Good morning. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Summer of Results Conference for 2024 for Atal Group. The English version of today's meeting is available under the interpretation button. Today's meeting is attended by CEO Zbigniew Juroszek and myself, Andrzej Biedronka-Tetla. I'm a member of the Management Board for Finance, CFO.
The scenario for today's meeting is well known to you. We will first give a presentation, as usually, to present our results for 2024, after which CEO Zbigniew Juroszek will comment on the situation of the group, and then we'll ask you to ask questions in the Q&A section. Summer of Results. Let's start with a presentation for 2024. Let's move on to Operations. You know this slide very well. It's our presence in eight locations in Poland. Szczecin. This is something we would like to emphasize. It appeared in 2024.
It's our new branch of Atal, where we have one ongoing investment, but we are planning two more investments. Please note particularly the level of implementation. All the data at the end of that is presented here is the data for the end of 2024. At the end of the year 2024, we had 51 ongoing investments, 10,545 flats, and planned investments.
That's number 42, and they cover over 11,000 flats. As for the sales of flats, we will probably discuss the topic more broadly, but in 2024, the sales were 2,068 flats. It was a drop by 27% as compared to 2023. Obviously, we all know that these sales were Q1, was under the pressure of the government scheme, government program of subsidies, and then some clients on the markets were waiting for launching another government scheme.
As a result, this lower bar shows you specific quarters. Q1, when we have the safe credit, safe loan program, it was quite high, but then people started waiting for consecutive subsidies, government subsidies for flats. As we know, it did not happen. This level in Q4, it was 445 flats. As for flats in offer, here you can see a considerable increase.
We have been informing about an increase in the offer and the number of flats being built in 2024. We as Atal Group are obviously preparing for consecutive years to increase our operations. Just as an explanation, this number, 7,636 flats that we are presenting in 2024, these are mainly flats that will be built and handed over in 2026.
In 2025, we have more than 2,000 flats for sale, but this offer, at the end of the year, that's presented at the end of the year, it covers flats that will be completed in 2026. Almost two years from the balance sheet day. As for handovers in 2024, which translates into reported revenues from sales, it was 2,460 flats. It did not differ too much from what we had anticipated.
These flats were mainly handed over in the Tricity, in Upper Silesian Agglomeration, and these cities as you see here on the left and on the right-hand side in the diagrams. As for Q4, we had 439 flats handed over. These were mainly Kraków and Poznań flats, two main investments that actually greatly impacted the result for Q4 2024.
As for handovers in 2024, it's a drop by 12% in terms of the number of flats as compared to 2023. Slightly fewer flats were handed over as compared to the previous year, but we informed you about that. We assumed this number of flats for handovers for 2024, and that was what we expected. There were no delays. Most of the investments were completed according to schedule.
What's interesting, if you compare handovers, the drop is only by 8%, not by 12%. The flats that were handed over in 2024 were bigger than those handed over in 2023. As for new land that we purchased, it's perhaps not a record result, but it's the second highest value of land purchase. We spent PLN 336 million to buy land.
If we compare it to 2022, for instance, you can easily see how much we can build on this land, 206,000 usable area of flats. Two years earlier, we could build twice as much in terms of usable area. I think we're leaders of purchasing land at reasonable prices, and the average price per square meter of usable area in 2024 was PLN 1,632.
We bought land in all the cities that we operate in, where we are present, and the land bank of Atal S.A. allowed us at the end of 2024 to build 623,000 square meters of usable area. Dividend, you know this very well. In 2024, we paid dividend at 2024, 2023, and the dividend will be paid in 2024.
After we published the financial results, the Management Board adopted a resolution for the Supervisory Board and the shareholders' meeting to pay dividend for 2024 at the level of PLN 237.7 million, which is 86% of profit of Atal. The total amount, if this is approved, this recommendation is approved, will be almost PLN 1.5 billion from the companies. As for projects completed in 2024, these are the projects that had impact on reported result of the company in 2024.
We completed 2,193 flats, out of which almost 2,000 were sold, so the sales contracting was at the level of 90%. At the end of the year, we did not hand over 363 flats that were completed, but were handed over in January and consecutive periods. Now, one thing I'm going to mention later on as well, you can see the contracting level is almost complete.
Almost all the flats were sold, and the remaining flats referred to consecutive years. Now, projected handovers potential in 2025, we're building 3,193. We've already sold 1,418. At the end of the year, the contracting level was 44%. If you note specific items in this table, those investments that are about to finish or that have finished are mainly sold out.
With these sales that we have now, we don't see any significant threat to selling those flats. Contracting level is approaching 50% for 2025, and we have almost the entire year to sell those flats that are going to be completed this year. What I showed you in the offer at the end of the year, these were mainly flats that we completed and handed over in 2026.
I will show you all those projects because in one slide, we usually present flats that are handed over in a single year, and in 2026, we'll have so many finalized and handed over investments that it does not suit in one page. To sum up, we're planning to build and hand over more than 6,000 flats in 2026, out of which 823 are already sold, which is 13% of the total number.
Again, I'm emphasizing we almost have two years to sell them, and we can see the customers are under pressure of high interest rates. As long as these interest rates are not lowered, these sales, the further in the future, the slower it goes due to high interest rates. That's due to the fact that customers don't want to pay interest on flats that they will be receiving in 2026 already.
As for 2027 and onwards, and the plans regarding the land we already own, we've got 48 investments covering 12,340 flats in the majority of the cities that we're present in. Now, consolidated financial results of Atal S.A. Group, I think it's not a secret, show revenues at the level of PLN 1,486,898,000, which is a similar amount to the previous year, 1% less than last year. It was due to the completed investments of 2024, as I mentioned.
The result of the group is PLN 386 million, and net result PLN 295 million, and profit per share is PLN 6.84, net margin 19.9%, almost 20%. It's one of the best on the market, probably. This drop that you can see as compared to 2023 was due to Q4 2024, but we're quite satisfied with the level of net margin. Now, a quick look at particular items in the financial results.
Net revenue is lower by 13% due to a little bit higher cost of overheads and cost of sales, but still is at a very good level. The net margin is 2.9 percentage points lower than the previous year, but still very high. Please note, you should rather focus on net margin rather than gross margin because it's not comparable with the competition due to various different approaches to specific items in the financial results.
If you have a look at net margin in quarterly terms, you can see that Q4 affected lower level of net margin, but it's enough if one investment is a bit lower and it already affects the results. Though we did not have much deviations from our assumptions downwards. Anyway, it still caused a lower profitability.
As for the balance sheet, you will probably note the current assets by an increase by 8% due to increase in inventory. As for liability, we have an increase in liabilities by 12%. We will discuss it in a moment. Net debt ratio for the group is calculated according to the principles regarding a bond issue. It includes the debt to the shareholder, and it was 0.16 at the end of 2024.
Inventory, a high increase due to this large offer. We know that 1,519 to over 7,000 flats, so this translated into the inventory to the amount of PLN 3,384 million. As for cash, it was used mainly to build the investments that we started in 2024, as you can see. This production of development production, we had to finance it with liabilities, mainly to the shareholder.
At the end of the year, the liabilities that were PLN 930 million, about PLN 430 million were liabilities to the main shareholder. Like half of them, half of financial liabilities are those to the main shareholder. These are mainly cash bonds, not bonds. One more look at the inventory. Please note this increase in inventory, which was due to an increase in ongoing investments. On the right-hand side to the blue line, you can see work in progress, PLN 3,189 million.
These are the flats that we're building that we'll be handing over mainly in 2026 to our customers. Please note finished products, the value in the balance sheet of finished products of flats that are not handed over or sold yet. It was, this includes both. It's only PLN 194 million, so it's a drop as compared to 2023.
We can say that we don't have a lot of flats that are unsold, but these are flats that are being handed over. If there are some flats that are not sold yet, they're like individual flats, not many. Now, the structure of debt maturity as of 31st of December 2024, these were mainly bonds, PLN 340 million, then loans granted by the shareholder, PLN 300 million, and bank loans, PLN 166 million.
This redemption or maturity will be in 2025, and another PLN 100 million will be matured in 2026. After the balance sheet day, we issued bonds worth PLN 130 million, and we took one loan from the main shareholder in the amount of PLN 100 million.
Now, just to soothe you, we have a warranty from the main shareholder that these loans are going to finance our operations, and even if we're close to maturity, they will be rolled, these debts. The level of indebtedness is under control of the company's management, and it's controlled so that we do not exceed all the ratios regarding our contracts and bond issue terms and conditions. It can increase this level of indebtedness in 2025, but it should be lowering towards the end of the year. You get all this information when we issue bonds.
Now, last slide, business financing sources, mainly equity, prepayments, PLN 660 million, loans granted by the shareholder, PLN 400 million at the end of 2024.[Foreign language]. PLN 60 million corporate bonds acquired by a company from Zbigniew Juroszek's Group.
Now a summary I think all these three bullet points summarize nicely 2024. Let me start from the end. We finalized 11 investments for more than 2,000 flats. Now, have a look at item one. We started 27 projects, more than 5,000 flats. You can see the scale of our operations for consecutive years. So much for our summary. Now, I will, [Foreign language]. Yes, now I will give the floor to the CEO to comment on the situation.
No [Foreign language]
Welcome. Once again, now maybe ahead of several questions that you might raise, I would like to comment on three things that have emerged after the publication of results, ongoing reporting, sales, quarterly reports. We hear some comments. I would like to explain them. Obviously, you feel free to ask more questions.
These comments refer mainly to our production, our construction, our offer. Some Analysts say that our offer is quite large as compared to our sales, but there's a mistake in this thinking. It doesn't translate into numbers because, as for today, as the CFO has just showed you, we had inventories in 360 flats, knowing our numbers of flats that we sell.
The actual flats to sell at the end of December was 360 flats, and it's less now because we keep selling it. These are ongoing sales. What I see in these comments that I disagree with is that we have a lot of inventory. We build much, a lot more, but that's true. I will explain our approach towards the market. I'll explain the rules of our game in terms of the market and sales in a broad sense.
I would also like to explain to you, [Foreign language] [crosstalk] for many years, we've seen a lot of comments regarding gross margin. I think it's a little bit absurd because these comments of Analysts are comparing profitability, gross profitability, and then it translates into what's released in the press, and then it's read by politicians, and it goes on. For me, gross margin, in reality, it does not matter at all because our final result is net margin.
This is the one that should be used by the market and analyzed. This is the ultimate subject of comments and publications by Analysts. Why is this so? We have a situation that we have various techniques or technologies of assigning construction costs, overheads, construction costs, management costs. All these are costs. Gross margin encompasses actually construction costs.
In our case, for construction costs, we assign all the possible costs, including personnel costs regarding management of the construction sites. People who deal with some management organization, they're assigned to construction costs. We actually release and show actual and realistic construction costs. Some other entities actually treat them as overheads or costs of sales, and this is deformed. Ultimately, logically speaking and mathematically speaking, it doesn't matter at all because the only thing that matters is our net margin.
20% that we achieve on average annually, I think it's not only satisfactory to us, it's not only one of the best on the market, but also, I don't know if we can call it moral in business, but I think it's like the right one, like the appropriate one, because in terms of scale of the risk and length of the investments, 20% is the right number, I'd say. I don't refer to gross margins, and I'm speaking mainly to journalists and analysts, not to deal with gross margin because it doesn't mean anything.
The third thing I'd like to comment on is the current situation in sales and what's going on for us in terms of significant construction ongoings. What's our game? In simple terms, from mid this year and the entire 2026, there'll be a little bit surplus in sales. The demand is not changing.
It's quite similar. It was limited chiefly by people waiting for cheaper money. With government subsidies, we know what the situation is. There's no subsidies. It's hard to say if they're coming. Another thing is, this surplus is there, and it's waiting for cheaper money. We're actually playing the game. We rely on this surplus. Once the cheaper money comes in, we'll have higher sales. We're speaking about an increase of 30% of our operations.
It's not fortune telling. It's based on numbers and what we see realistically. Like I said, this objection that you build a lot, you sell very little, but we don't have inventory that is not saleable. Our inventory is regular market value, and the rest of it is contracted on an ongoing basis. We have smaller supply currently. Last year, there were less possibilities to purchase flats, so we supplied less.
I think it matches in our terms. We will have higher sales when there's more demand in the future, as for purchase level. Q3, Q4 was difficult on the entire market. We already see some difficulties in Q1. We see some improvement in March, but we're hoping for some improvements in Q2. A significant change on the market should be coming in Q3, Q4.
We keep implementing all the investments. We don't have inventory. If you look at what we are supposed to have for 2025, what's envisaged and anticipated for 2025 Q1, it's virtually sold. Q2 to Q4, it's under construction, and it's pre-scheduled or in schedule. There's no delays there. I think we'll be fine, moving towards 2026, and we're hoping for a boom for 2026 and 2027. That's our business scenario that we assume. We'll see your comments and proposals.
Now, let's take a minute break, and please type in your questions in the Q&A section. [Foreing language] . We're back after the break. Now, I'll be reading questions, and we'll try and answer them. Obviously, we'll skip those questions that have been answered already. Now, the question whether we're satisfied with our sales in Q1, I think we've actually exhausted the answer. [Foreing language] .
There's a question about a specific project. I would not like to answer that. Next, gross profitability dropped by 5 percentage points. Please comment on that. Okay. I've already answered about the structural problem regarding informing. I mean, I told you there's a discrepancy in ways of accounting, of recognizing items in accounting books. Please refer to our previous conferences. We always aimed at 20% of net margin.
Obviously, this gross margin might be a little bit higher, sometimes a little bit lower. As you can see, this average result, even if you go like three, four years backwards, this average margin will be again about 20%. We are on target. Why is it sometimes higher or lower in specific quarters? This analysis does not lead us anywhere. We are estimating net margin for 2025. In our estimates, it is 21%, and gross margin about 27%.
I have already told you what I think about gross margin, right? That is our goal, that for 2025, we would like to achieve 21% net. Yes, there are several questions that are repeated about margin protection. How many flats do you plan to add to the current offer? We are working on 5,173 flats, but it all depends on administrative decisions and on sales in 2025, about the prospectus for the coming year.
Obviously, we will be adding as many products as required. We are working on more than, we are working for 2025 on more than 5,700 flats. Now, how many flats are you planning to sell in 2025? We have already mentioned that we would like it to be at least 2,500 flats. We think that the first half will be closer to 1,000, and in the second half, maybe 1,500 or even more if our scenario is confirmed that from the second half of the year, this sales overhang will contribute to higher sales if there is some drop in interest rates.
We hope that it is altogether 2,500 flats. In Q1, I think the CEO has already answered that. Our level of sales is 9,500 flats. We are building 9,500 flats. We know the construction cost was the level of net margin that you assume. We have mentioned that it is 21%.
What amount are you planning on spending to purchase land in 2025? We never have a target in the budget on how much we're going to spend. We have eight markets, as you know. Each market has a specific potential of sales, of organization, and so on. We try to meet the needs of those markets. We spent PLN 320 million last year.
We're starting purchase of land already now. It can be a similar amount. It can be a little bit lower. I think PLN 250 million-300 million, that's what we could assume, but we will look for the needs and respond to them. Now, 2,500 flats sold. We've answered that question. How many flats would the company like to include in the 2025 offer in the conservative and optimistic scenario?
We said that 5,700 flats are being prepared for construction, and the number of those introduced to offer will depend on administrative decisions and the level of sales and how much we're going to complement the offer. Sometimes we have more land that is divided into stages, and we may have building permits, and we include significant consecutive stages.
Like in Gliwice, for instance, where we have all the permits for all the stages, and we only include specific buildings. Stage 3 now is being launched, and we will probably in autumn, we might launch Stage 4 or maybe at the beginning of 2026. We control the process. Similar situation is in Łódź. We have many building permits, and we control it depending on demand. Now, price of land, was it significantly higher? Or have the prices increased or are the locations better? Both.
We know land is more expensive now. There are no facilities to increase the supply in terms of administration and so on. We work on a free market. We need to pay more. This does not change the situation that if the price is too high, we just do not buy it, right? We look for something different. We are quite rational.
Now, here is a big question. I understand the scenario where the boom comes in 2026, and you will have ready flats that will sell like hotcakes. What is your plan B if this does not happen? For instance, if interest rates are still high, there are no government subsidies, there is a good geopolitical threat from the east, and the consumer will be very cautious in investment. This is a black, black, black, triple black scenario.
Yes, if this black, black, black scenario is materialized, the most important thing will be to finalize our ongoing projects. We do not continue investing more, starting new investments, and we sell less at a lower pace, and we control the costs. It will just spread over time, our sales, and we do not have time. We do not have a problem to finance our investments, even if this triple black scenario is in place for the next two years.
The safety of customers, the safety of construction site, that is secured, and we rely on that. We do not assume such a triple black scenario in our model. If the blackest of all black scenarios materializes, we will handle it. Now, what amount of money does the company want to use on this buying land? Like I said, about PLN 250 million-PLN 300 million.
What part of ongoing production was the value of land? I don't want to tell you about precisely, but it's usually about 20%. Depending on location, it's between 18%-24%, 25% at the maximum. Yesterday, on RMF FM Radio, Ms. Pełczyńska talked about cadastral tax. How do you—what do you think about the probability of introducing such a tax? There's a whole range of ideas. It's difficult to comment. For us, the scenario is that nothing will be launched, nothing will hurt, nothing will support us and facilitate.
There's nothing we can plan based on that. Can we see the increase in the cost of construction? No. It's actually at a stable level, very minimum personnel cost maybe, but the cost of materials are fixed, actually. The prices for construction works are fixed for a few quarters now. Now, is the company running some pro-demand measures?
These are sales techniques. Every company has its own sales techniques. We want to be solid and reasonable. We have multi-generation customers, some bought flats for themselves. After 10, 15 years, they're buying for the next generation. There are people who were recommended by somebody from a previous investment. There are some marketing pro-sales measures taken, but it's based on reliable information.
As for details, you can read it in our releases. Land prices, we've mentioned that they've increased. I think they're being adjusted now. Now, percentage of—what's the interest of shares of the shares loans granted by the shareholder? These are market levels of changes, and you can see them in our financial statements. Do you think that one or two decreases of interest rates by the monetary fund will be enough? Because this is not certain, and nothing more can happen.
That's a good question. Nobody can answer that. We know that interest rates are dropping in the entire Europe, in Switzerland, in England, and loans cost 2.75%-3%. You know the situation. What's the—I think it's doubtful to keep such high interest rates. I think it should materialize, but whether it does or not, I cannot tell.
Now, the changes on spatial planning law in 2026, will it have impact upon availability of land and high prices? Yes, it was to be better, it's worse, right? As usual. This availability is even lower as of today because municipalities and cities just deal with general plans that they are to be better soon. If they deal with that, they do not pass ongoing current plans. Therefore, we have such low demand.
If you have a look at the number of projects, you see we have this land. Sometimes we hear comments that we build too much, but on the other hand, we hear, "Why don't you buy land?" Right? These are contradictory objections. We are quite good in terms of our land and investments plan. Even if the supply of land drops, it will not be affected because it does drop because local plans are not being adopted.
There was a question about the cost of construction, but there's also, I don't know, there's like the recovery fund maybe might have some impact on that. It does not affect the market for now. It's hard to say whether it's going to affect the market. I'm not expecting any major changes on the market due to the national recovery fund. Any discount policy?
Yes, on an ongoing basis with sales departments. What's the situation with reservation for people waiting for government schemes of subsidies? What's the plan for them? The situation is quite stable. We don't have a situation that people give up or resign. There are some adjustments. We solve them amicably. Such situations, if there's a difficult life situation or something like that. Resignation level is quite low as for net margin, gross margin.
This is hard data that I can prove, right? As for sometimes you see data on the market, like pre-reservation included in sales, what we report is hard sales. Reservation does not count, and the level of resignation or cancellation is unnoticeable for you. I mean, internally, in terms of technical moves in the company. What's the area for increasing prices? Is there any space? There is no such intent. The prices are flat.
They will be stabilized on the current level. That's what we assume. I can say that an increase as compared to the previous year is about PLN 1,000 gross. But we're comparing different projects. We're comparing, that's the average number. It's a difficult question. We have 50 projects, right? Every one of them is priced differently.
The question is, which one of them has been launched in sales and changes the average? If we exclude some of them from the calculations, the math will be different, right? Prices are quite flat on the market in general. There are two more questions regarding cash sales and loan sales. We don't have hard data. We don't want to give a specific answer, but we see if you call your own savings cash, there's been a lot of savings-based sales, and those loans were not taken that eagerly.
They're postponed by the customers. There's this tendency to buy either very small flats or very large flats. Unfortunately, the current governing party does not take care of Polish families. They rely on medium-sized flats, and there's a huge collapse here and gap here. Finishing terminalizing this program, it's a mistake if you let me comment on the last idea on funding flats or subsidizing flats and those historically built flats.
Those flats that were built in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s because it's the weirdest idea. What's the interest of the country, of the society? The society has no profits from them because they are forced to buy flats that don't have the right standard or old blocks of flats or no garage or a lot of faults. This will be subsidized by the government. Another economic aspect: what's the interest of the country?
I think that they should benefit more to promote producers of materials who employ people, who pay taxes, not only income tax, but also VAT and everything. We should not develop materials production. We should not promote the construction sector to build new flats because somebody has this hyper fantasy that it would be best to subsidize the second-hand flats, those old ones.
It's absurd. Nobody benefits from it. I don't know if it's adopted, but of all the ideas that I've heard of, this one is the worst, I must say. Since there are no more questions, we would like to thank you for being here with us. Please contact our Investor Relations Department and join us for the next conference after Q2.