Earnings call transcript: Cibus Q4 2024 sees steady growth amid market recovery

Cibus Nordic Real Estate, with a market capitalization of $960 million, reported solid financial performance in the fourth quarter of 2024, driven by strategic acquisitions and a recovering Nordic real estate market. According to InvestingPro analysis, the company maintains a GOOD overall Financial Health score, reflecting its robust operational strategy despite a modest decline in stock price. The company’s expansion into new markets and refinancing efforts have contributed to its strong position.

Key Takeaways

• Rental income reached €31 million, with a net operating income growth of 2%.
• The company expanded its property portfolio significantly, acquiring assets in Denmark and Benelux.
• Cibus successfully refinanced its bond portfolio, reducing spreads and extending maturities.
• The stock price decreased by 2.81% following the earnings announcement.

Company Performance

Cibus demonstrated resilience in Q4 2024, showcasing a 2% growth in net operating income and expanding its property portfolio across Europe. The acquisition of Forum Estates in Benelux and additional properties in Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and Norway underscores Cibus’s commitment to growth. The company’s focus on daily goods real estate positions it uniquely in the Nordic market, where it remains the only listed pure-play vehicle in this sector.

Financial Highlights

• Rental Income: €31 million
• Net Operating Income: €28.7 million (2% growth)
• Earnings After Tax: €2.6 million
• Pro Forma NOI: €155.7 million (37% increase)
• Earnings Capacity Per Share: €1.04 (9% increase)

Market Reaction

Following the earnings release, Cibus’s stock price fell by 2.81%, closing at €168.75. This movement reflects investor caution despite the company’s solid financial performance and strategic acquisitions. InvestingPro data shows an impressive 55.28% total return over the past year, significantly outperforming many peers. The stock remains within its 52-week range, with a high of €185.15 and a low of €109.75, indicating broader market volatility.

Outlook & Guidance

Cibus plans to continue its growth trajectory by integrating the Forum Estates platform and pursuing cash earnings per share accretive transactions. InvestingPro analysis reveals several positive indicators, including expected net income growth and future profitability. The company remains focused on optimizing its balance sheet and maintaining shareholder value, with a steady dividend of €0.9 per share. For deeper insights into Cibus’s growth potential and comprehensive analysis, investors can access the detailed Pro Research Report available on InvestingPro. Future guidance projects an EPS of 0.39 USD for FY2024 and 1.51 USD for FY2025, with revenue forecasts of 137.78 USD and 177.12 USD, respectively.

Executive Commentary

CEO Christian Frederiksen emphasized Cibus’s strategy of "converting food into yield," highlighting the stable cash flows generated by its daily goods real estate focus. Frederiksen also noted the company’s commitment to maintaining a stable dividend level while enhancing opportunities for internal capital deployment.

Risks and Challenges

• Market Volatility: Fluctuations in the Nordic real estate market could impact asset valuations.
• Interest Rate Changes: Despite hedging, rising interest rates may affect refinancing costs.
• Competitive Pressure: Increasing competition in the daily goods real estate sector could impact rental income growth.
• Regulatory Changes: Potential changes in European real estate regulations could pose operational challenges.

Cibus’s Q4 2024 performance underscores its strategic focus on growth and market adaptation, positioning it well for future opportunities amid evolving market conditions.

Full transcript - ​Cibus Nordic Real Estate (CIBUS) Q4 2024:

Conference Moderator: Welcome to the Cbus q four twenty twenty four report presentation. For the first part of the presentation, participants will be in listen only mode. During the questions and answer session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing 5 on their telephone keypad. If you are listening to the presentation via webcast, you can ask written questions using the form below. Now I will hand the conference over to CEO Christian Frederiksen and CFO Pia Lena Olofsson.

Please go ahead.

Christian Frederiksen, CEO, Cibus: Thank you. Thank you, AI voice. That sounded very, very human, that AI voice, actually. Good morning, everybody. Christian Frederiksen here, CEO of ZEBUS.

We’re speaking to you from a sunny hot wintery, Stockholm today. I’m joined here by

Pia Lena Olofsson, CFO, Cibus: Pazalina Uddofsson, CFO.

Christian Frederiksen, CEO, Cibus: So good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on this conference call to present the q four twenty twenty four year end report. So diving into the presentation. This, as some of you know, is my favorite slide because it says exactly what we do with our slogan. I think it really hits the nail on the head with what CEBAS does, converting food into yield. So that’s exactly what we do, and we aim to do and do every day.

So we are a real estate company focused purely on daily goods properties. We aim to create stable cash flows, and that’s why we’ve selected the grocery and daily goods business as the underlying business that we buy real estate assets in. We’ve been listed since March 2018. Our market cap is approx €1,100,000,000 as of yesterday. We’re the only listed pure daily goods real estate vehicle in The Nordics.

And as you are aware of our announcement from the December 18 and going forward, we have now started to create a pan European pure grocery player with a pan European foothold. So we’ve updated the map as you can see here on the right to include parts of Northern Europe as well through our acquisitions of the portfolio company, Forum Estates, in the Benelux, which was closed earlier this year in 2025. We pay a monthly dividend to our shareholders. So, what do we mean when we say these stable cash flows? Just briefly, reminding everyone and ourselves about this.

We focus purely daily goods properties, stable underlying business, stable tenants, with the large multicultural multinational organizations, and then the non cyclical daily goods business underlying. People buy food, whatever the weather. What you’ll see throughout the presentation is the words pro form a, and that’s because we shared out a large number of transactions at the end of the year, which some of them closed earlier this year. So when we use the words pro form a throughout the presentation, we mean the q four twenty twenty four reported figures and then added on the acquisitions we’ve closed so far in 2025. Those acquisitions being the Forum Estates Benelux acquisition, part two of the Danish portfolio, we bought also announced on the December 18 and the Norwegian acquisition of a a single asset outside of Stavanger.

So that’s what we say when we mean pro form a throughout the presentation. So looking at some pro form a figures already here, 81% of our rental income is from daily goods tenants, and 94% of our 642 properties are anchored by daily goods tenants, and then 99% of our rents are linked to CPI development. A steady wall and a steady store location stability through the stickiness of the underlying business. What we have done with the acquisitions is that we have continued to diversify our business. We now have assets in seven countries.

We have more than 640 assets. The largest one still being, below we was this used to be 1.7%. This is now 1.3%. This is still one asset in Finland, a a, Keesco hypermarket. And, we have now also, diversified among our tenants.

We now have more than 15 of the major European grocery chains as our tenants as you will show you a bit later on. Still over 90% of our leases are net or triple net, sheltering us from property costs. And then we still have and will continue to have a high share of our debt hedged, 96% interest rate hedged. So looking back on 2024, it was, an exciting and fruitful year for CBIZ (NYSE:CBZ). We started off the year, this time last year by refinancing the whole bond portfolio.

In some cases, we halved the bond spreads from 700 basis points down to three fifty in the beginning of the year there. We also pushed out the maturity of the first bond to mature to February 2027. That made us come back in acquisition mode. We acquired a portfolio in Sweden. And then, backed by a feeling of strong support from our investors, we started to strengthen again our cash earnings per share accretive acquisition pipeline in both The Nordics and also in Mainland Europe.

When the pipeline was strong and solid, we raised a €82,000,000 capital raise in a directed share issue, which allowed us to carry out those larger transactions which we had identified. And within three months, we deployed that raised capital by doing the acquisitions in Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and Norway. And, of course, all of these transactions are according to our strategy, cash earnings per share accretive. And, then a larger transformative transaction was carried out and announced on the December 18, which was the acquisition of Forum Estates in Benelux. And it’s not only a fantastic portfolio, which matches our portfolio very, very well.

They also convert food into yield as their strategy, but it’s also a great platform for further growth in the area. And, this has also elevated us to a pan European platform, which already now is giving us some interesting new dialogues on a kind of pan European basis. So very happy about that. So summarizing 2024, we carried out 11 acquisitions, total value of about €680,000,000 that increased our property value portfolio pro form a by about 35%. All of the transactions, cash earning per share accretive, as they were, they increased our earnings capacity per share by 9% pro form a.

And our earnings and NOI measured as earnings capacity by 37%. And then looking at our expansion pipeline or timeline, sorry, then as you saw, we had steady growth between 02/2018 and then 2022. We had a period of plateauing between 2022 and then to 2024 when we’ve now taken off and we’re firmly back on the cash earnings per share accretive growth track. Looking more at the quarter itself. So transformative acquisitions announced, seven acquisitions in seven countries in q four, hundred 80 five properties acquired for, as mentioned, euro 650,000,000, moving the property pro form a value up 35%.

And as mentioned, the NOI by increased by 37% year on year, measured as earnings capacity. And then earnings capacity per share in the quarter itself without the transactions which were closed at the end of the quarter, we increased our earnings capacity by four percent year on year. That was the sixth consecutive quarter where we increased our earnings capacity. And then pro form a, the earnings capacity per share will increase to one point o four pro form a, 9% year on year. We also, during the period, carried out refinancings of our bank loans.

We refinanced about 40% of our bank loans that was at lower margins that bank loans were before and about the same levels as the CBIS average bank margins as reported. We’ve also raised about 57,000,000 of acquisition financing for the transaction we’ve carried out, and those have been at margins below with the average margin within CBIS. I’m also happy that we’ve continued to have a high share of hedging, and we carried out some, in hindsight, great hedging in q four twenty twenty four at what now look like very attractive levels at 1.19, two point o six were the different levels when for the hedging we did. So compared to the yield curve or the interest rate curve right now, very, very happy the team carried out those transactions. In the quarter, we also prepaid the last bond, which matured in 2025.

That’s what we did one year ago when we raised the new bonds to be able to repay the bonds, maturing in 2024, ’20 ’20 ’5. We did that and repaid that on the December 2. And then, at the end of the period or in this year, what we did, we have raised the new four year euro bond at a 2.5% spread, which is, of course, 1.5 percentage points lower than one year ago, the the four year euro bond we did in March. So, so that that’s an impressive move. I’m happy to see that as well.

Regarding dividends, during the quarter, we paid out monthly €0.22 per share. And as you’ve read in today’s press release, the board has proposed an unchanged dividend of €0.9 per share for to the AGM in April. So that’s a stable dividend level, but it also gives the company an enhanced opportunity for internal deployment of capital in accretive investments. And then moving to the next slide, this is what our property portfolio looked like at the end of q four. This is a bit of old news, of course, when Forum Estates and the second part of Danish portfolio, the Norwegian acquisition are coming in.

So let’s move directly to the pro form a figures instead. So this is our property portfolio pro form a today. 42 assets, €2,400,000,000 of property value, almost a hundred and €76,000,000 of NOI, earnings capacity, a 1,300,000 square meter of lettable area. And when looking on the tenant’s share of NOI, I think it’s interesting to see how the diversification and the tenant’s mix has changed, adding a number of European players as seen both on on the picture on this slide, but also let’s see the names you see there, Kaffur, Jumbo, Kolleit, etcetera, and Ahold Delhaize, which is Albert Heijn in in the Benelux. Well, that’s one of their brands.

But interesting to see that, for example, our two previous largest tenants are still largest, Kesco and Tokmani in Finland. They used to account for over 50% of our NOI, and now that’s dropped to just above one third. So very many household names of our tenants in the seven countries. So happy to see that as well. And then a bit more on Cebus pro form a, what we look like.

As you see, the map has been extended. The red dots are assets which have been closed upon during 2025. The blue dots are closed in, q four twenty twenty four. And then looking at the pie chart, how the portfolio has transformed, one can see starting to the top left, the properties per country. You can see that, it’s a it’s a good, a well divided device for property portfolio going forward as well.

There will be probably more diversification to come. When we look at the property value by country, it same same thing there. Denmark and Belgium are fighting for second spot as our largest countries by property value. And then when it comes to NOI income, then you can see that Belgium and Denmark both are about 15%. Looking at our tenants and and how the tenant structure is built up, there are two ways of looking at it.

One is the pipe down to the left, which is called rental income by tenant. So that’s line by line showing that 81% of our rental income is from daily goods tenants. And then the pie to pie chart to the right is then by anchor tenant, I e, which is the anchor tenant in each property. So that’s 94% of our properties shown that they’re anchored by daily goods tenants. And and what’s also interesting is comparing these two.

You can see that the the, the division is pretty much the same, which means that every single asset is more or less anchored by the same tenant. There’s only one temporary in most of our assets. That that’s what the comparison of these charts show when putting them side by side. And then just moving on briefly to talk about the acquisitions announced in q four. Won’t dive too much into the former states deal and the transaction because if you want to read more about that, then there was a extensive presentation on that, delivered on the December 18.

So there’s there’s a presentation and webcast on that on our website for those of you who want to dive more into that. But an update on the situation is that the transaction closed at the January 2025. It’s a great converting food into yield portfolio as mentioned much like ours, great strategic fit. Hundred and 40 nine assets, just over 500,000,000 of asset value. A local team in place, which we are working now integrating and getting to know our colleagues better.

So we’re having great fun with them. It’s a cash earning to share accretive transaction from day one, and it’s helping us in creating a leading pan European daily goods real estate platform. In the end, almost 88% of the shareholders or the subordinated loan holders of foreign states offered to convert their loans into CBIZ shares, and that meant we issued 13,300,000.0 new shares. We’d taken room to make issues of 14,200,000.0 new shares as if we did not know if a % would convert. But we’re very happy with the 88% that the shareholders converted and happy to welcome these about 200 shareholders and subordinated loan shareholders as new, shareholders in CPUS.

So the integration process is ongoing. The first time the foreign mistakes figures will be in our results is, of course, in our q one twenty twenty five figures where where part part of that quarter will include, the foreign mistakes figures as they closed at the January. So together, we’re looking for more cash earnings per share growth opportunities in the balance. And then moving on to talk a bit more about the Danish acquisition we announced on the December 18. It it’s a great portfolio.

In my view, we got lost a bit in the attention of the former states transaction, which came out the same day. But this is a great, supermarket portfolio, which we managed to acquire in Denmark. It was bought from ATP, which is a Danish pension fund who had put this portfolio together rather than over a number of years. So very happy to get our hands on this. So 31 properties, it’s a modern portfolio.

It’s 99% daily goods tenant. So it’s so it’s it’s individual supermarkets spread over over Denmark. The acquisition price, the underlying property value was a hundred and €80,000,000, which is about €3,260 per square meter. Lease length, almost seven years. The tenants are getting a thousand or or the the tenants and the brands are getting a thousand.

The Neto Group, Neto stores and Koop Denmark. Modern assets, EPC ranking a % are a or b ranked, and it’s taxonomy aligned. And then it’s 65% of the assets were built after February, ’14, and only 5% were built before 2010. So it’s a real modern portfolio. The first part was closed in December, and then the second part was closed, in February.

Moving on then to the transactions in Sweden and Norway in q four. Then there were three single asset acquisitions, which I think is great that we can show that we’re active in all of our markets, and we can do very nice cash earnings per share accretive deals also in in all of our markets. In Norway, we bought the asset, which is on the picture on the right, which is a newly built asset. So it’s just bottom floor there in a residential building. We bought that for about €2,400 per square meter.

In Sweden, we bought two assets, one and one, at the, a low square meter price of €1,105 per square meter. And then we during the quarter, we also sold one asset in Engelholm. And this is a small asset, of course. It’s an ex coupe store. Used to be Neto store, then it was a coupe store.

And now we’ve sold it to a a local investor who is planning to have his own business in the store, not grocery, but still paid a, a a good price for the asset. So €2,200 per square meter. So, as one investor put it to me who who read the press release said, so you managed to sell a an empty grocery asset for double the price of fully let grocery assets in the rest of Sweden. And the answer is yes. So happy to do that, and it kind of also shows how we trim our portfolio work with assets, which are no longer grocery.

Our most important metric that we follow is the earnings capacity per share. And as mentioned, for the sixth consecutive quarter, we have now managed to grow our earnings capacity per share. So 4% year on year, just looking at the q four figures. And then the pro form a figures, we have managed to raise it 9% year on year to €1.04 per share. So happy to see this continued growth.

And now handing over to Elena for the financial overview. I’d just like to remind everyone that the acquisitions which we’ve now announced in December have only partly or not at all affected the results that Pia Lena will be showing, of course, for the fourth quarter and only partly affected the balance sheet at year end. So please keep that in mind when we’ve carried out so many transactions.

Pia Lena Olofsson, CFO, Cibus: Perfect. Thank you, Christian. So here are some key figures for the fourth quarter. Rental income was €31,000,000 Net operating income grew 2% to €28,700,000 Profit from property management was €11,100,000 but excluding non recurring items and exchange rate effects, it was €12,500,000 Earnings after tax amounted to €2,600,000 Unrealized changes in value was included in the earnings and amounted to €7,700,000 on the properties, which is equivalent to minus 0.4% of property value. And we also had unrealized changes in interest rate derivatives of minus €500,000 So we had significant events during the period.

We have been active with several acquisitions during the fourth quarter. The October 23, we announced that we have acquired three grocery stores in Finland, so a value of €14,800,000. The October 29, we acquired one grocery stores in Sweden at 75,000,000 SEK. The November 6, we announced that we’ll redeem the last bond that matures in 2025. So all refinancing of all bonds have been finalized.

The eleventh December, the nomination committee announced that Stefan Gattberg had been proposed as a new chairman of the board. Patrick Yearling declined re election as chairman, but is available to serve as ordinary board member. All other board members are proposed for reelection. The December 18, we announced that we were considering to acquire foreign states in. The same day, the December 18, we also announced that we had acquired 31 grocery stores in Denmark, of which 22 was taken in possession the same day, and nine had a right to first refusal options and was acquired on nine properties at the 02/05/2025.

The December 20, we acquired three grocery stores in in and two in Sweden and one in Norway, and the sole one as Christian said. So we also have been active after the period. So the January 10, we announced that we a new unsecured green bond of €50,000,000. It had a margin of two fifty basis points, with a four year tenure, which is the lowest margin to date. In the January 10 also, the nomination committee announced that has been proposed as new board member at.

The fourth and January 14, we had an extra ordinary general meeting at which the board of directors were mandated to acquire foreign states, which we did the January 27. And we approved the new issue of 13,000,000 shares as consideration for the acquisition. And as mentioned, we take possession of the nine previous communicated properties in Denmark. So if we go into more details, we had high activity regarding acquisition, as mentioned during the quarter. And we do have a non recurring expense of minus €600,000 due to an advanced acquisition process where the transaction has not been completed.

It was not completed. Net financial items include a non recurring item for the early redemption of minus €600,000 for the last bond that matured 2025, as well as an exchange rate change of minus EUR 200,000.0. Net financial items also include interest costs for the called bond of minus EUR 400,000.0 for the fourth quarter, and this is not classified as a non recurring cost. And now all the old bonds have been repaid and we will not have additional cost for them. Earnings changes in value on properties affected earnings with minus zero point seven seven point seven million euros.

Property values rose in all Nordic markets except in Finland, and a negative change in Finland is in the fourth quarter mainly due to a building in the center of Helsinki with only minor grocery components and will probably in the long term be more suitable for to be developed to a residential property. Looking at the earnest capacity, the January 1 shows a net operating income of €122,300,000, which is an increase of plus 7% since 01/01/2024. And if we add the earnings capacity from the acquisitions made up until today, pro form a, the NOI amounts to €155,700,000 which is an increase of plus 37%. Profit for property management minus the expense for the hybrid bond and adding back noncash items amounted to €62,300,000 or €0.99 per share. Adding the acquisitions made, profit for property management cash pro form a amounts to €79,000,000 or €1.04 per share, an increase with plus 9% since January 2024.

Looking at the net operating income in a comparable portfolio, effects of changes in occupancy was unchanged since q three twenty twenty four at minus 0.9%. Indexation is lower due to lower inflation in the Nordic countries. The index increase in Sweden and Norway is from the January 1 every year, while in Finland and Denmark, it’s the anniversary of when the agreements was signed. Service segments are countries. Finland is the largest for 68% of NOI in the fourth quarter.

Looking at the pro form a figures, including acquisitions, Finland’s part NOI will be 51%, and Denmark and Belgium will be will have 15% each of NOI. Looking at the balance sheet at end of the fourth quarter, property value was slightly below €1,900,000,000 Secured debt was €947,000,000 giving a loan to value unsecured debt of 50.6%. Unsecured bonds were €191,000,000 giving a net loan to value of 58.1%. Net asset value, April NRE was €735,000,000 or €11.7 share. The weighted average remaining lease term, VOTE, is continuing to be very stable at around five years and was four point nine years at the end of the fourth quarter.

Regarding funding, closing average interest rates was 4.2% compared to 4.5 last year. Bank financing continues to be the largest part of CPUS external funding with more than 80% of funding. The average credit margin was 1.6% and a weighted average capital maturity of two point three years. €383,000,000 has been refinanced during the quarter at the lower credit margin in line with the average credit margin. All current bank loans of €121,000,000 are expected to be refinanced at the end of the second quarter twenty twenty five.

Regarding bonds, we now have called and repaid the last bond maturing 2025. And after the period, we have issued a new €50,000,000 green bond with a full year tenure at euro part plus two fifty basis points, which is the lowest margin to date. For Sebas, stable cash flows are very important. Sebas has a high degree of hedging. And during the fourth quarter, we have done additional hedging of €176,000,000 at levels between 190 to 2.06%.

Based on the earnings capacity and taking all the interest rates hedging into consideration, an increase of the market interest rates with one percentage point would affect profit with minus €1,100,000 annually. A decrease of one percentage point of the market interest rate would affect profit with plus €1,600,000 annually. Looking at the key equity metrics, net LTV has increased to 58.1% since the funds raised through the directed share issue has been deployed. Covenants in the MTN program is 70% on the net LTV. Interest coverage ratio is stable at 2.2 times and well above the covenant of 1.5 times.

The net debt to EBITDA has increased in the fourth quarter due to that acquisition has increased debt, while the EBITDA is built over time. Cibus generates stable cash flows, so we can pay out dividend on a monthly basis for our shareholders. And the board proposes an unchanged dividend of €0.9 per share divided between 12 payment occasions. Seeba’s share price was 176.2 per share or a share at the end of the fourth quarter. Dividend yield for the full year was 7.7%.

Total (EPA:TTEF) yield, including the share price increase, was 39% for 2024. And with dividend reinvested, the total yield was 41%. Cebus is a very liquid share. During 2024, Cebus market cap was traded 1.6 times, which is more than double the liquidity of the average of all other real estate companies with a market cap of more than 10,000,000,000 CF at mosttax.com. Looking at the shareholder list, the 15 largest shareholders of 42% of the shares.

We have continued strong support from the Nordic institution specialist and real estate funds, many who has been shareholders for several years. Sigmis has at the end of the fourth quarter ’50 ’5 thousand shareholders. Over to you, Christian.

Christian Frederiksen, CEO, Cibus: Thank you, Peer Elena. So moving forward and looking at the future. Our overall strategy is, of course, to continue to grow earnings capacity per share, as mentioned. So that’s what we will aim to do, trying to do, by increasing income, but also by reducing costs where possible. So we’re we’re looking across the business to see how can we continue to increase the earnings capacity per share.

We’re working with integrating the Forum States platform, as mentioned. It’s a platform for growth in The Benelux, and together with our colleagues there, both managing the portfolio and also looking for new opportunities in the in Mainland Europe. We want to carry out cash earnings per share accretive transactions going forward as well. Of course, we see interesting opportunities in all of our existing markets, liquid markets, as written in the report and in my CEO comments. We we see that there is a buoyant market and, very interesting opportunities that are rising in many markets.

And we’re also actively evaluating opportunities in Mainland Europe. We’ll continue with the balance sheet optimization, refinancing, and as hedging, and true to form as we’ve done last year. We have competent and experienced employees now with our employees in the Benelux as well, who together, we’re working on taking action and increasing cash earnings per share. And we’re committed to deliver shareholder value by converting food into yield. So no surprises there either.

A bit of a commercial break here. So but let’s move on to the q and a then, please.

Conference Moderator: If you wish to ask a question, please dial 5 on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial 6 on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Svante Krogforz from Nordea. Please go ahead.

Svante Krogforz, Analyst, Nordea: Thank you. Thank you, Christian and Pielen for the presentation. The first question about is about the dividend. I know it’s a question for the board. Not very surprising that you have an unchanged dividend, but in the CEO comment you mentioned that you’re looking for enhanced opportunities for creation of shareholder value through internal deployment of capital investment opportunities.

So how should we weigh? I mean, you also on your web pages and your earlier communication say that you aim for a growing dividend. So how should we look at the capital allocation between dividends and in M and A going forward?

Christian Frederiksen, CEO, Cibus: Yes. Should I did you have several questions? Should we start with that, Mans van Te? And thank you for calling in, by the way.

Svante Krogforz, Analyst, Nordea: Yes, please.

Christian Frederiksen, CEO, Cibus: Yes. No, as mentioned, the dividend is proposed to be unchanged. But over time, the strategy is to grow the dividend going forward as well. So that is also unchanged. The company wants and the will

Svante Krogforz, Analyst, Nordea: And the way in between

Christian Frederiksen, CEO, Cibus: Sorry?

Svante Krogforz, Analyst, Nordea: Yes. And going forward, how should we look at the weight between weighting between growing dividend and deploying capital into growth investments?

Christian Frederiksen, CEO, Cibus: And that is, of course, a question for the board and ultimately the AGM. But from a management perspective, what we see now is there’s two ways we can invest and create cash earnings per share growth. One is, of course, raising new capital to carry out transactions and investments. The other is to deploy capital which is preserved internally. So I think that you can read that as that is a a mix of both those two.

I think it’s fair to say that if we’re doing larger transactions, then we will be coming to the market to raise capital as we have done in the past, since inception and listing. And but we are also looking at other internal ways to deploy capital in investments in our current portfolio and also in transactions. And I guess the the dividends, they’re keeping it unchanged as the board is proposing is one way to do that.

Svante Krogforz, Analyst, Nordea: And is your target still to pay an increasing dividend over time?

Christian Frederiksen, CEO, Cibus: Over time, yes.

Pia Lena Olofsson, CFO, Cibus: The dividend will be unchanged.

Svante Krogforz, Analyst, Nordea: And looking at the transaction market in different countries, what do you see there going on?

Christian Frederiksen, CEO, Cibus: Yes. I’d say looking at the the Nordics, Finland is is an attractive market, very attractive yield spreads for assets coming to the market in Finland. I mean, international investors in general have kind of retracted from the Finnish market since 2022. And that’s not uncommon. That’s my experience from over twenty years in Nordic real estate is that then when when real estate markets become a bit wobbly, then, international investors tend to withdraw from Finland quite early on.

So that kind of puts a bit more more domestic interest in Finland and also less international competition. I think that’s what we’re seeing still in Finland. But we see interesting opportunities there. In Sweden, there is a lot of competition for daily goods back to real estate transactions. There are several both institutional players.

There’s a number of private players who kind of were out of the market or at least not on the buy side during 2022, ’20 ’20 ’3, and and the beginning of 2024, we now see coming back to the market having raised money. So, and continued support for financing and for from for banks in all of our countries, but kind of creates competition in in in Sweden where we see, like, in institutional investors like the third AP found and then a couple of private investors or or private groups looking to invest as well. Denmark, I but we look we we want to grow in Sweden as well, of course. It would be great to be able to grow in Sweden, and, let’s see what we can do during 2025 there. And when it comes to Norway, yields are about the same as in Sweden, but but the financing costs are about 200 basis points higher.

So you need to find really those individual, cherry or transactions where you actually can find every now and then some of the transactions which is a cash and is per share accretive enough for us to be of interest. So we’ve had one transaction last year there outside Stockholm. But Denmark is is a very liquid market with lots of things happening last year and hopefully also this year. And across all of the markets, we see a lot of same leaseback activity as well where the grocers themselves who’ve been building up portfolios are now coming to the market to, to lighten their balance sheets by by carrying out sale leasebacks. When it comes to the Benelux, Belgium is much more of a private to private market, so individual assets being sold and and bought.

So we’re hoping to tap into that market as well, of course, with our colleagues in the Benelux. The Netherlands is a very interesting market for us. Plenty of room to grow for us there. Four of us states started buying assets there in 2021. It’s a it’s a professional supermarket market with both private investors, but also private groups and kind of funds working there and they’re selling and buying smaller portfolio.

So so an interesting market as well there. And then we’re looking at the parts of Mainland Europe as well to see what other opportunities there may be out there.

Svante Krogforz, Analyst, Nordea: Thank you. That gives good color on the situation. Perhaps a last question to Pia Lena regarding the debt outlook for the acquired debt from Benelux and Denmark going forward?

Pia Lena Olofsson, CFO, Cibus: Yeah. As we said in the presentation, when we announced the acquisition of former states that we have received waivers from the banks and we will roll over that debt. As as mentioned earlier. And the average cost on debt was 3.8%. When it comes to the acquisition of the Danish portfolio, as Christian said also, we have raised additional bank financing at lower margin than the average margin that we have today or end of the quarter.

Conference Moderator: The next question comes from Vensi Iliya from Kempen. Please go ahead.

Vensi Iliya, Analyst, Kempen: Good morning, Christian and Pielena. Thank you for taking my questions. First one, a clarification question on the Danish portfolio. Did you buy that with available cash or did you draw on Danish mortgages?

Christian Frederiksen, CEO, Cibus: Good morning. Thank you. Hello, Manti. Thank you for dialing in. Yeah, we the money we raised in the September, dividend, sorry, The, the directed share issue in September 2024, that was the equity component used for the transaction.

And then we financed it with about 50% of local bank debt, which is then financed through the Danish Real Credit system, which is a very competitive and well functioning debt market.

Vensi Iliya, Analyst, Kempen: Yes, great. Can you elaborate a bit more on the spread or the interest rates for the loan component?

Pia Lena Olofsson, CFO, Cibus: I mean, we haven’t disclosed that to the market. But as you know, the real credit loans are attractive levels and lower margins than our average margin at the end of the quarter.

Vensi Iliya, Analyst, Kempen: Okay. Thank you. And then last one, I mean, you’ve already highlighted that you are still seeing a very attractive acquisition pipeline. If I look at your LTV and how it has developed over the years, you typically want to stay below 60 even though your policy allows you to go to 65. How should I look at this going forward?

Christian Frederiksen, CEO, Cibus: I think there’s, looking historically, the, we have been under the kind of the 60% level. And the policy, as you mentioned, 55% to 65%. And it makes sense financially as well in a kind of in a slightly higher interest rate environment than than 02/2015 to 02/2022 than, that to be a kind of the low end of that or the lower end of that LTV

Pia Lena Olofsson, CFO, Cibus: policy.

Christian Frederiksen, CEO, Cibus: Hello? Yes? I think we lost the next question.

Conference Moderator: Comes from Oscar Lindquist from ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead.

Oscar Lindquist, Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier: Hi. Can you hear me?

Christian Frederiksen, CEO, Cibus: Yes. Yes, we can. Hello. Hi. Welcome.

Oscar Lindquist, Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier: That’s perfect. Thank you. Thank you. Some of my questions have been answered, but I have a couple of follow ups. If we look at the sort of the new shareholders coming from the Forum acquisition, do you have any sense of sort of their long term intentions or have the first tranches sold off or can you highlight anything here?

Christian Frederiksen, CEO, Cibus: Yeah. Sure. The, the first lockup window was on the February 5. And, as if anyone is looking at the screens can see that it was a very low number of shares that were transacted as part of that with lockup first lockup window. This the lockup is being handled by, Kent, but, of course, who who assisted us on the deal.

And there was it was a very low number. So we’re very happy to see that the shareholders of Forum Estates or the former shareholders of Forum Estates, now CEBIS shareholders, seem to be staying on with us. So very happy to see that.

Oscar Lindquist, Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier: Okay, perfect. And just a follow-up on the Forum acquisition. I understand it will be consolidated by roughly 50% in Q1. Is that correct?

Christian Frederiksen, CEO, Cibus: Two thirds, right? Consolidated 50%. Did you mean time?

Pia Lena Olofsson, CFO, Cibus: Yes. The acquisition was completed January 27.

Christian Frederiksen, CEO, Cibus: So from So it will be

Pia Lena Olofsson, CFO, Cibus: foreign mistakes will be part of Sybours.

Christian Frederiksen, CEO, Cibus: So two thirds of the quarter of q one will include the, the foreign mistakes figures?

Oscar Lindquist, Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier: Sorry, I have trouble hearing you.

Christian Frederiksen, CEO, Cibus: The acquisition, the Forum Estates acquisition closed at the January, on the January 27. So from that day on, the figures will be included and Forum Estates will be consolidated into Sebas’ results. So about two thirds, two out of three months of the first quarter this

Oscar Lindquist, Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier: year. Perfect. Thanks. And then, I’m not sure if I maybe missed it, but did you show a pro form a for this?

Christian Frederiksen, CEO, Cibus: No. I think have we shown a ProForm LTV? No, we have not shown a ProForm LTV for CBIUS plus the transactions we’ve done. We did communicate in the 12/18/2024 presentation of the foreign mistakes deal that was an it was an LTV neutral transaction. Okay.

That’s a

Oscar Lindquist, Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier: transaction. Yes. Okay. And you presented a sort of earnings capacity adjusted for the completed acquisitions central admin costs, is that a representative figure for the coming twelve months? Or is it also adjusted for the timing of the contribution from the Form acquisition?

Christian Frederiksen, CEO, Cibus: No. The way we set up the earnings capacity, that’s forward looking twelve months. So I think the answer to your question is, yes, it is a forward looking twelve month figure. It’s a snapshot over the next twelve months coming. That’s the earnings capacity the way we use it.

Oscar Lindquist, Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier: Okay. Thank you. That’s all for me.

Christian Frederiksen, CEO, Cibus: Great. Thank you. Oscar?

Conference Moderator: There are no more phone questions at this time. So I I hand the conference back to the speakers for any written questions or closing comments.

Christian Frederiksen, CEO, Cibus: So a couple of questions here. The first one, I think we’ve already touched upon through the questions from Oscar at the EBG. The first it’s about the foreign mistakes form of shareholders. We we’ve mentioned that already on the February 5. So please have a look at the screens there, and you’ll see it was a very, very low number of the potential 20% of the shares which could have been sold, the new shares which could have been sold.

So I think that’s the answer to that question. And then the the last question we have here, we’ve also answered, which is on the LTV pro form a for the former states transactions, which we also, I think, have answered. Were there any any further questions? Did did Vensi want to come back? Was he cut off or is he happy?

I think so. Okay. Well, then thank you everyone for listening. Great that you joined, and, I hope that you continue to follow Zebra’s and what we’ll be we’ll be doing in 2025. Thank you for listening.

Pia Lena Olofsson, CFO, Cibus: Thank you so much. Bye.

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