Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us in person and virtually for the Shurgard Year-End 2023 results. I'm here with Marc Oursin, CEO; Jean Kreusch, CFO; and Isabel Neumann, Chief Investment Officer. Before we begin, we want to remind you that all statements other than statements of historical fact included in this management presentation are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to risk and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected by the statements. These risks and other factors could adversely affect our business and future results that are described in our earnings release and in our publicly reported information. You can find a press release and an audio webcast replay of this management presentation on our shurgard.com site. With that, I will hand over to Marc.
Thank you, Caroline. Welcome to everybody to share with us these great results for the year 2023. On the first page of the presentation, we have been able to reach 9% revenue growth, total company supported by a couple of countries with double-digit: Germany, Netherlands, and the U.K. Sorry, here we go. This revenue growth has been also translated into almost 10% growth of our NOI, which is our operating profit. Mechanically, it's what you see: the margin has increased significantly by 0.6 percentage points over the year 2023 versus 2022 for the whole store perimeter. If we focus on our same store perimeter, which is roughly 90% of our operations, you can see that this same store performed with almost 6%, 5.7% precisely, in terms of revenue growth. This is related to a volume effect and a value effect.
The volume is the occupancy, so occupancy has been at a high level of 90.4%, stable versus 2022. The value effect, so in-place rent, has grown up by 6.3%, which is very significant. Of course, due to the management of our costs with a 3% growth only, we've been able to grow the margin, sorry, by almost 0.9 percentage points over the year 2023 versus 2022. As a reminder, Shurgard became a U.K. REIT on March 1st, 2023, so almost a year ago. We have been able to deliver EUR 158.4 million in terms of Adjusted EPRA earnings, with a growth of 12.3%, which is very significant. This, as an EPRA earning per share, we have been able to grow by 10.9% over the same period of time.
If you look at now the balance sheet, so we will pay EUR 1.17 per share for the full year in terms of dividends, so that's fully in line with our guidance, so no surprise. Then in terms of NTA, well, the EPRA NTA per share, so EUR 44.07, which is an increase of 8.4% versus December 31st, 2022. The exit cap rate has been stable, 5.2% over the same period of time, between December 2022 and December 2023. You know that we have done this successful equity raise, so-called ABB, in November 2023, so EUR 300 million. So of course, on December 31st, we were sitting on a significant amount of cash, EUR 258 million, with a low LTV of 13% due to the ABB, obviously, and a multiple of net debt over underlying EBITDA of 3.1x. And then a nice coverage of the interest of 10.6%.
So pretty attractive shareholder returns and with a conservative balance sheet. Talking about pipeline and development, and Isabel will come back in more detail than me later on, so we have been able to create a new capacity of 231,000 sq m, which is globally 2.5 million sq ft for the years 2023 till 2026, which is representing 17% of our total existing capacity at the end of 2022, which is very significant. And this pipeline of 2.5 million sq ft is having a project cost value of EUR 630 million. Our expectation of yield at maturity for this pipeline is 8%-9%, of course depending if it's M&A or if it's organic, the timing is not the same, but at maturity this is what we're expecting.
And we have done also two recent acquisitions in Germany, which are actually the first one in November that was Top Box with five properties and two p rojects, and Pickens recently, early this year, with six properties spread in Berlin and Hamburg. So in total, 64,000 sq m , so more or less EUR 230 million of value of investment. So another way to look at the pipeline is what you see on this graphic. So it's what have we done and what is the commitment? So these are the gray bars, so you see the years 2020 till 2026. So dark gray is what we have done, this is expressed in square meters, in thousands of square meters, and the guidance is 90,000 sq m for the years as of 2024, 2025, and 2026.
But what is interesting to look at is the red line too, which is exactly these numbers expressed as a percentage of the fully built-out, so of what was under management just the year before. So you see that we have a kind of run rate between 5%-6%, so every year we are adding to the platform 5%-6% of physical additional square meters that will, of course, sustain our growth. Then a little zoom on Q4, great results also in Q4. So as we said, we had a deceleration of the total company between Q1 and Q4, but Q4 is still with a very high level of 7.7% revenue growth. And two countries, Germany and Netherlands, got still a double-digit growth, so great performance over there.
On the NOI, we have been able to grow the NOI by 9.4% over that Q4, so still a very, very high speed of growth. Then here on the same store, so the same logic, our same store, 90% of our revenue, performed well with 4.2% growth. The same store, if you look at again volume value effect, we have been able to keep a high level of occupancy in Q4, 9.3%. I remind you that the full year was 90.4%, so pretty high. Regarding the value, 4.6% in terms of in-place rent, still having traction for us on our pricing power. In terms of earnings growth, the Adjusted EPRA earnings grew by 11.3% of the quarter, so fully in line with what the rest of the year has been.
So in terms of outlook for 2024, we are forecasting to do at least 7.5% of revenue growth for the full year 2024 versus 2023. Secondly, we anticipate a margin that is stable for the whole company in 2024 versus 2023, after having done a tremendous performance over the past three years, so 2.7 percentage points of increase the past three years, so well ahead of guidance. Then in terms of development and pipeline, you've seen that, so it will be 90,000 sq m delivered in 2024, and with an investment in excess of EUR 300 million for the year 2024. And then regarding the tax rate, since we are a REIT in the U.K., it's helped us to keep that rate at a low level of 17% for the year 2024.
We have kept our dividend policy, what we announced actually in September 2021 at the Capital Market Day, of EUR 1.17 per share for the full year 2024. So, you know, a lot of confidence in our model, again demonstrating great results and a lot of opportunities for growth. On that, I pass to Jean.
Thank you, Marc. Looking back at our financial results in 2023, we once again deliver a very strong performance with revenue growth of 8.3% at constant exchange rate, both for the quarter and full year. Our NOI margin at 63.3% is up 0.5 percentage point for the quarter, and at 66.3% for the year is up 0.4 percentage point, demonstrating once again our scalability and the continuous digitalization of our operating platform. Finally, our Adjusted EPRA earnings at EUR 158.4 million grew by 12.3% for the year at constant exchange rate and by 10.3% at actual rate. In 2023, we continue to show resilience of our top line, and we confirm our ability to keep cost under control in a high inflation environment.
On the next page, our same store property operating revenue continues to show a strong growth of 5.7% at constant exchange rate for the year, with the fourth quarter growing at 4.2%, demonstrating once again the resilience of the business. For the year, the occupancy at 90.4% remained stable, while the average in-place rate grew by 6.3% at constant exchange rate, reflecting our continued ability to raise rent rates for new customers while increasing in-place rates to existing customers. On a country level, we continue to show high single-digit growth in the Netherlands, the U.K., Germany, and Belgium. On the following page, our levels of growth are contributing to a 9.9% increase in our NOI at constant exchange rate.
First, first level of growth, our same store NOI grew by 7.1% at constant exchange rate, contributing EUR 14.7 million to the growth, while the development and acquisition added another EUR 6.7 million, reflecting the ramp-up sales of our new stores combined with our digitalization initiatives, which are allowing us to absorb rising salary costs through natural attrition. We are increasingly able to operate our platform and stores more efficiently thanks to our e-rental service, which makes up now around 40% of our movings. Moving now to our cash flow. On the next page, obviously the main change compared to last year was the EUR 300 million ABB we did in the last part of the year to fund our acquisition pipeline. We ended the year with a cash balance of EUR 258 million. We also confirmed the payment of a dividend of EUR 1.17 per share for the year.
Finally, on page 12, our balance sheet continues to remain very strong, with a low LTV at 13% and a net debt to EBITDA of 3.1x. Our debt has a weighted average interest rate of 2.36%. Our maturities are well spread, and 100% of our outstanding debt has fixed maturities. Our EPRA NTA per share increased by 8.4%, reflecting the growth of our NOI, while the exit cap rate basically stayed flat at 5.2%. On this, I'll pass the word to Isabel to talk about our capital raising.
In November, we did a successful ABB, which allowed us to raise EUR 300 million of additional equity. The purpose of that ABB was to continue to fund our growth strategy, while of course also to maintain the strong and disciplined balance sheet that we have. I think we can all say that we have very swiftly proceeded in deploying these funds, whereby having done the Top Box acquisition for a total of about EUR 98 million, as well as the Pickens acquisition for a total of about EUR 131 million, so a total of about EUR 230 million, adding in total about 7 + 6 additional properties, 13 properties, to our portfolio in Germany. These transactions will bring 64,000 sq m, and we hope to continue to deploy the rest of the funds in short order.
I think it's important to note that these capital raises and the deployment of these funds will be earnings accrued from year one, and it also allows us to continue to have a very strong balance sheet as we go and continue to proceed with our growth strategy. Now talking about growth strategy, Marc has mentioned that our pipeline is now standing at a solid 231,000 sq m, with an expected investment of about EUR 630 million. But I want to do a bit of a deep dive on Germany, because it's important to note what a significant transformation we have managed to do in Germany. You will remember that in 2021 we announced our growth strategy, whereby we committed to doubling the growth of the company. Before that, we were only focused on Berlin and NRW, so North Rhine-Westphalia, as areas of development.
At that time, we committed to not only double down on these areas, but also to add additional cities of Frankfurt, Stuttgart, and Munich in terms of our development. What we have been able to do is, in combination of both our organic development and our acquisition development, we are now in a position that we aim to be at, or we should be at, 46 stores by the end of 2026, which is when our organic pipeline effectively will have been rolled out. This is coming from 25 stores or 123,000 sq m, so it's almost doubling effectively of our presence in Germany, and it also puts us in a very solid number two position in Germany. It's really been transformational in terms of what we've been able to do in terms of growth acceleration in Germany.
So it's fair to say that we were with 25-store subscale; this has now been completely kind of transformed to a very, I would say, strong addition in terms of the total store portfolio across Europe. What I think is important to know as well is that we have very much, with adding these cities now, a solid focus on these Big Seven cities, which are really cities where the demographics are very strong, density is very strong, and we see continued kind of growth potential in these areas. What's important, I think, to know as well is that, consistent with our overall strategy, 100% of that portfolio is freehold, and 70% of the portfolio is purpose-built. I'll now pass it back on to Marc.
Thank you, Isabel. So after this, let's say, great operational performance, the build-up of the pipeline, acquisitions, doubling the size in Germany, for example, then let's talk about what we are doing versus what you call the customer journey. So the first part is what you see on the left side, which is, okay, we are in a self-storage business, prospects are looking for space, obviously, so find a space. How do they do that? They use this, they are mobile, 70% of the traffic on the web and the moving is coming from the smartphone today. It was 10 years ago less than 20%, so that's the key tool. Then the second thing is talking about price transparency. All right, I go, I use my phone, I have a look on it, what do I see? I see location, I see units, I see prices.
Like any other industry, the price you see is the price you pay, which looks pretty normal to you, but in this industry, it's in Europe, it's not still yet a kind of standard. Many operators don't have any transparency on that, and we are like this since 2012, so to us it's the natural wave, the way prospects are behaving, so we have that full transparency. Thirdly, size has what we call a size estimator in order to make the people at their ease to find the right size, because some of them have no clue of what the volume that they would store or what they would need, and therefore we have on our mobile website, sorry, actually this capacity to help them to define what they need.
And what is interesting is, out of 100 movings down through the web, 20% of the prospects or customers have used that functionality, which is also, we think, great stuff for them. And last but not least, to find the space and using the phone efficiently is our brand and our capacity to have an optimized traffic acquisition and lead generation with the help of the Shurgard brand. The second step has been for us, if you remember, at the end of the first year of the COVID in 2020, we created what we called e-rental, which is something that you know very well when you're traveling with planes, where you have a need and you have your boarding pass on your phone, and meanwhile you have paid the ticket. So this is exactly the same concept.
So what we have done, we have done simply the last phase at that time, in December 2020, which was actually, you have a complete seamless experience from your need of space till your unit. You have paid, you know your unit, and you get there. Three years down the road today, 40%. So out of 100 movings, 40 of those movings are done this way, which is very significant. And what is interesting is that this number continues to grow every year in all the markets. To give you an idea of the bandwidth of that, if you look at the seven markets where we are, the penetration of this so-called e-rental goes from 35%-50% at the end of 2023. And we expect this, as I said, to continue to grow. The third step has been the app, what you see here, account management.
So we have developed an app, rolled this app almost two years ago, and it's in the first full year in 2023 in all the markets. And this app first allows what? Allows customers, actually, to stay in their car facing the entrance of the premises of the properties, the gate, they are recognized with Bluetooth, and the gate is opening. Then they step out of their car, they go to the property itself, the building, same story, they are recognized, the door is opening. They have to take their lift, because the lift is bringing them to the second floor where they have their unit, they will go to the second floor. They don't have to remember any code. They cannot go to the third or the first floor, by the way, for security reasons.
Then, so you see how, with the technology, in an industry that looks maybe, let's say, not very tech, actually it's super tech in the end, and it goes very fast. People are changing their behavior also very fast. And last but not least is all the data that we can get from all of these new functionalities, is the last one, is all the access control that we have changed. So all the properties in Europe have a new system, and we did this in the years 2021 and 2022, so in 2023 all the properties were ready, we have changed the devices, we have changed the software, and in the end, with this, we know who is coming, how long, when, and with this number of data we'd be able to adjust different things in our customer policy.
So on top of that, you understood, and we started to talk about that last year, I think, about what we call hybridization, which means that we are doing what many industries are doing, banks, retail banks, for example, you push to customers' workload, and therefore you adjust your structure of cost. This is what we are doing, so meaning that we are doing the same kind of business with less people, and this has fed the margin in 2023. Then, if we go to the next page, talking about another success is our ESG strategy. So let's start with the commitment, and the first one is we want to be net-zero carbon by 2030, and therefore we are on our way for getting there.
The priorities related to this objective have been, if I take first the E, so it's what you see in the middle column on the first one, so we have done a couple of things there on the environmental aspect to be in line with this objective. We have changed, so in the end what we are talking about, the less you consume, the less you emit in terms of CO2, looks pretty, let's say, obvious, but in order to do that, what we have done is that we have reduced significantly our consumption of megawatts, so electricity, and also reducing the consumption of gas. So electricity was, in a way, the last blade of cut was installing LED lights in all the properties, and this is done, knowing that LED lights consume 70% less electricity than regular lights, so you imagine the reduction you have.
And then also transforming the usage of natural gas, we have roughly 120, so 40% of the properties with gas boilers, to actually heat pumps. And this will take more or less five years down the road to have transformed and changed these 120 gas boilers to heat pumps. And last but not least, of course, solar panels, so we have a strategy there, and we will start with the Netherlands and probably the U.K. in 2024 by installing these solar panels. Knowing that we are in seven countries, so it's a bit more complicated, because each country has its own nice jurisdictions and specificities regarding solar, so it takes some time to understand what's going on and what to do efficiently. The second point regarding ESG is, of course, the governance.
We have changed in 2023, we have reduced the size of our board from 11 to nine members first. Secondly, our chairman became independent, because the chairman has changed, from Ron Havner to Ian Marcus. And then in terms of diversity, gender parity, we have already a third of our board that is female, and we'll continue to go into that route of looking for parity soon in the coming years. Last but not least, this topic of ESG is complex in terms of reporting, especially when you're in seven countries, meaning that, but despite this, I mean, we have, we think, a best-in-class reporting following the EU Taxonomy, and also what we have done on the physical climate change, and this is in the annual report and the sustainability report.
If I have one advice to you guys, is please do the effort of reading our 50 pages, 60 pages of our sustainability report. The teams have done, sorry, Caroline?
More than 100.
More than 100, sorry, so even more. Our team dedicated to this have done a tremendous job in trying to make something complex easy to read, but you can understand. I really do encourage you to spend some time on that. Of course, the result of all of this, the third column, is the strong ratings, and I will just focus on GRESB, where for the third year in a row we are the industry leader for self-storage with the best score, five stars and 91 out of 100. So on track to reach our commitment for ESG and trying to make all these things simple and understandable to everybody. Last but not least, now the, I would say, our conclusion. Yes, we are a unique platform with significant runway, and why? A couple of things, you got it. Another solid performance, 9% revenue growth, great.
Proven benefits from the geographical spread, more or less if you take London, the U.K., France, Benelux, the Nordics, Germany, each of these five parts of the pie have roughly 20%-25% of our value or incomes, earnings, which means that well spread in terms of geography, so managing the risk that are related to these geographies. We are not overexposed to one specific country. And by the way, it's what you've seen, a couple of these countries have great performances in 2023, double-digit growth in the revenue. Three, the acceleration of the prop-tech, yes, it does bring benefits on the margin, last year 0.9% for our same store in terms of incremental, and as I said, 2.7% over three years.
Pipeline, talking about runway, here we are, 231,000 sq m , massive one, 17%, and a very significant, so potential of NOI growth in the coming years due to this pipeline. Isabel mentioned the two acquisitions within Germany, we doubled the size, that's our ambition, and to continue, great country, and all of that is actually sustained by these three levers of growth, what we call redevelopment, developments, and M&A, times seven countries, so multiple options to play with. And this is actually framed into actually a discipline of pretty stringent discipline of capital allocations and returns objectives with a robust balance sheet, without mentioning the fact that we became a U.K. REIT, you know that, and sector leader in ESG, meaning that and being also on track for that. So indeed, number one platform in Europe for self-storage and the number one brand, that's what we are. And Caroline?
Yes, thank you, Isabel, Marc, and Jean for this presentation. Now we are available to take your questions. First we will take questions from the audience, then the question from the webcast. If you are following on Zoom and you would like to ask a question, then please click the raise hand icon on Zoom, and we will come to each of you in turn. Alternatively, if you would like to type in your question, then please enter it into the Q&A box on Zoom and we will read it out on your behalf. That's good. M arius.
Thank you for taking my questions, it's Marios Pastou here from Société Générale. Two questions from my side, really, firstly just thinking about trends you're seeing maybe into this year and also in the fourth quarter of last year. Could you give us an idea in terms of kind of customer demand, the level of discounting you're having to offer to kind of maintain that occupancy level? We saw rate growth slowing into the fourth quarter, but is there any trend that you're seeing where actually demand's coming back and the discounting you're really having to offer is stabilizing, albeit with kind of solid rent growth as well on the long-term customer base?
Okay, thank you Marios for the question. So it's quite obvious that if you look at what happened in 2023, it's a deceleration of the total company and the same store, okay? If you look at growth quarter by quarter, year-on-year. So we started, if I remember, on the same store around 7% Q1 and we end at four something, 4.7% for Q4. Knowing that, this perimeter of same stores are 90% of the total company revenue, so it's a big chunk and you need to make sure that this one is on track. So how do we approach 2024?
So the way we approach 2024 is that we think that this deceleration will stabilize in 2024, which means that we expect the first half of 2024 to be probably still slightly lower than Q4 2023, and then the second half to be back with higher, so which makes the whole year stabilizing at a level which is slightly below 2023 Q4. That's the way we anticipate the year for the same store for the year 2024. Of course, on the other side, now we come back on the customer behavior, Marios.
So on the other side in terms of non-same store, so the differential between the total and this perimeter, so the other 10%, these 10% are fed by all the stores we have opened less than three years ago, plus the acquisitions that we have done, no, it's not me, and plus the acquisitions that are taking place this year in 2024, so for example, Pickens, obviously. Back to the demand, because that's the point, so we don't see a change in the demand, so what we call prospects, and whatever the country, the demand is there with good levels. The only thing we see is that we need to continue to do promotions more than what we were doing in 2021 or in 2022 to convert that demand into customers.
So what we have anticipated is a level of discount that is slightly above what we had in 2023 in the budget, but still at a level that explains the mechanism I was just describing. So Jean, if you want to know, I think we're good. Is it answering the point?
Yeah, absolutely, that's very clear, thank you. Then just secondly, I think you're looking now for around EUR 200 million of CapEx per annum, that's slightly higher than it was before, but you're maintaining kind of the level of square meterage and also maintaining the yield on cost you're looking for at stabilization. Are you confident on achieving that level of yield on cost in terms of what you're seeing in the wider market? Secondly, are you also committing to any mix between new development and acquisitions, or are you keeping flexibility there?
Sure, so we are very comfortable with our commitment of 90,000 for the year 2024, so we can confirm that. With regard to the mix, I'm quite agnostic with regards to it, in a sense that acquisitions, sometimes we see a lot of opportunities in one year and then we see less of it. Clearly, with Top Box and Pickens, we have a larger mix of acquisitions than we have had, for instance, in previous years. I suspect that to be in 2024 to be the case again, but so I'm not married to a specific mix as long as we can reach 90,000, which is much more important to me. And this also allows us to really seek best value and really achieve indeed the 8%-9% kind of yield that we are obtaining.
Very clear, thank you.
Hi, it's Rob Joyce from BNP Paribas. One on margin and one on M&A, following up from Marios' question. You've done a great job in the last few years in terms of that 2.7 percentage point margin improvement. Obviously, guidance for this year is flat. Why is it flat? On slide 15, you talk about the kind of improvement in e-rental business and that will only keep increasing in terms of percentage utilization of the lower cost elements of that customer journey, so why is it flat for 2024?
Okay, so it's an easy one, thank you. So why is it flat? Because we have more headwinds than the benefits that we are gaining, and these headwinds are of two kinds. You remember that business rates, how do you call that in English, in the U.K., sorry, so [release taxes], have increased massively actually in 2023 as of April, but it was a wave with three blades. If I remember, the 100% in total was like 60% the first one, 30% the second one, 10%. So we are in the second wave or second blade, and we have the full effect. Well, last year it was only from April, while this year you have the full effect of what last year happened, plus the second increase. So that's why.
By the way, a real estate tax in the self-storage P&L in the U.K. is usually, if you look at the operators, between 8%-10% of the revenue. It's the first line in terms of cost in the P&L, while on the continent, labor cost is the first line. So the good news we have are offset by that, and secondly, we had fixed electricity costs for the year 2021, 2022, 2023, and we are open on the market in 2024. So despite the LED benefits that I was mentioning, we expect still an increase. So all in all, that's why. But we have not changed our guidance regarding the medium term, which is to have a gain of 0.2 percentage point on the all-store margin later on. So that's the answer.
Okay, very clear, thanks. And then the last one is just on M&A. Isabel, if I gave you another EUR 300 million in H2 this year, could you go and find sufficient quantum of acquisition opportunities that met an 8% stabilized yield hurdle? I'm just trying to understand the depth of the acquisition.
Be careful giving me money. No, so let's put it that way. On the development side on the organic growth, we clearly are much more in control of what we're doing in each of the countries, and this is also why we usually say over the years, over the cycle of the 90,000, 70,000 as development and 20,000 as M&A, knowing that, of course, as I mentioned, that 20,000 can go up and down, and as I was mentioning before, frankly, I'm agnostic from that perspective. Now, from an M&A perspective, it is still a very new sector, new market, and we have by no means reached maturity. So what does that mean? You have a number of very large players, you have very little medium-sized players, and then you have a whole host of little players.
I think we are very well knowing all the smaller and medium-sized players, and we are in constant contact with them, but often they're people who it's their own business, right? And when do they sell? Well, when they want to retire or when, you know. So meaning there is not a volume like you have in the U.S. whereby you kind of constantly can say something's churning. So we are a little bit at the moment still in Europe, depending on the willingness and the appetite of also vendors to sell. So yes, if opportunities come along, I will happily take more, but sometimes there is just not.
Well, to complement the answer is we think that we're in a better position if we have money and capacity with a balance sheet to seize opportunities than not. So that's why the leverage we have is down for that. We don't know when some of these guys have said, "Isabel, we'll sell." What we know is some of them are over 60, which is a great age, but on top of that, they have been the funders, so for them it's time to cash in. So Pickens is exactly what happened, and therefore we know that opportunities will arise when we don't know exactly, but they will, and it's better to be in a position you can seize them because you have the money than not.
Just to follow up on that, so obviously last year you did Top Box and Pickens. So two deals done, how many did you appraise? What was the number of deals that you looked at or the number that you walked away from, or was it two for two?
Well, of course, well, let me put it that way. We have a number of projects in the pipeline that we are working on, which we hope to materialize over the course of this year. In general, we monetize or we complete all the deals we start on.
Okay, and then just the.
But some of them we are happy to pass on because they're not strategic to us, they are not in the right location, they do not generate the necessary kind of result. So we are cutting, we are putting some deals aside fairly quickly, but the ones we think are strategic and meet our objectives and meet our return, we complete them.
The discipline is still the same, doesn't change? The seven countries, the cities where we are or where we want to be, and is it good real estate? Are you the owners? Does it make sense in terms of returns?
Could contribution in kind potentially be an option, rather than?
You mean share deal?
Yeah, you have some of these, they might be 60, they might be 50, they still want to be investing in the business, but maybe they could own Shurgard shares instead.
Yeah, but Rob, the only thing is if I take the example, and I don't want to make it too personal with the recent acquisition we need in Germany, but maybe 65 years old, you really want shares with compound growth for the coming 20 years? Probably not. You want cash to have a nice house somewhere in South Spain or Italy enjoying nice wine and the beaches, you know? So shares, it's not anymore your stuff. Having said that, we are ready, and again, and that's the beauty of being listed and the way we are and who we are, happy to do deals where a part of it is shared, the rest is cash. So we are very open to that too.
If someone, and we know some guys who are willing for that, that if when they will sell they want shares, okay, let's go for shares.
Yeah, it's a tool we have in a toolbox, but most cases, the owners, they prefer cash.
Thank you.
Thank you, Marc Mozzi from Bank of America. Can you remind us what will be your investment in 2024, when we combine everything, development and acquisition, and I'm going to have another question after that?
You mean the amount for 2024?
Yeah.
Yeah, so it will be in excess of EUR 300 million.
That's a combined CapEx and acquisition?
Yes, that's M&A, what I think what you call acquisition, and organic growth. It will be around EUR 300 million, yes.
Okay, and looking at what you have spent in 2023 in terms of acquisition, development, CapEx, and what's going to go through 2024 then in terms of rental income, how would you qualify your 7.5% top-line growth? Is that conservative? Is that a best-case scenario, a centralized case scenario? Because it looks to me that if we try to understand what is the breakdown between same store growth and what is going to come from acquisition, investment, M&A, whatsoever, if I'm meaning money you're going to spend, it looks to me it's very conservative. Am I right to saying that?
No, you are not right, and I will tell you why, Marc. And feel free to elaborate, Jean, but I mean, you are not right. Let's say that, yes, you are not right, you are not right, and I will tell you why. So yeah, exactly, so that's what I'm going to answer actually. So why? Because first, let's take the example of Top Box that we have acquired. Top Box, we acquired these guys in November, but when have we acquired? When have we acquired, and what we have disclosed actually and said publicly is that this portfolio we are buying, actually we have only a third of it versus the maturity of what it will be in 2025, meaning that you buy five existing properties + 2 that will be built and open in 2025.
But the five first are not occupied at 80%, they are occupied at that time, I think it was 30%, plus the two that you will open, we will open in 2025, you have to ramp them up. So which means that the time frame, thinking that an acquisition drives right away an incremental revenue, full blow, in that case of Top Box was not the case. Pickens is different, Pickens is a different animal. The level of occupancy is much higher, close to 80%, and said, "Isabel, they are bringing value right away," so those ones will bring additional revenue.
So that's why thinking that the 7.5%, you say, "Oh, okay, but if your same stores, as I said to Marios, they will be probably above 4%," and then the incremental, the difference of growth because it's 90% is 3.5%, 7.5% versus the 4% more or less, it looks pretty conservative. No, because the profile of what we are buying, plus the ramp-up of the existing remaining stores in this part, are bringing this more or less 3.5% growth. So it's not conservative, it's not.
Or should we read it?
If we have both, sorry, if we have both, for example, a company like Top Box where it was 90% occupied, high rates, mechanically, of course this will feed the revenue growth of 2024 much more than what we acquired in 2023 with Top Box, for example.
Or could we read it the other way around, that your same store growth will be significantly lower than 4%, and as such, the 7.5% will be essentially achieved by your acquisition and your.
No, no, no, no, that's here. I stick to what I've said, which is because the key topic first in this business is the same store, what we call same store, like the U.S. operators, is how the same store are evolving. Because the question we had already for the Q3 disclosure, it was last year in November, especially due to also what's going on in the U.S. and what our peers are experiencing in the U.K. was, "Hey guys, you're on the slope and you're sliding down, you know, it's in the Alps here, so where do you end there?
Are you stopping the sliding or not?" And the answer first is, "By the way, our slope is with a very different angle than our peers in the U.S., and so we are decelerating much less." And secondly, what we anticipate and what we start to see in the first weeks of the year is the stabilization of the same store. So back to your point, we think that the same store will stabilize in 2024, okay, and on the top of that, acquisitions that we have done and development will bring the difference to reach that 7.5%.
Which will then mean that you're going to outperform massively your peers in the U.K.?
Yes.
Okay, because in the U.K. this year is going to be negative in terms of same store growth, most likely a combination of decline in occupancy and price power being flat at best. So you have 75%, who's going to do then 6% or 5% same store growth?
You've said it.
Okay, not just to make sure. Thank you.
You're welcome.
A question from the audience? Do we have a question? No? Maybe on the webcast? Okay.
Just a reminder, if you're on Zoom and you would like to ask a question, you can do so in two ways. You can press the raised hand button and we will ask you to unmute yourself to ask your question, or you can type your question into the Q&A box and it will be read out loud for you. I will pause to see if we have any raised hands or typed questions. We have a raised hand question from Paul. Paul, please unmute yourself to ask your question.
Hi all, just checking you can hear me okay?
Yes, we can hear you, thank you Paul.
Perfect, thanks. Yes, sorry, just a quick follow-up on Marc's question and just want to make sure I understand completely on the forward guidance for the investment. So it's EUR 300 million is going to be spent in total, which covers both development CapEx and M&A or inorganic. Now, is Pickens within that number? You've already spent EUR 120 million of it and you've got EUR 180 million to go. That's the first thing, just to clarify.
Yeah, yeah, yes, yes, indeed, you're right.
Yeah, okay, so of the remaining EUR 180 million, how much of that is kind of known CapEx with no risk that you can kind of deploy into the development pipeline and how much of that is potential new opportunities?
So what you can see in our reports is that currently disclosed is about just under EUR 200 million of disclosed pipeline for about 68,000 sq m. So we have announced 90,000 sq m, so I don't have to make a drawing that there's some additional acquisitions that will come. So that's the first one. The second one, what I think is very important to note is that there's an impact as well from our acceleration in our growth. And what do I mean with that? Is that before, I'm talking about 2021 and previously, we were running at development of about 25,000 sq m per year. That organic development run rate is now around 70,000. Clearly, it steps up.
So you can see in 2025 that we already have almost 80,000 sq m of organic development because we, of course, do not have anything announced on the acquisition front for 2025. Because you have this complete ramp-up, it means that 2024 you will see a disproportionate amount of 2025 pipeline which you have to pay for in 2024. For instance, normally, we pay once we get the permit, we pay for the property, we pay for the asset, and then the next year the CapEx will be spent. So because you have this quite significant kind of step-up from a run rate of 25-70, it means that this year in 2024 is going to be the year we're also going to be spending a disproportionate amount comparatively to previous years on the purchase of the land, of the property, etc.
That, I think, are the two components which you cannot see in the numbers yet, but I cannot give more details than that on it.
Thank you, Isabel. Yeah, no, that's really helpful, and I appreciate that. Just one final follow-up then is that in the extra acquisitions that are, as you said, that you can kind of work out the implication of how big they might be, that is in addition to the 7.5% guided in terms of the revenue growth, right? So the 7.5% is your known opportunities today, or are you saying that the 7.5% includes an assumption around those acquisitions completing?
It includes the acquisitions that we are internally aware of.
Okay, okay, yeah, that's really clear. Okay, thanks.
Don't forget that the time you make the deal, you close the deal, you integrate, you are probably in June, July, so the effect is only half-year.
Yeah, yeah, okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Wim. Wim, please unmute yourself to ask your question.
Are you on mute, Wim?
Hi Wim, please unmute yourself to ask your question. We seem to be having trouble with Wim's connection, so we will move to the first typed question. This question comes from James Matthews, and it starts with a quotation. "Shurgard will continue to review its dividend policy to ensure it remains competitive." James asks, "Please can you elaborate on what this means?
It means what it means. I'll take that one. First, we announced in Capital Day in 2021 that we had a fixed dividend policy of EUR 1.17 per share. The way we look at it is total shareholder return, so we kind of want to have around 10% total shareholder return. As long as we can get the growth, we believe that's where we want to go. Looking at keeping our dividend fixed, using the additional capital to spend on growth at 7%-8% or 8%-9% return, we believe that that's a much better proposal than pushing the dividend up. Obviously, when we see that the growth is not there, then yes, obviously, then at that time we look at increasing the dividend.
But currently, with the opportunities that Isabel sees and she explained on the market and that we have seen in the past, both in acquisition and development, we continue to maintain our dividend fixed and go for external growth with a return of 8%-9%.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Stephanie, who asks, "In which countries do you see higher risks on occupancy and where you are granting far higher discounts, except from Sweden where we know the competition is tough?
Well, here I would say we don't see any specific countries aside from what we shared with you regarding Sweden, where there is a major risk of having to increase significantly the discounts. Up to now, we don't see that. The level of demand and what we are doing in terms of feeding that demand with the discount levels we have per country is enough. But again, what with the situation in H2 for a given country is precisely, we cannot commit to that. But based on what we know today and what we see, it's fine. We don't see any particular risk.
That's all the questions we have, so I'll hand back to you in the room.
Thank you.
Okay, but thank you all for joining us today. We look forward to reconnecting with you in this venue.
Thank you, thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.