Good afternoon, this is the conference operator. Welcome to IGD's conference call presenting Q1 2024 results. Let me remind you that all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, a Q&A session will be held. In order to be assisted by an operator during the conference call, press star and zero on your phone keypad. Let me now turn the conference over to Mr. Roberto Zoia, CEO of IGD. Dr. Zoia, you have the floor.
Good afternoon to all of you. Before we start, I think, I should, as we've had a recent governance change, let me turn the conference over to our chairman, Professor Antonio Rizzi, who will take a minute to give you a short summary of what happened and of the company's goals. Let me turn the conference over to our chairman, Mr. Rizzi.
Good afternoon to all of you, and I am with this company because of a request by the majority shareholder for strengthening of the strategy, of the corporate strategy. And of course, the wish to have a stronger and full valuation moving forward. And of course, we want to align our market performance with our ability to generate cash flow. And to fully align our values, meaning stock price and actual market value. Let's move on to. We'll try and move on to redefine our strategy, redress our strategy moving forward. And in that respect, this is how you will have to read the changes in the organization as we in the board of directors as we move forward.
Let me remind you that the board of directors has a committee for strategy by the strategic guidelines, and to provide enough energy to move the company forward. So the main guidelines will be defined for our business plan as well. And let me also add, that my presence is that of an independent director, when it comes to the main shareholders, to focus on the market, so that we can, of course, meet the shareholders' desire and wish to play a more active role within the company. And we will have to have a very hands-on approach, and the CEO will tell you more about the business as we move through the presentation. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to change somehow the way we deliver the presentation.
I'll try and be briefer when it comes to making a comment to the presentation slides, especially today, because we're talking about the Q1 results, and then leave as much room as possible to you and your questions, and your comments or statements you'd like to make. If we look at the presentation that was circulated a couple of years ago, sorry, a couple of hours ago. In the first few months of 2024 on the business side, so, core business, somehow it showed a good health state, and both footfall and tenant sales were positive. And also, when it comes to revenues, it was a satisfactory performance.
Also satisfactory was a transaction that was announced in February, and whose effects are to be felt by the company starting April this year, the date of the closing of the transaction. So we finalized, on the 23rd of April, we finalized our portfolio disposal, and of course, we have a new governance. The Chairman mentioned beforehand, and it's a governance that is going back to a path line to enhance the value of our company. And this really will lead to a change in pace, in speed, to try and get to the results you're all expecting, the market is expecting to deliver those results. Going back to numbers, and on page four of the presentation, net rental income is growing, and also on a like-to-like basis, they're up 6.5%.
Therefore, net rental income EUR 31.1 million. Core business EBITDA goes up 6.6, EUR 28.6 million. As we said over the last quarter reports, we were somehow penalized by the, well, financial management, and somehow that affects the funds from operations results. As you can see, financial management with a negative delta of EUR 18.5 million, going up to 100%. The expected performance, the expected results, especially on the financial side, we did a bit better on the core business side, so rental income and also, core business EBITDA. If we talk about footfalls and tenant sales, the quarter was a good quarter. We performed well. There was the Easter effect, because the Easter was in March, while the year before it was in April.
We have the first footfall data, April footfall data, as we expected, and thought had a negative sign before them. But the first four months, they are still up 0.8%, which is a good and reassuring figure. Same applies to hypermarkets and supermarkets and where sales went up and did well. Almost all product categories are growing electronics, and we will see that. Unfortunately, also in the next quarter, electronics is suffering, especially if you compare electronics sales with years such as 2021 and 2022, where because of COVID, because of all of us somehow built our own office, or office at home, so electronics went really well in those years.
So we are trying with the electronics operator, we are trying to redesign the areas and surfaces because operators and tenants want to somehow cut down or downsize those surfaces to have made more room for storage, and therefore reinforce the click and collect business so that people can order online and then pick up at the store. The expectation is for 2024 is to still have a minus sign before the electronics performance, but what's very positive is for instance that clothing, despite this, the interest rate growth and other macroeconomic factors, would lead us to think of a different performance. So they're still growing 1.1%, which is very interesting for a product category which accounts for almost 50% of our rent pool.
We renewed about 55, 52 contracts, so we have a downside, which is mainly driven by the fact that we renewed contracts that were affected by inflation indexation, and that was last year. And therefore, in the leasing activities, we lost something. But those contracts represent a very small amount, about 3% of our total lease or rent pool. Occupancy in the malls is 94.2%. We've always given you an average occupancy figure, but as the disposal is mainly affecting hyper and supermarket, which are 100% of occupancy. Starting from this quarter, we will have to focus on mall, mall occupancy, which is still a very interesting piece of information. We are talking about 94.2%, but that's- that is one of the levers leading us to try and improve occupancy.
This is what we're focusing on. We've been focusing on over the last two years. Collection rate is 91.5%. It's quite cyclical. First quarter is slightly lower than the other quarters on average, but generally speaking, we are in line with expectations. And in Romania, we are doing a lot of work, especially in revising costs that are not recoverable, the condominium costs that are actually paid by, of course, the owners. And, and then the net rental income of Romania was positively affected, not so much on rent, but on the effect of non-recoverable costs. Collection rate in Romania is about 90%. Then if we move on to the net rental income, we can see an improvement there.
Here we talk about on a like-to-like basis, because the disposals were not included in, were not factored in in the first quarter. So we go from 31.1 in Q1, we landed 31.1 in Q1 2024. We have a delta of EUR 1.4 million of revenues and a change in net rental income. With a cost delta of 0.5, delta in rental costs that have a net rental income of EUR 31.1 million, up to 7.1%, as we said at the beginning. And you can see 6.1 on a like-to-like basis in Italy, and 13.9 on Romania, which is basically driven by lower costs, condominium costs.
Going down to EBITDA, there too, we have an improvement and net rental income and EBITDA in Q1 2023, it's EUR 2 million, and it's all in the positive. It's a benefit, and it takes us to EUR 28.6 million in the first quarter of 2024. Also our margins, the EBITDA margin in freehold, that which we fully own and not affected by the two master leases that we still have, is 77.3%. If you remember, if you've been following us over the years, in the best years, we were close to 80%, so we're not very far from our best years, from the best performance we had in EBITDA margin in the past.
If we move to slide number 13, as I've already said in advance, this is what we have to work with EUR 15.8 million or EUR 18.5 million worth of financial management. That has an impact on our EBITDA and profitability, so they are penalized by this, but we are working on it. Hence the target, which is given by financial management, and this is page 14 in the presentation. Our FFO, funds from operation, goes from EUR 15.8 in Q1 2023. With this, financial management delta down EUR 7.2, we land at EUR 10.2 million FFO for first quarter of 2024.
Of course, let me say that by way of introduction, this 10.3, it won't be multiplied by four, because as we said, a disposal on the one hand leads to the improvement of our LTV, a reduction of financial charges, but also, we will also miss out on the NOI contributed by the disposed of assets. So the guidance was EUR 34 million, slightly less than EUR 10 million multiplied by four. So disposal, the disposal was described in our press releases, but let me go back to it. It enabled us to cash in EUR 155 million that was used to repay debt in addition to mortgages and banking debt, EUR 62.5 million. But EUR 90 million were used to repay the last loan that was the most costly one.
For bondholders, the fact that in a few months we repaid about EUR 90 million on that bond was a good surprise somehow, let me mention it that way. Also very important, and I wanted to stress that time and again, in the press release as well, when we talk about disposals, this really gives us another business opportunity, meaning that I directly managed this disposal transaction, as we did in 2021 with ICG on the so-called Juice Portfolio. But what did we say? We said: Let's have IGD stay in the Food Fund, but we did not put as a condition to stay as manager. Prelios SGR gave us a mandate for asset facility and property management.
So somehow we managed to retain our most valuable resources and also to have, a profitability to the margin, and on working on those, assets, to extract utmost value from them, as we are doing with our own freehold assets. And, the contract with Prelios, and the contract we already have with [average] SGR on the Juice Portfolio, plus other assets that we manage on behalf of third parties, and it's 25 of them. So this is a good line, it's a good way above and beyond numbers that are not so, huge.
It's not investment, but still, they enable us to stay in the market, to remain with our assets, and to keep a vision as an entrepreneur to retain an entrepreneurial vision with these assets and to enhance their value, to value them at best, because once the fund will be closed, it will be important to rely on the results IGD will have achieved for those assets once the fund is closed. We are really finalizing and improving all this, maximizing all this, but as a matter of fact, going forward, there are companies who own, I think in [German HF] and many others. They own assets, real estate assets, and offer asset management services to third parties, and that is a business line that is interesting and appealing.
Going back to the disposal, we'd already said that the [NOI] annualized was gonna go down EUR 17 million, 17, versus EUR 11 million in 2024. Of course, there is an imbalance, but the idea is to reduce the bridges and financial charges and costs. And the chairman said that at the beginning, the goal is not to sell just for the sake of selling. Those were tactical disposals, so the one we engaged in, because the market was asking for them, but IGD wants to go and go back growing and therefore reducing this effect, buffering this minus EUR 17 million effect. We are rated, we are a rated company, and so LTV is one of the main indicators.
The fact that we go from 48% to at the end of 2023, and it was 42.1, and with this transaction, we go to 44.4%, which starts to be more appealing to whoever wants to look at our company. Then the average cost of debt went up from 3.86, we are now above 6%. And as many other covenants, we are within the average, let's say, within the norm. If we move to page 17, it's not by chance, but it's number 17. You can look at our debt maturity profile. 2027, you see, where we have the ability to call back the loans. Net of the disposal, EUR 570 million.
So, and that including the repayment of the EUR 90 million bond, and also we paid 62.5, repaid EUR 62.5 million of the green secured loan, again, partial repayment after 2027. So we started our pathway. The disposal, as I said before, is a tactical disposal to get to an LTV that is better than the current one. And of course, it has a cost that somehow fortifies the effort we are making on the core business. It can still improve, but the main objective is to reduce our debt and extend the maturity. And reduce the debt size over the years, because we've seen that before. When you have too many maturities in one single year, then of course you are at risk. And then, among the attachments, you have an overview of our new governance.
It's myself, I was appointed as a CEO and general manager. That was somehow to send out a message. We want to have utmost attention on our core business. We want to have utmost focus in somehow reuniting, unifying most of the powers to actually run the business. Our mission, the mission I was given, was very simple. I summarized it before in three main ideas, and I think that having the opportunity to play a role as an executive, as CEO of the company, but also dealing with the day-to-day running of the business, can help us achieve the mission we are pursuing.
And also, as for the directors, in addition to the chairman, we have non-executive directors and independent directors, and those are the directors who run the board committees. And we have non-executive and non-independent board, who of course report to the main shareholders, accounting for about 50% of the shareholding between Coop Alleanza and Unicoop Tirreno. And they wanted to have board members who were also managers. And through me also, they wanted to have visibility through the board members, to have a visibility as to what is worth good and doing. What is worth doing and appropriate doing. I'm gonna skip the different annexes. If you look at gearing, it's slightly declining net assets, net debt, that's in excess of EUR 1 billion. And they have said everything about IGD.
On page 23 of the presentation, you see a breakdown of our gearing, of our debt, and also opening the annexes. If there are questions, we can go back to them, and you can see we are trying to provide you a visibility on our tenant tool, the type of contracts, our rate rotation rate, our merchandising mix, and then of course, you have some or our agenda as a company. Before we move on to the Q&A, let me give you a message. First of all, is that personally, I am fully available to you to, together with Claudia Contarini, and she, Claudia Contarini will manage any question you might have, and she'll get it through to me from a logistics viewpoint, of course. I am often in Milan.
On Thursday and Fridays, I am normally in Milan, so we have the opportunity. For those of you who want to, are connected to me, most of you based in Milan, so in case you want to meet in person, I'm willing to do that. So don't hold back somehow. I am more than willing to meet you or talk to you. I would like this company to give this message of transparency, willingness to listen to you, and whenever you ask questions, they've always been very appropriate questions and very interesting questions. So starting from now, absolutely, as I said, don't hold back. I am here 24/7 for any question you may have, or any meeting you may want to organize, so you can count on my availability. Thank you so much.
I think I should wrap up here, as the presentation is concerned, and we can start the Q&A so that we can go into details, as to what you are most interested in. Thank you very much.
This is the operator. Now we start the Q&A session. If you want to ask a question, you may press star and one on your phone keypad. To be removed from the Q&A queue, press star and two on your phone keypad. Please ask your question using your handsets. If you want to ask a question, press star and one on your phone. First question comes from the line of Simonetta Chiriotti with Mediobanca. Please, madam, go ahead.
Good afternoon to all of you. Congratulations and best of luck, of course, for your mandate, for your appointment, Roberto. A couple of questions on my side.
First one is about the business plan. If we want to, if we were to somehow advance, in a nutshell, the guidelines of that business plan, could you elaborate on that? Could you give us some information in advance about the business plan? And then in the shorter term, how do you see valuations and or write downs in June? There was a few million EUR in this quarter. We expect rates to go down. There are a number of factors that can come into play. So what is your take? What is the trend according to you? Thank you.
Thank you, Simonetta, and thank you for the congratulations and the good luck. I am really up and running. I'm ready to take on the challenge.
And, business plan, we talked about it just during the board meeting this morning. It's the objective is very clear, and we have to do it by year-end. But we cannot leave you or the market or the stock price to be there hanging and waiting, till year-end. We gave deadlines, very, very precise ones, both for us managers and the board, to make sure the steps in the latest business plan, it's gonna be at the end of up to three years, the after that, or maybe it should be November, maybe, to try and provide you some more guidance for now. I mentioned some advanced info before. On page 17, I think it's a very clear picture.
Today , we really have to work to find alternative funding opportunities to try and cut costs. And we know that this selective facilities and spending is not a wide meshed type of funding. Over the last few weeks, I've been looking at all the contracts, the latest loan contracts and funding contracts we have been under underwriting to see what we can do about them. For sure, we have to focus on our debt, and as I said before, according to me, the way we've been working so far and speeding up the pace, if possible, when it comes to our own in-house organization, and also we have to gather as much energy as possible and focus it on the business, also on our core business, especially.
There's still work to do, and the third leg of this whole picture is the services we can provide to third parties. Not just because they can, of course, provide a profit without having to further invest, but also because they enable us to interact with interesting players and operators that moving forward, going forward, could give us ideas for further integration or cooperation or you name it. But I see as a way to improve our relationship and the way we can prove to these third parties who we are and what we can do with IGD. This is three different legs that are equally important. As guidance, we can give you the figures.
Give you a little bit more time to work on them, but we can say starting from today, that first week in July, at the latest, we are gonna try and provide you with some guidelines, share guidelines with you so that you can get ready to welcome our business plan from this year to 2026. So valuations, as we all know, retail or my assessment, retail did a lot in the previous years, and the repricing we have, and we somehow were the we were imposed on in 2022, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 was really had a strong impact. Then in 2023, retail did worse than the previous year, transaction wise, but it did a bit better than offices, office rent, actually outside Italy, outside Milan, are starting to cause some problems.
But logistics, the same thing. With interest rates that are so high, it can no longer bear the brunt with yields of 5.2%. Here we are playing a full game if we start having certain types of transactions. Today, people have buildings out there for sale, been out there for quite a while. They are afraid that they might sell at high rates with flat rates in the background. That's causing a mixed sentiment when it comes to valuation.
I took up a commitment with the board this morning, to provide some visibility at the end of May as to what I can interpret in this moving of the past month, now until end of May, to see what we can gather as input to argue with a further elaboration about the sentiment, to, go in depth, maybe start going in depth, before August the first or early August. Unless there are, transactions that super discount, what I can say is that the interest rate curve and the discount rate curve, underlying DCF should, lead to a reduction.
The next, question comes from the line of Francesco Sala with Banca Akros. Go ahead, please.
Thank you for the presentation. I have a question on loan-to-value.
It's always 44, and do you think this level is sustainable in the medium to long term, or should rates stay high, you think you will have to further reduce LTV? And then the second question always tied in with what I've just said. Should the rates start declining but at a lower pace, what is plan B? What would plan B be? And can we imagine some actions having to be taken?
Yes. It's clear that staying below 44% or less would be better, probably. But this 44.4% today, I have the same perception as you have, unless rates go back down super, super fast, we have to be ready to tackle the situation. And of course, we want to go back to growing and disposing of things, it's never a growth signal.
But maybe, if I may say so, today, I am working a lot on Romania. I'm working on Romania, where the strategy is a bit different from the past. And why is that? Because it's a complex and multifaceted portfolio. To go from an asset worth EUR 80 million to four assets that are EUR 2 billion. So it's a portfolio that it's not easy to sell. We changed our strategy, and we've tried to build size clusters or location clusters, and so there's some interest being shown in that. It doesn't mean that it's easy, but the way we will dispose of Romania, asset by asset, is more cumbersome, it's more difficult, more complex, it's slower. But at the end of the day, I think that it may lead to better results than waiting for a opportunistic opportunity or investor that may want the whole thing.
It's the same thing in Eastern Europe and even more so for Romania. But there are still family offices or private investors who might be interested in individual assets. There are chains we used to have, for instance, only supermarkets or clothing or do it yourself centers. They like to have retail assets, and that could be an opportunity to dispose of them. So if I have to say to cast further cap down on Romania, this is of course in our focus, but the strategy, the disposal strategy is different. Based on what we will be able to do, of course, we will see if everything runs as we did last time. The capping debt, or we should start focusing and talking about asset rotation, but let's start the strategy at least.
What I can confirm is that Romania, it's a new wave of disposals could lead to results. So far, we don't have any concrete, any possible in mind, but there might be better opportunity than in the past, opportunities than in the past. If we keep on chasing LTV, and we keep failing to do that, disposing of things, then FFO and, and cooperation and whatever people are expecting, it's somehow negatively affected. Going back to the first question, Simonetta asked, we're not talking about write-downs, not monetary write-down. But when it comes to indicators you're all looking into, if we impair the gross asset value, you end up being in difficulty. So we work along two lines. We tackle debt and reduce costs, and we somehow restructure or reshuffle the maturities and also disposals.
Romania, but why not also in Italy? A tactical disposals, however, where the cash-in, depending on how we're doing at that moment in time, could be used to either fully cut debt or maybe re- instead in favor of asset rotation. What I would like to say today, it's very good. It would be very good to focus on asset rotation and also focusing on services. That could be a form to somehow put a foot through the door, and as soon as we are more robust, that can become an asset to acquire. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Arianna Terazzi with Intesa Sanpaolo. Go ahead, madam.
Good afternoon to all of you. Thank you for the presentation, and best of luck to all of you. I have a few questions. Most of the questions were already asked, and so you've already answered them, but let me try and complete the picture. Could you elaborate on dividends? I understand it's a bit premature somehow, but it's clearly the different clauses, dividend clause or whatever. But could you elaborate on dividends going forward? And talking about downside on contract renewal, could you elaborate that, on that?
Yes, thank you very much. And thanks for saying good luck to us. And as I said, answering the previous questions, I would like to have a disposal to actually engage in an asset rotation exercise. And also, in recent disclosures, IGD has engaged in this, this is a major goal for us, a major objective.
If I had to say what the company thinks about dividends, of course, the company has to try and go back to being a, a dividend paying company. But from here to actually getting there, as you said, there's a lockup, there's a lockup clause. And we have to work on it and fix it, and, if we have other resources or ideas, we should, use them to somehow, repay shareholders. As to dividends, indeed, it is a priority for our company, and most likely, as soon as we, as soon as I have a clearer picture, it will be one of the answers we will provide in our guidelines, that will be given end of June, early July, so that you have a greater visibility of our business.
The -3.7 is typical of this quarter, and it's due to the fact that in some renewals, last year, we have put them off. We put off some of the contracts, because if you remember, in November 2022, the ISTAT index for contract renewal was 100%, and it was 11.5%. So at the time, tenants themselves were under a lot of pressure. So if we go back, rewind fourteen months or more, tenants could see +11.5. If next year it's another +10, in two years, I'm gonna pay 20% increase. So that's why we tried to put off and extend the old contracts. This is what we have to do. Now we have renewed them with a small benefit for them, this 3.7%.
But we've seen the new leasing for these last few days, and we... I think we can go back to upsides that are, of course, simpler than they were in the past. Because with a 2% inflation, of course, you renew a contract and you get 2% more. But now it's a different situation at the time, like 2022 and 2023 when it started. Put a lot of pressure on the company and contracts, so we accepted some of their requests, like the three point. We talk about 3% of our rent pool, or lease pool, so it's been across the total pool. And, and we want to be fully transparent. It's never good to have a minus sign before your core business trend.
We, we provided it because we want to be fair, we want to be transparent, but our like-for-like figures are growing, and we have to focus on the six percentage points of agency, and we have to go back to having appealing upsides on the new contracts. So I see it more as a non-recurring quarter, this one. So cost occupancy is below 12, so it's more than sustainable. And of course, we have ups and downs. We have product categories that can go up to 17, and other products with a low added value that are around 6, 7%. So the big average of the portfolio is 11.9.
The fact that things are going up, that energy are going up, there are contracts that should no longer go up 11%, or 8% on average, as they have over the last couple of years. This is one of the levers we can use, so that it stays sustainable.
Thank you very much.
Next question comes from the line of [audio distortion] with BNP Paribas. Go ahead, sir.
Good afternoon, and again, my best to you for your mandate to the board as a whole. I have a couple of questions. The first one on the occupancy rate and the new tenants. Do you see any room to improve the occupancy rate? Also, as far as the merchandising mix, what are the initiatives you have in place or in mind to improve your occupancy rate? Then another question: Do you have a plan, a self-help plan on the cost side, to get the EBITDA margin up to higher levels? You mentioned before 80%, that was your all-time high. Is there room to improve the current levels, EBITDA margins?
Thank you very much. On the occupancy side, I said that several times, three times, as I'm gonna say that a fourth time, it's a priority for us. Starting from this year, and we've seen it in like-for-like figures, we have leasing we had activities with major vacancies on the when the hypermarkets were downside and those were filled. Today, there are a lot of product categories that apparently do not have very high rents, but that are interesting for a set of reasons.
As I said, services, gyms, for instance, we are building a lot of them. The one in Livorno is an exceptional 5,000 square meters, and it was built for them practically ad hoc. But there's a world behind all that, and very interesting, too. We put some pictures out. We got a lot of brands, Sinsay we didn't have it. Many of them were out there. Good benefits from the restaurants, because there are rent restaurants that are quite interesting. Restaurants, at national level, they did +15%, revenue wise, and there are a lot of new brands that are quite appealing. So, health and wellness, clothing, there's still a lot there.
Those who come from outside, it's Pepco, for instance, that we work in, well, clothing as well. We have some new brands as well, and this is the target we have to address. As to cost cutting, as I said before, if we fill up the gap, the occupancy gap, in as in all condominiums, if you have a flat that's not rented, you have to pay for expenses. Maybe you may have a small discount on the, on the rent, but you fill that flat up, and you cut your costs, you cut your expenses right away, and you start having a higher profitability because today we discount around 6% of vacancy. That vacancy, not just, not only do not, we do not get rent, but also it has a cost.
So we have to have utmost attention and focus on filling these vacancies. And then on core assets, we need to go back to improving the renewals, to improving the leasing activities with upsides. And we will be helped if inflation stabilizes to around 2% or whatever that is, which will be an acceptable level for all of our retailers.
Thank you very much.
Let me remind you that if you want to ask a question, you may press star and one on your phone. For other questions, please press star and one on your phone keypad, please. Thank you. Mr. Zoia, so far there are no more questions in the queue.
Very well. Thank you very much to all of you. As I said before, anything you want to know or discuss, I'm here 24 hours a day, 24/7. Thank you very much for joining us.
This is the first operator. Conference call has come to an end. You may disconnect your phone. Thank you very much.