Azimut Holding SpA

MIL:AZM

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q1

[Operator]

Good afternoon. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the Azimut Holding First Quarter 2023 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]

At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Gabriele Blei, CEO of Azimut Holding. Please go ahead, sir.

[Gabriele Blei, executive]

Thank you very much and good afternoon or good morning, depending where you are. We'll go through the usual presentation as quickly as possible and then leave you time for Q&A.

So if we start from Slide #4, just a quick snapshot of the key figures of the first quarter 2023. EUR 2.6 billion of net inflows, of which 2/3 have been in managed assets with -- including April, this number has reached EUR 2.8 billion. EUR 323 million of total revenues, of which 87% are management fees and EUR 150 million of EBIT, which is the highest-recurrent EBIT number in our history. And finally, an adjusted net profit of EUR 127 million with a consistent profit margin and we'll come in a minute to explain why this number is adjusted to reflect the one-off tax charge.

So turning to the tax charge. We have signed a tax settlement with the Italian tax agency for a claim related to some intercompany transactions for a period between 2016 and 2021. As some of you may recall back in 2015, we have agreed on a transfer pricing and cost fee methodology, closing debate we had with the tax authorities here in Italy between these 2 aspects on Italian/foreign subsidiaries. So as it is customary, the tax authorities came back some years back later, and we basically fine-tuned the original model based on the dynamics that have occurred since 2015. This has resulted in a one-off tax charge of EUR 26.4 million for a 6-year period under review, which equates to roughly speaking, EUR 4 million per year.

On the bottom part of the chart, we have reconstructed the tax charge as well as the net profit per year on how this would have impacted based on the settlement we have agreed.

Moving to Slide #6, this is the usual snapshot of assets and flows. I would like to stress the fact that managed assets are increasing both on an absolute and average basis by 7% or 6% on average terms. As we can see on the bottom chart -- bottom part of the chart, EUR 2.6 billion of flows, of which almost EUR 2 billion into managed products, which is mainly driven by the private markets and life insurance business activities.

Moving to Slide #7. This is the usual breakdown of the flows per country or per macro area. You can see EUR 400 million out of Italy, which basically discount also some outflows from some institutional mandates, typically in money market products that are seeing some outflows these days. In the EMEA region, a good performance of almost EUR 300 million out of Turkey, offsetting some outflows out of Switzerland for roughly speaking, EUR 100 million. And APAC is positive, thanks to strong development out of Australia. As far as the Americas are concerned, we are benefiting from some intermediate closing from some of the GP Partners we are invested in, as well as a good development of the flows out of our Sanctuary distribution system in the U.S. And these are offsetting partly the outflows due to some market turbulences out of Brazil for EUR 460 million, which we will be then explaining in a second. Acquisition of Kennedy Capital make up the bulk of the M&A transaction we have completed in Q1 and this leads us to EUR 2.6 billion.

If you take Slide #8, this is what happens since the -- what has now been renamed the Americanas Day, i.e., when that has been the default of one of the largest distributor in Brazil in the consumer goods sector. This has triggered a significant credit fund outflows, you can see this of almost R$ 100 billion year-to-date or roughly speaking, R$ 2 billion per day, which is quite the opposite before the occurrence of this event. As it is always the case, this negative effect have contaminated the market as a consequence and we are among the ones that did not have any exposure to Lojas Americanas. But given the good performance, we are also suffering some outflows out of our credit products.

Moving to Slide #9, total assets by region. Not a big change since the latest update with the full year results in March. I would say pretty stable development across the region with 43% of total assets belonging to the international development.

If you move to Slide #10, AuM in Italy at EUR 46.9 billion, a progression of EUR 700 million vis-a-vis the end of 2022, which is explained. I would say, 50% by inflows and 50% by the positive market effect. As far as the evolution of the international business, EUR 3 billion more than at the end of 2022 thanks to, again, positive flows and market performance. By now, U.S., Australia and Brazil are accounting for 75% of our total assets in the international market.

Q1 growth in revenues on Slide #11, you can see a quarterly progression of the total revenues, especially Q1 2023 has had an increase of more than EUR 9 million versus Q4. I will focus my attention on the quarterly progression since many de-consolidation or change in perimeter has occurred vis-a-vis Q1, so it is probably more meaningful to press the quarterly development.

So moving to the bottom part, the revenue breakdown and starting from management fees, you can see a progression of EUR 12.9 million Q1 versus Q4, of which EUR 8 million is explained, thanks to our liquid products, EUR 1.2 million from the private market segment and EUR 3 million coming from the foreign business, of which a good EUR 2 million from the change in perimeter. So indeed, a significant and solid development on the management fee level at a quarter-per-quarter basis.

Performance fees of EUR 4 million, slightly lower than in Q4 2022. We also given by the quite turbulent first quarter market environment. The fulcrum mechanism accounts for EUR 1.3 million. Our international business for EUR 2.3 million, thanks to a good development in terms of performance out of Turkey.

Our life insurance business has increased from EUR 22.7 million to EUR 29.1 million, a delta of EUR 6.4 million. of which EUR 1 million from our recurrent business and slightly more than EUR 5 million from performance fees.

Lastly, on the other income lines, which are lower Q-on-Q and end up at EUR 8.3 million. This is basically due to the fact that we have booked lower fees coming from our investment banking businesses as well as lower client activities from the asset management point of view.

Moving to Slide #12 on the cost and EBIT development. Total cost of -- sorry, EUR 176.6 million in Q1, down 3% versus Q4. In terms of the major breakdown, distribution costs are -- have increased by 3% to EUR 96.6 million, of which a portion is explained by the development of our revenues and this is pretty consistent in terms of higher recurring fees that translate into the 40% rebate that we provide to our financial advisers here in Italy. While we have benefited in the quarter from some savings with some outsources, which is -- can be roughly accounted for EUR 1 million per quarter, which are offsetting higher social security costs that we typically have in the first quarter due to the seasonality effect.

SG&A, EUR 75.7 million, down 5% vis-a-vis Q4, EUR 3 million less. This is basically related to lower variable compensation abroad while we have a positive effect as far as the change in perimeter is concerned. Italy in the SG&A line has remained flat Q-on-Q.

Lastly, on the provision and depreciation, we have a drop of EUR 9 million Q-on-Q. This is related to the positive impact coming from the release of some provisions we had for some legal cases that did not materialize. This, therefore, translates into an EBIT of EUR 149.6 million in the quarter, up 7% year-over-year or 46% of EBIT margin. And clearly, this is benefiting from the release of the provisions that we have mentioned before. And obviously, this on a normalized level, I would say that we are pretty much consistent, if not slightly higher in terms of EBIT margin.

Net profit of EUR 127 million adjusted or EUR 101 million non-adjusted, which takes into account the EUR 26.4 million tax settlement that we have mentioned before. And again, this translates into 49 basis points as net profit margin, which is at the higher end vis-a-vis the previous 2 quarters or 62 basis points, if one takes into account the tax settlement.

Moving to Slide #14, we have the usual breakdown in terms of AuM. No major change there. Probably much more important, the underlying asset, where you see a significant drop in our cash component in favor of our fixed income exposure and this is basically explained as a short covering on our sovereign bond exporter mainly in -- out of Europe.

Moving to Slide 15. The long -- medium-term weighted average performance development, still positive by 8.4% vis-a-vis an industry of 6.2%.

Slide 16, private markets, the breakdown. We are standing at EUR 6.8 billion, of which the private debt component is explained by 56%. Private equity stands at almost 20%, growing real estate or infrastructure fund, thanks to some closing that we will comment in a minute. And then the rest of the split is still pretty much consistent, 55% Italy, 45% international, mainly our U.S. business. Thanks to the inflows in April, we are standing at EUR 6.9 billion of flows and this is despite the negative FX component of euro versus the U.S. dollar.

As you can see on the bottom part, by now, the bulk, if not the vast majority of our network has been activated vis-a-vis selling private market products. There is, although, still significant room when it comes to our client base.

Overview on some of the selected products in the private market space, we closed in Q1 our multi-strategy in the private debt segment for EUR 55 million. Alps Blockchain, a Club Deal on clean energy powered by mining farms for EUR 45 million. And then obviously, the exposure from our GP Partners in the U.S. and Europe for EUR 300 million.

We continue to be quite active in the product launches as well as expecting some closing of some funds that have been out there for some time by now and you can see some of the examples here in the slide.

Moving to Slide 18, this is a very new product we have presented last week to the market. It's an evergreen fund, ESG compliant on historical cars that we are quite proud to be some of -- one of the unique player in the market to have a fund with these characteristics. It is evergreen because it does not have a duration, so people will be able to access the fund as well as redeem the money at some point in time. And it has 4 investment strategy pillars: buy and hold, restoration, collections as well as parts.

Moving to the financials, I will leave the floor to Alessandro for the usual comments.

[Alessandro Zambotti, executive]

Thank you, Gabriele.

And we can now move to Slide 20. Here, we have the first part of the P&L. Starting from the operating profit, so the bottom of the first part of the P&L, we have a positive variation of EUR 40 million that we compare the results to the first quarter '22, as we already commented the evolution comparing to the last quarter '22. So the positive EUR 40 million are realized, thanks to our total revenue that are almost in line with the first quarter '22, but we have operating costs that decreased by EUR 50 million.

Looking to the total revenue. As you can see, we have a positive variation of EUR 27 million on the management fee, but also, if we take out the contribution of Sanctuary of EUR 22 million that characterized the first quarter of '22, we have a positive variation of EUR 50 million, thanks on one side from the introduction of the new distribution that we already disclosed in the past. By EUR 35 million is the contribution, but also thanks to the increase in terms of AuM, the recurring revenue from the Luxembourg hub contribute with EUR 5.5 million. And also thanks to the international business, in particular from the Australia, we have as well a positive contribution of EUR 10 million.

Looking to the variable fees, we already commented EUR 4 million compared to the EUR 33 million of the first quarter '22 where we had the crystallization of the previous mechanism. The EUR 4 million are coming from Luxembourg hub with EUR 1.3 million and the rest from the international business. The other income decreased by EUR 4.2 million. , we should consider that in the first quarter '22, we have the brokerage fees, so the contribution again of Sanctuary with EUR 3.6 million. Therefore, the variation is almost in line with the first quarter.

And then the insurance revenue with a positive variation of EUR 6.3 million. And as we already commented, EUR 6 million are coming from the performance fees plus the increase of the recurring fees by EUR 0.3 million.

And then moving to the cost side, distribution cost as a valuation of EUR 24 million negative. Again here, we have now, in this case, the contribution of Sanctuary with EUR 21 million. So the other effect, the other EUR 3 million are coming from additional savings that we already start to put in place on our Italian network that generates the additional positive variation in terms of minor costs.

So on the other side, on Personnel and SG&A, we have EUR 30 million increasing compared to the first quarter '22. Again here, if we also consider the fact that there is not anymore the contribution of Sanctuary, the revaluation is EUR 19 million. And this is again explained on one side coming from the increase of the international business. As you know, again also focusing on the Australian side in line with the evolution of the recurring fees and linked to the change in perimeter. Therefore, the rest of the valuation is explained by positive effect. It's the one-off effect that was booked in the first quarter '22 that's not realized in the first quarter '23.

Then moving to the second part of the P&L. Here, I would say that we have no particular variation to explain except the finance income. As you can see, we have a significant positive effect of around EUR 28 million. The contribution is a mix of FX. And just per the notes, we have the dividend from the GP. We have value option effect, but also a positive unrealized gain on our own investment of our liquidity. And on the other side, we have the significant variation of the income tax, but we already explained the reason and the amount that affected this quarter '23.

So then moving to the net financial position. We have a positive net financial position of around EUR 350 million. That is increase compared to December '22 by EUR 55 million and the variation is simply explain taking in consideration the net profit before tax of the group, so EUR 173 million. I would say that we should take out the unrealized effect, that optimal count at around EUR 20 million. Therefore, we should consider a net profit of EUR 145 million that netted by the EUR 90 million of M&As and investments give us the more or less the valuation of EUR 55 million compared to December 31st.

I'm going to leave back to Gabriele for the last part.

[Gabriele Blei, executive]

Thank you very much, Alessandro.

So we just have one final slide, the -- that compares our targets with where we are. Clearly, we are not going to change for the time being our targets as it happened also last year with some market turbulence. We do think that it's important that we remain focused on delivering our strategic objectives. Clearly, we should probably crystallize some of the one-off effects that we have in Q1 tax charges, notably one as well as the one-off in the finance income, which would lead us probably to more something like EUR 105 million of industrial net profit, which is leading to EUR 420 million if one would multiply for the full year.

However, given that markets are quite unpredictable, we are maintaining our targets of EUR 450 million. As this is also true for our net inflow target of EUR 6 billion to EUR 8 billion and we stand at EUR 2.9 billion. We have a number of moving parts here, but a good development of the flows coming out of most of the regions in which we operate, probably the notable exception today is Brazil. But as we have seen in the past, since we operate in the country, things can change quite heavily from one quarter to the next in that country.

That's it from our side and we'll leave you time for Q&A.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from Hubert Lam with Bank of America.

[Hubert Lam, analyst]

Sorry, I was on mute there. I've got 3 questions.

Firstly, on fund flows. They've been soft year-to-date if you exclude private market inflows. In April, they even had outflows. With Brazil still driving the outflows in April? And if so, how many assets left in Brazil that can still come out over the next few months? And can you also talk about the fund flows in Italy, has there been a slowdown there? And have you seen evidence of clients switching into BTPs or deposits within Italy? That's the first question.

Second question is the implications of the tax settlement. Will this have implications on the tax rate going forward due to any new transfer pricing that you have to incorporate? So what's the guidance on tax rate going forward? And I noticed that also for the tax settlement, it's only up to 2021. So I was just wondering if there's a risk that you may have to revisit 2022 and make any changes there?

And the last question is on the change of perimeter on the management fees and the cost. I may have missed it, but can you tell us how much of the change of perimeter is added to management fees and added to G&A costs in the quarter? And also if we should look at the EUR 76 million of G&A cost as the run rate going forward for the rest of the year?

[Gabriele Blei, executive]

Sorry, Hubert.

So on fund flows year-to-date, EUR 2.8 billion in a quite challenging environment with the bulk of the money raised in managed assets where -- which compares to an industry that is raising for a number of different reasons, mainly into deposit or admin assets, with the interesting yield that one may get on BTPs is clearly a different environment to what we have lived in the last, I would say, 10 years. Clearly, we are not recommending our clients to invest too much of their money or I would say, better -- the least they can in Italian BTPs just because there is a distraction of value in real terms.

So the focus on private market is still the key. As you may imagine and we have argued this several times in the past, we are not fully showing on a month-per-month basis the activity of the network, given that we only close funds once or a couple of times during the life of the fundraising activity, so this is not truly reflected in the flows of the network or the international business.

So out of Italy, the network is in a decent development. Clearly, these days, the competition from deposits or kind of BTPs is somehow more significant than in the past. And especially, we had some outflows even of a significant size, hundreds of millions, coming from institutional mandates that were invested in some of our money market products that are taking the money out.

As far as Brazil is concerned, we are discounting an industry or a specific issue that happened there. We do think that some of the money that we have been losing will come back in the coming quarters. We do think that we have a very significant diversification in terms of product range across asset classes, which will be increasing for clients when they will decide to bring the money back. We do not expect the significant outflows that we have experienced which is as I said EUR 460 million up to March and has occurred again in April for another almost EUR 170 million will continue for the remainder of the year, but still volatility in emerging markets is something that we have appreciated in terms of positive or negative development. So it's a bit not very wise at least to speculate on when this trend will revert. What I can say is that we are investing very much on product diversification to be attractive for clients when things will normalize.

Implication on the tax settlement, no, there is -- there are no implications vis-a-vis the guidance. We remain with our revised guidance of 22% to 23% tax rate as our long-term trend. We do think that this exercise that we have gone through with the Italian fiscal agency is something of a regular process that they do, and we just fine-tuned some of the parameters behind the model and the methodology we agreed with them based on the development that the group had over the years in terms of expansion, in terms of importance, in terms of people and many other implications that have triggered this fine-tuning. There is -- we do not expect any risk as far as 2022 is concerned, given the exercise we have gone through with them in the last couple of months.

Changing perimeter, Ale, you have the numbers handy?

[Alessandro Zambotti, executive]

Well, from a recurring fees point of view in the international business, as I was saying before, the Australian business impacted by EUR 7.2 million. On the other side, at the level of cost, we have around EUR 6.5 million and then there is also to consider the evolution of the growth of the business.

[Hubert Lam, analyst]

Yes. Sorry, just a couple of follow-ups.

Just for the G&A, EUR 76 million in the quarter, should we look at that as the run rate for the rest of the year?

[Gabriele Blei, executive]

So we probably have started the year with something -- some cost efficiencies that have not kicked in and will kick in over the quarters. As we have had the chance to explain, once you start this exercise at the beginning of the year, it does not have an immediate effect on the one side. On the other side, we still have a change in perimeter that has impacted that number and it will have a development over the coming quarters.

We do live in an inflationary scenario, which to some extent we suffer especially on some IT and technological applications that we use. The expectation is to remain in that 5% to 7% range that we have mentioned in several occasions when it comes to SG&A cost growth excluding the change in perimeter. This is something that we can reconfirm at this stage.

[Hubert Lam, analyst]

Okay.

And sorry, I appreciate the answer from my first question around -- explaining around the asset inflows. Yes, my question was specifically around the funds, which only had up to year-to-date, EUR 30 million of inflows, which is, I guess, mostly explained by the outflow in Brazil?

[Gabriele Blei, executive]

Outflows from Brazil as well as outflows from the money market products that I was mentioning to you at the beginning. So the institutional mandates are not when it comes to money market products in discretionary accounts, but are typically invested in our funds.

[Operator]

The next question is from Elena Perini with Intesa Sanpaolo.

[Elena Perini, analyst]

Yes.

The first question is on your net finance income because it was quite high in this quarter. So I was wondering whether you can give us a guidance for the remaining part of the year? Could we consider this level as a run rate? I'm not sure about it because you are talking about the fair value of the options that you have on the minority stakes on the international business, if I am not wrong. And those ones are accounted for value. And if I remember correctly in the financial statement of 2022, they had a significant downgrading by evaluation.

And then about Brazil, you talked about the outflows that you had, but didn't you have any write-downs on your assets?

[Gabriele Blei, executive]

Thank you Elena.

So net finance income guidance, as you can imagine, in there, we have a number of things. Probably the most appropriate where we can provide some guidance is the GP stake in contribution because this is something that we have some sort of visibility, but that does not contribute for the vast majority of that line. The bulk of that line in Q1 has been unrealized capital gains on our investments, as you can imagine with the market development vis-a-vis Q4, which is covering, roughly speaking, EUR 20 million. And therefore, we struggled to provide guidance on that line because it would mean that we will have to take some sort of strong views on where the markets will be going and how we will be allocating our money invested in our product, which is once again not very -- not something that we would like to do. I would say that.

Then on the outflows of Brazil and write-downs, no we don't have to do any of that exercise. Consider that the Brazilian operations are still in positive cash flow contribution as far as profit generation. So we have no risk of any impairment whatsoever, whereas we have experienced already in the past some quarters of significant outflows, which have then been completely reversed in the following quarters or year when it comes to the upward trend in the market. This is -- I suspect that until we will have more clarity on what is going to happen around the default of that company, and therefore, the confidence from investors is rebuilt. We will live in a scenario in which probably credit products will not be very attractive. And one should also consider the fact that in Brazil, they are living with 13.75% interest rates in local terms, which is a Safe Harbor for some investors. So that's what we can say out of Brazil.

[Operator]

The next question is from Filippo Prini with Kepler.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from Filippo Prini.

[Filippo Prini, analyst]

I got 2 quick questions.

The first one is related to your time table, which is the top of Nova Asset Management. If you can share with us some update?

And the second is question related, if you receive any remuneration on your liquidity that you got on your current account?

[Gabriele Blei, executive]

Filippo, thank you for the question.

An update on Nova. We have filed the official application for the granting of the license of the company and in line with our expectations. And as you can remember, in March, we showed you the time line. So this has been done exactly as expected. We are going to be working with regulators in exchanging some of the questions and answers as usual. But given that the official filing has been a 3-year range in terms of having filed unofficially our applications and having gone through some of the preliminary questions that the regulator have, we expect at least that this should be handled smoothly. And once again, I always remind you that we have gone through this application process last year for our own asset management company in Ireland and actually, I'm pleased to say that we have already launched yesterday the first funds out of our Irish Asset Management Company.

Simultaneously, we are working with UniCredit in arranging the definitive agreements as well as working on the prospectus of the product that we should be launching for them and filing with the regulators within the next months to be able to start between end of Q4, beginning of Q1 2024.

On our cash positions, yes, we do get a remuneration, which is in the region of 2% to 2.5% for our cash position.

[Filippo Prini, analyst]

Just a follow-up if I may, sorry. It's already included in your Q1 figures of this remuneration, I guess?

[Gabriele Blei, executive]

Indeed. In the finance.

[Operator]

The next question is from Alberto Villa with Intermonte SIM.

[Alberto Villa, analyst]

Gabriele, a question on the insurance business. Just wondering if you are experiencing any significant outflow from Italian clients? We have seen some distributors that are experiencing some outflows. I was wondering if that's happening to you as well?

And out of the revenues you booked in the first quarter, if you can give us indication of what is recurring and what is maybe related to, let's say, variable fees?

[Gabriele Blei, executive]

Okay. Thank you Alberto.

On the insurance business, actually, we are on the opposite side of the industry that is experiencing outflows, especially because we are not engaged in the traditional insurance business, what is called the in Italy. But we're mainly focusing on unit-linked products that invest in funds and therefore, this is a line of business that has increased significantly last year. If I'm not mistaken, we had net inflows of EUR 0.5 billion for 2022 and this is a trend that has continued also in 2023 in the first quarter. So we are quite actually pleased with the fact that we had strategically decided to be in the unit-linked business and we had restructured our product range closing the gap vis-a-vis the industry in terms of ancillary coverages as well as products that we have. And more recently, we have also had the opportunity to allow the life insurance products to invest in our private market products, which is all consistent with our strategic long-term goals.

As far as the revenues, what are recurrent in the first quarter, I would say the bulk is recurrent. EUR 4 million of variable fees is nonrecurrent and then EUR 6 million of performance fees out of our insurance business is nonrecurrent. I would say that out of EUR 326 million, EUR 10 million is linked to variable fees or performance fees only.

[Alberto Villa, analyst]

Okay. And if I may, a second question is on the private market outlook for the U.S. Are you still, let's say actively looking at opportunities to grow? We have had, say a lot of happening in the financial industry especially for regional banks. Of course, nothing that is directly related to your business. But maybe there are opportunities or risk you see going forward in the private markets segment in the U.S., some concerns sometimes on the commercial estate exposure and so on. Just wondering if you can share with us your thoughts on that?

[Gabriele Blei, executive]

Well, certainly, I agree with you. It's a mixed bag in terms of upside and downside. If we look at our exposure, it is pretty diversified across asset classes and different vintages as well as different teams. So we don't rely too much on any single asset class or team of product. What we have seen lately, some products are still benefiting from a lot of interest from clients and our fund raising and actually, one of our partner firm is expecting to have to reach the higher end target that they set themselves as far as the third fund raising -- of the third fund. Whereas we have been experiencing in another company, some softening of the demand from clients given the product -- the credit products that they're offering.

As far as HighPost is concerned, they are launching, which is the company backed by the 2 family offices, one of which is the Bezos family office. They are launching the second product in the VC space. And once again, probably this is quite interesting and we are seeing significant demand given the probability of a good vintage out of the launch being done currently.

So overall, I would say, a mixed environment. As far as potential new acquisition, we are still and always vigilant in terms of opportunities. Clearly, we will be assessing quite carefully the profile of the company we are targeting as well as the product and the experience of the team, which is always going to make the difference when it comes to new fund raising for new products. Having said that, nothing at the horizon for the time being, but always vigilant.

[Operator]

Mr. Blei, there are no more questions registered at this time. I turn the conference back to you for the closing remarks.

[Gabriele Blei, executive]

So thank you very much for your attention and my colleagues and I are at your availability for any further follow-up. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.