Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Santiago Donato, Investor Relations Officer of IRSA, and I welcome you to the Fiscal Year 25 Results Conference Call. First of all, I would like to remind you that both audio and slideshow may be accessed through company's investor relations website at www.irsa.com.ar by clicking on the banner Webcast link. The following presentation and the earnings release are also available for download on the company website. After management remarks, there will be a question and answer session for analysts and investors. If you want to make a question, please use the chat. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that this call is being recorded, and the information discussed today may include forward-looking statements regarding the company's financial and operating performance. All projections are subject to risk and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially.
Please refer to the detailed note in the company's earnings release regarding forward-looking statements. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Eduardo Elsztain, CEO.
Thank you so much. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. We are closing fiscal year 2025 with strong progress and important milestones for IRSA. First, we deliver a net gain of ARS 196 billion compared to significant loss in the previous year. Second, our shopping malls show a solid recovery with adjusted EBITDA growing by 10% year-over-year. Third point, we express our malls' portfolio through acquisition and developments, including Terrazas de Mayo. That's one we acquired from Carrefour. The adjoining piece of land of Alto Avellaneda, which is 8eight hectares, are next to our shopping. The launch of a shopping center in La Plata, which has no shopping in that city. Four, regarding the office segment, rents remain stable and occupancy of our premium of portfolio reach almost 100%.
Hotels were challenged by the appreciation of the Argentinian peso against the US dollar and registered lower revenues and occupancy. Five, we also achieved significant progress in Ramblas del Plata, with 13 transactions completed, including cash sales and swaps, totally totaling approximately 111,000 saleable square meters. That's a big, big change for an asset that was in the company for more than 28 years. six, on the financing side, we successfully returned to the international debt market after nearly a decade, issuing 300 million in a Series XXIV Notes with a 10-year tenor and executing the exchange of Series XIV Notes. 7, we distribute an 8% dividend during this fiscal year and treasury shares equivalent to 3.6% of our capital stocks.
These achievements demonstrate IRSA resilience and our continued focus on creating long-term value for our shareholders. Now, I will leave you with the team to guide you through the presentation and the details of all the whole year, which has been a very special year. Thank you.
Thank you, Eduardo. Moving to the following page. Here we can see the shopping malls performance. They continued their recovery process and observed very good results in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 25. Tenant sales grew by 3.2% compared to the same quarter in 2024 and ended the fiscal year a little bit below inflation, just 2.8% below, due to the poorer performance during the first half of the fiscal year. EBITDA and revenues in the segment grew by 10% and 8%, respectively, in fiscal year 25 compared to 2024, as we have big part of the revenues linked directly to inflation.
The stock increased due to the incorporation of Terrazas de Mayo that Jorge Cruces will explain later, adding almost 34,000 square meters to the portfolio and reaching a little bit more than 370,000 square meters of GLA. Occupancy remained at very, very high levels, close to 98%. This excludes Terrazas de Mayo, as we have recently acquired it, and we expect to improve its occupancy in the upcoming months. In fact, we bought it with an 81% occupancy and currently is at levels of 89% Terrazas de Mayo. In page number 4, here we have the office segment. This segment remained quite stable. We sold a floor, an additional floor of Bocando de la Paulara, so we have today in a stock of 58,000 square meters.
Rents remains quite stable in levels of $25 per square meter per month. Occupancy reached almost full occupancy in our premium portfolio at almost 100%, 99.6%. Moving to the hotels. The hotel segment has represented the challenge this year. After two years of record EBITDA and occupancy, the tourism activity in Argentina faced this year a situation of lower influx of international tourism in the country due to the FX appreciation of the peso compared to the dollar. Occupancy decreased from levels of 66% three years ago to levels of 60%-61%. Rates per room also adjusted a little bit. We observed lower margins in this segment.
Here we have the ESG progress during the year, we made a lot of progress on our ESG agenda during this fiscal year 25. Today, over 90% of our malls are transitioned to LED lighting, and we added solar panels in three additional malls, Alto Palermo, Dot, and Distrito Arcos, in addition to Mendoza Plaza. This is still incipient in our portfolio, but if conditions allow, the plan is to increase our exposure to renewable energy in our malls. We also completed our third carbon balance measurement, and we are currently working on mitigation plans and a climate risk metric to guide future actions in our malls and offices. 80% of our carbon balance comes from electricity, so it's a Scope 2, and we are working very hard in mitigating that measurement.
On the social front, remember that we have a very, an old, from 1996 foundation called IRSA Foundation, together with directly and through Fundación. This year, IRSA invested, like ARS 500 million in different type of actions, benefiting like 70,000 people. We also have a contact center serving more than 400,000 customers in our malls. Reporting inclusion through different certifications and programs. These are good milestones that reflects our focus on sustainability and long-term value creation. I will now turn to Jorge Cruces, CIO of the company, for the projects of the year.
Thank you, Santiago. Good morning, everybody. Well, we started our fiscal year with 336,000 square meters of GLA, having 15 shopping centers. In December, we bought our 16th shopping center, Terrazas de Mayo, which added 34,000 square meters more to our portfolio, reaching 371,000 square meters. The acquisition of the plot next to Alto Avellaneda Mall increased another 32,700 square meters. We are developing Distrito Arcos shopping mall, amplifying another 22,000 square meters of GLA. By the way, we estimate its opening for May 2027. Altogether, the growth adds up to 426,000 square meters of GLA, boosting 27% our portfolio. There's also been strong real estate activity on the residential development side.
del Plata, located in the heart of the Theater District of Buenos Aires, kind of like of the Broadway of Buenos Aires. This development has 720 residential units and eight retail spaces. Altogether, 35,000 square meters of sellable area. To date, we've sold 76 units for $11.4 million at an average price above of $4,000 per square meters. Most of the trusters are not selling yet. Some of them even want to keep the apartments for themselves. As for the construction phase, we are currently running tenders for demolition, concrete structure, masonry, and basement level installations. Nuevo Quilmes 2. We own 124 single-family lots. To date, 41 lots have been sold for $6.3 million at an average price of $247 per square meter.
We expect that the infrastructure will be completed by next summer. Nuevo Abasto Towers. The project is located across the street from our Abasto Shopping Mall. We've sold eight units for $1.1 million. The average price sale is currently around $2,600 per square meter. The handover of these units is planned for the next couple of weeks. Actually, we started yesterday. Ramblas del Plata is one of the most outstanding real estate developments ever undertaken in the city of Buenos Aires. Set in a premium location right next to Puerto Madero. Given the strong interest in the project, we decided to extend the initial sales stage from 14 lots to 20, meaning stage one plus now covers around 164,000 sellable square meters.
We sold, we've sold two lots, A number two and A number 13, both with approximately 45,000 sellable square meters. The total transaction value was $30.5 million. Additionally, we swapped 11 lots, totaling approximately 65,500 sellable square meters with a total value of $50.6 million. The combined value of these deals stands at $81 million, covering 110 sellable square meters to be developed. Now I'll give the floor to our CFO, Matías Gaivironsky. Thank you.
Thank you, Jorge. Going to page 11. Here we can see some information about our stake in Banco Credicoop. IRSA has a 29% stake in the bank. The main milestone for the year for the bank, there was a reduction in the ratios, basically because of lower margins in the financial area.
The interest rate and the gaps today are much lower than the year ago, that are generating a reduction in the ratios. The results two years reflect that. Last year, Banco Industrial contributed with ARS 40.8 billion. Two years that is here is ARS 13.6 billion. The solvency ratios and NPL are in good shape. Something important that was that Banco Industrial started to list three dividends. Last year distributed, was the part of years that was ARS 13 billion. This year, years that will receive ARS 18 billion from the bank. This was for first time in many years that the bank paid two years in a row dividends.
Also important to mention that Banco Industrial was the first Argentinian bank to restore the mortgage loans in the country. After that the many other banks also started to provide mortgages. Remember that Banco Industrial has around 2% market share of the banking industry. In this market, we are one of the leaders and the market share is 4%. Going to our financial results. We can see that during the year, we finished with a net income of ARS 196 billion, compared with a loss last year of ARS 32 billion. There are some effects in different lines. The main line is line four, the change in the fair value of our investment properties.
During the year, there was an appreciation of the peso. There was a big reduction in the blue chip swap exchange rate. Remember that we value the offices and the land bank at the blue chip swap. Since we saw an appreciation in real term of that exchange rate, we posted significant losses regarding both offices and land bank. When we also include the shopping malls, there was also almost a flat result in that line with only ARS 2.5 billion reduction against ARS 488 billion last year. About the shopping malls, we increased valuation because we are performing a DCF model where the cost of capital we used in Argentina, and also the performance of shopping malls were much better than the previous year.
The combination of the two drivers generate an appreciation of the malls in dollar terms of almost ARS 500 million. Today, our malls in our books are valued at $1.2 billion. That in terms of ratios is more or less 7.5 times EBITDA. The other important effects are in line 10, the income tax, and in line 9, the net financial results that we can see in the following pages. The next one, entering more detail about the adjusted EBITDA. As Sandy mentioned, there was a very good performance in our shopping malls, increasing 10% in real terms against last year. This is in pesos. A reduction in offices and in hotels.
The hotel segment is the most affected because of the current micro situation and an increase in cost in ARS terms adjusted by inflation. We had rate in USD that was flat during the year and some reduction in occupancy. The office segment remained stable. We have today a smaller portfolio of 58,000 square meters that is fully occupied with stable tariff in USD terms. When we compare with the previous year, that inflation was higher than the valuation, and since this year we sold a floor in one of our office buildings, that is the reduction. The business remained stable. In terms of margins, you can see an improvement in shopping malls, a little reduction in offices and the hotels that there we have a big impact this year.
About the net financial results, there was a reduction in the numbers, but it's still positive that line. Part is generated by appreciation of the peso, part is generated by the valuation of our liquidity and the investment of our liquidity, and the inflation adjustment. About taxes, this year, years started to pay taxes again. We used to have a tax credit during the last years. We already consumed all the tax credit, and now we will start to pay cash component this year. With all this, we finished the year with this profit of ARS 196 billion. Here we can see the information in dollar terms and an evolution of our rental EBITDA for the last 10 years.
Leaving aside the pandemic, that was worst crisis for the company ever, we can see the resiliency in in dollar terms, no matter the context of Argentina and the volatility of Argentina. We were able to maintain good levels of cash generation in dollar terms, in all the years. This year especially, we had a record in the shopping malls, $169 million generated from the shopping mall segment. That is record for the last 10 years. About the debt structure, we believe that we have a very healthy debt position today with only $184 million of net debt. In terms of ratio, this is one times EBITDA or 8% of our assets or 12% of coverage ratio, so very, very conservative.
We are ready to grow and to increase our debt if we find good opportunities to acquire or to develop interest projects. Our debt today is very well structured and long term, spread about the next 10 years. The duration, we extend the tenor significantly with the issuance that we did in March, extending the debt for the next 10 years. With this, we finish the formal presentation. Now we open the line to receive your questions.
Now it's time for the Q&A session. If you have a question, please click the button. Use the chat, that probably is better. We are gonna take the questions in the order we receive them, as we always do. We have a question from BTG Pactual. Says that with inflation coming down and early signs of mortgage market re-emerging in Argentina, how do you see this impacting demand for residential projects and your broader land bank monetization strategy? On the supply side, how do you see the construction activity responding in the coming months? I will repeat the question. With inflation coming down and early signs of mortgage market re-emerging in Argentina, how do you see this impacting demand for residential projects and your broader land bank monetization strategy? On the supply side, how do you see construction activity responding in the coming months?
Well, we've been talking about this, these last, I don't know, six months, that obviously with mortgages, the stock of apartments in Buenos Aires started to move. Most in Buenos Aires, but the whole Argentina has been great these last six months. There was a lot of activity. Prices even went up 20%, 30%, 50%, depending the neighborhood. Regarding construction is a little bit higher because of the labor is higher in dollars. In the near future, I suppose there's gonna be less construction maybe than last year, but there's still some stock to be sold. I think the mortgages has helped Argentina to get out of a crisis of stock.
There's not much more apartments to be bought that have been invested during these last 10 or 15 years. I think it's gonna be, from next year, there's gonna be a lot of construction and new activity. Nowadays, I think the mortgages had mostly affected what was already in stock, and some apartments that were rented are starting to be bought. I think we're gonna have a great year next year.
Something else about the mortgage industry, probably what is today missing in the sector that there is probably a lack of funding for the banks. Now, the banks are providing mortgages. The demand over the banks is huge. Probably the banks today are limiting the offer because the lack of funding. What is missing is that the securitization market, where the banks can sell part of the portfolio in the market. We believe that if there is a normalization in the market and no risk of the valuations and fluctuation of exchange rate and inflation, maybe that market will appear and that is what is today missing to have a real market and a real offer from different players in the market.
Another question, regarding the electoral climate, how important is for IRSA, what's gonna happen next October? If we expect some political economic stability in the coming months, how do you see that? I don't know the answer. I hope to know, but we really don't know what will be the outcome of the elections. Of course, always an election in Argentina generate uncertainty and volatility. What IRSA has proven during the last, I would say 30 years, is that no matter the context, we have a very resilient business that always the main drivers of volatility in Argentina came from inflation and devaluation. We have assets that are dollar-denominated, and our structure of revenues are hedged against the inflation.
Having said that, of course, we need an economy that grow and with a sustainable growth. Of course, this volatility is not good for anyone in terms of taking major decisions. If we're gonna launch, as we are doing many projects, we need to see a stable economy, but this is for our growth. For our existing portfolio, I would say that we have proved that in many different contexts, we are able to manage the company.
Here's a question regarding the financing, if we are considering tapping the domestic or international markets to fund projects. How do you see volatility and interest rates in the coming quarters?
No, we are not thinking to go to the market. With our current capital structure and the cash position of the company, and with the current plans on, as Jorge mentioned, the projects that we already launched, we can fund the operations without the need to go to the market. If we see a good opportunity to acquire something, of course, our capital structure and the net position allow us to increase. With the organic growth, we don't need to go again to the market in the coming quarters. I'm sorry, about the interest rates and what is happening about the peso curve today. We hope to see a normalization of that.
IRSA today has no debt in pesos, you know that Argentina in the last two months were very volatile in terms of the interest rate. That will affect definitely consumption. If the interest rate remain very high and the consumer financing disappear, that will affect consumption. We hope to see a normalization of the peso curve after the elections.
Here there is a question regarding the difference in the square meters sold at Ramblas. This is because we have recently made an addendum to one previous transaction, adding $7 million and approximately 5,000 additional square meters. That is something that we can discuss details, but it's just an addendum to a previous transaction. This is why today we are showing like 111,000 square meters from swaps and sales in the total Rambla plot.
was a transaction that was signed for a specific plot of land, and then the buyer decided to change in a better.
Location
location and better unit. We received the deal. We charged them, difference in price, and they paid for that. Now they have a bigger project and things like that.
An additional question related to this is how do you see the pace of future sales in Ramblas evolving from here? Would you expect this to maintain or to accelerate in at Ramblas?
The commercialization.
No, the commercialization. We're gonna keep selling plots.
We're doing much faster than we thought we would. We're very happy. We started by the bay. The bay is mostly completed. Now we're. As I said before, we're going. It's bigger. We went from 14 to 20 lots. I think it's gonna continue. I think the developers are gonna continue to be buying in Ramblas. We are very interested in having the best developers of Argentina and the region in Ramblas. I think it's gonna happen. I think we are gonna be selling all 20 lots in the next six months or eight months. What's left of what we have planned to be sold.
Perfect. Here one that we have already answered.
Prices. I don't know if they asked prices. I think the price that we've been selling it's almost 800 and something for each sellable sq m. The swaps, I think they're going to be going up. The swaps might be close to 30, the prices should be over 850 for each sellable sq m in the future.
Yeah. Questions regarding hotels. If we expect to buy back our small position there in hotels or joining with a partner or what are the expectations there with hotels?
We always analyze opportunities if appears in the market. You know that we haven't grew in the hotel segment for many years now. We have a portfolio of the three hotels. Last year was probably the record high in our history. This year is a little more affected, but we are not growing. If there is opportunities to sell some of our assets, maybe we will analyze it.
Questions regarding Manzana 35 project in Caballito, if it is advancing?
We were planning to launch one of the towers between March and May next year. It all depends on the elections, the situation of the country next year. It's most possibly we're gonna launch one of the towers next year between March and May.
Yeah. Questions regarding dividends, we are expecting to pay this year?
Yes, we are expecting to pay like the last years. We haven't defined yet the final proposal. We will submit to our shareholders meeting by the end of the month, the proposal. We have time until that moment. Yes, the idea is to keep paying dividends.
Some additional questions. Do you plan to build new offices as rental properties? Something that the company is thinking today.
Yes. We actually are thinking about that. We are very concentrated at the moment close to the Dot shopping mall. We already have a very two office buildings, and most possibly next year we may start construction of more office buildings in the Dot section. At least one of the two that we have planned we may start next year construction. Adding around 15,000 square meters of GLA.
Perfect. I give some minutes more for some additional questions. I have a lot here. You have the my contact, so details or specific questions we can go on a follow-up call. You have the IR department contact. I give some minutes more for any additional questions that you may have. Sorry. Okay. There are no more questions. We conclude the session and the presentation. Thank you very much for joining and hope to see you on the beginning of the first of the fiscal year 26. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.