Earnings Call: Q4 2020

Mar 23, 2021

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our full year 2020 earnings call. Also on behalf, again, of my colleague, Hans Richards and Christoph Christoph from IR. Yes, let me start the presentation with an overview on major points of last year. And following my short introduction, I will then hand over to Hans Hans Richard, who will guide you as usual through other operational and financial results. Starting with the highlights of last year. Yes, I think certainly 2020 in various ways has been a unique year for all of us. The ongoing global pandemic had effects on almost anyone's personal and professional life. And as the COVID crisis is obviously far from being over, we are permanently confronted here with detailed updates, statistics, and predictions on this topic. With reference to Hambaughan, I think it's fair to say that, despite all challenges related to the pandemic, yes, we have been able to generate very satisfying full year results. Looking backward, a couple of drivers have been, yeah, in this way, very supportive during this time. Yeah. First, our very robust portfolio structure, yeah, reflected by a reliable rent collection on a high level as well as strong lapping results. Yes, this even during the shutdown phases. Yes. Second, a consequent and successful reshaping of the portfolio by selling various smaller non strategic assets and also adding at the same time new high grade properties here in both asset classes. And third, our integrated business model with straight access to our tenants as well as having a team here with the necessary, yeah, let's call the hands on experience in such an extreme extreme recommendation, which remains on the level of last year. Now looking forward, we are optimistic that we will be further able to show our strength and yes, to follow our communicated strategy. This shall include the acquisition of assets with core and managed to core characteristics. Yeah. Then proceeding the gradual exit from our nonstrategic properties and also ensuring stable enhancement of the strategic portfolio. As recently published, the first acquisition for our managed core portfolio has been signed, and we successfully sold two further nonstrategic assets. More details on this also with reference to our outlook later during the presentation. Yeah. Before we look deeper into individual topics, let me give you an overview regarding the development of our major KPIs here in 2020. Starting with the financial KPIs. Rental income, up close to 4% here, driven by recent additions to the portfolio. FFO up by 2.4%, on one hand, negatively influenced by impairments from corona effects and on the other hand, positive effects from the new assets and also lower maintenance costs. Negative operating result driven by revaluation effect. LTV also slightly up. However, yes, still on a on a very comfortable level. The reduction in NAV per share mainly influenced by the mentioned valuation effect. So with that, let's go to the portfolio KPIs. Yeah. For transparency reasons, we have separated the metrics for the for our high street assets here on the right hand side. Please keep in mind that eight of the remaining 18 assets have been sold during Q4 last year and two further assets here just during the last couple of months. And the 10 outstanding transfers of possession have already been done or are expected for the upcoming days and weeks. Let me now turn directly to the major operating KPIs. Yeah. Less surprising, retail rents like for like came down by 1.4%, strongly influenced by a tenant exit in one former food retail asset. By the way, this is currently rented to the local community as a COVID-nineteen vaccination center. This could partly be compensated by a positive rent development on the office site. Despite a slight increase, vacancy remains on very low level, similarly split more or less between office and retail. Walls slightly down, however, remains at also very comfortable level of six point three years. Yes, all in all, taking into account the special market circumstances here, we think this to be a very good result. Going on with the overview on investments and some additional comments here from my side. Yeah. As mentioned before, we were able to add four high grade properties to the portfolio. The three office buildings have been newly built, all with secured cash flows here for an average period between nine and eleven years. Only one with actual vacant space, however, for which we have a rent guarantee in place. At this point, I think it's worth mentioning that actually more than 50% of the properties within our office portfolio have a maximum age of ten years or less, yeah, just for your information. With reference to ESG, apart from the fact that the new office assets have been obviously developed on the basis of most modern energy standards, and they cover various sustainability aspects like high efficient heating cooling systems, public transport connections, etcetera. The property in Edinburg has been certified by the German sustainable building council here with the highest grade platinum. So obviously, also an important topic for us. Latest acquisition in 2020 has been an established neighborhood retail center with a, so we think, great tenant mix of full line grocery, drugstore, and pharmacy, and then excellent micro location here next to the Railroad station, with, with a direct connection to Frankfurt CBD. Going on with disposals, as announced in our if you remember in our strategy update last year in July and, irrespective of the tense market environment, we have used the the interim time here to substantially reduce our high street exposure, yeah, by by selling more than half of the relevant properties. Apart from the positive effect on our operational KPI here and a more focused portfolio, we think the sale connects a couple of advantages here also for our operational business. On one hand, and the the exit of these assets with a combination of comparably small size, high number of rental units, as well as building age allows for a more efficient use of our internal capacity. Now we think this is one point worth mentioning here. And, obviously, also a reduction of increasing future maintenance and and CapEx risks associated to these assets, which are relevant for the future or might be relevant for the future. Yeah. Looking forward, we intend to continue with our active portfolio approach. Yeah. What what does it mean? It means that on the disposal side, we will further focus on the remaining nonstrategic commercial buildings in city center locations. Yeah. Edit by selected other properties, which don't fit our respective investment strategy. With that, let me move on to the portfolio development. Yeah, next page here provides you with a portfolio value bridge and also from now on for future presentations with a breakup of our expenditures for maintenance and CapEx. Some additional comments to this on the revaluation topic, yeah, mainly driven by the severe consequences of the pandemic situation here. Full year valuation came out at a balance of approximately minus 3.1%. On a like for like basis, it had been 3.5%. Yes, as we are all aware here, the blows retailers had and still have to take here include including full or partial closings for months, often delayed financial support from public health measures as well as, yes, obviously, reduced frequency rates and revenues here for many shops, even if those were were allowed to owed, to open. Yeah. As a consequence of the of these uncertainties, we observed for a number of assets a drop in market rents, yeah, shorter rental periods and obviously a different risk situation. With reference to our portfolio, the effects especially apply to our high street properties and some larger retail outlets with broader tenant mix next to the, obviously, very stable food anchor. However, taking into account the recent acquisitions, the overall portfolio has remained stable. Maintenance CapEx. Yes, with reference to maintenance CapEx and compared to 2019, both numbers came down. Main reason has been the COVID nineteen, related postponement, of selected measures. Yeah. Consequently, here, catch up effects, can be expected here for for the current year. So this is just as an additional information. Then with this, I will hand over to Hans Richard, who will go on with more details on operational figures. Thanks so much. Yes. Thank you, Nicolas. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and also a warm welcome from me. Let us now take a closer look at the operating and financial figures for 2020 financial year. First of all, a few remarks on the letting situation. Despite the challenging conditions on the letting market, we achieved a very strong letting result in 2020. We are able to conclude leases for around 102,000 square meters in the course of the year, primarily related to lease renewals with existing tenants. In terms of total lease space, the retention rate in 2020 was around 84%. Thanks to the successful letting activity, the vacancy rate according to April here remained at a very low level at 1.9%. The weighted remaining term of our leases for the total portfolio is around six point three years. The average terms in retail and office remained at a consistently high level at 7.15. Considering the difficult economic conditions, the positive operating performance underlies 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 2021 and 2022 account for a limited amount of around 5% of total leases, and we are optimistic to repeat last year's letting success. Let's have a look at the tenant structure. Compared to Q3 twenty twenty, there are no major changes in our top 10 tenant list. In total, food retailers currently still account for one third of the company's total rents. Our office tenants generate around 37% of our total rents. Our solid tenant structure and, in particular, the high share of tenants with strong financial profiles and operations that are mainly unaffected by the pandemic form the basis for our stable cash inflows even in these economically difficult times. Let's move on to the current operating business performance of Hamburg. Despite challenging market conditions, rent collection rates have still seen good performance in the last few months. Following a brief decline in rental income during the nationwide lockdown in spring, income rent ratios recovered quickly and were already almost back at pre crisis levels in the 2020 at an average of 98.8%. During the current hard lockdown imposed in mid December, some tenants affected by closures or COVID related restrictions curtailed or suspended the rent payments in the month of January to March. This led to an evident but moderate decline in rent collection rates. Across the total portfolio, the ratio ratio of incoming rent payments, including ancillary costs and VAT for this period averaged 94.6%. We are continuing our dialogue with affected tenants and are confident to find further mutual and fair agreements as we did in connection with the first lockdown in spring twenty twenty. In 2020, limited rent deferrals of 400,000 and temporary rent waivers of just roughly €700,000 have been granted. This represents just 0.4% or and 0.8% of our annualized rental income. During last year's negotiations, numerous lease contracts were extended, weighted by rental income. The average term of the agreements was expected by around seventeen months. The additional rental volume created by all lease renewals totals more than €12,000,000 These figures clearly illustrate that Harmbon has a very sound portfolio that has proven resilient even in times of crisis. The next chart includes a few details on our final figures for fiscal year twenty twenty. As already mentioned by Nicolas, we achieved further growth in revenue and generated income from rents and leases of €88,200,000 That means an increase of 3.6%, which was mainly due to the property transfers during the year. For the same reason, current operating expenses rose slightly compared to the previous year. Total maintenance expenses amounted to around €4,600,000 and that's around 16% below the level of 2019, as already mentioned, mainly due to COVID related postponement of different measures. Net rental income amounted to over €79,100,000 a plus of 3.6% compared to 2019. Personnel expenses increased by 9%, mainly due to the changes management team as well as the recruitment of additional employees. Other operating income amounted to €1,700,000 The increase essentially relates to contractually agreed compensation payments due to delays in transferring ownership of the office property developments in Aachen and Bonn. Other operating expenses were approximately €2,900,000 in 2020. This item mainly includes corona related write downs and depreciations on trade receivables of €1,600,000 and is therefore significantly higher compared to the previous year. As a result of income and expenses, the FFO came in at €55,600,000 in the reporting period. The corresponding FFO per share amounts to €0.69 all in all, a slight increase of 1.5% year on year. We will now move on to the next slide in order to give you further information on the NAV and NTAE development. The NAV calculation shows an increase of long term assets, which is mainly a result of the portfolio additions in the course of 2020. The position is also negatively affected by revaluation adjustments in like for like portfolio of €55,100,000 The increase in short term assets relates to liquidity enhancements and the reclassification of eight high street properties held for sale. Non current liabilities provisions increased as a result of additional loans taken out in relation to the newly acquired assets. Overall, NAV saw a slight 3.6% decline as against the 2019. NAV per share at the December 2020 came to €11.05 As you might already know, last year, April introduced new performance indicators to provide stakeholders with the most relevant information on the fair value of the assets and liabilities of real estate investment companies. The new metrics include the EPRA net tangible assets, NTA, which focus on evaluating the value of a property company's tangible assets. The calculation assumes that property companies buy and sell properties and that taxes must be deferred as a result. Intangible assets and market values of financial instruments must be adjusted. The difference between the twenty twenty NAV and NTA only relate to Hambonna's tangible assets of around €500,000 For this reason, the values for NAV and NTA per share are almost identical. Ambona's financial situation also remains solid and comfortable. The REIT equity ratio amounts to 54.5 and is still well in excess of the 45% required under the German REIT Act. The LTV as of December is 45.5%, and interest coverage ratio rose to 5.1%. We again managed to reduce average financing costs slightly to 1.83% with the average remaining term of our loans of five years. We have already concluded all follow-up financing for 2021, are currently starting negotiations on refinancing our liabilities expiring in 2022, which to a substantial extent will become new in Q4 twenty twenty. Current average interest rates are considerably lower than the expiring financing agreements in Hammarna will benefit from these lower rates. So far from my side, thank you for listening, and let me now hand over to Nicolas for a short outlook. Yes. Thanks, Hans Richard. Let me close-up with guidance and outlook. Yes, based on the very positive results and the overall corporate situation here, we decided to propose a dividend of €0.47 per share, yes, at the same level as in the previous year. In addition, we will propose again to offer a scrip dividend to our shareholders. And yes, concerning our guidance, which published, yes, in February here, meaning our forecast, this builds up on our solid operating performance, but also reflects a couple of uncertainties here, yes. Those include, yes, for obvious reasons, encumbrances from COVID-nineteen. As of today here, potential one off payments or temporary effects here from our sales and acquisition activities as well as probable investments in connection with three larger retail assets, yes. These aspects here translate into a bit wider range for rental income of EUR 82,000,000 to 86,000,000, FFO EUR 45,000,000 to EUR 50,000,000. Yes, Andrew, with reference to NAV, by the 2021, we currently expect it to keep on previous year level. All in all, I see this year as a transitional phase, which enables us to drive forward some important tasks. And yes, at the same time, yes, definitely lay the ground further accretive long term growth. And definitely, this will be supported by the quality and the resilience of our existing platform. Yes. And with that, also from my side, thank you very much for listening, and happy to take your questions. Thank you. And we'll now take our first question. It comes from Dennis De Jong of Kempen. Please go ahead. Hi. Good morning, all. I was wondering regarding the EPRA vacancy rate. It's 6.1% for the High Street asset. Is this vacancy mainly residing in the eight assets that have not yet been sold? Yeah. Overall, we have a very low vacancy rate, and you can see this is included here. Sorry. I think I missed part of that. Might be on my end. But But could you please repeat the answer? Sorry. Sorry. You know that we have, in general, a very low vacancy rate, and the assets were going out at the end of the year. Okay. And with the remainder of High Street assets that still need to be sold, I mean, you sold off a decent part of the High Street assets already at a fairly good pace. Do you expect more difficulties with the remainder that you were intending to sell? Yes. In general, we expect a little bit higher vacancy in this asset. It's very clear, yes, coming from the COVID-nineteen situation. Then perhaps maybe could you perhaps give some color on the managed to core acquisition that you recently did in terms of plans and and whatever you can provide? Yeah. Maybe from my side, just additional information. As as you have seen, we acquired first property and an office property. We, yeah, we are very optimistic that this will be a great investment for us here, and we shortly onboard this asset. However, we have agreed with the seller, at least for now, that that we can't provide further details on the asset itself. I think I'm I'm hopeful that we can do so once we have closed the transaction and then provide you with more details on our individual strategy for the asset. Yeah? Okay. Now that's clear. Thank you. Yeah. And apart from this, I mean, just just to complete the picture. Yeah. Currently, we're scanning the market. We are we are looking at at other opportunities being it on the core side, but also on the managed core. And hopefully, we'll be able to add an additional product to this first initial investment here, yes, being it on the office or on the retail side. Then maybe a comment on the market here to our based on our observation in the 2020, the market for these kinds of asset was rather small, for, I can just assume various reasons, but we see currently here since the beginning of the year as a certain the last couple of weeks is a pickup of of product also on the market, which is of interest for us. Okay. That's clear. And maybe my final question, it's a long shot, but I was wondering if you could disclose more on the rental levels regarding the O3 asset Sorry, which asset do you mean? The leasing agreement that you recently signed in Cologne? Yes. This will this come in place, I believe, in the year 2024 with a higher with a substantially higher rent, but we don't disclose this yet. No, then that's it. Thank you. Yes. It's an agreement with the tenant. But it will be come in effect in the year 2024. Okay, clear. Many thanks for your help. Okay. Yes. Our next question comes from Thomas Rathandler of Jefferies. One question on High Street retail. I mean maybe you can give us a rough idea how quickly we can expect you to dispose the remaining assets. Is it something we can expect for this year? Thomas, thanks for the question. I think what you can expect is that we will try to keep a good balance between acquisitions and the remaining sales activities concerning these assets just to optimize our rental and FFO profile during the course of this year. What does it mean? It means that we might be able to sell a bit faster depending on individual transactions, but we as I said, we will try to balance it a little bit. From today's perspective, I would assume that by end of this year, should see until then, we should see further sales clearly. However, there might be one or two sales, a few ones, which we either will see where they go across the end of the year or, for instance, on purpose, which we will keep a little bit longer because we will have some asset management tasks here. But the major and and then selling it afterwards, obviously. But the major chunk of the remaining assets definitely shall be sold until the end of the year. Okay. Maybe one question on the Real assets. I mean you referred to one off cost effects you expect for this year. Can you elaborate a bit on the situation overall? No. At the moment, not be sure if you have any newsworthy information, we will come to the market. But at the moment, we are in negotiations potential new tenants, and this is in the middle of the process. And sorry, but we can't give here any more details about this. Yes, I can understand. Maybe on food retail, I mean, if you look at this asset class, a separate asset class, I mean, maybe we can get some some view on, you know, rent development prices, any major or extension examples you can provide here? Yeah. Maybe maybe from the market side, Thomas, and, obviously, we are intensely looking at this top asset class because we want further want to see further grow in in this asset class. What we see in the market is a very large appetite for for these kind of assets at the moment. You these assets have become, yeah, very much asked for. That's our impression. It's more and more by by institutional money. So you see product on the market, but you typically see mostly core product. So nothing to my mind, nothing on our table right now, which which had to any extent managed to core characteristics. And then on the on the rental side, I mean, obviously, the the pure play food rental business last year in Germany, I think, went for obvious reasons exceptionally well. I mean, we will see what the statistics say once the numbers are out, but all the signals we get are very positive, yes? And in combination with the growing acceptance also on the investment side here, which we have seen not only during the last couple of quarters, but let's say, within the last two, three, four years. I think it's a product it's a product line, which which we see more and more getting more and more attention also in the future. And, yeah, the the framework of conditions hasn't changed. So so the business story of of food retail, I still think is very, very solid. And it's about the old major points like the quality of the microlocation, experienced player here, who's there, competitive situation in the direct environment. Environment. So So all all the the the typical KPIs, yeah, so to speak here, are are the same as as they have been two, three, four, five years ago. So it's a very reliable business, and and we we feel very comfortable about it. Okay. Maybe a last one on your office product, which I understand is more focused on secondary locations. I mean maybe you can give us some view on this market. I mean, should we expect higher vacancies there? Or what's your experience? I mean, if you talk about secondary locations, you mean secondary cities by size, I guess that's what you mean, Right? Because I think the micro locations where we typically look for office product, they have to be very good. Otherwise, they are not of interest for us. But coming back to your question on the vacancy side here. It's I think it's too early to see. I mean, if we look in our portfolio at the moment, if we look at the re lettings we have in front of us, I mean, this may be as a signal right now, yes, for this year. To my understanding, I think, once Richard, you may want to comment on it, it looks pretty stable, pretty good. I think what we observed is that larger contracts take longer typically to be negotiated and then finally signed. So this case takes longer, but it's too early for us at the moment based at least on our own portfolio to make any predictions here. So we have no relevant negative signal out of our own portfolio management or asset management you're concerned in office. I mean, based on meaning influenced by COVID nineteen and all the the the topics surrounding it, like the question of home, yeah, home office working and and different different view on on how to use the available office space, etcetera, etcetera. So no major major experience from our side so far. Okay. You. Our next question comes from Godran Escher of Research Median. Please go ahead. Maybe to all the listeners, the question was referring to portfolio valuation for office and retail for HandBurner. So what's our expectation for the entire portfolio here looking forward for the remainder of the year? Present out game. Of the side, the company here, I know they are under the get some potential items, but we get affected. I think, So maybe also in English quickly, I think on retail side, depending on how COVID is going to progress in the upcoming months and quarters, obviously, there it might have some further impact on the valuation within the portfolio. Nevertheless, if you look at the structure of our portfolio, we still feel very comfortable with what we have actually in the books. And on the Office side, what we see since beginning of COVID is, and especially for Office product with core characteristics, very strong and persistent demand and a very stable development. And and therefore, if you look at our portfolio and the overall quality of our office products, we we should very comfortable here as well. Yes. So the question concerning the ESG of the of the lady wars, if it's necessary that the the assets have to be newly built to to, yeah, to fulfill the the ESG aspects or the ESG expectations. Sounds good. Yeah. Okay. So just quickly in English again, I think what we are not going to limit ourselves by by focusing only on new properties or older properties. What we do is we look at each property individually from an ESG perspective and see what we can do around it and more or less try to find an individual situation for both as both types of assets obviously have advantages and disadvantages from a ESG perspective. Our next question comes from Kai Klose of Berenberg. I've got three quick questions, if I may. The first one is on Page eight of the presentation, where you published one and two thousand square meters of lettings. Does this include the lease extensions which you have achieved from this tenant in the context of COVID reliefs which you have granted them? Could you also indicate what was the level of lease extensions without that special effect? Secondly, on Page 12, just to understand, we had more or less unchanged amount in income from past on costs under the €14,100,000 but we had an increase in operating expenses. How does this fit together? Could is it that you couldn't pass on some costs or some ancillary costs to the tenants because the tenants were not able to pay them? And the third question would be on the on Page six. Mr. Kauf mentioned that you intend to sell more high street assets and other assets. Could you maybe share your thoughts on how you view and how you, let's say, yes, what thoughts are on the remaining non high street assets on the remaining offices? What your thoughts are? What properties you would like to keep and potentially sell in the future? Yes. I suggest, Kai, this is Nicolas. Maybe that I start with my with your latest question, and then Hans Richard can continue with the other one. Concerning other sales, I wanted to just remind that based on our updated strategy of last year, we intend to become more active portfolio manager of yeah, following a buy hold and sell strategy. What does it mean? It means that we are constantly looking into our portfolio and and will, in the future, always see whenever it comes to the point where we think that from a portfolio strategy, individual assets, and these can be retail assets or office assets, it can be smaller assets or also, larger asset, don't fit anymore, within our, overall portfolio strategy, then that we then, are willing to sell these assets. Yeah? And and this is what I was reflecting to. Yeah. So that's the high street part definitely on the retail side is is in the focus for obvious reasons at the moment. But I wanted to add that we moving forward, following this active approach, we also will decide then to sell other assets if we think it makes sense from a a strategic point of view. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Kai, unfortunately, we don't have any split for this 100,000 square meters, which is COVID related and then which is not COVID related. But I would say most of them is not COVID related, if you go to the square meters. Thank you. It appears we have no further questions at this time. I would like to hand the call back to our speakers for any additional or closing remarks. Yeah. Thank you very much, for your attention. And whatever comes up with, remaining open questions, we are more than happy, to answer them individually. If you please contact, Christopher or ourselves, and we are happy to help you. Yeah. And thanks for your time, and hope to talk to you soon. Yeah. Thank you very much from my side.