Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the DEMIRE Deutsche Mittelstand Real Estate AG Q3 results 2023. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode. The floor will be open for questions following the presentation. Let me now turn the floor over to your host, Professor Dr. Alexander Goepfert, CEO, Tim Brückner, CFO, and Ralf Bongers, CIO.
Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, everybody. Welcome to our last presentation for the first nine months of 2023. Thank you for dialing in. I trust and hope you are all well. With me here is the DEMIRE CFO, Tim Brückner, DEMIRE's CIO, Ralf Bongers, as you have already heard, as well as Julius Stinauer, our Head of Investor Relations. I'm sure you have had the chance to look at our results already, which I will summarize as solid and in line with our expectations. Before I start with the actual presentation of the results, let me briefly speak about the current economic sentiment and how it affects the operations of DEMIRE. A challenging economic environment continues to define the commercial real estate market in the third quarter. The outlook for interest rate development is still uncertain. The transaction market is weak, and deal volume is at historically low levels.
Increased financing costs make pricing difficult for market players and are leading to continued price pressure. In view of the difficult economic situation in many sectors, the rental markets are characterized by a reluctance of tenants to leave new space. On the other hand, the rent level seems to remain largely stable. A positive factor for lessors is a significant decline in developer activity from new office and retail space, which has led to many lessees being willing to renew their leases. In this challenging market environment, DEMIRE continues to generate solid results in line with expectations in the first 9 months of 2023. On top of that, we continue to focus on refinancing our upcoming maturities, and DEMIRE has engaged Rothschild & Co as financial advisor for the refinancing of our bond. Now, after my opening remarks, please follow me on the next slide.
Let me shortly summarize the development of our key metrics for the first nine months. All our four strategic pillars have contributed to solid first nine months of 2023. Highlights clearly are the stable rental income, despite a smaller portfolio, and further, our confirmed guidance for 2023. Asset management reported a like-for-like annual rental decline of 1.1%, which was largely driven by additional vacancy due to the insolvency of Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof . Most properties in our portfolio have also benefit from indexation adjustments. After the disposal of our asset in Ulm, total annualized contractual rents decreased to EUR 77.1 million. The EPRA vacancy rate increased to 12.6%, and the awards remained relatively stable.
Since selling our Telekom asset in Ulm in May, we have been active in the transaction market with the disposal of two smaller assets in Apolda and Bad Neuenahr. As announced earlier this year, this is probably more important, we are currently in a structured sales process for our logistics asset, LogPark Leipzig. While we continue to focus on asset sales to create liquidity for upcoming refinancing needs, at the same time, we are sticking to our policy of only making sales on terms that are economically reasonable for us, in line with our strategic objectives. The financials show an unchanged rental income, despite a smaller portfolio. The funds from operations, however, declined to EUR 27.8 million due to slightly lower rental profits and tax effects.
The net LTV has been slightly reduced to 52.9%, and is expected to decrease further with the planned disposal of LogPark and other assets. Our average cost of debt remain at a still very attractive level. In order to further reduce the upcoming refinancing burden, we bought back EUR 51 million notional of our bond below par in April. Tim will provide some more detail on the financials in a minute. On processes, we received an EPRA Gold Award for the first time for our sustainability report, which we published in June. On top of that, our 2022 financial report was once again re-awarded EPRA Gold. With regards to new bank financing, we are in constructive talks with banks to refinance mortgage loans maturing next year.
As a result, in the first 9 months, are in line with our expectations. I'm happy to confirm our 2023 guidance on rental income and FFO. Let's now have a more detailed look at our operational KPIs on page 6. After a year of significant uplifts in like-for-like rents, we see a slightly negative development given the moving out of Galeria Kaufhof in Celle, a small city in Germany, after the insolvency filing and of BARMER in Düsseldorf. If we adjust for these effects, like-for-like rental growth would be approximately 2%, as we still benefit from indexation adjustments across the portfolio. The decrease of roughly EUR 8 million of annualized contractual rent to a total of EUR 77 million is primarily due to the sale of the asset in Ulm and the moving out of Galeria Kaufhof in Celle.
However, please note that more than half of the properties experienced an increase in contractual rent since the end of 2022. The EPRA vacancy rate increased to 12.6% following the moving out of Galeria Kaufhof in Celle and of BARMER in Düsseldorf. For the rest of 2023, we expect the vacancy rate to remain rather stable, as only a few rental contracts will expire until the end. The weighted average lease term has decreased slightly to 4.4 years, which we still see in a very solid level for our portfolio with an office overweight. So Tim, please go along with details about the financial performance.
Welcome, everybody. As Alex already said, we report stable rental income despite a smaller portfolio due to positive effects of indexation. Lower energy prices to result in lower costs and other capital costs, but overall, higher maintenance and other expenses result in lower profit from the rental of real estate. Negative, but not FFO-relevant valuation effects continue in Q3, with investment property valuations still based on the H1 valuations conducted externally by levels. Previous year G&A was distorted by valuation effects of the long-term incentive program for management, and is now back to normal levels this year, with overall pressure on costs due to inflation. Financial income is mainly driven by bond back, but also positive effects due to interest rates on cash. Financial expenses are down due to the lower bond volume.
Overall, and as Alex already said, the FFO are down to 27.8, but they are completely in line with our expectations. Looking at the balance sheet. The balance sheet is affected by valuation effects and reclassification and disposals. The group liquidity is now at roughly EUR 132 million. Given the valuation effects and disposals, total assets are down by about EUR 100 million to EUR 1.437 billion. On the liability side, reclassifications of loans due to its maturity profile to short-term debt are visible, and we have, as Alex said, ongoing discussions with banks regarding the prolongations of such loans. Looking at page 11, LTV is slightly down to 53% despite the negative valuation effect, and will further benefit from disposals that we are planning to conduct shortly. Average cost of debt remains low.
Mortgage financing that we conducted over the last few months, and we are discussing currently for 3- to 5-year fixed terms, is at about 5% cost, suggesting obviously that in the future, the average cost of debt of DEMIRE will considerably improve to about 5% level. Alex, back to you.
Thank you, Tim. After all, and to conclude, we delivered solid results in the first nine months of 2023 on track with our plans. With a sound start to the year, we are confident to achieve our rental income guidance of EUR 74.5 million-EUR 76.5 million and to generate FFO of EUR 33 million-EUR 35 million. Thank you very much for listening. We are now happy to answer your questions.
I'm sorry, we need a second. The internet connection at the moment is not that strong.
Can we progress with Q&A?
Someone else will join in. Maybe just a minute more. I'm sorry.
So ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question now, please press nine, followed by the star key on your telephone keypad. If you wish to cancel that question, please press nine followed by the star key a second time. The first question comes from Philipp Sennewald, NuWays AG.
Yeah. Can you, can you hear me well?
Yeah, we can hear you. Thanks.
Perfect. Philipp here from NuWays. So yeah, obviously, our question is not going to be about the operating results, rather about the refinancing. You're stating that you're in discussions with the bondholders to yeah, explore options. What kind of options are we talking there? Like prolonging a tranche of the bond for a higher coupon, and how big would that tranche be? Can you give us a bit more color on that?
And second one, we were stating that you're also in discussions with banks for prolongations of the bank debt that you have out there, which is expiring next year. To be honest, I have a— I'm struggling to believe that the senior bank would be willing in the current state to prolong such a loan. You know, it's kind of like a prisoner's dilemma, you know, with the risk of the bond also maturing in November next year. So please elaborate a bit further on those issues.
Sure. Thanks for the question. We will not comment on the bond process, first of all, so apologies, but we are not able to answer that answer, question right now. On the extension of existing bank financing, it's not only one bank, it's obviously several banks, and we are confident that we are able to extend existing debt facilities with Mortgage Bank. Maybe that was a bit of a misunderstanding. I did not suggest that we refinance the bond in the German bank market.
Yeah. That, that wasn't what I meant. It's, it's just about, you know, how, how confident are you, are you about the prolongation of the, of the bank financing? I didn't mean that you, that you, that you refinance the, the bond fully via, via bank, but it's just, you know, how confident are you that the, that the banks are gonna, gonna refinance or prolong, prolong the debt that's out there?
We are confident.
All right. That's good. Then, thank you very much. That's all on my side.
The next question comes from Neill Morgan, BlueBay Asset Management. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and thanks very much for the call. Can I just ask about disposals, I suppose, particularly LogPark? There's obviously some decently positive commentary in the presentation about how far advanced you are with that. Can you give us any color on that? Do you expect to have that sale agreed by the end of 2023, for example? And then secondly, away from LogPark, could you give us some color on, you know, the other assets which are held for disposal on your balance sheet and how those processes are going? Thanks very much.
Thank you for your question. I will ask for your understanding that I cannot comment on current negotiations regarding LogPark. It's right, in addition to LogPark, we have additional negotiations, but here applies the same. I cannot comment on current sales processes and negotiations. I ask for your understanding. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you very much.
At the moment, there are no further questions. If you would still like to raise a question at this point, please press nine, followed by the star key. There is a question coming from Simon Latimer, Viva Capital.
Hi, just to follow up to the previous question. Again, thanks for the presentation. It's very helpful. But just a quick follow-up to the previous question. Can you give us any kind of color in terms of maybe the number of assets that are being sold? What type of assets are being sold?
Sorry, we would like not to comment this. Just I ask for your understanding again. Just we would like to avoid jeopardizing our current negotiations here.
Okay, understood. Thank you.
The next question comes from Farooq Baloch, Reorg Research.
Also, thank you for your presentation. I just wonder why the two major departments don't initially. Can you provide us some more details on that?
Excuse me, that was very not understandable. Can you repeat, please?
We understand that two major department store tenants have are leaving actually, if I got that right. Could you provide us more color in that? What's the reason?
Due to the insolvency proceedings of Galeria Kaufhof, they decided to close the store in Celle. What Alex earlier elaborated on was that they vacated the premises in Celle at mid-year.
To add, the rents had been decreased for the other properties.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Sanford Ngai, BlueBay Asset Management.
Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my one question. Just as a related question to the previous investor, can you give some context on the leaving of BARMER in the Düsseldorf asset?
BARMER was a major tenant in Düsseldorf, and the lease run out, expired, and they decided to move into a new building. But this was already somewhat clear. They wanted to have a new one. And now we are looking for new tenants. We have developed a new marketing concept for this, and we are confident that we will find within the next month here new tenants for this.
Just let me add a detail here. Partly, the BARMER space is already re-letted, but it's a smaller part here, but we are in negotiations with additional tenants here.
Okay, understood. That's helpful. And sorry, just as a follow-up question, on the Galeria Kaufhof asset that's been vacated, do you have any immediate plans in terms of redevelopment, or, or do you just expect it to stay empty for now? I mean, I understand department stores, so it might be quite expensive to renovate it, but any color on that would be helpful.
Here we are in ongoing negotiations with the city of Celle and also with developers to find new plans, to develop new plans here, but we are in a very early stage.
Okay, thank you. That's all my questions.
There's one final question coming from Siebert Anna, Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi, thank you for taking my question. It was actually a follow-up on a previous question related to LogPark. I appreciate you can't give much comment on it, but you— Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think, yeah, you can't answer the question related to the stage because you already written the advanced stage in the presentation. But, yeah, probably no comment, but any call?
Just, just for LogPark. We have here made a typical structure process, and we have come now in final negotiations with possible buyers, put it this way. But you will understand we cannot comment on any details.
Sure.
because we have here, all this is agreed on confidentiality. And, of course, you can be sure that we will not sell to a price, which is not in line with our strategy and with our plans.
Okay. That's fine. Thank you very much.
As there are no further questions, I'd like to hand it back to the speakers for some closing remarks.
Yeah, thank you again for dialing in, and we will be back with our results for 2023 in spring 2024. But if you would like to speak with us in the meantime, please feel free to get in touch with us at any time. Thank you so much, and I wish you now a good day and a good time before Christmas.