Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and a warm welcome to today's earnings call of the Patrizia SE following the publication of the figures for the first quarter of twenty twenty five. Kindly note that every participant is in a listen only mode, but after the presentation, we will move on to a q and a session where we would be happy to take your questions via the audio line. And having said this, I hand over to Patrizia's Associate Director, Investor Relations to B. S. Endler.
Good afternoon, good morning, wherever you are. Welcome to our today's analyst and investor call for our 03/2025 financials. I'm happy to have our CEO, Azhoka Wehrmann and our CFO, Martin Prominent with us today. Azhoka will present to you an overview on the market environment and operational activity. Afterwards, Martin will guide you through our financials.
This will follow will be followed by a q and a session. And also during today's call, we will refer to our results presentation, which you can follow right on screen. And also, if you wanna have a read through afterwards, you can definitely browse through our IR website. In case of questions afterwards, please also contact our IR team. We're happy to take your course.
And with that, I'm happy to hand over to our CEO, Azur Kalbermann.
Thank you, Tobias. Dear ladies and gentlemen, a warm welcome from my side as well. We are still living in volatile times. We witness ongoing geopolitical change challenges as well as uncertainties for the development of global trade based on the impact of the current tariff tensions. Nevertheless, we also saw slightly improving market conditions for investments in real assets.
Client demand and activity has returned, and we believe the first quarter in twenty twenty five could mark an inflection point for Patrizia as well. Three top KPIs have either grown or are at the point of growing again. EBITDA was up by 11 and a half percent compared to the first three months in 2024. This was driven mainly by reduced staff costs and low operating expenses. The EBITDA margin grew as well as by 3.1 percentage points to 23.4%.
This level was above our guidance range. However, mainly due to annual carry payments received in the first three months in 2025. AUM development remained relatively stable at €56,100,000,000. On the remarkable note, we achieved our highest organic AUM growth since the end of twenty twenty three. And we expect AUM to grow during the course of 2025 based on organic growth while trailing valuation effects are expected to slow and diminish throughout the year.
In the first quarter of twenty twenty five, Patrizia successfully utilized open equity commitments and remain an active buyer. In total, we closed investments worth €900,000,000. At the same time, divestment activity was significantly lower at €100,000,000. This led to organic AUM growth of €767,000,000, our highest quarterly net growth since quarter four twenty twenty three. Most transactions that were closed were in infrastructure with activity in real estate being driven by residential and logistics sectors.
We believe we are at an inflection point in the real estate market and expect to see stronger growth momentum as the year moves to to forward. For you, some investment highlights so far, in fourth following. We successfully entered the Philippine market with two attractive infrastructure deals. The first is one of the country's leading rooftop solar developers and the other into a new urban mobility solutions platform. We also made a strategic investment into Align Data Centers, one of the leading data center providers in North And South America.
And we accrued a top office building for the new Italian headquarter of SAP. And further investment in the APAC region by partnering with care to accelerate the expansion of cooling as a service, a fast growing infrastructure segment, not only in APAC, but also globally. In the past few years, we have adapted our platform and realigned our organization to build integrated investment division for infrastructure and real estate driven by our sector expertise and strengthened our international client division. And we just streamlined our executive division and hired a new CTO to strengthen our technology expertise and advance our digital platform to support all other business areas. With our newly formed organization, we are already able to harvest the first results and successfully execute on our midterm strategy twenty third.
With management fees virtually covering all operating expenses, we have reached a first strategic goal of an a % coverage, and we are aiming to grow our management fees with the clear ambition to surpass the % coverage. We will stay laser focused on growth in 2025, prime to act at this market inflection point. Investors are looking to put more capital at work and reposition their portfolios more actively. Modernizing European infrastructure is now at the center of public interest and to strengthen our competitiveness, especially given the current uncertainties in the global markets. The lifting of the German debt break included the announcement of huge investment into infrastructure by the German government, something we are also monitoring very closely.
More investors are also starting to consider countercyclical plays in Europe. For example, in office and retail. Looking at equity raising in the first three months twenty twenty five, our result was still muted. Given the changing market sentiment, we will further advance our fundraising activities. Patrizia is well positioned to navigate and benefit from the on this ongoing market volatility supported by the renewed investor appetite towards Europe.
This also helps to protect investment portfolios focusing on Europe with limited direct exposure to terrorists and sector specific thematic strategy strategies. As said before, our clear goal is to continue our organic AUM growth in 2025. Our ambition is to water future proof Patrizia as a smart real asset investment manager in a world in transition. This year, we are laying the foundation for our growth path to more than hundred billion euros AUM by 2030. We will focus our efforts on establishing new, attractive, and scalable investment solutions for our clients, and we will step up our fundraising activity to create more value for our clients.
Our ambitious growth plan is mission critical, especially in light of market conditions turning more favorable. Achieving attractive returns in real assets requires a transition from asset allocation to active asset management. Asset managers need boots on the ground, being closer to their assets in order to generate higher returns. This plays to our strengths, and this is why value add remains a key growth area of for us where we can achieve double digit ERRs for our clients. Living remains a strategic growth area for us as well.
Living is far more than residential with attractive subsectors such as affordable housing, micro living, co living, and senior living in 2025. And we are very excited about future growth opportunities in the new emerging re infra asset class. Thank you, and I will hand over now to Martin, our CFO.
Thank you, Ashoka. Hi, everyone, also from my side. Let's discuss the financials, and I'll start on Page eight of the presentation, which is also shown. Assets under management. Key messages here is, first of all, as Ashoka already stated, we bought more than we sold for our clients, so we've seen net organic growth in the first quarter of twenty five.
If you look at the €800,000,000 of net organic growth, then this primarily stems from infra investments with €600,000,000 and around €200,000,000 real estate investments for our clients. Second message is positive news that we have organic growth, but this was a little bit more than offset by cash movements and trailing valuation effects. You might remember we guided you that in our AUM, you might have a time lag in terms of valuation, for example, due to different business year ends of some structures, but we believe this will phase out during the year '25. So overall, net, we have an o point 5% smaller decline in in AUM. In terms of transactions signed, we also saw more acquisitions than disposals in the first quarter, and that's why we also expect a positive impact from these investments for the AUM from the second quarter onwards.
Let's go to EBITDA. EBITDA profitability numbers, I think, in this quarter are pretty straightforward. There are no major one offs to be reported. If we look at revenues, which includes management fees, transaction fees, and and performance fees, total service fee income, down 6% primarily due to lower performance fees, but in line with our management expectations. Net sales revenues and co investment income, you see a material increase to 3,800,000.0 in the first quarter.
This is the positive impact from the co investments that we have on our balance sheet. On the expense side, you'll see a material improvement, and I'll discuss this later on the next slide. Perhaps also worth highlighting here is that other income is down 81%, down from 5,700,000.0 last year, down by 4,600,000.0 to 1,100,000.0. That's also a proof that the quality of the EBITDA that we've shown in the first quarter is higher compared to last year. Let's move to the next page.
More details on total service fee income. We've seen moderate declines in management fees primarily due to the lower AUM base. Transaction fees were materially up to the first quarter last year. This also a sign that there's more activity in the market. The transaction fees were sourced really from a number of different investments for our clients, especially in the residential and in the health care sector.
Performance fees, as I mentioned, in line with our expectations down year on year also because we didn't have any major disposal activity in the first quarter. Let's move to the next page, to the cost side. And again, here, we've seen real progress on costs. If we look at staff costs down 13%, you see the positive effects, especially from the recent reorganization activities that we have pursued with the number of FTEs reduced to eight seventy five from around $940,000,000 last year. Also on other operating expenses, down 10%, this is the result of a rough cost review of the organization to increase platform efficiency.
As Ashoka mentioned before, in the first quarter, our costs were virtually fully covered by management fees, and this is really allowing for operating leverage once the market activity shows a more pronounced pickup. Let's move to the balance sheet and liquidity. Here, the picture is virtually unchanged. We have a net equity ratio of slightly over 68%, so a strong balance sheet. We have available liquidity of slightly over a hundred million.
This is slightly down quarter on quarter due to some cash deployment in co investments, but no material change. The bank debt that you that you see here as bank loans for warehouse assets is also unchanged. But also on the asset side, our co investments that we have on the balance sheet are also unchanged still with exposure to the residential sector, to logistics, and to two selected office assets in Germany. Let's move to the the dividend proposal. As communicated in the past, the Board of Directors and we propose a payout of €0.35 which is up around 3% year on year.
As a reminder, the AGM will be held virtually on June 4. The ex date will be June 5. Given the relatively high dividend yield of 4.6% at the moment, don't be surprised by share price moves on the June 5, and the payment date is scheduled for June 9. That brings me to the last page of my presentation, the the guidance for AUM EBITDA and EBITDA margin that is unchanged to what we published in the annual report. Again, we had a a good start in terms of investments for our clients in the market in the first quarter.
We had a somewhat softer start for equity raising, but we do see momentum building up, and we also see pipeline building up already in April. So we are happy to confirm the guidance for the year at the moment. And as Ashoka said, we will continue to focus on fundraising and platform efficiency over the next few quarters. With that, I'd like to open the q and a.
Thank you so much for the presentation. So, dear participants, we will now move on to your questions. And to keep this conversation engaging, we kindly ask you to ask questions in person via audio line. To do so, please click on the raise your hand button on the lower part of your screen. And if you have dialed in by phone, you can use the key combination star key nine to enter the queue followed by pressing star key six to unmute yourself.
And we already received the first hand from Andre Remke. So please go ahead and ask your questions.
Yes. Good afternoon. Do you hear me?
Yes.
Yes, we can hear you. Thank you.
Hi, Andre.
Thank you. Hi. A couple of questions from my side, starting probably for Martin, a question on OpEx. Do you see any further potential for further reductions this year? Or is the first quarter probably is a run rate?
And what kind of additional management and transaction volume could you run with the current stuff? Or as we round, could we expect an increase of OpEx again in case the business activity gains momentum? This is the first question, please.
No. Thank you, Andre. If you look at staff costs and OpEx, they're really materially down year on year, as you might have noticed. And I wouldn't be overbullish to extrapolate the first quarter cost side because, historically, also, if you look at other Patricia quarters, you've seen some cost increase over the quarters also depending on business activity. So with further growth, I think we are very well set up with the platform we have today to manage and transact much higher volumes than currently.
And and you also know the volumes this this platform has basically managed in in the past, and we are we think we can digest that as well with our further growth ambitions. But a certain, say, smaller growth over the quarter in terms of costs, I wouldn't rule that out. And to your last question, there's there's always options to reduce costs further, which we would certainly look into just in case the market growth is not materializing.
Okay. Perfect. The second question is on AUM. What do you expect in terms of cash movements and valuation impact for this year? And I guess this is already included in your asset under management guidance.
As a related question, you mentioned equity commitments of you have on your hand at the moment, 1,000,000,000 or so. Is this right to assume that this would be not enough to reach a lower end of your AUM target range, assuming it's a negative valuation, it's a cash payment, so it's a effect.
Yes. Thank you, Andre. It's correct that we have EUR 1,100,000,000.0 of equity commitments available for investments in the market. And indeed, our internal planning goes for higher growth. So we will need some fundraising to deliver on our internal targets.
But as we said, the pipeline is building up, and we are optimistic that new equity will come in to fund further acquisitions in the market. In terms of valuation, as we said, we have still some trading effects. But overall, by the end of the year, we expect some smaller positive valuation effects on on AUM. And that's if you look at where some of these markets and subsectors develop at the moment, we were still confident that this will also materialize.
Does it mean by year end, so on a year on year comparison, you expect a positive valuation impact?
Yes, a smaller positive impact, correct. So if you look at Q1, you start with a slightly negative impact, and this should basically turn around over the year.
Okay. Perfect. The other question on your available liquidity of roughly €100,000,000 This is now on the lowest level since ten years. And what level do you think it should be, minimum level, so to say, to run your business operationally? And could this also limit your strategy of core investments in the future?
Yes. Thank you for the question, Andre. One hundred million euros in my view, is indeed a level that I would describe as rather minimum level, how I want to run the company and its financials. But also bear in mind, we have a lot of financial flexibility. Just to give you one example, we we have a revolving credit facility in place that we can draw whenever we need it for around hundred billion.
So this also increases our financial flexibility if if it is needed. And the the remainder of the liquidity development will depend on our strategic decisions regarding co investments and the assets we have on our balance sheet. But there's no need to to rush certain exits, as I said, as we have a very strong balance sheet, and banks are happy to provide us with financial flexibility.
Okay. And the last question you stated in the presentation that the transaction fees are driven by real estate. Does it mean that the infrastructure investment did not really contribute to the transaction fees? Because this was a majority of investments or transactions in the first quarter. And is this, in general, the case for infrastructure investments?
I think that's a fair statement, Andre. The majority of transaction fees, especially on acquisitions, are still generated in the real estate world, especially with mandates in Germany and Continental Europe. On the infrastructure side, it's not so often that you have transaction fees attached. But in certain areas and mandates of infrastructure, we also have acquisition fees, but to a much lower extent compared to the real estate world.
So in general, is it fair to assume for the years to come, if you're expanding the infrastructure side, you will earn automatically lower transaction fees?
Structurally, that's correct, yes.
So dear ladies and gentlemen, please be reminded that it's still possible to ask questions if you have. And in the meantime, we move on with Lars from Cliff. So please ask your questions.
Yes. Thank you very much. Good afternoon. Two two quick questions, if I may. The first one, I mean, with great pleasure, I hear you, Ashoka, saying that Q1 could have marked the inflection point.
So the question following naturally is how is Q2 developing so far? What are you seeing?
Thank you. I think you have seen also from the the colleague I asked earlier, Andre, yeah, the valuation went nearly ninth consecutive, you know, quarters or might be 10 down. So there is a really stabilization in all segments, in all sectors. That's just one thing is what, you know, what we are observing is very, let me say, me, and a very constructive view on market. Then, also the high volatility in liquids had also created some refocus back in illiquid, opportunities.
And I think, also the interest rates, even with all the volatility I have seen, I think it looks like, you know, ECB is cutting the front end further, you know, and you there is some expectation the Fed can reduce if because on a recession talks in the market, all that is bringing also interest rates down. And I do think our investors get more comfort now to look into the illiquids. And that is generally great for us, especially in real estate as well as infrastructure. And last and I do think we can I think you know, I don't know? Many, many of us have been concerned for four or six weeks ago about the Trump administration and, you know, all the activities went out of US, but that has also now strengthened Europe more or less as a reaction, as a counter reaction.
That means people are focusing on Europe more. People are thinking about global value chains. They are thinking, should we always go 90% with our investment to US, or should we not have a a better balance between our home markets and and and and US and, you know, investing outside Europe? All that and also the currency volatility, all that created last for me an alignment, that our European investors are more now interested. There is not, you know, raising hands to giving us money.
There is not, like in the in the the the on the on the top of the last cycle, but I do think I am seeing constructive signs, and that is what I said. Inflection point is might be was another quarter this quarter, and now I think next quarters can be constructive. Still volatile. The next cycle will be not the same like the last ten, twelve year cycle, but I can see people are looking into opportunities. Opportunities.
And I do think as the transaction might has dried up in the last eighteen, twenty four months, there's more possibilities there for more transactions, even smaller bit and pieces, but I do think I am constructive. That is that was my, you know, my comment on that.
Perfect. Thank you very much. A very detailed answer, which I which I really appreciate. And then teasing Martin a bit again. I mean, I was patient for the late last six months.
I looked at my records. But can I ask you if there's any update on your Devonia renegotiation?
Thank you, Lars. And not surprisingly, the same answer is that we're still in constructive discussions with investors in the fund, and and working on a on a long term prolongation of the of the mandate.
And the the significant decline of the Devonia performance fee this year, that was rather given that the assets are coming down?
No. It it is, it is, partially driven, by the or primarily driven, by the number of privatizations that, Davonia generates, and this is then a reflection of the market. In terms of valuation, we've seen stability at Davonia over the last quarter.
Perfect. Thank you very much. I'll go back into the line.
Thank you, Lars.
Thank you so much for your questions. So we will then move on with the person who's starting with a phone number ending 707. So please unmute yourself while pressing key 6, and please introduce yourself to us.
Hello. I think the operator meant me, Manuel from ODDO. Well, one question to Asoka. When it comes to the investors in your products, you see a kind of inflection point, a potential inflection point. But in your view, what must be the conditions for investors really coming back in full year 2025?
Or what are they waiting for? Is it for lower interest rates or Trump disappearing in The US or maybe something else? Perhaps you can give me a bit of flavor on that, please.
Yeah. Do think, Manuel, I think conditions I think the atmosphere for investors were were more or less in the in the past twenty four months, and I know nearly two years here, was not really illiquid friendly. They have been greatly invested also in the in the late cycle where the the valuations came down in an inflation spike. Interest rates went dramatically up. Central banks hiked.
Now you can see since some quarters, central banks are in a cutting mode except of, by the way, Japan. Japan, BOJ is might be on a hiking mode after many, many years. By the way, there is more economically more constructive. I've been last week in Japan. I have seen now after thirty years, the market is going to recover.
The business mood is much better. Even the inflation is going to starting to go up when the Central Bank going to hike. But I think now beside Japan, the rest of the world is enjoying and experiencing now central bank cuts as, you know, the the front end cuts. And I do think from that perspective, it's a very good condition, first first of all, for illiquid investors to go in, and there's still great opportunities. As I always say, they're saying that is quite an investment law and a suicide fact of over of my career.
If you have the opportunities, there's no money to invest because capital raising is so difficult because people are uncertain. But I do think now, Manuel, as I said to Lars, there is interest rates. There is repricings happened, but also there is now people are willing to negotiate in the market for transactions. I can see in the both sides, demand as well as supply, they can there's there's there's the market is starting to functioning even lower level. I am always saying first signs and inflection point means we are on, you know, past the trough.
And I'm, from that perspective, I do think interest rates is great. The atmosphere for investors are more friendly, and the volatility and the unbelievable, you know, let me say, people shifted the last two years not only away from from illiquids, they went into bonds, you know, liquid bonds mainly. They shifted immediately interest rate bearing assets, and they have not really ignored the illiquids. Now they are already, you know, have seen now volatility in bond prices, volatility massive volatility in equity, even that is settling after four or six weeks, people now say, okay. I want to have duration assets.
I want to have a a good ERR perspectives. And, hopefully, also for this, let me say, interest rate levels. If I if I can have a good cash returns, I'm willing to look into that, and that is exactly happening. It can happen in the sense that we can reopen our German, close end funds, you know, or that's one thing. And the value add is attractive as, I think, not been the last ten years.
You can the residential value add, living value add, you have you have nearly a 16% ERR. That's a great opportunity if you invest for seven, eight, ten years into these strategies. Data centers. There is also new, let me say, a reinfra trends like, you know, data centers are coming, are sizzling returns, you know, and that is also playing, at the moment, you know, and as we raise for aligned data center project with two partners, you know, one global partner and one US partner, the the the money or capital, you have seen there is investors. They have deep pockets.
They have a strong convictions. They are going in now. And that is triggering the next quarters more momentum, more activity, and that is our hope. Hopefully, Manuel, I explained. You know, I can't say now 2% interest rates are great, but I think front end, that is the trend is down.
That is one of the important conditions for many, many clients.
Okay. That's that's clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you so much for your questions. So by now, we have one further virtual hand left, and it's as well from a personal dialing with the phone ending 809. So please unmute yourself and introduce yourself to us. It seems
Can you hear me?
Yes. Now I can hear you.
Can you hear me? Okay. Hello. It's Miro from JMS. I have two questions.
The first one regarding the performance fees, which have been a bit lower now in this quarter. Can you please elaborate better on the outlook for these fees, if we now assume this so called inflection point, as you have called it? That's the first one. I'll take them one by one, if I may.
Yes, sure. Miro, and thanks for your question. So performance fees in the first quarter of the year are always primarily driven by the davonia carry plus some other performance fees, which you've also seen in in this quarter with 300,000.0. Overall, in terms of our planning, we currently plan for structurally lower performance fees because we're entering a new cycle. We're building up new vintages and building up new performance fees we will then harvest over the cycle.
In terms of, let's put it, hidden reserves, we still have over €100,000,000 in theoretical performance fees on the books in the funds in case we would sell these assets today. But as you might remember, these performance fees, are sometimes in nondiscretionary mandates, so we're not always in the driver's seat, to realize these performance fees. So short answer, is, structurally, lower performance fees. We we do not expect short term to, at least in our planning, to go back to the levels seen in the years 2018, '20 '19 or 2020.
Okay. Sure. Very clear. The second question is regarding the operating costs, mainly personnel costs. If I look at the number of FTEs that you employ, I mean, it went down, as we can see, by more than 100 people compared to others who went, say, through a consolidationcrisis phase, I don't know whether this is the right word in your context, we sometimes see much further measures and much harder measures, so to speak.
Question is, is $875,000,000 now the, let's say, the end of the story? Or are you still working hard to bring the the personnel cost down?
First of all, Miro, we are continuously monitoring the the staff costs and efficiency of the platform, where and how we can optimize processes, how we can use new technologies to become more efficient. At the same time, and if you remember our midterm strategy, we, have communicated, ambitious growth targets until 02/1930. And with the platform we we have today, we wanna use the people and the platform to deliver on these targets also to show the operating leverage. In case these revenue and growth targets do not materialize or there will be a prolonged market weakness, then certainly, it would be the time to review, the cost base and also staff costs again. But quick answer, is we will continuously monitor staff costs, and we want to improve efficiency of the platform, as you know, to increase the quality of earnings and also lower the volatility of earnings.
Okay. Thank you.
And good luck. You.
Thank you for your questions, Mehrot. So in the meantime, we have received no further questions. So at this point, just the final call, if there are still questions or follow-up questions you would like to ask, just let us know. But it seems everything is answered so far, and there are no open topics. So, therefore, we come to the end of today's earnings call.
Thank you for joining, and you've shown interest in the lively conversation. So should further questions arise at a later time, please feel free to contact investor relations. And a big thank you also to you, Ashoka, and Martin for your presentation and the time you took today. So it was a pleasure to be your host. And with this, I hand back again to Martin for some final remarks, which concludes our call for today.
Thank you so much for for hosting the call, and thank you for everyone who dialed in. In terms of next events, as I mentioned before, June 4, we'll have the annual general meeting. On August 12, you will have our first half financial results. And we hope to see many of you on the coming conferences and road shows. And as said before, the IR team is more than happy to take any follow-up questions. Stay healthy, and speak soon. Thank you, everyone.
Thank you, everyone. Thank you all.