Earnings Call: Q1 2023

Apr 19, 2023

This is the Chorus Call operator. Welcome to the presentation of Generalfinance Q1 2023 results. The presentation is available on the site www.generalfinance.it, and can be downloaded from the banner. Let me now turn the conference over to Mr. Massimo Giannoli, CEO of Generalfinance. Mr. Giannoli, you have the floor. Good morning to all of you, and welcome. Let me briefly walk you through the slides that you will find on our website, and then I'll hand it over to our CFO, Ugo Colombo. We have a positive first quarter in line with our expectations and in line with the business plan as well. We'll walk you through the presentation and you will see it yourself. We landed at EUR 507 million worth of turnover, in line with last year. We're up 17% versus last year, and we are growing more than double the market growth. We are in line with our budget. The net income for Q1 is EUR 2.9 million. Of course, also the seasonality factors are taken into account. Of course, due to the seasonality effect, there are some figures that will be picking up again starting from Q2. There's also the theme of the application of the new conditions that are tied in with the new variable rates. We're on page seven of the presentation, and let me confirm that the figures we're giving you are in line with our business plan. If we move to page eight, we can again see how our cost of risk is low, and it's part of our core business, it's part of a story somehow, and it's a consistent factor that has no major changes, and that we may manage to retain despite market performance that was in excess of 4%, whilst we have 0.4%. It's 1/8 of the average market values. Let's move on to page 10. This is a view spanning 2018-2023. Normally, we do not just stop on the effects of the lockdown and the war, but they have to be kept in mind. Here again, you see that there are no material changes to be recorded, and the figures are in line with the excellent results that we started recording ever since 2020, and that have been with us through hard times. That, again, it bears witness to the quality of our assets and the quality of our business model, and more specifically, of our ability, of the ability of our organization to select sellers and assigned debtors, and also a great ability to perform collections. We are now on page 11. If we look at the right-hand side of the slide, we can see that is very meaningful. 93% of Generalfinance's portfolio is paid on the expiry date, on the due date, versus 26%, that is the market data. We also have a small amount that is cashed in 30 days after the due date, and a very minor portion that is collected following that. That really proves that our machine is very efficient somehow, from analyzing seller debtors, collecting, and credit recovery. Always on page 11, if we look at the left-hand side of the page, we can see that these are the payment conditions once the receivable has been assigned. You see the days of sales outstanding are lower than the average market player days. Only 39% of our assigned bills have payment terms that exceed 120 days, whilst the market has 57% of payments exceeding 120 days. On the remaining part of the chart, you can see that 32% of payments are between 91 and 120 days, and 22% are below 60 days. At market level, these data and these values have been declining for us, and we'll tell you more in the following pages. We get to page 12. This is the new Assifact analysis we've added to our presentation, and it tells you about the level of efficiency when it comes to factoring services. Within the framework of companies that are broken down by clusters, small and medium-sized enterprises with a turnover below EUR 20 million, these are firms that normally need more services, and that very much appreciate factoring services because it really improves their payments or lack of payments. We accurately manage our portfolio so that we can collect our receivables when they are due. Small and medium-sized enterprises who are not equipped to collect, they very much appreciate the ability to outsource that process, the receivable collection process to a factoring company, to a factor. Of course, that leads to lower losses on receivables, and also there's a greater level of interest in retaining factoring services. That happened both before, during, and after the COVID crisis. On page 13, as I told you, I mentioned the DSO, days of sales outstanding. If you look at the market data, they are much higher. Between December 2020, we went from 88 days of DSO, average DSO, to 78 in December 2022, whilst Generalfinance went from 85 in December 2020 to 69 in March 2023. You can read this twofold. Of course, we have a lower exposure. We control risk better. We have a better quality of credit. The higher the size of the seller and also the breaking down of the assigned debtors, they tend to be much more structured and bigger, and so they pay based on the contracts, and they're very consistent in delivering their payments. Otherwise, there would be lower revenues as a consequence. We'll see this in the customer snapshot or breakdown. We can increase our turnover versus the guidance we provided in our business plan. Should the level be around 69 days, by increasing our turnover, we will mitigate the decline on DSOs. On page 14, as I said before, we're going back to breaking down of both sellers and debtors. As you can see on the slide, we have sellers who are still in the black, so to say, and they're the green part. Maybe they're going through a bankruptcy procedure, that's the black one, or they are new, and they don't have any bankruptcy procedure ongoing, it's the green part of the pie. There are those who are performing and stay performing. We have more structured clients that have a larger size than our older clients or customers, and sell to assigned debtors who have the rating classes that you can see on the central pie on the top part of the slide that are highly qualitative. These charts somehow show you and prove to you how valuable the data we showed before are. The without recourse operations are about 10%, whilst 90% of the operations are with recourse instead of without recourse. With recourse, it's much higher than the market average. Sometimes we provide advances also on future receivables. It's niche activities in our total revenues, but we are fine-tuning them to provide more services to our clients and walk them through the initial stage of a possible debt restructuring process. The number of clients is growing, but again, it's a controlled growth because our policy is to acquire a low number of sellers and a high number of debtors, assigned debtors. That's the policy. You see by the number of assigned debtors, 84 is the average versus 10 of the Assifact average. That means having about 230 active sellers and about 20,000 assigned debtors. These are very meaningful figures, by the way, and they are managed through our digital platform, proprietary platform, that you will be able to see on page 15. We are still investing in our proprietary platform. It was set up in the 1990s, and we've rewritten and updated it four times, and it's a platform that enables our sellers. You see the moving average in that over 12 months, it's 10,675 disposals from 233 sellers. Those are automatic disposals. We disbursed 11,806 services or supports, and then we settled about 8,287 settlements. Let me tell you that the with-recourse operations have a disbursement average of 80% versus the nominal value of disposed receivables or assigned receivables. See, these are the amounts that are disbursed net of interest, commissions, or whatever. This is at the time of the collection. 355,000 invoices were disposed of, generating about 400,000 maturities. The moving average is 19,490 assigned debtors. We sent 150,000 automated notifications. Of course, this is thanks to the platform. We have Generalweb, which is our front end, is the window with which we have a dialogue with our clients. We have the back end engine, which is TOR. We have the artificial intelligence part that is on ClickWorld, through which we monitor any activity that is performed within the company. This is one single platform and a fully proprietary protocol. Before we draw conclusions and hand the conference over to questions, let me turn the call now over to Ugo Colombo, and you can start on page 17. Thank you, Massimo. This is Ugo Colombo speaking. We will give you a few details on our balance financial sheet and income statement. You see the interest margin is showing a cost of funding that is almost entirely at a variable rate that has been repriced over the quarter and realigned at market levels, both one and three-month EURIBOR. We have active contracts leading to a progressive realignment of our book to market rates. That took place over the quarter, of course, depending on the time mismatch, of course, was very much bound to the seasonality. Volumes increased in 15% by offset, by lower DSOs, and you see it in financial assets. Receivables is up 3% year-on-year. This has been partly reabsorbed by the DSO. The slight mismatch that we have seen despite the fact that all contracts are at variable rate led to a stability or a flatness of the interest margin year-on-year. Commissions account for 80% of our revenues, and they are up in line with as much as turnover, up 17%, and they're both up 18%, so we break even, thanks to our services pricing policies and additional services without recourse, advance on future receivables, strengthening of our product lines, and you name it, and having a very consistent product line to offset the longer DSOs, and also having a favorable process in commissions to be paid. Revenues are up 12%. Provisions on credits are equal to 0. On receivables, they're equal to 0, because they have an impact on revenues that is almost close to 0, and that has to be underlined despite the fact that the macroeconomic situation is characterized by complexity. Operating costs are, well, 15%, slightly less than three-year average. Human resources, we've been trying to incentivize it in line with STAR requirements and the long-term incentives for managers that were not available in 2022, so strengthened our HR structure as far as the risks are concerned and controls and credit management policies. Net income is up 8% year-on-year. The net profit is up 8% year-on-year. We are at the same level of the 3 previous years. We reduced by seven or eight percentage points, and then also the operating leverage has improved thanks to the platform that enables us to look at volumes without increasing other admin expenses. As we said at the beginning, the different indicators will be looked at and projected over the next quarters, so as to achieve the levels given in the business plan. The ROE is higher on the cost of capital, and it was 26% in 2022. Assets and liabilities, there's nothing special to say. We have a very simple balance sheet. In addition to receivables, we had EUR 336 million worth of funding, which is flat year-over-year, despite a 16% increase in our turnover. On page 18, we have a slide on capital ratios that are improving versus 2022 of 140 basis points when it comes to common equity, and from 140 to 342, if I understand correctly. Total capital ratio is affected by the same level. We are very sound capital-wise, 19%, and DSOs play a favorable, beneficial role there. It frees up capital, and it enables us to grow against a three-year backdrop, so fully sound with a capital buffer in excess of 11 percentage points. On the following page, on page 19, you see the breakdown of our funding quarter-over-quarter. More specifically, you see today, the main tool we use is securitization, EUR 104 million, and then we've slightly reduced EUR 111 million for our revolving facilities. For the rest, there are no major differences in our funding. Cost of funding on the right-hand side is at variable rate, and on a like-for-like basis spread-wise in Q1 is around 410 basis points, 380. We have bond Tier 2, and it's more cost of equity than cost of funding, practically. The very important thing to be underlined, especially against this market backdrop, we have a strong funding endowment. Adding up all the facilities and lines, whether it's committed or existing lines, we had about EUR 330 million of financial indebtedness. We end up with about EUR 600 million of free liquidity, and about 50% of that is committed credit lines. This gives a very strong stability on the overall organization, and we think are very strong and very sound, despite a time frame where funding is not easy to get. The Net Interest Income on page 20, on the top part of the slide you see the quarter-on-quarter performance, positive on spread. We had 160 basis points for the repricing effect of our assets we completed in the last part of 2022 that was moved forward to the first months of 2023. It's 180 basis points of 590 basis points. The effect that you can see on the screen will continue over the following months, thanks to the progressive realignment of rates and the further widening of the spread, which is now 180 basis points. As to commissions, as I said before, an impact of commissions on turnover, you can see that quarter-over-quarter, we are having a stronger impact on net commissions on turnover up 10 basis points. Commission income is over, and commission expense is lower. You have to take into account the funding facilities for that. Commission income, there was an increase thanks to the different portfolio composition, and the decline is now somehow offset and is now stable. On page 2,022, cost/income. As I said, we kept investing on our IT platform and risk and control systems by rolling out new scoring models as per new business plan that had an impact on our cost/income dynamics. We are trying to control risk as much as we can, both for the sellers and the assigned debtors. We have strengthened our FTEs with seven new people being hired in the Internal Control, Risk, and Credit Assessment areas that are the core areas for us. We started to strengthen our FTE setup in line with our Business Plan. The cost/income, as I said before, is basically flat. We are on the minimum level around 40 percentage points. We factor in the expectation of a growing business, and we see a decline of four, five percentage points on this indicator from now to the end of 2023. Let me hand it over to our CEO for the conclusion on page 23 and 24. Thank you very much. As I said at the beginning, I can reconfirm that we had positive results. The market in 2023 is indeed an interesting market for us, and it's a market that is growing sizably, especially for us. We are, of course, dealing with companies that are distressed, that need to be cared for, are undergoing difficulties. We had an excellent performance of our client portfolio from 2020 onwards. We can have similar projections for 2022 and 2023. There are disposals that will be fully executed, and contracts will be fully executed in April, March, so they're not factored into the first quarter. They'll start showing their effect in April, May this year. All of these factors, in addition to the funding availability we have, leads us to have a very low risk, and that make us, of course, very confident for our performance. The additional element, and we've mentioned it in the previous call, we are focusing on a project to somehow globalize our company, and it's reasonable to think that by the end of June, we'll be able to give you a clearer picture on the countries that we are focusing on. It could be Greece, Spain, and then maybe the first step of studies and then launching of new initiatives in those countries. After what we've said, we reconfirm the guidance that we gave you on our net income at the end of December, which is around EUR 16 million-EUR 17 million. I have nothing else to add. Now we are ready to take your questions. This is, of course, Operator. Let us start the Q&A session. If you want to ask a question, press star and one on your phone keypad. First question comes from the line of Manuela Meroni with Intesa Sanpaolo. Go ahead, madam. Good morning. Thank you for your presentation. I have a few questions to ask. The first question is on volumes. Last year, the turnover in Q1 was 21% of the turnover for the full year. Can we expect a similar seasonality effect this year, too, or do you think the seasonality effect could be different? The second question is on margin. DSOs are dropping, loan-to-value is dropping, and this could lead to a lowering of margin, especially interest margin. What is the trend you expect from these two items? What kind of evolution do you foresee for the interest margin in 2023? You mentioned the increase in cost of funding. Is it going to be flat despite the growth of volumes? If I remember correctly, last year you had moved all the interest to variable ones, interest rates. Maybe the cost of funding is going to move consistently with the remodulation of your assets. The results you've seen in the first three months, will that have an impact on the NII also going forward? Costs went up 15% year-on-year. I was wondering whether any one-off items to be taken into account or factor in, and what is the seasonality effect on costs as well? Okay, Mr. Giannoli starts answering, and then Mr. Colombo will complete the question. In our business plan, we expect a seasonality that is going to be very similar to that of last year. Last year, the strongest growth started in June, July to then span to December, so to say. The first answer is yes, we've more or less made a projection to have the same type of seasonality as last year. From the first results of the projections, as I said before, we probably do better. We'll have the growth one and a half months in advance rather than be June, July because we have authorized a number of disbursements to some very sound sellers. We might get there even earlier than in June to this type of growth. The DSO, it has some positive effect. It has a negative effect on the higher revenues. We have a weekly check. Well, we have a control system in place that enables us to, by looking at the higher turnover, simulating a similar portfolio composition. Of course, you might have clients with a higher or longer DSO in the portfolio, but DSOs for a factoring company is something we have to come to grips with. It's imposed on us, the moment in which the bill is disposed of and then collected. This is not something the factoring company decides, but it's a negotiation between the seller and the debtor. In the new transactions, we try and find areas with a higher DSO. It's not something we want to be crazily looking for somehow. It's just an item that in our plans means having maybe a higher turnover, EUR 200 million-EUR 300 million worth of turnover could bridge the gap, offset the gap coming from a lower DSO. Should the DSO start growing again, of course that would be on top of the results we have set ourselves for. As to cost of funding, as we already had told you in the previous calls, starting from September until December, we've managed negotiation at variable rates with all our clients. Although we were aware, or we had to discount of a lower result despite the excellent results we achieved, because we did not want to generate any shock on the customer side. With all customers, we have renegotiated conditions. We have extended the LIRs by 24 months. The cost of money, of course, increased because of the fact that the EURIBOR went up. Last year, that was not matched by an increase of costs for our clients. We have changed all of our variable rate contracts, and at the end of December, we've completed that kind of activity. We lost five, six companies that were already not in our development or growth plans. We were not going to renegotiate conditions with them. We have lost one client, but we have redefined conditions with four, five small companies that enables us to tell you that the portfolio turnover in 2023 has already been factored in, so it's already on board. Starting from the first quarter of this year, we are applying variable rates. We'll start recovering margins starting from Q2 already because our transactions are at a discount. Of course, they close on the rate on the day of the disbursement, and with a growing EURIBOR market, this delay, this lag, maybe will enable us to have exactly the opposite effect. We'll have maybe higher rates and a lower EURIBOR in the following quarter. As of starting from the next quarter, we've already seen that this trend I have described is already to be seen. I'll leave it up to Ugo to fill you in with further details on the topic and to complete answering the question. On DSOs, let me just maybe add a couple of things to put things into context. To say, as also the CEO said, first of all, let me say that the number of collections with no payment delays, that's 93% for us, and it's growing versus the previous quarters, and it's the outcome of the policy we applied to increase credit standards, the standards we applied during 2022 to further increase them. As a consequence, DSOs went down, and partly this policy to further optimize our portfolios, to improve the asset quality and that also meant improving DSOs. It can be seen already in the first quarter, thanks to a lower cost of risk. In 2023, in line with the business plan, we've included or factored in a high level of provisions because our business plan was made at the end of 2021, and the backdrop was even more complex than now. Of course, those provisions won't be replicated because of the macroeconomic effect, but also because of, or thanks to, the further improvements we've applied to our overall portfolio quality. Net, the two effects had to be netted. Lower revenues, but also lower cost of risk, which we've already seen in the first quarter, and we think we're confident it can be confirmed at a very low cost of risk also for the coming quarters. A further support of our operations, DSOs expectations were revised. The guidance we've provided you for this quarter is already discount DSO that is going to be aligned with that of the first quarter, 70, 71 days versus a DSO that was much higher in the business plan, about 85. When we drew the plan up, we had a different debtors portfolio versus the one we have now. As to costs, there are no one-offs that you should take into account that specifically affected the quarter. Cost seasonality for Generalfinance is lacking, it's not there. The cost base is 25% per quarter, exception made for maybe other net charges or provisions, or proceeds, sorry, that may affect one-offs or non-recurring charges. We did not have them in Q1. This Q1 is also reflecting some things that were not there in 2022 or something that we put in the plan. The fact that we are a listed company, of course, implies extra costs, legal, advisory, you name it, and for the first quarter. It also, personnel costs, the rolling out of the long-term incentive plans that we have introduced, that we started at the end of 2022, but will show their full effect in 2023. It's a net increase because they were not there in 2022, and that was about €150,000. So full year would be plus 450,000. And then we have a higher number of board members because of the listing of the IPO. And so we had to strengthen our organization to have a team up and running straight away and to be ready and prepared to tackle a greater volume of operations in 2023. But as to other costs, the main item, when we talk about increases, is the use of info providers, CRIF, Servir, D&D, you name it, the info providers that you've seen on the slide we devoted to the platform, the IT platform, that are higher than the previous year because of the rollout that we performed at the end of 2022. It's an automated scoring system on the debtors and takes up a bit more costs. Costs that are, of course, tied in with the portfolio quality. It's practically an investment on risk criteria to be applied. That had an impact, of course, it's EUR 200,000 on the cost base. It's 7%-8% of the overall costs, their impact. Thank you very much. One more comment on the turnover seasonality. 21% turnover full year of EUR 2.4. Is it okay or it seems to me to be lower? Could you repeat the question they are asking? Well, the CEO is asking the lady to repeat the question. Last year in Q1, you gave us 21% of the full year turnover. If I apply the same percentage to the first quarter of 2023, turnover for the full year turns out to be EUR 2.4 billion, and I wonder whether this is consistent with your expectations. No. I confirm that our expectations is of a turnover in excess of EUR 2.6 billion. Next question comes from the line of Simonetta Chiriotti with Mediobanca. Go ahead, madam. Good morning. I have a question on scenarios. As to your industry, have you seen new competitors or any player that's more aggressive or focused on your specific industry segment coming from those who are already in the business, in the industry? Well, in our specific segment, we deal with bankruptcy procedures, structured bankruptcy procedures, pre and in bankruptcy compositions. There are new competitors. We haven't noticed any specific aggressive behavior or something that might concern us. Because when you are around a table with a competitor, there's room for everyone and there's room for synergies as well, and this market is in excess of EUR 30 billion of potential turnover, so I don't see why there should be any aggressiveness on individual positions or individual files. For sure, we have a leadership in the business, and we have very specific competencies and skills that enable us to have a privileged position in the industry, and therefore, to be there. When it comes to a negotiation, we can take part in very complex negotiations where we have banks, advisors, funds, companies. We can really bring to the table our expertise, and we have a team that is constantly growing. We have very experienced people in our team, and therefore, we can bring to the table an added value that is our distinctive feature somehow, and that make us different from the rest, and that still gives us an edge in the market. Thank you. Let me remind you that if you want to ask a question, you can press star and one on your phone. The next question comes from Luigi Tramontana with Banca Akros. Good morning. Just one question, always on the cost of funding. When it comes to the different levels of funding, and over the quarter, the cost of funding went up sizably despite a reduction in volumes of about EUR 30 million-EUR 35 million. I've seen that in the mix, you use your revolving facility less and use refactoring more in commercial papers. Could you elaborate or remind us of the different spreads these facilities have? What is the flexibility you have in using the different lines or facilities? I'll answer very quickly, as we've reduced by EUR 20 million the use of our revolving line, which is the one which has a higher spread, 162 basis points on three-month EURIBOR. The idea is to reduce the use of those facilities or the use of pool funding versus other lines of facilities that have a lower cost of funding. Securitization, that was a flat quarter-over-quarter, EUR 134 million with a lower spread, 110 basis points, and it's one-month EURIBOR that for three months in a row have had 20 basis points less. We are saving 70 basis points of cost of funding by using these other facilities. Other lines you mentioned, more specifically factoring transactions. There's a mix between different counterparties, different technical products. Look, its average three months EURIBOR is roughly around 100 basis points. Overall, there's commissions and the factoring contracts we have with the sellers. Part of the cost of funding is this charge onto the interest margin. It's three-month EURIBOR plus 100 basis points. Of course, we are getting these facilities with institutional investors, and it's the only somehow direct access to capital markets, and they are placed with banks and institutional investors, family offices. In the rollover, we try and keep an active plan so that we can have a constant access to capital markets. On the short term, we are three to six months notes. Now they are around coupons, sorry, it's 400-450. EURIBOR plus 100 basis points of spread on the credit side. Looking from now to year-end, our expectations are to have a sizable increase in credits with receivables, with a lower DSO around EUR 500 million that we will be able to use. Rounding up EUR 150 extra million, part of a large portion of those EUR 150 million will be made up of a securitization which can be drawn up to EUR 150, sorry, EUR 500, if I understand correctly, million. The average weighted spread is going to be around 110 for securitization transactions. There's a lowering of the average spread. Thank you very much. For further questions, please press star and one on your phone. Ladies and gentlemen, there are no more questions in the queue right now. Thank you very much. Mr. Giannoli would like to thank everyone for attending this call. We are available, he says to all of you for further answers or for any doubts you may have. Thank you very much. Have a good day. Thank you very much.