YIT Oyj

OMXH:YIT

Earnings Call Transcript 2021-Q3

[Tommi Jarvenpaa, Vice President of Investor Relations]

Good morning, and welcome to YIT's Third Quarter Earnings Webcast. My name is Tommi Jarvenpaa. I'm the Head of YIT's Investor Relations. We will be discussing today how our good profitability progress continued in the third quarter. The results will be presented by our CEO, Markku Moilanen; and CFO, Ilkka Salonen. After the presentation, we will be taking questions from the conference call lines. At this point, I would like to hand over to Markku. Please go ahead.

[Markku Moilanen, President, CEO & Member of Management Board]

Thank you, Tommi, and good morning, and welcome on my behalf as well. We'll start, as always, from health and safety, which is as we have said, #1 in our priorities. Unfortunately, I have to start today by telling that during the third quarter, we have had 2 fatal accidents, 1 in Latvia and 1 in Lithuania. We have, of course, analyzed the cases thoroughly. Have done an action plan and are implementing the actions, reviewing and adjusting our processes and practices to prevent these kind of accidents to happen in the future. As we are doing in every occasion in our organization when we have been informing about these cases, we have had a silent moment for a while.So let's have it even in this case. This year, in health and safety, our measures have been quite much around fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic. And now during the third quarter, the situation in all those countries that we are working is getting to a better direction, thanks to the vaccinations.But we have continued our actions to make sure that our personnel both on sites and offices can continue working in a healthy environment and the results have been good. If we are looking at our combined lost time injury frequency, which is our key KPI on this area, that is still on a too high level for us. We are targeting to get it below 9%. And during Q3, the rolling KPI was 9.8%. What we have done is that we have started a rigorous plan and starting from management works in the sites. We have started that from the management teams.I've been to several sites myself and all the directors are doing the same as well. That has led to a higher the -- number of safety observations and fixing things, but the good observation. So we are in approach to change and improve our health and safety culture with these actions.If we are looking then the result during Q3, so we had a good profitability progress. So this is the third quarter in order, where we have a good result and our group adjusted operating profit ended up to be EUR 18 million compared to EUR 16 million last year.More importantly, our January-September result more than doubled, our adjusted operating profit more than doubled compared to last year during January-September to EUR 69 million. The result was a result from our solid performance in our Housing segments, where we have improved margins or lower but a favorable sales mix as well.So we have sold higher price apartments, especially in the CEE countries as well. In addition, we have been able to shorten our lead time. So earlier project completions have led to higher results on that area. Our hard work in improving our profitability and performance in Business premises continued. We were having black numbers and positive numbers but the underlying work is really a question of cleaning up the old projects. And even with all that work we ended up to a positive result.And the same happened in Infra. We have started the turnaround or the transition to a new mode in Infra about a year later than in Business premises, but the work has continued very well. And we had the underlying operative result was very good. So despite of the margin reduction in certain old projects, our Infra results during Q3 remained positive.Our -- the key things that we have done during this year have been our focus on improving our project management. We have looked at our operation model and then we have had the work to make our new strategy. On project management, the work has continued that to remind you, we started the work end of 2020 actually. And we have launched new processes, practices, systems, reports, training for personnel, controls. And again, you can see the results already paying off in Business premises and in Infrastructure segments.Secondly, we started last spring, our operating model work and the target was to create a more customer-oriented closer to the customer operating model and a more efficient model as well. And we have concluded that work and the related statutory negotiations. We have ended as well during Q3, as we have earlier communicated. So the result is that we will reduce maximum 230 employees in the whole group globally, of which 190 employees in Finland. Out of this 190, approximately 110 will be achieved through redundancies and the rest aided through voluntary departures, terminations, retirements and fixed-term employment endings.We will start the new operating model from 1st of January as part of our strategy as well. So now we are in a process to implement the needed change. So we are coming back to the model when we tell about the new strategy. The strategy work has progressed very well as well, and we are ready to tell about our new strategy then, before our Capital Markets Day, which is on the 23rd of November.Now let's go a bit more in detail in Q3 results. So Ilkka, please, the floor is yours.

[Ilkka Seppo Salonen, CFO & Member of Management Board]

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Yes, if we look at -- from the revenue side, starting from that part, that was roughly about EUR 100 million lower than last year. And there are 2 major topics over there. One is related for Infra, roughly about EUR 70 million lower, and that is pretty much driven by the fact that we have been more selective in projects when we are tendering.Also, as we sold our Estonian operations in Infra, there is lower volumes in the Baltic countries. And then the large projects are -- a couple of large projects are in their final stage. So it means less revenue from there. From the order book increasing quarter by quarter of this year and also it is higher than the Q3 last year.And the growth is seen in the right places, meaning that Housing Finland and CEE, Business premises and Partnership properties, where we see decreasing order book is as well as in Infra, and there are explanations for those ones as well. And as I mentioned earlier, we have been more selective in tendering of projects and also in some alliances, we are in the design phase at the moment.So the amount of the projects in is very small compared to the full project. And then in Russia, actually 2 topics, as we have announced earlier that we are leaving from some areas, and that is progressing. So it means that there are less operations in those areas.And also in Q3, we didn't have any start-ups in our Russian operations. In the adjusted operating profit side, EUR 18 million compared to the last year, EUR 16 million. If you look at the year-to-date figures, they are EUR 69 million compared to EUR 29 million.So the track has been improving this year. And what is also good to mention is that all the segments of the business lines were delivering positive adjusted operating profit for the third quarter. And if we look at the deviations compared to the last year and for this year, in Housing Finland and Housing Russia, solid performance over there. Although there were a lower number of completions in Finland than last year. In Business premises, there we see operational performance stabilizing. And in Infrastructure, yes, we have made some margin reductions in certain old projects. So it has a negative impact over there.Partnership Properties more or less for the core cyclicality. And then in others, there is somehow more eliminations than last year. and we had up to EUR 18 million over there. Operating cash flow minus EUR 23 million last year, minus EUR 9 million. So pretty much on the same level than last year. Even our startups during this Q3 was higher than last year.And if we look at for the first 9 months, operating cash flow, we have generated more than EUR 160 million on that side. And investments for the plots as well as for the associated companies has continued also in Q3 this year. And then net interest-bearing debt. As we mentioned in Q2 that we are boosting the start-ups. It can be seen over here as well as in the capital employed side.And then in the maturity structure of interest-bearing debt, that is -- that has been restructured quite heavily during this year. As you remember, in the beginning of the year, we had 2 bonds and a hybrid bond over there, and we have also renegotiated our bilateral loans, a number of those ones during this year.And then to the metrics. Equity ratio as well as gearing, both of those have improved during the last 1 year and the net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio as well as interest coverage ratio are also reflecting about our performance. And now I pass back to Markku, please.

[Markku Moilanen, President, CEO & Member of Management Board]

Thank you, Ilkka. Then let's go to the market outlook. All in all, the Q4 market outlook is very stable, very similar than before. So in the housing markets, no changes, they remain on a good level. On real estate market, the only change is that the Finnish real estate market is improving, especially on the private side and on the investor side, which is, of course, hopefully, I can say after the COVID-19 or in this phase is showing that the market is getting better on that area.On the infrastructure market, the weak Baltic market continues. That's the only notable change on that area. The big question in the construction industry has been the material cost inflation, which is in place, as you can see. And as you well know that the cost indexes, the costs have been increasing, especially in timber and in steel structures.And we have our mitigations in place. So we have had procurement practices using indexing using our purchasing power as a large customer, the providers, long-term contracts as well. And then pricing and contractual practices like our dynamic pricing in Russia and in the CEE countries in housing as well.So what it comes to our forecast for [ 2020 ] is that we see that this material cost inflation will not have a material impact to our results, as it hasn't had so far. This assumption is based on our knowledge and understanding on the market that the material cost inflation will level off. However, it's good to realize that if the cost inflation continues, then it will certainly have an impact to both to YIT and the whole construction industry as well.But clearly, it is our aim to move this cost to the end user. -- material cost increases to the end user prices and, therefore, mitigate the impact to the company. If we are looking at the number of apartment completions that we had on a low level, as you can see from the slide during Q3. So they are now expected to peak during Q4 in Finland and in the CEE countries. So we are really picking off. And again, the same will be next year as well. So we'll have a very high peak of completions during Q4 in '22. Then on this picture on the green circle, it's good to remember that these are our own development and -- our own development projects. In addition, we have apartments under construction for investors in Finland and see for more than 2,000 apartments and then more than 4,000 apartments in Russia as well.So just to explain the kind of differences between the different quarters and again, good expectations for Q4 in that area. So guidance for this year '21 remains the same. So that we expect our group adjusted operating profit to be higher than last year. And again, the impact in housing in Finland will come from the high level of completions that we are expecting.In Housing Russia, we expect a solid underlying performance to continue as well as -- as it has been throughout the year. In Business premises, we expect to stabilize further the business. And actually, as we have is old project that we are finalizing and doing the final fixes, it is our expectations that we are able to close those projects during this year.So that is our expectation in Business premises. And again, in Infrastructure, like I mentioned earlier, our review and the turnaround on the segment started about 1 year later. The impact of certain low-performing projects will have an impact on our result this year and continue for a while next year as well.Again, I want to highlight that we have a very solid, good underlying healthy business, especially in Finland, which we saw during Q3 that the overall result was positive despite of the certain old low-performing projects.In Partnership Properties, the portfolio development is expected to continue. And of course, our position in the Mall of Tripla valuation has an impact to the result of Partnership Properties. And again, looking at the number of visitors in Mall of Tripla, it is clearly increasing as the pandemic restrictions ease, so it hasn't had yet an impact on YIT's result, but if it have, it will only -- we expect it only to be positive.So to summarize our management agenda for the second half of this year as we have communicated before. So we continue the actions to stabilize our performance. We have now 3 consequent quarters with a stable performance, and I'm very proud of our organization, both in those areas that we have high performance. But on those ones where we have challenges, and we are doing all the needed fixing.We will implement our new operating model. So as I told, we have finalized the work. We have concluded the statutory negotiations, and we'll do all the implementation so that we have a new operating model and organization in place from 1st of January next year.We are in a process to finalize the last steps of our new strategy, which will be launched than prior to the Capital Market Day, that will be on 23rd of November as well. And again, last but definitely not least, we'll take proactive actions in health and safety to improve further our culture in health and safety. And as part of the new strategy, we are developing our sustainability road map. And again, we are coming as part of the strategy, going to tell that a bit more during the launch of the strategy.So -- as I have mentioned a couple of days, so we have our Capital Market Day on the 23rd of November, and we'll have our webcast in the afternoon, starting from 1:00 p.m. So you are all welcome to join that. Tommi can tell a bit more if you want about the Capital Markets Day.

[Tommi Jarvenpaa, Vice President of Investor Relations]

Yes, indeed. So Capital Markets Day will be hosted on 23rd of November and then the webcast information will be available on the website closer to the event. But at this point, I think we are now ready for the questions. So operator, please go ahead.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Anssi Kiviniemi with SEB.

[Anssi Kiviniemi, Analyst]

It's Anssi from SEB. I have essentially 3 themes, and I will take them one by one. First of all, starting with the Housing business. When we look at the Q3 result, was it better than you expected, meaning that the completions that timed for Q3 were those higher than you originally assumed? And on underlying profitability, was the performance better? What should we think about the kind of relative strong figures on a seasonally very, very low quarter?

[Markku Moilanen, President, CEO & Member of Management Board]

Yes. Thank you. Yes, they were better than we expected. So -- and it was both on the earlier completions, but it was a favorable mix as well as the sales prices, as we have dynamic pricing in CEE countries and in Russia as well. So we were -- that was a positive result compared to the expectations.

[Anssi Kiviniemi, Analyst]

Okay. And when we look at the mix and when we look at the kind of the pricing assumptions going forward, should we expect a good performance also continue? Or is there something kind of one-off type of element in the Q3 result in, especially in Housing Finland and CEE?

[Markku Moilanen, President, CEO & Member of Management Board]

No, there is nothing one-off. So if we are looking at the pipeline and the completions that we're expecting actually last year, we had a kind of one of a bit of investor sale, which was a bit lower than before if we compare that to last year's results, but the similar level of performance is expected to continue in Finland and in CEE and in Russia.

[Anssi Kiviniemi, Analyst]

Okay. Then on Infra, you highlighted there were project margin reductions. Could you elaborate a little bit more on how much it impacted Q3 result? Are we talking about a couple of millions or are we talking about EUR 10 million? Or kind of what's the roughly the magnitude of the impact?

[Markku Moilanen, President, CEO & Member of Management Board]

Well, we are not opening the details, but I would say that we really had a strong underlying performance, which is telling that again, the healthy core is producing good profit, but we're not opening the details on those.

[Anssi Kiviniemi, Analyst]

Okay. Then on construction inflation, I appreciate that you kind of indicated there will not be any larger impacts in 2021. But what should we think about 2022? I understand that there is an expectation of perhaps the inflation level involved. But if we would assume that the inflation of prices, costs remain at the current level, kind of what is the magnitude of the impact for your result. Are we talking about single millions or are we talking about double-digit figures? Any thing -- any indication would be very, very helpful, I think, for all of us.

[Markku Moilanen, President, CEO & Member of Management Board]

Well, again, if they remain on the current level and looking at our project portfolio, where we have significant amount of projects in our self-developed project, where we can impact on the pricing as well. So we can move that to the end-user pricing.Then it's new projects in new contracts, well, we will do the same as well. So if it's not increasing -- if it would be increasing, if I start from that, then I would expect the demand to go down, both in apartment and housing, but in construction project as well. So it's to -- it's immature to calculate the impact next year. Of course, we are doing the planning based on the current level when we are talking about our targets and budget for this year. But again, based on our experience this year, we have been able to mitigate it and the tools are in place again for next year. So it's premature to open any numbers at this stage.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Simen Mortensen with DNB Markets.

[Simen Mortensen, Analyst]

I had 2 of the same questions actually, but I have a few other ones as well. When I look into Housing -- the Housing data in Finland, I see the plot reserves Q-on-Q have fallen 18% in terms of number of square meters in the plots reserves in terms of the lease, could you please elaborate a bit on that? Is that a -- it was a huge deviation Q-on-Q. I just wondered what it was.

[Markku Moilanen, President, CEO & Member of Management Board]

If I can comment on that one. So actually, there was a change in the calculation method. We basically changed the way how we calculate the plot reserve in Finland to match the group-wide way to do it. So thereby, it's a sort of mathematical way. But before the that plot reserve number used to include those plots, which were sort of in the development phase. And I'm not sort of in a hard figure. But now it's matching the group-wide way of doing it. So it's a mathematical thing.

[Simen Mortensen, Analyst]

Okay. Just because -- another thing is building cost inflation. We have seen this in on timber, we have seen this in steel, in concrete in the rest of the Nordics. We have seen issues also there in Sweden, you have, I don't know, 0.5 million with cement, which is loss of operating license in Sweden. There's the risk of rationing cement in Norway, Norcem has stated price increases of 25% to 30% for cement from 2022.How are you seeing cement prices developing in the markets you're active in? Because what we see in the rest of the Nordics is that the price of cement is significantly escalating as well. Inflation of those haven't been that much yet in the markets, but what are you seeing? Is that also a risk? And how do you the risk and supply on cement going forward?

[Markku Moilanen, President, CEO & Member of Management Board]

Yes. If we are looking at the concrete elements' prices in the markets, we are active and using them, which is majority in Finland, but of course, Russia, there has been some increase but not significant on that area. It is more the question of high availability like precast concrete structures where we are, again, big buyer, and we have large framework contracts, and we have been able to use that for our benefit.So the only thing that I will highlight is the challenge regarding cement in Sweden, which some of you might know and their challenges have been discussing with our organization in Sweden as well as the concrete providers in Sweden. And the Swedes are still positive that they will solve this challenge that they have created in the country. But if they -- if something would happen to cement, so then, of course, the availability of cement and concrete would be seen also in the surrounding countries.

[Simen Mortensen, Analyst]

Just in terms of the cost inflation we have seen so far, just to try to -- we talk about start to separate when you do construction for a third party and in terms of when you do your own developments, in housing, for instance. How much, for instance, do you expect price per square meter to go up based on the building inflation we have seen so far for producing housing units, for instance, in Finland? And how will that eventually impact profitability in future margins for development in Finland, as you can say? So please, first, the effect of the rising cost in price or cost per square meter of doing residential development? And how do you see that one impacting your margins eventually in housing, or potential?

[Markku Moilanen, President, CEO & Member of Management Board]

Well, firstly, the -- as the housing market is good and our plot reserve in good places, there's an overall price increases of price per square meter as well. And again, therefore, this is a combination of overall kind of price increases and impact on the materials as well. So it's not something that we will open as part. But of course, it is our target to keep the same profitability moving forward than before.

[Simen Mortensen, Analyst]

Yes. But you don't want to say how much, though this inflation we have seen so far will remain in terms of building costs.

[Ilkka Seppo Salonen, CFO & Member of Management Board]

No, we are no --

[Markku Moilanen, President, CEO & Member of Management Board]

Those kind of details, the key thing is the profitability levels that we are targeting.

[Simen Mortensen, Analyst]

And in terms of the CMD, are you willing to give us a bit of a highlight what you're revising as the financial targets, geographies, segments? Or could you give us something to go on. Just wondering if you have any small ideas of what you give us a small of what you're planning to say?

[Markku Moilanen, President, CEO & Member of Management Board]

I know it would be tempting from my side because you can guess that we have done -- we are quite far in the strategy work, and then we are finalizing the story. But of course, you have to wait for the Capital Market Day for the story. So even if you -- it's only a few weeks.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Olli Koponen with Inderes.

[Olli Koponen, Analyst]

It's Olli Koponen from Inderes. I have a few questions left. First on the Housing Russia. There were 0 housing starts in the quarter. Is there any kind of specific reason for this? Or was this just kind of a normal fluctuations in the starts?

[Markku Moilanen, President, CEO & Member of Management Board]

Yes. We have this year evaluated our risk position in all the geographies and wanted to reduce our risks in Russia. And therefore, we are overall aiming for lower volumes in Russia to move forward. We have a strong plot reserve and a good project pipeline. We have 4,000 apartments under construction. So this is -- the Q3 was just a question of kind of a difference between quarters, but the overall level we are planning to take a bit down to reduce our risks.

[Olli Koponen, Analyst]

Is there any kind of area where you see more risk than other area?

[Markku Moilanen, President, CEO & Member of Management Board]

No. It's the overall market structure and the model of using the escrow accounts and all of that, where we just wanted to take the risk a bit down.

[Olli Koponen, Analyst]

Okay. Fair enough. And one more question, just to clarify on the Infra segment. In the start of this year, you informed about the sale of the wind park in Lestijärvi. You said that it would close -- the deal would close during 2022. Any new inflow on that when the deal is going to close?

[Markku Moilanen, President, CEO & Member of Management Board]

We -- the situation is still same. So we expect it to be closed during this year, and the impact, as you well know, will be around EUR 40 million. Again, if it wouldn't, that would be the biggest swing effect for our result. But so far, the project is progressing well. So the expectation from our side is still the same that we would close it during this year.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Svante Krokfors with Nordea.

[Svante Krokfors, Analyst]

Svante from Nordea. I have 1 question left regarding you explicitly mentioned in the Q4 market outlook slide that the real estate market, investor market is picking up in Finland. Should we have a positive read for your large co-ownership projects development on that comment? This -- is the investor interest increasing also from your perspective on future projects or are investors still on the sidelines?

[Markku Moilanen, President, CEO & Member of Management Board]

Yes. You are reading it right. So both in the several smaller ones that we have ongoing, but some of the bigger ones that we have on our pipeline are progressing -- have been progressing well during Q3.

[Operator]

We have a follow-up question from Anssi Kiviniemi with SEB.

[Anssi Kiviniemi, Analyst]

It's Anssi once again. I have a follow-up on Olli's question on Russia and your answer. I mean, your comment was that you're aiming to take the risk a little bit down, but kind of starting 0 apartments, its more than a little. Is there something happening in the market that perhaps you see that there's a real potential risk of something happening. So kind of is there a real reason behind this move? Or kind of how should we read the situation?

[Markku Moilanen, President, CEO & Member of Management Board]

No. There's nothing in the market. The market remains good and nothing happening in that sense. It is the question of, as I mentioned, the model in the market where we have a significant amount of money in the escrow amounts. And again, we want to take that down a bit. So it's a more general issue derisking in our position in Russia.

[Ilkka Seppo Salonen, CFO & Member of Management Board]

Yes. And if I give an example is that in the -- before the escrow accounts became compulsory, actually, we were able to collect all the money from the customers as a prepayment. Now the prepayments are going to the escrow accounts. And if nothing else has changed, the amount of money which is at the moment in the escrow account is EUR 100 million. So compared to the old word, we have EUR 100 million more debt compared to the old life as well as the capital employed. So that's the reason why we are decreasing the risk.

[Anssi Kiviniemi, Analyst]

Okay. And has the Russian ruble move any way affected the decision? And a follow-up question on that. Has the Russian ruble move impacted the market in Russia in any way?

[Markku Moilanen, President, CEO & Member of Management Board]

No, that has had no reason for us to do this. And again, for the demand, it has had no impact in the market.

[Operator]

There are no further questions. I hand back the word to our speakers.

[Markku Moilanen, President, CEO & Member of Management Board]

Thank you very much, and thank you, everyone, for the active discussions. Again, I would like to remind that our CMD will be organized on November 23. Thank you, and goodbye.