How we manage our portfolio companies

Beverages combines three business lines: a wine business, a beer business and a distribution business. Our wine business produces and sells wine locally and exports to 17 countries. Our beer business produces and sells beer and lemonade mainly locally and owns a ten-year exclusive license to produce and sell Heineken brands in Georgia.
 

Investment rationale

• Georgia is considered the “cradle of wine” with a rich, 8,000-year history of wine-making and home to over 500 unique grape varieties
• Georgia’s favorable trade regimes (free trade agreements with EU and China) provide potential for export growth for beverages ▪ Growing urbanization and tourism inflows are raising demand for bottled wine locally 
• Approximately 27% of the tourism inflows is spent on food & beverages
• Strong demand in the Georgia’s export markets resulted in a 9% y-o-y increase in volume in 2019, with export bottles sold reaching a 14 year high of 93 million
• Georgia falls behind beer consumption per capita against EU

• Best-in-class distribution network platform
• Grow vineyard base to 1,000 hectares, from current 704 hectares  
• 10-year exclusivity from Heineken to produce and sell beer in Georgia
• One of the strongest brand equity across Georgian beer market

Hospitality and Commercial Real Estate business is comprised of: (a) rent-earning commercial assets with targeted 10% yield; and (b) hotel development business across Georgia with targeted more than 1,000 rooms.
The hotel development business has confirmed 1,222 rooms, of which 273 are operational and 949 are in the pipeline. The targeted hotel portfolio comprises c. 630 internationally branded hotel rooms and c. 592 hotels rooms under the business’s own brands developed by Amber Group.

Investment rationale

• Record number of tourists visiting Georgia every year: 5.1 million visitors in 2019, up 6.8% y-o-y, 9.9% CAGR over the last six years;
• Tourism inflows up 1.4% y-o-y from US$3.2 billion to US$3.3 billion in 2019; 11.5% CAGR over the last six years.

Value creation potential

• Grow Portfolio of rent-earning assets through residential developments and opportunistic acquisitions
• Reach more than 1,000 hotel rooms. Currently approximately 1,222 rooms are confirmed, of which 273 are operational, 460 are under construction and 489 are under design stage
• Targeting mostly 3-star and 4-star hotels, mostly taping unpenetrated markets in Georgian regions

Our renewable energy business is a platform for developing hydro and wind power plants across Georgia.

Following the buyout of the 34.4% minority shareholder in GRPC on 25 February 2020, Georgia Capital’s renewable energy business consists of its wholly-owned subsidiary GRPC (with 50MW Mestiachala HPPs) and wholly-owned Hydrolea HPPs and Qartli wind farm (with 41MW installed capacity in aggregate). In addition, the business has a pipeline of 350MW renewable energy projects in the medium term.

Investment rationale

• Growing electricity market as supply lags behind the increasing demand, creating opportunities.
• Underutilized energy resources - availability of economically feasible hydro and wind projects. 
• Cheap to develop – up to US$1.5mln for 1MW hydro and up to US$1.4mln for wind development on average with 1.5x higher capacity factors compared to Europe over the last decade.

Value creation potential

• Opportunity to establish a renewable energy platform with up to 440 MW operating capacity over the medium-term, targeting to capture approximately one third of deregulated electricity market 
• Energy consumption is expected to grow at least by CAGR 5% over the next 10-15 years on the back of following key drivers:  
  • Rapid tourism growth combined with high GDP growth with pronounced growth in electricity heavy sectors
  • Increasing penetration of domestic appliances, with accelerating imports of electricity-intensive conventional domestic devices
  • Increasing number of installed residential and industrial air conditioning systems on the back of decreasing unit prices, expected to result in at least 5x growth in penetration level over the next decade

Property and Casualty Insurance (P&C Insurance) is a leading player in the local P&C insurance market with a 29% market share based on earned premiums, gross as of 30 September 2019. P&C Insurance offers a wide range of insurance products to Georgian corporates and retail through five business lines: motor, property, credit life, liability and other insurance services.

Investment rationale

• Significantly underpenetrated P&C insurance market in Georgia (0.6% penetration)
• Market leader with a powerful distribution network of point of sale and sales agents

 Value creation potential

• Compulsory border TPL effective from 1 March 2018
• Local TPL expected to kick in and provide access to untapped retail CASCO insurance market with only 4% existing penetration
• Increasing footprint in untapped MSME sector, where Aldagi’s revenues have grown by 93% in 2019 (from GEL 0.7mln to GEL 1.3mln)
• Developing and introducing new digital channels to simplify purchase of insurance products
• Undisputed leader in providing insurance solutions to corporate clients

Housing Development is a leading real estate developer on US$1.6 billion Georgian real estate market with three business lines: (a) a residential development arm targeting mass market-customers by offering affordable, high-quality and comfortable housing; (b) a construction arm, engaging in construction contracts for other businesses as well as third-parties; and (c) franchise platform for development of third-party land plots with fee sharing arrangements. The business also started to develop distressed asset management arm in 2019.

Investment rationale

• Shortage of housing from Soviet era combined with Georgian tradition of multi generations living under one roof - average household size is significantly higher at 3.3 compared to Eastern or Western Europe
• Most of the housing stock dates back to Soviet era and is amortised
• In line with the economic growth, urbanization level is expected to increase from current low level

Value creation potential

• Unlock land value by developing housing projects
• Development of third-party land – franchise m2 brand name.
• Earn Construction management fees from third-party projects and bring construction works in-house

Our Water Utility is a natural monopoly in Tbilisi and the surrounding area, where it provides water and wastewater services to 1.4 million residents representing more than one-third of Georgia’s population and c. 36,000 legal entities. Water Utility also operates hydro power plants with total installed capacity of 149 MW.

Investment rationale

• Regulated monopoly in Tbilisi and surrounding districts with high entry barriers
• Sectoral output increasing at a robust growth rate (on average 9.5% in the last 10 years)
• Stable regulatory environment with fair return on investment
• 149MW hydro power plants linked to Water Utility

Value creation potential

• EU harmonization reforms in progress in utilities sector, expected to drive water tariffs up
• High GDP growth combined with rapid tourism growth drive high demand from corporates
• Energy market deregulation positively affecting electricity sales price
• Upside opportunity from efficiency gains
• Stable dividend distribution capacity

We see attractive opportunities in what is currently a very fragmented, private high school education market and expect to build a diversified business model combining premium, mid-level and affordable school segments. Our education business now combines three high quality school partnerships across premium, mid-level and affordable education segments that provide a clear pathway to approximately 11,180 learners, more than one-third of our targeted 30,000 learners by 2025.

Industry investment rationale

• Highly fragmented private school market
• Large and growing market
• Efficiency upside
• High trading multiples
• Low base – 3.8% of GDP, compared to EU average of 4.6%*

* 2017 data: World bank, Eurostat

Georgia Capital sees strong value creation opportunity in the auto services industry, which is currently a very fragmented market with approximately GEL 2.8 billion annual revenues. The Group aims to build a diversified business model with a digital platform combining different auto-related services: car services and parts, secondary car trading, car insurance and periodic technical inspection (PTI).

Investment rationale

• Georgia’s Auto park continues to grow steadily, with 7.4% CAGR during the years 2012-2019
• Georgia lags behind developed countries by number of private passenger cars per capita, showing room for further growth* 
• Vehicles older than 10 years represent 90% of total auto park 

Value creation potential

• In July 2018, the business (Greenway Georgia or “GWG”) won state tender to launch and operate 51 periodic technical inspection lines across Georgia with a 10-year license 
• Currently, inspection covers the basic technical control of vehicles. The government plans to gradually tighten procedures in 2020 to try and reduce the level of harmful emissions* 
• GWG is the only player on the market with support from an international partner, Applus+, a Spain-headquartered worldwide leader in testing, inspection and certification services, with a market presence in more than 70 countries

* Source: GALT & TAGGART

Georgia Capital has entered the high growth digital sector by acquiring a 60% equity stake in Redberry, a leading Georgian digital marketing agency. The acquisition of the attractive service business complements our existing portfolio as well as provides an opportunity to enhance digital capabilities across our portfolio businesses. The acquisition of Redberry enables us to have a platform for investments in the digital business.