Hoist Finance AB (publ)

Welcome to Hoist Finance Q2 Report for 2025. For the first part of the conference call, the participants will be in listen-only mode. During the questions and answers session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing pound key 5 on their telephone keypad. Now I will hand the conference over to CEO Harry Vranisch and CFO Magnus Soderlund. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this Hoist Finance earnings call for the second quarter of 2025. I am Harry Vranjes, the CEO of Hoist Finance. And next to me today, I have Magnus Söderlund, our recently appointed CFO, and Karin Tycke, our chief investment relations and comms officer. So just want to start by thanking you all for your interest in Hoist Finance. As usual, we will try to run through the presentation in 30 minutes to leave room for questions you may have. But before we dive into the material, a bit of repetition for those of you who are new to Hoist Finance. So Hoist Finance's business model on a high level is very simple. We acquire portfolios of non-performing loans from tier one banks around Europe at significant discount. Historically, we've had an average price of around 10% of nominal value. Now then to reach our financial targets, we then manage the portfolios and we collect circa 20%. Now, so we do this in a banking suit or more specifically a credit market company suit. and this enables us to have a stable and cost-effective funding source in the form of deposits from the from the public now in an industry that is undergoing significant change we are and will continue to be a capital heavy industrial actor and we strive to become the leading investor and asset manager of consumer and sme non-performing loans in europe Now, during this second quarter of 2025, again, it has been a very active quarter, and I'm happy to report that this activity has mainly been in our core business. When I meet investors around Europe, typically I get two questions. They always pop up. Are there still MPLs for sales? The MPL ratios in the European banking sector have gone down. Is there anything left to buy? The answer, and as I think you can see from our activity during this quarter, is that we see, if anything, a larger pipeline than last year. Yes, there are MPLs for sale. The second question I typically get is, how are you doing on the SDR criteria, the Specialized Debt Restructure criteria? And here we did most of the heavy lifting during the first quarter, as those of you who followed us are aware. And we are now comfortably reaching all criteria. We will, of course, continue to monitor this, trim our very competitive funding costs. But for now, we prefer to be on the conservative side of the KPIs required for the SDR status. And we still expect to become an SDR in 2026. Now, let's dive into the material. Next slide, please. Q2 highlights. Well, profit before tax came in at 310 million SEK compared to 377 last year. Now, this quarter, we had a negative VAT ruling from the Netherlands that brought down the result. And last year, as those of you who have followed us know, we had one time profits from portfolio sales in the quarter and also some higher costs due to restructurings. Now, adjusted for that, the underlying result for the quarter is 335 million SEK. And Magnus will take you through this later in his presentation. Return on equity came in at a strong 14.7% in line with our external financial targets and again driven by the core underlying business. We have mentioned before that we want to have as little sort of one-offs as possible. I think we have delivered that so far this year. Some one-offs are sort of unavoidable, but I think we have delivered on that promise so far this year. now making the same adjustment as as on as on profit before tax this would mean an underlying return on equity of a very strong 16.1 percent compared to then 13.7 last year now one of the highlights of the quarter and i guess we we flagged for that already in the q1 report uh it has been the investment volumes 2.6 billion sec booked in the quarter at stable returns it has been a busy period it has continued into july with an additional signed volume of 1.9 billion sec so far in q3 and we see basically increased volumes in in mid-europe and let's say still significant unchanged volumes in the south. Our portfolio now stands at 31 billion SEC and adjusted for currency. That means 17% increase compared to the same quarter last year. Now, and quarter by quarter, we are getting closer to our ambition of having a total portfolio size of 36 billion SEC by the end of 2026. Also core business collection performance came in at a solid 104, even 104.4% as we continuously keep improving efficiency in all our units around Europe and together with our collection partners. Tight cost control with the underlying direct costs trending in line with collections and indirect costs flat-ish adjusted for the one-offs. Now this cost control and not unimportantly cost flexibility is helped by this cost structure that we have spent the last year's building with outsourcing partners in select geographies and for select asset classes around Europe. We have a strong capital and liquidity position with a CET1 ratio of 12.5% and a significant liquidity reserve of 26 billion SEK and we continue to meet the full SDR criteria with an NSFR at a safe 143% in the quarter. And as I hope most of you have noticed, in July Moody's ratings affirmed all the ratings and assessments of Hoist Finance and also changed the outlook on the group's long-term issuer and senior unsecured debt ratings to positive from previously stable. And I think with that, I'm going to hand over to Magnus to take you through the numbers and the details of the quarter.

uh thank you harry and thank you all for joining this call so uh we had a very solid and good quarter uh with the profit before tax of 310 million sec uh with a 14.7 percent roe compared to last year's 377 million sec and 17.5 percent roe so we see a really positive intake of volume in the quarter 2.6 billion and a as harry mentioned continued high level of cost control and regarding the one-offs as we're expecting to see fewer and less material one-off items in 2025 that is sort of disturbing the year-on-year comparisons and underlying business development we did have some impact in q2 of this year but even more so in the second quarter of last year as mentioned by harry as well In this quarter, we see a negative 25 million SEC impact, which is the net of the VAT court ruling that we mentioned in the Q1 report. But then we also have some accrual releases related to VAT and other items. So the net was 25 million SEK. Last year, we saw a material impact from several extraordinary items with a net positive profit for tax impact of 62 million SEK for the quarter. And this was a combination of asset sales and costs related to improvement and restructuring activities. As an example, our insourcing of IT, where we see the benefits in this year. And for further reference, we have a detailed slide in the pack in the appendix illustrating the non-recurring items by quarter. So if we look at the underlying performance of the business, we see a 335 SEC profit before tax in the quarter versus the equivalent 315 million SEC in 2024. So this gives us a 6% underlying growth. If we look more into the details, we see a total interest income growth of 14% year over year. If we also include the co-invested interest income, which we should. And this is in line with the portfolio growth. The investments in Q2 were heavily tilted towards June, which leads to a lesser impact in terms of interest income for the quarter coming from these new investments. They will, of course, be fully realized during Q3. The 4% growth in net interest income reflects that we are now fully financed for a whole quarter in relation to the MSFR criteria to qualify as an SDR. Our net funding cost versus book value is tracking at 4.4%, same level as in Q1, as we saw in Q1. And we have an NSFR ratio of 143%. And here we see some room to trim going forward. We see a continued strong operational performance, 104.4%. This demonstrates our collection abilities and the good health of our portfolio. And the really strong investment volume for the quarter, 2.6 billion as mentioned, we are continuously buying portfolios at attractive levels that are accretive to our overall quality of the portfolio. Looking at the costs, they are tracking at a very good level, as they also did in Q1. We have an increased flexibility in our direct expenses. This will be further demonstrated in a future slide. facilitated by our expanded outsourced servicing optionality. And we have a stable indirect cost base, which will enable us to leverage a robust platform going forward. So all in all, we are very happy with this quarter. We're taking off the second quarter of the year on our journey to achieve SDR status. We saw a sharp and very positive increase in investments with a continued strong potential for the second half of the year. We are on top of our costs. We maintain our cost control and solid performance. Underlying ROE for the quarter adjusted from the one of items comes in at 16.1% versus the equivalent of 13.7% in last year. And as this is sort of a transitional period for us in 2025, considering we are carrying the SDR costs but not seeing the benefits yet, We are very happy with the results of the quarter, maintaining a healthy return level. So if we can move to the next slide, please. So we're picking up pace from Q1 with a really strong intake of the volume in Q2. This is the third highest single quarter in the past three years. Looking further into the second half of the year, we see a very strong pipeline with many interesting opportunities in the short as well as the mid-term. And this really brings us to a good place to reach the plan of a 36 billion portfolio book value by 2026. Already now in July, as I think Harry mentioned, we have an additional 1.9 billion SEK signed. And this is ready to be implemented in Q3. Parts of it possibly sliding into Q4. So we have a really good momentum in our investment activities. To mention some specifics, very happy to increase our presence in the Portuguese market with an additional leave closed during Q2. So far, we're very happy with the performance of this latest addition to our footprint. Overall, we're seeing return levels in our new investments this year that are accretive to the quality of our total portfolio. We, as always, remain disciplined in our investment and pricing strategy with a healthy risk level in our portfolio. This is also proven by our collection performance remaining above forecasted levels. And we are also continuing working with our strategic partnerships, both for servicing and for expanding our sourcing network. And our funding cost remains a very competitive edge for us in the market. I think we can move to the next slide. Looking at our asset class mix, the mix of our assets and the geographical spread remains similar to last quarter's. We have a healthy diversification of the book with the granular risk monitoring and a very low single risk exposure. We have a solid pan-European presence and geographical diversification. Our main two asset classes we invest into remains to be secured and unsecured. The secured part of the book is gradually increasing over the past year or years, but still at a rather moderate pace. All in all, we believe we have a very healthy portfolio and we manage it with the aim to deliver a stable and predictable performance. We have a continued positive tilt in the book. and with this i mean we we have a materially more portfolios over performing than underperforming in the mix of the total book and we will continue to focus at upholding these levels and believe the quality of the book is supporting that so if we go to the next slide please Looking at our funding, we see a similar mix to the one we presented in Q1. So we have 80% or 41 billion SEK consists of our deposits, now held at contractual maturity, three months or longer. We issued two bonds during Q1 to a total of 1.3 billion SEK and we repurchased 230 of older senior preferred. Our funding cost remains at similar levels as the previous two quarters. To sum it up, we have a diversified and competitively priced funding base, which is really bringing us to the forefront in the debt purchasing market. So this slide is to illustrate our development of net funding cost over portfolio book value. So we go from a 3.4% in last year to a 4.4% now in Q2. We also saw the same in Q1. uh roughly half of the increased 100 bps we see is related to sdr costs and the rest is related to other items such as the s p bond replacing the call the 81 in q1 and further bonditions to safeguard our rating so other activities we're currently in preparation for setting up our own euro deposit platforms in select markets this will bring a diversified set of tools and also bring lower costs For this quarter, we are at a rather high level of NSFR, as I mentioned before. This is something we will actively work to tighten a bit moving into Q3 and the second half of 2025. But also with this increased funding rate, we remain extremely competitive and in a really good place to keep growing. Next slide. Also in Q1, we see the continued trend of flexible direct cost versus collection with a slightly improved cost to collect in the first half of this year, mainly coming from increased level of outsourcing and other efficiency improvements. Looking at the indirect costs, we see a fairly flat underlying cost development. We are very cost conscious and focused to maintain the benefits of a former rejuvenation program and other cost saving activities such as the insourcing of IT. We're obviously also continuously looking for further optimization, but with this stability, we're in a very good place to leverage the future growth of our portfolio. You can go to the next slide. So this slide is basically describing the past five quarters ROE excluding, this is the reported number. So not the underlying. In summary, what we see is a continued strong quarter to quarter ROE trend with the underlying returns above 15%. So this is also after absorbing all costs associated with becoming an SDR organization. but before being able to see the full impacts of the benefits yet so we're very happy with the with the 15 roe in q2 and with a strong pipeline type cost control and more than adequate capital we are set to continue to grow in a very active market and we can go to the capital position we maintain a very strong capital position Materially above regulatory requirements, we move from 13.1% in Q1 to the illustrated 12.5% in the slide in Q2. This decrease is mainly driven by increased level of backstop and net investments for the quarter that were really high. So we have a continued strong and significant purchasing power sufficient to meet our growth plans for the remainder of this year. And looking at our liquidity position, looking at the LCR, we continue to maintain a very high level driven by the materially increased liquidity portfolio associated with becoming SDR. We have the 143% NSFR as mentioned, and this is something we will look to trim at reasonable levels during the second half of this year. And the liquidity portfolio remains at similar high levels as the past two quarters driven by the SDR criteria fulfillment. And I think that concludes the sort of results slide. So with that, I hand back to you, Harry.

Thank you. Thank you. And with the risk of being repetitive again here, before we open up for questions, I'll leave you with a few key takeaways. The strong underlying return on equity of 16.1% after including the full cost of the SDR. We're very happy about that. We do see still attractive and accretive IRRs in a highly active market. We have talked about before how seller and buyer have had difficulties meeting each other and that some deals have sort of been gone back or been canceled. We don't see that so much anymore. I don't think we have had a single deal that has been pulled back after being sort of launched. So I think seller and buyer are on the same expectation level to a greater extent now this year. As mentioned multiple times, we have a strong pipeline. There is lots of activity out there in Europe. Our costs are under control. uh this doesn't mean that we are we are done with uh with optimizations etc we will continue doing that day by day week by week quarter by quarter out in the markets and also in the functions we are well capitalized and we have as you've seen ample liquidity for for managing our business And we continue to meet the full SDR criteria, and we expect to notify in 2026. So that was faster than 30 minutes. Thank you all for listening. And now it's time to open up for questions, I guess. And then I press a button somewhere.

If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key 6 on your telephone keypad. Next question comes from Ulrich Zerker from Nordia. Please go ahead.

Thank you for taking my questions. You write that the IRR has stabilized, as you say it. But I noticed if you take the investment portfolio of 36, sorry, of 31 billion, when we look at the estimated remaining collection next 15 years, you get quite a drop queue on queue in the implied growth IRR. Is there anything going on there?

Sorry Ulrik, you're referring to the gross IRR? Yeah, exactly. Okay, because what we see, we saw an increase in the net IRR during 2024 driven by certain events and we see a stabilized level now in 2025 which is still accretive to the sort of underlying quality of our book and in the gross IRR I would say it's pretty much at stable levels as well. But regarding your calculation, that's something I would have to sort of look into and come back, I guess.

But yeah, it is a bit simplified, but you had like an upward sloping trajectory for some years now, because we reinvest at higher levels, but there's a bit of a weird drop now.

Okay. But I will have to look at that so we can get back to you.

Okay, yeah, great. Just secondly, there's a lot of moving parts on the deposit side. And you're talking about being a bit more efficient on the NSFR liquidity position. Should we expect roughly flat deposit costs like nominally out the air now? Or how will the margin develop? And any comments you can give on that? Very helpful.

I guess, I mean, the liquidity buffer will grow in line with the portfolio, right? So if portfolio grows, that one will also increase. But in terms of the rates, et cetera, I guess we, well, the Swedish Riksbank lowered the rates and we adapted to that. And I think in Europe, we are sort of adapting to the, let's say, NSFR efficiency of the platforms we are using. So on that side, I would expect us to be flat to slightly lower on the rates. And then in terms of, like I said, the full liquidity portfolio, it will grow in line with the portfolio growth, basically. At similar ratios.

What about the... Yeah, thank you. What about the margins in Euro and SEC going forward? Because they're a bit high now because you changed your deposit base, but should the margins go down the next years?

It's difficult to say where the interest rates and sort of the deposit base moves. But yes, in general, we were more attractive, let's say, in Q1 and Q2 for especially the three-month and the six-month offering. And I would expect that to normalize over time.

Thank you. That's all from me. Thank you very much, Ulrik.

Next question comes from Ehrman from Carrick. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Jens. Thanks for the presentation and for taking my question. So maybe if we start on the collection performance, which was pretty good here in Q2, do you think it's fair to just extrapolate that from here, or how should we think about it? It sounds like you don't really see much gray clouds forming on the horizon either.

No, if I can... No, I mean, no gray clouds. We still have a positive tilt of the book. We were at 103% in Q1, now at 104%. We are still very actively managing our book to perform at stable levels. We're obviously happy with everything above the 100% forecast. But this item feels very stable at the moment.

And then I'm just thinking on the kind of investment composition. Do you think that will change anything when you become an SDR? You touched upon it that you've increased the exposure to secured somewhat over the year. Do you think that kind of mixed change will continue the coming years or does unsecured become relatively more attractive to you than it was before you became an SDR, before you have become an SDR?

Yeah, I mean, considering the sort of backstop schedule for the two asset types, unsecured is normally a bigger problem from the backstop perspective. So that's going to facilitate, it's going to put us in a better place to keep buying more unsecured. The secured, as I said, the backstop schedule makes it fairly less complex at the moment for us. We also receive portions of backstop in Secure as well, but I think the real benefit is the unsecured for us once we achieve the SDR status.

But I think we could also add that typically now Secure, our Secure asset class, we're mostly active in the south of Europe. What we do see now is that mortgages etc are coming for sale in smaller volumes than in the south but it's starting to pop up further north as well so so it might be that if if if those markets continue to develop that way that that it would basically open up for for for a larger share of secured but but from a sort of backstop perspective and from an str perspective it's fully like like magnus says right it the unsecured will become relatively more attractive got it thanks for

And then one last question coming back a little bit to what Ulrich was on as well. But just thinking here now about the NSFR you have and kind of where you would want to operate going forward, how much you think you can take out from opening up your own platform and then kind of balancing that against the strong pipeline you see of new investments. How to think about kind of the liquidity you intend to hold?

I mean, we definitely are in the high range in Q2. I think it's a combination of us sort of understanding more about the customer behavior now with the fixed terms that we are entering since Q1. but with that we will also be better to sort of foresee the movements in in the market and our ambition is definitely to be below the 143 percent level where we are today but obviously during this year and also in future years the 130 percent mark will be extremely important to stay above for obvious reasons but we will definitely be able to to end up in a in a better position than in q2 And this I'm completely convinced about.

Great. Thank you, and have a nice summer.

Thank you, Ermin. Thanks.

Next question comes from Bjorn Olsson from SEB. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Hi, guys. My first question comes a bit back to what Ermin was touching on. Thinking about your pipeline for the second half of the year, and I mean, you clearly guide on it continuing to being strong. I'm just thinking, should we expect a pipeline or sort of expect something in the range of the second half of 2024? Or sort of what size should we expect? And could you sort of elaborate a bit on sort of how busy are people? You're writing that they're busy now during summer. How busy are they compared to last year? and obviously like Ermin was touching upon regarding unsecured portfolios you're right you this apparently your unsecured portfolio is basically eating roughly one and a half percent of your CET1 per quarter now so is that sort of a restraint on your ability to acquire unsecured portfolios for the second half of this year as you still are not formally qualified as SDR Or could you guide any on that as well as a constraint on acquisitions for the second half of this year?

I'll take that one. I think yes, the team is busy. That is clear. And I guess there are two reasons for that. Typically, in the north, people want to close the deals before midsummer. In the south, people want to close the deals before, let's say, the first, second week in August, before they go on holidays, or at least sign them, and then make sure that they are implemented later in the quarter after the holidays. So it is a busy time. And I think there is a shift in, for many years, Q4 has been the absolute biggest volume quarter. And as you saw last year as well with voice Q2, Q3 or summer, let's say early late Q2 and early Q3 have become more important from a volume perspective. And that trend looks to continue this year. We are absolutely not guiding for any 4.5 billion in Q3, but we see the activity and And we will, of course, capture the share we think is at attractive returns. So it's difficult to give you a number there. But basically, the pipeline is in line with last year. And we are tracking towards the ambition of 36 by 26 as before. And there was a second part to your question there as well. No?

Yeah, more technical one, I guess. Basically, currently with the NPL backstop continuing to eat capital, you're basically stating that backstop has increased by roughly half a billion since the start of this year, and you're right that your CT1 would be 2.9% higher hadn't it been for the NPL backstop. And like Ermin was touching upon, it's mainly unsecured that drives this. So given that you still have six months until you qualify as SDR, is this a constraint on the second half's ability to acquire unsecured portfolios? Or how should we view this? I guess, how low can you go in terms of CT1 pressure in the second half?

I think obviously it's an important criteria when we look at the portfolio. And we do have the co-investment partnerships and the tools that we have been using. And as you can see in the report, the income from that area is increasing. So we don't skip interesting portfolios. Obviously, when we co-invest, we get a smaller share. We don't get 100%. But we still bid for those. So we are obviously with an SDR status, then we have no constraints whatsoever in that space. But we are still able to go after unsecured portfolios together with our partners, which has been working out really nicely.

Fair enough. Another question on your new deposit platform. You're writing that you're starting in Germany. When could we expect, first of all, the platform to go live? Second, could you give us a ballpark figure of basis points, how much more efficient it is compared to using a platform provider? And likewise for sort of cost effect on the IT side of things.

I think the plan is to be live with the platform in Q4 this year. So a very high tempo project. Now we know Germany since before, obviously through a partner. We know the platform from before. We're using the same as we have in Sweden. So to minimize risk and to... make sure that we get it up and running in time and that we can operate it properly. The cost for the project and for the setup is, I would say, I don't want the project team to hear me, but it's negligible in relation to sort of the result here. It's below 10 million SEK for the project. I hope the supplier didn't hear me. But in terms of, and then comes sort of the marketing and getting the deposit customers on there. And that will start immediately in Q4. Looking at the difference in cost compared to using a partner is not something we will go out with, but we could say, On a similar volume, let's say the fee would be a half to two thirds or something like that. Let's say the operating cost. So it is cheaper on the platform, on our own platform. I hope that answers your question.

Yeah, I guess as much as you can say. Thanks. And the final question, always coming back to the backstop. It's currently around 1.1 billion in reserves. When do you think we could expect any guidance on how you plan on utilizing these reserves once you become an SDR?

Any such guidance I would expect at the Q4 report in February 2026. once the board has made its decision.

Great and you're basically I guess as you say it's up to the board but this is basically to be viewed as something that can either be used as a dividend or for buybacks.

Yes our dividend policy stays in place and of course we need to look at where the pipeline is and what you know what the portfolio market looks like towards the end of the year. And of course, also looking forward for the Q1 in next year.

Okay, great. Thanks a lot. Have a nice summer.

Thank you. The same to you, Bjorn.

Next question comes from Markus Sandgren from Kepler Shoebrew. Please go ahead.

Morning, guys. Now I was just, Harry, you said something that it seems like buyers and sellers are more on the same note now too in terms of pricing. What's your take on, is the lower rates driving, I mean, or increasing the prices of portfolios or is that not noticeable?

uh i i i think you can almost uh for those of you on the call who are from stockholm there's it's it's very similar dynamics to the to the housing market in in stockholm basically so for uh as as funding cost went up for the industry uh prices for portfolios or bids for portfolios came down and we saw uh definitely during 2023 but still under 2024 a number of of deals being revoked basically the sellers did not get what they want i would say there has been um an I think the IRRs, as we say, they have stabilized, right? So I think they're not growing at the moment. And I think the sellers, on the other hand, have then sort of gotten a new set of expectations, basically. So I think that's basically the answer to the question, I think, I hope.

Yeah, so given that rate doesn't move too much, this is what we should expect going forward, more or less.

That's what we see for now in the pipeline and our win ratios.

Okay, very good. Thanks. That's all from me and have a nice summer.

Thank you. You too. You too, Markus.

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

All right. We have one written question here today. Is there a preference to buy secured portfolios and do you find it harder to acquire secured portfolios as they seem to have met a higher return on investments but are a smaller part of the total acquired portfolios today?

Well, I can just reiterate the... As we said, the mortgage product is typically sold in Southern Europe. If it was sold in the mid of Europe and North of Europe as well, we would definitely be going after it. So I think that's the limitation mostly in terms of availability of those MPLs. We are very strong in this asset class. It is an asset class where the funding cost advantage is clearer because you value the underlying security. I would say most investors value it similarly. And then, of course, it's a question of how competitive you can be with your financing. And so that is a very strong point for Hoist Finance. And we are seeing, although from small volumes, right, but we see this asset class popping up now in mid-Europe or it's moving north. And so we are hoping to be able to expand in that asset class going forward.

Very good. That's actually the only written question we have. So with that, thanks, everyone, for listening today.

thank you all very very much and we wish you a fantastic summer and if not sooner we'll speak to you in another quarter thank you thank you bye bye