Metrovacesa S.A. (MVC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello. Good morning, and welcome to the full year 2025 results webcast from Metrovacesa. My name is Juan Carlos Calvo. I'm Director of Corporate Development and Investor Relations. And as usual, we have with us Jorge Perez de Leza, CEO of Metrovacesa; and Borja Tejada, Chief Financial Director. We are going to present an overview of our operating activity and the financial results for the full year 2025. The slides of this presentation have been released to the market this morning, and they are available through the CNMV website as well as the company website. We have also sent it by e-mail to our usual distribution list for analysts and investors. [Operator Instructions] Now we hand it over to our CEO to start the presentation. Please, Jorge.

Thank you, Juan Carlos, and good morning, everybody, and welcome to our full year results presentation. And I'm very happy to have you here to share what we consider an excellent set of results for the full year 2025. Just as a summary, total revenues this year are close to EUR 710 million. EBITDA and net profit have reached a record figure with close to EUR 128 million and a 74% growth over last year and a net profit of almost EUR 57 million with a growth of 258%. Our operating cash flow is well above the EUR 150 million guidance that we gave with a total of EUR 225 million. And our dividend for the year, as you already know, and paid in full was EUR 240 million, representing a 17% yield for the year. Also, I think that looking forward, we are still surrounded by a market context where housing demand remains very solid and demand for commercial land keeps on improving as we will see later on in the presentation. And also our current presales backlog offers a very good visibility on our upcoming residential developments and land sales for the next 2, 3 years. Moving into Page #7, I would like to highlight here probably focus on the prices, on the average prices of our units where we see that our deliveries this year were on average at EUR 375,000 per unit. But if we look at our backlog, we see that it's still a very strong number of EUR 360,000 per house. The units under commercialization are close to EUR 380,000. And therefore, I reiterate my previous statement that the backlog offers quite a good positive outlook for the next 2, 3 years coming forward. Now moving on to Page 8. I give the floor back to Juan Carlos to give us a brief overview on the market.

Yes. Well, very quickly a few data. I mean the market in Spain was quite strong, both in terms of prices and volumes during last year. Prices accelerated according to the official statistics to a double-digit growth, 12.7% and the volume of transactions increased to over 700,000, which is the highest figure since the previous cycle. The main reason for these 2 parameters is the continued imbalance between supply and demand. And actually, we have already accumulated quite a few years of this imbalance. And just looking at the last 5 years alone, we have accumulated approximately 600,000 units of shortfall of supply according to the growth of household. So this continues to be the main driver behind the increase in prices as well as volumes. It is true that in the last few months, we have seen some moderation in the growth rate and probably we will continue to see some moderation into next year, both in prices and volumes. Obviously, the prices in the extent that it is going higher, it is making it a little bit less affordable for some groups of the potential demand. But still, the outlook continues to be a continuation of a positive trend, perhaps more moderate than last year, but a continuation of a positive trend. Back to Jorge.

Yes. Thank you, Juan Carlos. So moving on to more operational KPIs. In terms of residential deliveries, we delivered a total of 1,805 units with an average selling price of EUR 375,000 per home, driven by mix of products. And you can see that we've delivered some premium projects over the fourth quarter like Malaga Towers, the second Tower Vision, also the Mesena 80 project in Madrid as well as Serene Atalaya in Estepona in Malaga. But nevertheless, as I said before, if you look at the backlog, it's still quite strong in terms of average selling price going forward. Probably more important is the gross margin in which we have raised our gross margin to -- development gross margin to a little bit more than 26%. And this is driven obviously by tailwinds in the market, but also to the strategy that we followed in the last 6 months of the year, as we mentioned on our previous calls, that was really optimizing margin and given the very good coverage of sales for the deliveries in the -- not only in 2025, but in the coming years, we were optimizing margin and therefore, selling a little bit less of units in the last part of the year in order to maximize the price and therefore, the margin. So good set of margin. And I think as we will mention later on, I think the mid-20s figure in terms of gross margin is something that we consider a good assumption for the coming years. In terms of presales, moving on to the next page, we sold 1,635 units in the year with a strong fourth quarter in which we sold 434 with an average selling price, which is slightly higher than our backlog and also the deliveries. Again, this gives you a good picture of what's coming forward. And then an absorption rate of 2.5%, which is our average and where we would like to be in these operating metrics. In terms of sales backlog, moving on to next page, we have just a little bit over 3,100 units in the backlog with an average selling price of 360,000 and with a very strong coverage ratio for our deliveries coming forward, standing at 89% in 2026, 66% in 2027 and 27% in 2028. So -- and then above -- sorry, around 80% of this backlog is actually formalized in private contracts with more than a 10% down payment. In terms of construction, we have around 4,000 units under construction, including 851 units, which have already been completed, which means they have a certificate of final construction. And we started the construction of around 1,600 units in the year. In commercialization, we have 5,200 units, again, with a potential revenue of EUR 2 billion and an average selling price of close to EUR 380,000. 60% is already presold. And then we have around 2,500 units, which are in the design phase and will come into commercialization in the next few months or over the year. Moving into the next page, Isla Natura. I think the photo in 2022 and what you see in 2025 speaks by itself. This is a project where we have basically started from scratch. We launched over 1,800 units already, 820 have already been delivered across 13 developments, and we continue to deliver throughout the year and then in the coming year. Unfortunately, we are running out of units, but we have around 200 more to launch. And also, we have transformed some of the commercial land plots given the urgent measures approved by the regional government of Andalusia, we were able to transform some commercial land into protected housing, and we've launched around 300 protected -- additional protected units in the neighborhood. We hope this to be a proof of what we can do as a strong operating company with a strong balance sheet, and we shall be able to replicate this success story in some of our big developments where we have such as Los Cerros, Seda-Papelera or Vinival or Benimaclet in Valencia coming forward. Moving on to Page 13. In terms of Madrid, this is going to be a strong example of launches in 2026, so commercial launches in which in Los Cerros, we have in this development around 2,700 units. The final reallotment has been approved. And therefore, in the short term, we shall be able to start selling in this development in this area, where you know that in all the Southeast region of Madrid, the commercial performance is very, very strong given the lack of housing in Madrid. Also in Valdecarros, where we have around 450 units and the final reallotment is expected in the mid of 2026 and urbanization works for Phase #1 are already 90% completed and Stage 2 and 3 are advancing quite strongly. So good prospect for our developments in Madrid in Los Cerros and in Valdecarros coming forward. In terms of land activity, land sales in P&L stood at EUR 32 million, which actually was a little bit below what we expected given that one development -- or sorry, one land sale was actually skipped into the first quarter, which is Valdebebas and actually was signed yesterday. So this is done. And we have a very strong backlog of binding contracts coming in the next year, EUR 163 million in total, which are already signed in private contracts and will be basically -- will appear in the P&L as they are notarized in 2026 and 2027. In terms of land acquisitions, we acquired around 600 units, as you know, following our top-up strategy of adding some units in order to be around in our strategy of around 2,000 units per year. And we acquired these units in core markets like Valencia, Valdecarros, Sabadell in Barcelona and Marbella in Malaga. And we will continue with our capital allocation policy of buying in selective approach. And also in some cases, we are now considering investment in partnerships with some players and funds that have actually approached us to codevelop with them in the BTS and flex-living segments. Again, something that will not be -- will be an add-on strategy to our core portfolio that will be coming as we transform the non-fully permitted land into fully permitted in the coming years. In terms of the commercial portfolio in Page 15, very good news that came out in a press release at the end of the year in the sense that we signed a turnkey project for office development in the 2 land plots that were still pending for delivery in the ORIA Innovation Campus project with a price of EUR 200 million for a total of 48,000 square meters of GLA and a top-up development in terms of certifications. And these projects will be -- will start construction in the coming weeks and will be delivered at the beginning of 2029. And I think it's good news because it's a very well-rounded mixed-use development for the area, having not only offices, but also, as you remember, the PBSA that will be delivered in 2026. We're just about to finalize construction in the next couple of months. Also the co-living that is coming in 2027 with Vita being an operator in both. And then this is -- the office deal will actually, as I mentioned, create a very pole attraction in the area. And again, will be an example of what we are able to deliver in big developments. I also want to take the opportunity to give a short overview of where we are at in our commercial development as commercial portfolio, which, as you remember from the beginning, our idea here was to basically reduce our exposure by a value-add strategy that could mean sales of land or turnkey projects or JV developments. We started with a total gross asset value of around EUR 700 million, and we are now at around EUR 350 million, but 50% of that is already actually presold and will be delivered and therefore, notarized in the next 2, 3 years. And so our exposure has greatly diminished. The 49% that I mentioned that is already presold, you have here the breakdown is the ORIA offices as well as the other 2 developments, La City in Barcelona, where we signed a presale agreement to develop a flex living by a third party in that area, Monteburgos1, which is the land located next to our office, where we signed some presales agreements to develop retail and hotel. Valdebebas that I mentioned, we actually notarized yesterday. And then Loinsa 22@ district where we signed a presale agreement to sell the land. Also just to finalize in Puerto de Somport office, which were the project that we developed a 20,000 square meter that we developed together with Tishman Speyer and where we own a 24% stake. At the end of the year, we had an 87% occupancy, and we are in advanced negotiations for an additional 10% take-up, so basically to have a full occupation in the next few months. Finally, on our ESG, we continue with our ultimate objective, which is to be -- to position Metrovacesa as a sustainable and responsible developer, and we are advancing in a different set of measures that you can see here, not only on environmental, but also on our social and governance metrics. With that, I finish with the operating set of results, and I hand it over to our CFO, Jorge for a financial review.

Thank you, Jorge. Let me start with the profit and loss summary. As Jorge mentioned, 2025 was a record year across all key metrics. Total revenues reached EUR 709 million, up 8% year-on-year, driven mainly by residential development, while land sales contributed EUR 32 million. Gross margin increased significantly to EUR 180 million with residential gross margin expanding to above 26%, reflecting a strong product mix and solid execution. EBITDA amounted to EUR 128 million, representing an 18% EBITDA margin and 74% increase year-on-year. Net profit reached around EUR 57 million. And importantly, recurring pretax profit more than double to EUR 109 million, confirming that earnings growth is fundamentally operational and sustainable. Moving to operating cash flow in Slide 20. Fiscal year 2025 cash generation was exceptionally strong. Gross operating cash flow reached more than EUR 225 million, significantly above our initial guidance over EUR 150 million. This performance was driven by EBITDA growth, optimal land monetization and efficient discipline of land investment. Cash generation clearly demonstrates that quality of earnings and the cash conversion capacity of our business model in a reality. Turning to the net debt position in Slide 21. We closed the year with a total cash of EUR 200 million and net financial debt of EUR 300 million, improving versus last year despite the high dividend paid in 2025. Loan-to-value remains very stable at 13.5%, slightly below our long-term reference range of 15% to 20%. Potential liquidity is strong with more than EUR 300 million of undrawn committed facilities and the average cost of our debt stands at 5.5%. Overall, the company maintains a solid and resilient financial structure, providing flexibility to execute the business plan and sustained shareholder returns. Finally, on asset valuation and NAV. Total GAV amounts [ EUR 2.25 billion ] at the end of the year. Net asset value stands at EUR 12.13 per share, representing like-for-like increase of 3.5% versus December 2024 adjusted for the dividend paid. The positive evolution is driven by residential assets, partially offset by more cautious valuation in commercial segment. This confirmed the underlying value of our portfolio and the strength of our residential-focused strategy. Now I will hand over to Jorge with closing remarks.

Thank you, Borja. Moving on to Page #24. I would like to take a couple of minutes here to go over our evolution from 2018 until 2025, in which I think we are really showing our efforts to focus on dividends and a strategy driven by cash flow, given that we started with a very large land bank that at that point was not active, and then we started all the process of making it work. And I think our strategy is really paying off at the end. In terms of GAV, what we see is that our current GAV of EUR 2.2 billion, the active GAV in terms of percentage has really increased. As I mentioned below -- before, our commercial GAV has diminished or decreased through a value-add divestment strategy. The key operating data, I think, speaks by itself with total launches of close to 16,000 units, sales of 13,000, deliveries of a little bit more than 10,000, land transformation from non-fully permitted to fully permitted and land sales as well. At the end, this results in more than close to EUR 900 million dividend already paid and obviously, respecting our policy of a payout of more than 80% and exactly in this case, 92% of the operating cash flow generated in the period. And we will obviously continue with this strategy going forward and with our focus on cash flow and dividends as well. And to finalize on Page 25, I think as takeaways, I think, again, we are very happy to share this strong set of results for the year with revenue growth and gross margin expansion driving to a net record EBITDA and net profit, a significant increase in average selling price of deliveries for the year. And I think this is not only an effort of the fourth quarter where we can see some significant increase because of the product mix, but I think it's -- this is the result of a strategy of being very driven by IT and digitalization and improving our commercial funnels and then being able to make very quick decisions on a weekly basis in order to maximize the revenue of all our projects. The solid presale coverage, as I mentioned before, with the high percentages of units sold on our coming deliveries for the next 3 years makes us be quite positive on the forecast as well as on the 165 million of land presales that will eventually come into notarization in the next couple of years. Attractive dividends for the year, EUR 240 million with a 17% payout, which is probably one of the most attractive payouts in the -- not only in the industry, but in general, in the stock market in Spain. Our next dividend will be in May of 2026 with a figure to be announced in March as we have done in previous years. And as I mentioned before, our solid outlook for the year makes us think that our gross cash flow generation will be above EUR 200 million with housing development deliveries of units similar to 2025. And finally, land sales with significant growth given the backlog of EUR 165 million plus additional deals that obviously will come in the year. And with that, I conclude. Thank you very much for joining, and I hand it back to Juan Carlos now for Q&A.

Thank you, Jorge. Yes, we are now ready to start the question-and-answer session. We will start taking questions from our participants in the conference call. [Operator Instructions] Okay. The first question comes from the line of Mariano Miguel from Banco Santander.

I have 2, if I may. So in Q4, your gross development margin stood closer to 30%. You were guiding for higher margins, but I would say that not as high as this one. I was wondering if in the next 2 years, we should expect it to remain closer to 30% or more, towards 25% that I would say is what I was more expecting. And then second, on dividends, you have distributed more than 100% of your gross operating cash flow this year. Again, how should we look into the potential dividend payout in 2026 as your cash flow is going to be above EUR 200 million? And then one last one, please. On land acquisition, if you could please give us some color on your expectations for next year as I believe part of your non-fully permitted land is going to be transformed. So I don't know if that might affect that potential policy in terms of land acquisition. And that's all on my side.

Thank you, Mariano. So I will -- Jorge here will take the questions. I think the Q4 exceptional gross margins are mainly driven by the product mix. And coming, we delivered Malaga Towers, the second tower vision. We also delivered, I think, a project in Madrid, Mesena and then also a couple of other projects in Costa del Sol. Not only that, I mean, as I mentioned before, I think it's a matter of given the coverage that we started with at the beginning of the year, we have to basically sell 20%, 25% of the deliveries in the year, and we've been very pushy and very, I think, surgically working on how to get the best contacts to sell at 25% in order to maximize pricing. And it sounds -- it may sound a little kind of, I don't know what word to use, but the reality is that we are using some artificial intelligence model in order to drive our -- to get our contacts and to drive them into final sales that I think are playing an important role in this last sales of each development where you're really focusing on getting the best clients at the highest price. Going forward, I would love to see that we're going to be close to 30%, but not, I'm not optimistic. I think that 24% is a reason, I would say, a more accurate figure. And in some quarters, you may see 24% because of the mix and in some other quarters, you will see 26%, 27% because of mix. But overall, for the year, if I was -- if I had to put a figure in the Excel, I think between 24% and 26% would be a great figure. Dividend, yes, higher than 100%. I think as I've always mentioned, I think we are cash flow driven. We are dividend driven. And we understand that the market is -- likes dividends at this point. And we are very proactive to dividends. And that's why we paid more than 100% of the cash flow generated in the year. Is that going to be the norm coming forward? No, I would say that our policy still stands at paying at a cash payment of 80% of the -- higher than 80% of the cash flow generated. And obviously, it's actually the Board that has to decide this and then propose it to the -- in the Annual Shareholders Meeting. And if we see a positive forecast, we see that the LTV stands at a reasonable figure, et cetera. I think we will give priority to dividends rather than anything else. Land acquisitions, I think our strategy, again, keeps to be the same, which is a top-up strategy in order to complement the projects that are -- or the launches that are coming from the land transformed into fully permitted. And that means that in terms of acquisitions, we are talking about 500, 600 units per year in order to do that top-up. It is true that if we find some attractive land investments that are bigger than that, we will go -- we will try to go for them probably with co-investment partners in that sense so that we have, again, a combination of investment, but also a focus on dividends. And basically, that will be the case. So I don't -- we have to see how also the land market turns out to be in 2026. I think there could be less people buying and there could be better opportunities, and we are ready to go for those opportunities. Again, if they are large, we will go with co-investment so that we keep a good balance between dividend and investment of our own equity.

Thank you. We don't have more questions from the audio conference call. So we will now read questions received on the webcast platform. We have several -- actually 3 analysts asking mainly on the same point, which is gross margin. A question from Javier analyst from Renta Cuarto, Julian [indiscernible] analyst from Kepler Cheuvreux and Ignacio Dominguez analyst on JB Capital, essentially, the 3 are asking again about the gross margin. If you can say what was behind the increase in gross margins in Q4 and whether this could be -- what could be the expectation for gross margin going forward? I mean the way it has been answered already, but if you want to add anything?

Yes. I mean I would say that in order to reiterate myself, I mean, in 2026, the -- we've already sold 89%. So we have 11% of the units left to be sold, and we will, again, apply most of our knowledge and technology in order to maximize the prices on that. That should move the needle a lot. We, with 11%, not that much, but we are very comfortable in saying that the 25% is good. Obviously, in 2027, you have a little bit more room because we've presold 66%. So it means 34% is still there to be sold. And then in '27 as well more figures. We do see sales growth or price growth still coming in the next 2 years. But as I -- as Juan Carlos mentioned, probably not -- we're not talking about figures in 10%, but rather closer to 5% and that should -- may move the needle upwards in 2027 and 2028. I think in 2026, the game is already almost done. With 11% to go, we will try to surpass that 25% gross margin, but I think we cannot expect 30%.

Okay. Thank you. Also Julian from Kepler. He was also asking about the land investment pipeline. How does it look? Are there any good opportunities in Tier 1 cities with good returns, in which regions or areas?

I think the land market is not easy right now, especially in Tier 1 markets where for 2 reasons. First of all, is that there's no land. I mean there's very little fully permitted land. And then there's 2 ways to source that land. And one of them is through tenders, public tenders, meaning that they are open for everybody. And those are, I think, extremely competitive, and we made -- we did source in the past some good deals through that source. Going forward, I think it's going to be difficult because probably price expectations are too high. And then I think we are quite good in working at bilateral transactions. So actually identifying land that is fully permitted or almost fully permitted with very few things to solve before being able to launch in 1 year or less. And in those bilateral transactions is where we are able to find land that is in the high teens of IRRs and with reasonable -- with gross margins that are in line with our strategy. If we don't find those, we just will not buy. I mean I think there is no -- with the land bank that we have in hand, we have no pressure to be buying thousands of units every year. As I mentioned before, our strategy is a top-up strategy, and then we will do it with opportunities that fit our return expectations. And I can say that in the land that we acquired in the last 2, 3 years, I think we are in all of them beating our underwriting at the time of purchase. And so they are performing extremely well, and we just don't want to jeopardize that experience. And so we will just focus on good deals.

Okay. We have an additional question from one investor, in a way related to investments as well, but with a focus on the construction costs. Given the increase in construction costs, do you think there is still affordable land plots in the city peripheries for you to be able to renovate your land portfolio at a reasonable price?

Trying to understand the question. So let me take it in part. I think to talk about construction costs, yes, we have -- we are experiencing some construction costs. Nevertheless, the price increases actually are outweighing the increase in construction costs and hence, an increase in the margins. So yes, we are seeing construction costs, but sales are growing at a slightly faster pace. And so therefore, we don't see erosion in margins. And I think going forward, even with sales increases being more moderate, I think we're still not thinking about margin erosion. Thinking about affordable land plots, I'm not sure if that means land for affordable housing or land that is at good price in the peripheries. Well, and then to renovate our land portfolio, well, we are still not in need to renovate. I mean we have a large enough land portfolio. And as I mentioned before, so that we only do acquisitions that are with good returns in order to top up to be in a run rate of between -- as you see in the last figures between 1,700 and 2,000 units, something like that. So we are not at a stage in which we need to renovate our full portfolio. So we will do acquisitions just on a very specific basis and with good returns. And then in a few years down the road, it is when we will have to buy more aggressively. Good opportunities, I would say there are, but scarce. So that will be my conclusion.

Thank you. One additional question from an investor. It's about the land sales in private track. You have, at the end of the year, EUR 163 million of backlog in land sales. Can you give us an estimate of the timing of those -- of the formalization of these landscapes?

Yes, I mean, I could be super specific, but always one deal may skip 1 year or whatever. But I think it would be reasonable to say that something slightly above 50% will be in 2026 and then the remaining in 2027.

Thank you. It seems that we don't have any more questions on the webcast or the conference call. So with that, we will conclude our presentation of Metrovacesa full year results 2025. The Investor Relations team will be available to take any follow-up questions that you may have as usual. And we thank you for your participation, and we look forward to meeting you again next time. Thank you, and goodbye.