Good morning, everyone. I'm Santiago Donato, Investor Relations Officer of IRSA, I welcome you to the third quarter of fiscal year 2025 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. 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. Actual results may differ materially.
Please refer to the detailed notes in the company's earnings release regarding forward-looking statements. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Matías Gaivironsky, CFO.
Good morning, everybody. We are beginning our call for the third quarter 2025 results. We are glad to post again, a gain of ARS 35 billion reverting the loss that we had in the previous 6 months as of December, that was ARS 40 billion. During the quarter, we saw again positive trend regarding our tenant sales. In fact, there was an increase of 13.4% compared with the previous or the same quarter of the previous year. We still are below, when we sum all the 9-month period, 4.6% below the previous year, but we see a positive trend going forward. In fact, during the last quarter, using the last 12 months in dollar terms, we are posting a record high EBITDA for the malls for the last 10 years.
Regarding the offices, we maintain our occupancy at 100%. Hotels, we saw a drop in revenues and occupancy that we will show later. About Ramblas del Plata, the main project of the company. Jorge will mention the good progress in the commercialization of the project, we are very happy on the results, considering that we launched the project just around 9 months ago. Finally, during the quarter, we tapped again the international capital market, issuing notes for 10 years, for $300 million. With that, let me introduce Santiago Donato, our IRO, to continue with the presentation.
Thank you, Matías. Well, here we can see the operating figures for the shopping malls. As Matías mentioned before, this segment continued its recovery process and observed very good results, great results in the third quarter of the fiscal year 2025. As you can see, tenant sales grew by 13.4% compared to the same quarter in 2024. This is the first quarter of real growth since the current government took administration in December 2023. Great news. Shows the recovery of the economic activity and real wages in Argentina. In the next page, we can see the 10 years historical EBITDA in dollar terms. The malls are showing great results in dollar terms. They reach an EBITDA of almost $160 million.
This is record in our last 10 years. That was an average of 100, almost $20 million. Really good performance on the malls. Occupancy reached levels of 98.1%. This is excluding Terrazas de Mayo, our latest shopping acquired recently, that we expect to improve its occupancy level in the coming month. In this page, we can see the operating figures for the office segment. We currently manage a lower stock, just 58,000 square meters of GLA. Remember that we have been selling since the pandemic many square meters. We hold a portfolio of 58,000, mostly A plus and A, mostly premium. The office segment is evolving very, very favorably, mainly in terms of occupancy. We are seeing a higher return to office in Buenos Aires City.
We think that if the GDP grows next year, we can see even an increase in rents that until now they remains in levels of $25 table or $25 per square meter per month. From the three rental segments, the hotels are the ones, even though it is marginal in our portfolio, is the one that is more challenging this year. After two years of recording record EBITDAs and occupancy, this year, the hotels and the tourism activity in Argentina is facing lower influx of international tourism due to the FX appreciation or depreciation of the peso, the Argentine peso compared to the U.S. dollars. We still have a good level of occupancy. 65% is the average of the three hotels.
It's affected, but it is affected because there we are doing some construction works, some rooms that are under construction works. And rates are a little bit down, but it's a good diversification to our portfolio and the shopping centers in the total rental segments are more than compensating this effect in hotels that is more marginal. Really good results in the rental segments. And I will now give the word to Jorge Cruces, CIO, for all the development part of the IRSA.
Thank you, Santiago. Good morning, everybody. The project, Ramblas del Plata, is the most important and ambitious real estate project in the history of the City of Buenos Aires. It will change the landscape of the city, bringing life to an undeveloped area, and will be an exceptional project due to its size in a such boutique location, providing the possibility to the City of Buenos Aires of expanding and recovering its access to the river coast with public parks. Reviewing key figures of the project, 170,000 billable sq meters, 693,000 sellable sq meters, 10,000 new houses or homes, an estimated investment of $1.8 billion. Regarding the marketing strategy, originally, the project was divided into three stages.
Recently, due to the great interest of developers, we decided to expand the first stage by adding 6 more lots to the original 14 lots, which means that stage one now covers over 164 sellable square meters. Stage two now covers 259 sellable square meters, including lots A14 and F01. Stage three covers around 270,000 sellable square meters. Commercialization progress. Since January to date, we sold 2 parcels, A02 and G01, for $23.4 million. We signed swaps for another 9 parcels for $42.7 million. The total operation add to what $66.1 million and represents 95,000 sellable square meters. At the same time, we are moving forward with another 9 swaps, of which 3 are in an advanced stage.
Altogether, regarding the extended stage one, we estimate sales for $120 million. Construction work in progress. The environmental approval certificate was issued in December, enabling us to start construction in January of the infrastructure. Roadworks and public park are the first infrastructure phase A around the Central Park area. The infrastructure work will be in the service of 27 plots. We estimate an investment of $27 million. Regarding the construction, as we said, in January, we broke ground with the earth-moving works, consolidating the earth mound around the Central Park, and shortly after, the sheet piling work started, which have now reached almost 40% completion. Additionally, recently, we have started the roadworks, sewers, and drainages of phase A.
We will be receiving biddings and awarding other contracts in the next weeks, plantation buffer forest, and recovery of the central bay water body. Edificio del Plata. The project is located in the heart of downtown Buenos Aires, a few steps away from the obelisk. Around 720 units developed at 13 levels with 8 commercial shops, 35,000 sellable sq m. As of today, the trust has sold 51 units for $7.8 million at an average price above 4,000 dollars for each sq m. There are 23 other operations in the signing process for another $3.5 million. Distrito Diagonal in the city of La Plata. The mall is an open air shopping center with 22,000 sq m of GLA. Construction works are in progress.
We are finishing the soil movement phase by the end of this month. We've started outdoor gas infrastructure work, and we estimate completion by October. We have started with the concrete and steel structure work, which will continue throughout the year. We will be awarding new contracts in the short term: main contractor, masonry, dry construction, electric installation. Nuevo Quilmes II. The development is in Ezpeleta, southern Buenos Aires. The overall project has 313 single-family lots and 6 multi-family lots, of which 124 single-family lots and 2 multi-family lots are ours. To date, we have sold 38 single-family lots for $5.8 million. We expect the infrastructure will be completed during next summer. I will give the floor back to Matías. Thank you.
Please tell us.
I'm sorry. Regarding the mortgages in Argentina, in the City of Buenos Aires, we mentioned this before, but it's been having an evolution this last past year. As comparing with our GDP, we have mortgages at 0.5%. Obviously, this is very low for the world and even for the region. Credit deeds in Buenos Aires city regarding the transactions in the city of Buenos Aires have went up from 3% to 21% and maybe less than a year. This has an effect on the prices and the whole market of Buenos Aires. Prices in the neighborhoods are going up between 12%-22% depending on the neighborhood. Not only that, but there's more...
As I said before, there's much more transactions in Buenos Aires. This has been going on for the last year. We believe that it's gonna continue. We believe that actually residential prices in Buenos Aires is gonna continue in going up. This is very important for us. We have a very big portfolio to develop. It's very important for us the projections of how the price is gonna go up in residential, in the residential market. Now I'll give the floor back to Matías. Thank you.
Thank you, Jorge. To analyze the results of the quarter, we have to understand what happened with inflation and the valuation in Argentina. As you can see from the graph, there was an appreciation of the peso, both in the official exchange rate and in the blue chip swap. Remember that we value our investment properties, sorry, the offices and the land bank at the blue chip swap, and the shopping malls at the official exchange rate. When we have an appreciation of the currency in real terms, that means that we posted losses about that properties. That was the main reasons why in December we posted losses in our net income, the net income line.
When we see the adjusted EBITDA for the rental segment, we see a drop of 4.9% that was triggered mainly by the hotel segment, where we see a drop from the previous to the almost 9 billion ARS of the current year. Remember that when you have to compare figures that were more related to dollars, that is the case of the hotels and the offices, when we re-express the previous year by inflation, but considering the appreciation of the peso, means that the last year figures appears in peso term, but more inflated, like, are bigger in dollar terms when you divide that price or that level into dollars at the current level, it seems that it's much higher than it was last year.
That is the case, basically of the offices that here we see a drop of 20%, but when we analyze that number in dollar terms are very similar than the previous year. About the shopping malls, we see an increase of almost 10% compared with the previous year. About margins, we see normal numbers, a little higher than the previous year in shopping malls, in offices a little lower, and the hotels that were affected by the current macro situation in Argentina. About the fair value, last year, since there was a reduction of the gap between the official exchange rate and the blue chip swap, we posted losses that previously we marketed the properties in peso terms at a higher exchange rate.
This year, this drop decreased. It's still significant of ARS 141 billion. If we analyze that number in dollar terms, we will see that we generated an appreciation of our shopping malls since there was a reduction in the country risk, the DCF model that we are using. We are increasing the value in dollar terms. At the beginning of the year, that number was around $755 million. As of March, that number is $1,046 million. The rest, the offices and the land bank remain stable in dollar terms. About the net financial results, we see a positive number this year, ARS 52 billion, compared with a higher number last year, ARS 111 billion.
That has similar effect than what I mentioned. In USD terms, it's similar, but when we convert that in ARS adjusted by inflation than the previous year seems higher than it was. About the income tax, we have an ARS 21 billion loss that is related to the with a gain of the valuation of the... Since we have a loss in the valuation of investment properties, we have to mark again in the deferred tax. With the tax of the year, that number is lower, is ARS 21 billion negative. With all these drivers, we finished the nine-month period with a gain of ARS 33 billion. Sorry, ARS 35 billion, compared with a loss of ARS 174 billion last year.
About the rental segment in dollar terms, the evolution of the last 12 months period, we can see that is, we posted, or we have an EBITDA of $177 million that is higher than the previous 2 years and probably the record in the last 10 years. Finally, about our debt structure. During March, we decided to tap the international capital market again after the last time was in 2016, that IRSA issued bonds in the international capital market. We saw an opportunity to extend the tenor of the debt. You remember that we had a very conservative debt structure with very low leverage. The current numbers is only 1.3x EBITDA, the rental EBITDA, the recurrent EBITDA, and LTV of only 10%.
A very conservative ratios, but it used to be more concentrated in the short term because there was no access for the international market that made probably you can extend tenor of the debt. When we saw the window opportunity that was open for Argentine corporates again, we decided to tap the market, we issued a 10-year bond that expire 33% per year from 2033 to 2035 with an interest rate of 8%. The transaction was at a yield of 8.5%. With that, we still maintain very conservative ratios, but now our debt is in the long term, so we feel much more comfortable with this very conservative debt structure.
With this, we finish the formal presentation. Now we open the line to receive your questions.
Now is the time for the Q&A session. If you have a question, please use the chat. We will take them in the order we receive them. Here we have some. Regarding Ramblas del Plata, when is the construction of the first buildings of the project expected to begin? When will the urban development works be completed? Initiation and end of the project.
Well, the work should be completed for this first, for stage A, we believe it's gonna be completed for next year. Maybe by July of next year, that it should be completed. Regarding the first buildings, the first buildings are gonna start maybe in a year from now or 10 months from now. The developers are making their plans, their projects, and all the permits from the city hall. I believe the buildings are gonna start developing within the year.
There is a question regarding CapEx plan. Is the company entering into a more intensive CapEx phase? Will the net financial debt to EBITDA ratio raise? Yes. As you know, during the last 5 years, IRSA was very concentrated in our own capital structure. We decided not to launch new projects. There was an opportunity to cancel debt, to buy back shares, and to pay high dividends. We decided not to launch new projects in that environment of more uncertainty. Today, we see the future with a very a lot of optimism, and we believe that we are ready to grow. Jorge mentioned some of the projects that we already launched. Regarding the It's not necessarily true that we will increase the leverage with the current projects that we launch.
We, as Jorge mentioned, Ramblas del Plata, we are executing a strategy where IRSA won't invest money, developers will make the investment and IRSA will receive square meters. We are developing our most ambitious plan, in a way that we won't invest money, at least in this first stage. Probably in the future, you will see IRSA developing some of the buildings. At the beginning, to give speed to the projects, we are doing through developers. The shopping mall of La Plata is not a big investment. It's an investment of around $40 million-$50 million that will be deployed during the next 2-3 years. That means that it's $15 million per year, it's not significant for our cash generation.
Probably we will launch some other projects, but are not so big. Probably what we are looking is for opportunities to acquire more things. If we execute some of the opportunities, maybe we will deploy part of the use of the money from our bond or the bond that we issued to buy new things. In that case, we can increase the leverage. Remember that the current ratio is the lowest, probably the lowest ever for IRSA, is 1.3 times 10% LTV. For a real estate company, that is nothing. Probably won't be very efficient in terms of our capital structure, probably we will try to increase a little the leverage.
Basically, we will control that through the CapEx and dividend payments, you know, so that will be the trigger of our debt to go up.
Yeah. There are some questions here regarding CapEx investments. I think you have already answered. Here's an additional in that direction. Could you elaborate on the structuring of the agreements with developers for Ramblas del Plata? What is the upside in proceeds that IRSA keeps? Probably explain a little bit the swap, how it works, in terms of percentage and what IRSA will receive in the future and this upside that IRSA keeps doing this way, you know, through swaps.
The swaps, we get the land, we get the lot, and we agree with the developers in a percentage. A percentage nowadays is quite low because we're just starting. We're starting at maybe 25%-26%. In the near future, it'll be close to 30%. Again, it's a whole new development, a whole new neighborhood starting by the bay. We will be receiving those square meters maybe in two, three years, three years from now. From now until then, the market is gonna be, is going up, as I said before, the residential market in the city of Buenos Aires. Also because the neighborhood is just starting, it's month by month, it's gonna be more expensive.
From here until we receive the 25% of the square meters three years from now, it's gonna be, there's gonna be more value on each square meters. We don't need the money today. As I said before, we already sold two plots. We have the money more than enough for the infrastructure and for all the market needs. In the meantime, we're gonna be with the developers, developing through the developers and later we're gonna be developing ourselves with partners or by ourselves. Don't forget, in Argentina, we have pre-sales, so we sell... Usually, you don't need that much money to develop. That's the way it works in Argentina. That's the way we're doing it, and it's just the first stage.
There's a lot to be done in the future.
Good. There are some many questions regarding dividends policy, going forward and, if you will plan to do some new share repurchase program, how that will move forward in the coming months.
As you saw from the last years, we paid high dividends during the last four years or three years with a dividend yield of around 15%, almost 15% during the last three years. Today, the main limitation that we have are our accounting results are not the liquidity situation. We feel very comfortable with our debt structure and liquidity, so it's not a problem. There is a limitation about the accumulated results that we have to have positive numbers to pay dividends and to buy back shares. We just posted this gain of ARS 33 million, so that give us a little room. We will see. We will wait to see our final numbers in June and then decide the dividend payment.
As always, our shareholders meeting is around October, so during that month, we will decide the dividend payment. As you know, we don't have a fixed dividend policy, but our behaviors is that was that every time that we can pay dividends, we pay dividends. With this debt structure, and low leverage, definitely, we will keep paying dividends in the future.
What is the blended yield of your shopping centers portfolio based on the latest valuation?
Today is at $1 billion.
It's like about seven times EBITDA, this is like a 15% cap, right? The shopping centers are generating well, in terms of EBITDA, $158 million.
I tell you, this is the only driver in our books that is more difficult to value since you don't have market transactions, no? In the case of the offices and in the case of the land bank, there are plenty of operations in the market that you can use as comparable with your own portfolio. That part is much easier to value. In the shopping, since we are performing a DCF, the way that we value the properties that we engage a third-party appraisal. In this case, we are using Newmark to value the properties. They are performing a DCF model. In the DCF, you have to use the parameters of the market.
Also the country risk or the, the discount rate today that use a financial rate is much higher than what the participants in the market use to buy real estate. In fact, if you value at the DCF model an office where the participants pay 6% cap rate, 7% cap or 5% cap rate, valuations should be much lower. In the market, you can sell properties easily at a much lower cap rate than than using a DCF model. What I'm trying to say is that the, the models for valuation is still very conservative, but it's our best that we can do in to approach fair value.
One more. I imagine that it's regarding Ramblas or any other swap. Is there any clause that allows IRSA to retake a property if construction of the building has stopped or fails to reach a timeline? When do you effectively transfer the land?
Yes. Actually, there is. If the developer doesn't isn't able to develop for any reason, even if it has problems with city permits or whatever. Whatever problem developer has, the land should go back to us. Hopefully, it never happened to us in the past. Hopefully, it's not gonna happen to us in Ramblas.
Also, we maintain a mortgage on the land.
We maintain a mortgage on the land, but for it to get back to us, a lot of things has to happen. As I said before, it's written that way. It never happened. We never had that case scenario in the past. Hopefully it's not gonna happen in the future.
One question. Well, I will sum regarding non-core assets, what are your plans for the 30% stake in Banco Hipotecario and also the hotels division that is a little bit smaller now? Are there any plans to sell the division into a rising market?
About Banco Hipotecario, we are happy with the performance of the bank during the last year. We started to receive dividends from Banco Hipotecario. Like this year, we'll receive around $15 million. Last year was around $12 million. There's generate cash for first time in many years. We are happy with the performance. The bank has plans to increase their capital in order to expand their business. We are happy with the evolution of the strategy of the bank, and we support the strategy. We hopefully see the banks growing in the future. About the hotel, Jorge.
Well, as mentioned in the question, it hasn't grown since a long time. We bought the hotels in 1997, 1998. It hasn't grown since. Yes, we're not planning in growing anymore. Yes, if we can sell one of our hotels in the city of Buenos Aires, we will try to sell it. It's, as you said, it's a rising market. Argentina is doing much better. There's gonna be more institutional investors. Yes, we might try to sell one of the cities we have in Buenos Aires.
I will go with the last one, 2 in 1 regarding on the financial front. You are canceling the $100 million in loan that you have in the short term this year. This is one. The other one, if there are plans to issue more debt in the international market, do you expect conditions to improve and help reduce cost of financing for IRSA and other corporates in Argentina?
No. For what? About plans to issue more debt? No. No, we don't have needs to raise more cash. Regarding the cancellation of $100 million debt, yes, we mentioned that part of the use of proceed of the new loan was to cancel existing debt. In fact, from the $300 million that we raised, $58 million were in exchange of the previous loan. That is not imply new cash for IRSA. From the remaining $242 million that the net of the discount price that we issue and cost of the transaction, we receive around $231 million-$232 million.
Part of that will go to cancel existing debt, and the remaining will go to finance opportunities that can appear as an M&A transaction or to finance the existing developments.
Last question, has the company considered investing into logistics?
Well, for some time now we are planning or analyzing the possibility to get into that business. We think it's a great match for us. Having been in office so many years, and we think we have a great strength to get into that business. That business is growing, it's growing fast. Yes, we are considering to get into logística. We're analyzing the way to get in, and we have been for some time now.
Well, well, with this, we like to have a lot of people attending the webinar. Good time for Argentina and a lot of questions. That is good. We appreciate. I will now turn the call to Matías for his closing remarks.
Thank you very much for your participation. We are very positive about the future for IRSA. We believe there is with the normalization of the economy and the access for credit, the real estate industry has a lot to grow. At IRSA, we are very well positioned to take advantage of the new cycle with plenty of new projects to launch. Our main segment, the shopping malls, start to show positive numbers again compared with previous year, with the highest EBITDA levels for many, many years. Very healthy position that will allow us to take advantage of market opportunities. We hope to see a new cycle for IRSA with a lot new projects to come. Thank you very much for your participation and hope to see you in the next quarter.