Entra ASA

OSE:ENTRA

Earnings Call Transcript 2020-Q4

[Sonja Horn, Chief Executive Officer]

Good morning, and welcome to Entra's fourth quarter presentation, brought to you live here from Oslo. As you all probably are aware of, it's been an intense fourth quarter for us following the strategic interest for the company. The current status is that Castellum withdrew their offer earlier this week, and the SBB voluntary offer is still in the market with an expiry on February 26. Our Board of Directors came out with a recommendation stating that they recommend investors with a long-term perspective to not accept any of the offers. That was also supported by the fact that our 2 largest shareholders, Balder and the Government Pension Fund Norway, currently holding 30%, already had publicly announced that they had no intention to accept the offers. Clearly, this has had an impact also on our organization and our company. However, we are very proud to be able to see that we, in spite of this and also in spite of the COVID-19 situation, can present very strong operational results, also record-high net letting and starting several new projects securing future growth for the company. So moving on to some highlights in the quarter. As you can see, rental income came in at NOK 590 million in the quarter. That's relatively flat year-on-year, explained by the fact that we have had several large properties brought out of the management portfolio over into a project phase. This has, of course, impacted our rental income and also left us with higher operating costs, seeing that we have to cover quite a lot of the common costs on these properties. Net income from property management thus at NOK 362 million. And in respect to valuations, it's been a strong quarter. Our portfolio was revalued following a strong and significant yield compression in the Norwegian property markets. So property values are up with NOK 4.5 billion in the quarter, leaving us with a profit before tax of NOK 4.9 billion. Key events. Of course, the strategic interest has been important part in the last quarter. Very strong net letting of NOK 166 million. And we also finalized one project and started up 5 new developments in the quarter. Our Board is proposing a semiannual dividend of NOK 2.5 per share for the second half of 2020, and that's NOK 4.9 for the full year. This remains to be approved on our Annual General Meeting in April on the 23rd. As already mentioned, this was a strong quarter in respect of letting. It's actually the best quarter we've had since we were IPO-ed back in 2014. And we signed new leases and renewed leases for a total of NOK 256 million or 86,000 square meters, whereof 49,000 of that in our project pipeline. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, we clearly see that this states the strength in our portfolio, the attractiveness of our locations and also the products we have developed. We have also, in this quarter, seen our leasing -- that lease contracts were terminated for NOK 30 million. Out of that, around half of it was tenants who chose to sign new leases with us in other parts of the portfolio. So net letting, as already mentioned, NOK 166 million. And as you can see from the table at the bottom of the chart, this quarter, we had a lot of very large contracts, very high-quality tenants. And we were, of course, pleased to see that these also enabled us to start several of the projects, which we will get back to. Our occupancy is currently also very high at 97.9%. That is probably as close to fully let as we will get. Also seeing that several of our assets have been taken out into a project phase. Our average lease duration is currently at 6.9 years. Including the project portfolio, we are at 7.1 years. We finalized one project in the quarter. That's the Kristian Augusts gate 13. This is a building which is located in the Tullin quarter. It's a redevelopment of 4,300 square meters. And out of that, 900 square meters is an infill newbuild at the back of the building. It's fully let to spaces, and it's been a pioneer project for us in respect of a circular economy. And it's a project which has caught the eyes of the entire industry and also regulators, both in Norway and across Europe. We're proud to see that we actually achieved the target and more so, where 80% of all materials going into this building has been then reused materials, both in the existing building and also from imported reused materials. That means that we managed to reduce the CO2 emissions from the materials in this project with a total of 70%. And if you look at total climate accounting for the project, we are at 45% lower carbon emissions compared to a referenced building. This is a very innovative project, and it also means that it has been more costly than what we normally do build at Entra and also a bit more costly than we originally anticipated. However, we've seen that it's a project which has really stepped up the industry and the supply chain in respect of starting to think circular economy. And it has also been important for us in respect of learning what we should do and not do when we work with reuse in our coming projects when we will start -- continue to work with creating climate-neutral projects in the future. So the total project cost is here at NOK 317 million, and the yield on cost is 4.5% upon completion. One of the projects we've announced to start is this Stenersgata 1 in Oslo. This is a building which literally is sitting on top of the metro station next to the central station. Here, we have parking spaces in the basement. We have 4 floors of shopping center owned by Steen & Strøm. And on top of that, Entra owns 30,000 square meters of office from the fifth floor upwards. We have decided to do this redevelopment in 2 phases. The first phase will be starting now, seeing that we have signed a lease contract with Sopra Steria. They signed a contract for 10,500 square meters and have the option to reduce or increase with 2,000 square meters, leaving us then with a minimum occupancy rate or pre-let ratio of 57% when starting the project. It has a project cost estimated to NOK 1.2 billion, estimated yield on cost, 4.5%. And we expect it to be completed in the second quarter of '23. This project, we are targeting BREEAM-NOR Very Good environmental certification. We also announced that we will be starting Schweigaards gate 15. This building is located 3 minutes walk from the central station. It's 23,000 square meters. Also here, one of our largest contracts in the quarter was signed with Nortura. We are at a pre-let ratio here of 31%. And it's got an estimated project cost of NOK 1.4 billion, yield on cost expected to be around 4.7%. And also this project should be completed in the second quarter of '23. The third project we announced in the quarter was this one in Bergen, Møllendalsveien 6-8. This was a building we acquired just about 15 months ago. We're very pleased to see that we already have signed one huge lease contract, bringing us up to 44% pre-let ratio, enabling us to start this redevelopment also in Bergen. We also have firm negotiations ongoing with the second tenant, which will increase the pre-let ratio substantially. Estimated project cost, NOK 600 million, 5.2% estimated yield on cost. And this is expected to be completed within the end of the year. So as you can see, our ongoing project table has been increased. We're happy about that. The 2 top projects on the list, we have been reporting on for quite some time. You can see that we have 2 red arrows on Universitetsgata 7-9. Here, the project cost is slightly up, following lease contract and some additions to the building. This will be financed over the rent from that tenant. The yield on cost is, however, slightly down. That's following the fact that CPI came in lower than we had expected for 2020, leaving us with a decimal round-off on the yield on cost on this project. At Universitetsgata 2, the Rebel project. This is a project we're developing as a hub for technology. We started it at a very low pre-let ratio and are pleased now to see that we've reached 52%. And also here, we have a very strong interest and pipeline for this product. This is, however, also a product where we will be providing also a lot of meeting room facilities, conferences, food and beverage. So the rent for this project is also based on some turnover rent, which, of course, will be potentially impacted by a continued COVID situation with social distancing. The 2 next projects, St. Olavs plass and Tordenskiolds gate 12, we have launched on the third quarter presentation. You can find more information about these projects in that presentation. They have been started at 60% and now 92% pre-let ratios, very attractive products. And at the bottom, you can see the refurbishment projects, which we have ongoing. They are all fully let and progressing according to plan, on time and cost. We've also done some transactions in the fourth quarter, closing in the first quarter. We acquired one building in Stavanger. That's the police station, where we had an option to acquire the asset for NOK 126 million. And we had our value -- our Newsec estimate, the fair market value at NOK 313 million following the acquisition. It's fully let to the Norwegian police. It had a 1-year lease duration when we acquired it. And now we have increased the duration there to 6 years. In Møllendalsveien 1A in Bergen, we acquired a property of 5,800 square meters for NOK 208 million. This is located right next to the project we started in Møllendalsveien 6-8. A very nice add-on to our existing portfolio, lease duration of 2.7 years. And we can see that we also have the opportunity to add some value to this going forward. At the same time, we chose to wrote it out and sell Tollbo in Bergen. It's a nonstrategic asset, small asset, 1,800 square meters. It was sold 21% above book values for the fourth quarter. A few words on the market situation. Let me start by COVID-19. Firstly, Norway has held up very well through 2020, mainly because of the very strong support packages provided by the Norwegian government, both in respect of supporting people and businesses. And COVID-19 continues to affect our lives. We went back into a partial lockdown in January, and it's still a bit early to see what this will mean for us in respect of economy and also long-term effects on the demand for office. However, the Norwegian government has very strong muscles, and they have clearly stated that they will continue to support both people and businesses through this crisis. We have kept a very close dialogue with our customers through the last year to better understand how this working from home situation will affect their future workplace strategies and also their expected net take-up of space. What we are hearing from our tenants is that they clearly see that they will probably provide more individual flexibility in respect of letting employees choose where they want to work from. However, all surveys we have seen in the Norwegian market on this topic clearly states that, that is probably going to be limited to somewhere between 1 and 2 days per week. When we talk to our clients about that, they are also very firm that they don't really expect this to have any material impact on their expected net take-up because they also see that they probably will use the office space differently going forward and will be in need of more collaboration rooms for teams, meetings, et cetera. Now if we take a look at the letting markets. What we experienced through 2020 was that we had a clear slowdown in March, April, May. June activity started picking up again. And after the summer, we had very high activity in the letting market. And if you look at the total volumes signed for Oslo through 2020, we actually can see that we had volumes at the same levels that we saw as normal for the years 2015 to '18. So it was a busy quarter and -- sorry, year. And that was also very much confirmed through our strong activity in the fourth quarter. If you look at the vacancies on our consensus report, you can see that the line steps up a bit through 2020. Vacancies increased slightly. However, that has been very limited to the East fringe of Oslo, where we saw some newbuild volumes coming into the market through 2020. If you look at the city center of Oslo, vacancies are currently around 3% to 4%, and there is very limited new supply coming into the city center of Oslo. Actually, most of the new supply there is our own redevelopment projects currently in the market. At the bottom graph, you can see that the newbuild volumes has been also put out from our consensus report. Here, you can see that as expected, some 170,000 coming into the market this year. And when we dig into those projects, what we know is that around 70% of that volume is already pre-let. So we are very comfortable with the market situation, which is also why we have chosen to start some of our projects at lower pre-let ratios than we have done in the past. If you take a look at the blue graph -- blue line, you can -- it seems like rental growth has stopped up and declined over the last year. That is actually not something we recognize from the marketplace. We have experienced through 2020 that friends have actually held up very well in all the negotiations we have done in 2020. And if you take a look at the markets in Trondheim and Bergen, also there, we've experienced very stable vacancy levels and letting activity. We have 2 projects which we are preparing in these markets, and we have a strong also interest for those products coming out with the right locations. Transaction markets, we saw very high activity in the transaction market, predominantly then in the second half also, following the key interest rate policies, the policy rate reduction of 150 basis points. We also saw a strong yield compression in the market in Norway. meaning that the prime yields currently in Oslo are around 3.2% to 3.3%, and that's down from 3.7% in the third quarter. If you look at Trondheim, prime yields are currently around 5.25%. In Bergen, they are at 3.75%. This quarter, you can see -- or in the full year of 2020, you can see that the transaction volume was around NOK 110 billion, which is actually the highest activity we've seen since 2015. So very strong transaction market also, supported by an open and attractive financing market. So moving on to some financial figures. Anders, the floor is yours.

[Anders Olstad, Deputy CEO & CFO]

Thank you. The fourth quarter provided a very strong end to 2020, and particularly the net letting, as Sonja mentioned, NOK 166 million, but also on the start-up of the new projects. And we're particularly happy with the start-up of those because that has been -- we're working on that for the last 3 quarters, so to speak. And COVID-19 has clearly slowed us a bit down. So very happy to see that we're now starting them up. If you look at the balance sheet. Those -- the ongoing project portfolio, we estimate between NOK 11 and NOK 14, NOK 15 remaining to be captured from those projects. So additional between NOK 11 and NOK 15 per share in additional value stemming from the already started projects. In addition, we have the shadow pipeline. Also on the net letting side, we continue to deliver on the management portfolio, again, leaving the WAULT, as Sonja said, at 7 years and a 98% occupancy rate. Under COVID-19, we have seen a very strong payment from our tenants, as expected. We were a bit cautious on the second quarter, so we made provisions for bad debt. As things have progressed, we see that those provisions were probably a bit -- or they were a bit too large. So we have reversed them gradually over the third and the fourth quarter. So the net effect from COVID-19 in our books, if you take the total revenue, so NOK 1,766 million for those quarter 2 to 4 is 0.8%. So it's a very small effect from COVID-19 in the Entra numbers. Okay. Looking at the revenues from -- for this quarter, coming in at NOK 590 million. It's NOK 1 million up from the third quarter and a full NOK 6 million up from where we expected it to be from our sort of -- our guidings from the last quarter. The NOK 6 million uptick mainly stems from a couple of one-offs and then a very strong letting in the fourth quarter. If we compare it to the fourth quarter last year, we're down with NOK 5 million. We have taken out a total of 5 assets for redevelopment throughout the year. That has given us a net reduction in revenues of NOK 25 million. That has partly been offset by a very strong net letting. It's 3.1% on the quarter and 2.5% for the full year, which is basically compared to the CPI of 1.6%. So again, a very strong net letting or like-for-like growth coming from our letting. On the net income from property management, coming at NOK 362 million, and profit before tax at NOK 4.9 million. I'll come back into the cost part of that in particular and also on the value changes. Cash earnings coming in at NOK 8 per share on the 4 quarters rolling, as expected. Also, the basis then for providing NOK 4.90 in dividends for the year, 63% of cash earnings. 12% CAGR on the cash earnings since 2014. NRV, coming in at NOK 189, as we announced a couple of weeks back. If you looking at EPRA NAV, it's a 15% CAGR since 2014, 18% CAGR, if we include the dividends of NOK 24.65 that we paid out throughout this period. On the triple net, it's 16% and 19% correspondingly. On the P&L side, just make a few comments on the cost side because they are a bit higher than what we would expect. Firstly, we have incurred costs of about NOK 11 million due to the bid situation for Entra. NOK 11 million for this quarter -- no, for the fourth quarter, we expect to around NOK 7 million for the first quarter. Then we put in place a new ERP system in Entra on -- and we pushed the big green button on February 22 last year. That has led to additional cost for us in the range of NOK 16 million for the full year and the bulk -- quite a bit of that coming into the last quarter. That is being split evenly between admin cost and operating cost. Thirdly, as these assets that we're now starting for redevelopment were put out of operations, we still incur the ongoing costs of running those, be that people still maintaining them, working on them, electricity, insurance, tax, et cetera. That has -- it's a total of NOK 6 million for the full year. And I mean, we always had those because otherwise, we endorse that to our tenants on a -- as part of the common cost. But now we need to incur the cost ourselves. And for -- when those kind of large -- big and large number of projects, it will mean a cost effect also of NOK 6 million. Also, should note, we are in a tax payable position of NOK 26 million. We discussed that, on the second quarter presentation, that we expect it to be in the range of NOK 30 million to NOK 40 million for the year. The key driver for tax loss carryforward in real estate companies like ours is, first, the tax depreciation on our assets; and second, the part of the redevelopment costs or the redevelopment CapEx that we're able to cost up directly. And as a result for the delay in start of these redevelopment projects, we are in a small tax payable position this year. We do not expect to be in a good tax payable position for 2021, '22 and probably not in 2023 either. If you're going -- looking at the summary of the known effects, how will the -- our revenues look like in the coming quarters and coming 6 quarters. We said, finally, we're starting to see the effect on the delivery on those new projects that Sonja described earlier, especially the U2 and U7-9 in the last end of this year, where we're going to be passing NOK 600 million in monthly rent -- sorry, in quarterly rent. And we expect that from that date, we will not look back in terms of the NOK 600 million. And again, with that project portfolio we're now seeing, it's -- we're poised for a very strong revenue growth coming into 2022. Looking at the balance sheet, starting on NOK 52 billion. We invested NOK 385 million on the quarter. NOK 40 million of that is in a small add-on acquisition, [indiscernible], where we're adding the -- some parking spaces that we will convert into offices and storage. The rest is basically on the project portfolio. Then we come to the big value exchanges of almost NOK 4.5 billion. If you look at the split on the pie chart to the right, 78% of that value development stemming from yield, 19% stemming from the project developments. If you look at the full year, NOK 5,980 million or almost NOK 6 billion value changes, 70% comes from yields, 15% from projects and 7% from net letting. If we're adding the portfolio that we have up in Bryn that will be sold off to JM and also the Oslo S Utvikling, we have a total balance sheet of then -- more than NOK 58 billion. So quite significant. On the financing side, it was kind of a normal quarter in the start. We issued NOK 0.8 billion of CPs and another NOK 1 billion in the 7.5-year green bond, leading us now to a total debt portfolio of a bit more than NOK 21 billion. Of that, 48% is now green, corresponding to green bonds and green bank loans. You see we run a very -- still a very solid ship. LTV at 37%, a record low for Entra, and an ICR at 3.5, which both sort of the certainty and the stability of the business. And with a combination of the NOK 7.3 billion we have in available undrawn RCF, it gives us also massive flexibility in terms of growth, both on the project development part, which is our main lever for growth, but also in acquisitions, if we find that we want to do that. Average rent interest cost, coming up to NOK 238 million, so 5 bps above last quarter, basically following the increase in NIBOR. We find that the financing market is very favorable. CP market is open and attractive. The bond market is very attractive currently. Margin have contracted significantly. We have seen that due to the strategic interest [ of the business ] in Entra, our bondholders have been reluctant to enter into agreements with Entra. So we've basically been in a standstill period since this started in November. We now see that the sentiment of the bond market is such that they are seemingly willing to lend us once again. So we will be back in the market probably in quite a short time. And then the bank market, as always, very happy with our 5 bank partners that are supportive to our business and our story. And we'll provide any sort of liquidity and financial stability that we need. So that was a quick run through on the financing. Thank you.

[Sonja Horn, Chief Executive Officer]

Thank you, Anders. Okay. Seeing that we are at the year-end, we'll also give you some closing remarks, looking back on our strategy and how we have performed through 2020. Entra has had the same strategy for the past years. Our strategic focus areas is to, one, provide profitable growth; two, provide the best customer experience; and three, be an environmental leader within our industry, and as a foundation for that, providing sustainable business development and operations. In respect of sustainable operations, we have used KPI, energy consumptions, to follow-up our efforts. And as you can see from the graph to the left, we've had a strong development there over the last years. And in respect of our portfolio, we continue to invest in sustainability. And currently, you can see that 58% of our revenues or rental incomes or/and property values are actually BREEAM-certified at Very Good or Better. That's already certified or in the progress of being certified. Entra has been top in class in respect of customer satisfaction for years, and we were very, very proud to see that we actually reached 87 points in the year 2020. That's relative to an industry average of 81 points. And this is, of course, very important for us and one of the reasons which we managed to maintain such high occupancy rates in our portfolio. In respect of profitable growth. As you can see from the left side, rental income growth has been 35% over the past 5 years. That's taking into account that we've actually divested assets for around NOK 7 billion in this period, selling off the nonstrategic assets. And flattish, as you see also for the past 2019 and '20, as we've already discussed. On the right side, you can see that our NAV -- NRV value has grown by 103% over the period. This underlying value growth is driven by strong operational performance, strong net letting, the project pipeline, and of course, also supported by market rental growth and yield compressions. Entra's growth has in the past, and also going forward, mainly been driven by our project pipeline. And we have a strong and proven track record of delivering very profitable projects. Here, you can see that we've developed 20 projects since we were IPO-ed. All of the projects at very attractive returns, total investment of around NOK 10 billion with a 26% value uplift on completion, giving us then NOK 14.2 per share from the project development pipeline. Now we've been through our ongoing projects. And if you take a look at the left side here, you can see that the project portfolio of 147,000 square meters will add rental income of NOK 450 million to our top line over the next 4 years, as illustrated in the graph. On the right side, you can see that we also have an additional pipeline of short-term projects. These are projects we currently are in the market with marketing. We do expect that we should be able to start 2 of these projects in the first quarter and probably another 1 or 2 projects within the next 12 months or so. At the bottom, you can see the long-term pipeline here. We have a land bank where we're working with the zoning of the land. And we expect that we should be able to develop another 250,000 to 300,000 square meters based on that pipeline. So closing remarks. 2020 was another very solid year. 23% NRV growth and 4% dividend growth. Net letting of NOK 202 million for the full year. Occupancy is currently at 97.9%. We completed 16,000 square meters of development and started another 97,500 square meters through the year. Uncertainty, of course, prevails with the COVID-19 situation and the long-term effects for the office markets. However, the Norwegian market is characterized by solid market fundamentals and also very strong transaction markets, which we've seen through 2020. And Entra's large and solid development pipeline will continue to fuel significant growth in the years to come. Thank you. That's all from me. We have some questions here.

[Tone Kristin Omsted, Head of Investor Relations]

We have one question. With your low loan-to-value at 37%, do you intend to find new investment opportunities? Or would you consider, for instance, a buyback program?

[Anders Olstad, Deputy CEO & CFO]

Well, clearly, LTV of 37% is low for Entra. When we were IPO-ed, we were, I mean, in the very high 40s. Our policy is to be south of 50% over time. While 37% is pretty much on par with our continental peers, we believe that Entra, with its very long WAULT at 7 years, our 58% public tenants with a AAA rating, sort of substantiates not a need, but the -- that we can have a higher LTV than most other companies. That said, 37% is low. We will invest some between NOK 2.5 billion and NOK 3 billion in our projects in 2021 alone and -- so significantly higher than the normal NOK 1 billion to NOK 1.5 billion that we do invest. That said, it's very high on the agenda on the management and the Board. But given the special situation that Entra is in, it will -- that discussion will be postponed some months until we see how Entra moves -- or how Entra will progress as an independent company or as part of a bigger and bigger and bigger system. But the answer is, yes, it's very high on the agenda. And the Board will work on this together with the management in -- during the springtime.

[Tone Kristin Omsted, Head of Investor Relations]

The yield on cost on your recent projects is lower than historical levels. Should we assume similar levels going forward in the pipeline?

[Sonja Horn, Chief Executive Officer]

Yes. That's also reflecting that we have higher initial values going into the projects. So I think it's fair to say that we would see that specifically on the redevelopment projects. And then -- yes, I think that's fair to say.

[Anders Olstad, Deputy CEO & CFO]

Yes. If I just add to that. Historically, we have been sort of typically 100 to 150 bps or basis points above market yields on our yield on cost. If you look at the existing projects, they are still in the 100 bps higher than the market yields. And as you know, there's a nonlinear -- sorry, regression between 100 bps on a very low market yield. It's a lot better than 100 bps in a high market yield, naturally. So in that way, the profitability on these projects that we're now starting is very, very strong. I mean, doing that on for between -- so in Oslo cases, between 4.5% and 5%, while the prime yield in Oslo is 3.25% to 3.30%. And these assets -- typically, if you look at the Universitetsgata 7-9, doing that at 5.8%, we can sell that in the market for probably 3.5% any day of the week. So these projects are very profitable for us. That said, redevelopment projects are usually less profitable than newbuilds because -- especially when the walls and the roofs are fixed, you're not able to add new capacity. But -- and these are mainly redevelopment projects that we started off now. These are the 5 big ones. So -- but again, I think the short answer is these projects are very profitable. You've got more than 100 bps difference between the market yield on cost, and we're very happy with those.

[Sonja Horn, Chief Executive Officer]

Okay. Thank you. That seems to be the questions for today. So thank you all for following us this quarter, and we hope to see you again next quarter. Have a nice day.