SkiStar AB (publ) (SKISB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the SkiStar Half Year Report Q2 2023/2024 Webcast and Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Stefan Sjostrand, CEO. Please go ahead, sir.

Warm thanks and welcome to this conference call for SkiStar's second quarter and the half year report. And my name is Stefan Sjostrand, I'm the CEO of the company, and I'm sitting here together with my colleague, Martin Almgren, CFO here at SkiStar. So, we will then take you through an agenda for this call, and we will start to give you a sort of introduction and especially repetition from our CMD Day in October 12, where we presented both new financial targets, but also some updates about the company. So, let us guide you through that part then we will go through some highlights from the second quarter, then we will go through some numbers. And then we also will look at some outlook and Q&A's from your side. So, let's start with the introduction. This is numbers from last year, and I'm really glad to see that we continue to grow, but especially really glad that we continue to have 8 out of 10 satisfied guests and 8 out of 10 satisfied employees. And we continue also with our digital journey with continuous purchase online with both ski passes as well as digital check-ins. We stand on a very strong foundation with our people. We employ every year around 2,500 young people, and we are the largest or one of the largest employer of young people in Scandinavia today, which makes us very proud. We have a very strong sustainability foundation, and we will come through that later on in the presentation today, as well, very high focus on safe and secure at our Ski destinations. If we look into their strategic framework, we have a strong focus on mountain operations and property development. And supporting that, we have all those 3 foundations as well, of course, our digitalization and business development. And we are one of the largest players worldwide. We are the fourth largest player, and we have just recently seen Valle Resorts presenting their results, which could be an interesting comparison. We are also a market leader in Scandinavia, and we have strengthened our position. Today, we have 42% market share. And again, we are running the 5 largest winter destinations and also year-round destinations as well with Stockholm Hammarbybacken as the sixth and the interesting jewel in the crown, as we used to say. If we then look into the number of ski days, we have an unmatchable position within Scandinavia with our 5 destinations and 5 resorts, and they are bringing in a lot of skier days with the highest one in Sälen with 1.8 million skier days per year. We're also providing a lot of beds because without those warm beds we will be not as attractive as we are today. So, we have around 40,000 beds, which we are using every week, and we have them circulating in our system as warm beds. We also continue to develop our SkiStar's destination and also work with attracting strong detailed plans with the municipalities, and we will give you an update later on into this presentation of how the development has been during this year so far. One of the more interesting slides we presented during the CMD Day in October was this slide where we really presented how the different customers look like and how the average spend look like if you look at the customer coming from Sweden, Norway, Denmark or, for example, in this slide and also the number of average products. And this was like an introduction of also showing how we are shifting focus in driving a much more international destinations and also after more international guests. And you can also see in today's report, which we will guide you through later on, how we are now into a successful journey in how to make this transition possible. And during the Capital Market Day, we also presented new financial targets. Martin?

Yes. Just a few comments to this, if we look at the growth, the organic growth over the last 12 months, we are right now running at the pace of 5%, which is very close to the financial goal of 6%. And also, the operating margin in the rolling 12 months is strengthening. We had 14% the last financial year, '22, '23. And now we have gone up to 16%. So we are moving closer and closer to the goal of 18%. And also, comment about our net debt-to-EBITDA. When we end this quarter, end of February, we have the lowest debt ratio to EBITDA, which amounted to 1.2x at the moment. And the highest debt is during our end of the first quarter in November, December.

Thanks, Martin. And now, we will start to look into the quarter, and I will give you a summary of the quarter here. So, a lot of text on this slide, but we actually have a lot of things to be proud of. That's why there is so much text. And let's continue to say that strong result is driven by a very high interest for skiing holidays. And we can see that all destinations, and we also started off the season with very good snow conditions. We can also see that the digitalization continues and we continue to grow fast. And we have an increase of online visits with 9%. So, we are coming from last year, 33 million online visits, and now we are increasing with 9%. So, very strong number. And then if we look into then that the consumer demand, and during this last 12 months, there's been a lot of discussions around how will consumer attractiveness continue when we have these tough market conditions. And here, we are really glad to see that we can look into the market downturn in 2008, 2011 and also now that we have a proven result even if it is a recession in the market. And you can see it here. We increased now, as I said, the international guests, we increased Danish with 25%. If I bundle U.K., Germany and Netherlands, we increased 41%. And during the same time, we can see that the Swedes we have loss of 1.5%. And a lot of this is very much connected to the early bookings of the Danes and British guests took actually a lot of bets out of the Swedes as well. So, very interesting to see the importance of being early booking also for Swedes going forward. We are growing. We have an organic growth of 9% in the quarter, and we increased operating margin to 42% in the quarter. And that helped us also to have a margin now of 22% accumulated in the first 6 months. We also have a record high operating profit. We are passing SEK 1 billion. And the estimate from the analytics was SEK 1.18 billion, and we are delivering 5% above that on the profit. We have a record in ski days. We increased with 9%, and we're ending up in 4.5 million ski days, which is a lot higher than we also have during the record season during the pandemic. And one of the reasons is very much connected to these international guests who are staying longer and they also are buying longer ski pass. So, we can see that this transformation to 6 to 8 days ski pass has helped us to increase from 40% share to 43% share this year. And, as you have seen in the report, we are increasing all revenue streams and then really especially extra glad to see that the retail growth, and we read and hear so much about that sports equipment, sports clothing is down. And we are actually showing the total opposite pattern and increase both online and in physical stores with 34%, which is actually growth on growth on growth now for the third year in a row, we are growing. And, especially, we are growing with our own brand equip, which grow pace with 48% online and 69% in physical stores. And a special extra fun fact is that, this year we are actually selling 50,000 pairs of goggles, which is, I think, also very good for brand exposure at a lot of ski helmets in the slopes. And last but not least is that we are really glad to see our guest surveys showing much more satisfied guests and also that our coworkers doing a brilliant job saying Hi to all guests, even if it's in the lifts or in the reception or where you meet the customers. Really proud. We decided to make a project and trial to see if we could manage to try a pilot project with 100% fossil-free ski resorts, and we have managed and we are the first in the world managed to transform SkiStar Hammarbybacken in Stockholm. It's a small ski resort, but the idea with this pilot is to see if it works. And then when we see that it works, we can actually scale it and implement it at other of our destinations. And that's why I'm really glad and also proud to our coworkers who have, I would say, really taking this into their hearts and really made it with a strong effort to make it possible. If we just want to show you the digitalization and our movement and as you can see, we have an increased use, like I said, at our digital platforms, much more sessions, much higher conversion rates. And, again, we are increasing then the total of digital platforms from, for example, SEK 20.3 million last year to 22 now, 9% or close to 10%. And also the users are up 7.5%. So, also increased conversion rate here. Just mentioned, I think it's worth mentioning, we decided also a couple of years ago to complete our offer at our ski destinations or winter destinations. And we have completed now this year by making an acquisition of the ski school in Trysil, and that, of course, help us to completing our offer, not only at the winter-time, also at the summer-time since Trysilguidene and in Trysil had a very strong summer offer as well. As well, we have increased the cross-country at all destinations, as well we have made an acquisition of a concept store opened up a concept store also in Trysil. Next slide is just to exemplify how we have had the retail growth year-over-year. And we have a very strong pattern in this, which makes us, of course, extra proud. So, now, Martin, let's take a deeper guide throughout the numbers and what has happened through the quarter.

Thank you, Stefan. So, let's start with the overview and the development of our operating profit for the running 12 months. So we ended up at operating profit of SEK 730 million, SEK 64 million of this comes from exploitation and SEK 666 million from our operating part of the business. And the operating part is really growing, and this is the second best so far if we look at what we have done in our history. It's only the year '20, '21, '22, which is better. What's interesting to see also when we increase our operating income with a little bit more than SEK 200 million, and we have been able to get down SEK 126 million of those on operating profit. So, we have been really, really efficient to convert sales into profit. And one of the things is that we have been more cost efficient and have had a better cost control in some of our costs, like we said, maintenance, we also talk about marketing costs, energy costs and those kind of external expenses. When we look at costs like merchandise, for example, those costs are, of course, growing when the volume is growing as well. And also, when we look at personnel cost which has grown mainly due to Trysilguidene, and we also have, if you remember, we had lower social costs last year, which we now pay full social cost for young people. So, looking into the sales, as Stefan mentioned, all different categories are growing, except the property development. But you know that property development will come and go a little between the quarters. As Stefan said before, we are continuing to work and develop those plans, and we are ready to start when we see that the market is there. So, I would say no worries about the property development. What is interesting to see is that we grow ski pass with 15% in the quarter. We grow total accommodation. Here, you see it both in the accommodation and also in the hotel, but we grow accommodation with 8%, which is an effect of the international guests and the Danish guests. That's where we have the growth, which also spin over to rentals and ski school and also the retail and shop. So, it's really positive to see that we said on the Capital Market Day that international guests, they buy more of our portfolio, which is seen also in the numbers. If we look at the ski school, Trysilguidene guide, which stands for 18 out of the SEK 23 million in growth here. So, that is one thing I want to highlight. Moving into the half year and looking at the sales categories, you see exactly the same pattern here as in the quarter. And, of course, the quarter stands for the majority of the sales. So, same pattern here. So, I don't mention anything about the half year here. Moving into operating profits by segment. It's really positive to see how we manage to convert the sales into profit when the volume grows in operating of ski resorts. We grow the profit with SEK 148 million. Looking into the hotel side which grow the profit with 32% and now amounted to SEK 91 million. So, we have a positive trend also in our hotel business, which is really positive. And, as I said before, the property development is now SEK 30 million less than last year, but mainly due to that we had sales of SEK 107 million in this quarter last year. Moving into the half year, you see exactly the same trend here so, nothing else to comment. Moving onto the summary. I want to just comment on the better cost control that I said. So, what really comes down to the increase in operating profit is both the sales growth and some cost efficiency that we have had in the quarter. Looking at our operating cash flow, which grow with little bit less than SEK 400 million. And the majority, of course, come from the better results, but we have also been a little bit more efficient on our working capital allocation. That part can come and go a little bit between the quarters, but we are continuously working to be more and more efficient with our working capital. And we have a strong balance sheet. We have an equity asset ratio if we exclude IFRS 16, that amounts to 53%. And at the moment, our financial net debt is a little bit less than SEK 1.2 billion, which is in line with this time last year. As you know, the last quarter is a little bit higher than previous years. So, now the good cash flow we have used to amortize our debt that we have had. And those of you who have been looking into details in the cash flow, you have also seen that we have sold 2 companies in Hemsedal, which was the project Fjellnest. So, we sold out those two companies with slightly small loss and that loss is reported in the financial items due to that, we sold legal entities. Moving in a few comments about sustainability. Stefan talked about the 4.5 million skier days, which is an increase of 89%. That's really, really strong. Looking into the fossil-free ski resort in Hammarby that is one project that we are running, but we are also trying to communicate with our customers, with our guests. And we have launched a new website and a communication platform together for white winters that we give tips to our customers how they can act to work together with the ski start to continue the white winters. And we have launched also in this quarter, our new app, the SkiStar 360 App, which is an updated version of our ski resorts where you also can communicate with other guests and you can also see what kind of attractions there are on our destinations.

Thank you, Martin, and let's take a short view on the outlook going forward then. And, like I said in the beginning, we have had very strong winter conditions. And these last 3 days, we have spent the time in Sälen, the largest ski resort. It came actually 40 centimeter snow during Sunday. So, of course, that give us extra good snow conditions. But at all ski destinations, we have a lot of snow, and that also help us to end this winter season in a very good manner. We have a very strong booking for Easter compared to last year. And now when we are then focusing on filling up Easter and closing the winter season, we are also ramping up for summer as soon as the winter closed down. And when we look into the summer, we can see that last year we had a large activity in Åre called O-ringen orientation who was staying there, which, of course, pumped up the guest nights. But if we then clean out that activity as such and then look into, for example, Sälen and Trysil, which is our largest summer destinations beside Åre we can see a strong increase and also that a lot of guests would like to spend the summer in those summer resorts, where we also have bundled a lot of attractive activities for summer with you could combine, for example, trial running, biking, hiking, swimming, et cetera. So, a lot of strong bundling offers actually. Then we will continue to work with international guests. We see that the work with them pays off, and we will start to shift even more marketing, for example, into Danish to Denmark and to the Danish customers to attract even more there. And our property department, they are, as Martin and myself said before, focusing on development of detail plans, and we will continue also to make investments and focus in the core business with more lifts, more snow system and also more ski areas. Just to give you highlights of our booking for Easter. We are up 13% compared to last year. And I really love to show this pattern compared to many other ski resorts. You can see how strong we are across the whole season. We have peaks, yes, over the breaks, winter breaks, week 7, 8 9. But then if you clean them out, you can also see that we are very stable. The orange pattern here is this year, we are almost above last year in each period, each week, which also signing for a very good end of this winter season and something we are very proud of. Just a short recap also of our developed land and how we work with this strategy. And, previously, I'm talking about the fiscal years '17, '18, et cetera, and before that, we were very eager to sell out land. Now, we have our method, methodology, how we work. And we have no hurry. At the same time, we guide the market between SEK 70 million to SEK 90 SEK 100 million a year in gains in property development. And, so far, it has been very low. That means, like Martin said, it can shift between quarters. So, we have 2 quarters left of this year and then let's see how they will fill in what we have guided you through earlier. And then just as an update of how we have increased the pace. So, during this year, we have increased the number of completed detailed plans with 5 percentage units. So, we have shifted from ongoing detail plans into more completed detail plans, which is, of course, something I'm really glad of. And then, also, it has been taking some really good decisions in the municipalities of Åre that there will be a development of the area called Veridical, where we have a lot of ownership of ongoing detail plans, for example. So, we continue to grow the work, and we will start to sell out land or build when we feel it's time for doing that. Last but not least, we are really focusing on together for white winters, and we can see that this will be beneficial for us, even though that we are worried for the climate change like all others are as well. And that's why we have a lot of activities to strengthening our position and also what's going on in societies. And just as a both sad and glad picture, the right side of this picture is actually taking from Schladming this weekend, where there will be world championships next year. And you can see the green areas. And then on the left side, you can see a wonderful picture taken from SkiStar Åre, where we have amazing snow conditions and really ending up for a good end of this winter season. So, by that, Martin and I, we would like to open up for Q&As. And, yes, we stop there, Martin.

[Operator Instructions] And your first question comes from the line of Karl-Johan Bonnevier from DNB Markets.

Congratulations, first of all, to good operational and financial performance in the quarter. No question about that. A couple of detailed questions for me. Firstly, looking at the ski operations. When you look at what you have delivered in ski days so far this year, do you feel that we are in line for a record season when it comes to the number of ski days when we sum up the fiscal year?

Absolutely, KJ, because we are actually stronger than we were during the year of the pandemic. And, as you can see now at the end of the season with a strong booking pattern for the plus 13, we are actually outperforming the weeks ahead, as we had during the pandemic season. So, it looks like that right now. Actually, what we can see in our, like I say, in the future in the crystal ball. So, yes, it looks like that actually.

And when we look at earlier in the year, you started an efficiency program that you said there was some opportunities to optimize costs and similar kind of line Is that what we now see the full effect of it as well in the results? Or is it more to come there?

Yes. I would say we start to see effect of it in the cost program, but also we will see effects coming in the coming years. We have just started up with one new recruitment working with, for example, purchase and how we can continue to optimize that in a better way in the future. So, those effects will come later on. We have done some quick fix to start with, and that's what you see in some of the external costs. On the personnel side, we have done more or less what we have said, but we have also grown business like Trysilguidene. We have opened up a few new restaurants, and we have grown with some new ski hops some things like that. So, that's how it looks at the moment.

And when we look at your hotel operations, obviously, that was a little of an efficiency project also particularly during last year, do you feel that you have now the structure there and the operational performance that you were looking for?

I can start and then Martin maybe will help me. I think, first of all, Lena, who is operating the hotels has made a fantastic job with her team. And I must say, I'm really glad to see that we are now operating the hotels in a much more efficient way. However, Lena is actually saying that there is opportunities for even some more. Then we can also see that the restaurants we are operating right now, we had a slow start in some of them due to rebuilding and reconstruction. So, that's why we also see that they can help us and support us going forward. So, I think the answer to the question is both and, KJ, that we are in a good way, but there is still some more improvement to work on, both on top line and on cost. Martin, I don't know if you can help me.

But Lena has done a good job going through her organization and made some adjustments to have a more efficient organization in line with the sales. So, that's a good job that they have done. I would say that is one of the parameters that you see effect of and the growth in the hotel business. And then also, during the winter season, we have had good bookings at our hotels. We see that they are attractive. They are in the middle of the ski resort. So, it's a really good product, with a ski and ski out location, of course, that support.

And I noticed that when I looked at the CapEx budget that you were highlighting SEK 330 million for the coming year, which was slightly lower than I would have expected. And maybe just give us an update also where you see maybe CapEx ending up for this year. It also seem to be going at the slightly more reduced speed than I was expecting.

Yes. We have reduced the CapEx for the coming year a little bit. As we said at the Capital Market Day, we will have a CapEx that we can finance with our cash flow. So, that is one reason behind it. So, we are a slightly lower pace this year. And also, we continue to invest in lifts. We are continuing, and hopefully, we can do one or 2 lifts in order. We hope that we can do the Leon-Scorch-lift them. And we also looking to start the project in Trysil to prepare for coming lift there. And then, of course, we continue to invest in snow optimization so we can produce a snow in more efficient way because that is going to be a crucial factor going forward in the future.

I think just to build on what Martin said there during the CapEx investment, we came in 3 years ago from a very low investment pace in lifts and within snow system, et cetera, why we decided to increase the pace. And now we are flattening out that since we have done some big projects at our resorts. And that, of course, increase also the customer experience in a good way, which also help us to continue to take the price we want to take on our SkiPass, et cetera.

And if I understand you're right, Martin, that the 330, does that cover both Trysil and Åre projects?

Yes. It does, but it's not a full lift that we are talking about in Trysil. We are doing some preparations this year. So, we will set up a small lift and then we will start some preparations adjusting the slope, building new snow system and also light to that slope. So, we are preparing for another project there.

And in Åre, we paid 80% of the lift in 3 years ago, but we have had a problem with permission to build, where one person has making or what do you call it? But the person has claimed, but now we are hopefully getting permission to set this up during the season after 3 years delay. So, a lot of that is paid already and taken in the CapEx.

[Operator Instructions] And your next question comes from the line of Stefan Stjernholm from Nordea.

A question on international guests. I'm sorry if I missed this figure in your presentation, but you shared some numbers of the increase of international guests. But can you also say how many, what's the share of international guests of the total this year? And if you compare that a year back?

Yes. So, the Danish guests, they are growing with 25%. And last year, they have a share of 19% of the total. Now, they have 22% of the total amount. And then if I bundle U.K., Germans and Netherlands guests, they are increased with 41% and they are now coming up to 5.5% of the total.

And can you also see an increased interest from those international guests to book during the summer? Or is it too early?

The Danish guests, yes, we can see that they have an interest, but I think it is a little bit too early, Stefan.

But then the share is substantially lower during the summer long-term Danish, yes. Long-term term potential then.

Thank you. There are currently no further questions. I will hand the call back for closing remarks.

Okay. Then I would like to say a warm thank you to all participants for joining this call. And now, we are looking forward for amazing Easter in the slopes, so, I hope to see you all there. Me and Martin, we will be, for sure, there. See you later.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.