Swedish Logistic Property AB (STO:SLP.B)
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At close: May 5, 2026
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Earnings Call: Q1 2025

Apr 29, 2025

Tommy Åstrand
CEO, Swedish Logistic Property

I would like to welcome you to the presentation for the first quarter of 2025 for Swedish Logistic Property. My name is Tommy Åstrand, and I'm the CEO of the company. By my side, I have Matilda Olsson, CFO of the company. She will present the financial development later in the presentation. We have an agenda with some highlights from the period before we deep dive into the property portfolio and the financial development. With risk for repeating myself, we have had yet another very good quarter behind us. We are very pleased with the development of the company, not least considering the challenging macro environment we are living in with relatively high interest rates and recession. We continue to deliver in the daily work, both within portfolio management but also within other parts of the company, such as financing and sustainability.

We can see that in property costs that, in principle, are on the same level as of the same period last year, even though we have a substantially bigger portfolio now. Central administration is still on the same level. We have even lower margins on our loans. Our green transition delivers in big increases in certifications of our property, going out with a 64% certified portfolio at the end of the quarter, and also a big increase in the sustainability financing of 93%. We increase our rental income with 42%, of course, explained by acquisitions and the CPI of 1.6, but also explained by the daily work that we do within property management. We increase our profit from property management with 51%, so we have actually managed to keep big parts of the increase in NOI in our result.

Our loan-to-value is 48%, very below, way below our long-term level of maximum 55%. We have an NAV growth with 4%, which is on track for our yearly goal of 15% per year. We have a very strong interest coverage ratio of 3.2 times, which is an effect of our strong work within property management, good negotiations with our banks, and effective processes within the company. We continue to acquire properties with the possibility to create value within. We have taken ownership of seven properties during the period in two separate transactions, keeping our pace of one transaction a month in average. We see continued opportunities to grow with new acquisitions of logistics properties with development potential, with secure bank financing within our current capital structure. We have successfully grown our portfolio of properties.

At the end of the period, we own 118 properties with a property value of approximately SEK 15.5 billion. We see a continued big demand for logistics areas. Our occupancy rate is 97%. We have a long remaining tenancy period of 6.7 years, which, of course, is good when talking financing with the banks. We keep the pace of delivering on our two overarching goals of growth of NAV per share with 15% and increased result from property management per share with 15% per year. Matilda will come back to that a little bit later in the presentation. An important part of the strategy is acquisitions of logistics properties with some kind of development potential.

We are not focusing so much on the day-one yield instead of what we can do with the properties to create value: fill up existing vacancy, lowering energy cost, possibility for add-on projects, and so on.

We have continued to do acquisitions during 2025 and have taken possession of seven properties during the first quarter in two separate transactions. One transaction is the biggest transaction we have done in the company's history, where we bought five properties with a property value of approximately SEK 1.4 billion. As I said before, acquisitions of logistics properties with development potential is an important part to fulfill our overarching goals in the longer perspective. We have tried to describe the potential that we have within the portfolio by dividing the portfolio into two different parts. We have the property management portfolio containing properties that are fully developed. They have high cash flows. They generate a higher NOI, and it's possible to get a higher LTV on those properties. In some way, you can say that they finance our development of our development properties.

If you look then into the property development portfolio, there is some kind of potential in those properties to continue to increase the NOI through filling up vacancy, doing energy projects, add-on projects, erasing low existing rents, for example. If you look at the difference in the two categories, there is a difference of SEK 175 per sq m in higher NOI in the management portfolio. Everything else equal, there would be a potential of driving the value in the development portfolio with SEK 175 per sq m for approximately 50% of the portfolio. The ongoing projects I will come back to, and then we also have potential in building rights. We have, in many of our transactions that we have done of older properties, got some potential for building rights within the existing portfolio, so it is not something that we have bought separately.

If we then look at the ongoing projects, this has been quite a heavy page. During 2024, we have had a lot of new construction projects ongoing, which we have delivered on. We also have, during the first quarter, delivered on our biggest new construction project of 61,000 sq m to ourselves. The largest project currently is an extension of 3,000 sq m. There is actually quite a lot of good discussions ongoing with existing customers to support them in growing their business in possible new construction projects. The bigger investment projects are, of course, important, but at least as important are all of the minor projects that we are doing on a daily basis. These are an important explanation to how we can deliver positive value changes in our properties quarter after quarter.

We are very active in the dialogue with our tenants to identify all of the development projects, such as energy investments, conversions, add-on projects, and so on. The return of these investments is significantly higher on the investments than on the current requirements that we have within the property. Regarding tenants, we have a broad and strong mix of tenants. They represent various categories. Major categories are food, beverage, and transportation. As I said before, we see a continued strong demand from our tenants. We have two commercial managers that, on a daily basis, have a discussion with our tenants to try to identify new kinds of value creation projects. This is a big part of how we can continue to deliver positive value changes quarter after quarter. We, as our banks, love long cash flow.

At the end of the period, we have a 6.7 years remaining tenancy period. We have been above six years, I think, from almost the beginning of the company. An extra safe is that our 10 biggest tenants have more than nine years in duration left. 100% of the rental contracts are linked to CPI, means that we have gotten more than 20% rent increases during the last two years. We continue to develop our sustainability work. It is a natural part of what we do when we refine older logistic properties. We start from three perspectives: the planet, the people, and the business, where we have concrete goals that we follow quarterly.

In 2024, as we informed about before, we reached a lot of our goals earlier than communicated and have therefore communicated updated and new sustainability goals in the first quarter of 2025, most of them which are aimed at 2027. Among other things, we will reduce the proportion of the lettable space with energy costs, F and G, to a maximum of 5% by the end of 2027 and also have net zero emissions in the value change by 2040. Having said that, it's time for the financial development. Handing over to you, Matilda.

Matilda Olsson
CFO, Swedish Logistic Property

Thank you, Tommy. As Tommy mentioned, we have a solid first quarter behind us and a good start to the new year. Looking at our two overarching goals, we're delivering 4% growth in net asset value per share in one quarter, which is well in line with the goal of 15% for the full year. The growth in property management per share is 32% compared to the first quarter in 2024. This growth is largely driven by move- ins completed new construction projects and, of course, acquisitions. We also continue to stay well within our financial risk limitations. At the end of the quarter, the loan-to-value was 48%. The equity-to-asset ratio was 48%. Sorry. The equity-to-asset ratio was 45%, and our interest coverage ratio was 3.2 times. Overall, a stable financial situation. Our current earnings ability is a snapshot on a 12-month basis as of April 1.

The earnings ability increased significantly during the quarter. The increase is driven by acquisitions of seven new properties and completion of our major new construction project in Hallsberg. The administrative costs are at roughly the same level as one year ago, and this we believe demonstrates the scalability of our processes as we grow the property portfolio. Looking at the income statement, the rental income for the quarter amounts to SEK 236 million. This is an increase by 42% compared to the first quarter last year.

The NOI increased by 48%, and the increase is due to the larger property portfolio, but also the development that takes place on a daily basis in the properties. The property costs only increases marginally by SEK 3 million, despite the significantly larger property portfolio. This is since we have been able to reduce the cost in existing portfolio, through, among other things, the energy projects.

Something to highlight that we're extra happy about is the NOI for the comparable holdings that increases by 5% compared to previous year. This is partly related to the CPI adjustment of 1.6%, but mainly linked to development of the portfolio. Looking at the profit from property management, it increases even more by 51% and amounts to SEK 134 million. The large increase compared to the NOI is, among other things, an effect of keeping the administrative cost at a comparable level to last year, despite the bigger portfolio. The higher financial costs are primarily related to new lending because we have a larger property portfolio, but it's partly offset because we have a lower average interest rate compared to last year. We continue to deliver positive value changes this quarter too, and the unrealized value changes this quarter amounts to SEK 137 million.

They come from new leases, renegotiations, profit from new construction projects, energy projects, and deduction for deferred tax on acquisitions. At the end of March, we exceeded SEK 15.5 billion in property value. The increase during this quarter consists of acquisitions of about SEK 1.8 billion, investments in the portfolio of about SEK 140 million, and the value changes of SEK 137 million. The LTV amounts to 48%, and the increase during the quarter is a result of our increased lending in connection with acquisitions. At the end of the quarter, the net asset value per share amounts to SEK 30.44, which corresponds to an increase of 4% in this three-month. We continue to work with secured bank financing with Nordic banks, and we continue to have a good dialogue with the banks and a very high interest from our existing banks.

This enables us to continue to grow with bank financing going forward as well. During the first quarter, we increased the loan volume by approximately SEK 1.7 billion. This was in connection with the acquisition of new properties. At the same time, we have reduced our average credit margin to 1.43%. Our average interest rate was 3.7% at the end of the quarter compared to 3.8% at the year-end. We had about 60% of the loan volume hedged through derivatives. We continue to increase the share of sustainable financing, which is now 93%. This is a result of renegotiating traditional loans to sustainable loans as we improve the energy performance in the properties and environmentally certified properties.

At the end of the quarter, we had additional available funds in the form of property credits of approximately SEK 1.3 billion and acquisition credits and overdraft facilities of SEK 300 million, in addition to our cash holdings of approximately SEK 100 million. Overall, we continue to have a strong financial position, not least given the significant cash flow that the properties generate. This gives us a good opportunity to continue growing through investment in existing properties and more acquisitions with development potential going forward. Let's take a quick look at the shareholders' list at the end of March. During the quarter, we carried out a new share issue of 1.1 million B shares since this was a part of the payment during one of the acquisitions during the quarter. With that, I'll hand over to you again, Tommy, for a quick summary.

Tommy Åstrand
CEO, Swedish Logistic Property

Thanks for that, Matilda. To summarize, SLP is in a very strong position. We have had a very good development where we deliver both on our NAV growth and growth in our management profit per share. This proves that our daily work within operating net improvements and our investments in the properties are fruitful. We continue to see a high demand for logistics space, which is proven by a high economic occupancy rate of 97%. We have a strong financial position, as Matilda mentioned, with a 48% loan-to-value ratio and banks that want to grow with us, so we can continue to grow significantly within the existing capital structure. That was all for us for this time. Feel free to ask questions.

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