Good morning, and welcome to Tritax Big Box's H1 2022 Results Presentation. I'm Ian Brown, Head of Investor Relations. Before we begin, a few points to note. Firstly, this morning's presentation is being recorded, and a replay and transcript will be made available on the investor section of the Tritax Big Box website. A PDF of the presentation itself is also available to download. Secondly, after the presentation, there will be a Q&A session for analysts and investors. To ask a question through the webcast, please type and submit your question in the question box. If you've joined by phone, please follow the instructions from the operator. In the interest of time, we will aggregate similar questions we receive from the webcast. With that, I will hand over to Colin.
Thanks, Ian, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to present the 2022 first half results for Tritax Big Box, and to provide you with an update on the further strong progress that we're making. My name is Colin Godfrey, CEO at Tritax Big Box, and I'm joined, as usual, by Frankie Whitehead, our Chief Financial Officer, and Ian Brown, our Head of Investor Relations. I'll kick off with a brief introduction. Frankie will run through our financial results for the first half, together with a view on our outlook, and I will conclude the presentation with a strategic update. Ian will then coordinate Q&A. In March this year, we reported record results for 2021, and expressed continued confidence about the outlook for our business. My key message today is that we remain confident despite a changing external environment.
Now, this view is supported by our first half results, and I want to start by highlighting five key factors. Firstly, we're delivering against our strategy. We achieved a record level of new letting activity in the first half of the year. This will add GBP 17.8 million of annual rent to our business. It will underpin future earnings growth in 2023 and 2024, and it supports our decision to accelerate construction starts. Secondly, the powerful structural drivers to our market continue. Supply chains have never been more important, and there is a clear desire to increase operational reliability, efficiency, and resilience. Against this strong demand, there remains a lengthy planning process and a scarcity of consented sites in the U.K., which continues to constrain supply, together underpinning attractive levels of rental growth.
We're very well placed to help our customers achieve these ambitions, both through our investment portfolio and our large development portfolio, which includes a significant amount of planning-consented land available for near-term delivery of logistics warehousing. Thirdly, this attractive combination of delivering our strategy and the strength of the market continues to support our performance. We're very excited about the range of opportunities that we have to create fantastic and sustainable buildings for our customers, and enduring and attractive income and capital growth, both from our investment and development activities. Additionally, and this is the fourth factor, we founded this business on the principle of providing our shareholders with resilient and growing income through the economic cycle, and we remain true to that principle nearly nine years later. Resilience is built into our business on several levels.
There's been a deliberate decision to focus on the best logistics assets that are long leases to strong customers, and this is evidenced by a 100% rent collection rate during COVID and continued 100% occupancy of our investment portfolio. Now, this resilience is being strengthened by the significant work that we're undertaking on ESG and how we're embedding ESG into all aspects of our operations and our thinking. To the final factor, we complement this resilience in our capital structure with a prudent approach to risk, demonstrated by a very strong balance sheet, low leverage, significant liquidity, and no near-term refinancing requirements, plus an attractive cost of debt secured through fixed or capped instruments.
This financial strength positions us well to weather a more challenging geopolitical and macroeconomic backdrop, and to continue taking advantage of the strong growth opportunities embedded within our business and our market. On that note, I'll now hand you over to Frankie to talk through our financial performance. Frankie?
Thank you, Colin, and good morning, everyone. This morning, I will be walking you through the strong results we have posted for the first half of 2022. In doing so, I also want to emphasize that the excellent operational progress made in the period, particularly with regards to new construction and letting activity, is something that will further benefit our earnings through 2023 and 2024. As Colin has said, we are conscious of the current macro environment, and I'll set out why we are well-placed to perform strongly as we move forward. Turning to our first half 2022 key financial highlights.
Our adjusted EPS, excluding additional DMA income, has risen by 1.1% to GBP 0.0373, with development completions and like-for-like rental growth more than offsetting the impact from the increased share count in the period. We've increased our dividend by 4.7% to GBP 0.0335 per share for the six months. Once again, our portfolio has performed strongly, which has helped us to deliver a 9.1% increase in EPRA NTA to GBP 2.429. All elements of our strategy are performing well, leading to a total accounting return of 10.7% over the six-month period. Finally, and this is a key message from today's presentation, future income growth is now truly embedded within our development pipeline and wider portfolio.
As you can see from the chart here, the rent now secured within our development pipeline means that our contracted position rests 9% above today's passing rent. With the added rental reversion within the portfolio, the ERV sits a further 15% ahead of today's contracted rental position, indicating the attractive prospects for our future earnings growth. Further strong progress has been made in terms of delivering growth in net rental income, and this supports the underlying growth in our dividend. The group net rental income increased by 16.1%. Once again, this was predominantly driven by development completions over the last 12 months. The total contracted annual rent has increased to GBP 216 million, with 86% of the growth since December generated from the development component of our strategy.
Our EPRA cost ratio has increased, albeit temporarily, to 15.2%. We expect this ratio to return to the level seen in previous periods as further contracted rent translates into passing rent. We also have the positive impact to come from the recent change in management fee structure, which becomes effective from 1 July 2022, and further details can be found on slide 28 of the presentation. Our headline adjusted earnings per share fell by 7%, reflecting the fact that there was no exceptional DMA income received in the period. Hence, therefore, there being no difference between this and our adjusted earnings, excluding exceptional DMA for this first half at GBP 0.0373 . It is this which we consider to be our recurring earnings metric.
This has increased by 1.1%, despite the average share count growing by nearly 9%. We have increased our dividend per share for this first half to GBP 0.0335, and we sit comfortably with a payout ratio of 90%, providing us with future flexibility as we continue to target sustainable dividend progression over the long term. Slide eight highlights the level of underlying earnings growth in absolute terms driven by our development activity. Starting with last year's headline adjusted earnings figure on the left-hand side and removing the exceptional DMA income of GBP 6.3 million, which was received in half one 2021, getting us to the recurring earnings position of GBP 63.1 million for the first half of last year.
You can see that top-line growth in net rental income is the significant driver to this growth in recurring earnings. The like-for-like rental growth of 3.3% has added GBP 2.2 million to current period earnings. Alongside a further GBP 1.1 million contribution from last year's investment activity, which is now being held for the full period. Development completions are by far the biggest contributor to net rental income growth, with GBP 10.8 million attached to new lease completions. This is offset by an unwind of approximately GBP 6 million from license fee income in relation to one building at Littlebrook. This has now reached practical completion.
Finally, net of the other admin and finance costs, this gets us to the adjusted earnings for this period of GBP 69.7 million, which is a 10.5% increase on a like- for- like basis over the same period last year. Just to recap, this is shown here in absolute terms. On a pence per share basis, this growth is 1.1% when factoring in the dilution from our 2021 equity issue. Our income performance has been coupled with an even stronger delivery of capital growth across the period. Another milestone was reached with the portfolio value crossing GBP 6 billion at the half- year point. The valuation surplus recorded was 7% across the half. We have invested approximately GBP 150 million of capital during the period into our attractive development pipeline.
We expect this to accelerate in the second half and therefore retain our guidance of GBP 350 million-GBP 400 million of development CapEx this financial year. Our EPRA NTA increases to over GBP 4.5 billion, which equates to GBP 2.429 per share. With an LTV relatively unchanged at below 24%, this provides us with the balance sheet capacity to commit to near-term opportunities, both from within our existing pipeline and externally should those opportunities arise. This financial performance culminates in another strong six months with a total accounting return, as I said before, of 10.7%. Turning to the detail behind our strong capital growth. The equivalent yield on our portfolio has remained stable at 4.1%.
The ERV growth itself has continued to progress at attractive levels, increasing by 5.8% this half. This investment portfolio performance has therefore added 15.6p to NAV. While our development pipeline is a key driver to income growth, the development profit realized is also becoming a bigger feature of NAV growth. A further GBP 0.05 Has been added to performance through increasing levels of development activity. When noting the impact of the operating profit and dividends paid in the period, this takes us to the closing EPRA NTA of GBP 2.43 per share or +9.1% over the six months. The first half has been another period of compelling financial results, and more importantly, our strong operational performance has led to our near-term outlook for income growth looking even more attractive.
This rental income bridge illustrates the potential we have to grow today's passing rent from GBP 198 million shown on the left-hand side by approximately 2.5x to an estimated GBP 510 million as shown on the right. This includes GBP 80 million of rent, which is contracted and sits within our current development pipeline. This is all targeted for delivery by Q3 2023 and will add 9% to passing rent. We have a further GBP 15 million of potential rent within the current development pipeline, which is currently unlet, although one third of this is under offer. We have GBP 4 million of potential rent attached to planned development starts during the second half of this year. Further ERV growth has led to an improved mark-to-market rental position.
This rental reversion now stands at 15% or GBP 32 million of further opportunity to grow our income. Taking all of this into account, this gets us to the green bar totaling GBP 267 million. Including our current development pipeline, the targeted development starts from the second half of the year and the rental reversion, we have the opportunity to grow passing rent by GBP 69 million or 35% over the near term, which from a timing perspective, we would expect to translate into an acceleration in our earnings growth from mid-2023 onwards. Moving further out, we continue to benefit from our near-term and future pipeline, which is unique and has significant embedded value. To remind you, there is no future rental income growth factored into this chart. It is important to remember, our land pipeline is largely held under option.
This provides us with significant flexibility over the long term, allowing us to alter the pace of development to suit prevailing market conditions. Slide 12 is a reminder that the strength of our balance sheet provides further resilience across our business, which is particularly important noting today's macro environment. At the half year, our loan-to-value ratio stood at 23.7%, and we had GBP 475 million of available liquidity. As you can see, our debt book remains diversely funded with a laddered maturity profile averaging 6.2 years. Our earliest refinancing event does not fall due until December 2024. With the last few months seeing us move into a new interest rate environment, our work on the capital structure over the last few years stands us in good stead.
Approximately 70% of our debt is fixed- rate, and our remaining drawn balance is fully hedged. Our average cost of debt remains attractive at 2.5% at the end of the period. Finally, I want to finish by reaffirming the guidance set out at the time of our 2021 annual results in March. Our high-quality investment portfolio underpins our core income return, and we are confident that we will continue to deliver low risk and sustainable income growth, including through the significant portfolio reversion. We will continue to maintain our financial strength by managing our balance sheet efficiently. As I said, our fixed- term and hedged position means that we are less exposed to higher interest rates when taking a medium- term view.
We have plans to recycle capital this year, but we are mindful of managing investment disposal timings with the delivery of income from our developments. With investors likely to be pausing for breath over the summer months, any disposals are therefore likely to fall towards the latter part of the year. Our longer-term guidance on disposals remains at GBP 100 million-GBP 200 million per annum. We intend to continue investing for growth, ensuring that we continue to maintain strict financial discipline around our deployment of capital. We maintain our development CapEx target for 2022 of GBP 350 million-GBP 400 million this year. From a yield on cost perspective, we maintain our target at the lower end of our 6%-8% range in the near term, with rental growth continuing to act as the key mitigant to cost pressures.
I've set out how a large part of the expected acceleration in earnings growth for 2023 and 2024 has already been secured and therefore is significantly de-risked. With a strategy founded on income quality, alongside a highly flexible growth engine through development, we expect this to translate into attractive returns over the longer term. That concludes the financial review, and I shall now hand you back to Colin.
Thanks, Frankie. Our confidence in delivering the numbers that Frankie talked to is based on our strategy, combined with the continuing strength of our market, and that is what I want to update you on here. As shown top left, a record level of lettings at 22.6 million sq ft was recorded in the first half of 2022, 10% up on the first half of 2021. This deep demand has come from a broad range of occupier types. The level of new supply and construction has increased slightly to 33 million sq ft as at June 30. Much of the supply has been either pre-let or let during construction. Across the market as a whole, 19 million sq ft was under offer at the end of the first half, leaving an estimated 5 million sq ft of the future development pipeline currently available.
Now, against this, the level of unsatisfied demand remains exceptionally strong, equivalent to around two years of recent average annual take-up. As shown top right, demand and constrained occupational supply have driven down vacancy to a record low of only 1.2%, representing around 5.7 million sq ft against a total U.K. stock of around 484 million sq ft. Turning to the bottom left chart, this acute supply and demand imbalance continues to drive rental growth across all six regions of the U.K., with investor forecasts strengthening, and we've got plenty of opportunities to capture this. Bottom right, strong investment demand for logistics warehousing has continued.
While we saw a slowing of volumes in Q2, the first half of 2022 recorded GBP 4.2 billion of transactions, significantly ahead of the five-year first half average of GBP 2.7 billion. We believe that there remains a wall of unsatisfied capital seeking investment into logistics real estate given the attractive medium-term attributes offered. Now, as you can see, the long-term structural drivers of our market remain unchanged, with significant tension between occupational supply and demand supporting enduring rental growth. Now, against that market backdrop, I wanted to spend some time highlighting the first key element of our strategy, the strength of our investment portfolio, which makes up 91% of our GAV. Since we launched Tritax Big Box in 2013, we've been disciplined and focused with our aim of creating the highest quality logistics portfolio possible.
By doing so, we attract high-quality customers on long leases, providing greater security of income, which we know is very important to many of our shareholders. Nearly nine years on, our investment portfolio benefits from an increasingly broad range of large, well-known, and financially strong customers, as shown here on the left, from a wide range of business sectors that are often market leaders in their field, noting that to ensure resilience through the economic cycle, we deliberately limited our exposure to SMEs. Geographically diverse assets, which are well-located, modern, and highly sustainable, and assets that are crucial to our customers in supporting their complex supply chains. Now, ESG is increasingly important in both protecting and enhancing investment value.
With 95% of our assets rated A to C, we've got limited CapEx requirements, estimated at only GBP 4.2 million to ensure that our portfolio meets the minimum EPC rating of B by 2030, as legislated by the U.K. government. Along with the high quality and modernity of our investment assets, our development activities allow us to integrate ESG performance through the life cycle of a building, from design to construction, and with the objective of reducing embedded carbon and delivering buildings which are net zero in construction. We are also working with our customers to reduce carbon emissions from their operations. Our contractors now source most building materials from within the U.K., further reducing the environmental impact and supply chain risk, and helping us deliver buildings on time.
All our new developments are targeting a minimum standard of EPC Grade A and BREEAM Very Good. We are increasing renewable power and producing biodiversity net gains, and our focus on social impact is supporting communities through job creation and charity partnerships. This leads me neatly to slide 17 and the second key element of our strategy, active asset management, which we employ to continually enhance and improve this high-quality investment portfolio. Activity in the first half has been in line with our expectations, having completed eight rent reviews relating to 15% of our rent roll and a lease renewal, which have together secured an additional GBP 2.7 million in annual rent.
EPRA like-for-like rental growth was 3.3%, noting that most rent reviews are five-yearly and backward-looking, so we expect our rent review performance to improve as we capture recent stronger levels of rental growth and higher inflation. We have an attractive blend of upward-only rent review types, as shown here on the left pie chart. Over half of our investments are subject to inflation-linked rent reviews. Thanks to our development pipeline, we've increased potential exposure to open market rent reviews from 36% to 40% of rents over the last six months. As to timing, 20% of our rents are subject to annual rent reviews, with the remainder reviewed five-yearly, as shown on the right pie chart. The opportunity for income growth comprises several components.
As shown here top right, the growth in market rents is embedded within our portfolio, with rental reversion up from 6% just a few years ago to 15% as at 30 June. We have plenty of opportunities to capture this reversion, as shown bottom right. In any given year, we have around a third of the portfolio subject to rent review. In addition, around 18% of our portfolio is subject to lease expiry over the next five years. In the intervening period, we expect rents to continue growing, supporting an increasingly attractive rental reversion. Our development pipeline provides a third way to capture rental growth. Now, this is important because our development lettings also create positive evidence that we can use to produce growth from our investment portfolio rent reviews.
Through active management of our high-quality investment portfolio, we're driving both attractive income and capital growth. Here's a case study that brings this to life. It's a great example of our investment activity and active management strategy in action and demonstrates the understanding we have of the U.K.'s logistics market and our ability to capture the increasing reversion within our portfolio. Located near Southampton and let to Tesco, we purchased this reversionary asset at the end of 2020. It was an off-market transaction, as we'd identified an institutional owner who needed liquidity quickly. This enabled us to achieve advantageous pricing for a rare cold storage asset in a great location where supply is acutely tight.
The lease only had three months left until expiry, but our knowledge of the customer and the market meant that we were confident that Tesco would want to stay, but also that there would be strong alternative market demand if Tesco vacated. I'm pleased to say that the combination of our due diligence, detailed customer supply chain analysis, and working in partnership with Tesco, has resulted in us securing a new 10-year lease to Tesco earlier this year. In addition to which, we've increased the passing rent by 23%, thereby creating additional value for our shareholders, both through income and capital growth. While much of our emphasis is on our development activities, we continue to create opportunities to enhance our investment portfolio through active asset management and, in turn, support the ambitions of our customers.
Turning to slide 19 and the third key element of our strategy, our significant development program. This slide outlines the scale and indicative timings of our development pipeline. I won't dwell here on it as we've covered this before, so please refer to the replay of our development focus seminar, which is available on the investor relations section of the Tritax Big Box website. I will, however, reiterate that this is the U.K.'s largest logistics land portfolio, and it gives us the ability to support our customers by creating modern, highly sustainable, and well-located assets in a range of sizes and locations. We've guided to a long-term aim of delivering 2 million-3 million sq ft of development starts per annum over the course of the next 10 years.
Last year, we announced that we would accelerate this in 2022 in the face of exceptionally strong occupier demand. As to activity so far in 2022, I'm pleased to report excellent progress and strong performance. Actually, the numbers speak for themselves. Let's start with lettings. So far this year, we've secured around 2.4 million sq ft of lettings. Some of these buildings are being constructed now and are reported in our current development pipeline, and some have yet to start construction and feature in our near-term development pipeline. These lettings secured an additional GBP 17.8 million of contracted annual rent, a record first half for us, which, as Frankie highlighted, will begin contributing to earnings by mid-2023, with the full effect felt in our 2024 earnings as these buildings reach practical completion.
This strong letting activity significantly de-risks our future earnings growth. Turning then to our current development pipeline, shown in the green section on this chart. Now, that captures buildings currently in construction, and here we're making excellent progress with 2.2 million sq ft commencing in the first half of the year, a significant majority of which has been let already. We are more than halfway to achieving our accelerated target for 2022 of 3 million-4 million sq ft. When adding this to the 1.2 million sq ft of construction already underway at the start of the year, we now have 3.4 million sq ft in our current development pipeline. Noting that 1.8 million sq ft is let and will contribute GBP 12.7 million of annual rent.
This leaves 1.6 million sq ft under construction and available to let, which has the potential to add a further GBP 14.9 million to our rent roll in the near term. Looking further out to our near-term development pipeline at the bottom here, related to construction, which we anticipate starting within 36 months from now, this has the potential to produce nearly 9 million sq ft. We're making good progress here also, having already achieved planning for and pre-let 0.6 million sq ft that is set to commence construction in the second half of this year. Critically, we've been able to offset much of the inflationary pressures that we're seeing with higher rents, thanks to the strong market fundamentals that I've already mentioned.
Now, as Frankie stated, this means that our projects remain within the lower end of our targeted 6%-8% yield on cost range, supporting attractive returns and our decision to accelerate development activity in 2022. Our development program is making excellent progress, on track with our delivery expectations, and we are optimistic about the potential opportunities looking forwards. To summarize and reiterate what I said at the start, we remain as confident and excited today as we did in March. As these results show, we're delivering on our strategy. The occupational market remains exceptionally strong, supported by long-term structural drivers. Our rental reversion and new development lettings are embedding continued high-quality growth in our business, which further reinforces the resilience of our portfolio assets and recurring earnings.
We have the financial strength to continue to deliver our strategy and take advantage of opportunities in our market. Thank you for listening. Ian will now open the call for your questions.
Great. Thanks so much. Now, good morning, everyone. So, there are two ways to ask questions. You can put your question through on the webcast. There should be a text box where you can type your question. And if you're on the phone, you need to press star one, and then we'll be able to see your question. We'll begin with the webcast, just whilst we wait for some questions to come through on the phone. First question in on the webcast relates to yields. Question is: With risk-free rates rising, what are your views on the future path of logistics yields?
Okay, thanks. Thank you, Ian. It's Colin speaking. Well, look, I think, like a lot of markets, we think investors are pausing their activity to see where things settle at the moment. In the last few weeks, investment activity has reduced. Buyers, you know, have been pausing for breath with owners sitting on their hands. It's difficult, therefore, to form a very real clear view on current pricing, given the limited evidence that we have in the marketplace, let alone trying to speculate on future pricing. However, I think at the moment, we're not seeing any signs of distress in our market or forced selling. That's the first thing to say.
We are aware of some transactions that haven't progressed because the buyers and sellers haven't been able to agree terms, and there has been some sort of price chipping potential. Just to counter that, you know, last week, by way of example, we are aware of a completion of an investment transaction. NFU sold a portfolio of seven assets. From memory, it had a 10-year WAULT with a mix of review types and credit qualities, and that was a 3.5% net initial yield, which is very strong, I think sort of underpins the sort of levels that we were seeing in the first half. Overall, of course, much of this is gonna depend upon the cost of capital, and obviously, that's increased significantly over the last six months.
I think the key point here is the quality of our own portfolio. We think that our assets are highly liquid and will be very resilient. Of course, one's got to, you know, have a mind to the structural drivers of our market supporting occupational demand and rental growth, and they're still exceptionally strong. You know, these fundamentals are really likely to continue to attract investment interest, I would say. You know, we're aware that there is still a lot of uninvested capital destined for logistics real estate. I think the outlook remains in the medium to long term very positive, but I think, you know, taking a pause in the near term, hopefully that sort of covers that point.
Great. Next question is: If all the caps were met, what would your cost of debt rise to?
Thank you, Ian. Yeah. The average cost of debt, as at 30 June was 2.5%. On the interest rate cap side, the strike rates, it's just outside of where we were at balance sheet date. They all kick in in the short term, and the average cost of debt would move to around 2.6%, so not significantly above where we were trending at 30 June.
Okay, great. Next question relates to expectations for development activity. Question is: What are your expectations for development activity in 2023? Will you maintain the current accelerated levels?
Thanks, Ian. Heading into 2022, we obviously saw an increased level of occupier demand for our space. With our portfolio well-p ositioned, we increased our expectations for this year to 3 million-4 million sq ft. I think we've demonstrated this morning that we're on track to meet that. Our longer- term guidance remains at 2 million-3 million sq ft per annum. Although we continue to position our portfolio to allow us to accelerate that should the occupier demand be there. The flexibility we have within the land pipeline, it will remain driven from the bottom up, and we will react to any occupier demand in order to increase that should that be there.
Great. Next question. Congratulations on a great set of results.
Thank you.
What is the average length of your fixed debt? How confident are you can achieve your rental increases in this uncertain macro environment?
Okay. It's Colin. Should we maybe take that in reverse order? Shall I start, Frankie?
Sure.
Probably the first way to sort of think about this is to talk about our like-for-like rental growth. Look, I think looking at the composition of our portfolio, we've got a really good balance of rent reviews in the portfolio, 40% linked to open market and 50% of our rents are inflation-linked. Now, the open market reviews are uncapped, typically five-yearly reviews. Most of our inflation-linked leases do have a cap and collar arrangements, of course. We've delivered, as I said in the presentation, like-for-like rental growth of 3.3% over the period. Just to remind you know, that is a five-year backward-looking process. Over that five-year period, the average underlying CPI inflation rate was 3.1.
To that effect, we're sort of on track. Probably more importantly is the way that we think about the current capture. It's almost a case of sort of catching up with this just delayed re-rating point in relation to how we're capturing what is happening in the market right now. We think about that view in the context of our ERV growth, which has been progressing very well at, you know, 6% for the last six months. Up 14% over the last 12 months. I talked about the embedded reversion in our business of 15%, which of course, you know, to some degree embeds the ability to capture future growth in our business without reliance on further growth in the market.
It's very much a timing point between underlying market growth and the path to us securing that reversion. In addition to which we do have opportunity to capture, you know, 18% of our portfolio, with lease expiries during the course of the next five years. I think our investment portfolio delivers, you know, strong, high- quality income growth potential, given the relatively low risk and high quality of sort of foundation of our assets. I think probably the most important factor is the underlying income growth potential of the business, which of course includes asset management and the good work we're doing in development and the ability to drive those rates through in terms of rental and development.
Just probably to mention that, you know, to give you a bit of a feel against the last, you know, in the last six months against our target rental term that we set ourselves, in particular say for our speculative developments which we've leased in the intervening period. You know, the rental term we've been achieving is sort of 10%-20% ahead of target levels. You can see this sort of, if you like, a growing curve of opportunity from the current like-for-like level we're achieving, as we sort of as we capture the growing levels of rental growth that we're seeing in the market.
Just on that first part of that question, the average length of the fixed component of our debt book, which to remind you is 70%, is 7.5 years, including the full debt book, the average maturity is 6.2 years.
Perhaps continuing the theme, a question around the current all-in marginal cost of debt with color on different types of debt would be appreciated. What is the rate on the GBP 250 million RCF maturing in 2024, and what are your thoughts on replacing this, and what rate would you get on that today?
Thanks, Ian. I think there's a few elements there. I think just to reiterate what we said in the presentation, I think we're well set. The work that we've undertaken on the capital structure and the debt book, particularly over the last few years, puts us in a good position. A 6.2-year average maturity, 70% is fixed, and the balance is hedged at the moment. Long duration on that.
There's two components of the debt side there. Debt capital markets first. Clearly, underlying interest rates have moved out, as have bond spreads. We aren't immune to that. That will affect us on any new debt that we look to execute. I would say that for medium to long-term debt today, we would be pricing in the very high 3s%, low 4%. That is a move up from where we were six months or so ago. I think the other point is the more flexible debt, so the traditional corporate banking side. I would say that the cost there has been a lot more stable.
We will continue to look to fund our strategy through a blend of those forms of debt capital markets and traditional corporate banking. On the banking side, in terms of the refi in 2024. To remind you that we had a positive move in terms of the outlook of our corporate credit rating, which will feature in this. I would say where we stand today, that the margin will be very similar to when we originally agreed that a few years ago, when it comes to refinancing. That's how we're currently seeing that.
Okay, brilliant. Look, I think we'll take one more question from the webcast, and we'll go over to the phones. We've got a few questions waiting there. A couple of questions. I'll aggregate them here. Could you give more color on tenant demand by sector? And do you think that demand is more sustainable now, given the greater breadth of tenants looking to take space? And a couple of questions around the reliance of logistics on e-commerce, and how do you plan to reduce such dependency as was visible with Amazon-led stock price decline over the last few months? Yeah, two sets of questions there.
Sounds like more than two in there.
Well, I think it's sort of a summary of our questions.
We'll give it a go. It's really interesting, this. In the first half, take-up by sector, the largest component was the third-party logistics sector at 28% of take-up. Interestingly, online retail only comprised 14% of take-up, and I think that probably talks to the Amazon point. We can come back to that in a moment. The other retail was 9%, food was 13%, manufacturing was 20%, construction 3%, and there are, you know, a number of others in there that comprise the remainder, which is 14%. It's really interesting.
I think, you know, when we reflect on the sort of the effect of Amazon's comments, you know, it's important to remember that we do have the largest logistics-focused land portfolio in the U.K., which is, you know, geographically diverse, and in strong locations. It does provide us with really good real-time insight into what we're seeing in the occupier market. If we were to sort of measure, you know, the occupational demand of our, for our assets, you know, I think, Hamid at Prologis said, you know, 12 out of 10, moving to 10 out of 10 or something. I would probably say it's sort of, you know, been an exceptional market, you know, at 10 out of 10 for the last 12 months.
We're probably now just edged a very slightly sort of 9 out of 10, but it's still very, very strong. If you look at the composition of that interest that we're seeing at the coalface, it's very deep, it's very broad. I think we, you know, we're seeing the effect of Brexit coming in there a little bit, reassuring. We can perhaps touch on that a bit later. You know, there are strong structural reasons why we're seeing a broad range of occupier types. That, I think, is really quite gratifying. It's stepped up really as a consequence of, you know, as we come out of lockdown and COVID and companies looking to invest for the longer term. I think a healthy, sort of broad range.
If we think about the sort of the timing of that take-up, we are leasing our buildings, you know, particularly quickly. Now, if you think about the speculative development program, by way of example, I think Savills reported, you know, negative two months, which is the sort of first time a negative number has been reported in history for spec lettings. That means that the average speculatively developed building has been letting up two months prior to practical completion. Well, for our own activity in the first six months of this year, that equivalent numbers have ranged from negative six months to -12 months. In other words, we're letting our buildings up incredibly quickly.
I think it talks to not only the breadth, but also the strength and depth of the market, you know, absent perhaps, you know, Amazon's reduced level of activity in the marketplace.
Excellent. Thank you. Brilliant. Well, I think we'll turn to the phones now. I think we've got a number of questions there. The first, I think, is from Neil Green at JP Morgan. Just as a reminder, if you wanna ask a question, please press star one on your phone. Neil, can you?
Thank you.
Neil Green, your line is now unmuted. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for the presentation. Just one question, really. Obviously, with the rental growth and the uplift on renewals you're seeing, I'm just wondering if any tenants are talking about the affordability of rents, especially given, you know, the uncertain economic outlook, please?
Yeah. Thanks, Neil. To be honest, Neil, no, not really. I mean, we obviously have really high-quality buildings. Typically, they're let to you know, large-scale, robust occupiers that are recognizing the importance and need for these buildings in producing solutions to supply chain issues that they have. It is worth mentioning that, you know, we've done some analysis on this, and if you look at the, you know, the rental tone, by way of example, you know, for a retailer, it can sort of amount to something like 1% or even less of their total operational cost. So, you know, the much bigger component part of their cost is, for instance, in, you know, transportation and labor and those sorts of things.
If their rent goes up by 10%, you know, it's sort of potentially 10 basis points on the bottom line. It's relative. We're talking about relatively small increases in costs here. You know, in the context of that, it's much more important that they can solve for the key things that they need to solve for in their business to optimize their business operations, to capture those economies of scale, potential cost savings, you know, the flexibility that these buildings provide, and as I said, you know, the solutions to supply chain issues. We're not seeing much of that.
You know, it's an interesting question because obviously that's in the context of quite significant inflation that we've seen coming through into cost price inflation, and particularly in the U.K., I think on top of the European scenario, in labor. You know, more recently, there has been a bit of a delayed reaction to this because, of course, there's been an educational component to it, but our customers do recognize that we are simply looking to pass on to them the cost increases that we are seeing.
You know, I would say if you look at the stats and the level of demand we're seeing and the conversations we're having, you know, they are fully appreciative of that and they're recognizing that it's just part of the backdrop of the economic environment. Short answer is no, we're not seeing much pushback on that at all.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question comes in from the line of Paul May calling from Barclays. Please go ahead, Paul.
Hi, team. Thanks for the presentation results. Just a couple for me. One sort of probably a number of questions, but focusing on the average cost of debt. Appreciate you said sort of on the bond market, probably looking at high 3s%, low 4s%. On the bank market, you mentioned I think margins flat, but I assume cost is up sort of 170 basis points relative to where we were back in the last year, just looking at the move in LIBOR. Is that sort of what you're seeing as well in terms of the conversations? Then also on your margins, we're hearing from some banks that they are looking to, you know, basically expand margins. I imagine margins have got compressed because of the low cost of the corporate bond market. That's obviously got significantly higher margins now.
We're hearing from some banks that are looking to expand that. Finally, on the cost of debt, I think if you look at your first half financing cost and all the various bits and pieces that go in there, you know, annualize that, your debt book hasn't really changed sort of from year-end to the first half. Dividing those three, we get to more like a sort of 2.7%, 2.68% cost of debt, on the pre-finance side. Is the average cost you mentioned net of capitalized interest or sort of what's it sort of excluding, I suppose, to get down to sort of the 2.5%? Thanks.
Probably start with those on the debt side, and I've got a couple questions on the development side.
Trying to pick those up in order, Paul. On the banking side, I would say margins at the moment seem to be relatively stable. Versus the sort of 4% that I quoted for a longer- term tenor, we've been in around the 2% on the floating rate side. Obviously, caps in place on that. You know, a blend of those different sources going forwards looking to finance our strategy. Cost of debt, I think we noted in the statement the cost of debt that we quote is based on all debt commitments rather than drawn debt. That would be the difference between your 2.7% and your 2.5%.
Cool. Perfect. Thanks. On that, sorry, on the floating rate, the 2%, so your margin, I mean, just looking at LIBOR is currently 1.9-ish%, I think something around there, three-month LIBOR. Is that sort of margins are basically zero effectively on bank debt? Or should we be thinking of sort of 100 basis points or so margin on top of the 1.9+% a little bit on the fee side?
Yeah, sure.
for an all-in cost?
Sure. Margins are in and around the 100 basis point mark you mentioned. We're borrowing over three-month SONIA on the floating.
Okay, cool. Thank you. On the development side of things, just trying to get a sense of, I suppose, timing of income, and I appreciate you give, you know, quite a bit of information, I think, on slide 11, as to some sort of indication as to when that's likely to come through. Just to get a sense of where your top line could be growing, sort of through 2023 effectively. I appreciate a lot of it is probably second- half loaded. I think it's probably fair to say in terms of that coming through. Just to get a, probably some millions of pounds around the sort of numbers would be much appreciated.
Sure. That's something for me as well. Looking at slide 11, Paul, there. Obviously passing rent and just stepping through the slide. Passing rent GBP 198 million at June. The GBP 13 million and the GBP 5 million, the GBP 18 million, that's secured under construction or shortly to commence should all be passing by Q3 2023. Passing rent Q3 2023, you know, in and around the GBP 216 million from development. Clearly, there are rent reviews and things between now and then as well. The GBP 15 million, that's again currently under construction. That's unlet.
Those buildings, again, there's a bit of a range, but again, by summer of next year, those should all have reached practical completion, so subject to letting activity on that between now and then. Some of that or all of that could also be passing. Then the GBP 4 million that we're due to start in the second half of this year, that's more like an end of 2023 completion attached to that. Hopefully that gives you a feel, but broadly speaking, a large part of that income, you can see it on the early phase of that chart there, should be flowing by Q3 2023.
Perfect. In terms of the reversion potential of the GBP 30-odd million, simply over the next five years, you'd expect to capture the majority of that? Or is there any. I appreciate you've obviously got the timing of sort of rent reviews and various things coming through, but is a broad sort of GBP 5 million-6 million a year reversion not a bad starting point?
Yeah, I think that's probably fair, Paul. The only thing I would say to balance that a little bit is that you know, obviously the reversion sits within specific assets, so if you're sitting, say, for instance, with an inflation-linked rent review, and it's subject to a cap, you may not be able to capture the full amount of the reversion appertaining to that property within that five-year timeframe. It could take a little bit longer.
Mm-hmm.
It may not all be absolutely delivered within a time here, five-year time horizon. I mean, you've got the slide there which shows the timing of our rent reviews. You know, with 20% in 2023, 32% in 2024, 27% in 2025, and 43% of our rents in 2026. You know, I suppose the biggest composition of that is RPI-linked growth in that timeframe. On top of that, we've got you know, lease expiries, you know, roughly ranging sort of between 3.5% and 4% of our rent roll in each of those years as well.
It does range between sort of 25%-47% overall in each of those years. Hopefully that gives you a bit more of a feel for the capture. Broadly, I think that's a sensible assumption. Yeah.
Yeah. No, exactly. It's trying to tally and reconcile the various numbers, 'cause as you say, we don't get obviously the exposure to the, you know, lease-by-lease items. Just sort of headline movements are usually quite a useful start point. Thank you very much. Much appreciated.
Pleasure. Pleasure, Paul.
Thanks, all.
The next question comes in from the line of Colm Lauder calling from Goodbody. Please go ahead.
Good morning, all, and thank you for taking my questions. I have a couple which actually follow on from Paul's just on the inflation-linked reviews and how that might be evolving or changing. Firstly, and you can perhaps link two questions together. Firstly, what's your average cap across that 52.5% chunk of the portfolio which is on inflation-linked leases? And then for new leases that you are agreeing, are you seeing any changes or tweaking to those cap and collar ranges, given obviously higher rates of current inflation? Thank you.
Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Colm. So the average cap is 3.4%. But that is expected to and will grow, you know, partly through our development activity. I mean, you've seen that during the six-month period to 30 June, we increased our exposure to open market rent reviews from 36% of our rents to 40% of our rents. That was a conscious decision. If we think about the way that we are conducting rent review negotiations right now on our developments, you know, there is a hierarchy of preference. You know, which is really responding to the way we think about the market.
In the first instance, you know, our preference is a hybrid rent review, essentially the higher of open market, which is uncapped or inflation-linked, which will be subject to cap and collar. If we can't achieve that, then we're typically reverting to an unrestrained open market review profile. If we can't achieve that, and if you know, we're desiring of capturing the occupier, and we're prepared to let that building on an inflation-linked lease, then the cap and collar arrangements will be much higher. Just to give you a feel, you know, we're not on our own here. You know, we've seen these sort of numbers move up to you know, capped at 5%, collared at 2%, capped at 6%, collared at 3%, this sort of thing.
I think in recognition of where inflation has been running, despite the fact that I think there's a general expectation that inflation will soften off again. Those sorts of bandings, I think, you know, our expectation is that they will be fit for purpose, in underpinning quite attractive rental growth, for the medium to longer term.
Okay. Useful. Thank you. Again, on a similar question, just looking at the yield profile then in terms of new credit that CBRE might be giving you for the various types of yield structures. Is there anything you can guide us in terms of sort of the divergence in yields, or has there been any increased divergence in yields between the open market rent reviewed book versus the inflation-linked book?
I think I can't give you specifics on that breakdown, but I can give you a sort of sentiment-driven answer, Colm. If we sort of go back 24 months or so, and more, the market typically was, I think, you know, in the crudest possible way, paying a bit more for inflation-linked reviews. I mean, we were obviously in a market where inflation was very low, and inflation reviews typically provide a higher level of transparency and clarity of delivery because you capture that review real- time, year on year during, you know, the five-year time horizon. Now, you know, that compares to open market rent reviews, which can take some time to negotiate and agree with the customer.
In the absence of agreeing it, you know, it could go to arbitration or independent expert. Now you get back rent and you get, you know, late payment, interest and all those sorts of things, but the transparency and timing of delivery of that growth can be delayed on open market rent reviews. We've moved obviously to a new market dynamic, and I think in this new world, the market is paying more attention to and paying more for the ability to capture the stronger rental growth that's evident in the market right now, preferring that to some degree to the constrained profiling of inflation-linked rent reviews.
Because obviously rental growth has been running very fast, it partly driven by the underlying inflationary pressures that we've talked about, particularly cost price inflation, which has been feeding into the rents that developments have been creating. Of course, that is creating probably the best new and real-time evidence for the rent reviews to take for comparable evidence in that review process.
Very useful. Thank you.
The next question comes in from the line of Peter Runnebaum, calling from Kempen. Please go ahead, Peter.
Good morning, team. Thanks for your presentation. Quick one from my side. You already briefly touched upon the speculative part of your pipeline. So currently it's around 50% pre-let. Is it fair to assume that all of this will be leased out upon completion?
Yes, of course, Peter. I mean, you know, our expectation is that. I mean, I think, you know, we don't have a crystal ball, but, yeah, we approach speculative development with very conservatively, and on an information-based approach. I think the first point of reference is as I mentioned earlier, you know, the speed at which the lettings that we have achieved on our speculative development program have been very, very fast. You know, minus 6 months to minus 12 months from the target date of practical completion. That is almost unheard of. You know, some of these buildings are being let up almost instantaneously when we break ground. Of course, we've still got further spec coming out of the ground.
In some instances, we are seeking to hold back on negotiations, preferring to capture the stronger rental growth during the course of the construction progress. Of course, one of the things that we can benefit from here is locking into a fixed price building contract at the start of speculative development, and then benefiting from the upward rise in rental growth we're seeing in the market subsequently. You know, compared to build-to-suit scenarios where we're pre-letting the building, where we're essentially back to back the pre-let lease with the fixed price building contract and therefore know exactly what our profit is on day one.
The other thing I think to mention about the spec program is that we don't just put up a building in the hope that a tenant's going to come along and lease that in the future. You know, we will only make a speculative start. But by the way, these spec buildings are typically the smaller buildings in our program. There is a geographically diverse range, so there's a risk profiling geographically across our portfolio. Finally, we don't start construction speculative buildings unless we have line of sight on at least two occupiers who we know have a requirement for that size of building approximately in that location.
We've got very, very clear understanding of any other sites that we might be in competition with or whether we're the only show in town to all intents and purpose. The timing requirement of those occupiers wanting that building and our view on the success rate of achieving letting to one or more of those occupiers. Now, obviously, if you've got competitive tension, that helps in terms of the rental tone as well. You know, this is a highly informed process that we embark upon in our spec program. We don't really view it in the way that much of the market considers spec. It's not really spec in that sense. It's highly educated development. Hopefully, that gives you a good feel and some comfort.
Yes. This is very helpful. Thank you.
The next question comes in from the line of Rob Virdee, calling from Green Street. Please go ahead.
Good morning, gentlemen. Question is on online retailers and not just Amazon, but are you seeing any reduced requirements for space for them? The context of that question is really how the second derivative of e-commerce penetration in the U.K. is slowing, and all that we read about inventories for some of these retailers being overstocked. That's the first question.
Would you like us to answer that one now and then?
Yeah, please. Yeah.
Sure.
You can just give me a couple
Yeah, look, I think let's paint a picture of time. You know pre-COVID, online sales were 90% of total retail sales. They spiked at around 42% depending on which metric you look at during lockdown. And they came back down to sort of the low 30s%. Now, while the rate of growth has naturally slowed, as one would expect, there is still a continued trend to growth on online, and we expect that trend to continue with the continued shrinkage of the high street.
All of our major customers that we're talking to who are already occupiers in our portfolio, and I mean, just to give you a feel, by the way, for example, you know, of those customers that we're currently talking to on our development program, you know, it's pretty well 50/50 between the buildings that we're talking to existing customers on and the buildings and sites that we're talking to potential new customers on. We have a really good cross-read as to how the market is what the market is thinking right the way across all these sectors, including online. There's still quite a lot of expansion being planned.
Partly this is to do with, you know, some of the things I mentioned earlier about, you know, efficiencies, cost savings, economies of scale, need for flexibility, the move to increased levels of automation to enhance the speed and reliability that these companies are offering their customers. You know, the large scale big box logistics buildings are very important in delivering that component part. They're the hub in the supply chain framework, and of course, the supply chain is becoming increasingly complex. You know, I think you will see online continuing as a very important component part of ongoing take-up in this market.
As I said earlier, you know, there's not an over-reliance on it because it only comprised of around 14% of total take-up in the first half of this year. I think we've got a really good balance. You know, coupled with some of the other points I mentioned earlier, you know, such as Brexit, et cetera, and the sort of concept of the sort of de-globalization to some degree accelerated by Brexit. The fact that, of course, you know, because of Brexit, we now have an exacerbation of labor supply issues in the U.K., which again, are playing to these larger buildings and automation even more so than they were before. In some respects, this is like a there's a real-time imperative to.
For automation to supplement the low labor availability levels that we are seeing. Of course, the increase in the cost of labor being, you know, a significant component part of that cost price inflation I mentioned earlier. It will continue to be an important part, but there's not an over-reliance on it. Hopefully that gives you a bit of a feel for how we see that section of the market.
No, that's perfect. That's very helpful. Now just moving a little bit on to the general market and expectations for specs supply for everybody else. I was just wondering, given all the macro challenges that you've talked about, do you see spec development for others coming down?
I think I would describe the market as being really quite disciplined. I think we've seen that in, you know, in the recent past. Firstly, you know, if you look back, you know, in the face of and through the last GFC, number one, you know, the level of debt that was supporting developers in the market was much higher than it is today. Secondly, you know, the number of trader developers has reduced dramatically. Some of those have been subsumed into larger investment businesses. You know, our own business is a prime example of that when we acquired, you know, the Symmetry portfolio in February 2019. There's a much more transparent level of data available now in the marketplace.
Developers have been quite cautious. The other thing, of course, is that they haven't built up huge land banks, and of the land that was acquired in the face of this sort of explosive growth in occupier demand, quite a lot of that has been developed out already. Now, you know, any developer out there is not going to, you know, want to run that well dry. You need a geographically diverse pipeline of opportunity that you can offer the market. No one wants to sit there paying their development team without a planning consented bucket to draw from. But that bucket's been eaten up very, very quickly because of the rate of lettings that we've seen in the marketplace in recent times.
We are seeing quite a lot of sensible activity from developers. If you look at the stats, you know, we've not seen an explosive level of supply. Indeed, we're not expecting to see that. To some degree, that's sort of embedded in the way that we think about the barriers to entry in the market and the way the planning system works. And you know, it very crudely, it kind of pops out that similar levels of planning consents every year. Of course, that is the sort of the starting point to the ability of the market to produce supply in the first place. The short answer is no, we're not expecting to see that.
Super. Thank you. Then, just finally, just wondering about any conversations you're having at the moment with tenants on rising energy costs. I'm thinking here 'cause you brought up cold storage. Are you seeing any signs of any distress from some of these tenants or deteriorating occupier health there?
Not so much distress. I think it's more a case of a recognition of the challenges that they face, you know, in a number of areas, and power and the increased cost of power being one of them. Of course, you know, the positive element there is that we as a an owner of modern, very large buildings with large roof spaces, can help provide a solution to that. Now there's two components to this. Firstly, the work we're doing in terms of, and the way we think about ESG, and this is one small component part of it. There's lots of things that can go into that, such as, you know, LED lighting, rainwater harvesting, et cetera, et cetera. The big win and really the relatively easy win is solar.
We've made solar proposals for every single one of our occupiers on every single building. There's a rollout program. There's really good and increased take-up. Obviously, this provides occupiers with cheaper power. It also meets the ESG objectives significantly. That's a really positive attribute that sort of helps to deal with that problem. The other thing that we are doing is that we've employed a power guru, I'd like to call him, in Tim O'Reilly, who we poached from the National Grid. He was their head of strategy and new product development. He brought in the interconnector from Norway. He's helping us unlock sites, improve power delivery for our customers, and open up sites that currently don't have power capabilities.
We think that power is gonna be an increasingly important feature of occupational thinking in the future, particularly as we see, you know, a reliance on fossil fuels reducing and an increase in EV both for staff, but also for vans and HGVs coming to these buildings. That will be a very significant draw on electricity and meeting that challenge, which the government's made very clear it needs to be provided by the private sector significantly, given that it's gonna take many years for the you know, the new focus on nuclear to kick in. That's assuming that it doesn't reverse gear in relation to the political agenda.
We do need to be thinking about and putting in solutions for our customers for the long term, and that is something we're working very hard at in terms of that intelligence-driven program and all that we're doing in other parts of our business in understanding about battery technology. I won't bore you with that now, but happy to have a coffee with you at another time to explore that in a bit more depth.
Yeah. Definitely. I think a beer is more warranted, but thank you.
Look, on that note, I think that concludes the Q&A session. That's all the questions from the phone. I'll just remind everyone that this session is being recorded. There'll be a replay on the website and a transcript made available afterwards. If you do any further questions, please do drop us an email. I'll just hand back to Colin for quick closing remarks.
Yes. Look, thank you very much everyone for taking the time to join us this morning. We really appreciate your continued support for the company and your interest and for your, you know, excellent questions. Wish you a good rest of the day. Hope to see you soon. Bye-bye.