Hellenic Exchanges Athens Stock Exchange SA

ATHEX:EXAE

Earnings Call Analysis

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q3

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Mina, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Athens Exchange Group conference call to present and discuss the third quarter 2023 financial results. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]

At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Nikolaos Koskoletos, CFO; and Mr. Stelios Konstantinou, Head of Investor Relations. Gentlemen, you may now proceed.

[Stelios Konstantinou, executive]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and good morning to those of you listening to us from the other side of the Atlantic. We would like to present the financial results of the group for the 9 months of 2023, which were published yesterday and are available on the IR section of our website, and then take any questions that you might have.

I will now give the floor over to our CFO for some comments before we go through the numbers. Nick?

[Nikos Koskoletos, executive]

Thank you, Stelios. So good afternoon, and good evening to all. So what did we have in the 9 months of 2023? Average daily traded value increased by 36% to EUR 107 million versus EUR 79 million in the same period of last year. Specifically, market activity started the year strong with first quarter activity at almost EUR 113 million. The second quarter held up at EUR 109 million and maintained this performance. Q3 was a bit softer at almost EUR 100 million. But that, compared to last year's low base last year Q3 of 2022, I'll just to remind you, at EUR 56 million. And also Q4 of last year was considerably softer in terms of trading activity, and that was at EUR 59 million compared to 2023 run rate. So we expect some strong performance by comparison in the last quarter of this year.

October, as you probably know very well, came in at EUR 92.4 million, and November is running at EUR 183 million, obviously boosted by the placement of the 22% stake of NBG by the HFSF at the end of last week and the other -- and another 9% stake of Alpha Bank that crossed the market on November 13. Adjusting for those, the run rate for November stands at the mid-EUR 80 million level, still a respectable figure when compared to last year's figures and given the overall market backdrop.

The average market cap stood 26% higher in the 9-month period compared to last year. And then obviously, the listed banks right now have been outperforming and the market capital has increased by 59%, while the rest of the market is edging 20%. Just to give you through your notes, and these are very public numbers, but I think it makes sense to just have them in comparison, last year's average market cap in September was just under EUR 60 billion, whereas now we're hovering around the EUR 85 billion mark.

On our numbers, operating expenses are up 10%, and that's lower than the 15% run rate in the first half and the 19.5% run rate. So basically confirming our guidance that the rate of increase will subside as the year progresses and you can see that when you look at the quarterly figures. Personnel costs are up as a headline figure at 24%. But one thing that we should stress out here is that our policy has changed from the beginning of the year and the 9-month figure effectively incorporates the provision that we have on the back of our remuneration policy with regard to the variable pay that we accrue throughout the year, given the operating performance as per our remuneration policy.

A like-for-like -- as opposed to last year where we would book that figure at the fourth quarter, so we have chosen to streamline and make it -- and smooth out the effect. A like-for-like comparison would suggest a run rate of just over 17% in Q1, 14% in Q2 and 12% in Q3. So the overall number at the 9-month period would be at 14% versus the headline of 24%. Other than that, as discussed, we expect OpEx overall for the year to near a double-digit figure. On CapEx, we have fallen a bit behind, hence, the underspending so far this year. We have picked up the pace in the fourth quarter and expect to end the year close to maybe EUR 3 million. And we will be executing the remaining in the beginning of 2024 of our plan, along with the additional items planned for next year.

I think it's important to stress now that we expect the government will soon introduce some new pieces of legislation that, in effect, reduces the sales tax and will give companies some tax credits on the listing costs. And obviously, last but not least, we're actively engaging with potential candidates for listing on the Exchange, especially the large potential ticket as discussed with the airport, and that can be, we believe, is a catalyst and would -- should bring investors, even more investors back to the Greek market.

We are focused on increasing trading activity in order to break the vicious circle that we have highlighted that the market has been trapped in. In our strategy, there are 3 elements at this point that we envision that will spearhead this initiative. One is the upgrade of our IT infrastructure in order to reduce trading latency. And then obviously, that, coupled with a new pricing policy that will incentivize more active participation in the continuous market and deepen our order book, we believe will eliminate friction in our market microstructure. And on top of that, we are revisiting our pure risk management, which we believe could truly alleviate increased costs for our members and induce more trading activity.

Our proposed rule book changes envision a more strict adherence to minimum free float requirement, and we believe as well, will help in bolstering market activity. And we are consistently discussing with stakeholders as part of our efforts to regain developed market status while both improving our revenue from services and at the same time, achieving to become more efficient in terms of our operating model.

Our marketing efforts to promote the Greek capital market and broaden the investor base are ongoing. Next week, as you probably know, we'll be organizing our annual roadshow in London together with Morgan Stanley where we have over 30 listed companies that will have the opportunity to present their case to investors.

I'll stop here, and I'll let Stelios go through our performance in more detail, and we'll be happy to take any questions at the end of the call. Stelios?

[Stelios Konstantinou, executive]

Thank you, Nick. So let's start with the overview of our numbers of our 9-month 2023 financial performance from the top. The consolidated turnover of the group in the 9 months of 2023 was EUR 34.4 million compared to EUR 29.3 million in the 9-month period of last year, up 18%. And to dive a little deeper, we can see that trading-based revenue, i.e., from trading and post-trading, was up 30% on the back of a 36% increase in the average diluted value in the cash market in the 9-month period of this year compared to last year. Market cap-based revenue, i.e., from listings and services issuance, was up 12% on a 26% increase in the average capitalization of the market and revenue from services, that is to say, data services, IT, digital and some ancillary services, was down 2.8%.

So looking at the revenue lines in more detail, we see that revenue from trading represents 19% of total consolidated turnover. And in the 9-month period, it was up 36% to EUR 6.4 million compared to EUR 4.7 million last year. Revenue from post-trading made up 44% of total turnover and amounted to EUR 15.1 million compared to EUR 11.8 million in the 9 months of last year, up 27% on the back of higher trading activity in both the cash and derivatives markets.

As far as revenue from the derivative market, both trading and post-trading is concerned in the month period this year, trading activity measured by the average daily number of contracts increased by 27% to 46,800 contracts compared to 36,800 last year. Revenue from derivatives was up 42% with the average earnings per contract up 9% at EUR 0.238 compared to EUR 0.219 last year.

Our fees, as you know, for derivative contracts depend on the type of investor, product being traded and the [ prices ] of the underlying securities. And as a result, market volumes and our revenue rarely go hand-in-hand. Lastly on derivatives, trading and post-trading revenue in the 9 months of this year was EUR 2.1 million compared to EUR 1.5 million, corresponding to 10% of total trading and post-trading revenue.

Revenue from listing makes up 12% of our turnover, and this line includes the quarterly subscription fees paid by listed companies, fees on rights issues, IPOs and other services to issuers and amounted to EUR 4.1 million, up 12% compared to the 9 months of last year. Revenue from data services makes up 8% of total turnover and includes the fees that we collect from data vendors for the provision of Athex market data. The fees that we collect from market data that depend essentially on the number of data terminals to which these data vendors disseminate our market data to, and in the 9 months of 2023, they were up 5%. We have been gradually increasing our data fee prices, and this is being reflected in our increased revenue.

Revenue from IT, digital and other services makes up 13% of turnover and includes revenue from digital services, infrastructure and technological solutions to the Energy Exchange Group and to Boursa Kuwait. And this category also includes revenue from services such as electronic book building, the AXIAline services, AXIA e-Shareholders Meeting, Colocation and some others. Revenue from this line overall was down [ 7.4% ] to EUR 5 million compared to EUR 5.4 million last year.

Finally, revenue from ancillary services makes up 2.4% of total turnover. And in the 9 months of 2023, it was down 3.6%. Ancillary services include revenue from support services to the energy exchange, rental income and some others.

Moving now to the expense side. Total operating expenses increased by 10% in the 9 months of 2023 at EUR 18.6 million compared to EUR 16.9 million. If we break down operating expenses, we see that personnel costs are up 24% in 2023 at EUR 10.7 million compared to EUR 8.6 million. However, as Nick mentioned, the 2023 figure includes a bonus provision of EUR 1.2 million, whereas the corresponding provision in 2022 was booked in the fourth quarter. And on a like -- thus, on a like-for-like basis, personnel costs are actually up 14%.

All other expenses dropped by about EUR 390,000, i.e., by 4.6%. The notable increases in other operating expenses which are up 20% due to increases in promotion expenses and a EUR 100,000 donation on the back of the wildfires this past summer and the floods in the region of Thessaly in Central Greece. Overall, utility costs are down 3% with energy costs normalizing. Electricity costs were EUR 780,000 in the 9 months of 2023 compared to EUR 1.1 million in the 9-month period of last year, down 28%.

Personnel, remuneration and expenses account for 57% of total operating expenses versus 51% in 2022. And head count at the group at the end of September was 253 compared to 234 at the end of the same period last year.

Turning now to the bottom line. The earnings before interest and taxes of the group increased by 49% to EUR 11.5 million compared to EUR 7.7 million in the 9 months of last year. In the 9 months of last year, we booked extraordinary income of EUR 625,000, which resulted from a favorable court judgment concerning the return of tax and penalties that were assessed following the tax audit for fiscal year 2008, 2009 and 2010. We have appealed to have a further EUR 270,000 return and are waiting on the ruling, hopefully, sometime next year.

Thus, the net after-tax earnings of the group amounted to EUR 9.6 million, up 41% compared to the 9-month period of last year on a reported basis. On an adjusted basis, i.e., excluding the EUR 600,000, I just mentioned, the extraordinary tax return, earnings after tax were up 55%. In 2023 and 2022, we had no changes. The nominal corporate income tax rate was 22%. The effective tax rate on consolidated earnings in the 9 months of this year was 22.6% compared to 22.5% in the 9 months of last year.

And finally, a note on the balance sheet. The cash and cash equivalents of the group on September 30, 2023, were EUR 59.4 million compared to EUR 60.6 million at the end of 2022.

And with this comment, this concludes our remarks on the 9-month financial results of the group, and we'll be happy to take any questions that you might have.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from the line of Ismailou, Eleni with Axia Ventures.

[Eleni Ismailou, analyst]

Congratulations for this set of results. The first one is with regard to OpEx. I just wanted to clarify, if we analyze the first 9 months of the year, we derived something like EUR 25 million of expenses for the full year. Is that the right way to think about full year expenses at this point given the bonus accrual accounting treatment introduced in 2Q? Or should we expect a small uptick in expenses in the 4Q?

And also, you mentioned during the call some tax improvements for investors. So I was wondering how should we think of the mix between international and local investors going forward also on the back of, let's say, on the way [ DM ] status?

[Nikos Koskoletos, executive]

Okay. So thank you, Eleni, for the questions. On the first one, no, I think what we mentioned before about a high single-digit nearing a double-digit figure, I think that should be kept in mind for the overall OpEx for the year in the fourth quarter. There's always things that you -- either services that you are looking on taking on to hit the ground running for the next year and there's that seasonality in the fourth quarter as well. So as I mentioned, the run rate that -- for the year-end should be what I mentioned before as we pursue whatever the annualization that you suggested. That's one.

Two, the tax revenues that I mentioned before with regard to companies that wish to list and predominantly to smaller companies with regard to any preparation that they need to do in order to become -- to have the structure and the advisory fees or any other fees that relate to the process of listing, upon those, we have been pushing for quite a while now, and it seems that we have had a breakthrough of those expenses being either tax deductible or being utilized as credits.

And when I mention tax deductible, I mean to actually have an overdeductibily capacity, so effectively operating as credit. And it's not related to investors per se. So I hope that kind of covers your question with regard to a potential misperception with regard to investors and not the listing companies that it actually applies to.

[Eleni Ismailou, analyst]

Yes. This is very clear now. Just one follow-up, if I may. With regard to EBITDA margin expansion, how should we think of it in the other quarters? The fact that we anticipate revenues to keep growing as we have, there's a lot going on, and we expect a lot to keep going on in the coming quarters.

[Nikos Koskoletos, executive]

Yes. So we're trying to keep up with all those good developments that you are mentioning. In order for us to do so, there are 3 particular areas that we have to pay attention to. One is our competitiveness as an employer; two, because we do need the staff and the skill set required in order to be able to deliver and be able to capitalize on all the good developments that are happening. Two, on that regard, specifically on the IT side, given the investments that we're seeking to make on the upgrading of our trading system and then the change in the architecture of our post-trading system as well, in order to create a more contemporary architecture on those, you do need that talent. So we need to spend money on that.

And then third is with what is called the defense side of it. One, we're a listed company. Two, we are a highly regulated entity throughout our 3 companies on the trading and both on the post-trading side, with the CCP and the CSD. And so even that regulatory -- increasing regulatory pressure that we do have, given all the developments that are taking place, we need to always ensure that we have the capacity to be able to deliver on that. So that said, we do not envision in any way that our operating expenditure base will effectively outpace revenue in no means. If any, we do expect next year to have some sort of additional inflation. But I think we are coming to the point and within 2024, we will be somewhat completing all the adjustments required in terms of our remuneration, technology and expenditure base in order to have the rest of the benefits and vision for the medium term basically impact the EBITDA margin even more pronouncedly as we go forward as volumes increase with all the good things that we are expecting.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to management for any closing comments.

[Stelios Konstantinou, executive]

Thank you all for listening in to our earnings call. We'll be happy, of course, to talk to you in private, if you'd like, and have a great afternoon, and thank you again for participating.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference has now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for calling, and have a good afternoon.