Yit Oyj Unsp/Adr

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to YIT's third quarter 2024 results webcast. My name is Essi Nikitin, and I'm heading the investor relations at YIT. Together with me here are our CEO, Heikki Vuoremaa, and CFO, Tuomas Mäkipeska. At this point, I hand over to Heikki. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Follow the Wire, this third quarter highlights through this webcast. I will share some of the thoughts on our third quarter result, and then Tuomas will continue more details on our financial numbers and performance. The quarter progressed as planned. The profitability increased in all segments during the quarter, resulting in a positive cash flow. As a result of improved market environment, we also are pleased to upgrade our view on the Baltic's residential market, as the market has turned to the normal from our perspective. And during the quarter, we sold a total of 550 YIT homes to consumers. So overall, a solid quarter, and we are well on track to achieve our financial guidance for the year. During the quarter, our revenue declined, and it was 450 million euros. It's good to remember that the comparison period included certain one-off transactions, such as selling of Maistratin Partti, which is one of our office buildings, and that took place third quarter last year. However, those do not fully account for the delta, what we are seeing here on the year-on-year comparison. Supported by the positive benefits from the transformation program and the completions in the politics and CEE, our profitability increased compared to last year and amounted to 26 million euros during the quarter. Let's split the numbers to our businesses and also discuss those more in details. Our overall operating profit during the quarter reached 5.6 percent, which is a solid performance considering the market conditions in Finland. Housing Finland turnover and the profitability decreased year on year, and it was supported by a positive 6 million euro item. This item is connected to accruals on our balance sheet related to liabilities that we have for apartments that has been on 10-year liability period. It is good to note that this amount has been accrued to our finance sales during earlier quarters and has impacted our profitability earlier. Now it was recognized, thus the positive impact during this third quarter. Here today, we are now on a correct level. HousingPolitik and CEE continued according to plan, delivering solid profitability with nearly 10% operating margin during the quarter. Infra had another good quarter. Revenue increased and the profitability remained at solid 5% level. Performance in business premises also improved as planned, and the segment profitability is trending into right direction. So our operative engine is getting up to speed, yet recovery in housing Finland has not yet started. Let's double click on different business areas and start with the housing in Finland. Amount of unsold Finnish apartments continues to decline as our sales speed exceeds completions. This trend we expect to continue in the coming quarters. During the quarter, we also agreed and communicated new projects with our customers that are building supported rental houses. Those are now recorded to our order book. The overall decline of the order book is due to the market conditions in Finland. And during the first nine months, we did not launch any new self-developed projects in Finland. Then if we look at overall completions to the Finnish housing market and the outlook that it has, there actually hasn't been much changed in overall completions to the market in the coming year. And consequently, we are already starting to observe regional supply shortages. The status of vehicle rental apartments and unsold Finnish apartments is predominantly an issue in the capital area. If you look at other growth cities, such as Tampere, a supply shortage is already a reality. At the same time, apartment prices on the secondary market are at a historically low level, and construction companies are offering discounts to consumers. Consumer confidence in Finland is then again on the highest level since 18 months, and the purchasing power is increasing. We also see that the interest rates have declined substantially during the third quarter. And as the start of the new apartment has reduced by 90% already for the past 48 months, the new supply will be exceptionally low during 2025. To conclude, buyer's market will turn to seller's market, and it will have consequences on availability and prices in the coming years. Our stock of unsold apartments is declining as planned. This stock continues to be an asset for us, as there are no new completions coming up for the period of time. Our apartment stock is concentrated to the capital area, while we are almost sold out on other major cities. For example, we are sold out completely in Joensuu, Jyväskylä, Mikkeli, and many other cities in Finland. Inventory in Tampere reduced 30% during the quarter, and in Turku, we have only few units to go. So the stock is running out, and it will last until end of third quarter in the capital area. Outside, it will end much earlier. But time to leave Finland and move to other European countries inside of our housing segment. The positive trend continued on operating countries, and we see our finished apartment stock melting on accelerated pace. Order book is well under control, despite we did not have much starts during the quarter. Rolling 12 months operating profit margin is at 13%, which is a solid level for the business. Talking about the starts, so we started limited amounts during the third quarter, only 57 apartments. There is no drama behind the Baltic and CEE number. We were starting according to the business plan and continue to launch new start same pace as the sales progress. In Finland, we didn't have any starts during the quarter, which reflects the current market conditions. Could you note, like I mentioned earlier, that we haven't started any projects during the first nine months, and it will limit some capabilities to turn the profit on the following year. We have 12 projects in pre-marketing, and we have started now one project in Vaasa during the fourth quarter. If you look at the completion of that project, it will still complete during 2025. And our construction lead time, if you look at our residential project in Finland, has decreased over 15% compared to the past two years, and it's under 12 months now. So we do have capability to execute projects still to 2025. and especially to 26 in Finland. So that's good to know, even we haven't started that much in Finland during this year. We will actually discuss this topic much more and our improved capabilities during the Capital Markets Day presentation that I invite all of you to join either in person or through the webcast. The production for us is now 2,600 apartments, what we have, and we believe that the bottom of the cycle has been reached. The supply chains are working well, material costs are stable across the operations and projects well under control. We have taken substantial efforts to consolidate our supply base and that work continues as we are seeking a closer cooperation and improved resilience for our supply chain for the coming years. I talked a bit on the starts and then the completions. We had a total of 376 completions during the quarter, and those 61 took place in Finland. We also have shifted some completions in the Baltics and CEE from this year to early next year, so that the total number of completions has declined a bit for 2024. There is no drama again here. The reason behind is not production related. It's more connected to optimization of total economical impact for the company. Then to sales. As I mentioned in the beginning, we had a solid quarter in sales. Our segment sales increased both in CEE and in Finland compared to last year. I'm particularly pleased with our sales team's effort in politics and CEE to create compelling offering to our consumers. We also have introduced new AI-based tools and analytics to support our sales and results are tangible and visible on these numbers as well. As mentioned, we sold 550 YIT homes during the quarter, as we include also the sales from our joint venture production vehicles, which we actually are double-clicking on the following page. Also, our operations in this joint venture production vehicles are progressing very well. Sales strong during the quarter, amount of unsold inventory decreasing, and the new completions are actually taking place on the fourth quarter. We have a capacity to produce over 2,000 new homes with our JV partners in Baltics and CEE countries. So overall, solid performance during the quarter, and we are in a very good place also with those operations in the Baltics and CEE. Then it's time to leave the housing segment behind and move to our infrastructure segment. Our infra segment is showing consistent performance and all the KPIs are pointing to the right direction. We have already resolved the balance sheet. Order book is particularly strong and profitability is on a good level. Performance turnaround is also attracting talent from the industry, and we are seeing many top performers joining to wire the infra team during the previous quarter and throughout the year. So all I can say is that the infra is on a good track. Business premises quarter was also completed and ended up with a high note. Results improved to our comparison period. For the business premises team, the track is still short, but we start to see a solid foundation and renewed project management skills having a positive impact on our operating result. Our order book trend is connected to industry competition situation. We are remaining focused on complex project and sustain healthy margins that is allowing us to deliver quality and perform work safe way to our customers. Still, our order book is strong and we keep our promise to customers, which is a key on our business. It starts to be time to conclude from my behalf before handing over to Tuomas. Like I mentioned, we have now upgraded to our Baltics housing market outlook to normal. The reason for that is that the progress over past quarters has also shown that the recovery has continued. Lithuania, Latvia, and most recently also Estonia, housing and residential market is turning better. Therefore, we are seeing is that we are now operating also under the normal conditions in the Baltic countries. In Finland, the market continues same. Market recovery is expected during 25, and it might be tilted towards second half of the year. There's no changes to other market conditions on our operating countries. All right. Time now to hand over to you, Thomas. Thanks, Heikki.

From financial perspective, the Q3 was a solid quarter in the current operating environment. Our key performance indicators continued on the right track. Profitability improved in all segments, and all businesses contributed to the overall solid quarter. Capital employed decreased clearly, and consequently we lowered the net debt by some 80 million euros from the comparison period. Also, the cash flow for the quarter was positive. Let's have a closer look at the financials. Starting with the capital employed. As you can see, the quarter was steady from the capital employed point of view, and we didn't take major steps forward during the quarter. When looking at the slightly longer time period, we are on a positive downward trend. During the last four quarters, we have released 140 million euros of capital on group level by execution of the capital release program. In Housing Finland, we have been able to keep the development pretty much stable during the last 12 months due to the measures taken in the operations. And sale of the apartments from inventory and low construction volumes will further release capital in upcoming quarters. In housing Baltics and CEE, we have released capital altogether some 30 million euros during the last 12 months, mainly as a result of the formed joint ventures to develop large area projects together with RSJ Investments. In infrastructure, as Heikki already mentioned, so we continue to operate with negative capital employed and generating positive cash flow. In total, over 70 million euros of capital has been released during the last 12 months, demonstrating success in capital release measures. Also in business premises, we have released 25 million euros of capital during the last 12 months. The execution of capital release actions will continue and consequently improve the return on capital employed. Let's move on to the cash flow development. Operating cash flow continued on right track and was slightly positive in Q3. The last 12 months cash flow was 63 million positive and measures to improve the networking capital efficiency have yielded results already. As we have stated in our guidance for this year, the operating cash flow after investments is expected to be positive. and maintaining positive cash flow has been key focus for us, and that we have delivered on a stellar manner. If we then compare our key assets to the net interest bearing debt, Our underlying asset base continues to be very strong and amounts to over two times the net debt. We have a land bank of over 800 million euros to serve as a platform for future operations and profits. Completed apartments and real estate in our inventory decreased to some 400 million euros due to the apartment sales and lower number of apartment completions in Finland. The net debt amounted to 790 million euros at the end of the quarter, and almost 500 million euros of net debt is related to the IFRS 16 lease liabilities and long maturity housing company loans. When deducting these two components, the adjusted net debt amounted to some 310 million euros. So the key takeaway here is that the balance sheet is asset rich and the adjusted net debt is very moderate in comparison. Equity ratio of the company increased a percentage point and stood at 34%. And net interest bearing debt remained stable, as mentioned, compared to the end of Q2, but was 80 million euros lower than at the end of the comparison period. Our financial position allows us time to address the level of indebtedness, and there are actions ongoing to deleverage the balance sheet. Gearing stayed on the same level as in the end of Q2, but decreased significantly from Q3 last year due to the favorable net debt development. In maturity structure of the interest bearing debt, having only minor amortizations to be performed this and next year provides a stability and possibility to focus on improving the financial performance of the company. Then a couple of words about the transformation program still. As we communicated in July, the run rate cost savings target of 40 million euros was achieved ahead of schedule. The results of the program are already visible in our improved profitability. Transformation program related costs has been estimated to be between 50 to 70 million euros in total, of which 57 million euros was realized by the end of Q3. The program itself ends at the end of this year, but we will continue the work and move towards continuous improvement. We continue to see a substantial potential to release capital and improve the performance of the company. But we will elaborate on these topics at the forthcoming Capital Markets Day, as Heikki mentioned. Moving on to the guidance then. Our guidance remains intact. meaning that we expect group adjusted operating profit for continuing operations to be between 20 and 60 million euros this year. Operating cash flow after investments is expected to be positive. Also, the outlook remains unchanged. So to summarize the finance section, profitability improved in all segments in Q3, and we are on track in achieving the expected results for the full year. Stable financial position enables us to focus on improving the financial performance of the company and optimize timing of certain capital release measures to maximize shareholder value. And then we continue to execute the transformation program to improve the overall performance of the company. That concludes my part and handing over back to you, Heikki.

Thank you, Tuomas. So is it actually fair to summarize that the solid quarter and performance improving, strong balance sheet, good liquidity. And I think finally, what you're pointing out there is that we have a long maturity and financial position is really good at the end. Yeah, definitely so. Yeah, that is a very good place to be. And on a financial perspective, we also work on always with the topics that are not so much directly impacted on These are the kind of only one quarter financials, but there are many important topics that we are improving. And if you look at just the four highlights during the quarter, so we are continuing to develop our procurement and how we are running that category based model as a part of the transformation program. You already see some of those benefits on our financial performance, but it's just scratching the surface that what we are capable to do on the coming years there. We also have nominated new chief procurement officer there and strengthen our overall organization. And I think that's a very positive topic for us. We also conducted our employee survey. This is one of the most critical indicator for business that how we are doing. 80% of our employees were taking part to give their voice. And our employee net promoter score reached a very good level of 30. We actually see improvement across our businesses and engagement level increase. This is fundamentally the most important driver for us that we have our team fully engaged and committed to the plans that we have as a YIT. We also continue the systematic work to strengthen safety management. This is the highest priority for us. We have seen already improvement year on year. And now our loss time injury frequency has improved to level of 9.7. We still have opportunities to improve there. And we will also discuss our target setting and how do we see that in the capital markets today. And as a part of our investment and Our focus on developing capabilities and adapting the use of the artificial intelligence also is that we are expanding our pilots, giving access for all of our employees to use those tools such that we are ensuring the productivity improvement across the company. We have seen a lot of use cases, a lot of potential. I mentioned already one of those in the earlier part of presentation, and we are going to take use those to improve our productivity and free up the time from our construction industry professionals to actually focus more on operation instead of data crunching and so-called repetitive tasks. So, those are the four topics, and typically, I would actually summarize here our main focus areas for the coming quarters, but now I'm actually inviting you to discuss those with us during the Capital Markets Day, 13th of November. If you are not able to participate in person, so we also have the webcast available, and there we are going to share a bit more light how we are seeing our main focus areas for different segments and the overall business and what we are capable to achieve on the coming years. But this concludes the presentation part and we are now ready for the questions.

If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key 6 on your telephone keypad. Please go ahead.

Guys, thank you for the presentation. I have a few questions. I'll ask them one by one if that's okay. I just want to ask you about the order backlog situation. First of all, in terms of KPIs, it is down 19% roughly year on year, down 8% in the quarter. Could you please elaborate on lead times this might have on revenues and have you looked at the pipeline going forward given the trend in the order backlog situation?

Okay, and let me start going business by business. So on the residential housing side, the order book is generated based on our startups and they're highly connected to the low level of startups in Finland. We have secured order book in terms of those more contracting type of projects, and our order book will increase and improve as we are then starting up new projects in Finland. In CEE, we were, politics and CEE area, we were contracting more and performing more of the completions that we were doing the startups during the quarter. Therefore, there was a kind of a small decline. However, there is no reason to expect that that would be the situation we have. We continue to pursue growth on that area going forward. On the infra side, We were seeing a small change between the quarters. Could you note that we were announcing 150 million euro agreement that will now be recorded during the Q4 into the order book. We are very competitive on the market and we do not see that. We see that there is... There is a good project ongoing also in the tendering at the moment. In infra, we have order book for 24 months, which is really solid. So what we are building on is order book for the future years there. On the business premises, we have had the order book of the self-developed projects offices and such we don't anymore initiate and start. So there is the year on year comparison. And then there is more about the timing of the orders between the quarters that we have seen declining on the business premises side. We have also selected the path to maintain our focus on certain projects and ensure that we have a right level of margins, because we do know that that you need to invest to those projects, so that you can deliver those projects in a safe way also to your customers and on schedule and below the budget, as we are always doing on there. So that's a bit on the kind of more details behind the order book, what we are having.

Thank you. Very filling also there. Just another question is on the six million in housing in the reversal cost. If you can elaborate on that. Secondly, also relating to the quarterly results is increased net financing. Just wondering if you can comment on that. It's been a change in capitalized interest rates, etc. Or is it just the higher interest rates that is impacted?

Yeah, I will take the first one, and Tuomas, if you take the latter one. So, in Finland, the operation is so that we are remaining liable for 10 years liability period for all the residential projects that we have been constructing to the market, and as we have now had much lower completions to the market compared to years, 10 years ago, so the amount of residential apartments within that window has decreased. And we made a correction now into... There was a one-time item now that was impacting during the third quarter, and year-to-date-wise, we are now on the right level. And that has been a cost that has been accrued on systematically on the previous quarters, and now we were looking at actually the amount of all the apartments during that 10-year... period has declined and therefore it was the positive impact that took place on the quarter. And Tuomas, if you take the interest.

Yeah, and apologies, I missed part of the question. Can you please repeat the question again?

Yeah, it's the increased cost of financing now, net 19 million, just how much of that might be due to capitalization of interest rates and the removal of that, and how much is just a higher interest rate than margins affect.

Yes, thank you. The amount and the development is purely related on the market interest rates. No changes in capitalization of any interest costs there. So that's purely related to the new kind of after the refinancing situation, what we have completed in several parts during the first half of the year.

Okay, thank you. Another question is on the potential transaction of Tripla. We're seeing speculation in the market that Compi might be sold a large stake in that. Implied yields, which has been rumored, is implied yields of 6.5% to 7%. How does that, you feel, might be relevant for the valuation and competition for the sale of your stake in Tripla?

Yeah, we also follow that with the high interest and the assets are different, different type, of course, and based on our knowledge, it's not a full transaction of company, but it's actually half of that or so. The same, there are, you know, how we are evaluating triple on our balance sheet is that we are using a third party to advise us that what is the applicable yield for our valuation methodology that what we have triple on our balance sheet. And the good news is that the same party that is involved in both of these elements is also the one who is providing us the yield. And we haven't seen changes on our tripla yield, especially during the third quarter. We continue to remain interested in what type of transaction there will be. And of course, it is a substantial sizeable transaction, and it might be an actual sign of recovery of such a transaction also in Finland. From that perspective, we are positive there.

Yeah, thank you. And my last question, if you want to give some comments on the news article yesterday in the Financial Finish Daily about the unsold inventory and discounts in the market, I guess you've seen the article.

Yeah. To be fully transparent, I haven't had too much time on going into that detail. We do have, like I mentioned there, so we do have some unsolved inventory in Finland, which we believe is an asset for us. And some of those cases we have been kind of... changing certain prices for the apartments, but like mentioned, so if we look broadly, outside of the capital area, we only have a handful of apartments left. So that for us, we consider that as an asset, especially on this time when there is a limited amount of completions coming from us or any competitor to the market during 2025.

Okay, thank you. Those are my questions for now. Thank you.

The next question comes from Anssi Rausi from SEB. Please go ahead.

Yes, hi all, and thank you for the presentation, Heikki and Tuomas. A lot of positives, like reducing capital employed and inventory levels, but I think your net debt has increased two quarters in a row, Q on Q basis. What do you think that needs to happen that the net debt actually starts to decrease significantly?

Thank you, Anssi. And like you said, a lot of positives. And I have to say that I'm very pleased on how the team is working and that we are getting those plans executed and it's visible on our performance. We have a long list of plans exactly on your point in terms of reducing the debt level and getting the getting a lighter capital employed also on our balance sheet. And we are working on those. I look forward then to deliver more results on the coming quarters. And I think Tuomas, you can continue there if there's something more.

Yes, thank you. And definitely we are focusing to generate cash flow from the operations and then, of course, support the cash flow by releasing capital from the balance sheet. So those are the two things that we are concentrated on. Regarding the net debt development, of course, we have an amortization plan regarding the net debt and the financial items as a part of the net debt. As I mentioned, we have only minor amortizations planned for this and next year. But on top of that, of course, we plan for the financing for the longer period as well. So basically what we can argue here is that we are generating cash flow from the operations and capital release to support the net debt, but of course the amortizations are kind of pre-planned.

Okay, thanks. And then about the future activity. I guess that your activity has to pick up maybe already this year but at least next year so how should we think about the cash flows of course your advanced received have been declining of course during the last couple of years but do you think that you have to invest like significant amounts from your balance sheet or do you think that how much advanced payment should cover this?

If I look at the place we are, we have a very strong plot portfolio that we can utilize to do the startups. And from that perspective, we do not need to to invest on new plots. And so that's one clear fact that what we are seeing. The second element there is that we have taken quite substantial measures also to change the operating models and the business models to tie up less capital during the construction period. So those two things will support us as we are scaling up the production and support the cash generation for us.

And if I may continue a bit on that. So basically in Finland, regarding self-developed projects and our plot portfolio, so definitely we don't see the need to invest more in plots in the near future. And based on that, The consumer startups here in Finland do not actually tie up too much capital since there are basically the RS loans as a part of the financing situation. So from that perspective, it doesn't burden the cash flow heavily. Also, it's pretty much the same situation in the CE countries, where we have a very strong plot portfolio, so we don't need to invest significantly more to the plots in the near future. So that's basically supporting us going forward to generate cash flows, since there are no major new investments.

Okay, that's clear. And then finally, from my side,

interest bearing receivables which you reported at was it 77 million euros in your net debt or net cash or cash position in this case can you disclose the nature of these receivables yes I can continue on that so that's basically related to the one financing item which has a other side on the debt as well so that's basically net debt neutral item there so no major drama there

Okay, that's all from me. Thank you.

Thank you, Anssi.

The next question comes from Svante Kroksas from Nordia. Please go ahead.

Good morning.

Thank you, Heikki, Tuomas and Essi for the presentation. Coming back a bit to Siemens' question about Could you elaborate a bit on your discounts offered in Finland and Baltics and CEE countries? What kind of strategy have you had there and have you made any changes to that when consumers are interested in buying and perhaps asking for discounts?

Yeah. So in Finland, if we start from Finland, so we have operated mainly through these campaigns. Of course, majority of the campaigns that we had, the interest rate gap, for example, were ending at the end of August. We have now introduced some new campaigns. We have been open about that there is an opportunity for individual customers to start the negotiation on the price, and it's heavily related to availability, location, project type of a question. What is really good to know that all our apartments are on our balance sheet with the construction costs, and we do not sell below the construction costs those apartments forward. And then there was specifically, there has been areas and locations where we have seen that maybe the kind of price and the demand is not met, and there we have been making also publicly some corrections on those houses, the apartments available for consumers. When it comes to the CEE, we haven't seen a major need for discounts. The market is healthy. And the boost for sales is actually driven by the market condition, not driven by kind of activity in terms of discounts or similar.

Heikki, if I may continue here, just kind of a general comment on the markets when comparing Finnish housing market and the CEE. So what we have said earlier already, we don't see kind of a major elasticity of prices, elasticity of demand in the Finnish market. And we haven't seen that for a long time now. But then comparing to the CE countries, there is present this kind of elasticity of demand as well regarding pricing. So those are kind of a bit of a different characteristics of these two markets.

Thank you. And then on plot investments, you mentioned that you don't need to do any of those basically, but you have some commitments, quite big sums that may come up. Could you give some color on what kind of commitments could be expected to be realizing near term?

Yes, thank you, Svante. Yes, we have communicated the kind of upcoming commitments as a gross amount. And as we have argued earlier as well, so we typically have contracts where we have a kind of also exit opportunity. So basically all of the contracts or commitments that we have now, we can exit if needed. But also we think that we are in the business in the long term. So we evaluate, of course, plot by plot or investment by investment, what is for the time being the best solution from financial perspective. But anyway, so we are able to exit from the commitments if that would be necessary.

Thank you and the last one perhaps. You have projects in pre-marketing phase. I think you mentioned 12 and you also mentioned that lead times have been taken down to even below 12 months. Could you give some color on what has changed here?

Absolutely. So we have redesigned our supply chain. We have redesigned the production phases. We have been taking into use new operating models in terms of tag times and how we are, for example, constructing the structural phase on the residential part. We are capable to use different operating models in terms of shift planning and etc. So those are the capabilities that our team has focused and developed and as we take those into the use and there are supply chain constraints that has been eased up we have a capability to start and deliver below 12 months now the projects.

Okay thank you that is all from me.

Thank you Svante. The next question comes from Olli Kaponen from Indias.

Please go ahead.

Good morning and thank you for the presentation. I have a few questions left after I asked once already. Just to continue a little bit about the Finnish housing market and just that I understand your comments on the report correctly. Are you expecting to start consumer apartments in the first half of 2025 or do you expect you will be doing mainly those startups in H2 2025?

But typically we are not giving too much of a forecast on the startups. But what I can say is that if we now only look on a kind of city by city already, so we are seeing a supply shortage since we see that the recovery is on a different phases and the different parts of the country. There is a much focus on news and the public discussion about the situation in the capital area, but we need to look outside of the capital area also to understand. And we have those projects in pre-marketing and we are starting those projects as the conditions for the pre-marketing has been met. And for sure, then I would expect those to to lead also then to the startups during the first half. But like mentioned, we do not provide a specific forward-looking guidance or indications on our startup plan.

Okay, thanks. And this is just maybe a continuation on the first question. concerning your future housing startups and funding of your own developed projects in maybe business premises in 2025. Do you see that your cash balance, which was down in this quarter, and your liquidity channels that you have are enough to do those startups in housing and in business premises? Or do you need to release capital from your balance sheet to start new projects in 2025?

so we started we communicated yesterday first first start there and it is a clear signal that we have capability and reserves to start projects okay thanks thank you that's all for me

As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad.

The next question comes from Emil Imonen from Carnegie.

Please go ahead.

Hi, Heikki and Tuomas. Thanks for taking my questions. Just a couple more on the housing side. So continuing on what Olli asked, What are your criteria now for the starting apartments? I was a little bit surprised by the news of Mustafari. I think the reserved percentage was pretty low there.

Yeah, the criteria differs based on location and the availability of competitor projects nearby and the predicted demand and the consumer behavioural. But on that situation, the criteria were met. I think we were, pre-reservation were more than 40% on that individual project. I would say that generally speaking, we talk about more above 50 percent especially when we are in the in the bigger cities and and or the size of the project is larger that would be the that would be the kind of a generic rule of thumb for us okay and how would you see that these startups then affect your net debt or does it have any impact

Thomas, if you... Yeah, that basically comes back to a bit of Olli's question earlier as well. So we can say that we definitely have capacity to do new startups. Also in the Finnish market and here regarding the RS loans, so combined kind of the financing... perspective on the startup, so they are not actually tying a lot of capital when started, when we already own the plot. So in that sense, we definitely have capacity to accelerate on the startups during the coming months and quarters. That basically comes down to the demand in the market and certainty of the demand, which is, of course, related to the pre-reservation rates as well.

And to continue there, so it will, right Tuomas, so it will actually reduce our inventory in terms of plot and it will be turning into the cash to our balance sheet. Exactly.

Okay, thanks for clarifying that. Then you had some sales to investors now in Q3. Can you maybe elaborate on how is the investor market looking right now?

Yeah, investor market has been active. Small investors are coming back to market. I think the people are seeing is that there starts to be the interest rates on the level that actually investing into the residential is again something that's is seen lucrative. Also, I would say that there are investors seeing is that by holding apartments maybe year or two, you will be enjoying the kind of momentum of price developments on those coming years. So we have active discussions there. And I would say that Already in Q2, we had those, and during the Q3, actually, the dialogue and the amount of individual dialogues increased. So what we are seeing is that from that perspective, the investor market is a bit opening. Investor market, where we talk about the full project, is still... uh slow and uh there that market hasn't opened and uh and uh due to several reasons and uh we we may expect to see that uh again activate the activating on the next year okay excellent that's everything for me thank you yeah thank you there are no more questions at this time

So I hand the conference back to the speakers.

As there are no more questions, we thank you all for participating and wish you a great rest of the day. Thanks.

Thank you.