Thank you. Good evening, everybody. Happy to welcome you on this call and to comment our Q3 2024 activity. I would say it was a very dynamic Q3. As you can see on page two of the presentation, with increasing revenue growth, + 6.8% like-for-like. We'll go through it later on. With positive dynamic on all of our activities, in hotels and German residential, in terms of like-for-like revenue growth. In office as well, but also in terms of occupancy rate. And we continue to progress on our disposal program. Let's start directly with our revenues, page four. So we recorded EUR 509 million of revenue, group share over the first nine months of 2024.
It's an increase of 4.9% at current scope, when we were at +2% at the end of June. So an acceleration, which is directly linked to the reinforcement of our hotel exposure, and you can see on the table, the increase by 23% of the revenue at current scope, of course, of the hotel business. It's also linked to the like-for-like rental growth. I will come to it later on. And those two news enable us to more than offset actually the decrease of the revenues at current scope of the offices, linked to the disposals of offices we have made so far. Let's focus a little bit on like-for-like.
As you can see on the slide, 6.8% like-for-like rental growth, better than at the end of June, where we were at 6.5%. You see the three drivers. Indexation still contributing for 2.8 points to this growth. Slightly lower, actually, than at the end of June, which is logical due to the reduction of the inflation. You all have it in mind, but in parallel, rental uplift and increase in occupancy is growing and accounts for three points in this growth, and variable revenues in hotel is also accelerating and represents one point of this growth. Finally, occupancy rate 97.3%, increasing by 20 [ basis points] versus the end of June. Let's now look more into details by activities, and I would start with hotels, page five.
The performance accelerated, as I said just before, for the hotel. We were at 5.2% like-for-like rental growth in June. We are at 7% revenue growth at the end of September. Several elements to explain this good performance. The main one is, as you see in the slides, +10% growth in variable revenues versus 6% growth at the end of June, which is thanks to the catch up, actually, of the activity in Germany, where we were also helped by the Euro Soccer Championship. Thanks also to the pursuit of a very good summer in the south part of Europe and Spain, especially.
In parallel in France, well, the strong performance of the Olympic Games basically enable us to compensate lower performance in July due to the preparation of the games. Say that we finish at + 2% for France at the end of September. Finally, and in parallel, fixed leases + 4.1%. Here we have the benefit of the indexation, of course, but also of the reversionary potential we were able to catch on the renewal of the lease with Meliá signed in 2023 . Moving now to office, page six. So the dynamic letting activity we had so far in the first part of the year actually continued into Q3, despite, let's say, a more quiet letting market in France, in the context of the Olympic game and in the context of the general election.
That means that for us, basically, we let or renewed, as you can see on the left part of the slide, more than 115,000 sq m of offices, which means an increase by 27% compared to the same period last year. In Q3 only, we did 41,000 sq m of letting and renewal. We put in this slide performance also by the different clusters that you know now well. Starting with city center, strategy here is to extract the reversionary potential, and we were able to extract, on average, 13% reversion on our reletting and renewal during the first nine months. We put here two examples of the Q3 activity.
The first one is Gobelins, an asset of 4,600 sq m in the Fifth District of Paris, where we get 19% uplift. The second one is Percier , so 8,000 sq m in the CBD of Paris. Here, we renew the lease for six years with 14% increase in the rents. For both of them, actually, we didn't plan to spend any CapEx. Core assets in business hub, here we slightly increase the occupancy, you see 94.3%, mostly linked to letting in Munich, in the Sun Square building. On the non-core part, which is at 6% of the office portfolio, you know that we target to get rid of this part of the office portfolio in the short term.
And here, we were able to improve significantly the occupancy of this cluster from 83% to close to 88%, thanks to the letting of 7,900 sq m in Fontenay to a public administration, which we did during the summer. This good letting activity, and moving to page seven, lead us to a strong like-for-like rental growth, + 8.3%. Slightly below the H1, which is linked to the progressive decrease of the indexation component in the context of lower inflation. But you see on the right part of the slide seven, that the different components of the growth are at a very strong level.
In parallel of the indexation, we were able to continue to increase the occupancy rate, and we now stand at 95.6% occupancy rate at the end of September. Finally, reversion in city center assets also positively to the, to the like-for-like rental growth by 0.6 points on this performance. Lastly, German residential. Here also, acceleration of the growth. On page eight, we were at 2.9% growth at the end of June. We are at 4.2% at the end of September, mostly driven by Berlin. You see on the map, 4.9% rental growth on a like-for-like basis in Berlin, versus 4.5% at the end of June. We benefit, especially in Berlin, for better indexation and for the full effect of the reversionaries that you see on the right part of the slide.
We are able to re-let 35% above the previous level, on average, on our reletting in Berlin. So that's for operating activity during the first nine months, strong performance. In parallel on the disposals, and moving to page 10, we continued our disposal program. We are at EUR 391 million of new disposal agreement at the end of September, with an average margin of 3% above 2023 appraisal values. We put in the slide on the right part, specific figures, on Q3, so EUR 80 million group share, and EUR 160 on a total share basis of new disposal commitments signed during the Q3.
In hotels, we continue to dispose of hotels alongside AccorInvest in France, in order to streamline the portfolio. So it's mostly, it's actually hotels with valuable rents. We sell the PropCo, and AccorInvest is selling to the same buyer, the OpCo of the hotel, and it's hotels which are located in regional cities in France. In German residential, we accelerated during the quarter the privatization. We did EUR 30 million on a total share basis of privatization during the quarter, and more importantly, with a 40% margin versus the last book values. Finally, we sold some non-core offices during the quarter.
To finish this slide, as you can see on the bottom right part of the slide, we have EUR 300 million of disposals under advanced discussions as of today, which means that we are on a good track for our disposal plan by the end of the year. That's it for the Q3 activity main highlights. Very dynamic, as I said. Moving just to page 11, and before leaving the floor to your questions. As a reminder, we'll be very happy to welcome you to our Capital Market Day, which will be on November 28 in Paris, in L'Atelier, our new European headquarter, for which we actually received last week an award from the ULI Europe, for this building.
Thank you for listening this call, and I'm happy together with Vladimir to answer to your questions.
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered a queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Questioners on the phone are requested to disable the loudspeaker mode while asking a question. Anyone with a question may press star and one at this time. Our first question comes from Valérie Jacob from Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening. I've just got a few questions. My first question is, it's been a strong quarter, especially on the hotel side. And I was just wondering if, given that you feel confident that you can beat your guidance at the end of the year? That's my first question. And my second question is on disposals. It's been a slow quarter, as you mentioned, in Q3, so I was just wondering if there is any specific reason. I mean, I know it's the holiday, the election, but I just wanted to see if you could make any comment on that. And maybe a last one linked to that. At H1, you said, you know, that you were relatively confident that your asset values were bottoming.
I mean, maybe apart from German offices, and I just wanted to see if you have any update on that comment. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Valérie. I mean, on the guidance, yes, it's a strong quarter, and which make us say more even more optimistic on the quarters to come, but as you probably know, we are not used to update our guidance at every quarter. Let's say we are very happy with this quarter, and we will make let's say an update or even more than an update, but where we stand with the full-year results in February next year. On the disposal side, as you noticed, I mean, of course, summer makes things let's say slow down the process. It's quite traditional. We continue to discuss with our potential buyers.
We are, let's say, on a good track, and, at the same time, I would say that the evolution of the investment market make us, let's say, not in a hurry to, to push on disposals. So, we will, we'll do our disposal plan, as planned. We are on a good track for it. We have EUR 300 million under discussions, and we are not in a hurry. That leads me to, to a third question on, on asset value. But well, of course, the appraisal campaign just started, so it's really early in the, in the process to give you any, any guidelines or where do we stand on, on values.
We will have, for sure, more visibility at our capital market day, so it will be also a good time to give you, let's say, more color on this on this topic. What I can share is that the signals are, let's say, encouraging when we see the evolution, the positive evolution of the mood of the investors. The fact that our disposals year-to-date have been made above the appraisal values, all these are, let's say, positive signals. But again, it's early in the process, so no specific guidelines to give on the H2 valuation. Let's meet at the capital market day for that.
Thank you, bye.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Florent Laroche-Joubert from Oddo. Please go ahead.
Hi, Paul. I would have two questions from my part. So my first question would be to know how sustainable can we consider the increase of variable revenues in hotels or for the, for this quarter, or should we consider some of them as a one-off? My second question would be to know if you could give us maybe some more color on your leasing activity in Q4 and your ability to increase, again, your occupancy rate in the quarter in offices for example.
Hello, Florent. Thank you for your questions. I mean, on the hotel, let's say the activity of the hotel continued to be good and to be well-oriented. The Olympic Games, and I commented it before during the call, didn't add any specific one-off impact on the performance. I mean, it has created some negative performance in June and July and strongly positive performance in August. But all in all, we don't have any base effect. So, I mean, so far, the performance of the hotel continued to be on a good track. Letting activity in Q4 in office here, we will continue to have a, let's say, a good pipeline of letting activity.
So, we will, let's say, have discussions ongoing on this side, and the target is to continue the momentum that we have so far on our office portfolio. We have a discussion, more specifically also on some assets that will be delivered by the end of the year. One close to Milan in Rozzano, for which the occupancy rate was 50% at the beginning of the year, 62% today, so progressively increasing. So this is going in the right direction, I would say, as of today.
Okay. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Véronique Bertrand from Kempen. Please go ahead.
Hey, good evening, all. Thank you for the presentation. Maybe first follow up on the hotel business. I saw also the press release about the new platform, the Wizio. Just wondering, do you expect any sort of like margin improvement on the back of that, or maybe initially some additional costs for the rebranding and the new platform? And then secondly, you're getting close to the end of your disposal program, probably more comfortable in terms of leverage and also values. Are you already scanning the market for new opportunities? And if so, is that particularly in hotels, or do you also see interesting office opportunities, perhaps developments? Happy to hear your thoughts there.
[inaudible] Thank you. Thank you for your first question. It gives me the opportunity, indeed, to talk about this platform. Maybe first, why we have this hotel management platform? So Wizio is our hotel management platform that for us, the idea is to
Excuse me, this is the operator speaking. Mr. Arkwright, we don't receive the audio from your line.
Hello, do you hear me?
Now we can hear you.
I can hear you,
Thank you.
Yeah, now, yeah.
Yeah, okay. So yes, what I just said is that the operating knowledge, we did it with Wellio on the office part few years ago, launching our own flexible office brand, which brought a lot of flexibility, of course, for the client, but also a lot of knowledge for our own office portfolio. And I think the successes on the office part is also linked to the fact that through this knowledge, we improve the service, and we improve the experience and the quality of the building, and at the end of the day, the occupancy rate. But basically for the hotel, is the same approach. To have this platform, it's 9% of the value of the hotel.
There is a way for us to have a, let's say, be stronger, when we discuss with operators and when we discuss with tenants. Have a better knowledge of the customers, of the market, be more agile, moving from management contract to lease or from lease to management contract. Have a better control also of the asset management potential, of our hotel, being able to do redevelopments, etc . A good example is what we did in Nice, with the Le Méridien in Nice. It's Promenade des Anglais, great location in front of the sea. This asset, we changed the operator. We did a CapEx program, improving significantly the quality of the hotel, and the performance has been very strong. The EBITDA margin is actually above 40% of this hotel.
Tomorrow, we will buy, we'll take back from AccorInvest, the OpCo of the Mercure, which is just nearby in the same building block, and will create synergies in terms of running costs, and we'll also improve the performance of the Mercure. That's basically the story we want to do with this hotel platform. Make it short, it's a way to prepare ourselves to the deal we will close with Accor by the end of the year, with AccorInvest. To launch programs in order to create value on our hotel portfolio. On moving to your question on acquisition, we are on track on the disposal side.
Investment market, as you said, is improving. We are, let's say, not in a hurry. We are also very, let's say, strict on leverage and on the balance sheet, but at the same time, we are monitoring acquisition opportunities, especially on the hotel, in order to continue to reinforce ourselves in this asset class.
Okay, very clear. And maybe one follow-up, a bit on both questions, I guess. Obviously you're now increasing your exposure to variable revenues there, making also a bit of a different risk profile, I'd say. Is there maybe an internal cap or maximum on where you want that exposure to go for hotels?
Well, actually, I'd say we change the variable part of our revenue, but we don't increase the variable part of our revenue. The deal with AccorInvest is basically to transform variable rent into EBITDA from a variable lease to management contract. So of course, it's little bit more leverage, operating leverage on it, but it's still variable on both sides.
Yeah.
Let's say that we want to keep a good balance between fixed revenues and variable revenues as we have today. So a little bit more of fixed revenues and some kind of between around 40%-45% of variable revenues into our hotel business, which is basically where we are today.
Okay, that's very clear. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Niraj Kumar, from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hello, everyone. Just a quick one from my side. Can you please help us understand the drivers behind acceleration in the privatization in Germany, Resi, and do you expect this material pickup in privatization going forward as well?
Hello. Well, thank you for this question. Well, basically, the rationale is to, let's say, to sell units at a very attractive price, and to reinvest into a modernization program, into our portfolio at yield between 5%-10%. So it's a way to crystallize value creation on this portfolio at the best price we can get, and to continue to improve the quality of our portfolio, to increase rental growth through the modernization programs, and so to create value. In terms of pace of privatization, we want to accelerate privatization.
I think we have said it before, actually, but we focus so far the privatization on empty units, because we consider that this is really where the value will be at the highest level, because we will sell most of it to private owners that will buy it in order to live in those apartments. And so this is where we are able to optimize the price. So, so far, we do privatization mostly for this kind of buyers.
Got it. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Céline Soo-Huynh from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi, Paul. Two questions, please. The first one is on values. So you're making a point on the return to the cash dividend after years of scrip dividend, which kind of implies to me that you're not afraid anymore of any impacts of major drops on property values on your LTV. I know you don't want to comment on valuation, as you're going through the valuation process right now with the valuers, but would it be fair to say that you're expecting fairly stable to increasing values in December? That would be my first question. And my second question is on the hotel property yields are currently at 6%. We've seen a strong pickup in hotel transactions this year. Some transactions are going below that 6% mark. So how do you feel about hotel values for December? Thank you.
Hello, Céline, thank you for your question. On the dividend, yes, we recall in the press release, that we are targeting to come back to a cash-only dividend payment for next year, with the payout ratio over 80%. This is something that we actually communicated before in the year when we published the full-year 2023 results. And it's, for me, linked to the balance sheet. The fact that we have made, and we are close to the end of the disposal program, of course, we are more, let's say, optimistic on the evolution of the business and the valuation of the assets.
Let's say, more broadly speaking, our balance sheet, we consider that we are on the safe mode, and considering the good evolution of our operating performance, that confirms our will to come back to a cash dividend. So it's not purely and directly linked to the values as itself. Moving to hotels, well, yes, this is where we see most more appetite from investors on the hotel side. So I guess this is, but as you have seen now in the H1 valuation figures, this is where hotels outperformed the other asset classes. We could expect that it could be the same in H2, but again, appraisal campaign just started, so it's really early to say about the valuation for the second part of this year.
Thank you, Paul.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Adam Shapton from Green Street. Please go ahead.
Good evening. Hello, hope you can hear me.
Good evening.
Hi, can you hear me?
Yes, yes, we can hear you now.
Yeah. Yeah.
Hello again.
Sorry about that. Some of my questions have been asked, but just one on margins on your cost to revenue ratio, which has also been progressing nicely in the last few years. Can it come much lower than the 10% in office and the kind of 8.5% overall, as you continue to improve occupancy? Can you give us some guidance on where that cost to revenue ratio could end up, either for the full-year or, and beyond in general?
You know, well, we are not used to to give much detail from cost to revenue at on a quarterly basis. Let's say that the improvement of the occupancy rate, of course, improve as well, so cost to revenue ratio because we more charges are fully recharged to the tenant. So mechanically, it improves this ratio. But we will give more, of course, more details with the full-year results.
Okay, understood. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Aakanksha Anand from Citi Group. Please go ahead.
Hey, Paul. Two questions from my side. The first one, has there been an emergence of opportunities to buy that might look attractive in offices? And can we expect the share of offices to kind of go back to the historical levels of about 60%, or do you think it's gonna stay at the about 50% mark it is at the moment?
Hello, hello, Anand. If I understand well, the first question was on acquisition of offices. Is that correct?
Yes. Yes, so I think the question essentially is, have you seen an emergence of opportunities that, you know, just kind of look attractive in offices?
Mm.
Would you be willing to increase the share of offices in the overall portfolio
from the 50% that you currently have?
Okay, thank you. Well, I mean, for us, the main opportunities we see in office is actually in our portfolio. We have a strong portfolio of offices inside Milan, inside Paris, with redevelopment potential. We talked about it sometimes. We already also talked about it during the actual results, and this former Orange portfolio in Paris, more specifically, have a lot of rental growth potential through redevelopment, so we will be happy during the capital market day to give you, to show you those assets and to give you more color, but for us, it's really more on those type of assets in our portfolio where we see potential results and on acquisition on office.
To come back to your second question, we want to reinforce ourselves into hotels. So mechanically, continue to progressively reduce the exposure to the office. So no intention to come back to the 60% exposure to the office in the future.
So just a quick follow-up. So we can expect the office's share to actually go even below the 50% it is at currently?
Yes, progressively, yeah.
Understood. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Christian Auzanneau from AlphaValue. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hello. A quick question about German residential. Could you confirm organic growth in Berlin alone in Q3 2024 alone? And do you believe such a pace is sustainable through 2025 and beyond, please?
Hello, so, I confirm 4.9% rental growth, like- for- like, so at what we call organic, in, in 2024, at the end of September. Of course, this benefit, start to benefit from the, the new Mietspiegel , in, in Berlin, which has been, published at the end of, of Q2. But, I would say I confirm the trend. Is it 4.9? Is it 4.2? On the overall, around 4% is a trend that we consider is sustained for, for Berlin.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Benjamin Legrand from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please, go ahead.
Hi, thanks for taking my question. Just a quick one back on the valuation again, especially on hotels. I'm just wondering if valuers were expecting the performance to be that high for variable rent in 2024 when they did the valuation in the half-year results or not?
Hello, Benjamin. Well, I mean, on appraisal value, let's give more details in the capital market there. We have more visibility. I don't have specifically in mind what the appraisers had in their expectation, specifically for Q3 2024 . So, we can look at it more deeply if you want later on. But, I mean, overall, on H2 valuation, let's speak about it in the capital market day. At the end of November, we'll have more color to give you, guys, about it.
Thank you.
Thank you.
As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star followed by one. Next question comes from Stéphanie Dossmann from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hello, Paul and Vladimir. Maybe two questions from my side. The first one is on German offices. If I'm correct, the peak to trough value decline was close to 27%. Correct?
Hello, Stéphanie. Yes, I think it's correct.
Okay. And, my question would be: What is the plan of there? Because, due to, subdued economic growth and, so strong valuation decline, already, do you have interest on your assets? I mean, do you struggle still to dispose those assets? Or what's the plan there? And the second question would be, on, CB21. What is the plan currently, please?
Thank you, Stéphanie. So first question on German office. Well, you know, probably that the investment market in Germany, specifically in German office, has been really, really quiet. The plan for us is first to increase the occupancy rate of this portfolio. We have some few improvements so far. It's not going as fast as we would like it to go, but we were at 86% occupancy rate. We are today at 88% occupancy rate. We let and renew 10,000 sq m during Q3. So we see some progressive improvement in an economic environment, which is not easy, as you notice.
But the priority is really on the occupancy rate rather than on disposals. As far as CB21 is concerned, the main tenant of CB21 in La Défense, which is Suez, will leave mid-term. Considering that there is also termination fees, et cetera, in terms of revenue, the impact is potentially more for 2026 than for 2025. In the meantime, on the letting side, well, we already have discussions to re-let part of the spaces. Discussions with potential tenants from 1,000 to up to 20,000 sq m.
It's really early in the process, and nothing is confirmed, of course, but and Suez will leave some time from now, in mid-2025. So in some cases, actually, the fact that Suez is not willing to, let's say, to vacate the space before has made us, let's say, impossible to re-let some of our. To answer positively to some potential tenants. But we have discussion ongoing, which is a good sign for me, which confirms the attractiveness of CB 21, which is, for those who don't know, tower in La Défense, the closest to Paris, in front of the metro station, and 15 minutes from the CBD of Paris. So this is where we stand as of today.
Thank you.
Thank you, Stéphanie.
Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. Back over to Mr. Arkwright for any closing remarks.