Good morning, and thank you for taking the time to connect to Parque Arauco first quarter 2024 earnings call. I am Lauren Brown, Head of Investor Relations, and I am joined by Francisco Moyano, CFO, and Matías Silva , Director of Finance at Parque Arauco. I would like to mention a few things before we get started. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question- and- answer session will follow the formal presentation. Please note that this call is being recorded and the recording will be used for internal purposes. To start off today's conversation, I'm going to pass the call over to Matias.
Thank you, Lauren, and welcome everyone who joined Parque Arauco's first quarter of 2023 earnings call. This quarter marked an eventful beginning of the year for us. On the operational front, at a consolidated level, our revenues grew by almost 26%. Our EBITDA increased by almost 23%, and our FFO also expanded by about 21%. This operational growth is both a reflection of, in general, a generally strong performance of our asset portfolio and various circumstances in the three countries in which we operate. Later in the earnings call, I will provide more details on this, but as a very brief summary, the main reasons behind increases compared to the first quarter of 2022 are the expansion of our Colombian portfolio and the conversion effect to Chilean peso of Peruvian and Colombian operations, as our functional currency for accounting purposes is the Chilean peso.
Looking more into the future, on Monday, we announced two new projects we believe are fully in line with our growth strategic pillar and will further reassure our investor community of our commitment to value creation. The first one involves incorporating, for the first time, a multi-family building in one of our shopping centers. This residential tower in Parque Arauco Kennedy, which we call the Kennedy phase of the Parque Arauco Kennedy master plan, will be constructed on top of the northeast corner store. It resulted from intense analysis where financial responsibility and value creation were paramount. This project will require an investment of about $50 million and will result in 414 residential units, access to a future metro station currently under construction, and the realization of the work, live, and play concept in our most iconic asset.
The second project involves the execution of the first phase of MegaPlaza Ica's master plan. This shopping mall, located in the city of Ica, Peru, is the second-largest asset in terms of GLA for Parque Arauco in that country and the third most important in terms of EBITDA. This phase, with a total investment of about approximately $17 million, mainly consists of expanding 6,500 sq m of leasable area and includes the construction of a new open-air plaza in a boulevard format. Turning to the right side of the balance sheet, in March, we accessed the capital markets and issued new bonds with durations five and 10 years, raising a total of approximately $110 million equally split between these two bonds.
We paid U.S. +3.64% and U.S. +3.74% for the short-term and long-term bonds, respectively. We believe the confidence shown by the fixed income investors who trusted us stems from the quality of our assets, the strength of our balance sheet, and the reputation we have built over the years as a financially conservative company. Some other highlights of this quarter include finishing with a comfortable net debt to EBITDA of 5.3 x, the opening of Tesla's first store in Latin America at Parque Arauco Kennedy. I will discuss more on this new addition to our tenant roster later. Being rated as low risk by Morningstar Sustainalytics in its ESG risk rating with a score of 11.5.
We see this as a recognition of our high degree of accountability to investors and the public regarding sustainability issues and places Parque Arauco as the company with the lowest ESG risk among the 30 companies that comprise the main Chilean stock index, IPSA. On the environmental front, achieving an upgrade from F to C by the Carbon Disclosure Project. As the only Chilean shopping company evaluated by CDP, we believe this is both a recognition for a work well done and an opportunity to continue our efforts towards decarbonization. Finally, being ranked twelfth among the best companies to work for in Chile, according to Great Place to Work.
This is something we, the Parque Arauco team, feel particularly proud of as this recognition reflects the continued effort we make every day to make this company a place where everyone can thrive through creating value to our shareholders. We can go to the next one, Lauren, please. Thank you. This quarter, tenant sales increased by 17.6% on a consolidated level. This increase can be attributed mainly to two factors. First, we have two new assets, both in Colombia, that were not present in 2022, Parque Fabricato and Titán Plaza. Second, the relative depreciation of the Chilean peso against the Peruvian sol and the Colombian peso resulted in larger growth of our non-Chilean operations when expressed in Chilean peso.
Well, since our accounting is done in Chilean peso, this depreciation translated into higher general growth at a consolidated level. At a country level, sales in Chile grew almost 7%, explained mainly by growth in our main asset Parque Arauco Kennedy, and an almost 20% growth in our premium outlet portfolio, which has shown a remarkable performance as of late. Following with Peru, we observe a decrease in sales of about two percent in Peruvian sol. Primarily due to low same-store rent growth of 1.4% and an almost 5% reduction in MegaPlaza Independencia's GLA. This effect should be temporary as most of the GLA will reopen once this phase of the master plan is ready. On a positive note, Larcomar's sales growth reached about 25%. As recent openings and marketing efforts in Larcomar have started to pay off.
Next, with Colombia, we saw an increase in sales of about 25% in Colombian peso, with the main contributing factors being the incorporation of the two new assets mentioned earlier, and to a lesser extent, the maturation process of Parque Alegra. Overall, our occupancy cost remains stable at around pre-pandemic levels, reaching almost 11%, a level we consider normal. We can go to the next one. Thank you, Lauren. First quarter consolidated revenues increased by 25.8%. Similar to sales, this increase is mainly explained by both the addition of two new assets in Colombia and the depreciation of the Chilean peso. In Chile, revenues grew almost 9%, driven by a fairly across-the-board growth.
In Peru, revenues remained almost flat in Peruvian sol due to small growth on same-store rent and to temporary closures in our main asset, MegaPlaza Independencia, which I mentioned earlier. This was partially offset by the good performance of Larcomar, where revenues grew in line with sales. As you can imagine, Colombia's growth of almost 50% in Colombian peso is mainly explained by the addition of Parque Fabricato and Titán Plaza, as well as the maturation of Parque Alegra and the strong performance of Parque Arboleda. Regarding occupancy levels, they have remained strong at 96.4%, supported by the quality of our asset portfolio, the natural maturation of our newest assets, and the absence of very recently opened assets.
Regarding leasing activity, this quarter saw 5.6% of our GLA involved in negotiations, meaning changes in tariffs, terms, tenants, or a combination of these. We consider this level normal and expect it to continue as such. Definitely, this quarter's highlight was the opening in Parque Arauco Kennedy of the first Tesla store, not only in Chile but in Latin America. Visitors to our mall can now buy Tesla cars at the store, book a test drive, and pick up one of the cars parked in the mall. This is a great match to our green park, the largest charging center for electric cars in Latin America. Consistent with the revenue growth, our EBITDA grew almost 23%, driven mainly by the factors I mentioned earlier, but partially compensated by growth in costs and SG&A expenses.
Consolidated costs grew about 22%, mainly due to the recent additions to our portfolio and the Chilean peso depreciation, but also due to energy-related factors. In Chile, regulated prices per megawatt have increased significantly. Most of the energy we buy in this geography is under contracts that are linked to regulated tariffs. Although movements in regulated tariffs do not translate directly into the price we actually pay, they do have an impact. Also in Colombia, particularly in Parque Alegra, air conditioning equipment has required higher energy consumption, which, combined with higher prices, has had a negative impact as well. SG&A expenses increased by 60% compared to the first quarter of 2022.
Again, this is partially explained by the Chilean peso depreciation, but it is mainly due to the fact that we in management decided to stay on the conservative side and increased bad debt provisions. This had a large impact vis-a-vis the first quarter of last year, as while in first quarter 2022, we released bad debt provisions. On this quarter, we did the opposite and took more provisions in the order of CLP 1.8 billion. I would like to highlight here that this expense is not due to a general deterioration of our collectibles, but due to the challenges that some very specific tenants are facing. Moving to non-operational territory, financial expenses grew by about 32% due to the CLP depreciation effect on non-CLP interest expenses and increased debt taken by the company.
This new debt carries higher interest, particularly the debt taken in Colombian peso. Nonetheless, we believe this a financially sound decision as debt denominated in the currencies on which we operate helps us reduce the company's exposure to foreign exchange risk. Financial income increased as well by almost 5%, mainly due to an increase in cash, which will be used mostly to pay off short-term debt. Regarding FFO and following the same reasoning as rebate revenues and EBITDA, this quarter saw growth of 21.3%, primarily explained by the two factors I have mentioned a few times already. As for the increase in associates accounted FFO, which amounted to 36%, this growth was driven by strong operational performance and a decrease in bad debt provisions. This led to an EBITDA expansion of about 13%.
Also very relevant were better non-operational results, mostly attributable to lower financial expenses. Although unrelated to this quarter's FFO, I would like to highlight Grupo Marina's first bond issuance. In April, Marina made its debut on the Chilean capital market by issuing approximately $78 million, with half having a 5-year duration and the other half having a 10-year duration. These bonds were issued at UF + 4.08% and UF + 4.39% respectively. They will help Marina reduce its cost of funds, increase its profitability, and diversify its funding sources. To the team at Marina, if you're listening to this earnings call, we at Parque Arauco extend our most sincere and absolutely biased contra-congratulations to all of you. Now I'll pass the call to Lauren.
Thank you, Matías. Now I would like to talk about some of our asset level milestones. In Chile, this quarter we opened 1,500 sq m at Arauco Coronel as part of its expansion project, and we welcome brands including KFC, Maui and Sons, and Isadora. As a result of this new GLA, new tenants and an improved performance of department stores and supermarkets, revenues grew by 12% and sales levels increased by 5% compared to first quarter of 2023. The premium outlets Concepción and Curauma experienced an increase in sales by 18% and 35% respectively. High sales were seen predominantly at clothing and footwear stores, including Nike, Under Armour, Tommy Hilfiger and others. This has translated into a double-digit growth in both revenues and EBITDA for the outlet asset class.
In Peru, Megaplaza Independencia experienced a decline in revenue of 8.2% due to the closure of some commercial spaces located on the second floor above Ripley, which will be converted to a gourmet food hall as part of the asset's master plan expansion process. On the other hand, the traffic and sales at Larcomar did well this quarter, showing robust revenue growth of 18.4% compared to the same quarter of the previous year. This growth can be attributed to the work that the company began a few years ago to define an optimum mix at this iconic mall by starting little by little to relocate some stores in order to improve the use of the space and attract new tenants. Additionally, renovations were made to upgrade spaces in addition to creating more ocean views on different floors of the mall.
You can find more info about the reconversions and rebranding of Larcomar in the fourth quarter 2022 earnings results. Here are a few examples of the optimization of Larcomar that have positively affected our results this quarter. For example, Adidas moved locations. This allowed us to open the Mango store. The restaurant Pardo's Chicken was moved to the minus three level, which attracted clients to this area and also made space to bring in the store Miniso to Larcomar. The restaurant TGI Fridays was moved to an area that previously had less traffic. Thanks to some remodeling, now Pardo's Chicken and TGI Fridays both have ocean views and are attracting clients to new areas of the mall and are performing well.
While these sound like various changes, they were made slowly and over the last few years, and we are now able to see the positive results of these relocations and reconversions. In Colombia, Titán Plaza and Parque Fabricato were incorporated into the Colombian portfolio and performed very well. Additionally, other assets in Colombia are maturing and improving their performance. Parque Alegra continues its consolidation with increased occupancy and the implementation of step-ups in its lease contracts, resulting in a 19% increase in sales, 40% increase in revenue, and a 113% increase in EBITDA compared to first quarter of 2023. Additionally, Arauco Outlet Arauco Sopó improved its food court and restaurant sales by 45% compared to first quarter of 2023.
This translates to a 13% increase in total sales, a 23% growth in revenue, and illustrates that outlets are an asset class that performs well in each country. Again, the occupancy continues to maintain a high level of 96.4% due to the consolidation of our portfolio, combined with the asset level milestones that I've mentioned. Now I wanna also mention some highlights on this mall by mall page. In Chile, you will see that Estación experienced a drop in NOI due to a change in the bad debt provisions. Last year in the same quarter, bad debt provisions were released while this quarter they were increased, creating this negative effect in NOI compared to the same quarter of the previous year.
Meanwhile, at our outlets, revenues increased almost 20% compared to the same quarter of the previous year and can be attributed to new tenants including Converse, Kayser, Puma, Skechers, and Pillín, including the addition to the sales that I mentioned previously. In Peru, as a reminder, we are continuing with our expansion at Mega Plaza Independencia, and for this reason, you can see a decrease in the sales and revenue this quarter compared to the quarter of the previous year. As I mentioned earlier, due to this ongoing optimization process at Larcomar, the asset increased 25% higher sales and 18% higher revenue. On the next page, I would like to highlight Titán Plaza, the iconic asset we acquired in the fourth quarter of 2023.
Due to the great location of this mall, Titán Plaza has high sales per sq m , and in the first quarter of 2024, its sales per sq m were even higher than those of La Colina. This statistic illustrates that Titán Plaza is a mature mall with a good mix and a great location, making it another one of our iconic assets. Jumping over to page 25. At the annual shareholders meeting on Monday, we announced the Kennedy phase of Parque Arauco Kennedy Master Plan expansion, which aims to strengthen our value proposition of being an urban center where people can live, work, and play all at the same location. This new multi-family residential tower is the first tower to be incorporated into a mall and will have 24 floors and 414 apartments, which includes studios, one bedroom, and two-bedroom units.
The tower will have various amenities such as a pool, a gym, a barbecue area, sports bar, sky bar, a cowork, and of course, the most important amenity of all is a very large mall with hundreds of stores right below it. The total investment of this tower is $60 million and will be opening in 2028. Also, at the annual shareholders meeting on Monday, we announced the expansion of MegaPlaza Ica, the second-largest regional shopping center in Peru with approximately 36,000 sq m of GLA. It's also the third most important asset in terms of EBITDA, generating CLP 6.6 million a year. It is the dominant shopping center in the city of Ica and was acquired in 2015 with its original name, El Quinde Ica.
Since then, we have made significant improvements in infrastructure and the shopping center mix, currently featuring three commercial levels and some of the best brands in the city, including H&M, Falabella, and Maestro. In 2023, we also rebranded the mall to MegaPlaza Ica. This new expansion will add an additional 6,600 sq m of retail space, including services, a financial area, gym, and a boulevard. On page 31, I would like to highlight our CapEx table. On the top right side of the slide, you can see a pie chart showing the breakdown of our total CapEx investment by type of project, expansions, new malls, and multi-family. The $504 million CapEx plan that we initiated in 2023 includes projects recently incorporated and to be incorporated in these next coming years.
As you can see in the table, some of these projects were already incorporated in the third quarter of 2023, while others will be incorporated between now and 2028. You can add the total investment column to reach $504 million. While page 31 highlights total CapEx, on page 32, we take a look at the remaining CapEx. You can see the breakdown by type of project of the remaining $289 million in the pie chart on the left-hand side of the slide. You can also calculate this amount by adding the remaining CapEx column in the previous table on page 31. I would like to reiterate that our CapEx strategy is to invest approximately $200 million per year. Some years we may invest less. Some years we may invest more. It depends on the opportunities.
However, this average amount of $200 million allows us to grow while maintaining our preferred level of leverage between 5x and 6x. As you can see on the graph on the right-hand side of the table, the allocated CapEx is less than $200 million per year. This means that there is space to announce new projects and CapEx deployments in the upcoming years in order to maintain our goal of consistently investing in growth every year. Below, in the calendar of upcoming openings, you can also see the additional square meters of GLA we'll be adding to the portfolio over the years. As we have mentioned various times, our main avenue of growth is through current asset expansion. One of the best examples of this is at our flagship asset, Parque Arauco Kennedy, that has basically been expanding ever since it has been built.
On page 33, you can see the expansions we have incorporated at this asset since 2013. With each expansion, we strengthen the asset's value proposition. Client experience is a strategic pillar and core value at Parque Arauco, which is why every quarter we do various marketing initiatives to attract new clients and create memorable experiences. You can read about them on page 34 and 35. Additionally, we have been dedicated to improving our Net Promoter Score as a way to measure client satisfaction at our malls. As Matias mentioned, sustainability is an important pillar for us at Parque Arauco, and we became the only Chilean company in the shopping sector to be evaluated by the Carbon Disclosure Project. Additionally, for the 4th consecutive year in a row, we were featured in the S&P Global Sustainability Yearbook.
Now, if you are joining our call using the link, you can ask a question. That finishes our presentation portion. In order to ask a question, you can click on the button, Ask voice question, or you can submit a written question. If you are joining by the phone, you can ask a question by pressing star two. When you are invited to speak, I will unmute you so you can ask your questions. To start off today's discussion, I will pass the call over to Francisco. All right. Let me see. Okay, I see we have a voice question from JP Morgan. Marcelo Motta, I am going to unmute you. Hi, Marcelo. Can you hear me today?
Hey, can you hear me?
Yes, I can hear you.
That's perfect. Thank you, Lauren. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking the question. It's regarding the multifamily, right? If we look at the NOI margin in this quarter, it was down over 7 percentage points. Just wondering, you know, if there was any one-off there on the multifamily. Also on the Kennedy expansion or let's say the new projects that were announced earlier this week, should it have any impact on the ongoing performance of the shopping mall and all? Do you guys foresee any negative impact in doing the construction? That's all. Thank you very much.
Great. Thank you, Marcelo. Yes, regarding the multifamily, we wanted to start adding information about the multifamilies in our earnings report. This is the first quarter that we add information. As of today, we have two buildings open and operating. The two of them are in Chile, the one that is located in Estación Central and the other one that is located in Macul. With these two buildings, one of them, the one in Estación Central is in the ramp-up process. I would say that the margins as of today, the margins that we are showing are not the margin that we expect for this project. For me, it's more a one-off than something that you can expect for the future.
Regarding the expansion, as you know, we have been growing these assets for a long time, so we are kind of expert of having a construction and also the retail operating in this asset. The multifamily tower is in one corner of the asset. It has been also well-organized, the construction and the operation of the asset. I don't see really an impact, a negative impact in the operation of the retail side.
Perfect. Very clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you, Marcelo. All right. Now I have Felipe from Santander. I will unmute you. Felipe, are you there?
Yeah. Can you listen to me?
You're a little choppy.
Oh. How about now?
No. Go ahead and we'll ask you if we don't understand.
Yeah. I cannot hear you guys pretty well either.
Do you wanna type your question?
Yeah. I'll ask it later. You can go ahead with other questions.
Okay. All right. I'm going to jump to Javier from Itaú Asset Management.
Everyone, good morning. Can you hear me?
Hi, Javier.
Yes.
Hi, Lauren. Hi, Francisco. Thank you. I have two questions. First, in this new multifamily project in Kennedy, do you have more detail on the GLA of that project? Second, looking at salaries and contributions, they continue to put some pressure on expenses. I just want to know what are you expecting on these two lines going forward for the year, and if maybe we should think of this first quarter 69% EBITDA margin as the new margin for the rest of the year, of course, excluding fourth quarter because of seasonality, but maybe for second and third quarter, that's it on my side. Thank you.
Yeah. Regarding the multifamily, in fact, the multifamily that we are designing has these 414 units. The actual GLA, I don't have the figure, but we are looking for it. So we can give you this figure, but it will have these 414 units of one bedroom and one bathroom and two bedroom with two bathroom. I'm pending with the GLA.
Thank you.
Regarding the salary and contributions, in fact, more regarding the cost and expenses this quarter were impacted by the exchange rates, largely by exchange rates, but also impacted by the addition of these new assets, Titán and Fabricato. Okay? In the comparison, when you compare 2024 with 2023, you have to take into account these two factors. Salaries and contributions are our lines growing by inflation mainly. When you compare against 2023, we don't see a lot of growth in those lines. The EBITDA margin is today decreasing in part because of the comparison against 2023 doesn't have all the same structure in the sense that as you know.
Got it.
As you know, it depends on the revenue side and the cost side, and if the mix of contracts that we have in both years are not the same, has the same structure, the comparison is not that real. For the first quarter, we reached this margin below 70%. For the next quarter, we are thinking on maintaining levels around this figure.
Got it. Perfect. Thank you very much, Francisco.
Yeah. Appreciate it.
Sorry, Matias here.
Yep.
Regarding your question about.
Hey, Matias.
Hi. Regarding your question about GLA, if you go to slide 31, there you will see the approximate equivalent GLA for the Kennedy phase expansion. Having said that, to be honest, we focus much more on the number of units, so that number may vary once we actually, you know, build the tower.
Got it. Perfect. Thank you, Matias. Appreciate it.
You're welcome.
Great. I'm going to the next question I have from Diego Guzmán of BCI. Diego, you are now off mute. Can you hear me?
Yes, perfectly. Can you hear me?
Yeah, we can hear you.
Well, thanks for the presentation and the space for questions. My question is also about the Kennedy project, but I have two or three questions. The first one is, what are you targeting in terms of segmentation here in this building? I suppose I know that a 0.5 UF per sq m range is the target that you are aiming or maybe lower or higher than that. A bit of color would be great. Also, regarding parking spaces, this project is changing from a hotel project to a residential project, which I think I suppose that you will need a much more parking space service.
I suppose that here you might need maybe 500 or more spaces exclusively for residential use. I was wondering where are you going to deploy these parking spaces? It would be great if you can mention these. Maybe I don't know if you will do some other underground level or something like that. You mentioned that the project has a 22,800 sq m . I was wondering if here you are considering the ex convention center that I don't know if maybe you can explain us what is going to happen with these spaces and how big is the space for this? That's it. Thank you.
Hello? Yeah. Okay. Yes. Regarding the targeting segmentation, for Kennedy, I would say that the location is the most important factor of the asset, right? The segmentation is people that want to be in the center of the city that also value being very close to offices sector here in Las Condes and the retail space, right? That is why also probably we're designing this with the one bedroom and two bedroom units. We think that there is people that want to live within the center of the city in this segment. Regarding the parking spaces, we already built all the parking spaces.
When we started the construction of these phases, as you know, we built parking spaces below the old Falabella store and below the current Falabella store. That was a space that didn't have parking spaces. We built parking spaces thinking of the future. We built more parking spaces as needed, and some of the spaces also have double height in order to also grow in the future if it is necessary. We are not seeing, in fact, a problem to deploy the multifamily project for the needs of parking spaces. We don't see an issue there. Regarding convention center, today we are working on.
As you know, the tower, the multifamily tower was aimed to be a hotel tower in the past. With the pandemic, we decided to stop that construction because the hotel industry was largely impacted by the pandemic. We stopped the convention center and the hotel tower. We have been deciding how to advance with the project with the most strategic and profitable mix for the Kennedy project. We decided in the past to build the office tower, and now we are deciding about the multifamily tower. The space of the convention center in some sense is pending. We'll decide in the following months about that.
Is this included in the 22,000 sq m ?
No.
It's not?
No, it's not included.
Okay. Thank you. One last question. If I'm not wrong, you have a CapEx that should come in a couple of more years regarding the Fabricato option. Do you have an estimate of how much money that could be in actual terms?
Hi. Diego, Matías here. Not really. Sorry, no. That money that we could have to pay, because it's not for certain, will depend on a multiple of EBITDA. No, we're not disclosing at this point our estimates, which also at this point not very accurate because we are doing some changes in Fabricato as well.
Okay. Thank you.
Welcome.
Great. Thank you, Diego Guzmán. Okay, I'm going to try Felipe again, and then we'll go to Carolina at Itaú, and then Alan at Bank of America. Let me just see. Felipe, can you hear me now? Can we hear you now?
I can hear you.
Okay.
Can you guys hear me?
Your connection is much better.
Yes.
Great. Second time's the charm, looks like it. Well, thanks for the call. I was wondering if you could give us more color about the additional provisions for bad debt. Is this related to the increase you also recorded in the past two quarters? Should this effect be over after the next quarter, or do you think you could continue to increase these provisions afterwards? Last, have you seen a recovery from these tenants, or are they doing worse? Like, also where are they located?
Perfect. Yes. Our strategy with the bad debt provision has been always trying to be very conservative in this side. Okay? From the pandemic, we started increasing the bad debt provision in order to be ready to cover the effects of the pandemic and for this cost of bad debts. With the pandemic, some of our tenants had these loans from the government or from the state that were more flexible. What we have been seeing is that those loans ended at half of last year in. For the second part of 2023, we saw some tenants that had no financing, and we're struggling.
They were still struggling with the effects of the pandemic, so we had to increase the bad debt provision for those tenants. Those were specific tenants. It's not the majority of our accounts receivables. Mainly in the gastronomic side, we have seen those also related with the Arauco Estación mall, and that is why in the first quarter you can see that the NOI is impacted in Arauco Estación. But it's very allocated in few tenants. That is important to know.
In fact, probably 90%-95% of our tenants have very good health, but still we wanted to increase this, the bad debt provision, for this tenant in order to be ready to have the effects if it happens that those tenants can't continue paying the rents. Some of those tenants in the gastronomic side, you probably can see in the news that are in renegotiation processes and some of them are being able to pass the storm, but some probably will not pass. We wanted to have the financial statement very, very sound and that is why we are increasing that bad debt provision.
As of today, in the first quarter of 2024, we have all the bad debt provision that we wanted to have in the balance sheet. If we don't see the scenario worsening in the following quarters, we should have a much more reasonable bad debt provision in the following quarters.
Felipe? Okay, passing it on to Carolina.
Hi. Can you hear me?
Yes. Hi, Carolina. How are you?
Fine. Thank you. Actually, my question was also on bad debt, and I think that you already answered, but I will take the chance and maybe talk a little bit about Colombia. I was amazed about the performance of the existing malls in Colombia, considering that, you know, tenants are still suffering in the case of Colombia because of consumption environment. I would like to see how do you see, you know, opportunities for higher M&A in Colombia in terms of prices and rates? Or you are going to focus of course in the new acquisitions and will not see further acquisitions probably in the next couple of years, or how do you stand on Colombia? Because I think that has been a quite successful country for you.
Yeah. Well, thanks, Carolina. Yeah, absolutely. In fact, Colombia has been one of the. It's a good part of our diversification. It helped us during the pandemic because we had a less tough pandemic in Colombia than we had in Chile and Peru. As you mentioned, we have been seeing very good opportunities of growth in this country. As you know probably, there are several. Part of the industry in Colombia is this condominium style where there are several owners for assets. So it's difficult to go through M&A for those assets. Like Titán Plaza and Fabricato were two where we were able to enter those assets, but it's a slow process of negotiation.
In the future, I can say that we absolutely are trying to continue growing in Colombia. We see a lot of opportunity and options for differentiating from our operation with the industry that we see in this country. A lot of opportunities. With that said, it's a slow process. It's not that simple to go through M&A, but we continuously analyze new opportunities there.
Thank you, Francisco. In terms of pricing and rates, because, you know, Colombia continues to be impacted by high interest rates as well. Do you see, you know, that prices are still attractive in the case of Colombia?
Yeah. Well, in Colombia, the inflation went down in Chile and in Peru also. It is already down to pre-pandemic levels in some way. In Colombia, it's still in this process. The short-term interest rate is very high because of inflation, but we expect that to decrease in the future if they are able to control the inflation. The long-term interest rates in Colombia is higher than in pre-pandemic levels, but it's not that higher. Today we see a space for new transactions.
Absolutely, it will have to be with coverages that are correlated with this interest rate. For all the transactions, we take into consideration the current interest rate, and above that, we look for a spread that makes those transactions accretive for the company.
Caro, Matias here. Sorry, just to add to Francisco's answer. We have had this discussion many times with our development team and as challenging as finding the right prices, which of course are related to rates, is to find the correct assets as well. I mean, the Colombian market, not unlike Chile and the Chilean market and the Peruvian one, is very illiquid in terms of real estate assets. It's challenging both to find the correct prices and to find the actual assets.
Okay. Perfect. Thank you very much to both of you.
Thank you.
Welcome.
Great. We have Alan from Bank of America. Hi, Alan. Can you hear me?
Hi. Hi. Good morning, and thank you for the call.
Yeah.
Just my question's on Cerro Colorado. If you can remind us the percentage of GLA that's in retail and office. I guess also if you can tell us if you've done any pre-leasing, especially in the office. If you have all the permits in order to open the project once it's completed. Thank you.
Sure. Alan, to go back to the Cerro Colorado phase, if you have the earnings in front of you on page 28, you can find those figures there. The retail section will be 12,000 sq m of retail, and the office tower will be 23,400 sq m of retail. The Cerro Colorado phase, this is CLP 111 million remaining investment. The retail is set to open in 2025, and the office tower is set to open in 2026. It was a little bit low. I think you had another question about office towers.
Yeah, it was about.
Permits.
Yeah, permits and construction process. We try to be at the same as in the budget provision or financial statement. We also want to be very conservative on projects in order to announce it to the market once we have the main permits in place. Obviously during the construction, we need to have other permits and we advance with the construction, but we are confident that we can finish the projects.
Thank you. Just on, have you done any pre-leasing on the office space?
Not yet. No, not yet. We will start. We have a whole schedule for commercializing this space, but it has not started yet.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Alan. It looks like that has wrapped up the question portion of our call. Thank you, everyone, for joining today, and we will see you back here in at the end of July when we present our second quarter results. Until then, please feel free to reach out via phone call or via email if you have any additional follow-up questions that you would like to ask. Hopefully, we will see you at a future conference, NDR, or here in our offices if you would like to visit. Have a great day, and thank you very much for joining our call.
Thank you. Bye.
Thank you. Bye-bye.