Earnings call transcript: Scandic Hotels sees strong Q4 2024 growth

Scandic Hotels Group reported a robust performance in Q4 2024, with significant improvements in key financial metrics. The company’s net sales showed a slight improvement, while adjusted EBITDA reached SEK 544 million, up from SEK 451 million in the previous year. According to InvestingPro data, the company maintains a strong balance sheet with more cash than debt, and a conservative debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07. Scandic’s stock performance remained stable following the earnings report, with strategic initiatives and positive market trends supporting its outlook.

Key Takeaways

• Adjusted EBITDA increased to SEK 544 million in Q4 2024.
• EBITDA margin improved to 9.9% from 8.3% year-on-year.
• Net debt reduced significantly, reflecting strong financial management.
• New strategic partnership with SAS and tech upgrades planned.
• Positive market momentum in Nordic countries continues.

Company Performance

Scandic Hotels demonstrated a solid performance in Q4 2024, marked by an increase in adjusted EBITDA and improved EBITDA margins. The company’s focus on operational efficiency and strategic partnerships has bolstered its competitive position in the Nordic hospitality market. The exit from seven hotels is part of its strategy to optimize its portfolio and enhance profitability.

Financial Highlights

• Adjusted EBITDA: SEK 544 million (up from SEK 451 million in Q4 2023)
• EBITDA Margin: 9.9% (up from 8.3%)
• Full Year Adjusted EBITDA: SEK 2,495 million
• Full Year Margin: 11.4%
• Net Debt: SEK 128 million (reduced from 0.6x to 0.1x)

Outlook & Guidance

Scandic anticipates a stable Q1 2025, with slight increases in occupancy and room rates. The company expects modest inflation around 3% and has announced a 500 million SEK share buyback program. A proposed ordinary dividend of 2.6 SEK per share reflects confidence in its financial health and future growth prospects. InvestingPro subscribers have access to 15+ additional key insights about Scandic’s financial outlook and market position, helping investors make more informed decisions about their investments.

Executive Commentary

CEO Jens Matthesen emphasized the company’s strategic focus on top-line revenue growth and geographic expansion, particularly in the Nordics. "We are moving from a strong position to a more focus on top-line and driving revenue," he stated. Matthesen also highlighted the company’s growth expectations, asserting, "We have a very strong expectation for growing the company."

Risks and Challenges

• Economic Uncertainty: Potential macroeconomic pressures could impact consumer spending.
• Inflation: Rising costs may affect profitability despite current forecasts.
• Market Competition: Intense competition in the hospitality sector could challenge market share.
• Regulatory Changes: Changes in travel regulations or health guidelines could affect operations.
• Geopolitical Risks: Uncertain geopolitical climates, such as Russia airspace issues, could impact travel patterns.

Scandic Hotels remains committed to strengthening its market position through strategic initiatives and operational efficiency, while navigating potential risks and challenges in the dynamic hospitality industry.

Full transcript - Safety Shot Inc (SHOT) Q4 2024:

Conference Moderator: Welcome to the Scandic Hotels Group q four year end report twenty twenty four presentation. For the first part of the conference call, you will be in listen only mode. During the questions and answers session, you are able to ask questions by dialing 5 on your telephone keypad. Now I will hand the conference over to the speakers. CEO, Jens Matheson and CFO, Per Christensen.

Please go ahead.

Jens Matthesen, CEO, Scandic Hotels Group: Thank you very much, speaker, and good morning, everyone, and and thank you for joining us for our q four presentation here at Scandic. As the speaker just said, my name is Jens Matthesen, I’m the CEO of Scandic and I will, of course, together with Per Kristiansen, our CFO, walk you through the quarter as we normally do. Let’s start to dive into page two immediately. We are delivering a strong quarter with a significantly improved result compared to the same period last year. Net sales improved slightly and we sold more room nights than we did last year despite significantly lower room capacity.

During the last year, we have made strategic exits of several hotels to optimize the portfolio and we have returned to a more normalized renovation pace as well. The market situation is solid and occupancy levels and prices improved across all the markets. I will come back to that in the market development in this presentation later on. We keep also a good pace in the development of Scandic with several initiatives that will further strengthen us both commercially and operationally. At the same time, we maintain a sharp focus on our efficiency and our cost control.

And that is also clearly delivered in the results you see in this last quarter. Our financial position is strong and we are committed to allocating capital in the way that best benefits our shareholders. We have a good momentum with portfolio development and also as mentioned in the last quarter, we signed two new ScandiGo hotels in Sweden and one new hotel in Stuttgart. Last week, we also signed a new hotel in Berlin, which will make a good contribution to our portfolio in Germany. And given the overall positive development and our strong financial position, the Board of Directors is proposing an ordinary dividend of 2.6 Swedish kronor per share and additionally, we plan to launch a new share buyback program of around 500,000,000 Swedish kronor during the year.

We have a positive outlook also for the market development in this year for 2025. And based on the current booking situation, we expect a stable first quarter with a somewhat higher occupancy rate and price level compared to last year. Of course, I will come back to that and comment more on the outlook later on in this presentation. So all in all, it’s a good strong quarter and a good full year performance. Please turn to page three.

We delivered, as I mentioned, a strong result with an adjusted EBITDA of SEK544 million compared to SEK451 million in the same quarter last year. This corresponds to a margin of 9.9%, which is up from 8.3% the year before. We delivered strong results across all our markets, and we improved our margins in Norway, Finland, Denmark and Germany compared to last year. This performance was mainly driven by the overall solid market situation and combined with high efficiency and good cost control. And Pierre will come back to that and some more insights in the financial performance later on.

Please turn to page four. Here you can see the market occupancy rates in the fourth quarter for both this year and last year across Nordic countries. Market demand was solid during the quarter with higher occupancy levels for all countries in each month compared to the previous year. The average occupancy rate for the market was 59.1% and Skandex occupancy rate was 59.6% in the quarter. Please turn to page five.

This is market data showing average room rates for Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark indexed through the corresponding month in 2019. The market’s average room rate continued to grow positively in the quarter with a year on year increase of 1.3%. This is more or less in line with Scandic’s average room rate growth, which was 0.8. Please turn to Page six.

Per Christensen, CFO, Scandic Hotels Group: Here you

Jens Matthesen, CEO, Scandic Hotels Group: can see the market RevPAR development index to the corresponding month in 2019. RevPAR developed positively compared with last year and is above 2019 levels on most markets. The market RevPAR in the quarter grew by 5.2 year on year and Scandics RevPAR increased by 3.8%. Please turn to page seven, where you here can see the pipeline. During the quarter, we signed agreements for a new Scandi GO in Helsingborg and in Sweden with 96 rooms and a new Scandi GO in Unshipping with 103 rooms, both with planned openings during the first half of twenty twenty six.

As mentioned in the last earnings call, we also signed an agreement for a new hotel with 175 rooms in Stuttgart. And by the end of the quarter, we had 2,972 rooms in the net pipeline corresponding to around 5.5% of our portfolio. ScandiGo is off to a good start and now corresponds to more than 50% of the signed pipeline in number of hotels and 40% in number of rooms. Please turn to Page eight. We continue to grow in selected destinations in Germany.

Last week, we announced a new hotel with two forty rooms in Berlin. We are planning to open in Q3 next year, so 2026, following a renovation in collaboration with the owners, AXA investment managers. The hotel is strategically located near Kurfurstendamm, Berlin’s most famous shopping street. And Berlin is an important market for Scandic and with this signing, we will operate three hotels with close to 1,000 rooms in the city. Following the takeover, we will operate nine hotels in Germany with close to 3,000 rooms.

And with that, I hand it over to Per. Please.

Per Christensen, CFO, Scandic Hotels Group: Thank you, Jens. Good morning, everyone. I will now go through the q four financials. So if you turn to slide six, please.

Artem Prokopetz, Analyst, UBS: So one more page.

Per Christensen, CFO, Scandic Hotels Group: Thank you. The fourth quarter ended strong. We saw revenue slightly higher than same quarter last year. Organic growth of 1.5%, like for like 3%. We had fewer rooms due exit of hotels and renovations.

In total, we had 1.7 fewer rooms nights available in the quarter. An overall strong result with adjusted EBITDA of $544,000,000 compared to $451,000,000 last year. The margin came in at 9.9%, an improvement from 8.3%. And if you exclude one offs, margin ended at 9.6 versus 8.7% last year. We saw good performance in all markets, very happy to see Finland improving and ending the year in a strong way.

And also the segment of Europe improved the most. Our operations did an extremely good job. We saw a very good efficiency in revenue per working hour. So, well done everyone. If you turn to page 11, for the full year, we saw revenues in line with last year’s record year.

Organic growth of 0.9% and like for like of 2.3%. Also

Artem Prokopetz, Analyst, UBS: for the

Per Christensen, CFO, Scandic Hotels Group: full year, we had fewer rooms to exit of hotels and renovations. Adjusted EBITDA came in of 2,495,000.000 SEK and a margin of 11.4. This means a margin well above our financial targets. Please turn to page 12. Operational cash flow came in around 2,000,000,000 on a rolling 12 basis.

We had increased investments in line with our plan in expansions, in maintenance, and in IT. In total, maintenance CapEx came in at 3.5% for the full year. Please turn to page 13. We ended the year with a very strong financial position, net debt of $128,000,000 and an improvement from 0.6 times last year to 0.1 times this year. We saw positive working capital development.

We also paid the Swedish tax debt paid back in full, and we paid an extra dividend in December. Please turn to page 14. Looking at our strong value creation, we paid an extra dividend in December. We also started the 300,000,000 buyback program that will run until March 25. The board now announced that they will propose an ordinary dividend of 2.6 krona per share.

This amounts to $570,000,000. The board also have an intention to start a new buyback program of 500,000,000 after the coming AGM. This means that since we launched our new financial targets and capital allocation priorities, would have up to Q1 twenty six distributed nearly SEK 2,000,000,000 to our shareholders. We will continue to generate good cash flow and allocate capital to optimize shareholder value through investments, dividends and recurring buybacks. For that, I thank you and ask you to turn to Page 16 and hand back to Jurgens.

Jens Matthesen, CEO, Scandic Hotels Group: Thank you very much, Per. As you hear, we have a positive outlook also on the market development and we expect gradual improvement throughout the year, driven by strengthening economy across The Nordics. Based on the current booking situation, we anticipate a stable first quarter with slightly higher occupancy levels and rates compared to the same period last year. But I also want to highlight that Easter falls later this year in April, whereas last year it was in March. Overall, we deliver a strong quarter and I’m very pleased with the continuous improvement we are making to build an even stronger Scandic.

We remain sharply focused on our key initiatives to further improve our commercial and operational capabilities. With Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) Opera (NASDAQ:OPRA) Cloud in place, the launch of our new loyalty program and our strategic partnership with SAS, we are in a very strong position. Additionally, we are making great progress in preparing for the launch of our new web and app, which comes in Q2 this year. As well as also the implementation of a new workforce management system across all our hotels just before the summer. These initiatives, they mark a shift towards a more commercially and competitive Scandic and we have strong potential to attract more guests, increase loyalty and improve the efficiency.

Now it’s time to build on this momentum and to take Scandic to the next level. In the coming years, our focus on growth combined with continuous improvement through profitability will drive good profits for and also with low risk. And to achieve all of this, we have a clear strategy, which course, we are looking very much forward to share with you at the Capital Market Day later today. But with that, I would like to thank everyone for joining this quite short presentation. We keep a lot of this until later on during the day, but we are ready to open up for the the q and a session.

So back to you,

Conference Moderator: The next question comes from Raymond (NSE:RYMD) Kaye from Nordea. Please go ahead.

Raymond Kaye, Analyst, Nordea: Hi, good morning. Congratulations on a solid report and happy to read about the share buybacks here. A couple of questions for me. I’ll take them one by one. You announced the intention to buy back 500,000,000 worth of shares here in 2025.

You previously said you want to distribute at least SEK 1,200,000,000.0 over SEK 25,000,000 to SEK 27,000,000. So with this, I mean, you’ve clearly exceeded that target already. Do you have anything more you could share with us in terms of capital allocation plans beyond 2025 given how that previous target is essentially met already when we’ve barely entered 2025?

Per Christensen, CFO, Scandic Hotels Group: Yes, I can take that one. Good morning, Renlund. Yes, I think when we communicated the the the extra dividend and the first buyback program, we didn’t have all the facts. And now we are a little bit wiser, and and we have come back with the dividend proposal for for the coming AGM and also the additional 500,000,000. So as you say, we have fulfilled the obligation that we we had on the the the last time and and would have distributed all all the money we promised.

I assume that we as a company and also as a board will continue to focus on creating shareholder value even after twenty twenty six AGM and until twenty seven AGM. So, I mean, you can’t promise anything, but it’s in align with our expectations to continue this journey.

Raymond Kaye, Analyst, Nordea: Thanks for that color. And then I was a bit surprised about Finland’s margins and how strong they were there. Is it really just a matter of you internally having higher efficiency? Or is there anything about the market that you could share with us, say, on the B2B side that is helping you or on the leisure side? Thanks.

Jens Matthesen, CEO, Scandic Hotels Group: Yes. Good morning, Raymond. I think also a good question. If you look at the result isolated, it is mainly driven by a lot of internal factors actually and our, let’s say, more efficient operation. And I think our head in Finland and responsible in Finland, which is Laura, has done a great job during the summer in organizing the whole operation in an even better and more lean way.

So, definitely, you see a lot of efficiencies in the quarter. But there’s also a positive momentum, I think, in Finland. And I have more belief in Finland today than I did just, let’s say, last year because I think the Finnish government also starts with more initiatives. They have been focusing more on how they can support their local businesses because the economy has been struggling in Finland. So it seems that at least the Finnish government as well are aware, and that means also that more initiatives will come up.

We see also in the booking situation, it looks solid also for Finland in the first quarter. I think we are picking up well. And we have not only cost initiatives, we also have a lot of commercial initiatives. And I think both with the central organization and the Finnish organization, we have a lot of focus on driving more occupancy into the hotels. So so at least we are we are pretty pretty forward looking positively for for for this year.

Jamie Rollo, Analyst, Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS): Yeah.

Per Christensen, CFO, Scandic Hotels Group: And then you can may add to that that key destinations like and Lieve was super strong, you know, home of the Santa. So I think it was not dependent only on Helsinki. It’s it’s also the key destination now picking up and having really, really strong RevPARs.

Jens Matthesen, CEO, Scandic Hotels Group: And, of course, a a last comment we also can add, everybody is is is when it comes to Finland, we are we are looking at at what happens with the war in Ukraine. And if they come to some kind of an agreement, that will anyhow be positive for Finland with all the borders to Russia and maybe future opening of the opportunities to fly over Russia again. Let’s see how fast that returns, but that would be good for Finnair and for the Finnish industries and businesses.

Raymond Kaye, Analyst, Nordea: Great. And a third final question for me maybe. I just want to sort of confirm, I mean, the EUR 22,000,000 you got in extraordinary sort of compensation here in other Europe was connected to spectrum, I understand. Is there any other hotel openings where you currently are experiencing delays or you’re in a process of sort of seeking compensation that you could share with us?

Jens Matthesen, CEO, Scandic Hotels Group: No, we had some issues at Spectrum after the opening of that, where we had some technical issues, which meant that after opening, we had quite some rooms out of order. It’s a very large hotel. We have six thirty two rooms in the hotel, but we had, I think, around 100 rooms that were out of order for quite a long time. And there’s been a kind of a discussion ongoing, but not so much between us and the owners of the property because that has been very constructive, but also with the owners and the building constructors and where they had to settle an agreement, and this is now settled. So we don’t have anything expected coming up.

And I think also that we are coming more and more, which I think is good. I’m very happy that we should not announce all of these one off effects all the time, which we did in the pandemic, where we had a lot of one offs with the lease discounts, etcetera. So we are coming into a more normalized situation, which we are happy about.

Raymond Kaye, Analyst, Nordea: Got it. That makes a lot of sense. Thanks, Oliver. I’ll get back in line.

Jens Matthesen, CEO, Scandic Hotels Group: Thank you.

Conference Moderator: The next question comes from Jamie Rollo from MS. Please go ahead.

Jamie Rollo, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. Three, if I may. First, obviously, pretty encouraging comments on Q1 occupancy and rate. Is there anything looking a bit further out for the year you can tell us at this stage, for example, anything on the books in terms of the mice and group business, anything in terms of the events calendar we should think about?

And then secondly, are there any expectations on cost inflation this year? And are you actually changing your incentives internally to focus a bit more on cost and efficiency? It sounds like you’re making very good progress there. And then finally, just on the cash returns point, what is the relative preference for a buyback versus a special dividend versus an ordinary dividend, please? Thank you.

Jens Matthesen, CEO, Scandic Hotels Group: Thank you very much, Damian. And also good morning to you. Thank you for joining us here. First of all, I think when we look at Q1 and forward to your question, at least you can say Q1 looks, like I say, very stable. And I don’t know if that’s a word we use very often, but it looks stable, which is good for us, which means that it is pretty predictable also when we prepare our manning, etcetera.

And then right now, we have a bit uplift in occupancy and a slight uplift in price, but mainly driven by in a very small quarter by a bit more room sold. We are focusing a lot on getting more heads in bets, getting more people into the hotels, and you will probably see also going forward that we will try to drive even more occupancy versus price. Not that we don’t believe that we can increase the room rates as well a bit, but we have a lot of focus on securing that we come back to occupancy levels at a higher number. Looking a bit further down the road, of course, we don’t want to guide too much. But I think looking at the event calendar and looking at last year, last year, you know that Gothenburg was extremely weak.

It came out with zero events and concerts versus the year before where we had 11. So and that was really tough for Gothenburg, and with a lot of new capacity, that was difficult. This year, some concerts come back. So we have seen right now, we have seven concerts for the year that are booked, which is very good for us versus last year and good for Gothenburg. On the other hand, we had a very strong Stockholm area.

So Stockholm had Taylor Swift several times, and there was a lot of people coming to Stockholm due to that. So Stockholm faced a very strong year last year in this. So yet to see, and I haven’t seen the event calendar for Stockholm. I think that will probably not be stronger than last year, but hopefully, they can still book in some bigger names during the summer. But that we know more about in a few months’ time.

If you look at inflation and cost, I can add a comment to that and then Pierre can support on this as well. I think we have a very, let’s say, realistic view on this because we think that we have modest inflationary increases right now and also we are I think we are in good control of what happens with that also to handle it with our price increases. One important area in this is, of course, what we expect of salary increases and there’s a lot of negotiations going on. It looks like there’s at least so far in several countries a clear idea that the ambition is to create quite a long agreement. So hopefully, we will see more countries coming in with three year agreements, which will give us a lot of stability looking forward.

I know for Denmark that they concluded on the industry part, which is normally a guidance for the level in what happens also in the other industries. And that came in just around 10% for three years, meaning that I think in a year on year, it’s approximately some 3.4% or so that salaries will increase. And if that’s the case three years ahead, then I feel that’s a reasonable level, which we definitely can handle. So I think let’s wait a bit more before we know that.

Per Christensen, CFO, Scandic Hotels Group: Yeah. Yeah. And if you would add to that, I mean, the rent based are based on the consumer price index in October, and that was slightly below 2%. And and I guess the other part is mainly the energy, which we expect to be around 2% increase. So so all in all, it seems, quick pretty stable and and reasonable going into the year so far.

Jens Matthesen, CEO, Scandic Hotels Group: And you can even add that some of the marks, we expect, you know, salaries to come in even below the three. So so let’s see if we we can. Hopefully, we will land around 3% in a total for all the markets, and that would be at least something we can handle. Then the buybacks versus dividend, we have a clear policy of the dividend, but it’s also clear that we think that buybacks is a very strong tool for us. And even though we pick up now the pace on signing more contracts and deals, investments for that comes later on, as you know, and that at least gives another headroom because we are creating a very strong cash flow right now.

And right now, it seems right for us to put extra flavor into that in a very strong buyback program. But hopefully, down the road and years, we can be more predictable when we have done it in a longer run. And it is two tools that we would like to balance between these two as much as we can.

Jamie Rollo, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Thanks a lot. If I could just come back quickly on that just on the cost question, just perhaps ask another way. I know you didn’t give guidance. Did you think the company might be able to get some

Artem Prokopetz, Analyst, UBS: margin?

Jens Matthesen, CEO, Scandic Hotels Group: Yes. I definitely think we continue to focus. I think we have had a very strong initiative and program when it came to focusing on the winter and the shoulder seasons because we think that it is when you look at the Nordics, we do have these two very, very strong quarters in Q2 and Q3. And then the winter months are fairly slow. And that is, of course, difficult when you have a manning of maybe 20,000 plus in the summer and you have 14,000 or whatever in the winter.

So we need to handle that big change in manning. But I think we have had a lot of focus on how to do this and even better than we have done previously, even though we think we are good at it, but we added extra to that and that what you also see in the fourth quarter. So we believe that we will continue to be a bit more efficient and handling these different period of times during the year. And then we also, as we mentioned, just before summer in late June, we will introduce new workforce management system. And that will also give us it will be very good for our staff and team members, and it will be good for us as a company because we can handle the team members’ working hours in a much better way, meaning that we can optimize both from a company perspective, but also secure that each of the individuals get the maximum out of their working hours.

So the whole optimization of that will definitely have potential going forward. But that you won’t see until it is implemented. But hopefully, we see the first signs of that later in the year.

Jamie Rollo, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Thank you very much.

Jens Matthesen, CEO, Scandic Hotels Group: Thank you.

Conference Moderator: The next question comes from Karl Johan Bannevere from DNB Markets.

Karl Johan Bannevere, Analyst, DNB Markets: First of all, congratulations to solid development in Spain in 2024 and in Q4 as well. So good to see. Also good to see that the new room pipeline is starting to extend slightly more. And how do you see discussions with property owners and hotel property owners going for the moment? Is there a good opportunity for you to fill the gaps, so to say, you’re looking at growth opportunities ’25, ’20 ’6, ’20 ’7?

Jens Matthesen, CEO, Scandic Hotels Group: Yes. Thank you very much and good morning, Karl Johan. Yes, I think definitely there’s the we hear from the landlords in general, there’s a lot more appetite today than there was two years ago, also because of the high inflation and the cost of their loans, etcetera. And when there’s a bit more predictability with interest rates and expectations that is going south and not north, then then, of course, that is also creating a bit more momentum. So then on top of that, I think we have a very good, we have several good opportunities.

We have created a very strong, even though we have few hotels, if you look at the overall market, we have few hotels in Germany, but we have created a lot of trust that we are very seriously and a very good partner. So we are seeing that more opportunities start to pick up in the German market. We are very selectively how we will expand there, and we will talk more about that during the Capital Market Day later on. But in The Nordics, we also see a lot of appetite on the ScandiGo brand because from a landlord perspective, this is also very interesting. Of course, much less risk.

It is based on rooms and less on F and B, less on meetings. And when you create a la carte restaurants and meeting areas, then you are a bit more cautious. What does this look like in ten, fifteen, twenty years from now versus rooms where we know there’s an increasing and growing demand. So I think there’s a lot of appetite on securing more hotels into that, which also gives us opportunities to convert office buildings. So all in all, yes, I think we have more appetite, but the market also is in the same situation.

Karl Johan Bannevere, Analyst, DNB Markets: Good to hear. And maybe, Per, how do you see the CapEx outlook for 2020?

Per Christensen, CFO, Scandic Hotels Group: Well, we will go through it a little bit more in detail in the CMD later today. And and I guess we have we will talk a little bit about the historical levels being maybe around 6.5% if you add up the maintenance, the the the the growth as well as the IT investments, and and we believe we’re gonna be around five to 6% during the financial target period. So so so and bear in mind, of course, that, what Jan said now is there’s a delay sometimes between, you know, signing hotel and and and then, you know, paying the CapEx, of course. So so there will be a a ramp up, but but we probably believe that it’s a five to 6% on a bit in in 25%, twenty six %, and 27% here, level. So a little bit lower than than before the pandemic.

Karl Johan Bannevere, Analyst, DNB Markets: Good to hear. And one small final for me. Looking at the $500,000,000 buyback program that you know highlighted, is that for 2025 or until the AGM in 2026?

Jens Matthesen, CEO, Scandic Hotels Group: Yes. That is that will be the suggestion is to start that just after the AGM in May, and then it will go until March next year.

Karl Johan Bannevere, Analyst, DNB Markets: Excellent. Thank you very much. And see you at Capital Markets Day. Yes.

Jens Matthesen, CEO, Scandic Hotels Group: Thank you. Looking forward. Thank you.

Conference Moderator: The next question comes from Artem Prokopetz from UBS. Please go ahead.

Artem Prokopetz, Analyst, UBS: Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. I have three, if that’s okay. So question number one, restaurant and conference revenue as percent of room revenue was I think still lower in Q4 compared to last year. Do you see any signs of recovery in 2025, so in this restaurant and conference revenue as percent of room revenue?

Question number two, when do you think the company will be able to achieve the desired pace of signings, which I think is at 1,500 Skandik co rooms per annum and the same number for traditional Skandik hotels? And lastly, question number three, you mentioned Finland and Ukraine war in Ukraine. Do you possibly have any estimates of impact from potential lifting of restrictions on air travel over the territory of Russia? So how could it impact travel to Finland? Thank you.

Jens Matthesen, CEO, Scandic Hotels Group: Thank you very much. And then also thank you for joining us here. Good to have you starting following us as well. First of all, I think if you look at the restaurant and the meeting, what we have done at Scandic during the last couple of years is also that we, and we will talk a bit about it in the Capital Market Day later on as well. But we have kind of, I wouldn’t say cleaned up, but we have actually optimized our portfolio quite a lot during the last couple of years.

That also means that if you look at Q4 versus the year before, we had seven hotels less or just about 1,000 rues less. But that also means that we had seven restaurants less because of seven hotels less, etcetera. So a part of the change is also that we have a bit fewer restaurants available. And then we also worked a lot with the efficiency and opening hours and etcetera to secure that we can see a better result. We also work a lot with the efficiency areas in this one and we see that we are delivering very good efficiency levels.

So even though you see that the turnover might decrease a bit, then we see a very good result. So we are better at doing the right stuff that actually creates value and makes the money and maybe get rid of some of the less profitable part of our business. And looking ahead for this year, we definitely expect this year to be a good year also in restaurants and in the meeting segment. The beginning of the year also looks stable and solid when it comes to that. So I don’t expect a decrease versus ’24 when it comes to these areas overall

Artem Prokopetz, Analyst, UBS: when it

Jens Matthesen, CEO, Scandic Hotels Group: comes to FNB. And we, of course, also with the new loyalty program, we work on a lot of initiatives that we will hopefully benefit from during summer and autumn when it comes to the loyalty program and how we also with new web and app can can add ancillary sales and and and book restaurants, etcetera, which hopefully can also drive a bit more business. When it comes to your second question, to signing of new hotels, Yemen, but already this year, we have quite a lot of expectations. There’s a good momentum, and we have quite a long list of things we are working with currently. So whether we will be on 100% on our target this year or that will come next year is yet to be seen.

But we announced the first one in Berlin last week. We have several that we are looking at, and hopefully, we can deliver these targets. We will announce also the long term targets later on today. That means until 02/1930, so you will hear some clear targets and goals, how much we expect. And then, of course, you can you can you probably expect that this year will be a few percentage points below the overall target in average and the years, you know, coming will be a bit higher.

But all in all, we have a very strong expectation for growing the company. Then the last question is related to Finland. We don’t have accurate numbers, but it is clear that once the war started, especially Finnair, whom were having a very strong traffic and was the biggest airline cater for guests to Asia, and that was kind of a strong gateway, then Finnair had to stop that immediately. And that also had an effect that Finnair have leased out a lot of the airplane, so they cannot turn it around even if the war stops. But that will definitely start then to pick up again.

And once they can start flying to Asia and everybody can fly to Asia and not only Air China (OTC:AIRYY), then we expect traffic to pick up from Europe over Russia in general, and that will help both Finland and the rest of us because then we can pick up Asian traffic even better than we can today.

Conference Moderator: The next question comes from Adela Dachian from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Adela Dachian, Analyst, Jefferies: Thank you. And good morning, gentlemen. Congrats on a solid Q4 and four year development.

Jens Matthesen, CEO, Scandic Hotels Group: Thank you.

Adela Dachian, Analyst, Jefferies: Two questions from me. I’m going to continue on the Finland topic, but asking more specifically again on the profitability, which was impressive. Have you been able to initiate the same type of efficiency measures in the Finnish market too, despite the revenue headwinds? Or do you think that in 2025 there will be more to do in Finland where we can see additional upside on the market?

Jens Matthesen, CEO, Scandic Hotels Group: No, I think what we have seen, we did changes during the, let’s say, early summer where we optimized after, let’s say, seeing also that Finland was a bit sidelined when it came to top line. So definitely, we have a better situation in Q4, and we expect that also to support us a bit in the beginning of the year. But once you come to summer, then we are comparing with ourselves, then we need to secure better results through driving more top line. And we have a lot of commercial focus. I think for us, a lot of the future result needs to come from driving more top line.

And we’re also shifting the company’s focus, which we have been extremely clear about. And I’m very happy that we really say what we want to achieve, and then we actually deliver on that afterwards. But we are moving from, with a strong position we are in, moving to a more focus on the top line and driving revenue. So hopefully, that will benefit also with all our initiatives and partnerships, etcetera, that will also support Finland further. I don’t know if, Pierre, you want to add anything, but then

Per Christensen, CFO, Scandic Hotels Group: No. But I guess we are super dependent on the market development, and I think we did what we need to do internally, and that you can see in the results. And then we just have to to make sure that we also commercially will pick up as the market picks up. And, but but we we we probably will dependent on the little bit of a better better market situation, to be even even better.

Adela Dachian, Analyst, Jefferies: Okay. Sounds good color. Thanks. And then maybe just another one. I want to save some of my strategy questions for the CMD later today as well.

But just a quick one on the pipeline development here and also the recently announced opening in Germany. Could you say anything about your focus geographically? Like in which regions should we see expansion when it comes to your hotel franchise?

Jens Matthesen, CEO, Scandic Hotels Group: Yes. No, but they are very good. And we will also both tell you much more during the CMD later today, but I can definitely it’s really clear for us that we will have a clear overweight of growth in The Nordics. We still focus on the Nordic home market where we are very strong and we have a very strong supporting for these hotels, which means that every time we open a hotel, we don’t add more head office staff and supporting staff, which also makes new openings in The Nordics become extremely profitable. So we have a clear overweight of that, but we also want to selectively continue to grow in Germany.

We have a strong belief in Germany, And that doesn’t mean that all of Germany are doing good because they are facing issues here and there right now in the economy. But as I will tell you later on, it is the largest country in Europe and a huge population. And we even see very high occupancy levels and solid prices. And so it’s a market where we only focus in, let’s say, the strongest locations and we will continue to do so. So we will not be all over Germany.

We will be in very selected destinations that has a huge year on year demand. And that’s why you see we grow in cities like Berlin now and Stuttgart and some of these cities that we’re already in is definitely in our focus.

Adela Dachian, Analyst, Jefferies: Got it. And then size wise, is your pipeline full of opportunities both in the small or medium size type of hotels, 200 and less and larger ones, 600 and more? I don’t really know how you would differentiate between different sizes of hotels, but I would assume that that’s probably the way you look at it.

Jens Matthesen, CEO, Scandic Hotels Group: Yeah. But it’s a good reflection, Adela, I think because when we open hotels in the very large, let’s say, capital cities and cities like Berlin or Hamburg or Frankfurt or Munich, if it is very good locations, then definitely we can also build larger hotels and that you have seen us being doing lately. And you would not see us creating a 600 room hotel in a small city or a minor location. This is up for the bigger cities and capital regions. But that’s also we will talk a bit more on on franchise later on because we see that as a very good add on to the portfolio.

We will continue to grow with a lot of focus on the on the leased properties, but we will also add and open up for adding more franchises in locations where we are not in. And that will be a good complement to our guests. And we have a very strong guest base and a huge loyalty program. So the more we can service them through Scandic, the better. So we expect also to announce some more intentions on how we will add more hotels in that area.

Adela Dachian, Analyst, Jefferies: Alright. Great. That’s all for me. See you later today.

Jens Matthesen, CEO, Scandic Hotels Group: Yeah. Looking forward. Thank you.

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

Jens Matthesen, CEO, Scandic Hotels Group: But thank you again for listening in and for all your focus on Scandic. We appreciate that and looking very much forward to see you later on at the CND. Have a great day all.

This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.