Cibus Nordic - Positioned to expand

Cibus should have no trouble to execute on its growth targets, but valuation remains a bit high in the present situation with its extraordinary uncertainty around yields.

Not many surprises in Q4 figures

Q4 NRI, at EUR 20.4m, topped the EUR 19.5m/19.7m Evli/cons. estimates. Operating income was EUR 18.7m vs our EUR 18.2m as there were EUR 0.1m in one-off admin costs. Not all deals closed by Cibus in Q4 were in our estimates, and this seems to have been the case also for the consensus, yet the report never held much potential for surprise as is always the case with Cibus.

We expect Cibus to be able to source and finance the deals

Cibus’ growth target for 2022-23 states the company is to add EUR 1.0-1.5bn in properties over the two years. Cibus seeks an IG credit rating and thus a new share class (D) is to be instituted. Two recent issues have already helped net LTV down a bit, but according to Cibus the ratio should further decline to around 50%. We calculate the targets to imply EUR 600-850m in equity issues. The sums are considerable, but we believe Cibus will be able to source the properties without bidding too high as the company’s current position in Finland, by far its biggest presence, amounts to no more than 10% of the market. Denmark is an obvious candidate for expansion as the country has a lot of small grocery stores and is in that sense comparable to Norway. Cibus sees some yield compression in Sweden, but Finnish yields appear to lag the Nordic market as the levels are still around 6% while they are closer to 5% in the other three countries.

Valuation continues to reflect underlying yield compression

In our view Cibus’ valuation has reflected yield compression expectations for a while now. We don’t see the current 1.2x EV/GAV too high if yield compression supports asset values going forward. Cibus traded around 1.4x EV/GAV in late December and the yield almost touched those of other listed Nordic property portfolios. Such a level yield wouldn’t by itself be too problematic for future returns, but in our opinion the 1.4x EV/GAV would be on the aggressive side considering properties’ inherent limited upside potential. Cibus’ portfolio performance is very stable, however the premium valuation combined with relatively high LTV means equity is sensitive to different assumptions. We retain our SEK 215 TP and HOLD rating.

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