Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Wereldhave first half 2025 results webcast. I'm here today together with our Dennis de Vreede, and we're glad to report the results to you today. We'll take you through some questions, as usual, and you can ask your questions towards the end of the presentation. However, the chat box at the bottom of your screen is already available, so please type in all the questions you have, and as usual, we'll deal with all the questions towards the end of the presentation. Let's start with the key messages. I think most of you have already picked up on this. We have raised our guidance for the direct result per share from EUR 1.7080-EUR 1.75185. The key drivers of raising the result is not only acquisitions that we have achieved in Luxembourg, but also smaller acquisitions in Tilburg.
In addition to that, also the operational results, in particular the 6% growth in like-for-like net rents, has contributed significantly to the raised guidance for Wereldhave. Regarding this point, it's also important to mention, I think you've already noticed that in the first quarter we have sold a shopping center in Winkelhof, Leiden, and Dordrecht for EUR 56 million. In the second quarter, we have sold a shopping center in Roosendaal, EUR 40 million, in line with the latest book value. In addition to that, we have sold two smaller Belgian projects for EUR 12 million, also in line with the latest book values. I also need to add that those disposals, Roosendaal and the Belgian ones, have closed post-balance date, so they're not visible yet in our loan-to-value. Dennis will get back to that with our pro forma loan-to-value.
The operational improvements, I already touched on, 6% growth in like-for-like net rents, I think is a very nice figure, driven by amongst others indexation, but also all rent income and leasing will be affected by that. The debt profile, I think we made a step in this quarter, an additional EUR 125 million in financing amongst others, new European placement with a Dutch insurer, first one for Wereldhave in the history, so I think a very good sign of confidence. We keep being active in the U.S. market. The Fitch rating of BBB still has been reaffirmed, a good sign as well. Our first Dutch joint venture on the 5th of June, we announced that together with Sofidy, we acquired a shopping center in Zoetermeer, obviously. We're still working hard on a couple of transactions this year. We'll deliver Kronenburg, Arnhem, but also Nivel, Nivel in Belgium.
Last but certainly not least, we continue to screen for interim acquisition opportunities in Belgium and in Luxembourg. Just to call, our strategies and change in the tax regime in the Netherlands, we've lost the FBI regime, the REIT regime in the Netherlands as of January 2025. We keep rotating capital out of the Netherlands to Belgium and Luxembourg in order to achieve tax efficiency, but also because we vary interest opportunities in both Belgium and Luxembourg. Takes you to the next slide. We got the results itself. If you look at the direct result per share, you can see it's increased from EUR 0.84-EUR 0.91, about 8%. The operational drive, as I've already mentioned, also the cost control. What you see in the first half of this year is that our space has roughly remained stable whilst the top line of P&L has grown.
Actually, below the EBITDA line in the P&L, you can see that the interest lines perform better than what we expect, amongst others, driven by the refinancings that Dennis went back to. If you look at the net loan-to-value, you can see it increased towards 44.9%. That's actually above our target. However, if you include the signed disposals that I already just mentioned, you'll arrive at 43.7%. In the second half of the year, we expect to sell Full Service Centers in Dordrecht and that will make the loan-to-value more towards 42%. The like-for-like rental growth I've already touched upon, roughly 6%. The thing that you can see a call out are the diverse indexation with 0.5% still quite high. Other rental income is interesting at 1.4%.
What we see, and we also see that in the industry, is that other rental income or more income, whatever you call it, is becoming increasingly important because it's a fast-growing industry. It consists of the specialty leasing in malls, but it also consists of the revenue we generate, for example, the solar panels, but also through EV chargers in our parking lots. Basically, our parking lots are almost becoming gas stations because we have mostly parking. We own a lot of parking surrounding our centers. In the past, it was typically a loss-making activity, but it is now turning into a profit-making activity. You can see that back in the P&L, and I think that's going to come in the coming quarters. Occupancy is slightly increased and also the savings. Talk here about net rents, so also operational expenses and the non-lovable service charge reductions included in here.
If we then go to the country by country, starting with Belgium, we had a small NGR uplift, 1.6% new rent versus old rent. This has been positive in Belgium for the past quarters, and we also expect it in the future to be positive. If you look at this 1.6%, it's a bit lower if you compare to the last couple of quarters. That's driven by the fact we did a lot of leasing in Genk. It's our most difficult location in the Belgium portfolio, but we have a lot of acquirers this year. Plus, a lot of effort to fill leases. That has been quite successful. We signed three major leases with Pomodas, Catchers, and an extension of New York, which means the occupancy of shopping in Genk is now 95%, which I think is a very good figure.
You can see that the rents in those cases are more or less in line with old rents, which is bad. The average for Belgium is therefore a bit lower. Still 97.3% of ERV and I think the occupancy rate of 98% speaks for itself. In the Netherlands, we have talked about an improving operation market, and as you can see this in the first quarter, we had a 0% NGR uptick, which now increased to 0.5%, which is quite good, I think. Also nicely 11% above ERV. We see an increasing number of retailers in the Netherlands, also in the fashion segment, the discount fashion segment where we are very active, expanding their networks, and I think we are benefiting from that. Luxembourg is new, of course, in the portfolio. We have signed five leases in line with the old rents nicely above ERV.
We also have a couple of leases in the plan in Luxembourg in the second half of the year, which are almost signed to our nicely above rental levels. You will see the first signs of the reversionary potential in leasing that we talked about in February when we explained the acquisitions in Luxembourg, first and foremost in Pommerloch, the larger center of the two. I think we gave some color on that back then, and we'll see the first efforts in the second half of this year. France remains more difficult. That's a commission of a more difficult operation market, but also the fact that particularly our center in Bordeaux, Meadeck, from a leasing perspective, is still a little bit overrented, and you can see back here in the figures only seven leases.
The occupancy rate of 96.4% I think is quite good, but the rental performance is a bit mixed. Talking about the Full Service Centers, what you see here is our table that we always present. We have a separation with the Full Service Centers in transformation in the middle column and traditional shopping centers. You can see on the right-hand side that, of course, the Limburg centers have been hit. What you can also see is that in the mixed-use percentage, it has increased. If we look at the bottom of this chart, for example, retail sales, which is the best part, looking in the case, + 2.5% in the Full Service Center, should bode well for future rentals in that bit of our portfolio. Footfall, I would say, is more or less in line with the market in the Netherlands, a little.
Not so big of a plus as we saw in 2024 and 2022, the post-COVID year, but I think still a nice increase versus this year. Dental sales, more importantly, a little bit muted in Belgium, + 1%. In Belgium, it's a little bit more mixed at the moment than in the Netherlands. We had some good years, but + 1% is not a bad figure, but it's a bit slower growth. Netherlands, the + 3% I think is a good year, particularly in the fashion industry. We all see the + 3% after a couple of more difficult years, I should say, and you will see that back later on in the occupant cost ratio, which has declined in the Netherlands. I think it's a good sign that we were a little bit on the high end.
Food average, which was struggling with the energy prices and the inflation shortage of labor, is now showing results here as well. You can see + 8% in the Netherlands. Daily life real, I'm way too gorgeous, but the defensiveness of our portfolio, convenience retail non-traditional, it declined a little from 68%- 67%. It's also a result of transactions, the sale of the shopping centers in the Netherlands and the acquisitions in Luxembourg. With the transformations completing the second half of this year, the percentage of daily life will increase again. Some more information about the leasing in our core portfolio. I already mentioned in Belgium the leases we have signed with the retailers in Chopin in Genk. That has been very important to the company. Also in Luxembourg, we extended the Delhaize, for example, and in Knapmeer we have renewed lease with Medimart, the biomedical facility in Portuguese.
In the Netherlands, I want to mention a new lease we signed with New Yorker in Middenwijk in Hugo Waard. It's a very important lease for the company because if you look at the fintech segment in Middenwijk, we had some ups and downs, but the signing of a very large New Yorker store will have a very positive impact on the center. They were not yet attending that center, so I'm very happy they will be entering the portfolio for the work of our Dutch leasing team. If we look at the occupancy cost ratio, Belgium 14% more or less stable, but in the Netherlands we see a decline to 12%. It used to be around 13%. These are rounded figures, of course.
Particularly in the fashion sector, we see a decline, and that is driven by strong sales growth of some of the leading fashion brands we have in the Dutch portfolio. It's interesting to see that because we don't see this in all of our markets. If I look across our markets and in other European markets, I think it's also more of a big signal. The leading fashion retailers in our portfolio in the Netherlands are performing quite well. We also see a decrease in homeware households. That is because Blokker, the Dutch homeware household, went bankrupt last year. They were at a very high occupant cost ratio, of course, now being removed from the figures. With that, I'll hand over to Dennis.
Thank you, Matthijs, and also a warm welcome from my side. To start with the direct result, the waterfall, as you can see, a + 13% driven primarily by the acquisitions, but also the rent growth and continued cost savings are contributing to that. If I would exclude the acquisitions and disposals, we still see an 8%+ in terms of direct result increase. I think if you look at the underlying drives, Belgium and the Netherlands, for example, they both are experiencing a slightly higher occupancy as well as a slightly higher indexation, which is driving direct growth in the countries. Lastly, on the negative side, you could clearly see on the right-hand side the debt impact for the first half year, which is primarily driven by the net.
If I then give you a quick outlook to the EPS, the direct result per share, you can see as Matthijs mentioning that we have been able to increase the guidance for the full year to EUR 1.7585. On the other hand, we try to keep our dividend per share guidance at EUR 1.30 for the moment, which is slightly below our dividend policy. As long as we don't have reached our LTV target, which is sub 30%, I think we'll stay on the more conservative side. In terms of transactions, we had a very busy first half of the year. Matthijs has mentioned already a number of transactions. I think the biggest one in the first half year was Luxembourg and also Winkelhof, the disposal.
If you are looking further at the disposal of the Roosendaal in line with book value, we're happy to announce this as a non-core asset, the disposal. We signed the SP last Friday at the book value of around 40%. Why? I think I'm not going to read this all out for you, but the why is primarily because we don't see the service center portfolio. We see increasing vacancy and we also believe the location in Roosendaal is a very challenging location in terms of retail. Those were the big drivers. Obviously, why we have been disposing of this last non-core asset and on top of that, we didn't make our internal rate of return hurdle. With this disposal, we have now fully completed the clip of our analytics portfolio in terms of retail.
You can see below the overview which assets have been sold over the last five years. I think with the different regions, I think it speaks for itself. On the other hand, some good news. Obviously, we are entering the growth phase of our LifeCentral strategy. We did a small add-on acquisition in May, Tilburg, which was adjacent to our assets already there. A full share deal with the contribution in kind. It helped a little to lower our LTV. The bigger one, obviously, we already mentioned was also in Zoetermeer. I think May 26th is our first JV, also part of our growth strategy with Stadshart Zoetermeer with a renowned investor, Sofidy, part of the Tikehau Group from France. I think this 15% stake we have in this JV will be generating a 15% cash-on-cash return. On an annualized basis, this will contribute around 4% direct result per share.
For the first half, we didn't expect any impact of this, but for the second half, we do expect obviously the 2% increase. What will we be doing with Zoetermeer? Very obvious on this page, we'll be adding a number of Full Service Centers elements to this asset. Primarily, the Dieter Mieth concept, the air value concept, so the health and fit concept, we believe would be very good attributed to this asset, increase ultimately the value. I think a nice one to share with you, we did the first leasing deal very recently, last week, where we are placing the old Fuka unit with a new international shoe retailer. I think we're happy with that result. If I then move on to the Latin for strategy, I'll hand over back to Matthijs.
Yeah, thank you, Dennis. Progress in the strategy, I'll get back to Nivel and Bloomberg later, but if you look at the right, the mixed-use, we're now at about 16%, gradually increasing, will keep increasing. I think the target will be somewhere about 20%, as you know. Thinking about Nivel, one of our best centers in Belgium, always fully occupied, always waiting list, and always positive leasing spreads. The leasing of the small expansion on the FMB of this center was quite straightforward. We'll add some new rental income to the center, but in addition to the FMB, there will also be a new entrance, a small revitalization of the entire center that's all going in line with the budget and the IRR. If we talk about Kronenburg in the Netherlands, this is one of the biggest centers in the Netherlands, in Arnhem. We do this in phases.
Here we talk about phase one, which will complete this year. The most supermarket will open in the fourth quarter, which is very important. The additional offer of food falling sales to the center, also this transformation is going perfectly in line with the cost budget that's set. In terms of letting, we have a nearly full pre-letting center. Last but not least, also from an IRR perspective, of course, the completions of these centers always trigger sort of revaluation. We have performed well. I had some questions about that this morning. In the first half of the year, we did not have any Full Service Center completions. In the second half of the year, of course, we had these two. Talking about the specs of the central program, not much new on this slide.
We've invested most of, as you know, which is why Dennis already mentioned, we're now focusing on phase two of the strategy, which is expanding the portfolio. With the expansion of the portfolio, new CapEx will come off every center we purchase, like two in Luxembourg. We added to the plan because at the end of the day, the ambition of the company is to be the market leader in service centers in the Netherlands. Centers that we buy will also be transformed. Looking at the IRR framework, here you can see clearly that most of the assets tick the box. They generate an unlevered IRR above 8%. The benchmark is 7.4%. The weighted average for continental Europe, according to Greenstreet, our assets perform better. We do not have any left in the sell budget because the Roosendaal has been sold. Two assets on hold.
These two assets, we are still working on the cost budget, on the leasing assumptions, etc., in order to achieve an 8%+ unlevered IRR. Yield shift, we've seen that the portfolio over the last couple of quarters, not so much in the first half of the year. Last year, you saw a significant revaluation result in our BIM portfolio, amongst others driven by completion of Full Service Centers. This year, not, we had a slightly positive revaluation. We'll get back to it in a few months. What you see here is from a yield perspective versus the market, the two red bars that you see for the Netherlands and Belgium, our assets have outperformed. Residential profits, you know, we always have a flight on it. It's a nice little bit of icing on the cake. It's not a game changer for Wereldhave, as you know.
It always takes a lot of time. If you put all the slides from the past six years next to each other, there's at least some delay in the profits. They will come. This year, we have about EUR 3 million, and we still have EUR 31 million in the pipeline for the coming years. We're still working on that in several occasions, as you can see on the slide. With that, I'd like to hand back Dennis .
Yep, thank you, Matthijs, and I would like to take you through a few slides around the financing and valuation. I think to start with valuations, we have seen a very slight increase, almost 1% valuation increase of our core portfolio, the Benelux real portfolio. Belgium remains stable, as you can see on this slide. Luxembourg is not unexpected. We've seen a very nice increase. I think that also refers to the press releases we did earlier this year. We stated that we had a very nice acquisition. I think the seller at that time stated they sold against a significant loss. I think that's visible now. The Netherlands is slightly below zero, and I think that we can relate very much to one lease.
Tilburg may have been pushing the lease out for 10 years, but accepted a lower rental for reasoning the EUR 8 million loss on that single asset. France was quite stable, as you can see here, and the offices in Belgium are the same. Moving on to the net LTV target, we talked about it before. We've seen an increase to 44.4% net LTV. Pro forma after the disposals, as Matthijs mentioned, after the 30th of June, we would be at 40.7%. The final Dutch disposal later this year of the Full Service Center in Stellenberg takes us down to the 42% range again. Hopefully, we keep putting this net LTV target to below the 50%. I think we can still use equity-backed acquisitions like we did earlier this year, and certainly also the two remaining French assets will take us below the 40%.
On the debt profile, I think a snapshot here, you can clearly see a EUR 130 million increase of our interest-bearing debt, which was primarily due to the Luxembourg acquisition, but also the dividend payments we did in the month of May. Stable average cost of debt. Also, as you can see here on the bottom of the slide, we are well within all our bank covenants. The new EUR 50 million 10-year European PE, we did with Aecon Asset Management back a month ago, has stabilized debt maturity at 3.3 years. The two donuts, I always shove around the debts. Clearly, you can see that the USP portion has shrunk a little bit compared to the first compared to the end of 2024. Two EUPP have been added. As you can also see for 2025 and 2026, we do not expect a lot of financings.
Clearly, 2027 for us will be an important year where we have to refinance our EUR 300 million corporate RCM. We started already working on this. I would expect that we, after summer break, will start working really on it. By the first half of 2026, I would definitely expect to refinance that. On ESG, not unimportant, as you know, I think a few nice interesting examples that we are working on. It really is the fact that we keep adding solar panels to our assets. As you can see here, we have been installing almost 400 new solar panels in Capella and the ISO. We are also working, like we did earlier this year with Jumbo, with a number of individual tenants. Can we place the solar panels specifically for them where we then put a rental content in place?
Easy charging point, Matthijs already mentioned, we are starting to make batteries of our parking facilities by installing more than 350 new charging points across the portfolio by the end of next year. It should be delivering a nice return. One of our targets also is to keep increasing the green leases. As you can see here, in the first half of this year, we have been increasing the green lease portion of our total rental with 2%, 76%. I'll hand over to Matthijs for the last slide.
Yep. The management agenda, we call it a new management agenda, but we all presented it back in February, but still relatively new. Yeah, you can see, I think on several pics, we made some first steps, created a little bit lower in the first half of the year, because the revaluation was pretty flattish. Capital relocation, I think Dennis already elaborated that, but some good steps. We're working on joint ventures, we're working on additional acquisitions in Belgium and Luxembourg, as mentioned. We're finalizing the last transformations. ESG touched upon. Phase out France, there's questions about it. As we understand, I can be very sure about it at the moment. The investment market in France is still very quiet. We do not have any active decisions going on, to be honest. Dennis is the expectation that will be more a story for 2026 and beyond.
I think officially we're doing fine. We signed nice new leases, but from a disposal perspective, still very quiet. Last phase, energy de-risking, Dennis already mentioned the figures. Let's go to the questions that I've received, and I think Dennis has a question from Amal Abulkwem. She is asking, given the strong start of the year, can you provide a guidance for your 2025 dividend?
Good question. I think I touched upon it when I presented the slide with the LTV dividend. I think we stick for the moment to EUR 1.30 per share as the dividend payment, slightly below, I would say, the midpoint of our new guidance, which is EUR 1.80. If you make that equation, you're to around 72%. Our guidance has always been 75%- 85%. We believe one of our priorities is to further push down our LTV below the 40% mark. I think for that time, we'll try to be on the conservative side.
Okay, thank you, Dennis. I think the second question also for you regarding the valuation from Steven Bauman. Please explain big chunks of valuations and devaluations. Steven, starting with the EUR 20 million in Luxembourg. I think you've explained it already, but it's being set by a minus EUR 8 million for Tilburg. Please explain the negative in Tilburg. Is that an effect from the recent acquisition?
No, good question, Steven. Yes. So indeed, two numbers jump out. I also pointed that out already when we were on this slide, that's 31. I think in Luxembourg, it came very much out of the Knauf Schmiede asset. We purchased that around EUR 65 million, and we have seen a very nice increase of the valuation of around EUR 17 million, EUR 18 million on that asset alone. Also, Pommerloch did good. It was about EUR 2 million, EUR 2.5 million increase in the value there. I just refer back to what we have been saying already. We did the press release here this year, this acquisition. I think we just did a very good deal at the time. This is reflecting partially, of course, the rental guarantees being obtained at the time from the seller.
We expect there's even a little bit more upside in those two assets when we really start working on it. The Netherlands, there, we did a package deal, a package deal with a retailer with different brands. We were doubting at the time also, should we do this against lower rents? All those rents were renewed for 10 years. We preferred to take a valuation hit around EUR 8 million in return for 10-year leases. It was just a, I would say, a must get ourselves. Let's take the valuation hit but secure 10-year leases. That's nothing to do with the acquisition, but those were three units adjacent on the Pieter Verheijdeplein. That's a very different story. Those are adding really to our incremental direct return.
I'll take the second part of the question. First of all, is there anything from Zoetermeer in the revaluation? No, that's not in the valuation, so we'll see it in the second half of the year. Steven, Roosendaal and Stellenberg, I think Roosendaal is always a very small piece in the first half of the year. Maybe also good to know. Steven, Roosendaal was an asset that I also talked about this morning to a journalist. That was revalued to roughly EUR 40 million at the end of 2019. What you've seen with the other assets is that there's been a very nice increase since the bottom. You can see we have now sold Roosendaal at this valuation of year end 2019. Stellenberg, on top of my head, was pretty flattish in terms of book value, a slight plus. Any comments on the values of the French?
Will there be gradual devaluations here likely to continue? What we saw in the front half of the year, Steven, is a small plus for Presqu'île Essens, small minus for Meriadeck Bordeaux. I think going forward, as usual in France and with a very quiet investment market, I don't expect movements. We have been told, of course, in the past about the fact that when we dispose, we do expect to generate a book loss on these assets. Another question from Steven on the Stellenberg disposal. What values have yield? The value I can disclose is that the net yield on the disposal will be around 6%. I think a tiny little bit below that is we have in the making. The final question from Steven. What would be normalized as a sustainable rental level for Wintermeer versus the current increased rents? Of course, we did the writing.
We've not closed this, Steven, so I cannot disclose this separately. I think people will understand given the highest initial yield on the acquisition that we do expect the sustainable rental level to be a little bit below the current rental level. There will be some cuts needed in the center as we have seen with all our transformations in the portfolio, basically. Now we have a couple of questions from Franziska Verakinner. First question, can you elaborate about the latest improvements? What are the assumptions changed that the support has increased, especially considering the disposals utilized? Maybe Dennis, you want to touch upon it?
Yeah, good question. Franziska, thank you for joining our webcast. I think the underlying reasons are really the acquisition we did. Zoetermeer is contributing to at least two sets in the second half of the year in terms of growth. Luxembourg is now starting to accelerate and will have a full half-year impact rather than the first half where we had only, let's say, a three or four-month impact. Underlying, you could clearly see that the like-for-like rental growth is at 6% now. We see that we keep the cost under control. We don't increase costs. In fact, we have decreased our cost base a little bit. Those are all contributing factors for the fact that we are able to raise the guidance. The last time we raised guidance or gave guidance was that we said we were in the higher end of 170-180.
Now we believe we have very much reasons to say we will be ending somewhere in the, I would say, higher end of the 175-180.
In the meantime, before we continue with Franziska, I hear from the moderator we have some technical problems with the livestream, the video audio. Apologies for that. What I can say is that a good recording of the entire webcast will be available as soon as possible on wereldhave.com. The part where we had some technical problems, you can all listen back with the Q&A. Apologies for that. Franziska is also asking if the like-for-like hypothesis for the full year is around 6% sustainable. I think the answer to Franziska is roughly yes, as the inflation is slightly going down in the Netherlands and Belgium. That has some impact, but I think if you look at the other drivers like cost savings, other rental income, leasing that we mentioned on one of the slides in the presentation, will also occur in the second half of the year.
Second question from Franziska. Could you provide more information about the EUR 8 million outbound in Tilburg? I think Dennis already gave the answer to that. Third question, you mentioned expanding Belgium and Luxembourg portfolios in the prelims. Which asset size do you consider affordable? Interesting new assets coming to the market. Question from Franziska, thanks Dennis. I think the specific criteria for acquisitions have been replicated several times in previous presentations. I think roughly our sweet spot in the assets are between 20,000- 50,000 sq m . We are not in the huge destination centers as we buy an enclave here. I think they are the specialists in the category. We are more specialists in the convenience-driven sized centers. That will also be the case for the expansion of the portfolio. Any interesting new assets coming to the market?
Yes, we see additional assets coming also to the Belgian market in the second half of the year, which I cannot mention names because we're trying to NDAs. Also in Bloomberg, there are some assets coming to the market. Important to mention, Franziska, we are looking at net initial yields of 8% and above. That's not a hard criterion, of course, because our hard criterion is the 8% net IRR. It's nice if that with 8% net initial yield, then you don't need any rental in order to tick the box. Next question from Franziska. Your first JV set with Sofidy. Do you think this relation can evolve into other ventures for the coming future? Are you discussing with other partners? Would you be open to finalize acquisitions with another partner? It could be both, Franziska.
We're very happy about the first month's collaboration with Sofidy, Tikehau Group, very professional and well-known French institutional. We're very much open to do more deals with them, but I think at the same time, we... Our criteria, they have their criteria. It could also be the case that another joint venture will be with another partner, and I think same for them. So far, so good, I would say. Tilburg disposal case minus the values of this asset and negotiations are in line with the latest appraisal. Franziska, I think we've mentioned that we're not going to disclose the value of the asset, but I can confirm, Dennis, that the disposal is in line with the latest book value. Yeah. We have a question from Raoul Causchal. I hope I pronounced your name right. Please, could you provide an update on the French assets?
Are they still earmarked for disposal? If so, do you have an estimated timeline? Also, could you please give a sense of the size of the inflatable universe in Belgium and Luxembourg? Maybe Dennis, yeah, you already have some color on the French assets.
Yeah, on the French assets, Raoul, I can be short. I think the one in Paris is 100%. That is an asset where we are still improving the asset itself. We have seen the hypermarket now evolve from a Casino before to a Carrefour. Now our Carrefour has been selling the assets again to an Intermarché. We want to make sure we get the right, let's say, formula into that asset, either being an Intermarché or a different formula, but we need to have stability there. I think the rest of the set has been improved very well, almost fully occupied. I think next year in 2026, when the hypermarket situation has been resolved, that is the perfect time for us to start marketing the asset. We have not been marketing the asset given the hypermarket situation.
On the Meriedek asset in Bordeaux, I think that's the asset which is more challenging. It is very close to the inner city, Bordeaux, to the Rue Saint-Catherine, the high street. We have not been able to find the right buyer. I think again, refer back to what Matthijs is saying, it is a very quiet investment market in France in general, but certainly in Bordeaux. That is something where we keep sort of screening the market. We, of course, have an international broker involved in that, but we have no, let's say, very concrete discussions at the moment. That will be 2026 or maybe 2027.
Thank you, Dennis. Raoul is also asking the sense of the investable universe of shopping centers in Belgium and Luxembourg. Yeah, the entire investable universe, we can get to that. Joost van der Zee, Chief Strategy Officer, has all those figures. Also, we're happy to share with you and also with other investors. I think you look at the volume, total volume upsale at the moment in Belgium and Luxembourg. You talk about EUR 500 million, but maybe even a bit more. We can pick and choose our assets, I think. I think certainly for the coming quarters and also 2026, there's a lot of product on the market in our core markets to expand our portfolio more towards the EUR 3 billion mark now, but EUR 2.4-EUR 2.5 billion. That's the focus of the company, as we have mentioned. We have a question from Alex Cullen. Thanks for the presentation, team.
Could you say something on your comment about growing in Belgium and Luxembourg, especially? Are you looking to acquire in Luxembourg? We're looking at both countries at the moment, Alex, but the most concrete acquisition we are working on at the moment is in Belgium. It would be most logical to perform a Belgian acquisition in the second half of this year. I think the Luxembourg assets that are for sale, visited some of them. We get the figures. I think that would be more something for 2026. I think again, the focus is on Belgium. Second question, what are the underlying metrics for the French assets? Retail sales, footfall, tenant sales, evolution. I think that those are all metrics that we can share at a later point, Alex, because we don't have the figures here at hand.
What we see in terms of footfall in the French portfolio was also a small plus, a tiny plus in the first half of the year. What we see in the tenants in the French assets, those are more or less in line with the footfall. I weigh that, yeah, it's, I think, typical for the market at the moment in France, but also particularly the case of Meriedek Bordeaux for the specific asset. It's not, I think we're stabilizing rents, but that's where we are today. We have a question from Anthony Bone. Great results. Thank you, Anthony. It's now at a five-year high. We haven't looked at it yet. That's good. For a special dint, Dennis, anything in the making?
Yeah, question, I'd say, but like I said before, we are working to push our net LTV target down to below the 40%. I think at this point in time, we do not see the excess cash needed for an additional dividend. We have a dividend policy of 75%- 85%, and I think we have a nice dividend yield at the moment, albeit of course that the share price is increasing. Long answer short, no, we're not considering a special dividend at the moment.
Another question for you, Dennis, from Anthony. The loan-to-value, did the loan-to-value go up because of acquisition and dividend paid?
Yeah, the answer is yes. We have seen the LTV going up because the big, relatively big Luxembourg acquisition was a EUR 167 million acquisition. We partially financed that equity, the EUR 35 million equity issued at the time. Obviously, that helped our LTV upwards. We have been paying EUR 55 million, EUR 55 million, EUR 56 million dividends in the month of May, which is driving the LTV up. Other than that, again, we're focusing on disposals to push down the LTV again. Hopefully, at the end, again, around 42%, which is similar to 41.8% net LTV of last year.
I like your last question, Anthony. What are the catch for the second half of the year? The market will be more. I think there's a couple of them, Anthony. I already mentioned we want to close a significant acquisition in Belgium at an initial yield of 8%. We want to dispose, finance a disposal of Stellenberg at an initial yield of around 6%, a little bit lower. That in itself, and then knowing in the Netherlands we pay tax and in Belgium not, that has a very positive impact, it would have, on our result on the BNL. In addition to those two transactions, I think also when we talk about rental income, we have some nice surprise for the second half of the year. Let's leave that for the second half of the year, but that is growing nicely, I would say. If we talk about the list, I think that is what you should focus on. Actually, there are no further questions.
Maybe good to repeat that the recording of this webcast will be available at wereldhave.com. Again, apologies if any technical video or audio problems. You will be able to see the entire webcast on the website. With that, I'd like to thank you for your being present in the webcast. Thank you for all your questions, and I hope you have a fantastic summer holiday. Dennis and I will be going on holiday together, Dennis, as usual, and see you back after the market. Thank you.