Santiago Donato
Management
I will give a word to Matias Ivan Gaivironsky, CFO.
IRSA Inversiones y Representaciones Sociedad Anónima (IRS)
Q3 2023 Earnings Call· Fri, May 12, 2023
$14.55
+0.00%
Santiago Donato
Management
I will give a word to Matias Ivan Gaivironsky, CFO.
Matias Ivan Gaivironsky
Management
Good morning, everybody. We finished our third quarter of 2023. We are very happy with the results. We can see a strong financial and operational performance. We saw during the quarter an increase in the occupancy of our shopping centers and also a tenant sales improvement. Our office portfolio, the premium part of the office portfolio has 100% occupancy. We reached 100% in the Della Paolera building during the quarter. Also our hotels has a strong EBITDA now and higher occupancy than the previous quarters. During the quarter, we saw also disposals of our building in 200 Della Paolera, we sold 7 floors at very good prices. And also during the quarter, we reevaluated the remaining surface in this building because the prices that we have been selling were higher than the book value on the last quarter. Also during the quarter, there was an important event regarding our leverage. We finished the process of the deleverage and the cancellation of all the remaining debt on the previous bonds that we have been dealing with the Central Bank regulation, we canceled the 2 ones, and we issue a new one --2 new ones to obtain the proceeds to cancel. So we are happy with that. And also at the end of last week, we paid a dividend that was approved by our shareholders' meeting in April. There was an important dividend, a dividend yield of 13% at the moment that we approved the dividend. So we will go through the presentation. Now I introduce Santiago Donato, our IRO, to continue the presentation.
Santiago Donato
Management
Thank you, Matias. Well, here in this page, we can see the same shopping sales in real terms. We keep growing in the third quarter of fiscal year 2023, about almost 10% above the same quarter of fiscal year 2022. And when we compare to the pre-pandemic levels to the third quarter of 2019, we are up 33%. So it's -- this shows really good performance of our tenant sales in malls and in our revenues as well and is explained by more visitors in the malls, the higher apparel inflation and the strong recovery of entertainment and food courts in our malls. Here, we can see the recovery of occupancy in our malls portfolio. Remember that during the pandemic and before the pandemic, Walmart let Argentina. So we have a vacant area in DOT Baires Shopping, and our occupancy went down from 99% to levels of 94%, then it came the pandemic, where we went to a minimum historical minimum of 89%, mainly due to the exit of Falabella, the Chilean retailer that left 3 of our malls, they left Argentina. And now in the last 8 quarters, we are increasing occupying this space from big services, and we are very happy with the performance of the last quarter that we increased occupancy like 3 points, and we have reached almost 97% that is historical average occupancy. Moving to the office segment. Here, we can see after the sales of buildings and floors made in the last year, including 7 floors that we sold of the Central Della Paolera during the last quarter. We currently manage 74,000 square meters of GLA in our office portfolio, mostly premium, A+ and A category. We can see that occupancy in these premium buildings increased to levels of 87% as of March 23,…
Jorge Cruces
Management
Thanks, Santiago. Well, we are glad to announce that we acquired an office building through an auction from the city of Buenos Aires that was in last December. This office building is in downtown just a couple of meters away from jthe national government headquarters. We paid $7.9 million that it comes to -- it comes out to be less than $600 per square meter. It has 13 office floors, 13,700 square meters, and it's mixed use. For now, it's office building. It's used by the city. It's going to be used for the next 18 months and we should be signing the deal in the next month or so -- in the next 45 days. Apart from acquiring the building, we bought 12 parking spaces from the building beside it. The building that we bought has 18 parking spaces. And so we needed more parking spaces and we bought another 12 parking spaces in the building beside it. During the quarter, we sold 7 floors of our building 200 Della Paolera. It was a very important -- for an important amount of $81.2 million. This is for each square meter. By this, selling on these meters, we came out to the which we sold 76 percentage of the building that we have in stock remaining 8,500 square meters and these square meters are the top floors of the building. So the fair value or the price of these floors are no less than $10,000 for each square meter. So regarding our stock value, it should be at least $86 million. And this comes out to be -- I mean our investment has been $112 million. That includes the land $25 million, construction $87 million, as we gained already $134 million plus $86 million in stock. This comes out to be that we've had an investment profit of almost 100%. We're very proud of this investment. Now Matias Ivan Gaivironsky is going to continue. Thank you.
Matias Ivan Gaivironsky
Management
Thank you, Jorge. So going to the financial results. First of all, to understand how to read our financial statements. It's important to mention that we have 2 factors that really impact our numbers that are -- that is inflation and devaluation. Basically, we have to value every quarter our investment properties at fair value. So the volatility of the FX and inflation has a direct impact in our books. So I separate always the operational performance that is very clear than the other 2 factors that are the par value of the investment properties and the financial part, the financial interest that has the impact of the inflation and the [indiscernible]. So if you see on Page 10, this is what happened during the 9-month period of inflation and devaluation. On the top left, you have the official FX evolution that was a devaluation of 67%. On the right part, you have the evolution of the dollar map, the blue chip swap that has a devaluation of 59%. And in the center, you have the inflation that was 74%. So in real terms, there was an appreciation of the pesos of 4% against an appreciation last year of 17%. This has a direct impact in our -- when we have to value our dollar-denominated debt in pesos that has a positive result because of this appreciation. And on the bottom right, you have the real appreciation of the dollar map that was 8% during this 9-month period against 17% last year that this has some direct impact when we value the offices and the land bank that we are using the blue chip swap and not the official FX. So going to the easiest part of the Page 11, this is the evolution of our EBITDA. We can see…
A - Santiago Donato
Operator
[Operator Instructions]. Here, there is a question I think Matias just answered it of the dividend when it will be paid and how much it will be in dollars.
Matias Ivan Gaivironsky
Management
Okay. As I mentioned, the peso side, we already paid that and on the dollar side, we are working with Bank of New York in order to be ready to pay in dollar terms. So we hope to pay that in the coming days.
Santiago Donato
Management
Perfect. There is another question here with the hand from [indiscernible] from BTG.
Unidentified Analyst
Analyst
Good morning. Can you guys hear me? Hello?
Matias Ivan Gaivironsky
Management
Yes, we can hear you.
Unidentified Analyst
Analyst
Okay. Perfect. My question is on the office portfolio. Could you talk a little bit more about what strategy you guys are approaching the offices. I understand it's 50% of revenues for the office portion. What's your strategy there? You guys acquired the Paseo Alcorta property and you guys had potential for converting into mixed use. So just trying to understand what the strategy is here? And what sort of occupancy levels you might be expecting for the coming year?
Matias Ivan Gaivironsky
Management
Okay. Thank you, Filipe. In Argentina, unfortunately, like compared with other countries, you have to be much more involved in managing the portfolio. It's not just a play where you can rent forever. So typically, in the past, what we did was to rotate the portfolio, was trying to always have new buildings, selling the old buildings and reconvert into premium and the newest trend possible. This is what we did with in the past. If you remember, we used to have more space available than we sold some floors or some buildings and replace those square meters with the 2 new buildings 1 in the Salta building and one -- the Catalinas building, the 200 Della Paolera building. Today, what we saw during the year, what we saw is a lot of people trying to dollarize or trying to protect the pesos against the volatility of Argentina, and we received very good offers at very good prices in this building, and we decided to sell the newest building. When Jorge has showed the performance, we invested $120 million and so far, we received proceeds for $245 million from the disposals. So there was a very good business selling. Going forward, we have a lot of portfolio to some locations that are suitable to offices, as the rest of the portfolio today, we are more cautious on launching new projects because of the volatility of Argentina. So if you see what we did during the last 3 years, we haven't launched any new projects. The 2 acquisitions that we did [indiscernible] -- and the last 1 in Paseo Colon, we're much more opportunistic. The price per square meter was very cheap, and we believe that we can reconvert that in something much more profitable. It's not defined yet the final users probably will have some component of offices, but could be other uses as well, but we are not planning to launch any of these 2 projects in the coming year. Remember that the contract that we signed, we give like a free rent to the city or in 1 case, for a 20 -18 months and the other case for 30 months. So we won't have the building ready during the next year. So probably, we will work during this year to define what we're going to do. But as of today, we are not announcing any new process. We are ready. We have a lot of land available to launch different kinds of projects, but as of today, we haven't announced any launching.
Santiago Donato
Management
Yes, there is a question from Matias Castagnino from BCP. What is the -- similar to the other one, what is the strategy for the building acquired to the city after the 18 months free rent period. rented to the city, to private companies, selling it?
Jorge Cruces
Management
Well, it's very -- it has a very good location. It has beautiful views to Puerto Madero. That part of the city is becoming residential, all the new developments there are residential for young people. So we'll see. At first, it should be an acquisition for office space, maybe invest to make an upgrade to the building, maybe to AAA or something to an A building. And it should be -- and at first, we're thinking that it should be an office building, but it could be of a conversion. We're going to be thinking these next 1.5 years if it's going to be converted -- if we're going to convert it to residential, we're going to keep it office space. If we convert it to residential, it's very possible for us to sell the units in the building. If we make it to an office building, it's very possible, that we're going to rent that at first. I don't know if that's okay. Any other questions?
Santiago Donato
Management
Yes, I have one more regarding Costa Urbana. Jorge, you can describe the legal status of the project of Santa Maria Costa Urbana, if there is any updates on the project timing, which are the plans?
Jorge Cruces
Management
Well, we've -- in March, we -- sort of the survey plan has been approved. That's very important for us. So that means now we have the different plots throughout the landscape. And then again, regarding the legal action that took place last year. As for March, the court issued the status of returns with no appeal. So that means that -- that means that ruling out the legal action from March. We -- actually, the city made a national competition of ideas for the park that we are giving to the city.
Santiago Donato
Management
So that means that regarding the legal process, we have any limitation or everything was released, and we are ready to start construct?
Jorge Cruces
Management
As for March, we're ready to start to do. There's no -- let's say that as a -- was it appealed by the claimant -- as from now, the ruling out, it's a total ruling out of the legal action. So as for March, we can do -- we can start construction. So as I said, there was -- in March, -- the city made a competition of ideas for the park that's going to be there. It's a very big part. So there was a winner -- and was the winner with the Argentinian studio that's called Polo. So we're talking with them. We're not -- we don't have any -- we're not compromised to do things with them, but as they are winner, so we're talking to them to see if they're going to do the project of the park. And in the next couple of months, we're going to start with the deeds -- with the deeds of the part for the city and the 3 or 4 plus that we have to give the city. So we're going to be doing that for the next couple of months. So everything is on track. We're even doing an environment impact assessment these next couple of months. So everything is okay. So there's only good news, especially the 1 of the legal action that was very important for us.
Santiago Donato
Management
Well, I will give you some minutes more for any additional questions that you may have. Remember, you can use both the chart and the hand -- raise your hand. And if there are no more questions, I will turn back to Matias Ivan Gaivironsky, CFO, for his closing remarks.
Matias Ivan Gaivironsky
Management
Thank you, Santi. I think we covered in the presentation the most relevant part. We are happy with the performance, higher occupancy in the malls, good performance in the in the hotels, the disposals in the offices, the leverage of the company, the dividend payment, the approval of Costa Urbana. So I think we have a very good year with very good news. And we are ready to keep capturing opportunities that can appear in the context of volatility of Argentina and the company, I think, is very well prepared for that. So thank you very much, and see you in the next quarter.