Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, and thank you all for joining our Montea Q1 results presentation. The first quarter shows strong operational performance with EPRA Earnings up 6% per share, like-for-like rental growth of 2.7%, and an occupancy still at the very healthy 99.6%. We also signed or renewed around 30,000 sq m of leases at an average 20% rent uplift, which is not a bad way to start the year. Track 27 remains firmly on track with 88% of the targeted investment volume already secured, started or under exclusive negotiation supported by a disciplined balance sheet. In short, growth is moving and the portfolio is almost fully let, and our space for growth is proving to be more than just a good tagline.
As every trimester, I'm more than happy to present these results together with our CFO, Els, and with our Investor Relations, Inna. By the way, it's her birthday today. Els will start the presentation with our results, after which I will give a growth update. Inna will elaborate on the portfolio and market circumstances. After which, Els will give an outlook, and I will close with our ESG targets. As every trimester, after this presentation, the floor is open for your questions, which will be managed by Inna. Els.
Thank you very much, Jo. EPRA results, the EPS went up by 6% year-on-year, driven by organic rental growth, income from acquisitions, prelet developments, and green investments, and of course, thanks to our clear disciplined cost control. Looking into more detail into the figures, net rental income went up by 12% to EUR 37.3 million for the first quarter of 2026, driven by a strong like-for-like rental growth of 2.7% entirely linked to rent indexation. With property and overhead expenses going up by 11% to EUR 5.6 million, the operating result before portfolio results increased by 9% to EUR 31.8 million, leading to an operating margin of 85% in line with last year's figure.
The operating margin of the first quarter is always impacted by a seasonality effect, where the 100% of the charges that are linked to subscription tax, but also linked to property insurance and property taxes that are not charged to our tenants, is taken in cost entirely in the first quarter, leading, of course, to a negative impact on the operating margin. This effect will smooth out throughout the year and will fade away, leading to an operational margin target of 88% for this year. Of course, we reconfirm our 90% operating margin target for 2027.
With financial charges and taxes going up, the EPRA result stands at EUR 26.4 million for the first quarter of 2026, an increase by 7% year-on-year, and an EPS of EUR 1.13 per share, an increase by 6% year-on-year. The balance sheet of Montea remains prudent and solid with KPIs that will enable our further growth, a loan-to-value of 37.4%, an adjusted net debt on EBITDA of 7.3x, an interest cover of 4.1x, and an investment-grade credit rating, BBB+ with a stable outcome.
Looking at the liabilities and the financing cost, the cost of debt is under control with an average cost of debt that of 2.2%, long-term funding with an average remaining debt maturity at 5.4 years, and an average remaining hedge maturity at 5.1 years. There's no debt that is maturing in 2026. The total debt that needs to be refinanced in 2027 amounts to EUR 75 million and is thus limited. Hedge ratio stands at 99.7%. Over to you, Jo, for the growth update.
Thank you, Els. EUR 70 million has been invested over the first quarter, which means that 88% of our total investment volume target under Track 27 is now earmarked, leading to a portfolio of at least EUR 3.5 billion by the end of 2027. EUR 90 million of direct yield in acquisitions will be signed and delivered in the upcoming months, all of them at a net initial yield above 6.5%. The remaining EUR 380 million of investments is fully covered under our available investment capacity within the 8x adjusted net EBITDA, net debt on EBITDA limits. Looking at that EUR 70 million today, you see that here we are lacking behind compared to 2024 and 2025, which were two years with a lot of investments and developments.
The ones that we earmark now, as I said, have an average yield of 6.6%. If we go into detail, we see that most of them are yielding acquisitions. Compared to the two previous years, there are less in-house developments, but more yielding acquisitions are to come in the upcoming months. This is mainly linked to our very strong local network of experts. They are really able to earmark and to select good quality assets on core locations, where we can add value and create value for the portfolio at, as I said, net initial yields above 6.5%. On the other hand, developments are rather muted. Pre-lets are limited. We see that our clients, if they don't need to take a decision today, they prefer to delay.
There is still a select appetite for large-scale developments, but decisions are taking longer, and it's only on very core locations. With the crisis in the Middle East, both transport and labor are becoming more expensive, so the search for core locations is only becoming stronger, which is in our advantage. If we look at the discussions we are having on the pre-let or on the development portfolio, it's mainly driven by the e-commerce sector today where there is still significant growth. Our assets under development, EUR 54 million today with another EUR 5 million in sustainability projects. The EUR 54 million, it's two projects. It's the project in Halle, in Belgium, that we are currently developing and, of course, our JV with Weerts for Skechers in Liège. 100% pre-let.
I cannot emphasize enough that it's 100% pre-let, and both of them have a 20-year lease duration on first break. When we look at our investments under exclusive negotiations, EUR 111 million are yielding investments, EUR 26 million is solar and batteries, and EUR 42 million would be non-yielding land bank. As I said, EUR 90 million of that of direct yielding acquisitions, we expect to sign them in the upcoming months. Looking at the developments, 117,000 is currently under development. Another 240,000 sq m we hope to bring into development, but only if we have pre-lets.
The remaining land bank is another 1.2 million sq m of GLA we will be able to develop in the upcoming years, which shows again that our land bank is the most crucial pillar of our future growth. 1.4 million sq m of that land bank is yielding at an average yield of 5.9%. 1.2 million is acquired, but not yielding, and another 0.8 million sq m is under option. The total market value of that portfolio is EUR 500 million. Of course, if we bring that into development, we will have an additional growth after Track 27 of more than 70% of our annualized rent will come from that land bank, which will create another EUR 330 million of value creation for the portfolio.
This brings us to the portfolio update where I give the floor to Inna. Inna.
Thank you so much, Jo. Looking at the lettings momentum within our portfolio, we can clearly see that the solid momentum continues. We've managed to relet 30,000 sq m, and more importantly, at an average rent uplift of 20% and above ERV levels, once again underpinning the attractiveness of our portfolio, capturing reversion, and further supporting our rental growth and the performance of our existing portfolio. As of today, 79% of our 12% of leases maturing in 2026 have already been extended or relet, which further continues to support and sustain our high occupancy rate at 99.6%, outperforming the market average by 500 basis points on average. Looking at our portfolio, it has seen an increase of roughly EUR 27 million this quarter, rather limited in terms of investments in CapEx.
Our EPRA net initial yield stood at 4.9%, which reconfirms the valuation of our existing portfolio. Of course, with the expected deal signings that Jo has previously alluded to, we expect the portfolio growth to accelerate over the coming few months. In Q1, our portfolio saw a mild ERV growth, another quarter of that while yields assumptions have remained stable. Overall, our portfolio offers a 7% reversionary potential. It has slightly declined compared to the previous quarter, thanks to the capturing of our strong reversion and continuous like-for-like growth in the portfolio. If we look at the net reversionary yield today, it stands at 5.5%.
Thinking about what drives the market today, and especially, in this current environment, we see that Western Europe remains a very first and foremost supply-constrained market. Driven by the severe scarcity of land, lengthy and very complex permitting process, and further exacerbated by the environmental and ESG-linked hurdles as a result of further regulation. Today, securing power and energy remains an very crucial element of attention for our tenants as well as ourselves, but these elements also continue to support the resilience of the assets and driving demand towards new stock and further potential in terms of growth. Looking at the demand drivers, specifically e-commerce is certainly leading the pack.
We also see our customers increasingly focusing at supply chain optimization, in part driven by the points that Jo has mentioned already, linked to the cost evolution of both transport and labor, which pushes them to modernize and look for strategic existing new locations. An additional driver is defense, which we believe will be more linked to the second-tier effects of distribution around the defense. If we look at the latest forecast from ECDB in relation to the e-commerce penetration, the story continues to be painted with a very clear picture, where we see the e-commerce penetration increasing by 4 - 7 percentage point in the next five years across all the markets where we are active.
That creates a sizable 7 million sq m new demand opportunity powered by the e-commerce and would add a sizable incremental demand to the current market level take-ups. Structural change impacting our markets is a big opportunity for logistics. We certainly see a big driver of cost being within that. As a result, scale and consolidation strategies will continue improving operations and drive the demand for large distribution centers. Els, over to you for the outlook.
Thank you very much, Inna. Let me first start by saying that we, Montea, are organizing an extraordinary general meeting later on this month, 19th of May, to transit from a sole director structure to a one-tier board of directors, aligning with the highest standards of corporate governance, aligning with the peers, and align with best practice in Europe. The transition from a sole director structure, meaning Montea management is the sole director and reappoints directors, also approves changes in the board of directors currently, will evolve towards a monistic board of directors, where appointments and reappointments of directors are done directly through Montea NV and thus approved by the Montea NV shareholder.
To ensure continuity, the current board of directors will remain the same and will be reappointed except for one change, which is Peter Snoeck, who will be replaced by his son, William Snoeck, as next generation representative, of course, alongside Dirk De Pauw, our Chairman, who will remain in his position. Looking at the earnings and dividend guidance, we can reconfirm our 7% per year growth of the EPS and DPS, going to an EPS of EUR 5.23 per share in 2026, including a potential EUR 0.08 FBI recognition for FY 2024. For 2027, we reconfirm a EUR 5.60 EPS.
The guidance of 2026 is based on a minimum like-for-like rental growth of 2.5% and an investment volume target of EUR 250 million, whereas the 2027 guidance is based on a EUR 150 million investment volume target. The remaining investment volume under Track 27, which is EUR 380 million, is fully covered by the available investment capacity within the limits of an adjusted net debt on EBITDA of 8 x. Track 27 will be done through a disciplined financial allocation with focus on operational excellence, leading towards an operational margin of 90% by the end of 2027, an average cost of debt that won't exceed to 2.5%, and a consistently high occupancy rate above 98% throughout the whole period.
Next to the organic growth, Montea will continue to focus on the four growth pillars, being the yielding, standing investments that we will acquire, the in-house developments, preferably pre-let for 100%, minimum pre-let for 50%, partnerships with landowners and developers, as well as green investments in solar panel energy and in battery energy storage systems. Laying the groundwork for growth beyond Track 27, Montea has or will expect in the upcoming two years in France 500,000 sq m of GLA that is permitted, of which already 150,000 sq m is already secured today.
Montea extends her track record of having a robust balance sheet with adjusted net debt on EBITDA and interest cover, and a loan-to-value that is well under control and well managed. Supported by a diversified and long-term funding, 53% of the funding is provided by credit lines, 46% is coming from bonds with long-term maturities, financing and hedging both above five years. Maturities for both credit lines and bonds well spread over time, with a cap of 20% of the total debt that needs to be refinanced within one year. Looking back at the last 10 years, we have a proven track record with a total accounting return of on average 16%. Heading back to you, Jo, for the ESG update.
Thank you, Els. A very short update. We invested EUR 2 million approximately over the last trimester, mainly in photovoltaic capacity, which went from 88 MW - 92 MW. Next to that, of course, we continue our growth program, both in heat pumps as in LED lighting in our existing portfolio. Of course, given the fact that in-house developments has been delayed, that also has an impact on new both photovoltaic projects as on battery storage. A very limited update on that point. This being said, I think Montea remains an unmatched growth and success story. With 215,000 sq m today in Luik, we are developing the largest single tenant development in Belgium. We have a 99.6% occupancy rate, close to 100%, which is unmatched in our market.
Of course, and I can't emphasize enough, 100% of the projects we do is pre-let. With this, I give the floor to Inna for the Q&A. Inna.
Thank you very much, Jo. We'll now open the floor to your questions. You have two options to ask your questions. In case you're joining via the webcast option, please raise your hands. In case you're joining us through the dial-in option, please press pound key five to enter the queue and pound key six if you would like to withdraw your question. Our first question comes in from John Vuong at Van Lanschot Kempen. John, the floor is yours. Good morning.
Hi. Good morning. Can you hear me well? On your like-for-like rental growth of 2.7%, you now mention that it is primarily driven by indexation. At the same time, you mentioned on the renewals of 30,000 sq m, you captured 20% rental uplift. Is it fair to say that the majority of the 80% renewed in 2026 were breaks, or were there cases where you were unable to capture reversion?
John, for the current perspective of the reversion evolution, as you recall, we had a very active year last year where we captured a significant amount of rental uplifts as well. Part of it has to do with the quarter-on-quarter effects. Part of it is also within our underlying assumptions. We take into account a 2% indexation for this year. 50 basis points is still assumed for the reversion. That's the guidance we have in terms of minimum like-for-like. Of course, this quarter we had a pretty exceptional leasing activity. The volume is not high, the uplifts were significant. That will gradually feed into the like-for-like in the coming months as well. A lot of these leases were of course, signed towards the end of the quarter.
Okay. That's clear. Thank you. On your acquisitions under negotiation, I appreciate you can't provide too many details right now, but I'm trying to understand what you're targeting in terms of investments. Is it fair to assume that these potential deals have some sort of value-add angle with a 6.5% or more than 6.5% yield on day one? Could you also confirm whether these are all new potential deals in Q1, or whether part of it relates to the EUR 47 million yielding investments that you had on the negotiation at the end of last year?
Thanks for that question, John. I think it is important to mention when we say will be closed in the upcoming months, it's because we are beyond the negotiation. There are actually an agreement between seller and us. It's just that they are still in the process of approval by municipality and approval by a port or an airport. It's mainly linked to the fact that we are in administrative procedures there. There's basically an agreement between parties on those deals. We are very far in the process there.
The fact that they are indeed at net initial yields above 6.5% means that they either have, as you said, a value add angle where we see potential, where we can develop, or also because they are land leases and they are, as I already mentioned, ports, airports, where we are able, based on our network and based on our expertise, to achieve yields that are beyond the market or that are above the market today.
Okay. That's clear. Thank you. Inna, happy birthday.
Thank you, John.
Thank you, John. Our next question comes from Steven Boumans at ABN AMRO -ODDO. Good morning, Steven. The floor is yours. Steven, I'm not sure if you can hear us.
You can say to unmute his microphone, please.
Please unmute your microphone.
Sorry. You target permits for 500,000 GLA in France by end 2027. What are the concrete milestones for 2026 regarding this? What are the biggest risks to get the permits and leases in place for France?
The largest part of that EUR 500 will be already in 2026. You know that we have municipality elections. We had municipality elections in March, based on those results, most of the permits will already be obtained in 2026. I think, Inna, we already obtained over 100,000-
EUR 150.
EUR 150,000 today, most of the EUR 500 will be obtained this year.
Okay, clear. Leasing?
It's 0 because we haven't started the commercial process there yet. With administrative procedures being very long, we think that you can only start a commercial process once you can also give certainty on the delays of delivery of a building. There we prefer to start a commercial process once we have the permits in place.
Okay, clear. Then a different question. You assume EUR 150 million investments for your 2027 targets. If I'm correct you are now, what is it? Around EUR 100 million plus EUR 90 million, materially, realizing soon. Why would all of 2027 be weaker than, let's say, H1 2026? Is the EUR 150 million just conservatism? Or otherwise, are the current investments high? Exceptionally high?
The target for 2026 in terms of CapEx is EUR 250 million. As you know, where we are today, we provided the guidance on closing the additional EUR 90 million. Of course, we're in the first quarter of this year. For us, the goal is to execute that EUR 250 million this year, because that is also driven by the directly yielding acquisitions, which will feed into our 2027 guidance as well. The EUR 150 million CapEx target for 2027, if you recall, Steven, we've adjusted our CapEx slightly downwards in terms of by about EUR 50, EUR 60 million in Q4.
Because today we don't see the need to allocate that volume, but more importantly, part of that CapEx was linked to the developments which we have now in our internal budget assumptions have also pushed forward. The guidance, I think what the main point is, the guidance today remains intact with us actually allocating less capital towards growth, and a big element of that has also been the support of the organic growth.
Okay. clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Steven.
Thank you, Steven. We have our next question is from Frederic Renard at Kepler. Jo, perhaps we can start with a question related to the Iran conflict. Has it put at risk any potential new lettings in our land bank or interrupted any discussions, or is it just no interest in our land locations?
No, no, absolutely. It has definitely had an impact, as I already mentioned. What we see, and it's in every country, companies that can postpone a decision that can delay, they delay. We cannot forget that based on the investment, the CapEx that needs to be done by our tenants in the buildings for automatization, robotization, mechanization, it sometimes even is bigger than the investment, the CapEx we do in the building ourselves. For them, it's always a huge decision. What we see today is that if they can postpone, if they can delay the decision, they will delay it. That's why today the market is mainly driven in every market by e-commerce and last mile, because these are the sectors that are absolutely growing and where there is absolutely need for additional capacity.
This is absolutely delaying some of the decisions, but it's also, as I mentioned, it's also the reason why there is this huge difference in performance today between A locations and everything else, and B and C locations. It's because there is this flight towards quality locations. In our opinion, and that's what you see in the occupancy rate in our portfolio, this is also a flight towards quality. For new expansions, it's absolutely very much limited today to some 3PL, but mainly e-commerce.
Yeah. Knowing that from an operational point of view, the need is there. It's mainly at the decision taker level where it's stopped. We see more and more traction and leads on ongoing over the last couple of weeks.
Mm. Yep.
An additional question from Frederick: Is your LTV share price slowing you down in terms of acquisitions?
Well, it raises the bar, of course. It raises the bar because we are confronted with a discount on NTA today, and that, of course, makes us more selective. It's a good exercise for us. It's a healthy diet, I think. We have all known the years where we were spoiled by the premiums, where basically creating NTA could be done just by raising capital. That is now four years behind us. If we want to grow, we have to be very disciplined, but it's a good exercise for our country teams. Yes, the bar is higher. That's why the 6.5% net initial yield is a strong bar.
It's a difficult bar because the markets are performing well. We all know that prime yields are below 5%. That is the reason why we cannot buy prime assets. We have to develop them ourselves. Yes, it is definitely having an impact on our strategy, but I think it's healthy. If somebody can grow and continue to deliver better results year-on-year in this market, wow, that sets us ready for every market.
We need indeed that hurdle to be able to get to the EPS accretion, of course. On the other hand, we need to be more selective, and also more creative on how to take control on deals. It's definitely a good thing. The creativity is definitely there. We need to see how to have control over certain acquisitions, land positions, without immediately spending the money.
The last question from Frederick is about detailing the 30,000 sq m of renewed leases and a 20% uplift, whether any CapEx was needed to capture that 20% uplift, and what the average asset size is. Fred, it's a, it's a mix. There were leases above 10,000 sq m, and in terms of any CapEx that was needed to be invested, it was very much in line with what we normally do if any was required. It's ensuring that it's at least yielding from that perspective. Our next question is on the webcast line, and it comes from Vivien Maquet at Degroof Petercam. Vivien, good morning. Please unmute yourself and go ahead.
I think you are still on mute, Vivien.
Can you hear me?
Yes, we can.
Yeah. Okay. I was on mute. That's strange. Thanks. Thanks for presentation and happy birthday. Just a quick question on the EUR 90 million of acquisition. Any contribution in kind plans within these ones?
I didn't hear.
No. Whether we have contributions in kind planned within the EUR 90 million targeted acquisitions.
I don't think we can elaborate on that, Inna.
Indeed.
No. Unfortunately not, Vivien. We cannot give more flavor on that.
All right. Thank you.
Thank you, Vivien. Our next question comes via the chat from Thomas at Deutsche Bank. Your activity on developments looks rather muted at the moment while we hear more upbeat comments from your peers. What is your expectation for the full year?
Yeah, that's of course the good question. I would say that's the million-dollar question. We are all waiting for those leases to be signed. What I can say is that in 2026 we have had opportunities. We have probably been very severe in the way that we did not want to give incentives at the time because we believe that qualitative land is only getting more scarce. We didn't give in on our 100% pre-let target. We didn't give in on our yielding target, despite the fact that some of those developments were yielding well above 7%. We have been very severe on that, because also we saw alternative alternatives in yielding acquisitions.
We didn't really want to give in on our quality, nor on our lease expectations. It's a constant debate we have. There are leads, as Els already mentioned. Some of our projects are not less than four prospects today that are hoovering around the assets. There are opportunities, definitely, but I will not be able to give you any flavor on that. We continue, and we have the ambition to bring them into development. This being said, we are well aware that these are very strategic locations, we want to have the best tenant and at a reasonable rent level.
There is an additional question from Thomas with regards to the EUR 90 million of targeted acquisitions. Could you provide some color as to the regions or ticket sizes?
Ticket size is roughly EUR 20 million, EUR 30 million. Let's say it's three to four assets that we want to acquire, and it's in all four of our markets actually. I cannot give you more flavor on that. There's one in France, there's one in Germany, one in Belgium, and one in Holland. It's really in every market that we are currently closing deals.
An additional question on the like-for-like rental growth expectations. Our minimum was 2.5%. Considering stronger like-for-like in the first quarter and higher inflation expectations, there seems to be some tailwind for higher momentum. Could you share your thoughts? Thomas, I think today what we assume in our budget, first and foremost, there is always a seasonality effect. Every quarter we have a breakdown of indexation, and it links to a different starting point the year before. Today of course the forecasts have been revised significantly. For us, the goal is to continue executing what we have promised under the Track 27, minimum 2.5%.
We expect that to continue throughout each quarter, but there is not much more to comment on that because the economic development remains rather volatile. Today we remain at a comfortable point of setting our guidance where it was before. We have an additional question on the line from Kanat at Barclays. Kanat, good morning. The line is yours. Please unmute yourself.
Hello. Thank you for taking my question. Just one on me, from me. Can you give some color beyond the EUR 90 million and the EUR 111 million, like EUR 111 million obviously includes the EUR 90 million. Beyond the acquisitions that are in, under discussion, what are you seeing in the market, if you were to top up the acquisitions going forward? And happy birthday.
The question was about the EUR 90 million of acquisitions we've communicated on, the EUR 111 million we have under exclusive negotiation, and how do we see the evolution of those two.
Whether there is more to be added, too.
Yeah. There's definitely more to be added, and the target for this year is EUR 250 million. We hope that some of that will come from the prelets from the in-house developments. As I already mentioned, a very significant part of that will come from the yielding acquisition. Absolutely, the target for this year is well beyond the figure we gave you already. That's already under exclusive negotiation. There's much more to come, definitely.
Those are hitting your yield targets, yeah. Thanks. Thanks for that.
Above the 6.5% yield target. Yes, absolutely.
Thank you for taking my question.
Thank you, Kanat.
Thank you, Kanat. It appears we don't have any additional questions on the line, so Jo, over to you for some concluding remarks.
Okay. Thank you very much. It's not a surprise that some of the yielding acquisitions, we were hoping to give you more flavor on them today, that we would have been able to close the administrative procedures on these. They are a bit delayed. We will have to wait a bit longer. I can tell you that we will be able to close them in the upcoming months. Looking forward to that. Thank you for your question. Thanks for your time. Looking forward to see you soon. Thanks.
Thank you.