Good morning, and welcome to CPI Property Group's webcast covering our financial results for the first half of 2024 . This is David Greenbaum, CEO of CPI Property Group. I'm speaking to you today from Quadrio, one of our most beautiful properties combining office and retail in the center of Prague. Joining me today are colleagues who should be familiar to you because our team has been consistent for years.
So let me introduce Pavel Měchura, Group Finance Director, Tomáš Salajka, Director of Acquisitions, Asset Management, and Sales, Martin Matula, General Counsel, Mindee Lee, Director of Corporate Strategy, Petra Hajná, Group Sustainability Officer, Petr Mizera, Head of External Reporting, and Moritz Mayer, Manager of Capital Markets and Investor Relations.
As usual, we are conducting today's call as a webcast. You should see a tool in the webcast for asking questions. We will try and answer all of the questions. I believe we have about 90 minutes if needed. The presentation material for today's webcast is CPIPG's H1 2024 management report, which is available on our website. The management report is shown on the webcast, but we know some of you are using an old school phone dial-in. So if you're having any technical issues or problems finding the presentation, please send Moritz an email, and we will try to resolve your problem.
I'd like to begin by thanking bondholders and banks for all the suggestions, constructive criticism, analysis, and advice we have received in recent months. We want to hear from you. We actively seek engagement with you, we listen to feedback, and we try to act on your suggestions as much as possible.
Our general observation is that European real estate sentiment is improving. Property prices appear to be stabilizing or recovering. L easing volume has increased. T ransaction activity is gradually coming back. F inancing costs have dropped because of lower interest rates, and credit spreads in the bond market have tightened.
For CPIPG, the operational picture is stable, with some bright spots and some tougher spots. Central and Eastern Europe continues to have much healthier property market dynamics than Western Europe and the U.S.A., and our region's economies are performing better.
Before we review the group's operational performance in more detail, I thought it would be useful to address three topics which we are always asked about at our regular fixed income investor meetings. First is governance and our short seller. Second is access to cash and simplifying our corporate structure. Third is funding and liquidity.
So I'll begin with governance and our short seller. Governance has been a focus of our company for many years because of our family ownership. The group has made many changes since I joined in 2018, such as increasing the number of independent board members, enhancing our policies and procedures, and welcoming Apollo as a third-party shareholder with a seat on the board. We have created a culture of openness, transparency, and detailed disclosure.
Because the real estate industry was under pressure, our sector became a popular hunting ground for short sellers. Beginning in November last year, CPIPG became the new obsession of one of these nasty creatures, who published about us five or six times. We responded to the reports in detail and hired White & Case to conduct an independent investigation. The scope of the investigation was vast, covering 2.3 million records, a terabyte of data, and many rounds of interviews with management. We were open, transparent, and cooperative during all stages of the forensic exercise.
As we announced last Friday, the investigation concluded that there was no evidence to support the short seller's claims of wrongdoing, insufficient disclosure, inaccurate reporting, or inappropriate behavior. White & Case also made suggestions about how CPIPG can improve. All the recommendations have been accepted and are being implemented.
The recommendations fall into three categories. First, creating more formal separation between our shareholder's family office and the company. Going forward, the dividing line will be clearer, with formal agreements in place about how the group will interact with our shareholder. Second, hiring a compliance officer and strengthening our systems. Our goal is to hire a candidate, internally or externally, by year-end.
You know, our KYC, AML, and compliance procedures were already in place, and frankly, no material problems with our approach were identified, but I agree we can do more. Our policies were reviewed by Dentons in 2019 and by White & Case this year. As someone who worked in a large bank for many years, I have fond memories of my daily compliance training, and I know we can do an even better job of more consistently delivering policies and procedures to our more than 3,000 employees.
A key aspect of our new approach will be automation of onboarding, AML, and KYC procedures through technology investment, such as our SAP system. Finally, White & Case recommended that CPIPG sell a small number of assets that are a better fit for the family office. The total value of these assets is maximum EUR 30 million-40 million or about 0.2% of the group's property portfolio which we see as immaterial. These sales should occur in the coming quarters, and we will keep you updated.
So that's about it on governance. We spent millions because of our short seller, not to mention lots of management time and stress. We do not expect to give their grievances much more airtime. However, we also took some positive things away from the experience.
The second topic is the simplification of our corporate structure. Let me remind you how things got so complicated. In 2021 and 2022, CPIPG acquired IMMOFINANZ and S IMMO. Both companies owned excellent assets in the CEE region, plus assets in Germany, Croatia, Austria, and other places that were high quality but less core to CPIPG and therefore attractive for our disposal pipeline. We acquired control of both companies. Today, CPIPG owns 75% of IMMOFINANZ and 38% of S IMMO, while IMMOFINANZ owns 51% of S IMMO. In both cases, we exceeded the 75% threshold for extraordinary resolutions.
When we began the acquisition, bond markets and real estate markets were in a different place. Our plan was to issue hybrid bonds and sell larger assets or portfolios to fund the purchase, which would have reduced the group's leverage and preserved our BBB rating. Of course, in early 2022, everything changed. Interest rates spiked. T he hybrid bond market closed, and the unsecured bond markets closed and remained closed for nearly two years.
Because of our strong relationships and because of the clear rationale behind the transaction, banks committed EUR 3.75 billion in bridge financing to fund the purchase. In total, CPIPG drew EUR 2.7 billion under these bridge financings.
From 2022 until May 2024, our focus was on repaying the bridge through disposals and bank financing. Because large portfolio sales weren't possible anymore, we focused on a granular pipeline of smaller size assets and were very successful in getting those disposals done. However, a large portion of those disposals and fresh bank financing was at IMMOFINANZ and S IMMO, which left a pool of cash to be invested.
CPIPG sold both companies good assets which improved and complemented their portfolios. For instance, we sold IMMOFINANZ our City Market retail parks, a perfect marriage with their STOP SHOP retail park network. We sold S IMMO office buildings in Prague, which enhanced the quality of their Czech portfolio and increased the level of income. All the intercompany sales went through an extensive arm's-length board and valuation process. The bottom line is that cash received from intercompany sales was one of the key sources we used to repay CPIPG's bridge financing, which was fully repaid in May.
Of course, there's another side to the story. Despite the success of repaying the bridge in a very tough environment, because we sold IMMOFINANZ and S IMMO good- quality yielding assets, we have created a situation where significant income is generated at the subsidiary level. Fortunately, we see the situation as short- to medium- term sustainable because CPIPG has solid liquidity and limited short-term debt maturities, but the overall setup, I would admit, is less than perfect.
S o what's the solution? Let's start with short- to medium- term actions to simplify the group. In May, IMMOFINANZ announced the squeeze-out of S IMMO. This would make S IMMO a private company, thus increasing flexibility. Two days ago, IMMOFINANZ announced that the squeeze-out price, based on a valuation conducted by PwC, was EUR 22.05 per share, meaning that the total cost of the squeeze-out should be about EUR 106 million. That would be a cash, that'd be cash out the door for IMMOFINANZ. The squeeze-out should be completed by year-end.
Yesterday, CPIPG offered our shares in S IMMO to IMMOFINANZ, which would make IMMOFINANZ the 100% owner of S IMMO. If accepted, at a price, again, up to EUR 22.05 per share, the total cost to IMMOFINANZ would be around EUR 600 million. CPIPG is expected to offer the possibility of long-term financing to IMMOFINANZ for a portion of the purchase price as well as a potential discount.
As you can see, this sale is quite large, and it will improve liquidity at CPIPG in the short to medium term. However, it's not a permanent solution. This is what we are working on next. Mergers, combinations, and other creative strategies around business synergies involve tax, legal, regulatory, and other structuring considerations which we need to weigh carefully before acting.
In general, our goal is to minimize the use of cash in any strategy while driving towards a destination where assets, cash, income, and debt are in the same place without restrictions. We are working on it seriously because we believe it will help our credit rating and our funding costs in the future. Please stay tuned on this topic, and we'll continue to update you in the months ahead.
The third topic you all ask about is funding and liquidity. We reported EUR 1.7 billion of liquidity at H1 2024, of which about EUR 1.2 billion was cash, and the rest was undrawn revolving credit facilities. Where is the cash located? Highlighting the issue I mentioned earlier, it's about EUR 370 million at CPIPG, EUR 450 million at IMMOFINANZ, and EUR 350 million at S IMMO.
Over the next two years, we have EUR 2 billion of debt maturing, about half of which is secured bank loans. The largest maturities are in 2026. In fact, the next 18 months are very light. We are quite confident about rolling over secured bank loans because we've been successful working with banks despite a very tough market over the last two years.
I think foreign investors really underestimate the depth of liquidity in the local bank market in the CEE region. I would also add that our current liquidity, before assuming any future sale, is more than enough to cover all maturities for the next 18 months and unsecured bond maturities for the next full two years. However, we're not resting comfortably with this position, and we're doing everything we can to continue improving liquidity while repaying debt.
Disposals remain the most important source of liquidity. We already closed EUR 980 million of disposals year- to- date and reduced gross debt by about EUR 800 million. Our disposal pipeline is large, continues to crank along every day, and we hope to close another EUR 300 million-EUR 400 million of disposals in the coming months. Plus, we're pursuing new deals every day, and the improving tone is helping too.
CPIPG has also raised equity. We sold a EUR 250 million minority stake in part of our Polish business to Sona Asset Management in June. We are super excited to have Sona as a partner. They have deep pockets, are very capable, and support what we are doing. You know, it's nice to have some friends.
We also went back to the bond markets in May, issuing EUR 500 million at a coupon of 7%. The bond issue was a success, 6x oversubscribed, and I believe our investors have done very well holding our bonds. Short sellers maybe have done less well. We will continue to look at the bond markets in the future, although we need to keep a close eye on our ICR. We can talk about the rating agencies later, but I will just quote one of our major bondholders, who said, "Forget ratings. F ocus on liquidity."
Now, we're not ready to forget ratings entirely, okay, b ecause we want to be BBB rated again, but now is a time to focus on fundamentals, so d on't try to see us prioritize repaying debt in advance and extending wherever we can. That was a super long introduction. I hope it was helpful. Now we can get into the heart of the presentation.
On page four, you can see key financial highlights. The group's property portfolio was EUR 18.6 billion at 30 June, with contracted gross rents of EUR 939 million. LTV at the end of H1 was 50%, down from 52% at the end of Q1. Despite completing more than EUR 900 million of disposals in H1, we managed to continue growing EBITDA and net business income.
FFO declined a little, mostly because of higher financing costs. Occupancy slipped a little, now at 91.3% group-wide, but we do not see any fundamental problem and have clear plans to address some of the gaps. The bottom line is we are focused but not concerned.
Moving on to page five. W e think diversification makes CPI unique. 46% of our portfolio is in offices. The group owns 170 office properties, primarily in Central and Eastern European capital cities of Berlin, Prague, Warsaw, Budapest, Bucharest, and Vienna. With few exceptions, our office portfolio is focused on these core locations. Because of our acquisitions of IMMOFINANZ and S IMMO, the group acquired offices in other cities like Düsseldorf which are high on the list for sale; and Zagreb, where we have sold all of the group's assets this year.
Retail is our second largest segment. CPIPG focuses primarily on retail parks in the CEE region, along with shopping centers in the Czech Republic and other CEE countries. CPIPG owns 160 retail parks, which are nearly 100% occupied and have been extremely popular with both tenants and shoppers. Retail parks is one segment where we will do some selective development, for instance, in Croatia, where the returns have been excellent, and our teams have been doing a super job of building the network.
We own hotels in the CEE region, where the group has a long history as an owner-operator. This year, we sold a 50% stake in a joint venture owning several hotels and our hotel operating business to Best Hotel Properties, which is a well-regarded investor from Slovakia. CPIPG also owns residential properties in the Czech Republic, which we consider core, and residential properties in Germany and the U.K. that we consider less core and are targeted for sale.
I won't dwell on the geographical split, but I should mention that there's been a lot of focus and negativity around Germany. We believe our core market of Berlin and the assets that we own are well positioned now and in the future. Berlin is the destination for 40% of technology investments in Germany, and it's the most international city in Germany. So we are very happy to be invested in Berlin. However, in the end, Germany represents only, quote, unquote, 15% of the group's net business income.
Within that 15%, there are assets. I mentioned Düsseldorf, but also S IMMO owns many residential and small office assets for sale. There are many assets in that 15% that are really going to be disposed, so that 15% should be smaller over time. The bulk of our income comes from Central and Eastern European countries, where I believe the situation is stronger both from an economic perspective but also in terms of real estate markets.
Moving on to page seven, there are some important things to say or maybe to say again. Reducing leverage remains a priority. CPIPG has been criticized and downgraded for the speed of deleveraging, but we are still getting it done despite the weaker environment for valuation. We intend to continue reducing leverage and to restore our BB B rating. I would note our progress not just on net LTV but also on net debt- to- EBITDA. ICR will be a tougher metric for us, but we hope investors and rating agencies can see the bigger picture.
The portfolio continues to show growth in like-for-like rents, as I mentioned earlier, reflecting both indexation and strength of our markets. Valuations have held up well. We reported a decline of EUR 156 million at H1 or about 0.8% on the entire portfolio. About half the portfolio was revalued for H1, mostly because IMMOFINANZ and S IMMO have the practice of doing it two times per year. CPIPG will revalue our portfolio for the full year, and we expect a neutral but mixed picture.
Retail valuations are solid. We see some of our competitors even showing higher values. Hotels are doing great, too. Office is stable in CEE, but it's fair to expect some weakness in Germany. N othing that would change our trajectory of reducing leverage, but we felt it was important to guide you.
On page eight, you can see that our property portfolio is gradually shrinking as we make sales and adjust the valuation. On the other hand, we continue to invest in our portfolio to enhance value. Occupancy declined to 91.3% for the group at H1. The largest contributor was Berlin, which Tomáš will touch on soon. In residential, the drop in occupancy was mostly due to the Czech Republic, where we have vacated units for refurbishment in order to push for higher rents.
Looking forward, we see positives and negatives. Our teams in Poland and Romania are optimistic that office occupancy will rise through year-end, given the state of the markets and lease negotiations. Berlin might continue to be affected by the softer economy. Retail occupancy has been solid. We attribute the slight decline in retail occupancy to specific units that were vacated and should be re-leased.
On page nine, there's more information about the group's financing and liquidity coverage. We raised new bonds and loans in H1, and we paid about EUR 1.4 billion of loans, bonds, and bridge debt. Because of the group's large liquidity of EUR 1.7 billion and small short-term debt maturities, we have 2.6x coverage of all debt maturities for the next 18 months. Between the 18-month and two-year mark, we have more bond and loan maturities, which means the coverage is less, b ut frankly, this measure is conservative because the group has been very successful in rolling over bank loans. So if you look at our unsecured bonds, then we have 1.6x coverage for the next two years.
Finally, a word on CPIPG's disposal pipeline on page 10. The current pipeline is EUR 2 billion , and the reality is we are just beginning the fresh pipeline, having completed the last one, which was also EUR 2 billion and was completed ahead of schedule. Up to this point, our disposals have averaged around book value.
You can see here on the slide photos of things that we sold, which tell you something about our flexibility and diversity. We sold our ski resort in Crans-Montana to Vail. We sold an office development in Romania, residential assets in Austria, an office property in Warsaw, the Grand Center office in Zagreb, you know, mostly to local investors, local capital, and that, I think, is really a hallmark of CPIPG and what we are able to do.
The future pipeline is centered around residential assets, mostly German assets in S IMMO, plus U.K. assets in CPIPG. We might consider disposing a portion of the Czech residential assets, because the demand has been so strong, and also some land. The group is gradually selling the assets that we acquired in Dubai and is exploring other sales in Italy and Austria.
Hotels will remain a theme. We love the segment, but there are some hotels managed under international brands such as Marriott which might be a better fit for another investor and are great to sell because of excellent performance and high quality.
In summary, we have lots to do, and continuing to deliver on this pipeline is critical for CPIPG. Plus, I will mention the disposal pipeline is the primary responsibility of Mr. Tomáš Salajka, who is speaking next. So I will hand it over to Tomáš. Tomáš?
Thank you, David. Yes, the disposal pipeline is an important thing for me every day, but now I will focus on our operations and assets. Let me begin on page 14. Most of you have seen this several times, but just a reminder that the group is well diversified in terms of assets and tenants.
Our top 10 most valuable assets represent only 12.7% of the total portfolio value, and our largest tenant, the fashion retailer LPP Group, is only 1.1% of rental income but spread across many units in our portfolio. In fact, you will see that most of our top tenants are in retail. Our exposure to large office tenants is really [audio distortion].