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

Welcome to SBB Q4 Earnings Call 2025. [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to Treasury Director, Helena Lindahl. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our year-end presentation for 2025, and thank you all for taking time to listening in. Today's presenter is our CEO, Leiv Synnes. Leiv will provide a thorough update and explain the SBB corporate structure, core holdings, finance and capital structure. I, Helena Lindahl, Treasury Director and IR and our Finance Director, Daniel Tellberg, will join Leiv in the Q&A session afterwards and answer any questions you might have during that session that will follow the presentation. Now I'll turn it over to you, Leiv. Go ahead.

Thank you, Helena. I'm very proud to have completed the company's strategic transformation. SBB has significantly reduced its leverage, simplified its corporate structure and increased its transparency. SBB is now the leading social infrastructure investor in real estate in the Nordics. We have market-leading companies in Public Property Invest, Sveafastigheter and Nordiqus, which fund themselves with investment-grade ratings. Public Property Invest is now Europe's leading publicly traded operator in social infrastructure with assets of nearly SEK 50 billion. Sveafastigheter is Sweden largest listed pure-play residential company focused on high-demand growth regions in Sweden. Nordiqus is a dedicated specialist in educational infrastructure and spanning the entire learning chain from preschool to universities. We have achieved a transparent, well-defined core holdings and SBB will provide future growth. Currently, my understanding is that we have a strong financial market and the transaction market has picked up the momentum. And my belief is that this will lead to higher property prices in the times to come. It's time to capture the tailwind that we see in the market for residential and community properties. And remember, leverage works with you in times of tailwind. Now if we look on the highlights for the period, I think it's very good for a real estate company to have growth in net operating income like-for-like and the figure, 7.4% is according to me, a very good figure. And also, it's very good that SBB have managed to lower the leverage and the loan-to-value is now 50%. Maybe the biggest event for the quarter was the sale of properties to Public Property Invest, where we received back shares in PPI plus cash. We have then fulfilled the transformation to a real estate investment company, and we have simplified the corporate structure in SBB, and we will take advantage of this going forward. A large part of the advantages come with lower cost in Public Property Invest. The rating in Public Property Invest has increased to BBB+, which is a very strong rating, and they have the ability now to invest -- to raise fund with attractive terms. And also, there will be synergies with the improved administration. At the time of the transaction, we estimated the benefit of future cost savings due to the better financial terms and lower admin cost to SEK 3.8 billion. That is a very strong and good figure. And also lower cost in PPI will lead to improved cash flow in PPI and a part of that cash flow will come to SBB as dividends. We estimate that SEK 360 million per year will come to SBB as dividends going forward. If you look on the core holdings in SBB, the assets under management is SEK 124 billion. And we have, as I said earlier, market-leading companies. And we are very proud of that, and the companies have a good chance to outperform the peers in the years to come. If you take a look -- a closer peek on Public Property Invest, a company that SBB now owns 40% of. We can see that the asset base is SEK 50 billion. And half of that, around SEK 25 billion is elderly care and health care exposure, segments that will have good opportunities to grow in the future and is very stable and reliable. My opinion is that Public Property Invest has a very solid asset core with a low risk. And if you couple that with prudent financing, you get a very safe company. And if we move on to Sveafastigheter, they are performing well at the moment with a high like-for-like growth in revenues, but also in net operating income. And as I said earlier, the 7.4% growth in net operating income in the like-for-like portfolio is very good. And Sveafastigheter has established themselves now in the SEK and Euro market with issuing bonds with investment grade. My belief is that the revenues in Sveafastigheter will outperform inflation in the years to come. Nordiqus, the leading company in educational infrastructure in Europe has a very bright future. It was the first of the 3 companies that were established back in December 2022. And we have a very strong and knowledgeable co-owner in Brookfield, which we are very proud of. And it uses their investment-grade rating to issue very long-term bonds in the U.S. market. In 2025, the net investments in Nordiqus amounted to SEK 1.6 billion, and they illustrate an ability to -- as a market leader to seize opportunities that arise in the market. I'm confident that Nordiqus will continue to pick up good deals in the market and grow and have a higher return on equity than similar peers. And the final part of the core holdings is SBB Development. It's a company that focus on develop and thereafter divest properties that need special resources. And to succeed with that, we have some resources that are skilled in strategic work to convert potential into long-term value. The plan is to develop all the properties in this company and sell them with a time period of 5 years. And already in 2026, we expect that some of properties will be ready to divest. And one example is elder care properties in the Stockholm region. Besides the core holdings, we have also noncore holdings in SBB. And the biggest part of that is a loan to Nordiqus, which were given to Nordiqus when the company was created. And the second largest part of the noncore assets is the holdings in a company which we co-own with Morgan Stanley. It's called SBB Residential Property AB. And on top of that, we have investment in various other companies, which we could divest if we need proceeds to repay that. We have tried to help you and illustrate how the assets in SBB are built up. I think this picture illustrates the core holdings and also the noncore holdings. And if you start with the core holdings, you see Sveafastigheter, PPI and Nordiqus and SBB Development. And the sum of those holdings is SEK 33.5 billion. And then you have the -- after that, you have the noncore holdings of SEK 12.6 billion. And as I said earlier, that is the loan to Nordiqus. It's the joint venture we have with Morgan Stanley and it's the other shares we hold. And one also good thing to know is that the low cost of debt that we have in SBB. The annual coupon on the bonds in the parent is 1.9%. And the noncore holdings will be used to lower debt. One thing that have happened during the last years in SBB is an improved financial position and a much higher financial flexibility. This cash position now is SEK 5.2 billion, and that is a figure excluding the liquidity that is in the consolidated Sveafastigheter. Sveafastigheter has on its own a very strong financial situation with cash reserves. And on top of that, if we look on the nonconsolidated companies, we can see that both PPI and Nordiqus have available cash and liquidity resources. So you can say if you take a look on the big SBB Group, you see a group with multiple sources of cash and liquidity sources and our ability to raise further liquidity if needed. And if you zoom back to SBB and look on other financial assets, you can see that we have interest-bearing assets of SEK 5.8 billion. And the largest part of that is the loan to Nordiqus, and that is a loan that matures in 2029, but can be, if needed, be monetized earlier. And then we have liquid assets. If you look -- if you take the end price in the previous quarter, the value of those liquid shares is SEK 14.1 billion. The listed shares, we don't intend to sell, but it adds to financial flexibility. And to give you some aid on how we can proceed and what we intend to do going forward, we have created a picture. And if you look on the middle part of the picture, you see that we have a liquidity position of SEK 5.2 billion, and then we have undrawn credit facilities of SEK 2.5 billion. And this is only SBB, excluding Sveafastigheter. And you can see that the sum of those 2 capital sources exceed the maturities in 2026. So we are not under financial stress anymore. We have a time to act and we can act in a proper manner. And also, if we look on the bonds, you see them on the left side. And you can see that the cheapest bonds are actually the bonds with long tenure, meaning that the coupon that we have on the average coupon of 1.9% is unlikely to increase as we repay bonds. And this is an additional page to help you to understand how we can manage the maturities in the upcoming years, that bond maturities in the upcoming years, but also give you an understanding that the core holdings will perform well and create NAV growth for SBB in the years to come. If we start on the left side of the picture, if you add the cash position of SEK 5.2 billion with the [Nordiqus] holdings, you can see that we cover debt maturities almost to the end of 2028, giving us 3 years of runway. And during these 3 years, the core holdings are estimated to perform well based on the solid asset base and the good funding situation these companies have. So if we look on PPI as an example, we expect that the growth in NAV for that company will be SEK 3.2 billion during the next 3 years, and that is SBB's part of the growth, meaning that if the companies perform well and the value of the company increases, the loan-to-value in the SBB Group will decrease. And on the right, you see an estimation of what the loan-to-value can be going forward. SBB corporate structure leads to lower risk due to diversification between assets within the social infrastructure markets in the Nordic. It also gave multiple funding options. Only SBB could raise equity and debt in the past. Now SBB, PPI, Sveafastigheter and Nordiqus all have access to equity, which is a good and strong ability, both to be able to raise equity when needed in financial stress, but also to grasp new opportunities in the market. And also, PPI, Sveafastigheter and Nordiqus all can issue bonds with investment grade bond -- investment-grade rating. And on top of that, we have all the bonds in SBB with very low interest rate. And together, you see a picture with attractive funding and low cost of capital for the SBB Group. And if you combine that with a very strong asset base, Nordic infrastructure properties that will perform well in the upcoming year, coupled with low cost of debt, then you have a good chance to present a high return on equity in the years to come. And to summary, SBB is creating and developing market leaders in the Nordic infrastructure segments. And these companies have the potential to outperform peers in profitability due to market position, access to capital and streamlined organizations, and a higher degree of specialization further contribute to tenant long-term needs, which will give us more tenants and higher rental growth. We have demographic needs and trends in the sectors that benefit SBB. And we believe that simplified corporate structure in core entities, focused platforms will radically reduce the cost going forward and create value for the shareholders. The business cycle is going to be strong, I believe, in the years to come. We have passed the bottom and my expectation is that we will see solid growth in property values in the upcoming years. And also, it's good to remember that the leverage works with you in the current environment when the property prices can be expected to grow in value. And altogether, I think SBB has a high potential for NAV growth in core holdings and that leads to the current strong possibility to have a high earnings per share.

Thank you very much, Leiv, for those concluding remarks. And I think we can move forward to the Q&A session, please.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Othman El Iraki from Fidelity International.

Congratulations on the strong result. I just had a question on the noncore asset. Leiv, when you say that, for example, the Nordiqus loan could be monetized ahead of 2029. Can you just explain how this can happen in practice? And the second question is really on the JV -- on the Residential [JV]. What is the timing you think with Morgan Stanley to unwind the structure?

Good question, Othman. If you start with the Nordiqus, Brookfield is, of course, a very strong counterparty to have. And also Nordiqus is a very strong company. So that open up possibility to speak with them to find a solution if we, for whatever reason, should need capital. And if you remember, we have done this earlier I think it was 2023. The loan was bigger then, but then actually Brookfield helped us and we reduced the outstanding loan to Nordiqus. If I remember correctly, it was SEK 8 billion. So if needed, we can reach out to Brookfield and discuss it. And if we are not successful in that -- those discussions, we can always go to third party and try to pledge the loan to Nordiqus. And Nordiqus is a very strong investment-grade company. and then the loan should have one notch lower rating than the company. So it's assets that creditors like. So there's a possibility to pledge it if needed. And then the second part of the question was -- or the second question was the joint venture. I think it's usual in the market that if you take in a part owner, you have a shareholder agreement and then you have a certain investment period. And that -- then you have a breakup fee if you want to go out of that agreement in advance. And for us, it's no cost to repay the preference shares after mid 2027. So that is the latest date, I think, when we will try to optimize the capital structure in the joint venture and which leads to us for a more like low-cost solution. And one solution is to repay the preference shares to Morgan Stanley and raise secured debt from the Nordic banks. And that cost at the moment is below 4%. Another solution is that we say that we focus on residential only through Sveafastigheter and then we choose to divest the Morgan Stanley platform in order to get even more proceeds out of it and to be able to repay more bonds.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Michael Johansson from Arctic Securities.

Two quick questions on my end. The first one, by the lux of it, it seems like the amount of credit facilities has increased in the quarter. Can you comment any on these facilities, please?

Yes. I think if I'm correct, if you look only on SBB, the amount of credit facilities is similar, but we have used the proceeds from the sale to Public Property Invest to repay some of the drawn amount under the facilities, leading to the conclusion that we now have more unused credit facilities, but the total volume is the same. And then if you add the ability in Sveafastigheter, I think Sveafastigheter have improved their ability to raise -- or to get facilities from the local banks. So it could be so that the total figure, if you include Sveafastigheter has increased.

Perfect. Very clear. And then on the operating cash flow in the quarter before changes in working capital, it was negative SEK 1.6 billion approximately. Can you just -- what mainly drove this negative figure? What made it SEK 1.6 billion negative was the main cause?

That's mainly related to the restructuring of the company due to the sale.

So restructuring costs then?

Not restructuring cost itself, but effects from the restructuring of the company.

I think for -- if you look on the future instead of the like the history, I think the ability for us to have a higher or better cash flow is -- in the core holdings has improved. Most of the assets are now moved into effective companies, PPI, Nordiqus and Sveafastigheter. And they also fund themselves with cheaper debt than we could raise on our own. So of course, the cash flow in SBB is, of course, dependent on the dividend streams from the large entities. But if you look on the -- how the cash flow comes from the properties itself, I think the cash flow creation in SBB has increased or the possibility to create cash flow has increased.

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

Thank you very much, and we will give the floor to Leiv to give concluding remarks.

Thank you. I think it's very good to be located in the Nordics with all the investments. Nordiqus is -- have a population growth and also good economic development. So the asset side in SBB, I think will perform well due to the trends we see in the market. And also, we see the business cycle at the moment works in our favor. And then we benefit from both low-cost debt in core holdings, but also low-cost debt in the parent. So we can combine very strong business side or property side with attractive funding levels, and that gives us a strong opportunity to present growing results in SBB as the years come. Thank you.