Hello, and welcome to the DDM Holding audiocast with teleconference Q2 2021. Throughout the call, all participants will be in listen-only mode. Afterwards, there will be a question and answer session. Just to remind you, this conference call is being recorded. Today, I'm pleased to present CEO Henrik Wennerholm, CFO Fredrik Olsson, and Florian Nowotny, board member. Please go ahead with your meeting. Thank you, operator. Thank you, good morning. Thank you all for joining this Q2 and half-year 2021 presentation. The COVID-19 pandemic has continued to have a slighter adverse impact during the second quarter. However, we are cautiously optimistic that global business and economic activity is continuing to pick up as a result of the ongoing vaccine rollout. As mentioned on our last quarterly call, during the first part of the second quarter, we were busy working on successfully extending our bond program, and we also acquired a smaller portfolio in Romania towards the end of the quarter, which we'll cover in a moment. I would like to ask you all to turn to page three for the highlights of the quarter. Looking at the highlights, we achieved adjusted gross collections of EUR 50 million in the second quarter, which was in line with the prior year despite collections from Greece, which we had in the prior year. As you may recall, Greece was accelerated and was technically sold in Q3 2021. Now excluding Greece, gross collections were roughly 36% higher than the corresponding period last year. Over half of the gross collections in the quarter were received from portfolios located in Croatia. Despite high activity, gross collections came in below forecast due to a few larger cases that are expected to be resolved at higher values during the second half of 2021. As some of our audience may recall, we have mostly secured assets, and whether they come in in Q2 or Q3 makes quite an influence. A few of these items have slipped into Q3, but we have good reason to believe that they will be resolved in the coming quarter. The result for the quarter was a loss of EUR 100,000 after adjusting for one-off items of roughly EUR 3.9 million, which were associated with the bond refinancing in April. The trend of investment activity in the European market for non-performing loans is increasing following the end of loan moratoria implemented across the Southern and Central Eastern European region in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In June, we also acquired a distressed asset portfolio containing consumer receivables located in Romania, mainly consumer unsecured portfolio. The gross collection value of the portfolio amounts approximately EUR 90 million. The acquisition was financed by cash on hand. As mentioned, we also significantly extended our debt maturity profile to 2026. Please turn page to slide four. Going back to the bond refinancing, I would like to show that our debt maturity has been significantly extended with the majority of our borrowings not due until April 2026 following the refi in April, providing long-term stability. The new EUR 150 million bonds are listed on corporate bond list at Nasdaq Stockholm. The framework for the bond is up to EUR 300 million. The proceeds from the new bond issue were mainly used to refinance the existing senior bonds held by DDM Debt AB with the balance kept for investment. I'm pleased to announce that both S&P and Fitch reaffirmed DDM Debt's single B rating with stable outlook now in June. The final B rating reflects our strong liquidity and capital position and significantly extended debt maturity profile. We have a very strong capital and liquidity position with access now to over EUR 50 million of available funds as per the end of the quarter. We're now looking forward to putting this cash to work as the investment activity in the market increases. Please turn to slide 5. Looking at our ERC, which means the sum of future undiscounted projected cash collections before commission and fees from acquired portfolios of future reasonably expected dividend distributions or other payments from investments over the next 120 months. It currently stands at EUR 243 million, which represents a decrease of some 6% from the end of 2020 as the collections received during the first half of 2021 were partially offset by the Romanian portfolio acquisition. At the end of June 2021, 69% of the gross collections are expected to be received in the next 3 years. Looking at the upper right-hand corner of the slide, the right-hand pie chart reflects the proportion of the ERC for the next three years that is secured and currently stands at 81%, which clearly shows the strong credit value of our future collections. This includes our share of secured ERC in our underlying assets invested. I would then like to ask Fredrik to take over and run through some of our financial KPIs. Please, Fredrik. Thanks, Henrik. Please turn to slide seven. This shows our financial KPIs for the last 12 months in line with previous quarters. Our adjusted gross collections total EUR 117 million for the 12 months ending 30th of June 2021. 5% below the full year of 2020, due to the lower collections in the first half of 2021 compared to the prior year, when Greece contributed to collections. Adjusted cash EBITDA came in at EUR 95 million for the 12 months ending 30th of June, 7% below the full year due to the lower collections previously mentioned. Our total assets were EUR 205 million at the end of June, an increase of EUR 9 million compared to December of 2020, mainly due to the refinancing that Henrik referred to before, and partly offset by the repayment of EUR 9 million on the RCF. Equity amounted to EUR 39 million at the end of June, following the one-off expenses of EUR 3.9 million relating to the bond refinancing. This resulted in equity ratio in the bond group of 26.6%. Our operating margin was approximately 65% for the 12 months ending 30th of June, slightly below the operating margin last year due to the lower proportion of collections received from Greece, which had a lower amortization relative to other secure portfolios in the Balkans. Our LTV ratio, which is the ratio of net debt to ERC, is slightly above year-end at 45%. Please turn to slide 8. This slide shows our balance sheet structure at the 30th of June 2021, with total assets of approximately EUR 205 million. The main movement compared to the end of 2020 is the movement in long-term and short-term loans due to the refinancing of the senior secured bonds in April, and as a result of repaying the EUR 9 million on the RCF that was drawn at the end of 2020. Our cash balance at the end of the quarter was a significant EUR 41 million, meaning we're well-positioned to capitalize on market opportunities to expand our investment portfolio. We're of course, looking forward to putting this cash to work here in the coming months that we have ahead of us here. Please turn to the next slide, being slide nine. This is a slide that you've seen before, and in line with previous quarters, we continue the same trend. The total portfolio value has increased significantly since the start of 2017 and stands today at EUR 131 million. At the same time, our adjustments to the book value historically continues to remain stable. With that said, I would like to hand over to Florian Nowotny, who will introduce himself as the new incoming CEO. Florian. Thanks a lot, Fredrik. As you might have seen in the announcement for the half year, there's also change in management now. First let me introduce myself. I'm Florian Nowotny. I'm an Austrian. I'm 46 years old. I've been involved with DDM in various roles since 2017. For example, I was involved in the acquisition of the Greece book, Greek portfolio, and last year, worked a lot on the Addiko position. I've been on the board of Holding AG also since September 2019. I think I'm quite familiar with DDM and its operations. My background, most recently, was mainly the real estate sector. I was on one hand the CFO of IMMOFINANZ, which is the largest listed Austrian real estate company with extensive operations in Germany, Austria, and especially Eastern Europe. I've been spending a lot of time in my professional life in the key CEE and SEE regions, where also DDM has its key portfolios. I'm quite familiar with those countries. Initially, I started as an investment banker, so I worked a couple of years in London with Citigroup Financial Institutions Group. I've got quite some experience also in the banking and wider financial institution sector, which I think is also quite important for this role now. Just to put things into context, I think a key aspect is, as you've seen, we've successfully refinanced the company, and Henrik and the team have done a tremendous job to strengthen the company, make it more resilient. Now, for the next steps, one of our key focuses is also deploying the capital we've raised. For these reasons, we now realigned some of the roles within the company so that Henrik will stay on as a consultant to DDM so that he is free and has more time to dedicate to new investments, business development, especially in the Nordics. I take over the role of CEO, also taking care of a lot of the internal aspects of the business and making sure that we continue the quite successful path that we've had under Henrik's leadership. I'm very glad that I can step in in a company at a point in time where it's quite strong. Looking forward to meeting, of course, also the investors, both in the bond and the shares. Whenever traveling becomes easier again, I'm sure I'll also travel to Stockholm to meet up with this key investor base for DDM. With this, I hand over to Henrik to sum up where we stand after the half-year figures. Perfect. Thank you, Florian. I would then like to summarize the quarter. Please may I ask the audience to turn to slide 12. I think the key takeaway is that we have now extended our bond program at the start of the quarter by issuing a new EUR 150 million bond with a five-year tenure, providing us with a long-term stability. The investment activity has intensified following the end of the loan moratoriums, and we're seeing more activity in the marketplace. As mentioned, we acquired a portfolio of consumer receivables in Romania. The majority of our ERC stance is secured by real estate and current stats at EUR 243 million. Before formally and fully handing over to Florian, I would also like to stress that the company has, over the last three years, undergone quite a lot of transforming changes. Namely, we have fully refined the operating model of DDM, where we have insourced the work capability to our sister company, AxFina, which has resulted in a much, much better servicing, much higher quality, while at the same time at a lower cost. While at the same time we have managed to do that, we have maintained our strict portfolio management and underwriting discipline. Which has resulted in marginal portfolio revaluations throughout these strange times with COVID-19 and everything. The portfolio and the back book is in a very, very good shape. Clearly, this disciplined high-quality work has resulted in a record 2020 in terms of revenue and profitability. Also during this year, we have established ourselves, as mentioned, in the international bond market, with a loan refinancing providing stability, both Fitch Ratings and S&P Global Ratings have rated us with a single B rating, stable outlook. We are now very well positioned to capitalize on new investment opportunities so we can grow the business here. I'm super happy to hand over the formal leadership to Florian so I can engage myself more in the business development and sourcing activities going forward here. With that, I would also like to thank all the colleagues and shareholders and the board of directors, and look forward working together with you also in the future here, and with Florian here in the future. With that, I would like to thank you and conclude our presentation. We're happy, all three of us, to open up for any questions that you may have. I'll hand back the word to the operator. Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you do wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad now. If you wish to withdraw your question, you may do so by pressing zero two to cancel. Once again, if you have a question for the speakers, that's zero one on your telephone keypad now. We currently have no audio questions registered. I will hand back to the speakers for any further remarks. I think that concludes then. Thank you very much for joining, and we all wish you hopefully then some holidays. I guess the Nordic market's already on holiday. Enjoy the summer and looking forward to keep up here going forward. Thank you very much.
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