Okay, bang on time. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to PHP's FY24 results. My name is Mark Davies. I'm the CEO. I may begin by thanking you all this morning for attending our results presentation. We're, of course, delighted to have you here with us, including many of you who are dialing in virtually. Welcome also to our international audience. We've got quite a few investors this morning dialing in from South Africa and beyond. It goes without saying that we're very pleased to have you with us today. I'd like to extend a special welcome to our investors, analysts, bankers, trusted advisors, all who continue to play a crucial role in our journey. Your support this year to me, the management, and the company as a whole has been instrumental.
It all helps towards achieving such strong results that we're going to present to you and the market this morning. I would also like to say a special thank you to my team, many of whom are in the room this morning. It is because of the quality of the platform at PHP, the quality of the people who I work with, that we're able to deliver consistent outperformance. It takes a really, really big team effort to be able to do this. The hard work, dedication, knowledge, and depth of stakeholder relationships that we have at PHP puts me in the most privileged position to lead this business day in, day out. Thank you to you all. On to this morning's presentation and the agenda and the team that is presenting to you today. Presenting alongside myself, we have Richard Howell, who is at the front.
Richard, many of you will know very well, our very experienced CFO. Also James Buckley is joining us this morning. James is the Managing Director of our Irish business. We are glad to have James here today. Many of you will remember James from the Capital Markets Day in October. Not only did we announce a very good acquisition in Ireland this morning, we are also seeing a growing pipeline in the Irish primary care market. We are very pleased that James could be with us at the presentation this morning. In terms of the agenda, I will lead the way. I will talk us through an overview of our financial performance and what is a very good set of results. I will include an emphasis on the strong investment case for PHP.
I'll highlight the acquisition we did in Ireland this morning, which I'm personally very pleased with because I think it's a great property, but it's also a great deal. Of course, we'll give an update on the government's 10-year plan because it's so topical and very much at the front of everyone's minds at the moment. I'll then pass on to Richard, who'll fly through the financial highlights. That will inevitably include a focus on rental growth and the capital structure, as you would expect. Richard will pass the baton on to James. James will update on the Irish business. There's a lot going on. We've all been spending quite a bit of time in Ireland recently. James will also give an overview of the Irish primary health market and particularly talk about the pipeline that's coming through. The baton will be passed back to me.
I'm going to talk through three asset management projects. I'm going to show how we feel confident about our rental growth prospects. I'll evidence that for you. I'll talk about our risk control development pipeline because we had quite a bit of inbound off the back of the Capital Markets Day. I want to make reference to that. Today gives me a good opportunity to do that. I'll wrap up the presentation. I'll reaffirm some of the key messages. I'll talk about the outlook. I'll give an overview of where I think we are. At that point, I'll invite my team up to the stage and we'll address any questions that you guys have in the room. We'll have the ability to roam a mic.
Also, for everybody who's dialing in virtually, you have the mechanism to fire in questions to the management team during and after the presentation. Here we go. You'll see that we've delivered a very strong set of results this morning. By the end of this presentation, it's our job to get you all to the right conclusion, which in our mind is that not only is this a great set of results, this is a great time to be running a primary care property company. Rather than go straight into the results, I thought I would start the presentation by giving an overview and a reminder of the investment case for this business. There's clearly a lot of interest in our sector right now.
We thought we'd start by walking you through why we see this every day, but why we think there's a lot of interest in the space currently and the value that we know about in our platform and why it's a great time for you to invest in PHP. There are many of you in the room that know this story very well and some of you are dialing in who we've not met before. As you know, we're a healthcare-focused REIT. We're in the FTSE 250. We have an incredible track record of outperformance. We have a dedicated and continued focus on income growth and dividend growth. Now, primary care is going to play a really big part in the 10-year government plan to be published in only a few weeks' time, in early to mid-May.
We know this because Darzi concluded that over 50% of all primary care premises in the U.K. are no longer fit for purpose. Of course, we have these growth drivers and tailwinds behind us, many of which I went through at the Capital Markets Day in October. There is a significant opportunity ahead, both in the U.K. and Ireland. The theme of today's presentation is to demonstrate to you all how well-positioned we are. When we think about the investment case for the business, we think about the eight pillars. We think about those demographic tailwinds, which I think most of you will be familiar with. Yes, the population is growing. It is aging. Never before have we seen high demand for the space that we own.
Of course, with the new government now firmly in place, the plan to be published, we're seeing this significant shift towards primary care and a massively work to our advantage. Our occupancy is close to 100%, and we expect this to stay there for many, many years to come. Secondly, on policy, we're now seeing this significant momentum towards primary care. The government has worked out that when a patient goes into primary care, the cost to government is GBP 40-GBP 50 a patient. That same patient going into a secondary environment, i.e., a hospital, is costing between GBP 400 and GBP 500. We're here to help solve that cost-benefit equation. It has been a long, long time since we've seen healthcare as the number one government priority. There is a huge shift going on here into primary care and into the community.
I think this was very well evidenced by Darzi. It is not just Darzi and the 10-year plan. We saw this in the budget last year, an additional GBP 25 billion of additional money committed by the Chancellor at the October budget. Thirdly, the significant opportunity that we see. I have already referenced the 50% or more of primary care premises around the U.K. that is not fit for purpose. What an opportunity for PHP to go after. It is our job to capture that. We see that as a really compelling consideration in our investment case. To do all of this, it is underpinned by a secure income. 90% of our income stream is government-backed from the Irish and U.K. governments. That all flows into our dividend. Our track record on dividend is exemplary. We are nearly at 30 years of dividend growth, often described as a dividend aristocrat.
Currently, we yield close to 8%. We will continue to grow our dividend as we approach our 30-year anniversary and beyond. The sixth pillar of our investment case is rental growth. We are in a most unique position that not only is our income stream secure and long, but also we are able to deliver that on a consistent and reliable basis. We are confident that this will continue. Our WALT is now close to 10 years. I am going to show you some examples later on of projects where we have got short or, in fact, no WALT, where our tenant has been holding over. We always retain our tenants because our properties are purpose-built. There is no alternative supply. The barriers to entry in our sector are extremely high. The platform value obviously reflects that.
We have close relationships with the GPs, the practice managers, the ICPs, all the stakeholders across the board. It was no coincidence that I made reference to my team in my opening remarks because day in, day out, we build great relationships with our stakeholders. To put it a simple way, there is nowhere else for our tenants to go. Hence, we always retain them. On the finance side, we have always been a very well-run business, and that is always going to continue. We have the lowest cost ratio across the sector and amongst our peers. We did actually take a material amount of overhead out of the business this year. You will not have seen that necessarily in this year's results because the full benefit of that will come through next year. Richard and the finance team do a great job on the debt side.
The balance sheet is very well managed. Our interest cost now, as Richard will show you later, is 100% hedged. Our cost of debt is 3.4%. More on that later. Of course, to add to all of this, we are a business with high ESG credentials and have a massive social impact in the communities that we invest. To conclude, PHP offers secure, long-term income, government-backed real estate with strong rental growth and value-creating characteristics. I would argue there's never been a better time to invest in PHP. Let's get to the end of the presentation, I hope, and I'm sure you will agree with me. Just before I move on to our recent acquisition, we were, first and foremost, very pleased to announce such a solid set of results this morning, slightly ahead of market consensus.
Richard will run through that in a bit more detail shortly. Of course, it's pleasing to report another period of rental growth, another period of dividend growth, and valuations. The reason I've brought this chart up front on valuation, I think it's really important to point out that this is the first time since 2021 that we've seen positive valuation performance. It actually came through in the second half. I would describe the last 12 months as a tale of two halves. We had a bit more valuation decline in the first half. Importantly, that reset at the end of June. We've started to build not just stabilization of valuation, but we actually managed to achieve some valuation growth coming through in the second half. It's modest, but it's meaningful.
Having had several years of challenging valuations, principally driven by the higher interest rate environment that we've operated in, we're now back on the up. I think it's really important to point that out. As a consequence of that, it's no coincidence that we announced a really good acquisition this morning because this gives us the confidence to start investing again. Hence, the acquisition announced first thing this morning. On that, James is going to talk about this in a bit more detail shortly. I'm sure you'll have many questions for us. I'd just like to say I'm absolutely delighted with this acquisition that we announced at 7:00 A.M. this morning. It's the Laya Health & Wellbeing Clinic in Cork in Ireland. We've been tracking this opportunity for quite some time.
Our PHP team in Ireland very recently project-managed the EUR 6 million investment undertaken by Leya Healthcare, which is owned by AXA. We know this business. I think we know this building really, really well. It's a really nice addition to the portfolio. It's a great price at EUR 22 million. Earnings yield is 7.1%. We funded the acquisition from existing resources. Of course, in Ireland, we can borrow much cheaper. Our cost of capital in Ireland is much lower. Hence, the accretion that comes from this really good acquisition. I would like to, however, emphasize that this was an opportunistic acquisition of a building we know really well and an operator we have a very strong relationship with. It is a fantastic asset because it's state-of-the-art technology. We've got urgent care. We've got diagnostics alongside health and wellbeing.
I visited this property two or three times during our due diligence. I was blown away by the quality of the offering, the technical capability that James Allen and the team have in Ireland to oversee a project like this with diagnostics, scanners, and everything else. I just want to finish by saying that our core strategy in Ireland, as it is in the U.K., remains government-backed cash flows. Later in the presentation, James and I will update you on the pipeline opportunities that we see in Ireland where we have a high-quality team of 30 professionals. That gives us a real competitive advantage in the Irish market. To finish for this part of the presentation, the 10-year plan, which is coming out in mid-May. We know that the NHS is on a mission to improve health.
The government is committed to doing this by reforming the system and producing a 10-year plan. Of the three pillars that are fundamental to this change, the one that has the biggest impact on PHP and our future prospects is delivering care closer to home in communities and in primary care. The NHS now has a reinvigorated energy and focus to do this and improve the health and wellbeing of the nation. It was Wes Streeting himself, our very ambitious Secretary of State for Health, who said that the NHS is now the neighborhood health service. I mean, that's clear to us, I think, and everyone now, that his priority is to deliver more healthcare in the community. Primary care is at the heart of the new plan.
What do we know so far about the plan and what it's likely to say when that is published in May? Look, we know there's been some changes this last couple of weeks, as you all have read, at NHS England. I think that's a sure sign that the government is keen to get on and do this and deliver quickly. It'll want to get out of the blocks at speed and do something transformational. We've got a huge opportunity here to help and support government. We've contributed directly and indirectly to the plan. We've emphasized the importance of primary care. In our humble opinion, not only does the NHS need reform, but the rent model in the U.K. also needs a serious look at. We're trying to influence that as part of the process.
We also know that the financial planning process for 2024 and 2025, that the NHS has asked every integrated care board to develop its own infrastructure strategy for the next 10 years. You can see that alignment that the government is seeking to achieve with the 10-year plan and property and premises playing a lead part in all of that. We also know that when it comes to writing on this, there will be a significant gap between what the government sets out to achieve and the capital that they have available. That is where PHP really comes in as a proven investor, developer, owner, manager of primary care assets. We think we are very well placed to support the government to deliver its plan. We think we will be a significant beneficiary when that plan is published in May.
On that note, I'm going to pass to Richard to talk us through the financial results.
Thanks very much, Mark. Good morning to everybody in the room and online. Did you take the clicker, Mark? Thanks. Okay, just looking at the financial and operational highlights for 2024. Net rental income was up GBP 4.3 million, which is just under 3% to GBP 153.6 million. That growth was driven by two key areas. Rent reviews and asset management activities are a key area of focus. An extra GBP 3.2 million of income. The acquisition of our Balland Colleague facility at the back end of December 2023 added nearly GBP 1 million of extra income. That extra net rental income fed through into the adjusted earnings just under GBP 93 million. That GBP 4.3 million was offset by some additional costs in terms of interest, GBP 1.7 million, really reflecting the additional net debt that had been drawn over the course of last year, GBP 17 million.
Some interest receivable on our forward-funded developments fell away in 2024 compared to previous years. We did also face some headwinds in terms of additional administrative costs that Mark referred to earlier. Those went up by GBP 500,000 and comprised predominantly the cost of the redundancy program, GBP 400,000. That will lead to GBP 1 million of cost savings in 2025 and beyond. We also had a one-off write-off of some work in progress costs, GBP 500,000. It is probably a good way to summarize the income statement as GBP 1 million of exceptionals that will not fall into the income statement in future years. Adjusted earnings per share, 7p, resulting in a fully covered dividend of 6.9p, which is a 3% increase over the previous year. Like-for-like rental growth, GBP 4 million, GBP 3.2 million of that came from rent reviews and GBP 800,000 from our asset management activities.
We will cover this off in a bit more detail a bit later in the presentation, along with a revaluation deficit of GBP 38 million. Overall, the investment property portfolio has not really changed much, GBP 2.75 billion at the end of December. We will talk about the adjusted net tangible asset, 105p, on the next slide. LTV is up slightly, reflecting the valuation declines and a small increase in net debt of 48.1%. When we look at the portfolio, the WALT has declined to 9.4 years. It is important to note that we have a number of agreed deals in the asset management program, which would push that back to 10.2 years, assuming those were all agreed and completed today. Occupancy is pretty much full occupancy, just over 99%. EPRA cost ratio is unchanged at 10.1%. As I already noted, that includes some exceptional costs.
Hopefully, we could see that start to fall below 10% in 2025. Average cost of debt, an outstanding very volatile interest rate market, up only ever so slightly by 10 basis points to 3.4% at the end of the year. Turning to the property valuation part of the portfolio, as Mark's already mentioned, the valuation profile was a tale of two halves. In particular, the second half of the year, we've seen values really start to stabilize and yield expansion start to moderate. It was only four basis points of yield expansion in the second half of the year compared to 13 basis points in the first half. Rental growth continues to be positive. That was consistent throughout the year with around GBP 30 million of revaluation surplus in both halves of the year. Important to note, NAV of 105p has not really changed since June.
The other key thing to note on this slide is like-for-like value of rental growth, 3.2%, up 70 basis points on 2023 and up over 100 basis points on the growth we saw in 2022. We will cover rental growth in a bit more detail on the next couple of slides. Turning to the liability side of the balance sheet now, the group continues to have significant firepower, GBP 271 million of undrawn headroom after capital commitments and also the recent acquisition we announced today of Leya Healthcare in Cork. We have been very active on the refinancing front, carrying out over GBP 420 million of refinancing initiatives over the course of the year. The key one being GBP 170 million new term and revolving credit facility with Barclays. GBP 70 million of that was used to repay a legacy variable-rate bond.
That refinancing saved 90 basis points on the margin once it was completed. We have also renewed our revolving credit facility with Lloyds Bank. We have an extra GBP 25 million accordion option that adds to the firepower if we choose to exercise that later in the year. We have extended our revolving credit facilities with HSBC and Santander. When we look at the debt maturity profile, the big refinancing to do later this year in July is repay the convertible bond. Where the share price sits today, we expect to repay that out of the existing headroom. After that, the only thing left is the GBP 100 million revolving credit facility with RBS in 2026. We have already started positive discussions with them about renewing that facility. We hope to make further announcements around that over the course of this year.
Looking at the debt summary, we still continue to have a wide range of lending partners. We have deliberately refinanced the debt in the current year for a relatively short period, typically for three years, with a view to 2027, 2028 when we look at the interest rate curve. The curve is back more at normalized levels, where perhaps we could look to look at the refinancing structure of the group, including perhaps taking the group unsecured and perhaps tapping into longer-term debt at that point in time. As Mark's already mentioned, 100% of the debt is fixed or capped out. There is a bit of coverage there to deal with our future capital commitments. Debt maturity is just under six years, average cost of debt is 3.4%. We expect that to increase to 3.6% once we have repaid the convertible bond in July.
There continues to be significant headroom in terms of our loan-to-value covenant. The portfolio would have to decline by around 38% or GBP 1 billion, which would imply the net initial yield across the portfolio has ballooned out to 8% for us to hit those covenants, which we think is extremely unlikely. Right, we are now going to touch on the growth drivers for the future. I am going to talk about rental growth before I hand over to James, who is going to talk about Ireland. We think, as Mark has already touched upon, there are a number of favorable government policies coming through that are going to help us drive rents into the future. This is a laser focus for management to capture this growth because we appreciate most of the rental growth we talk about is backward-looking.
As Mark will talk about in a minute, a number of asset management projects where we're seeing rental terms being delivered 15%-20% above current passing rents. Now, those create essential rental evidence for future rent reviews that will flow through into the future. We've also mentioned in the past on a number of occasions where for new developments, rents need to grow by between 20% and 30%. This is key to capture this growth in the future. Part of this is all driven by the government drive to get services out of hospitals into the community, where it's much more cost-effective to deliver those services, along with a huge shift from sickness to prevention. You can see that in the middle graph, where the number of social prescribing workers has sort of doubled since 2019.
This is all about trying to empower people to take more responsibility for their own health and well-being, reducing the burden on the healthcare system in the U.K., not only in the U.K., but also in Ireland. Obviously, PHP is extremely well positioned to deliver this extra space to house these healthcare professionals to create extra capacity for the healthcare system into the future. Turning to our own rent review results last year in a bit more detail, we created an extra GBP 3.2 million of annualized income, a 7.7% increase on the previous years. What's encouraging is to see as the impact of inflation starts to decline, open market rent reviews have started to pick up the slack. As you can see from the chart on the left-hand side, we've plotted the rental growth over the last couple of years.
We are very encouraged by the value of ERV growth of 3.2% in last year. We continue to expect those trends to continue over the next couple of years, especially open market value growth to capture that 3% growth per annum coming forward. At that point, I am going to hand over to James, who is going to talk about Ireland in a bit more detail.
Great. Thank you, Richard. I am pleased today to speak a little bit more about Ireland and, I suppose, reinforce our case for continued investment in Ireland. We have a lot in common with the U.K. You will see that over the course of our presentation. We have a growing and aging population. Our Central Statistics Office estimates our population to be 5.38 million at the moment, rising in the worst-case scenario to 6 million. Every scenario suggests that we are going to have significant aging. We are doubling our aging workforce in the next 25 years from 800,000 over 65% to 1.6 million or thereabouts. Very similar moves to what is happening in the U.K. At the Capital Markets Day, I was asked about changes in the Irish government and what happens with the election. We have had an election and we have a new government.
It's very similar to the previous one. Sloan's care, which is, I suppose, our multi-party or all-party healthcare policy, there's been no change to that. The whole primary care focus is going to, and the out-of-hospital service is going to be retained. There's no change. The government's own money is going to be spent on beds, hospital beds. The private lease model, which is what we refer to, is what the focus for primary care and integrated care is going to be. That's what we see going forward. It's interesting that before we know it in Ireland, we're one of the largest investors. Before we know it, we'll be in Ireland 10 years. I first met Harry Hyman back in 2016. Time moves on for all of us.
What's been very interesting, and we'll touch on it in a bit more, is PHP acquired Axis in 2023. The relationships have grown significantly such that we are now finding opportunities that would have been difficult before. I'm confident that the Leya announcement this morning wouldn't have happened without my team bringing the opportunity and help delivering it in Ireland. It's been really positive at a personal level and indeed from the group's perspective. We have a plan to get us towards the EUR 500 million, and the pipeline we'll touch on later. The great thing that's happened in the recent months is the drive by the HSE to tender more work. That'll come on one of my later slides. There are significant drivers coming ahead on that. Rent reviews in Ireland, again, you'll see the similarities. Ours are CPI-based.
In the five-year period from the 1st of January 2020 to the end of December last year, we've had a 20.7% increase in CPI. Depending on when leases kicked off, a lot of that will have flown through to the rent increases in the scheme in Ireland. Income accretion, it's still robust, as you'll see from the graph here on the right. I think the reasons to invest in Ireland are clear under every metric. We're not very good in Ireland at singing our own praises. Today, I'm going to try and change that a little bit. The acquisition of Axis has been very significant. None of our competitors in Ireland have anything like the capability that we have. We have over two dozen people. A lot of us are engineers who are very good at healthcare, primarily in acute and community.
Recently, we have significant expertise in diagnostics. We do a lot of work in the regulated sector also, not necessarily specifically focused on where we are here, but it's very akin to the other skills that we have. There are high barriers to entry, as Mark said. In Ireland, in a small economy, they're probably even more pronounced than the U.K. We have a great team of technically skilled people. Alan, one of my colleagues here, managed the project for Leya that Mark mentioned. It's been the highlight of our, I suppose, for our past two years. We have delivered health and wellness clinics for Leya in Source, which is North Dublin, Cherrywood in South Dublin, the scheme in Cork. We're in planning in Limerick, and we're going into planning shortly in Galway. That multi-year relationship with Leya has been very significant.
It has been great that we actually managed to conclude the transaction this morning. Our technical expertise, in my view, is second to none. It is hard, rather, to compare ourselves. We do not like comparing ourselves, but I believe we are the best provider in this space in Ireland. The future, what are we looking at going forward? The fundamentals that I believe in Ireland are clear. Excuse me. Every lease going forward has a minimum of 25 years. All of them have an option of a five-year increase. All of them are CPI-based. We know exactly where we are getting to. You will see the bottom chart here, the recent procurement call from the HSE. These refer to individual schemes. The average scheme size is growing quickly in Ireland. Our current portfolio of the schemes are under 4,000 sq meters. Going forward, they are increasing significantly.
The latest round of schemes, some of them are as large as 7,000 sq meters, which is very unusual in the U.K., but it's becoming more commonplace in Ireland. The effort to deliver a scheme is pretty much the same whether it's a 2,000 sq meters scheme or a 6,000 sq meters scheme. Clearly, there is attraction in larger schemes. As with the U.K., we have modest vacancy rates. We have a few vacant pharmacy units that we're doing some asset management work on. We're, again, less than 1% vacancy in Ireland. I think we have 600 sq meters out of 74,000, which is an impressive number in itself. In terms of the market conditions, interest rates are falling. There's an excellent pipeline coming out of the HSE. There's a significant increase in rent rates.
In Ireland, there's been no schemes happening really in the last number of years. Yes, we've acquired two, which we're very proud of. But there's been very little development because construction costs were too high or remain high. Interest rates have come down. The big gap was rents. We're seeing rents increasing from essentially the mid to late teens per sq ft to the mid 20s per sq ft. It's only with that change has development become practical. We're expecting significant increases in that. The focus in Ireland is very much like the U.K., preventive healthcare, bring it into local communities. It's the smarter, more cost-effective way of delivering healthcare. Mark quoted numbers in the U.K. I imagine our numbers in Ireland are very, very similar. I suppose to summarize, we've had good growth in the past. We've had a three-year hiatus.
I think the prospects for us in Ireland for the next five years at least are very exciting. There's plenty of opportunity. I'll hand you back to Mark. Thank you.
Thank you, James. Thank you, Richard, as well. The next two or three slides, I'm just going to fly through very quickly because I'm conscious of time. You'll see a very consistent theme, I think, of value creation and rental growth in three PHP locations where we've been successful in setting a higher rental tone for the future of rental growth. The first scheme on the screen there is the South Petherton Medical Center. This is in Somerset. It's a really nice community asset next to an NHS community hospital. We invested GBP 0.3 million in this during the year to deliver expansion space to meet growing demand. It's a very nice-looking building. Importantly for us, we're able to generate a very nice return of 9%, over 9% yield on cost.
Importantly, the rental tone here has increased by 18% from GBP 195 per sq meters to GBP 230 per sq meters. Look, it is a significant and positive move in the right direction, yet again providing important evidence for the future and gives us confidence about our future rental growth outlook. The next asset in Rosyth, up in Scotland, a purpose-built medical center just north of Edinburgh. The asset management team during this year invested GBP 0.8 million to create a new clinical wing. I do not think that photo actually does it justice, but it looks good when you get to see it. It is refurbished space for the GPs. Yield on cost, 5.5%. Importantly, a profit on cost well in excess of 10%. Again, the theme here is consistent, managing to increase the rental tone by over 17% to GBP 165 per sq meters to GBP 194 per sq meters.
We increased the lease term on this occasion to 25 years when the previous lease had less than two years to run. A very good piece of asset management and good news all around. The third scheme is the East Park Medical Center in Leeds, very strong community asset. We are currently on site refurbishing and expanding this property to meet an ever-increasing demand. In return for our investment, we get a new 25-year lease. It is a very good example, actually, of the partnership relationship approach that we have with the NHS and the GP practice who are actually holding over until we committed to this investment. We get an attractive yield, over 6% yield on cost. I think it is, again, just another classic example of good asset management meeting an ever-increasing demand and a good return on capital. I have flown through that quite quickly.
Three good assets, three good pieces of asset management, five recurring themes. Number one, demand for space is high and growing. Number two, we get a very good return on this when we invest our shareholders' money, yielding an average return or yield on cost of 6% and profit on cost in each of those examples in excess of 10%. The third theme is rental growth. It is consistent. It is reliable. We want to see more of it. The fourth theme that we saw on the three slides was the evidence that we are able to provide for the future. We are giving good examples where we have increased rent by anything between 15%-20%. That obviously provides the evidence that we need for the future to drive future rental growth. The fifth theme that we saw was longer leases.
We're seeing throughout our portfolio, particularly for assets that we've owned now for quite a long time, sometimes those tenants are holding over. Sometimes we've only got one or two years left to run, and those leases are shortening. Look, we're never complacent about this. Our assets are purpose-built, and it's really hard to move a primary care medical center and a patient list that's growing. There's no new supply. The barriers to entry are very, very high. We feel very, very confident about our occupancy and the future rental growth prospects. Great work all around from the asset management team, and three good examples of which there are over 30 completed asset management events during the year. Slide 23, risk-controlled development. At the capital markets day in October, we had quite a bit of inbound on our development pipeline.
There were quite a few questions in the room on the day. There was quite a bit of follow-up that we dealt with. I thought I'd just spend a little bit of time explaining what exactly we mean by risk-controlled development at PHP. I think there are four points that I'd like to make, which you don't necessarily see on the slide. First of all, we do not commission any capital for risk-controlled development unless there's planning in place. All consents are in place, legal and otherwise. We would have an agreement for lease, which is a legally binding document for 25 or sometimes 30 years in place with the NHS in the U.K. and the HSE in Ireland. How we think about the project, it's all risk-controlled. It's very low risk. We're able to make a very, very good return.
It's probably no coincidence that 75% of the pipeline on this slide is in Ireland. I thought James articulated very well that the rents in Ireland, not just because of inflation, have very quickly moved from the mid teens into the mid 20s. As a consequence of that, through the re-tender process that James alluded to, we're now starting to see the healthy scenario where we can actually get stuff done. We've got the team. I think that's pretty obvious. We've definitely got the capability. We can make money working alongside government to build these new, modern, flexible medical centers. Let's not take anything away from our prospects in the U.K. The South Kilburn scheme here you've seen before. That will be completed the third week of May, which I think is the same week that the 10-year plan comes out.
That is going to make us a return of 6.2%. We want to do more in the U.K. We feel confident about that. We will certainly do more in Ireland. Hopefully, that has been a useful overview as to how the management team thinks about risk-controlled development. As we move towards Q&A and wrapping up today's presentation, I think it is clear to us, and hopefully, we are exercising a high degree of confidence in the room, that we see a significant opportunity ahead in primary care for our business. Government-backed income will remain at the core of our strategy. Our track record is one of the best dividend stories in the market. We have now got stability in our valuations. That gives us confidence after two or three more challenging years as we have all adjusted to the higher interest rate environment.
Our confidence has enabled us to start investing again, as evidenced by the Leya Healthcare acquisition announced this morning. The 10-year government plan will be published shortly. We think that will accelerate our growth ambitions, help us deliver outstanding shareholder returns. We think there's never been a better time to invest into PHP. To conclude, before we move into Q&A, you've heard from Richard. You've heard from James. You've heard from myself. We're very pleased to be able to present to you a very robust, solid, strong set of financial results underpinned by operational and financial excellence, showcasing our long-term track record of success. Our operational resilience throughout the year reflects security and longevity of our income, which is a crucial driver of our predictable income streams for the future. We continue to focus on rental growth from both rent reviews and asset management activities.
This underpins our earnings and dividend outlook. Our dividend per share has continued to grow, remains fully covered. We expect that to continue as we approach our 30-year anniversary. We have a dedicated dedication and determination to continue growing our dividend and to remain doing that on a fully covered basis. When we think about the outlook, we are so encouraged by the opportunities that we see that lie ahead across the group in all aspects of our business in the U.K. and in Ireland, from asset management, risk-controlled development, rent review, asset management, acquisitions, and beyond. We also see the scope for further growth, whether that be adjacent sectors in JVs or new primary care markets.
Our long-term goal remains, as we set out at the capital markets day in October, to be the leading owner, manager, developer of primary care property and to own government-backed income streams, which always remain the core of our business model. The new NHS plan will provide a strong tailwind behind our business to achieve all of this. We see no reason to drift away from this proven and successful strategy. We see complementary income streams, such as the Leya acquisition announced this morning. This will create shareholder value. We have the knowledge, the relationships to do more attractive acquisitions. I've got great confidence that we can continue to deliver strong financial results and sector-leading performance. We've got a brilliant team. We've got a platform that's taken almost 30 years to establish. We've got a market-leading position.
I'm super excited and optimistic about the significant opportunity that lies ahead for PHP. On that very positive note, I'd like to take the time to thank you all for listening to our presentation. I'd like to invite my colleagues back to the stage and open the floor to questions. Thank you. Okay. Where are we going to start?
Is it on? Okay. Great. Thank you. It's Andrew Saunders from Shore Capital. Great to see high-quality acquisition, like you've announced this morning, in Ireland, and obviously one where you know the vendor very well. If we could turn to the GPs themselves, who are obviously a big ownership group of these assets, both in the U.K. and Ireland, I wonder if you could give us some sort of flavor on how sentiment might be changing there with regards to their attitude to potential deals and acquisitions becoming a more meaningful growth strand of your business once again.
Sure. Yeah. Good question, Andrew. So you're talking about primary care medical centers owned by GPs, of which, of course, there are many. Now, we see this coming through our pipeline continuously. Opportunities are often led by GPs who probably mortgaged those properties in time gone by. A lot of those mortgages were quite long-term and often low-cost by nature. Of course, a lot of those mortgages are now coming towards an end. At that moment, I think there's a moment of obvious reflection.
Why would they want to go again? Why would they want to refinance in what is now a higher interest rate environment? Often, we will be the first phone call that they make. These negotiations sometimes take quite some time. GPs can be not complicated to work with. They are actually quite straightforward. Often, they do not make decisions at the pace that we might. There is an obvious flood of pipeline that should come through as these sort of long-term loans come towards an end in the next five years or so.
Thanks. Morning. It is Thomas at HSBC. I have just got a couple of questions. First one on rent growth, really. Of the 175 open market rent reviews that were completed this year, one of them related to 2024 at 3%. Just wondering, how much evidence is there in the market to support the 3.2% ERV growth from the valuers?
Yeah. I think most of that rental growth probably comes from prior years. Most of the rent reviews settled was all 2022 and before. I think your comment's probably right. There's not much evidence today. I think that's just one rent review which is probably not reflective of the whole year. I mean, it's going to take a couple of years before the rental growth from 2024 really starts to feed through. Most of the ERV growth we saw this year probably relates to prior years, not the current environment. I think as we set out in the slides, especially on the asset management schemes, you can see where rental terms are growing 15%-20% higher than the previous passing rent.
That creates the evidence for future rent reviews at adjoining assets and locations. That is what gives us encouragement about where we think rental growth will go over the next couple of years.
On the asset management slides, Tom, you will have seen, and we did this deliberately. We chose three assets where the lease length was low or zero. We were seeking to demonstrate that even in that scenario, we could generate rental growth that is clearly more than double-digit in those scenarios, sort of 17%, 18%, 19%. Of course, that evidence in those parts of the country from Somerset all the way up to Scotland will provide the evidence we believe on because we obviously own lots of properties in all of those areas for rent reviews in the future.
Got it. Thank you.
Second question, I guess, yeah, on lease length, 9.4 years' WALT, you mentioned it would increase if you completed some asset management today. Should we, though, still expect the lease length to reduce through time? How much of a valuation headwind might that create?
Yeah. There are two parts to your question. In terms of predicting the future, I think we would expect to retain an average lease length at or around the current level. Richard articulated on one of his slides that all the deals that we know that we can do, that would get to 10.2 or above. Let's just say we did not do that and we were being too optimistic and our lease length, on average, started to come down from the current level. How do we feel about that, I guess, is probably the most important question.
I personally feel very relaxed about it. I don't think lease length is the most important consideration. I think it's important when we look to invest capital in new schemes. We showed a few on the slide, didn't we, where there was one we went from zero lease length to 25. Okay. We put GBP 800,000 in to do that. We got the rent up by 17% at the same time. Hence, we make a good return. Look, this is a sector put another way and to be maybe a little direct about it, I don't think you need to be concerned around lease length. Where are these patients' lists going to go? Where are these GPs going to go? These are purpose-built modern accommodations. There's just nothing else in the market. There's no supply.
If Harry, our Chairman, was here, he would say to that specific question, "I think we've only lost about four or five tenants in 30 years. We're in a very, very stable asset class. With all the tailwinds that we've got behind us, that's set to continue." In terms of the valuation dynamic, because the valuation is an art as well as a science, I think in the valuer's mind, as lease length adjusts, whether it goes up or down, that may or may not have an impact on valuation. I have a strong conviction that it shouldn't actually make any difference because of the asset class that we own and the demand for space. Always happy to have that debate. It's not something that, as a management team, we have a forensic focus on.
We are forensically focused on getting our rents up because we can do something about that. Look, if the NHS or the HSE, for that matter, in Ireland takes longer than they should to agree some of these deals that are ready and in the oven and ready to go, and that WALT comes down, I do not think anybody should be concerned about it. I say that with confidence.
Thank you. Thanks very much, Chair, for the presentation. Max Nimmo at Deutsche Numis. One of my questions has already been answered there, I think. Maybe just on the 10-year health review. Clearly, there is a lot of focus on that right now. As you rightly pointed out, it is not like the government has a huge amount in its coffers right now to be putting capital expenditure into these kind of things.
I guess it's just around the risk that they can't do that and they use your capital. You do still feel that they're going to be able to cough up on the rents, essentially, to kind of accelerate that. I guess the real question is, is there a risk here that they put out a big 10-year plan, but actually not much changes for the next couple of years? I guess what's the risk around that? Thank you.
Yes. There's obviously two parts to that question. Just picking up on the second part, is there a risk that they put the plan out and nothing happens? There's always a risk that that might be the case. First and foremost, we're dealing with a very ambitious Secretary of State who's got future ambitions. He'll want to succeed with this.
I think it's no coincidence that we're seeing some of the changes around some of the NHS management team for the future. We're quietly confident that they're going to want to get stuff done. Now, who's going to pay for it? We saw the budget of last October. It didn't please many people. It was actually a good budget for us, right? Because there's GBP 25 billion going into the NHS that wasn't there previously. Some of that will go to people and people costs, inevitably. Some of that will go into premises. There's a huge repairs and maintenance backlog that the government's going to have to solve.
First and foremost, if you take a long-term view, way beyond the next two years, and I'm talking about the next 10 years, to do this properly, the government's going to have to shift patient journeys into primary care. It's one of its three pillars of success. That's where we come in. We provide that accommodation. We've got the capability within our existing portfolio to extend and refurbish, provide a wider range of services. When we get the rents right, and they do need to increase even from today's levels, then we can develop new schemes as well. I think about it as a partnership approach. We're here to help. There will be some historic legacies in the system around PFI and other things that we know about, but we've never gone into that space.
I'm pretty sure that government has realized that to fix this, it needs to work with the private sector. We're number one in this space. I think we're going to be a big beneficiary of the plan.
Thank you.
Morning. It's James Carswell from Peel Hunt. Yeah. You've talked about the opportunities you're seeing in terms of development and acquisitions. Just in terms of funding, those on the screen, you've got, obviously, recycling assets. I mean, do you expect to see more recycling over the coming years given the opportunities you're seeing? And where should we see those disposals? Which parts of the portfolio are more likely to be up for sale? Are there particular geographies or are there particular characteristics in terms of lot size or lease length or even the kind of, whether it's index or open market rent review, that you see slightly weaker returns?
Yeah. We always get approached about parts of our portfolio where there is a special purchaser. Ironically, in reverse to Andrew's earlier question, sometimes it's from the GPs themselves or sometimes from a local NHS trust who suddenly seems to have access to a pool of capital that they need to spend by the end of March. We get plenty of that. We don't necessarily react to that. What we do is we think about the portfolio that we own. Like any portfolio of size and scale, it evolves. Some of your portfolio becomes non-core, if you like. In terms of what those non-core assets look like, James, we prefer larger, more scalable, more modern premises because we think that's the NHS of the future for primary care.
We do have a few smaller legacy assets that we could, and there's quite good liquidity in that space. That is how we think about it. If you were taking a more sort of strategic view around capital recycling, if we were to sell a portfolio of size and scale, it would be a portfolio where the assets we feel we've generated the value through asset management or development. We would be fundamentally selling a very long, secure income stream where we felt we've taken out as much value as we can, rather than the opposite where we think we can do something with the asset to create value. That is how we think about disposals. We will definitely look to sell assets in the future. Today, we've announced an acquisition. We think it's a good time to be buying again.
We think that there's more liquidity now in the market. There's obviously a lot of interest in the sector as a whole. I think by definition, that will generate liquidity. We should be recycling assets. It's just a good discipline for management, if nothing else, to prove valuations, to generate cash, and to reinvest that, and then create a margin on those recyclings. There's one question that's come up. In fact, there's two questions. I can't answer. What gives you confidence having a greater exposure towards open market reviews is the right strategy going forward?
Hopefully, as I alluded to earlier, the rental growth and the rental terms that we're seeing on new developments, 20%-30%, and in particular, the asset management projects, 15%-20% higher, gives us that confidence that the rental growth will have to follow.
Because if it doesn't, these new asset management schemes, which are there to deliver the shift of services out of hospitals into the community, just won't happen. It is far cheaper for the NHS to deliver healthcare in a community setting compared to a hospital setting. That is how the economics work for the NHS, even though its budget is extremely constrained.
Yeah, very much so. When we went through the valuation process, bear in mind that a lot of the work that was being done by our two external valuers was being done where there was a time of great volatility in the interest rate market, particularly in gilts. That must have been a factor that they would have been considering at the time. It is inevitable because sentiment always drives behavior. In spite of that, we obviously saw a positive improvement in our valuation.
Richard highlighted it on his slide, that 3.2% ERV metric through our valuers. I thought it was quite interesting because, obviously, we're providing evidence, and they get to see the whole market when they're making these determinations. It certainly does give us confidence that that's going in the right direction. I showed you three examples that we will have no doubt shared with our valuers. There's plenty more of this to be done within the existing portfolio. Fundamentally, we can be optimistic about our rental growth prospects for the future. There are no more questions coming through virtually. Thank you for those questions that have come through. Thank you for those who've taken the time to ask a question in the room. We're happy to take maybe one more question if we have one.
If we do not, management will be next door for the next 45 minutes. Over coffee, we can talk to you then. Any further questions? Brilliant. Thank you again for all coming this morning. I wish you all a very good weekend.