Bonava AB (publ)

STO:BONAV B

Earnings Call Analysis

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q1

[Anna Fyhrlund, executive]

Good morning, everyone, and very welcome to the presentation of Bonava's First Quarter 2024. My name is Anna Falck Fyhrlund, and I am Head of Investor Relations here at Bonava. And with me here today, I have our CEO, Peter Wallin; and our CFO, Lars Ingman, who will take you through the highlights of this report.As always, we will end with a Q&A session, and you can already now start to type your questions online. If you participate through the phone, you will be able to ask your questions by dialing star 5.So with that short introduction, I leave the word over to you, Peter.

[Peter Wallin, executive]

Thank you very much, Anna, and good morning, everyone. Sitting here in a chilly Stockholm morning. But I'm very happy and pleased to report the first quarter together with the team here at Bonava. So if we just start the introduction by looking into the market, I would like to -- so I'm quite glad to still note that we gradually see an improvement of the market conditions. We see an increasing interest in showings, search on the website and then actually then converting these leads to sales. And it's the consumer segment that is showing the most increase in all markets.If we dig in a little bit deeper and into the specific markets, the most notable change is in Sweden. The Swedish market continues to improve, albeit from a very low level, of course. The level of activity is still the highest volume in the Baltics and in our German markets with Finland being the least positive signs. So it's still a very deep frozen environment in the Finnish market.We are talking about the consumer market and the consumer segment as being the more affluent segment and most improving segment. The investor segment is a very important segment for us over time. And of course, in the Western market, it's still challenging on the basis of yield requirements and production cost increases that has escalated. We are seeing an increased interest, but it will require some more time before it will filter through into deals made and starts made.If we look into the trading of Bonava in the first quarter, as you all know, the first quarter is a small quarter. Proportionately, if you look on the full year, the most impact we have in the last second half of the year, and normally, as you know. So we have a low volume of recognized units. Lars will describe sort of the changes compared to what we reported in conjunction with the Q4. But we are coming in a little bit lower than what we had assumed.We see an improvement in underlying gross margin to 10.2%, reported 10.4%. The 10.4% is sort of still impacted by a very selective price reductions and a very active sales process. We have done a lot when it comes to increasing efficiencies at Bonava. And you can see that also on the costs, which are now lowered by 21% year-over-year. And then we have a very large restructuring and efficiency improvement in Germany ongoing, as you know, and that is only a limited impact of that in the first quarter. That will increase throughout the 2024. So that is why we see that we will see full impact from the savings from Jan 1st on a full year basis.Also very happy to report a significantly reduced debt to SEK 4.3 billion, which is half compared to a year ago. And this is down by roughly SEK 600 million compared to year-end. It is, of course, the new issue that was closed and reported during the first quarter. That is one of the reasons, but also that we are working a lot with improving cash flow. So we did expect a negative cash flow in the first quarter, we are coming in a little bit better than that actually. And all other conditions in the financing package that we have sort of talked about and reported over the first quarter is fulfilled. So all in all, a small quarter, but I think it shows that we are taking the first step according to plan in the plan that we have. So I -- for me, I feel reassured by the first quarter.If we look into the starts, we are starting 281 homes for consumers during the first quarter. One of the projects is the Forest Gate, which is a very nice project in a very good commuter hub environment in Vilnius. That's 101 housing units. In Germany, we are continuing the development of a large investment in Ritterschlag in Berlin. And we -- it's only single -- 6 single-family houses depicted here, but the investment is very large, and it contains all kinds of different types of products. So overall, we are moving well into that investments.Last but not least, I also want to talk about the Tallinn projects, 81 units. I will not pronounce the name. I will do all the Estonians said, if I try that, but it's a fantastic project hitting in also on a very strong sustainability part. So I'm really happy to see this in Tallinn. And of course, as always, you will find all our projects depicted on the website.I would also like to sort of hint a little bit into the future and by turning into Uppsala. This is in conjunction with the old university part for the education of teachers. That is why it's called [ seminariant ]. And we are now planning to build a neighborhood of 113 units, and we will do the first sales start the upcoming weekend on Sunday. It will be sunny weather, and it's actually more than 160 customers that have announced that they would like to go and visit the sales opportunity. So it's a great interest, and that relates to the 66 we are starting right now.Also in Dusseldorf, Germany, we are preparing to starting up a project, also that part of a greater investment, in total 550 homes in this investment. And here, we are working in the different types of sectors, namely the B2B and the B2C as well. And here, we have the opportunity to actually do one of the pipeline projects for investors, as I alluded to in the start.With that, I turn over to you, Lars, please.

[Lars Ingman, executive]

Thank you, Peter. Good morning, everyone. I will now try to take you through the Q1 figures. I'll start with a slide about the recognized units in the quarter. In Q4 '23, we estimate 436 units to be completed during the first quarter. The actual completion, you can see here is 372 units, and of that, 107 still remain unsold at the end of the period. We also reduced the inventory with 127 units. And addition to that, 35 units were sold but not recognized in the quarter. So all in all, 357 units recognized in the quarter.Here, this slide summarizes the development of the inventory of unsold completed units starting at the end of 2023 with 505 units in the inventory. And we add the 372 completed units in the quarter, which 265 were sold during the quarter. And we also sold off 127 units from the inventory. So we're ending the period with inventory of unsold completed units [ for ] Q1 of 485 units.Continuing to the next slide. And based on the 357 recognized units over -- hand it over to customers in the quarter, we reached a net sales of SEK 1.3 billion compared with the last year of SEK 1.9 billion. If we look at on the gross margin, the reported margin were well above last year. We have 10.4% versus last year of 8.8%. And sales and admin expenses down with SEK 41 million or 21% compared with last year. And this is, of course, due to the implementation of the cost reduction program last year.And despite the low revenue, the negative operating profit decreased compared with last year from the minus SEK 28 million to SEK 22 million. And this is, of course, primarily due to the higher gross margin and the lower selling and admin expenses. And you can also see that the net financial items were SEK 111 million. It's higher versus last year, which is related to the higher underlaying market rates and also higher interest margin this year.Going to the next slide. Here is a summary of the operating profit and the margin for the Group in total and also per business units in the quarter and per rolling 12 months. Here, you can see that the development in the quarter was very positive in Germany, stable in Baltics, but more challenging in Sweden and most challenging in Finland. And in total, this comes as no surprise to us and are in line with the current plan. And you can also see the rolling 12 months outcome is in line, it's almost flat versus calendar year '23. When it comes to the cost restructuring plan, we are on track. And the target remains to reduce the overhead and [indiscernible] costs with net of SEK 600 million with a full effect during 2025.And so let's move then to the business unit, starting with Germany. Here, we recognized 187 units to consumer and the net sales figures increased and by that with up to SEK 941 million or around 32%. Also, the gross margin were up from 11.1% to 11.4%. And selling expense was down from [ SEK 69 million to SEK 60 million ]. And with that in mind, the operating profit increased from significantly to SEK 48 million. And as you can see on the right side, we started 40 units, which was up even if it's from low volume from the 26 last year. And you can also see increase in the number of sold units in the period compared with last year then, so 115 and this year 146.Continue then to Sweden, which is the next one. Here is the net sales, SEK 160 million, significantly down from last year based on 53 recognized units in the period. The gross margin was 6%, and the selling and admin expense was reduced from SEK 38 million to SEK 29 million. And so in summary, the operating profit was negative with SEK 19 million. And the lower outcome comes as no surprise also here to us, but was in line with our plan. And we started here, you can see this -- we started 0 units in the quarter but increased the number of sold units with 236%.Continuing then to Finland. Here we meet the tough market and the business volume was low with 18 recognized units to consumer in the quarter with a net sales of SEK 43 million and a negative gross margin with SEK 4 million. And here, the gross margin was negatively impacted by other operating costs, which is related to the low business volume. And in total, the negative -- but the negative operating profit of the SEK 27 million was still slightly above last year. And also here, the weak performance in the quarter was not a major surprise to us, but was close to the plan.Continues then to the Baltics. The Baltics, the number of recognized units increased to 99. And the net sales were flat versus last year, and the gross margins was a little slightly below last year. And in total, the operating profit was in line with last year SEK 8 million versus SEK 10 million. And in the Baltics, we also see an increase in both started with 46%, 47% and also sold units up with 23%.Going to the next. This -- the graph -- this graph summarizes the completion and corresponding sales per quarter for the consumer units. So the left bar representing the number of completed units during the first quarter this year. And the other bars indicate the expected completion and the actual sales status per each quarter. And the total sales rates on the ongoing production was in total 54%.On the next slide, we continue with the investor market and the completion per quarter for the investor markets and the current business units. Germany and Finland have expected completion to investors during '24 and '25.If you see this slide, it's about -- here is the summary of the total number of building rights, 28,500 distributed between the business units and the tentative project starting year plus distribution of units between B2B project and B2C project.Here, you can recognize that the cash flow before finance was stronger versus last year, it was SEK 483 million versus last year SEK 963 million. And the main driver for the improvement is the changes in the working capital items, mainly due to the housing project sales exceed the investment in the quarter.Continuing to the next slide with a summary of the debt or the reduction of the net debt. As we started the Q1 '23, with SEK 8.1 billion in net debt. And at the end of Q1 '24, we ended with SEK 4.3 billion. This is almost a reduction of 50% in net debt. And also during the last quarter of this quarter one, the net debt was decreased with SEK 700 million. And the decrease is mainly due to the lower bank debt and reduction of the housing company debt.This slide summarize the external financing facilities by the end of March, totaling of SEK 5.7 billion with SEK 900 million undrawn for the end of March. As Peter mentioned, the financial package was implemented during March, including bank loan, bond and the rights issue of SEK 1 billion. And the current agreement we have with the banks and the financial in total are signed until March 2027.In February, Bonava published new updated financial targets regarding operating margin and return on equity. And at the same time, we also introduced a financial framework with 2 key metrics: net project assets to exceed net debt and equity to asset ratio to be above 30%. And in this slide describes how the net project assets are defined and calculated. And as you can see on the left side, both targets are were fulfilled at the end of the quarter.So with that said, back to you, Peter.

[Peter Wallin, executive]

Excellent. Thank you very much, Lars. So in summary, this is a small quarter, but I think -- and it might sound not as exciting if you say according to plan. But given the turmoil in the market and given the situation Bonava has gone through during '22 and '23, I think that the first quarter is a reassuring step of a journey back to profitability.We can see that the markets are improving, albeit from a very low level, as I said, and they will gradually improve but it will take time. The market as a whole is sort of in an imbalance, and it will take time to adjust and sort of get into a normalized level. And this is, as you know, a long-term business. It's a little bit like steering a big ship. It takes down for -- when you turn your rudder, it takes time for the boat to turn around.We can note that we have a much lower net debt. This is a work from the refinancing actions but also very strong actions taken by the business. And we have a very strong focus on cash flow now when interest rate and inflation is back on mode again. And this is something which will be very important for us going forward, as Lars alluded to when it comes to the finance framework.So, all in all, we have a strong foundation to start profitable projects. With the market exposure that we have and where we are located, our brand, our building rights portfolio and our team, we are fit for purpose, and we are ready to start projects going forward.And with that said, Anna, I turn over to you.

[Anna Fyhrlund, executive]

Yes. Thank you both for a very good presentation. And now we will open up for questions. So if you want to ask them over the phone, you have to dial star 5 to ask a question, and you can also type them in the chat, if you have any question.And we have received one from Simen Mortensen at DNB. And he is asking, was the 240 starts in Baltics that we press released in March, all included in the Q1 start figure.

[Peter Wallin, executive]

And that's perhaps a question I should ask you. But yes, they were. So it was only 41 starts in the rest of the business.

[Anna Fyhrlund, executive]

Exactly.

[Peter Wallin, executive]

That's another way to turning it around.

[Anna Fyhrlund, executive]

Yes. They were all included. And we actually don't have any more questions here in the chat. So if you have any, please type them in and now over the phone. But I can ask a question, if we're talking about starts, where do we expect to start our projects?

[Peter Wallin, executive]

Well, I think if we look into the normalization of the markets, I alluded already to some starts around in our geographies. Baltics were really quick of the sort of the marks in starting projects, and I do believe some other starts to come in the Baltics. But I really think that the big improvement and big sort of growth is going to be in Germany, the remaining part of the year, both in terms of consumer projects, but also investor projects. And as you all know, we have stated that we have a business which is sort of honing in on 3,500, 4,000 starts. That will not happen in '24. I don't think it will happen in '25 either. But from '26 and onwards, I expect to hit that level.And I also think that we have been very cautious and selective in project starts during '22 and '23 is sort of in a very proactive measure in order to sort of guard our capital and cash flow. Now with the strength that we have, I think that we will be a little bit more forward leaning in terms of starting projects without compromising on when to start the projects, having sort of the revenues, cost and team in place.

[Anna Fyhrlund, executive]

Yes. And now I actually think we have someone on the phone. So please go ahead.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Markus Henriksson from ABG Sundal Collier.

[Markus Henriksson, analyst]

First question on price cuts. Could you elaborate a little bit on what type of price drops you've seen in the one project you have adjusted during the quarter?

[Peter Wallin, executive]

Thank you very much, Markus, and thanks for asking a question, and it's a very relevant question. I would say that in the started projects, we have, of course, not adjusted the prices because they are coming out at market-based levels. And so the price cuts is in existing production and stock of completed unsold. And I think you would find on average a number of 2% to 5% over that portfolio.

[Markus Henriksson, analyst]

Perfect. Then a question on land sales and land acquisitions. Could you help us out a little bit on the outlook for '24 on land sales? Or do you intend to keep all the building rights you currently have in your portfolio? And then a follow-up, you say you will be a bit more forward leaning, does that also mean that you will acquire building rights during 2024?

[Peter Wallin, executive]

In principle, we don't need to acquire an investment in building rights, if we are not seeing any clear reasons to do so. So for example, we would have sort of to look into swaps when we can swap something that we don't intend to see for a strategic use and swap to something where we see a strategic use. But on balance, no acquisitions of land other than the ones depicted as committed land payments, as you can find in the report as well. And for 2024, those are our SEK 0.7 billion. And then when it comes to sales, I think on balance, we will be on a neutral level from a CapEx point of view with the sales were depicting.

[Markus Henriksson, analyst]

Perfect. Those were my questions.

[Anna Fyhrlund, executive]

And we have some more questions here from Simen at DNB. And Lars, maybe you can take this one. Can you comment on the low tax rate in Q1, 2%?

[Lars Ingman, executive]

Basically, we can say that we have a lot of unused tax reserves. So we don't -- we are not -- my intention is not to pay any tax in the next coming years.

[Anna Fyhrlund, executive]

Yes. And he also wonders, can you comment on the most recent trends on building costs also then taking into account which growth?

[Peter Wallin, executive]

I would say the latest trends is actually that we are seeing a little bit downside on the building cost, but it's coming from a high level. And I think the drivers there is the squeaking hold when it comes to starts of projects in the market that has made construction companies dropping their prices, their fees. And also, we are seeing that the input materials are also going down in price. So all in all in balance, this is giving a slightly sort of slow sort of south reduction on prices, but on a very low level. The decrease is on a very low level. So they are -- the production costs are still very high.

[Anna Fyhrlund, executive]

And we have another one on the phone. So please go ahead with your questions.

[Operator]

The next question comes from David Flemmich from Nordea.

[David Flemmich, analyst]

I have a question on SG&A. You might have touched upon that in the presentation. I might have missed it. But we saw SG&A direct, SG&A decreased quite significantly in Q1, both year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter to a run rate of just above SEK 600 million. Is this reasonable to expect also going forward? Or do you expect this to come down further ahead?

[Peter Wallin, executive]

Hello. Good morning, David. I think we have depicted in the presentation, [ SEK 0.6 billion to SEK 0.5 billion ] as sort of the run rate we're going to achieve from 2025. And that level depicts both a continuous increased efficiencies, but also as we start more projects, we are able to capitalize more indirect cost to projects because one of the reasons why we have not seen and not are seeing as big cuts of costs that we are actually taking action to achieve is the fact that the number of starts has sort of shrunk, which means that we have less value to capitalize upon.As we are starting up more projects, we are going to find more of a balance here. And as we have stated before, sort of in a normalized situation when we get up to par with where we want to operate, you're going to find our selling and admin to be in the tune of 5% to 6% of revenue. That's where you're going to find the level to be. And that's also the way we have computed the operating margin target from 2026.

[David Flemmich, analyst]

That's great. And just a question on your gross margins. Are they also negatively impacted by the lower volumes of completions? I know or I believe you have some fixed costs included there as well.

[Peter Wallin, executive]

You are 100% correct. Thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to explain that. I can also say it's an ongoing discussion within the Board on that topic. And it's, of course -- the fixed cost base is, of course, all the costs relating to working with making projects into fruition, sort of the design, the zoning, the management of the actual project, et cetera. And if we don't have any projects to capitalize that in the short term, that is diluting the margin. So yes, it's a dilutive impact on the gross margin given that they are compared to a very low top line in the first quarter. The first quarter is small to start with. But in addition to that, since we only report completed contracts, which is projects started 1 year, 1.5 years ago, and then the cost is today, it's a little bit comparing apples and pears. So the balance that compared also with the fact that we are in the midst of doing the restructuring and cost reduction in Germany, and they have only given a limited positive impact into the first quarter. Over time, as we start projects, the dilutive impact will be neutralized.

[David Flemmich, analyst]

That's great. So basically, if you had recognized double the amount of apartments, all else equal, the gross margin would have been higher, if I understand you correctly?

[Peter Wallin, executive]

So we are looking at a different type of contribution profits. So if we look about the underlying contribution profit from actually selling the apartments and houses, et cetera, it is much higher than the reported gross margin.

[David Flemmich, analyst]

Yes. That's great. Those were my questions.

[Anna Fyhrlund, executive]

Thank you. [ Simen ] have an additional question here. How are you working on reducing unsold completed homes? What kind of campaigns are you running?

[Peter Wallin, executive]

As I have stated before, in the good old days, you could fish by using a net. Now you have to use sort of arrow and bow. And so you have to use very selective and very different approaches depending on where they completed unsold house. But we have noted on the areas where you can really see an impact of the improving market. People want a new home to move into, in which they can sell their apartments in the same market. And that also calls for relatively easy and not as severe price cuts, as you can imagine. It's actually you can find something to move into and you can put the price tag to selling and buying in the same market.So -- and then, of course, also doing a smart thing. Not all of the completed unsold and unsold in existing production is reported as for sales. So we are using sort of putting a certain part of what is up for sale into the market in sort of in a smart way. So we are not destroying our own opportunities. And this is also one of the reasons, which have been strengthened by the improved decentralization of the business, actually being closer to the customer.

[Anna Fyhrlund, executive]

Yes. And then we have 2 questions from [ Olof Nystrom ] at [indiscernible]. And he says good morning. Will increase number of starts in Germany have a positive cash flow effect already at project start.

[Peter Wallin, executive]

Yes.

[Anna Fyhrlund, executive]

Short answer.

[Peter Wallin, executive]

Well, and sort of [ Olof ] knows our business only too well. And I know [ Olof ] only too well, so he know how to count. And the reason why it's given a positive cash flow effect is, of course, because it's sold to investors at a forward funding model. And that is why when we start the project, it gives an initial cash flow injection to the business, and we can actually start to build and develop the projects with the buyers money.

[Anna Fyhrlund, executive]

Yes. And he also has a question related to the one from David and he says, please, could you comment on the gross margin in Finland in Q1?

[Peter Wallin, executive]

Yes. And I think the answer to David's question regarding fixed cost not being able to capitalize in the gross margin is the reason. So all in all, Finland, the Finnish organization has done a tremendous job, a tremendous job in making sure that they are operating a very lean operating cost structure. And that also calls for that. They will be able to sort of use this much leaner cost base and very professional organization into developing a very accretive -- profit-accretive business going forward. But right now, as Lars alluded to, also because of the low volume, we have not expected anything else from the Finnish. So they are showing and turning a improved profitability in the ongoing projects in. At the same time, they are taking radical measures to move -- operate in a very lenient way. So I think we are in a good place in Finland, but the negative part is due to the fact that we're not starting any projects.

[Anna Fyhrlund, executive]

Yes. And the final question here from Simen. There has been a big reduction in employees. How does this impact your recovery potential when starts sales start to come back? How will this impact lead times when the market comes back?

[Peter Wallin, executive]

A very, very good question and a very relevant question. The big -- if you look back in history of a number of years, we took the very decisive step to move towards a much more decentralized structure. That meant reducing a lot of central initiatives that we're building a lot of overhead. In addition to that, we have done structural changes in many of our businesses. So in all of our businesses, but I would sort of point out to our Swedish business, our Finnish business and now also our German business, we are changing the way we are operating a little bit, the sort of the structure of us operating. So it means that we have tried to save as little as possible on the level of the organization that produces profit and projects.With that said, it is clear that when we look into the volatile nature of this business, sort of it decreases and increases in very quick turns, we really need to look ahead. And that is why we are also working with a very tight planning of our resources, how we recruit, how we attract our employees and how we develop our people. So I think this is one of the parts where sort of my and my team's efforts go a lot into making sure that we are creating the right preconditions to develop our projects. And that is why also we are talking about the right team when starting projects.

[Anna Fyhrlund, executive]

Yes, exactly. And I think that was all the questions for today. So thank you all for asking good questions and all of you that listen in to this presentation, and have a good day.