Morning ladies and gentlemen. Thanks for joining our conference call regarding our financial results for the third quarter of 2025. Pleased to be here today with members of our team including my colleague Christoph. As usual, I will start with a short presentation followed by a Q and A session. As was the case last time, you know, we now have the opportunity to not only ask questions via the phone, but also via the webcast directly in your web browser. We hope that everything will run smoothly from a technical perspective and look forward to interacting with you. So let's start with a look at the key figures as of 30th of September 2025.
Despite the ongoing difficult environmental and sector specific framework, we remain broadly on track and we're able to continue our business as planned in the third quarter of the year following recent property disposals, income from rents and leases recorded a moderate decrease of 2.8% to EUR 67.9 million in the first nine months of 2025, influenced by property sales as well as the projected cost increases. At the operational level, FFO came down by 12.2% and amounted to EUR 36.7 million. This corresponds to an FFO per share of EUR 0.45. Key financial figures once again showed stable development with a slight decrease in LTV during the third quarter to 43.3% and a corresponding rise in the REIT equity ratio. Operating performance demonstrated continued resilience I would think reflected in a vacancy rate of 3.4% and a portfolio WALT of 5.5 years. Further details will be outlined on the following slides.
On a year-on-year basis, our like-for-like annualized rental income rose by 1.5%, mainly reflecting the impact of indexation adjustments, particularly in the office portfolio. The positive effects from indexation were partially offset by slightly lower rental levels due to the numerous indexation-related rent adjustments over the past two and a half years. We have recently noticed that some lease renewals are taking place at slightly lower rent levels. On an annualized basis, the disposal of the office properties in Hamburg and Osnabrück as well as the retail asset in Lübeck led to a decrease in rental income of EUR 3.2 million or 3.5%. As at the end of September, our annualized rents amounted to EUR 88.6 million. On the next slide we will provide a more detailed overview of our earnings situation.
As highlighted earlier, rental income declined by 2.8% to EUR 67.9 million, primarily reflecting the impact of asset disposals. During the year we saw a slight reduction in the balance between operating expenses and income from ancillary cost allocation, mainly due to the restructuring of our external facility management. Following a tender process completed last year, we expanded FM services including improved on site support and systematic property data collection. Although this led to a temporary increase in non recoverable costs. We expect efficiency gains and a significantly enhanced property data infrastructure supporting future operational improvements and also data driven portfolio management. Maintenance costs rose by approximately 9% in the first three quarters largely in line with our assumptions at the beginning of the year.
As several planned measures are currently being carried out or scheduled for the fourth quarter, we still expect an increase in maintenance costs of around 10 %- 20% for the full year 2025. Administrative and personal expenses also increased in line with our estimates by around 8% and 19% respectively, reflecting our digitization efforts on the one hand and workforce changes as well as inflation market related salary adjustments on the other hand. Other operating expenses increased mainly due to costs associated with strategic and regulatory projects, particularly in the areas of digitization and sustainability as well as the use of external personnel. Despite higher interest rates for the recently refinanced loans, interest expenses slightly decreased in the first nine months of the year which is mainly due to the repayment of a bonded loan and loans associated with the recently sold assets.
Declining interest rate environment led to lower interest income which amounted to approximately EUR 0.6 million in the first three quarters here of 2025. Overall and as pointed out before, funds from operations fell largely in line with our full year guidance by around 12% and came in at EUR 36.7 million. On next slide, a few words on the development of our portfolio following the completion of our latest transactions, including the two sold properties in Osnabrück and Lübeck, our portfolio is currently consisting of 64 assets. As already highlighted in our last call, we made selective fair value adjustments for four properties as always in close consultation with our external appraiser. The value changes were primarily related to the respective location letting situation and resulted in decline in fair value of EUR 7.3 million or 0.5%.
Taking into account the property disposals and the impairments in H1, the fair value of the total portfolio decreased by EUR 34.7 million in the first nine months standing at around EUR 1.41 billion at the end of September. EPRA vacancy rate fell slightly over the past three months to 3.4% reflecting several follow up lease agreements, especially with office tenants. Total portfolio WALT remained largely stable at 5.5 years during the third quarter with terms of 6.7 years in t he retail and 4.0 years in the office . The tenant base overview on the next slide is nearly unchanged compared to the end of June and underlines the largely stable performance of our operating business. Since beginning of the year, we saw only minor adjustments within our top tenant and sector allocation lists, mainly resulting from our disposal activities and the ongoing impact of indexation.
As illustrated on the next slide, we achieved several letting successes in the course of the year. With a contract volume of more than 25,000 square meters, office space accounted for the vast majority of this volume. As in the past, we were once again able to record a remarkably higher retention rate of around 95%. With 0.7% of annualized rents up for renegotiation or reletting during the remainder of the year, our remaining rental tasks are manageable. With that, let's move on to the company's financial situation. Total financial liabilities declined substantially in the first nine months of 2025 and amounted to around EUR 630 million . As already indicated, the decrease is primarily due to the repayment of our remaining bonded loan in March as well as the loan repayments in connection with our latest property disposals.
Yeah, given the limited refinancing requirements during the first three months of the year, average interest costs remained at a low level of 2% within average loan maturity of three years. Following the increase during the year as a result of the dividend payment and or influenced by the dividend payment and the value adjustments within the property portfolio, EPRA LTV declined. I'm sorry. Following the increase during the year as a result of the dividend payment and the value adjustments within the property portfolio, EPRA LTV declined by 100 basis points over the last three months and amounted to 43.3% as at the end of September. Accordingly, REIT equity ratio is 55.8% compared with 55.2% as at the end of December 2024. Key debt metrics EBITDA ratio of 10.2 and an interest coverage ratio of 5.1.
We are currently finalizing our remaining refinancing tasks for 2025 and intend to sign the outstanding loan agreements shortly. As part of our strategic sustainability roadmap w e continue to pursue the goal of reducing energy related to greenhouse gas emissions across our business model. Our decarbonization strategy is driven by three core levers: reducing energy consumption mainly through property specific energy efficiency measures, then increasing the use of renewable energy source as an additional lever and improving data quality to support implementation as a threat. The 2024 GHG balance highlights measurable progress with an energy related emission intensity of 45.1 kg equilibrium. We remain well within our target corridor and continue to implement our reduction pathway as planned. Total energy related emissions have been significantly reduced over the past three years. Scope 1 emissions decreased by 15.4% primarily due to efficiency gains and heating system optimizations.
Scope 2 emissions also saw a notable reduction and the largest share of emissions remains within Scope 3, particularly tenant related energy use. Here the emissions fell by 10.1% and tenant related energy consumption, by the way, remains the primary source of emissions, accounting for 83% of total energy related greenhouse gas emissions. Thanks to improved data availability, the emission intensity for 2022 and 2023 are now below the threshold our defined reduction path. In 2024, the annual target was again met, confirming that our trajectory remains intact. The sharper decline in emissions compared to energy consumption in 2024 is largely attributable to improved external emission factors, most notably the German electricity mix. And looking ahead, maintaining our target corridor will increasingly depend on external developments such as tenant behavior and further decarbonization of energy supplies.
In this context, close collaboration with our stakeholders remains a key success factor for the continued implementation of our decarbonization strategy. And with that, let me now finish the presentation with a short outlook. Despite the still challenging market environment, we remain fundamentally positive about the remainder of the year and are therefore able to confirm our full year guidance. Taking into account the assumptions shown on the right hand side, we still forecast rental income for 2025 in a range between EUR 89.5 million and EUR 90.5 million . The operating result is expected to be between EUR 44 million and EUR 46 million . And with that, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to conclude the presentation and open the floor for questions. Thanks so much for your attention so far.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial the pound key followed by five on your telephone keypad or click the raise your hand icon in the lower right corner of the video player to enter the queue. To withdraw your question, please dial the pound key followed by six on your telephone keypad if asking via phone or click the raised hand icon again, which will appear as an X to cancel your request when using the video player. The next question comes from Philip Kaiser from Warburg Research GmbH. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hello everyone. Thanks for the presentation and thanks for taking my question. Just a couple smaller ones starting with the income from pass-on cost. You already elaborate the changes compared to the previous year period. Can we take the current level kind of a range for the coming years or do you see any major changes in the next month with regards to this line?
I may answer directly. Philip, good morning by the way. Yeah, yeah, actually I think first we have to see until we have a full year behind us. I mean what we are seeing at the moment is that we make now the first experience after we changed our providers here and we get now all the billings in house and then have to make our estimates and what's also included in this cost. At the moment our estimates are onboarding costs that we have here. So I think we will be able to be more precise looking ahead once the full year is completed. Yeah.
Okay, perfect, thanks. But do you expect any major changes from current levels for the last quarter kind of billing wise or anything else? What could increase or decrease the number in the last quarter of this year?
Not at the moment. Currently we work with our assumptions based on what we have received so far. So.
Perfect, thanks a lot. My next one is on maintenance expenses. You already reiterated the kind of the increase between 10% and 20% on the cost base. How much visibility do you have on maintenance expenses for the last quarter? Because if I do kind of quickly the math, the majority of maintenance costs will be then be coming in the last quarter. I mean at least roughly EUR 5 million, maybe even a little bit more. How much of this cost you already have kind of booked or visibility on?
Yeah, thanks for the question. Look, I mean I know in the past it was sometimes quite difficult for us to do the estimates here because it often depends on so many influencing factors like when the individual tasks have been started, when the billing is coming in and sometimes some service delays, etc. Etc. So, and this in combination with the high number of measures from smaller one to bigger ones. So it's always quite a struggle here. But for this year we are, I think we have pretty good visibility on what's ahead of us here for the last quarter. So from today's perspective, I, I, I think whether we will clearly be in the range and might might tend to be more, a little bit more on the, on the lower side but it's, it's not, it's not fully clear at the moment. Yeah.
But definitely within this range. Yeah, as of today. Yeah.
Perfect. Thank, thanks a lot, very helpful. And my last one is regards the, the market values. I mean you concluded a smaller valuation with the H1 results. Have you any first indications for the full year for the entire valuation impact and then. Yeah, with regards to the overall market sentiment. Any insights would be helpful here?
Yeah, nothing that I can say at the moment we are in the middle of the process. As you may know that we have changed the service providers, the valuer during the course of this year. So we have a new one on board. And for obvious reasons, this new valuer has to make up his mind for the first time across our portfolio. So I mean we used them already for our communication and we were in contact with them already for half year valuation topics. So it's not that they see the portfolio the first time, but obviously it takes a little bit until they're really deep into everything. And therefore at the moment I can't say anything other. We have our clear process and we will be in very close communication once the first results are on the table here.
Okay, perfect. Thanks a lot. It would be awesome. From my side, very helpful.
Yeah, thanks Philip.
The next question comes from Thomas Neuhold from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Thanks a lot for taking my questions. I actually have only two questions. The first one is on the letting market. You mentioned that due to the high indexation effects in the last year's re letting rents are slightly lower than in place rents. We also saw a slight increase in the vacancy rate. So obviously you don't have a lot of short term rent maturities. But I was wondering if you can share some light on your view how the letting market might evolve next year.
Yes. Yeah, Thomas, thanks. And good morning by the way, also to you. So letting market, I think my comment during my initial part here was referencing to certain individual contracts that we see. I mean it's not across the board. I mean you see obviously different kind of letting agreements and results here on an individual basis. But I just wanted to give a little hint to the fact that or remind everyone that based on the higher inflation environment that we had in recent years and the consequence that a lot of contracts have been changed based on the indexation rules here within contracts, some tenants, they come from a higher level. Now if we talk about letting agreements and additional new leases, so there's a, to a certain degree a higher sensitivity.
Also on this topic, on the other hand, you also, I think we overall we are pretty happy on the letting side. What we still see is that letting agreements, especially on the, on the larger side, that's at least my impression, tend to take longer. So negotiations tend to take longer. And this can have obviously an impact on if you have a vacant space that it potentially stays a bit longer on the vacant side. And that's something also which we typically reflect in our internal planning. And a part of this it's also a little bit more complex in negotiating the rental agreements overall because you have additional topics like for instance, sustainability related topics that take more time sometimes in the communication and the negotiations with the tenants.
Perfect, understood. And my second question is on the financing market. Have there been any changes recently in terms of how banks behave, what spreads they're charging, or is it pretty much u nchanged?
During the course of this year n o major changes that we see. I think we have very, very good, continue to have a very good communication here with the financing partners, at least on our side here. I mean, what we have seen during the course of the last, let's say 12 to 18 months was, yeah, being some institutions a little bit more selective maybe concerning their preferences, tend to at least partners we talk to tend to be interested more in larger volumes concerning the financing. And what we also see is concerning, again the topic of sustainability. Financial institutions here be more detailed, more precise on what they expect. So they have meanwhile a very clear view on what kind of information and what kind of standard they expect concerning the sustainability strategy and the measures and the data.
So it's getting all more and more detailed than if you compare it to, let's say two, three years ago. Yeah.
Thanks a lot.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, Please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad. There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Yeah, I keep it short, thanks on behalf here of my colleagues. Also thanks for your attention and yeah, hope to talk to you soon.
Sorry, one more question.
The next question comes from Norbert, Dr. Kalliwoda from Dr. Kalliwoda Research GmbH. Please unmute your microphone.
Hello, Good morning, can you hear me? Hello, Mr. Karoff, can you hear me?
Yes, I can hear you.
Yeah, thank you so much for your presentation. Just a quick short question about ESG and future topics. Can you repeat what is are the next. Can you shed some light on this topic or for coming year, can you give us a figure with costs or is it already communicated with what you do next year in regards of ESG? Hello?
Yes, Yes, I can hear you. Yeah, thanks, I got your question and yeah, we have come just maybe as a little reminder for everyone, we have communicated our cost estimates for for sustainability measures and you can by the way find it in our standard presentation on the website where we give a preview based on the expenses in 2024 for this running for the current year for 2025 as well as for 2026 and 2027 and we have divided this into expenses for maintenance on the maintenance level as well as for CapEx. So you find pretty detailed or at least I think a good overview with this split up here.
And we split it up also in typically in measures exclusively for maintenance so that you can compare it with our other maintenance tasks and another two buckets where we divide it into measures exclusively for carbonization or measures which have at least as a part decarbonization components in it. And just give you a number for 2025, our expectation for measures exclusively for decarbonization is within a range of 400,000 - 800,000 concerning maintenance and for CapEx related measures for EUR 300 ,000- EUR 500,000.
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Yeah, pleasure. Okay, and with that then if there are no other open questions, just go for sure then thanks again for your attention and hope to talk to you soon and have a good remainder of the week. Thanks.