Wallenstam AB

STO:WALL B

Earnings Call Transcript 2020-Q1

[Susann Linde]

Welcome to the conference call, where I will present the first quarter 2020. At the same time, as this is being broadcast, we have a Swedish telephone conference where Hans is participating the question session. If you have any questions, just click on the envelope on this page, and we will answer them. All the questions will be translated into English and will be published on our home page. However, I want to start by talking about what has affected us all lately, namely the spread of the coronavirus, how the pandemic affects Wallenstam and how we handle the situation. It's difficult at present to determine the consequences and the horizon of the pandemic. Now turn to next page. Wallenstam celebrated 6 -- 75 years as a company last year, and that means that the company has been through many crises. Wallenstam enters this crisis with a strong position compared to the crisis in the '90s, both in terms of financial stability and property holdings. Many of the strategies we have today originate from this crisis in order to be able to withstand as well as possible in a new crisis, for example, our mix and the centrally located property portfolio. But I will turn more to it and to the other points on this page. We started early to secure operations in various ways. Now turn to next page. One of the most important things is to have good liquidity at such an uncertain time we have ahead of us. We have focused early on securing our financing and liquidity and have secured our entire financing needs for the rest of the year as of today. This means that we have borrowed earlier than planned to secure our future needs. We have a good relationship with the banks, and we have never left the bank, even though the capital market has been cheaper. We'd like to have a counterparty to talk to and have a relationship with. This is especially evident in such time when the bank is there and the capital market is more difficult. We have agreed with the EIB to lift our loans when we have them on the 2 occasions during the year when we have bond maturities of SEK 1.9 billion. This we already agreed on in January and was the plan even if no corona had occurred. As for the framework of SEK 4 billion for the commercial paper market, we have a backup at Handelsbanken, which we will use when we do not refinance the commercial papers. We have refinanced some of the maturities, but not at all -- not all of them. As of today's date, we have cash and an overdraft facility of SEK 800 million, of total over just SEK 2 billion. Plus that, we can raise SEK 1.2 billion on our backup for the certification program, the commercial paper program. In addition, Hans, our CEO, has waived his salary from April and until further notice. And the remuneration committee has proposed the AGM unchanged Board fees for 2020. In addition, the Board has withdrawn its previous proposal for dividend to the AGM, pending the effect of the pandemic. All of this together creates a good starting point for us to be able to continue to make investments and gain freedom of action if opportunities arise. Now turn to next page. Our strategy regarding our property portfolio is to be in the growing regions Stockholm and Gothenburg. We also have a mix of commercial and residential properties. Half of our rental value comes from residential. Everyone needs somewhere to live and preferable in attractive residential areas. Generally, there are no problems with unpaid rents. Basically, everything is paid at the end of March, just as it usually looks. Now turn to next page, Page 5. Now during the corona, we have provided extended information to our tenants as well as extended cleaning and cleaning of areas that are most exposed, such as elevator buttons and door handles. Our residential tenants have also received a lot of offers from our nearby commercial tenants. We have a lot of occupancies in our new construction during this year. And in order for apartment tours to work despite corona, we offer digital tours instead of live. On the right-hand side, we can see the digital tour of our project in Måndag, Elisedal, where leasing manager, [ Louise Somasong ] shows around the apartment. The interest in our rental properties remains high. Now turn to next page. We have also added a virtual tour with a 360 photo where you can look around and see the apartment. This is the first time we're doing this. It will be posted on our website, and anyone can enter. And this is also Elisedal in this picture. Now turn to next page. About half of our property holding is commercial. And as you can see on the map on the right, the main part of the commercial areas are in Gothenburg and in the central parts. The tenants that are included in the list of those that the government has identified as the most vulnerable sectors make up 13% of our rental value. There are 353 customers, and we have now made individual agreements with almost 200 of these tenants. We have different individual solutions per tenant, both in terms of discounts and adjustments from quarter to month. Of the expected payment of rents for the month of April, we have received just over 95%. Now turn to next page. We have a central commercial property holding in areas where people move. In this picture, you can see how the flow has decreased in the inner city of Gothenburg from week 10 to week 14. Week 14 is 56% less flow compared to last year. Although there are a few people, there are still people in the area. Now turn to next page. This is an extreme situation for many tenants. Many can handle a shorter, difficult period, but no one knows how long this can last. We have a closeness to our customers, which has enabled us to work up and maintain good relationships. This is even more important in this situation, and we have an ongoing and close dialogue with our customers to make different types of individual solutions. We started an early dialogue with our tenants. We have daily internal strategy meetings about our customers as we go through customer for customer. For example, some of the solutions we have made have been to buy from food from restaurants and deliver to aid organizations. In this way, the restaurants can continue to run their business. The government has issued a support package where they pay half of the rent reduction that we as property owner make, up to a maximum of 25% of the total rent. However, some questions remain regarding this package. Now turn to next page. We have over 3,000 apartments under construction, and we started early to ensure that different types of materials and resources would reach our production so that we do not get unnecessary stock in our ongoing production. We can also coordinate between projects because we are in different phases in the various projects that are ongoing. We also have a continuous and close dialogue as always with our contractors. So far, we have no interruptions in our production. Next page. We were very early in securing our workplace and quickly began to quarantine those who have been abroad or were chilled in some way. We also closed the office for external visitors, and more employees worked from home. It's important in such situations to inform politicians about the situation in the business world, so we have taken our responsibility and explain what the situation looks like for the industries that are mostly affected, and they need help fast as they do not have enough resources to cope for a longer time without customers. Now turn to next page. So now let's move on and go into our results for the first quarter. Next page. When we started our production of Väven in Mölnlycke in January, we made our first lift on our loan from the EIB with a total framework of SEK 2.5 billion. The first lift was SEK 500 million. We also received land allocation in Älta, where we already own just over 750 apartments and plan to densify the area with another 700 new apartments. In February, we also became 25% owner of the company, Colive, which works to offer shared housing through various co-live hubs. Next page. We have had a lot of occupations this quarter, 401 rental apartments, and I will show them on next page. Norrgårdshusen in Österåker is now fully completed, and it's our first property here in Österåker. We have also completed Terrassen Elva to the right with 54 apartments in Tyresö. Now turn to next page and more in Stockholm: Trollesunds gårdar, where we completed 110 apartments. And to the right, Umami Park in Sundbyberg, 109 apartments of 147. So then we have 38 remain. Now turn to next page. We report a net operating income increase of SEK 22 million and a surplus ratio of 73.8%. On the next page, I will tell you more about the details. Next page. It's an increase of 6 percent. Rents have increased by SEK 26 million, of which SEK 17 million is from our new construction coming into our management. In existing, the year's rental negotiations and index account for the increase of SEK 7 million. We have a total occupancy rate of 98%. Operating expenses increased by SEK 4 million, a larger area due to the new construction leads to higher costs of SEK 4 million. It has also been a warmer and less snowy quarter, resulting in lower costs of SEK 4 million. Maintenance increased by a total of SEK 4 million compared to the previous year. Now turn to next page. We maintain the occupancy rate we had last quarter of 96%. And in this corona crisis, we have actually let out some new areas, mostly offices but also some retail premises. Now turn to next page. We are continuing to increase our surplus ratio and rolling full year to 75.8%. So we have an efficient property holding. Now turning to Page 21. We keep our cost level in terms of administration at the same level as last year. Net financial items are SEK 7 million higher than in the previous year, and part of the reason is that we have SEK 3 billion higher average debt compared to the previous year and that the average interest rate for the quarter is 8 points higher compared to last year, 1.23% compared to 1.15%. Now turn to next page. The average fixed interest term is as long as it was at year-end, 38 months. We raised SEK 550 million in new interest rate derivatives of 10 years during this quarter. Now turn to next page. During the quarter, 4 apartments in our project Vasagatan 33 were taken over. In total, there are 7 apartments left, of which 3 are already sold but not taken over. Other income and expenses consist primarily of our wind power. There has been good wind during the quarter, and we have, therefore, produced more than last year, but the prices have been lower. Now turning to Page 24. We keep the valuation of our investment properties in operation at the same value as the previous quarter. This is due to the fact that it's very difficult to value properties now with the current crisis. However, we gradually adjust the value in our new construction as we will, which amounts to SEK 254 million. The value of our interest rate derivatives fell further during the quarter, totaling SEK 177 million. And if you look at the 10-year interest rate, it has gone from 0.38% to 0.68% during this quarter. And in total, the profit after tax amounts to SEK 309 million. Now turning to Page 25. We have properties valued to SEK 54 billion, and the increase is mainly investments we made during the quarter. Our interest-bearing liabilities have increased by SEK 600 million this quarter. And in total, we have a deficit in derivatives of SEK 533 million. Now turn to Page 26. As I said, we have not changed the valuation of existing property holding but gradually in our new construction. We have direct yield requirements of 4.5% in the commercial holding and 3.2% in the residential holding. Now turn to Page 27. We invested SEK 1 billion during this quarter, where most of it, SEK 963 million is our new construction. Our equity/assets ratio is maintained as we build to an excess value of about 40%. Now turning to next page. At closing day, we have accessible liquidity of SEK 6,635 million, where SEK 4,000 million will cover as the backup for our outstanding commercial papers of SEK 3.6 billion. Now turning to next page. At the end of the quarter, we have 3,093 apartments under construction. We started 382 apartments during this quarter. On the next page, I will show you which properties. Now turn to Page 30. Väven is the third project in Mölnlycke, where we now have just over 420 apartments under construction, including these 116 apartments. We have also started the third housing project in Kallebäcks with 266 apartments in Terrasser Kvarter. Here, we have a total of 700 apartments under construction. Now turn to next page. And here on this slide, you can see our ongoing projects. And as you can see, we will have a lot of occupations during this year. Now turning to next page, and here are some of the key ratios. I have mentioned the most of them during this call. And all of them are stable, and the net asset value per share is now SEK 92.6. Now turn to next page. Our goal in this business plan is to have an increase in our net asset value of SEK 40 per share. And that this quarter -- during this quarter, we have increased SEK 1.25 to net asset value. And now it amounted to SEK 13.35. So we have some krona left to reach those 14 -- SEK 40.So now turn to next page. This was what I wanted to talk about, and now we focus to navigate through this crisis in the best way. And as I said in the beginning, we have a strong position from the start. And thank you for listening, and have a good day.