Good morning, and welcome to Taaleri's Q3 results. It's gonna be myself, Peter Ramsay, and then our CFO, Minna Smedsten, who will present you the numbers today. Q3 was rather uneventful compared to our previous quarters, but if we look at the business highlights, our business developed well during the quarter. Our continuing earnings grew by 9.8%, driven by the successful first closing of our SolarWind III fund, and our income was EUR 13.1 million, and our operating profit, EUR 5.7 million. Within our renewable energy business, we continued to do the fundraising for SolarWind III. There's seemingly good demand, despite that this is a tough fundraising environment, and they also started the preparations of the exit of our Wind Fund number II and Wind Fund number III.
These funds are at the end of their life cycle. Within the bioindustry space, the team continued to evaluate investments for the Bioindustry I fund, and they also continued to prepare the venture capital fund. And additionally, we also started the construction of the torrefied biomass plant in Joensuu, which we've talked about earlier. For Garantia, we could say it was an excellent quarter once again. The combined ratio stood at 22%, and the insurance service result was EUR 3.6 million. The investment returns weren't perhaps as good as one would have expected, but that was partly driven by higher interest rates during the quarter. And as we remember, most of their investments are in fixed income.
Finally, we're preparing a strategy update, and we're gonna have a capital markets day in late November, 22nd of November, to be exact, and there we will then go through our revised strategy. Okay, so if we just look at the numbers, as I said, continuing earnings grew by 9.8%. They were EUR 10.3 million in the Q3 , compared to 9.4 last year in the Q3 . But continuing earnings in our private asset management business, it grew by 21.6%, so that's a rather sizable increase to EUR 6.5 million for the quarter. And within Garantia, the continuing earnings grew by 4.2% to EUR 3.4 million. We didn't book any performance fees in this quarter.
Last year, you might remember, we had the exit of Ficolo, which contributed both performance fees and investment income, but no performance fees in this quarter. And from our investment operations, we booked EUR 2.8 million in gains for the quarter. So if you look at our income, EUR 13.1 million. This can be volatile over quarters. Our operating profit was EUR 5.7 million, which is a 43.5% operating margin. The assets under management are currently EUR 2.6 billion. That's an increase of 4.5% from year-end, and the earnings per share that we booked was €0.16.
Okay, so if you look at our twelve-month rolling income and also our operating profit, I would say this is a more descriptive way of looking at Taaleri's as our business model is based on rather long-tail businesses. But here we can see that our continuing earnings have gone slightly up. That's the dark blue bar, which starts on the left-hand side, and then it kind of skids over to the right. It was EUR 36.8 million a year ago. It's EUR 40.6 million. So we're trying to increase our continuing earnings by having new funds that we launched that are bigger in size. Naturally, assuming that the previous ones are successful, and then also in Garantia, the premium income.
If we can take more market share or, or have new products, then we will be able to drive that line higher. And then above that, we have other than the continuing earnings, that's our performance fees and our investment income. And you can see that for the last 12 months rolling, our income from the continuing earnings was 40.6, and the performance fees and investment income was EUR 24.3 million. And then on the right-hand side, we see our 12-month rolling operating profit, which now stands at 32.2 million EUR, which is almost 50% in an operating margin. If we look at our income sources, we have 4 different income sources that drive our income. On the far left-hand side, we have the continuing earnings from our private asset management.
That is basically management fees. Then we get performance fees, which are lumpy by nature because they are always connected to an exit of a fund. But in some cases, we do book performance fees in advance. That is an assessment we make on funds that are very late, at a late stage. Good example was our Forest III fund, where we booked EUR 2 million in performance fees last year in the last quarter, and then when we sold the fund, we booked another EUR 1.6 million in the second quarter this year. So that is a sum, an income stream that is lumpier, but it is part of our business model. Then we have Garantia's income from the insurance operations, so that's mainly the premiums that they write.
And then finally, we have the net investment operation income, and that is basically then both Garantia's portfolio and the investments that we realize from our own balance sheet. These are the four income sources, and then on the far right-hand side, we have the operating profit. Now, this is just for a quarter, and as you can see, it's kind of lumpy, but if we look at it on a 12-month rolling basis, you can see that suddenly it is much more evenly split. And that's just the nature of our business. And so in this case, we can see that there's a fairly even split between these four income sources, and then eventually we have the operating profit, which I earlier said is EUR 32.2 million on the right-hand side.
Okay, if we move over to our business units, and we start with our renewable energy. As said earlier, we had our first close of the latest SolarWind III fund in July. Two hundred and eighty-six million was the amount that was announced then. We have several due diligence processes going on, and we will in due course then tell you about the fundraise as it continues. But the fundraising window is typically 18-24 months for funds like this. In addition, as I said, we're preparing to exit the Wind II and Wind III funds. But of course, that process takes some time, but we have started the preparations. Looking at the numbers, we can see the operating profit stood at EUR 2.8 million.
That's an increase from last year's 1.5. There's EUR 1 million of investment income in this number. The income line, as such, the EUR 7 million, is a little bit distorted. We have a couple of flow-through items there, so we booked it in income and then in the profits. So I would focus here on the operating profit as such. The AUM stands at EUR 1.6 billion within our renewable energy right now. Okay, if we go over to the other private equity businesses, and we start with real estate, we know the real estate market is sort of in a downturn right now, and there we're trying to develop new products that can be opportune in this market that we're in right now.
We did have an international asset management mandate that was on a timeline, and that ended in June. But that's basically from the real estate part, something that is a normal part of your sort of existence. You might have these time-limited asset management mandates. Within the bioindustry, as I said earlier, the team is evaluating new investments for the Bioindustry I fund, and then also the construction of the Joensuu torrefied biomass plant is underway. The income within our other private asset management segment fell dramatically. If you look at the headline number from EUR 8.1 million to EUR 1.4 million, but in fact, the continuing earnings fell by 11%.
And so the EUR 1.4 million includes our share of the profit of the company called WasteWise, which we invested in in June this year. They're building their second line for their plastic recycling, and at this stage, there are more costs than income, but as that is completed, then that will change. But that is booked under our bioindustry business, so it has a little small drag on our income number here in the other private asset management businesses. The AUM stands at EUR 1 billion currently. Okay, here we have, again, the 12-month rolling numbers for our private asset management business. Also here, you can see a slight upward sloping trend within the continuing earnings. That's the dark blue pillar on the left-hand picture, and then above that, we have the investment income as well as our performance fees.
For the last 12 months, the operating profit is EUR 23 million, which is about 48% in an operating margin. Here we can see our assets under management, which stand at EUR 2.6 billion. Maybe the text is a little bit small, but it's 2.6. But what has happened here is we see the relative weight of our renewables has gone up from 55%-62% since the last quarter, and this is really driven by the fact that we had our first close in the SolarWind III fund, and then also that the mandate within the real estate business is deducted from their assets under management. All right, going over to Garantia. As I said earlier, they had an excellent, excellent quarter with a 22% combined ratio.
The insurance service result was EUR 3.6 million, up from last year's 3.3, and all the revenues were flat. They had less expenses, so this was really a sort of a driven by lower expenses. The income was EUR 4.1 million, which is slightly less than a year ago, 4.4, and that was really driven by less investment income for the quarter due to slightly higher rates. The Garantia insurance exposure at the end of September was EUR 1.8 billion. That's slightly down from year-end, which was 1.9. However, our solvency ratio is really strong. It's 271%, compared to 231% at the end of last year.
Now, if we go to our non-strategic investments, which we call Other, we can say that last year there was a strong quarter due to the sale of Ficolo, the data center business, which was booked in Q3. This year, not that much happening here. The operating profit was at a loss of EUR 0.7 million. But perhaps if we look at the amount of investments we have in this portfolio, it stands at EUR 29.1 million currently. That is slightly up from year-end, which was 25.2, and that is, of course, driven by several factors, but the main contributors are the fact that we invested in Turun Toriparkki in June, and also increased the value of that, so that increased the value.
We also sold down the rest of our infrastructure portfolio, so that also then has a slightly diminishing effect. But the long-term plan is to sell down this portfolio. Before I lose my voice, I'm gonna hand over to Minna Smedsten, who for the last time will be presenting Taaleri's quarterly numbers. She will also be at our Capital Markets Day later in November. Go ahead, Minna.
Yes. Thank you, Peter. So, let's take a look at our result, balance sheet, and also our key financial figures. And, first, let's start with looking at the quarter and the segments next to each other. So you can see that, that the biggest share of our continuing earnings comes from private asset management. That's more than 60%, and now Garantia share was, roughly 33%. As Peter mentioned, we didn't book any performance fees, but, we started the exit process of Wind II and III, so... And, we estimate to close that in, then, next year, probably H1. Investment operations, so you can see that we had, investment income of EUR 2.8 million, and, EUR 1.9 million was in renewable energy.
From that, EUR 1.9 million, EUR 0.9 came from the development. The development portfolio actually is EUR 0.7 million, and then we also had just pass-through items that we can also see in the renewable energy costs. Our operating profit was EUR 5.7 million, and that corresponds to 43.5%. You can see that Garantia share is almost, well, basically above 93%, and that is due, mainly due, naturally due to the very low cost that they have, but also due to the IFRS 17, as most of the costs are netted from income. Then when we take a look at the quarters next to each other, you can.
If I now start most from left, and you can see the Q3 compared to last year's Q3. The big difference in income comes from the exit of data center, and where we recorded EUR 6.5 million in performance fees, and also EUR 7.5 million in investment income last year. Then if you look again, on the cost side for Q3 compared to last year's Q3, you can see that our fee costs, they came down, and that was mainly due to the data center exit that we had last year. We had EUR 600,000 in fee expenses related to that exit. Our personnel costs, they increased to EUR 3.8 million, and that is a little bit less than 5%, and that increase came from renewable energy.
Then on the direct expenses, that change came from the cost that we have just billed through in renewable energy. But then, the main focus I would like to bring to the whole year performance, that is very, very good, very solid performance. You can see that our continuing earnings, they grew 15% to EUR 30 million. We had 1.5 million in performance fees, and our investment income grew to 17, 17 million, and that's an increase of 80%. All in all, our operating profit margin was as high as 51%, and, that's, that is a very good performance all in all. Now, a few words still about our key figures.
So now when you take, you adjust for the investment income, then you can see that our operating profit for Q3 without investment income was EUR 2.9 million. And the same for the whole year was EUR 7.8 million, and that's an adjusted operating profit of 25%. Then a few words about the growth in assets under management. So as Peter mentioned, we got more assets under management into SolarWind III, EUR 286 million, but then we had the decrease of roughly EUR 100 million in the, in that renewable, not renewable, but real estate asset management mandate that ended now in beginning of July. And then a few words about our balance sheet.
We have equity of EUR 200 million, EUR 205.9 million. Now as this is my last quarter, so, quarter insight, so, when I started, then that equity was about, about, twenty million euros. That's tenfold. So, that's a very good achievement all in all. Also one word about the equity compared to our market price. So our equity stands for 80% of our market price. We have assets of EUR 304 million, and we have cash on our balance sheet of EUR 35 million, and the biggest share in our investments or assets comes from the Garantia, Garantia investment portfolio.
We had an increase in private asset management, these strategic investments, roughly EUR 5 million now in, in Q3, and that is due to the increase in WasteWise, to SolarWind and renewable energy investments, and also to our Biocoal investment. And that was all. Thank you!
Thank you, Minna. That's an outstanding achievement. 10x on the equity in ten years. Hard to match, but we thank you for that. Anyhow, as a summary, as I said earlier, this was a rather uneventful quarter if you look at what's happened in the former quarters, but there was some good progress, underlying good progress. So we recorded the growth in continuing earnings, and we had a nice profit of EUR 5.7 million. And of course, the fundraising in the renewables is very much all hands on deck right now. Within the bio industry, as earlier said, are continuing to evaluate these investments for the fund. And then finally, Garantia had a really, really stellar performance, which is something that we've already spoken about.
But if we look ahead, we can conclude that the SolarWind III fundraise is sort of in a critical stage when it comes to certain investors, and then, of course, we hope to get other investors on board as the fundraising continues. The bioindustry, basically, if we look at the construction that started in Joensuu, we expect that to be ready sometime next year in the fall, so about a year from now. And then within Garantia, it's same as before, but of course, they're trying to develop new products, which then hopefully can be commercialized in the future. And by and foremost, we're preparing for the Capital Markets Day that I talked about earlier, and there we will come with an updated strategy. So I thank for us, and then floor is open for questions.
Thank you, Peter and Minna. You can ask questions on the webcast platform, but let's start with questions from the floor. Who starts?
Hi, Olli Viljanen from Inderes. About the SolarWind, sales timetable and the sales progress, can you shed any light to that? Obviously, we are facing a very tough, tough fundraising market at the moment.
Yeah, you know, it's right. It's a tough market if you look at the numbers of how much people are committing this year and what their sort of what the expectations are. Now, for SolarWind III, of course, we know that there are some due diligence process ongoing, and those sort of are... You know, some of them are a little bit digital in the sense that they're big tickets, they either come in or they don't. So I think we've been aware of that all along. But I would say what's really great is that at this stage, of course, you know, we have from the start had the development portfolio, which is, of course, when you come into the due diligence process, it's quite clear that that is advancing all the time.
So when you invest in the fund, you're closer to sort of executing the real construction of these projects. But in due course, when we know, we will tell you. But of course, we have our target set on EUR 700 million for the fund. And that's the first close was done in July, and then there are some 18-24 months from that moment till when the final close is done.
Then, about the older wind products, the Wind II and III, which you are now planning to exit. You have booked fairly large carried interest on those beforehand, and after that, the interest rates have basically skyrocketed. So how has the... I guess the question is that how has the exit market for the wind farms developed during the past year or roughly a year when you last time booked carried interest on those funds? Thanks.
Yeah. Yeah, you're right. So the interest rates have gone up. I'd say energy prices have sort of stabilized, so during this year, you more have the interest rate feature there. The deals we have seen that have been done, so the ones that have sort of materialized there, I haven't seen in Europe that many deals. It's been more in the US. Prices have been actually quite good, which is, you know, I think the nature of the market that probably from where you were somewhere last year or this year at the peak, I'm sure you've sort of come down. But at the same time, when you look at when we book these performance fees, we do take a haircut. So...
That is the idea also, because as you said, there are these rather instrumental, sort of key variables that you put into the formula, and when you, you don't know how they move, then you have to be prudent. But, I would say that, that, you know, the jury is out. We will be much wiser as the process starts, but, definitely it has an impact on, on valuations, the interest rate.
One additional comment to that, so even if we take still a haircut, we still used, when we booked that EUR 14.2 that we have in the balance sheet, we even used the, the more,
Conservative
conservative model.
Yep.
What kind of timetable the one should expect on the sales? I mean, should we expect it to happen in upcoming quarters, or,
I think as Minna said, it's first half next year.
Then about Garantia, is there any reason why Garantia wouldn't pay out the full payout, the whole net profit as dividends next year, considering the fact that the, well, earnings are still solid and the balance sheet is, well, over-capitalized, if you ask me, so?
Yeah, no, I mean, in theory, yes, there is no reason why not. But, of course, then there is, you know, so now they're very solvent, but, you know, as I said, you know, we're developing new products. So it's a little bit a function of what do we really need the capital for? But we're not gonna keep it there in vain, that we have already demonstrated, I think, in earlier years, that we do pay out what we think is prudent. But we always have to remember that, you know, the solvency ratio is important, and the rating is important for Garantia as well.
Okay, thanks. That's all from me.
Yeah, thanks, Joni Sandvall from Nordea. Maybe a couple of questions from my side. Could you give any indication about the cost base? It's now quite stable, I would say, on the personal expenses, for example. So how should we view this going forward? Do you need some additional personal investments, for example?
That would be in bioindustry then.
Yeah.
Because we planned naturally to then launch new funds and things like that, but not in renewable energy. So, that personnel in renewable energy is, it's done for the bigger fund size, so that would be in bioindustry then.
Okay, thanks. Then, as you, Peter, mentioned, Garantia really good combined ratio. How about top-line development now going forward when the real estate market is, I don't know, maybe frozen is the correct word now?
Yeah. So of course, you know, when the market was growing, you know, they had their fair share of that, and then it's a question of what is the market share in this environment, and what is the need for this product? So initially, we saw that the need was quite big, so when the market, you know, had its first hiccup, we did see that the need for the product was big. But if this continues for a you know, prolonged time, of course, it's gonna show because there is a connection to the volume of new mortgages that are launched. That's on the sort of mortgage guarantee side. Then, of course, on the commercial side, this market might present new opportunities there again, which, you know, they are more lumpy by nature. So there you can't...
You can't say distinctively that what is driving then that market. But we know from mortgages that it is eventually the size of the market that affects that.
Yeah. Then the last question from me, I believe you will come back to this on the CMD, but what's the future for your real estate product now going forward?
Well, now short-term, I mean, the idea has been really to try to find new products that are suitable for this market. But I think the demand isn't really that great. But, so I guess short-term, it's probably a little bit more opportunistic on the demand side. But, yeah, for us, I mean, we're still managing quite a sizable portfolio there, and, it might be so that, you know, the market that we're in presents other opportunities in the form of M&A activity. So I think we have to have our minds open when we look at that. But the idea, of course, long-term, is that whatever businesses we have, you know, they should be on its own, decent businesses that then can grow.
Okay, thanks.
Thank you. There are no more questions from the webcast either, so I think we are wrapping up.
Okay. Well, thank you, everybody-
Thank you
for your attention.