UBM Development AG (UBS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you, Sasha, and good morning, everybody. Welcome back from what was hopefully a very good summer break for you. Well, there is a kind of Ferragosto throughout Europe on the one hand, there is no distinct holiday season on the other hand. This is also why we have sent out the teaser for the sale of the Timber Pioneer in mid-July with a very good response so far. But let us save this for later and turn to the highlights of the first half year as listed on Slide 3. First of all, we are proud to announce the delivery of our cash generation program as early as by the end of June. This has contributed to our cash, which stood at no less than EUR 179 million, proving the execution of our liquidity over profitability strategy in 2024. While we have halved our losses, we have also brought down net debt to a level of EUR 550 million; more from Patric in a minute. The core of today's call, the core is to acquaint you with how we want to fix what appears to be a broken business model looking at 2023. We want to share with you a clear path to future profitability in both of our asset classes like Industrial Office and Residential. However, and this will not come as a surprise, there is still some way to go. Please turn to Slide 4. A major progress on this way is the EUR 75 million of cash that we generated by the end of June. They were contributed by the successful sale of nonstrategic assets as can be seen on this chart. The most important contributor was the sale of our 80% stake in W3-Center Wien Mitte to Raiffeisen. Now, Raiffeisen has not only been the 20% minority shareholder in W3, Raiffeisen is also occupying 50% of the space as office tenant. This created a win-win situation for both sides. Raiffeisen is now paying 50% of the rent of EUR 5 million last year to themselves, and we were able to generate valuable cash due to the comparatively low debt financing of the building. By the way, everybody who's ever landed with the Airport Train CAT in Wien Mitte has looked at W3-Center Wien Mitte an impressive mixed use building right next to the RBI, Raiffeisen Bank International Tower. Rather than reading out the other 5 successful sales, I leave it to the Q&A session should there be any questions left. May I ask you to follow me to Slide 5. Some of you might have been slightly skeptical when we reported more than double residential sales in Q1 compared with Q1 last year. We hinted cautiously that this might be an early indicator for the tide to change. Meanwhile, as reputable institutions like Kiel Institute [indiscernible] are stating that the turnaround in the real estate market has started based on resi sales statistics in Q2. While I believe this statement might be a bit early, UBM is able to report the sale of more apartments in the first 6 months of 2024 than in the entire last year. What I am 100% convinced of is the fact that the imbalance between supply and demand is further intensified. It makes no sense to wait with your decision to buy an apartment because it might get cheaper. The only thing which is shrinking is space. We shall also touch on this subject later in the presentation. As this is the half year call on UBM's results, it is high on time to hand over to Patric for the results. Patric, please?

Thank you, Thomas. As Thomas briefly mentioned, we are proud to have successfully completed our announced cash generation program as early as end of June. This achievement allowed us to increase our cash position by more than EUR 50 million in the second quarter, bringing our total liquidity to EUR 179 million by June 30. As frequently discussed on our previous calls, we are fortunate to be in such a strong financial position and with no bond repayments due until November 2025. Over the past few years, we have proven our reliability as a bond issuer, having repaid EUR 250 million in bonds from our cash reserves in 2022 and 2023 alone. However, these repayments have also significantly reduced our debt capacity, which we aim to rebuild as market opportunities are clearly emerging. We remain optimistic that a window of opportunity will open on the bond market in the foreseeable future. In summary, we are pleased with our current cash performance and our cash position remains at the top of our priorities in 2024. Let's move to Slide #7. In accordance with our guidance, we were unable to bring the EBT into positive territory, but we did manage to more than halve the loss compared to last year. As Thomas mentioned, our focus during this transitional year is on liquidity rather than profitability. It is important to highlight that we have improved our balance sheet ratios for 30th of June compared to half year 2023. Through noncore asset sales and project partnerships, we reduced net debt by nearly 10% compared to December 31, 2023. As of June 30, our net debt stands at EUR 550 million. Our equity ratio was 30.3%, within our target range of 30% to 35%. We have consistently maintained this range over the years and are confident to continue doing so. Additionally, our loan-to-value ratio stands at 46%, a level we are comfortable with. Overall, we maintain a healthy balance sheet with all key ratios within our target ranges. Back to Thomas.

Thank you, Patric. And I understand it's 10:10. So pretty early. Please now bear with us. And may I ask for your attention how we want to fix our business model. And let me start with a more controversial asset class like industrial and office. As institutional real estate investors think in annual rent multiples, we are presenting you the average of the average of UBM's real numbers translated into multiples. Chart 8 is divided in the situation today at the top of the page and what we expect for the future at the bottom. The business model at the moment could be described as changing money, which is better than losing money as was the case in the last 18 months. Today, the yield expectation for prime assets stands at 20x annual rent or 5%. This is driven and coincides with the current interest rate environment and is based on indicative evidence rather than transactions, which are still very rare. The average rent levels across all German A cities in which UBM is active and including Vienna, not that it belongs to Germany, but including Vienna, stands at EUR 30 per square meter and months upon completion of the project, which is typically within the next 6 to 18 months. Based on these actuals, historical land acquisition costs minus the write-downs that we have already taken and construction as well as financing costs fixed in the past are our total investment costs and they equal the purchase price. This is obviously not a sustainable business model. As the cost of equity is included in the total investment cost, the only "profit" consists of the 8% equity interest rate which we charge in our projects. Now we believe that the return to profitability is the result of 2 major factors, which are summarized in gray at the bottom of the chart. One, rents are still going to go up moderately, and we have assumed a plus of 5% over the next 18 to 24 months. As inflation is coming down, we believe that the yield expectations might be coming down from 5% to 4.44% or from 25x to 22.5x annual rent. All of these assumptions are far from aggressive. I hope you agree. Factor 2 is cost savings. Undoubtedly, with the situation as it is today, we have to face the fact that we are producing a good which best case can be sold for production cost. In every other industry, this would immediately lead to a task force investigating how to bring down cost. There is one input cost, which is undisputably coming down, the project acquisition cost. It is the flip side of the real estate crisis coin, if you want. While the forced sellers are already visible, they might not be on the market today, but will hit the market in numbers in the near future. I mean, who of you would be prepared to bet against it? The other movers and shakers are the construction costs and the incidental costs, so-called [ NIM ] cost, which come with them. Now it is common knowledge that there is ample weigh-in capacity, overcapacity, if you want, in building construction today with all the canceled projects where financing often could not be obtained or permissions take too long to be achieved. I go into more details on this with the next slide, so bear with me. What is summarized on the incidental cost is contingencies, which are regularly between 4% to 6% of total construction costs as well as costs for architects, civil engineers and other advisers where we can also see significant overcapacities. One more word to the contingencies. They were regularly used in the past as changes to the project, for example, driven by the completely different type of tenant than we had originally anticipated, cost money and your negotiating power for the cost of change is weak once you are in the execution phase. So we believe that these "reserves" are not needed in the future as standardized timber construction does not allow for such changes. The advice to our people, better think it to the end first. On the negative side, we expect average financing costs to rise, which has something to do with our cost of capital and more equity being required in the project than was the case in the past. Bottom line, if all of these effects come through as anticipated, we believe that total investment costs go from 20.3x to 17.5x annual rent. This results in a contribution of 5x annual rent. And if you compare this with 17.5x investment costs, it would give you as a contribution margin a number of 29% for new projects. Well, I hear you already say that construction costs have never come down in the past. So please turn to Slide 9 and some food for thought. First of all, look at the [indiscernible] and remember that record earnings of the construction industry were reported across the board last year. While the consumer price index in Germany grew by 18.2% from the beginning of 2021 to midyear this year after the peak of the Corona crisis in 2020, the construction price index in Germany grew by 36.2% or double. The situation in Austria is similar, but not as dramatic. We had a higher inflation rate of 23.6% and the construction costs still increased by 33.3% or 10 percentage points more. The next thing on the horizon is simplification. German Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann has filed a proposal for residential construction projects end of July. Experts estimate that more flexibility regarding height, room temperatures or window requirements could save up to 10% of construction cost. Standardization and ultimately modularization has been the magic in so many other industries to bring down cost. Again, and you've heard that, I apologize, a Volkswagen Golf would cost several hundred thousand euros if we were still to produce it as it was produced 100 years ago. Again, timber construction is UBM's answer. It might not be the only answer and more factory production, less construction on site can be achieved basically with any prefab material. However, we at UBM believe that timber construction ticks the most boxes, particularly regarding sustainability. It is also the answer to an increasing shortage of skilled labor in the construction industry. All of this applies even more when it comes to modularization, which is early stage at UBM, and we have started with bathroom modules. Similar effects with different numbers are true for residential and maybe Patric jumps in once more to elaborate on it. Patric, please?

Sure. And as Thomas has pointed out, residential is the asset class, which has also been performing in the past. [indiscernible] there are 3 types of buyers: the global investors, individuals purchasing a property as a financial investment and those buying a home for personal use or for close family members such as children. Currently, we predominantly see the latter group of buyers in the market, which puts limits to the scalability. Today, this business model can be viewed as a form of inflation protection, though it is significantly impacted by restrictive lending practices such as the KIM regulation in Austria. With an average selling price of around EUR 8,000 per square meter, UBM's contribution margin stands at 11%, demonstrating that the business model is resilient, but at a reduced profitability. The advantage of the residential asset class compared to office lies in the lower financing costs as the LTV ratio is higher and, at least in Germany and Austria, there is an equity contribution from the buyers throughout the construction phase. However, a disadvantage is the higher construction cost. So how can we achieve a business model in this asset class where the contribution margin reaches up to 24%. There are 2 main factors: managing costs, as Thomas has already discussed; and a 5% increase in sales prices. Compared to cost savings in the office asset class, the only area that decreases significantly less is land acquisition cost, which drops by just 12.5%, primarily because we expect fewer forced sellers in this market. While other costs declined less than those in the office asset class, we can also achieve savings here through overcapacity, simplification, standardization and modularization. However, let's take a closer look at the reasoning behind our expectation of a 5% increase in prices. Please turn to Slide #11. First of all, we believe that the market shakeout is leading to an even increasing imbalance between demand and supply most in metropolitan areas. The data for Germany clearly shows that the volume of completed apartments in the coming years will not get anywhere close to the 400,000 apartments needed every year. Secondly, the collapse in construction permits and application signals a challenging outlook beyond 2026. This trend cannot be quickly reversed due to the long lead times and bureaucracy hurdles involved. Moreover, the population in major cities is expected to grow significantly with an additional 1.2 million inhabitants projected in Berlin, Munich and Hamburg alone. Disposable household income is also set to increase across all top 7 cities in Germany with the strongest annual growth anticipated in Munich and Frankfurt. There is less available evidence for Vienna and Prague. The trends are the same. All these factors will inevitably drive prices upward. We are, therefore, confident that the 3,000 apartments currently in our pipeline will continue to enjoy strong demand and full prices in the future. Back to Thomas.

Let me come to the end of our formal presentation and the last slide, Slide #12. It presents you with our outlook, which has not really changed from Q1. In the light of our very successful Q2, we expect a very soft Q3 as there has been hardly any movements during the summer months, while cost and refinancing do not make a break. Overall, 2024 will still see a significant loss reduction and liquidity prevails over profitability this year. Based on what we have presented you today, we believe that a return to profitability is achievable in 2025 with a bit of tailwind created by the indexation. There is a good chance for the pendulum to swing into the other direction in 2026 for those who have survived one of the worst real estate crisis in the last decade. There's still a way to go, and we hope to go together with you. May I thank you for your attention and now open the line for your questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from Philipp Sennewald with NuWays AG.

Maybe to start with a couple of quick ones on the disposals you made during the second quarter and already in the first quarter. So what were the average LTV on those disposals? And you mentioned in Q1, you sold them more or less at book value. Was this the same situation also in Q2?

So on the LTV, that is a difficult one, to be honest, because they are very, very different when it comes to LTVs. So when you look at the Polish assets, the LTV was roughly in the range of 50% to 60% because they were standings. When you look into the Czech Republic with the Sugar Palace, same applies to this one. If you look to W3, we had a very different situation because the external financing was rather low, but the internal financing, meaning shareholder loans, both from the side of the Raiffeisen Group and us were rather high, but I can't make a number there for you. In terms of book values, they were all close to the book value or on the book value. So no major effect on the P&L.

All right. And as you mentioned in the presentation, you wanted to achieve EUR 75 million cash inflow -- net cash inflow from your disposals in 2024. You already reached that now. So may I assume there will be no further disposals in H2? Or is there still something left in the pipeline?

Well, you could assume this, and it would be a very conservative assumption because we threw up this number because we knew that it is possible. What goes beyond this number, I would call it lucky when it comes to the year 2024. But as we have mentioned, we are determined to dispose off our standing assets in the foreseeable future and continue our efforts in this respect. With one restriction that I have to make, the hotel market is still on the ground. And while I know there has been a study by JLL that suggests, from the headline at least, a different view. It includes one major transaction. If you eliminate this transaction, you come to transaction volumes of EUR 20 million per transaction in Germany, for example, and that hints you that we are talking pretty small premises. So I don't want you to walk away with the hope that we can also dispose off our 4 hotels in the very near future. But we work on the rest, and we are confident that we have successes, but we don't kind of overpromise and under-deliver. We rather do it the other way around.

Yes. Perfect. Totally makes sense. Then on the disposal of the resi units, good first half of the year compared to last year. What is the trend you are seeing in the first month of the second half year? Do you expect the same development or even maybe an acceleration?

Well, before Patric jumps in, let me make the kind of cautionary statements that we used to make, but now don't make any more. Revenue has a very limited kind of value for you because it depends very strongly if we sell something that we own. And if we sell something that we have at equity, that is a completely different number. So I make this cautionary statement. And while it is no kind of IFRS number, as we know, I would guide you more to the total output number as the number that gives you a good idea. Having said this, I hand over to Patric.

But if I go into question [indiscernible] more into the resi units we are selling, right?

Exactly, exactly.

Sorry, then I got the -- sorry, sorry.

So you are referring to Page 5 of the presentation. So what do we have coming over the year? I think the trend we are seeing there, we also feel confident that this trend will also be in the second half of the year because there are coming also some new projects onstream where we are selling. The summer months, I mean, I haven't seen yet the numbers for August, of course, because not over yet, but the summer months are also a little bit lower as people are on holiday. But even in this lower phase, we have sold at least something which is different to the last year. So we see an upward trend. We hope that this will prevail over the second quarter. And I wouldn't say that this accelerates dramatically or something. So let's be cautious on this one, but we see a good trend, and we think that in the second half, we also have a better number than we had last year.

Perfect. And maybe one last question, if I may, on the Timber Pioneer. You teased us a bit in the beginning that you sent out a teaser in July and that you have good responses so far. Could you maybe elaborate a bit more on this? What are your expectations on that one? 2024 might be a bit too soon? Or how confident are you there?

Sure. Well, let me give you the fair numbers. We've sent out the 100 teasers, okay? And we got 38 NDAs, nondisclosure agreements, signed, okay? So that was much higher than we thought. And we are currently in, I wouldn't call them advanced talks because advanced talks is once they give you a nonbinding offer. But we are in further site visits and questions in connection with the data that we've given with 21 potential investors. So that's pretty strong response, and it proves that we were right in kind of starting this effort mid-summer. Why did we do so? Well, the reason is that we hope that '24 is not too early to talk about the sales, but that we will be able to sell Timber Pioneer, which is a trophy asset, and that is kind of the confidence with which I'm saying this within 2024, but too early, obviously, to really make a promise for that.

The next question is from Stefan Scharff with SRC Research.

I have a couple of questions. The first question is about the Timber Peak, Mainz, project. This will be completed in 1 year. And it's about 9,000 square meters office. Perhaps you can say here a little bit more about the rental situation? And the second question is about the LeopoldQuartier office and perhaps also here about the rental situation and the interest from the market. And my third question is, are there some more noncore asset sales to come in the second half of the year. The first half of the year was very successful, and perhaps you have 1 or 2 more items to sell in Poland or other countries.

Yes, tough questions as always, Stefan. Look, Timber Peak, as you pointed out, is 9,000 square meters and 9,000 square meters in Mainz is a difficult one already from the approach. Because you have to decide pretty early stage, if you talk to people who want to only rent fairly small number of square meters because that could kind of destroy the option for an anchor tenant. We do have POCs more the direction of anchor tenants, i.e., more the direction of somebody who's renting 2,000 to 3,000 square meters. The issue is, and it's not new, probably you know it from other conference calls that I listened in, like [indiscernible], now the situation is that it takes, as a guesstimate, 9 months from the first contact that you make with a potential tenant to signing the tenancy agreement and that's much longer than it used to be. It's clear why. Okay, everybody is waiting. Everybody has the option to stay. But again, we are confident to be able to provide you with some kind of concrete news over the course of this year. When it comes to LeopoldQuartier, the good news is we've rented out the most difficult space, which is the ground floor, to [ SPAR ] and it was at very reasonable terms, and it makes it also attractive for [ SPAR ] and we will also have a [indiscernible] there, which makes it attractive now for potential tenants to come in. Again, when it comes to office tenants, our tactics there is to rent out the most attractive office, which is usually the top floors, to preferably one tenant, okay? And with this, attract further tenants that take bigger chunks rather than go into micro-letting, which is nothing negative, but which makes it -- in a situation as we have today, it's even more difficult. And then your last question, I thought I would have answered it already. But we are prepared to offer attractive terms, which is our book values, as to the assets that you find on Slide 26. However, if you compare the EUR 370 million with the previous presentations number, it was EUR 460 million. The difference is 20%. So give us a bit of credit for what we have achieved. And we understand and I'm grateful first because most of our top managers are listening into the call, if not now, then tonight or tomorrow night and they see what pressure we are getting from your side to be even more successful. Still in an environment as we have it today, where sales are still pretty rare, I think it can be appreciated what we have achieved. And admittedly, what we have achieved faster than we thought we would have achieved it.

Okay. Okay. I see. One more question about your balance sheet. You improved your LTV and also a little bit improved your equity ratio. So the Fed and also the ECB might bring now lower interest rates after the summer break or introduce to the market somewhat lower interest rates. So perhaps the autumn, that means it could be a good window for, let's say, bond placement in the range of EUR 50 million or up to EUR 100 million or something. Is this a chance for you also to open up your financial scope?

Stefan, good question. Of course, we are looking into what is a good window of opportunity in the bond market. So my currently reading of the market is the headwind we have seen in the market for animals like us, which is a nonrated guy with a volume, which is normally not benchmark size, has gone better and has become better over the last few months. So whatever is coming up in terms of ECB, Fed and all these kind of things, might help, I agree. Because currently the market is seeing there rather that interest rates will go down and not up. And we will see and being prepared to shoot whenever we see a window appearing, which is good for us because we know we have to go into the market sooner or later.

Yes, you have a stable -- very stable balance sheet, but perhaps, yes, it might be not a bad idea to use some kind of opportunity if it occurs. So there's a lot of uncertainty in economic-wise or political-wise, but let's see what happens during the second half of the year.

Exactly. But there might come a window. Let's see.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from Philip Hettich with RBI.

Just one question from my side. In the release, you stated that you have sold a partial stake in LeopoldQuartier Part A. I was just wondering what the rationale was behind it given the strong cash position that you have right now? And also, maybe if you can specify a bit more of the impact on the results and the cash position from just that transaction?

Philip, I take that question. So rationale behind that. I mean selling something to the company which is also doing a construction piece in it is currently, I would say, in the market not something unusual. Because as Thomas has pointed out, pressure is quite high in the construction industry. They are keen to get constructions, and we are the ones sitting on that button and can decide on this one. The rationale behind that is not a big cash position because it was some cash in, but it was not a big one. But we have to see that there is a financing coming up, meaning that the balance sheet is used because we get more and more on the balance sheet due to the fact that this is in construction currently. So one rationale was to have also the balance sheet shortened. And the other one was that this was an opportunity just because it was one of the few things where we have seen that we can do something quickly.

Okay. Okay. But can you quantify the impact on LTV from that side? Or is it too minor?

No, it is not too minor, I would say, but I have to calculate that quickly in my head. It's probably 1 percentage point on this one or 1.5. It will be bigger in the future, because we got some cash in and we got some debt, which is now on that equity.

And Philip, as you are from Vienna, take the time or go out to close to [indiscernible] and see how it's growing. And I mean, growing means it is eating up also cash going forward. And if you have somebody with whom you share this, that's advantageous to bring back the point, liquidity over profitability. And it's very much living up to our strategy, and I think you can blame us of a lot of things but not that we don't walk the talk. And so that is a logical one that we do, but you're absolutely right. We are also sharing, of course, potential profits in the future with this.

Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference over to Thomas Winkler, CEO, for closing remarks.

Thank you for bearing with us. As I said, it doesn't feel as if summer is over yet. At least in Vienna, we get 24 degrees. And we hope, okay, that the market is developing the direction which it is hinting to. And we hope that Mr. Powell lives up to his kind of indications that he made the other day in Jackson Hole, not so much because we think it will change the game completely, but it changes definitely the mood. And I hope we could put this across to you, and we are not known as hopeless optimists from the past, that our mood has been lightening up. And I hope that we've lightened up your mood as well with our half year figures. And with this, all the best and have a good day.