Okay, great. I think we've got most people who have joined on the line now, we will kick off. Just to reiterate, good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you very much for joining us this morning for the Schroder European Real Estate Investment Trust full year results presentation for the year ended 30th of September 2022. My name's James Lowe. I look after sales, the Schroder Investment Trust business. I'm very pleased to be joined on the call this morning by two members of the team. We have Jeff O'Dwyer, our Fund Manager of SEREIT, and we also hae Rick Murphy on the line, who's the Finance Manager for the trust. Just before we get into the presentation, a couple of bits of housekeeping from myself.
If you wanna ask the guys questions as we go along, please do place your questions in the Q&A panel on the right-hand side of your screen. You also have the chance to download a copy of the annual report. There should be a link for you to download that from on your screen also, and you can also download a copy of the presentation. With that brief introduction, that's all from me. I will you over to Jeff to start the presentation. Jeff, over to you.
Great. Thanks, James, good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us this morning. As James introduced, I'm Jeff O'Dwyer. I'm joined by Rick Murphy. Both, Rick and myself, we run the SEREIT and have done for a number of years. Today's obviously the annual results for the 12 months ending 30 September 2022. Try and keep this to about 40 minutes, we'll sort of give plenty of time to ask some questions. Feel free to write in with those. I'll provide a short overview before handing to Rick to talk through a bit more detail on the financial side of things. I'll sort of conclude.
During the presentation, I'll give you a pretty strong update around some of the topical points being sort of debt, inflation, our strategy, and also how we're positioned to deal with some of the current market risks that we're all dealing with. Just on risks, obviously sitting here today, it's very different to where we were 12 months ago. I think if we were very open, probably the two main risks that we were looking at 12 months ago were principally centered on sort of COVID and ESG.
Those two risks still remain, but they sort of sit behind probably four or five other risks, all equally as important, but those other risks being sort of recession and how deep potentially that recession may be, the war, issues around inflation, cost of debt as well. There's quite a lot that we're all dealing with. We think we're in a very strong position to deal with those risks, particularly given the cities that we have exposure to and the strength of our balance sheet. Just touching on results, I mean, we're really pleased with the results that we're coming out with today.
I think it's testament to not only the profile of the assets that we have, but also the quality of the team that we have managing and having that sort of local expertise across a multi-sector understanding as well. I'll come back to that point later because that's gonna be a very key part of how one can drive returns going forward. Obviously, one of the big things that we've done over the year is not only maintained the strong dividend, that EUR 1.85 euro cents per quarter, and we've actually announcing that for the most recent quarter.
Also over the year, we've been able to give back a significant amount of capital back to investors through not only the standard dividend but also the special dividends through that asset management that we've talked about in Paris. In total, we've given about EUR 25 million back to shareholders. Really, really positive. Obviously, with the feedback we've had from shareholders has been they've been hugely appreciative getting that capital back. Obviously we've delivered a total return, NAV total return of around 7.3%, which again, in these current times, very, very strong results. Our profit, IFRS profit, is 13.9%. It's up 125%, Rick will touch a bit more detail on that later as to how that compares to last year.
The key thing being around the balance sheet as well. Obviously, it's a very strong balance sheet that we have, and we've been very conscious about maintaining that strength. There's a lot of vehicles out there that are probably over-levered, that are in very difficult and different positions to what we're in the moment. Our gearing at the moment is around 29%, and if you reflect the cash that we've got, that falls to about 20%. It's something we've always been a very modest user of leverage and will continue to do so. Portfolio, obviously EUR 250 million, 14 assets, so well diversified. We're in the right cities and regions in terms of from a growth point of view, which is one of the key parts of our story that we set out.
Rent collection's been strong, sort of at 100%. I think one of the other sort of points around, and one of the real positives around European investment, particularly from a real estate point of view, is that our income is index linked, and I'll deal a bit more detail around that later. Occupancy remains strong at around 90-96%. Actually, on a positive note, we've really worked hard on the sustainability side and we've improved the GRESB rating over the year from 3 stars to 4 stars. We've also sort of made a couple of acquisitions over the year as well, one being in Cannes, the other one being another logistics asset in Venray.
I'll cover markets a bit more detail later. Obviously with increasing risks, particularly around sort of debt costs, and we'll start to see yields probably move out a little across different sectors. We think this will be mitigated by the inflation side that I touched on before where rents will be subject to that. You'll see an increase in rents, but actually yields sort of blowing out, therefore probably capital values probably being mitigated to a degree.
Obviously, the larger concern is more at the prime end, and obviously we don't operate in that space, but particularly around, say, prime logistics where yields were sort of heading sub 3%. We're very nervous about those sort of yields, and you can understand why the re-rating for that type of product is probably a little bit more of a concern than, say, the logistics that we focused on over the last couple of years. Obviously, the portfolio is valued at a net initial yield of around 6%. That's also a profile that remains accretive in terms of where costs of debts have moved to. But I'll talk through a bit more detail around that. I might stop there.
I'll hand over to Rick to run through a bit more on the financials.
Thanks, Jeff, good morning, everybody. Turning to the financial highlights for the financial year 2022, and beginning, first of all, with the balance sheet. We can see there that at the financial year end, SEREITs had strong cash reserves of around EUR 34 million. This was predominantly driven by the receipts from the full sale and development of the office asset in Paris, Boulogne-Billancourt. That EUR 34 million, together with a further EUR 16 million of debt which could be taken on in 2023, means that the fund's got an attractive level of investment capacity of circa EUR 50 million as we head in towards next year, for income enhancing acquisitions and as the funds looks to return to full dividend coverage next year.
Just with regard to dividends, it's really pleasing to be able to say that each of the ordinary interim dividends that were declared for the financial year were at the pre-pandemic level of EUR 0.0185 per share. All in all, dividends of EUR 0.1885 per share, EUR 25.2 million of dividends will be paid to investors during the financial year 2022. With regard to inflation, obviously a high inflationary environment both in U.K. and across Europe at the moment. We can see here that all of the SEREIT's income is inflation linked, 80% of that income being annually indexed and the remaining 20% being linked to hurdles. Just from a performance perspective, a NAV total return of 7.3% for 2022.
We can see in the comparative there on the screen that last year for 2021, it's 3.2%. Just to draw people's attention again to the fact that in the prior financial year, the fund wrote off all of its equity investments and exposure in its 50% ownership of its Metromar shopping center in Seville in 2021. With regard to LTV, 29% and 20% net of cash, which remains comfortably within the range of 35% for the investment trust. On the next slide, we can see that rent collection, again, very pleasing to be able to say that leaving Seville to one side, rents have been almost fully collected across the whole portfolio during the financial year 2022.
Just a final point on the highlight slide. IFRS earnings of GBP 13.9 million were achieved in 2022, and this compares favorably to GBP 6.2 million in 2021. Again, we can see on t screen there that in the prior financial year, SEREITs wrote down GBP 8.5 million with regard to its investments in its shopping center in Seville. Moving to the next slide. Here we can see the NAV bridge over the financial year. We opened up at GBP 199.5 at 30th of September 2021 and closed at GBP 188.2.
The main item we just want to draw out here is that whilst the NAV has fallen over the financial year, in that penultimate line, we can see dividends paid were EUR 25.2 million, and in particular, EUR 12.8 million of special dividends were paid off the back of exceptional capital profits achieved from the sale and development of Paris, VB. Taking those out, actually the NAV would have increased to EUR 201 over the financial year. Just wanted to draw that out at the start. Just going back to the starting points at NAV, as I say, EUR 199.5 at the beginning of the financial year.
In that top line, we can then see the unrealized movements in valuations across the portfolio of EUR 7.6 million, driven predominantly by French industrial assets and those assets held in winning cities in Germany, of Hamburg, Berlin, Stuttgart and Frankfurt. On the next one, we can see transaction costs invested. As Jeff mentioned, the car showroom in Cannes was acquired during the financial year together with an additional interest in Venray, Netherlands. A small amount of EUR 0.4 million was invested in CapEx over the financial year. In the next line, we can see that a further EUR 1.9 million of the Boulogne-Billancourt Paris development profits was recognized in 2022. That's a further 45% of the total development profit which can be achieved.
I think the important item here is that going into 2023, there still remains a potential EUR 1.2 million of post-tax profits, which we're expecting to be achieved next year. On the next line, again, we can see no movement in Seville, so full impairment in 2021 as that exposure to that shopping center was written through the books and no reversal of that impairment in 2022. EPRA earnings, IFRS earnings excluding capital items of EUR 6.1 million. A small amount of non-cash capital items of EUR 0.2 million. Finally, those dividends paid of EUR 25.2 million. Just splitting out there, those ordinary interim dividends paid to investors of EUR 12.4 million in the financial year, and special dividends in Paris would be of EUR 12.8 million.
Moving on to the next slides. Here I think that the key item we want to draw out on EPRA earnings and dividend cover is really that bottom line. We can see that for the financial year 2022, dividend cover was 61%. In the first half of the year, so for March 2022, we announced back in June dividend cover of 50% during parts of a higher cost base in the first 6 months. In that second half of the financial year, so to 30 of September 2022, so that second column from the left, we can see here that dividend cover is now at 72%, and we feel that's much more reflective of where the fund currently is.
Both the dividend cover for the last two quarters has been around that low 70s mark, and we can now start to see that trending back to 100%, as acquisitions are made and some of that indexation of the rents, starts to come through. Moving to the next slide. Here, this is just to set out the dividend trajectory. We can see that going into COVID back in Q4 of 2019, the Investment Trust declared a dividend of 1.85 euro cents per share. There were four quarters, where the dividend was reduced and then stepped back up again at 50%, 75%, and to 85% respectively.
We can really see then in the right-hand side of that graph, seven quarters now where the dividend has been at 1.85 euro cents per share. That's really indicative of two reasons. The first is the financial strength of SEREIT, in particular, its cash balance over the last couple of years. The second is its financial performance, the robustness of its income, and tenants, past Seville, that have continually paid rents over the COVID period.
Just on the next slide with regard to performance, this is a slide we usually let people take away, probably just to draw out in that middle line, the NAV total return, just over the last couple of years, we can see that for the financial year 2020, a very positive NAV total return of 16.2%, driven by strong asset management initiatives of Paris, Boulogne-Billancourt and other assets. We can see a fall in the NAV total return to 3.2% last year. Again, just to emphasize the fact that that's exposure to the retail shopping centers the bill would essentially work through the numbers. As Jeff mentioned, a NAV total return for 2022 of 7.3%. On that, I'll pass back to Jeff.
Thanks, Rick. Just to sort of, I guess, cover probably one of most topical points that we're all dealing with is around debt and the cost of debt and what our strategy is around that. Obviously, as a, as a house, we've always been a modest user of leverage in this vehicle when we first set this up. Really, the maximum leverage that we could go to was 35%. At the moment, we've been running this with a bit of headroom, so the 29% LTV that we have, obviously not all assets are levered. One of the key things is our debt is really is non-recourse, so it's only linked to the asset or the SPV holding entity, and that's the strategy that we've always put in place across the portfolio.
Obviously, cost of debt, we have, including the caps that we have in place and the swaps that we have in terms of fixing the debt, the maximum exposure in terms of the cost is 1.9% with a duration of just under 2 years. Obviously, with this, we've got about a third of our debt that's expiring over 2023, and I'll come onto that in a little bit more. Just to sort of highlight, say, some of the headroom that we have, we've still got plenty of headroom from an LTV point of view in terms of values falling, and also secondly, in terms of from an ICR and income perspective. You can see here the different headrooms that we have.
Just sort of talking through, sort of the debts for next year. We've had some really positive discussions with lenders to date. I think to give a bit of a steer on what's happening on the debt side, I think banks are definitely looking at the type of counterparty that they're lending to, and they're really focusing on wanting to lend to a manager that can and has a strong understanding of managing real estate. I mean, gone are the days of just relying on yields falling to see values, increase. It's more around asset management. I think banks are being much clearer on who they wanna lend to, and also being much more, I guess, discerning on LTVs and probably looking at reducing LTVs at the moment.
Wanting to lend to parties like us, who typically use modest leverage. One of the sort of the key discussions that will probably come out, sort of later this month, early January, is around the regearing of the Hamburg-Stuttgart loan. On a positive note, the margin on that today is around 85 basis points. The discussions that we're having, is actually to replace that, with similar margins. You can see that there is sort of strong demand from banks to lend on the quality of the assets that we have. We had about six banks that were willing to lend on that, those two assets. That's...
We feel comfortable about replacing the debt that we have expiring over 2023 at the similar margins that we have in place. Cost of debt will increase. Obviously, the 5-year swap has moved around, and it's been pretty volatile over the last year. I think we cast our mind back a year ago, the 5-year swap was sort of zero or slightly negative. Today, it's around 250, 260 basis points, and did get as high as sort of early 300 basis points about 6 weeks ago. It has been pretty volatile.
We've done a little bit of a sensitivity around that, just to give you a bit of a steer, both in terms of LTV, and just working through that in a scenario where values were to fall anywhere from 5%-25%. You can see the headroom and the LTV bit that we have in place there. We actually don't really breach that 35 until values were to fall 25%. Actually, it's a bit of a conservative way that we've presented this as well because it has Seville in there, which is an asset, given the comment I made earlier about the recourse on the non-recourse. We are in the process of working with banks about moving that asset on.
But we could actually eliminate this asset out of those numbers. We elected not to. But you can see there that LTVs are still remain pretty manageable even wit a pretty significant fall in value. In terms of cost of debt, again, sort of if we were to overlay the debt that's expiring over 2023 and put in place the swap rates that I touched on before, our sort of 1.9% would increase by that additional circa 2-2.5%. That would mean about a EUR 600,000 increase in interest expense for the portfolio. How do we cover that?
Obviously, one of the benefits of European sort of markets and real estate is the fact we have annual indexation for the majority of the portfolio. And therefore, if you just apply, say the 6% to the current rents, you get more than cover that cost of debt that we may be incurring over 2023. That was just a bit of a sensitivity that we wanted to share with you, and hopefully covers one of the key sort of items that we're dealing with.
Second point just on inflation, I know Rick sort of highlighted this, but again, one of the real sort of differences relative to the UK in terms of investing, is that European real estate, it has a natural sort of hedge in place, whereby rents are typically indexed to CPI, so that's domestic CPI. You can see here, depending on which jurisdiction you're in, you're really up for anywhere between a 6%-12% sort of increase. Actually, that 12% in the Netherlands is coming through a little bit higher at the moment, so we're in the process of actually issuing some letters with slightly higher indexation than that with some of the tenants.
As you can see overall, with that 80%, and obviously with a weighting of 40% of our income in France, 30% in Germany, and 30% in the Netherlands, you can see why that sort of blend of the 6% that I touched on before is not an unreasonable number to be using from a sensitivity point of view. We do think inflation will come back, obviously with sort of central banks moving to increasing and using monetary policy to try and sort of taper and move inflation back. We're starting to see early signs of that.
I mean, the US, it's certainly probably six months ahead of where Europe is, but there is sort of recent evidence that maybe we have, potentially reached a bit of a peak in inflation. Let's see. We do think that inflation will sort of return post 2024, back to more manageable levels. I think the other point that we get a lot of comfort or I get a lot of comfort around the portfolio and thinking about, well, the capacity to pay for moving and putting in place this indexation, you've then got to say, "Well, actually, can our tenants pay for this index?" Where I get comfort is the fact that we have or are coming off very affordable rents.
If you look across our portfolio, it was one of the key metrics in terms of as a strategy of really focusing on assets that were leased off affordable and sustainable rents. We're not the buyer of the best asset in the best area. We're buying in good location, we're buying sensible real estate leased off affordable, sustainable rents. It's a bit more palatable to apply an 8% or a 10% indexation for a rent that's off sort of EUR 45 a meter in the case of a logistics asset than it is applying that same index to a prime logistics asset that might be leased off sort of EUR 80 or EUR 90 a meter. I feel pretty comfortable about our ability to sort of push forward this indexation.
I'll talk in a little bit more detail later about how diversified we are in terms of sort of tenants and sectors. In terms of just to sort of cover off the inflationary side, we feel pretty relaxed about where we are in terms of pushing these increases through. In terms of strategy, obviously, we're gonna continue to be diversified. I mean, this is something that has put us in a very strong position to date. You have seen over the year a big move away from sector specialists.
I think it's very, very clear as long as you can manage real estate and have sort of multi-sector expertise on the ground, and that's something that we can do, certainly in the jurisdictions that we have exposure to, being France, Germany, and the Netherlands. We think that's the continue to be the right strategy. Obviously, sustainability, I talked about Form and some of the sort of work that we've done over the years has been very strong in moving that GRESB rating from 3 stars to 4.
We're starting to look at each asset from a net zero pathway point of view, and seeing how we can move sort of the operational side, and how we can improve that sort of data collection as well and understanding of sustainability for each of the assets. One of the other key sort of areas that we think is gonna be increasingly more important is this operational hospitality mindset. That's something that's that we've sort of been leveraging off the hotels team that we have in here at Schroders. That's again about sort of trying to manage each asset as an operating asset itself, and very much working with and getting a lot closer to our tenants and understanding their business as well.
That's something that COVID has made us do and has brought us a lot closer to understanding the sort of the issues that tenants have and trying to be very much more flexible with them and having a common understanding, particularly around sustainability as well and working together about trying to reduce operating costs and understanding how we work the buildings and being a bit more flexible around leases, for instance. I think that sort of mindset is gonna put us in sort of strong stead in terms of when we're regearing leases with tenants, and actually they feel as though they're working with an operator that understands their plights and what they're dealing with.
I think that's gonna be an increasingly part of real estate investment management. In terms of acquisitions, obviously, we're gonna continue to be prudent. We're gonna invest in the same manner that we have to date. Again, that winning city, and then at the micro level, using our teams on the ground to pick sub-markets that will benefit from transport infrastructure changes, where there's gonna be sort of competing demands for uses, where there's supply constraints, and above all, coming off this affordability and buying off assets that are leased off affordable rents.
Again, as we're seeing sort of operating costs increasing, that's gonna be a key part of how tenants will look at affordability as well and wanting to look at assets that are much more manageable from a overall operating cost perspective. Obviously, leverage, we've talked about before, where we will continue to run this vehicle with a modest leverage. We won't be moving away from that maximum 35%. We've got some capital to reinvest, and we'll probably raise a little bit of debt on the back of that if we see the right opportunity.
Certainly the big focus is maintaining that balance sheet and ensuring that we're regearing the debt that we have over to 2023 and ensuring that the company is the strongest position as possible from a balance sheet perspective. I get a bit of comfort in terms of having that cash and we are looking at new investments, but we're weighing that up against making sure that we have the strongest balance sheet possible to deal with the risks that we're starting to manage. On the portfolio, I did sort of highlight before about this diversification.
Not only are we well diversified in terms of cities and very much focused on those growth cities, so you can see there having exposure to sort of Paris, Berlin, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, very much sort of tier one growth cities. Equally being diversified in terms of sectors and you can see here that our office allocation, being around 35%, our industrial, in the mid-20s. The intention is to try and increase that weighting, the capital that we have to redeploy and targeting that sector to move that to maybe a third. Then the retail being at around 20%.
The type of retail that we have, I'll talk a bit later about why we're so pleased and would like to actually add potentially the same retail that we've got. That's more on the DIY and grocery side, two sort of sub-sectors that are gonna perform and have performed exceptionally well during the pandemic. Finally, the exposure that we have in the data center. Across different sectors, you can see here that we're very well diversified and whether that be across telecommunications, through manufacturing, distribution, education, government. There's a really strong diversification there across different sectors. Just on the income, I won't go much in detail on this slide. Just to sort of highlight a couple of points.
Obviously we have sort of invested at fairly attractive net initial yields, and the portfolio is valued off just under a 6% net initial yield. Obviously, that still remains accreted in terms of looking at new sort of cost of debt. Our unexpired lease term is around 5 years. I mean, that's part in just general asset management play that we're working towards, trying to sort of strengthen and secure that income and try and see if we can regear leases where we can, and bring forward discussions. To date, we've recently done that in house and where we regeared that lease on another 7.5 year basis.
That's something I'm working with the teams around trying to make sure that we can really secure and be a bit more defensive around managing the portfolio. Obviously, occupancy rates, again, limited vacancy, around 4%, and most of that sits in the Saint Cloud office building. We've made some good progress in leasing a couple floors there, but again, being very active about trying to secure and reduce that vacancy that we have there. Overall, very pleased with how the portfolio is shaped in terms of not only sort of income and how we can strengthen that, but also that diversification that I touched on earlier. Next slide, just sort of highlighting performance of the returns and Rick touched on it earlier.
This looks more at more the direct real estate side and not the NAV return that deals with sort of debt and other costs. This is just at the real estate level, so you can highlight here the really strong performance over the last three years. I think going forward, it's fair to say that the income portion is gonna be a very strong part of overall total return, and that really the capital side will probably see a bit of a negative fall, particularly as we come to December values or sort of Q1 next year. Obviously, with values, as I sort of highlighted earlier, will be mitigated. Not only say we'll see yields sort of decompress, but mitigated by the fact we've got that indexation coming forward.
Just sort of again reiterate this diversification. I mean, we were, I guess, hit pretty hard earlier in the year where the winners were typically sort of the beds, sheds, and meds. We were sort of saying, actually, having a diversified portfolio, we were still seeing very strong performance. You can see here that actually it's not just office space in our portfolio that's performed well. We've seen very strong performance out of the offices, if you've got an office that is in an accessible location that is leased off affordable rents, that's gonna continue to remain relevant and continue to see success, and that's something we have delivered here. These are two very good examples, one in Hamburg, one in Stuttgart, where we are off relatively low rents, both of them 100% leased.
The one in Hamburg, actually leading into the pandemic, we had five vacant floors, and we've leased every one of those floors. Both buildings that will continue to perform well and both probably have a little bit of upside in terms of where rents are. In terms of on the retail side, again, those that have listened to me talk before about the portfolio will understand my sort of love for the asset in Berlin and the fact that we're sitting on four hectares of land. For me, it is the best asset and the most exciting asset going forward. Yes, it's a longer-term play.
We're happy to take the income out of this, but really the ability to use that land to a higher bit of use and put in place a mixed-use scheme, that's what excites me. Obviously, the tenant is Hornbach, a DIY specialist that have performed exceptionally well. They'll probably sit here and exercise their options for a number of years. But this is a real sort of land banking play with the other added advantage of income. It'll continue to be a strong performer. On the grocery side, again, having a long lease Lidl in a very strong urban location, I'd love to add to the portfolio with either of these two assets, if I have the chance again.
Obviously the logistics has been a very strong performer and will continue to benefit from the changes that COVID has brought. As we've seen, sort of demand on the logistics side sort of strengthen, and the fact that these are off relatively modest rents, we think there's gonna be sort of strong growth associated with these. Just on rent collection, and really positive to say that we're at 100% and have been for some time. I mean, this is really the direct portfolio. I've excluded Seville from this. It is an asset, being a shopping center, that has suffered. Across the rest of the portfolio, we're at 100% rent collection.
That's been one of the key benefits of being able to move that dividend and maintain that dividend, the board has announced that EUR 1.85 cents per quarter. Just touch on, obviously, this is the repositioning that we did and what went behind the special dividends that Rick touched on. There's about another EUR 1.5 million of pre-tax profit that still is to come through the NAV. We're finalizing some snagging. There's a bit of capital still to come from the purchase price. Certainly over 2023, the rest of that profit will be potentially released into the NAV.
The point here is actually, as sort of operators of real estate, this is the best example of how we can create value. To de-risk and take a office building from a Grade C, fairly poor from a sustainability perspective asset, and turn that into an investment that not only could we increase the rents on the back of, but we turned into a very strong institutional building. That's what allowed us to tap into that excellent exit value and deliver that profit. Again, we think there's really strong opportunity, and that's some of the office investments that we're starting to look at the moment of how we can use our local expertise and ability to de-risk refurbishment to create that value.
Going forward, where do we see value in the portfolio going forward? I think initially it's around really maximizing some of the vacancy that we have there and working the Saint-Cloud office asset. Obviously, it's an investment that will also benefit from transport infrastructure changes over the longer term. There's gonna be a train station come outside this building in 2030. There's a little bit of time to wait. It's gonna be an asset that will probably continue to be bumpy from an income point of view. It's an asset that is leased off of a very low rent, so rents of only EUR 200 a meter. I think, again, the type of tenant that's in here is more SME businesses that don't necessarily wanna be in the best building.
As long as it's accessible and as a back-office location, this should continue to do well. We obviously will finalize the refurbishment, and we've actually handed over the refurbishment in Paris, but there's a bit of snag that I touched on earlier that we need to finish. Medium term, it's more around sort of smaller asset management in Frankfurt with extending the Lidl lease, maybe looking at some tinkering of some of the specialties. We are I touched on earlier about how do we strengthen the income profile. We don't have a lot of expiry happening over 2023. I think it's about 1% of our leases expire. How do we actually bring forward some of that regearing?
We did that with the Houten lease that I touched on earlier, where we were able to regear that on a 7.5-year basis. Again, working with the teams, how we can actively try and strengthen that unexpired lease term that I touched on, that's about 5 years. How do we lengthen that out? Then again, the sustainability. Yes, we've done well over the year. We've been able to improve the GRESB rating, but that's only part of where we wanna get to. We wanna move this to 5 stars.
We wanna really continue to work with our tenants about improving their understanding of sustainability and trying to sort of reduce, sort of the operating costs and so a lot of work around not only in terms of smart metering, but also around how do we actually improve the certification of our buildings. Medium term, it really centers on Apeldoorn. For me, this is the mini Boulogne-Billancourt. We're looking to do exactly the same thing that we did in Paris, with Apeldoorn, and KPN is the tenant here.
They're still to make their decision as to what they wanna do from a long-term perspective, but really what we're trying to present to them is to turn this facility into not just a data center, but make it into more of a hub location where it's a call center and office building. They have some high security part of their business there as well. Now, we would have to invest in the asset because it's a Grade C building, not the most sustainable building, but we have the ability to do that given its relatively low value. If we were to regear the lease with KPN, that would be an opportunity to create some value there. That decision will probably be made over the next sort of 12-18 months.
We've still got about 4 years left on that lease to KPN, so we're enjoying that income on the back of that. Then longer term, it's really around sort of Berlin that I touched on before about how do we actually use that site, and that's gonna be dependent on getting vacant possession, and also then some of the transport infrastructure changes, whether that be in Stuttgart or in Saint Cloud. That's sort of how we can sort of see value and value creation at the sort of short, medium, and longer term. Just a little bit on markets. I know sort of the office debate continues and certainly some larger occupiers still haven't made their sort of post-COVID decisions about what they wanna do.
This really is just some mobility data that sort of highlights and certainly what we've been seeing across Europe, where the return to the office in Europe has been a lot stronger than, say, relative to London or the U.S. I think a key part of that has really centered on accessibility and I guess with people not having to commute the same distances as what often happens in London or certain U.S. cities. Here's some examples here where it was very quick Europe to move back to sort of people moving back into the office. Some of those sort of falls, certainly the most recent fall over October, is really to do with school holidays. So that's why that fell then.
We certainly are seeing certainly a movement to how offices are utilized, whether it is under the hybrid basis. There's also a push for better quality offices, and that's probably an area where we're gonna see stronger rental growth and stronger demand. There's also, I guess, more sort of concerns around sort of recession people to come into the office as well. There's occupiers wanting to get their teams back in, so as they're not losing their culture. And obviously there's different concerns around sort of costs at home in terms of heating and the like. Obviously though on the occupation side and demand side, we're still sort of seeing some pretty strong sort of take-up.
Vacancy rates, yes, have moved out a little bit. We still think they're in a very strong position, particularly leading into COVID. Banks weren't lending on speculative developments, the whole sort of demand supply equilibrium was in a much stronger position than where we were, say, pre-GFC. We feel a lot more comfortable about where vacancy rates are. In particular, where you've got sort of Grade A and better space as well. I mean, you just don't really have any choice in certain cities if you want sort of Grade A space. There's just no availability. I wanna just touch on where we have exposure. Obviously I did sort of talk about Hamburg and Stuttgart. I look at Stuttgart.
It's got the record lowest level of vacancy in the whole of Europe. It's at about just over 1%. There's just no options for tenants to go to. We've got a government tenant in our building. Obviously, they are VAT sensitive as well, so they couldn't go to a new building. I feel very relaxed about being able to maintain that occupation. We're also leased off affordable modest rents. We're leased off rents of around EUR 14, EUR 14.50, which when you think about sort of where prime rents are in Stuttgart at around EUR 30, you can understand why we feel comfortable if that was ever to be vacant. I feel we could lease that relatively quickly. Equally, in Hamburg, we're off rents there of around EUR 13.50 a meter. That's per square meter per month.
Again, prime rents in central Hamburg, one stop away, are in sort of the low 30s, heading to mid-30s. Again, that's a back office location. This particular area is in the city sort of location, very strong mixed use area where people can walk to work, they can ride their bike to work. Again, that accessibility and affordability is what's been a real key benefit for why I feel comfortable about having this exposure and have the, you know, offices and why I think we'll continue to do well out of this. Obviously, Saint Cloud is a little bit increasing in vacancy. I think it's an area that we are looking, and there may be a bit of bumpiness around that particular asset.
It's certainly, again, this point about affordability and coming off low rents, which is in strong stead to be able to maintain that occupation that we have. Yes, we've got a bit of vacancy in there and we're working hard at trying to de-risk that. Just on the logistics side, I'm conscious I'm taking a bit more time, but again, we think there's probably stronger rental growth still on the continent relative to the U.K. You look through most of those cities there, they're really the bulk of those are in Europe where we see rental growth. There's been a big change in certainly demand and vacancy rates for logistics have fallen aggressively.
There's been a real change in how logistics companies are looking at their supply chains and moving away from just-in-time mindsets. Storing goods a lot longer. Obviously the trade issues that we've had with China and getting access to goods has meant that really goods are being stored domestically for a lot longer. Obviously, the e-commerce side as well has been a very big driver as well. Europe's come off relatively sort of low levels in terms of online penetration. That will continue and we'll see stronger growth and therefore distribution in terms of retail and online retail will benefit logistics going forward as well.
I think the other part that we're starting to see is on the manufacturing side and that Europe may benefit in terms of a movement away from China and actually this diversification, you may have sort of seen as China plus one, where manufacturers are starting to think about, well, actually, if I can't get my goods out of China or there's concerns around trade and concerns around COVID and restrictions, well, then I need to be manufacturing in other locations as well, and parts of Europe may benefit from that. So just on little bit on sort of the investment markets. Obviously, things have moved pretty quickly. We are seeing yields moving. There's a lot of activity happening.
I think that's one of the difficulties that valuers have at the moment, where certainly over the last few months, deals have either been pulled or deferred. We certainly, at the primer end, have seen yields starting to move out. I touched before about being pretty nervous about where logistics yields, prime logistics yields got to, where they were sort of sub 3% in certain markets. You can understand why they're starting to sort of move anywhere from 50 to 100 basis points, and why that's having a pretty big impact on capital values. Thankfully, we don't have any exposure to prime. We've always been a house that is focused on, I guess, that mid-market.
Again, really in strong winning or growth cities and coming off that affordable rent side. I touched on earlier that although we may see a bit of deterioration in yield over probably Q4, Q1 next year, we think that's gonna be mitigated by this indexation that I touched on earlier. That we're seeing anywhere from sort of 6%-12% or even slightly higher in terms of the Netherlands indexation that's applying to rent. You're gonna get a, an increase in rent, but equally you may see that sort of shift in yield. The overall capital value remaining pretty well similar or potentially coming off somewhere around that sort of 5% level.
This focuses a little bit more on prime, where we think actually there's probably gonna be a bit slightly stronger capital movement at the prime rate. Just to finish off, I mean, we feel it's a very compelling investment case. I mean, for an investor looking at the European REIT today and off current share price, which is reflecting about a 35% discount, you're getting north of an 8% dividend yield. Particularly when you think about the cities that we have exposure to, the quality of multi-sector expertise that we have on the ground in the countries that we're operating.
The fact that we have a very strong balance sheet, the cash reserves that we have in place, the ability to manage real estate and the historic performance that we've delivered. Certainly that operational mindset, which I think will be a really strong part of driving returns going forward, rather than relying on sort of yields and cheap debt. Those days have gone. There's gonna be more around active management and how can you align yourself with a manager that can create thos returns going forward. We think we are that manager, and we believe that we can sort of drive returns out of this portfolio. Certainly with the capital that we have to redeploy, we're looking at investments of a similar nature.
With that same mindset of being diversified and really focusing on sub-markets that are going to benefit from that transport infrastructure, supply constraints, competing demands for usage, and above all, coming off rents that are affordable and sustainable. Again, being focused on being a modestly levered vehicle as well. I'll stop there. I'm happy to answer any questions. James, I'm not sure if there are any have come through.
Plenty of questions, Jeff. Thanks everyone for sending in the questions. If you do have any others as we go through this, then, please send them in. I will ask Jeff and Rick. Jeff, there's been a couple of questions on valuations, I know you sort of touched on it within the presentation. I think it'd just be useful context for a number of, sort of bundling a number of these questions into one. If you could just expand a little bit on your views about where values are expected to go in Europe. I think, sort of paraphrasing some of the questions here, we've seen a lot of the U.K. diversified commercial REITs coming out with quite negative sort of projections on where they're expecting values to go in the next two quarters.
Clearly, there's different dynamics playing out in Europe with the indexation, et cetera, that you get in the leases. Can you just give a bit more sort of color on where we think values might go and how that differs to the UK market?
Look, I think obviously the listed side is giving that direction and has for some time. We think probably the listed side is reflecting probably too big of a value change for Europe particularly for the type of real estate that we have in the European REIT. I think the prime end, that's probably the area where values are gonna move probably the most. That's probably not surprising, particularly if you've seen yields at 2.5%-3%, whether it be for offices or logistics. We got pretty concerned around that sort of pricing and never participated in that. Yes, there's gonna be some rental growth. It'll probably continue to g with prime logistics and potentially some prime offices.
We still felt that that sort of yield profile is probably a bit too aggressive. That sort of space will probably see the biggest movement in terms of capital value change. If you think about the portfolio we have in terms of the roughly net initial yield of around 6%, it's still accretive in terms of where cost of debt is and debt is, and that cost is moving around, quite, and has been quite volatile, as I touched on with the 5-year swap rate. I do think it's gonna be certainly the, probably the secondary, tertiary real estate that will be potentially hit hard.
Again, when we come into a downturn, it's a, it's a sort of flight to quality and, again, whether that's quality into the sort of real estate or cities. I think being, and the exposure that we have in the cities that I touched on earlier, being sort of Paris, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Berlin, I feel really comfortable, particularly as we come out of, and depending on how deep that recession may be, we're gonna return to growth but for those cities. That's certainly something where again, liquidity being in those cities, is a much stronger position as well. I think overall, the value. It's hard to sort of give a very, sort of overall shift in what will happen to values. I think it's gonna be much stronger at the prime end.
I think for the sort of the average quality asset in a very strong city, which is probably what we typically have, you may see yields falling anywhere from sort of 15 to potentially 25-50 basis points, but that's gonna be mitigated by the fact that you've got sort of increases on the indexation side that I elaborated on. Overall, capital values may not fall as extensively as what you've probably seen here in the U.K.
Great. Thanks. Just on the back of valuations falling, sort of leads nicely on to my next question. We've had a couple of questions come in about what the expectation is in terms of deploying the sort of the dry powder that you have available. Could you just give a bit more color about the types of assets you're seeing coming across the desk, anything that you've been bidding on recently?
Yeah, happy to. I mean, we've been pretty conservative or I may say prudent actually with that capital. We've had the ability to invest for a little while. We certainly wasn't seeing too much value. Obviously, we've made two acquisitions. The Cannes acquisition, which is a alternative sort of car showroom with a very strong alternate use angle. We acquired that around 5.5% net initial yield with some reversion. We did a smaller logistics asset in Venray that sat next to our existing exposure. We think now that obviously there's gonna be better buying opportunity and actually having that capital at the moment, I'm pretty pleased to have rather than have chased sort of real estate 6-9 months ago. We're going to continue with the same mindset.
I would like to probably add a little bit more on the industrial side and have been participating in a couple of investments in France over the last few weeks. It's about price discovery as well at the moment. Really trying to understand where is the lie of the land going. We continue to be conservative in how we're looking at real estate. We're conscious of the debt that we have expiring as well. What we don't wanna be in is in a position where we can't sort of regear that debt, and we wanna make sure that we've got our sort of enough powder to do that.
I did allude to that we're making really strong progress on the Hamburg Stuttgart loan that's expiring and hopefully come out later this month with some positive news around that. We've also got to have sort of one eye on the balance sheet side, but also think that we will see better buying opportunity. I did touch on earlier that there's probably not a lot happening on the investment side and most vendors have either pulled their disposal strategy. I think what will happen next year is particularly as if you've got debt expiring next year, there's gonna be a lot of landlords out there that are gonna get a big shock about refinancing, and they're probably gonna be forced to sell.
I think there is gonna be much more opportunity for us to get set and focus again on France, Germany and Netherlands. Ideally, it'll be sort of bolstering that logistics exposure that I've touched on, moving that from the early 20s to somewhere around a third in the portfolio and then looking at select offices. Again, on the retail side, I'd love to get some more exposure on the DIY and to strengthen the grocery side as well, which are both subsectors of retail that have performed exceptionally well.
With that sort of well, maybe all or part of that cash deployed, at what stage are we now anticipating to get back to full dividend coverage?
The sort of direction we've given is really that it's by the end of next year that we'd move dividend cover back to 100%. At the moment we're for the most recent quarter at that early 70s. That's with the income of the new acquisitions that we've made. As we deploy that sort of EUR 50 million of capacity that we have, including that EUR 25 million of debt, we can replace the lost income from Alfortville, which is the Paris, Boulogne-Billancourt refurbishment we did. Investing that at roughly net initial yields of around 5.5%. I think that's where we think the ability to redeploy that capital, and again, investing in areas where there's gonna be growth as well.
Great. There's been a couple of questions, just following up on your points on Saint Cloud vacancy. They touched on you working very hard to try and sort of fill that. Can you just give a bit more color as to some of the steps that you're taking to try and fill that vacancy?
Yeah. I mean, one of the most recent initiatives that we did actually, which sort of plays into that operational understanding as well, is actually we've just done a lease to a service office operator. Again, trying to take a bit more of a performance basis with that and give a different service to the building. They've just started their operation. We've got effectively two and a half floors that are vacant now. One of those floors is fully fitted out, so an operator can walk in there and plug and play and can see what it is that they're getting. The building from the outside is not the most, I guess, primest asset.
I mean, it's a in its day, it was probably a phenomenal office development. It was built in the seventies. One of the big pluses that you have with this building, if you get inside, you have these most amazing views over the river towards Paris and to La Defense as well. Again, this point about not every occupier wants to be in a prime asset, and this is typically ascended businesses. It's in a back office location, a very wealthy part of Paris. It will be bumpy. I think I'm being very open about that. The vacancy will continue to sort of move around being the nature of the tenants that we have in there. We're very focused from an asset management point of view.
We've got the right leasing teams in place, and we're open to being fairly flexible in the type of leases that we do here. Again, that sort of operational, having to be flexible and being a bit more creative. That's how we're looking at this from an asset management point of view. Just thinking about where rents are, we're at low EUR 200 a meter prime rents in this sub-market of EUR 450. Prime rents in Paris are now north of EUR 900. Again, as occupiers start to think about their overall occupancy costs, it's gonna be really those buildings that are affordable, that are accessible, that should hold up well. It will be an asset that will be bumpy.
There's not a lot that we can do from a sustainability point of view because we are part of a broader condominium. It is an asset that probably over the longer term, as we see that transport infrastructure come and the train station come in 2030 where we're gonna see some stronger benefit. Certainly over the medium term, it'll be a bumpy asset from an occupation point of view.
Great. Thanks, Jeff. Conscious we've got a couple of minutes left, so probably time for one last question. One of our listeners has asked whether there is scope for any further special dividends next year.
Look, it's sort of the board will dictate that, but I think really the driver for special dividends has really been around the asset management and the fact that we did so well in repositioning Paris and de-risking that. I think at looking back now to, I guess, secure that exit value that we did at that pricing that we did, I don't think we would achieve that in today's market.
I think that's been one of the reasons why we were felt in a strong position to return some capital and also when we did cut the dividend at the early part of the pandemic, we were conscious that our underlying investors took a bit of a hit, and actually this was a way to compensate them as well. Going forward, I think it's unlikely. There's no real sort of asset management angle of the sort of similar size. Probably the next one is more about what do we do with Apeldoorn that would deliver some sort of stronger alpha. That's some time away, so unlikely, James.
Great. Thanks, Jeff. We're coming up to the hour, we will call it there. Just to wrap up, thank you very much to Jeff and Rick for the presentation. Thanks for all your questions and to those of you who are listening. Thanks for dialing in as well and taking the time to listen to us this morning. If you do have time, there should be some feedback forms that will appear on your screen shortly. If you do have time to fill those in, we do read them, appreciate if you could provide us with some feedback. If you want any more information on the trust, please do head to the website or get in contact with your normal Schroders representative. That's all we have time for.