Qatari Investors Group Q.P.S.C. (QIGD) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Qatari Investors Group Conference Call. Please note that this call is being recorded. I'd now like to hand over to our moderator for today, Roy Thomas. Please go ahead.

Thanks, [ Aileen ] Hello, everyone. This is Roy Thomas from QNB Financial Services. I want to welcome everyone to Qatari Investors Group Second Quarter and First Half 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. On this call from Qatari Investors Group, we have Joseph Abdo, the Chief Executive Officer; and Rami Atieh, the Business Planning and Performance Reporting Deputy Director for Finance. We will conduct this conference call with management first reviewing the company's results followed by Q&A. I will turn the call now over to Joseph Abdo. Go ahead, Joseph.

Thank you, Roy. Hello, ladies and gentlemen. I will go over a review in English, followed by the same review in Arabic. And then we will move to questions and answers. Ladies and gentlemen, it's my pleasure to welcome you to the Qatari Investors Group, QIG IR call. My name is Joseph Abdo, the CEO of the Group. And here with me Mr. Rami Atieh, our Finance Director. We are pleased to present to you the second quarter results of QIG Group for 2024. We will highlight the financial performance of the Group and the progress that has been realized during the period. The group achieved a total revenue of QAR 247 million for the period, which is lower than the same period last year by 8%. This drop was led by the industrial sector as a result of the market slowdown in the construction sector as compared to last year. But we are hoping the revenue will increase in the third quarter through cement exporting that already has started, and we'll be able to see the results in the third and in the fourth quarters. In addition, other segments, such as Marine Services have seen a spike of 80% in revenue compared to last year after introducing a new line of business. The Group's net profit for the period amounted to QAR 71 million, a 30% decline as compared to the same period last year. Group EBITDA reached QAR 135 million for the period, 16% lower than last year. Overall, the last couple of years witnessed significant growth in the overall market due to FIFA 2022 preparations and projects, which ended last December. This fact made the comparison with 2023 a bit difficult. But QIG successfully managed to maintain sustainable profitability margins despite the overall market decline in several sectors. Finally, we focus our efforts to implement a strategy of diversification and investment to make more achievements that benefit the Group and enable us to play an active role in supporting Qatar's economic vision. Thank you, and I will move to the Arabic text. [Foreign Language] Ladies and gentlemen, we're open to your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Mr. Mark [indiscernible] from TFI.

The first question I ask is you mentioned that you were planning on exporting some cement in Q3 and Q4. Could you talk about the price per tonne that you expect to get? And how that compares to the local market? That's my first question. And my second question is, could you perhaps give an outlook on the domestic demand for cement and the cement price, your expectations for 2025?

Thank you for your questions. Actually, we have started our exports already for different neighbor countries. And the prices that we are applying it's not the standard price because it differs from one country to another and one client to another and precisely from one project to another. But definitely, what I can tell you at this stage that the prices are a little bit lower than the local market, but not too much. But if you would like some more details, you are most welcome to send us an e-mail, and then we can answer more in details because really it differs on country, projects and clients. Now for the second question concerning the domestic market. We are expecting so far and we are moving the first 6 months of the year at the same level as it used to be last year. And 2025, we are expecting a 5% to 6% growth in the domestic market. Why? Because some of the projects that have been announced a couple of months back are going to be starting their execution. Prices are in the range of QAR 250 today in the market. And if the energy cost will go up, definitely, we need to review the prices. But at this stage, we don't have any confirmation yet. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Zohaib Pervez from Al Rayan Investment. The attendee raised their hand down. Let's proceed next with second caller from Ashmore.

Okay. I hope you can hear me. I was just wanting to ask about working capital, how you're seeing that progressing in the year compared to your expectations? Specifically as the economy is maybe a little bit softer than perhaps one would have anticipated because on your balance sheet, it's not popping up as receivables or anything like that. So just curious as to how that's panning out versus your expectations or what you're doing to manage that?

Thank you for your question. In fact, we have been working very hard in controlling and improving our working capital. Mainly -- the main part of it are the receivables, of course. On the receivable side, we have improved in our collections by many, many QAR 10 millions of riyals. And in a number of days, we went down by significantly something like 62 days less, okay? And most of our receivables are backed up by bank guarantees. So literally, we don't have major risk on defaults. This is very important to be mentioned to all our investors that we are backed up by bank guarantees for all our major customers and projects. And the working capital is improving, and we keep on improving it.

[Operator Instructions] There are no further questions at the moment. I'd now like to hand back over to the moderator for the final remarks.

If there are no further questions, we'd like to thank Qatari Investors Group management for the results update and answering all the queries. And we look forward to speaking to you all for the third quarter results. . I'll hand it back to Joseph Abdo, if he has any final comments. .

No. Thank you. Thank you for everything, and we're looking forward for a good third quarter, mainly with the export activities that we're doing and the Marine's expansion. And we hope all good for everybody. Thank you very much.

In today's call, you may now disconnect. Have a wonderful day.