Oesterreichische Post AG

VSE:POST

Earnings Call Analysis

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q1

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Austrian Post Q1 2024 Results Conference Call. I am Sandra, the Chorus Call operator. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast.

At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Harald Hagenauer, our Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

[Harald Hagenauer, executive]

Hello. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to this conference call of Austrian Post. Here with me is Walter Oblin, CFO, and we would like to present our [ good start in the year] '24. And I would like to directly hand over to Walter. Please go on, sir.

[Walter Oblin, executive]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It's a pleasure to have the opportunity to present to you our Q1 results. As a summary upfront, Q1 has been a very good start into the year, with good growth momentum and strong profitability.

Let me start on Page 2, giving you the -- I would hope, to most of you, well-known overview about the Austrian Post. We operate industry segments, Mail, our Austrian incumbent Mail business; Parcel & Logistics, the portfolio of parcel networks including Austria, Eastern -- a number of Eastern European countries, in Turkey; and our third segment being Retail & Bank, including our Austrian network of post offices and postal partners and our bank99, a bank launched 4 years ago.

Page 3. We continue to operate in a challenging market environment. Inflation in Austria is still high, however, coming down, but still much of the high inflation of the last 18 months still only arriving in our cost structure. At the same time, there is pretty much no growth, slightly negative growth still in Q1 in Austria, pretty much zero growth projected for the year. However, 2025, some growth expected to come in.

Against -- within this context, we pursue clear priorities, first of all, to make sure we forward cost increases to our customers and ensure there is sufficient price realization. Priority #2, being very disciplined on the cost side and making sure we operate at maximum efficiency. And priority 3, we have invested a lot of CapEx in recent years, built up capacities. And it's important now to bring this capacity to the market.

Within bank99, our footprint focuses on IT integration, migrating the customers from the recently acquired ING customer portfolio to the outsourcing provider of bank99. We are well ahead in this transition.

So overall, again, within this challenging market environment, moving now to Page 4, we had a strong start into the year. Revenue is up 14%. A lot of this growth coming once again from Türkiye.

However, also outside Türkiye and the growth across the group of 10.2% with our Parcel & Logistics portfolio, of course, being the growth driver, revenues, they're up 23%. But also, our Mail business proved to be resilient with a slight growth of 2.3%, despite the ongoing structural decline of Mail volumes.

Good revenues in combination with cost discipline also ensured for strong profitability. EBIT coming in at EUR 52.4 million in the first 3 months, up 11.4% from last year.

Page 5 reminds you that we are in an ongoing structural transformation, with Parcel & Logistics business becoming an increasingly a large share of our business. We are standing on 2 strong feet, both revenue-wise as well as profitability-wise. Our incumbent Mail business, which proves to be resilient, it is, of course, declining in volumes, but pretty much stable in revenues and also stable in profitability at a high level.

And we have a good development in our third segment, Retail & Bank, where after the termination of our cooperation with BAWAG P.S.K, and launch of bank99, revenues are growing. And we are approaching breakeven within the near future.

Moving to Page 6. Page 6 gives you an update or gives you an overview of our group revenue development. As already mentioned, group revenue is up 14.1%, 10.2% outside Türkiye. And the good news being that all segments showing positive revenue development, Mail up 2.3%, price measures exceeding the volume decline; Parcel & Logistics up 23.2%, 16.9% outside Türkiye; and Retail & Bank also up 26%, with the [ most ], at this point, of this growth coming from our bank99.

Page 7, moving to EBIT development. EBIT up EUR 5.2 million, total EBIT 52.4 million. Mail, strong profitability at a high level, a slight increase. Parcel & Logistics growth in EBIT contribution of more than -- of around 45%.

Retail & Bank, a slight decline. This is a planned decline, the decline coming from one-off costs coming from the migration, from the integration of 2 core banking systems with both the combination of one-off IT expenditures and write-offs. And in total, as I said, a good profitability for the group of EUR 52.4 million.

Let me now give you an overview of the development of our core businesses along our strategy framework. Page 8. Our strategy is very clear and unchanged. We try to defend our market leadership and profitability in our core Austrian Mail and Parcel business.

Number two, we are seeking profitable growth opportunities in our markets, both internationally as well as a long value chain. And third, we look for opportunities to further develop our retail and digital offerings for private customers in SMEs around our Retail network and our bank99. In the middle, the green arrow is standing for an ambition to be a leader in sustainability, diversity and customer focus within our industry.

Let me start on Page 9, going through our core businesses. With our Mail business, Letter Mail declining over the last years around 6%. Q1, we saw [ 7% ], comparing us against a rather good Q1. Last year, it was around 4%. Our price measures that we implemented September last year as well as around the year for product groups other than the core addressed Letter Mail product more than compensated for this decline. As a result, we saw a slight growth in revenues.

Our strategy continues to offer good quality at moderate prices. Even after the significant tariff changes from last year, Austria continues to be one of the cheaper European Mail markets with a consistent positioning here in the lower half of countries within Europe.

Our strategy also is to move more and more volume in the economy letter. This product has been opened up for private customers and SMEs with our product reform from September last year. And in the meantime, more than 80% of our total addressed Letter volume is within the ECO product. And thus, we are able to bundle this in our last mile and thus save costs in the delivery.

Moving to Page 11, also Direct Mail and Media Post continues to be a significant part of our Mail business. This business is also clearly in structural decline, reasons being a shift to digital advertising and a structural change from nonstationary retailers to online retailers. There is a significant restructuring going on in the Austrian nonfood retail market, with a number of customers exiting, going into insolvency processes.

As a result, we saw substantial decline in volumes over the last year's Q1, minus [ 8% ]. I would say, pretty much as expected. The good news is that the food retailers and important customer base quite use our unaddressed Mail product in a very stable way. And also, I think the outlook there is quite stable.

Moving to our growing -- to the growing part of our portfolio, our Parcel business in Austria, last year, record volumes of 200 million parcels. From this strong year 2023, we were able to achieve 15% growth in the first 3 months. I think a very strong good start into the year. We see very large customers in Austria growing. We have probably gained some market share, and we also see new players from China entering the Austrian online retail market and also contributing to this growth.

We continue to invest at a high level, Page 13. While the Austrian large expansion program over the last years pretty much has come to an end and total CapEx is expected to come down slightly, we continue to invest in the green transformation change from combustion engines to electric mobility in our fleet. We currently see a good environment in terms of car prices, subsidiaries, energy costs. And as a result, we have accelerated our fleet transformation.

We continue to invest in growth in Eastern Europe, and we continue to invest in maintenance CapEx, including a substantial push in growth and -- in technology and digitization of our portfolio.

Page 14 shows you that our Austrian expansion program pretty much has come to an end, with most of our logistic centers having been either built new substantially enhanced capacity or substantially expanded. This is all up and running, has provided additional capacity for the processing times, more attractive injection times, injection headlines for our core shipping customers. And of course, it's also a source of productivity enhancement, and we see all those effects coming through to our P&L.

Page 15 gives you an update of our staff transformation, the shift from civil servant and old collective labor wage agreements to employees in a new collective wage agreement moving on.

And in the meantime, clearly, more than 50% of our staff structure is in the new collective wage agreement. This provides some cost relief and some compensation for the strong factor, cost increase we've seen due to the high inflation over the last years. And of course, this transformation will go on over the next years.

Let me now move to strategy pillar number two, profitable growth in the markets. Coming to our international Parcel portfolio shown here in orange and red, very good growth in Q1 across the whole portfolio, strongest volume growth in Eastern Europe.

Here, new Chinese online players being a substantial source of this growth. A little bit lower growth in Turkey, here in the mid-single-digit figures. Here, focus clearly is on profitability and price realization, with strong margins and strong absolute EBIT contributions as a result.

Page 17 shows you more details on the development in Türkiye. Please let me highlight that we are seeing here also an effect from a stable -- relatively stable Turkish lira when compared to the high inflation in the country, revenues in Turkish lira have increased substantially, more than 100% -- [ 137% ] due to both organic growth, lower contribution, volume growth, meaning and more importantly, high inflation.

The Turkish lira has not matched this decrease in purchasing power of the Turkish lira. As a result, that translation in euro terms gives a good growth in particular. Also given the hyperinflation accounting, we have to expect that at some point in time, the Turkish lira will show some stronger depreciation.

And given that with hyperinflation accounting, we -- for the whole year -- for the revenues for the whole year, we used always the FX rate from the last day on the month of the quarter. We have to expect that there is the possibility that we see a substantial negative impact on revenues in the near future. But in this quarter, very good growth in both Turkish lira and in euro terms.

Moving to bank99, Page 18. I think good development of bank99 and also challenging Austrian banking environment. Of course, there is a tailwind from the interest rate environment, which has also been the core driver of the increase in net interest income.

At the same time, the market environment is challenging in terms of high interest rates for consumers and therefore, a rather depressed mortgage market and also at least a necessity to more -- to be more cautious in terms of risk taking.

Within this environment, Bank99 has shown, I think, good organic development growth in customers, growth in deposits, growth in loans for both mortgages and consumer finance. So overall, we are quite satisfied.

And I think in the beginning, the current focus is on migrating the core migrating customers and products from the core banking system that we acquired -- when we acquired the consumer business of ING in Austria to our outsourcing partner, Accenture, which is the provider for the bank99's original core banking system.

This migration is underway. We hope to complete it by the end of the year. But there are some one-off costs and depreciation associated with it that are the reason for the decline in profitability in the Retail & Bank segment.

Moving on to Page 19. Self-service solutions have been well accepted in the Austrian market. Last year, 27 million parcels being handled by 24/7 self-service solutions. We are currently in a strong push to increase the number and capacity of self-service solutions, in particular, post stations, also in smaller formats, both in urban centers as well as in rural areas. And we do expect to add [ 1,000 ] new locations in the next 2 years.

Also, innovation on the sustainability side. Last week or 2 weeks ago, we welcomed 2 electric trucks in our truck fleet. This is a pilot where we are now learning with electric mobility for trucks here as a shuttle service between our logistics operations at the Vienna Airport and our core Vienna logistics center, so still a short distance, but I think a very interesting training ground.

And at the same time, we are using HVO fuel for -- as a bridge technology in our fleet and do expect, after we have successfully completed test operations with this fuel, to achieve substantial reduction in CO2 emissions with this fuel in our own truck fleet.

Let me now come to some more details on our financials. I have already commented on revenue. EBITDA and EBIT margins quite stable on a high level, some small decline, which is a result of a structural shift from a higher-margin Mail business to a lower-margin Parcel business, but I think still very decent margins.

Earnings per share, I think a very good start into the year with EUR 0.59 per share -- earnings per share and our cash flow also strong in the first 3 months.

Let me skip Page 23 and jump into our Mail segment right away. Revenue is up 2.3%. Both core product segments, let Mail and Business Solutions on the one hand and Direct Mail and Media Post on the other hand, showing revenue growth. In both segments, we were able to compensate the volume decline with price measures. And as a result and in combination with very efficient, smooth operations, also a stable profitability, on Page 25, both in absolute terms as well as in terms of margins.

Page 26. Moving to our Parcel & Logistics segment, here, very strong growth across our regional portfolio, 60.4% in Austria, [ 41% ], as mentioned, in Türkiye, with the mentioned FX and inflation effect. 28% revenue growth in Eastern Europe. And this good growth has translated into good earnings.

Moving to Page 27. Total EBIT in this segment, EUR 24.2 million after EUR [ 16.7 ] million, an increase of 45%, also an increase in profit margin.

Page 28, Retail & Bank division, revenues up here 26%. Most of this growth coming from our Financial Services segment, which is more or less bank99. Here, revenue is up [ 35.3% ], mostly due to higher interest rates. I think you're all aware that interest rates will start to decline probably in the second half of this year, depending on what the ECB does. And we have already seen interest rate margins somewhat compressing in Austria.

Page 29. As already mentioned, an expected decline in EBIT by roughly EUR 3 million due to the already-explained one-offs coming from the depreciation of our -- of the core banking system that originates from the ING acquisition and one-off IT costs.

Our balance sheet, Page 30, quite stable and healthy. I think growth in total balance sheet coming from the growth in our bank balance sheet here in dark blue.

Our bank continues to grow in both deposits as well as on the asset side. Apart from that, not much has changed since the beginning of the year. The usual growth in equity in -- prior to the dividend payout, we have paid out roughly EUR 120 million in dividends as of May 2.

So the absolute equity will be, again, lower next quarter. But over parts on the dividend payout, a very stable and healthy equity position, very stable. Leverage, quite conservative. You see the numbers here on the right side. And as I said, not much change since the end of last year.

Moving to Page 31. Our free cash flow has been robust and strong in the first quarter. Operating free cash flow of EUR 72.3 million first quarter, typically a rather slow CapEx quarter and EUR 64.8 million free cash flow. So I think overall, a good development for cash flow for the full year, which should provide the basis for another attractive dividend proposal for 2024 to next year's AGM.

Let me conclude on Page 32 with the outlook for 2024. We look rather confident into the full year. Of course, there are still 3 quarters to go. And as a result, we remain cautious. But starting to the year has been good. And so far, we have seen no substantial change in trends.

On the Mail side, we do expect Mail volumes to continue to decline. Price effects continue to compensate at least part of this decline, a strong election year in Austria also providing some positive support for Mail revenues.

On the Parcel side, we continue to see good volume growth. It might come down a little bit. I think the numbers in Q1 have been unusually strong. We do not expect those numbers to continue throughout the year, but we do expect growth going forward. And of course, I have highlighted that the exchange rate of the Turkish lira could provide some volatility.

On the CapEx side, we do expect maintenance CapEx of around EUR [ 70 ] million to EUR 80 million, around EUR 40 million to EUR 50 million for the green transformation, including [ fleet ] investments and growth CapEx of around [ EUR 30 million ].

And on the earnings side, we continue to apply cost discipline and efficiency, work on efficiency every day. And the combination of good revenues and strong cost discipline should provide for stable profitability. And we have slightly upgraded our guidance here, both on the revenue side as well as on the earnings side.

On the revenue side, we are already now -- is that we do expect growth in the mid-single-digit range, again, depending on the development of the Turkish lira. And on the EBIT side, our wording is now that we target at least the same level as last year. A modest increase is possible in case the macroeconomic environment and the core trends in our markets pretty much remain unchanged.

So confident, I would say, overall, cautious but confident outlook for 2024, and I'm now happy to take your questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Marco Limite from Barclays.

[Marco Limite, analyst]

So I have a first question -- actually, first topic on volume growth across your geographies. So I mean, first of all, you have been growing volumes double digit in Q4, now in Q1. Just wondering, let's say, what's your outlook maybe for Q2 in terms of exit rates and throughout the year? And the second question, clearly, that volume growth has been mainly driven by Asian retailers. But in your slides, you also mentioned that in CEE, volume growth is very strong. So can you just explain to us how the Asian volumes are -- basically impacts in those businesses as well? Are those volumes basically cross-border volumes from Austrian to the other countries? Or what's basically the business model in those countries and how they are benefiting from Asian retailers? And a second question, a different topic, is on staff cost in Austria. So you clearly have announced wage increase a couple of weeks ago or last week. Are you planning to push through any price increase in Mail to offset wage cost inflation?

[Walter Oblin, executive]

Yes. Marco. Can you repeat your last question? I could [ not fully ] understand it.

[Marco Limite, analyst]

I was asking if whether you're planning for a new round of price increases in Mail in order to offset the wage increases.

[Walter Oblin, executive]

Okay. Let me start with this last question. I would not expect that within 2024, we will implement another price increase in our Mail business. We have substantially increased prices end of last year, both in September as well as end of the year, for other products outside addressed Mail. And given that inflation is coming down, I would not expect price changes still in the course of the year.

Of course, the end of the year will be a natural, I would say, timing for price changes, depending -- for individual price changes in certain products, yes, but not throughout the year.

Coming back to your question, so please bear with me that we do not provide guidance for specific -- for growth in specific product groups and regions. And I think it's -- to be very honest, it's also quite difficult to really have a clear view on how volumes will develop beyond the next week. Overall, I think the growth momentum that we've seen over the last months now seems to be intact.

The question of new Chinese players that you mentioned, to put things into perspective, around 1/3 of the total growth that we've seen across the group is coming from these players.

In Austria, in absolute terms, we talk about not more than around 5%, 6% of total volumes that come from these groups. In Austria, we see a good combination of large long-term customers, who continue to grow substantially again.

We have gained new customers, given the additional capacity that we have in the market, given the good quality we provide, given the efficient and fast processes that we provide. And yes, we have also some new volumes from new Chinese retailers, but we're talking here about a share of around 5%, 6%.

[Marco Limite, analyst]

And again, so I mean, generally, we don't talk a lot about these [ CEE ] businesses within your group. But again, like you're flagging a very strong volume growth in your other countries.

[Walter Oblin, executive]

Yes, [ 3 things ] for following up on this question, you were also asking for the development in [ CEE ]. There, we have a stronger share of -- so [ CEE ] without Turkey now talking there, we are talking about the new Chinese players being the source of most of the growth that we've shown here, most of the volume growth and also a substantial share of the total volume that we deliver here.

And I would say the outlook is we still see them growing, but of course, the volatility of these type of customers and the sustainability of their -- the volatility is higher. And the sustainability of the business model there is on [ that ] track record. And I think it's hard to forecast now how these business models will develop and whether they are able to sustain the aggressive growth they are pursuing here in Europe over a longer time horizon.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Henk Slotboom from The Idea.

[Henk Slotboom, analyst]

Apologies if I was a bit later. I was held up in traffic, so I missed the first part of the call. But the question I had is maybe partly answered by the answer you gave on Marco's question. I'm a bit puzzled about what I see on Slide 6 of the presentation that revenues in Parcels Austria went up by 16.4%. And on Page 12, it said that the volume of Parcels in Austria was up [ 15% ].

I see the discrepancy between these two growth numbers, which I can't fully explain because normally speaking, imports you get from China happen at significantly lower tariffs. So it should have diluted your growth, unless you've increased your tariffs in Austria substantially. Could you perhaps shed some more light on that, please?

[Walter Oblin, executive]

Yes, thanks for your question. And I think you also provided already -- not the answer to your question, but you highlighted the development -- the structural mix, [ means ] that we see here, the revenue growth is a combination of volume growth, a mix change towards smaller, cheaper parcels and the impact of price changes that, of course, we have implemented across all customer segments.

We have seen significant inflation in Austria. And as a result, we went to our customers and implemented substantial price increases. And yes, the 1% only difference between revenues and volumes means that there is a substantial mix effect, given that we have more B2C parcels, more smaller parcels, more parcels with -- coming from new customers.

[Henk Slotboom, analyst]

Yes, still my compliments because when I look at your peers, whether it's [ bpost ], PostNL or DHL, I will see that the revenue line is lagging behind the volume growth because of the, let's call it, the China factor. And did I understand you correctly that China -- our Chinese volumes are currently around 5% to 6% of total Parcel volumes? Is that correct?

[Walter Oblin, executive]

In Austria, that's the right order of magnitude. I mentioned that in Eastern Europe, the share is substantially higher. And well, first, thanks for compliments. And yes, this is the result that the growth in Austria is only partially coming from -- the strong growth is partially coming from new Chinese players.

It is also coming from existing large long-term customers, who continue to grow quite substantially and where we were -- where there is little mix change and where we were able to implement price increases and is also the result from new customers that we were able to win.

[Operator]

We have a follow-up question from Marco Limite from Barclays.

[Marco Limite, analyst]

Just got one more question, which is on your Retail, Banking unit. So you're calling out some IT integration costs this year. Can you just quantify more or less how much integration costs we will see this year [ 2024 ] ?

[Walter Oblin, executive]

Rough number, EUR 10 million for the full year and around 2.5 to 3 in the first quarter.

[Marco Limite, analyst]

Okay. So the indication -- I'm aware you are not guiding by unit, but we basically expect the Banking unit to be below breakeven after integration costs, is that correct?

[Walter Oblin, executive]

Not sure what you exactly mean. So we do expect a mid- to higher single million digit loss still this year faster, so including one-off costs, which at the same time means that we would operationally be more or less breakeven. But we still have 9 months to go, and this is an expectation, yes.

[Operator]

The next question comes from [ Richard Dagmar ] from Bank of America.

[Unknown Analyst]

Just have had a follow-up question on these Chinese e-commerce volumes that are dilutive to your margin. Can you tell us what is maybe per parcel what is the price gap between domestic -- average domestic parcel and Asian parcels? And do you intend to or is it possible to implement price increases, so you reduced that gap?

[Walter Oblin, executive]

Well, please bear with me that we are not sharing here details on pricing for specific customer groups. Please let me also remind you that we are legally obliged to apply nondiscriminatory pricing. So I would let see substantial price gap.

It's more a mix difference that we see here across different customers on the one hand -- on the one end of the spectrum, B2B customers with substantially bigger parcels and higher revenues per parcel. And on the other end of the spectrum, there, some of these new players sit customers with B2C only, low average price point and very often low volume, low weight and therefore, also lower prices.

[Operator]

It seems that, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Harald Hagenauer for any closing remarks.

[Harald Hagenauer, executive]

Yes. Thanks, ladies and gentlemen, for participating in our call. We are here the next hour. So if you have some further questions, we, of course, are available, don't hesitate to call us up. Thank you. Bye-bye.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call, and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.