Thank you. A very good morning, and a warm welcome to this quarterly earnings call. I'm here in Stockholm in our offices with our CFO, Christer. Morning. Our Head of Investor Relations, Andreas Lindblom. Morning. Without further ado, let's move into the presentation and let me start on page number four. Almost needless to say, the financials in this quarter is impacted by the consequences of the ongoing pandemic. As you have seen before and as you know, we have made impairments to the book, primarily in the U.K. and in Spain. I guess an overarching comment would be that our cumulative impairment totals now from the beginning of the pandemic until now, 2.1%, which I guess is more or less in line with industry peers. You have also, I guess, seen by now that our revenues are down due to lower book values compared to the same quarter a year ago, which is of course explained by lower transacted volumes in the previous years, and I will revert to that point in a later slide. As we are now working through the pandemic, we are focusing on the fundamentals, and we have to stay steadfast in our priorities. First of all, the collection performance remains solid in this quarter, coming in at 103%. There has been a steady improvement, compared to the pre-COVID curves. Actually, in this quarter, compared to the pre-COVID curves, we are at 98% collection performance, which is strong. The digital collections is at an all-time high of 24%. More about that in a second. I guess perhaps the most important operational news is that we have successfully acquired into the new forward-looking securitization structure, which shows that we are leaving regulatory issues behind. My last comment on this slide is that the market outlook is positive, this quarter's investments at SEK 750 million is more or less in line with what we have seen for the first quarter historically. Moving on to page number five, I did mention that the collection performance was 103% in the quarter. The cash generation remains solid too. I would again say it's more or less on par with previous quarters. There is a hike in Q4, that quarter stands out. That's particularly driven by some secured collections and cash from remediation activities. That kind of explains the Q4. Having that in mind, I still believe that the cash generation is solid and in line with previous quarters. The next page, slide number six. A couple of comments on this page. First of all, this is our profit before tax, adjusted for forward-looking impairments and items affecting comparability. This quarter coming in at SEK 120 million, which is actually slightly better than what we saw in Q1 last year, but it's down compared to Q4. Compare that with the year-on-year, so one year ago. Collection performance is significantly better in this quarter, but the volume is lower. Those two effects kind of net each other out. Compared to the fourth quarter, there's a negative deviation of SEK 71 million, which is primarily explained by basically FX and certain items affecting net financials in the fourth quarter. There is also an element of lower volumes totaling SEK 20 million. Moving on to the next page number seven. I'm not going to stay long on this page. The reason why we include this illustration is just that we see that some people are relating our comments on litigation processes to secure assets. In reality, that's not really the case. To the left, you see our collection strategies, the amicable strategy and legal strategy. As you can see, litigation is 25% of the total, and I guess 90% of legal strategy is basically unsecured. That is just an illustration to try to explain that litigation is certainly important, also for unsecured assets. Also have in mind that litigation processes are important also for amicable strategies for them to be successful. Our customers quite quickly understand whether or not there is a well-functioning litigation process in place or not. Moving to page eight, I have two call-outs. First of all, we are pleased with the significant increase in digital collections that we see in this quarter. It's an all-time high of 24% run rate towards the end of the quarter. Really happy to see this, of course. It's the biggest increase in any quarter that we have had. Secondly, and I think this is very encouraging, is that for the first time, our customers have established more payment plans through our self-service portal than what has been done through the contact center operations. It really shows that the digital strategy is certainly working. Moving to page nine on contact center operations. Again, a key KPI for us, showing the nearshoring calls as a share of total in France and Germany. I'm really pleased with the fact that the number of calls taken from Romania now is doing really well and measured as number of calls. More than 50% of all German and French customers now talk to our professional colleagues in Bucharest. Slide number 10 is kind of a snapshot of our secured business line. I'm happy to say that also in this quarter, it is a solid performance in secured. Collection performance coming in at 104%. If you follow the line in the graph, you now see that the NPL business share of total collections is above 15%. They're closing in to 20%. There's been a really good development and really good growth in the book value since our inception into the secure NPL space. On slide number 11, there are a few key messages to make. I'll talk to the different sections from left to right. First of all, the supply in 2020 was quite low. As I mentioned before, the traded volumes were actually half of the volumes that was traded in 2019, actually down to 2013 levels. That's kind of to the left. Important to say that most companies in the industry were not able to acquire up to replacement levels. Only two of these eight peers were above replacement value. In the middle there, it is important to get across to you that there is good momentum in the pipeline. There was certainly last year, a lot of uncertainty around COVID-19 and supply. We now see that the 2020 volume is coming back to market. The supply that we now see in our pipeline is not at all related to the current pandemic. Moving all the way to the right, I think it's also good to see that there is a number of opportunities across markets and certainly also across asset classes. We have a strong pipeline, both in unsecured NPLs, secured NPLs and even performing loans. With that, I leave it for Christer to take us through the financials. To you, Christer. Good morning. Starting on page 13. Needless to say, the Q1 impairment is a major setback. Our press release on March 31st mentioned a preliminary number of SEK 350 million. That is also where the books closed, almost exactly. This relates to the unsecured book. On the secured book, the corresponding Q1 impact was small, SEK 15 million. For the sake of good order, I should mention that on the secured side, the gross reported numbers are also impacted by timing differences, as some assets were sold ahead of plan. That part is excluded here, just as it is excluded when we say 103% collection performance. Adjusting for impairment effects, the underlying profit before tax is SEK 120 million. As Klaus-Anders mentioned, the reduction versus previous quarter is primarily due to 2020 investments being below replacement level. Now, as you know, impairments are triggered by changes in projected future collections. Let's have a look at those changes on page 14. Clearly, the last 12 months have been difficult to predict, and we've had to adjust our predictions in several steps. Looking at cash collections alone, Q1 may seem on track, especially comparing to the active forecast. Remember, current cash collection is not necessarily the full picture. Future collections are dependent on current collection activity, at least on legal activities, as Klaus-Anders described. Unfortunately, we see legal work streams lagging behind plan, especially for a set of portfolios in Spain and the U.K. Obviously, COVID and its continued impact on courts is rather unhelpful in this aspect. Towards the very end of Q1, we completed an extended assessment of the related portfolios, and we concluded to reduce the ERC by 1.4%, and this is illustrated by the magenta line in the graph. With this second step included, the total impact over the last 12 months is around 2%, which is not very different from the peer group. Let's turn to page 15 and the reported figures. This is, in a sense, old news because most items came in as disclosed in the press release a month ago. We see top-line income declining on the back of a smaller book. On the funding side, the quarter was quiet, with interest expense being flat and net financial transactions being close to zero. On the expense side, we have no items materially affecting comparability. Costs are down year-on-year but not by enough. We have more work to do on the cost savings program. On that note, we have on page 16 included our standard reporting. Notable progress in Q1 since Q4 includes the renegotiation of software licenses. Rather than go line by line, I'd like to illustrate our current position in a few selected projects on the next page 17. Starting with nearshoring, we now see a majority of German and French calls being taken through our contact center in Romania, as Klaus-Anders mentioned. That's very good progress in this activity. Here, of course, the benefits are about making sure that we do not end up with a duplication of staff. There would reasonably high turnover that can be managed as full productivity is established. The activities included in our IT outsourcing, they're almost done. The 0% benefit may seem surprising, but it's not, because this saving is phased in over a long contract with initial benefits coming into 2021. Admin is a much wider topic and amongst many other things included, this is about making sure we are organized in the best possible way, call it One Hoist. Here, the Q1 introduction of business lines which cut across country borders brings a new lens to things. Ultimately, this is about making sure we utilize our resources to their full extent across countries. On digital, our portal is up and running all over the place, and of course there is additional functionality on our wish list, but unlocking benefits is not necessarily about that latest and greatest feature. It's about maximizing the use of the portal and about redesigning legacy workflows. For new portfolios, we have been able to redirect a very significant part of traffic. This will accumulate over time and free up resources. Turning to funding on page 19. There's no big news in this quarter. With limited growth and good cash flow, we have trimmed down the amount of funding a bit. We do this by adapting pricing of our deposit offers. That's a flexible way, but it does mean that we reduce volume in one of our cheaper sources of funding. You can actually see the average interest expense to book value inching up. On the other hand, as we return to growth, that growth will be funded with low-cost deposits unwinding the same effect. Turning to page 20. When it comes to capital, obviously the bigger movement in the quarter is due to the impairment, but I'd like to highlight a less obvious effect, which is very important for the long term. This is about capital efficiency. I believe we have conceptually described how the front book will come in with risk weights lower than the back book. This is not something which changes overnight, but as illustrated here for Q1, that effect is real. The lower risk weight on the front book is a combination of investments into secured assets and investments made into the Magnetar structure. That's progressing well and will benefit Hoist over time. Finally, on page 21, a snapshot of our capital and liquidity position as per end of March. The CET1 ratio is obviously impacted by the impairment, but not to the extent where it would impact our acquisition activity. The impairment which also had a skew towards sterling also created a bit of noise on the capital requirement, but that is temporary and we have normalized this graph accordingly. This concludes the financial section of the presentation and I hand back to Klaus-Anders for summary comments and questions. Thank you, Christer. I only have a brief wrap up today. Cash generation continues to be strong as we saw on the slides, our cost savings program is certainly on track. A lot of the costs are taken to launch the different initiatives. We are realizing the benefits. Really pleased with our securitization program, which is now forward-looking, and has really positive benefits as we now are leaving regulatory challenges behind. Last but not least, we do have a promising and strong pipeline. That concludes our Q1 presentation, and we are happy to answer your questions. Over to Q&A. Thank you. If you do wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. If you do wish to withdraw your question, you can do so by pressing zero two on your telephone keypad. Our first question comes from the line of Ermin Keric from Carnegie. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Thank you, thanks for taking the questions. If we start with the impairment that you booked now in Q1 on the unsecured side, could you just give us a bit more flavor on what happened between the CMD and the end of Q1 that made you take this impairment now? Also what assumptions are underlying in terms of, is there any more volumes at risk? To my understanding, the U.K. part of the impairment is because some volumes will become statute-barred. Up until which cut off have you taken impairments now, and how should we think about that? Yes. Good morning, Ermin. Maybe taking a step back, you will remember that in Q2 2020, we did take an initial impairment on the book reflecting our expectations for the upcoming periods. I guess looking back, it's clear that at that point we were a little bit too optimistic on how things would recover, and that specifically relates to how quickly we would be able to get back on track with the legal collection activities. As we have extended our analysis towards the end of Q1, we have come to realize that the shortfall on these activities will translate or is very likely to translate into a shortfall in future collection, and that is what drives the difference or the change in the ERC here triggering this impairment. In a sense, it might feel counterintuitive that collections are on track, but there's still an impairment. It is down to the collection activities that we see being behind plan, and that is specifically for the U.K. and Spain, and it's specifically for the legal activities. The second part of your question, the forward-looking piece. I'd say that at this point, we've taken into account everything that we can see and expect. Of course, there is no guarantee, especially in this very uncertain terrain, for how things will develop going forward. You can't give us a date of where is the cutoff for volumes that will become statute-barred that you have now deemed that not likely that you will be able to collect? That will vary by portfolio. There is not one specific date in that sense, no. Okay. Thank you. A different question. In terms of the tax rate now in the quarter, is there anything there that's impacting it that actually makes the reverse tax being lower than you would expect based on the results you're actually having? Is it you're having profits in certain countries, or is it anything else underlying? That's a good question. The impairment is primarily related to the U.K. and Spain, as I said. Obviously we're then loss-making in those two countries. They are a bit different though because in the U.K. our underlying profitability is healthy, so we have no doubt that we will return to profitability quickly, and hence we will be able to recover those tax losses. There is a deferred tax asset being accounted for in the U.K. In Spain, given our history where we've not been so successful, we're a little bit less certain, and we have not accounted for any deferred tax assets in Spain in Q1. The combination of those two items then impacts the total tax position for the group. I'd say taking a step back, there is nothing that would cause me to expect a very different tax rate for the overall group in the longer term. As you might remember, we've been hovering around Swedish corporate income tax rates, so 20% - 25%, and that is also where I would expect us to be going forward. Got it. That's very helpful. A question on slide number 11 when you're showing us the pipeline. Could you just walk me through what those numbers actually stand for there in the middle? Is that portfolios you see up for sale currently in, or was up for sale in Q1, or what are you actually trying to show us there? Yeah. That is our own pipeline, of course, right? It's our own internal numbers. We're just opening up a little bit of what we have internally. This is at all times the pipeline that we have in our CRM system that we are evaluating, assessing the deals that we know are coming. I think this pretty much shows by every quarter the forward-looking perspective. What we see now is, of course, a deal flow which is quite healthy and strong and much better than what we saw in any given quarters during last year. Great. One last question was just on the risk weights on the acquisitions that you show now for Q1 being at 120%. Is that just because you're not fully up and running with Magnetar, or where would you expect that to be in, let's say, six months when you're doing new acquisitions? Yeah. In Q1, part of our acquisition are secured, so they would come in with risk weight 100. Part of it is in the Magnetar structure, which is also around 100. The last part is acquisitions still being made in other markets, if you could say on our balance sheet and as before, with 150% risk weight. Currently you're seeing the blend, and for 2021, you should expect that blend to sort of continue. I'd say probably this is a reasonable assumption. Over time, it should improve then. That's not going to be overnight as we're currently working to set those structures up. Perfect. That's all for me. Thank you very much. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Borja Ramirez from Citi. Please go ahead, your line is open. Hello, good morning. Thank you very much for your time and for taking my questions. I have a couple of quick questions, if I may. Of course. Thank you. I would like to ask if you could please provide details on the tax rate for 2021. My second question would be if you could please provide indications on the portfolio acquisitions that you expect for 2021. Thank you. Thank you. I'll start with the tax rate, and then I'll hand over to Klaus-Anders on the second one. Of course, I'd say that maybe one shouldn't read too much into the tax rate for a certain quarter, especially not when the results are a little bit all over the place, as in this quarter. For the long term, you should expect our tax rate to be in line with historical rates. That's around the 20%-25% level. There's been no sort of changes to the group or anything that would materially make that a different level. Right. On acquisition levels, we guided at our Capital Markets Day our acquisitions over the three-year period, SEK 25 billion-SEK 30 billion, and we have not changed our view, our perspective on those investment levels. That is kind of the guiding we have. The two periods previously have gone over SEK 6 billion-SEK 8 billion a year, I wouldn't be surprised if that's a number that will be realized this year. Understood. Very clear. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Once again, if you do wish to ask a question, please press zero on telephone keypad now. Our next question comes from the line of Phil Pühler from Deka Investment. Please go ahead, your line is open. Hello, this is Phil Pühler from Deka Investment. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Good morning. Morning. Great. Thanks for the call. I have two questions. The first question is, what is your approach towards shareholder returns or shareholder distributions, and will you pay a dividend? My second question is, do you think you will be able to keep your investment grade rating of your senior bonds because it's currently Baa3 with a negative outlook, and will you take actions to defend it? Right. Well, thank you. On the dividend policy, we have a dividend policy of paying out 25%-30% of net profits, and that remains in place, as was confirmed at the Capital Markets Day. No news on that one, that still is in place and will be of course subject to board decisions, but that's what's in place, and we will adhere to. Christer? Yeah. No, on the second question there with regards to the rating, I think it's important to remember that our financial targets, for example, on the CET1 ratio, has been set at the level where we feel comfortable with being able to defend the current rating, and those targets have not changed. We're still operating with that as our guiding star, and the impairment in this sense doesn't change that. I'd say that we're still Yeah, go ahead. Can you comment whether you have already spoken to Moody's because of the impairment? We speak with Moody's all the time. There's a continuous exchange of information, and that's not different from previous quarters. Okay, thanks. Thank you. We have no more questions from the line. I will hand it back to our speakers. All right. Well, thank you all for your time, and I wish you all a great day.
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