Tekfen Holding AS

IST:TKFEN.E

Earnings Call Transcript 2019-Q1

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Tekfen 2019 First Quarter Results Conference Call. I will now hand you over to Mr. Çaglar Gülveren. Sir, please go ahead.

[Çaglar Gülveren, executive]

Thank you, Izam. This is Çaglar, IR Director of Tekfen Holdings. Welcome to our call. We have top management, presidents of group companies and vice presidents together with us, and we start with the Q&A session as usual. Now I hand over back to Izam to take the first question.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Selim Kunter from Deniz Invest.

[Selim Kunter, analyst]

I just want to touch base on the business climate in Middle East in terms of competition for new projects and project availability, for that matter. If you could just give us some color on that. And this -- my second question is going to be on your guidance. When we make an adjustment for the claim income to your revised figures, it seems like there is -- then it seems like you are guiding down your expectations for the Construction unit. I was just wondering what the rationale behind this was.

[Unknown Executive]

Thanks for the question. The answer of your first 2 questions. First off, yes, Middle East is a bit unstable. But directly, we have not received anything negative as we are closely monitoring. And still, we are bidding the project in the Middle East. Secondly, our revised projection is more or less the guidance of our plan if you take off the claims and the variations from our margin, more or less, the margin is about 11%. We are trying to maintain the same figure for the end of the year. Thank you.

[Selim Kunter, analyst]

Just to follow up on that. Were you expecting any claim income in your previous guidance?

[Unknown Executive]

As you know, in Contracting business, there are -- daily, the things may change. And I cannot, right at the moment, make any commitment that we will get any claims for our existing projects, but we are working. Based on our scope, if any change, of course, we will ask for additions from the client.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Murat Ignebekcili from HSBC.

[Murat Ignebekcili, analyst]

Your current backlog stands at $2.3 billion. You're reiterating that your target is to maintain $3 billion level. And this means that, for the remainder of the year, you should be -- in order to reach $3 billion, you need to circle around $2 billion of new jobs. So how does the amount look like? I mean, do you expect any imminent new project awards in the second quarter or third quarters? If you can elaborate, please. And second question is about FX holdings you have. When I compare the FX holdings in consolidated terms, it seems to have decreased from $240 million to $190 million or something that is found in the -- on Page 32 of the footnotes. Despite the one-off income of $100 million, this figure is lower on quarter-on-quarter basis. Did you convert any dollars to Turkish liras during the quarters?

[Unknown Executive]

Let me try to answer your question regarding the Contracting group. Yes, right at the moment for the end of the first quarter, our expectation is still about the $3 billion. And we know that it's not $3 billion but less than $3 billion projects is expected to be awarded second and third and the fourth quarter. If second quarter -- because we have submitted billions and billions U.S. dollar tender, and the evaluation is going on. If any change, we will let you know at the second quarter, if any change for expectation of our backlog.

[Operator]

Mr. Murat, does that answer your question?

[Murat Ignebekcili, analyst]

Yes, that answers my first question but not the second question. The second question is about FX holdings. Any change in FX holdings on quarterly terms, I was asking?

[Çaglar Gülveren, executive]

The only conversion is at group level in the Agri segment, where they we paid dividends to the holdings, converting the dollars to lira and paying that, and we paid dividends actually later on. But the overall dollars position is -- has increased.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from [ Kubilai Akazan ].

[Unknown Analyst]

Your expected large U.S. dollar exchange rate is now TRY 5.56 for 2019. And when we look at the 2019 expected figures from this position for the U.S. dollar exchange rate is almost TRY 5.9 or TRY 6 now. Can you say that the end-of-year figures, like revenues, EBITDA and net profit, are underestimated or on the conservative side?

[Çaglar Gülveren, executive]

Well, we are being sometimes being criticized for that assumption for the dollar-lira rate. But in our -- at the beginning of the year, for 2019, the assumed rate was TRY 6 per $1. And the level of lira for the period was like around TRY 5.25 or so. So we were being criticized for incorporating a high level of dollar-lira rate. Now we think the range is flat for full year after the end of the quarter because we don't know in which direction the rates will go -- change. So in a couple of weeks, now it's over TRY 5.56. But we don't know what it's going to be for the whole year. So that's why it seems to be safe, conservative now if you look at the current rate. And if the realized rate for the full year will be higher than TRY 5.56, of course, especially because of the Contracting segments, revenues are all in dollar terms, all the figures will go up.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Kerem Tezcan from Citigroup.

[Kerem Tezcan, analyst]

My question is about Agri. By looking at the increasing prices and evolving growth and considering that you didn't change your guidance for the full year, do you think these figures put them upside risk to your forecast, to your guidance for the Agri business? And the follow-up question on fertilizer segment is, when you look at the EBITDA margin in the first Q, it's slightly lower than the average EBITDA margin in 2018. What are the major drivers for that?

[Hakan Göral, executive]

So thank you for the question. This is Hakan. First of all, when it comes to guidance, it's been only 3 months -- or actually 2 months of following guidance. You are thinking that it's too early t make a revision on the guidance. As you can see from the actuals, the volume of the fertilizers have been higher in comparison with what has been targeted, where, in return for the terminal business, the profitability on the terminal has been lower than what has been targeted. When it comes to profitability rate, it's mainly, I will say, a normalization issue. It's thinking about the appreciation of our Turkish lira following November, December, January, where we had our raw materials in inventories with that exchange rates and trying to sell them in a strict market. Basically, we have had high-priced inventories, therefore loss with our selling prices. So it's the major reason following the lower profitable period compared with the last year. And then also another thing that has contributed to the lower profitability, of course, is being the lower volume of terminal business, which is having a positive impact on the overall profitability of the Agri business.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] We have no more questions for the moment. Dear speakers, back to you for the conclusion.

[Çaglar Gülveren, executive]

Thank you, Izam, and thank you for joining us today. Please note that our second quarter results will be released on 1st of August. And I wish you all have a nice day and weekend.

[Operator]

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