Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining Merlin's Full Year 2025 Results Presentation. You can find all the materials that will be pre-presented in today's call on our website. I will please ask you to abide by the disclaimer contained in it. Our CEO Ismael Clemente, along with our two directors, Inés Arellano and Francisco Rivas, will walk you through the main highlights of 2025. We'll then open the line for Q&A, where you have to press star 5. With no further delay, I pass on the floor to Ismael.
Thank you, Teresa. Good afternoon, everyone. We are in front of a very interesting set of results. Certainly the best I have seen since we have been leading this company. It's been a almost perfect year because the fantastic performance of the data center division has been accompanied by a very, very solid performance also on the traditional asset classes. All that has been reinforced by an excellent behavior of the share. You know, frankly speaking, what can I say? I mean, the operating momentum is super strong. We are enjoying satisfactory rental growth in all asset classes, traditional and non-traditional, because in data centers, we are also achieving better rents than on the written.
We have a high occupancy, 95.6, and continue solidly generating FFO with a +5.1% print in the year. In offices, we have a very remarkable like for like of 3.5%, more importantly, an interesting release spread of 4.8%, which is probably the reflection of what we commented in past calls, that, you know, the Madrid market particularly is now under a certain like, you know, short squeeze. I mean, there is a destruction on the offer side, which is causing, of course, an effect on the pricing of the demand.
The occupancy stays at all-times high, 94.2, and this is particularly noteworthy in a year in which Barcelona has been a relatively softer market than it was in the past and has lost occupancy. You know, Madrid has been able to compensate Barcelona, which will continue for the coming years to be one of our weak spots. We will continue working because sooner or later, the market will digest the current situation of oversupply and will come back to normality. In logistics, we have been positively surprised by the release spread, particularly because as commented on a number of past calls, this is a market where we were seeing a little bit of less strength than we have been seeing in the past years.
This year has been extremely strong, particularly on the release spread. The reason why the like for like is low is simply because we have lost three points of occupancy, which is normal, because we were occupied at 99%, and we told you that there was only one way to go from there, which was down. And but we ended the year with a very good printing occupancy of 96.4%. Shopping centers, another super strong year, surprising us on the upside with a very good like for like of 4.7%, and still with very affordable rental levels for our clients at 11.0% in occupancy cost ratio. Very strong year in shopping centers.
On data centers, well, basically, we have achieved a full de-risking of phase I. Phase I is now water under the bridge. I mean, we will report it as assets in operation from now on, in order to try also to simplify your lives, because, you know, if we continue reporting phase I, phase II, and soon phase III, is going to be a Rubik cube. You know, that will convert into assets in operation with an occupancy of 100%. We have also achieved a very interesting de-risking of phase II with the lease up of our Arasur 2 asset, 48 MW, which is around 20% of the total capacity of phase II. More importantly, it was the next Indian trying to attack the fort.
I mean, it was ready for service December 2026, and as such, now is, you know, done. The next ready for services are end of 2027, so we have now plenty of time to work on those, on the lead in which we are already working and starting exchanging technical documentation. Then we will need to come to terms in economic in the economic side of the business, and then move into documentation, which in some cases, particularly with hyperscalers, can be a painful process.
In terms of financial performance, the value uplift has been very strong, but this has been mainly boosted by data centers who have contributed close to EUR 360 million increase to the total revaluation of the portfolio, 4.7% GAAP increase in the year. The total shareholder return, 10.2%, is fantastic. More importantly, we believe it's relatively sustainable because we know what is coming, and we think, unless the world goes upside down, which is another possibility, you know, if 2026 is a relatively simply flat year in terms of performance of traditional asset classes, we believe we can achieve very similar figures, you know, at the end of December. Our financial situation remains very strong.
The loan to value is low at 28.9. 100% fixed rate. We don't have maturity till November 2026. Maturity, which is already tackled. I mean, with the existing cash at banks and a number of bond taps and bank lines that we are signing in the coming days, that maturity will be, you know, already tackled without affecting the CapEx needs of the data center department. We have been able to maintain our rating both with S&P and Moody's, which is always interesting because at the end, debt cost is one of our raw materials, and we need to continue keeping our competitiveness in terms of rating.
In terms of value creation, EUR 129 in non-core divestments, as already disclosed to market. You were perfectly aware that we had this almost done. Probably the most interesting thing is that we have another close to EUR 130 already signed and to be executed in 2026 and 2027, which is very interesting because basically, almost half of our targets for 2026 and 2027 are already covered in the absence of any accidents. It's important to pay homage to the activity of our different business divisions. The year has been excellent in terms of prelets. In offices, we have signed more than 56,000 square meters.
You know, beyond the daily trading, I mean, the ins and outs that, you know, happen every day in the portfolio. In logistics, 73 plus, and head of terms, which we believe is going to become a reality of another 55, significant progress also in logistics. In shopping centers, to me, the most salient activity in the year has been the inauguration with an almost full prelet of the Marineda extension, 26,000 square meters, which, you know, has made the Marineda concept in La Coruña even more dominant than ever. I mean, it's a center which is really rock solid and is one of the jewels in our little crown.
In data centers, well, we are at now at 112 megawatts IT versus 45 latest reporting. Therefore, 66 new megawatts have been let, and the prospects for the risking of the rest of the phase II remain brilliant. In terms of main financial magnitudes, the GRI print was EUR 541.9 million, +3.5% like-for-like in the year. The FFO, well, we broke our own record, is better than the one of year 2019, EUR 326.7, +5.1% year-on-year. It is important to note that in 2019, we had EUR 84 million of BBVA rents in our belly.
You know, with a little bit of help from data centers, around EUR 30 million, we have been able to overcome the sale of the BBVA portfolio, which with hindsight, I believe was an excellent decision because we delivered the company in anticipation of a high interest rate cycle. That gave us also sufficient financial muscle to be able to develop phase I of our data center deployment program, which was absolutely necessary because, you know, had we tapped the market to develop data centers starting from scratch, the market would have been a little bit incredulous about our capacity to do so. We had to do it with our own money, and BBVA was instrumental for that.
The EUR 0.58 achieved are +7% versus the initial guidance, although we updated to EUR 0.56. In reality, we expected EUR 0.56, you know, in data center we have had little income from, particularly from better margin in our data center operation, well, some income also from NRCs, from the installation of machinery on behalf of our clients through Remote Hands agreements in our data center division. The LTV stands at 28.9%, which is pretty low, more interesting as we are spending in the construction of new units in our data center division.
The NTA per share is EUR 15.36, for the first time we are very, very close in our share price to our NTA, which is, you know, incredible to see. I mean, I'm really enjoying, you know, enjoying to see that when I, you know, shut on my computer and I see the share price evolution, I am really humbled. The GAV, like-for-like, has gone up by 4.7%, very importantly, with an EPRA net income yield of 4.6%, which is sound because, you know, these days, you know, improving NTA or improving GAV through asset revaluations is easy, we have taken the exactly the contrary way.
I mean, completely recalculated our prospects for particularly logistic prelets and part of the logistic division. We have decided to expand a little bit our yields in order to make sure that we repair the roof now that the sun is shining. You know, rather than doing it when the things start to get rough. TSR, as commented, leads us to propose a dividend per share of EUR 0.44 for the year. Which is slightly above the 80%, you know, threshold, I think we have to share a little bit with our shareholders the good operating momentum of the company.
The, in terms of EPS, we have, after careful reflection, for the moment, we have taken the decision to continue to not capitalize interest expenses. We believe it is cleaner. We believe it reflects better the real, you know, operation of the company. Therefore, as a consequence of that, we are indicating for 2026, a relatively flat figure in terms of EPS and DPS. You know, we will of course endeavor to beat it if we can. It will, it won't be easy because it is mainly attributable. The reason why it's flat is mainly attributable to the fact that all the growth in top line is absorbed by more financial expenses as we continue basically building.
We continue building our inventory. As a consequence, we continue employing our debt capacity. This is, of course, you know, raising the bar of our financial expenses. You know, for the moment, it is eating in our top-line growth. 2027 will be a different thing. I mean, 2027, certainly, probably, will be a year in which we will start, you know, seeing the first hints of what the D.C. division will bring in the future to this company. 2028, 2029, and 2030, as commented on many other occasions, at least on the model. Of course, you never know, they look like a big party. That is it.
I mean, I pass the floor to Inés Arellano, who is going to comment on the different asset classes, and Fran Rivas will comment specifically on the data center division.
Thank you, Ismael. Moving to what today we present, 55% of our portfolio, the offices, which generated EUR 292 million of rents, and that is a 3.5% increase in like-for-like. As commented by Ismael, very, very sound, with a very high release of spread, up 4.8%. It is true that if we were to take into account this one lease that we mentioned last year, it would have been 0.4%, but at least it's in the positive arena. The occupancy at 94.2%, all-time high. Again, we'll watch very carefully how the evolution in Barcelona keeps on going, but we are confident that eventually, this will be digested. It's been a very healthy leasing activity market with more than 275,000 square meters contracted.
In terms of valuation, we see a 1.2% like-for-like increase with an implied gross yield of 4.9, not reaching five yet, which, as you know, it's always been the number that we thought should be the right one for offices.
5.5.
Okay. Net Initial Yield of 4.2%, and this implies a two basis point yield expansion. As said, the leasing momentum continues, as demonstrated in slide eight, with five very good examples of stand-up leasing deals spread across not just CBD, but also key peripheral corridors, and they all have secured very high-profile tenants. You have three assets here that are still in the work in progress portfolio, meaning these are not in operations yet. You also have two, like Castellana 278 and Las Tablas, where we've secured very high tenants, very high quality tenants, like a university and a bank. Moving to slide nine, we continue again to see a strong trend of reconversions. We wanted to lay down what is the current stock of Madrid.
You see a little bit of everything, so this number may seem a little bit right, big to you, depending on the source that you're used to, consider. We've taken the Belvax number.
CoStar. Is CoStar.
CoStar.
Yeah.
This is not only made by pure office buildings, it's also taking into account the offices associated to industrial uses, some residential buildings that are being used as offices as well. Also administrative buildings. What we see is that there's more than 1 million square meters expected to go back to their original residential use, because right now, as we stand, the highest and best use for a lot of these space is actually beds. Beds, because this is both living, recy, hotels. There is an additional 1.5 million square meters that could be reconverted again to these other uses out of the pure office building. What are we doing? We have identified 7% of our stock in Madrid office, okay, not the whole stock, but just in Madrid.
Whereby this doesn't mean that we're going to be selling this, the whole 7%. We've identified 33,000 square meters that will be sold, so that somebody else reconverts it, plus another 27,000 square meters that we are going to subtly refurbish or reconvert them for educational uses. Moving and to slide 10, what we see is that, well, we still believe that unique assets deserve to remain as offices. This is a perfect example, Alfonso XIII. There is a clear scarcity of good space, 10,000 square meter size buildings in prime CBD. We are fortunate of owning this unique asset. It's right in the middle of Madrid. We know that there are best-in-class tenants looking for space like this one. We are going to refurbish this asset.
We are actually refurbishing this asset, the expected yield on CapEx will be around 9.6%. There's another example in page 11. Again, super prime office building, Liberdade. As you know, this one, we bought it on purpose to reconvert it into what it will soon be probably the best office building in the Lisbon market. As of today, even if we have not started commercialization, we have fully let to a top luxury group, all the retail, the high street retail space. We have Adequa, and this is to show you that there's not only demand for pure prime CBD assets.
Adequa is one of those examples where a tenant of ours that was willing to expand, to grow in a campus very, very close to La Castellana, has actually signed an agreement with us, a turnkey project. Again, the yield on CapEx on this one is around 10%, 10.4%, and we will soon, in 2028 and 2030, we will have these two buildings built up and completing what today is Campus Adequa. Finally, this is a jewel. This is a very small building, but a true jewel, and it's going to be even more valuable once the Renova project gets executed.
As you know, it has been approved, and once it is executed, we know very well that a lot of tenants will be willing to pay very high rent for this unique asset, which for those who have visited our Plaza Ruiz Picasso building, it's just next to it. You can actually monitor the works from that one. Moving to logistics in slide 15, GRI like-for-like has been positive despite the loss of a tenant in a 48,000 square meter warehouse in Cabanillas, that had an impact of 3% in occupancy. The sound 5.8% release spread together with an average CPI of around 2.5%, has helped to increase rents by 2.5%, reaching EUR 86 million.
Gross yield at 5.7%, slightly higher than the average yield of the portfolio, 5.3%, and net initial yield at 5%. The leasing activity has been strong, with more than 440,000 square meters contracted, compared to only 100,000 square meters in 2024. Valuation uplift has been moderate, being only 1.2% on a like-for-like basis. This has been mainly driven by the increase in CapEx. Certainly more on future developments, but a little bit as well on existing assets due to, for example, fire safety measures. In 2025, we finished construction and delivered 21,000 square meters fully let to Noatum, Worten, and TotalEnergies.
We've also sold 73,000 sq m warehouse that was under refurbishment in Vitoria, and have added a couple of projects to the committed pipeline, now amounting 279,000 sq m. Yield on CapEx for all these projects remain quite appealing at 13.2%. The non-committed land bank has therefore reduced by 61,000 sq m, now standing at 183,000 sq m, located mainly in Madrid and Barcelona. If we move to shopping centers, well, this has been said already by Ismael, it's great performance in every KPI that you can look at. The GRI of EUR 133 million, it's an uplift of 4.7% like-for-like. It's a great combination of a very high release spread plus CPI.
In terms of valuation, this EUR 2.1 billion portfolio has gone up by 2.9%, with an implied gross yield of 6.4% and net initial yield of 5.7%. The portfolio, the shopping center portfolio, is shifting to adapt to market trends and customer needs, and we are seeing retailers demanding new formats, so fewer but bigger and certainly better located. The synergies with logistics, they continue to be a reality, and this is value also for the larger storage spaces that they require. Experience of our customers keep on being the main focus of everything that we do. In slide 21, you have a few examples of new retailers leasing space in our assets, mainly focused on health and beauty and leisure/home entertainment.
With no further delay, I pass the floor to Fran, who will explain, where the future is coming from, so data centers. Thank you.
Many thanks, Inés. Moving into the data center section, I would like to start by congratulating, as Ismael did, our data center team and division for a fantastic 2025 year, which had a very strong workload and, you know, proved excellent execution. Part of this effort, as you have seen, has been crystallized at the beginning of this year, 2026, with the signing of very significant contracts across our assets. Turning now on to the presentation, on page 24, we provide, as always, an overview of the two phases under operation and/or construction with updated figures. On the one hand, we present the results of phase I, which we will now refer as Ismael said, as assets in operation, where the 64 meg have been fully contracted.
The originally 14.5 gross G1 cost shared with you 12 months ago, has now increased to 15.8%, with a stabilized GRI of EUR 97 million, above the previous EUR 88 million reported 12 months ago. Regarding phase II, which we will refer as work in progress, WIP, we have been able to re-densify the first two buildings in Lisbon, moving from 36 MW IT each to now 40 MW IT each. Increasing the total size of phase II from 246 MW to 254 MW, as you have here in the presentation. This has led as well to an update of both the total investment amount and the expected stabilized GRI, now at EUR 397 million, delivering a very attractive 14.4% gross G1 cost.
In terms of commercialization, moving now to page 25, we have successfully completed the letting of the three set assets of this phase I. Following the signing of an 18 meg contract with a very well-known Neocloud operator in Getafe, first time in our portfolio, reaching the full occupancy of our assets in operation. For those of you who are more curious about the technical aspects, 34 meg out of these 64 are air-cooled, while 30 meg are liquid-cooled. You know, by the type of specification we have, it means that these 30 meg liquid-cooled are targeting above 70 kV per rack. On our experience right now, they are more than 120 kV per rack, which shows that, you know, the type of technology they're using is the last one of NVIDIA.
On page 26, we show how the rental income will ramp up on a yearly basis, with EUR 31 million already received in terms of rents in 2025, and a forecast of EUR 66 million for 2026, resulting in a stabilized GRI, as we mentioned before, of EUR 97 million in 2027. From a value creation perspective, page 27 shows the breakdown of total cost incurred, the valuation already captured, although it's a little bit more limited in Getafe until the signing of this new contract, that the appraiser was not aware of, and the expected additional value to be accrued if the valuer's assumptions remain unchanged, as we are disclosing in the footnote.
This 291 estimated value, we expect to be captured in the next valuations if those assumptions are retained. Moving into phase II, on page 28, we include a brief reminder of the commercialization status of our data center assets, that we divided, as you know, in bookings, advanced negotiations, and let or pre-let. With this in mind, in page 29, we summarize the status of the different projects of phase II, with now a total capacity of 254 meg IT. Going one by one, in Bilbao 2, what we call Ara 2, the construction is progressing on schedule. After 14 months of execution, we have gained sufficient certainty to enter into an pre-let agreement, as the Ready for Service dates, that we show in the presentation, December 2026, are very certain.
This is a highly complex deployment because we will coexist the deployment of the equipment that we have as landlords, but also the client equipment, which are largely based on a liquid-cooling solution. The client was already in our portfolio, is a very well-known Neocloud operator, focused on AI. The level of densities that the client is requesting allows us to know that they are using a state-of-the-art NVIDIA technology, as you all of you know. The connection to the substation of this building two has been already completed with our first building, what we call Ara 3, right now we are just progressing with cabling of that of those conduits that were created for our first asset there.
Regarding Bilbao Ara one, as we will show in following slides, the construction has started at the end of last year, beginning with piling works. We have a mandate now, we're estimated Ready for Service by the end of 2027. Moving now to the center part of the page, in Lisbon campus, at the end of 2025, we started the construction of the first two buildings, following, believe it or not, one and a half years of piling works. Please consider that the Lisbon region is both flood-prone, as unfortunately, we have experienced some few weeks ago, but also is located in a seismic zone, and which have required a significant soil preparation, reason why of this one and a half years of previous works.
As an example, the piling works have reached approximately 35 meters in depth just to, you know, avoid situations as we commented. Thanks to this preparation, none of the works were affected by the heavy rains experienced in the region earlier this month. From a construction point of view, we have once again re-densified the buildings, increasing capacity to 40 meg per building IT, benefiting from the insights gained from clients' discussions that we have held over the last months. In parallel, substation works have also started, with a ready for service in all these first two buildings by December 2027. In terms of leasing, we are in very good progress regarding the initiative that we will comment on the following slides.
while keeping the buildings ready for the latest computing technologies in case the first district option does not ultimately materialize. Moving into the two Madrid projects, in Tres Cantos, we have obtained the replotting approval, what we call reparcelación in Spain, of the land, and we are in the final stages of securing the organization permit to begin on-site works, which will run simultaneously with the building construction. The ready for service is currently planned for the first half of 2029. Regarding Getafe 2, located, as you know, on the same street as Getafe 1, we obtained the environmental assessment approval at the end of last year, and right after, demolition works are started and are ongoing, and the construction permit has been already requested, just to make sure that when we finalize the demolition works, we can immediately start.
Given the previous timing experiences, we are still maintaining ready for service in the second half of 2029. Although knowing that we have already power on site, what in our naming we call power ready supplied, we have already entered in negotiations with several clients interested in this site, precisely for the reason that, you know, power is already there. Regarding CapEx commitment planning for phase II, now I'm moving into page 30. 2025 has been a record year for the company in terms of CapEx commitments, and this is significant because you need to know that a significant portion of this CapEx relates to equipment, which typically has shorter execution timelines once we commission it on-site.
Commitments have reached EUR 987 million, versus the previously reported EUR 836 million, also the next two years looks very strong in terms of CapEx commitments. In the absence of any capital event, the company expects to tap the debt market, as Ismael was mentioning before, again, mainly during the second half of the year, once the equity that we raised in 2024 is fully deployed and at work. The target stability GRI is planned for 2030, as mentioned in the last quarter presentation, at EUR 387 million, delivering a 14.4% stabilized gross yield on cost. All these figures are reflected in page 31, 32, and 33, which include images showing construction progress in both Bilbao Sur and Lisbon campuses.
For those attending to our Capital Markets Day, on the ninth and tenth of March, you will have the opportunity to see these projects at a human scale, which I think I can tell you that is pretty impressive. Finally, on page 34, we would like to share the status of our EU Gigafactory initiative. As previously mentioned in the last year call, the timelines of this initiative have experienced significant delays, based upon our latest information, the award resolution is now expected before year-end 2026. As we have stated several times, our phase II projects were not conditional upon obtaining the EU Gigafactory award.
In fact, this initiative was not even under, you know, consideration when we launched phase II. We have always maintained discussions with traditional clients, both hyperscalers and new class operators, in line with our original business plan. Nevertheless, as we always say, we try to be, you know, constructive shareholders, stakeholders, and good citizens, and we remain prepared for any initiative that could benefit the regions where we operate, and particularly the Iberian Peninsula. We strongly believe, we continue believing that the bringing the EU Gigafactory status to our region will create a lot of value, whether or not we are directly involved.
As you may recall, we have saved most of our capacity in Ara 2, Getafe 1, and the full capacity of Ara 1 for this initiative, in Spain, and the first two buildings for our Lisbon campuses, of the Portuguese initiative. We were always betting on Iberian construction, so both Spain and Portugal, something that looked like, were well-received because most of the countries are doing exactly the same in other parts of Europe and offering several locations per country to allow synchronized computing and redundancy across the campuses.
The situation as of today is that the Spanish government has shown a preference for another Spanish project, and thereby, they release the capacity that we have reserved for that initiative in Ara 2 and Getafe 1, which, as you have seen, are both now fully let, as you know, following the what we have always commented to have, you know, one option and the other. With regards to Ara 1, we are in advanced negotiation with a particular client, and those negotiations, of course, will be more intensified and documented once the ready for service dates are, you know, becoming more and more closer. Regarding our Lisbon campus, we remain committed to this EU initiative, which is now why we are moving forward with the first two buildings in connection with the Portuguese proposal.
Once again, as we approach ready for service dates, the number of clients inquiring about availability continues to grow. For this reason, we will welcome, you know, clarity from the EU on. In terms of the timing, because as soon as we are approaching, you know, delivery times, normally more clients are interested and, you know, we would want to have to take a decision there. Now, Ismael will close this presentation with the closing remarks and outlook before we enter into Q&A.
Okay, Fran, thank you. Well, on page 36, closing remarks and outlook, everything, which is written here is pretty evident, so I'm not going to torture you with any more bullshit. The only thing that I will say is that the idea is to move in terms of lets and pre-lets from the current 112 to close, as close as possible to 200 MW in data centers. This could be achieved through 1 or several combinations of facts. I mean, more normally, it will be through the documentation of the Lisbon lease, which could come in the form of a formalization of the EU Gigafactory program or otherwise through an alternative route.
I mean, we have been lately adapting our design of our campus there to the specific requirements of a certain client. You must have noticed that the total capacity has increased by 8 megawatts. Well, this came at the cost of EUR 12 million additional in construction costs, I believe it makes sense. You know, now the white rooms conform to the specifications of a concrete SOQ of a concrete client, more importantly, are perfectly flexible to adapt to the requirements of either other Neocloud hyperscalers or Neocloud clients. You know, with that, I believe the 2026 should be the year of Lisbon. We will work, we will endeavor to achieve that target. That's it.
Dividend and FFO, we have already commented on it, and I believe the best thing we can do is move into Q&A so that you can make your questions in the line, and we will do our best to be able to reply to your questions.
Thank you very much, Ismael. We'll now open the floor to Q&A. The first question comes from the line of Marius from Bernstein. Marius, you're on the line.
Afternoon, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions and for the presentation. I've got a couple of questions from my side. Firstly, on the lease up and the pre-letting of your data center pipeline, I think you mentioned that Bilbao Building 2 was pre-let to existing Neocloud tenant, and that Madrid Getafe was to a new Neocloud operator. Can you comment on the occupier types you're having discussions with across phase II, and whether we should anticipate a diversification of your tenant base across that phase?
Okay. Look, Marius, basically, the leasing of Bilbao zero two has been closed with an existing client of ours. The one in Madrid, however, with a different one. At present, the diversification of our tenant roster is perfectly descriptible. You can imagine with only 112 megawatts, but I will beg you all to wait till we are one gigawatt in operation in order to calculate the real diversification of our portfolio. Had you calculated our diversification in logistics in 2014, you will have come to the dismay conclusion that it was 72% DHL. Now, no client, individual client represents more than 10% of our rent. You know, we need to continue building if we want to continue leasing.
What I can tell you, talking about phase II and preliminary conversations for phase III, is that we are talking to every kind of clients you can imagine. You love hyperscalers. We are talking to all the hyperscalers, except one, which is a self-builder. But the other III, we are talking to them, and we are talking to no less than five Tier 1 Neoclouds, like. You know, sooner or later, we will end up closing an agreement with a big hyperscalers, and you all will breathe with tranquility. I need to remind that closing deals with hyperscalers is not an easy thing. It comes at a cost, because, you know, they are the fastest cowboy in town, and as such, they have a big pistol.
You know, you have to be very, very careful because that pistol can kill you. You know, it's big organizations, complicated organizations. You can engage in very fruitful and healthy conversations with the infrastructure guys, with the cable guys, with the first-line guys, but when you move into middle office and back office, it can be complicated. At times, it is as frustrating as reaching contractual status and then stopping conversations because, you know, you know, the conditions can turn abusive very quickly. We will end up closing deals or, or reaching agreements with hyperscalers, but probably already in phase II and more surely in phase III. You need to bear with us for a second because we also need to defend our financials, which are your financials.
Let's not be childish on this, and let's not or let's be careful of what we wish for, because, you know, closing an agreement with one of these is very easy. However, the fact that this agreement is good is a very different thing, okay? We have to continue working in that respect. What I can tell you is that we are now technically qualified with three out of the four hyperscalers. At least we know that our facilities conform to their technical specifications, and sooner or later, we will end up closing.
Thank you very much, Marius.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Véronique from Kempen.
Hey, good afternoon, all. Thank you for taking my questions. Maybe first on just the other business lines, I was hoping could you give some additional color on what you expect in terms of occupancy rate, any big departures planned in 2026, especially for offices and logistics? Your view towards 26 for those business lines.
Well, in offices, the idea is to remain relatively flat. We have finished this year at 94.2. The idea is to finish this year between 93%-94%, which is already a significant effort because you have to take into account that in April, we are losing 11,000 square meters from Meta in Barcelona in the middle of 2022 at. Yes, in a building, which is a winner, clear winner in the market, but, you know, replacing 11,000 square meters in today's market in Barcelona is not an easy task. We have to be prudent, you know, taking into account the situation of the market there.
In logistics, our idea is to improve a little bit the occupancy or compared to the 96.4 we have. It's quite binary because it depends a lot on whether we are able to lease one big shed in the Henares corridor or not. If we lease it up, then it's gonna be very close to 100% again. Let's not plan for that, at least for the moment. We will inform in due time. In shopping centers, we are going to remain relatively flat because it's almost impossible to go higher. I mean, yes, I mean, you can go 20 basis points higher or, but, you know, it's complicated to go significantly higher.
In shopping centers, in fact, what we are trying to do now is to yield manage a little bit our portfolio because, you know, we are the cheapest shopping center owner in Iberia in terms of OCR. You know, that is always a very interesting position to start from, and we will yield manage a little bit our shopping centers, although the behavior is impeccable for the moment.
Okay, thank you. That's clear. Then one question around the data centers. Your, your gross yield costs went up again. You also mentioned that the margins actually were better than expected, but I see that's a number that you haven't changed in the slides. Could you give some color on the movements on those numbers and why you still report a 70% margin if it was actually better so far?
Véronique, this is Inés. What has been better is the today's margin. While we are on ramp-up, we do not achieve the 70%. 70% margin is on stabilization, we were expecting a lower than what we have achieved margin during the ramp-up. 70% remains as the stabilization margin.
Okay.
Regarding the Gross Yield on Cost, it is simply a reflection of the fact that the market is helping us. I mean, yes, of course, I mean, there are, the teams are doing a fantastic job, but we are operating in a market which is quite favorable at present. You know, this is why we are improving. If you look at our forecast in data centers, both in terms of cost per megawatt and delivery times, we have been absolutely bang on compared to the numbers we gave you. You know, our construction cost has been exactly the one we forecasted.
Even though you might notice that in phase II is higher than in phase I, the only reason is that in phase II, we had to buy two of the six plots of our data centers, and also phase II is full liquid, while in phase I, we had some air, okay. You know, that is the reason why we have a higher cost. Lisbon, as commented by Fran, is a slightly more costly construction to make because of the strict seismic regulations, similar to Japan or California. You know, I mean, We have already raised by 20 basis points the expected year-on cost on phase II. Let's see how the leases come up. We might be able to bid it or not.
We better safe than sorry. I mean, we prefer to underestimate a little bit rather than being, you know, absurdly bullish, particularly when there is so much to be done before inaugurating those assets. I mean, the RFSs, other than Bilbao Arasur 2, are expected for the end of 2027, and between now and the end of 2027, there is a lot to see. Let's continue, you know, let's remain prudent.
Okay, clear. Sorry, one small follow-up on Lisbon. I just wanted to double-check. It says now advanced negotiations on the slide for the Lisbon asset. Is that referring to the EU Gigafactory, or is that concerning something, a different tenant?
That one is concerning the EU Gigafactory. With different tenants, it cannot be. It is not advanced negotiations. It's simply leads, bookings. The Portuguese government is, you know, is conscious of that. They are honest people, and they are also trying to find a way to firm up part of the commitment rather than leave everything conditional upon obtaining the EU program. They are looking at ways to firm up part of their commitment so that we can, we can close some an agreement, and we don't need to go through an alternative route.
Okay, that's helpful. Thank you.
You're welcome.
The next question comes from the line of Florent Laroche from Oddo BHF. Florent, the line is yours.
Yes, good afternoon. Thank you to take my question. Actually, I would have just one question on data centers. We can see that you have made a lot of progress on phase II, so congratulations. We can see that you have also a lot of works to do before completing phase II. Why is it today's right timing to present us the phase III in two or three weeks? Why it is the right timing maybe to start to launch this phase III in terms of risk?
Well, the reason is twofold. On one side, we have a number of internal definitions, and we report as we reach the milestones of those specific definitions. In my mind, I see phase II significantly de-risked. Let's leave it that way. Second, powered land is an scarcity, is a scarce asset in Europe. I mean, everyone is dying to get powered land. We are lucky enough to have a lot of power land in our ownership because we started asking for power in 2021 and 2022 when nobody else was asking for that. I think it is in the best interest of all of our shareholders that we make full use of that powered land, and then the future, only God knows.
At least make use of everything we currently have because we continue enjoying very interesting yields on cost. What is more important, we continue commercializing in clear market. At the beginning, when we explained this new venture of data centers to all of you, our prediction is that we will commercialize maybe phase I in clear market. There will be no competition, but certainly, we were expecting competition for phase II. The truth is that the market is full of noise, full of bullshit, but in reality, very few people are really building or building to the exact specifications of AI, and therefore, very few can really meet the requirements of AI clients. To our surprise, we are commercializing phase II almost on a clear market basis.
The next reasoning is that if we go fast with phase III, we could achieve a very similar result. Basically, I believe it would be extremely unfair to our shareholders not to move. We know it's a lot of complication. We know it's a lot of construction yards. We have recently incorporated one executive just for the control of our works. But I think the best thing we can do if we want to be responsible managers, is to move on and continue developing capacity because we are in a situation in the market in which is, you know, as favorable as you can probably think.
Okay. Thank you.
Okay, you're welcome.
The next question comes from the line of Céline from Barclays. Céline, the floor is yours.
Hello. I just have two question, please. The first one is on the beat on the FFO this year. It was driven by better gross to net margin in DCs. Can you explain how you achieved that? Whether we could expect the same in 2026? Secondly, it's about retail. Your name popped up in the news regarding a large Spanish shopping center portfolio. Can you provide any comments if you can? If you can't comment? We've seen the expansion into DCs. There wasn't much mention about retail. Can you clarify your appetite for shopping centers going forward? Thank you.
Okay. Well, starting by the easiest, which is the FFO gross to net. As commented by Inés, we have basically improved compared to our projections because we had a better margin. Talking about margin, the margin we expected for this year, that was not the stabilized margin, okay? It was not 70%. It was well below 70%. That was the margin we expected for this year, you know, we have beaten that margin a little bit because we have been able to operate more efficiently our data centers. Then we have, as commented before, we have also benefited from a number of little tweaks and things that we have been doing on behalf of our clients.
many of our clients do not have a super big established presence in Europe, and as such, you know, they rely on our own engineers in order to install equipment, or make offices, fit outs, you know, do improvements to their equipment once installed. I mean, we are helping them to do that, and they are paying us for that service. As a consequence, we have improved a little bit the gross to net margin in our data centers, but not to a point in which we are in a position to reforecast the 70% stabilized, which we will very soon reach.
We cannot reforecast that because first, 70% is already a very good gross to net margin, particularly compared to what our peers in the US are getting. Second, because we still do not have all the information in order to be able to reforecast that. Then retail.
Can you, Céline, just to be clear, can you please repeat the question that you made?
Yeah. There was just a news that you were about to bid on a Spanish portfolio, retail portfolio.
Okay.
If you could comment on that.
Well, basically, we are very happy with the performance of our retail. We have, in a number of occasions, commented with you that, you know, being a listed company, sometimes you cannot be too contrarian to the market because, if we, if we had, we would have loved to bid for one or two assets in the past three, four years, but we have been being, we would have been slaughtered in a public place, I mean, had we done it. Now, there is a retail portfolio available in the market that we have analyzed in depth in a number of occasions already. It was very difficult to reach an agreement with the sellers because, you know, it was a relatively convoluted situation, you know, now it's out there.
What I can tell you is that the assets are high quality. They will make a perfect fit with ours, but I can also tell you that this will be a capital recycling exercise. If you are afraid about us using one penny out of our data center spending capacity, this is not the case. I mean, if we are to bid for this portfolio, which we will only do if we can achieve a positive capital recycling figure. I mean, if the capital recycling disappears, we will not bid, and we are not going to participate in an investment banking auction. We will do our best. We have a number of pros and cons. Our main con is that, of course, we don't control the French connection.
Our main pro is that the Spanish staff, we know them very well. They are colleagues in the market, and they will be probably very happy to join the family. So, we will see what comes out of that process. If, if one day, we end up bidding for that, and we are successful, what I can assure you is that we will rotate internal capital, try to sharpen the pencil a little bit in terms of ROA. I mean, try to obtain a positive print, positive arbitrage in ROA, and make sure that the data center effort is not even disturbed by this acquisition. Remember, there is a big hype in the market about resi transformation, et cetera.
We have a number of levers that we could action in order to make sure that we can rotate capital in an efficient way. Okay?
Okay. Ismael, just to be sure, we're talking about a portfolio that is worth more than EUR 1 billion, right? You would have to sell more than EUR 1 billion. Is that correct?
Yes. That is.
Okay, that's a, it's a big amount.
Yeah.
Okay. Thank you.
Okay.
The next question comes from the line of Fernando Abril-Martorell from Alantra. Fernando, the floor is yours.
Hello, hello, Ismael and team. Thank you very much for taking my questions. I have three, please. First, on the recent Getafe rent, it was clearly above your expectations, no? I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but it was around EUR 140,000, more or less, per megawatt a month. I know it is Madrid, no? How should we interpret your embedded 130 assumption for the entire phase II? It seems a bit prudent, probably, to me. Also, on the contract terms of the, you know, Bilbao 2 and Getafe, I don't know if there were any material changes to duration or escalator structures compared to previous agreements.
Okay.
Sorry, last time, you know that, the Spanish grid operator, Red Eléctrica, and also several Spanish utilities, have recently announced increased CapEx plans for the power network. I would like to know your view on this, and whether you believe or not that these investment plans will meaningfully alleviate grid congestion and improve the power availability in Spain or not. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, Fernando. Well, first, on the price of Getafe 2, we are not going to be very specific because, you know, it's a client, and of course, the terms of engagement of our contract have to remain secret. It is true, it is true that in the global underwriting of phase II, we were relatively conservative at 118.5 on average, and we are beating those figures. It's always good to remain prudent because, you know, there could be deviations in cost, there could be, you know, many things, equipment that could vary. We have to remain prudent, but it's true that, you know, in that particular contract, it's been better than expected.
In terms of contract, basically the same that we have been doing up to now, in the region of 10 years, and with fixed escalators, which are now slightly higher because the 10-year inflation swap is also higher. You know, we are happy with the contract to all terms. Remember that one of the reasons, among many, why we moved into data centers is because they were able to improve our yields once we sold the three portfolio. That, of course, was a secret weapon. I mean, it was clearly improving our average yields across the portfolio. One of the reasons why we moved into data centers was because the yields were pretty attractive. They remain so.
In fact, not only they remain so, the clients are now wanting longer terms, if they can, in exchange for rent, because they are trying to lock up IT capacity in a market which is, you know, starved of IT capacity. There is very few places where you can, you know, land, 20, 30 megawatts of AI-capable equipment. It's there are not so many places in the world. I mean, colocation is a different thing, but AI is very special, and there are not so many places in the world where you can do it. One thing also that the clients like a lot and why they are ready to compromise for longer terms is expansion capacity.
I think it was a good vision in our side to bet from the very beginning on super large plots with a lot of energy in which we could grow with the client, doing one building, another building, a third building, and a fourth building. That has been probably a very good decision. Clients like it because once they send their expats, their engineers to a certain location, they achieve significant synergies if they can operate a more significant capacity than simply just one data center and move to another place within a country. This is the situation. Regarding Red Eléctrica and the increased CapEx, it's a much welcome piece of news.
Of course, our stance with the regulator has always been that they need to improve the grid. The Spanish grid is, believe it or not, because all of you are affected by the 28th of April blackout last year, but that was a different thing and happened for different reasons. That the Spanish grid is super high quality, it is very well designed, very well, you know, duplicated and webbed, and is very robust. Of course, it will need investment in order to adapt to the new demand, because at present, we are coming from a world in which the consumption was going down year after year because many households were incorporating self-generation, and as such, you know, the consumption was going down and down and down.
We are in front of an era in which consumption, contrary to some of the official estimates that were made long time ago and probably wrong with the new circumstances, consumption will go up, and will go up very significantly, if only because of the effect of the data center industry. As a consequence, the country has to make an effort in terms of bringing together generation and consumption, so that means investing in distribution and transport. You know, any news in that respect are very much welcome. The alternative is to allow, and probably could be a very interesting complement, the alternative will be to allow private grids. You know, that is always complicated in Europe, as you know. It's the world, the word private is not very much allowed in Europe.
You know, private grids are only a reality for very small distances. I mean, when you are bringing a certain generation, mainly from renewable sources, into a certain point, Bigger grids are big, are not that common in Europe. Very happy to see that they are starting to move. The only entry door we have found to the grid is through agreements with renewable producers, and this is what we are doing.
We are engaged in a number of negotiations with a number of renewable generators. You will be keeping abreast of our evolution over the coming months/years, because it is the only practical way to access the grid as of today. One day there will be a bigger grid, and electricity eventually will be widely available. If you want to continue.
... honoring your demand request from your clients, the only way is through agreements with renewable generators.
Okay. Thank you.
You're welcome.
The next question comes from the line of Stéphanie Dossmann from Jefferies. Stephanie, the line is yours.
Hello, good afternoon. I would have two questions. The first one regarding data centers and the appraisal values. I understand that appraisers recognize the value creation closer to the time of the lease signing. Could you say how much of phase II is currently factored into the appraisal values?
Okay. What the appraisers are doing is they're just incorporating into their valuation the assets that are under construction. Once we start construction, those assets come into the perimeter. You have seen June 2025 that we have incorporated several assets, mainly Ara 2 and Lisbon 1, because they have already started construction. In December 2025, we have incorporated, we started construction as disclosed before in Ara 1 and Lisbon 2, which means that the appraisal takes that into their appraisal. The rest of the power land that we have is held at cost.
Only when we start construction, then is when we, when the appraisal, you know, enters into that valuation. From a valuation point of view, then you need to you know, differentiate between the assets which are under operation and the assets that are, you know, as considered as WIP. In the cases of, you know, assets in operation is exactly what, you know, like an office building or shopping center or logistics that we have. You know, they do normally a DSF of 10 years. That's the reason why they arrive at this value.
Regarding WIP, as you may remember, in logistics, appraisers tend to wait until the very last moment when the asset is, you know, completed and you have a tenant to reappraise the asset, and then we're holding at cost the different development. Also, you know, you need to be aware that those type of exercises normally were carried out, over, you know, a period of between nine months and 15 months only, 'cause they, you know, construction of logistics is much quicker. In the case of a data center, it's different. First, you know, the land that you hold at cost already, just because you are starting a construction there, it means that, you know, this power land all of a sudden becomes more, becomes a reality first.
Second, you are incurring in a lot of cost and approaching, you know, prelets over the period of the two years that normally, two years and a half, that takes us to build this type of asset. I would say that the value is little by little absorbed, until, you know, delivery times. Of course, the fact that we have, you know, prelets or not prelets, of course, give more certainty to the projects, but this is how they are normally approaching it.
Stephanie, just to add to what Fran commented, it is very important for you to know that the four land plots that have been included in the scope of work for the appraisers, they were on land that belonged to us. Just by putting them at market value, which is powered land and not raw land that was sitting in our balance sheet at almost nothing, just by consider them as powered land, that it's a significant uplift on a relative basis, of course, right? Phase II, as Fran said, the first thing to know is, or the best thing, the first thing to bear in mind is how that land, the market value of that land stands. In our case, for what we had before, it's certainly an uplift.
It is not the same for what, for the land that we buy, of course, because that's the market value. As the different milestones of CapEx keep on going, and as you approach the cash flow, you will get more value crystallized. For this four particular projects, there's obviously been an uplift because they had seated in our balance sheet for long at almost zero.
All right. Thank you. My second question relates to more traditional business. The office market in Barcelona, you said it is softer, of course. I was wondering what you expect on the midterm. I mean, I understand you expect no other supply shortly, but will the demand be strong enough to see a higher release spread going forward? What's your view, generally speaking, on the Barcelona office market?
Okay. Look, the Barcelona office market is in a digestion crisis. 320,000 square meters without client joined the market at the end of 2024. You know, that hit is still being felt across the market. This is taking a hit on the tension, the demand tension in the 22@ area. More noticeable in occupancy than for the moment in rents, but clearly noticeable. Our expectation in a normal world is that we had positive release spread overall in Barcelona this year. Not brilliant, 1.7%, but still positive. Rents are holding for the moment.
The market has corrected itself, as you can expect. No new construction starts have happened since 2024. In normal circumstances, unless, you know, the Afghanistan-Pakistan war expands to Iran, Israel, and U.S., Russia, you know, normally within 18-24 months, Barcelona should be able to absorb the excess offer and come back to a certain normality. That would be what we would normally expect. Could be a little bit more, could be a little bit less, but yeah, Barcelona remains a, you know, strong, small city. I mean, very specialized in certain submarkets within offices.
A little bit of pharma, a little bit of gaming and tech, and, you know, as a consequence, we expect the city to continue performing robustly once they have been able to absorb this little blip caused by a situation of oversupply and touristification of the office development.
All right. Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
The final question comes from the line of Daniela Lungu from First Tier. Daniela, the floor is yours.
Hi, thank you for taking my call. I have a couple of questions, if I may. One is in relation to your guidance for 2026. I'm trying to understand what assumptions are going in there in terms of additional debt funding. I think you said that in the second half, you're gonna raise some more debt. In terms of share count, if you assume any change in that. Also in terms of the logistics, whether you assume that that big asset that has been vacated by the client is gonna be leased up at any point during the year. So that's my first question.
Okay, Daniela. Look, regarding the guidance, the guidance stems out of our modeling of the year. We believe that the top line, the income could go up by around EUR 40 million easily, but it's going to be eaten by bigger financial expenses mainly. Why is that? Because there will be two events during the year. Money is fungible, so, you know, EUR 800 million will disappear when we have to pay, repay our bond. Second, the speed at which we are spending or investing money in CapEx because of our phase II deployment is significant. Already in 2025, we exceeded our original budget.
I save error, I believe the original budget was, like, EUR 830 million, and we ended up spending, like, EUR 980 million. We have spent more money in CapEx commitments, okay, in the year than. Commitment, meaning, when we commission a certain equipment, we pay between 20% and 40% upfront, and then we pay the rest upon the reception of the equipment. However, that money for us is becomes untouchable because, you know, we need to phase that payment if and when the equipment is received. You know, in our models, this is what we are seeing.
Whether that could be achieved, I mean, if we are quick in leasing up, some logistic gaps, we should be able to improve it. They wouldn't move that much the needle, because if you take into account that logistics account for around 84% or EUR 84 million of our rents, and the rents expected for this year are going to be in the region of EUR 600 million, you know, pfft, it's not going to move the needle that much. What share count considered for the guidance? Same share count. That is, of course, a very tricky question, I know, because you are already assuming that there is going to be a capital issuance at some point. This is, I mean, we are talking apples to apples.
The 58 is with the same share count we have at present.
Thanks for that, Ismael. No, no trick. Second question, if I may. That's on phase III. I wonder whether there's been any investment, even minimal, in infrastructure preparation in Lisbon. If I'm correct, Lisbon is part one of your phase III. Given what you mentioned about the earthquake risk and all that kind of stuff, I wonder whether there's already been a little bit of investment in infrastructure into that. Related to also phase III, what would be the earliest date that you would like to start ordering equipment or start properly deploying into phase III?
Okay. Regarding the commissioning of equipment for phase III, et cetera, we will inform in detail about phase III on the Capital Markets stage. You know, you will see what is basically the cash flow schedule in, you know, for phase III, and, you know, you will see it significantly overlaps with phase II. Regarding whether we have already advanced infra investments for phase III, yes. I mean, in Lisbon, we have been preparing the ground for plots three, four, and five, and we might start pre-charging land for plots six and seven. We are talking about relatively humble investments. I mean, we are not talking about significant things.
Likewise, we have spent money in the licensing of a number of projects, including, for example, the one in Extremadura, where we have already requested construction license, and we have already applied for specific planning status by the autonomous region. We are, you know, building up electric in capacity in anticipation of phase III. For example, the whole purpose of the Solaria agreement in November was to illuminate plots five, four and five of Arasur. Some of the other agreements that we might be reaching in or have reached in as we speak, you know, are also related one way or another to phase III or pipeline.
You know, we will inform about all that in the Capital Markets Day. The only thing that is important for you to keep in mind is that phase III will be defined with everything that is, you know, being licensed and has power. It will not include any pie in the sky or talking about things in which we could get the electricity, et cetera. We will be very specific about that on the Capital Markets Day.
Okay. Thank you.
You're welcome.
Okay, thank you very much. There are no further questions. Just a quick reminder, many of you already know, but we'll be hosting our Capital Markets Day in Bilbao, the following 9th and 10th of March. It won't be broadcasted. It will be recorded and then uploaded into our website, but all of our material will be published in our website that morning, the 10th of March. Hopefully all of you can make it, so you'll get to enjoy a nice wine. You know where we are in case you have any other questions, and have an excellent weekend.