Good morning, this is the Chorus Call conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the doValue Nine Months 2023 Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Stefano Songini, Group Head of Investor Relations, Communication, and Sustainability of doValue. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, operator. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the doValue Nine Months 2023 R esults Conference Call. I'm Stefano Songini, Group Head of Investor Relations, Communication, and Sustainability, and I'm joined here in Rome by our CEO, Manuela Franchi, and our Group CFO, Davide Soffietti. Together, we will cover the main group and market developments since the beginning of the year, as well as the financial performance for the first nine months. At the end of the presentation, as usual, we will be happy to take any questions that you may have. With that, I will now hand the call over to Manuela.
Thank you, Stefano. It's a pleasure for me to present our nine months 2023 results, which reflected solid operational performance with a +7.3% year-on-year increase in collection in the context of a seasonally less significant Q3. The year-on-year comparison is also skewed in light of the fact that in the nine months 2022, we had a large indemnity on the Mexico portfolio, as you might remember. Moving to the presentation on page three, we show some of our key achievements in the first nine months of the year. In general, I think it's important to note that the formation on new NPLs in 2023 has been much lower than we and the industry expected. This has obviously had an effect on our overall results, which we have, to a large extent, offset by focusing on secondary transactions.
However, we expect the new NPL formation to materialize in the coming 12-18 months as a result of the macro and geopolitical challenges, high inflation and increase in interest rates, and just the observation of the performance of the borrowers in our growth portfolio. As you know, the Q3 is seasonally the weakest in the year, as it includes the month of August, where typically in Southern Europe, business is lower and cost activity is at minimum. This is also evidenced by the data we will provide you with for comparative information on nine months 2021. The year-on-year comparison, as we will see, is also affected by the indemnity we received in the Q3 of 2022, which makes the comparison with the nine months of 2023 unbalanced.
As you know, indemnities are part of our core business, but historically, we received most of them in the Q4, and 2023 should be no exception. As you can see, we have reported a robust increase in our collection on a like-for-like basis, with a growth of 7.3% over nine months 2022, supported by strong momentum in Greece, but also in relation to Spain, net of Sareb off-boarding. In Greece, in particular, we are seeing very positive macro evolution, further supported by the upgrade to investment grade of the sovereign rating by S&P in October 2023. Also in Spain, the right sizing of the operation of Sareb exit is well underway, and the fruits of new commercial strategy based on the paradigm, new clients, new portfolio, new services, are becoming evident.
We are also streamlining our operation with a strong focus on cost discipline. A seamless execution with complex restructuring play planned in Spain and the positive effects of the investment made in the past on our technological platform as part of the new transformation program, which have made our operation more efficient. This has enabled us to achieve a 34% reduction in overhead and 11% reduction in HR costs, which is above our expectations. Finally, in terms of net leverage, we see the effects of the seasonality I mentioned earlier, which have led to a net debt to LTM EBITDA of 2.9x as of September 2023.
This includes certain movements in working capital that we expect will be reversed in the coming two quarters, the payment of a very general dividend of EUR 48 million, seasonal effects of our business, higher taxes, and interest payments in the period. Our net leverage remains one of the lowest in the credit servicing industry and within the stated maximum threshold of 3x. We expect the leverage ratio to normalize in the Q4 at a level around 2.7x. On slide four, we represent our review, our business, and the opportunities looking ahead. From the basic NPL servicing market, doValue gradually expanded its footprint. Also, thanks to the relevant expertise in adjacent parts of the value chain, such as REO and UTP and Early Arrears, that we were able to secure through the acquisition in Spain and Greece.
We have therefore used this experience to provide a wider range of core services in all markets we operate in, moving further up the chain and diversifying into early arrears and down the value chain by providing a wide array of ancillary services, which, as you will see, are becoming increasingly relevant in our revenue base... and which provide attractive margins. Looking ahead, we continue to see an opportunity to move further into the performing space, which you can see on the left-hand side of the chart, provides interesting dynamics. While banks are today witnessing historically lowest level of NPEs, the stage two loans dynamics are quite different, with double-digit rates in Italy and Greece, and around 7% in Spain. These loans can either return in bonis or gradually fall into the non-performing space, providing us with an interesting opportunity.
Moving now to more general macroeconomic trends, we are witnessing in our major countries. On slide five, we can see how the reduction in NPEs on banks' balance sheets is not so much driven by the fact that banks are no longer generating NPEs, but rather that they have been able to compress their NPEs, thanks to significant recourse to an efficient and functional ecosystem to dispose and manage NPLs. In fact, as shown by crossing data on the disposal and banks' balance sheets, it's clear that given the challenging macro context of the last two years, and Italian, Spanish banks and Greek banks now hold more NPEs than at the beginning of 2021. This is the context of a sluggish growth of new loans.
It's worth noting that in addition to the NPE held by the banking system, there is a significant amount of NPEs held by state-sponsored entities that could or will come to market, like AMCO loans or COVID guarantees loans by MCC in Italy, PQH loans in Greece, which are now materializing in the Ariadne transactions. Looking at the PMI index developed by S&P Global, where scores above 50 indicate an economic expansion and scores below 50, an economic contraction, Italy has seen a material shift from positive trajectory in 2021 to negative territory in 2023. Recent data for Italy on GDP in the Q3 of 2023 marked a stationary trend versus the previous quarter. In Greece and Spain, the PMI index has proven more resilient and remains above 50.
In this context, we believe that the banking system will be tackling any pick-up in NPEs more proactively, not just to the risk, but also to improve ROE and profitability and reducing the lag between NPE formation and disposal. If we look at the historical trend of the stock of defaulted loans in Italy on slide six, several statistics outline our tenure in credit quality, historical de-risking operated by banks, and general resilience of the global economy contributed to a decrease in the stock of defaulted loans. Although it's generally expected that they will increase again, with forecast default ratios significantly lower compared to previous year, year estimates. It's however, worth noting that recent data seems to point to a rebound in default rates, both for households as well as non-financial corporations over the coming two to three years.
In this market scenario, in the first nine months of 2023, doValue successfully continued to develop its business, increasing its share of transactions at twice of approximately EUR 3.5 billion, with market share of around 20%. On slide eight, I would like to share how the new transformation program is effectively reshaping our cost base, in particular in terms of IT cost and head count. As you can see, in all our countries, we have been able to redesign our processes with the support of digitalization. In particular, in back office activities, enabling us to achieve approximately 300 FTE efficiency and substantially reducing our technology cost by around 15%. This will set the base to reap the full effects at the group level from 2024.
On page nine, we have outlined the impact of our technology-infused operation efficiency plan that will maximize value from all our core operations. This can be divided in three macro areas. First, capability to improve the quality of the portfolio and accelerate onboarding, including artificial intelligence, advanced analytics, and natural language understanding. Second, digital platform and omni-channel for our customers. And third, automation and digitalization of manual and administrative activities. The implementation of these enhanced capabilities will deliver substantial operational benefits. 10% of transactions can be managed by virtual asset managers, 30% reduction in time spent by asset managers on low value-added activities, 5% improvement in recovery rates, and 10% reduction in servicing costs. Moving now to page 10.
We have a pipeline of potential new business of approximately EUR 14 - 15 billion over the next 18 months, which contains some very large government-sponsored transactions, such as the EUR 5 billion project, Ariadne, that is now being officially launched, and the SLB in Greece, as well as two additional transactions from Eurobank and NBG in Greece, now officially announced. It's important to note that doValue is developing a more resilient stream of revenues by refocusing its commercial efforts in securing a larger number of mandates, with a lower average size, rather than relying on few large mandates from limited number of clients. We remain highly committed to our ESG strategy, which, as you can see from page 11, has been defined in concrete quantitative targets for 2023, as part of group sustainability plan, for which we are fully on track.
Our efforts have recently been rewarded by faster improvement just a few days ago in the rating assigned by Sustainalytics, with a low risk, and a ESG rating improved from a 19.1, and the original 18.8. This is, in addition to the recognition by number of primary ESG rating providers, which have improved the rating assigned to the group. Moody's Analytics upgraded its score from limited to robust in July 2023, and MSCI ESG rating upgraded its rating from AA to AAA in March 2023. With that, I will now hand over to, Davide for a closer look to our financials.
Thank you, Manuela, and good morning to all of you. Moving to page 13, we have here a summary of the key financial for the Q3 and the first nine months of the year. In order to better align the seasonality effect on the nine months and Q3 2022 results, we have included for comparative purposes, also Q3 2021 and nine months 2021 financial, which clearly indicate the seasonality effect on our quarterly results. As already mentioned by Manuela, the quarter is in line with our expectation and reflects the weaker than expected market of new NPL, NPLs, that are partially offset by solid collection performance, in particular in Greece and Spain. As usual, we are showing variations, both including and excluding Sareb, in order to align the performance of the business on an organic basis.
Let's move to page 14 to have a better look at the gross book value dynamic. Our GBV has declined marginally compared to the end of 2022, mainly due to lower than expected new NPL volumes in the market, and to a strong performance for collection activity, and increasing disposals, mainly linked to the pillar portfolio and sale of secondary increase. The GBV has, however, been supported by forward flows from our partner banks, which have grown significantly versus the same quarter in 2022, up 60%, reaching EUR 2.6 billion. Our business development efforts are visible in the new mandate, secured for EUR 6.1 billion GBV, despite lacking the jumbo deals, jumbo deals of the past. Please note that in nine months of 2023, the company has won over 12 new mandates, albeit of small size.
In general, given the growing importance of a secondary transaction, we expect the collection profile to become more lumpy and more concentrated in the Q4 of the years. The collection rate stands at 4.5% as of the end of September, improving by 0.5 percentage points from the 4% recorded at the end of 2022. Moving to slide 15, gross revenues in the first nine months of 2023 declined by 21.2% year-on-year to EUR 335 million, and by 31% in the Q3, in large part to the off-boarding of the SOREP portfolio. The comparison versus last year, as we mentioned, is affected by indemnity fee on the Mexico portfolio recorded in the Q3 of 2022, whereas typically, most disposal and indemnities are recorded in Q4.
Excluding SOREP, the comparison between nine months, 2023, and nine months, 2022, shows a decrease of 11.7%. In Italy, the gross revenues declined marginally due to lower collection, down 4% year-on-year, and in line with the GBV trend, with NPL decline being partially offset by growth UTP, up more than 100% over the previous year, and by 5% increase in ancillary revenues. Performance in Greece was strong, with collection up 25% year-on-year, and despite the distorting effect of the Mexico indemnity in nine months, 2022. Gross revenues in Spain declined over the previous year due to lower collection, in light of the SOREP off-boarding and to a deceleration in real prices. On next slide, we highlighted the balanced mix of GBV and gross revenues across our different clients and different product lines.
As you can see, the higher share of gross revenues versus the corresponding share of GBV from commercial banks reflects higher than average fees related to acquired contracts. It is important to note that our new revenue streams of ancillary revenues and investment are also gaining material traction, and with an increase of 24% year-on-year, growing their contribution to gross revenues to 13% from 8% in nine months, 2022. Moving to slide 16, we show the results of our cost discipline measures in sourcing strategy and restructuring processes in Spain. We continue to optimize and reduce our outsourcing activity, both leveraging on a different portfolio mix post-Sareb onboarding, with the lower dependence of size of GBV managed, as well as insourcing some activity. Outsourcing fees declined both in absolute terms and as a percentage of gross revenue, positively contributing to sustaining our EBITDA margin.
HR costs, our single largest cost item, were reduced by 10.6% year-on-year to EUR 141.8 million, mainly driven by the SP reduction in Iberia, related to the post-Sareb restructuring program that will provide one rate saving of EUR 6.4 million in 2024, and was EUR 19.5 million since the exit from Sareb contract. In Italy, HR costs were also reduced, partially thanks to the one-off release of the LTI plan allocation for the previous CEO. HR costs increased marginally in the Hellenic region due to the onboarding of new portfolios, Sky and Frontier Two. Other operating costs declined by 34% over the previous year, with different contribution from the three regions.
A significant achievement was delivered in Iberia, where other operating costs were up year-on-year, thanks to the two transformation program, which was accelerated by the non-renewal of the Sareb contract. On slide 18, we see how the combination of lower gross revenue, coupled with the significant cost efficiency measures put in place, enabled us to achieve an EBITDA of EUR 150 million, decreasing 24% year-on-year, and by 16% excluding Sareb, with a margin of 34.4%, which is only slightly below the previous year, despite the decrease in revenues for the onboarding of Sareb. As mentioned earlier in the Q3 2022, we recorded a significant indemnity from the Mexico portfolio, which skewed the year-on-year comparison.
As a reference, you can see that in nine months, 2021, the EBITDA was the same as the one recorded in nine months, 2023, reflecting the typical seasonality of our business. In Italy, EBITDA declined as a result of lower revenues, as well as EUR 10.9 million of group costs, which are consistent with the past practice. The Iberia region contributes strongly to the group EBITDA, and now accounts for more than 80% of the group results, also including the effect of the Mexico indemnity.
In Iberia, the positive impact of the higher collection rate and the material cost efficiency measures partially compensate the lower margin due to a delay of onboarding new investors portfolios, reducing the flows of NPL and lower impact from REOs, due to the decline in real estate prices. Please note that this year, reported EBITDA and EBITDANRI are almost identical, with a minor EUR 50,000- 100,000 difference. On next page, we show the performance across our regions. Adding to what we have already mentioned, commenting on the financials, it is worth noting, noting that 0.5 percentage points improvement in the collection rate, which reached 4.5%, supported by the Hellenic region and Spain. Commenting on the net income action arrived, next slide, show the performance is similar to the one observed for EBITDA.
A seasonally weak Q3, which compared to the very strong Q3 to 2022, also as a result of the Nexi indemnity, makes the comparison unfavorable. In the nine months of 2023, the reported net income was also impacted by an increase in net provision, mainly related to the delinquencies. Moving to slide 20, we generated a positive cash flow from operating operations in nine months, 2023, of EUR 38 million, which compares to a positive result of EUR 63.9 million in nine months, 2022, which net of Mexico indemnity, is quite aligned. We are quite satisfied with the efforts we are putting in place for the managing working capital across all of our regions, which has enabled us to materially reduce the working capital absorption versus last year.
The dividend payment of EUR 48 million, seasonality in the tax payment schedule in Greece, as well as the interest paid at the bond in Q3 2023, and dividend leakage from doValue Greece to minority shareholders, has led to a negative free cash flow of EUR 55.6 million in the nine months of 2023, compared to a negative free cash flow of EUR 21 million in nine months 2022. The expected EBITDA in the last quarter of 2023 will generate an increased net working capital, which is expected to be absorbed in the Q1 of 2024. We expect our cash flow from operation to exceed EUR 50 million in the full year 2023.
As shown on slide 21, these movements have led to an increase of our leverage from 2.4x at the end of June 2023, to 2.9x, still within our financial policy range of 2-3x, and one of the lowest in the sector. Please note that this leverage is related to a seasonality with LTM EBITDA, and we expect this value to normalize at year-end to around 2.7x. Our financial structure remains solid, with more than EUR 200 million of liquidity placed between EUR 96 of cash and 120 million of credit lines as of end of September. In terms of treasury management, our next bond maturity is in 2025.
Our bonds are trading better on the secondary market versus our peers, a demonstration of attractiveness of our capitalized servicing model also for debt investors. Please also note that we have decreased our gross debt by repurchasing and canceling approximately EUR 5 million of nominal bonds in the open market, allowing us to reduce the financial charge and booking a small profit on the difference between average purchase price and nominal value. I will now leave the floor to Manuela for her closing remarks.
Let us sum up our presentation. On page 22, the results of the first nine months of 2023 point to a positive trajectory, despite the challenging macro context and the lower than expected NPL volumes. Our collection performance was solid in Greece and Spain, ex-Sareb, and in Italy, we are seeing a growing business from UTP and ancillary services. The performance in Greece is supported by very strong macro momentum, including the investment grade recently assigned to the sovereign rating by S&P, which outlines the positive outlook on our business there. Our cost efficiency initiatives are delivering above our expectations, enabling us to deliver our services in a more efficient way, thereby protecting our margins.
We expect that macro headwinds and the proactive approach of banks will drive new business opportunity in the next 12 to 18 months, which we believe will be able to be in a linear structure in all countries. Lastly, I would like to share with you our guidance on 2023 full year results, for which we expect gross revenue in the range of EUR 495-500 million, EBITDA ex-NRI in the range of EUR 175-185 million, and the net financial position of around 2.7x . Regarding the dividend for 2023, the board of directors is currently discussing this topic, also in the context of the work we are carrying out on the new business plan 2024-2026 of the group, which we expect to present in early 2024, and in light of our financial policy.
We leave now space for your questions.
This is the Chorus Call conference operator. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touchtone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Azzurra Guelfi with Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, and thank you for the presentation. I have a couple of questions. One is on the implied Q4 guidance that is in your 2023 updated outlook. If I try to calculate what the implied Q4, it seems that there's gonna be a strong rebound, both in revenue and EBITDA. And I just wanted to check if you can give us some color on what makes you so constructive on the Q4. Is it contract that you sign new mandate, or something along the value chain? The second one is on the cost efficiency. You have clearly make great progress on that front. Can you give us some color on what are additional action that you could look to exploit on this?
If you need new investment also for, if you want, expanding across the value chain of the NPLs and Stage 2 and performing loans, as you were showing in slide four. Which bring me to my last question, which I'm not sure if you can answer, but if you can give us some color on what are the initiatives that you see as key roadmap for the plan. Shall we use slide four as a reference for what could be the new, the value in the future plan? Thank you.
Thank you, Azzurra. Let's go through then your question one by one. On Q4 targets, we have onboarded the two transaction just last quarter that we had anticipated, the Sky transaction and Frontier 2, which will obviously earn the revenues in the last quarter, and they were not included in the business book, but were expected. On top of it, we will onboard the significant, you know, secondary sales transaction in Greece that are already underway for around EUR 1.3 billion. So, this type of sales process require months, but, you know, we are in the phase of getting the final offers and finalizing the results.
So the confidence on the year-end are on contracts and secondary transaction, which we are working already in the execution phase. On the cost-saving side, the efficiencies are both on the HR and IT side. On one of the slides, we have shown that we have been able to exit already 300 people and reduce IT cost by 15%. In these numbers, we are not reflecting the run rate that the CFO has mentioned for more than EUR 6 million, which will make a saving on run rate 2021 versus 2023 only in the Spanish market of EUR 19 million. On top of that, we will continue with more exit, but this is already what is achieved.
The same as happened for the exit we recorded in the Italian and in the Greek market as a result of the efficiency metrics and the digital transformation program in the local countries. In terms of investment for enhancing the value chain, one was related to the management of early arrears and UTP. As you can see, and we have said in the past, we have already exported the tool to manage this type of products from Greece to the Italian market and to the Spanish market.
So, where we see investment in the future are more around the topic of innovation, artificial intelligence, predictive analytics, less so in the part of the transformation side, where, you know, most of the plan has been achieved. We have highlighted in the past that the transformation program that we have announced in beginning of 2022, the transformation was almost 90% completed for the end of this year. In terms of initiative and roadmap for the plan, in terms of expansion of the product, we are focusing very much on the Stage 2 product offer, the early arrears product offer in Spain, which has already materialized in the contract with CaixaBank, Sabadell.
You have seen our announcement in the Q3 related to the flows we are receiving already on this contract, which we think will expand. And also the smaller ticket side, which we plan not to manage with the traditional models of call centers and the like, but the digitalized platforms, where the opportunity is to recover automatically and offer also these services for banks.
The next question is from Lars Dueser with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good morning, all. Thank you for taking my questions, and I have a few of them today. Firstly, you know, when I look into the quarter itself, it looks like this indemnity fee is really, you know, one of the main drivers, if not the main driver. I see that Q3 collections in Greece were up nicely, yet the gross revenue number is down, call it, you know, 35% or so. And obviously, it's a bit difficult to estimate this, but, like, to me, it looks like the indemnity fee could have been around EUR 20-30 million in Q3 2022. So I just wanted to, you know, double-check if that is a fair ballpark number.
If you're looking, Lars, your question is around 2022 as a comparison to now, we have mentioned in the past that our average indemnity for the year is around EUR 20 million, while in 2022, this impact was double that amount. So, the... If you take out, the net effect would be EUR 20 million on top, which we obviously this year we not have, while we run on the average amount this year. This is on the like, on live data.
Right. And this was mainly taken in Q3 last year, or was that spread across the year?
No, no, it was absolutely because the normal indemnity are spread through the year, but the Mexico indemnity was concentrated in Q3. This is the difference between Q3 2022 versus 2021 and versus 2023. And the nine months 2021 versus 2023 are very much consistent. The peak was in the nine months 2021 for this specific reason. While usually, you know, the most of the transaction happened in the last quarter, and this was in 2021, and will be in 2023 as well.
... Got it. Got it. Thank you for that, Manuela. And then, moving on to the next question. When I look into Italy, collections there seem to have worsened a bit, right? Year-over-year, I see them down mid-teens. And that is a bit higher than the GBV decline, which was around 5%. So what was driving that? Why were collections lower than the GBV decline would indicate? And also, why did that then lead to such a gross revenue performance? What is the explanatory factor behind this?
The decline was 4% last. Maybe it was unclear in the numbers. The decline versus GBV is driven by the macro environment, and that's the point we were making before. We see borrowers less able to pay, and therefore they tend to renegotiate on the legal side rather than achieve extra-judicial settlement. This is also a result of lower recoveries that impact the auction settlements of some of the judicial procedures. This is slowing the collection in 2023, and bringing them forward.
Right. Right. So is it fair to assume that you also expect in Q4 a bit of a divergence there, that collections will be probably down more than the GBV decline itself? Is that fair?
It will be consistent with the trend seen so far, but it's factored into our assumption for the year end.
Got it. Got it. And then quickly talking about maybe the dividend. Obviously, on an LTM basis, if I look into your levered free cash flow generation, that hasn't been that high than in prior years, even though you could argue it's distorted, you know, by all sorts of line items, working capital related, other assets, other liability changes, and so on. But you have paid out, regardless, a EUR 55 million dividend over the last 12 months, right? Which seems, on the LTM numbers, at least, fully uncovered. So will you update the market on this soon?
Sorry, last, could you repeat the last part of the question? Sorry.
So, yeah, sure. The question really is: when will you update the market on your dividend policy?
Could you repeat the last part of the question? Sorry.
Yeah, sure. The question really is: when will you update the market on your dividend policy?
We expect that work to be completed by the end of this year. And within that, obviously, one of the main discussions we're having with the shareholders relates also to the dividends, and obviously within the new business plan, potentially the dividend policy there. So we expect to update markets in early 2024.
Got it. Got it. And then very quickly, last question, thank you for taking them all. M&A, you made it a priority this year. So far, no deal got announced, so is this still something we have to expect by year end? Clearly the press is full of M&A headlines as is usual, I guess, with doValue. And then also, any update on the refinancing of the 25 bonds? We still have, obviously, time to deal with that.
Yes. On M&A, we are always consistently careful about our financial policy, and therefore, we will go after and conclude if we are able to preserve, you know, our financial policy and accretive transaction. This is the priority. Headlines and rumors is just because the market is very much active in terms of transaction. It doesn't mean that we are involved. We see opportunities for consolidation in our core markets of Italy and Spain, as there are a number of market players in both of these countries. We are looking to selected one, which will enable us to expand and perform our activity to technological platform, allowing to serve our customer more efficiently and enter into new segments of the market, including targets outside our core regions.
But this is in the limit we just have indicated. For the refinancing, as we have shown in the past regarding the approach to financial policy, we will be always attempted to be in the market early enough to make sure everything is consistent with our overall conservative approach to leverage.
Very clear. Very clear. Thank you, all.
The next question is from Eleni Ismailou with Axia Ventures. Please go ahead.
Hello. Congratulations for the set, the results, and thank you for taking my question. Just a follow-up on looking ahead, basically. How is the company planning to allocate cash between M&A and dividends in order to create shareholder value? And another question on free cash flow. What should we think of the sustainable free cash flow you anticipate as a normalized run rate for full year 2024? Thank you.
Hi, Eleni. Thank you very much for your questions. I'll take the first one. So basically, as I was mentioning before, we're working on the new business plan, which obviously will be something that's quite, you know, well, more aligned to the current market conditions, which are clearly very different from the ones that underpinned the 2022 business plan, that was presented, well, almost two years ago. Within that, clearly, the financial capital allocation is one of the key factors that the board is putting their heads on. As Manuela just mentioned, clearly, we are very keen on expanding our business through selective M&A on various streams. So all of this will need to be combined together.
As you know, we're also performing a share buyback as we speak. So all of this really forms part of the overall capital allocation discussion that we will present in a very clear fashion in the business plan in early 2024, Eleni.
I get the second question on cash flow. As you seen in 2023, we had some extraordinary exit in terms of cash flow, that in the future will be not anymore there, so we could expect from cash flow, starting from the EBITDA, we will have an impact on the cash flow because of the CapEx. Then we need to also take into account the leasing contracts that are not in our EBITDA, so it's around EUR 15 - 18 million per year.
We need to that will impact our cash flow generation, and then any other redundancy cost, because also this year we have the huge amount of redundancy, also because we were able to reduce a lot the number of cities, mainly in Iberia, because in the plan we still have to reduce people in Iberia. Also, in this year, we'll still have redundancy cost next year. All the other items that affect negatively 2023 will not be any more in our cash flows. It should be around 50% cash conversion from the EBITDA.
Thank you. It's very clear. Thank you. And again, congratulations for this, results.
The next question is from Simonetta Chiriotti with Mediobanca. Please go ahead.
Hello, good morning, all. Good morning, all. Couple of questions from my side. The first is on Greece. If I'm not mistaken, the-
Simonetta, Simonetta, sorry, we can hear you very poorly.
Is it better now?
A little bit better. Thank you.
Yeah, okay. Sorry. The first question is on Greece. There are more ancillary fees that are much higher than in the past, in the Q3. So I was wondering if it is a structural change or if they are related to a specific project. And the second question is on the GBV evolution in 2024. Looking at slide 13, it is clear that you have onboarded all the mandates that you had secured in the past months. And from now on, we will have to see new mandates. If we look at slide nine, there are several mandates.
No, sorry, it's not, yeah, see slide nine. If you could help us to understand where we can see the first deals in the various markets in 2024. So, which are the portfolios that will be assigned in the first month of 2024? Thank you.
Thanks, Simonetta. I'll get to the second question on the ancillary. As you know, our strategy is to continue to diversify our revenues, and we will also continue working to try to increase the potential revenues, the ancillary revenues, that are not strictly related to the GBV dynamic. In Greece, we are working on a project since two years to service our clients, which already have on the marginal expenses. So this has been an increase in 2023 revenues, and it will continue to be there also in the next year, around EUR 2-3 million more versus this years.
And also we, as you know, we are working very well in the real estate space in Greece, where we were able to grow a lot in the last two years, and we continue to have a positive impact on our revenues. This, we are continuing to help our clients to sell properties and assets in a very positive way.
Regarding the evolution of GBV, when we add on the column, these are contracts which are already secured, and they don't include, and they're primary, they don't include the dynamic of the secondary. Because the dynamic of the secondary, just to explain better, chart 15 go into the new mandates, but also in the disposals. So, all the secondary transaction, which stabilize the GBV over time, they don't pass through that column. So not having a new primary there, doesn't mean that the transaction will not happen to sustain the revenue, with the disposal fee and the diversification of client base. Regarding the pipeline, differently from what we have said before, there are actual projects which now have started in the market, which we were waiting for.
So the Alphabet project at Sareb has been officially launched by the government and is split into three parts. And we are working on all three for potential bids with a different investor for the different portfolio. As you recall, this project was before all together. It was very flexible, but had a lot of different assets inside, which now have been split up for to address different, more tailored clients. On the other side, the Hercules securitization in Greece has been renewed with approval by ECB three weeks ago.
So, two banks have announced publicly that they will pursue other transaction in that space, nominally Eurobank and NBG, which have announced publicly about, you know, the HAPS process on that front. So, different from before, these are actually on track now for execution. On the Italian side, you might have observed, and we commented in the past about the unfolding change in strategy in terms of outsourcing, where we see opportunities for the servicing industry, which will probably concentrate more outsourcing, but also the amount of COVID guaranteed loans, which in the market have around EUR 200 billion, and are experiencing the default rate, which is higher than the average.
Also, because the banks reported default ratios includes are gross of the of the guarantees. So as soon as they are realized, the defaults or the challenge they are passed through NCG or such to apply the guarantee. So the government is obviously looking for solutions for the mounting level which will materialize next year and the following year. These are, I would say, the most critical ongoing activities. On the Iberia side, we announced last month the new intake and the good features about the activity with the Sabadell and the Caixa is that it's recurring.
So, despite not being under the traditional umbrella of the long-term tenured contract, it's ongoing transfer of new flows from them to us to manage and bring them back to performing status. Very much similar to what we do in the Greek market.
Thank you.
The next question is from Davide Giuliano with Equita. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. I have just two of them. First, can you confirm approximately EUR 21 million cash disbursement in Q4 for the put option related to Santander, which was exercised in Q4? And do you think that the exercise of the put option may pose risks to the renewal of the contract you have with Santander, which, if I'm not mistaken, will expire in 2025? Thank you.
The exercise of the put does not affect in any way the ongoing contract between doValue and Santander, nor does it influence in any way the discussion around the contract renewal. doValue remains strategic partners on NPL with Santander, maintain a strong and positive relationship. Also, thanks to the proven performance in managing their flow business. Just to give you an example, the same has happened with Santander, with other partnerships after an initial phase of investment in Anticipa, for example, and this is similar to other banks' behavior. See the exit a year ago, Sabadell from Solvia. The full control over Altamira will simplify the control chain in the group and will enable doValue to exercise the full strategic and management control on the key markets of Spain and Cyprus.
Cyprus is a very profitable market for us, and further enhance the integration. The full control will also simplify the structure of the doValue group, facilitating the strategic option, restructuring, financing, and minority leakage in these markets. So all in all, the Santander will focus on the performance for the renewal, rather than the point of ownership.
We confirm the amount was EUR 21 million you were referring to, we paid in October?
Twenty-four.
Okay. Yeah.
Which is included in the guidance for the expectation for the leverage.
Okay, thank you. Very clear.
The next question is from Nikita Fedyuk with Sound Point. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Can I clarify, just follow up on one of the previous questions? In terms of the Q4 EBITDA guidance, so, just using your full year number, I am getting to the kind of expected growth from Q4 EBITDA +20% to +40%. I wanted to ask, this EUR 175 million, given we are already, like, mid-November, do you have very good visibility that you're gonna get there, and then everything else is a potential upside from this number?
Yeah, this is what I was referring before. I think it was a question from Azzurra. It's driven by transaction, which are already on the market, and we are managing in the execution phase for the secondary transaction. And then it relates to the cost exercise that we have already carried out, so we are seeing just the effect on the cost exercise. And finally, it's related to the portfolio we have already onboarded and started to earn revenues. So, the guidance reflects a fact that have already happened.
Okay. So, in other words, it won't be less than 175, right?
Yeah, correct.
Understood. Second point, in terms of the bond. So I see that your 2025 bonds, like, maturity is quite soon. Given all the volatility in the market as we've seen, I think, if I'm not mistaken, it was mentioned previously that you're looking to refinance it quite soon?
So the point is that the maturity is August 2025, so it's not so close, in our view. But because we want to have a proactive approach, we will definitely, you know, look to market opportunities ahead of time, with a proactive stance, as we have done, in the past when we look to financing.
Okay. And, if I'm not mistaken, I think it was mentioned that the refinance will happen either this year or the next year, or I'm making it up.
But this is natural, because if we have the maturity, we will have to refinance ahead. But we have more almost 24 months, because it was August 2025.
Right. And in terms of, don't you have this, that, kind of from the auditor's perspective, you need to refinance at least one year ahead, in order to get all this, auditor sign-off?
Audit or rating agency? Because I, I didn't understand your point.
Typically, given the auditor sign off the account as a going concern for the company, most of the issues refinance it at least one year ahead, in order to not to have any kind of clause the next year maturity issues.
So, on this, basically, it's good practice to refinance ahead of schedule. But as Manuela said, Nikita, we are almost two years ahead of our upcoming maturity in August 2025. I think what we were trying to say is that obviously we're keeping our eyes on market conditions, and obviously, we will be prepared to tap the market when we see an opportunity for that to happen. But obviously, that means simply that we will be prepared to tap the market if we see positive market conditions.
In terms of audit, no, I mean, obviously, the perspectives, we need to have audited figures within it, whether these are LTM nine months or full year figures. That also will depend on the timing we tap the market. But obviously, the perspectives, we need to load the figures.
Understood. And so, the way how I should be looking at it, is this something that will happen, let's say, in the near term, or you don't feel any pressure from that perspective, and it can be pushed out, but it was there?
We don't feel any pressure now, Nikita.
Okay, got it. And then second point... Oh, sorry, my third point on this front: I can see there was this bond buyback program on slide 21. Are you planning to do any bond buybacks in future?
No, not as of today, no. We, we've run this by year, but then we stopped. So as of today, we are not planning any buyback. We are now just share buyback recently. We are continuing to drive this according to our plan.
Understood. Thank you.
Okay. I think, I think there are no more questions, operator. So with that, we would like to thank all of you for attending the call. Please reach out to me for any further follow-up questions.