Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the TAG publication of annual report 2025 conference call. I am Valentina, the call's operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen only mode and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Martin Thiel, CFO and Co-CEO. Please go ahead.
Yeah, many thanks and a warm welcome from our side. This is Martin. Many thanks for dialing in into our conference call for the full year 2025 results. I think today we can present a very decent set of results. Presumably you have already seen our press release announcing that we have exceeded all guidances that we just have basically raised back in November last year. Therefore, we are quite happy to guide you a little bit more through the details. Let's start on page 3, the highlights slides. Perhaps we start with FFO 1, our rental result, which came out at EUR 181 million. That's a 3% increase year-on-year.
Even a little bit better than the guidance that we raised in November, which was EUR 174 million-EUR 179 million. I think it's fair to say that this was mostly driven by our strong operational development. The EBITDA from total rental business was also at the upper end of what we assumed, driven by very decent like-for-like rental growth in Germany, still at 3% unchanged to the previous year. An increased like-for-like rental growth in Poland compared to the previous year, which came out at 3.4%. Last year we had 3.2%. Vacancy rates in both countries are effectively very low. In Germany we are down to 3.2%. At the end of the year, we started at 3.6%.
At the beginning of the year, for those of you who are following TAG since some more years, this is for us quite a change. In the meanwhile, we are at very low vacancy rates that we achieved throughout the years coming back from vacancy rates that have been, of course, quite higher in the past. Vacancy rates in Poland in all the units that we rent out for at least one year is basically at the lowest rate possible, 1.3%. That shows the strong demand that we have in this country. Continuing with Poland and looking at the sales results. The sales result was also a little bit better than expected, so it came out at EUR 68 million. That's also 3% increase year-on-year, slightly above the guidance.
As expected, the fourth quarter was strong in terms of handovers. As planned, we had a quite strong increase in the sales results in the fourth quarter due to this increased number of handovers. In general, the result was also stronger than expected because the gross margins that we have achieved on the back of strong sales price developments in the past is in the meanwhile quite strongly above 30%. That was also a little bit better than expected. Therefore, this increase in the number of units sold in Poland amounted to a little bit more than 2,800 units. That was exactly more or less what we have planned. Looking at the acquisitions in financial year 2025.
Firstly, you are all aware that we signed in August 2025 a contract with Resi4Rent to acquire 5,300 new built residential rental units. We're still waiting for the antitrust approval. We expect this now to happen in the second quarter of 2026. I know that we originally expected that earlier. We can tell you that there's basically nothing new, so simply we need to be patient. We have to respect that the Polish antitrust authority takes its time to make its own market research to look at the market themselves. Unchanged, we are very confident that we get an unconditional antitrust clearance. Therefore, we hope that now in the course of the second quarter 2026, this clearance is coming and this is basically the only condition for the closing.
Also in Germany, we increased the portfolio. We signed acquisitions for around 1,200 units. Mainly at the end of the third and in the course of the fourth quarter in 2025, mainly in core regions where we already are. That means in eastern Germany, high gross initial yield of around 10%. I think I already mentioned in the last call that some of these portfolios that we have acquired have a certain CapEx backlog. Taking this into account, the gross initial yield is still around 9%, which should be attractive. That means we are also growing in Germany. Of course, not in the dimensions currently like in Poland, but we are very open to take advantage of some opportunities that we see here in the market and to grow our portfolio also in Germany.
EPRA NTA showed a quite strong growth, up by 10% even after the dividend payment and after the capital increase that we have taken, carried out in August this year, and stands now at nearly 21 EUR at year-end. The LTV ratio came down significantly from 46.9% - 41% at the end of the year. To be transparent, it's perhaps reasonable to look at the pro forma LTV in this case, because after the expected closing of the Polish acquisition, this LTV stands at 45.3%, which is still a good ratio, because that means even taking into account the closing of the transaction, we have basically already achieved again our LTV target. Today we are confirming all guidances for financial year 2026.
We are also confirming that the payout ratio for the dividend for financial year 2025 is as communicated, 40%, and that leads based on EUR 1 per share FFO 1 to a dividend per share of EUR 0.40. We will offer again a scrip option for our shareholders, so everyone can choose like last year between a cash component and new TAG shares. This is something that we think in our sense as we are growing the business, as we're still investing, makes sense. That gives a little bit more equity into our business and the higher share count that could come from that share option is already taken into account for the guidance range. Let's move on to the financials.
Perhaps you can skip the next pages and move on to page number seven, where we show more details on the FFO 1 and EBITDA calculation. As already mentioned, also EBITDA increased quite strongly from the rental business in both countries, in Germany and of course in Poland where we have a growing business. That means we have finished some units in this year and of course the larger increase will come hopefully quite soon in the course of 2026 when the Resi4Rent transaction is closing. Again, FFO 1 came out at EUR 181 million after EUR 175 million in the previous year.
One thing that we want to clarify because we received some questions in the last quarters is the one-offs you see here are more detailed split on the right side and you can see that we are treating subsidies that we get for energy modernizations in a way that we're excluding this income from subsidies in FFO one. The rationale behind it, we are capitalizing the expenses so the CapEx doesn't affect FFO one. Therefore, we think it makes sense also to exclude the related subsidies from FFO one. Don't be surprised that we are reducing our FFO one with this one-off because we think that is simply something which is systematically correct. In AFFO this is included because also here the related expenses are deducted.
Just to clarify this, but this is a treatment that has been the case also in the previous quarters. Coming to page eight, you see more details on our FFO 2 development. FFO 2 is basically FFO 1, so the result from the rental business plus the result from the sales business in Poland, which was, as already mentioned in the fourth quarter, quite strong, so more than 90% increased quarter-over-quarter due to the higher number of handoffs. Page 9 shows you the development of the EPRA NTA. I already mentioned that the increase was quite strong with 10%, and that's important to point out that a large part of the NTA increase is really coming from the operational business, that means from the net profits.
We see this here on the right side of the chart that this was an impact of +EUR 1.60. Yes, of course, the portfolio valuation results help when it comes to the NTA development. It's fair to say that our ongoing results, so the rental business in Germany and in Poland as well as the sales business in Poland, are really contributing to a strong EPRA NTA per share growth. Switching now to the financing structure, which is shown on page 10. I already mentioned that the LTV is down to 41% after 46.9% at year-end 2024.
Yes, it's true that the capital increase that we carried out in August this year helped in reducing the LTV, but also here to make clear that our operating business has also a significant impact on the LTV. That means if you look at the impact that the operational results had in this LTV reduction out of the 5.9 percentage point reduction, roughly 1.8 percentage point was purely coming from the business that we are conducting. That means from the cash that we generate from the German and the Polish business. That means we have a quite natural deleveraging process, which is of course important to know for us in the future. That means we can invest as in 2025 without hurting our LTV ratios. Net financial debt to EBITDA was at a strong 8.8x .
ICR also at a strong 6.1x , but this has also been quite strong in the previous quarters. Page 11 shows the maturity profile, and here perhaps just a quick comment from my side. You see, larger maturities come up in 2026, but this is basically as of today all refinanced, especially the EUR 470 million convertible bond is already refinanced in a way that we currently sit on a strong cash position of EUR 1.3 billion, which is then used, of course, to pay the purchase price for the Resi4Rent transaction, which is around EUR 565 million, but also to repay this convertible bond of EUR 470 million. Larger maturities, but even larger cash position, that we currently have in the balance sheet, just to make this clear.
Coming to the German business, and I'm looking now on page 13. As said, vacancy rate development was quite strong. In 2025, a development like in the previous years, so in the first one or two quarters. Even a slight increase in vacancy rate and then a strong reduction. We were happy that we could reduce vacancy on a like-for-like basis by 40 basis points, compared to the previous year, which is a strong result. If you ask us if there are more potential to reduce that, yes, we are convinced that we can bring vacancy to a lower range. Perhaps we are quite soon even at 3% or below that number. Like-for-like rental growth in Germany was also quite decent.
3%, it includes the impact from vacancy reduction, but excluding this effect from vacancy reduction was also 2.6%, slightly better than in the previous year where we had 2.5%. Page number 14 shows you the development in the portfolio valuation. Basically, the value increased a little bit. We recorded a value increase of 3.1% within the German portfolio after 1.4% in the first half of 2025, which is, as far as we see, in line with the overall market with peers, and which is a good development. The years of portfolio devaluation are clearly behind us.
I mean, clearly today we have more uncertainty in the market, how interest rates are developing on the back of the Ukraine war, which is now taking place since a little bit more than 2 years. Whatever is coming, we're not concerned about our portfolio valuation, as we have a portfolio with a high yield. 6.6% gross yield, that is really something that also would digest increased interest rate environment as we have shown in the past. Just to mention that we have changed our valuer this year. The year-end valuation for 2025 was for the first time carried out by JLL. After, I think, 12 or 13 years cooperation with CBRE, we decided to change the valuer. This had, you know, not really a special background.
We simply thought after such a long time, it's good to have a fresh pair of eyes to look at the valuation and to change the valuer from time to time should also be, from a corporate governance perspective, something positive. If you ask us, has there been really any change in the valuation result, we can tell you that that has been not the case. We've seen that valuation results between JLL and CBRE are very close together. Moving on to the Polish business and looking at page 16. I already mentioned at the beginning that the vacancy rate in the portfolio for all apartments that we have on the market for at least one year is very low. It came out at 1.3% at the end of financial year 2025.
Very positive was the development in the like-for-like rental growth. We came out at 3.4%. That means rents are still growing despite still really exceptional growth that we have seen in 2022 and 2023. The rents have increased in total by more than 30%, and that should be a strong sign for the market. Looking now at the sales result in Poland, the third and fourth quarter of 2025 have been quite strong. We sold, you see this on the top right of this slide, page number 17, more than 800 units in each quarter, and we see that there's more demand in the market. Interest rates have gone down in Poland.
All discussions around potential subsidy programs that we have followed for some months in 2024 and 2025 are now off the table. We have received a lot of building permits, so we have an attractive offer at the moment, and therefore we are selling simply more and are very confident that we have potential to grow these numbers even in the future. Next slide shows you the handovers. As expected, revenue was strong in the fourth quarter of 2025. As planned, the largest number of handovers was taking place in this quarter, and the total number of handovers was, I think, exactly in line with what we had planned. One comment to an announcement that we made today in our press release.
Perhaps you've seen that we communicated that we're currently looking into potential strategic alternatives for our Polish subsidiary, Robyg, including capital market transactions, and one of these potential strategic alternatives is an IPO of Robyg on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Please understand that at the moment we can't comment on this really in detail. We can confirm that we are looking into such options. We can confirm that this could be something that makes really sense for Robyg to grow the business, to take advantage of really the tailwind that we currently see in the market. What we can also confirm is that for us as TAG, in all alternatives, this would not be a strategic shift. There's no plan to sell Robyg.
I think we already commented in today's press release that we will be the majority shareholder of Robyg also in the future. Give us some time to look into these alternatives. We are here not under pressure, but we think it's worth to evaluate such options. Then some final comments on the guidance, and I can here be short. You see on page 20 the summary of the guidance for 2026, which is unchanged to what we communicated back in November when we published the Q3 results. We can confirm as of today everything that we have forecasted back in November. That means we are expecting quite strongly growing results for the next year. Just to clarify, for purpose of the guidance, for the FFO 1 guidance, the closing of the Resi4Rent transaction is assumed.
If you look at the midpoint for the 31st of March, if you look at the lower end of the guidance, the closing is assumed for 13th of June. Therefore, we have enough buffer in our guidance range to the expected closing. That's it from my side. Thank you so far for listening, but of course, I'm now very happy to take your questions.
We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use only handsets while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question comes from Andrew McCreath from Green Street. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good morning, Martin. Thank you for the presentation. Two questions from my side, please. First, on the potential Robyg listing, appreciate that you can't give too much detail here, but could you give us a sense of the timeline and also help us understand the structure? Is it purely a primary raise, or would TAG also be selling down part of its stake? And also, what kind of valuation are you internally contemplating? That is the first question.
Yeah. Good morning, Andrew. As said, I cannot give a comment on this in detail. I mean, you should think about a timeline for everything we look at in the course of 2026. Nothing for you to know that will show up shortly in the next weeks, but let's say in the course of 2026, we will come back to everyone with a conclusion. If potentially things stay like they are, let me clearly say this is also an alternative, right? We are very pleased how the business is running. Robyg is a great company. As said, the market is quite strong, this is also an option, we are not under pressure. But let's say in the course of 2026, we should have clarity on this.
In case of an IPO, of course, all options are on the table. From a primary component for Robyg as well as for a secondary component for TAG. To make this clear again, in all the consolidations that we're looking at, TAG is committed to remain the majority shareholder of Robyg.
Okay. That's clear. Secondly, are you seeing any early signs of disruption to unit sales in Poland from the war? Any pressure on construction material costs coming through the supply chain? Also, have credit spreads in Germany or Poland started to move out as a result?
The answer is no. On the other side, you know, that just started two weeks ago or three weeks ago, that would be quite early. I mean, we have unfortunately some experience with such horrible developments. Just think about the war in Ukraine in 2022. I don't want to compare this directly, but we've seen at that time how robust the market is in such an extreme scenario at that time. Hopefully this is nothing comparable. But if you ask us, are we concerned about this? We are concerned about the war per se, but not so much about the business. Looking at interest rates in Poland, yes, longer term interest rates have increased in Poland like in Germany, but looking at the shorter end, that has not really moved that much.
So far, we have no signs that this is affecting our business.
Okay. That's helpful. Thank you, Martin.
The next question comes from John Vuong from Van Lanschot Kempen. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, Martin. Just on the acquisitions in Germany, you acquired a couple of assets at 9% yield, including the tech lock and CapEx, which is quite a bit higher than what you're acquiring Resi4Rent for. Could you comment a bit on the risk profile of these assets, and do you see more opportunities like these in Germany? Maybe as a follow-up, how do you think about capital allocation split between Germany and Poland going forward?
Good morning, John. Let me start with the capital allocation bit. We have a clear path of growth in Poland. For example, we have planned to start the construction of 2,000 rental apartments in Poland this year. We are looking at, in the future for sure, at further acquisition opportunities like the Resi4Rent portfolio in Poland as well. Let's say the focus of capital allocation, I think it's fair to say this is still Poland and in Poland, especially the rental business as communicated in the past.
In Germany, this is more opportunistic, so why shouldn't we buy something in Germany where we know the regions very well, where the construction quality is reasonable, or if we price in, you know, some CapEx, then afterwards the construction quality is reasonable. These opportunities are, I would say, rare. Perhaps this is also good news when it comes to the valuation point of view. The market is not flooded with great portfolios that you can buy at a great price, but there are opportunities. This 1,200 apartment acquisition size was not one transaction. I think the largest one was around 500 or 600 units. All others were smaller.
Perhaps this is also something if you ask just for a base case, what should you expect for 2026 that we continue to buy smaller portfolios in Germany, where we know the regions very, very well and where the risk profile is okay. That means we can really have a clear view on are we able to bring down vacancy, is that a good construction quality, do we know the regions very well. Then we're happy to buy.
Okay, that's clear. Looking at your Polish rental portfolio, it seems that values have increased and yields came down a bit over H2. I suppose that's partly driven by the rate cuts by the Polish central bank, really on the short end of the curve. The yield is now at quite a wide spread to the 7.5% yield that you're paying for Resi4Rent. Could you provide a bit more color on your thoughts on the valuation of that portfolio and where there is room for valuation uplifts?
Yeah. Firstly, your observation is completely right. The yield has come down from 5.3% - 5.1%. Honestly, if you look very specific at that, it's a little bit of rounding. I think slightly above 10 basis points and rounded right that from 5.3% - 5.1%. But still, indeed, a slight yield compression. I think we already commented when we acquired Resi4Rent or when we signed the contract that the Resi4Rent portfolio is a little bit different. Not in sense of locations or construction quality, but this is a portfolio with smaller apartments, and this is a portfolio where the turnover is somewhat higher and so more focused, you know, on single households.
Therefore, one should not expect that the yield is coming down from 7.5% acquisition yield to 5.1%, within you know, some months. That will always have a high yield. But honestly, we think there's definitely room for a lower yield in our accounts. That means for an upside impact on our NTA. We cannot specify it, and we will do the valuation of the Resi4Rent portfolio once we know the closing date. I think one should expect that perhaps not on day one we record a significant valuation gain, but I think there's a high chance that over two, three, four quarters, step by step, this yield is coming down from the acquired portfolio.
Okay. That's clear. Thank you.
The next question comes from Marios Pastou from Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, Martin. Thank you for the presentation and for taking my questions. I've got two questions from my side. They're actually linked, so I'll ask them together. First of all, on the antitrust approval, I just wanted to check the confidence on the updated timeline expectation for the second quarter. Is that based on discussions you're having directly with the competition authority and requests for information there? Any news on that would be helpful. Then just on a follow-up to that, in terms of the earnings range provided based on the timing. You've been acquiring, you beat on the 2025 guide. Is there actually room to be ahead of the lower end of that guidance range, even if that acquisition is maybe delayed beyond your expectation? Thank you.
Yeah. Good morning, Marios. First, a comment on the process. I mean, in such processes, you never get a confirmation from the authority that they say at the latest, at this stage, you will have the decision. The estimate that we have that is coming in the second quarter is based, you know, on what we hear from our lawyers. It's an estimate, but hopefully now we are really in the final stages. Unchanged, the confidence is very high because what is the question behind this proceeding? The question is, are we, when we acquire Resi4Rent with their 9,000 units, able, you know, to dictate rental prices in the cities where we operate in Poland?
In fact, we are owning them 9,000 apartments out of 1.2 million rental apartments in Poland. We are far away, you know, from being someone who can define rental prices. We are competing not only against other institutional landlords, especially we're competing with all the private landlords. For us, I think all the arguments on our side, if you ask why does it take so long, we simply have to respect that this is the first transaction of this size that the Polish Antitrust Authority has on the table. Therefore, already in November, they decided to do an on-market research, which is time-consuming. They've sent out questionnaires to a lot of market participants. I think most of the questionnaires have returned in the meanwhile.
Again, we stay confident, but you know, we need to be patient. Second quarter of this year should be a good estimate. The guidance range is indeed broader. As said, if the closing happens on the thirteenth of June, end of June, end of the second quarter, we would be at the lower end of our FFO 1 and FFO 2 guidance. As I think the start of 2026 was not that bad, so we have overachieved our guidance by better than expected operational development. We should have perhaps some additional buffer, you know, in our numbers. Let's hope that we have a decision soon, that we have an unconditional clearance, and then we can be perhaps also a little bit more precise with the guidance.
Very clear. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Eleanor Frew from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi Martin. I just have a question about Robyg and construction cost, and I do appreciate that you answered the question partially already, but if you could be a little bit more concise. We've seen house builders selling off 25% due to their sensitivity to energy related costs involving a construction process. You've mentioned earlier the Ukraine war, and it was 20% headwind earnings back at the time. Robyg saw a demand boost that kinda offset some of the costs. I was wondering if you could say anything related to the recent increase in energy prices, if you think you can maintain or keep increasing the gross margin going forward, and how sensitive do you think your business is to increasing energy prices? Thank you.
Yeah. Good morning, Eleanor. We're very confident that we can keep the gross margins. As mentioned in the presentation, we are selling now at gross margins quite strongly, about 30%, in some cases even closer to 35%, which is stronger than at the time when we acquired Robyg back in end of 2021, beginning of 2022. I remember then the gross margin was more something, 27%-28%. That it means. Let's assume we are wrong and we've overseen something. There's definitely buffer. That would still be a strong gross margin, you know, if something shows up that we have not seen today.
If we look into forecasts for sales price development that brokers have for this year, 2026, people are expecting further price increases in the sales prices. This is in line with affordability ratios, so also Polish economy is doing well and salaries are growing quite fast. I think we have included our guidance at 2% sales price increase. I think the market expects in the meanwhile even more. We should have a good basis to digest for everything that may come. You know, let's hope that this is not a déjà vu from 2022. We simply are operating in a strong market.
When I perhaps may answer this a little bit more general, since we are in Poland, we have seen COVID, we have seen the Ukraine war, perhaps now we see a new development. Through all the times, we have always achieved our results, and results were always strong. This market has simply strong fundamentals and therefore we are so happy to be invested there.
Okay. Thank you very much. Can I follow up on that? So my understanding is that 2026 should not be impacted too much, because of the presale and because some of the costs already locked in. If things keep worsening, when do you think it start hitting your P&L in Poland?
The first question is absolutely correct. 2026 is, to a large part, everything that we want to hand over already sold. Construction costs are, to the largest part, already known as of today. That means everything that we sell today normally comes in the P&L 12-18 months later. Therefore, what we sell today affects the P&L, at least to the largest part, 2027, 2028. But again, there's also an upside chance in this development.
My third question, Martin, is about the IPO for Robyg. If I look at some of your peers in Poland, it doesn't look like they're trading at better multiples than TAG at the moment. Why are you thinking about IPO-ing currently in this current context?
As far as we have observed it, the shareholders development of Polish developers was quite strong in the past two or three years. Therefore, this is an option. As commented, we have also other options. One of them, just to repeat this, is that we continue with being the sole shareholder of Robyg, so we're not under pressure to do it. We wanted to communicate this today, and I think Robyg has communicated it with its results, to expect that we're looking into such options, if that makes sense for Robyg, you know, to have access to, let's say, cheaper capital. For our shareholders, then, yes, we're happy to do it. If not, therefore we ask for your patience, give us some weeks or months to come back to you, then we're not under pressure to do anything.
Thanks, Martin.
The next question comes from Thomas Neuhold from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Martin. Thanks for the presentation. Thank you for my questions. There's actually only one left, which is related to the guidance on the breakdown on page 21. Firstly, thank you for providing so much details. I was just wondering, looking at the guidance for the growth in the rental EBITDA in Germany of only 1%, why is it so low? I mean, we have around 2% rental growth. You have been a net acquirer last year. Probably rental growth is exceeding CPI. I was just wondering why you don't expect a higher EBITDA growth in Germany in the rental business next year.
Yeah. Good morning, Thomas. The answer is quite simple. This is a comparison between the actual results, 2025, which are in fact better than expected, and the unchanged guidance for 2026. Therefore, you know, we don't want to update the assumptions for the guidance every quarter. I think it's fair to say that the assumed range for the EBITDA in Germany 2026 appears quite conservative on the back of what we have achieved in the last three months. Coming down, for example, from vacancy rate to 3.2%, operating on a vacancy which is now 3% or even more next year. Take this as a more conservative range and perhaps we are better in the course of the year.
Okay. Understood. Thanks a lot.
The next question comes from Thomas Rothäusler from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Hi. Morning. A couple of questions. The first one is on strategic options for Robyg, what you referred to. I mean, what could be alternatives to an IPO and to the status quo?
Good morning, Thomas. You mentioned the two most important alternatives, but you can assume, you know, in such strategic reviews, also other options are on the table. Let's be clear, because you mentioned it, an IPO is an alternative, a serious alternative to look at. As I said, a serious alternative is that we continue to be the sole shareholder of Robyg. If there are also other options that we will look more deeply into, let's see. Give us some time to come back to you with the final conclusions.
Okay. Thank you. Again on Poland. I mean, what have been recent dynamics at the beginning of this year? I mean, did it continue what we've seen in the fourth quarter or in the third quarter? Any material change?
I would say that the strong trend is continuing. I mean, it's clear that, you know, in every year, January and February sales numbers are okay, but perhaps not as the strongest in the year. I can say that we are absolutely in plan. If we look in the broader market and you know that also a lot of other Polish developers are listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, so we've got quite good transparency on what other companies are achieving. I think everyone has good sales results. I mean, we are convinced that we have definitely one of the strongest platforms in the whole market and one of the strongest teams and a great, a big land bank. The whole market is really doing well.
The strong reduction that Poland has seen in interest rates. In the last year, I think interest rate cuts amounted in total to 200 basis points is of course a good tailwind for the current demand. Yeah, we are optimistic.
Okay. On further acquisition opportunities in Poland. I think last call you referred to. Just some update would be helpful. Wondering if you see any larger portfolios in the market currently.
There will be definitely opportunities in the future, but for us it's clear. Let's get the closing of the Resi4Rent Warszawskie transaction first, which is now hopefully taking place in the second quarter. I'm sure we will integrate this portfolio quite quickly. Now we had enough time to prepare for it. Then also we are ready for further growth also via acquisitions. The base case is that we build apartments on our own land bank, so even without further acquisitions we will grow the rental portfolio in Poland further. As I said, we want to start construction and have already started a certain part construction of 2,000 apartments this year. A number between 1,500 units and 2,000 units per year should be a good estimate for the future.
On top, if we see opportunities in the market, yes, we will look at it. If you look at how the market looks like, looking at larger landlords in Poland, a lot of them are invested in Poland, perhaps not with a extreme long investment horizon. There's some private equity money still invested and perhaps for them, like in the Resi4Rent case, exiting after five, six, seven years is something natural. I'm sure that we have such opportunities on the table and then we will look at them as we did with the Resi4Rent transaction.
Okay. My last one is on the Poland BTS business. What is actually the CPI assumption you have in your model?
The increase in sales prices that we have in our model is 2%, and the construction price inflation is in line with the inflation rates that we had when we did the forecast, and I think that was 2.5%. Very, very similar to the sales price growth that we assumed.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question comes from Kai Klose from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. I've got two quick questions. The first, on page 23, could you explain the slight decrease in the income from services? There was a rise quarter-over-quarter in Q4, but over the full year, a slight decrease. Is this related still to lower energy costs compared to 2024? Second question is here, also on the same page, the footnote number 5, the increase in other operating income where you mentioned higher income from temporary rental of existing buildings in Poland. Could you give a bit more details on how many units we're talking about and what kind of temporary letting this is about? Thank you.
Yeah. Good morning, Kai. To answer your questions, but firstly, you're right with the analysis. The reduced net income from services is due to a lower net income from the energy business in Germany, which was, let's say, perhaps exceptionally high in 2024. I think still on a very decent level, but 2024 was simply, you know, something perhaps extraordinary. The other operating income from properties that we are temporarily renting, that's not extremely huge. We have, in some cases, land bank that we acquire where there's an existing building on it. Let's say, an existing smaller factory or an existing office building where we are going for a rezoning. Until we get the zoning and the building permit, you know, this building is continuing to exist.
We collect some rents, but, you know, once we have done the building permit and the rezoning is done, we will tear down these buildings and then start the construction of a residential portfolio. Therefore, temporarily, we have some rental income, which is shown under other operating income, as this kind of rental income is not the core business.
What kind of amounts we're talking about? Is it single digit, double digit, million?
No. I think it's some hundreds of thousands of EUR.
Ah.
It's not very significant.
Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Manuel Martin from ODDO BHF. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my questions. Three questions from my side, please. The first one is on the balance sheet. The LTV might come out roughly at 45%, as you commented after the closing of the R4 acquisition. From that point onwards, would you like to further decrease the LTV? If yes, by which means? That would be the first question.
Good morning, Manuel. I think that's important to repeat again that we have a quite natural deleveraging process with our strong cash generation on the one side. Clearly from high-yielding portfolios in the rental business in Germany and in Poland, but also from the Polish sales business. You know that we are paying out our dividends solely based on FFO 1, currently 40%. Next year it will be 50%. We keep the full cash from the sales business in the balance sheet, so therefore we have a quite natural deleveraging process. If I put it differently, we have enough headroom to invest. This year's acquisition or largest acquisition, Resi4Rent, is a good example. We signed a contract for the portfolio, and hopefully now the closing takes place soon.
We have put a certain portion of equity in there. In fact, from the EUR 565 million purchase price, EUR 186 million was the equity contribution, and the rest was then in fact paid from existing cash or from a certain debt portion. Still, the LTV came down this year. If we compare beginning of the year LTV with the pro forma LTV by roughly 150 basis points, despite, you know, paying out a dividend and so on. Therefore, that gives us really flexibility. We are currently happy with the LTV target of 45%, which is something that we have already achieved. Let's see how valuation gains develop. I think what is clear, if we see further positive valuation trends, especially in the German portfolio, and the LTV is coming down.
Yes, we could use that to, you know, go down step by step with the LTV. That's too, you know, too early to think about potential new lower LTV targets.
Mm-hmm. Okay. Regarding valuation results, do you have a feeling what could come out in 2026? Will it be rather, somehow, coupled to rental increases? Or what's your feeling there?
Yeah. I would say the base case for 2026 is that yields should be more or less unchanged. On the back of the rental growth that we see in our portfolio and on the market. Just to give you a rough guidance, a similar valuation is at the 2025, where we had roughly 3% value increase should be kind of base case. Now, I mean, it's clear we have to look at the development of inflation and interest rates. This development in Iran is very young. When we look back at 2022, you know, these developments come not into our results and valuation results on the very first day.
Whatever is coming, and I'm happy to repeat this, we think we are prepared with our portfolio for that. Even if interest rates now start to increase with a 6.6% gross yield, we are able to digest also higher interest rates if they're coming. Let's see what is happening. For now, we continue with an assumption that we will see another slight value increase in the course of 2026.
Okay. My third and last question may be on the P&L. Sorry for that one, but it jumped into my eye. There's a tax position in the P&L of EUR -337 million. I didn't have the time to go into the notes, to be honest. Maybe you can tell quickly something about that because it seems a bit high, the income tax position there.
Yeah. Yeah, you're right. It sits in each higher than the normal. It's completely refers to deferred taxes, and this will be something that just only happens now in 2025. You should not expect similar impacts or effects in the future. What happened there, we changed the way how we account for deferred taxes in the future. That means in the past, we have only accounted for deferred taxes on corporate tax. Now we also included deferred taxes for all assets and liabilities regarding trade tax. So the German. This is something that we have honestly discussed with our auditor. In the past, you find both possibilities on the market, so we know that one larger peer is doing it the way we are doing it now.
One other larger peer is doing it the way we've done it in the past. Now we are following more the conservative approach, because we think, you know, for tax purposes, for accounting purposes, looking into the next 10 years , 20 years, it's appropriate, you know, to account for the full tax impact. Honestly, this year we had perhaps also a chance, you know, to have this compensated with another effect on deferred taxes because perhaps you've seen this also at peers. We have a reducing impact on deferred taxes from the future lower corporate tax rate in Germany, the German Wachstumschancengesetz, and therefore we decided to do it at once. This is purely accounting driven. This is a non-cash impact. This has no impact on LTV, NAV or FFO 1.
This is just something that now was taking place in 2025. You should not expect something similar in 2026 or later.
Okay. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Stéphanie Dossmann from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Stéphanie, your line is open.
Hello, can you hear me now?
Yeah. Good morning, Stéphanie. We can hear you.
Okay. Sorry for that. Hello, Martin, and thank you very much for this presentation. Just coming back on the acquisitions you've done in Germany, would it be possible to elaborate a bit on who the sellers are? I understand that you acquired several portfolios. I was wondering if it's coming from same kind of sellers or who are they concrete? And maybe if you could give some color also on how the investment market overall is behaving currently. Do you see more activity and so on?
Yes, Stéphanie, perhaps to start with the first part of your question. What we can tell you is that the larger part of these acquisitions, so the 500-600 unit portfolio I mentioned, was coming from private equity. Because now we have this one transaction, is it fair to say that this is a trend that, you know, some private equity investors who were acquiring asset management intensive portfolios in the past, are now starting to sell? I think that's too early, but that could be an opportunity in the future. You know, that some investors who entered Germany in the past and were, you know, value increase was fulfilling their business plan are now back to, you know, the hard day-to-day business where it's all about asset management and a longer term investment horizon, which is exactly our business model.
That could offer us opportunities in the future. Again, that was one transaction. Perhaps we see other opportunities, but let's wait for that. On the transaction market, I mean, I'm sure you know all the market reports or transaction volume is still, I would say, moderate, but this is okay for us. Yeah, we are looking into this really opportunistically. More important, we are not under pressure to sell anything to reduce the LTV. That's done. That has been completed in 2024. Therefore, yeah, we observe the market and look for opportunities.
We would, of course, also be open to buy something larger, but I think the more realistic case is that we deploy, as in the past, you know, three years, four years, five years, most of our capital into Poland.
All right. Thank you. Maybe another question on the P&L. If I'm correct, I saw that the personnel expenses have increased by more than 10% this year. I suspect there is no Resi4Rent impact on that. What is the reason behind that, please?
Yeah, I would say there's a split between, you know, regular salary increases that we have and indeed a higher number of people working for us in Poland because both businesses are growing, right? The rental business is growing as well as the sales business is growing. Therefore, that's a development which was not on plan. I think when we compare with our internal planning, we have more or less achieved exactly the numbers that we expected to end up with.
Okay. Without, I mean, restated from the Resi4Rent, what should we expect for 2026? Excluding Resi4Rent, I mean.
I try to give you a sense of, let's say, like for like personal cost increase. If we take perhaps something between 3%-5%, perhaps that's a good estimate, which is driven by salary increases in Germany and salary increases in Poland, which are perhaps because the absolute amounts are a little bit lower. This is a bit more pronounced. That's perhaps a typical like for like development. With the Resi4Rent portfolio, we are also taking over around 80 people. This has been included in all the numbers that we have published when we acquired the portfolios regarding EBITDA and so on, because clearly we need also some people to manage the portfolio on the operational side. Therefore there should be higher personal costs, but of course higher rents.
Perhaps you remember our announcement in August. We are operating the Resi4Rent portfolio on an EBITDA margin of around 80%, so therefore that should be a quite efficient integration.
Okay. Sure. Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Martin Thiel for any closing remarks.
Yeah, many thanks to everyone for dialing in into our conference call. Many thanks also for the good questions. As always, if there's anything else left, please feel free to contact us. We will be happy to answer, and we are happy to see you in the next weeks and months on virtual and at the latest after our Q1 results in May. Many thanks and have a good day.
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