The Berkeley Group Holdings plc (BKG) Earnings Call Transcript

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Berkeley Group's results presentation for the 6 months ended 31st of October 2024. I am Rob Perrins, Chief Executive of the Berkeley Group. Today, we are launching a new 10-year strategy, Berkeley 2035, which I'll come to in a moment. But I'd like to start with this image of Regent's View, which has recently been named the World's Best Future Residential Project at the World Architecture Festival held in Singapore. This innovative regeneration of a former gasworks site encapsulates the essence of Berkeley with individual design and fantastic placemaking at the heart of our customer-led proposition. The design of Regent's View celebrates the industrial character of this 4.5-acre East London site, and we'll see 2 distinctive Victorian gasholders carefully restored to become the centerpiece of a new mixed-use neighborhood. The development includes 5 colorful and finely detailed buildings, 2 of which sit within the restored gasholder frames. Together, they will provide 550 new homes, and the development will open up a stretch of Regent's Canal that's been closed for over 150 years and create a 1.8 acre of new public space. Moving on to the announcement, I will cover 4 main areas. Today's results are in line with guidance, and we're on track to achieve our full year '25 and full year '26 profit guidance and complete the current shareholder returns program. This represents strong execution by our teams in a challenging operating environment. As previously announced, pretax return on equity will dip below our long-term 15% target due to the impact of the operating environment and the market conditions over recent years. There has been a meaningful improvement in the planning system. This bodes well for Berkeley with its brownfield landholdings and pipeline in urban areas. Berkeley 2035, our new 10-year strategy announced today, is about capitalizing on this opportunity. And we believe we are close to the point of inflection when both the operating environment and market conditions become supportive of investment. This is a 10-year flexible capital allocation framework that will enable us to take advantage of near-term investment opportunities to grow future profitability and shareholder returns over the long term. So where are we today? Sales volumes are stable, but 1/3 lower than full year 2023, although we've seen a slight improvement since September. Sales prices are ahead of business plan, and cancellations are at normal levels. Build costs are also stable. There is a potential inflationary risk associated with the budget, but we do not currently expect this to be significant. We are working with the new building safety regulator in respect of gateway 2 and gateway 3 to minimize delays to production. We have third-party assessments on over 95% of the 820 buildings that we are responsible for under the self-remediation contract. We have now begun production on over 800 homes for our own build-to-rent platform. This commitment represents 20% of the initial portfolio of some 4,000 rental properties. We acquired one new site in Berkshire for 220 homes following the grant of a planning consent. The government's aspiration to deliver 1.5 million homes over this parliament has been a catalyst to unlocking the planning system. But there is more to do to attract investment required to meet this ambition. This requires a stable and predictable operating environment, a fair system of taxation and ability to make returns that reflect both the inherent risk of development and incentivize great placemaking. But unfortunately, the transition to a new regulator and building safety regime risks increasing costs and delaying programs until the regulator is properly resourced and the inevitable teething issues are identified and resolved. The 4% residential property developers tax on top of the increased rate of corporation tax with a further building safety levy being discussed. Development viability has been hampered by the inflationary pressures over the last 8 years, with build costs rising by over 40% an ever-increasing planning tariff, which combines high level of affordable housing with increasing infrastructure levies and other cash payments, and the cost and inefficiency of local design guidance and policy layering. We believe there is a clear road map for addressing these challenges, which combines the following 3 areas: firstly, density and intensification. We need to make the best possible use of brownfield land through increased density and intensification. This is wholly appropriate for many urban areas and aligns with the government housing growth and net zero agendas. Secondly, a clear ordering of priorities needs to be set. Government needs to make choices if it wants to increase delivery. For example, if affordable housing is the #1 priority, along with local amenities and placemaking, there needs to be flexibility on other policy asks. Replacing the inflexible community infrastructure levy with locally negotiated Section 106 agreements would enable this to happen on more sites. Thirdly, the cost and inefficiency of local design guidance and policy layering needs to be removed. Therefore, government's focus on making the most of urban development is incredibly important, and we support the proposed changes to the National Planning Policy Framework and the emerging proposals for the national development management policies and brownfield passports. In this more positive planning environment, Berkeley has received 5 resolution to grant planning permission and over 20 planning amendments. We've also received resolution for a new master plan at the Green Quarter, an 87-acre former gasworks site in Southall, which more than doubles the current permission. In introducing Berkeley 2035, I'd like to remind you of Berkeley's approach to long-term value creation, which underpins the strategy announced today. Berkeley is an added-value property company. This means we seek to achieve the optimum development solution and returns on every site. We adopt a countercyclical approach to investment from a position of financial strength. Our risk appetite responds to the operating environment. We limit investment when conditions are not conducive for growth, favoring shareholder returns. And we invest to grow when the conditions are right and the appropriate opportunities to do so are there to increase profits and returns over the long term. We now see such an investment period ahead. So what are the opportunities for investment? The easing of the planning system, coupled with a strong focus on urban brownfield development, enables us to optimize our existing sites. We have over 13,000 future homes in our pipeline, which we can now focus on bringing through the planning system and into delivery. We also anticipate more land opportunities will meet our investment criteria, allowing us to target growth in the second half of the 10-year period. We will deliver our build-to-rent portfolio to drive both value and net income. And we'll grow the portfolio more aggressively, should we determine this is the best course of action for delivering shareholder value. And finally, we will make returns to shareholders through share buybacks and dividends. Turning to capital allocation. We have identified GBP 7 billion of capital to deploy over the next 10 years. This is free cash flow that will be available to the business from existing reserves and trading activity before land investment and the construction of the build-to-rent portfolio. The table on the slide sets out the initial allocation. There are two points I would like to emphasize. First, there is GBP 1.3 billion unallocated. We will allocate this to new land, our build-to-rent portfolio or shareholder returns, depending on the operating environment over the period. Secondly, the GBP 7 billion is before the introduction of any third-party funding to our build-to-rent portfolio. The latter point provides additional financial capacity and the flexibility to further increase investment or enhance shareholder returns. I would like to finish by summarizing the value proposition for our shareholders. We will increase the return on capital in the core business through optimizing existing sites, bring our pipeline sites into delivery and through investment in new land. We will materially grow the value of our build-to-rent portfolio. We will maintain the size of the future landholdings gross margin at around GBP 6 billion. We will return at least GBP 2 billion to shareholders, primarily through share buybacks. We will either invest a further GBP 1.3 billion in the business or increase shareholder returns from the GBP 2 billion above. Berkeley will retain its financial strength throughout. And finally, the ability to introduce third-party funding to the rental platform provides further capability for investment or shareholder returns. We will do this while maintaining our market-leading brand and reputation for quality and delivery through Berkeley’s Our Vision 2030 ESG framework. Thank you very much for listening. I will now hand over to Richard to run through the interim results.

Thank you, Rob, and good morning, everyone. I will take you through the results today, beginning with a summary and touching on the drivers of revenue and profitability before looking in more detail at the income statement, cash flow, balance sheet and landholdings before summarizing our guidance. Beginning with a summary of performance for the period. We have delivered GBP 275 million of pretax profit, in line with our guidance provided within the September trading update. Earnings per share decreased by 6% to 187p, reflecting lower profit, partially offset by share buybacks and the share consolidation undertaken in the period. The operating margin was 20.2%, and pretax return on equity was 15.6%. I have also included ROCE on this slide, which is 17.5% for the first half of the year. Looking at the financial position of the group, shareholders' funds are GBP 3.5 billion, a decrease of GBP 50 million in the period, with profit after tax outweighed by shareholder returns. Shares in issue, net of treasury and those held in the EBT, have reduced by 3.9% to 102 million, largely as a result of the share consolidation, which accompanied the special dividend in September alongside 0.5 million of share buybacks. As a consequence, net asset value per share has actually increased by 2.5% to GBP 34.47. Net cash is GBP 474 million, down from GBP 532 million at the year-end. This slide sets out our two important operational metrics. First, we have cash due on forward sales covering the next 3 years of GBP 1.5 billion. This provides strong visibility on near-term earnings and cash flow. As a reminder, this figure represents the cash still to collect on our exchanged private sales only. It is therefore a cash, not a revenue figure. Our customer deposit strategy remains 20% on a staged basis if the customer is purchasing more than 12 months from completion. The forward sales figure does not include reservations, nor does it include affordable housing contracts or commercial properties. And it excludes joint ventures. Approximately 40% of the forward sales cash relates to the remainder of this financial year and the remainder thereafter. Secondly, the estimated future gross margin in our landholdings has reduced by GBP 200 million to GBP 6.7 billion, and I will look at this movement later. This slide highlights the key components of revenue and profitability. We sold 2,103 homes at an average selling price of GBP 600,000 in the half year. This compares to 1,785 homes sold at an average selling price of GBP 624,000 in the first half last year. As always, the change in ASP reflects the mix of properties delivered in the respective periods as opposed to underlying sales price movements. Looking ahead, we expect volumes to average around 4,000 in each of the next 3 years. Pricing for FY '25 will be around GBP 600,000 before moderating to between this and GBP 550,000 in the following 2 years. Our pretax profit guidance, therefore, remains unchanged at GBP 975 million collectively across this year and next, that is GBP 525 million this year and GBP 450 million next year. It is clearly difficult to be more specific in these markets. And as we have said many times, we will always prioritize cash flow and quality of profit ahead of annual profit targets. Turning now to the income statement and comparing this to the first half of the last financial year, revenue has increased by 7% to GBP 1.3 billion, with higher volumes being partially offset by lower average selling price, as just set out. Gross profit is GBP 339 million, representing a stable gross margin of 26.5%. Overheads are consistent with the comparative period at GBP 80 million. And the operating margin is 20.2%, which is a strong performance in the current environment and slightly above the top end of the long-term historic range, which is 17.5% to 19.5%. We do anticipate margins remaining towards the upper level of this range over the next 2 years. Our net finance income is GBP 10 million compared to GBP 5 million in the prior period, with our high cash balances and fixed coupon on the green bond, this reflects average interest rates in the half year, around 5%. Our share of joint venture profits reduced to GBP 7 million in the period, as previously indicated, with St. Edward now delivering out of London sites only. JV profit will therefore remain at this more modest level, and I've dropped a separate JV slide accordingly. The effective rate of tax for the year was 28.9%, consistent with the comparative period. This reflects both corporation tax at 25% and the 4% residential property developer tax. This slide sets out the cash flows for the half year, which shows a decrease in net cash of GBP 58 million to GBP 474 million. GBP 275 million was generated from pretax profits with a GBP 21 million net increase in working capital. I will run through the key movements within working capital shortly. During the half, we paid GBP 63 million of tax. But the most significant item leading to the reduction in net cash is the GBP 242 million shareholder return, which comprises dividend payments of GBP 219 million and GBP 23 million of share buybacks. I will not go through each line on this balance sheet slide as I will run through the two key numbers, inventories and creditors, in the next two slides. I've added a couple of reconciliations on the side of the slide this time, illustrating the movements in net assets and shares in issue to explain the increase in net asset value per share. This has increased by 84p to GBP 34.47 as a consequence of the share consolidation and share buybacks in the period. This slide analyzes the GBP 53 million decrease in inventories in more detail. The overall land cost in the balance sheet has decreased by GBP 94 million. We have acquired 1 new site in the period in Maidenhead and moved 4 sites into production. These are the residential elements of Milton Keynes, Wandsworth Mills, Spring Hill in Maidenhead and Hurlingham in Fulham. Build work in progress has also [ decreased ] by GBP 64 million. Partially offsetting the reduction in land and build work-in-progress is an anticipated increase in completed stock, which now stands at GBP 316 million. This is spread across a number of sites and provides immediately available product for those in the zone to move and for when the market inflects. Creditors have decreased by GBP 104 million in the half year, and this slide sets out the key movements. The GBP 23 million decrease in trade creditors and accruals reflects normal activity movements. Provisions representing post-completion development obligations, including those related to building fire safety matters, have increased by GBP [ 14 ] million in the period. The GBP 97 million decrease in customer deposits reflects both the subdued level of private sales and completions on institutional sales. GBP 8 million of land creditors were settled in the period, and the slide also sets out the future payment profile of the remaining GBP 884 million of land creditors. As previously noted, some GBP 400 million of these will be settled over the next 18 months with a gentler profile thereafter. In terms of our financing, the group's borrowing capacity of GBP 1.2 billion is unchanged from the year-end and comprises GBP 400 million of 2031-dated green bonds with a 2.5% coupon and an GBP 800 million banking facility, consisting of a GBP 260 million drawn green term loan and a GBP 540 million undrawn revolving credit facility. These bank facilities are in place until February 2029. At the year-end, Berkeley was ungeared on a net basis with net cash of GBP 474 million and total available liquidity, therefore, of over GBP 1.6 billion. As mentioned previously, we have a borrowing facility with Homes England for the financing of infrastructure costs on 3 of our London developments. This facility totals GBP 126 million and was undrawn at the reporting date. This slide summarizes our landholdings. Estimated future gross margin is GBP 6.7 billion across 52,500 future homes on 68 sites, down from GBP 6.9 billion and 54,000 homes at the 30th of April 2024. One site in Maidenhead was added to the landholdings in the half year after securing planning consent for 220 homes. As Rob has just mentioned, we've obtained resolutions to grant planning on 5 future sites during the period. In addition, we achieved some 20 other amendments to planning consents on existing sites, including obtaining a resolution to grant planning consent for the master plan uplift at Green Quarter, which will double the density of this site once the Section 106 agreement has been finalized. Overall, there was a net reduction in future gross margin of GBP 200 million in the period. The amounts taken to the income statement have been offset by optimization movements, including additional homes secured at London Dock and Poplar Riverside. The pipeline comprises 13,500 homes across 13 sites, and the breakdown of some of the larger sites are set out on the slide. Finally, this slide brings together our guidance. We have reaffirmed our pretax guidance of GBP 525 million for this year and GBP 450 million for next. Volumes and pricing mix expectations were discussed earlier. Operating margin is expected to be at the upper end of the historic range as we continue to focus on the quality of profit delivered. The remaining GBP 260 million shareholder return under the existing shareholder return program will be made by September 2025. GBP 34 million of this will be paid as a dividend in March 2025 and the balance through a combination of share buybacks and dividend with the balancing dividend being paid in September. Net cash will depend upon the pace of investment in share buybacks and new land as we embark on the Berkeley 2035 strategy, but we are targeting net cash of around GBP 400 million at the end of FY '26. And finally, the future gross margin within our landholdings will be above GBP 6 billion at the end of next year. Thank you very much, and that concludes today's results presentation.