Axactor ASA: Fourth quarter and full year financial results 2024

Today, Axactor ASA (Axactor, OSE: ACR) announced its fourth quarter and full year financial results.

The figures for both the fourth quarter and the full year 2024 are heavily impacted by two key events in the final quarter of the year, which were announced 19 November 2024:

- Axactor sold Spanish NPL portfolios for a gross sales price of EUR 83 million. The impact on cash metrics from the sale was substantial and elevates the gross revenue and cash EBITDA figures. The transaction was made at an average premium of 2% over book value, and thus have limited impact on total revenue and the net result. The improvement in cash metrics nonetheless ensures compliance with bond covenants and enables deleveraging.

- Axactor made significant downward revisions to its forward collection curves after seeing a challenging collection environment across most of its markets. The net impact from these NPL revaluations for the quarter ended at EUR -104 million, affecting the total revenue, net result and book values for the period. The revaluations do not have any cash impact, and the revalued claims remain valid and continue to accrue interests where applicable. If the collection environment improves beyond the Group’s expectations, the claims are still collectible and may represent an upside potential. Axactor has a total of EUR 16.5 billion in debt under management within the NPL segment per the end of 2024, spread across 964 thousand individual claims.

Despite recognizing a significant NPL revaluation, Axactor’s balance sheet remains tangible and strong with a healthy equity ratio of 26%. The proceeds from the Spanish portfolio sale were partly used to buy back bond loans at sub-par values, as Axactor continue deleveraging and preparing for the upcoming loan maturities in 2026.

“The portfolio sale in Spain at attractive terms, in addition to our repurchase of the 2026 bond, demonstrates Axactor’s commitment to value creating transactions such as potential further accretive bond repurchases and portfolio divestures in 2025,” says CEO Johnny Tsolis, and continues:

“Although our near-term outlook has been taken down, we have also significantly reduced the risk in our balance sheet. The revaluations will help us improve our collection performance versus forecasts and we have created covenant headroom through the Spanish portfolio sale. We expect reduced interest expenses from both falling IBOR curves and reduced debt, and will continue our focus on cost, collections and efficiency, which in total provides a solid outlook for the coming quarters.”

Financials

Key figures Q4 2024 (change from continuing operations Q4 2023 in brackets)*
> Gross revenue of EUR 161m (up 89%)
> Total revenue of EUR -43m (down EUR 108m)
> EBITDA of EUR -74m (down EUR 108m)
> Cash EBITDA of EUR 130m (up 135%)
> Profit after tax of EUR -85m (down EUR 94m)
> NPL investments of EUR 34m (up 39%)

Key figures full year 2024 (change from continuing operations 2023 in brackets)*
> Gross revenue of EUR 415m (up 21%)
> Total revenue of EUR 128m (down 50%)
> EBITDA of EUR 9m (down 93%)
> Cash EBITDA of EUR 298m (up 35%)
> Profit after tax of EUR -79m (down EUR 113m)
> NPL investments of EUR 128m (up 10%)

Presentation

10:00 am CET, 14 February 2025: The results will be presented in a global investor webcast with a live Q&A session. A recording of the webcast will be made available after the live stream is concluded on axactor.com.

Webcast participation will be possible via the following. Please note that you need to register before you will be provided with streaming access or phone number, access code and pin.

Webcast:
> https://events.q4inc.com/attendee/692271048

Phone:
> https://www.netroadshow.com/events/login?show=9796c011&confId=75442

Documents

> Quarterly Report - Q4 - 2024
> Axactor Q4-2024 Presentation