In November, passenger car registration in the EU increased by 6.7% YoY, totaling 885,581 units. Meanwhile, looking at the numbers since the beginning of the year, EU registration of new cars increased by 15.7% YoY overall. In Croatia in the mentioned period, passenger car registration reported an increase of 31% YoY.
New total car registration per month
Source: ACEA, InterCapital Research
In November 2023, passenger car registration in the EU increased by 6.7% YoY, totaling 885,581 units. The largest increase reported in the EU in November was in Italy, where the absolute increase amounted to 19.4k units, representing an increase of as much as a 16.2% YoY increase. Italy is closely followed by France at 18.8k units (14% YoY). Next up is the UK where the increase was 13.6k (9.5% YoY). Finally, there are remaining major regions within the EU, those being Germany and Spain. Germany reported the the strong decrease of 14.8k (down 5.7%) and was the only major region to note a decline. The growth trend in Spain paced down and amounted to 5.1k (7%). Looking at the majority of months before, UK & Germany reported the most pronounced growth. However, during November, Germany recorded a first month of a YoY decline.
When observing on a YTD basis, the situation is pretty similar – EU registration of new cars increased by 15.7% YoY. However, the previous year was influenced by the semiconductor shortage, which started all the way back in 2021. Consequently, most EU markets showed strong growth compared to previous years. When observing the whole period, each of the major markets within the EU noted a positive development. UK reported the most pronounced absolute growth (amounting to a relative 18.6% YoY), while the remaining major markets, Germany, Italy, France, and Spain follow UK all noting a strong double-digit growth of 276.4k, 265.7k, 242.3k and 123k, respectively, coming both from low base effect & real recovery in the sector. Smaller regions mostly noted double-digit growth. In November, a few smaller countries reported a YoY decrease in units.
Looking at the region, when observing the whole YTD period, Croatia reported an astounding increase of 31% YTD, amounting to a growth of 12.5k units. Slovenia reported lower numbers, recording a 5.3% growth, amounting to 2.3k units.
New car registration by power source
Source: ACEA, InterCapital Research
During November, the EU petrol car market grew by 4.2%, although its market share contracted from 33.5% to 32.7% compared to the same period last year. Hybrid electric market share increased by as much as 4.7 p.p. YoY to 27.4%. On the other hand, the EU’s diesel car market continued its decline in November, decreasing by 10.3%. Finally, overall the EU diesel car market continued to decline during the month to the current market share of 12.2% (down 2.3 p.p. YoY).
Today, we are bringing you a quick analysis of the indebtedness and the capital structure of Croatian blue chip companies that make up the CROBEX10 index, using the recent 9M 2023 results published in October.
With the publishing of all the 9M 2023 results for the Croatian companies behind us, we decided to look at how these results changed the indebtedness and capital structure of some of the largest Croatian blue chips. In order to do this, we looked at the net debt to EBITDA ratio, as well as the percentage of debt the companies use to finance their operations and investments. Furthermore, we looked at how much additional debt the observed companies could take to reach 3x EBITDA. The 3x EBITDA mark is usually considered an “upper” limit of how much debt the companies could take, without putting their operations at risk with the repayment of said debt. This upper limit is usually considered when a company makes new investments, especially in the case of M&As.
Of all the Croatian blue chips, Adris, Span, Končar, Ericsson NT, and Hrvatski Telekom operate with a negative net debt. This means that their current cash positions (which include short-term financial assets combined with cash and cash equivalents) are more than enough to cover their entire financial debt. Consequently, their net debt to EBITDA ratio would also be negative. Because of this, these companies were excluded from the net debt to EBITDA comparison. Finally, the EBITDA data is based on the trailing twelve-month (TTM) results, which include the latest quarter, as this is the only way to show full-year data. This is done because components of the balance sheet (like in this case, debt) always reflect their numbers on a certain date, while components of the P&L reflect only financial data for a select period (as mentioned, 9M 2023).
Net debt to EBITDA of Croatian blue chip companies
Source: Companies’ data, InterCapital Research
Out of the remaining companies, the largest indebtedness goes to Arena Hospitality Group with 6.3x. Arena Hospitality Group is followed by Atlantska Plovidba with 2.9x, Valamar Riviera with 2.7x, and Podravka with the lowest KPI of 0.1x. The remaining companies have net debt to EBITDA of less than 1x. Regarding Arena Hospitality Group, the Company continues its investment cycle. Q3 results, however, are mixed, as the Company did record higher ADRs in Croatia and CEE, while it recorded lower occupancy rates in Croatia, its biggest individual market. Q3 margins also suffered, especially in Croatia. Despite this, 9M normalized profitability improved. The opening of art’otel in Zagreb and Radisson RED Belgrade should provide some support. Valamar Riviera is also in a similar boat in terms of investments requiring higher levels of debt. The remaining companies retain pretty low levels of indebtedness, which considering that the current macroeconomic situation makes taking new debt significantly more expensive, makes sense. We note that looking at previous quarterly results, Končar was included in the calculation. However, during 9M 2023 Končar put a lot of effort into the liquidity domain, which resulted in strong operating cash flow due to an active management of working capital and consequently, a negative net debt overall. Thus, we excluded Končar from this calculation with the latest quarterly results. Further, AD Plastik is excluded from this analysis as the company was recently excluded from CROBEX10 composition, which was our benchmark. However, AD Plastik was substituted with Span, which currently has a negative net debt.
Potential additional debt (EUR) to reach 3x EBITDA
Source: Companies’ data, InterCapital Research
Taking a look at how much new debt these companies could take to reach 3x EBITDA, Arena Hospitality was excluded as they already are over this number. Of the remaining companies, HT could by far take the most, at EUR 1.53bn, followed by Adris with EUR 82.5m, Končar with EUR 299m, Podravka with EUR 262m, Valamar Riviera with EUR 175m, Atlantic Grupa with EUR 120m, Span at EUR 44m, Valamar Riviera with EUR 32m and finally, Ericsson NT with EUR 146m, Atlantic Grupa with EUR 104 and finally, Span with EUR 35m. This would mean that in case these companies see any potential for further expansion or even a need to finance their operations, they could take on significant amounts of debt. Of course, as mentioned, new debt is more expensive now than it was a year ago, and it will most probably stay at these elevated levels for a few upcoming quarters.
Finally, we looked at the capital structure of these companies. Just recently we provided you with a capital structure of Croatian blue chips. However, we decided to cover the same topic in the indebtedness domain. All of the observed companies have the majority of their funding from equity (>50%). If we were to rank them from highest to lowest, HT has 100% of their operations financed from equity (as the company has no debt). Span is to follow with 92.2% of equity funding. Podravka has 91.1%, Končar has 87.7%, Adris has 86.7% and Ericsson NT has 82%. On the other hand, currently only Arena Hospitality Group has less than 60% of its finances from equity. Valamar Riviera finances 61.7% via own funds, equity. Considering they both operate in the tourism industry, this is to be expected.
The capital structure of CROBEX10 constituents
Source: Companies’ data, InterCapital Research