Well, a very good morning from Prague, CTP here, headquartered in the beautiful city of Prague, with the H1 2024 results. Before we get there, maybe have a look back at the start of our IPO three years ago, a bit more. Since the IPO, March of 2021, we've been able to double the business in terms of size, means lettable area, rental income, value, and it has been a fantastic ride so far. Thank you very much for all your support. Before we did the IPO, we thought, maybe this is going to slow us down, we're going to change the culture, it's going to be less entrepreneurial, it's going to be less dynamic. Well, that has not been the case at all. I mean, numbers don't lie, as I say, and obviously this growth would not have happened if we would have turned into a bureaucratic big organization.
It has been very good, not only from a financial point of view. The IPO also brought us different systems and processes and procedures, so CTP became a better company, more effective and more efficient company with compliance, with a lot of good things. It became a better company. Also, one of the targets, better access to capital with cost of capital decrease, and that has also been achieved. Another important point, I think, is the labor, so staff, colleagues. With a listed company, you can do all kinds of share option plans and so on, and we have been able to do that, which is good, which gives also key employees and any employee an opportunity to own shares, which is the case. CTP employees all own a share of CTP and will have the opportunity, of course, to own more.
So the IPO has been very good so far for many reasons. And that's looking back, more importantly, okay, what are we going to do with this fantastic company with all these people? Well, that's the land bank, and that's 25 million square meters, 25 million, massive. 20 million of that is owned, 5 million approximately is under option, right to buy, subject to getting permits and so on and so on. Most of that land is within existing business parks, so you can build additional property within that park for existing tenants most of the time, or for suppliers or 3PLs or whoever comes in and needs to be part of that park.
We believe in Europe, for Europe, we believe in Europe overall, so there is demand coming from the defense industry, automotive industry, semiconductor industry, consumer goods. I'll talk about a bit later, so there is good demand for good properties in good locations. This year, so far, we signed 918,000 square meters of leases, which is up 8% compared to 2023. That means we do more deals in 2024 than we've done last year. Also, we do those deals at higher rents. We continue to see rental growth, same square meter, we now get more rent than a year ago, but for that same square meter, we pay a bit less construction cost now than we did before. A couple of deals, I will come back to that later, but we have done different for fashion retailers like Primark, we did previously.
We just closed a deal with LPP in Bucharest. Also wanted to mention a completely different business, semiconductor business for Taiwanese-based Quanta. We have many Taiwanese clients, actually, out of our total, it's more than 10%, it's Asian clients, and that is growing, also thanks to our office in Hong Kong, thanks to our presence in Taipei, thanks to our offices in China, which helps us get closer to Chinese or Asian companies and help them set up shop and business in Europe, for Europe. Quanta, I mentioned Quanta, is a project we do currently in Jülich, close to Aachen, and it's a semiconductor production facility in Germany. At the same time, we're also doing projects for Taiwanese clients in the Czech Republic, of course. In order for us to capitalize on that, we have a team of people, currently 800, so we continue to hire people.
We've been able to hire more than 60 people this year so far, turnover reduced, so we're also able to keep good people involved and engaged in CTP. CEE core market, whereby we continue to remain market leaders in the CEE region, but also grow footprint in other markets. Germany, I mentioned, that was always when we did the IPO, the target to go and grow, set up shop in Germany. We have been able to do so, expect quite a lot. Also think at the moment is a good moment for us to enter Germany and do some land banking. We see good opportunities to invest now and to benefit from that over the years to come. We will continue to develop property in Austria, especially in the capital of Vienna. So overall, the business outside of the core market, let's say the CEE, it also develops well.
Short update, as you know, we split our business into three. We have operator, the income-producing part of the business, all the properties which we own. Properties are in good condition. We continue to improve, refurbish, upgrade. Occupancy is okay. We like to be 95%. We are around 93%, but this August now, I've seen some takeoffs. I talked about tenants, reliable, stable, good companies, growing. We do collect the rent on time, and that's good. Talking about the rent, we're currently looking at EUR 1 billion of rental income per year by 2027. The business has grown a lot. I still enjoy it very much. Also myself, I'm involved in the day-to-day operations of the business, but it seems that it's really possible to continue to grow. We see demand. Of course, markets are changing. It's not just growth, change is opportunity. That's what we see.
That's how we think entrepreneurial, hands-on can do attitude. But yeah, lots of opportunities in Europe, for Europe. The developer is the guys and boys who build properties. Yeah, mostly properties within existing business parks. We are looking at how to improve different properties constantly. The slogan is, "Every next project is a better project," so we continuously improve. Smarter buildings, nicer buildings. In Germany, for example, we like to do smaller units. We do the same in the Czech Republic for many years. Not just big box, but also some value adds. Also science, technology park, lab space, also here and there combination with housing, affordable housing, because our projects create jobs. And for jobs, you need people, and for that, you need housing, and there's not always housing available.
So often and more and more, we see our parks and our developments as an all-in solution and not just, "Okay, here is a building and the rest is your problem." No, no, we look after all the services, facilities, maintenance, repairs, but also beyond. Always we've said the tenant should be able to focus on his core business. That's where his profit is. We do the rest, the building and all the stuff. So housing is one other thing. So when I mentioned, we are talking about developers. They build buildings, but also they're very much involved in innovation and how can we do more. Building new properties, yes, we will do. The target remains 10% yield on cost or more. Yeah, and we build for the future, so we build quality stuff. Also buildings, generic design, which we can use for many different uses.
So far this year, delivered 328,000 sq m, more than 90% leased. We're still leasing at 10.7% yield on cost. We have under construction quite a lot, 2 million sq m. I'm not saying that we can all of that complete this year, but around 1.5 million sq m maybe. Out of the 2 million sq m, almost 80% is being built within existing parks. It's again a confirmation that that's really our core business, continue to develop properties within full-service business parks, which are located in strategic locations. Wanted to highlight some larger projects. 55,000 sq m we do for Inventec, Taiwanese in Brno. Very happy and proud of doing a project for Raben, 115,000 sq m in Warsaw. Tesco, of course, 100,000 sq m in Budapest. Almost 100,000 sq m for H&M close to Bucharest. So those are the big ones maybe.
And then we do here and there all types of different things for 3PLs, last mile showrooms, boxes, R&D centers, but also for companies involved in manufacturing. Yeah, so that is what we do. 24 property types plus one, which is the CT Fit, whereby we do adjustments to satisfy the specific needs of a tenant, you could say. Solar is going quite well, actually. That's the third business line. Buying solar panels and mounting them on the roof is one thing. Getting them up to speed and getting the business operational is a second thing, but we're getting there. So it's good. We see good results in some countries. Also, all the different countries have different legislation. Yeah, so solar business is different in Germany compared to what it is in Holland or in the Czech Republic. So far good, actually better than we thought.
Yield on cost-wise, this is a better business than our construction business. I can talk for hours, but I'll hand over to Maarten and remain available for any comments or questions.
We're standing here at the construction site of CTPark Prague North, which is part of CTP's network around the Czech capital, right next to the highway connecting Prague to Dresden. This park illustrates CTP's strategy well, growing in existing locations by building the next building for existing tenants. The new phase two, you see here behind me, and there is already lots of construction activity going on, is slated to include some of the most sustainable buildings in Europe. It will also include our clubhouse community center, sport facilities, and greenery, creating an attractive workplace for our tenants and their employees. The park is designed for a wide range of businesses, from local to international companies like existing tenants, Makro, a food wholesaler, Albert, one of the leading Czech supermarkets, several logistics providers, and manufacturers like AAC Technologies, which produces interactive sensory technologies.
The development is the largest in the Prague region, with the site offering midterm potential of over 300,000 square meters. This also feeds into our valuation and the huge opportunity we have with our 25.5 million square meter land bank. Assuming a 50% build-up ratio, we need 2 square meters of land for 1 square meter of GLA, which means we can build over 12 million square meters of GLA on our current land bank. Taking into account the average construction cost of EUR 500 per square meter and land prices of EUR 50 per square meter, the total investment cost for 1 square meter of GLA comes to EUR 600. This, while the standing portfolio is valued at around EUR 950 per square meter, allows us to realize a potential development profit of EUR 350 per square meter.
This will enable us to continue to generate organic double-digit NTA growth also in the years to come. Now looking at the H1 valuation results, the cross-asset value of our portfolio grew to EUR 14.8 billion, up 8.5% compared to year-end 2023. The H1 2024 revaluation amounted to EUR 436.7 million, mainly driven by our standing assets and the leasing and construction progress on our developments. Our standing assets increased on a like-for-like basis by 3%, as the EFEs increased by 2.9%, while yields remained stable. CTP's reversionary yield now stands at a conservative 7.2%. Looking ahead, after the 80 basis points increase we experienced in the last two years, we are at a clear inflection point for yields. In addition, we do foresee further positive EFE growth in the CEE region.
In most CEE markets, inflation-adjusted real rents remain lower than 15 years ago, illustrating both the affordability of the region for our tenants as well as the rental growth potential. Our EPRA NAV per share increased from EUR 15.92 year-end 2023 to EUR 17.05 as of 30 June 2024, representing an increase of 7.1%. Moving on to the financial highlights. The like-for-like rental growth came to 4.8% in H1-2024, driven by indexation and strong rent reversion. The reversionary potential increased to 15.3%, and we have proven to be successful in capturing this potential for leases that came up for expiry. Our gross rental income for the period increased by 14.4% year-on-year to EUR 320.9 million. The net rental income went up by 17% year-on-year as we reduced the service charge leakage. Consequently, the NRI to GRI ratio came to 97.8%.
The company-specific adjusted EPRA earnings per share increased by 11.2% year-on-year to EUR 0.40, on track to reach our guidance of EUR 0.80-EUR 0.82 for the year.
I'm joining you here today from inside Makro's regional distribution center, which includes classical warehousing facilities in chilled, frozen, and ambient temperature zones, as well as an automated racking system that you can see behind me. This is a great example of the flexibility of our properties, which feeds into our tenant retention and high level of repeat business, which support our strong profitability. Now turning to our financial position, we have a robust balance sheet and strong access to multiple pools of capital. In total, we raised EUR 1.7 billion year-to-date, of which EUR 1.3 billion was unsecured and the remainder secured.
To proactively manage our upcoming maturities, we repurchased EUR 750 million of our short-dated 2025 and 2026 bonds, realizing a capital gain of EUR 31.9 million. Our cash position stands at EUR 1.1 billion, more than sufficient to meet our cash needs for the next 12 months. When including our RCF, which we increased to EUR 550 million, our liquidity position amounts to EUR 1.7 billion. The average maturity of our debt stands at 5.2 years, with no material debt maturity until June 2025. At the end of the first half, CTP's average cost of debt came to 2.38%. This will continue to tick up going forward as we bring on new funding at today's higher interest rates to finance our development-led growth. 99.7% of our debt is fixed or hedged until maturity.
Thanks to our strong cash-generating portfolio, we have a healthy interest coverage ratio of 3.1 times, while our normalized net debt to EBITDA stands at 9.2 times. Our loan-to-value ratio was 46.2%, up 20 basis points compared to year-end 2023. This increase was driven by acquisitions, but largely offset by positive revaluations. Excluding our recent Romanian acquisition, loan-to-value would have been 45.6%. This is slightly above our 40%-45% target range, but we expect the LTV to come down as the revaluations of our developments become fully booked. We are confident in the outlook for CTP. We have a strong leasing lead list and continue to see rental growth across our markets. Nearshoring is speeding up, as highlighted by Remon. Our pipeline is highly profitable and tenant-led.
Thanks to our industry-leading yield on cost of over 10%, we are able to deliver sustainable and profitable organic growth, even in the current higher interest rate environment. We continue to grow our EPS and deliver double-digit NTA increases, outperforming the market. We confirm our EPS guidance of EUR 0.80-EUR 0.82 for 2024, and we target to reach an annual rental income of EUR 1 billion by 2027. Thank you for your attention. We now welcome your questions.
Thank you very much. To ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. When prepping to ask your question, please ensure your device is unmuted locally. To withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. Our first question comes from Vanessa Guy with J.P. Morgan. Vanessa, your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, and thank you for the presentation. I have two questions. The first one is on the rental growth outlook and the development of debt costs that you expect to see in the second half and how the progression is expected. And also, the second question is more on the yield on cost guidance for future projects. Is this still around 11% for the CEE region? And how should we think about Germany going forward? Thank you very much.
Hi, Vanessa. Thanks for your questions. Maarten here. Let me do the first question on rental growth and debt cost, and then Remon can talk about yield on cost. So if we look to the rental growth, we continue to see rental growth both in terms of the new leases that we are signing, as well as, of course, the in-place portfolio. You saw the like-for-like rental growth came to 4.8%, driven by the indexation, which we already booked in the first quarter, but as well as the reversion that we are capturing. We see a reversion of around 15% on the leases that are up for expiry. But as well, if you look to the new rents that we are signing, and we also added the slide in our deck, where you see that we continue to sign higher rents, basically in all the countries where we are active.
On average, we signed 8% higher rents than in H1-2023. We expect that to continue because that comes back to the demand that we continue to see. Because ultimately, it's a question of demand and supply. While, especially in the CEE region, we see that continued demand driven by the structural demand drivers that we have been talking about. We would expect rental growth to continue. Will it be a stronger all market? No, there will be some markets stronger than others. Czech has already seen a lot of rental growth, so it might be a bit slower, but still, we expect rental growth there to happen, but not at the levels you've seen in 2021 and 2022. All the markets are just at the beginning of the rental growth journey.
We see quite some good rental growth in markets like Serbia, where we actually have done some quite good deals. Romania is at the beginning of that cycle. So it really depends on the market by market, but on group level, we expect rental growth to be ahead of inflation. Then on the second part of the question on the debt cost and the outlook of that, if we currently look at our marginal cost of debt, marginal cost of debt is probably at this stage around 4.5%. It depends a bit, of course, on maturities, but if you look to 5 years up to 7 financing, you're at 4.5%, 4.6%, 4.7% maybe. So our average cost of debt will continue to tick up over the year as we bring on new debt.
But it's also, of course, put in perspective of the yield on cost we are having, so above 10%, and Raymond will go back on that. But each euro we invest basically improves our interest coverage. So for us, it continues to make sense to bring on the new debt and to continue to invest. By the end of the year, I would expect the average cost of debt to be slightly below 3%, high twos basically, due to the new debt that is coming online. But that's currently simply math following the refinancing needs and the new debt we need to have for our investments. And then I'll let Remon comment on the yield on cost.
Yeah, thank you, Maarten. Yeah, Vanessa, the same plan. Yeah, so we continue to do 11% is a target, let's say 10 above 10, north of 10 yield on cost for CEE regions, Central Europe. The second part of your question, what about Germany? Around 8%, 9% yield on cost, it's a target. That's also what we do. We do have projects under construction. We just visited Germany yesterday and meetings with different teams. So yeah, that's also what we do, 8.5%, 9%. We do that, I think, a couple of things. We bought land, so that is what we have in parks. So you share infrastructure costs. So we bought initially land for attractive prices, although we use fair market value if we calculate our yield on cost. But that's one. So we have land, land bank in a bigger park, less infrastructure per meter square.
And I think the way we do it, with 800 people, we have in-house capacities and also quality, I think, to design buildings well and to also do construction management mostly. So from the initial design, all of the procurement that is being done in-house. And I think in return, you probably get competitive prices for the properties you build. Plus on top, there is the certain volume we do. It obviously helps if we do package deals or if we do deals with building material producers. If we buy larger volumes, we obviously get better deals. So yeah, that remains the plan. Has also been always what we've done over the past 25 years or so. So that remains.
Thank you very much for the color. Thank you. Our next question is from Marios Pastou with Bernstein. Marios, your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Just a couple of questions from my side. Firstly is actually a circle back onto kind of rental growth and the ERV growth of 2.9% posted for the first half. Can you break this down a little further by maybe each of your major locations or maybe even just provide a split between your CEE exposure versus, say, your Western European exposure and maybe comment if there's any kind of star performers or outliers there? And then secondly, just on leasing progress so far into the third quarter, how is this trending both in terms of volume and rent trends seen throughout the first half? Has there been an acceleration into the third quarter, or is it showing similar trends? Thank you.
Hey, Marios. On ERVs and the difference between the regions, I will tackle that, and then Remon can talk about leasing. If we look to the ERV growth, indeed, 2.9% across our markets. Strong markets where we see the ERV growth. And to be honest, our portfolio in Western Europe is not very representative, as you know, because Germany, it's a bit older portfolio where we continue actually to see quite a bit of ERV growth as we are increasing the rents accordingly. So in Germany, we make a lot of progress, and the German team makes a lot of progress with basically transforming the under-rented DIR portfolio into the higher rents, and that's also reflected by the appraisers in ERVs. So Germany was actually one of the markets where we had quite a good ERV growth of around 5%. But again, that's of course not so representative.
If you look to the new product, that might be a bit different. We developed the first new buildings in Germany. So from next year on, we will have more evidence as well on that. If we look to the CEE markets and where do we see strong markets in terms of ERVs, we have still seen an uptick in Czech. And that's also because if you look to the Czech Republic, you of course had the prime rents quoted by brokers where 7.5%, 7.75%. But the regional cities like Brno, Ostrava, Bor, etc., remained behind that. But now you see also there the ERV is going up as brokers also and appraisers have recognized as well the rental growth opportunity there. So in Czech, for us, it's mostly capturing that rental growth also in the secondary cities. Other markets where we saw strong ERV growth was Romania.
Romania is, of course, our second largest market, as you know. But we've seen quite some strong rental growth coming through there. As I said before already, when answering the question of Vanessa in Romania, we are just at the beginning of the rental growth. And that's also now the appraisers see that and reflect that in the ERVs. So in Romania, we had nearly an ERV growth of around 7% as we are driving the rents up over there. I can share all the details market by market, but let me leave it there. And we can take more details offline if you want. Now, Remon can comment on leasing in the third quarter.
Yep. Hey, Marios. Yeah, the leasing is okay, good. It's a bit different per country. Also, if you look at vacancy, because I mentioned we like to be 95%, so 5% vacancy in the portfolio around that. We have been 93%-95%. 95% is better than 93%, obviously. Also because of leakage. If empty buildings have leakage, obviously, so it's always better to have a higher occupancy. On one hand, on the other hand, we continue to build properties, so we're never 100% the way we work, but 95% is better than 93%. So then if you look at where the vacant buildings are there in Poland, for example, Poland was a market which part of the entry strategy was to go out and build properties, and now we need to lease them up. So that's what we are doing. I'm actually in Poland today.
We are here with 100 people. We have a solid team, good projects. So the leasing is happening. So good demand, but it will take a bit of time for us to get rid of all those properties which we have built. So when you go a little bit, when you look closer at vacancy, because core markets of, I mean, Maarten referred to Czech Republic, and so we historically and still have very high occupancy there. And that goes for other core markets as well. So where demand comes from, yeah, from very different industries, obviously from our existing tenants. Most of the deals we do with existing tenants with whom we are working and have been working for years, and then they often take more space. They grow their business, they grow their footprint in Europe. And that has been maybe with COVID, it was more e-commerce.
After COVID, the whole near-shoring trend started, or initially it was building inventory because there were supply chain issues. Later that turned into near-shoring. You see all kinds of different industries, but also you see if I refer to Romania, to Bucharest, for instance, that you say, okay, there's fashion retailers like H&M, Hennes & Mauritz. I referred to that. They would pick Bucharest as a regional hub because infrastructure has developed so well, road network. And so they say, okay, out of Bucharest, we can do Bucharest, Romania. We can also do Bulgaria and maybe even a larger region. We have seen that also from IKEA earlier, that IKEA took almost 100,000 square meters in Bucharest at one of our parks.
So to summarize, I think we see demand from 3PLs, pure logistics, but also from consumer goods companies like H&M, fashion retailer, etc., but also from companies involved in manufacturing because of their, yeah, the near-shoring policy or in Europe for Europe, the Asian companies, the semiconductor business, which is, by the way, not just Central Europe, but the semiconductor business and the facility which we are currently constructing is in Aachen in Germany. And we are doing other projects in Germany at the moment. So yeah, it's good. And I think we are also maybe one point also relatively active developer. Yeah, so we continue to gain market share, especially in the core markets where we are at home. The wave is gone where everybody could do a little shed here and there.
I think it's back to the well-established companies with all respect to the other players, but we are just a bit different with 25 years of experience on the ground with land bank, with a client base. So we get business from our... So maybe we grow a bit more than the market does also take up. And so I think, yeah, so that can well be also because other players are maybe not in excellent condition to continue to do what we do in a professional way and they maybe didn't as a hobby. It's also a bit different. It's also they are not with 800 people on the way as we do. So yeah, but there's no guarantee for that it's going to continue like this, but so far it's good. And again, change is opportunity.
I mean, I think now is the right time to buy land in Germany. Maybe three years ago it was a bit different situation. But yeah, no, good. So far it's good. No major concerns.
Great. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Our next question is from John Vuong with Kempen. John, your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, team. Thank you for taking my questions. Just want to follow up on your comment on leasing. Your pre-lets on the pipeline has improved quite significantly compared to last year. There's also lettings on completed assets or...
Sorry, John, your line isn't quite clear.
Okay, hear me better now?
Yes, that's a lot better. Thank you.
Hi. Yeah, thank you for taking questions. Just as a follow-up on your comment on leasing, your pre-lets on the pipeline has improved quite significantly compared to last year, as well as the lettings on completed assets are ahead of target. Is this the result of a mix of countries you're delivering in, or could we say that underwritten rents are perhaps slightly more conservative than where you wanted to be, given perhaps stronger than expected occupancy?
Hey, John. On the preletting figure, there are a few things there. As you know, it always sticks up over the year. So we deliver most of our projects in the second half of the year. So you typically see that uptake over the first half when we are building out or doing the construction basically of the pipeline. It's a bit ahead indeed of last year, the preletting. So we have made progress in the markets, and we also have a few big projects coming online this year, which we already preletted last year. And Raymond was referring to them, the H&M one, the Tesco one, the Raben one. So we had quite a few big projects which were preletted and which will come online this year in the third, fourth quarter. So that helps us.
That's also if you look to the leasing and the demand that we continue to see and the deliveries we like to do with the current good take-up, we expect to be on the upper end of the 1-1.5 million square meters. We are continuing with the construction there and hope to have nice deliveries in the second half of the year. That's always the usual seasonality you see. If you look to the deliveries, 92% indeed preletted at delivery, which is slightly above the 80%-90% range. That also continues to show our disciplined behavior in terms of construction. We lease in the market or we construct in the market where we see the demand.
And that comes back to our ability as a general contractor as well to speed up and to slow down subject to markets where we see the demand. That's always how we have done. And that's also why also if you look historically, we always have been around 80%-90%. I think one year we are slightly above that, but in the last 5-6 years. But other than that, we expect for this year again to land in that 80%-90% with all the deliveries in the second half.
Okay, that's clear. And then just as a follow-up on the land bank, given that you've added another 2 million square meters to the land bank, how much more do you see scope for this to grow over the next 12 months? And also tying into the occupier demand, how should we think about utilization of this land bank? Is there scope to increase the run rate of developments?
Yeah. Hi, John, Richard Wilkinson. Yeah, obviously the land bank would give us the opportunity to go faster again. That's one of the advantages that we have. Nearly 90% of the land bank is in our existing parks or the core of a new park. A park for us is over 100,000 square meters of GLA because there we have enough space to be able to offer tenants flexibility through their lifetime in the park. So the ability to grow and continue to develop with us in the location where they already are. We do have a focus on mobilizing the land bank that we have because that's the margin we yield on cost on that. On the land that we've already bought is even higher than the 10% that we target across the portfolio. Yeah, the land bank would allow us to grow further.
I think Remon mentioned earlier this is a nice time to be able to buy land in Germany. So you could expect us to do one of the other things there. In most of the other markets, we will add some, particularly where we can add it around our existing parks. But we have more than enough overall to carry on. So we can be a bit more selective in our land bank going forward.
Yeah, that's very clear. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Our next question is from Frédéric Renard with Kepler Cheuvreux. Frédéric, your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. I just wanted to have a bit more detail on the level of demand. I know you were saying that the level remained relatively broad-based, but I just wanted to be a bit more specific. For instance, I see that over the last two years, automotive was 14% of your total signed lease. But also automakers are having relatively a hard time with some of them deciding just to cut or suspend new projects. So what's your view on that specific industry? Then maybe another question on the rental growth. And you were mentioning Romania, for instance. But yet, when I look at your presentation, I see that you signed some contracts in Romania and Serbia below ERV versus last year. Can you comment and do you see a risk of rent going down in some location? Thank you.
Yeah, so let me take the second part of the question, and then Remon can comment on the automotive sector. So what you see in the presentation, Fred, is not that we lease below ERV. In Serbia, the leases we signed this year were slightly lower than last year, but that's very much driven by location. So last year in Serbia, we leased assets in Belgrade City. Belgrade City has, of course, higher rents than when we lease assets in the surroundings of Belgrade or in Novi Sad. So it's purely driven by the location. And I think you will be as well at our Capital Markets Day, so you will see the location of Belgrade City, and then you see why people pay a premium for that. So that is the leasing last year, and this year we leased in other locations. We continue to lease ahead of ERV.
So you shouldn't read in that this year we signed slightly lower rent per square meter as a decrease in rental growth. It's, of course, always location-driven. That's the nature of real estate. Same in Romania. In Romania, we did some larger deals, with larger deals typically have a slightly lower rent per square meter. So that's why the ERV growth is more important. And I already referred to that. We've seen quite some strong ERV growth in the markets as the prices recognize that we continue to lease ahead of ERV. And given our market share in the market, we have around 30% market share in our core markets. In Romania, it's even a bit higher. We are, I think, a very fair representation of what is happening there.
And if we look to the uplifts, we are able to realize that boosts our confidence in the outlook in the rental growth in the southeastern European region.
Yeah, hey, Frédéric, yeah, I can comment maybe a bit more on the automotive sector you asked about. But yeah, overall, in terms of percentage, in terms of the amount of business we do as a whole, and then the amount of part of the automotive sector that is dropping. So if you look also when I refer to those one of the couple of big projects which we have under construction for completion this year, I think there's non-automotive, maybe Inventec, the Taiwanese, you can say that is part of their business. Semiconductor business is somehow related to automotive because there is more technology in new cars than there was obviously previously. So that is a growth industry.
So there are definitely opportunities also in the automotive industry. But if you look at our pipeline now, if you look at our outlook and business plan, also what we plan to do in other countries, including Germany, there's just going to be obviously less automotive than maybe as where we stand now. So yeah, but there are other growth opportunities. The consumer goods industry we spoke about. We talked about semiconductor. We talked about different 3PLs, different, yeah, and defense industry related. There's lots of opportunities. So yeah, I think we've always been, I'm sure we have been and we are keen on not being overexposed to one or the other. Yeah, it's good. So there's no bankruptcies or no tenants who we talk to who want to pull out of the building, out of the rent contract in any of the sectors with significant impact.
Well, as you know, we collect 99.7%, I think, of our rent historically. So Richie can share details on that. But yeah, so I hope to answer your questions. Happy to share more. And yes, of course, you're very welcome to come and see us in September in Bucharest where we have this Capital Markets Day, which gives all of you an opportunity to see properties, to get to know different people in your organization, but definitely also to talk face-to-face about where's opportunities, where's threats, what markets, what industries can grow. And Maarten mentioned something on Serbia. That's, by the way, a location where we see automotive, Asian, also Chinese because there is this Chinese like it very much in Hungary and in Serbia. There's a lot of support locally from different governments to help get Asian companies set up their businesses in those markets.
And yeah, they supply again to Volkswagen and BMW. And so as you know, BMW is building a large facility in Debrecen in Hungary. Yeah, for the new generation of cars. And so there's a lot going on, of course, in the automotive industry. That is still an industry where we are, and there will be, and we will remain connected, and we'll make sure that we benefit from that opportunity if there is. Yeah, but never overexposed, always a good mix.
Thank you both. I will be there in September. Thank you.
Perfect, Frédéric. We look forward to having you there. And there you'll see because the Belgrade location is really urban logistics. So it's a real prime location. And maybe just a couple of points on the automotive. One, we have almost no exposure to powertrain. So the change in the automotive from combustion to electric will not really affect our tenants. And the other thing that we see, and Raymond mentioned it before, and we've seen it a couple of times, is that the change there is also an opportunity for us, primarily driven by Central Europe being the best cost location for manufacturing in Europe. So as there is a change, then there is more of the manufacturing will move towards Central Europe proportionally, and we will continue to benefit from that. And we benefit from that in two ways. One, directly.
And second one, indirectly, because the manufacturing is generating higher incomes in the countries. Higher incomes lead to higher expenditure. That leads to more turnover in retail. So you have an overall very positive cycle of growth in Central Europe driven by the nearshoring, increasing disposable incomes, driving retail expenditure, increasing demand overall for space.
Thanks, Richard.
Thank you very much. Our next question is from Pierre Clouard with Jefferies. Pierre, your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Actually, I have two follow-up questions. Maybe to have more details on the Czech Republic. If I'm looking at real estate brokers' data, I see that the prime rent in Prague is going down by a single digit over a year. So do you see anything specific happening in the country, especially in light of the vacancy rate that more than doubled over a year? So should we expect the vacancy to increase in the country by 2024 and by the end of 2025? And maybe if you have a view on where the vacancy could land by the end of 2025, it would be useful. And maybe the second question on the square meters that will be delivered in 2024, we are already in August.
So maybe you might have a closer view on how many square meters you will deliver, especially because the range that you are giving, it's still quite large. So it would be useful if we have more precise idea on how many square meters you will deliver in 2024. And also if you can have already a figure in mind for 2025, and should we expect a figure that will be below 2024 number in light of, let's say, a more difficult demand or at least less dynamic demand currently?
Hi, Pierre. A few remarks there, and I will start with the first question on Czech Republic. Yes, if you look to prime rents quoted by brokers, they have come slightly down. That's driven by, if you look how the methodology of the brokers is, they look at what deal is signed in that specific quarter and which has the highest rent. And that was a deal, I think, in Q4 of last year, which was signed in the Prague region, which had the higher rent. And now if you do something, apparently there was a deal signed at a lower rent. You should not read too much into prime rents quoted by brokers because it's very much driven by what is signed at that specific time in that market. Well, if you look to the averages over all the leases that we do, you continue to see that increase.
That's what we highlight on basically the slide 7 in our presentation. If you look last year in the first half, we signed on average deals in Czech at EUR 6.48. This year we signed in the first half deals in Czech at EUR 7.68, which is much more a representation of the overall leasing dynamics that we see going on. To take into account, if you look to the prime rents quoted by the brokers, it's often purely for the warehouse. While if you know, we also rent, of course, offices in the warehouse. It's typically 5% or so. We lease sometimes the yards. We have other rental income coming in, which is basically boosting the average rent per sq m that we are able to achieve. So we continue to see rental growth in the Czech Republic.
Like I said, especially also with the secondary cities catching up. Will Prague grow as quickly as it's grown before? No. But we don't see rents in Prague in principle coming down. It's the secondary cities which are catching up to the Prague level. That on the prime rents and rental growth in Czech Republic. If you look to vacancy, it has currently indeed ticked up. I think CBRE quotes 2.9% vacancy in the Czech Republic. Still the second lowest in Europe after Italy, I think second lowest vacancy in Czech Republic. So you continue to see a very healthy supply-demand balance because 3% vacancy is basically a rounding error. Where will it go over this year, over next year? We don't expect it to tick up materially from here because you see a very if you look to the Czech Republic, the ownership is very concentrated.
So we have a big market share in Czech. P3 has a big market share, Prologis, etc. None of those players is helped by delivering a lot of vacant space to the market. So you typically see a very disciplined behavior in terms of how much space is brought to the market. And with that, of course, the vacancy is balanced. So we continue to be quite bullish on the overall outlook of the Czech Republic, which, given its location in Europe, is of course very centrally located for logistics, but as well, of course, the manufacturing we have around Ostrava, etc. And you saw the assets at our CMD last year. So that on the first question, on the range of the deliveries, yes, it's still a relatively large range.
But I think, as I said before, if we look to the current tenant demand, we expect to be more around the 1.5. So the upper end of that range. And tenant demand remains healthy. We'll give an update on that at the CMD. Then we have a better view on, of course, what happens in the third and the fourth quarter. But that's currently our outlook. What do we expect in 2025? We are still working on our outlook for 2025 internally as well. Typically, as you know, we grow between 10%-15% per year in new space. And with the demand outlook and the leasing we are seeing, we have at this stage no reason to change that number.
That's also why we continue to expect to deliver a double-digit NTA growth because as we continue to develop, we continue basically to unlock the potential which is in our land bank.
Thank you. Super clear.
Thank you very much. Our next question is from Steven Boumans with ABN AMRO ODDO- BHF. Steven, your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. I have three questions. So the first is, could you please quantify what we can expect for the average rental levels to be signed in H2 2024? The second is, hey, you mentioned nice acquisition opportunities. What amount of acquisitions in EUR can we expect broadly in H2? And the last third question, given your bullish comments on rent acquisitions and the potential to increase developments, can we assume full year 2025 developments to be materially up versus 2024? So maybe, I don't know, 10% or 20% higher than 2024 if everything continues as today. That's it.
Hi, Steven. Thanks for the questions. Regarding rent levels in H2, I think what we said earlier is that we see ERVs ticking up pretty much across the region. The actual number will depend on the country mix. So if we would do only Czech Republic, we would have a higher number. If we would do only Romania, we would have a lower number driven by the fact that the absolute rents in those countries are different at the moment. So as we show in the first half, we grew, if you calculate for the countries, and Maarten has a very nice slide in the presentation. We grew the rents by 8% compared to the same period for last year. We continue to expect ERVs to tick up across the region.
In the first half of 2024, you saw that we continue to invest in our land bank. We will continue to do that. In the second half, volume will be, in terms of euros, similar amount. So continue to invest around EUR 100 million in the second half of the year. Would expect. Regarding the full year 2025 deliveries, we've always said that our development pipeline is also driven by tenant demand. So as Maarten said a couple of minutes ago, as long as we see tenant demand continuing to be strong across our region, which is also what's driving the ERVs up, then we'll continue to try and meet that demand. And yeah, that can mean that we will deliver more next year, but that will really depend on tenant demand.
Maybe to ask it a bit sharper. So if demand stays as is today in, let's say, six months, then your full year 2025 outlook on developments will be materially up versus 2024. Is that correct?
Could be.
Okay. Thanks.
Thank you very much. Our next question is from Francesca Ferragina with ING. Francesca, your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hello. Good morning, everybody. Thanks for taking my question. First question is about the acquisition that you made in Romania at the end of May. Can you give an idea about the size? And in general, do you see room for some other acquisition of this type in this market? What are you experiencing lately? Do you see more sellers? Can you give us some more color? And the second question is still on the development pipeline. I see in the press release you mentioned that 16% of the development pipeline is in a new park. I mean, new park, I mean, it's a new park coming, or are these spare locations here and there? Maybe this 16% is related to the German projects that you have. Can you help me to understand? Many thanks.
Yeah, sure. Maybe I do the second question, and then Maarten or Raymond can give you the details on the Romanian acquisition. So in terms of the new parks, a lot of that, Francesca, is in Poland. Like I said earlier in one of the answers, a park for us is over 100,000 square meters of GLA. So that's where we're building the first building in a new location for us. So if you remember, we bought a large land bank from 7R in the past, and that was spread across 13 locations in Poland. So a lot of the new parks relate to Poland, not specifically to Germany at the moment.
Thanks for joining, Francesca. With regards to Romania, your question, yeah, well, this acquisition, yeah, is very nice strategically because the Globalworth, they are a player in the business and a colleague in Romania. So this is both strategically very interesting to acquire this portfolio. It helps us grow market share. It comes with good properties, with new tenants, with land. So yeah, that is very nice. And as you know, we have an established organization in Romania, so we also have the capacities to handle this portfolio as well. So yeah, it's also in the locations where we are. Some of the locations are quite next door or right next door to where we already built and do. So it's an immediate extension of some of the parks, Timișoara, Bucharest North. So yeah, this was a nice opportunity.
We've been in touch with the vendor for a longer time. And yeah, I think it was also a matter of timing, and they wanted to sell this non-core for them. And obviously, it is very core for us, this kind of properties. So yeah, it all came together quite well and quite nicely. And maybe Richard can highlight a bit of the numbers, Richard, as you did yesterday on our board meeting, maybe what you want to share and what you can share. But for Francesca and the others, yeah, it would be good maybe to also go a bit into detail on the financials.
Yeah, absolutely. So we bought it at a passing yield of over 9%. So it's immediately accretive, even taking into account the land that we bought on top. And as Raymond says, we will have the opportunity to develop on that land over the next couple of years. And there we would be targeting the 11%+ yield on cost that we should be able to achieve in Romania. So overall, that was a really, really nice transaction. Unfortunately, there's not so many of those that are around, but you can trust us that we spend a lot of time and energy looking for all of the ones that are there.
That's fine. Many thanks. Clear.
Thank you very much. Our next question is from Wim Lewi with KBC Securities. Wim, your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Yes, thanks. Good morning. I've got three small follow-up questions. And continuing in Romania, you stated you have a market share of 35%, WDP stated 25%. So that's moving into 60%, the two of you. Is there a trend towards more concentration in the market? And does that lead to better pricing, as you mentioned, or are there other factors? Then on Germany, there on the land you're buying, I'm wondering, could you find any greenfields in Germany, or have you moved to brownfields? And would you maybe even consider using your own portfolio of older infrastructure as a brownfield? And then last question is really on the pipeline. So you repeated the 2 million GLA run rate of new developments.
Now, with the economic outlook softening, I'm just wondering, can you hold on to that, or is there maybe a shift that you focus on other regions, as you also mentioned now with the Hong Kong office more looking at Hungary or Serbia because of political reasons? So any shifts in that 2 million annual target?
I take the Romanian question, and Raymond can follow up on Germany. So, Romania, yeah, generally, we see that having a more concentrated market and more disciplined market participants does, in the long run, lead to better financial performance for us. But we see that not only in Romania. That's true for pretty much all of our core markets, where we have ±28% market share across the four core markets. But the other big players are also very disciplined in terms of not delivering a lot of speculative space. So, as Maarten mentioned earlier when we were talking about the Czech Republic, there's a good understanding by the main players in the market that it's in their interest not to overdevelop. So that is one of the positive aspects of our region.
So when you combine disciplined supply with ongoing strong demand, that's one of the factors that helps to support the rental growth. And in terms of the pipeline, the run rate, the 2 million, we've been pretty consistent at that level for a year or so now. And like we said earlier, we continue to see solid occupier demand. If we would feel that slowing down, then we would stop starting new buildings. So try and manage the risk profile. For now, we don't feel that from our tenants. You may remember last year when interest rates started to go up and a lot of people applied the brakes very sharply. We were listening to our tenants, and they were not saying that to us, not in our region.
So we have been consistently telling a slightly different story to maybe more Western European-focused peers, where Central Europe is continuing to benefit from being the best cost location and will stay the best cost location also for the next 10, 15, 20 years. So that's a big structural benefit for us in terms of how we're seeing maybe a slightly stronger demand than some of our peers.
Just maybe to add on that, Wim, indeed, what Richard referred to, higher economic growth in the CE region compared to Europe. You see, if you look to the forecast for the coming five years, GDP gauges are between 2.5%-3.5% for the Central and Eastern European countries. So quite a healthy continued growth and also domestic growth. But if you also take a step back and if you look to our tenants, if you have a manufacturing tenant coming in, they make a decision for 10, 15, in some cases, even 20 years. They really play on the long-term trends. And the long-term structural trends, and that comes back to what Raymond also highlighted in the introduction, is nearshoring. Whether you have one quarter of economic outlook, which is a bit weaker, yes or no, doesn't change that fundamental structural trend. That structural trend remains in place.
And therefore, also for them, long-term, they continue to make the decision to invest. Because if they sign a lease, which is now, it can be delivered in one, one and a half years from now. And they look at, okay, what do they expect to be the forecast in the coming 5-10 years? So it's a very different investment decision than if you relocate a production plant than, of course, based on a quarterly GDP outlook figure. So it's really long-term trends which are basically fostering the demand in the region.
Okay.
Yeah. I can take the Germany question. Yeah. I will take the German questions, but also I can add to what Maarten just said also because of nearshoring and all of that. I mentioned it, we mentioned it, that most of the new business we get from existing clients; this is still more than two-thirds of it. So it's still quite significant. It's often if these companies set up a business in the region of Central Europe and they like it, they bring more business or they get more business and then they need to grow. And it's still happening. I mean, I referred to something in Brno for Taiwanese Inventec. They have been with us for more than 20 years, and we have done multiple facilities for them. And this is just a new one. And they used to do a lot for HP, for Hewlett-Packard.
But obviously, this consumer electronics or semiconductor business, yeah, you can find it in cars, and it's just a growing industry. Plus, they like to have a larger footprint outside of Taiwan and so on and so on. So that plays definitely for Central Europe. So also from the existing client base, yeah, you get most of your new business. That's true. And that's also why it's important to have neighborland and land where you can actually build and grow and do more facilities for these tenants. But back to the German question, which is also a little bit because you said, can you do 2 million square meters next year or 1.5 square meters of new property to be delivered to the market in 2025? Yeah, I don't know. We are in the middle of obviously planning, and we do have land with permits, so we could accelerate.
Depends on demand. Depends on the talks we have with the different tenants, the pre-leases, the market feel, how the market develops. We don't need to be in a rush. There is no need to build too much space. That's not good for the market. It's not good for us. So we'd be very careful with that. But we obviously, on a day-to-day basis, are in touch with the different countries, and the managing directors in the different countries are well aware of when do you start, what do you do, and what can you build. But it would be logical, I think, normally to believe, okay, with more land, with 10 countries, with a stronger organization, with more people employed, that you can build more buildings. So the capacity is there, yes. And also the new markets, Poland, Germany, those are new markets for us.
They will come up to speed now. Because initially, from setting up the team, buying land, getting ready, doing permits, you would assume that they would be able to produce more and deliver more properties in 2025 than in 2024. And in particular, when you refer to Germany, we have 80 people employed, 3 offices, Berlin, Düsseldorf, and Stuttgart, with local teams on the ground. The structure is that we divide in micro teams. So each team has responsibility for a certain region, many civil engineers, builders, designers, etc., property management and leasing people as well, as well as ESG and solar people are employed and form part of the team. To answer your question, so we are currently on the construction of 100,000 sq m. The plan for next year, 2025, is to complete 200,000 sq m of property in and around, so in Germany, different regions.
Now, and that's the plan. So let's see. That's what we are working on. And of course, it can slip into 2026 if we yeah, but that is the short-term plan for 2025. And we do not plan per year. It's more like a 5-year plan with a 3-year detailed plan of what we want to do. Because you need time for building, you need time for permitting. You're not in control of the permitting process, and you rely on the authorities. And so they need to build in some extra reserve. You need to be a bit careful with that. But with regards to where we would build those properties in Germany, well, when we bought the Deutsche Industrie, you remember there was a collection or a portfolio of properties in all kinds of locations, but there's also land. So with that, we are now building on that land.
It's greenfield land. So in and around Berlin, for example, we are currently building, but also in other parts of Germany where we actually have done permitting, and we're currently building properties on the land which we bought as part of the acquisition of the Deutsche Industrie REIT-AG at that time. And it's greenfield. But also some of the properties which we bought are up for, or there's potential for redevelopment in some good locations with good demand where it's very difficult to get new land zones. With that, I mean, the government is not so keen on supporting greenfield, etc. So there we would do a redevelopment. So we would demolish some property and then in return build multi-story properties. So that's also what we are currently we have identified a few projects in Germany where we will proceed with such redevelopment. Third is land we buy.
Yeah, we bought in Mülheim, it was one of the largest, but also in Wuppertal, but Mülheim, we bought 36 hectares. We paid, I think, EUR 110 per square meter. That's a brownfield. It's a steel mill. So we are actually now in the process of, of course, we've done our DD, but now we are about to start in September the demolition works. And then from 2025, or at least in 2026, the first property should come to the market in Mülheim. So yeah, that's a brownfield, but there's also greenfield opportunities. As Richard explained, we see opportunities at the moment to acquire land bank, which we would then develop on over the coming five to 10 years. That's how we look at it. I hope that answers your question.
Yeah, sure. It does. Thanks a lot, team. Very detailed answers. Thanks.
Thank you very much. Our next question is from Artem Murnov with Primex asking, which countries are growing the parks in nearshoring context?
Yeah. Thanks for the question. Look, I think we mentioned earlier, so if you look at Chinese firms, you see them rather more focusing on Serbia or Hungary because there are stronger links at the governmental level. Otherwise, we see strong demand across the region. I wouldn't say there's one country that is outstandingly good. I mean, Remon mentioned earlier the deal we're doing for Quanta in Germany. So you see nearshoring also coming there. That's another Taiwanese company, part of the ASML value chain. They were looking at different locations, Central Europe and also Western Europe. They finally decided to be basically on the border, Holland, Germany, to be closer to ASML in Eindhoven. So you see, it really depends on what the tenant is trying to do and where the workforce is best available. So high tech is always going to be located in and around universities.
So you look at now the Silicon Valley of Central Europe, 12 technical universities there. There's a lot of very high-tech value-add activities that takes place in our parks there. So it really depends on location. For location, you can't say one country is doing particularly well because the overall trends, lower cost, lower taxes, skilled workforce are across the region. So it's not one is great and one is not great. They're all very good. Quarter to quarter, you may see slightly different results because that's always driven by the leases that you actually sign. But overall, the trend is positive across all of the countries.
Thank you very much. And our next question is from Neeraj Kumar with Barclays asking, you expect cost of debt to be slightly below 3% by year-end due to new financing. How much new debt do you expect to take on during H2? Will it be fair to say that you will primarily rely on bond market for that given current cost compared to bank debt? And how will this impact your ICR by end of the year?
Yes. Hey, Neeraj. If you look to new debt in the second half, we'll probably be limited. We did a lot in the first half of the year, as you saw in the presentation, EUR 1.7 billion. So most of the average debt increase is basically driven by the annualized impact of what we have done in the first half of the year. For the second half, we are opportunistic. You see, we have a cash balance of EUR 1.1 billion. On top, we have an RCF of EUR 550 million. So there is no need for any financing in the second half. We have more than enough liquidity, as well as, of course, cash flow generated by our standing portfolio to cover the CapEx needs for next year, as well as the refinancings for 2025. Just in the second half, we might look opportunistically for 2026 maturities if pricing is attractive.
Will we do it in the bond market? We want to do indeed more unsecured financing. The bond market is indeed currently priced most attractive. So all else equal, that has our preference at this stage. Especially, of course, since basically the spreads you have seen come down materially. But for banks, that will typically take a bit longer. But anyway, we have a good relationship with the debt investors. We engage with them very regularly. And also, if you look to the last bond we did in January of this year, it was more than four times oversubscribed, five times, actually more than five times oversubscribed. So we see good opportunities in the bond market if you want to go there. Then with respect to the last part of your question, which was the ICR, where will the ICR be at the year-end? We are now at 3.1.
Depends a bit on how much cash we have. Because ultimately, if we would not do any new financings, of course, the ICR would hold up better. Because if you look to our ICR calculation, it only includes the interest expense. It doesn't give us the benefit of the interest income, which is, of course, quite material with our cash balance. So if we would not do any new financing, the ICR would hold up better. In general, I would expect it to be in the high two levels.
Thank you very much. That concludes our Q&A session. I will hand over back to the management team for any closing remarks.
Yeah. Thank you very much for your questions, everyone, and your participation on the call. We wish you all a very good day. Thank you.