Good morning. Happy to have you here on this Friday to summarize our Citycon first quarter 2026. Next to me is Hilik, and after I will give you the management review, the operational, I will leave the floor to Hilik. We had a solid first quarter. The operational results are the following. We have a like-for-like growth in NRI 4.5%. Our retail occupancy is almost 95, 94.8. The rent per sq m grow by 0.9% to EUR 28.4 per sq m. The footfall grow by 2.1%, and the tenant sales grows by 3.5%, which is a good indicator.
Our valuation grow by EUR 2.2 million , and the NRI margin is almost 90%, 89.9%. The key achievements in the quarter, we focus on the general mall leasing, and we achieve growth of 25% between the years, and we will keep focus on that. This is what we call here money on the floor. We signed and leased 18.7 thousand sq m of retail, and we decreased our administrative cost by 17.5%. We have signed two loans for almost EUR 500 million, EUR 490, and we have additionally a call loan of EUR 250 million. It's a good backup to our facilities. The cash flow is continued to be strong.
The like-for-like growth, as I mentioned before, is 4.5%. Norway denotes 4.8%, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Estonia, each one of them 4.5%. On the right side, you can see the growth of the price per square meter during the quarters. The general mall is in general mall leasing, as I mentioned, we focus this year, we had a growth of 25%. A new long-term specialty leasing deals signed and opened during the first quarter. New media and advertising, actually agreement with the providers has been signed. New possibilities to create and reshaping centers in order to have more GMLs. An energy project which will generate new revenue in the coming soon.
We have significant income growth potential in the general mall leasing and we'll focus also in having better results in the leasing. Looking forward, we continue to work on optimizing our asset portfolio by identifying and carrying out potential asset divestments. During the quarter, we have been approached by several potential buyers related to selected assets in Finland, Sweden, and Norway. These days, post quarter one, we start negotiating NDA with some potential buyers. We will focus on increasing the general mall leasing income and on improving of the leasing activity. We are well-positioned to deliver strong operational results for 2026. For now, I will leave the floor to Hilik in order to review the financial overview. Please, Hilik.
Thank you all. Thank you, Eshel. The financials for Q1 2026, NRI landed at EUR 51.8 million versus EUR 50.1 million. That's a 3.5% uplift and 1.8% FX adjusted. The direct operating profit, EUR 45.8 million versus EUR 42.7 million. 7.2% uplift and 5.3% FX adjusted. This is thanks to the G&A savings of EUR 1.3 million compared to the corresponding quarter in 2025. EPRA earnings EUR 19 million versus EUR 19.4 million. We will go through the EPRA bridge in the next slide. EPRA per share, EUR 0.10 versus EUR 0.11 in the corresponding quarter in 2025, and EUR 0.15 excluding the hybrids versus EUR 0.15. EPRA NRV EUR 7.61 versus EUR 8.13.
In the next slide, you can see in the bridge the remaining assets gave us EUR 1.5 million. This is a good growth. On the other hand, we lost NRI from the Lippulaiva residential divestments. G&A, as mentioned, savings EUR 1.3 million. On the other hand, financials expenses. This is coming from increased costs, mainly the 2031 bond we issued in 2025 April. On the other hand, we bought EUR 35 million of hybrids that gave us back EUR 600,000 for this quarter, as you can see. Overall, after FX impact, we landed on EUR 19 million and this is strong results and a solid results for the quarter one.
With respect to financing actions, we are pleased that we've done a lot of actions in Q1 and the subsequent events. We've managed to sign and draw EUR 270 million loan with an accordion option of another EUR 250 million. We bought back some bonds, distributed dividends of an aggregate amount of EUR 202 million. In April, we did a re-redemption of the 2026 bond, EUR 124 million. We signed another secured loan, EUR 220 million, with attractive terms. That was already drawn in the beginning of May, and we announced for an early redemption of the 2027 bonds.
Following all of that, actions, we are in a much better position and there's no near-term maturities. The next one would be March 2028 bonds, and this is something that we would like to emphasize, significantly de-risking the balance sheets as of today. With respect to the debt maturity, after the subsequent event, the pro forma of the average debt maturity is 3.7 years. We are experiencing a gradually higher interest rates. This is coming from external interest, base interest rate. On the other hand, we're kind of trying to offset it by entering to a secured loan with relatively attractive terms and potentially buying back bonds in the future. Liquidity as of March 2026, EUR 153 million.
We have— This is something that after that, we have did the make-whole of 2026, on the other hand, got the Aareal loan, we are well-positioned currently as well. In the maturity schedule, this is for March, 2026, 2027 would be cleared. 2027 would be cleared in the next month. You can see that next in line would be only March 2028, which is just less than two years from now. Key credit metrics is loan to value below 50%, for 49.4%. The upper loan to value is coming from the dividend distribution mainly. Net debt to EBITDA, 9.9. Interest coverage at 2.3. Weighted average interest, as mentioned, 4.22.
Thank you. Now we are open for questions.
Thank you, Hilik and Eshel and for the presentation. Now we will go over to the questions. If someone from the audience has any questions they would like to present, please use the Q and A function, which you can access from the toolbar at the bottom. Currently, we have no open questions on the line, but in case you would like to ask questions from the management, please use the Q and A function. Now we have a question coming. There is a question where you have been asked: Can you please provide an update on negotiations related to disposals, assets for sale? What is the strategic plan with regard to the hybrids? You say focus on de-risking the balance sheet, but LTV is up and you prepare for further dividends or loans to G City. How do you want to retain access to capital markets?
Okay. I see here three questions.
Yes.
I will start with the divestment. As I said, last year when we summarized 2025, our target for this year is how to optimize our portfolio. We have, as I say, approached by few good potential buyers for assets here in Finland, Norway and Sweden. Nothing is pretty mature yet that I can report specifically. As I said, we signed a few NDAs already, and we are negotiating now NDA about assets here in Finland. I believe that when we will summarize the six months, we'll be able to be more specific. At the moment, I cannot expose more than that. We are definitely in the direction that we want.
Yeah. I would say for the hybrids. The decision-making would be close to the reset period, which is September 2026. As mentioned, we bought EUR 35 million hybrids. We can do in the open market and try to get benefit of the fact that it's traded below par. Regarding the LTV, 49% is still something that is well-monitored, and we keep monitoring it. Of course, we're in compliance with every covenant that we have, and we'll continue to do so. With respect to dividends, again, looking at our dividend policy, any excess of cash would be considered as a dividend, and then, of course, in compliance with all of our covenants at any given time.
Thank you. Then we have our next question coming. Do you expect any negative rating action from S&P from increased secure debt? How would that impact your plans, if any, to come back to the bond market in future?
Well, from S&P, we are expecting the unexpected. To be honest, it's not affecting our activity.
Rating for Citycon, given S&P methodology that once G City cross the 50%, it is viewed in a group level and not as a standalone level. By the way, if you look at the report itself, it does give emphasize that the performance is stable and improving on a standalone basis. Once the rating is as such, and clearly from that point of time of the rating decrease, G City has increased her stake to 86.4%. I don't think that our actions here are something that would be just for the sake of the rating. Secured financing is something that we're looking at because the terms are very favorable.
The market here was frozen, there was no transaction regarding debt for years. Now there's a lot of interest. It also echoes our quality of assets. I think that when it's hot, I think one of our responsibility is to try to take and close secured financing to support our P&L.
We have an additional question coming. Congratulations for the results and the various efficiencies you are working on. Now that you have cleared the way till March 28, what is the next with the capital structure once you raise more cash via secured debt or disposals?
We are considering few channels. The money just arrived, still hot, warm. For the next few days, we secure it, we put it in a closed account, and we will think what to do with it. Basically, we feel better that the money is in our bank account, and we will see how to leverage it to have the best benefit for our shareholders.
An additional question. You disclosed you bought EUR 5 million of the 2029 bonds in open market. Do you have similar plans for your hybrids?
Well, we are right now, again, we're having the cash. We're trying to do the conservative and responsible actions, which would be just to clean the debt maturities that are coming due 2027, as mentioned. I think that if we'll have access of cash and —This is the reason that why we will pursue more secure financing in the future. We would consider every option, including buyback of hybrids, again, trying to be more opportunistic and supporting the P&L. I think this is something yet to be seen, but it's an option on the table.
Thank you for the answers. There are no further open questions on the line. I hand over back to you, Eshel and Hilik, for the closing words.
I'm happy to deliver a good result for the first quarter, and this is just the beginning. I believe that in the next quarter, we will have more details to tell you about the operational results. I hope that I will be able to come with more, I would say, strong stories regarding divestment. By the way, all what we are negotiating regarding divestment is in the book value. We got some proposals which are under the book value, and we reject them. We are negotiating at the moment only what is a book value, and we have potential buyers. I wish you all happy weekend, and thank you.