Wallenstam AB

STO:WALL B

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q4

[Susann Linde, executive]

Hi, and welcome to this presentation of the fourth quarter of 2022. My name is Susann Linde, I'm CFO and Head of Investor Relations here at Wallenstam. Please go to Slide 2.

It has been a year that we look forward to when we would master the pandemic and life would return back to normal. Instead, it has been a dramatic year when almost exactly a year ago, the war started in Ukraine. But apart from all the terrible human suffer, it has also meant an energy price crisis and the lack of materials.

We have an increased inflation and higher interest rate as a result. But Wallenstam has a core business that works well and a stable financial position and we have good conditions for taking advantage of opportunities that may arise in more uncertain times like this. But we are not unaffected by the outside world and the challenges that come with it, but we look ahead and has, therefore, launched a new business plan this December.

Please turn to next page, Page 3. We released the business plan 2030 and the goal in this business plan is to achieve a net asset value per share of SEK 100 by 2030. This is a challenging goal in this uncertain times, but it is during a long time when a lot can happen. The reason we have chosen 2030 because there are a lot of years until 2030 but it is because we also have new climate goals approved by the science-based targets initiative by 2030 where we commit to reduce emissions in Scope 1 and 2 by up to 50% and the voluntary goal in Scope 3 to reduce emissions from our construction operations by 55%.

Now turn to Page 4. So what happened now during this fourth quarter. In total, for the total year, we have reduced our bonds and commercial papers by approximately SEK 3.7 billion in total during the whole year. And included in that is that we have chosen to buyback bonds that mature after 2022 with a volume of SEK 400 million. We also started buybacks of our own shares in October and bought back a total of 1 million shares for approximately SEK 43 million, which means an average price per share of SEK 42.56.

We vacated properties for SEK 3.3 billion during the year, we have now, during quarter 4, vacated 27 properties in Gothenburg to Ikano Bostad. And in the same deal, we also acquired land in Årstaberg for future new construction. In the picture, you see our head office of Gothenburg at Kungsportsavenyen 2, where we worked a lot with climate and other modernization of this over a 100 year old beautiful property. We think it's very important to take care of these older properties, of which there are many in the inner city and find systems to do this in a climate friendly way.

The result of this work was that we certified the property as gold in Miljöbyggnad iDrift and also won a prize for this property in the Sweden Green Building Award. We also won a prize during the quarter for the Circular Construction Initiative of the Year for our reconstruction of the temporary Östermalmshallen, which we moved from a market hall in Stockholm, which became a paddle hall in Mölnlycke.

After judgment regarding older deficits, we have now been able to recognize this, which affect the tax positive by around SEK 300 million. The Board proposed a dividend of SEK 1.6 per share on 2 payment occasions, the first SEK 0.30 per share after the AGM and the other half a year later -- a half year later.

Now turn to Page 5. Yes, having an attractive location on once properties is very important, and we have. In total, we have 204 properties in our property holding, we have our residentials in attractive residential areas and the main part of our commercial premises in Central Gothenburg. Demand is high for both segments.

Residential is 100% rented out and we now have over 230,000 people in our own housing queue. The occupancy rate for commercial lettable area in Gothenburg amounted to 94%. And for all commercial properties, including Stockholm, which represents around 10% of the commercial area, amounted to 92%.

Now turn to Page 6. During the business plan 2023, we had 4 climate goals. These are all challenging goals, and we have achieved all the measurable goals, and we feel very proud of that. Among other things, at an early stage, we choose more climate-friendly material choices, reduced the amount of concrete by changing constructions, worked on further energy efficiency improvements in our properties.

So now turn to next page, Page 7. And the income statement. Our operation is going well. We have a huge demand for our premises, as I mentioned before, but of course, we are also affected by cost increases. Our net operating income increased by SEK 125 million, even though we have a lot of sales this year. But I think we will go to next page, and I will go into more details.

So turn to Page 8. The NOI increased by 7% and if we start by seeing what the change in rental income is due to the rental income is also increasing by 7%, SEK 166 million. The new construction accounts for SEK 162 million of these, we have completed approximately 700 apartments during the year and the ones we completed the previous year are now included as a full year. We lose in rental income from the transactions that took place during the year. We have sold 86,000 square meters and acquired 12,000 square meters. In total, we lose total net rental income of SEK 62 million this year.

In the comparable holdings, we increased by net SEK 63 million. In total, it's an increase of just over 3% in base rent, for residentials 1.8% and the commercial holding on average 5.6%. In December, we decided to give electricity subsidies to residential tenants who have individual metering, according the expected approach from the Swedish government. It's about EUR 50 per kilowatt hours, which has negatively impacted our income by around SEK 6 million. The rental income are also positively affected by SEK 9 million due to the reinvoicing of increased property tax.

Operating expenses increased by SEK 41 million compared to the previous year. Half of the increase is due to completed new construction of SEK 23 million. We are also reducing our operating expenses, thanks to the transactions that took place during the year that I told you about, which gives us a total of SEK 18 million lower net expenses. It has also been warmer as now we compare to the previous year, which gives us lower expenses by SEK 3 million.

The expenses for maintenance, electricity and water have increased during the year by SEK 25 million and the same is because the price has gone up. Some of it is because the price has gone up mainly for electricity and water by a total of approximately SEK 10 million, and there has also been more maintenance in the properties. The property tax has increased by SEK 11 million, and we are reinvoicing most of it to the tenant. So in total, an increase of SEK 125 million in NOI.

Now turn to next page, Page 9. We completed both residentials and commercial properties during this fourth quarter. One is our urban development project, Kallebäcks Kv. 10 where these 85 apartments, including 12 co-living apartments for the Colive concept, which in total consists of 121 rooms. In this area, we have 4 more ongoing projects right now. We have, also in the same area, fully completed Entré Kallebäck, a commercial property, which is 90% let out.

Now turn to next page. And now we are in Stockholm, our urban development project there, Umami in Sundbyberg, where we have now completed a commercial property that we have rebuilt and modernized. So we have premises left to rent in this property and half of the property is occupied at the moment.

Now turn to next page, Page 11. Our NOI continues to increase, like I showed before. The surplus ratio is on the same level as last year, even though we have a cost increase this year. So the surplus ratio is 76%.

Now turn to next page, Page 12. We report an income from property management almost on the same level as last year despite higher financial expenses. We recognized a financial net income SEK 130 million higher than last year. This is partly because we have a debt that is SEK 1.5 billion higher than the previous year, and we have hedged a lot of the interest rate in the beginning of the year. However, we are not completely protected against the increase in Stibor that was secured during the year. The Stibor went from just around 0 up to 2.7% at year-end. We recognized an average interest rate at year-end of 2.21%, and it was 1.17% last year.

Now turn to Page 13. At the beginning of the year, we restructured our fixed interest rates by hedging but during the fourth quarter, we haven't done any new interest rate derivatives. We have an average fixed interest term of 44 months and 59% of the loan portfolio has a fixed interest terms longer than 1 year. In this graph, you can see the maturity of our interest rates.

Now turn to Page 14. The profit before value changes is almost SEK 90 million higher compared to last year. And here is the energy operation recognized. During the quarter, we have a profit of SEK 40 million here in the energy operation compared to SEK 20 million last year. Despite less wind turbines because we sold 13 wind turbines earlier this year, it went up because of higher energy prices and also higher production in the existing wind turbines.

Now turn to Page 15. It's an uncertain market even in terms of property values now. There has just been a few transactions, and you cannot see any trends in prices. The average direct yield requirements in residentials is 1.4 percentage points higher than last year from 3.0% up to 3.4%. And also for the commercials from 4.4% up to 4.8% on average. This means we recognized a negative value change of SEK 3 billion this quarter and SEK 2.7 billion in total this year, which means just about 4% decrease of the value where the main part comes from higher direct yield requirements.

We see the opposite regarding the valuation of our interest rate derivatives, where we have a recognized profit of SEK 1.9 billion for the whole year because of increased levels of the long market interest rate during the year. But during the quarter, the value is some less than last quarter. The total value of the interest rate derivatives is SEK 1.9 billion. This quarter, we recognized a nonrecurring item regarding tax of almost SEK 300 million, thanks to a judgment on older deficits. We recognized now for the whole year, the effect is SEK 336 million, some of it was recognized earlier this year. In total, we have a profit after tax of SEK 1.1 billion.

I'd now turn to next page and the balance sheet. In total, we have a property holding amounted to SEK 63 billion in market value. To the right in the slide, you see a chart of how the values has changed. We have invested in total SEK 4.5 billion, SEK 2.5 billion in new construction. In total, we have a book value of just over SEK 3 billion regarding ongoing projects where we have around 125,000 square meters under construction right now.

And now turn to Page 17. Because of the adjusted yield requirements, the average yield for commercials is 3.4% -- and for residentials 3.4% and commercials 4.8%, I told you before. And in total, the market value amounts to SEK 63 billion and 40% is commercials and 60% is for residential properties. And the total occupancy rate is 97% of our 1.4 million square meters.

Now turn to Page 18. As I said before, we have invested about SEK 2.5 billion in construction during the year, which is slightly lower level than the last 3 years, as you can see on this graph. We haven't started new projects at the same pace as before due to the market conditions. It started with the pandemic, leading to delays in permits, materials and then to sharp price increases. The demand for the residential product is still very high, as I mentioned earlier, that we have our own queue of 230,000 people who wants an apartment to live in.

Now turn to Page 19. Now we have 1,744 apartments under construction right now. What happened since last year is that we have completed some projects, which I showed you earlier, but we haven't had any starts this past quarter. The majority of the projects will begin occupancy now in 2023, as you can see here in the light gray boxes.

So now turn to Page 20. The interest-bearing liabilities amounts to SEK 28 billion, which is SEK 500 million higher than last year. On next page, I will show you how we have restructured our financing during the year.

Now turn to Page 21. It is a capital market that is somewhat weak, and we have always mainly been financed with bank loans. It has historically been more expensive, but we have felt that it is a safer form of financing with a long-term relationship. At the beginning of the presentation, I said that we had repurchased bonds for future years of SEK 410 million, and we also repurchased another SEK 1.5 billion of bonds early that were due in 2022. In total, including natural maturities in 2022, we have reduced our bond volume by SEK 1.8 billion. That together with a further reduction of almost SEK 2 billion regarding commercial paper, we have replaced SEK 3.8 billion in capital market financing with bank loans.

When we exit 2022, we have SEK 1 billion left in commercial papers and SEK 890 million in bonds, which in total corresponds to 7% of our financing. SEK 400 million of the bonds mature in 2024 and the rest mature during the year.

Now turn to next page, Page 22, and I will make a short summary with half of our key ratios. We have further strengthened the NOI, a surplus ratio basically at the same level as last year despite higher expenses. A higher interest rate compared last year that affect the interest coverage ratio down to 4.7x. A continued strong balance sheet despite the value losses in properties during the year, an LTV of 45% and an equity ratio of 47%. An equity per share of SEK 47.7 and a net asset value per share of SEK 57.4 and it's almost on the same level as last year.

So finally, I can say that we focus on the future and think that we have a stable situation and can take advantage of this environment. So with this, I thank you for listening, and have a good day. Thank you.