Thank you, André, and welcome to our earnings call for the Q1 2023. Your hosts today are once again CEO Rolf Buch and CFO Philip Grosse. I assume that you have already downloaded today's presentation. In case you have not, as always, you'll find it on our website under Latest Publications. Rolf and Philip will present the results and also give a general business update, and of course, we're looking forward to your questions afterwards. Though, we have no intention to set yet another record for the longest call. Let's see how it goes. Over to you, Rolf.
Thank you, Rene. Welcome to our Q1 earnings call for 2023. I want to start with what is probably the most relevant update, at least according to the last roadshow. This is disposal. Following the Südewo joint venture transaction from last week, we announced another larger transaction together with Deutsche Wohnen earlier today. We are selling three assets with 1,350 apartments to CBRE Investment Management. Three of these assets are from our rental segment, and the others two are still under construction, with completion expected in Q2 and Q3 this year. They are nearly finished. The book value of these assets as of the end of last year, including the estimated cost for the remaining builds of completion, is EUR 600 million. We have agreed on a total purchase price of EUR 560 million.
The free cash after tax and all the transaction costs reflects an 89% cash conversion, which is pretty high. On recurring sales, the Q1 volume was low. As I said in the full year earnings call six weeks ago, December, January, and February were extremely quiet. We have seen increasing momentum in March. For Q1, the volume was only 282 units privatized. The other side of the coin is that the fair value step up exceeded our expectation and came out to 56%. That is partly driven by the country mix with a disproportional share in Austria. We also disposed 381 non-core units, where the fair value step up was almost 20%.
While we continue to work towards the best outcome, our priority at this point, as we said before, lies in more cash generation and less on margin optimization. We are fully committed to the cash target we have set ourself for this year. Second, our rental performance, while Q1 was not exactly strong on all the other segments, basically because of an extraordinary strong Q1 last year, the rental business continued to run like a clockwork. This is of course relevant because the rental segment is by far our largest segment. We saw 3.4% rental growth year-over-year, 2.2% vacancy, and 99.9% rent collection, so unchanged from our full year numbers as the metrics and the underlying market dynamic continue to improve further.
We did a valuation update for our German portfolio in light of the two larger transactions we have signed. The result is a EUR 3.4 billion value decline in the German portfolio, down 4.4% on a like-for-like basis. This puts our total portfolio at a 26.9x in place rent multiple and the value at EUR 2,422 per square meter. Last but not least, our LTV is at 45.4%, and the net debt to EBITDA at 16 x. Both of course adjusted for the Südewo and CBRE transaction. Accounting for the free cash from these deals, we now have all unsecured maturity covered for this year as well as two-thirds already for the next year. Coming to page 5.
The Südewo joint venture transaction marks a successful outcome of a process that started more than one year ago. As a reminder, we began to initially float the idea of tapping unlisted equity sources earlier last year. Our objective was, and still is, to achieve something on the equity side that we had on the debt side for a long time, the ability to choose between two options. For a long time, unsecured was the better option for us on the debt side. In the current environment, secured is considerably less expensive. Going forward, we have now found a way to provide choice also on the equity side.
Following the initial thoughts around the minority structure and defining the key goals of such a transaction, we started our work on the feasibility of such a transaction to address the complexity and the granularity, especially for residential assets and their tax and legal considerations. I tell you, we have learned a lot. Our work led us to identify two portfolios we felt are suited best for what we intended to do. One portfolio, Südewo, is fully integrated in the German operating platform. There is somewhat limited control and limited protection rights for the joint venture partner. This is also reflected by the fact that we have preserved the VAT group as a tax-optimized structure. The other portfolio is Sweden, where we have a separate platform, and where a minority partner would generally be able to exercise more influence.
This approach allows us to address quite different investors. Following the identification of these two different portfolios, we then started the market approach in Q3, and continued investors conversations, eventually negotiations in Q4 and Q1. We have now agreed on a common equity participation in Südewo with Apollo on behalf of its affiliated and third-party insurance clients and other long-term investors. This transaction achieves what we have set out to do. We raised EUR 1 billion of equity at much more favorable terms than what we observed in the listed space. While our equity has been trading at a solid double-digit FFO yield for a while now, we have secured a 6.95%-8.3% pre-agreed IRR that is capped via a call option, and which, of course, includes all dividends paid.
Similar, we achieved another key objective, and this is to continue control, operation, and consolidation of the underlying assets. This consolidation is much more than just keeping a minority stake. We even succeeded in maintaining the VAT tax group for Südewo, so that we can benefit from an optimized tax structure. In addition, the joint venture transaction is also superior to an asset sale, as it does not trigger real estate transfer tax. Taking our time here made all sense of the world. Joint venture should be understood as an extra alternative access to equity, not a disposal. This is therefore not the right way to define the normal market prices for our assets. Of course, with the joint venture, we finally gained some valuable knowledge and experience in this transaction. This will serve with us in case of potential future minority transactions.
The point is the market, to define the market price is different in the next deal. We have reached an agreement with CBRE Investment Management on the disposal of three assets with 1,350 apartments located in Berlin, Munich and Frankfurt. Three of the projects are part of Vonovia's rental segment, the other two projects are still under construction, with completion expected in Q2 and Q3 this year, so nearly finished. Some paint is missing. As you can see in the charts on the right-hand side, these assets are not exactly the Vonovia average in term of value per square meter and rent per square meter. At around EUR 6,000 per square meter, the average fair value is much more than twice as high as Vonovia average.
The rent level of close to EUR 20 per square meter compares to EUR 7.50 for Vonovia's portfolio. For Vonovia, you have about 30% uplift potential based on a track record on our optimized apartment investments. This is from the very upper end of our portfolio, and it is probably fair to say that at this rent level, the future rent costs will be more a point of an affordability question. The book value at the end of last year, including this estimated outstanding bills for completion, it was only for a few months, for the not yet finished assets, is around EUR 600 million. We have agreed on a total purchase price of EUR 560 million.
We expect a cash inflow after tax and all transaction costs of EUR 535 million, representing a cash conversion of close to 90%. Not only is this a sizable transaction on an attractive price, it is also structured in a way that we can achieve a very high cash conversion, which is in the end, of course, the main objective from our capital allocation point of view. It shows that large transaction at less than a 4% cost yield are possible in the environment if we structure them right. The fact that we have found such a respected, acknowledgeable partner for this deal makes me and the market optimistic that this transaction can be a positive signal of the market as a whole.
If we are Vonovia, and if we would have to choose between these relatively new buildings and the normal portfolio, we would probably have chosen to take the normal portfolio. In the normal portfolio, there is still a significant catch-up potential for rent, and there is a possibility of highly accretive investment opportunities, both thanks to our platform. Of course, if somebody is not able to have this platform, these newly constructed buildings are better. In the end, we have found a win-win situation which is actually following the best ownership concept. With this, I hand over to Philip.
Thanks, Rolf, very warm welcome also from my side. Let's move to page 10 on the segment overview. Here, as Rolf said, we had a very good quarter in our rental segment, less so in the other segments. If you look at rental growth, occupancy and rent collection keep going strong. The Q1 was not as good as last year for the other parts of our business. In development, this has to do with the fact that Q1 2022 was out of the ordinary with a very large global exit. The quarterly comparison is distorted here. For recurring sales, the truth is that the first two months this year were very quiet, so it's not surprising that Q1 fell short compared to the prior year, as we have been guiding for.
At the same time, we have been seeing more interest, in signs of life, in our expectations for the full year against that backdrop remain that we can deliver on our guidance. In our value add segment, we had to operate with a higher cost base and the reduced investment program was not helpful in delivering a growing level of contribution margin. All this combined with the elevated financing expenses led to a 20% decline in FFO per share to EUR 0.58 for Q1 this year. Moving to the next page. Our largest segment, which is of course rental, we saw 2.6% revenue growth, 5.2% EBITDA growth, which was supported by a much lower cost base.
Here you can essentially see that Deutsche Wohnen synergies are coming through, and this is also evident if you look at the EBITDA operations margin as well as cost per unit in the outlook for the entire year. Moving to page nine on our rental KPIs. Year-on-year, organic rent growth in Q1 was at 3.4%, 1.2% coming from market rent growth. Here, as we have been guiding for, we do expect an acceleration for the remainder of the year. I also want to point out that this number still mostly excludes the impact from higher inflation, as we have explained in our March call. Vacancy rate at 2.2%. Unsurprisingly, this remains on a very low level and is expected to stay on a very low level for quite some time given supply-demand imbalance.
The chart on rent collection is a great indicator also for affordability. We get quite a bit of pushback from people who fear that rent collection will come under pressure for affordability reasons. These numbers clearly speak a different language. To be clear, they include not just the rent, the net cold rent, but also all ancillary costs and energy costs. The latter has seen adjustments beginning of this year to account for the sharp increase in energy prices. Moving to page 10, on value add. Here Q1 fell short of our expectations. While there is some revenue growth, we had to operate with a higher cost base and the reduced investment program, so clearly a drag on EBITDA contribution.
That having said, if I look at the performance year-to-date, that comes not as a surprise to us and it's fully in line with our budget. Page 11 on recurring sales. Here, as Rolf said, sales volume was a little less than half of the prior year period, while the fair value step up was about 10 percentage points higher. Clearly, overall, this Q1 is not representative of what we want to achieve in this segment in the course of the year. As we are beginning to see this market coming back, we remain optimistic overall.
In achieving our goals for this year, we will be careful to find the right mix between a decent fair value step up on the one hand, and sufficient volume, enhance cash generation, which is and remains our priority for this year on the other side. Finally, for this page, I also want to point out that we also sold almost 400 non-core units, roughly 20% above fair value. On page 12, development continues to be an attractive but more volatile business with gross margins still in double-digit territory. Q&Q comparison is not very helpful, as last year included a large and very profitable global exit in Austria. As you can see on the lower left-hand side, we have been shifting more projects under construction towards development to sell in line with our communicated revised capital allocation policy. Moving to page 13 on valuation.
Here, we have originally intended to do a full valuation update only with our H1 figures and leave Q1 values unchanged. An update was required in light of the two recent transactions we did ourselves. This valuation update is on the German portfolio only and is a model update based on available market price data and mindful, obviously, of the agreed sales prices which we have achieved. It includes updated portfolio and market data, including rent roll, vacancy, operating expenses, portfolio volume, and also capitalization rates. It also includes EUR 240 million of capitalized investments which we undertook in Q1.
The result of the valuation update is in P&L impact of minus EUR 3.6 billion or 4.4% on the German portfolio. On this basis, and as of March this year, our portfolio was valued at the 3.7% gross yield, or almost 27x rent multiplier, which is the German way, as you know, to look at this equation. This is, of course, based on in-place rents, and the multiple would be quite different if you were to base it on market rent, which we are able to achieve. The German portfolio was valued at almost EUR 2,500 per square meter.
Just as a reminder, the median purchase price for condos is significantly higher, EUR 3,500, and the median purchase price for new construction equally, which is even EUR 5,300 across Germany. You can, as guided for, expect a full valuation update that is including Sweden and Austria with our half year numbers. Very brief on page 14. The valuation had, of course, an impact on our NTA, which came out at EUR 53.75 per share, and therefore a 6.5% decline vis-a-vis year-end numbers. Page 15 on debt structure. Standard page. Not much change compared to what we presented six weeks ago. Let me directly move to the next page on the key debt KPIs. Here on page 16, we show the debt KPIs as reported for Q1.
If we account on a pro forma basis for the two transactions, we now stand at an LTV of 45.4% and a net debt to EBITDA of 16 x if you apply the average debt of 15.5 x on a spot basis. Here still some way to go to move back into our comfort zone, in particular on EBITDA and LTV. Moving to the next page for free cash flow, 17. You know this page from our full year reporting, and we are keeping the full year view here, as the point is to show you the expected cash generation over 12 months. The update here is that it includes the Südewo joint venture and the CBRE transactions.
While we have now achieved about 75% of our asset disposals target for this year, we will of course, continue to chase all disposal channels that you see on the upper right-hand side to reach our 2023 target and possibly more. Page 18 is an illustration on our refinancing and deleveraging progress. We now have fully covered all our 2023 refinancing needs and also two-thirds of 2024. Assuming the rollover of the bank debt, which continues to be or to see a lot of appetite, we have about three quarters of a billion of unsecured debt left, which we still want to address by further disposals. The EUR 1.3 billion of loans signed include, as we have reported, the new loan of EUR 600 million from the European Investment Bank and the rollover of EUR 550 million from Berlin Hyp.
Here, there's also included a new unsecured green loan of EUR 150 million, which we have agreed with CaixaBank at very competitive terms at around 4%. Page 19, you will see our updated, meaning unchanged guidance. As we have discussed, we see lower predictability than normal with regards to volume and profitability for both development and recurring sales. That is why you see this reflected in the wider ranges we had already included in the guidance update in March. Our expectations for the operating business are entirely unchanged. To avoid any potential confusion, the Südewo joint venture and CBRE transactions are very helpful in terms of liquidity, but they have very little to no impact on the 2023 guidance. With that, back to you, Rolf.
Thank you, Philip. There are two changes to the management board of Vonovia. First, Helene von Roeder, which you probably all know, will resign from her position on the board at the end of June 2023 to take a new professional role. The change comes on her own request by mutual agreement and on the best amicable terms. Helene started her position at Vonovia as CFO in May 2018, and played a vital role in the successful business combination with Deutsche Wohnen. After taking over the responsibility as chief transformation officer at the beginning of 2022, she successfully led Vonovia's value add operation and laid the foundation for this segment's long-term growth potential. I really enjoyed working together with Helene, and I know she will be missed. We wish her all the best for the new role.
Second, Vonovia Supervisory Board has resolved to appoint Ruth Werhahn to the management board as Chief Human Resources Officer as of October 1, 2023 . Prior to joining Vonovia, Ruth has been a member of the management board and labor director at TÜV Rheinland AG, which operates in more than 50 country with about 21,000 employees. Werhahn began her career at E.ON in 2001, where she was a managing director for E.ON Nordics AB in Malmö in Sweden between 2008 and 2010. From 2010 to 2013, she was responsible for setting up the new business segment, electromobility, and in 2013 she assumed responsibility for human resources at E.ON Germany.
We are looking forward to welcoming her to Vonovia, and we have no doubt that she will be a great addition to our team. My wrap up will be brief. With rent accelerating, vacancy on continuous low levels and renting payments being fully collected, our core rental business remains the strong foundation. We enjoy extremely healthy operating fundamentals that are increasingly supported by the two key megatrends: supply imbalance in urban areas and the decarbonization of real estate. This is attractive not just for us, but obviously also now for other investors. The two recent transaction demonstrates this and show how that disposals are possible even in that still in a very challenging transaction environment.
We consider this as a positive signal for the market as a whole, and are optimistic that more confidence can return to the sector as more and more participants begin to realize that the price correction may well be not really as strong as initially feared. This is back to Willy.
Thank you, Rolf and Philip. I'm gonna hand it back to Andre to kindly open the Q&A. I think we have already a few people in the queue, let's take them one by one, please.
The first question comes from the line of Charles Boissier with UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi, thank you very much for taking my questions. Three questions from my side. The first on disposals. You mentioned an attractive price on the disposal to CBRE, but it's hard with the current disclosure to form our own view. Last quarter, Vonovia had taken, I think, EUR 450 million negative revaluation on the Deutsche Wohnen development portfolio to align with Vonovia's cost method. Can we deduce that the project sold to CBRE had also been depreciated at your end? Related to that, to understand the EUR 560 million paid, what is basically the fully loaded cost to develop these five projects?
Yeah, Charles, on your question first, what you have to consider is that by acquiring Deutsche Wohnen, we accounted for the development projects, the respective projects back at the time at fair value as part of the PPA. Against that backdrop, I think it comes at no big surprise that in the changed environment we are facing since then, these projects have been somewhat more at risk because there was essentially hardly any development margin. As for our real estate business in the rental segment, the investment properties, predominantly the developments of Deutsche Wohnen has seen some value decline as it's clearly the case also for the broader portfolio.
early not read, in my view, too much into that. On the second point, as Rolf said, these projects are almost completed. There are some outstanding payments still to be made, which are roughly EUR 40 million. So you see what we have been accounting for or the spreads vis-a-vis the estimated fair value is a very small one, and there is little volatility on these remaining payments.
Just to confirm, so you're selling at about 7% discount to how much it costs you to build. Is that reasonable?
That is correct. I mean, also what is important, we have been focusing a lot on reducing cash leakage to a minimum, because cash is king these days. By a cash leakage only of 11%, I think this is a very, very good outcome. In the structuring of the deal, we also tried to build in a structure which allows to reduce the tax burden. It's still a good portion, but with part of the deal being a share deal, it was efficiently structured from a tax perspective and as a consequence, reduced the cash leakage.
Just to add, five projects, two of them are actually not finished and coming from the development. Three of them are coming from the operating business from Vonovia.
Yeah. Yeah. Also you mentioned the high rent, and more limited potential ahead. Can I confirm that those projects are CPI linked, as is usually the case in Germany for developments?
It's not all CPI linked. It's a part CPI linked. The point is, and I think this I tried to mention, if I have, looking from Vonovia's perspective on two assets which have more or less the same yield, I always would choose the one where I have rental uplift potential, which is shown, which is this 30% which you see in the average, and probably in the cities it would be even better than a fully priced rent. This is, I think, the first argument. The second argument is our platform. It is for us more attractive if the yield are more or less the same to invest in or keep assets where we can invest on attractive yield basis, because our investment in energetic modernization is still significantly higher than our cost of capital.
I think for us, this portfolio is probably less attractive because rent uplift potential is limited, and there is no possibility to do accretive investments. While keeping the rest is probably something which makes more sense for us because we can generate value. This is exactly the strategy which we explained to you last summer, that we actually on our disposals list are assets which are actually perfect in shape, which has nothing to be improved, and which are ideal for people who do not have a Vonovia platform, and that's why they want to own this asset without a lot of work. I think that's, this is exactly, we are doing here exactly what we announced last summer.
Sure. My second question is on a related topic, on valuation. The minus 4% valuation update, you mentioned, valuers were mindful of recent deals. Depending how we look at the concessions made to Apollo in particular on the rents and the CapEx, we can come to a larger discount than the headline discount. Of course, you also do have this option, and some people are looking at this transaction as a bit of a secured debt deal, so there may be various opinion on this. How are your valuers looking at the headline discount versus the concessions granted?
I mean, from a valuation perspective, the sunrise or the Apollo transaction is not really relevant because we essentially, as Rolf explained, sold a minority stake of common equity and not a portfolio. The cost of equity at which we sold is roughly in between 7%-8%. The right way to look at that is to compare that to our capital market implied cost of equity. Here, if you look at our FFO yields, if you look at Bloomberg consensus, we are at around 12%.
That essentially means that we have on an equity basis been able to achieve 35% better terms looking at the cost of equity than what our stock market implies. That is somewhat interesting because it it somewhat also corresponds to the implied discount on our gross asset value, the our current stock market valuation implies. All of that having said, I think there are a number of reasons why this transaction standalone is not really the trigger. The trigger is the CBRE transaction, where you have some read across on the broader development of asset values. That is what we have reflected.
ave obviously included the agreed prices with CBRE in our Q1 results. Second, we have also recognized the read across from the CBRE transaction on our broader portfolio, and all of that was essentially resulting in that 4.5% value decline for our German portfolio.</p
Okay. Taking CBRE but not Apollo. Okay. Then last question from my side. On leverage, you're making disposals, but LTV is still going up obviously from the negative revaluation. If values were to come down another, let's say 8%, LTV could cross the 50%, which is a threshold for the credit rating agencies. What's your view on defending the credit rating? You're several notches above non-investment grade. Is your view that, if you were to be downgraded, ultimately it wouldn't impact significantly your access to financing, or is the current rating very important for you? Thank you.
I think Charles, first of all, I have very regular dialogue with the rating agencies. You can expect that we have also in context of the Apollo transaction had dialogue with the rating agencies. I have no reason to expect any change in their respective rating. I mean obviously, you're right in saying that if we were to see further value decline, that this will negatively impact the LTV. Clearly, what we have said, Rolf and myself, separately in the call, is that we keep pushing on the disposal side. The target for this year is EUR 2 billion.
What we have in the pipeline is more than that, so we will see what the outcome is gonna be. For now, the target remains of EUR 2 billion for 2023. If there were to be seen further value declines, we have to do more on the asset disposal side. For now, I think it's speculation to talk about figures of whatever, 8%-10% of additional value depreciation. We will see how the transaction market behaves in particular, also with certain signs of life we start to see.
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Bart Gysens with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, good afternoon. I want to touch on your home building activities. You're selling, or the CBRE transaction is partly out of this home building business. And you're willing to sell at a loss there, so this is now a loss-making business. Can you help us understand what the kind of working capital requirements are? In theory, this should be a self-funding business, but in practice, it may not be the case in this environment. Kind of, are we seeing an increase in working capital requirements there, and how does that fit into your financing and liquidity position? Thank you.
To be very clear, if you understand and you know our development business, the key and the core of our development business is actually a business where we build buildings and sell individual apartments out of it. This is, of course, a margin-generating business like the disposals of our value add business, of our recurring sales business. In this specific case, we have sold two blocks in the development to sell out of the Deutsche Wohnen portfolio, so this is not typical for the nature of our development business, which is building blocks and then selling individual apartments and attracting the market of individuals who want to live in the big cities. I think this is a specialty of the business.
We limit the development business to a capital exposure of roughly EUR 3 billion, and that's why we don't see any major impact from this business.
Okay. Thank you very much.
The next question comes on the line of Marc Mozzi with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Very good afternoon, everyone. I'll start with a question around your transaction, Südewo deal transaction. Can you give us a bit of color of what are the different components of the internal rate return you're guaranteeing to Apollo in the case you will exercise your call option? I mean, sort of breakdown between initial yield, rental growth, capital return, whatever color you can give us to try for us to understand what sort of effective value you're potentially keeping for you in that transaction. Thank you.
This is Marc, as you know, the complexity in this deal lies in the fact that for the VAT group consolidation, the minority shareholder has no protection rights because we have to access and to execute all the decisions made by the Vonovia board. There is no, even not normal minority protection rights. That's why they have a higher than they normally would get a dividend share, but this is actually more or less irrelevant because we have a cap in the IRR on our call option. There is no other guarantees to Apollo remaining this business because it's a cap equity participation. That's why we cannot give different guarantees. The deal is actually relatively simple. Apollo likes the yield, and we like the lower cost of equity.
Is it fair to understand it very basically that, assuming a 7% payout ratio on the cash, that gives around 5%-6% net yield to Apollo, plus 2%-3% of rental growth, that gives the internal rate return? Or there is any other capital element or capital return we should assume on top? Or part of it-
No, the capital return is because in the IRR calculation, which we have to pay if we execute the call options, everything is included what is paid to Apollo. Relatively simple, this is the cost of equity.
You basically look at the dividend stream. The residual price you have to pay to exercise the call option has to result in an IRR in the given range. In other words, if I look at the value of the call option, that given the disproportionate share of the dividend will increase over time as a consequence of that. The price you have to pay will be reduced over time.
Okay. Okay. Makes sense. Following up on the question from Bart, because it looks like that effectively your house development business or house building activity is now shrinking in term of sales. Traditionally, you cannot stop building and constructing buildings, whatever the level of sales you're capable to achieve. That creates a cash drag, if I understand the business correctly. Can you give us a color of what sort of risk or of cash burn we should potentially expect from that business, which it's called changing working capital requirement, but let's put it simply cash burn. If you're building things from one side and you're not selling anything on the other side, net-net, there is a cash burn.
Marc, you are assuming that we cannot stop building, we just have announced that we are stopping building. We are not doing new buildings as long as we have not sold the old ones. Very simple.
It's, I mean, Rolf Buch Has given the guidance on the capital we have deployed in the development business. One thing is very clear also when the market shifts again and we have, we start to have better visibility, the development segment has to earn the cash in order to undertake new investments. Now, for the given years and for the project developments we have started, historically, you've seen the development business delivering gross margins of 25%, even 30%. I think it's fair to assume that this will somewhat come under pressure. You see that in Q1 that we are still comfortably double digit, but not as high as we used to be in terms of margin.
And for us, we certainly have to calibrate cash requirements vis-à-vis profitability at some stage. Given that we are talking about very healthy development margins from the start, and as a reminder, different to Deutsche Wohnen, back at the time, BUWOG was accounting for the development on an as cost basis always. There is some buffer to absorb some fluctuation, if you will, on the asset side in terms of values.
Marc, and let me just reconfirm. The core of our development business is to build blocks and to sell individual apartments. There we are addressing people which are probably more middle class people, so it is not the rich because we are not building a lot of penthouses. This is normal people which actually want to have a home which they own for their families. The block sales, which is also part on the development, but is only a small part, which is actually coming from the originally development to hold products, is a part of the development business. The fundamental part of the development business is to build blocks and to sell individual apartments. This business is healthy.
Okay. If I understand you correctly, everything you're gonna sell from here in that business has been completed?
Yes. There are some construction ongoing because we have stopped the new construction actually in the middle of last year. This will be now completed very soon. We are constantly selling, out of this portfolio.
If I understand you correctly from the last call, you still had EUR 800 million of cash to spend to complete the ongoing buildings. This is where I'm struggling to understand. If you're not spending EUR 800 million on the other side, then there is a gap.
It's getting smaller every month, we are talking because the stop of the new construction is every month it's getting less, and we are selling. The gap will grow smaller every month we are talking. Until we restart new projects. Of course, there the rule is Daniel has to collect the money first, he can restart new projects. We are willing to support him to restart new projects.
Sure. That, that's clear. I have a third one, and I think it should be a very easy one. Do you really consider that the cash on the balance sheet and the undrawn corporate RCF are liquidity at your disposal? That you can effectively use those lines to pay down debt?
Yes. I mean, we always have a small portion of what we consider trapped cash. I think that's below EUR 100 million currently. So in essence, the answer is yes.
Okay. Thank you very much. That's it for me. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from the line of Paul May with Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi, Roland. A few questions from me. Just on the first one, I appreciate there's been a lot of questions around this already on the housebuilding business. Would it be easier to consider, you know, properly separating out the cash in, sort of gross cash in, gross cash out on a quarterly or half yearly basis so we can properly analyze where the cash is going and where it's coming in? Would that be something you'd consider? You may avoid some of these questions in the future if you were to do that.
I think I will not give an answer in this call. We take it back, discuss it if you want to provide that additional transparency.
Cool. Thank you. Second one is post the value declines you've seen in Q1, what's the headroom that you have with regard to your LTV covenants in terms of further value declines?
Uh, the...
Mm-hmm.
We have that at the very back end of the presentation. It's
Okay.
It's above 26%. It's on page 39.
Cool. Thank you.
It should, by the way, give. It should give you some comfort that I didn't have that on top of my head because it really falls.
Indeed, it does. Moving forwards from here, obviously disposals, and I appreciate we can debate exactly, you know, what's relevant, what's not relevant for valuation, but appears to be the one that was relevant is still coming at a larger discount than your than you took in the Q1. Should we take that there's further, expects to be further value declines from here? Or do you believe that that's a slightly different portfolio and therefore it's not comparable directly?
I think as usual, we've just freshly printed our Q1, and we have reflected the market intelligence. Some of that's triggered by our own activity in the transaction market. As usual, no guidance on what to expect for the first half. But I mean, stating the obvious evaluation is always backward looking for now. In other words, some pressure remains. It also remains to be seen as to what extent the activity by CBRE, which is a very reputable market participant, will impact the transaction activity in Germany. Here we still have two months to go, and we will see how that is translating into our H1 revaluation.
Just on that transaction, the NOI yield or the free cash flow yield from that portfolio, I believe will be higher than your average. I appreciate you've got probably greater growth in your remaining portfolio. In terms of the maintenance spend, future sort of modernization investment, your free cash flow is gonna be greater in the CBRE portfolio? Am I thinking about that incorrectly?
I think this depends very much, and that's why we are so proud that we were able to structure the CBRE deal in a way that it is very cash efficient. That's why we give you the free cash flow. So this might be of course, if you have land longer in the ownership and you've used, or if you have buildings longer in the ownership, of course, the deferred taxes lying with this might be higher, but this depends on how you structure the deals. There was in the CBRE deal, as we announced, there's also one share deal for obvious reasons.
Cool. Last one on valuation. Apologies. Has there been or what has been the change in the discount rates you've used or terminal cap values? 'Cause I don't think you provide that breakdown at Q1, so just wondering what change has been quarter- on- quarter in those two figures.
Yeah, I mean, here we have not provided that detail. I mean, stating the obvious, these are a couple of basis points, because essentially, we applied the transactional evidence by what we have seen, based on empirical data, but also on our own transaction across the entire portfolio. While there are some regional differences, there are not large regional differences.
Okay. Cool. The final one on the call option with Apollo. What's the duration of that? I mean, or is there any duration or is it indefinite, in terms of that call option? How would you look to fund that? Obviously, part of the issue is, you know, the reason you're disposing is 'cause you capital constrained, wanting to bring down leverage. Obviously, to call the option would require you to have capital inflow. Just wonder what your thought processes are on duration of that call option and on the ability to buy it back. Thanks.
The duration is, actually between five and 10 years, and then there's the next one, 15 years. Long term way to go. It's our own choice if we call. I think this is for the next 15 years, and we will see where the market is in the next 15 years. It is our right to call after year five whenever we want.
To be precise, after year 15, there is a step-up to the 8.3%.
The call option has no end date, so it's permanent equity. Your question is the same as to how we would fund a share buyback, essentially, which we undertake in some time in the future.
Cool. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from the line of Andres Toome with Green Street. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon. I have a few questions. I'll just go one by one as usual. Firstly about just Mietspiegel prints. When do you think or when is the majority of those kicking into your actual in-place rents? There's some tick up in the Q1 , presumably it's more backloaded to the year.
There's actually two effects. The Mietspiegel are not coming out in one specific month. They are coming out, every month is coming out a Mietspiegel. Of course, it depends on the size of the portfolio, which is just impacted by this Mietspiegel. There is some additional rules in the German rent regulation, which actually does not immediately allow us, in all cases, to imply the new Mietspiegel. The kicking in, if you are asking about the impact on EBITDA and FFO, it's always a little bit of delay, but we cannot say it's just three months. This depends on the buildings, this depends on the size of the Mietspiegel relevant to our portfolio.
The second effect on the Mietspiegel as we have said is that the discounted cash flow actually is increased. This is of course an immediate effect if the Mietspiegel is approved.
That will be in your valuation then?
In the valuation, the impact is immediately. In the moment as the new Mietspiegel is in place. In the cash flow, there might be a different delay. What is actually technically happening, we are sending out, in the new Mietspiegel comes, we are sending out for the tenants which are existing tenants, we are sending out the new rent bills. There's this, Verordnung, there is a maximum increase in 15 months. If, for example, we have sent out a letter 12 months ago, then we have to wait three months, this is a little bit longer. This is one effect. The next one is if we have done modernization, we have to wait longer.
You see the impact that last year we have seen a 1% rental growth from this effect, and now we are seeing 2% on the whole portfolio. The speed will double.
Okay. My second question was around politics and just to get an idea if you see anything positive from the new Berlin state government and the CDU mayor.
It's definitely very positive because the left-wing party which wanted to nationalize us is now out of the government. This is, of course, a much more rational government which acknowledge that they cannot handle the challenges in the city without actually you. It's not without Vonovia, but it's actually your money. I think this is good news. And on top of it, they have actually changed the nationalization by an objective to buy back portfolios, which is the market-driven approach if you want to own more assets. I think we are coming now back to a rational housing policy also in the state of Berlin.
My last question was just around currency exposure to foreign currency and the Swedish krona in particular, which has moved quite a lot in the last year. How do you hedge that exposure, both through your P&L and then also on the value side? How much of that is sort of naturally hedged versus financially?
We have no currency hedges. We have some natural hedge if you will, on the financing side, as we do have, not all, but the majority of the financing of our Swedish business, the Swedish banks and also some smaller Swedish bonds.
The LTV ratio there would be something in line with Vonovia's average or something higher?
I need to come back on that. I don't have, I mean, it's significantly lower. That for sure, if I look at the Swedish financing stand alone, because part of the financing of our Swedish portfolio is done on the group level. We don't have, we are not allocating our financing sources to our German, Swedish/Austrian business. It's not how we manage our financing.
Okay, understood. Thank you very much. That's it from my end.
The next question comes from the line of Thomas Rothäusler from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon. A few questions. The first is actually on transaction markets and disposals. I mean, you view the CBRE deal as a sign of recovery of investment markets, as I understand. If this is the case, could you provide any color on the chance to sign further disposals? Do you see any chance for straight asset deals, let's say selling average product, let's say at book value or around book value in the current environment? Also would you be willing to exceed the EUR 2 billion disposal target at these pricing levels?
To be very clear to your last question, I think we should deliver the EUR 2 billion first, and then we should talk about new targets. As Philip has said, we are aware that having a lower leverage is better. We definitely, I think even if we are fixing new targets, we will definitely not stop at the EUR 2 billion. Before we are coming out now with an official target of about more than EUR 2 billion, let's deliver the EUR 2 billion first, and then we talk again. We are willing to deliver above the EUR 2 billion target, to be very clear, but we do not come out with a new target. The second is, you know, we have a portfolio sorting. We have portfolios which are for sale and others which are to hold.
The traditional, what you call traditional, I would interpret it, are assets where we have significant rental uplift potential and where we have significant potential to do energetic modernization. This is, of course, our lower priority to be sold. There's only one exception where we are ready to sell also this type of assets. This is for municipalities for obvious reasons. We are trying to sell according to our portfolio strategy, and there's still enough to sell. I think I've explained it in detail on the, on six weeks ago in the, in the year-end call. There is a health care, there is a nursing home. There's a nursing home business. There is some commercial assets. There is municipality.
All of this is still in place, and we are going on on this route. Normal traditional assets, we are in general willing to sell to municipalities.
The second question is actually on your earnings guidance. I mean, you have a rather wide range, as I understand, to consider more volatile recurring sales and development business. Would you say you need a recovery of both segments in order to be safe on the full year guidance?
Very broadly speaking, Thomas, the higher, the higher end, certainly requires some improvement in our disposal-driven contributions to EBITDA and Group FFO, so development to sell and privatization business. The lower end is essentially the case for a more or less debt market in Germany on the disposal side.
The last question is actually on rental growth. I mean, you turn more upbeat on market rental growth recently. Have you seen any recent data points confirming the upside? Any color here would be helpful. Any new Mietspiegel examples maybe?
It's only six weeks ago that we have been our year end, as we have discussed. In the last six weeks, I think there's no meaningful Mietspiegel coming out. To be very precise, if the Berlin Mietspiegel will come out very soon. If this Mietspiegel will not come out until end of May, legally, we are allowed to apply the comparable apartment rule. This would be, of course, still very much to reflect on how we would react on discussion. The Mietspiegel has to come out very soon. Otherwise, there is no Mietspiegel in Berlin.
To just follow up on that, I mean, you would be allowed to apply the comparable apartment rule if the Mietspiegel is not published by the end of the month.
Yes.
Okay. Thanks.
The next question comes from the line of Jochen Schmitt with Metzler. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good afternoon. I have two questions, please. Firstly, on the Südewo transaction, you said that the acquiring parties would receive a past pro rata dividend rights. Would you mind giving any percentage figure here, for example, in terms of Südewo's payout ratio, which the minority shareholders are eligible to? That's my first question.
It's somewhat inverted to the ownership quota of 30%.
Thank you. Second question on the disposal, which you announced today. Could you be a bit more precise on transaction costs and taxes involved in the sale? Are these brokerage and advisory costs, and which type of taxes you refer to? Thank you.
I think it's all different type. The majority of the tax is actually the tax because we are not The tax balance sheet is not the same like our AFS balance sheet, and there's a difference in between. Even if we are selling for AFS book value, part of it is taxable, especially if you own land for a longer time.
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Kai Klose with Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good afternoon. I've got two quick questions on the results. The first one is on the adjusted EBITDA in the care segment, where we saw quite a strong fall in the profitability and EBITDA decrease. Could you give a bit more color on that? If the increase in the operating costs compared to Q1 last year is to be expected, will continue for the remaining of the year. The last question is on the cash tax rate or the applied cash tax rate in the Group FFO calculation, it also was higher compared to Q1 last year. Is this a trend or is the level of Q1 a good proxy for the full year? Thanks.
Yeah. On the, on the nursing bit, again, there's some distortion because in Q1 last year, we have seen some compensation as a result of Corona, point one. Point two is, that we are struggling in the nursing business to get the respective personnel. That is a drag on occupancy levels because, legally we are required to have a certain number of employees, corresponding to a certain number of elderly people. Occupancy rates have come down by 5 percentage points approximately from 95% to 90%.
The last point is that we see some cost inflation that however is only a phasing effect because that will be compensated, however, with the time delay by long-term care insurance and that cost increases is because of A, higher wages and B, higher energy costs predominantly. Those are the three drivers.
Thanks.
Sorry, and the second question, Kai?
Was on the applied tax rate, cash tax rate in the FFO calculation, which was I think 100, some 100 basis points higher compared to Q1 last year. The number of Q1 is a good proxy for the full year?
Look, I mean, this is always very, very much depending, in particular on the disposal business. If I look at the tax rate of our rental business, I think we are at around, at around 6% measured by respective revenues. In the disposal business, it really depends on the product we are selling, for how long, and at what depreciated textbook values that has been accounted for. This is very, very difficult to give you a summed up guidance on that.
All right. Thanks.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone. The next question comes from the line of Neeraj Kumar with Barclays. Please go ahead. No, sorry. She withdrew the question. We have now Paul Reuge from R-co. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Just a question on my side. On the Südewo transaction, is there a debt on the portfolio? If yes, is the level comparable to Vonovia LTV?
Südewo is debt-free. Essentially debt-free.
Okay. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions and I hand back to Rene for closing comments.
Thank you, André , and thanks everyone for joining. As always, this obviously was just the start of our engagement after the results. We'll be on the road quite a bit over the next days and weeks with quite some roadshow dates and conferences that we will be attending. We hope to see many of you live or at least on screen, and you will find a list of events on page 52 of today's presentation and of course, always online on our website. As always, in case of questions, please do reach out to me or my colleagues. That's it from us for today. Stay safe, happy and healthy, and see you soon. Bye-bye.