Jardine Cycle & Carriage Limited (C07) Earnings Call Transcript

Good afternoon. Welcome to Jardine Cycle & Carriage's Half Year 2026 Results Presentation. I'm Freddy, the Chief Executive of Jardine Cycle & Carriage. And together with me today is Yangyan, our Finance Director. Before we proceed, some logistics on today's presentation. If you have any questions, may I invite you to type them in the Q&A box and we will address them at the end of this session. Let me start today's session with an update on our strategic review, and Yangyan will share our half year financial performance later on. A year ago, we announced that we were embarking on a strategic review with the objective of driving future growth and improving shareholder returns. Now this work consisted of reviewing the portfolio company's business strategies, priorities as well as initiatives on one hand as well as reviewing, on the other hand, the role and focus of JC&C at the parent level. The review reaffirmed that our investments have credible growth paths. They are well positioned to execute their strategies independently given their solid operating capabilities, balance sheet as well as cash generation capability. Now in addition, the review also set out several strategic priorities for us at the JC&C parent level. Firstly, about the role of JC&C. We are and have always been an intermediate holding company of Jardine Matheson's portfolio of Southeast Asian investments. In this capacity, our primary responsibility is to actively steward and add value to the portfolio companies. Now we do this by bringing greater investment and capital allocation rigor, connecting management teams to relevant parties and network expertise across the internal and external networks of Jardine Matheson and promoting governance standards that distinguish these businesses. Our involvement should remain focused on these areas supporting better decisions, stronger capabilities and sustainable value creation in the portfolio companies. JC&C shareholders will benefit from value creation at the portfolio company level and disciplined capital allocation at the JC&C level. As we continue into this role, having clarified our focus and regional identity within the wider Jardine Matheson Group, we are proposing a change of company name to Jardine Matheson Southeast Asia Limited, subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals. I would like to emphasize this is not a change in direction, but a clearer expression of our role, focus and accountability. Moving on, another strategic priority is to actively review our investments to achieve a focused portfolio as well as to maintain balance sheet strength. Now this entails undertaking portfolio actions in accordance with our strategic and investment criteria. To this end, we have taken steps and will continue to take steps to improve shareholder returns. As a holding company that is not an operating business, we have always emphasized the priority of reducing our corporate net debt. We remain committed to do that and maintaining a balance sheet -- a strong balance sheet. As the portfolio is being reshaped through opportunities to sharpen the focus of and improve returns from the portfolio, we will carefully evaluate our capital structure, including, as a priority, the reduction of corporate net debt. Moving on to some actions taken. We have taken a number of actions to optimize the portfolio in the recent months. In the past 12 months, we have partially divested our holdings in Vinamilk and Toyota Motor Corporation. These capital recycling initiatives have released $334 million to us. Now some of these portfolio actions have enabled us to unlock and deliver value for shareholders in the form of a special dividend, which I'll be sharing more details in the next slide. Equally material, it has enabled us to strengthen our financial position at the parent level through reducing corporate net debt. We have lowered our corporate net debt from USD 577 million at the end of last year to $286 million as of June this year. In this next slide, we are pleased to announce that the Board has proposed a special dividend to shareholders. The special dividend has 2 components: a cash distribution and a distribution in specie. In April this year, we divested half of our holdings in Toyota Motor Corporation, or TMC, for $146 million. The proceeds from this divestment will fund the cash component of the special dividend, translating to approximately $0.37 per share for JC&C shareholders. Now in addition to the cash dividend, JC&C will also distribute its remaining TMC shares in specie to shareholders, which amounts to approximately $0.36 per share. Distribution in specie is a capital management tool that provides the opportunity of choice for shareholders to participate directly in the ownership and future value of the underlying investment or if they so choose, realize it in cash. JC&C shareholders can choose to receive the TMC shares and directly maintain an interest in it. They can also opt to choose the cash alternative for the value of those shares. The special dividend totaling approximately $0.73 per share, combining cash and in specie reflects our philosophy to use the most appropriate capital allocation tool to deliver value to shareholders. Now this special dividend is in addition to our regular interim dividend announced at half year, and it will be subject to shareholders' approval in an extraordinary general meeting to be held later in this year. More details will be announced in the coming weeks. Let me touch on a few portfolio company updates. As mentioned at the start of this presentation, our objective is to improve shareholder returns through disciplined capital and active portfolio management. Astra unveiled its strategic road map in May of this year. And for our Vietnam portfolio companies, we have published our strategic priorities and have also presented at the Jardine Matheson Investor Day in June. We would also like to take the opportunity now to recap some of the highlights. In addition, we will share the focus area of Cycle & Carriage Singapore here. Starting with Astra. Over the years, Astra has developed a broad and resilient portfolio across 7 business pillars. It has consistently delivered a strong business performance, more than doubling both EPS and DPS over the past decade. However, its 10-year total shareholder return was approximately 6%. This represents a solid outcome, but we recognize that it does not fully reflect Astra's potential. We are working closely with the new CEO, Pak Rudy, and the management team to improve Astra's TSR by focusing attention and capital on the businesses where Astra has the strongest competitive advantages and the greatest ability to create sustainable value. Astra's new strategy, which places TSR at the center of decision-making, involves first focusing its 3 core business engines, automotive, financial services and mining solutions and heavy equipment businesses, which collectively generates 90% of its profits. They also represent areas where Astra has strong competitive advantages and the right to win. These businesses have been established market-leading positions, significant scale and strong management capabilities. They will remain the principal drivers of Astra's earnings. For Astra's remaining business lines, they will adopt a proactive portfolio management approach to enhance overall portfolio quality. As Astra has mentioned, every business should have a clear role, whether by strengthening the core businesses with strategic ecosystem fit, offering a credible path to market leadership and scale or generating attractive stand-alone returns in its own right. Astra has also communicated a more transparent and disciplined capital allocation framework around maintenance CapEx, a healthy dividend payout ratio. Beyond this, Astra will also pursue acquisitions, both domestically and internationally where appropriate. Investments must meet appropriate risk-adjusted hurdle rates. They must demonstrate a clear strategic rationale, be it for a controlling stake or offer a credible path to control. Astra has also announced buybacks in the recent months. Buybacks will be used as a further option to improve TSR. The opportunities on acquisitions will be balanced against share buybacks where the shares offer compelling value. Finally, successful delivery will require strong leadership alignment and clear accountability with incentives directly aligned to TSR. Astra aspires to deliver low teens annual absolute TSR over a 5-year period. These aspirations will play out over time across cycles as it weathers through the short-term fluctuations. This summarizes Astra's broad strategic directions. There will be refinements as it progresses on these priorities, and Astra will share more along the way. Moving on to our investments in Vietnam, which remains a key market for us. Our investments in THACO and REE have compounded well over time and have been capital-efficient return-generating platform investments. They have delivered IRRs in excess of 15%, strong ROI and cash contributions well over our cost of investment. THACO and REE aim to double their net profit by 2030, and we fully support this ambition. Here are the operational priorities to achieve that goal. For THACO, it will focus on 3 key areas. Firstly, it will grow its real estate business by continuing the development of its existing Sala City project, launching new residential projects and accelerating sales to expand and strengthen its real estate portfolio. Second, THACO will scale its agri business, beginning with a target to triple banana production this year and sustaining further growth thereafter. Thirdly, THACO will defend the cash generation of its automotive business while expanding through new proprietary commercial vehicle brands and products as well as higher export sales. Cash generation through automotive will generally be invested outside the sector going forward. As for REE, it will pursue growth through the expansion of its renewable energy and commercial property platforms. It plans to increase its equity-adjusted renewable energy capacity from approximately 1 gigawatt today to 3 gigawatts in 2030. In commercial real estate, REE will continue improving occupancy at its flagship e.town development while expanding office net lettable area from 180,000 square meters to approximately 300,000 square meters by 2030. Moving on. These are also the focus areas of Cycle & Carriage, our dealership business. It will focus on more product launches across its passenger car brands in both Singapore and Malaysia. In Malaysia, Cycle & Carriage recently added Kia and Leap Motor and we'll be focusing on rolling out the network for these 2 brands. The commercial vehicle segment in Singapore has also been strengthening over the last few years. Cycle & Carriage will continue to grow this business alongside its passenger car business. This wraps up the priorities of our portfolio of businesses. We will continue to actively provide stewardship over them and continue to review JC&C's overall portfolio from time to time to improve returns for all shareholders. I will now hand over the time to Yangyan to present our half year results.

Thanks, Freddy. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Yangyan, JC&C's Finance Director. I will now take you through our first half performance. For the first 6 months, JC&C posted an underlying profit of $473 million and underlying earnings per share of $1.20. This is both down 11% year-on-year. I will share more details with you in the next slide. Based on our half year performance, the Board has declared an interim dividend of $0.28 per share, unchanged from the prior year. In addition, as Freddy mentioned earlier, we are proposing a special dividend of approximately $0.73 per share in cash and in specie. This brings our total dividend for the half year period to approximately $1.01 per share. In the first 6 months of the year, following various capital recycling initiatives, we also strengthened our balance sheet position by reducing our corporate net debt from $577 million as at the end of 2025 to $286 million. Now looking at our underlying profit. We reported an underlying profit of $473 million, 11% down year-on-year. On a constant exchange rate basis, our profit will have been 6% down. The 11% reduction in underlying profit was due to lower contributions from Indonesia and Singapore as well as reduced dividend income from Vinamilk following our partial divestment and also the absence of nonrecurring foreign exchange gains, which was $33 million recognized in the first half of last year from the translation of foreign currency loans at the JC&C corporate level. If we look at total contributions from our portfolio businesses, it is down 7%. Indonesia contributed $427 million, down 8%. Vietnam contributed $43 million, which was 21% higher than last year. Last year, we received higher dividend income from Vinamilk, which we have since divested the majority of our holdings as at the end of 2025. Excluding Vinamilk, Vietnam's contribution will be 47% higher. And finally, our regional interests contributed $16 million, which is 24% lower. On corporate costs, we recorded a net financing income of $6 million compared to net financing charges of $9 million last year. This was because the coupon interest accrued from our THACO convertible bond have more than offset the interest expenses from our borrowings, which have come down as we continue to reduce the corporate net debt. Moving on to our balance sheet position. Shareholder funds remained strong at $8.3 billion. JC&C's consolidated net debt, excluding the net borrowings from Astra's financial services subsidiaries increased from $44 million as at the end of 2025 to $559 million as of the end of the first half of 2026, reflecting investments and share buybacks made at the Astra level. The JC&C corporate net debt was reduced from $577 million to $286 million, mainly due to the proceeds from the partial divestments of our interest in Vinamilk and TMC in the current period. I will now take you through each of our business segments in further detail, starting with Indonesia. In the first half, Astra and Tunas contributed a total of $427 million, down 8% from the prior year. Astra's contribution was $417 million, 9% lower. Tunas' contribution was up 7% to $10 million. The improvement was due to higher profits from automotive and consumer financing. I will now take you through more details on Astra's performance in the next slide. Astra reported a net income for the first half of 2026 at $863 million on a 100% basis. Following Astra's strategic road map presentation in May, Astra is now reporting its business performance in the 3 core business engines of Automotive, Financial Services and Mining Solutions and Heavy Equipment. Its wider portfolio businesses are grouped under Others here. Starting with the Automotive business. Net income from this division was up 9% to $343 million. The motorcycle market in Indonesia grew 1% to 3.1 million units in the first half. Astra's 2-wheeler sales was also up 1%, and Astra continued to maintain a strong market share of 77%. The wholesale car market increased 16% against 2025's weaker sales to 437,000 units. Astra's brands, Toyota and Daihatsu continue to maintain their first and second best-selling brand positions. Astra recorded 10% higher car sales and its market share was 51%. Astra continued to record its used -- grow its used car business through OLXmobbi. For the first half of 2026, it recorded 4% higher sales to 15,700 units. Similarly, Astra is strengthening its component business, Astra Otoparts, or AOP, which reported 23% higher net income to $53 million for the first half year. Moving on to Financial Services. Net income is up 6% at $269 million. This was due to higher contributions from consumer financing on larger loan portfolios. Astra's consumer finance business saw its loan book increase 10% in the first half due to growth in automotive and multi-cycle financing. Astra's insurance arm also saw improvement, reporting 7% higher net income. Next, on to United Tractors. The net income from this division is down 46% at $157 million. This was largely due to minimal gold sales in the first half with the temporary operation halts at the Martabe gold mine. Martabe resumed mining operations in May. In the first half, UT's total gold sales were 23,000 ounces compared to 125,000 ounces for the same period last year. In 2026, the coal production quota or RKAB allocation was lower, and this impacted mining contracting customer demand and heavy equipment sales. Mining contracting overburden volumes were down 10% at 481 million bank cubic meters. UT's own coal sales were also down 10% to 6 million tonnes. The lower demand in the mining sector saw Komatsu sales reduced by 27% to just under 2,000 units. And lastly, for the rest of the Astra businesses, net income was up 31% to $94 million. This was mainly due to improved results from Astra's agri business, which saw higher palm oil prices and sales as well as contributions from the newly acquired industrial warehouse platform. Turning to our businesses in Vietnam. The combined contribution from THACO and REE was $39 million. This is a 47% increase compared to the same period last year. THACO contributed $28 million, up 65% from the prior year. This was largely driven by strong performance in its real estate business with higher property sales and more higher-value properties sold. In automotive, THACO recorded higher sales in both the passenger car and commercial vehicle segments. Overall, total sales were 9% higher at 45,000 units. However, greater competitive pressure impacted both margins and market share. THACO's market share declined from 16% to 14%. THACO's agricultural business broke even in the first half as we saw the sales volumes of bananas doubled during this period. REE contributed 15% higher underlying profit to $11 million for the first quarter of 2026. This was due to higher earnings across most of its businesses. REE has just reported its half year results and posted 9% higher net profit in Vietnamese dong terms. This will be included in JC&C's third quarter earnings. Wrapping up Vietnam, we received a dividend income of $4 million from Vinamilk at our reduced holding of 2.5% in the company. Next, moving on to the performance of our Regional Interests. Our Regional Interests contributed $16 million to JC&C's underlying profit, which is 24% lower. This was mainly due to Cycle & Carriage results, which were down 28% to $12 million. Singapore makes up most of the earnings of Cycle & Carriage. Reflecting new government incentives to encourage BEV purchases, Cycle & Carriage recorded 20% lower new car sales and its market share declined to 10%. Used car sales were also down 16%. While commercial vehicle sales grew by an encouraging 37%, it did not adequately offset the decline in earnings from the passenger car segment. These factors led to a lower contribution to JC&C's underlying profit. We now wrap up this segment of our presentation with the outlook for the rest of the year. For the remainder of 2026, we expect the operating environment in Indonesia to continue facing macroeconomic headwinds. Nevertheless, we are confident in Astra's long-term fundamentals and are committed to working with Astra to drive performance. In respect of our Vietnam portfolio, we continue to be positive on THACO and REE's sustained growth trajectory. THACO aims to continue progressing its real estate development and sales, and REE is expected to increase its renewable energy generation capacity this year as well as increasing the occupancy of its e.town office development. As for Regional Interests, our cycle and carriage businesses for the rest of the year will focus on new passenger car launches. This is a good mix of brands and products to meet the changing needs of the market.

We will close today's session. Thank you, everyone, for joining our call today, and have a good afternoon. Thank you.

Thank you.