Operator
Welcome to the Balder Q1 report 2026. 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 IR Jonas Erikson.
Please go ahead.
Jonas Erikson
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to this presentation for Balder's first quarter results 2026.
My name is Jonas Erikson, Investor Relations, and with me in the room I have Erik Selin, CEO, and Ewa Wassberg, CFO. I'll hand over to Erik and Ewa for some opening slides, and then we'll open for questions after that.
Erik Selin
Thanks, Jonas. Looking at Balder at a glance, the overall picture, you can see there is a Nordic real estate exposure.
Roughly half is residential, and half is commercial. By this quarter, we had a portfolio value of 237 billion Swedish kronor, occupancy rate 95%, net debt 49%.
We have a good liquidity of 22 billion. NAV per share stands now at 96.6, and that's a growth compounding rate of 25% since inception.
Also worth to mention, we have a rating from S&P, BBB flat, and that was recently confirmed. That was in April.
Moving on to the first quarter, rental income is up only 1%. That is quite a low figure, we think.
We have some explanations for that. We have currency effect that is a headwind for us because of the Swedish krona strengthening.
There you have a couple of percent if you have constant currency. Also in the NOI increasing 1%, you have the same effect, and also that it was a colder climate than normally this quarter.
Adjusted for that, I think we will be rather 5%, 6% improvement. Profit from property management is down 12%, and there you have the explanation in the name of Norion that we will most likely decide to distribute later today in the AGM.
If you adjust for that, the Norion shares will be as a dividend for all the shareholders. Adjusted for that, we have a 3% increase as is.
Of course, if you wouldn't have the currency headwind and the cold climate, it will be a bit better than that. You can say it's okay.
We prefer, of course, a bit stronger increases, but not totally bad. If you look at earnings capacity, we have a decrease, but the same explanation, Norion.
If you exclude that, we are on track for a healthy growth in profit from property management. Like-for-like rental growth 1.3, NAV 96.6, as I said just before.
Looking at earnings capacity, our more or less favorite slide, perhaps, you see this quarter that the rental income is up, and NOI is up as well. Why this figure is slightly stronger than the outcome Q1 is that we made acquisitions Q1, but they closed very late in the quarter.
Actually, one of them was the last day, and another big one was maybe one week before quarter end. This is sort of including all the investments.
This is the run rate now. All in all, this summarizes down to 6.1 billion and per share 5.17.
You can also see that the per-share improvement is a bit better than the profit improvement. Reason is that we bought back 6 million shares in this Q1.
Portfolio-wise, Helsinki is a single largest region, followed by Gothenburg, Stockholm, Copenhagen. As said, we have resi a little bit more than 50% of the portfolio, office 16, retail 11, and industry logistics 7%.
This figure's been around these numbers for a couple of years. Looking at the whole portfolio, you can see that 80% is located in capitals and larger cities.
The long-term trend, that is our focus. We always have a long-term view on things around here.
If you take a longer time horizon, we have very good improvement over the years. The latest three, four years been flattish and obvious because of the interest rate going from zero and upwards.
Here you see also property values, net debt to asset, occupancy. We have over time increased portfolio, of course, net debt around 49.
In the longer time period, we like it to be a bit lower, but we have even there a long-term view on it and not so focused by quarters. Occupancy rate is now 95.
It's more or less always 96 if you look back, but occasionally it has actually been 95. Very very stable in general, and the explanation for the a bit weaker occupancy is primarily located to some weakness in the office segment occupancy.
Ewa Wassberg
Looking at the financing, the funding mix is a 50/50 split between bank and bond financing. The level of available liquidity is continuously a bit elevated due to the concentration of large maturities in the beginning of '27.
The interest rate fixing and hedging ratio is stable, and the average interest rate is unchanged compared to last quarter at 2.9. This quarter, we had some volatile currency movements that have temporarily affected some of our key ratios, for example, net debt to EBITDA.
In the balance sheet at the end of March, we see a weaker Swedish krona against the euro compared to year-end. At the same time, the average exchange rate affecting our income statement during the quarter was stronger against the euro.
Worth mentioning is also that Norion no longer contributes to the income statement, and acquisitions made in the quarter have not contributed to earnings in Q1, since they were finalized late in the quarter. Here you can see the long-term trend of the portfolio value in relation to net debt to total assets.
As you can see here, net debt to total assets increased during the quarter, which is related to the reclassification of Norion and currency movements. The current encumbrance level is 23.9, which is around the same level as earlier quarter.
Over to the maturity structure. We have refinanced bank loans of around 8 billion SEK with maturities in '26 during the quarter.
In the bond market, we have been quite active, taking advantage of the favorable conditions in the beginning of the year, and have issued in both euro and SEK, as well as redeemed the remaining hybrid capital. Here is some more structural overview of the funding and capital side.
As we have said before, we will continue to have a balanced capital allocation until reaching our target of 11 times net debt to EBITDA, and that target remains unchanged. Here is also an updated calculation on the convertible bond, which when that is converting, assuming that we are above strike price, obviously, we'll have a very positive effect on the indebtedness numbers as well.
In terms of funding strategy, there's no change compared to previous quarters. This was all from us.
On that note, we leave over to Q&A.
Jonas Erikson
Let me actually just mention one thing before we go into the questions. I've been receiving a couple of questions this morning about the consensus numbers and the sell-side analysts are kind enough to share their estimates with me.
When I sort of look at the profit from property management consensus and strip out the Norion contribution for those who have not yet done so, I land at a consensus number for profit from property management of 1,495 in the quarter. About 3% from the actual number.
I just wanted to mention that as I've received a couple of questions about it this morning. Let's open for questions.
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.
Operator
The next question comes from Tobias Kaj from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Tobias Kaj
Thank you, and good morning. Your net initial yield according to earnings capacity increased from 4.7 to almost 4.9 in Q1 compared to Q4.
Is that because of high yield in acquisitions, or is it an improvement like-for-like? Why,
Jonas Erikson
I haven't actually done that reconciliation, Tobias. Let's get back to the precise numbers.
We have done some acquisitions, as Erik mentioned, in the quarter. I think it's fair to assume that on average those are slightly yield enhancing, but that shouldn't be that big of a difference considering our total portfolio size.
Then obviously, you have some like-for-like growth as well, as we mentioned in the report of 1.3%. I haven't done the exact reconciliation of those numbers.
We will have to get back to you on that.
Tobias Kaj
If we look at the improvement in NOI in earnings capacity of 300 million and put that in relationship to 5 billion of acquisitions, you get a yield of roughly 6%. Is that a fair assumption that you buy on roughly 6% or is it something else to explain the improvement in earnings capacity?
Jonas Erikson
Be just careful that the earnings capacity is obviously rounded up to even 100 million SEK, you can't get too precise in it. I think it's fair to say that we're definitely buying at sort of yield accretive level.
Then there are very large differences in the initial yield of the various transactions that we are doing. There's a pretty wide range depending on whether you're buying sort of larger properties, central locations, very liquid markets, are pretty efficient in pricing.
You might be able to find attractive deals in terms of sort of future rent increase potential, but those are more rare. Whereas we have other examples where we do transactions in the high single digits in terms of yields, but those are then, obviously much much smaller and more rare to come across.
I think we mentioned in the report as well that we obviously always compare the returns on acquisitions with share buybacks when we do things. I think overall, we are seeing that we are getting returns that are matching very well with sort of buyback as an option if you look at sort of how the share price has traded overall for the quarter.
Tobias Kaj
Great. Thank you very much.
That's all for me.
Operator
The next question comes from Lars Norrby from SEB. Please go ahead.
Ewa Wassberg
Good
Lars Norrby
morning, a couple of questions from my side. You mentioned it's been a cold first quarter, increasing costs for heating and snow removal.
Can you quantify that roughly in SEK?
Jonas Erikson
We haven't done that quantification, Lars. It's obviously very difficult because there's no precise estimate.
I think if you look at our surplus ratio that is slightly elevated compared to what we're used to. It's a few tens of millions SEK, but I can't give you a precise number because it's impossible to make that estimate.
Lars Norrby
Thank you. Second question regarding net debt—
Jonas Erikson
Sorry, Lars, I would note, though, that there was a very, very cold winter both in Sweden and in Finland. Those are the two markets where that's most visible, just to be aware.
Lars Norrby
Okay. Second question regarding net debt to EBITDA isolated in the quarter, 13.6 up from 12.2, Norion impact was it 1.1, still an underlying rise, 13.6 retaining target of 11.0.
What does that mean for your room for expansion in 2026? You bought a property in London for some 2.2 billion SEK.
Do you have any room for more acquisitions in 2026?
Jonas Erikson
I would just be aware of a couple of things when you look at the Q1 numbers isolated. The first one is that in the quarter, the average exchange rate meant that the Swedish krona was strengthening, we had a weaker result compared to Q4 from currency effects.
Whereas the exchange rate on the 31st of March compared to year-end actually meant that krona was weakening, which means that we get a higher net debt. That technical effect will obviously even itself out over time.
The other one is, as Erik mentioned initially, we've done acquisitions in the quarter that came in very late into our book, there's very little earnings contribution, but obviously, they will be visible in the net debt. I think that that item alone, the acquisitions alone, I think has impacted net debt to EBITDA by roughly 0.3.
Those two are important to be aware of. We don't really view the trend as having turned up the way you describe it if you adjust for Norion.
Having said all of that, I think we've said for quite some time that we see a balanced capital allocation strategy where we feel that we can slowly move towards the target of 11 times, while at the same time have ample of room to invest, both when we find transactions or new development and/or share buybacks. I think that that's sort of the best guidance we can give.
Then if you look a few years ahead, let's see where the share price is in 2028 when the convertible expires. We are sort of assuming that we will have some equity contribution from that as well.
We view this from a more long-term picture, and then we can have a very balanced view. I think we've said before that we care more about the trend and direction of the net debt to EBITDA than the actual pace that might vary a little bit from year to year.
Lars Norrby
Thank you. Just let me finally say, Erik, thank you for your time as CEO, and looking forward to having you in your new role in the company.
Erik Selin
Thank you very much. We keep in contact.
Lars Norrby
Perfect.
Operator
The next question comes from Andres Toome from Green Street. Please go ahead.
Jonas Erikson
Hello, Andres?
Operator
Andres Toome, your line is now unmuted. Please go ahead.
Andres Toome
Can you hear me now? Sorry.
Jonas Erikson
Yes, can hear you.
Andres Toome
A couple of questions from my end. Firstly, can you share your thoughts just around what made the London acquisition in the office segment attractive for you, I guess relative to other sort of alternative options you had for capital deployment?
Do you plan to scale the London portfolio further from here on?
Jonas Erikson
I think, when looking at that transaction, we have an initial yield that is not sort of perhaps the highest of all the transactions we did in the quarter. On the other hand, we have a current rent per square foot that is quite a lot lower than the market.
When you look at the total sort of investment assessment from a three- to five-year perspective, we feel that that is actually pretty good transaction considering the risk level as well and even compared to allocating to other sources. We now have three properties in central London, office properties, and the last transaction we did before this one was I think three years ago.
We've been viewing the market continuously. It's obviously very hard to say when the next transaction occurs that we find attractive enough.
We've looked at sort of quite a few alternatives without executing on anything during the last three years. Far, we don't sort of have a plan to do a large-scale build-out in the UK per se.
We don't have our own property management team on the ground, etc. I think we need to do probably a few more of these smaller transactions before we have scale enough to justify having our own team on the ground fully.
We're looking at the market, and if we find good opportunities in London or elsewhere, we might act on that. It's very hard to determine.
We don't typically work with strategies of having pre-decided CapEx levels or investment spend levels.
Andres Toome
Makes sense. Okay.
Are you going to use local financing for this, or is it more from the corporate pool?
Jonas Erikson
A little bit depends on how you view it. We obviously don't take currency risk in our financing, from that perspective, it will be matched.
Then we obviously have our banking relationships and we might do pooled and then just do a swap hedge, or we do the financing directly in sterling. It's doesn't really matter from that sense.
There's no FX risk embedded in the investment calculation per se.
Andres Toome
Yeah. Okay.
Then there was mention of you're sort of kicking off owner-occupier apartment investments again. I'm just wondering how are you seeing the sort of the geopolitical macroeconomic impact, I guess not really having a big impact then on the housing markets locally?
Jonas Erikson
Not so far. I think it's probably early to tell whether it will have, but so far, I think we've seen fairly stable recovery domestically, especially on the consumer front.
I think in Denmark in the larger Copenhagen area, house prices were up 21%, 22% in Q1 year-over-year. Or that was actually even in April.
It's a pretty good improvement that we're seeing. It's always difficult to judge exactly the strength and the timing.
These kind of projects also take some time to execute, you can't really be too much of a mark-to-market sort of decision-making when taking those decisions. We feel that there is an improvement trend that is worth investing a little bit more in.
It's no large numbers compared to what we have been used to historically in terms of development CapEx, but it's more than what we have done in the last couple of years. Understood.
Then
Andres Toome
my final question, a bit technical, but the like-for-like growth of 1.3%, is that in local currency, or does that also have a negative FX impact embedded there?
Jonas Erikson
No, that's in local currency. For those of you with good memory, you might remember that last year we were trending between 2.5% and 3%.
I think the difference this year is partly that we have seen slightly lower indexation on commercial. We have also slightly lower growth in Swedish regulated rents by about 1 percentage point.
There's a slight drop from last year, and we haven't really seen our Finnish market trends of resi sort of take off for real on a like-for-like basis. At some point, we're obviously hoping that that will contribute a bit more to the like-for-like numbers, but so far that is not really the case.
Andres Toome
Understood. Thank you very much.
Operator
The next question comes from Fredrik Stensved from ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead.
Fredrik Stensved
Thanks very much. Morning.
Two questions, if I may. The first one is sort of a follow-up on the question related to project starts in the residential segment.
The comment you write in the CEO letter, Erik, is that specific to Sweden, and is it specific to sort of built-to-sell apartments, or is it several markets and also rental projects?
Erik Selin
We are looking at or we will do one start in Copenhagen. It's a project we will be both built-to-rent and built-to-sell, actually.
It's a mixed product. Also in Sweden, we do built-to-sell and built-to-rent, mostly built-to-sell, actually.
As Jonas said, this is very small numbers compared to what it was historically, and compared to overall Balder, it's very, very small. We see actually that if you have good locations, you can do quite good business, quite good investments, actually.
Starting to getting better. As also Jonas said, Copenhagen year-over-year, it's 23% plus in prices.
Remember, we own only owners apartments, the market is really super strong and it continued in April as well. In Finland, we will not start anything.
It's too weak. We are quite small in Norway, but we have something maybe that can happen there as well.
Also a strong underlying market in Norway.
Fredrik Stensved
Perfect. Thank you.
Then the second question is on the acquisition volume in Q1, almost 5 billion. We obviously know about sort of the London deal, but can you add any color or details on the other assets or portfolio that goes into this 5 billion?
Erik Selin
We did a couple of resi purchases, one in Sweden, Sato did one in Finland from a fund, and then we bought some assets in Stockholm, Gothenburg, some in Finland, Norway. No big deals deal by deal, but when it sums up, it gets to 5 billion.
You can expect lower activity in Q2.
Fredrik Stensved
Okay. Given your previous comment that the contribution then in Q1 was fairly limited, I guess that goes for most of the smaller—
Erik Selin
Exactly. For example, Finnish resi, the contribution was exactly zero because we bought it the last day and didn't get the rents on that day, it was actually zero.
UK was couple of days only, and the one in Stockholm was zero. That explains if you compare Q1 to AI that you have a difference there.
The acquisitions came in almost the last day of the quarter.
Fredrik Stensved
Yeah. No, that's clear.
That's all for me. Thank you very much.
Erik Selin
Thank you.
Operator
The next question comes from Stefan Andersson from Danske Bank AS Denmark's Sverige Filial. Please go ahead.
Oh,
Stefan Andersson
thank you. Two questions from me.
First on capital allocation, where we stand today with the share price of Balder, how do you view allocating capital towards acquisitions versus repurchasing?
Erik Selin
I think we are very interested in repurchasing, obviously, at this share price, we think it's a very good deal. You have to also have in mind that, number one, we have a long-term view on the business to take care of that, some investments make sense to do if you have a longer view on it.
Also, deals can take three to six months. If you're in a deal, you cannot tell the seller, "If my share price moves around, I might not be there."
Then you absolutely ruin your reputation. It's not like trading equities.
This is a business we're running. That's why if you know everything before, you could have perfect timing, but we actually don't.
What if we say no to a good deal with the intention to buy shares, and it goes up, and then we ends up with no deal and no shares? It is a combination, but with the current share price, we like that a lot as an investment.
Stefan Andersson
Perfect. Thank you.
The second question is if you could elaborate around Entra, maybe. My impression is that Castellum is looking to exit that at one point or another, and you take big change on the board there.
Fully understand that you can't share too much, but could you maybe elaborate a little bit about the alternatives that you see on Entra? Now
Erik Selin
we can do all alternatives, basically, but it's not likely that we buy the whole company because it will be too much debt for us, I don't think that is likely. Then we can be short-term or long-term.
I think you have a difference between Balder and Castellum, but you should really ask Castellum that. Balder is in Norway anyway, even if we sell Entra, we're still in Norway.
For us, maybe it's more natural to own it, but I don't know. I think that can be a difference between the companies.
Otherwise, I will look in through it more detailed now since I am the chair there and see what we can do. It's very good underlying assets, worth to remember.
Stefan Andersson
Perfect. Thanks.
Operator
The next question comes from Neeraj Kumar from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Neeraj Kumar
Morning, everyone. Just a quick one on my side.
You mentioned the 50/50 split the ideal one for you guys between bank and bond financing. Wanted to hear your thoughts on the ideal financing split for your subsidiary Sato as well.
I see it's more like 30% bond financing as of now, and 70% is through other sources. Do you see Sato coming to bond market to refinance their bank maturities going forward?
Erik Selin
I think it depends a lot on the terms, actually. Sato has extremely good access to bank financing, they don't need bond financing, but obviously we like to have that diversified as well.
We view it on a group level a little bit, and then also we view it on Sato as an individual company because we have partners there, APG and Elo and Finnish state. I would say Sato will do pretty much like Balder in the long run.
Neeraj Kumar
Got it. That's helpful.
Thank you.
Erik Selin
Thanks.
Operator
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad. There are no more questions at this time, I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Erik Selin
Thank you very much for listening in, and we keep in contact.
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