Very good morning and welcome. This is Kojamo's Half Year Result Webcast. I'm Niina Saarto, I'm from Investor Relations. Today we have two presenters, namely our new CEO Reima Rytsölä. He starts the presentation with highlights for the review period and he also discusses the operating environment. Then CFO Erik continues with financial figures and the outlook for this year. As usual, we have Q A after the presentation and there we take questions via chat and then we also open the phone line for live questions. I guess we are now ready for the presentation.
Thank you Niina and a very good morning on behalf of myself as well. I'm excited to be here for my first quarterly release. I calculated that it's roughly 12 years ago since I was last on this side of the table on investment meeting, investment community. I was then in Pohjola Bank plc's Division Head of Banking and so last 12 years been sitting on another side of your side of the table but very happy to be here. It has been kind of a very positive start for me. It has been kind of great to notice that Kojamo people are very energized and competent and even though the market conditions haven't been that great in last two years, hopefully getting better.
As Niina said, I recently started, so started on 1st of June, actually 2nd of June, Monday and obviously two thirds of the quarter has already done at that stage but happy to present the main key points of the quarterly result. I think the highlight of our first half year has been that we have been improving significantly our occupancy rate and that has been really kind of a positive development. Both the revenue and net rental income increased and there was obviously in Q2 some leakage from gross revenue to net rental income and that was mainly due to some one-off allocations. Of course, some of the effects were also in inflation picking still affecting the maintenance and repair costs. We assume that those costs overall will be around about same level this year than they were previous year. FFO decreased mainly due to higher financial costs.
Maintenance and repair expenses caused some decline of FFO but as I said the majority of the impact came from financial costs as I told on the very beginning. The occupancy rate development has been really good and it has been kind of a very conscious strategy so that we were lacking in our occupancy rate and we have worked really hard and made some changes in our processes, especially pricing and sales process as such so that we have been able to achieve very good development. Market hasn't helped that much in that respect. There's still oversupply in the market, especially in the capital area, but at least it looks like growth of oversupply has stalled now and you might expect that at some point it will turn around. We also signed in June and closed the deal in July the 1,944 apartment sale.
As we already have earlier communicated, the proceeds of sale will be used reducing debt and starting the share buyback program. Of course, this transaction and usage of proceeds will kind of strengthen our balance sheet. Also, with the buyback we aim to also kind of neutralize the FFO effect for the shareholders and through that kind of give a better kind of a chance for value creation. Our financing position is very strong and both in June and actually this month we have closed over EUR 200 million bank loans. Refinancing and next refinancing arrangements will focus on loans that are maturing in 2027 and then of course starting those refinancing operations next year. It's very solid base for do the business where we are operating environment. I think many of us who follow the kind of a global economy and indicate this are somewhat confused at what's going on.
There has been a lot of hassle around tariffs and their effects on global economy. It certainly brings some uncertainty still, even though there's an expectation that U.S. economy will slow down a bit. There's still some kind of a positive upbeat in expectations of euro area growth. Finland has been forecasted as well that the growth will be better this year. Inflation in Finland is very modest and I think it's fair to say that given the circumstances, our own growth prospects in Finland and inflation. The monetary policy as such is a tighter than Finnish economy would kind of required. Some might argue that there's room to cut rates further is also from euro area perspective. Anyhow, the kind of rate cut the expectations have if not vanished, but at least expectations are definitely not there in that extent that they were some months ago.
Even though the kind of a macroeconomic outlook is not as kind of boosting as we all would hope, I would say that the kind of a mega trends are still there when talking about housing and two main drivers of that this is of course the startups of a new residential and then the kind of a population growth in major cities. If you look at this graph of how basically housing starts, it's very kind of a low level at the moment and even the expectation of a residential start-ups this year, 20,000. I would say that it's probably on optimistic side. For example, today this morning it was in a Finnish newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, article of legislation changes concerning the subsidized apartment building and if that will be cut as well.
Given the fact that it has been estimated that the kind of a need for a new apartment is roughly 35,000 a year in Finland and the current level is 20,000 or less than 20,000 and it has been already for a couple of years underneath the 20,000. It's obvious that it will affect the supply and at the same time the population growth in major cities in Finland has even picked up. For example, Helsinki just posted that over 700,000 inhabitants in Helsinki. Also, overall the capital area is growing. Of course, the big driver in that sense is immigration. Even though the trend of decreasing average household size is still there, immigration as such is a little bit kind of affecting that trend, kind of slowing down because it seems to be the case that many immigrants are living more intense in apartments than the Finnish ones.
Overall, the urbanization megatrend I think is definitely there. The biggest cities like Helsinki, Capital Region, Tampere, Turku are the ones who are the clear winners in that sense. If you look at the kind of, I'll give a glance for our own portfolio, Kojamo's portfolio, it's very well fit to that trend. Roughly 87% of our fair value of our real estate is in Helsinki Region, Tampere and Turku. I would say that it's a very good strategic fit in that sense. ESG as such has kind of, if not faded away from investors' interests, at least the significance is not there in that extent as it used to be a couple of years ago. We still think that it's a super important topic and we keep on doing constant work for achieving carbon neutrality in 2030. We are well in time in that schedule.
For us it's of course also kind of a matter of profitability, so to say. More energy efficient than we are, so we can cut down our maintenance costs. Even though we speak about the scope two here, it's good to notice that actually heating is included in our figures. It's in that sense relatively comprehensive scope two, so to say. Of course, we all know that the last mile is the most difficult here, but there's still some room to kind of develop different kind of technologies as well which could enable achieving the carbon neutrality. In that sense, I would say overall, very, very kind of a solid first half year. As I said, the most kind of positive point is picking up the occupancy rate and creating the revenue growth.
Even though the development in rent levels is muted or even in negative territory in some locations, one thing that I would like to highlight here as well in this screen is the Net Promoter Score, which is 58 for us, and it's an all-time high. The customer experience and developing customer experience will be kind of a key factor for us in the future as well. We truly believe that putting the customer in the center, we can create service and kind of a clue for our customer relationships that in the future we are even able to improve our rent premium hopefully. I think this is pretty much the part that I should cover, and I would like to now hand over to Erik, go to financial development, and then we will take together with the Q&A. Thank you very much.
Thank you Reima and good morning everybody from my side as well. Page 12, if we first look at the total revenues, the total revenue growth first half of this year compared to first half last year was EUR 4.3 million. Q2 was EUR 3.3 million up compared to Q2 last year. You may say that growth came entirely thanks to improved occupancy. On the net rental income side, H1 the growth was EUR 2.9 million and Q2 EUR 7 million. On the maintenance side, the cost increase was EUR 0.8 million in the first half and on the repair side it was EUR 0.6 million. In the maintenance expenses there are both positive and negative figures. On the positive side, heating EUR 1.5 million below last year's figures mainly came through during Q1 this year. Electricity down by EUR 0.4 million and credit losses EUR 0.5 million.
On the other side, there's water that went up by EUR 0.9 million. That's actually quite logical. When you have more customers, they spend more water. Maintenance up by EUR 0.7 million and outdoor maintenance up by EUR 0.6 million. As Reima already mentioned, there's some allocations in the cost side and we still expect the whole year maintenance expenses and repairs to be brought in line with last year figures. Page 13, if you first look at the left-hand side, profit and loss before taxes. I will come to the change in values later. The profit excluding change in values was down by EUR 12.3 million. Net rental income contributed EUR 2.9 million. As said, SG&A expenses increased by EUR 0.2 million. Financial expenses up by EUR 8.8 million. Depreciations EUR 7.3 million. I will come to that figure later when discussing value changes. On the right-hand side, FFO down by EUR 6.2 million.
Most of the items are the same as in profit calculations: net rental income, SG&A, and finance expenses. In FFO calculations, current tax is up by EUR 1.7 million. Page 14, as Reima mentioned, there was a strong growth in our occupancy rate and our focus has been for quite a long time already to improve the occupancy. There have been discussions whether we should release quarterly figures as well. Now they are here. This 93.6% is a cumulative figure year to date. You can of course always calculate the quarterly figures as well, but now it's released here. The Q2 occupancy rate was already 94.4% and in June alone it was 94.8%. Quarter on quarter, the growth was 1.6%. If you compare Q4 to Q2 this year, the growth was 3.3 percentage points. At the same time, our Tenant turnover came down by 1.9 percentage points.
Like-for-like calculations, this is a backward-looking calculation because we compare the latest 12 months against the previous 12 months period. In a turnaround situation where we clearly are at the moment, this is clearly lagging behind. This is especially true if you look at the occupancy rate, because in this type of calculation you have the tail of previous quarters. In these calculations, in Q3 you actually compare Q3 2024 against Q3 2023. That's why it's really backward-looking. Rents and water charges are better representative. We are still increasing the rents for existing customers. The rent increases on average are somewhere between 1.2% and 1.3%. Some of that is eaten, if you like, because we are now even more flexible when it comes to the renting. In total, in these calculations we are still doing back the rent award charges. On the positive side, investments remained at a low level.
We have only one ongoing development, 119 apartments, one process to be completed January or February 2026. For the time being, we are not making any new investment decisions as part of the saving program, as we are not anymore talking about the saving program as such. We are still in the mode that we are at the moment. We are not making any investment decisions. Of course, on the disposal side, almost 2,000 apartments were completed after the review period, but the agreement was signed during the period. Monetization investments now are up to EUR 10.4 million. We estimate that the monetization investments this year will grow from last year. Estimates are around EUR 30 million because we have started a few larger monetization projects, and as said, repairs are expected to be in line with last year's figures. Page 17, fair value investment properties.
There haven't been any changes in calculation parameters. No changes when it comes to the yield requirements. All transactions, smaller or bigger ones, are taken into account in these calculations. Those ones completed after the review period are pretty much in line with these parameters. During the second quarter this year, the fair value change was negatively EUR 48 million. The biggest portion of that, EUR 33.8 million, is related to value chasing non-yielding assets, particularly metropolitan properties. We estimate that this will not have any impact for valuation or values of apartments. On top of that, there's an impairment loss of EUR 7.3 million due to the write-down of our own office premises, also Head Office here in Helsinki where we currently are. That is booked on a different line, or that's a change in fair value investment properties.
Loan to value equity ratio is quite stable on the loan to value side, 44.4%. That includes the non-current assets held for sale now, with the biggest portion of that already sold as we speak. Page 19. The next financing arrangement needed for us is to refinance 2027 maturing loans. There is no need to do any additional financing arrangement in the short term. Our average interest rate came down to 3.2%. We have made two different agreements, one during a review period and one after that. They were actually both extending existing loans. In that sense, no new lease agreement, no new financial agreements. Net debt came down and our financial key figures are strong. Equity per share and EPRA NRV are quite stable this quarter. Page 21, our outlook. When we released the closing of the divestment, we updated our outlook and we restate that outlook.
Compared to that, no changes. We estimated that total revenue growth for this year is going to be 0%- 2% and FFO to be between EUR 135 million- EUR 141 million. The reason we restated this, the reason we made the update in outlook in connection with the disposal, is that our outlook is always given excluding the potential impact of a potential transaction. That is why, linked to the transaction, we updated our outlook. It is good to keep in mind that the outlook doesn't take into account taxes resulting from the transactions because they are considered to be non-recurring items. A couple notes regarding the outlook: if they take the midpoint of the top line outlook, we estimated that the occupancy will improve even going forward.
We estimated that the rent increases are going to be moderate and we are flexible in rents, and we don't expect any support from the market. It may happen that the market is going to be more supportive going forward, but in this guidance we haven't anticipated any support from the market. The midpoint of the range for FFO, that of course reflects the range for top line outlook. In the midpoint of this FFO guidance, we expect Europeans and penciled in that repairs and SG expenses are going to be brought in line with last year figures, maintenance expenses brought in line with last year figures as already discussed, and then average weather the remaining part of this year. At this point, back to Rei.
Thank you, Erik. I think overall we have tried to cover as well as possible at the moment the H1 results, and maybe a couple of words before we go to Q&A about how to move forward. We have decided to start to review our strategy during the latter part of the year. I would say that as a non-native English speaker, I'm not 100% sure if reviewing is the correct word. It's more of a tuning, but anyhow, tuning to reviewing as you can take it. We definitely do that. I think a couple of themes that will be in the spotlight for going forward as well are customer experience and operational excellence. We definitely understand that growth is important from a value creation perspective, and we will work hard to assess what's the way to grow in the future and what's the good timing for that.
Definitely note taken even before the note was given. I think we are more or less ready to start the Q&A.
Yes, we are definitely. Do we have any questions from the room here? No. In that case, we start with the questions from the phone line. Go ahead, please.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Anssi Raussi from SEB. Please go ahead.
Yes, hi Ole and thank you for the presentations. I have a few questions and I go one by one. The first one is about your rents. Reported rent per month decreased a bit year over year and you mentioned that the rents actually increase in existing agreements. Can you maybe discuss a bit these underlying elements here, like the impact of campaigns, and should we expect that these level out towards the end of this year? That's the first one.
Maybe if I start and Erik can continue that. Obviously, the kind of obvious outcome is that when we have gained so much occupancy, occupancy rate, with the market conditions that haven't eased that much, it's obvious that we have had to reprice the kind of new apartments as such. As we discussed already earlier, the kind of market conditions that we expect, that oversupply had at least stalled, and there might be a good chance that it will ease a little bit in the coming months. That's why it's difficult to say whether, how's the rental increasements developing in the coming months. I would say that we see kind of next, going next year, that there is a room for rental increasements. On the other hand, the amount probably will be relatively modest. I don't know if you want to kind of add some, Erik.
We have changed our approach how we price apartments that become vacant and now we are doing it when it becomes vacant, not before that. In some cases it turned out that the market conditions are such that the new rent is lower than the one in a contract that expired. That plays a role there. Some campaigns, yes, we do use some. In some cases we give two or three weeks rent-free period in the beginning of tenancy. The market standard has been actually one or two months and we have never done those, but two or three weeks is something that we use. This is the impact on top of the rent increases we do for existing customers.
We started this new approach for pricing when we concluded that we are focusing now to improve the occupancy and we want to be more flexible in the rents given the market conditions. As part of expanding or enhancing our own operations, thanks to being more flexible in the rent levels, we have been improving very strongly the occupancy. Of course, the idea is going forward that once our occupancy is on a high level and once we see that the market conditions are improving, then we start to increase the rents more. Already today in some cases we are able to increase the rent. These are average figures depending on the local supply-demand situation and if.
I still add a couple of words. We have made the changes for our pricing methodology as such and make it more dynamic, and that will obviously work on both sides. Expect it to work when the market will pick up to another side as well.
Okay, thanks, that's really helpful. Maybe the next question is related to this fair value change, especially in this metropolitan property or properties. What triggered this fair value change? Do you have plans regarding this property? Also, maybe if you can comment on other plans if you have any related possible future divestment.
Can you repeat the first part of the question? I kind of missed it about the Metropolia assets. What was your first question?
Yeah, so basically what record is fair value change?
Yeah, sorry, I didn't hear. I think it's of course me as a new CEO wanted to kind of do that kind of a thorough due diligence as well. We discussed quite a lot of possibilities of those non-yielding development assets as Metropolia assets are. Of course, the market has changed quite dramatically when talking about the development assets as such and their pricing. We did kind of a thorough analysis and kind of readjusted the valuations more on a level that we think that kind of a fair market price is. As you know, when we talk about non-yielding assets, the valuation is more of a kind of depending on very many kind of criteria and inputs. We think that at the moment they are in fair value.
Okay, got it. The final question was that basically do you have any initial discussions regarding possible future divestments, additional divestment?
We keep on focusing our portfolio and concentrate even further with the kind of major cities in Finland, and that's what we keep on doing. We are definitely, as both Erik stated earlier, that we think that we are in a strong financial position, so we don't have any urgency to divest further. On the other hand, you can't focus the portfolio even further if you don't do any divestments. In that respect, there's still some on the agenda of divestments.
One additional comment. After this transaction completed during the summer, we still have four assets in assets held for sale, and those discussions are proceeding quite nicely.
Thank you so much. That's all from me for now at least.
The next question comes from John Vong from Van Lanschot Kempen. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. You've been regaining quite some market share as you move up in occupancy, but at the same time it sounds like you still aren't really happy with the level of occupancy you're at. What's exactly the next step in your view? What's a level that you'll be a bit more happy with where you wouldn't necessarily have to do these marketing campaigns anymore.
I think we still have some room to do to improving the occupancy. It's fair to say that we progressing well on that, and our plan is of course that our occupancy will be in a more of a kind of, would I say, normalized levels when the market will pick up and we have kind of a better capability to go with the rent hikes as well.
What would you consider more normalized levels? That's like 97% or.
We haven't communicated any kind of a target level for our occupancy, but I would say that around about 96%- 97% sounds much better to me than a 94.8%.
That's right. Thanks. Just on the Net Promoter Score, I think you mentioned that you also see room for a rent premium given that you have such a good score. I'm just trying to understand here, what's the difference between your in place rents and market rents, and how much more of a premium do you expect to get in this market?
We do get a premium compared to market rents still, even being more flexible when it comes to the renting. That is the current situation. Going forward, of course our aim is to get even more of a premium. As said, when the occupancy rate is higher and the market improves, now Net Promoter Score shows customer feedback improves as well. That gives us more space to start to increase the rent score going forward. Yes, we get premium pricing at the moment, but we definitely want to get more premium in the future.
I think that's as Erik said, that the kind of focus in the future as well, the customer experience is one key part of that. We will be able to charge kind of a premium rent, that our customers will value our apartments and services so that they are willing to pay premium.
Okay, that's clear. Just one last question. As you start your share buyback program, I suppose you send a signal that you are comfortable with your leverage. How should we think about restarting the different distributions?
That's a discussion that we have to go through with our Board of Directors in the latter part of this year. Of course, we aim to get back on paying dividends as well. That has definitely been a kind of a temporary period that we didn't proceed any dividends in the last two years. Of course, we need to kind of adjust as well the market price and valuations so that what is the kind of a best and optimal way to proceed? Funds back to owners.
Okay, clear. Thank you.
The next question comes from Rob Phillips from Green Street. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much for the presentation. I just had two questions on my end. Firstly, following your recent disposal, how do you see the broader transaction market developing, and are you observing other potential deals? Should we expect future transactions at similar discounts to balance sheet value? Secondly, could you share some thoughts on your capital allocation roadmap going forward, and should we expect more disposals and balance sheet discipline, or are you starting to tilt towards growth? How do you think about the role of new equity in that context as well?
I think if we start with the transaction that we made and the feedback since that and kind of market reactions, of course it was a very big transaction. Given the kind of a recent history of Finnish real estate markets, it definitely has created some kind of more interest around the transactional market and there's kind of a picking up of interest to invest in Finnish real estate market or in general, I would say that as we discussed answered already previous questions. We do have a kind of some thoughts to divest further. It depends on how it will match our strategy and portfolio and more of aim to even further focus the portfolio. I wouldn't take any kind of a stance of a possible discount in future transactions. Of course everything depends on the quality of the disposed assets and so on.
On the other hand, I would consider that at least it looks like the market conditions are getting better. In that respect, I think if something, it would be kind of a, with the kind of a like for like type of portfolio, the discount should be smaller. I don't know if you have anything to add, Dan.
Of course, the transaction volume has been quite muted. 607 small transactions last year and the beginning of this year, 1, 2, 3, even 4 assets each. Based on discussions after our transaction with the progress, it looks that this transaction is actually creating momentum because there seems to be more international investors who are really scanning the Finnish property market. They've been here early as well. In most cases, what we heard and we know some of those, they have filed in the so-called global offers. Now it looks at the discussions around more relevant levels and our transaction was the biggest transaction or the only bigger transaction after 2022 and that really was positive for the whole market. After our transaction, there was one bigger transaction in the market as well. I said there's more realistic discussions at least at the moment, thanks to our transaction.
The next question comes from Neeraj Kumar from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Morning, everyone. My question is in regards to Moody’s rating. I see the negative outlook for Moody’s has been there for nearly 2.5 years now, and we see that you have started a share buyback program as well. Is it fair to say that you see no risk of Moody’s downgrade from here?
Yes, the negative outlook has been there quite a long time already and that's quite unusual, to be frank. Based on discussions with Moody’s, they think that all our other KPIs and ICR is very strong in line with requirements for Baa2. They do share our view that the market is about to change and they have noticed the same as we have, that the interest rate came down and they seem to like the company and they are more focused now on the big picture, not only one KPI. They appreciate all the actions taken by the company, the saving program not to start new developments and not paying dividends for two years in a row. They view that the company is moving in the right direction and they wanted to give the company time to show that this is really happening. That's what that's all about.
We are going to have a management meeting with Moody’s Friday this week, so perhaps we learn something more. We really didn't discuss this disposal and how to use the money with Moody’s, but we say that our aim is the same as we released in Q4 report, that our aim is to dispose something and first priority is to pay back loans. Second priority is to buy back own shares. Now that's something we've done and we are doing so. The biggest portion of all the proceedings received used to pay back loans and on top of that we are about to start this share buyback. They are aware of this and, as said, the negative outlook has been there quite long time. What I explained is the reason why they kept that there so long time.
They wanted to give the company time to show that all the actions taken by the company are really paying off as they are doing.
Got it. My second question is in regards to the valuation yields and the valuation assumptions. I see that you're assuming a value occupancy of 97.2% and looking at last five years of occupancy numbers, it's nowhere close to 97.2%. Also, in light of your recent transaction where you disposed at around 10% discount to book values, do you think it warrants a rethinking on how you're valuing your portfolio and if there's more valuation declines to be taken?
Yeah, I think we are kind of confident of our valuation parameters, and that's true that our occupancy rate hasn't been there as on the parameters, but we have done that adjustment. Would you like to elaborate a little bit, Erik? The adjustment.
The adjustment as such was made when we moved the portfolio assets held for sale, before the transaction and when the transaction discussion was ongoing. We discussed with JLL the potential impact of this transaction if it's completed on these levels we were talking about at that time, and the feedback from Thomas Lazar was that it's not going to have any impact for the valuation. Actually, they say that the yield we were discussing about was even better than they expected. In that sense, it was actually a positive thing. That transaction, according to our stand, is not going to have any impact on the valuation going forward. Yes, we do believe that the valuation is made correctly and reflecting the fair value of these properties.
Of course, the yield requirement has been one topic that we have been discussing two or three years already, and now since the interest has come down quite nicely, at least the pressure to increase the requirement in the valuation has gone away. JLL shares our view regarding that.
Got it. That's very helpful, thank you.
The next question comes from Svante Krokfors from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Svante Krokfors from Nordea. Thank you Reima, Erik and Niina for the presentation. A couple of questions left from my side. First one regards the market balance. I think you have earlier this year also mentioned that the market balance, I guess for the capital region, could be reached, I mean similar level as witnessed before the pandemic, could be reached already in H2. That doesn't seem to be what you comment now. What has changed and perhaps not changed for you to have more courses on the market balance?
I think it's partly because I don't know what it's called in English, but so to say in Finnish. When you kind of forecast that it will balance, and there's a kind of a very good reason from megatrends or trends like population growth in major cities and, on the other hand, a very low level of startup of new residents, also that will eventually kind of balance the supply-demand pattern. We are confident that it will do. We have probably stopped guessing now what is the quarter or what is the half that it will happen. I think it's fair to say that our confidence that it will happen hasn't decreased as such.
Perhaps I'm guilty for saying something regarding balancing the market situation and I said earlier we are not guiding anything and Reima mentioned Siperia opettaa , but what I said was actually that we expect to be on a market situation the same level. Available apartments in the portal on same level before COVID-19 by the end of this year and I haven't changed my view. It remains to be seen whether it happens or not. Overall situation to Finland is one thing, but if you then look available apartments in the portals Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa, the volume has gone down beginning of this year. In that sense we are moving in the right direction and the gap between in this city is the gap of available apartments today compared to the volumes before COVID-19, it's not that huge.
At the moment it's rather challenging to comment whether this trend at the moment is thanks to the situation really changing because it has to change in some point. If you look the volumes of new startups for last three years or so and estimates for population growth in some part of them, it has to change. Is it thanks to this expectation coming through or is it because of the seasonality because during the summer you typically make more lease agreement? We've been making very strong improvement in occupancy despite of the seasonality earlier this year and despite of the oversupply in the market. That said, this is the situation that in Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa we've been moving in the right direction in the market beginning of this year.
This I said it remains to be seen where we are by the end of this year and in what quarter where we are in in that type of balanced situation.
Okay, thank you, that is very helpful. Second question is regarding your churn. That seems to have come down quite clearly, and still you're raising rents on existing contracts in a difficult market. What are the reasons behind that?
I think that's one thing that we are actually targeting to kind of bring the churn somewhat down, and we have kind of focused already now on improving the customer experience. As I showed the NPS figure, we seem to have kind of succeeded to do that, and of course that will help with bringing the churn figure down. We are in early days in that respect, but that's definitely something that we try to kind of bring down in the future as well. Of course, that can't be as an intrinsic value type of target, the churn. It definitely means every new customer you have an acquisition cost as well, so in that respect I think from a company point of view it's kind of profitable to bring the churn down.
I think our own doings plays an important role there as well in improved NPS. We have actually changed many things. What we are doing, one is that now we have better cooperation with service providers and be leading them in a more efficient way. We have developed our operations when it comes to the Lumo Service Center and now we are faster and more effortless services giving to our customers because we have changed how we manage all our actions in customer interface. I think this plays an important role in improving Net Promoter Score.
Thank you. The last question, Reima, you mentioned growth and obviously the most profitable growth in history for you has been own new developments. What needs to change in the market for you to be attracted to make new developments again? I guess we are quite far from that point currently.
Yeah, I agree that's kind of not the next step or next tool for growth because already in the market there's very good existing assets to be acquired if there's a will. That's more tempting at the moment than developing and starting up new developments of our own. It's very difficult to say that when it definitely needs better market conditions than at the moment, but it's very difficult to say, kind of give a timeline when that would happen. At the moment the development margin doesn't tend to work as well as they did before the interest rates started to rise.
Okay, thank you. That is all from me.
The next question comes from Paul Gorrie from CTI. Please go ahead.
Hi all.
Yes, it's [Paul Gorrie from Tanzania Capital]. I had a quick question on the cash tax related to the disposal. I just wanted to understand we don't always see cash tax actually crystallized as part of these transactions. I wanted to understand why it's crystallized here and is it that the company doesn't have kind of tax losses carried forward to offset against that.
We have quite a sizable amount of deferred tax liabilities in the balance sheet, almost EUR 1 billion. That's of course due to the depreciations and due to the positive value changes in the history. When you dispose something, of course those deferred tax liabilities will crystallize as transaction-related taxes. That's how it works.
Okay. Future developments, would it be the same structure? If you did another transaction tomorrow of roughly the same size, I could expect the same level of kind of cash tax to come through.
There's clearly going to be a cash tax as well. What amount depends on what properties we are disposing because it depends on the value changes and depreciations in history. In some cases the impact is zero, and in some cases at the same level as in this one. In most cases, somewhere in between.
Yeah, okay, that makes sense. I guess I was thinking about it from the perspective of disposals and share buybacks. The logic is you do the disposal at NAV, roughly. I mean, it's a 10% discount in this instance, but at NAV, and then buy back the shares at a big discount. Once you factor in the discount, potential discount to book, and then the tax impact, it kind of negates. Would you say that kind of future developments, the tax element has a big implication as to whether you would then do additional share buybacks with the proceeds, or are the two, you don't really relate the two.
Of course we take into account and consideration the potential tax implications, but we are not running the company based on taxes and tax implications. There are the drivers behind disposals and share buybacks.
Okay, that makes sense. That's it for me. Thanks.
There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers.
Thank you. Excellent questions. I think we have a few more here left, although we covered quite many. Coming back to the rent increases, could you give some color regarding your ability to increase or the pressure to decrease rent in different areas and different cities? Is there a lot of variation between cities?
Yeah, I think there is. Definitely the market is not the one and the same. That's why I think it was also important that we have changed our pricing methodology so that it goes to basically in the end for a single flat. It depends on, of course, if you look at the occupancy rates in different cities, they are different. That kind of indicates as well the pricing power in the future. As we have discussed quite a lot of capital regions, we have had kind of difficulties with the kind of oversupply. As we discussed earlier about the market outlook and probable timing for balancing that supply demand, that will definitely help with the pricing power as well.
Yeah, a little bit. Same theme is as you mentioned, occupancy levels are different in different cities, and the supply-demand balance is different. Does this influence your future portfolio allocation? Would you see any potential to invest outside Finland?
To invest outside Finland is not at the moment on the cards. I think we have plenty to do here in Finland as well. I would say that current occupancy rates in different cities are not affecting that much of our future kind of a portfolio consistency or content. I would say that it's more of those megatrends or trends that are affecting that. Where's the population growth which will drive our portfolio? Focusing our portfolio and that will come to that which I already earlier mentioned that we are focusing more of a bigger cities here in Finland.
Right. Okay. Practical question about the share buyback program. Has it started or what is the current status?
We are about to start it.
Okay. You mentioned you might have some disposals in the pipeline. Do you expect them to impact negatively your guidance?
We haven't indicated any, and we will definitely, if that would happen, we would kind of rephrase our guidance. Not at the moment anything to kind of inform in that respect.
These assets held for sale are quite small compared to the transaction we completed already, so the impact is going to be in any case quite limited.
A question about maintenance and repair expenses: when you mentioned that they are expected to be on last year's level, do you mean in absolute terms or relative terms, taking into account, for example, the divestments?
Eurovice.
Eurovice, yes. Can you comment anything about 2026 repairs or long-term level?
We are not guiding 2026 or us beyond that. In due course, we are going to give a guidance for 2026.
Okay, so that was the final question. Thank you very much for active participation. Q3 report is published on October 30. Thank you all for joining us and hope to see you in October. Have a lovely autumn.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.