According to interview for Bloomberg, Ales Vobruba, Senior Vice-President of Orco expects that dividends will increase from last year level of EUR 0.8 to EUR 0.9 to EUR 1.0 this year, increase by 12.5% up to 25.0% y/y. No exact guidance has been provided for years 2008 and 2009, only that further growth is expected. He doesn’t see the residential demand to slow significantly in 2008 due to possible higher VAT on residential as of 2008. Orco is searching for opportunities not only in SEE region – Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia but also to the east, i.e. in Moscow. Sales forecast for 2007 has been revised last week from previous EUR 300m to EUR 223m due to sold hospitality business as well as possible problems on administrative side of transfering residential units to the clients.
Our view:
Expected dividend is in line with our forecast of EUR 0.93, indicating payout ratio of less than 4%. We don’t think revised guidance is really the issue of the day as it is only reflects restructuring of Orco’s activities and possible administration obstacles in residential sector. We remind that under IFRS residential sales can be booked only after the transfer of ownership. Orco’s sales guidance is made on signed contracts or binding reservations, so the only problem which occurs for Orco is when those sales will be actually booked, not when the money are collected. The same issue occurred this year when notarisation of transfer of ownership was missing in Poland.