Operator: Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to the Axactor ASA Presentation of Q3 2026 Results. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. If you have logged in via the webcast, please use the Q&A button to submit your questions. I will now hand the conference over to Johnny Tsolis, CEO at Axactor. Please go ahead.
Johnny Tsolis: Good morning, and welcome to Axactor's Q3 presentation. With me today, I have our CFO, Nina Mortensen. This presentation will be divided into four parts. First, I will take you through the main highlights. Then Nina will present the financials before I will go through the key focus areas going forward. Finally, we round off with a Q&A session. Please move to slide three for the financial highlights. Let me start by saying that we are pleased with the development and well on track with all major elements presented as growth drivers as part of the equity transaction in Q2. I will get back to this in more details later, but first, let us go through the financial highlights. In Q3, Axactor delivered a gross revenue of EUR 74 million, which is down 3% year-over-year. NPL gross revenue declined 3% year-over-year, and external servicing revenue increased by 7% year-over-year.
Johnny Tsolis: This is partially linked to the collection on the seed portfolio, which Nina will get back to later. Collection performance is back on track at 104%, in line with our expectations after the revaluations last quarter. I will give some more details on the next slide. Reducing funding cost is one of our key priorities to improve our financial performance and competitiveness. During the quarter, ACR04 was successfully refinanced at substantially tighter margin. In late August, we did a EUR 75 million bond tap on ACR06, and the proceeds was used to repay ACR04. We have not yet seen the full effect of reduced interest expenses as a result of this refinancing since it was done late in the quarter. Interest expenses on borrowings is down EUR 3 million year-over-year, driven by less debt and lower funding costs. Following the equity transaction, we are adapting our segment reporting.
Johnny Tsolis: The change is implemented to visualize contribution of capitalized servicing revenue uplift from the seed portfolio and co-investment assets. Let's move to slide 4 for more comment on the collection performance. I guess this is the most important slide for many in the audience, and I'm pleased to say that the collection performance is back on track in line with expectations. Collection performance improved significantly following the update of our unsecured ERC curves in Q2 and ended at 104% for the quarter. The overperformance is driven by better-than-expected collections on the secured portfolios in Spain, a trend that we have been seeing for some time. This is a good indication that the curve adjustments done earlier this year was correct. In addition to collection performance, I am pleased to see that the changes in the financing structure is falling into place as planned.
Johnny Tsolis: Please move to the next slide for more details. One of the most important motivations for the equity transaction was related to deleveraging and refinancing. The deleveraging part happened instantly when the private placement and the subsequent offering was closed. If you look at the left-hand side of the graph, we can see that Axactor's total net debt is down to approximately EUR 500 million. The leverage ratio is reduced to 2.4 and is well within the communicated target range of 2.3 to 2.75. We have a large undrawn amount on the RCF of approximately EUR 260 million and total outstanding bonds of EUR 300 million. It is important to note that out of these EUR 300 million, EUR 125 million is still issued at a very high margin, 750 bps. The plan is to refinance this at the very earliest possibility in June next year.
Johnny Tsolis: Even though much of the potential for reduced interest expenses has been taken out through the deleveraging and refinancing of ACR04, we still have a substantial improvement left that we plan to materialize Q2 next year. On the next slide, we have tried to give an indication of what the savings on interest expenses have been and will be in the short term due to deleveraging and refinancing. The proceeds from the equity issue and the sale of the seed portfolio have been used to call the remaining part of ACR03 and to reduce the RCF draw. The bond tap enabled us to refinance the outstanding part of ACR04 at the earliest possible call date, first week of September. As a result of this, interest expenses on external loans decreased 19% from previous quarter and 17% from the same quarter last year.
Johnny Tsolis: Assuming EUR 235 million in RCF draw and everything else equal at the end of Q3, interest expenses are expected to be further reduced to EUR 12 million in Q4. As I mentioned, we still have one piece left of the positive effects when we expect to refinance ACR05 next year. I think this is a good bridge into the next topic. Please move to slide 7. I would like to repeat the message that was communicated in connection with equity transaction. We then outlined four major profit drivers going forward. The first two ones, deleveraging and refinancing, we have already covered. The third driver was the opportunity for substantially higher investment levels going forward. Through the transaction, we have gotten a step change in investment capacity.
Johnny Tsolis: Although the CapEx level for Q3 of EUR 20 million is the highest for a Q3 in several years, the absolute figure is still low. We are now entering Q4, traditionally the busiest quarter of acquisitions of the year. The pipeline is historically large, but I have to be honest and say that the competition is also fierce. We all agree that increased investment is probably the most important value driver for Axactor going forward, as it will add the significant scale effect. However, in this matter, we must be patient. We will not repeat the mistakes of the past. Some portfolio transactions that we see today reminds me a little bit too much about the risk reward levels we saw from 2017 to 2021. Axactor will continue to be prudent and only acquire when we find the risk reward to be sufficiently attractive.
Johnny Tsolis: Regarding uplift in external servicing revenue, we report 7% growth year over year, and in this number, we can already see the positive effects from new co-investment and servicing of the seed portfolio. On this note, and before I give the word to Nina, let's move to the next slide and have a quick reminder of our company structure, including new co-investment entities. On this slide, we show a simplified overview. You can find more details in the appendix to this presentation. But the main point to remember is that we now have two new co-investment SPVs. The first one is the one that we own together with Fortress. Axactor holds 75% and Fortress the remaining 25%. This is the vehicle where most new portfolios will be placed going forward. And already in Q3, the two first new portfolio investments were put in the structure.
Johnny Tsolis: The second SPV is the one that owns the seed portfolio. Here, Axactor holds 50%, and Fortress and Geveran holds 25% each. It is important to take note of the structure in order to understand how our external servicing revenues is generated. Nina will provide more details on this in the financial update, so I give the word to her now.
Nina Mortensen: Thank you, Johnny. Before I take you through the Q3 financial performance, I would like to give you some context on the new segment structure implemented with effect from this quarter. Following the changes in the company structure, as Johnny described, together with the seed portfolio sale and the new co-investment model, we have implemented a new segment structure to provide greater transparency around our capitalized servicing revenues. Under the previous structure, both portfolio collections and the related servicing activities were included within the NPL segment, while external third-party servicing was reported separately as TPC. In the new structure, portfolio collections remain in the NPL investment segment, while the servicing platform has been combined with TPC in the new servicing segment. Internal servicing consists of two components, servicing Axactor's own share of claims and servicing the non-controlling interest share.
Nina Mortensen: The latter, together with traditional third-party servicing revenue, is presented as external servicing. NPL investments pay an internal servicing commission to the servicing segment, which is eliminated in the consolidated group figures. It is important to note this new reporting structure now makes the contribution from the seed portfolio and our co-investment model more visible. Let's move to the next slide where I'll take you through the Q3 financial performance. Gross revenue for the group ended at EUR 74 million in the quarter, down 5% compared to Q3 2025. The decline is largely due to portfolio sales in Spain and Germany last year and limited NPL investments. The NPL investment segment accounted for EUR 60 million of the gross revenue. The NPL segment reported a decrease in revenues compared to Q3 2025 of 3% when excluding the portfolios sold last year.
Nina Mortensen: The servicing segment contributed positively to the growth rate in the quarter, with external servicing revenue up 7% compared to the corresponding quarter last year. Let's look a bit more into details on each of the business segments, starting with NPL Investments on the next slide. The collection performance, including both unsecured and secured portfolios, was 104% in the quarter. The over-performance was driven by strong collections from the secured portfolios. The NPL segment delivered total revenues in Q3 2026 of EUR 42 million, down from EUR 46 million in Q3 2025. The contribution margin was 61% for Q3 2026, down from 69% in Q3 last year. To give some additional context here, the effective NPL amortization rate rose to 30% in the Q3, up from 22% in the corresponding quarter last year, impacting this quarter's result.
Nina Mortensen: The increase is mainly a result of the changed ERC profile following the reevaluations made last quarter. The NPL investments were EUR 20 million in the Q3 and EUR 75 million so far this year. The Q3 is seasonally a slow quarter, and portfolio investments are expected to pick up going forward. Please turn to the next slide for comments on the development in the servicing segment. The servicing segment total revenue was EUR 29 million for the quarter, whereof the external revenue amounted to EUR 16 million in the quarter, a growth of 7% compared to the Q3 last year. The growth was supported by uplift from the servicing of the seed portfolios. Both Norway and Germany continued to deliver solid growth within 3PC in the Q3, while lower default rates and reduced market volumes limited growth in Spain.
Nina Mortensen: The contribution margin increased to 40% compared to 38% in the Q3 last year. The improvement is driven by continued revenue growth, with scale benefits increasingly materializing in the Norwegian operations. In addition, we are seeing a positive impact from the cost improvement initiatives implemented in Spain earlier this year. Let us move on to the next slide, where I'll present more details on the reported financials for the group. Total revenue at group level ended at EUR 57 million compared to EUR 62 million in Q3 2025. The decline is driven by lower gross revenue and higher amortization rates in the Q3 this year. The reported EBITDA ended at EUR 26 million with an EBITDA margin of 46%. The cash EBITDA was upheld at a good level for the quarter, ending at EUR 44 million.
Nina Mortensen: Operating expenses for the quarter were up 5% compared to Q3 2025. The increase is partly related to non-recurring costs in connection with the share issue, CEF portfolio sale, and co-investment partnership announced in Q2. Furthermore, we continue to work on increasing optimization and better utilize artificial intelligence in the daily operations. The work requires some upfront spending on IT development and software but is expected to reduce the future cost-to-collect level. With that, I will now hand it back to Johnny Tsolis for some additional comments on the key focus areas going forward.
Johnny Tsolis: Thank you so much, Nina. I would like to wrap up this presentation by emphasizing our key focus areas going forward. Obviously, these are not changing a lot from quarter to quarter. Firstly, we will continue to focus on building an attractive NPL pipeline. The new co-investment structure is in place, and now we need to continue to identify and acquire attractive priced NPL portfolios. This is one of the most important value drivers in order to reach the financial targets for 2027 and beyond. Secondly, we continue to fight for new, attractive, large-sized bank and finance customers in the 3PC segment. Operational excellence is an important part of securing the top line and to deliver on the active forecast going forward. Regarding optimizing the funding structure, last quarter we announced that we would refinance ACR04 and we executed as planned.
Johnny Tsolis: Next natural step in this area is to take out the last expensive part of our historical bond structure and replace ACR05 with more competitive funding. The ambition is to do so in Q2 next year. Finally, we work hard to increase efficiency through further automation with support from AI to secure our strong cost position and increase revenues. That concludes the Q3 presentation. Let's open up for questions.
Operator: We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. If you have logged in via the webcast, please use the Q&A button to submit your question. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Kyle Koka with Arctic Securities. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. As a reminder, please ensure to unmute locally. Kyle Koka from Arctic Securities, your line is now open. Your next question comes from the line of Ulrik Zürcher with Nordea. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Ulrik Zürcher: Yeah, thank you for taking my question.
Ulrik Zürcher: I maybe hoped for a little bit of a tightening of the investment target for the year since we are into Q4 already. I am just wondering, this competitive situation, is this like a new thing in the sense, is it SRT, like bank-driven? You are meeting competitors with much lower funding cost, or how should we think about this and the uptick in target next year?
Johnny Tsolis: Well, if the situation is new with fierce competition, no. I think it has been fierce competition for at least a year or two. SRT banks definitely playing a role in it. Others, I do not think there are many with much cheaper funding than us. What we can see is that on single portfolio, the price deviation from where we are able to bid and what the market is going for, it is not explained by funding. It is explained by different views on the collection curve. We have not tightened the guiding, but what we have said is that there is a lot of volumes coming out now in Q4. Like I said, there is fierce competition, and it is very binary. If we win two portfolios, we could end up at a relatively healthy place in terms of investments for Q4. It could also be a low amount.
Johnny Tsolis: That is why we are trying not to be too aggressive on it. We will only buy if we find the risk reward attractive. As you can see, the number for Q3, EUR 20 million, it is not a super high number. It tells you that we are not winning a lot of portfolios currently. We will not repeat the mistakes of the past. That is why we will be prudent. We will not buy just to fill the CapEx guiding.
Ulrik Zürcher: Many years ago, you used to send out stock exchange notices, I think, if you won some big portfolios. Will you do that going forward?
Johnny Tsolis: But then it needs to be really sizable. Then it needs to be like EUR 100 million or something in that area, then I think it would be prudent to send out a message. If we just do normal course of business, we will not send out messages.
Ulrik Zürcher: Okay. Then just finally on the interest cost, you are saying EUR 12 million next quarter. That is fine. Since the base rates are moving quite a lot, is EUR 12 million a good run rate for the first quarter in 2027 as well?
Johnny Tsolis: Well, we are commenting on the margins. It is difficult to say how I do not know if we are the best to predict the base rates into next year. So we do not have another estimate at least.
Ulrik Zürcher: No, I just meant the movements so far, because they moved already. You will need another higher rate already in Q1 2027.
Johnny Tsolis: No, so then if, and like we said, we say everything else equal from previous quarter. If the base rate goes up and continue to goes up, as we say, already gone up, that will indicate a bit higher absolute level than the EUR 12 million.
Ulrik Zürcher: All right. Yeah. Thank you. That is all from me.
Johnny Tsolis: Very good.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Kaija Kolkka with Arctic Securities. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Kyle Koka: Hi. Attempt number two here. Can you hear me?
Johnny Tsolis: Yes, we can.
Kyle Koka: Okay, great. Thanks for taking the question. With regard to the collection performance at 104%, you highlighted that that was boosted quite a bit by the strong secured performance during the quarter. Is there any kind of further color that you can add to the degree that that boosted that 104% figure? Is there any comment you are willing to give or able to give on the unsecured performance during the quarter?
Johnny Tsolis: First of all, we will not report a split between unsecured and secured going forward. Regarding your question, I think we have been quite explicit in the presentation that the overperformance is driven by secured. It is all of the overperformance driven by secured, and unsecured is in line with expectations. Now I gave you the number anyway.
Operator: There are no further questions at this time. I will now hand over to the management team to address any text-based questions.
Johnny Tsolis: Okay. Thank you very much. We have a few questions here.
[Analyst 1]: The first one is, could you provide some further insight into the likelihood of a dividend payment in Q2 2027?
Johnny Tsolis: Well, there is no new insight, but the plan is to pay dividends after refinancing ACR05. The plan is to do that late in Q2, and then pay dividends. There is no new messaging around this point. Second question,
Johnny Tsolis: How much of the investments are made by shareholders in Axactor, and how much of the EUR 20 million is made by Fortress?
Johnny Tsolis: Well, this is also a number that we will not continue to report on. But I will do an exception this time. Out of the EUR 20 million, EUR 8 million was invested directly in Axactor. That is primarily some smaller secured portfolios in Spain and some ongoing forward flows in Norway and Sweden. The reason why it is not placed in the JV is a more technical character. It is ongoing forward flows, and we have to change the buyer and so on, and also secured portfolios has been placed within the ring fence because it has been easier in terms of some tax cost and so on. EUR 12 million out of the EUR 20 million was placed in the JV, and EUR 3 million is Fortress' share of that. Out of the EUR 20 million in Q3, EUR 3 million was Fortress. But going forward, it would be natural that part in percent will go up. But that is how it looked like in Q3.
[Analyst 3]: We have, what is driving supply of NPLs? Bank losses, backstop pricing, backlog over time, changing behavior in the banks?
[Analyst 3]: Yes, probably a mix of all of it. I would like to say that most of what we see is annual sales processes. Then there are some banks doing not regular sales, that every now and then comes to the market with new portfolios. Regarding the level or the size of the portfolios, that is obviously driven by the default rates on credits. The backstop is definitely also a main driver for many banks, but not all. Some banks are not selling at all, despite there is a backstop regulation in place, and that has to do with the fact that they probably find the NPL part of the total balance sheet irrelevant and just can bear the cost of having it written down to zero after a few years. Question number 4,
[Analyst 4]: What is unsecured performance?
Johnny Tsolis: I already answered it.
Johnny Tsolis: Question number 5
[Analyst 5]: Is actually not really such a question. It says, indication of near-term earnings as indicated in slide 7.
Johnny Tsolis: So we will not guide on any near-term earnings, unfortunately. We have guided on long-term return on equity, as you will find in our financial targets. Then we have the last question here.
[Analyst 6]: Could you elaborate more on the two investments done with Fortress during the quarter? If possible, give any details on size or geography.
Johnny Tsolis: So I already said that it is EUR 12 million, it is two portfolios, and both investments are in Spain. I am not going to give any more details other than that. So that was all the questions that we have received. I do not know if there are any more online questions.
Operator: There are no further questions on the audio bridge.
Johnny Tsolis: Well then, we thank you all for dialing in, and wish all of you a great day. Thank you so much.
Operator: This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.
