Gielda Papierow Wartosciowych w Warszawie SA

WSE:GPW

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q4

[Unknown Executive]

[Interpreted] The usual procedure, starting with the presentation, followed by Q&A. We have the new CEO, Tomasz Bardzilowski; members of the Management Board, Izabela Olszewska, Monica Gorgon and Adam Mlodkowski; TGE CEO, [indiscernible]; and CFO of GPW, [indiscernible]. Over to the CEO, Tomasz Bardzilowski.

[Tomasz Bardzilowski, executive]

[Interpreted] Thank you. Let me start by extending a very warm welcome in my new role as CEO, President of the Management Board of the Warsaw Stock Exchange. This is an important mission for me, a mission with 2 major directions: first, to support the development of the Polish capital market; and second, to create and build shareholder value, value for stakeholders of the Warsaw Stock Exchange.

At the outset of this presentation, I will discuss the summary of 2023, and then I will hand over to my colleagues. As for the past year, it is important to note that the year saw a rebound of a rally on the capital markets with good index performance. WIG gained nearly 40% last year. And the final part of the year after the parliamentary election, the Polish indices are among the best performance of global stock exchanges.

On the other hand, turnover on global exchanges dropped affecting us as well. Turnover in equities dropped by [ several ] percent on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, but we are happy to know that velocity remained relatively high as measured by turnover to free float. The velocity ratio was among the highest in Europe. What we faced last year included geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainties, which continued to hamper the IPO market globally in Europe and in Poland.

There were 10 IPOs on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, including 9 transfers from NewConnect and 1 successful IPO from Murapol, but we are happy to know that the conditions on the SPO market remained strong, which shows that listed companies continue to raise more capital on the public markets.

The SPOs were worth more than PLN 2.5 billion. Last year was a good year for our passive investing instruments on the exchange, ETFs, and the record-breaking year for non-treasury bonds with issues worth more than PLN 26 billion. We are also happy to know that institutional investors continue to support the market -- the exchange market.

Specifically, we noted a significant increase in PPK assets, the employee capital plan assets by over 80%. The inflows into the PPK funds will remain an important pillar of liquidity on the stock exchange. As for the financials, revenue grew. Our operating results were under cost pressure. The net profit grew supported by financial income.

We are happy to know that the positive trends on the stock market have continued with a rally on indices and growing turnover. We hope this will be a good starting point for superior performance in our core business into the year.

Well, this is an illustration of the trends I've discussed, specifically the performance of our indices compared to other stock markets. We have been a leader of growth among the global -- the [indiscernible] global exchanges.

Now let me focus on the circumstances of growth of our capital markets over the past years. The market has gone through stagnation. Market capitalization of domestic companies, the GDP dropped from over 35% 10 years ago to only above 20% last year. As compared to other European markets and the European average, we have much to think about as to how the exchange in the capital market may help to support the economy.

The role of the capital market, in my opinion, should be bigger, especially that we are faced with increasing challenges relating to the financing of growth investments. The investment to GDP rate has dropped sharply over the past few years. I hope that investments will now become one of the pillars of growth and that growth will also be financed more extensively by the capital market.

An opportunity opens up with the large share of household savings invested in bank accounts, one of the highest ratios across Europe. We hope that the attractive product offering will attract individual investors to the stock market, which will be additionally bolstered by tax incentives, with the first steps being made as we speak. The -- well, some capital gains tax incentives have already been announced.

The key factors for the growth of the Polish capital market, which I hope will be to the benefit of the exchange and the market, include the energy transition. We expect more companies from this industry being floated. We also expect more green instruments growth in bonds issued to finance the energy transition.

Another challenge is the digital transition. We expect that the exchange will more extensively offer an alternative to financing of innovative businesses on the private markets. And I do hope that the dynamic growth and development of the venture capital ecosystem and start-ups in Poland will be to the advantage of our growth as the stock market and that the exchange will offer financing for further growth of Polish startups.

Another opportunity emerges with the funding under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. And I hope that the exchange and the capital market will be used more extensively to finance expenditure and investment financed under the plan. What is important for me in my new role is to keep eye on an important dimension of financial education. And I do hope that the education will, in the long term, attract more investors, especially among the younger generations.

Now this is an overview of the positive outlook that we have compared to other markets, our liquidity, our index performance ensure that investors and issuers will continue to be interested in the exchange, improving the performance on our core business.

Let me now hand over to Iza Olszewska, who will take us through some figures relating to the activity of investors in the different segments we operate.

[Izabela Olszewska, executive]

[Interpreted] Yes, I will now briefly summarize market figures on a couple of slides relating to the financial market in Q4 and in 2023. Q4 was good in terms of EOB equity turnover. As the CEO has said, this was definitely reflecting the results of the elections in Poland that were welcomed by investors. So in Q4, we saw a significant increase in average EOB equity turnover.

In 2023, overall, we saw a minor decrease in turnover year-on-year. However, to put it in broader context in the broader time frame, the turnover mix on the market has improved on the market compared to the period before the pandemic.

Let me highlight just a few points relating to the cash or spot market. There is the average fees, which decreased modestly in 2023, which suggests a bigger share of market makers and the HVP and HVF participants in trading on our platform. As for the instruments, I'd like to highlight the very good growth of ETFs, although we started from a low level, year after year, ETFs attracted the interest of investors and improved both in terms of turnover and value of assets.

We launched a new ETC, exchange-traded commodity on physical gold. And we expect that this will be an interesting addition for our investors. Now the derivatives market turnover in 2023 dropped modestly year-on-year in relation to the decrease in volatility. However, if you look at our most popular futures on WIG20, those generated the -- for the second consecutive year, a relatively high turnover, even though we reported a 7% drop year-on-year.

I should like to note that we are very flexible when it comes to the introduction of new products, especially single stock futures. Last year, we introduced 3 new futures and in Q1 2024, an additional 4.

When it comes to IPOs and SPOs on the equity market, the slide elaborates on what the CEO mentioned in his introduction, so very briefly, the IPO markets, only 10 IPOs, which corresponds to the slowdown on the IPO market across Europe. But we are happy to note that companies are raising capital on the capital market through secondary public offerings, SPOs, on the Main Market in particular, but also there was an SPO -- there were SPOs on NewConnect.

Let me now focus on the debt market. This was a record-breaking year for nontreasury bonds. I'd like to add that we created a segment under the name of the Warsaw Sustainable segment, which now covers 16 instruments relating to sustainability financing.

We focus strongly on the development of such instruments, especially green bonds, and we expect that this segment will grow. Now briefly about the ESG strategy. I'd like to confirm that according to our plan and our framework, we continue to pursue our ESG strategy and continue to follow the trajectory towards our targets as published.

We are working hard to support the market with ESG factors, we would like to be a beacon for other companies. So we are involved in education and promotion of sustainability financing on the exchange. Thank you.

[Adam Mlodkowski, executive]

[Interpreted] Now the financials. Despite the drop in turnover on the capital market, as mentioned by the CEO, revenue on a consolidated basis across the group in 2023 increased by 14.3% to PLN 444 million. This was the highest revenue ever reported by our group. Q4 was particularly strong. We reported the highest quarterly revenue ever, up by more than 26% year-on-year in Q4.

Consolidated EBITDA was more than PLN 160 million, unfortunately, down 4.3% year-on-year. But in Q4 alone, EBITDA was -- just on the PLN 42 million growing 2.2%. The net profit on a consolidated basis was PLN 156 million. And the good news is this was a growth of more than 7% year-on-year.

In Q4 alone, the net profit was under -- just under PLN 45 million growing year-on-year by more than 18% year-on-year in Q4 2023. The good result in that period was supported by a release of a VAT provision on the commodity market. However, on the annual basis, this was neutral to our net profit annually.

Looking at the figures against the consensus for Q4, our revenue of just under PLN 116 million consolidated was very close to the consensus. Our margin -- operating margin differed by 8% to 10%. From the consensus -- and the net profit was 8.4% higher than the consensus. The high net profit in Q4 and across 2023 is a good starting point to continue with our dividend policy.

Let me remind you that last year, the Warsaw Stock Exchange paid more than PLN 113 million in dividends to the shareholders that was equivalent to PLN 2.70 per share. The performance over the year gives us a good starting point to continue with our dividend policy.

The next slide shows some charts to represent these numbers with growth in revenue. In Q4 alone, revenue from the financial market grew by more than 24% to PLN 71.4 million whereas revenue -- well, this includes revenue from AMX, whereas revenue from the commodity market grew by just under 22% year-on-year to more than PLN 40 million.

Operating expenses grew at a higher rate, unfortunately, compared to our revenue. More than 25% growth in expenses year-on-year, mainly due to salaries and employee costs as well as external service charges. Both salaries and external service charges grew, as I will explain as we continue.

In Q4 alone, operating expenses grew by more than 30% and the higher growth in expenses compared to the growth in revenue caused the EBITDA to drop. The EBITDA margin dropped, but EBITDA still remains relatively high at more than 35%. The EBITDA components, to give you some additional data, which may be relevant. Out of PLN 160 million in EBITDA generated by the group in 2023, nearly PLN 78 million came from the Warsaw Stock Exchange loan. PLN 76 million was contributed to the TGE Group, including the Polish Power Exchange TGE with PLN 46 million. And the clearinghouse, IRGiT, PLN 30 million.

The net profit grew by 7.5% year-on-year. And this was mainly driven by financial income as well as the high profits of our associate, the KDPW. The next slide shows the revenue mix of our group. The total amount PLN 445 million can be broken down as follows. The financial market is in the lead, including our new contribution from AMX 5.3%. We acquired the Armenia Stock Exchange in late December 2022. So 2023 was the first year where AMX revenue was fully consolidated.

Another new item is other income, which mainly includes the revenue of our logistics start-up. We have a large contribution from Information Services at 13.5%, PLN 60 million, as you can see on the left-hand side chart. Other than the financial market, the second biggest revenue stream was the commodity market. Revenue generated by TGE, including the clearinghouse, contributed 35% of our consolidated revenue at group level.

Let's flip the slide. This slide provides more details on revenue on the financial markets in our 4 segments, trading and listing revenue reported a modest drop due to lower turnover. But please note, as the CEO said, we reported 20% increase in revenue from debt trading. And there's a stable growth in revenue from Information Services, 2.2% year-on-year.

If you look at Q4, year-on-year, the revenue grew by just under 1%. And the final chart is the AMX, a new part, a new member of our group, recently acquired. The revenue generated by the AMX amounted to PLN 23.5 million.

Now let me hand over to Piotr [indiscernible] who will present more details about the commodity market.

[Unknown Executive]

[Interpreted] Good morning. I will focus in my comments, not on figures, which you can see on the slide, but on the key trends and developments, which have been driving the performance and the results that we are presenting. Last year was rather incomparable to previous years, especially on the electricity market.

In late 2022, a range of new regulations were put in place, especially a law, putting a cap on end user prices and implementing a lot of payment mechanism, especially for electricity traders, which resulted in a change in approach of those traders that align themselves with the regulations.

Turnover on the electricity market increased slightly year-on-year in 2023. But if you haven't been following our reports month after month, these numbers represent the big change in the turnover mix as a result of the regulations. Spot turnover grew -- doubled from 20 to 40 terawatt hours, whereas forward turnover dropped due to uncertainty about contracting among companies at the end of the year.

So these results are not a prognostic of what happened in the past, not an indication of what happened over the past year because these regulations are now being phased out. The protection of consumers continues until the end of the year without, however, payments into a special fund. So we can see that the turnover mix on TGE is changing as companies change their strategies.

The gas market last year, the obligation to trade on the exchange was removed -- or rather changed from 35% to 55%, which now seems to be the main -- one of the 2 main reasons why turnover was lower last year. And then there was a lot of political uncertainty around the gas market, which we believe affected the behavior and contracting strategies of the marketplace.

Regarding property rights. There's a simple story, the obligation to trade in property rights was reduced as the RES support scheme is being phased out. So the obligation level is being changed year after year, sometimes quite radically has happened last year and when it was reduced to 5%. However, demand for certificates is smaller.

So turnover in exchange is decreasing. Energy efficiency certificates. Here, turnover largely depends on the issuance or rather the investments of obliged entities in energy efficiency and so that impacts the trading turnover in certificates revenue.

Other than the factors I've listed thus far relating to volumes, one important driver was a change in fees. We decided on early last year, as I said in the conferences during the year, that changed. Although turnover was rather stable impacted the financials from the electricity and also a lot less so on the gas market.

The change in the mix between the spot and the forward market last year improved our results from the electricity market. These spot fees are higher than forward market fees. So that impact was multiplied as our turnover shifted between these 2 segments. The change in fees on the profit rights was due to the change in volumes as discussed before.

Now revenue from clearing of trade. We reported an increase in revenue, largely relating to revenue of the clearinghouse, IRGiT. As of January 1, 2023, fees were changed for electricity trade. They were consolidated or aligned with the fees that had been already in place on the gas market. But that had an impact -- a large impact on our performance last year. And the other numbers present the volumes that I described just now and the trends and developments as discussed. Thank you.

[Unknown Executive]

[Interpreted] Now back to operating expenses. The operating expenses, as I said, increased by more than 25% year-on-year to PLN 319.5 million. Out of that number, more than PLN 19 million were the consolidated costs of AMX. Now the operating expenses include external service charges, a large item, which grew by 39% last year from PLN 76 million to more than PLN 105 million.

This includes an increase in the expenses of IT infrastructure maintenance with a strong inflation pressures where IT vendors raised the prices last year much above inflation. There was a lot going on to eliminate the technology debt infrastructure was being replaced.

Some of that investment was in CapEx, some was in OpEx, but also external service charges include a new item relating to the consolidation of GPW Logistics. That company operates at low margins, much lower than the margins available on the financial or commodity market. So the company is building up its revenue base, but its margins are low. Transport services in external service charges accounted for almost PLN 14 million.

But the biggest impact or the biggest cost line impacting the OpEx across our group were salaries. In Q4 alone, salaries grew by more than 50% year-on-year joined by 2 factors. First, bigger headcount across the group. Last year, our headcount grew by 109 FTEs, which was substantial.

At the end of 2023, our group had 573 employees as compared to 464 FTEs at the end of 2022. That increase was largely due to the consolidation of the AMX. The AMX Group has 83 employees, but there were new hires in our subsidiaries as well and the stock exchange alone.

Apart from the growth in the headcount, the salary costs increased following the salary raises granted. Last year saw a lot of wage pressures resulting from high inflation driven by the war -- Russia's aggression against Ukraine. So the high salary expectations included an industrial dispute, which we successfully resolved. However, the salaries increased substantially over the year.

As for CapEx. CapEx increased in 2023 to PLN 73.5 million. And now -- at the end of the year, represented 16.5% of our revenue base, quite significant. In fact, although it was even higher during the year. And my final slide, with the share of profit of entities measured by the equity method. With the predominant share of KDPW, our sister company responsible for clearing and settlement and safekeeping of securities.

They reported very good results in 2023 with an increase in net profit by more than 20%, which implies a high contribution to the P&L of GPW, more than PLN 34 million added to our P&L. At the bottom of the slide, you can see the financial results of the KDPW Group as an illustration because the results are not consolidated. Thank you. Back to the CEO.

[Tomasz Bardzilowski, executive]

[Interpreted] Thank you very much. We have discussed 2023. We are all happy to know that we see a continuation of a rally on the stock market with good index performance, stepped up after the parliamentary election. The leading indices continue to grow this year. As regards the impact on the performance of our core business, we are happy to see a significant growth in turnover in Q1, 18% year-on-year, which should also continue.

We expect this to continue driving our core business performance. We expect a rebound in IPOs that is already visible on the international markets. A number of IPOs in the U.S. grew by nearly 50% year-on-year. And our priority will be to attract new issuers from different industries as well as new investors, especially individual investors.

We have a new range -- we are planning to offer a new range of products, develop passive investment instruments and new instruments to develop. We are engaging in dialogue to introduce rates in Poland to encourage individual investors to invest. We also expect that changes in tax law will be helpful, including announced changes to the capital gains tax, a good step forward.

We will be working on several top priorities, including our cost income in the group, which is now more than 70% reported last year. I hope we will improve our cost discipline and improve the CI ratio this year. On the other hand, we are looking to grow our revenue base and to continue our attractive dividend policy.

In the coming months, we will unveil an update of our strategies. The update will definitely cover our intention to increase the share of recurrent revenue in our revenue base. We have a strong net cash position, PLN 400 million. So this is an opportunity to not only continue with an attractive dividend policy, but also to step up our growth with M&As, focusing, however, on the local Polish market.

As for the areas [ that ] our priorities, we will be looking at business models successfully pursued by our -- other stock exchanges, our peers. And I hope we can step up our growth across the group in this regard. Now it's time for your questions.

[Unknown Executive]

[Interpreted] The first question is about the vision for the exchanges growth in the long and in the short term, quick wins this year and more specific long-term plans to grow the exchange in the group.

[Tomasz Bardzilowski, executive]

[Interpreted] Well, we ask for a little bit of your patience. As you know, I've been in position just for a few days now. So we need a little bit of time to review some of our strategic initiatives and to present new directions and update of our strategy, which we will present within months.

As I said at the beginning, what is important for me is that the capital market plays a great role in financing the economy. We face huge challenges, and I expect to do a lot of hard work to live up to the challenges of both energy and digital transition that need to be financed with the support of the capital market.

[Unknown Executive]

[Interpreted] Now in the context of the growth strategy, there's a question, which projects will be continued and which may be terminated.

[Tomasz Bardzilowski, executive]

[Interpreted] Again, we will review the projects. Diversification of revenue is important, of course. We need to increase the revenue streams that are less prone to business cycles, less related to the current conditions on the capital market, and we are definitely going there. But the specifics are yet to be discussed. We will present an update within months. The top priorities, however, relate to the financial market.

[Unknown Executive]

[Interpreted] We have several specific questions about M&A. What is the approach of the new CEO to M&As, which sectors, what scale? Next, are you considering to have a bigger stake in KDPW? Are we going to continue working with the Armenian Stock Exchange as a shareholder? Or will you exit? And what about consolidating the region under the GPW brand? Is this being considered?

[Tomasz Bardzilowski, executive]

[Interpreted] We see a great opportunity in stepping up growth through nonorganic growth, an opportunity, I think, should be ceased. There are lots of opportunities in the Polish market, especially in the financial market. The question asked about the KDPW. At this point, we are not considering any change in our stake or our interest held by the exchange. But we will definitely be considering more post-trade business integration.

[Unknown Executive]

[Interpreted] You have mentioned the high cash position of the group. In this connection, is there -- is it possible that you will change your dividend policy, increase the dividend yield? What are your plans?

[Tomasz Bardzilowski, executive]

[Interpreted] Well, I think the dividend policy should be attractive. We will definitely be working to make it attractive to our present and prospective shareholders.

[Unknown Executive]

[Interpreted] The next question is about the WATS project. Will it definitely continue? Or is there a risk it may be aborted? What is the status now?

[Tomasz Bardzilowski, executive]

[Interpreted] The WATS project is our top strategic project at this time. Together with the brokers, we have developed a new time line for the project. Unfortunately, we are running late with the project. We are reviewing the project's budget and we want to mitigate the risk of the budget being exceeded.

As you probably know, we have opened a competition for a new Board member for IT. I hope the position will soon be filled. So together with the new Chief IT Officer, we will decide as to which markets are most promising for the WATS. We hope the platform will integrate all our businesses and open up more opportunities for quick implementations of new products.

[Unknown Executive]

[Interpreted] Another question on the financials. The cost/income ratio is more than 70% as the CEO has said. Do you have a plan to reduce the ratio and down to what level that would make you comfortable? What actions are you planning to that effect? Are you considering group redundancies? What is your action plan to reduce your expenses?

[Tomasz Bardzilowski, executive]

[Interpreted] Well, I believe we have room for improvement with the group's expenses. A 72% CI is not satisfactory. Let me remind you, in 2017, the CI was 47%. So it has grown rather sharply. On the other hand, the structure of our group has changed. As Mr. Mlodkowski has said, some of our revenue generates lower margins, but it's not low-quality revenue, and we have opportunities to grow. But definitely, there is a lot of room for improvement when it comes to the group's cost regime. And so we hope to work together with the Management Board to present a plan to improve our cost regime.

[Unknown Executive]

[Interpreted] Another question on the transaction fees. The CEO comes from the broker community. They have been pressing for -- pushing for fee reductions for years. Do you see any space for fee reductions on transactions?

[Tomasz Bardzilowski, executive]

[Interpreted] Well, yes, there has been a long debate between the brokers and the exchange on the fees. In the upcoming months, we will definitely look into the structure of our fees with the goal of improving liquidity on the market. So this is our expectation. If I may reveal some of our plans, we are considering a special implementation -- a system to implement solutions to reduce trading costs and to improve liquidity in the market.

But I should like to stress how important it is for us as the exchange, in the context of the growing role of the capital market, to support the ecosystem of issuers, especially SMEs listed on the exchange. So I am thinking of specific initiatives. For instance, the sponsor analytical coverage that will definitely continue and will even be expanded in value.

[Unknown Executive]

[Interpreted] Another question about commodities. Are you expecting the obligation to trade in electricity on the exchange degree stored. And what is the outlook when it comes to the turnover volumes in electricity and gas?

[Tomasz Bardzilowski, executive]

[Interpreted] Well, the obligation, the status quo is a function of last year's regulatory developments. The obligation was lifted and then prices for end consumers were frozen. As stated by the current government back in late 2023, and by the way, last year's schemes, protecting prices were extended at least for the consumers. As a result of the release of that mechanism, a discussion was to take place regarding market mechanisms.

And we are engaged in ongoing dialogue whenever we are invited. Together with some other market players, we point out that the transparency of indices improves the quality of the market. Those arguments are being heard. But in this current circumstances, what is important is the situation on the end consumer market as last year and decisions regarding the schemes applicable there.

So it's hard to say it's not our competence -- our business responsibility to know how fast things will move there. We have been hearing through the press, among others, throughout 2024 that this discussion is going to take place. So we are following the developments. We will definitely take part in those debates actively from the perspective of the, yes, the obligation to trade electricity.

The outlook for volumes this year. Electricity, this will depend on the regulations and the amendments. We are expecting a decision as to whether or not the regulations on the electricity market will be amended as of the first of July, affecting the strategies of sellers. And that will be a key turning point. For the gas market, we expect positive trends as gas consumption is expected to grow. And as consumption grows, turnover on TGE also grows historically. The stabilization -- east of Poland, the situation in Ukraine has always impacted the gas market throughout the years of the conflict.

[Unknown Executive]

[Interpreted] One final question is about the discount on GPW's stock trading at a discount on PE and EBITDA. What is the plan of the management board to eliminate the discount on the GPW stock price compared to your peers and to unblock shareholder value?

[Tomasz Bardzilowski, executive]

[Interpreted] As a former analyst, I know that comparative valuation of GPW opens up room for improvement. We will be working on it when we will present more specific plans as we present an update of our strategy within months. We will definitely continue to work to improve the share of recurrent revenue that is not dependent on the current conditions on the financial market. This will remain our priority along with an attractive dividend policy. And we will consider how to step up our growth with M&As, which will contribute more value and generate synergies while not carrying excessive risks, including geopolitical risks.

[Unknown Executive]

This is all the questions we have, so we will stop here. But if you have any additional questions, please contact our Investor Relations. Thank you for being here today. Thank you.

[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]