One United Properties SA (ONE) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning. Welcome to One United Properties call presenting the Q3 2023 results. My name is Zuzanna Kurek, I'm Investor Relations Manager at One United Properties. I am joined in this call by Victor Capitanu, Executive Board member and Co-Founder of One United Properties; and Cosmin Samoila, CFO at One United Properties. Together, we will present our One United Properties Q3 2023 results as well as answer any of your questions. Before we begin, I would like to mention that the call is being recorded, and the recording of this call will be uploaded on One United Properties website later this week. As stated in the call invite by joining this video conference, you -- and implicitly consented to being recorded. If you do not consent to being recorded, please leave this call. In terms of organizational aspect let me present you the setup of this call. Firstly, Victor Capitanu, will deliver opening remarks. We will then move to the next part of the call where together with Cosmin Samoila, we will deliver a brief presentation outlining the Q3 2023 results and the key events that happened since our last call. [Operator Instructions] Last, but not least, I would like to mention that we might be making forward-looking statements during today's call regarding the future performance of One United Properties, and that actual results may differ materially. We encourage you to review the disclaimer that we have included in the presentation and which you may see now on the screen. The disclaimer applies equally to all the statements made in today's call. I would like now to proceed to the first part of this call, and I would like to invite Victor Capitanu to share some highlights with you regarding the performance of One United Properties from the first 9 months of 2023.

Good morning, everybody. I'm happy to be with you today. I want to thank you, first and foremost, for the trust you have placed in the One brand. Many of you have been investors since the company went public in 2021, and I hope you'll continue to stand by us in the future, especially as today, we have good results and growth plans to share. As I mentioned in the presentation video, in the third quarter, despite the declining market, we sold 329 apartments worth EUR 79 million, representing 254% increase in the number of units and the 153% increase in the value of new contracts compared to the same period in 2022. This growth was driven by a more extensive and varied selection of properties and an increasing customer preference for quality apartments. More than half of the apartments sold in the quarter were 2 bedroom units, and demand for these units increased by 170% compared to the same period in 2022. Our most sought-after development this year is One Lake District where we have already sold 348 units out of the 786 available in the first phase of the project. Our position in the market is currently very strong as on one hand, we see a robust demand for apartment purchases while, for the first time in years, construction costs have not risen. Our competitors are struggling at this time, giving us a much better negotiating position for land acquisitions. All these factors increased our market share and ensure stability and growth for our new developments. In these 9 months, we generated a consolidated turnover of RON 1,153 million, 75% of this amount is due to residential property sales. Specifically, RON 876 million, reflecting a 47% growth in this segment compared to the same period last year. In the first 9 months, One United Properties recorded a profit of RON 251 million from residential property sales, representing a margin of 28.7%. Profitability is lower than the 41% of the previous year as this year, we have more new developments in the early stages of construction. While last year, we completed a large number of projects. When One starts a new production site, the entire land cost is recognized in the first year of construction, while unit sales revenues are recognized proportionally to building development costs. This means that in a year, when we have more developments in the early stages of construction such as 2023, the profit margin recorded in accounting is lower. While in a year when we have more projects in advanced stages of construction, as was the case in '22, the margin is above average. In 2024, considering that we will have more developments in advanced stages of construction, we expect the margin to be above the long-term average of 35%. In the first 9 months of the year, One United Properties delivered 524 residential units at One Verdi Park, One Floreasca Vista and One Timpuri Noi. In addition to this, the delivery of 900 residential units at One Cotroceni Park will begin at the end of this year. Also, as of September 30, 2023, 68% of the units under development were already sold. The total amount owed under contract with customers until that date is EUR 305 million, a record amount of cash to be collected by 2025. In the commercial segment of our business, the office portfolio reaches now 118,000 square meters, including One Tower, One Cotroceni Park 1 and 2 and One Victoriei Plaza. On top of this, we have another 42,000 of commercial properties in Bucur Obor and One Gallery. In the first 9 months of the year, we had a remarkable increase of 92% in rent from office and rented office and commercial. The most significant news regarding the commercial segment is a record contract of EUR 57 million with Infineon Technologies for the lease of 20,000 square meters of office space for 15 years within a sustainable campus, especially developed by us for the German company, which will be named One Technology District. On October 9, 2023, One United Properties held the Ordinary and Extraordinary General Shareholders' Meetings. During this meeting, shareholders approved the distribution of the semiannual dividend for 2023 in the amount of RON 38 million. One United Properties dividend policy includes the payment of dividends on a semiannual basis. Equity increased by 11% in the first 9 months of 2023, reaching RON 2.8 billion. The gross debt ratio remained at a similar level to the beginning of the year at 29% and the net debt ratio is RON 528 million, 10.9% of total assets. For the last quarter of the year, we expect a continuation of the growth in residential sales and significant progress in our development projects. In addition, we will continue to explore strategic opportunities to consolidate our market position and to provide value to our shareholders. Thank you very much. And now, I'll pass the presentation to my colleagues.

Good morning. Thank you. Thank you, everyone, for participating at this call where we present the third quarter financial results. We start with the main financial indicators. As we presented also last quarters, we show two types of evolution: One, including the one-off transaction that happened last year with the acquisition of Bucur Obor, when we recognized a significant gain, and the other evolution result this one-off event. So we see, on the turnover, reaching RON 1.15 billion and it's -- this is 42% more compared to last year without the exceptional event of last year, but also including that, it's 27% more than last year. In terms of revenue from residential sales, they increased 47%, up to RON 876.2 million and consolidated EBITDA, 10% increase. Also gross profit, 7% increase, up to RON 411.3 million. Related to gross profit, this has decreased 7% and turnover, as mentioned, 42%. The main components of the turnover are the -- especially, the revenue from residential sales, but also the rental and the tenant service revenues, gains from completed investment property as well as other few items. In terms of revenue from residential sales, as mentioned, this increased to 47%. And in the same time, we have decrease in the net income from property residential sales. This is strictly generated by the fact that we have more developments this year where we recognize revenue and these developments are in the initial stages of construction. We will present a few slides later, so how the revenue recognition model is. We have it here. So, for example, in a typical hypothetical development where we have a rent cost of EUR 3 million, also development cost of EUR 23 million, and the sales contract of EUR 200,000. In the first year, as you see in the left side, we have a percentage of completion of 30%. In this case, we recognize a margin of 29.8% while, in the second year, where the percentage of completion reaches 100% and the construction is finalized, we recognize a bigger margin also in terms of euro volume but also percentially of 37.8%. So you see it's a variation of 10% between the 2 years. Nevertheless, the profit margin of this contract is 35%. So this is the typical way we are recognizing the revenue. And it's always that in the initial stages of construction, the revenue in percent is lower, while the construction advances, the revenue and the margin starts to increase. Related to the commercial sector, we have almost doubled revenue from rental income and from tenant services. And in the same time, also the net rental income increased to RON 67.9 million. The effect of this increase is especially due to One Tower, our biggest assets in this category are One Tower, and they are generating most of the revenue. One Cotroceni Park, One Victoriei Plaza and Bucur Obor. And we are expecting the revenue from this segment to further increase because this year, we delivered One Cotroceni Park Office phase 2. And this is, at the moment, in the phase of the tenant's fit-out works. Some of the tenants already moved in. Some will move the next period. And we are expecting the revenue in this category to increase due to this. In terms of the other profit and loss lines, we have the administrative expenses decreasing, 23%. Of course, this is also impacted by this noncash stock option plan. We have the operating expenses decreasing 10%. And also, as mentioned earlier, the result from operating activity, the EBITDA, amounted to RON 429.3 million. In terms of the balance sheet, the asset side, we have, on the current asset, growth of 20%, up to RON 2.3 billion. This growth is especially generated by the inventory increase. Residential inventories increased 44%, which shows exactly that our construction sites are progressing, and we are investing a lot in the development of the projects. Also, another reason of this increase is the acquisition that we had last year, especially One Cotroceni Tower that was acquired in the first quarter of this year. In the same time, we have decreases in some assets, especially in One Verdi Park, where we started deliveries to final clients this year, and we hand over the apartments. And such, the value of the asset is decreasing proportionally. On the segment of commercial and noncurrent assets, this increase is 9%. The main generator of this increase is the investment property category, increasing 9%. This is, of course, due to new acquisitions, but also in terms of growth in value of the assets as they have been finalizing development, especially One Cotroceni Park phase 2. On the liability side, we have increase in noncurrent liabilities of 29%. This is especially generated by the bank loans on the long term, yet we see that average maturity for the long-term balance is around 8 years. And also, we have an increase in the current liabilities. Here, we had two directions. On one side, we have a decrease in short-term backlog due to the repayment of the bank loans, especially the repayment of the financing One Verdi Park. But also, we have an increase due to the very good sales that we had this year and collecting the advances from clients. And these are -- increased the value of the advances. On the cash position, we have RON 454.5 million, a decrease of 20% compared to the end of last year, yet compared to the second quarter, we have an increase of 14%. In terms of loan-to-value, the loss ratio, 29%. It's similar to what we had in the end of the year. And the net debt is RON 528 million, 10.9% from the total assets. On the cash inflow, on the contracts that we are expecting to receive inflows from customers. For the contract that we have signed as of 30 September this year, we have to receive EUR 305 million. This amount is spread over the fourth quarter of this year and also next 2 years. As you can see, we are estimating for this year to cash in EUR 238 million. Already, in the first quarters, we received more than in the previous years, EUR 168 million in the first 3 quarters. And as you can see in the right side graph, already for 2024, we have contracts signed -- sales contracts signed that we are expecting to receive even more than we received in the entire year of 2022. Thank you, Zuzanna.

Thank you, Cosmin. I will now briefly present the key trends of the residential segment as well as capital markets and ESG updates. In terms of residential sales, as already highlighted by Victor at the beginning of this call, in the first 9 months of 2023, One United Properties sold and presold a record of 795 apartments, an increase of 206% versus the same period of 2023 with a total surface of 66,200 square meters, a 170% increase. The total value of these sales and presales amounted to EUR 230.2 million, a 122% increase. This is important performance in the context of declining sales in Bucharest real estate market where, in the first 6 months, the market declined 27% and Q3 alone has declined 4% year-on-year. Please note that the sales presented on this slide do include the presales to early clients, which are lower margin sales that help us finance loan acquisitions. However, there were no early sales in Q3 2023. Therefore, the total value of these sales in 9 months was same as in H1, EUR 31.6 million versus EUR 12.5 million registered in 9 months of 2022. At 9 months of 2023, the most sought-after development was One Lake District, where we sold 348 units in the first 9 months followed by One High District with 233 units, One Lake Club, 109 units sold and One Floreasca Towers, 44 apartments sold. All these developments are located in the Floreasca area in the northern part of Bucharest. As of 30 September, 68% of delivered and under development apartments were already sold out, meaning that our sales team had, as of September 30, 2023, 1,619 residential units available for sale. Please note, however, that at One Lake District, we are currently doing the presales for 786 units from the first phase of the development. Depending on the client demand, additional 1,290 units can be added to the sales team portfolio. Moreover, please note that we have included in the total units sold also the apartments that were presold at One North Lofts, which will be actually recognized in financial statements only following the obtaining of the building permit. I would like to mention that out of the developments that are already delivered, there are only 58 units of finalized stock available for purchase One Verdi Park, One Herastrau Towers, One Floreasca Vista and One Timpuri Noi. This is approximately 8.5% of total units that we developed at these developments. Also, three of these developments, One Verdi Park, One Floreasca Vista, One Timpuri Noi were delivered this year, meaning that these sales -- this percent will decline. In terms of demand per type of the apartments, in line with the results reported earlier this year, over half of the apartments sold by One United Properties in the first 9 months of 2023 were 2-room apartments with a total sellable area of 28,400 square meters with the demand for these units increased 170% versus previous year. Demand for the 2-room apartments was the highest at One Lake District, our bestseller, where in the 256 of such units were sold, becoming our most sought after product of 2023. The increase were also seen for 3-room apartments, plus 150% year-on-year, 4-rooms plus 283% year-on-year. The studio sales grew from 1 unit to 85 units presold in 9 months of 2023, reflecting the strong demand for these units at One Lake District and One Lake Club and other developments. I will now move to the section with the key events related to business and governance. Firstly, I would like to underline that so far, in 2023, we delivered 524 residential units at One Verdi Park, One Floreasca Vista and One Timpuri Noi with a total GBA of 92,000 square meters where most of these units were already delivered to the clients. One Cotroceni Park, our largest delivery to date with 900 residential units will be finalized by the year end, meaning that we'll deliver a record 1,424 units this year to clients. Please note that all together, these developments are already sold out in proportion of approximately 90%. Last, but not least, as mentioned, the report, I would like to reiterate the 2023 budget that was approved in the April General Shareholders' Meeting and which the management maintains in the context of the great results reported for the first 9 months of 2023. Looking at the stock market evolution, in a context where most global estate players are registering the clients, we are pleased to see One shares increasing. In the first 9 months of this year, the share price increased 13.1%. We remain the top traded stock on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, even though we saw a temporary decline of 37% in daily traded volumes in Q3 versus Q2 2023. The market capitalization as of the end of Q3 was RON 3.7 billion, while the company had over 8,000 shareholders. It is important to mention that as of 31st of August, ONE shares were upgraded to MSCI Frontier and MSCI Romania indices, which feature exclusively mid-cap and large-cap companies. Last, but not least, an important milestone for us, the ESG evolution. As you probably remember, during our last call in August 2023, I was inviting you to read our revised 2022 sustainability report containing a number of new KPIs and data. We are proud that as a follow-on, on that announcement, in October 2023, Morningstar Sustainalytics, the key ESG rating agency, awarded One 18.4 ESG risk rating, which is qualified as low risk, meaning that investment in ONE shares carries low risk from ESG perspective. This score places One United Properties as having the third lowest ESG risk rating from that index after two of the main banks. Considering our previous score of 20, which was borderline medium to low and also the fact that the industry's overall risk exposure increased, Sustainalytics noted between 2022 and 2023, that we registered an almost 30% improvement in our ESG programs, practices and policies, which we consider a very important accomplishment. On this positive note, I would like to conclude the formal part of the presentation. We will now open the floor for questions. [Operator Instructions] Thank you all once again for joining us for this first part.

I see we already have the first question from Adrian [indiscernible]. Congratulations on the results. A question from me. What will happen to the rent obtained from One Victoriei Plaza after Intesa acquires First Bank? Will Intesa move to One Victoriei Plaza? I would like to invite Victor to address this question.

Thank you for the question. Our contract with First Bank is value for the next 5 years. It's an unbreakable contract. And also, they have an option to extend for 5 more years, which we hope they will exercise under the new structure with Intesa ownership. As I am aware, Intesa doesn't have a representable landmark head office. So I think this building would be perfect for their future headquarters, even after the initial 5-year period.

We now continue with questions from [ Mina Hindalco ]. How do you see the Bucharest real estate market in 2024? Do you see a pickup in sales for the market in general? Again, I will invite Victor to address this question.

Thank you for this question. In this period of time, it's always better to be conservative and not to have like a very huge growth projection. So it's better to be safe, I think. But this year, although our assumptions were safe, that sales were much better than we exacted. And we saw this huge flight to quality for which One had taken a big advantage. So I think also 2024 will be positive for us. And we expect our robust sales to continue. As you see in this more volatile and more difficult markets, One United Properties is performing much better than competition. And contrary to most of our competitors, we are very -- we are a company that is performing very well when the market gets tougher. So from this point of view, I think not only 2024, but I think we have fantastic opportunity of growth for at least 10 years ahead of us.

We have another question. When do you expect to receive the building permit for One North Lofts? I'm sorry, I'm going to repeat the question. When do you expect to receive the building permit for One North Lofts?

Thank you for the question. For One North Lofts, the project is final and [ fine with ] authorities. So hopefully, in the next months, the permit will be received and the building will be finalized and delivered to the clients in 2024.

We have one -- also another question. We see a lot of lawsuits coming your way from the current mayor. Do you think this could lead to a large delay in obtaining the permit for One North Lofts?

Regarding the lawsuits, this is a very valid question and very important. It's important for everybody to know that this wave of lawsuits is something generally in the market and it's not targeting our company. It's something that is targeting development in general. And every company that's operating on this market is affected in a less or a bigger degree by this. Saying this, the few losses that we have, we don't think will have any impact on our business because we think they are just harassment and they don't have legal basis. Coming back to the question on One North Lofts. One North Lofts is not affected at all by this wave of lawsuits because administratively, it's not in Bucharest. It is located in Pipera, Ilfov. So in this case, there is now no lawsuit and also no indication that there will be one.

Another question. Can you comment a bit on First Bank contract? What rented areas are under contract? And what are their revenues?

For First Bank, the building is One Victoriei Plaza, is located in Plaza Victoriei, is the newest office building in Plaza Victoriei, right near America House. It has been finalized in 2009. It has 9,000 square meter GLA plus 4 underground levels. And the contract has around 5 years remaining plus 5 years option to extend. And the rent is around EUR 2 million, EUR 2.1 million net rent per year.

Great. I see we don't have any further questions. If there are no further questions, I would like to thank you all for joining us today. And if you have any remaining questions, you can always reach out to us at investors at one.ro. What is important, we will be joining two roadshows before the year-end on 21st of November 2023, we'll be participating in Raiffeisen's virtual CE Day. Therefore, if you'd like to meet us for a discussion, please let us know. As well as on 6th of December, we are going to be joining WOOD's Winter Wonderland Investor Conference in Prague. Therefore, we hope to see some of you there. Thank you. Thank you all for your time today, and we look forward to hearing you again at the end of February when we'll be presenting the preliminary results for 2023.

Thank you. Have a nice day.

Thank you very much for joining us to our call and have a great week ahead.