Samhällsbyggnadsbolaget i Norden AB (publ) (SBBB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to SBB Q2 2024 Report Presentation. [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to Treasury Director, Helena Lindahl. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to today's earnings call for Q2 2024 for SBB. My name is Helena Lindahl, and I'm the Treasury Director at SBB, and we will present to you our quarterly earnings for the second quarter of 2024. With me, I have our CEO, Leiv Synnes, who will be presenting and also Daniel Tellberg. Leiv will begin by sharing the strategic and financial highlights during the quarter and give you an overview of our performance and our business segments. After that, Daniel will talk about the financial statement, and I will end with discussing our state of the finance. We will, of course, host a Q&A in the last part of the presentation. And with that said, I would like to kick off and hand over to Leiv.

Thank you, Helena. One key highlight for the first half of this year is the strong development of the revenues in the like-for-like with a 7% growth that is really strong. And also, if we look on the net operating income growth, like-for-like is also very strong with 9%. When we have the situation where the rental growth is high and also net operating income is growing fast, this will -- on long-term trade valuations for SBB the properties is likely to, at some point, start to increase in value. We have focused still on improving the financials in SBB and one way of doing that is, of course, to reduce the debt. So for this period, we have reduced the debt with close to SEK 8 billion and with SEK 43 billion in the last two years. We see still some value decrease in our assets, so 1.4% in the quarter. We believe that the market shifted during this year and particularly during the last three months, where the interest rates have been reduced and also the credit risk in the markets have been lower. So we expect that we think that the property prices have a good chance to bounce back in the quarter ahead. We continue to deliver on our strategy in order to provide you with the transparency and also prove that we get over time a better funding for the SBB group and also that we can show higher efficiency in the main holdings. You can see page 4. One part of the company is the Education piece and there we parked on the company Nordiqus together with Brookfield. We entered a milestone this year when we received a strong investment grade rating in Nordiqus and on the back of that strong rating we could borrow SEK 9 billion in the capital market with maturities varying between 10 and 15 years. And we also could add SEK 1 billion of new credit lines from banks. So in the Nordiqus, now we have the situation with long leases and long funding and a very predictable cash flow in the years ahead. And that gives us, I believe that we will receive a dividend from Nordiqus in the years to come. In Sveafastigheter, we also had a strong development. We have dissolved all the joint ventures in Sveafastigheter and created a very efficient organization with a new management and new Board, totally independent. We have received or refinanced or reorganized all the debt so it's 7 banks, Nordic banks with SEK 10 billion of debt, and we also issued a bond after the quarter. So we have set up Sveafastigheter in a very good way in order to attract new part owners of that business and we intend to divest up to 49% of the company and keep the majority of the shares. And in the Community section, we entered a new joint venture together with Castlelake providing liquidity for the company. And also after the quarter end, we settled the exchange offer, where we -- in SBB bought back senior bonds and also hybrid bonds where we created SEK 1.6 billion in equity for the shareholders. If you look on the group structure, we have three business areas. We have Community, Residential and Education. And as I mentioned earlier, we have received a good funding in two of the three business areas now. We have investment-grade rating in the Education part, and we have an investment-grade-like structure in the Residential part. So we expect to get good funding in both those parts of the company going forward. And then we still have some work to do with the Community properties, but we expect to take the same journey as in the other two areas and create a situation where we can attract in both equity and debt on attractive levels. And I think we -- this process of creating good companies will be easier in the years ahead due to the strong development we foresee in the market. If we look deeper into the Community part of the operation, we have a leading and scalable platform in the Nordics and Elderly Care is the larger part of the operation with 25%. We have a low downside risk in revenues. Instead, we have a possibility to beat the market when it comes to growth in revenues. And we have a strong demographic trends that works in our favor, and we have strong tenants. So we really like the Community operation, and it continues to develop in line with our expectations. And as I mentioned regarding the residential part, it's mainly constitutes of the company Sveafastigheter where we have a goal to take in part owners in 2024. And as for those of you who knows the Swedish market, you know that the rents are rent controlled. So there is a limited or no risk of lower income. Instead, there is strong possibilities of increasing rents. And this time, it's even higher possibility to increase rents than it used to be due to the inflation on short term have outpaced the rental growth. So we expect in from the residential area in SBB that we will be able to increase rent to 10% more than inflation in the upcoming years and that will lead to a 15% to 20% growth in NOI compared to the inflation. And also, we believe that the years with increased yields is behind us, and there is good chance that the property yields are stable or even decreasing on the back of stronger capital market sentiment. So we are -- you can say that we are bullish on the Residential at the moment. And on the Education, it has been a good journey. We started some years back. We're thinking about taking in 2 owners, and we are happy that we -- issues Brookfield, which have a lot of equity and also a lot of know-how in the infrastructure operation in the capital market. So together with them, we have created a very good company called Nordiqus. And we are now thinking the benefit of that in the capital market. And it's very happy to see that a lot of investors share our view of the stability of the operations. And we think that Nordiqus and the Education part of the operation have a very bright future. We see during the last year, high yields in the property market. We believe that now that the property yields will not increase anymore. And hopefully, it will be so that, as I mentioned earlier, has a good trend in the capital market influenced the property prices in a positive way. We have a slight decrease in occupancy, but it's not dramatic. We believe that we will pick up to the normal 94% to 95% in occupancy going forward. And we have a little bit more vacancy in Finland. But overall, we believe that we will be able to recover that and more and increase the occupancy over time. And one reason behind that, that we expect to have more time to focus on operations in the years ahead than we have had in the recent two years.

Thank you, Leiv. Let's go more into detail on the financial statements. On a like-for-like basis, rental income for Q2 increased by 7.2% compared to the same quarter last year, and net operating income also grew by 8.9%. In general, both revenues and costs are rising, but revenues are rising more than cost, resulting in a favorable development of net operating income. This is driven by the fact that maintenance cost has been kept low while operating costs have risen in line or faster than revenues. This achievement is the result of our continued dedicated work to deliver on our strategic plan despite the still challenging market conditions, which are gradually improving. In terms of segment, Community and Residential are relatively similar to the full period in terms of both income and net operating income while Community shows a stronger development in the quarter. Together, the income basis provides stability and reduce risk by balancing income streams across different segments. During the quarter, net operating income continued to grow and improve on a like-for-like basis despite reduced income due to divestments. Admin and restructuring expenses are up compared to last year, mainly related to one-off advisory costs and legal fees, which we did not have last year. These are expected to half by the end of 2025. There was a decrease in property values, but we are now seeing signs that the decline is leveling off. The decrease of nearly SEK 3.6 billion is due to both realized and unrealized changes. Of the SEK 3.6 billion, SEK 2.8 billion is unrealized, of which only SEK 846 million is in Q2. Q2 is consecutively a better quarter in terms of changes in value. The value of our properties decreased with 1.4% for the quarter. The realized value changes are mainly attributable to transactions with SBB infrastructure and SBB Social Facilities. They have resulted in accounting related losses as property are deconsolidated into associated companies and valued at an estimated discount to the net assets. Looking ahead, rent development and lower capital costs are expecting to lead to a positive property value changes in the long term. Rising interest rates on the back of increased inflation, which are now seeing a tendency to decrease. Net interest improved due to increased interest income. The average interest rate has decreased by 6 basis points in the last year. Other financial items includes profits from repurchase of bonds relating to the tender offer. Let us look briefly into the balance sheet and at the asset side. The goodwill impairment is related to deferred tax with the flip side in deferred tax, giving no equity net effect. The largest changes in property portfolio are attributable to transaction with joint ventures and associated company, while only SEK 720 million is attributable to sales to other companies. These sales should be seen as structure measures rather than sales of assets. The acquisitions are mainly attributable to dissolution of Kåpan as a preparation for an IPO or strategic partner in Sveafastigheter. I would now like to hand over to Helena to look more into the financing.

Thank you, Daniel. As we've been holding these for five consecutive quarter now, you who usually listen into these calls knows that we have been repeating relentlessly the same messages, and that is that our main focus is to reduce the company's level of debt and to decrease the dependence of individual sources of financing. And also that -- and as you know, that we have been working through very heavy headwinds. And this is probably the first quarter when we have had a series of falling interest rates which have fallen very sharply during the last three months. So we finally have some kind of shift in the wind direction and maybe if we will catch the tailwind. We will relentlessly continue to strengthen the company's financial position, and that is our main objective. And the long-term goal is, of course, to regain the investment grade that we once had. And I think there is a good sign if you look at the loan-to-value diagram in the lower part of the picture that you finally see that you get a little relief on the loan-to-value. And I think that if you look on the loan-to-value graph in a longer horizon, you will see that it follows the market very clearly. Next page. We are very confident that we have still a very attractive long-term set of funding that we hold on our balance sheet. And the interest rate maturity is about 3 years, 3.5 years, and the average rate -- interest rate is still very low at 2.1%. And the reason that we managed to exceed in this is that we have instead of refinancing at the higher interest levels, we have chosen to amortize that and which has meant that it has taken a lot longer for our company to impose the higher interest level on the interest cost. And also, we are very confident that the debt maturity profile of the company that we have is working in our favor. And the overall maturity is 3.8 years. And I would like to point out that still, we have 66% of the debt falling to maturity in -- after 2027 with very low interest rates. Next page. I think this graph shows -- it is a good sign for us that we -- our hard work has paid off and that we managed during the last eight quarters, reduced the company's debt by like-for-like figure of SEK 42.5 billion, which is a number we are very proud of. And -- but we are not satisfied to gain the level we have. We will continue to strengthen the balance sheet of the company and how we will do that? We will have no additional dividend for the foreseeable future. We will have very limited and cautious stance to investments and we will have a very limited and cautious stance to new acquisitions in the company. We will focus on the same thing as we focused on in the past, and that is to repay maturing debt and divest of financial assets and also to conduct direct sales of real estate where the market is finally picking up. And one important feature in this is to -- as Leiv already talked about is to complete the IPO or this to seek for a strategic equity partner in Sveafastigheter. Over to you, Leiv.

Thank you. To summarize, we see a very strong growth in the like-for-like income and the like-for-like net operating income. We continue with the strategy that will lead to financial stability and strong liquidity for the group. And we have taken an important step in the key holdings this first half year. We have success in the PPI, associated company. We have seen strong development in the residential area and the structuring of the Sveafastigheter and we have improved funding in Nordiqus. And now we think that we and all the others retail companies start to get some tailwind, which will help us going forward.

With that, I think we're ready for the Q&A session.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Emanuele Arnoldi from Barclays.

It's Emanuele Arnoldi from Barclays. A quick question. You used to give a fairly useful uses and sources looking ahead for the next 12 months, let's say. And I think everybody is very interested in understanding how much you're missing in terms of liquidity to be raised in order to meet the Q1 maturities and there's a little bit in Q2, but then you have a very nice period without large bond maturities at least. So would it be possible for you to let us know how much you feel you need in addition to the current liquidity to be able to overcome the Q1 2025 bond maturities?

Thank you very much for giving us credit for the graph that we haven't included, and we will, of course, consider it including it again. And I don't know if you have time to read the report that in the finance section, we write about the liquidity and we point out that one really important piece of the puzzle is the successful IPO or a strategic partnership for Sveafastigheter and but of course, we are not sort of -- we -- if that should have sort of any risk of not materializing in the way we expect, we, of course, have other plans.

And then the other plans are probably related to -- I think there is a shareholder loan from -- sorry if I mispronounce -- Sveafastigheter and then there is probably following the IG rating of Nordiqus maybe some repayment there as well in the medium term? Or is it too optimistic to think in these terms? You know more than I do, so I think.

I don't think we would like to elaborate on exactly what our plan A, B, and C are. But we're right in the report that we have always the possibility to sell assets and either one by one or when the market improves, we can maybe sell larger portfolios.

And so just I'll be more specific then. When you write in the report a successful distribution of Sveafastigheter to shareholders is expected to cover SBB's capital needs for 2024 and 2025. Is that referring to the shareholder loan that you have against them? Or is it another type of distribution?

It's selling up to 49% of the shares in Sveafastigheter.

Sorry, the line was broken up. Can you say it again?

We plan to sell up to 49% of the shares in Sveafastigheter.

So it was that. It's the IPO/partner?

Yes.

Yes.

And last question, sorry, it's always the same, but it was just broken up in different segments. If I take the SEK 6 billion of liquidity that you're showing on your balance sheet as of Q2, am I correct in roughly speaking, taking away SEK 2.5 billion for the dividend plus the coupon paid on the perks, both paid during the first week of July and then needing to adding up more or less say, SEK 3 billion in order to overcome the Q1 2025 bond maturities. Is that fair, although imprecise and probably too short description of one needs to be done? Or is it different than that?

Yes, we published now the figures as of end of second quarter. And after that, we, of course, have done under other transactions as well, both that is improving the cash flow and some are in the cash flow and we have no -- we don't want to give at the moment a new update on current liquidity as of now. That will come in a later report.

The next question comes from [ Anders Stanclaud ] from Pareto Securities.

A few questions from my side. Starting off with the share buyback from June. I think looking at the ownership changes, it looks quite clear there was from [indiscernible] and if I remember correctly, there has been a historical put option associated with that holding. Were there any such effects included in the quarter expected going forward relating to that?

We as a company thought it would be useful to buy back some D share due to the pricing of the instruments and the upcoming dividend. So we made a public offering, and we made offer -- so it will be -- so we had enough liquidity left in the company. So it was a smaller offer. And then we gave the responsibility for buying the shares to a broker. And that firm has all the contact with the potential sellers. We don't want to comment on the -- which we believe or thought could have sold the shares. We know that we have bought but we don't collect information who has sold the shares.

Understood. And of course, fully respect that part. And maybe in relation to that historical put option, are there any such sort of liabilities and associated sort of I guess, terms that are still active or have you been? Or have you been sort of resolving those prior to this quarter?

At the moment, we don't have any such arrangement in the company.

And were those resolved per end of Q2? Or has that been resolved during Q3?

We have taken care of all the maturing agreements at the time when they mature. And at the moment, we don't have any such arrangement that we mentioned there.

I'm not exactly clear on sort of the timing here that you're referring to. So if you want to clear up, that would be helpful. But of course, fully respect if you don't have any additional details to provide on that question. All right. So I can move on from my side. I think next question on my end is regarding the SEK 3.4 billion receivables from SBB Social Facilities. How should we view that receivable? Is that something you expect to get repayment of in the near term? Or is this more of a long-term receivable in your view?

We have a long-term agreement with Castlelake. And we have a good relationship, and we hope it will last for many years.

And then the final question. So on Sveafastigheter, you mentioned, I believe, that you're looking to either divest or IPO and sell off up to 49% of the shares there. Could that be interpreted as the banks now being sort of more comfortable with SBB remaining as a majority owner in regards to the bank financing? Or is that reading as much to the situation?

I think the banks, in general, like the real estate companies more now than just a quarter ago because the strong anticipated development of the Nordic property market. So I think the banks are willing to support SBB more now and also Sveafastigheter, which is a very strong residential company. And if we go the route to be a listed company for Sveafastigheter, then it will be the largest listed company on the Swedish Stock Exchange in the real estate -- residential real estate space. And I think the banks are happy to provide funds to such a company.

And should that also sort of be seen in the general portfolios. Of course, you have some bank that's maturing here later this year. Are you seeing that the banks are now sort of being more positive in these refinancing discussions as well?

Yes. It's always good to have help from the banks, but we have shown the last year that we also have strong possibility to raise the money from strong equity partners and also strong creditors outside of the banking industry. So it's just like a question of the margin than on the maturing debt. And at the moment, the cost of funds for us is being reduced partly due to the progress we did in our world, but also partly due to the strong development in the credit market.

The next question comes from Aengus McMahon from Sarria.

Most of my questions have been answered, but I do have one. On the Nordiqus private market debt, how is the cost of that compared to the Castlelake loans that you've taken out? Is it a bond or is it lower?

Can you repeat that question, please?

Yes. I'm just trying to get a comparison of the cost of the new debt that Nordiqus has the private market debt. Nordiqus has taken [ Asia ].

Since -- I mean, Nordiqus has refinanced with large global institutions in the private placement market. I think you can understand that there is no disclosure of the terms and condition, in particular, not the price of any PP transaction really.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Emanuele Arnoldi from Barclays.

Very quick question on the Castlelake financing. What was the number for the net proceeds of the financing. I think it's a SEK 5.7 billion. Once you deduct the cost and the bank debt attached to those properties that is refinanced, how much is the actual net cash proceeds from that financing [indiscernible].

We haven't disclosed that. And also, it's not so easy to answer because we have moved around the debt in the company. So we have just changed security on some properties. So we have moved in some securities to the structure and then changed securities for some banks. So it's hard to mention the exact figure on the net proceeds there if you calculate also the potential reduction in bank debt but it is lower than the SEK 5.7 billion because in connection with borrowing from -- or from setting up the structure with Castlelake, we repaid some bank debt that was maturing.

So as an order of magnitude, like with SEK 0.5 billion error, is it possible to give an indication?

We won't elaborate on the amount.

There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.

Thanks for calling in and all the good questions. We, in SBB, we have a strong development at the moment when it comes to rental growth and also net operating income growth. And also we have success in the way we structure the company. And we will continue to improve the company and which will hopefully have a positive implications for your holdings. Thank you.