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QIWI (QIWI 9.88%)
Q4Â 2018 Earnings Conference Call
March 28, 2019, 8:30 a.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
See all our earnings call transcripts.
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Good day, everyone, and welcome to QIWI Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2018 Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded.
At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Ms. Varvara Kiseleva, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Varvara Kiseleva -- Head of Investor Relations
Thank you, operator and good morning, everyone. Welcome to the QIWI's fourth quarter and full year earnings call. I am Varvara Kiseleva, Head of Investor Relations and with me today are Sergey Solonin, our Chief Executive officer; and Alexander Karavaev, our Chief Financial Officer.
A replay of this call will be available until Thursday, April 4th, 2019. Access information for the replay is listed in today's earnings press release, which is available on our Investor Relations website at investor.qiwi.com. For those listening to the replay, this call was held and recorded on March 28, 2019.
Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that this call may contain forward-looking statements as they are defined under the Private Security Litigation Reform Act of 1995. This forward-looking statement about our expectations for future performance are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Qiwi cautions that these statements are not guarantees of future performance. All forward-looking statements made today reflect our current expectations only, and we undertake no obligation to update any statements to reflect the events that occur after this call. Please refer to the Company's most recent annual report on Form 20-F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from any forward-looking statements.
During today's call, management will provide certain information that will consist of non-IFRS financial measures, such as adjusted net revenue, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net profit and adjusted net profit per share. Reconciliations of IFRS measures and certain additional information are also included in today's earnings press release.
With that, we'll begin by turning the call over to Sergey Solonin, our Chief Executive Officer.
Sergey Solonin -- Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Varvara and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. Today, I'm excited to share our fourth quarter and full year results with you. This year we demonstrated outstanding performance, especially in our Payment Services business, which delivered 31% segment net revenue and 26% segment net profit growth for the full year 2018. Moreover, growth in our Payments business was accelerating throughout the year and in the fourth quarter Payments Services segment demonstrated 35% segment net revenue and 28% segment net profit growth.
We also reached an important landmark and surpassed RUB1 trillion in volumes this year. I want to thank my team for this incredible achievement. Our impressive growth was driven by strong performance in our key areas; Payment Services for betting-related merchants, digital money remittances and projects we developed for self-employed and B2B2C customers as well as by a more general expansion of our payment ecosystem.
On top of that, our SME segment, which we operate through Tochka, multi-banking platform, showed strong growth trends. I'm glad to acknowledge that we were able to reaccelerate our business this year and I believe that we have a strong foundation for future growth. We will continue to enhance our key products and used cases and develop new projects in order to offer clients in our key markets and largest use of convenience solutions and services.
In 2018, we have invested heavily in the development of our ecosystem, including our retail and its new focused financial services projects, SOVEST, Rocketbank and Tochka. I'll walk you through some latest developments in the corresponding segments in just a moment.
We believe that our performance provides a solid foundation for the expansion of our ecosystem. The significant cash flows that are generated by our core payment business support our strategy and allow us to carry on with investing in new business lines and projects in order to further build up our ecosystem, diversify our operations, prolong the lifecycle of our clients and ultimately secure the long-term growth prospects of the Company.
Now on to some operating highlights. For the fourth quarter of 2018, our Payment Services segment volume increased by 31% to reach RUB329 billion driven by significant growth in e-commerce and money remittance verticals, which grew 80% and 46%, respectively. The growth was largely driven by the secular trends in development of our core categories, including sports betting market triggered by our Football World Cup 2018, reinforced by the expansion of our product offering for the betting merchants, the rollout of our projects we developed for our partners as part of our B2B2C strategy, development of self-employed used cases and expansion of our peer-to-peer ecosystem.
Our total Consumer Financial Services segment payment volume reached RUB5.8 billion for the fourth quarter of 2018 and RUB16 billion for the full year. As of December 31, 2018, we have issued over 700,000 SOVEST cards and build accretive portfolio of over RUB5 billion. This year we have significantly advanced in development in scaling our SOVEST project.
We also significantly enhanced our SOVEST product offering by introducing a number of consumer paid value-added options. Moreover, we have further improved in many key operating dimensions. We have build up and optimized our distribution channels, (ph) securing low consumer acquisition costs and improved our cost of reaching positive customer unit economics.
We see an ample room for development going forward and have an impressive product pipeline for 2019. We will further focus on developing SOVEST product proposition and testing the marketing platform.
Our ECE (ph) segment, which we developed through Tochka multi-bank platform together with Otkritie Bank continue to demonstrate robust operating financial performance in the fourth quarter of 2018, while we were investing in acquiring new customers and increasing market share. Positive volume demand and our volume dynamics in our key markets was converted into strong Payment Services segment net revenue growth and together with our new segment contributed to the overall robust performance of our business. Alexander will walk you through the fourth quarter numbers in more detail just in a moment, while I would like to walk you through some recent developments.
This quarter, we have finalized the transfer of Rocketbank clients and processes to Qiwi Bank. As of December 31, 2018, Rocketbank has over 270,000 active clients, both transferred from Otkritie and newly acquired with over RUB12 billion of current account balances. We believe that Rocketbank has a unique proprietary product offering and profound expertise in areas like digital marketing, IT targets and exciting audience, the millennials and has a good potential to encourage our ecosystem.
We are currently developing the strategy of Rocketbank, assessing the market and testing hypothesis regarding consumer behavior and preferences. We aim to provide the update of Rocketbank mid-term strategy by the end of the year. Last but not least, I would like to take the chance to thank Alexander, our CFO who will be leaving the Company this May for his excellent work, dedication and all the contributions he made to the Company. I am very glad we have shared this journey.
Moreover, I would like to say that we plan to announce Alexander's successor promptly to ensure smooth and efficient transition. With this, I will return the call over to Alexander, who will take you through our financial results in more detail. Alexander?
Alexander Karavaev -- Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Sergey and good morning, everyone. First, I would like to provide an update on the segment presentation of our business. Based on our annual results, we have revised our organizational structure and now distinguish four reportable segments, as well as corporate and other categories. Our key segments include Payment Services segment represented by our core payment business; Consumer Financial Services segment represented by our SOVEST project; Small and Medium Enterprises segment represented by the Tochka business and Rocketbank segment.
Now on to our numbers; fourth quarter 2018 total adjusted net revenue increased by 41% to reach RUB5.8 billion, up from RUB4.1 billion in the fourth quarter of 2017. The increase was mainly driven by Payment Services and Small and Medium Enterprises segments net revenue growth, slightly offset by negative net revenue contribution of Rocketbank segment. Payment Services segment net revenue increased 35% to reach RUB4.7 billion to compare the RUB3.5 billion in the prior year. Payment Services payment adjusted net revenue increased 37% to RUB4.1 billion, up from RUB3 billion in the prior year, as a result of the net revenue growth in our e-commerce and money remittance verticals, which grew 54% and 37%, respectively, offset by a decline in net revenue in Financial Services vertical by 8%.
Our financial results in these segments were driven both by increase in volumes, as Sergey just described and the improvement of the payment average net revenue yield by 7 basis points year-over-year, as a result of shift in product mix, offset by slight yield decline in most key categories. Payment Services other adjusted net revenue increased 26% to RUB623 million as compared to RUB495 million in the prior year.
Consumer Financial Services segment net revenue was RUB199 million for the fourth quarter 2018 as compared with RUB35 million in the fourth quarter of the prior year, showing the growth of the SOVEST project underpinned by the introduction of new consumer paid value-add options. Net revenue of the Small and Medium Enterprises segment increased by 83% and was equal to RUB1.1 billion in the fourth quarter 2018 compared with RUB0.6 billion in the prior year, showing attractive growth of the Tochka business.
Although the Joint-Stock Company Tochka has been established since July 2018, the business operations of the new entity were not launched until February 01, 2019, due to the routine legal procedures. Thus we continue to recognize Tochka project net revenues, which includes mostly Tochka revenues information and technology service agreements with Otkritie Bank for providing services to Tochka clients that have their accounts with Otkritie Bank in full for the fourth quarter and full year 2018. We will begin accounting Tochka as an equity associate in corresponding with deconsolidate Tochka's revenues in information and technology service agreements with Otkritie Bank starting from February 1, 2019.
Moving on to expenses, strong operating performance of our payment services business that continue to generate substantial cash flows, supported our investment in the development of our new products.
This being said, adjusted EBITDA increased 53% to RUB1.5 billion, up from RUB1 billion from the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 25% compared to 23% in the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA margin expansion primarily resulted from adjusted net revenue growth, offset by several factors, including the increase in personal expenses and related taxes, excluding effect of surplus payments; higher SG&A compensation to employees and related taxes as well as increase in client acquisition and advertising expenses, all incurred mostly in connection with the development of the SOVEST and Tochka projects as well as acquisition of Rocketbank and credit loss expenses incurred due to scaling up of the SOVEST project. Group adjusted net profit increased 58% to RUB1 billion, up from RUB0.6 billion in the fourth quarter of the prior year. Adjusted net profit was largely affected by the same factors as adjusted EBITDA. Payment Services segment net profit increased 28% to RUB2.6 billion compared with RUB2 billion in the prior year, driven primarily by Payment Services segment net revenue growth.
Consumer Financial Services segment net loss was RUB538 million in the fourth quarter of 2018, as compared to a net loss of RUB647 million in the same period of the prior year, resulting from the expansion of operation of the SOVEST project and improvement of user economics as Sergey previously mentioned.
SME segment net loss was RUB281 million as compared with RUB64 million in the fourth quarter of '17, driven mostly by a loss recognized from the setup of associated in the amount of RUB267 million resulting from the setup and launch of Tochka platform operations to Joint-Stock Company Tochka, our joint entity with Otkritie Bank.
Rocketbank segment net loss was RUB584 million for the fourth quarter of '18 as compared to a net loss of RUB309 million for the same period in 2017. The net loss was primarily driven by expense incurred in connection with transfer and operational launch of Rocketbank in QIWI, including primarily personal expenses as well as planned acquisition and marketing cost.
Finally, I would like to provide a brief update regarding our dividend distribution and pension. As you saw in our earnings release, our Board of Directors refrained from distributing the dividend for the fourth quarter and full year 2018. However, aiming to promote transparency in regards of our dividend distribution practices and considering our expectations about the performance of the Group, as well as our anticipated level of investments in 2019, the Board decided to provide the dividend guidance for 2019 and set a target dividend payout ratio for the corresponding period.
In accordance with the decision of the Board, the Company aims to distribute between 60% to 85% of its adjusted net profit for 2019, starting from the first quarter 2019. The Board of Directors reserves the right to distribute the dividends on a quarterly basis as it deems necessary so that the total annual payout is in accordance with the target range provided, though the payout ratios for each of the quarters may vary and be outside of this range. It remains the long term intention of the Company to distribute all the cash to the shareholders.
Now on to our guidance. Firstly, I would like to emphasis certain accounting changes and assumptions that are embedded in our 2019 guidance. We will stop recognizing part of Tochka revenues associated with information technology service agreements with Otkritie Bank for providing services to Tochka clients that have their accounts with Otkritie Bank starting from February 01, 2019 as Tochka business is transferred to Joint-Stock Company Tochka. Such revenues were recognized in full for the full year 2018. However, they will only be recognized for one month in 2019.
For the avoidance of doubt only the revenues related to Tochka clients that have their accounts with QIWI Bank will be recognized as QIWI Group revenues in 2019. We will correspondingly account Joint-Stock Company Tochka as an equity associate going further. So, we would believe that the financial results of Rocketbank as well as underlying business trends and targets of this segment will be in line with the first half of 2019 throughout the year and that include the associated full year forecast in our guidance.
However, we reserve the right to adjust the Rocketbank strategy and corresponding financial forecast for the segment throughout the year based on the results of our review of Rocketbank strategy. Given all the above, we expect Group adjusted net revenue to increase by 0% to 8% over 2018. And I would again stress that the accounting perimeter of revenue recognition in 2019 differ from 2018.
Payment Services segment net revenue to increase by 10% to 18% over 2018. Group adjusted net profit to increase by 15% to 25% over 2018 while Payment Services segment net profit is expected to increase by 8% to 16% over 2018. Although we see 2018 result as a strong foundation for future growth, certain other factors remain beyond our control and hence we reserve the right to revise guidance in the course of the year.
With that, operator, please open up the call for questions.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you. (Operator Instructions) Our first question is from Chris Kennedy with William Blair. Please proceed.
Chris Kennedy -- William Blair -- Analyst
Hey, guys, thanks for taking the question and Alexander, best of luck in the new opportunity. Sergey, I just wanted to follow up on SOVEST, you mentioned you have positive unit economics in that business and can you just talk about the long term margin opportunity in SOVEST and kind of the roadmap for that? Thank you.
Sergey Solonin -- Chief Executive Officer
Sorry. Can you repeat? I missed half of your question.
Chris Kennedy -- William Blair -- Analyst
Can you talk about the long term margin opportunity in SOVEST and the roadmap to get there?
Sergey Solonin -- Chief Executive Officer
Okay. So initially, we organized SOVEST on the presumption that we will reach a certain number of clients that will lead us to have a substantial part -- portion of the revenue holding of merchant to be on the SOVEST behalf. So for us, we thought that it will be around 10 or more percent of the revenue stream should belong to SOVEST. So with that, we planned that our average discount for SOVEST on the merchant side would be around 12% and we're not there. So we're moving very slowly.
And because of the competition right now with (inaudible) it seems that it is not very obvious that we will reach 12%. So we've started to do a different program that is based on a different services, additional services that we give to the consumers, so that we have additional revenues from this stream. And today, if you look for today we are much more -- the project looks like much more like after pay or firm in US maybe that could be a good comparable to where we're hitting today and also the average margins will be more or less the same. That's how we think this will go forward.
Chris Kennedy -- William Blair -- Analyst
Okay, thanks a lot.
Operator
Our next question is from Vladimir Bespalov with VTB Capital. Please proceed.
Vladimir Bespalov -- VTB Capital -- Analyst
Hello, congratulations on good results and thank you for taking my questions. My first question will be on Rocketbank, you mentioned that you developed the strategy for this asset by the end of the year, but for the first half of the year, how much net losses this business is going to generate? Do you expect any revenue streams maybe you could provide some color on that?
And the second question that I have is on your guidance, you're effectively guiding that the margins in the Payment Services will be going down a little bit given that the revenue trend probably looks stronger than the net income trend. So maybe you could also provide some color on why do you expect this deterioration of margins and the why the growth is slowing down that significantly compared to let's say to the (ph) fourth quarter of last year? Thank you.
Alexander Karavaev -- Chief Financial Officer
So thank you for your questions, it's Alexander, so on Rocketbank, so we expect to have a net loss of Rocketbank slightly more than RUB1 billion for the first half of the year. On the Payment Services, we don't really expect a substantial deterioration of yields. We just really expect them to be stable for a while and on that job we likely are going to be declining online -- actually, in line with the general configuration of payments. But this actually historically was taking kind of lot of time and that's what we expect going to be happening in the future and so I'm sorry I think I missed your third question.
Vladimir Bespalov -- VTB Capital -- Analyst
It was on the slowdown of the revenue trend, because the growth that we've seen over the past several quarters, it was extremely strong, but the guidance for the full year implies that it will slow down quite significantly. And maybe you also could provide some color on the trends in the first quarter because we are at the -- toward the end of the quarter?
Alexander Karavaev -- Chief Financial Officer
Okay, that was perfect. I mean, generally -- generally we as always love to be considered in our guidance. And again we as of now would love to be -- to continue to be conservative. Our kind of (ph) test also this year in Q1, are very prominent. So it is obviously still too premature to judge how the whole year will go. But I mean in general the trend from Q4 from last year, continue more on the consumer engagement and in macro trends. So I hope that's helpful.
Sergey Solonin -- Chief Executive Officer
I will add that actually, we really stopped some marketing activities on Rocketbank before. We will approve the strategy on the Board. So we tested that all the mechanisms are working well. So as soon as we agree, we will start the campaign again and it will be -- it should be better, but before this -- before we agree with the strategy, we are putting conservative numbers right now.
Vladimir Bespalov -- VTB Capital -- Analyst
Okay. Thank you very much.
Operator
Our next question is from Svetlana Sukhanova with Sberbank. Please proceed.
Svetlana Sukhanova -- Sberbank CIB Investment Research -- Analyst
Good afternoon, everyone. Quick follow-up on SOVEST. First on number of cards, do you disclose number of SOVEST card issued?
Alexander Karavaev -- Chief Financial Officer
Yes we do. So it's more than 700,000 cards at the end of the year.
Svetlana Sukhanova -- Sberbank CIB Investment Research -- Analyst
700,000 cards at the end of the year. Thank you very much. My second question with the SOVEST bank account, (ph) since May , this multi-bank SOVEST model with (ph) 80 bars . Do you plan to consider the SOVEST and change accounting offered or not yet and you need more partners to change accounting for multi-banking model?
Sergey Solonin -- Chief Executive Officer
No, actually no. I mean, we still continue to onboard a substantial part of SOVEST operation on to QIWI bank, but I think the accounting will change as such if and when the multi-bank operations will be an order of traction. So it will change in the way that we only going to be having just a part of the revenue, not the fully and the consolidate, let's assume half of the revenue will go to bank partners and half of the cost essentially for the new, something like (inaudible) cost and cost of risk will be taken by the bank. But given the operations, some of the bars are not yet significant, so we do not see a lot of accounting changes in this year at least.
Svetlana Sukhanova -- Sberbank CIB Investment Research -- Analyst
Very clear. Thank you very much. Can you please disclose how much -- what amount of real cash which you had on your balance end of the year?
Sergey Solonin -- Chief Executive Officer
I mean, if you use three part of the clients' cash it shall be slightly below $100,000 million.
Svetlana Sukhanova -- Sberbank CIB Investment Research -- Analyst
RUB100,000 million?
Sergey Solonin -- Chief Executive Officer
No, dollars.
Svetlana Sukhanova -- Sberbank CIB Investment Research -- Analyst
Dollars, OK $100,000. Clear. Thank you very much. And what kind of investment should we anticipate in SOVEST in 2019?
Sergey Solonin -- Chief Executive Officer
Well, we don't -- I don't think we disclose numbers separately. So if you deal in roubles, but will be less than say in 2018.
Svetlana Sukhanova -- Sberbank CIB Investment Research -- Analyst
So if I heard you correctly, because line is not that good, you do expect investments in SOVEST in the current year around last year amount of investments, have I got you right?
Sergey Solonin -- Chief Executive Officer
Slightly less to 2018 investment.
Svetlana Sukhanova -- Sberbank CIB Investment Research -- Analyst
Slightly less?
Sergey Solonin -- Chief Executive Officer
Correct.
Svetlana Sukhanova -- Sberbank CIB Investment Research -- Analyst
Understand. Thank you very much. And can you help us in terms of betting services, how much was idea of total payment of Payment Services or can you give us approximately size the significance of payment business as of now -- betting business, I mean, betting business.
Sergey Solonin -- Chief Executive Officer
It's substantial, quite around -- I mean, over and over, we evolve the payment gateway, it's just around half of our business.
Svetlana Sukhanova -- Sberbank CIB Investment Research -- Analyst
Half of the payment business. In terms of payment volumes or in terms of what?
Sergey Solonin -- Chief Executive Officer
In terms of revenues.
Svetlana Sukhanova -- Sberbank CIB Investment Research -- Analyst
Payment volume, is it half of (inaudible) business or half of Payment Services business, apologies.
Sergey Solonin -- Chief Executive Officer
Half of Payment Services business.
Payment services business. Very clear. Thank you very much. That's all my questions.
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Our next question is from Andrey Mikhailov with Sova Capital. Please proceed.
Andrey Mikhailov -- Sova Capital -- Analyst
Thank you very much for the call. I have a number of questions. I'll ask them one by one. The first one is on the (ph) break . Even potential, the new products.
breakeven potential of the new products. If you could update us with your plans for SOVEST and those could be breakeven and on Rocketbank, I assume there are no specific plans right now?
Sergey Solonin -- Chief Executive Officer
On Rocketbank, we only -- I mean look, we obviously have provided the guidance for the full year but it's based on the assumption that the Rocketbank business will go as is kind of shaped up now, but I mean, we are in the process of performing certain experiments around the consumer behavior and the unit economics. So this may change probably and this is something that we will going to be kind of taking for the few months to come, likely going to announce in the second half of the year.
Andrey Mikhailov -- Sova Capital -- Analyst
Thank you. And on SOVEST and Tochka, if possible any update since the Investor Day on their periods they can breakeven?
Sergey Solonin -- Chief Executive Officer
On Tochka, Tochka (inaudible) should breakeven. So I mean, it's going to be breakeven this year around that for the full year and going further it will be profit making. Again, we discovered (inaudible), I mean, the unit economics is working just fine in Tochka, so their own equations are exercised for considering the market share. SOVEST, we expect to breakeven from '20.
Andrey Mikhailov -- Sova Capital -- Analyst
Okay, thank you. SOVEST, 2020, that's better than your previous expectations for 2021 if I am not mistaken?
Sergey Solonin -- Chief Executive Officer
We -- I think we were guiding for '19 and then we changed to '20, so never was --.
Andrey Mikhailov -- Sova Capital -- Analyst
Okay.
Alexander Karavaev -- Chief Financial Officer
It is really dependent on the marketing project how it will go because right now we have only few banks and some banks in line can -- it depends how fast this project will go, but right now we are guiding to 2020.
Andrey Mikhailov -- Sova Capital -- Analyst
Alright. Thank you very much. My second question relates to Rocketbank. They were, perhaps there was pressure I think maybe in the presentation by you or Rocketbank CEO, who said that you plan to launch credit products based on Rocketbank's platform this summer. Could you please elaborate on that if possible?
Alexander Karavaev -- Chief Financial Officer
Yes, we hired (ph) Anastasia Kolesnikova , who was a former employee of Rocketbank, as (ph) COO of Rocketbank and we really launched a new product that was jointly made in QIWI and Rocketbank and I think there are few more products to come. So this year, we will be showing up some new things and interesting products.
Andrey Mikhailov -- Sova Capital -- Analyst
Thank you very much. I have to ask whether any specific plans for loan book on the Rocketbank, stemming from Rocketbank this year for loan book growth?
Sergey Solonin -- Chief Executive Officer
I mean, we don't have any specific plans.
Andrey Mikhailov -- Sova Capital -- Analyst
Okay. Thank you. And my last question is on the balance sheet structure. With the heavy influx of customer accounts in deposits now, I was expecting you to invest more into debt securities and debt securities in the balance sheet hasn't expanded as much. So it seems that this customer deposit inflow was mainly directed into cash and cash equivalents. Do you expect this to change?
Alexander Karavaev -- Chief Financial Officer
Right now we are discussing different options, but not -- it will not change materially the result. So yes, we are internally discussing different options.
Andrey Mikhailov -- Sova Capital -- Analyst
Alright. Thank you very much for this. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. This does conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time and thank you for your participation.
Duration: 34 minutes
Call participants:
Varvara Kiseleva -- Head of Investor Relations
Sergey Solonin -- Chief Executive Officer
Alexander Karavaev -- Chief Financial Officer
Chris Kennedy -- William Blair -- Analyst
Vladimir Bespalov -- VTB Capital -- Analyst
Svetlana Sukhanova -- Sberbank CIB Investment Research -- Analyst
Andrey Mikhailov -- Sova Capital -- Analyst
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