So good morning, everyone, and welcome to Silicom's Q2 twenty twenty Results Audio Call. We have today published our half year 2020 report, and it can be found from our web page under the Investors section as usual. My name is Laura Laujianen. I'm here together with our CEO, Mr. Scott Paul and our CFO and Executive Vice President, Eero Fishburne.
So today there is a lot to discuss. So Scott will start today's audio cast with an overview of the quarter and the operations in the COVID environment. This will be then followed by Eda's financial overview, and Scott will conclude today's presentation with a few remarks on our strategy and our focus areas and a summary of the main points. As usual, you will have a chance to ask questions after the presentation, and there will be a separate Q and A session once Scott and Nero have finished the presentation. So, Scott, please go ahead.
Thank you, Laura. Thank you and good morning, everyone. I'd like to start this call with a shout out to the team at Citicom. I'm extremely proud of the achievements and the relentless work of our team and our board to manage the current circumstances while keeping Citicom's long term goals in mind. I will present a short summary of the q two results as well as the key highlights for the quarter.
There were several important events. And we also gained more visibility on the impact of COVID-nineteen that affected second quarter operations and financial results. This will be followed by a financial overview given by Arrow, and I will end today's audio cast with a few remarks on the positive trends we see in the market and our key focus areas during the following months. Despite the challenging circumstances, Q2 was a relatively good quarter and a validation of our strategy. Short term effects of COVID-nineteen impacted the quarterly results, yet our centers demonstrated resilience and the defensive nature of the assets.
I'm also pleased to see that July performance has continued to improve and the positive trends continue. For the quarter, NRI was €50,200,000 compared to €53,800,000 for the comparable quarter using the same currency exchange rates. Our like for like NRI, excluding the impact of currency changes, declined by 4.1% as a result of COVID related reasons as lower footfall and tenant sales negatively affected turnover based rents, especially leasing and parking fees. Subsequent strengthening of these metrics is a positive forward looking indicator for the aforementioned income. Fair values of properties declined by 2.1%, while exchange rate gains positively affected EPRA NAV.
EPRA NAV was 11.33 for q two compared to 11.36 for q one with only a small a modest decline of point 3%. NOK and SEC exchange rates recovered from their q one lows with the NOK up 19% and the SEC up 8%. Strengthen of currencies positively affected equity through positive impact on asset fair values. Yet average exchange rate for the period continued to negatively affect our results when compared to Q2 twenty nineteen. EPRA EPS and adjusted EPRA EPS amounted to EUR 0.204 and EUR 0.181, respectively, increasing from EUR 0.195 and EUR 0.173 in Q1 twenty twenty, an increase of 4.24.7%, respectively.
EPRA EPS was EUR 0.204 compared to EUR 0.217 in Q2 twenty nineteen, Exchange rates explaining 0.011 of the decline. Adjusted EPS was 0.181, reflecting the impact from weaker currency and issuance of the hybrid bond at an h 02/2019 compared to 2019, representing a decline of 6.6%. Our rent collection remains strong throughout the 2020. Currently, it's 93% of h one rents have been collected. At the July, 88% of our q two rents have been collected.
The final collection rate will be higher due to some delays in payments experienced during the COVID nineteen. This is well above the industry average and again reflects both our strategy that is focused on a necessity based tenant mix as well as operating in The Nordics, a topic that I will discuss in more detail later on the call. Operationally, Q2 was a solid quarter and the bounce back continues. Our centers remained open throughout the quarter. As of today, all tenants are open for business.
As a result of our strategy and having less restrictions in The Nordics, our performance has been steadily increasing from the lows in op in April. Footfall dipped in April following government restrictions, and q two like for like footfall was down 29%. At the June, the footfall had increased back to 85% and continues to increase, and it was 95% as of last week. Tenant sales fell less than footfall due to changes in consumer behavior, and like for like tenant sales were down 8.7%. While footfall declined, average sales per consumer increased from the prior level and was 28% higher in q two compared to 2019.
Leasing activity was positive despite the COVID nineteen environment, and we see continuous demand for our premises from attractive tenants. We've begun to see that the volume of leasing activity is increasing after slowing down during the worst of the crisis. We leased over 123,000 square meters in h one, well surpassing last year. We are especially pleased to have signed eight new leases with the municipal tenants in H1 in line with our target to increase the proportion of these services. This addition of 8,300 square meters both supports our mixed use strategy and adds credit resilience to our cash flows.
Additionally, we have agreed on three deals with municipal tenants in three different centers. These tenants enhance our assets by driving additional footfall and strengthening the credit profile of our properties in line with our strategy. Also, these leases are pre COVID-nineteen internal leasing targets. In addition to the seven other municipal tenants, we signed leasing contracts with Espoo City Library and a contract with Wellness Center Alexia. Both of these will be located in the new Leap Alive Center.
City Commons maintains a strong OCR. Our low c o OCR allows our tenants to operate with good profitability, which demonstrates the quality of our premises and increases the attractiveness from a tenant's perspective. As a result, our rents are stable. Furthermore, this means there's room for future rent growth through indexation and re letting. Our occupancy has been slightly impacted.
While our favorable tenant mix brought stability on a total level, the fashion and apparel categories were affected by the pandemic. Our retail occupancy was 94% in q two and total occupancy was 93.5, which includes storage and ancillary spaces. The decline in occupancy relates relates to some bankruptcies and also the slowdown on leasing activity that was temporary during the crisis. As mentioned, we are very pleased to see that active that leasing activity has picked back up again. With comparable exchange rates, the average rent for the average rent was €22.4 per square meter.
The average rent per square meter decreased mainly due to weaker exchange rates. And with actual exchange rates, the rent per square meter was €21.7. Overall, leasing spreads of renewals and re lettings were positive in Sweden, Estonia, and Denmark. The leasing spread of minus 2% is mainly concentrated in Finland and relates to a few individual contracts and some large space leases that were signed in Lipa Leiva. As we've discussed many times previously, another factor explaining our resilience during this crisis and also during the normal business cycles is our strategy that is based on large a large share of the central business exposure.
Our locations in urban hubs with direct connection and transportation are perfect for the emphasis on necessity based goods. This mix has held up well during the pandemic by increasing consumer average purchases in our centers 28% during the second quarter. We have clearly a larger share of groceries in our tenant mix compared to our peers and industry average. In addition to groceries, we have a significant number of other necessity based tenants such as pharmacies, healthcare, social services, bringing the proportion of necessity based leases to 35% of our mix. I should point out also that our share of turnover based rents is currently only 2.9%, meaning much less fluctuation in our income stream.
And as mentioned previously, the public sector has been a targeted segment and has grown to over 7% of our GLA. As discussed earlier, our Q2 results were temporarily affected by the short term effects of COVID-nineteen. As described, our short term NRI was affected by the easements given to some tenants as well as lower parking and turnover based rents. COVID nineteen substantially affected our NRI in by approximately 4% of the total 6.5% and is estimated to be driven by COVID nineteen and the rest by currencies. Our tenant sales were affected by lower footfall and store closures.
However, tenant sales declined less than footfall as the average consumer spend in our centers increased. And as mentioned, footfall has recovered and was 95% for the last week of July. The Nordics once again demonstrated their strength as an operating environment. The holistic approach to manage the COVID nineteen crisis positively affected both our q two results and the operating environment going forward. In The Nordics, the governments have been proactively engaged with preserving the economic viability of business.
In all of our operating countries, there have been economic support packages available for our tenants and in Sweden, also for Citicom directly. Shopping centers have remained open and the mobility restrictions have been looser compared to Western Europe. As a result, we've been able to keep our shopping centers open with certain adjustments to opening hours. In Sweden, there's been a significant relief program for our tenants consisting of direct business subsidies and company loans. Additionally, a program to cover the cost of rent reliefs has been implemented and Citicom has participated in this program.
In Norway, a government program covering 80 to 90 of fixed cost has been implemented and our tenants have received subsidy payments under this program. Based on an analysis by Colliers, The Nordics rank among the top countries in the world in terms of government actions taken that support the real estate industry. We are very fortunate to operate in these markets. The measures have led to higher consumer confidence, which should facilitate a more speedy economic recovery. As most of you know, in Q2, we focused on maintaining a strong liquidity position and strengthening the balance sheet.
We successfully issued a TAP bond of EUR 200,000,000 with an order book 3x oversubscribed. This allowed us to both increase the size of the tap and to simultaneously tighten the pricing. At the beginning of the crisis, we drew down a portion of our RCF to demonstrate better liquidity. But now that we have comfort in our business stability, we have begun to repay that credit facility in addition to other maturing short term financing. Currently, our liquidity position is strong with cash and the RCF totaling over €630,000,000.
CityCon's board of directors demonstrated its commitment to strengthening the balance sheet. Dividends payable during 2020 were adjusted downwards and the board announced a decision to suggest adjusted dividends also for 2021. Simultaneously with the dividend adjustment, we announced that we are currently investigating alternatives to offer our shareholders an option to take dividends as shares in lieu of cash. These measures were rewarded with a third investment grade credit rating from Fitch. We now have three investment grade credit ratings from the top three rating agencies, Fitch, S and P, and Moody's.
Now that we appear to have passed the worst of the crisis, we are confident enough in our business to reinstate our guidance for 2020, which Arrow will discuss a bit later. So to summarize the impact of COVID nineteen. As mentioned, rent collection for h one twenty twenty remained very strong at ninety three point three percent. In q two, the rent collection was currently at 88%. Our footfall has recovered and is at 95% of the twenty nineteen year level at the July.
All of our centers remained open throughout the quarter. At the July, all tenants are open for business. The total amount of rent discounts impacted our business by EUR400000 in Q2. Leasing spreads declined by 2% in the first half of the year driven primarily by currency as well as a couple of leases that dramatically changed the leasing profile of Leap Beliva. These were large leases taking tertiary space there.
Our valuations declined slightly by 2.1% with a financial impact of €76,000,000 in q two. As mentioned, our valuations declined less than industry average reflecting the resilience of our strategy and tenant mix and were offset by strengthening of currencies for the full year in our NRV NAV. COVID nineteen related bankruptcies are estimated to have a full year maximum impact of €1,900,000. This is assuming that all stores of the bankrupt tenants would be immediately closed and space would not be re let. Naturally, this is not the case.
As mentioned, while football declined, average sales per consumers increased from prior year levels and the average transaction was 28% higher in q two compared to 2019. I will now hand this over to Eero, who will go through the Q2 financials and financing related events in more detail. Eero, over to you.
Thank you, Scott, and good morning, everybody. I will start with the Q2 financials. Net rental income ended up at €50,200,000 which was 10.6% below comparable quarter last year. And a bit later in the presentation, I will go through in detail what exactly impacted that. But it had to do with FX, weaker SEK and NOK, it had to do with the disposals and naturally the COVID pandemic.
Our EPRA earnings ended up at 36,300,000.0 for the quarter, and that was 6.2 percent below comparable quarter last year. Then turning over to H1 financials, and then the first six months, our net rental income was 102,600,000.0, which was 7,100,000.0 below last year's level. And again, I will go through in detail what exactly impacted that. So overall, it can be said that in the circumstances taking into account the COVID pandemic, these results are solid and good. And weaker FX, as can be seen on Page 17, had a clear impact, and particularly Norwegian crown was still clearly weaker than it was at the end of last year.
And during the comparable period, approximately 10% weaker than last year comparative period, whereas Swedish krona has more or less strengthened back to the year end levels. Net rental income bridge on Page 18 can be seen that we had an impact from the two acquired properties in Norway, the so called SP2 portfolios, Stauder and Torbjorn, impacted by 4,100,000. Disposals executed in 2019 had an impact of negative impact of 2,400,000, whereas the like for like negative was 3,400,000 on NRI, and I think that in the circumstances 3,400,000 negative is a good achievement. The FX, particularly Norwegian crown, had a negative impact of 3,900,000.0, and then various other minor minor events impacted slightly. And as a result, net rental income for the full period ended up at EUR102.6 million.
Then on Page 19, you can see the estimated COVID-nineteen impact, and we wanted to give you a little more color on what how exactly did COVID impact the company. And of course, naturally, there's a slightly higher vacancy and a loss of capital cross rents by approximately 1,000,000. Rental discounts overall were approximately 4,500,000, but due to the fact that IFRS requires these discounts to be straight lined, the impact on our period for these rental discounts was 400,000 approximately. And then slightly lower turnover based rents, specialty leasing, parking fees and also credit losses and credit loss provisions had an impact. We still have a very moderate credit losses despite the fact that the COVID naturally has impacted and made them slightly bigger than last year, but anyway, on a very stable level.
Fair value changes for the quarter sorry, for the for yes. For the quarter, we had 75,600,000.0 fair value lesser losses. And for the full year, it was like 18 sorry, 11,000,000 higher. But for the quarter, despite the fact that we had 75,600,000.0 losses, I think that that was also very good achievement and result compared to the peer group, and had to do with approximately eight basis points wider cap rate. And our properties are fully appraised by JLL in Finland and Sweden, and by CBRE in Norway, Denmark and Estonia.
So this Q2 valuation was based on full external valuation of every single property and splits between the different regions and countries as can be seen here, I. E, Finland, Estonia, minus 33 Norway, minus 80 and Sweden, Denmark, minus 24. The average cap rate as of the end of the quarter was approximately 5.5%. Then the NAV bridge on Page 21, and here you can see that the NAV was virtually unchanged versus previous quarter, and was 11.33. And as mentioned, the currency is somewhat recovered from Q1 lows, and therefore we had a 58,000,000 positive translation gain from equities in our subsidiary in Sweden and Norway, and this is the impact presented here under translation reserve, and indirect result mainly refers to valuation results.
So property valuation result and currency related translation reserve more or less netted off each other during the quarter. And as a result, NAV at the end of this quarter was 11.33. Our main financing metrics consist of mainly fixed borrowings, I. E, 81.5% of our indebtedness is based on fixed interest rate. We do have investment grade credit ratings from all three main rating agencies, BBB minus from both S and P and Fitch, and DAA3 from Moody's.
And as Scott mentioned, the new rating acquired recently has been fixed, so now we have three ratings from all the main agencies. Loan to value at the end of the quarter was 46.2. Financing key figures, average loan maturity was three point nine years. We had ample available liquidity close to €600,000,000 mostly consisting of committed unutilized revolving credit facility. We issued the tap bond at 4.5%, but still basically our weighted average interest rate remained at very close to previous quarter's level, I.
E, our average cost of debt, all the margins and swaps was 2.31%. Our liquidity position remained very good, and available liquidity at the end of the quarter was EUR $582,000,000. We had a slightly higher level of cash. We had EUR 156,000,000 of unrestricted cash and cash equivalents, mainly consisting from the recently issued TAP bond. Thereafter, we have further paid down the revolver.
At that point of time, we had €125,000,000 of the revolving credit facility outstanding, and so we expect most likely to pay down entirely the RCF. Commercial paper markets at the beginning of the pandemic were closed for a short period of time, but currently the Finnish and Swedish commercial paper markets seem to operate nearly normally, nearly more or less the same way as they operated prior to the pandemic, and we have access to commercial paper markets, and our commercial paper outstandings were very close to previous quarters levels. Our maturing debt profile is very conservative. We have one bank loan maturing in Norway by the end of this year, and we have a very small remaining part of the NOK bond maturing like in January 2021. But apart from that, we essentially don't have any debt maturities prior to the revolving credit maturity at the end of next year.
Another important topic is the guidance. And as you recall, we did withdraw the guidance on March 26 and now reinstating the guidance due to the fact that we have confidence on our business, and we know what year most likely will look like. But anyway, this is a fairly wide guidance, and this is a little bit like a more cautious guidance from that angle, and assumes that there will be no major lockdowns and no major store closures in the towards the end of the year and no major FX movements. And but due to the slight uncertainty, we wanted to keep it a bit wider than we would normally probably have kept it. But anyway, we now reinstate the guidance on the operating profit level with EUR18 million band.
And this guidance is EUR171 million to EUR189 million on an operating profit level, and EPS $0.71 to $0.81 and adjusted with the impact of the hybrid, I. E. So called adjusted EPS $0.61 to $0.71 So this is the newly reinstated guidance. And with that, I will turn back over to Scott.
Thank you, Eero. I'd like to continue with a short update on our key development project at LEAP Alive as well as some of our strategic initiatives. We've been able to carry on the development, and it has not slowed down Leap Alive, for us as well as the connecting metro station. This shopping center will house a wide range of private and public services. One of the most significant public services will be the new Espelante Regional Library, and a service point of City of Espoo will also open.
In addition to that, we have eight residential towers which will be built consisting of 500 units of rental and owned condos. We also continued to work on our broader real residential strategy with a number of concrete measures. In June 2020, we announced the recruitment of a director of residential development who starts next week, and our near term plans for residential development project in Wassen, Norway have progressed. There are in total recognized zoning and permitting opportunities of over 320,000 square meters. This implies significant value creation potential with very little capital expenditure being required and residential development remains therefore highly attractive for us.
These are concrete steps in our strategy to capitalize on the residential potential in our centers. This increased focus on residential projects also further strengthens our position as an owner of urban hubs in line with our mixed use strategy. We are very pleased with the quarter and confident that we are well positioned moving forward. Our resilient properties and tenant mix positively affected Q2 results and Citicom's asset values outperformed the sector average. Operational performance in Q2 was solid and the recovery is strengthening.
Leasing activity in our centers has picked up after a temporary slowdown during the COVID-nineteen and we continue to attract tenants that enhance our assets in line with our strategy. The Nordics is a stable and attractive market to operate within. Consumer confidence remains strong, underpinning the future retail demand. Our team is committed to our strategy, and we made progress in our initiatives around expanding our residential exposure during the quarter. Strong liquidity and access to financing were again demonstrated during a difficult quarter and will be important going forward as well.
Our confidence in the business has allowed us to reinstate our guidance. With that, I'd like to thank you for your time and hand it back over to Laura.
Thank you, Scott and Eero, for the presentation. Now we have time for questions and we will turn the audio line on. Operator, please go ahead.
Thank you. Our first question is from Ansi Kuevanema from SEB. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi guys. It's Ansi from SEB. Thanks for taking my questions. Thanks for the thorough presentation. Many of my questions have been already answered.
But still a couple of left. I will take them one by one, if that's okay. First of all, let's kick off with the rental trend and like for like growth in rents. Do you think that Q2 was the lowest point and rental trend improves going into Q3 and Q4? And like for likes will be less negative going forward.
What are you seeing now and kind of is this a fair assumption?
Hey, Nancy. Nice hear you again. Someday, we'll get to see each other. But in response to your question, it does seem as though Q2 was the trough, both in terms of demand, in terms of tenants who were looking for space because I think a lot of folks kind of put everything on hold and on pause waiting to see what was going to happen as well as and I guess probably directly related to demand would be pricing. We are seeing both pickup.
I think we're going to know a lot more once we get past the holiday period. But again, as we noted, we are starting to see this pick back up. It was really interesting that during even the of the toughest period of time that we were still actively making progress, particularly on municipal leasing. As mentioned, we approved three deals at the May, June. So really kind of in the thick of everything with different municipal tenants and three different shopping centers.
So I think the fact that the cities were still active, we thought was actually really, really interesting. I hope that answered your question.
Yes. Then second question on fair value changes. What factors andshopping centers impacted the most in the negative development? And I guess the major part in the fair values, it came from cap rates. But have you changed your cash flow assumptions for 2020, 2021 and so on?
What's the cash flow profile like in the model? So if you could open that a bit, that would be helpful.
Eero, you want to go ahead?
Hello?
That all nonessential tenants would be closed for three months. So there was a quite harsh assumption in Q1. Now, of course, that was slightly updated. And in the case of most centers, now there's an assumption of possibly one a month rent free for the nonessential tenants remaining. And of course, time will tell whether that is enough, yes or no.
But in general, the appraisers took the opinion that COVID is a short term crisis, and therefore, they took somewhat hits on the next year cash flow. And apart from that, most of the impacts in fair values took place for the cap rate movement. Like mentioned, it was approximately eight basis points and had to do with all countries as you can see in the presentation. And naturally, because it was quite broad based in euro terms, lot of larger centers maybe maybe had a bit higher losses than smaller centers. But on a percentage basis, would say that it was pretty evenly spread.
Yeah. If if I could add to that, I think we did get some credit from the appraisers for points we made in our presentation about being necessity based and being located in The Nordics. I think they understood the upside how we have outperformed as a result of those two factors. That being said, I do think that there is no real transparency because there is no real transactional activity occurring. I could argue that cap rates if you look at the spread between cap rates and interest rates right now, it's kind of historically wide.
One could argue that something will happen to tighten that spread. I don't believe interest rates are going to go up anytime soon. This is just my opinion. That being said, even though we widened much less than our peer group, I still would question whether even that is what we're going to see going forward.
Okay, thanks. Two folded questions. Firstly, kind of how do you look at your balance currently? Does it affect the decisions you are making? And have you made kind of, let's say, changed your strategy approach doing business due to the balance sheet?
And the second question related to that is on divestments and the M and A market. How do you look at the divestment potential? And what's the activity in the M and A market like?
Gero, you want to take
Yes. First Well, the balance sheet to start with the balance sheet, of course, the company looks to improve the balance sheet. And you remember the discussions about the scrip dividend. So we are reviewing the options to institute a scrip dividend program whereby shareholders could take dividend as shares, and we have made some progress with that. We cannot promise when exactly that would be in place.
We hope to put it in place as soon as possible, hopefully already this year, but cannot promise anything. And of course, that would substantially reduce the dividend outflow. And currently, we are distributing approximately €90,000,000 of dividends. And let's assume that half of the shareholders would the dividends in terms of shares that would be strict, the dividend outflow by close to €50,000,000 and that would be much that would be very substantial. Then naturally, the company is looking into possibilities to dispose non core properties.
Right now, it's fair to say that disposal markets are not functioning. And but there are signs that they will start opening up, and let's hope that, that be true. And immediately when they are open, I'm sure the company will come back to those. And then when it comes to the impact of balance sheet to strategy, Scott, you can take that part.
Well, as it relates to disposals, guess the thing I would add is that we're taking this kind of slowdown, if you will, in the transaction market to put together a package for group of assets that we would come to market with and make sure that we're kind of ready to hit the market as soon as it starts to open back up. Our expectation is that we think you'll start to see that happen probably after the summer in September ish kind of timeframe. We are, as I said, taking this momentary pause to make sure that we're ready to come to market with what we think is a pretty attractive package. I think that that's probably the best kind of insight I can give you, Nancy. I just you know, it's a little bit of who knows, but that's our thinking at this point.
Okay. That's fair. Thank you so much for taking my questions. That's all from me.
Thank you.
And our next question is from Nico LiVikari from ABN AMRO. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Okay. Good morning. Thank you for the presentation.
I've got a number of questions, and maybe we can just start with the one relating to occupancy levels. I noticed that you had, let's say, a steady falls across the three main segments that you report. I was just wondering because I noticed that particularly with Norway, I think the drop was slightly more drastic between the full year and the H1. Can you comment on what was the reason there with the fall of with the occupancy level? Thank you.
It's twofold I would say. One is there was a bankruptcy of large sporting goods chain in Norway that we felt the impact of. And then secondly, in Norway, these centers have a large number of, I'll call it ancillary space. It's storage. It's non retail space, which is why we gave you two numbers there.
And that is particularly pronounced in Norway. So a lot of that was storage and kind of tertiary space that's not truly retail space.
Okay. That's clear. Maybe second, you mentioned also about the OCR that it's at the lower end at the moment. But if I remember correctly, the OCR that Silicon reports is about the whole center, including the larger, let's say, supermarket or hypermarket space, however you wanna call it. Can you comment on what's the OCR for Citicom Center if you exclude these large retailer spaces?
Yes. Arrow, correct me if I'm wrong. I think it's just slightly over 12%. So it's a bit higher, but it's still relatively low when you compare that to others. I think I have that number right.
Yes, yes, yes. So that's the right ballpark. And I would just remind that it is an intentional strategy of the company to be grocery anchored and necessity based, and this has helped us a lot. And therefore, we feel that the OCR should be reported on this basis, basically taking into account all tenants.
Okay. Fair enough. Maybe as the next question regarding lease incentives and market rents. I appreciate that you mentioned that you see a gradual pickup happening with the leasing. I was just wondering if you can comment anything regarding what do you see happening with late lease incentives?
Do you see that tenants are demanding more of these at the moment or
Yes. I wouldn't say that we're seeing increased demand and incentives. I would say that when you look at retail, I think you do have to make a distinction of the different categories. And, I would say the fashion and apparel parts, sector of the business is probably, at this point, the most, impacted. And therefore, I would say those deals are probably the toughest deals that that, we're doing at this point.
There's probably a lot less of new deals being done with fashion. I don't want to say it's good, but it's okay when you look at our strategy and the fact that we have been for a number of years now focused on bringing that piece of the business, making it smaller as part as part of our, tenant merchandise mix. I I think it's just it's it kind of dovetails with our strategy. Therefore, it's it's not as you know, we're not as impacted. One, because we don't have as much of it to begin with and two, because we have strategically decided that that was going to become a smaller piece of our business.
We were already planning for there to be as these renewals and expirations occur, we are already planning for there to be more replacement of some of these fashion tenants. We're not really seeing that. I know on the continent, others have talked about this being more pervasive. But again, we are not seeing it in our portfolio.
Okay. Thank you. Maybe as a last question, I just wanted to pick up on the optional share dividend angle. I noticed that Eero was mentioning that if you would get, let's say, a take up of around 50%. I'm not going to comment on any other names, but I'm just wondering if that seems rather optimistic in this market.
And just maybe to follow on that, have you been given any indication from your main shareholders that they will be willing to take the optional share dividend going forward once this becomes an option?
Thank you. Yes, Nico, I did not say that 50% is the likely. I used 50% as one example, and you can, of course, calculate it using whatever percentage you wish. But we certainly hope that they would take the full part and we certainly hope that as many shareholders as possible would take the dividend in terms of shares because that would help the balance sheet. Actually, the company does not know the real answer is we don't know what will be the stake taken by the shareholders because this has not been started yet.
Okay. Thank you. That's all for me.
Great. Thank you.
Our next question is from Allison Sun from Green Street Advisors. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, gentlemen. Can you hear me?
Yes. Hello?
Yes. Hi. Two questions from my side, if I may. So question number one is based on your negotiations or conversation with the tenant, what percentage or roughly that you think your tenants are actually loss making right now? And eventually, do you have a sense like as to what percentage of your NRI would be negatively affected by those tenant bankruptcies eventually?
So the first question. Second question is, I know that your centers are located on the transport hubs. But do you have a a broad sense like how residents in the city, how's their feelings towards taking the public transport to go to go shopping centers? Because right now in London, we noticed that a lot of people there are still quite hesitant to use the tube. So it would be great if you can give some additional color on that front.
Thank you.
Okay. Well, first, Alison, thanks for the questions. I would say starting with your last question, it's interesting here in The Nordics. I sit in Stockholm and Era was in Helsinki right now. It's interesting when you walk around, first of all, people are not wearing face masks.
There's there's there's a there's a general I don't wanna say I I think people because of where the stat statistics are and where they've been recently, people seem to have, a more relaxed approach to the COVID-nineteen. And as a result, you just don't see it's and again, I'm from The US and I talked to my friends there as well as my friends in London and on the continent. And I know it's people have a different sense there and more face for more people wearing face masks, etcetera, etcetera. You just don't see that here. So there's not this general reluctance.
As it relates to the transportation hubs, you know, I think where we're seeing perhaps a decline is people taking transportation to the office because there is there are more people continuing to work from home than there was pre pandemic. It's interesting for us, it actually helps a number of our centers because people are using the centers that are closest to them instead of doing something to or from work. So a number of our centers are actually seeing a pickup. It's funny, some of our smaller centers actually saw increases in sales during the pandemic because it was more convenient for customers to go there than it would have been to take the train to work or back from work and pick up something along the way. So it's an interesting dynamic there.
And I apologize, Allison. I forgot your first question. The first part of your question was?
So yes. The first question is how do you feel like the percentage of your NRI would be eventually negatively affected by those tenant bankruptcies? Or, like, how bad is the loss making for your tenants right now?
Yeah. Do
you have any Yeah.
I I yeah. I I think that the majority of any kind of bankruptcy that we're gonna see is probably occurred, because if you're gonna file bankruptcy, you you weren't gonna kinda try to live through the the COVID nineteen. And as we mentioned in the presentation, if all the tenants that are currently in bankruptcy were to close right away and we were not able to relet those premises, the impact for us in 2020 would be €1,900,000. Obviously, we don't we know that that's not what's going to occur. But just to give you a kind of worst case scenario, that would be the impact.
We're not I'm not expecting us to see some second wave of bankruptcies at this point. I think those tenants that were in trouble have already filed.
Okay. Thank you.
And maybe just to add that credit losses and credit loss provisions for the quarter were €1,600,000 which is approximately €800,000 higher than last year. And for the first six months, they were 2,600,000.0, and that was like 1,200,000.0, approximately higher than last year. So yes, they have been higher, but still very, very moderate when comparing with any of our peers.
Yes. Thank you.
Thank you.
Our next question is from Tobias Kye from Abbegir. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you. I have a few questions. And I would like to start with the government support package. And in q two, how much net rental income do you include, which is received from or expected to be received or whether received the government support?
And also if you can give a split between the different countries?
Yes. That's a hard question to answer in terms of what we've received because, for instance, in Norway, that money goes to the tenants and then they turn around and pay our rent. So I think the best measure of that is how much rent have we actually collected. And in Q2, we collected 88% of our rent. I think of that 88%, we're somewhere between 12% is support package money that we don't necessarily have the cash in yet, but anticipate receiving because of government support coming back to us.
So I I don't know if that answers your question, but that's I think that is probably kind of the the the best detail I can give you.
Okay. And you mentioned that you had 93% rent collection for the first half and you had 1.2% credit losses. Does that indicate that you have 5.8% of income, which is reported for first half, which you have not yet received?
I think that's I have not
verified those numbers, and I have not made the calculations. But it is possible, of course, if you look at our cash flow, you see that the working capital is slightly higher. And of course, the tenants pay a little bit slower right now. But overall, the collection has been very strong, like Scott mentioned.
Yeah. I I I would just I would just reinforce minus. I'm sorry. I just wanna reinforce. I mean, you know, this the the collection, you know, I think when we reported q one at the time, it was like 95.
Now we're at 97%. So to Arrow's point, you know, the collections continue to strengthen. And and we have been a bit more lenient in terms of allowing tenants more time to pay rent. And so while Q2 is currently at 88%, that number, we fully anticipate, will grow just as Q1 grew over time. And again, those are very strong numbers.
I mean to be 93% in this environment, I think, is pretty amazing.
And if you have some 6% of booked income, which is not yet received, when do you expect to receive it already in the second half of this year? Or have you given notice that they can pay you later like in 2021 or as far away as in 2022?
No, no, no. We have not allowed any payments past this year. So again, I don't have I can't tell you the exact dates for each of the receivables, but we not extended anybody's payment schedule past this year. So we would anticipate to collect all of that money this year.
Okay. And you have minus EUR 24,000,000 in change in working capital. Is that mainly related to late payers? Or it's something else as well in that figure?
It's mainly related to the collection and later payments. And also sometimes impacts like VAT has an impact regarding particularly VAT paid in advance relating to development projects. So I don't have like an exact breakdown to give you, but roughly, these are the reasons.
Okay. Thank you for taking my questions.
Thank you.
And as there are no further questions, I will hand the word back to the speakers for any final comments.
Okay. Thank you for all the questions. If you feel that you will have some more of them, please feel free to contact myself or Eero. We're happy to answer any of the additional questions. And from my behalf, have a nice day.
Thank you for attending.
Thanks to everybody. Have a great day.