have now reached SEK 1 billion worth of properties in Finland. Hardly any changes in the leasing portfolio during the second quarter, but we had a very strong first quarter, as you can see. And for the first half year, we're reporting SEK 22 million of positive net lettings. And it's worth mentioning that SEK 18 million of that number is not yet included in the occupancy rate and nor in the run rate since the tenants have not moved in yet. And with that, I hand over to Philip.

Thank you, Niklas. Looking on the outcomes on the financial side, I can confirm a stable growth on all of the lines on the [ P&L ] the revenue for the quarter increased to SEK 321 million compared to the same quarter last year of SEK 263 million and the last quarter of SEK 301 million. The increase is mainly due to acquisitions and leasing activities during the period but also a 4% increase in the like-for-like portfolio from the quarter. Revenues for the period amounted to SEK 622 million, which is an increase of 22% from the same period last year. The net operating income came out at SEK 293 million for the quarter, also an increase by 22% from the same quarter last year. And the contributors to that increase our acquisitions and increases in the like-for-like portfolio. And for the period, the NOI increased 23% to SEK 559 million. Operating margin and adjusted operating margin on a last 12-month basis have been stable compared to the beginning of the year on around 91.1% and 96.3%. Moving over and looking at the profit from property management. During the quarter, the market interest rates have moved quite a lot in all currencies especially in the Nibor, which has increased about 30 bps from the last interest fixing date. And I do have some more information about loans and interest fixing on the next page, but these market interest rates have affected the net financial income in the quarter which probably explains the difference from the consensus estimate. Profit from property management per share increased by 19% for the quarter and 20% for the period. And looking at the last 12-month basis, the increase was 24%. And following the increase on the -- of the net financials in the quarter, you can see that the interest hedging ratio for the whole group was about 75%. And looking at the loans in the SEK Norwegian kroner, the interest hedge rate was around 44%. Which is the reason why the Nibor interest change had an instant effect on the quarter's net financials. We've chosen not to hedge the NOK loans as high as the SEK loans since we don't believe that the price for longer interest fixing in NOK was worth the price. But we do monitor the interest market for opportunities dailies. And as for so, we have fixed interest rates in SEK during the -- through derivatives. Amounting to a nominal value of SEK 1 billion at an average interest rate of 2.4% with maturities of almost 5.5 years, bringing the average interest maturity up to 2.3 years at the end of Q2. The loan-to-value ratio has decreased a bit in the quarter since the transaction we have acquired -- was acquired by available cash [ no ] loans on that together with the ongoing amortizations. In relations, then the net debt-to-EBITDA ratio decreased to 8.1x and going forward, as I've said in previous calls, we will aim to increase the loan-to-value ratio to a bit up to 55% to maximize the return on equity. We still see a great appetite from the senior banks regarding lending terms relating both to current but also new lenders. This has resulted in a decreased average margin on bank loans from 1.7% to 1.5%, and during the period, we've refinanced or renegotiated around SEK 2.1 billion of bank loans, resulting in a drop of 66 bps on the margin on those loans. We also continue to focus on the amortization rate to free up cash flow for value-adding acquisitions and investments. During 2026, we've succeeded in lowering the rate from 3% down to 2.5%. And last but not least, looking at the financial targets and risk limitations. The curve is starting to flat out at 20% to 25%, looking at the annual growth of the profit from property management per share well above the target of 15%. NRV per share increased 11% on a year-to-year basis. And excluding the paid dividend, the increase was 13%. The 5-year figure is largely affected by bigger -- the bigger share issue, Logistea did back in Q3 of 2023 when we chose to issue new shares in order to buy back bond loans to solidify the balance sheet. The NRV per share dropped from 16.5% down to [ 13.3% ] following that share issuance. The loan-to-value ratio and the interest cover ratio are both on the well safe side and in line with our strategy. And with that, I will hand back to Niklas for some closing remarks.

Thank you very much. And as we have said, stable and good quarter, both when it comes to adding new acquisition, but also taking care of the existing portfolio. We're reporting good numbers basically throughout. And what to expect in the future, we still have a bit more than SEK 500 million worth of cash. So more of the same, more creative acquisitions investments into our own portfolio that will drive the increase in income from property management per share. With that, I think we're done for now and open up for any questions.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Fredrik Skjerven, from ABG Sundal Collier.

A couple of questions. The first one on the Lockryd industrial area. You mentioned that you sort of have ongoing discussions and dialogues with potential tenants. At the same time, I don't think I'm the only one thinking about sort of data centers when you say you have 150-megawatt of power. So maybe can you talk a little bit more about this and the discussions you have, are those for industrial areas? If you were to build something in sort of the data center space, would that be yourself or with a partner? Or would you sell that land? Do you have any thoughts about potential investment volumes for this area?

Thank you, Fredrik. So taking a step back, we obviously -- it's a big site. So when saying that we're in discussion with potential tenants, it could be both, call it, logistics like industrial and for a potential data center. Looking at the potential data center, it's a bit too early to communicate. But one should also bear in mind that we're a logistics company and not a data center expert. But with that said, we have spent now, what is it, 4 years on the site and together with Vattenfall. Obviously, we will make sure that we we'll take care of that power that will be brought to the site. So a bit boring answer is that a bit too early, but obviously, we will communicate as soon as we have something in writing, and if this is a site that we're spending a lot of time on both when it comes to potential data centers, but also normal logistics warehousing.

Yes. That's fair. Secondly, on acquisitions. The most recent ones have been very much tilted towards Finland, and you now have local staff joining after the summer. I know you sort of evaluate M&A on a deal-by-deal basis and then you look at several countries and so on and so on. But would you say that you think Finland is the market where you will continue to find the best deals and should that country likely be sort of where you do material M&A also going forward?

I would say no. What we've done this so far this year, it's been -- the [ majority ] has been in Sweden and second market has been Finland. We are looking at all of the 4 Nordic markets, and it could well be that we do something in Denmark or Norway also, obviously, depending on the pricing and what type of bank financing, we can achieve. We like all of the 4 markets. Finland has been, together with Sweden, the most attractive ones in the past sort of 12 months, but it could well be, as I said, that Denmark looks more interesting in the autumn. So we'll continue to look at all 4.

Yes. That's clear. Last one, just to sort of confirm, I'm sure you had mentioned this in the past. But in terms of lending margins, given the answer you just gave, in Finland, are they now similar to what you get in Sweden or more expensive?

They're actually -- yes, similar is a fair answer and almost tipping over to be even lower than Sweden.

The next question comes from Niklas Wetterling from SB1 Markets.

I have one question, and that's -- several of your peers has been active in the quarter issuing equity-like instruments, like the end of issuing hybrid bond and Sagax, NP3 has issued the shares and preference shares. So what's your view on these financing alternatives? And could they become relevant for Logistea going forward?