Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, everybody, and a warm welcome to our results presentation for the first half year of 2022. Thank you for dialing in. I trust you are all well and healthy. Joining me for this call is our CFO, Tim Brückner, and David Göthel, Investor Relations. Before I start to dive into our results and provide you with the latest figures, let me briefly touch upon the omnipresent topics that determine the current overall economic sentiment and how they affect the operations of DEMIRE. The first aspect to mention here is the war in Ukraine, which is sadly still ongoing. As for DEMIRE, we have not been directly affected since the vast majority of our tenant base does not have close ties to Ukraine or to Russia.
Closely connected to this conflict is the rapid increase of the inflation over the last couple of months. While especially the increased energy costs impact our P&L negatively, the largest part of the price jump can be passed on to our tenants. Positively, almost 70% of our annualized rent is indexed, and the index clause of many of our rental contracts has been triggered recently, which raises our rental income. I will elaborate on this a bit more later. On the other hand, we are of course aware that our tenants are doubly burdened by the rising rents and the rising ancillary costs. So far, no defaults have resulted from this, but we have continued the well-established and intense tenant-landlord dialogue.
The last topic I would like to mention at this point is the still tense COVID-19 situation, which has not impacted DEMIRE notably in the first half year of 2022. Assuming we do not see any strict lockdown measures or alike over the rest of the year, we are confident that the impact will keep being manageable. To summarize, the company has again shown a high level of resilience towards the current economic challenges and demonstrated the robustness of our business model. Let me illustrate this now by walking you through our most important KPIs and their developments in the first half year 2022. We follow our Realize Potential strategy for three years now, and the results are still satisfying. All four pillars of our strategy have again contributed to a solid first half year.
Some of the KPIs appears weaker, but this is caused by the disposal of 11 assets in 2021. Hence, the reference figures were based on more assets and don't include Cielo anyway. The first strategy pillar, asset management, contributed with a new all-time high of square meters let around 145,000 square meters. This helped to achieve a like-for-like rental growth of almost 1% and to increase our annualized contract rents to EUR 80.6 million. We were also able to reduce vacancy significantly to below 10%, while the WALT remained fairly stable at 4.6 years. Secondly, acquisitions are, let's call it transactions.
Since we implemented our strategy back in 2019, we have acquired 12 assets overall with a value of around EUR 631 million, and 33 assets were sold on average with a premium to market value of 12.5%. Despite the challenging markets in 2022, we have also made some progress in terms of the institutionalization of our portfolio by selling a smaller property in Bremen. Again, 6% above book value. We expect the closing to be in September. To perform at this sale and in accordance with our strategy, the average asset value of our portfolio continues to improve further. It is time to speed up our portfolio dynamization efforts.
Recently, the board, upon approval of the supervisory board, has decided to intensify the focus on portfolio dynamization with disposals to create a liquidity cushion for refinancing purposes or grow opportunities. This should further improve our already comfortable liquidity position. If you look at our P&L, you will notice the lower profit from the rental of real estate, which is a consequence of the before mentioned lower number of assets, of course. Currently, we count 64 assets. The positive effect of our latest acquisition, Cielo, is due to its joint venture structure reflected below this P&L item in the financial result. Herewith, we were able to improve the FFO in the first half year. Tim will elaborate on the financial results in a minute. On processes, we have published our first sustainability report in June, which we aim to expand and enrich with further information in the near future.
Besides that, we have again been able to lower our G&A expenses. All that makes us confident for the future development of DEMIRE, and I am happy to confirm our 2022 guidance and on rental income and on FFO. Let's have a more detailed look at our KPIs and follow me to slide 6, showing the leasing performance. After an already strong number of square meters let in half year 2021, we have been able to improve further in the first half year of 2022, up to a new record level of almost 145,000 square meters. While prolongations of rental contracts account for 72% of the leasing performance, new lettings make up for 28%.
We were able to conclude a three-year contract extension with Imotex in Neuss, which represents the largest prolongation and secures EUR 5.4 million of annual rent going forward. Further, we have also seen a jump in our annualized rents up by EUR 2.5 million to EUR 80.6 million, representing attractive 5.7% gross yield on our EUR 1.4 billion portfolio. The main drivers of this development were new lettings in LogPark, Leipzig, and rent increase due to the indexation clauses having been triggered in various rental contracts. These factors helped achieving a like-for-like rental growth of 0.9% compared to 30th June of last year. Next slide shows vacancy and WALT.
The pleasant development of our portfolio KPIs continues with April vacancy, which has been reduced to 9.5%, mainly driven by a ramp up in occupancy in the asset in Leipzig, but further, and due to an interim leasing in Kassel that will be replaced by a new long-term hotel contract afterwards. Our WALT remains practically unchanged at 4.6 years. Tim, please go along with details about the financial performance.
Thank you, Ingo. Let me quickly go through our P&L on page 9 of the presentation. As Ingo already elaborated, we have slightly declining rental income, driven by the disposal of assets in the previous year. You see that the operating expenses and income from utility and service charges are substantially higher given the accelerated inflation and specifically as widely discussed in the press, and as you may feel it personally as well, rising energy expenses. This adds up to an NOI, driven by the disposals in 2021, that is lower than in the previous year's period, together with a slightly and only slightly declining NOI margin. When we walk further through the P&L, we see that we had no disposals this year in the first half.
Further down the impairment of receivable, we see for the first time for years, a zero in this line. This is a net position as various tenants paid on previously written off receivables during the Corona period. For the remainder of the year, we still expect some impairments, but significantly lower than in the previous year. As Ingo said, hopefully and most likely not driven by the Corona situation. General and administrative expenses are further down slightly. I think we have worked as part of our Realize Potential strategy, quite strict on the tightening of our cost base, and we have now reached a cost margin in line with our listed peers. The financial income, which is note number , has increased, mainly driven by the Cielo transaction that is now in our financial income position, which it was not last year.
Together, this adds up to earnings before taxes and minority interest of roughly EUR 20 million, slightly lower than last year. After FFO adjustments, which are, for example, the fair value adjustments of investment properties and disposal proceeds, we see that our FFO has increased, our FFO margin has increased, predominantly giving our strong letting performance, the tight cost management and tenant relationships, and the positive full year impact of the Cielo transaction. On page 10 of our presentation, you see the balance sheet, which basically has no surprises at all. As you might remember, we have paid a dividend in May, slightly reducing our cash position and the reserve position in the equity part of our balance sheet. Otherwise, I believe there are no surprises. We have not conducted any external valuation of our investment portfolio.
What we will do at the end of the year again, but the discussions with valuers so far and together with our strong operating performance give us a good feeling that our investment property valuation is still in line with the market. We think we post very stable numbers here. On page 11 of the presentation, you see the Net LTV. The Net LTV moderately increased due to the dividend payout. We still have comfortable headroom to our bond covenant 60%, and the average cost of debt, given that we had no refinancings in the period, remained about stable at 1.67%. Obviously, you are fully aware, we are fully aware of the refinancing requirements of the company in 2024.
We all know that capital markets, bank markets and financial markets overall are in, let's say, difficult shape. We prepare ourselves for the upcoming refinancing. As Ingo already elaborated on, we will work on an extended liquidity position, and you can be certain that we will start discussions with our lenders, bondholders as early as possible. As some of you may be dialed in, you all know that we are in regular contact with you. We are always available for discussion, and we obviously stay fully committed to full transparency when it comes to refinancing and the financing environment. Ingo, your words on guidance.
Absolutely. Thank you, Tim. After all, and to conclude, we delivered solid results in the first half year 2022, and we are not only looking forward to the second half of the year, but also are convinced to be well prepared. Consequently, we can confirm our rental income guidance of EUR 78 million-EUR 80 million and funds from operations of EUR 38.5 million-EUR 40.5 million. Thank you very much for listening so far. We are now happy to answer questions you may have. Emma can take over.
We will now take our first question from Philipp Hätzler from Pareto. Please go ahead. The line is open.
Yes. Good morning. Philipp Hätzler from Pareto Securities. I have a few questions. Firstly, you were mentioning your bond, which will mature in two years' time. Maybe you could elaborate a little bit on what tools you have to soften somewhat the impact from a higher coupon, which is very likely as of today. I mean, capital market environment can change again, but as of today, it seems to be very likely that you will have to pay a much higher coupon. Maybe you can give us an idea what levers you have to fight against the higher funding costs. Then on the rents which are indexed, have I heard that correctly that 70% of the rents are indexed? And is there a big difference between office and retail?
On Cielo, if I'm not mistaken, I think the Q1 and Q2 equity, the contribution from at equity consolidation was different. Is it not always the same each quarter? Maybe you could give an outlook for H2. Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you for your question, Philip. It's Tim, the CFO. Maybe first on the potential future financing costs. Well, first of all, we have no upcoming maturities until the bond matures and in the same year, some mortgage financing, which was always intended that we push that all to 2024. In today's markets, obviously it would be very difficult to issue a comparable product. So, of course, we will look at alternative financing sources. Today, I guess it is too early because we have secured those preferable rates for another more than 24 months.
You can be certain that given our plan to increase the liquidity position and prepare ourselves for the refinancing, we will obviously start right in time next year with financing discussions with our bank partners, with capital market service providers and so on. Apart from capital market financing, there's obviously always the opportunity to enter more into the mortgage financing market, which is, at the moment at least, coming in at significantly lower rates. Still, I guess, it is a bit too early because I think nobody knows exactly how banks will behave in 24 or 48 months. The capital markets, which is at least my personal belief, will stabilize and will provide, I guess, more realistic rates.
If you look at the forecast of leading banks, you will see that most of them at least expect that the credit curve will soften again. I guess we are well prepared, and we will start the process right in time next year. I would continue with the Cielo question. I think there are two components of the income from the Cielo joint venture, which is first financing income, which is basically interest income. This interest income is basically fixed. It can vary slightly over the quarters, given certain effects in the agreements with the joint venture partner, but it will be more or less stable.
The equity income might vary a bit more because obviously it is in this Cielo joint venture you have certain costs which are relating to the operation of the business, and that might go up and down in various quarters and affect the equity earnings of the joint venture and therefore our equity income. Maybe Ingo on rent.
I take over for the indexation question. What share of our contract rent is linked to CPI was your question. You heard it right. 70% is indexed. 22 approximately is fixed, and 8% is step up. Yes, there is a difference between the contracts in office properties and in retail property mainly. Usually office properties the indexation is between 90%-100%, and in retail between 60%-80%. You see here a slight difference between the asset classes. In total the effect in our P&L is EUR 1.9 million due to indexations this year. Hope this answers your question.
Yes, thank you very much.
Perfect. Thank you.
Thank you. We will now take our next question from Peter Wildek from Moonsik. Please go ahead. The line is open.
Morning, guys. Thank you for the presentation. I just wanted to carry on the discussion about refinancing the 2024 bonds. Kind of two interrelated questions, which is, you know, now that you've been downgraded yet again to Single-B, is it really realistic that you can refinance in capital markets at a level that is acceptable versus what it would cost you to do this in the mortgage market? And if so, and, you know, if that is not the case, then does it not make sense to start the process of refinancing using the mortgage market? Kind of the second question, which is related is, I was hoping for some kind of an update on the sales process, of which there's no mention in any of the stuff you've published today.
I was just wondering if you could give us any indication of whether that's moved ahead at all, whether that's now been delayed given the general financing conditions or attitudes towards real estate. Any, information you can give us there will be helpful. Is that delay in the sales process having an impact on your refinancing decisions?
Okay. I start with the second question first. Ingo here. It's uncertain time, so the process takes some time. It's ongoing, but we can't speak for our shareholders to give some information about the results so far. Tim will elaborate on the financials question.
Peter, is it realistic that we can refinance ourselves with capital markets in two years' time? From today's perspective, given the recent Moody's downgrade, the capital market environment, I would probably agree with you that it is very difficult or potentially impossible to refinance ourselves. In two years' time, I think both of us don't know how capital markets will behave. Obviously we as a business need to do something to stabilize our earnings, to decrease loan-to-value. This is, I think, what we do and what we have just said, that we increase our liquidity position and so on. We are certainly getting prepared to refinance ourselves, ideally in a dual-track environment, starting in about 12 months' time.
We will see what capital sources offer the best opportunities for DEMIRE that might still be capital market refinancing with lower LTV and potentially a fresh view on the rating. If not, I think there is the mortgage market available and we will certainly increase our discussions with bank partners. As you know, we have already a substantial portion of our debt book with banks, about EUR 300 million in total. That is certainly something that we are looking at to expand to, you know, give the company a good future given the most likely increasing financing costs.
Okay. Just to the final part of the question then. If you can't give any information about the sales process, is it fair to say that the delay in the sales process is having some impact on your financing decision, or is that not a fair comment?
Obviously, that is maybe the cause of your question, is that there is a change of control clause in the bond documentation. It would be obviously beneficial for bond holders if there is a change of control event given where our bond trades and what the COC clause means. In effect, it has no direct effect on what we are planning for the refinancing of the company because we always, as part of the sales process, prepared ourselves for, let's say, going concern environment. It is obviously in focus of the management to work for the company and make sure that we enable the company to refinance itself successfully.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone now. We will now take our next question rom Geoff Smailes from Miguel. Please go ahead. The line is open.
Good morning, gentlemen. Thanks for taking my call. We have been shareholders in DEMIRE for a number of years now, long-term shareholders. My question is just regarding the sales process. I understand, you know, there's so much you can say, you can elaborate on the sales process. I certainly understand and appreciate that. At the same time, I mean, I understand, this process has been going on for, I don't know, like, almost eight or nine months now. I was just wondering, and I understand the uncertainty in the market is not helping the sales process. I fully appreciate that.
At the same time, I was just wondering at what point will you draw the line and just say, "Look, this is happening or this is not happening." I mean, this or is it possible that this could go on, I don't know, for a full year? Or is there some sort of indication in your estimates as to when you could just draw a line in the sand? Thank you.
Yeah, thanks for your question. Obviously we as a management team are not the sellers of the company. The potential sellers are our majority shareholders, Apollo and basically the Wecken family. We cannot speak for them. I guess they have entered into the process because they were planning to sell their stakes in the business. As you said, the market environment is difficult. The financing market environment makes it even more difficult. Still, I guess the interest is still there to sell their stakes, and if there is an opportunity to do so, I'm pretty sure that they will consider this option. We cannot give you any dates or timing on a potential withdrawal from the process, or a conclusion of the process.
Understood. I mean, and again, I fully appreciate that just, you know, as I said, there's so much you can say about the process. I mean, initially our understanding was, before the market just became volatile, our understanding was that the company was talking to or in some sort of engagement with maybe a handful or maybe multiple parties, maybe strategic and as well as financial potential parties. I'm just wondering, I mean, obviously now we, you know, we don't need to know the full detail here. I'm just wondering, are these parties still in the data room or they put the project on hold or is it just.
Has it just become, I don't know, some exclusive talks with one party? I mean, yeah. I mean, if you could give us a little bit more detail, because as I said, I mean, it's, I fully understand, you know, the process was initiated by the largest shareholder in the company. At the same time, as I said, I'm a shareholder of this company for a while now. I think we also need to understand a little bit more, because we've been completely in the dark about this. A little bit more about the nature of the discussions, negotiations or anything basically that would be very useful.
Well, we said end of last year that we have mandated JP Morgan to help us conducting the sales process. JP Morgan is still working on it. We are still in discussion with potential buyers, but we are not able to provide any more information on the process.
Okay, understood. Well, again, well, thanks for taking my questions and my comments and best of luck. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks.
We will now take our next question from Sanford Nagai from BlueBay. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hey, guys. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question and the time for the presentation today. Just two quick questions from me. Just from a high level, could you speak towards more about the sort of current conditions you're seeing in the market, specifically for the areas you operate in? 'Cause there's not a lot of, sort of, let's say, external data or information out there in terms of the specifics on non-primaries that you operate in. Just in the context of the more challenging macro environment we see currently. Secondly, Tim, I think this question might be for you, Tim.
I think you mentioned in your prepared remarks earlier about external valuations at the end of the year, and you felt pretty confident about what they're looking like today versus what they might look like at year-end. Do you mean that from a perspective of, you know, you expect them to be stable, there should be a slight decline or a slight increase just based on what you see today? Any color on that would be quite helpful. Thanks.
Thank you for your question. The market environment is uncertain, as you read it anywhere in the newspapers. If you look at the business of DEMIRE, this is interesting. We have a leading performance that we haven't seen before in the years before. This is 145,000 square meters all-time high record. This is in contrast to what we hear. There is still a lot of activities on the demand side for letting properties we have. This is what we see. On the other hand, on the investment markets in the first half year, the uncertainty led to lower volumes and a new positioning.
Of course, the refinancing is a little bit sharper to calculate now, but we see it ongoing. We sold just one property in the first half year with the effect in the second half year. We will surely optimize or take more efforts to dynamize our portfolio further in the second half year. We see a lot of opportunities there to sell, on the other hand, to be ready to acquire opportunistic chances we see.
The valuation, we see it to be stable in some way. That's what we see now, because again, the example from the sales we have in the first half year, Bremen, we sold it 6% above our last valuation that was taken in December 2021. We see in the discussions we have with other interesting buyers for our properties that the prices stay stable at this moment of time. Hope this gives you some guidance.
Yeah. Maybe a general remark, if you want to speak to us in person, we will participate in the Goldman Sachs Leveraged Finance Conference on the sixth of September in London. If you want to see us, we still have slots available.
Okay. Yeah, sure. I think I have put one in, but I'll double check. Yeah, thanks for those comments. That's quite helpful. Just as a follow-up, is there any sort of historical precedent of how commercial property and then sort of non-primary sort of operated, or how have they performed in a tougher environment? I appreciate there's probably not that much history there, but just if there is, that'd be quite helpful. Second of all, I don't know if you mentioned this earlier, but did you disclose what the actual gross and net proceeds from disposal of the Bremen property was? I know you mentioned it's 6% above book value, but what the actual proceeds were.
Yeah, maybe first on precedent in the financial market condition. I think the latest precedent was the financial crisis. In the financial crisis, you could see that in German secondary locations, the commercial property market, valuation-wise, vacancy-wise, rent-wise, remained fairly stable. If you look at those data rows, maybe back to the early 2000s, you see that rent increases over time in the last 22 years were lower than in the A cities in Germany. In cyclical downturns or in crisis situations, rents remained stable. The same was the case for vacancy rates. The same was the case, more or less, for prices.
What you could certainly see is that the transaction volume in secondary locations went down significantly and recovered slightly slower than the transaction volume in A cities.
I think that was the other question.
Yeah.
Sorry, Bremen, was EUR 3.5 million.
Sorry, you said EUR 3.5 million, right?
EUR 3.5 million.
Yeah. Okay. Okay, that's all for me. That's very helpful.
It was at
Is that sufficient as an answer to the secondary market?
Yeah. That was definitely very helpful. Thank you.
We can give you more examples in a direct line if you want to. We have, of course, specific things in the portfolio like Kassel or the Amazon contract in Leipzig that improves our performance as well in the first half year 2022.
Yeah, that'd be helpful. I might reach out to you guys directly and
Okay. We just give you a direct call and provide you with this information.
Yeah. Okay. Well, that again, very helpful, guys. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. We will now take our next question from Joanna Mlynarczyk from Apetek Asset Management. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning. Thank you for your presentation. I think most of my questions were answered, but I have a question with regards to the liquidity you are talking about that you'll be generating from different sources. I would like to know what are those sources, given that you keep on generating some dividends. If you comment on that, would be very useful. Thank you.
Well, obviously, we try to retain operating cash flow, but to extend our liquidity position substantially and decrease or lower our LTV, we would enter into more disposals according to our REALIZE POTENTIAL strategy. We would try to sell non-core and non-strategic assets a bit faster than before. If there are opportunities also to sell larger assets, we will also sell larger assets to reach our liquidity aims and LTV goals.
Okay. Would you be selling those assets below the book values? Are you there already or not yet? What's the timing, actually?
As said before, we see the book value stable, and we see demand for our properties will be. The last property we sold was 6% above book value. The discussions we have today are on or above book value. If you go under the book value, it should be a specific case or an argumentation coming from some costs we don't have to spend, for example. Overall, I think they will land on the book value.
Okay. Thank you for the answer. Thank you.
Thank you. There are no further questions in the queue at this time. I will turn the call back to your host.
Thank you very much for dialing in again, and we wish you all a good day.