Aevis Victoria SA (SWX:AEVS)
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12.65
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Sep 11, 2026, 5:30 PM CET
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Earnings Call: H2 2022

Mar 31, 2023

Operator

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the AEVIS VICTORIA SA conference call regarding the publication of the 2022 annual results. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode. The floor will be open for questions following the presentation. Let me now turn the floor over to your host, Antoine Hubert.

Antoine Hubert
Executive Chairman of the Board, AEVIS VICTORIA

Hello, everybody. Thank you for attending to this analyst and press conference regarding the 2022 result of AEVIS VICTORIA. We will talk about AEVIS VICTORIA, our investment activity, the group results, then focus on healthcare, hospitality, and lifestyle, the sub-segment infrastructure, and finally, an outlook for 2023. As you know, AEVIS VICTORIA is a company investing mainly in healthcare and hospitality and lifestyle, so service to people, and has a sub-segment with infrastructure related to these two main segments. Our investment activity in 2022. We increased our stake in Batgroup, the leading on-demand home cleaning platform in Switzerland. We increased from 7.4% - 23.3% in 2022, and to 27.3% in January 2023. This investment of 27.3% is the level that we agreed when we signed the investment agreement with Batgroup. Medgate. We sold the entire stake in Medgate to Otto Group. Medgate wanted to develop internationally.

We always have said that in healthcare, we wanted to focus on Switzerland, we are happy to have found the right investor to bring Medgate to the next level. We are also very happy with our investment because we end up with a comfortable gain on the investment. We also invested in Well. Well is a digital platform. It is an initiative of two healthcare insurers, was CSS and Visana. This initiative has been joined by Suva and Medi24. Finally, last year we entered together with Galenica. Now Well is an initiative supported by five healthcare players in Switzerland. We also invested in two new hotels. Hotel Adula in Flims and L'oscar in London, that we bought in 2022 and which are operated by our operating company, Victoria-Jungfrau. Real estate is owned by our real estate company, Swiss Hotel Properties.

We also achieved a milestone in the integrated care with the foundation of the first true integrated healthcare organization in Switzerland. We were, with the Canton Bern, shareholder of Hôpital du Jura bernois, with 52%, and Canton Bern, 48%. In October 28th, we signed an agreement with the Visana Group for an investment in Hôpital du Jura bernois, and in January 2023, it has been executed. The capital has been increased by Visana Beteiligungen. Now we are in a situation with 35% for Swiss Medical Network, 32.5% for Canton Bern, and 32.5% for Visana Beteiligungen. This is the first time in Switzerland that the three main stakeholders usually staying on different sides of the table. It is the first time that these three stakeholders, canton, provider, and payer are partner in accountable care organization, Réseau de l'Arc.

The name of Hôpital du Jura bernois has been changed into Réseau de l'Arc SA. Swiss Medical Network has a management contract with Réseau de l'Arc SA for the whole management. The group results. We achieved a total revenue of CHF 1,144,000,474. The net revenue after the deduction of the doctor's fees is slightly above CHF 1 billion. We achieve an EBITDA of CHF 209 million and an EBITA of CHF 130 million, with an EBIT of CHF 61 million. The consolidated EBITDA is up more than 65%, and we also improved the overall EBITDA margin. The balance sheet is CHF 1.8 billion with CHF 510 million equity. Equity ratio is 28.5% and leverage ratio, 54.2%. The segment distribution, gross revenue in healthcare, CHF 916 million. Net revenue, CHF 795 million.

It is a 21.9% revenue growth, 4.4% organic growth with an EBITDA margin of 17.7%, which is slightly lower than 2021 because of the consolidation of Hôpital du Jura bernois, which is less profitable than the rest of the portfolios. Hospitality, we did CHF 154 million turnover. It is a 35% increase compared to last year. The organic growth is 30%, and if you deduct the indemnity for hardship that we receive in 2021, it is even 72.9% organic growth. EBITDA margin 21.6% and EBIT margin 7.4%. The real estate, which is consolidated in AEVIS, is mainly the real estate of the hotel, Swiss Hotel Properties SA. There were CHF 22.6 million revenue, with a 90% EBITDA margin. The statutory key figures, CHF 82.9 million revenue, CHF 67.4 million net profit. The total asset of AEVIS VICTORIA is CHF 883 million, with a liability of CHF 260 million. A total equity of CHF 624 million.

Strong equity and low leverage ratio for AEVIS at the statutory level. We increased the ordinary dividend from CHF 0.40 - CHF 0.45. The extraordinary dividend, which comes from the divestment, is lower than last year because last year we sold a 10% participation in Swiss Medical Network with CHF 210 million gain. This year, the gain from Medgate is CHF 33 million. We are distributing CHF 0.30 of extraordinary dividend. The total dividend will be CHF 0.75 per share. The share price development was clearly above the Swiss Performance Index. The current share price is around CHF 18.3. The Kepler Cheuvreux target price is CHF 19.4. Kepler Cheuvreux has not made any change for now after the publication of the result. We have always made a sustainable and attractive dividend policy with the exception of 2020 and 2021. Because of COVID, we did not distribute any dividends.

Focus on healthcare. Healthcare segment, we are the leading healthcare platform in Switzerland. We are focusing on developing integrated care region. We are in a very favorable market. I think the private hospital have coped better than the public hospital with the COVID. The 90% investment from AEVIS in Swiss Medical Network is an investment in an industry leader who is promoting integrated care and has a lot of growth and value potential. In healthcare, we also have Nescens, which is the anti-aging and longevity brand. Swiss Ambulance Rescue, 40% belong to the Touring Club Suisse. Swiss Ambulance Rescue has been growing a lot in 2022. Now it is the biggest rescue organization in Switzerland. We are very happy with this partnership with Touring Club Suisse. We have these two investments in Well and Helvetic Care.

Also a new investment in Genolier Innovation Hub, which is the operating company of the Genolier Innovation Hub built by Infracore in the Genolier campus. Swiss Medical Network, 21 hospital, more than 50 medical center. We are still in the process of buying more primary care, so the focus is on acquisition of primary care around our hospital. We have 2,250 independent physician for the majority of them, and 4,095 employees. In 2022, we did 75,000 surgical intervention and more than 600,000 outpatient visit. The footprint of Swiss Medical Network, we are now on 14 cantons. The blue dots are the medical center. As we took over the Gesundheitszentren from the Ersatzkasse, we have a few medical center which are not in region where we are active, like the one in Silvaplana.

Probably we are going to make some adjustment in the portfolio, because for us, the interest is really to have the medical center linked with our hospital. Also we have increased the footprint of Swiss Visio, which is our network specialized in ophthalmology. In the division for integrated care, I think Swiss Medical Network is really the leader in this change, which is a trend also in the USA. Changing from provider to accountable care organization. What we did in Jura Bernois started in 2015 when we did a public-private partnership for radiology. In 2018, we started to develop the idea to establish an integrated care organization in Switzerland. We started the discussion in 2020 with potential partner, and in 2022, we signed the agreement with the Visana group, Visana Beteiligungen, and we executed it in 2023. The idea is to have more clusters.

We start with this region, but the idea is then in 2025 to have two or three more region, and to achieve the coverage of all our region within the five next years. What is integrated care? Integrated care is going from a sick care system, an inefficient system that we are, where we only treat a patient when they are sick, and the insurance only has interest with the patient when they are healthy. We are in a vicious triangle, and to change this, you need to create accountable care organization, which are uniting all stakeholder, which have sometime diverging interest. First of all, the provider. Provider, not only hospital, but all the chain of provider in healthcare. Then also education and research, because you need to educate your people if you want to have the best.

You have to give the opportunity to your doctors to make research, if you want to attract the opinion leaders. Also, to be able to present our own health plan, that means being a payer instead of being a simple provider, which will create a fully aligned incentive structure, higher patient centricity, quality increase, and a system which is not based on volume, but based on quality. Transition from sick care service. We were all talking about healthcare, but the reality is that we are in a sick care system. We have payment according to the number of procedure we do. We have divergent interest between provider and payers. The whole system now is based on quantity. There is incentive to over-treat patients to increase profit, and the risk stay always with the insurance. There is a mistake on the slide.

It's not the health provider, but the risk is with the insurer. With the full capitation, that means that we receive a fixed and predetermined payment per member and per population. The service provider and the payer have the same interest. It's based on quality, and there is an incitation to prevention to reduce costs. The risk remain in the healthcare organization. That means that we are accountable for what we do, and if we do a wrong procedure, then we have to assume all the financial consequence. How will such a network work? The Réseau de l'Arc, it's the integrated care organization, will still work as usual with all the population, with fee-for-service. If somebody is insured at Assura or Helsana or any base insurance in Switzerland, we will provide the service, and we will bill according to the tariff.

The difference is that we will have our own health plan powered by Visana. It will be a HMO health plan called Réseau de l'Arc that will be sold also to our hospital and Medicentre in the Réseau de l'Arc. Those member will pay the premium to Visana, which will take the administrative cost, which will also pay or receive the risk compensation, Risikoausgleich. That means that if you have good risk in your population, you have to pay the other health insurance, and if you have bad risk in your population, you receive money from the other insurance. That has been established six years ago to avoid the risk selection by insurance. Visana will pay the full amount to Réseau de l'Arc. That means that we will not be paid per procedure, but we will be paid per member.

The canton will still subsidize the member who can apply to this subsidy. In Switzerland, there is between 25%-30% of the population receiving subsidy from the cantons. The cantons will also still pay his share of the hospital financing, what we call Sozialbeitrag. The canton must pay 55% of each inpatient stay. The big difference also here is that if we cannot do the procedure within the Réseau de l'Arc and we have to send the patient to Hôpital de Bienne or Inselspital or Universitätsspital Basel or anywhere, we will buy the service. That means that we will select the hospital that are able to provide service, and the payment will be done on the full capitation. Hospitality and lifestyle. 2022 was the year of hospitality and lifestyle. The people, after two years of lockdown, are back on the road and are traveling again.

It's a favorable market for AEVIS, it's also a diversification. There is a strong value potential because usually we buy hotels that needs to have repositioning, and we are positioned with high quality. We have two investment in this hospitality. All the hotel of Victoria-Jungfrau and also our investment in Batgroup, 27.3%. Batgroup is hospitality at home. That means we bring hospitality to every client of Batgroup, and that's why the investment in Batgroup is also strategic for us. We also foresee to use the same platform, Batgroup, the same platform of Batmaid to manage the home care delivery. That means not only housekeeping, but at one stage, we can also provide medical services at home through the same digital platform. The Victoria-Jungfrau is 100% subsidiary of AEVIS. It's the operating holding of hospitality. We have more than 1,000 room in operation.

We have increased the average room rate to CHF 618. Roughly 1,000 employees. There is a big fluctuation in employee number due to the seasonality. As you can imagine, we have more employees in winter during the winter season than in the summer. In 2022, we did 260,000 overnight stays. We have now 10 hotels. The La Réserve Eden au Lac in Zurich, which has been refurbished in 2018 and 2019, reopened in 2020, then closed for some lockdown, reopened, reclosed. The first full year of La Réserve Eden au Lac was 2022, and we are very happy with the result. Eden au Lac was doing CHF 7.5 million turnover before the refurbishment, and we achieved CHF 19 million in 2022. We aim to achieve CHF 24 million to CHF 25 million in this hotel on the cruising mode. After two, three years of launch.

Interlaken, the 216-room and suite, that's a landmark hotel in Switzerland. We are working since a few years on transforming this hotel into a resort. We have added an external pool, a park, a kids house in the park. The idea is really to increase the average length of stay of the client in Interlaken. The Bellevue Palace in Bern, we have been able, during COVID, to renegotiate the lease. We have now a 10-year lease, a new lease with the Confederation, and the new lease has the advantage to have lowered the breakeven point of Bellevue Palace, which was CHF 20 million -CHF 12 million. Now, the Bellevue Palace is really on the safe side with a very low breakeven point and a very fair lease agreement with the Swiss Confederation. The Mont Cervin Palace in Zermatt, that include also the Le Petit Cervin.

We plan to separate those two hotels to have two different products. The Le Petit Cervin and the Mont Cervin Palace are connected. They're using the same spa, the same ski room, et cetera. We think that we can do two separate products to address different clientele. The Le Petit Cervin is a 45-room hotel, and the Mont Cervin will be a 106-room and suite hotel. They will still be connected. They will still be sharing the spa and the conference infrastructure, but we will position that as two independent products. In Zermatt, we also have the Hotel Monte Rosa. That was the first hotel in Zermatt. That was the hotel where Whymper had his room when he did the first climb of the Matterhorn. We also have the Schweizerhof, which is an 89-room and suite hotel, four-star. Schweizerhof is very successful with its food and beverage offering.

Schweizerhof will be the model for the transformation of the newly acquired Hotel Adula in Flims, Laax, which is almost the same size as the Schweizerhof, also around 90 rooms. Spa also four-star. We will expand the food and beverage offering, and we will use Schweizerhof as a model. In Cannes, we have the Cannes Ambassador, 57-room and suite. Davos, the AlpenGold with 216 rooms. AlpenGold has been renamed. AlpenGold was formerly InterContinental. Works fine. We had a great 2022 year, and we started the 2023 years with a very successful World Economic Forum. As said in the press communiqué, we had inquiry about eventually selling the AlpenGold by several parties, and we are now exploring this possibility, knowing that the AlpenGold was part of a package that we bought from Credit Suisse Hospitality.

AlpenGold does not really fit in our DNA. We are more focused on traditional hotel with history and legacy. AlpenGold is a brand-new hotel. Very nice, but not really in our DNA. We will probably divest this hotel. Last year, we also bought L'oscar in London. That was the former headquarter of the Baptist Church of England. It's an historic building, has been refurbished by Jacques Garcia, 39 room and suite. We are going to add Extra room because we also bought the building next door. We are going to add a spa and a few amenities to this hotel, and this hotel will be rebranded La Réserve after this addition. We just received the building permit for this extension, and the work will start as soon as possible. Adula in Flims Laax, that was a really great opportunity.

Flims Laax is a very successful destination in Switzerland. One of the best destination for young people. We think that the Schweizerhof type concept with a very extensive food offering will fit perfectly. We will do that together with the Weisse Arena in Flims Laax. This will be completely integrated in the Weisse Arena offering for food and beverage. The old hospitality business is managed by Michel Reybier Hospitality, which also manage Michel Reybier's private properties in Geneva, Ramatuelle, Paris, and Bordeaux. This collaboration has been really fruitful, and we can see that in the financial result of the hospitality. We can see that we have increased both turnover and profitability in the hospitality in Victoria-Jungfrau, with, of course, two very difficult year in 2020 and 2021.

We can see in 2022 and also early 2023 that the investment is bearing fruit with nice turnover and profitability for this segment. Infrastructure. Infrastructure is basically a sub-segment because both company, Infracore and Swiss Hotel Property, are mainly supporting our operating company, Swiss Medical Network and Victoria-Jungfrau. It's also a favorable market. We have very attractive financial profile. We have a strong value potential because the valuation of our property are very conservative and high quality positioning. In Infracore, we have a 30% shareholding with 50% voting right. Medical Properties Trust has a 70% interest with 50% voting right. 42 properties, CHF 1.3 billion market value. Swiss Hotel Properties, 100%. We have 20 properties and a market value above CHF 700 million. Infracore is not consolidated in AEVIS, we are receiving dividend from Infracore. 2022, the dividend was around CHF 10 million.

In 2023, the dividend that we will receive based on 2022 numbers will be CHF 12.8 million, an increase in the dividend that we receive from Infracore. The net income in 2022 was CHF 103.7 million. Consolidated revenue, you can see the detail. Result from revaluation, CHF 71 million. That's due to the fact of the completion of several building projects and also because of the Genolier Innovation Hub, which the all concrete work is finished and it will be opening end of 2023, beginning of 2024. CHF 59.9 million revenue plus the CHF 71 million revaluation increase in value. It's CHF 131 million total revenue with an EBITDA of CHF 125 million and an EBIT of CHF 125 million.

The balance sheet of Infracore, market value of the whole portfolio have increased 8.5%, mostly due to the development, the construction. We have an equity ratio of 41.1% and a leverage ratio of 49.7%.

The investments are in 13 cantons in Switzerland. The project, Genolier Innovation Hub, that is a building next to the Clinique de Genolier, will be a cross-sectoral development platform for transfer of research from bench to bedside, product development and improvement or late-phase clinical trial. We start the project in 2019. We start the construction in 2021. The construction will be completed end of 2023 and opening in 2024. It is around 25,000 sq m of surface with 6,000 sq m of green roof, an auditorium of 260 seats, a complete congress center, 160 parking slots and two floors of office labs and a training room. Swiss Hotel Properties is a 100% subsidiary of AEVIS.

The market value is CHF 753 million. That is not reflected in the consolidated account of AEVIS because it is a fully owned subsidiary. We also operate this hotel, so the buildings stay at the book value.

We do not make any market value adjustment because it is self-use, but still the value is there. 20 properties, CHF 22.6 million revenue. Net income, including the valuation, the development and the valuation CHF 71.6 million. It is a total of 120,000 sq m. This is the income statement of SHP in a standalone view, with CHF 22 million revenue, CHF 76 million result for revaluation, CHF 99 million, CHF 96 million EBITDA, and CHF 96 million EBIT. The balance sheet of Swiss Hotel Properties is very solid, with equity ratio of 40% and leverage ratio of 46.5%. A net debt of CHF 340 million on a total value of CHF 750 million. We are in Switzerland and in London with 10 properties.

The implied value per square meter is quite low, with CHF 6,400 per sq m. The benchmark value is above CHF 10,000 per sq m. Outlook for 2023.

The first quarter was in line with 2022, with a slight organic growth. It was fine. We expect to have a good 2023 year, but we never know what is happening this time. We do not want to give precise guidance because of all the geopolitical situation. But we are quite confident and we have a very strong infrastructure, state-of-the-art. We do not have CapEx requirements, so every building is in a pristine condition, with the exception of the last acquired, Adula in Flims, which will need some investment. Thank you. Now we will be open for questions. Thank you for having listened to me.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question now via the telephone conference, please press nine followed by the star key on your telephone keypad only once. If you wish to cancel your question, please press nine followed by the star key a second time. Please press nine and star now to state a question. At the moment, there are no questions yet. Let me just repeat once more. If you would like to ask a question, please press nine followed by the star key. It looks like there are no questions. Mr. Hubert, back to you for some closing remarks.

Antoine Hubert
Executive Chairman of the Board, AEVIS VICTORIA

Okay. Thank you very much. If there is no question, that means that I was perfectly clear. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us through our investor relation, and we will be happy to answer to all questions or to arrange a meeting with investor or analyst. Thank you very much and have a good day.