Earnings Call: Q3 2024

Nov 11, 2024

Good morning. This is the Chorus Call operator. Welcome to the conference call presenting Generalfinance Q1 2025 results. Let me remind you that all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, a Q&A session will be held. The presentation is available on the site www.generalfinance.it, and you click on the relevant banner to download it. To be assisted by an operator during the conference call, press star and zero on your phone handset. Let me now turn the conference over to Mr. Massimo Gianolli, CEO of Generalfinance. Mr. Gianolli, please go ahead. Very well. Good morning to all of you. Welcome. Let's briefly go through the Q1 results. You can follow the presentation starting from page five. We have an excellent surprise. As you can see, our turnover is exceeding the growth we had between 2021 and 2024, and then we'll get back to it. The growth is indeed a very positive one, and we have a comparison versus Q1 2024, and that is a very meaningful comparison. The turnover went from EUR 622 million-EUR 819 million in Q1 2025. The current trend is in line with these figures or even better. Page six. We don't see the usual plus in growth in net income because here there are some things that have to be discussed. Net profit is up 8%, from EUR 4.9 million-EUR 5.3 million. In any case, net income is in line with our budget, with our business plan. If we move to page eight, we can see the answer to the question, how come the net income is not growing as much as you normally would have, so in line with turnover, I mean. This is the reason why. As you can see, cost of risk is up 2.3% and NPE ratio is up to 1.74%. We'll get back to this in a minute, but this is not really tied in with a real credit risk, but simply it is connected to triggers and to new policies that generate higher volatility. Already at the end of April, these values are undergoing a reverse trend, and we expect them to further decline in June and then to land in line with business plan figures by year-end this year. This also has to deal with the seasonality, of course, as advances for future loans and a couple of positions where we have payment delays, but they are fully under control. There's nothing connected with real credit risk. As you can see on the box in the right-hand side, the NPE ratio is still a market benchmark. We are still in a very favorable position vis-à-vis the market. Let's move to page nine. We've introduced this new slide for a few quarters now, telling you what I call the parachute is all about. That is to say all the elements that enable us to protect our exposure. At the end of the first quarter, they were EUR 533 million, so there are a number of buffers protecting that. EUR 137 million were insurance policy and credit. We have a partnership with Allianz Trade covering almost the entirety of that portfolio. We also introduced another alliance with SACE, and we could actually have SACE guarantees on specific deals. EUR 137 million are based on the multiple of net premia, insurance premia, that are paid to Allianz Trade, and then the SACE policies to specific ad hoc deals. 75%-80% of our portfolio is, of course, recourse portfolio. When we have advances on recourse policies, it's 77%-8%. We have EUR 107 million of outstanding not advanced. That is to say, loans that were not advanced, and that is a buffer. It really acts as a buffer for in case we're not cashing in. Many of these positions have a credit risk that is protected by liquidity that cover these EUR 107 million. We have, of course, additional guarantees. It could be personal guarantees from funds, SGRs, and then other risk mitigants, so to say, that enable us to really have a full protection of advances on future loans. Net, even though these three items cannot be cumulative, but the net final exposure is less than half of the actual assets. The net risk is EUR 209. On page 10, let me focus on the right-hand side of the screen. Normally, we used to see that 76% around 90% or even above 90%. Again, that is the outcome of what we said before. Its effects tied in with Stage 2 and Stage 3, but also the type of portfolio that we have acquired that are more complex, especially in certain product classes, product categories. Indeed, it's good work, but we have to manage collections in a very specific way. For a couple of clients, we collect 60 days from the maturity day. That's why 91%-76%, and we have a 22% in between. 2% is what I explained before. It's still very interesting if we can compare ourselves with the market. It's 76% versus 19%, 1%, 9%, of the market. Page 11, as you can see, we have new transactions underway and interesting opportunities. These are receivables. In September, as I said, the forecasts on DSO were positive, so growing. As you can see, we stood at around the market average, especially in Q1, as we have acquired a couple of transactions that were longer than average. Our DSO is above market average. This is good news also for the coming quarters. We now move to Page 12. You see the pie at the center of the slide changes. We have that black slice normally is much narrow. The black slice is our debtors, and this has to do with Acciaierie d'Italia and the connected companies. Acciaierie d'Italia is under extraordinary admin, but that transaction is covered by such guarantees and by the active cycle of our main customer, the asset cycle by our main customer. You see debtors are mainly red and yellow. There's a good risk distribution, risk spreading. It's 710, the relation between seller and buyer compared to the market. Look at the customer retention. Customer loyalty is around 6.5 years, which is another very positive item if you compare ourselves to the market. 76% of our turnover is covered by Allianz Trade insurance policies. No-recourse products. Our no-recourse is about 25%, is the opposite of what the market is doing, practically. We're on page 13. We have 660,000 total transactions rolling, 12 months rolling, last 12 months rolling. Let me remind you, page 13, Mr. Gianolli says he apologizes because he said 16. Page 13. This is part of Generalfinance track record is 662,000 transactions. We have a full proprietary platform, which is a distinctive feature. As you can see, there are hundreds of thousands of transactions rolling that are processed by the platform, and the service we can give the clients is of premium quality. Let me now hand the conference over to our CFO, who will tell you about figures for the first quarter, and then I'll get back to you. Thank you very much. Good morning to all of you. We're on page 15. Let me add a few things about our profitability, as always. If you look at the top part of the slide, that summarizes our P&L, and we have to stress how top line is going really well. In excess of volumes, it goes 37%. It's the weighted average between the net commission margin that tells you about our ability to provide tailor-made services to the clients, that is up 40%, and interest margin, that is about 27%, roughly. We talked about cost of risk is EUR 0.30. On our P&L, it is EUR 1.9 million. That is to say, half of that amount is tied in with Stage 3 UTP positions for the triggers that came into place as explained by Mr. Gianoli. Operating cost is up 39%, and then we have a specific ad hoc page to elaborate on that. As we said at the beginning, and it is the last line, EUR 0.3 million of profit, profits up 8% year-over-year. Loan-to-Value, that is the amount of loans dispersed on a recourse basis. We are down to 73% roughly, versus 76% of full-year 2024. That is telling you about our further caution, as we said, EUR 106 or 7 million worth of outstanding that was not advanced. In the first quarter, at the central box on the slide, during the first quarter, we retained our factoring profitability. The banking income is exactly the same as last year, 10.1%, just like it's a summary of total profitability between interest margin and net banking income. It's compared to 9.1% in 2024, and therefore tells you about our ability to grow 30%, yet retaining a very strict pricing policy as well, or discipline. Cost income is down versus full year 2024, lands at 32%, despite some non-recurring events or items that affected our operating cost dynamic. On page 16, you see a snapshot of our capital ratios. We know that our business is affected by seasonality. There's a first, you see CET1 ratio and total capital ratios are going up. More specifically, our CET1 ratio goes from 12.7%-14.8%, with a capital buffer of another 10 percentage points versus the minimum requirement. The CRR minimum requirement is 4.5%. The capital buffer, it's a very sound and robust capital buffer. Also, when it comes to Total Capital Ratio, which is about 16%, practically the double of would be the regulatory requirement according to CRR. During the quarter, we managed to retain an RWA on assets relationship, very positive one, versus and in line with the previous year. It's 71% benefiting from the guarantees, the SACE guarantees, that enabled our capital to benefit from it. On page 17, you have some details on funding. On the bottom side of the slide, you see the total available funding. It's EUR 950, it's around EUR 1 billion. We include the bond we issued in April. We are around EUR 1 billion worth of funding, of which EUR 621 is used. That gives us a counterbalancing capacity to really fund our growth in the next three years, which is around EUR 400 million. It's particularly safe also from a liquidity risk perspective. As you see, all the main funding facilities were renewed in the second half of 2024 to have much more stable funding with a view to pursue our business plan objectives. We try to optimize our funding spread in full year 2024. Central part of the slide was 170 basis points. With the figure of Q1 2025, it went down to 560 basis points benefiting from the renegotiations we performed at the end of 2024, especially the revolving facility we renegotiated, and the further reductions we got on the financing line through refactoring, or that was partly used in 2024. All the funding is at a floating rate so that our margins are not affected by monetary policies also going forward. Should rates go up or down, we still have our margins protected, our profitability protected, and of course, that very much relies on the ability to price margins on factoring transactions. As you can see on page 18, the margin, the NII, is particularly on the same levels as 2024. You see on the bottom part, Net Interest Margin is flat at 230 basis points, and that reconfirms the positive trend we had in 2024 where we experienced a growth of about 20 basis points versus the previous two years. Also improving, if you compare it with the snapshot of 2024, we have an improvement of pricing. It's the green part on commissions, net commissions on turnover that go from 140 to about 160 basis points. That also thanks to the extension of DSO that gives a higher profit with the same turnover. On page 20, a couple of words on the cost trends before I give the floor back to our CEO. The top part, you see our management team is further reinforced. We had new hiring, 78 FTEs versus 73 in the first quarter of 2024. We reinforced our FTEs by 13%, and we wanted to have a full control of risk assessment and portfolio management. At the bottom of the slide, you see operating costs, net operating costs that were EUR 3.3 million in 2024. Now they are EUR 4.6 million in the first quarter of 2025, and the growth is about 39% year-over-year. We've identified some factors or some elements that took place in the first quarter. Admin expenses and then marketing expenses are EUR 200,000 more than Q1 2024. A very important initiative of a meeting we organized at the Borsa Italiana that took place in Q1. Some special projects, development project, growth project, for focusing on foreign countries that are investments to really streamline initiatives for broad investments. Other investments and provisions. Year-on-year, we have an increase of EUR 200,000 of non-recurring items. A specific lawsuit, we had a negative decision, but first-degree judgment, so we had to increase provisions. If we adjust those items that took place specifically in the first quarter, we are still in line with the run rate of 15% that we've had over the last three years. There are no specific items. It's just advances that were made for projects and expenses that had already been planned, and therefore do not impact the overall guidance we gave in 2024. Very well. Thank you, Ugo. We go to page 22 in the presentation. As it was announced, we canceled the acquisition of Workinvoice. I would like to say that what was already disclosed to the market, by the way, there are no negative items or impacts deriving from this cancellation of the acquisition. We will proceed as assumed before the potential acquisition in creating and developing a small business division within Generalfinance for the reasons you already know, and that are the same reasons for which we had initially approached Workinvoice for their acquisition. The market is extremely positive. The market consensus is extremely positive, so the focus of Generalfinance will have to still stay vertical, focusing on our core business and in improving our in-house efficiency, which is also ensured through the acquisition in-house of a small business division without necessarily performing acquisitions. Page 23, we see the figures, the same figures we presented when we introduced the business plan. When it comes to business plan figures, and if you consider Workinvoice growth would have been limited, and there would have been a portfolio transfer from the corporate distressed, corporate special situation to digital small business. That's why we can explain why figures are not changing. Indeed, we will have further synergies to be unfolded. We will also have further good news to share with you, considering that we are fully focused on our core business today. The EUR 84 million net income, and then dividends that are EUR 52 million in the 24 months. Well, ROE 34%, TCR, Total Capital Ratio 13%, net income EUR 32 million. A further improvement of cost-to-income that we expect to achieve by end of December 2027. Strategy is the same that was disclosed with the business plan. We want to further consolidate our core business, and we want to grow in Spain. We started with the right foot, so to say, with our Spanish operation. We've had excellent results. After the clearance from Bank of Italy, we started operating in Spain. End of June, the figures we will show you, we will disclose to you, will be affected or will factor in the operations that we started in March in Spain. Our turnover is growing also in April and May. Spain is really being a satisfactory country as far as potential growth is concerned, but also as far as the pipeline we have there on clients we found in Spain that are exactly a reproduction of the Italian model. Somehow, if you remember, that was what our guidelines were about. They were going in that direction last year. Today, we have a telltale evidence that the market is there, and the stakeholders are practically the same that we find in the Italian market as well. They're very prompt to somehow react to our campaigns and promotions. We've seen a great potential in Italy. There are companies that have subsidiaries in Spain, and in Spain, in the same product categories, we found a Spanish company that has holdings in Italian companies. That is another interesting and positive item. Of course, we're looking into the different transaction, and we're also expecting for clearance for the Swiss market. As I said before, we are growing in the small business segment, that is also very important. We will carry on, and we'll keep on pursuing a diversification in funding line, and we will further consolidate them. We, of course, want to focus on a very stable platform that is better suited to the size of Generalfinance, the type of portfolio we have, and may be ready to take care of much more structured deals. On item five, enhancing and expanding agreements, we announced, if you remember, a strategic agreement alliance with the SACE Group, and we have other strategic alliances that are underway and that will be disclosed as soon as we complete them. On page 24, it's a snapshot, an example of figures and turnover of 54% of our sellers that are the companies that have a less than EUR 20 million top line, and they account for 15% of our turnover. Indeed, there's an opportunity to be grasped in the small business market, and that opportunity makes our management more complex and more costly. That's why we think we will keep on really focusing on the corporate area and special situation and enhance its value. As we see on page 25, we're going to focus on developing, further growing our core business. You see the figures are very meaningful and exhaustive. We will try and digitalize and automate and simplify, and decouple from our core business, whatever pertains to the retail world. Ugo, you take the floor on the business plan, and then I'll get back to you. We're on page 26. It's just a fine-tuning. We've already disclosed this. It's just a fine-tuning of the figures with very minor adjustments, because of the cancellation of the invoice discounting business. In 2027, we estimated EUR 5.1 billion turnover, and the impact on net income is very, very low, with the net income basically flat and confirmed in excess of EUR 32 million by 2027. ROE is also slightly lower because, of course, we did not complete the acquisition, as also cost income is improving, as we took an entity or a project that would have had an impact on our cost income. Look at the NPE ratio, then we have cost of risk. Cost of risk on page 27, you see a revised turnover where we have the Italian component, including distressed corporate plus small business, revised in the light of this new in-house project rather than the acquisition. For the remaining part, targets are indeed confirmed, EUR 350 million target turnover for Spain by 2027 and about EUR 230 as far as the branch is concerned, that will be opened during 2025 in Switzerland. For the remaining part, are just marginal amendments. Very well. Before we get to the final conclusions, let's go very briefly to page 29, where you can clearly see, and this is a trend that we have recorded and identified in 2024. I'm talking about the credit crunch affecting small and medium enterprises in Italy, the weak part, the weak link, so to say. As you can see from our turnover growth and the current growth we are experiencing until last Friday, practically, we have a very strong increase of requests coming from SMEs. In the last 25 months, we have resolved upon 25 new items, new positions that somehow replace some positions that were not so meaningful, and so they were set aside. This is indeed a guarantee for growth for the near future. If you go to page 30, where these are the closing remarks, and then, of course, you will have the Q&A for your questions and to clarify any doubts you may have. Credit quality is a very important thing for us too. The growth we have experienced, which is above our expectations, and then the cost income, the way it's faring now, as Ugo said, it's absolutely under control, and it's also going in the direction we expected it to go. If you will look at the different growth indicators and ratios, how many companies we have acquired, how many we will acquire, meaning that will become our customers in the coming weeks as well, acquired as customers. That's a very important thing. SMEs have difficult access to lending, and so this is something we can leverage on. We have a funding structure that is sound, which was renewed, is back to EUR 1 billion. That funding set up enables us to plan and do more should the market have or come up with a greater potential. Our capital ratios are very strong, and it's reassuring, also from that perspective. Expansion, international expansion abroad is taking place. We're looking at it on a weekly basis, and we're very interested in it. All of these reasons, all of these remarks are, in a nutshell, what enables us to reconfirm our net income for 2025 in excess of EUR 24 million. Let me now hand the word over to you for your questions. We are here ready to take them. Thank you very much. We are now opening the Q&A session. The first question comes from the line of Irene Rossetto with Banca Akros. Please, madam, go ahead. Good morning to all of you. Thank you so much for the presentation. The first question is on the cost of risk, which, as I understood correctly, in the first quarter was impacted by one-offs, that one will not be repeated over the course of the year. Could you elaborate and give us some color for the full-year figure? The second question is on volume growth, which was very strong in Q1. Do you expect volumes to grow at the same pace throughout the year, or are there different expectations from your side? Okay. Mr. Colombo speaking. As to cost of risk, indeed, in the presentation, I'm sure you've seen impacts that are one-offs for the first quarter will not be recurrent for the following quarters. If we look at the guidance we provided, EUR 24 million, it already embeds an expectation of cost of risk around EUR 2 million. Cost of risk in the first quarter should stay around these levels because of the trends and the dynamics that the CEO was saying. Some positions will go back to normal in the coming months. In April, it'd be more marked in June, and then December is for the Stage 1 and Stage 2 position. We have a replacement of future loans that are affected by policy in a much stronger way, and then value adjustments. We think that UTP positions of the previous month should go back into positive domain, because we strengthened our controls also after the inspections with Bank of Italy. We see this Q1 result as a peak, the cost of risk result as a peak. By year-end, we should go back to a different percentage versus, or with respect to Stage 1 and Stage 2 position. The guidance we provide is around EUR two million. As to the turnover growth theme, I can confirm it as such, but of course, the forecast for year-end will have to be constantly updated. You have to bear in mind that right now, as I said before, there's a very special market situation underway that makes sure that Generalfinance is in a leadership position vis-à-vis other times of the year or of previous years. Indeed, we have a number of clients that started selling some of their receivables, and that will be increased over time. That will be seen in Q2, how much those customers or clients can still support our one-of-a-kind growth, our extraordinary growth that we would like to, of course, keep fostering. The mix between inflows and outflows will, quarter-on-quarter, it will give us the right answer on the actual growth we can achieve and the potential delta versus our business plan. I'm not a wizard, I don't have a crystal ball. I cannot give figures for year-end because it would be too premature. End of June, it's going to be easier to give forecasts, because if you remember, our contracts foresee disposals that cover a 24-month time span. Once we've clearly defined our relations with the sellers, it'd be easier to make forecasts. Of course, we are keeping everything under control, and should there be a need, we will update the business plan in the coming quarters when we report again mid-year. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Simonetta Chiriotti with Mediobanca. Please, Madam, go ahead. Good morning to all of you. I have a question on the increase in DSO that you have reported on, which is higher than the market trend, the market average. Could you elaborate on that? Is it due to your business mix? Is there something to do with the market? Is it something happening in the market? Will it go on happening in the next quarters, too? As to the turnover growth that was so brilliant during this quarter, are there any specific names that you could name, well, that has started to give a contribution to this turnover growth in the first quarter? You also talked about inflows and outflows. Could you elaborate on that as well more in detail, or is it more of a general trend? Well, as far as DSOs are concerned, if you remember, I'm sure you remember that during 2024, we gave a forecast for potential growth. As a factoring company, we are, of course, subject to the payment terms that are defined by the seller and the buyer, the seller and the debtor, the assigned debtor. The fact that there are companies with longer DSOs had a positive impact. We also took up some very safe, well-structured transaction with all the necessary guarantees, but it was longer than average. That's why this makes these new DSO got to an ideal position, because if you remember, in 2023, there was a potential constant decline of DSOs. It's not easy to revert a trend very quickly. It also very much depends on how quickly the market responds and what kind of transaction you can get on board. One of the very interesting transaction that we got on board is the Preziosi Group, that also has a major holding in a Spanish company, held 100% by the Preziosi Group. The company in Spain is called Famosa. It increases our Spanish market, but also it increases our Italian market, that kind of transaction. The transfer of credit facilities, EUR 45 million credit facilities to MA Solar. It's part of Fimer, and the McLaren Group acquired Fimer. The extraordinary admin disposal of assets, they proceeded with the NewCo that was set up by the English group. The NewCo demanded to retain the credit lines, that is to say, our loans. They demanded our loans that had been granted to Fimer. That happens, the green companies, the sellers that are green and that acquire that business unit or part of the corporate assets. Normally, they want to keep our service on board. Another very meaningful name, when we presented the business plan, we'd talked about the potential loss or the outflow of Acciaierie d'Italia out of our portfolios. There's a selling process underway. Recently, what we read in the press has cooled down the enthusiasm that was felt about that deal. Not all situations are similar to what I described from MA Solar. We'd expected a lack of interest from the part of the buyer for our credit facilities. Of course, we always try to get in touch with a potential acquirer, acquiring the companies we service and we help, and we fund. This is an activity I am engaged in personally as much as our Chairman are. Because we're trying to extend the relations with the clients we loan money to, and we want to retain those relationships with the acquiring companies as well. If you need any more information, I'm here. Thank you very much. It was okay. The next question comes from the line of Davide Rimini with Intesa Sanpaolo. Go ahead, sir. Good morning to all of you. Thank you very much for the presentation. I have a question on page 19, where you talk about an improving net commission income, improving year-on-year, and you are also referring to a DSO that is going up. These are market data, but I know it's early, it's still Q1, but if we compare this with the assumptions you gave us for your business plan with the flat net commission income, is there anything else you can tell us, proving that you were very conservative in your assumption? A reference to slide 16, page 16, on RWA density that is quite limited versus the figure you gave us in 2024, could you elaborate on that, your expectations for the coming quarters? Thank you, Davide. On item one, commission income, if you look at it point in time in Q1, we are sizably above the business plan assumptions, as you rightly said. We assumed a decline of 120 basis points of that indicator with reference to from here to 2027 versus the 240 in 2024. Indeed, there are items of uncertainty, especially when it comes to foreign markets, the Swiss and the Spanish market. We know those markets only partially. The pricing dynamics, the pricing trend there could be slightly different from what we have assumed based on our Italian track record. For this reason, we have assumed an erosion from that perspective. It's clear that Q1 benefited from some favorable transactions, and those transactions should have an impact. The transaction, for instance, Acciaierie d'Italia and the neighboring or connected industries or businesses. We wait to have the interim results, the results for the first six months to see whether or not what we've seen commission-wise is consistent with what we are assuming or what we assumed in the guidance or something else, because apparently some of the trends seem to be more favorable versus the business plan assumption. This is a quarter versus a whole business plan spanning three years. If we look at the competitive background, backdrop, competitive arena, we talked about the credit crunch. The competitive scenario is not so meaningful. That somehow favors our pricing policies and trends. As far as RWA density, there are no specific dynamics in the first quarter. We apply standard methods. The weighing is 100% of the corporate portfolio and all other exposures, and a weighing of 75% on retail mitigated 0.7619 if the exposure is lower than EUR one and a half million. That is the basic approach. Over time, we have maximized and optimized our standard method, starting from 2021, by also recognizing the non-recourse policies, which is a risk mitigator also from a CRM perspective. We use the Allianz Trade policy as a coverage. It also mitigates RWA densities, and density, it's a good protection. In 2024, it's EUR 80 million worth of such guarantees, and that is a nice boost that was further consolidated in the first half of 2025 with the increase in the use of these SACE guarantees on a number of items of positions. That has been growing over the last three-four months. Just to wrap up, well, over the last two quarters, we recorded a positive additional positions by rated positions, rated by very well-known agencies. That contribution could further be reinforced, thanks to our expansion approach. The additional amount coming from Spain and Switzerland could lead to a higher number of rated positions, and therefore reducing the risk-weighting factors. Also some Basel route for CRD6, starting from January 2026. That on CAR increase a further weighing bucket, and that could therefore further consolidate the benefit we got from Cerved and modefinance that are the two entities we use to weigh the risk of our exposures. The Basel issue is a very topical one. There are no changes so far, and we expect, well, in addition to ACAR, a small advantage or benefit when it comes to operating risk using standard methods. That should lead to about an extra 10 basis points additional contribution. We'll see what happens in the next few months. So far, we have no other news to share. Let me add, answering the question Mrs. Chiriotti asked, this is Massimo Gianolli speaking. Considering that in the press with our name associated with Coin and another transaction, a pilot transaction that is in a restructuring arena with a group of very interesting entrepreneur. That is very interesting indeed. I don't want to underestimate that transaction, but I wanted to remind you of it because it's a recurring topic in a lot of press articles, also because of the social component and also retaining a very important brand, as it is. It's a feather in the cap for us to keep people's job, to retain people's job, and help companies that are active in our country. Are there any other questions? Let me remind you that if you want to ask a question, you may press star and one on your phone. For further questions, press star and one on your phone, please. Mr. Gianolli, there are no more questions in the queue. I would like to thank you all for joining us today. Thank you for your questions, and see you again at the end of June. Have a good day. Thank you.