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

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to SkiStar's second quarter report conference call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I'd now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Stefan Sjostrand. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and a warm welcome to our second quarter of '24-'25 presentation. The presentation will be held by myself and my new colleague, Sara here, who is our new CFO, starting officially from...

31st of January.

Correct. So, warm welcome, Sara, and we will try to guide you through this presentation today. And we have an agenda where we'll take you through the quarter, and then we will -- I will start with some highlights. So I will continue with the numbers, and then we will also end up with an outlook of the rest of the season, but also little bit about next year then. So let's start about short introduction. And we have a strong position, and most of you know about this. So I take us through our financial targets, which we are, which -- guiding us throughout both short and long-term. So we have an organic growth of 6%, 18% operating margin. We have a leverage of net debt-to-EBITDA of less than 2.5 and then a dividend 40% to 60%. Our sustainability target is connecting to activity and recreation. We want to reach 7 million skier and activity days. We really would like to go for 50% climate reduction. And then also it's important for us to have a dialogue and interaction with partners and -- like, for example, railway companies, governments, et cetera, about regulations. So we are happy to follow these important targets. Of course, we work with strategic initiatives, and for us, we have 5 guiding initiatives who is something we're striving after. And you will see during this presentation that we are following those 5 ones continuously. So important to development of the all year -- all-year-round operations. We continue to work to strengthening our margin and also continuing our growth journey, important to increase the number of commercial beds and also secure the sustainable future mountain experiences as well as normalized investments over time. So let's go through this quarter. And some of you maybe have seen our report this morning then. And we are really, really glad to report our best second quarter ever. Of course, this is the quarter where we should deliver a strong result. However, we have a very strong result driven by a high interest for skiing holidays. And of course, this calendar effect we had during the Christmas holidays where a lot of bank holidays supported this long-term stay for our guests. And we can also see that this holiday is prioritized among Swedish and international guests. And also, we are really lucky to have the guests spending their time at us, at SkiStar. We also could see that since we are really striving after not only developing SkiStar as a brand, also our all-year-round operation, we can see that there is a strong interest also both from ourselves, of course, but also from others to bring more beds into these popular resorts, because those are the largest ones, and this is the places where you want to stay and where you want to be. We are really glad to actually have 27 all-time high days during this first quarter, which is exceptional. And it has been throughout all destinations. And extra happy actually to have this SkiStar -- all record day, the 30th of December, where we actually had almost or close to 80,000 guests within our system. So a tremendous, good day where normally we have these record days during Easter, but now we had it already before New Year. What's really happy this quarter is also that we're increasing all revenue streams, and we will come back to that later on. And also, since we have been a little bit shy or -- I will not say defense, but since we have had a challenging market within cost of construction, we have made some decisions to start build BRF projects in Salen and Trysil, and we will do that in the company -- or joint venture company called Skiab. And this is the first new construction since 2023 -- 2023. So that's very good. And then the other very positive thing is that we also have decided to add 500 new beds within Salen on a new land plot, and that is sold to Skiab and that capital gain effect will come into the third quarter, so next quarter. But decision to start construction has been made and the construction will start as soon as the snow -- and -- [ share ], let me say in Swedish. I don't know that word in English actually, but the ground -- when it's possible to start the groundwork. And then, of course, our sustainability development activities continues, and we were also a participator of the conference in Are called NoSA, 2 weeks ago -- called -- stands for Nordic Sustainability Arena, where we're really aiming to continue and develop the white winters. We -- I mean, a quarter like this, like I started, there is high expectations for us to deliver on this quarter, of course. But we are very satisfied to show an organic growth of 5%, with an increased operating margin of 23.8%. We have -- if we clean out the exploitation income, the underlying growth in the ski operation business is even higher. It's actually 8%, with an increased operating margin. So that's, of course, very positive to show these numbers. And we will try to also be even more transparent going forward to try to separate the property gains and -- versus the ski operations for you all to see this in a more open way. We continue with our digitalization, and we see that the new investments we have made in this queue system where customers can see on screens or in the app, is extremely positively recognized by our guests. And that's why it's important to continue the drive of improve the digital experience for our customers. We have a very solid customer base from Swedish guests, and they continue to come and visit us, but also there is a high interest of Danish guests as well as British, German and Netherlands guests coming to our destination. And that together support this record in ski days where we're ending up in 4.6 million ski days, which is a tremendous number and also put us into one of the largest operators in the world. And like I said, we increased all revenue streams. And one important highlight, I think, is also supporting the ski days, of course, is this transformation to a longer stay. And this 6 to 8 days SkiPass has increased to 53% from 50% the year before. So I think that is something very important for us. And those international guests have a tendency to stay longer, which is, of course, extremely positive for us. Retail is a very interesting market for us. And since we started this a couple of years ago, we have had strong growth. It has slowed down a bit, mainly connected to weather, I must say. But if we look into this industry, we are -- actually take market shares, and it is the EQPE brand, our own brand EQPE, who stands for the largest growth actually in this quarter. These international guests, they continue to drive average spend. And I think it's important for us to show this graph for all of you to see that the average spend is strong, but the international average spend is even stronger. And that is due to that international guests buy more products, so versus a Swedish customer who puts in 2 products into the basket. Danish or British guests put in 3 products into the basket. And that, of course, is the difference if you look into the revenues. I mentioned shortly about the retail growth, and I think it's important for all of you to understand that this has become an important part of our growth journey, and we will continue this growth journey. And the last couple of years we are strengthening our operations. We are strengthening our presence and strengthening also the way we're marketing our retail operation. And it's an important area of our business, and it will continue to be an important area of our business going forward. I mentioned the digital engagement. And if we look into this graph, we can see that there is a high digital engagement in the second quarter, where we increased 13% visitation in our digital platforms. However, we can see that we have a slower -- or a slowdown in the conversion rate, and that is due to 2 things. One is that there is a challenge for us to fill up the Easter, the end of this season as well that the SkiStar Shop has been a little bit less visitors or less conversion rate due to this warmer weather, so to say. If we then look into next slide, I will hand over to Sara, who will guide you through the numbers now.

Yes, and hello. I will guide you through net sales development, followed by net sales per category and then operating profit development. And if we start with net sales development, as Stefan mentioned, we had a good -- or a good calendar effect that implied 3 weeks for our holiday guests. And in comparison with last year, it was 2 weeks and 1 additional week make a huge difference. However, we had 1 day less in February in comparison with last year. But in total, the calendar effect was a positive one. All-time high during Christmas, 9 out of 15 days. And the occupancy rate was high. It almost touched 100% at several destinations during Christmas. And the occupancy rate was solid during the winter sport holiday as well. Number of ski days was up 3% year-on-year, SEK 4.6 million, which is a high number. And as Stefan mentioned, we continue to be an attractive choice for our international guests, and they spend more money. And even if the SEK has been stronger, it's still a quite high margin in comparison with traveling, for example, to the Alps. And if we look at the graph, the net sales development in the last 12 months, we almost touched SEK 5 billion in net sales. And if we continue with net sales per category, and this is actually going from SEK 2.850 billion to SEK 3 billion. This is for the first half year, the first and the second quarter. And if we start with the major uplift, which is related to ski passes, we had a revenue growth of 10%. It's a combination of volume and price and number of sold ski days, as I mentioned on the previous slide, was up 3% year-on-year. And if you continue with accommodation, it has a revenue growth of 6%, and it's a combination of price, but number of objects is actually down 3%, but we have an impact -- a positive impact from the mediated accommodation business, which is a fairly large part of the accommodation. Ski Rental and Ski School continue to increase SEK 13 million and SEK 7 million up. And also the retail business is up SEK 22 million, and it's online that drives the uplift by 7%. The revenue growth in our physical stores is more or less flat, and it's primarily related to a lower demand for weather-related products due to the warm weather. But we have still a high demand for SKU-related assortment, skis and shoes, et cetera. Restaurants is up quite a lot, and it's driven by increased capacity. We have added new restaurants, for example, at Hundfjallet in Salen, but we have also improved our concept related to restaurants, and that is important. Property development is down 69%, but that is related to capital income and gains in comparison with last year. And this is included in our net sales. Last year, we had an income and this year we have less income. But in total, we have a revenue -- or we have a capital gain. In comparison with last year we actually had a capital loss. But if you just look at the income side, it was a negative effect. So in total, we had SEK 3 billion in net sales, which was 5% up. And if we exclude the exploitation income or the capital income, it was actually 8% up in our underlying business, and that is important to understand that 8% is a significant uplift. If we continue with operating profit per segment, we have -- and this is also the half year, starting with SEK 601 million, moving to SEK 718 million, and the majority is related to our ski operations. And of course, we had a solid performance. It was a combination of price and volume, and we had increased revenues from all our revenue streams. The property development is up 37%, and that is -- as I mentioned on the previous slide, that is impacted by the capital loss last year and the capital gain this year, and that is more or less the development that has happened this year. The operation of hotels benefits from new capacity, the restaurants, but also higher prices. And during the second quarter, if I just look at the second quarter, the operating profit amounts to SEK 1.2 billion in comparison with SEK 1.1 billion last year, and that is an improvement with 13%. If I exclude the capital gains, the underlying performance, or improvement was 10%. And for the first half year, the underlying performance was up 15%. And including the capital gain, the performance was -- or the improvement was 20%. And operating profit development, as you can see in the graph, last year, we ended up with SEK 740 million, and that included a capital gain of SEK 67 million and an operating profit from our operations with SEK 674 million. If we look at the number for last 12 months, we have SEK 851 million in total, and that includes revenue or a capital gain of SEK 85 million and operating profit from our operations with SEK 766 million. And we have -- that implies a margin -- operating margin of 7.2%. And as I said before, we have had challenging weather conditions during -- especially in January and February, and that has implied that we had to prepare our slopes more than usually during this time of year, and that has led to higher cost for electricity and also high cost for staff. And if we take a look at the last 12-month graph of SEK 851 million, we also need to understand that moving forward, the third quarter, we have a late Easter this year, and that will have a negative impact in comparison with last year. And this picture, the seasonality, I included this to -- this is -- I guess you are all familiar with our seasonality impact. But it's important to understand that the second quarter followed by the third quarter, we should make money in those quarters, and we have done that, and we have had a quite strong performance in this -- in the second quarter. But the third quarter followed by the fourth quarter are loss-making. So we have a huge impact from seasonality. If we take a look at the cash flow situation, and obviously, as we've had a solid performance in the operating profit, we have had a strong cash flow from operating activities during the second quarter that amounted to SEK 1.4 billion, and that was an improvement in comparison with last year. And if we take a look at the first half year, the cash flow from operating activities amounted to just a little more than SEK 1.7 billion, which was also an improvement in comparison with last year. And during the quarter, CapEx was very low. It amounted to SEK 72 million and accumulated the CapEx amounted to SEK 209 million. We made a decision early January to invest in gondola in Trysil, and that is a quite important investment, but also quite expensive. And the investment is expected to be around NOK 200 million. And we estimate the CapEx for the total year to amount to approximately [ SEK 550 million ]. And that CapEx also includes approximately SEK 50 million that is related to acquisition. So in total, it will be SEK 500 million to SEK 550 million for the year. And then the debt structure. We had now the ratio -- the net debt situation in comparison with EBITDA is fairly low. It's 0.6. And that is, of course, impacted by operating cash flow, that has been strong. And we have also been able to reduce our net debt. And interest-bearing debt amounts to SEK 704 million, which is significantly lower in comparison with last year. But we need to understand that due to seasonality, et cetera, and that we will add more investments or more CapEx moving forward, the net debt or the capital structure will increase, and it will not continue to be 0.6. But it's a fairly stable or solid number now. And if we continue to the summary slide. And as I mentioned, we have had a positive calendar effect during Christmas and New Year, and that has contributed to a high customer demand. All-time high, 9 out of 15 days during Christmas holiday and solid and very high occupancy rates. The warmer weather has had an impact on higher costs for preparation of snow and staffing. The organic growth was strong, underlying 9% for the first half year and if we exclude capital gains. But we have improved the operating margin quite high even with and without capital gains and strong operating cash flow driven by increased net sales. And the equity-to-asset ratio was also high, 60% when we exclude the effects from IFRS-16. And low financial net debt due to lower investment, but also and most importantly, strong cash flow.

Thank you, Sara. And I think it's important for all of us to just highlight the importance of sustainability. And we have, of course -- we are continuing our strong focus within the field of sustainability. And we have now improved our suppliers and securing that now. 25% of our suppliers has a climate target, and we will continue that journey. I think it's also important to continue our development within SkiStar's operation of how to become CO2 negative. And the area of improvement is [ continuing ] [ seeing ]. And I'm really proud of our investment we have made in electrical vehicles, electrical [ groomers ] and also battery charging, et cetera, all the way to fulfill our idea of this, say, map of illustrating our impact on the total society within our SkiStar destination. Something also very promising is that we are not alone in this. And we are now joining forces within the Global Sustainability Ski Alliance, so together with other ski operators like Compagnie des Alpes in France or Kitzbuhel in Austria, et cetera. So we are joining forces to put in a strong sustainability agenda among other ski resorts to really support the development of how to become even more sustainable together and also put more larger projects in place to also challenge our suppliers within the supply chain. And just as a reminder, we're really happy to continue to work as an enabler of -- together for the white winters. And this conference in Are was a great start for that 2 weeks ago. So now my friends, I will give you a little bit of flavor of our outlook and just a reminder of our strategic initiatives, and those are the ones we are following. So if we then look at the outlook -- or take a look at the outlook, I'm really proud to continue our 50 years anniversary. It is actually 50 years ago, Erik and Mats took the car to Salen and instead of buying one cabin, they went back with one slope and 37 cabins, and that was the starting point of SkiStar. And the date -- the official date for celebrating that is in October. That means that we have used this part of the year 2025 to celebrate, and we will continue to celebrate even more during the start of next season, so to say, winter season. And just to give you a little bit flavor of how does the rest of the winter season look like. How will our calendar look like. And we are struggling a little bit with -- take up the fight with the warm weather like I have outside today here in Stockholm, where we have plus 12 degrees, and people start to look like they're opening for summer houses. They would like to go play golf and they would like to do gardening and all that compete, of course, with the skiing. And if I just look into our ski resorts, they are in a very good -- they are very well prepared for the Easter actually. We came home late night yesterday from Trysil which there was super nice condition. A lot of snow in the slopes, sun was shining. And that's why we really would like to see how we could continue to push the Easter. But week 16 is the Easter period this year. It's the latest period we have Easter, and we are struggling to fill up week 14 and 15, for example. 16 is quite full and good, but 14 and 15 is a challenge for us. And that's why we are a little bit behind the bookings versus last year. What's really positive then if we take a look beyond this winter is that we have went out with the investment in the new gondola and in Trysil, and that will be ready for next winter season. Exactly like Sara mentioned, it's the price that is high, but it will also give a very fairly and good customer experience. Are, it's an area where we have struggled sometimes with the weather and also demanding situations with our share lifts to open them up because they are very weather sensitive. With these new ski lifts in [indiscernible] Are, Bjornen/Sadeln will be a tremendous lift for that whole area actually because that means that we all days can operate this area to take you into the large ski system into Are. And we will also spicing that up even with more investment in lighting facilities, which will increase the opening times. Today, during the darker period of the year, we open up the ski lifts 9:30. We close them 4:00 p.m. Now we can open them up 8:00 a.m. in the morning and have them open the full day to 5:30 p.m., 6:00 p.m. And that's, of course, a big improvement for all the guests living in that area, and that could also support rent out for cabins in that area, which normally is not the easiest during that time of the year. Lastly, but not least, a completely new ski area in Vemdalen and Hovde Syd, which will be launched next year. And we are so glad because this has taken 4 years for us to work with the authorities and to get this approvement. And we got everything in place a couple of months ago. And now we are so glad to be able to open this area up for next winter season. So that means that we are really open up for some good news. And of course, we continue also to invest in snowmaking systems to secure the white winters. But then if I look into the construction projects, we also have decided to do the 500 new warm beds we are calling them. That means that, that is 500 new beds in Salen, which has been an area where we have had lacking of beds. Now we open up that. So that will be very good for us. However, we see -- we have guide you with the capital gains to be in the range of SEK 75 million to SEK 100 million per year. But now we see that we have some delay in this plan from the municipalities and also that there is a little bit slower in the market. So we will -- for this year, we have, what to say, a timing effect and will mean that we will not reach those SEK 75 million this year. We will be below that, just so we are guiding you correctly in that sense. Retail, we continue with the retail development, and we have had some competitions in Trysil. And since there was a generation shift in [indiscernible] sport shop, we have decided to make an acquisition of that. So that means that we are really strengthening our presence in Trysil within the Retail segment as well. Really glad to also again highlight our -- taking over the operations from Hogfjallshotell in Salen. We will do that from May. Thommy Backner has been running this hotel for 35 years. And it's not -- it's big shoes to fill after Thommy's great performance over this period of time, but we will do our best to continue. And also by having all those international guests coming into us, we also see that this is an excellent place to also do some extra booking and opportunities for the international guests providing Hogfjallshotell actually. And that will lead us up to next winter bookings. We are up 5% for next winter season. And that's, of course, something super exciting to present to you. And that means that 15% of the next winter season is already locked in more or less already at this time of the year actually. Just to give you a flavor of what we are doing within the development of our destinations. So the Trysil gondola in the up left. In the middle, we open up this -- this is a picture from Salen and a fantastic part of Tjejmilen, where we now -- where you see some trees in the lower part of this picture where we will open up for a new BRF project. The right corner with a map, with a red dotted line showing the new area, Hovde Syd, which will be the new ski area in Vemdalen, opening up for -- in December next winter. Down to the left we have Trysil suites where we open up for sale of apartment and 60% of the BRFs are already sold actually. So -- and it's just 100 meters above the new gondola entrance. So of course, it's a great location, ski-in, ski-out. And then the last 2 pictures down to the right is showing [indiscernible] where we have got now permission to start construction if we would like to. But still, we have not decided how we would like to develop those areas. But of course, we have great plans, as you see on the pictures for that area as well. So the development of our destinations continues. Just as -- I think it's important to show you about this with the -- how does it looks like week by week in the bookings in our system, so to say. So here, you can see the challenges. We have week 13, 14 and 15, especially week 15, the week before Easter, and that's why we are down 5%. But if you look into the week 16 compared to last year's spring season or Easter week, we are in the same range, you can say. But it is the week before really take us down. And that is, of course, challenging since we are sitting with the cost for running our ski lifts, et cetera, and we really are in the need of filling the beds. But we will do our best to continue to fill our beds as well. Actually, we have a lot of private beds, of course, like we had during Christmas, who will be filled during the Easter. That's normally how it will look like. And just as a picture, we are extremely proud, of course, to have this unmatchable position within Scandinavia, running the 5 largest ski destinations. And this by focusing on a year-round operation with strengthening the willingness for others also to invest in these 5 ski destinations, the willingness of our restaurants to have open -- and also people who have their own cabins to continue to come and invest -- stay at our resorts. I have already mentioned the 50-year love story, and we continue this. And we are also taking up a Nostalgia Collection. And I have seen during this week, a lot of nice hats with our coworkers and how proud they are. If you come to Lindvallen, they're wearing a Lindvallen hat, or yesterday, they wear a Trysil hat and the proudness of our staff wearing this collection is super nice. And of course, we will continue to focus with that for our customers and consumers as well. And lastly, but not least, mountain holidays in Scandinavia continues to be an obvious choice for many. And I think this quarter result has proven that. And also the bookings for next winter is also showing that. So we end up that we say together for white winters, we join forces. And we open up for questions by that. So thank you so much for listening to us.

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

Congratulations to a very solid quarter and strong development. Just a couple of questions on the CapEx outlook, the SEK 500 million, if you're looking at the pure CapEx. How much of Trysil and the gondola there is included in that? And how much is sliding into next year?

It is actually -- I can answer quickly. It is -- Trysil and gondola is into that range as well as well the Hovde Syd as well as [indiscernible]. So all these investments are there, [indiscernible]. So this is this year's investment. And I think we have been much better by prioritizing our investments actually than we have been the last 3 years, so to say. The projection is much better and the prioritization is much better within our company.

And then if you look into, say, next year and the coming year, what would you talk about as a maintenance CapEx level going forward? It's still around SEK 350 million a good proxy if you don't do these kind of extra investments?

Yes. The maintenance CapEx is approximately just about SEK 300 million, SEK 350 million. And then if you add new capacity, then -- yes, well, approximately SEK 500 million in total.

So we believe that we will stay in the range of SEK 500 million to SEK 550 million. That is what we said.

We want to include new capacity as well, but the maintenance level is about SEK 300 million.

And I understand as a part of the gondola project in Trysil, you are able to develop new areas. Are those the ones that you already now is targeting together with Skiab -- or is that additional kind of things coming later?

That is actually additional income later. We have not spoken so much about that. We were a little bit shy maybe in this report, but we have made a very great agreement with the land owners in Trysil. And that means that we will continue development of our joint venture with those with Utmarkslag in Trysil, who is the owner of the land within the ski lifts operation, but we have also made a joint venture with them to develop the area, which is called Aventyr area in Trysil where the new gondola will start. There we will start up with new facilities like toilets, ski shop, but also apartments actually. And then there will be some other areas of development together with them, which we will come back to later. But it is a very strong and solid collaboration with them to develop also more beds actually in that area.

Sounds very promising. And looking at the Hundfjallet acquisition, could you give us some ideas what that will mean for your hotel operation in -- maybe in some sort of financial terms?

We own the hotel since before. So we actually have had the ownership of the hotel since a very long time in our books. But now top line, we -- say around SEK 100 million in top line roughly, but very limited profit. So it's more top line related rather than the bottom line. So we have to work hard to improve our margins.

Sounds like a good task. And one final, if I look at those projects that you are now starting in the exploitation activities, are those ready to come into sales process ahead of next season? Or is that the season after where we should look for it?

Which one do you relate to, Skiab or...?

Yes, the ones you highlight in Salen and Trysil, the one that comes in the [indiscernible]?

Yes, Salen and Trysil, that will come into Skiab's books, meaning that we have 50% gains of that since it is in Skiab's books. And we see that the Trysil will come in next year actually. And then [ Tjejmilen ] in Salen next year and the year after, I must say, because that one we haven't started to sell yet. But the Trysil is already -- is going tremendously fast actually sellout at BRFs.

I can imagine.

[Operator Instructions]. As there are no further questions on the phone line, I would now like to hand back to the room for any closing remarks.

If there is no more questions to us, we would like to say a warm thank you for listening to us. And I wish you all a great end of this winter season. I hope to see you in the slopes, because me and Sara, we will join the nice weather and snow conditions in the Easter.

Absolutely.

So warm thanks, everyone.

Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.