Nexity SA (NXI) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and welcome to the business report, Nexity. Welcome to our conference call for today. [Operator Instructions] And I will now give the floor to Jean-Claude Bassien and Pierre-Henry Pouchelon, who is in charge of Finance.

Thank you very much indeed. We have the Investor Relations team with us. You know them already, and thank you for being here for this webcast. I will get started immediately with a few comments about key developments, and then I'll hand over to Pierre-Henry, who will talk about the figures for the first quarter and the business performance. I will say it at the outset, although you know this already. In our business area, the first quarter is never significant of developments over the year because there are nonlinear developments of bulk sales of homes, and that represents 70% of our business. The first key development that I would like to refer to, and I will illustrate this with examples subsequently is the implementation of New Nexity. This implementation has led to a new positioning with a wide range of products outside Paris, and we are being very successful with this, and I'll come back to that. The second point is revenue, EUR 590 million, 9% down on a like-for-like basis, and this is mainly due to the drop in commercial real estate development. Last year, we said that we have not replenished the backlog, and we can see the impact on revenue for the first quarter. But we have done rather well in terms of revenue for serviced housing and distribution. The second point that I would like to comment on regarding business activity is a decline in 9% of sales of homes for sale. We were expecting this because of the recalibration in 2024 and our more selective approach when it comes to development, we'll be more cautious in new start-ups. We were expecting this. It obviously has an impact on the residential activity for the first quarter, but this isn't representative of the year as a whole because of cutoff effects. Regarding residential business activity, I'd like to make a few comments. First of all, we have a redeployment of supply, which we are rolling out. It's a little bit slowed down in terms of delivery of building permits. There are municipal elections coming up next year, and this has led to the local authorities being more cautious about delivering permits. And then there's the latency effect because of the introduction of a number of measures as of the 1st of April with interest-free loans that hasn't yet kicked in and the end of the Pinel scheme, which necessarily has an impact on our activity, on our business, and is only partially offset by the momentum that we're seeing with homebuyers, which was quite strong at the end of last year and continues strong at the beginning of this year, up 23% for the first quarter. Some key developments also to highlight. We have repaid the 2018 ORNANE bond, EUR 200 million reimbursed in March 2025 using the group's available cash, so without drawing on the credit facility. And that's a very positive development from our point of view. And one final point that I'd like to highlight when talking about key developments. Of course, the context is more volatile in terms of political situation and economic as well as we can see, but nothing has a significant impact on our business area and would not call into question our guidance. So we confirm our guidance for the year. Now I'd like to comment briefly on the fact that we are now at Saint-Ouen. You may say, well, so what? What does that mean? I think it's worth honing in on this a little bit. Saint-Ouen is where we can demonstrate our know-how as planners and developers. We have the Docks residential district, the Athletes' Village. This is really a kind of laboratory where we can show what New Nexity can do, and we are exemplary in showing how we can cut back on costs because we have reduced considerably by EUR 6 million our cost-based rents. We have implemented our transformation plan correctly. And in so doing, we can now roll out New Nexity. I'd like to highlight this because we haven't been able to discuss this, but this implementation will go hand-in-hand with an in-depth analysis of regional markets. There are 7 regions for us. And in those 7 regions, we have identified 38 high-potential urban centers. On what basis? Well, we've based this on a lot of analysis, looking at economic strength, social and demographic trends. And this means that we think on medium term, we'll have 7,500 units. And this will help us go out and conquer new market shares. New Nexity will help us move into commercial business with new commercial asset categories to offset the dip in offices. There are different commercial asset categories that we're targeting now so as to go out into the commercial business. Just to give some examples, in March '25, in the Southeast, we signed promise for sale for an activity park and offices 5,800 square meters. And in our backlog, currently, we have more than EUR 30 million for 8,000 units of high-value segments sold to an institutional investor as part of our Lyon Confluence region development. And we're continuing to streamline and reduce our operational costs in an operational efficiency drive as part of this implementation. I said that when I would come back with some examples to illustrate New Nexity. And here are 2 examples. We've done very well because we work as urban developers and also planners. First of all, Bayeux. We've got a brownfield site, 9 hectares. And we were selected because we could meet all of the requirements of the authorities with mixed-use district, single-family houses, collective housing units, business space. That's our expertise. Here, you have the urban planner at work. And then, of course, this will be followed up by development activities. The other example is to the east of France in Sierentz. This is a mixed-use development area with the units for industry, hotel, a range of uses, service centers, business centers. There, too, our expertise carries the day. So again, we intervene as urban planner and then subsequently as developer. And before handing over to Pierre-Henry, obviously, the context is what it is. It's not very favorable context for our business. So we are very offensive and determined. I already mentioned the action that we're going to carry out regarding interest-free loans so as to restore purchasing power for our clientele. We're going to continue to innovate by providing an enhanced intermediate rental housing plan via special purpose real estate companies. This means that you can reduce VAT to 10%, so cut it by half and to improve gross returns. These are setups that we're also considering applying for nonprofessional landlords of furnished properties, LMNP as it's known. We haven't finished that completely, so I won't go into further detail. But we're working on it, and it will be ready soon. And I'll hand over now to Pierre-Henry.

Thank you, Jean-Claude. Welcome, everybody. Let's begin with revenue, that's on Slide 11. EUR 590 million, 9% down like-for-like. The residential, it's 80% of our revenue. It increased by 4% as compared to Q1 2024 because the situation is currently a little bit better, but we'll see how this pans out over the year. But it's not typical of the year because there we continue to be affected by a decline in business activity from projects underway. Commercial real estate contribution to revenue 2%, down 86%. This is because of delivery of large-scale commercial projects in 2024, LGC, Reiwa and Carré Invalides and the lack of backlog replenishment over the last 2 financial years. And then finally, services, they grew by 16%, so double digit as compared to Q1 2024, particularly when it comes to service properties, 70% of revenue from services, up 18% and also distribution, which has gone back into the black. Let's look at business activity. Residential real estate, down 9% as compared to the end of last year, down 26% as compared to the first quarter of 2024. Retail sales down 23% in volume, 11% by value because of the end of the Pinel scheme. Bulk sales are not significant for the first quarter. Commercial real estate, nothing very significant there. Services, there, it's robust for student and coworking spaces. Supply for sale has been recalibrated and adapted throughout 2024 to adapt to market situation. Absorption rates are 6 months. 5, 6 months is normal, was for Nexity before the crisis. This secures supply rotation. And of course, as for every quarter, this results in having virtually no unsold completed homes. Preselling rate for launches for Q1 2025, 79%. 87% of supply for sale in supply-constrained areas, A, Abis and B1. 100% of supply eligible for interest-free loan scheme with effect from the 1st of April. You can see minus 26% compared to last year, and this is reflected in reservations on the ground. Here, we see new home reservations with a focus on retail sales. First of all, continued strong momentum for homebuyers, up 23% after 43% at the end of 2024. Decline in individual investors, that's not surprising. It's the end of France's Pinel scheme. That represented almost 80% of individual investors in 2024. And finally, service activities, robust student residences, very high occupation rate and coworking, 86% and distribution growing by 5% as compared to the first quarter of 2024. To wind up this presentation on this activity and move on to your questions, so let's look at the outlook. The first quarter figures do not call into question the guidance. Obviously, we have to be cautious. The market is very volatile and all sectors are volatile. Ours is a very domestic sector, but there's political and economic volatility. We are aiming to get back to profitability and to have a positive current operating profit in 2025, and we're continuing to keep control of the balance sheet, and we confirm our IFRS net debt of a maximum of EUR 380 million. Thank you very much for your attention. And we are now happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you very much indeed.

[Operator Instructions] Please feel free to ask any questions. There are no questions. I will give the floor back perhaps to the speakers for any additional information or conclusions.

Thank you very much for your attention. These Q1 results are not representative for the full year, obviously, but you will have noticed the fact that we were observing positive signs following the rollout of the New Nexity. We are being very proactive against a challenging backdrop. Thank you very much. And a quick reminder about the future date, we will have our shareholders' meeting on the 22nd of May and the publication of our half year results, revenue, business activity, et cetera, on the 24th of July 2025. Thank you very much.

This is the end of the conference call. You can now hang up. Thank you very much. Have a good day. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]