Hello and welcome to the Annual Results 2021 Conference Call. My name is Jess, and I will be your coordinator for today's event. For the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen only. However, there will be the opportunity to ask questions. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question at any time. If at any point you require assistance, please press star zero and you will be connected to an operator. I will now hand over to your host, Mr. Niclas Karoff, CEO, to begin today's call. Thank you.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our full year 2021 earnings call. Also, on behalf of my colleagues, Hans Richard and Christoph from IR. As usual, let me start with an overview here concerning the highlights and key figures of last year. Following my short intro, I will hand over to Hans Richard, who will guide you through further operational and financial figures. Despite all challenges in 2021, including the ongoing pandemic with associated economic and social impacts here, inflationary trends, and increasing political tensions, it has been a successful year for our company.
We were able to fully meet our full year guidance for rental income with EUR 84.4 million.
This has been supported by consistently high rent collection rates during the whole year, even in lockdown phases in the first half of 2021. Rental income was also influenced by our substantial transaction activities in connection with portfolio optimization and rotation process announced in 2020. FFO targets were even outperformed with EUR 53.1 million or EUR 0.65 on a per share basis, mainly driven by successful operational activities. Considering the overall market situation, I think we achieved very strong letting results increase of 37% compared to the previous year.
Vacancy rate remained on a consistently low level of 2%. Financial situation also remains very comfortable. REIT equity ratio increased by 6.5 percentage points during 2021 and up to 61%.
LTV declined to 41.3%. In addition, significant increase in NAV per share by 9.6%, mainly based on a very positive year-end appraisal of our portfolio. All in all, a successful year, 2021, also reflected in our dividend recommendation, which remains on the level of last year at EUR 0.47 per share. Going on with some comments on portfolio KPIs. Yeah, as already mentioned, portfolio development was very satisfying in 2021. Key portfolio KPIs performed very solid. Besides the low vacancy rate, the portfolio WAULTS remains on a comfortable level of more than six years.
Overall, like-for-like rental income up by 0.2%, which has been positively affected by various adjustments of CPI-linked rental contracts and also influenced by rent increases, especially in the office portfolio. For reasons of transparency, we have separated, as you can see, the metrics for our manage-to-core portfolio for the first time. Currently, this portfolio consists of the recently acquired office assets in Mainz and Stuttgart, as well as the remaining inner city retail property in Lübeck.
The total number of assets as at year-end 2021 still includes five high street properties, of which two already have been sold. The outstanding transfers of possession for these assets are expected for the upcoming weeks. Going on with a short overview on the portfolio rotation. Yeah.
Let's take a closer look at our transaction activities here during the last 20 months. We have been able to realize what we announced as part of our strategy update back in 2020. Following our adjusted portfolio strategy and the challenging market environment, we have been able to divest the vast majority of our high street portfolio. 18 of the originally 21 assets have already been sold. In addition, three further retail assets have been disposed as part of our active portfolio management approach.
Total sales volume amounted to around EUR 195 million. This corresponds to a premium of 3.5% to the latest fair value of the sold assets.
On the other hand, since H2 2020, when we successfully acquired five additional properties at attractive conditions in an amount of approximately EUR 93 million, as you can see here. As a result of the portfolio rotation, the share of assets with comparatively small size, high number of rental units as well as higher building age significantly declined. That allows for a more efficient use of our internal capacities.
Obviously, this also leads to a reduction of future maintenance and CapEx risks. Moving on to a short overview concerning our acquisitions during 2021. As you can see, we've been able to acquire a good mixture of office and retail properties.
This includes 2 high quality properties for our core portfolio, as well as 2 properties with additional value creation potential here following our manage to core approach. The Mainz property is still fully let, but already gets a lot of attention from our asset management and technical team currently working on a comprehensive leasing concept. In Stuttgart, we've already started the reletting of individual spaces in combination with targeted modernization measures, obviously, in consideration of our ESG strategy.
Our latest acquisition has been a DIY store at an established shopping location in the city of Freiburg. The asset is exclusively and long-term leased to our key tenant, OBI Group, and has been transferred to our portfolio during this week.
Together with the newly constructed office in Münster, we think these investments enlarge our already existing exposure in very promising local markets and finally further increase the overall quality of our portfolio. Going on the next page with an overview concerning the value bridge and a breakdown of our expenditures for maintenance and CapEx. Last year's portfolio development has been mainly influenced by the transaction activities which I described to you a few minutes ago.
The decrease due to disposals was partly offset by the acquisitions as well as a positive revaluation effect. The year-end appraisal of our portfolio led to a like-for-like basis increase of EUR 70 million or 4.8%.
The valuation uplift was particularly due to a positive development in value of our local supply properties. We think that the reappraisal once again emphasizes here the high quality and also resilience of our portfolio and confirms our strategic approach. As a result, the total portfolio volume at the end of 2021 came in at around EUR 1.6 billion. With reference to maintenance and CapEx and compared to 2020, both figures slightly increased. Main reasons were regular measures which were originally planned for 2020.
Additional measures in connection with the reletting of former Real spaces at the properties in Gießen and Celle. Yeah, with this overview, for now let me please hand over to my colleague, Hans Richard Schmitz.
Yeah. Thank you very much, Niclas. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and also a warm welcome from my side. Let us now take a closer look at the operating and financial figures for 2021. First of all, a few remarks on the letting situation. Despite the consistently difficult situation on the letting markets and the significantly lower takeout, we were able to extend leases with numerous existing tenants and signed various new lease agreements since the beginning of the year.
In June 2021, we achieved our most important letting success and signed long-term follow-on leases for space originally let to the food retailer, Real, at our retail locations in Mannheim, Celle, and Gießen. The rental spaces in the Celle and Gießen properties have already been handed over to the new anchor tenant, Kaufland.
The still existing Real market in our largest retail property in Mannheim is due to be transferred to the new tenant, Globus, by the middle of this year. Thanks to the successful asset management activities, we achieved a very strong letting result in 2021 and concluded leases for around 140,000 sq m in total. The vacancy rate, according to EPRA, remained at a very low level at 2%.
The weighted remaining term of our leases for the total portfolio was 6.1 years at the end of 2021. The average terms in retail and office remained at consistently high levels at 6.9 and 5.1 years. Considering the difficult economic conditions, the positive operating performance once again underlines the expertise of our internal asset management and the high quality of our property portfolio.
Our lease expiry schedule still shows that the share of contracts expiring remains well-balanced throughout the next years. The share of expiring rental agreements for 2022 accounts for a limited amount of around 7.5% of total leases, and we are optimistic to repeat last year's letting success. Let's have a look at our current tenant structure. Compared to previous year, there are no major changes in our top ten tenant list.
With the handover of former Real spaces in our properties in Gießen and Celle to the new tenant Kaufland, the share of Real dropped from 5.2% to 1.9% of our annualized rents. In total, food retailers currently still account for 1/3 of the company's total rents.
As a result of the disposal of non-strategic high street assets, the share of rents from the fashion sector was reduced significantly and currently accounts for 6.2%, a decrease of 220 basis points year-on-year. Let's move on to our financial figures. In 2021, we generated income from rents and leases of EUR 84.4 million. That means a decrease of 4.3%, which was mainly due to property disposals during the last year. For the same reason, there was a decline in income from passed on costs and current operating expenses compared to the previous year.
Total maintenance expenses were lower than originally expected and amounted to around EUR 5.8 million.
Even so, the costs were around 25% above the level of 2020, as already mentioned by Niclas, mainly due to postponement of regular measures originally planned for 2020, and as a result of remodeling and modernization work at our Real locations. Net rental income amounted to over EUR 74.6 million, a slight decrease of 5.7% compared to 2020. Administrative expenses increased by around EUR 0.7 million year-over-year, mainly due to higher expenses for cash deposits.
Personnel expenses increased by 10%, mainly due to the recruitment of additional employees. Significant rise in other operating income as a result of a EUR 2.2 million compensation payment received from Real in connection with the early termination of the lease agreements. Other operating expenses increased slightly compared to the previous year.
As a result of income and expenses, the FFO came in at EUR 53.1 million in the reporting period. The corresponding FFO per share amounts to EUR 0.65. The solid earnings development also had a positive effect on the NAV development in 2021, which is reflected in the figures shown on the next slide. NAV is also affected by the like for like valuation uplift of EUR 70 million. The capital increase in connection with last year's scrip dividend had a net impact of EUR 6.3 million.
These disposals were realized with a 3.5% premium to market value, and the fair values of the newly acquired properties increased in the course of the year. Year-end appraisal or transaction activities in 2021 contributed a EUR 5.1 million to the NAV.
The calculation also includes negative effects in an amount of EUR 40 million, mainly as a result of our last year's dividend payment. Overall, NAV saw a significant increase of 10.6% as against the end of 2020. Due to the slightly higher number of shares on a per share basis, NAV rose 9.6% and came in at EUR 12.11 at the end of 2021.
As in previous reporting periods, there's no material difference between NAV and NTA, as HAMBORNER's intangible assets still amount to around EUR 0.5 million. Let me finish with a few comments on our financial situation, which is still very comfortable.
The REIT equity ratio is 61% and rose significantly compared to year end 2020, and is therefore still well in excess of the 45% ratio required under the German REIT Act. The LTV decreased in the course of the year to 41.3%. We again managed to reduce average financing costs slightly to 1.6% with an average remaining term of our loans of 4.9 years. With 7.7, our current interest coverage ratio is still on a very comfortable level.
Last week we finished our refinancing activities for the current year and signed follow-up agreements for all loan schedules for refinancing in 2022. The agreed financing terms are still attractive, with an average interest rate of 1.6% and an average maturity of 6.3 years. Far from my side.
Thank you for listening, and let me now hand over to Niclas for a short outlook.
Hans Richard, thank you very much. Indeed, let me conclude the presentation here with a short update regarding guidance for the current year and also a midterm outlook from our perspective. Based on the positive business development and the solid financial earnings and liquidity situation, we are assuming income from rent and leases between EUR 84 million-EUR 86 million. FFO is expected in a range between EUR 46.5 million-EUR 50.5 million, and NAV per share to reach previous year's level.
The income situation will be largely influenced by our acquisition activities and the further processing of the reinvestment of the liquidity generated by last year's disposals.
The development of earnings and FFO will similarly be affected by higher maintenance expenses, partially due to the postponement of activities originally planned for last year. For 2022, we expect maintenance between EUR 9 million and EUR 10 million, including one-off effects resulting from the implementation of secondary use concepts here of the former Real sites. Looking forward, we will continue our active portfolio management approach.
That means that on the disposal side, we intend to gradually divest the three remaining non-strategic commercial buildings in city center locations added by selective other properties which don't fit our respective investment strategy.
Having said this, due to the successful portfolio optimization since 2020, we intend to focus more on additional growth again. In this context, we have the clear goal to increase the size of our portfolio to around EUR 2 billion in the medium term. In line with our acquisition and sustainability strategy, we target to invest in further high quality office properties and retail properties, with focus on local supply, and in a yearly amount of around EUR 100 million.
With that, thank you very much for now for your attention. Hans Richard, Christoph, and myself, we're happy to take any questions from your side. Thank you.
If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Please ensure your line is unmuted locally as you will be advised when to ask your question. Once again, that's star one if you would like to ask a question. The first question comes from the line of Philipp Kaiser from Warburg Research. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hello, everyone, and thanks for taking my question. Just, I have a question on the planned acquisition volume for 2022. As you pointed out, the cash recycling from the divestment of the high street portfolio is the focus for this year. Could you indicate how much do you plan to invest in new acquisitions for this year? Secondly, that also the focus is on a more active portfolio asset management. Could you indicate the planned volume of portfolio sales do you see for the current year? That would be my first question.
Philipp, happy to answer your question. Concerning the investment volume for this year, I would say if you take as a ballpark figure the EUR 100 million that I mentioned, as we obviously take it as an average number. It can be a bit less, it can be more depending obviously on the market situation we find ahead of us. And also depending obviously on the amount of time the individual transaction takes concerning signing, closing and the cash flow stream then once it started. I mean, that's obviously.
On the sales side, this was a general comment just to underline our strategic approach that we see ourselves as a buy, hold, and sell investor. Looking forward, we obviously have assets in our portfolio once in a while where we identify which are up for sale. However, concerning the remaining part of the year, from today's perspective, I would assume that the sales activity will clearly concentrate on the remaining high street assets and especially two of those.
One, which is, as you know, most probably the one in Lübeck. I think that's one I wouldn't expect a sale this year.
Therefore, it will concentrate really on the acquisition side. Sales activity will be strongly limited this year from today's perspective.
Okay. Perfect. One follow-up on the acquisition side. Could you shed some light on your acquisition pipeline, so to get a feeling how well filled the pipeline is? I mean, EUR 100 million is still a huge amount to invest. What about the acquisition pipeline and maybe if it's possible to give us a split between retail and office, and that would be very helpful.
Yeah. I mean, I think we are pretty happy at the moment with our existing pipeline. I mean, we obviously remain in a competitive market. We are currently screening assets and we have different stages of internal processes, different kind of assets. It's office and retail. It's both. I mean, based on what we've seen in the past, it's very hard to predict looking forward which part will become more substantial because sometimes assets drop out after we had a pretty close look.
Therefore, I would say it's quite a good balance at the moment what we see. Maybe one additional comment apart from.
I mean, compared to other times, after we revised our strategy, we see more assets coming to the market, more attractive assets from our point of view with a manage to core approach. Whereas a while ago, the market concerning assets which we think being interesting was much more concentrated on core properties. Therefore, we clearly see this as a positive signal because it increases as well our flexibility on the acquisition side as we obviously want to add assets in all four buckets to our portfolio.
Okay, perfect. Very, very helpful. Maybe a last one regarding the financial liabilities. I mean, there's not really apart from the bonded loan, there's only minor financial liabilities to refinance in 2023, the next year, and 2024. Nevertheless, in regards to ongoing talks about interest rate hikes, do you see or you might expect some headwinds from refunding and higher refinancing costs in the future regarding the FFO?
Yeah, this is clear. We see this in the market and we are affected by this in the future, too. That's my expectation. Actually, for 2022, we have done our work with an average of 1.6%. I think that's a very good figure.
Okay. Thanks a lot. That was all from my side. Take care.
Okay.
The next question comes from the line of Kai Klose from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Yes, sir. Good morning. I've got three quick questions, if I may. The first one is on page 6 of the presentation. Could you remind us again on the maintenance spending last year? How much was in 2021 on the real properties? Secondly, you mentioned budget and maintenance for this year between EUR 9 million and EUR 10 million. Although are there any potential risks that there might also be some delays because of low capacities on the construction on the supplier side that this might spill over into 2023?
The third question and last question would be on the refinancing side on page 11. On the recent refinance on page 11, you mentioned the average extension was at 6.3 years.
Just for memory, I remember in the past, you were going preferably for 10 years, mortgages. Now it's 6 and 6.3 is a little bit shorter. Was there any specific reason for or are you generally looking for a bit of a shorter situation for new loans in order to have a higher flexibility? Thank you.
Yeah. Per se, Kai, I will start with the last question. I think with the refinancing. Yes. Indeed, we would like to be a little bit more flexible than in the past. You are right. In the past, we had that 10 years and that was it. Up from the bonded loan, this was a little bit other story. Now we would like to be more flexible and so we have refinanced a part very flexible.
We have refinanced for 8 years and for 10 years some assets so that we are here more flexible. We have now a more active role in selling assets than in the past, and that's the reason for this.
Understood. Thank you.
Yeah. Maybe let me add, Kai, on your second question, delays in maintenance, potential delays in concerning maintenance. I mean, from today's perspective, it's really difficult to forecast this. I mean, we all know about the shortage you have in certain areas of the market here. And therefore, I mean, what the best we can do is have a very clear planning and try to be very close to the individual tasks here and then try to see it.
What's coming out of it. Then we will take it from now. Yeah. I mean, we have seen in 2020 the delays into 2021 already as mentioned.
Now we have a market situation which is facing some challenges. We will have to see how it works out. With reference to your first question, I mean, can you kindly repeat what's exactly the question on page six concerning maintenance?
Yeah. On page six, it said that, the increase in maintenance CapEx, due to regular measures as well as additional measures in connection with the reletting of former Real space I think is, how much of this increase was, referring or was coming from Gießen?
I'm sorry. This was an amount of approximately EUR 500,000.
Thank you very much.
Better.
There are currently no questions in the queue. As a reminder, please press star one if you would like to ask a question. We have no further questions in the queue. I will hand the call back to your host for some closing remarks.
Yes. Thank you very much for your attention. From our side, happy to take any additional questions if something comes up after the call as well. Christoph is happy to take any potential questions for the remaining day and the remaining week. All the best to you and talk to you next time. Thank you very much.
Thank you for joining.
Yeah. Thank you very much from my side too.
Thank you for joining today's call. You may now disconnect your lines.