Dear ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the presentation of the full year figures 2022 of the DIC Asset AG. I now hand over to the host, Sonja Wärntges, CEO of DIC Asset AG.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. A very warm welcome to DIC's 2022 full year results conference call. Today, as usual, I'm joined by my colleagues from accounting and Investor Relations. I will give you a short presentation of the highlights of our full year results, then followed with a Q&A session. In 2022, we achieved the best FFO result in our 25-year history. Despite the difficult market environment on the transaction market, we are looking back on a very successful and transformative year for DIC. Our team showed a very high performance in a year that was marked by a war in the middle of Europe, global supply chain problems, the interest rate turnaround, and considerable uncertainties regarding the economy, energy, and inflation. Our business model, our strategy, and the agility of our employees have proven more than ever to be decisive factors of our success.
With a clear plan in our mind, we followed our overall strategy to become and stay the leading office and logistics experts in Germany. We have achieved a lot of highlights as EUR 176 million rental income, 5.8% like-for-like rental growth, leading to an FFO of EUR 114.2 million, with 1.5% value increase in our Commercial Portfolio, leading to an assets under management number of EUR 14.7 billion. In our Commercial Portfolio, we have now 31% green buildings. This, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the most relevant numbers for the future attractiveness and value of our portfolio. The major transformation for DIC was driven by the strategic decision to significantly strengthen the logistics asset class on our platform through the majority takeover of VIB.
With the integration of VIB, we have expanded our logistics asset class into a second pillar alongside the already existing focus on office properties. With EUR 4.5 billion, our commercial portfolio is now more than twice as large as in the previous year. We acquired an attractive portfolio with around EUR 100 million of rental income per year and a low EPRA vacancy rate that will further strengthen our position in the market. We intend to use this newly gained size to further expand our platform in the medium term. At the same time, with this transformation, we have achieved a major step in changing our revenue stream. Ladies and gentlemen, let me now give you more details on our operational and financial performance last year. In total, we had EUR 3.3 billion of notarized transactions across all business segments.
EUR 2.9 billion of acquisitions, including VIB, and EUR 0.4 billion of disposals. Year over year, our real estate platform grew by 28% to assets under management of EUR 14.7 billion. The majority takeover of VIB of EUR 2.3 billion had a big impact on this growth. The institutional business segment now crossed the level of EUR 10 billion after further acquisitions in Germany and for the first time in the Netherlands last year. Our share of the logistics assets class on the entire platform significantly increased year on year from 8% to a total of around 19%. Within the balance sheet portfolio, the share of logistics assets increased from 4%-39%. This clearly underpins our transformation to the leading specialist for German office and logistics real estate.
On our next slide, you can see our strong letting performance of the DIC platform last year. Year-on-year, we saw another increase of the letting performance by 21% to a total of 374,900 square meter. The strategic expansion in the logistics sector was clearly noticeable in the take-up. The overall letting performance was mainly driven by the high level of renewals of 255,300 square meter. In total, new lettings and renewals represent EUR 48.9 million of annualized rental income, a year-on-year increase of 48%. The like-for-like rental income for the entire portfolio under management was up 5.8%. The increase was with 80% driven on indexation.
The value of new contractually agreed monthly rents per square meter rose year on year from EUR 15.56 to EUR 18.72 for office space and from EUR 4.24 to EUR 4.80 for logistics. Looking at our profit and loss statement of the full year 2022, I want to highlight the following. Compared to 2021, the net rental income grew massively to EUR 152.5 million, a plus of 67% driven by the VIB consolidation and strong like-for-like growth. On the other side, the real estate management fees saw a decrease of 13% as a direct result of the lower transaction activities since the second quarter of 2022.
Adding the net rental income together with a recurring fee income of EUR 36.4 million from the Institutional Business segment, the share of these recurring income streams in comparison to all rents and fees increased to 79% coming from 66% last year. This can be seen as a clear improvement in cash flow quality. With EUR 114.2 million, the FFO are within our guidance range and on a record level in the company's 25 years history. Looking into the drivers of our best ever full result, you clearly see on the one hand, the positive effects from the additional net rental income from the VIB portfolio, as well as the additional share of the profit of associates. These positive effects more than outweigh the effects from the decrease of management fees, higher OpEx and an increased net interest result.
On a per share basis, the FFO increased from EUR 1.32 to EUR 1.38. This already takes a slight dilution from last year's scrip dividend into account. By the end of 2022, the net asset value remained almost unchanged compared to last year's results. The NAV per share stood at EUR 18.29, mainly due to the slight dilution from the scrip dividend and the offsetting effect of higher investment properties and co-investments on the one hand, and mainly higher financial liabilities and non-controlling interests on the other hand. The Adjusted NAV per share decreased to EUR 21.84 due to the changed market environment resulted in an updated value for the institutional business segment, driven by the increased weight of EUR 522.3 million.
As usual, I would like to give you also a quick update on our current financial structure. In the last years, we have worked on our growth and assets under management, in results and profits. We have now a very good portfolio based on different asset classes, producing a very sustainable base cash flow. Now it's time to work on the financial structure to lower the LTV by reducing liabilities. There are different ways to make this happen. As using our higher operational cash flow, reducing the warehousing portfolio, optimizing the portfolio by selling non-strategic assets. As mentioned in our last conference call, the refinancing of the bridge loan maturing in 2024 is one of our main priorities. Already, roughly EUR 100 million were paid back in the third quarter of the last year.
With regard to our maturities in 2023, we plan the repayment of EUR 150 million bond. It was the 2018 to 2023 bond. In general, we are also assessing the market for refinancing options. End of last year, our average interest rate, excluding the bridge, only slightly increased to 1.9% year-over-year due to refinancing activities. The average maturity of loans and borrowings without the bridge loan remained stable at 3.8 years. Around 88% excluding the bridge is fixed interest or hedged. Looking at the covenants of the green bond, we can assure you that we have a sufficient headroom, especially the covenant ICR shows the ability to meet our interest payments. Ladies and gentlemen, let me now conclude my presentation with our guidance for 2023 and the main topics we are focusing on.
As already published in January, we expect FFO in the range of EUR 90 million-EUR 97 million. The main reason for the lower FFO guidance versus previous years is the persistently challenging environment in the real estate investment market. Mainly due to the change in the increase in the interest rate level in 2022 and the still unclear impact of a weaker economy on real estate demand in Germany, we expect delays in acquisitions and disposals to persist in the first half year of 2023. In this context, we expect to generate lower transaction related management fees in our institutional business. Our focus in 2023 is, as mentioned, to further strengthen and optimize our portfolio operationally and strategically by letting, reducing vacancy, delivering on our ESG strategy and sell if appropriate. This is key for the sustainability of DIC.
Also improving our balance sheet and financial structure via increasing the recurring cash flow base from rents and ongoing management of real estate assets for third parties with reducing the LTV to below 50%. Regarding transactions for both segments, we do not plan any acquisitions for the commercial portfolio, but disposals in the range of EUR 300 million-EUR 500 million. For Institutional Business, we intend to do transactions in the volume of EUR 400 million-EUR 1 billion. Thereof EUR 100 million-EUR 200 million on the sales side. We expect the maturity of transactions to happen in the second half of 2023. Ladies and gentlemen, we have been highly successful in the last years, and we will keep the pace to remain successful in the future.
What has distinguished us to this day will continue to give us the necessary tailwind for 2023 and beyond. Thank you very much for listening to our presentation today. We are now ready to take your questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question now, please press 9 followed by the star key on your telephone keypad only once. If you wish to cancel that question, please press 9 followed by the star key again. The first question comes from Stefan Scharff, SRC Research.
Yeah. Good morning, Sonja. Good morning, gentlemen. My first question is, perhaps could you please give us some more details on the change parameters regarding the valuation of your Institutional Business unit regarding the NAV? Second question, as you know, your LTV and also the Adjusted LTV both came up significantly in the last year, of course, mainly due to the VIB takeover. What are your steps or your optimization steps here in the current year and also for the next year? Perhaps you can give us a bit more roadmap how to make it with sales and how to organize the debt reduction.
Good morning, Stefan. Thank you for the questions. As mentioned, we have revaluated our institutional business as we do it every year end. As said, on the one hand, the WACC has increased to 7%. This is a general thing to make here, so to say. This is because of the environmental challenges, so to say.
Mm-hmm.
This makes round about EUR 160 million. On the other hand, as said in our guidance, we have reduced our business plan for the institutional business for this year. This reflects the value of the institutional business where we have taken in the business plan on the institutional business. This is of around EUR 60 million. Therefore, the value of the institutional business reduced to EUR 522 million.
Mm-hmm. Okay. Mm-hmm.
On the other hand, as said, what we are doing is, yeah, after a lot of years to increase the cash flows, to increase our rental income as well as our base recurring fees of the Institutional Business, we're now working on the financial structure to reach our goal to reduce the LTV to of around 50%, maybe a little bit lower. Therefore, as said, we have a lot of things which we can make happen using the increased cash flow, get rid of our warehousing and also do selling if appropriate. If you have might rent, we have also begun to sell. We have sold our Kaufhof in Chemnitz on the last day of last year.
Mm-hmm.
This will be effective in 2023. The first step is done here.
Mm-hmm.
We do not need to do this, so we have also other possibilities. If appropriate to optimize our portfolio, we will work also on the sales side.
Okay, I see. On slide 10, you talk about the internalization of DIC real estate platform. Perhaps you can give us some more details here.
Yeah. We have three vehicles, so to say, in place in the Institutional Business, for which we can buy internationally. We are working on this. As I said, at the moment, the transaction markets are down. This is not only in Germany, but also in the rest of Europe.
Mm.
Therefore we are optimizing our sales force and our transaction force to do this. We are searching for possibilities, not only in Germany, but also in Netherlands, Belgium, Austria as said. If we get possibilities there, we will do this. We have commitments and money in place in this vehicle, so we are ready to shoot, so to say.
Mm-hmm.
As said, I think that in the first two quarters of 2023, the transaction market will not be in that shape that it really makes sense to say the transaction market has come back. It's a point for two business partners, the seller and the buyer, if a transaction is happening. The real market, I think, will be back in the second half of the year.
Okay. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Andre Remke, Baader Bank.
Yeah, good morning, Sonja. Thanks for the presentation. A couple of questions from my side. starting in your disposal target of EUR 300 billion-EUR 500 billion through COP's commercial portfolio. Does this mainly relate to the VIB portfolio, i.e. logistics? Is this the right assumption? This is the first question, please.
Good morning, Andre. No, this is not mainly driven by the logistics portfolio. It will be a mix, I think. We have a plan which shows a part of office and a part of logistics. We are focusing on logistics on the VIB platform, so to say. We are also optimizing the portfolio in this way. We have built a vehicle, a fund to bring in the retail assets in this fund so that the platform will be optimized further in the next year. I also think that for office will be good to transact in 2023. As said, we have began with the Kaufhof in Chemnitz.
Yeah, we will optimize also our office portfolio in 2023 because we have a stable portfolio there, but we have some offices, assets where we say these are not strategically relevant for us because the on-site has a long travel journey to get there and so on. Therefore, we think it makes sense also to optimize the office portfolio, yeah.
non-strategically means mainly, in terms of regions?
In terms of regions, but also in terms of size and in terms of what happens in the environment of this asset. Some of them, we prepare to get refurbished or to reuse them in another asset class and so on. We are working on the steps to talk with communities and so on, that we get the business plan changed and some of these things. When we have done this, we sell the asset because we are not doing the transformation, for example, to residential or something like this. It's a mix of regional, but also use conditions.
Okay, thank you. The next question refers to the bridge financing. Could you remind me of the current cost and when are the next step-ups in the conditions? What are your plans to maybe if possible, more concrete timeline, when you intend to lower the amount during the year?
At the moment, we have around about 5.6% costs on the bridge loan. The next step, when I have it right in mind, will be on 1st of April. I think it's the last or one of the last steps. I think the last step. Yeah, as said, it's our major goal to get rid of this bridge financing. But also, as said, we have different possibilities to get the cash flows in, yeah, to repay this. But we see also it takes some time, and sometimes more time as we wish to take it. But we have done some steps, and I think in the near future, we will finalize the first one. I cannot talk about this today.
We have a clear plan to refinance this and we have to do now step by step the actions to make it happen. The maturity is end of January 2024. On the one hand, the bridge, and on the other hand, our bond are the major things we are working on with the different actions I've talked about.
Coming back to your dividend proposal, presented already some weeks ago, this was not an option to suspend for this year the dividend to save EUR 60 million.
No. On the one hand, we have prepared ourselves to also do the scrip dividend this year. This will reduce the cash flow from when we take the 40% of scrip dividend into account of last year to EUR 45 million cash flow. We see us as a dividend paying company. That's we also have said that this is our strategy, and we have set this very clearly. If we are ready, and if we can, we want to pay a dividend also in the next years, and that we are working on, and we have to optimize our cash flows and all the things we plan for 2023. This is one of our major goals to pay a dividend.
Okay. You mentioned the scrip dividend. This finally means a kind of dilution given the deep discount to NAV.
Yeah. This is 1% or something like this, 1% to 0.2%. I think this, yes, it is, as you said, but on the other hand, I think it's a good way to do it. Yeah. It has-
Okay.
advantages and disadvantages, but it's the way it is. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. Thanks for your answer on that. My last question is, coming back to the target, what is the pro forma FFO, including the so far announced disposals? The target of below 50%, is it really a target which you striving for already to achieve at year end 2023? If you deliver on the, let's say, EUR 500 million disposal from the commercial portfolio, and assuming a stable portfolio valuation this year, I would assume this is still above 50%, or did I miss something here?
No, I can clearly say, as you know, I'm a controller from my heart, if I say it, I have calculated it, and I really try it. We want to reach the 50% goal. Yeah. It also said, we have a very challenging environment. We are taking the steps. We are taking the actions, but in sometimes we cannot decide on our own if we sell something or something like this. The 50% goal is the goal, definitely. Whether we can reach the 50% on the 31st of December 2023, or the 20th of January 2024, I cannot really say, but this is our goal.
On a calculation basis of our plan 2023, we reach this goal until the end of 2023. We have 11 months to go, and so we will keep you updated where we stand, but this is definitely our goal.
Okay. Thank you very much. That's from my side.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Manuel Martin, ODDO BHF.
Thank you. Good morning, Daniela. I think, two or three questions from my side. One question is a follow-up question on your disposal guidance for 2023. The EUR 300 million-EUR 500 million disposal target for the Commercial Portfolio. Is this something which you're going to sell entirely to the market, or which are you going to sell into the funds of DSE? Is there a plan behind that?
Good morning, Martin. We have a plan behind this. We have as every year, deeply dived in the portfolio, so to say, and have searched for things we want to make in 2023. As said, some we want to refurbish, some we want to do on the letting side and so on, and some of them we want to sell and get rid of them. It's definitely more than in the past, a thing we want to do on the market because we do not really know when the institutional business market will be back. At the moment, the institutional business with the institutional investors, it's also a little bit low.
As said, we have all the commitments, but we have no commitment from investors that they said we want to sell something because with the indexation in the commercial portfolios, the cash on cash grows. The institutional investors are very satisfied with their portfolio. This is the situation. I don't think that they will sell a lot. On the other hand, it's very calm at the moment on the buying side. We have the two pillars on the sale side, the market and the institutional business, but we are focusing on the market at that time.
Okay. I see. Talking about the market, can you give us some details about the property valuations? How has the fair value evolved of your property? Maybe you can remind me on that, because on that figure, please.
Yeah. The valuation of our own portfolio has a sharp increase of 1.5%. It's round, it's stable, but with the trend to an increased number. This comes mainly from the base that we have let a lot of have let a lot in the last year. On the other hand, of the indexations. As said, with 5.8% like-for-like on the platform, 80% of this is indexation. This also is reflected in the valuation of the evaluator. As always, because we do not have this in our balance sheet, we do not really fight with the evaluators. This is the number we got from them, and we take it.
I think this shows that our granular and not in the main in the inner circles of the top seven cities located portfolio is very interesting on the one hand for the Nita for the tenants. On the other hand, it's very stable. We see it's different if you have landmark assets and if you have it in the top seven cities in the inner circles and if you have factors with 30 times or more. The evaluators have I think a clear view on such factors. 28 and more is at the moment not really shown in the values.
We do not have such factors in our portfolio and therefore I think it's very stable. As said, for me, the most interesting part and the most relevant part for the future of such portfolios is the possibility to make them green in whatever sense, yeah. This is from my perspective, for the LTV, one of the most important things that you can do. The loan is the one part in the LTV, but the value is the other one. If we talk with the evaluators and also with the tenants, this is the major point to create lettings, to create attractive tenants and to create, yeah, to create more euros in letting and therefore the value, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
This is what we are working on.
Okay. Thanks for the insight here. My last question would be on indexation. As you said, that was one driver. As far as I could see in the presentation, the indexation in the Commercial Portfolio was something like 3.6% and in the Institutional Business, 6.4%. This is quite a difference. Maybe you can give us some color on that, please.
We can give some further details. For the Commercial Portfolio assets, our own, our proprietary portfolio, indexations have been much higher, or have been the main driver for indexation of the 3.6% like-for-like rental growth. For the 6.4%, it was less driven by indexations, but they are more driven then by also new lettings we achieved in the Institutional Business segment.
Okay. Okay. Thank you.
At the moment, there are no further questions. If you have any additional questions at this moment, please press nine followed by the star key now. There's one question still coming in from Jochen Schmitt, Metzler. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning. I have one question on your like-for-like rental growth in the Commercial Portfolio, which you have just stated at 3.6% in 2022. Do you expect a higher corresponding figure for 2023? That's my question. Thank you.
Hi, Jochen. Thanks for the question and good question. For 2023, yes, we expect some further indexations also for 2023. Been very conservative now what we expect. From internal planning, we say 1.5%, but could also be higher. As you know, it's not something we switch from today to tomorrow. In the discussions we have with the tenants, we expect at least 1.5% for 2023, but could be higher.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. There are no further questions. I would like to hand back to the speakers.
Yeah, thanks for joining us today to this conference call. As usual, if you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to Max or the and myself here from the Investor Relations department. We will be also on the road in the next weeks. Happy to meet you again physically, talk about our vision for 2023 and the story. We have a lot of work to do, as you know, but we are, yeah, convinced that we'll achieve our targets this year. Yeah, happy to talk to you within the next weeks. Bye-bye.
Bye. Thank you.