Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. Welcome to the conference for Q1 2023 of Nexity. This call is being recorded. If you're connected by phone, you can press star one to ask your question. I'm now going to hand over to Jean-Claude Bassien, Deputy CEO, to begin this call today. Over to you, sir.
Thank you. Well, first of all, good evening to you all. I'm very pleased to have you with us on this call, and apologies for Véronique Bédague . You'll see that she has a period of intense media activity, focusing on our business and the industry as a whole, so she's excused. I'm with Pierre-Henry Pouchelon, who replaced Nadia Ben Salem-Nicolas, and as head of finance is in charge of finance. Éric Lalechère, our CFO, and for the investor relations team, whom you also know very well.
Before handing over to the team, I'd like to just say a few words to set the stage. I won't be long, just three comments, and then I'll hand over to the team to present the various items on the financials. Of course, I'll be available to take your questions. Just, for the comments on Slide 4, three points that I'd like to underscore. Firstly, as you know, Q1 is traditionally a quarter that's not representative of the expected activity over the year. No change this year. However, we can nevertheless see that this quarter, in every respect is in line with our expectations. I would say even more, we look at revenue that's stable, and we look at the progress rate.
We're at the usual milestones at this point of the year. What's worth underscoring, however, is the environment in which we operate. Now, this quarter confirms what we indicated at the close of our 2022 financials, is that 2023 is a year of transition and real adjustment to the market, to the new macroeconomic framework. This macroeconomic framework that you know well has very impactful effects. Firstly, the sharp rise in interest rates led to a sharp decrease in spending power for real estate by individuals. We see in reservations of the property development sector, we've seen the gradual paralysis of institutional investors. Not all, but in large part with owing to the interest rate environment that is different and sharply up.
They've lost their benchmarks in terms of valuations and expected yield, so it does disrupt considerably decision-making. Second comment on the scope of activity. Firstly on development, real estate development. It's a follow-on of Q4 2022. Reservations in line with our expectations are down by 19%. That's for the residential and for commercial real estate in a market that's really stalled. We're not recording any significant order intake. In spite of that, there's a fine increase in revenue because of the construction sites that are progressing on commercial and real estate. After the Q4 last year with a decrease of 49% in investment, Q1, the decrease recorded totals 49%. This is a business scope that's very impacted by the environment.
Turning now to our management against that context, as our what you need to bear in mind in such a unfavorable. The compass is clear. Very strict management of our commercial offering. We said this when we met for the close of the 22 financials. The depth of our backlog. We had ahead of us two years of activity, which gives a degree of security going forward. The relevance of our strategic roadmap fully confirmed by our assessment of the crisis and the prospects of a gradual recovery in the business. Of course, you're gonna ask me when? What's certain is there will be a recovery at some point in time because of the structural needs for housing.
As regards service activities, in Q1 they continued to demonstrate recurring performance, notably through operation activities up 24% on the fine growth rates of Studéa and coworking. Lastly, the third point that I wish to comment upon in opening this call is in these challenging times for our business sector, we can but welcome the robustness of our financial structure, strengthened by the renewal of our recent banking pool, moving from EUR 500 million to EUR 800 million of our engagement capacity, that gives real security and confidence at this point in time. As I said, our backlog and its debt contributes to making us confident to address the low point in the market cycle that we're going through. Whatever its scale and its duration, we're ready to confront it.
Thank you, Jean-Claude. Good evening, everyone. Let's move on to Slide 5. Before talking about the market and our business in Q1, I think it's important in this quarter to really focus on our non-financial performance. You know, we attach great importance to this at Nexity. First of all, to talk to you about our CO2 emissions, as per Say on Climate, which was passed in at the AGM 2022, our certification by SBTi is very much in progress. Remember, we are very much online in our trajectory of -42% CO2 emissions by 2030. In the shorter term, milestones will be two years ahead of the RE2020 regulations. In 2022, all of our building permits have included the RE2020 requirements, and we're doing better, actually better than, 10% better than RE2020.
Two other points. We heard about our strategy roadmap. These are prerequisites for our Imagine 2026 plan. In summary, it's about what I call a symmetry of attention, our employees and our customers. For the second consecutive year, Nexity got the award Best Workplaces, 6 / 10 winners in our category of about 2,500, 2,000 employees, which is an award given to best organizations where it's a good place to work. This is a real source of satisfaction for us and our teams. Our employees, if they feel good at work, that's going to have an impact on customer satisfaction, which is also up 6.9 points, 9.1 points, especially in residential real estate business, thanks to improved delivery process. Slide 7 have moved the economic situation.
Let's talk about the Q1 economic situation. Look at this from left to the right of the screen and the knock-on effect. The first effect, still adjusting, is the increase in mortgage interest rates. Haven't stabilized yet. They were multiplied by 2.6 in a one-year period, up 70 basis points since this quarter of 2023. This mechanically leads to a drop in loans by 41%. It means the lending applications are held back under the wait and see attitude, which is thus created. That leads to a decline in market reservations. That was 2022. We couldn't disclose them in February since the figures from the industry came out later. Minus 38% retail reservations, minus 38% retail, minus 36% in Q4, and we think it'll be the same trends in the next quarter.
We'll get the figures from the French Real Estate Federation later. Slide 8, we mustn't forget the underlying, the fundamentals are still with us. In spite of the economic situation, there are real housing needs for both renovated and new starts, more housing needs due to demographic factors, boosted by another factor, people are living together less frequently. We're seeing a re-reduction in the size of households. Poor housing, which is a real scourge. Over 400 persons are poorly housed. There are 10% households living in overcrowded situations. Our CEO, Véronique Bédague, referred to this recently, saying the housing crisis is a slow but sure poison. There's a large number of highly energy-inefficient housing units. Climate and Resilience Law will require that these units be renovated, otherwise they cannot be rented out.
This adds to the complexity in the rental market. The further drop in rental supply, minus 17%. There's been a drop in rental supply in the previous year, in 2022. Rental demand continues to go up, though. Rental demand going up by around 50%. All this reinforces and increases need for housing in France. For quite some time, we felt that there'd be need for around 500,000 per year. The entire industry would agree. More recently, the head of the Employers Association said this as well. Yet we just reach barely 367,000 housing starts from February 2022 to February 2023. We're expecting the figure will be continuing to decline in the next few months. Let's look at Slide 9 now.
Here as well, we're using as a basis most recent FDS figures from 2022. Market dropped 25% in 2022 versus 2021. The 121,875 reservations, it's a lower figure than reservations during the COVID year of 2020. Which has meant there are gains in market share for Nexity. First of all, gaining 2.6 points market share in this context. Furthermore, the top six markets in development, we've gone up. We are seeing greater consolidation of players underway. There's a size advantage currently, which is one of the strong points in our strategic roadmap. Slide ten now. Our Q1 housing. Which is very much in line with our expectations.
This quarter is right in line with what we saw in Q4 2022. Performance is -33% in retail sales. The market is down 38%. -20% for first time buyers. They're having difficulties in obtaining loans due to inter alia, lack of upfront contributions. -40% in investments linked to problems in granting loans. Bulk sales, a slight improvement, up 2%, which was made possible thanks to the strategy we started fairly early on as of H2 2022, reducing and shifting some of the production to bulk sales. As I mentioned earlier, Q1 is not representative of the full year. The mix is balanced in this quarter. There's a heavy weighting on social, bulk units. That's the difference for value, -20% in volume, -25% in value.
As I repeat, the mix isn't representative of the full year in progress. Slide 11. As you know, 2023 will be all about commercial offering. At Nexity, we have a carefully controlled supply for sale. As from 2022, we adjusted our commercial offering to the new context, shifting to bulk sales as of the second half, which continued in this beginning of the year, working on our offerings. Increased sell activity by strengthening our pre-marketing rates, reaching henceforth 60% for any operation launch. This means that we have a low risk offer. Look at the right-hand side. Under 100 unsold completed units. That's down versus 31 December by 6%. 34% of the offer is under construction.
Importantly, 65% of projects are underway, and on each operation, our teams do this every single day, basically every day, fine-tune the operations and make sure that we'll reach pre-marketing with a new, boosted threshold of 60%, initiate land renegotiations necessary, and negotiate as best it's possible the works contracts. Slide 12, commercial real estate development. Jean-Claude gave us the backdrop. Commercial real estate, you've got the market context. It's almost halted. It stands still. Minus 44% in commercial investment in Q1, minus 39% in Greater Paris, minus 49% for Q4 2022. Nexity didn't sign many new orders, has benefited from some of the operations in progress, though, which are quite emblematic, iconic, such as the La Garenne-Colombes, which we do deliver it in 2024.
La Garenne-Colombes campus, EUR 200 million in revenue to advance around 2023 and 2024. It's a big operation. There's the delivery scheduled for the next few months for Deloitte. That'll be Q2, 2023. The Bailly-Romainvilliers. It's a new training center for Deloitte, which will be operated 22,000 square meters, in many conference centers and campus rooms. We received an award for this at the most recent meeting. Slide 13 on services. Services, here we observe, of course, that they provide us with recurring revenue, which is very important during the current context. Stable. Services revenue from Q1, 2022 to Q1, 2023 show differing performance from one service to another. For instance, management, property management here, we see stability in the units on like-for-like basis.
It's a good performance in that business line. Rental and brokerage are suffering, +3% for rental, the baseline in 2022 was very far from standards and normative in this activity. We almost are not having any tenants give us notice, not much movement. -10% in brokerage, the pre-existing units suffering from the wait and see stance and problems in receiving loans. Service properties increases in here. Studéa organically up, we saw changes from the quarters. We're seeing increases made possible thanks to record occupancy rates, 97.5% occupancy as at end of March of Studéa. Average sales price slightly up by 2%. Morning seeing strong fleet growth, three new openings, Fontenay, Mogador and Beaurepaire.
Distribution on this side suffered from the drop of investor reservations in the same proportion as housing and for the same reasons as those given in talking about housing development. I'll give the floor to Eric Lalechère , our CFO, who will be presenting to you the Q1 revenue as well as our outlook.
Thank you, Pierre-Henri. Good evening to you all. On the revenue, as we set out, revenue is stable in Q1, coming in at EUR 895 million. Development represents about 80% of the revenue, has differing performance. Residential development, a measured downturn of EUR 50 million comes from a lower number of notarial deeds signed during the quarter, consequence of very dynamic activity at the end of the year. Customers who wanted to benefit from the Pinel scheme and the condition 22 more favorable than those for 23, but reflecting difficulties that customers are facing in securing funding will be a strong watch point over the coming months. Integration of Angelotti, M&A in 2022. Property development in Occitania is going well, with a contribution of EUR 35 million for Q1 in the development sector.
Commercial real estate, strong increase in revenue, plus EUR 50 million additional with a higher contribution of the iconic development of the éco-campus at La Garenne-Colombes, given the progress of the project. That's gonna continue over the coming quarters. Services stable, EUR 194 million. As said earlier, this development masks differing dynamics, a management activity. Stable distribution down consistent with decrease in the investments by individual investment, offset by operating activities, benefit from the increase in the managed base and high occupancy rate. These revenues in line with our expectation. Always, Q1 representing less than 25% of annual revenue. That strengthens our forecast of revenue for the year of at least EUR 4.5 billion. The outlook, the group benefits from strong visibility on its future activity, on its revenue.
Firstly, with a backlog whose recognition of revenue will be secured by the amount of the backlog. Backlog stable versus December 31st, EUR 6 billion, almost two years of development revenue. Midterm, the potential transactions underway represents four years business at various stages of development. We're vigilant to remain in market conditions, don't hesitate to renegotiate or reprogram transactions to remain in our margin constraints. Outlook for 2023 unchanged at this stage. We're particularly vigilant on market changes going forward, given the significant headwinds. We consider that we're in a year of transition in the property market with reduced spending power versus two years ago. Increased rates set to continue throughout the years announced earlier this year. We believe that Q2 will be in the follow-up to Q1 and the end of the year.
Changing credit conditions will be key to give us more visibility to the end of the year and if need be, update our forecast. Stabilization expected as of H2 depends on the position of central banks on interest rates containing inflation. That remains our central scenario. We maintain our outlook guidance for 2023 revenue at least EUR 4.5 billion, similar to 2022, excluding international operating income, taking account adjustment needs, but should be above EUR 300 million. More short-term, we'll be pleased to meet you again during the next AGM, May 7th, and will be put to the approval the payment of a dividend of EUR 2.5 per share, stable versus last year. This reflects the confidence of the group in its outlook and its robust financial situation.
This illustrates the ability of Nexity to deliver recurring dividend through the various property cycles. Thanks for your attention. I'd like to conclude by thanking Domitille, who's gonna be leaving us soon. She provided a vital contribution over the year to support us, to animate the dialogue. Géraldine, whom you know well, will follow up the relationship and will be equally effective. We're now ready to take your questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have any questions, please press star one to register your question. Thanks. First question comes from Emmanuel Parot from Gilbert Dupont. Over to you, sir.
Yes, good evening to all. I hope you can hear me well. Yes, very well. Good. I had a few quick questions. The first, rather general question on the real estate sector. You mentioned commercial activity, Q1, broadly in line with your expectations. Would you say that the real estate context is as you expected versus two months back when you set your annual targets? Would you say that things are tougher than feared? That's my first question. Second, was on the rising rates on the savings plan, the Livret savings plan. Is there a risk there that social housing players will be less in a position to buy from you, that is you, property developers to buy housing because there's been an impact on the resilience rate of your reservations. Last question, linked to initial discussions on possible government announcements.
What avenues might explore that would satisfy you in the challenging context that everyone's experiencing currently? Thank you.
Answer. Thanks for the questions, Emmanuel. I'll respond on the context. Well, the context is clearly that we were facing when we adopted our forecast for 2023, and we clearly stated that it was a year of transition. A year that could be changing. Things may indeed seem more challenging in the way the year is unfolding to date. Yet, and yet, in the way we steer our activities at this stage, we can maintain the same trajectory. Yes, it's a challenging year, as expected.
As expected, we're not subjecting ourselves to it, we're adapting, and that's the vital compass that we must have, not to submit to conditions, adapt our commercial steering, adapt our offering so as to constantly offer our customers an affordable offering in all its forms so as to trigger the intention to invest in spite of the challenging situation and the changing winds. Maybe on the second question on the social housing players, the mix that we have on reservations that balanced in Q1, but on the bulk sales is heavily weighted towards social bulk sales. It's a question that we constantly have the ability to sell to social landlords.
On the third point, of course, we can't speak to the government announcements, but what we can say that there seems to be a clear realization about the housing crisis that's emerging. There was recently a prime minister spoke this evening about the housing crisis. Of course, we're in favor of everything that might facilitate access to loans for our customers. It's on that front that we're fighting. Of course, the realization of the housing crisis and the need for additional housings, 'cause the figure of the 500,000 by the Medef chair is one that is percolating across to the government. All these gives some openings to the fact that housing will be addressed over the coming days.
Well, Emmanuel, if I were to make a forecast, is of course, that the measures that might unblock the situation where there's volume that will be for first-time buyers, but these are measures that cost, reduce VAT, reduction in interest rates, tax breaks. There are measures that don't cost, but require the will to act, and that will be access to loans. In that respect, we don't despair that measures will end up by being taken. There are discussions between the finance ministry and the Bank of France to give a boost in these very constraining market conditions.
That's clear. Thank you. Maybe just one final point on international activities. Where are you at with the disposal, halting of those activities?
Well, the process is underway and going according to plan with the IFRS 5 ranking indicated. That's programmed for the coming months.
Thanks.
We have no further questions at this point in time. Back to you to conclude. I believe we do have a further question. Christopher Kemper from ODDO. Over to you, sir.
Good evening. Thanks for taking my question. Christopher from ODDO. Two quick ones, if I may. The first, just wanted to make sure, sorry if, well, if Emmanuel asked it just before me. In the current context, does it give you some leeway for acquisitions? I mean, there are small players facing difficulties, for example, that come and see you and are beginning talks with you. Second question on the price of land. Are you seeing greater flexibility, shall we say, on the part of owners to renegotiate the price of land and to acquire plots and to make the economic equation easier for your clients?
Well, as you've seen, we've shown you there's a consolidation process underway. Will this process prompt a number of players to consider deals or combinations of. Envisage a future different to that which they're facing today? Probably. The priority for us today is first and foremost, to correctly manage our debt as we committed to doing with a will to maintain our leverage at the level set. That's the priority. In addition to that, we have mechanically a growth in our market share. At this state, that suits us fine.
Currently we don't plan to act differently. On the ground, the land, it's a real issue. It's a real issue in current market conditions. Very logically, there should be a favorable change in that respect. Clearly the landowners today are not in that frame of mind. They're not in that rationale. What we're doing on our transactions, deals that we're committed to, we're systematically renegotiating the terms and conditions of the transaction, notably the land, be it in its price or in the price in the conditions to recognize that price. Just in the measures, a bit naive by way of the questions, but in the measures that might be adopted by the government, other, for example, measures of densification that could be part of the process, 'cause it's very direct here.
If you have through planning permission, if you can build a five-story building, can you move, say, to six-story building? It doesn't cost the government anything in these measures that might simplify the economic equation. Is that a possibility? Answer. In spite of Véronique's involvement in the CNR, I'm not privy to the decision-making process of the government. I don't know what Trump would have to wait for the ninth of May to see the conclusions of the CNR regarding the conclusions. What I can say in our strategic roadmap, the first major pivot of transformation of our industry that, and everybody that this pivot is underway in an accelerate, is to build the city on the city. Without densifying, that doesn't make sense.
At Nexity, we are defending density, a, bearable, desirable, density. That means adapting the offering and making proposals in that direction. Yes, we're defending increased density. If a measure is taken in that direction, then we can welcome it.
Thanks.
Thank you. Next question from Laurent, from BNP.
Good evening. Two questions. First one, reservations. Apparently 58 in Q1 seems fairly low. Had been more in 2021 and 2022. Another question, what about dividend changes? Would you drop your dividend possibly if H2 performance weren't in line? The 1,600 reservations you mentioned, these are reservations for housing and refurbishments. In development, it's more in line with 800.
Nexity is following market terms. In Q1, these wouldn't be representative. The 58 figure may seem low, but it's in the subsidiaries roadmap. Regarding the dividend, this is a subject that'll come up in future months, depending on the economy, financial situation. It'll be up to the Board of Directors. Currently, we continue with our scenario. At the juncture, we can confirm our outlook and financial structure. Nothing is jeopardizing anything right now.
This wouldn't be the time to discuss these points. We're focused right now on Q2 to make good on our commercial activity end of the year. These are the points that are the main considerations today. I can certainly confirm what Véronique already said to answer the selfsame question during the presentation of the results, end of year results. Yes. This is a decision that'll be made by the board of directors. I'm sure they will discuss the overall environment and make their decision. A question on services contribution in the mix. I'd like to know if distribution activities have a good margin. Answer. Yes, margin rate in distribution activity. You have the commercial side of this, and margin is higher than average of other service activities.
All right, thank you.
I think the last question from Marilyn Ford, Société Générale. Go ahead.
Hello, good evening. I've got two questions. First one on the drop in reservations. Is it uniform? Paris versus the regions? That's the first question. Second point. I'm thinking of commercial real estate and recognition after the second operation. Can we assume EUR 400 million in revenue for 23? Could you tell us how this will look, one quarter versus the following quarter? Thank you.
Reservations are always related to commercial offering. You can't just think in terms of Paris, Greater Paris, and the provinces. We're not seeing any major market differences from one area to another, but it always depends very much on the products that we're selling in the various locations. It's the commercial offerings themselves that make for the results. Access to loans is what's really important now. We're having people having a hard time getting loans.
It's taking longer for them to get the loans. All of that's really frozen the system. These lending problems we're seeing throughout France, unfortunately, obtaining loans. Now, commercial real estate revenue in 23 up by at least EUR 400 million. The phasing should be fairly uniform from quarter- to- quarter. The Deloitte operation we presented to you will be delivered in the next few weeks. That'll make a contribution in Q2, but won't change the overall profile for the full year. It's very important for the beautiful operation. It got a clean award this year in Cannes, but in terms of contribution to our revenue, it's around EUR 100 million. A relatively marginal impact on half yearly revenues. It's La Garenne-Colombes éco-campus is the bulk of the contribution. It should continue in a linear fashion over the next three quarters.
Thank you for that.
Thank you. There are no further questions. I'd like to give the floor back to you to wrap up today's meeting.
I'd like to thank all of you for taking part in this call. We will be meeting again soon. Have a great evening.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for taking part in today's call. You can hang up now.