Welcome to Neobo Q1 report 2023. For the first part of the conference call, the participants will be in listen-only mode. During the questions and answer session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing star five on their telephone keypad. Now I will hand the conference over to CEO Ylva Sarby Westman. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and welcome everyone to the presentation of Neobo Q1 2023 report. My name is Ylva Sarby Westman, and with me here today I have our CFO, Maria Strandberg, and Head of IR, Johan Bergman. As you all know, Neobo was created at the end of last year and distributed to the shareholders in SBB at the end of December. This means that the figures from the corresponding period, the first quarter last year, is attributable to a slightly different property portfolio than the one we have today. Approximately it's two-thirds in the like-for-like portfolio of properties that we owned both at the beginning and at the end of last year. Our vision is to create attractive and sustainable living environments where people can thrive and feel secure.
I feel confident that Neobo, with this vision as a starting point, have good opportunities to create value for both tenants and shareholders. In this picture, you can see one of our properties in Oskarshamn. Our first quarter as an independent company has been very intense, with a listing on Nasdaq First North Premier Growth Market on February 10th as an important milestone, continued work with building an efficient organization, and landing a business plan. Despite everything that has been going on, we have maintained focus on our core business and can report a good start of the year. In the like-for-like portfolio, net operating income increased by 6.6% due to both increased rental income and reduced property costs. Profit from property management decreased to SEK 29 million during the quarter as a result of higher financial expenses.
The value, the change in value of properties amounted -2.6%. Neobo is a residential-focused company with a property value slightly below SEK 15 billion. We have 8,401 apartments, five more than previous quarter as a result of five commercial premises in Oskarshamn have been converted into apartments. Residential properties account for 95% of the property value, and the remaining value mainly consists of community service properties. Our rental value increased by 2.6% to SEK 948 million during the quarter as a result of completed rent negotiations attributable to residentials. The total rental value constitutes of 76% from residentials and 22% from commercial contracts.
The negotiations with the tenants association are ongoing. At the end of the quarter, approximately 70% of the rental value for residentials are completed with an average rental increase of 4.3%. That will have a positive effect during the second quarter. The remaining negotiations are expected to be completed during this quarter. The increase is below current inflation, but as you can see on this slide, property owners have historically been fully compensated for inflation over time, which we expect will be the case also moving forward. Increasing our occupancy rate is top priority, but the occupancy rate decreased with 0.3% during the quarter after a large tenant has left one of our public sector properties.
Leasing in the residential portfolio was positive, and vacancies decreased from 6.6%- 6.4% in our core segment. In order to reduce vacancies, we are now focusing on different actions, such as renovating empty apartments and conducting activities to increase tenant satisfaction and reduce tenant turnover. When it comes to vacant commercial premises, we are working hard to find the right tenants, and in some cases, also find other users for the premises to accomplish our leasing goals. We see continued very strong demand for rental apartments in Sweden, with a growing population, a majority of the municipalities reporting housing shortage, a very low market vacancy for rental apartments below 1%.
According to Boverket, the annual need for new residentials in Sweden amounts to 63,000 during the coming year, which, combined with a very low level of new productions, give us an opportunity to increase the occupancy rate in existing buildings. Transaction volumes remain low compared to the first quarter previous years, and the share of residential has also decreased sharply. However, during the spring, we have seen transactions in the residential segment, including the sales from K2A and Trianon at good price levels. Hopefully the market will now start to open up again. Sustainability is an important and value-creating part of our strategy, and we have therefore started the development of Neobo's sustainability strategy with concrete targets regarding both the environmental and the social perspective. One example is from Tidaholm, where new ventilation units and solar cells on the roof resulted in 40% lower energy consumption.
Now a short summary of the result from the first quarter. Rental income increased to SEK 214 million and in the like-for-like portfolio with 1.6% due to rent increases in commercial premises. Rent increases from the residential portfolio has not impacted the outcome of the first quarter but will have effect during the second quarter. Property management costs decreased during the first quarter, the reduction is a net effect of increased operating costs and decreased property administration. The increase in operating costs is derived from higher costs for electricity and heating, which were offset by reduced costs for property administration attributable to lower personal costs. Net operating income increased with SEK 9 million- SEK 98 million during the first quarter.
For the like-for-like portfolio, the corresponding increase was 6.6% due to both increased rental income and reduced property costs. Central administrative costs increased by SEK 2 million. In the quarter, we have had non-recurring costs of SEK 3 million relating to the separation and listing of Neobo. Excluding non-recurring costs, central administrative costs were reduced by SEK 1 million due to lower personal costs. Net financial items increased as a result of higher underlying interest rates and raised margins in refinancing. Profit from property management decreased to SEK 29 million as a result of increased financial costs. The value of the property portfolio declined by 2.6% during the quarter as a result of increased yield requirements for residential properties in the market.
The average assessed yield requirement in the valuation of our property portfolio increased from 4.1%- 4.3% during the quarter. We have also decided upon settlement attributable to the separation from SBB during the quarter, and final settlement will take place during the third quarter this year. During the period, SEK 38 million was invested in existing properties, and we have completed renovation of 25 apartments and also carried out some sustainability investment, as I mentioned before. Neobo has a strong financial position with a low LTV of 47% and 100% of the financing from banks. We have a long average debt duration of 4.1 years, and as you can see to the right, almost no maturities during the coming two years.
The average interest rate has increased to 3% as a result of increasing interest rates and due to some restructuring in our swap portfolio. In order to limit the interest risk and to increase the predictability of profit from property management, we have structured interest rate swaps during March and increased our hedge ratio from 74%- 76%, and the average fixed interest term increased from 1.8 years - 2.3 years, and the ICR amounted 1.9 times at the end of the quarter. Here you can see the development in earnings capacity. It's not a forecast and does not include any assessment for future trends.
Rental income is up 2.2% compared to the earnings capacity in the beginning of the year since we now have completed negotiations for about 70% of our residential rental income with an average uplift of 4.3%. Vacancy has increased with SEK 5 million- SEK 79 million, as I mentioned earlier. Property management costs consists of budgeted costs for a normal year and stays on the same level as in January. Net operating income has increased by SEK 18 million since Q4 due to higher rental income. Central administration stays on the same level, no one-off costs attributable to the separation are included. Net financial items is based on existing credit agreements and STIBOR of March 31st. Profit from property management sums up to SEK 208 million. Sorry, I think I showed the wrong picture.
This was the right slide to be shown. In this slide, you can see our largest shareholders in the end of March. Swedish shareholders own 86%, and foreign investors own 14% of the shares. According to Euroclear, the total number of our shareholders amounted 184,033 shareholders. The key takeaways, we deliver a stable quarter. Net operating income in like-for-like portfolio increases with 6.6%. We have a strong financial position with a low LTV and a prolonged fixed interest term of 2.3 years. Above all, we see a strong underlying demand for rental apartments in the market and increasing occupancy rate in our residential portfolio. Finally, our sustainability strategy with concrete targets are now under development. With this, I would like to open up for questions.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial star five again on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad. There are no more questions at this time, I hand the telco back to the speakers.
Thank you very much. We have some question from the webcast. I will start with it right now. The first question is you reported 4.3 rent increase when it comes to residential. You also have a lot of commercial properties. What's the level of rent increase, and when will it come into the rental value?
Thank you very much. The total rental value is 22% of the total rental value comes from commercial contracts, commercial lease agreements. The indexation from them took place from the first of January this year. The increase from commercial contracts we can see in the rental value in the earnings capacity in the first of January this year. Now we have 30% of the rental value from residentials to land negotiations with the tenant association. That will take part during this quarter.
We will also see a full effect of the 70% of the rental increases in the residential part that we already have decided upon in this second quarter.
Thank you. Your surplus ratio in your earnings capacity is around 50%. This is relatively low if you compare to comparable companies. What is the reason behind this, and is there a potential to increase the surplus ratio going forward?
Thank you very much. Yes, I think we have a good opportunity to increase the surplus ratio. We are focusing very hard on increasing the return from the property portfolio. Both working with the occupancy rate, a very intense work to lower the vacancies, both in the residential portfolio and in the commercial premises that we have. Also working very hard on the cost side to be able to increase the net operating income from the portfolio. We are also doing value-creating investments, both renovating apartments, so we can increase the surplus ratio in that way, and also some sustainability, some sustainability investments.
I think that we have a good possibility to increase the surplus ratio going forward.
Thank you. Please elaborate your main position on capital allocation going forward into 2024. In other words, going back into the business for growth or whole business growth, reduce debt, or dividend back to the shareholders?
Yes, good question. I think we think today that we have a stable position in the company with a low LTV. I mean, we have had a decreasing property values both in the fourth quarter last year and in this first quarter. Of course, the LTV is a little bit higher, but still only 47%. We think that we have a really good position in that sense going forward. We see that the market, the transaction market has opened up, and we see a lot of opportunities in the market right now. Hopefully the interest rates will start to peak after the summer or during autumn.
We will see a better situation at the end of the year. We don't see any need for new capital injections, so to say. We will probably work to optimize our property portfolio, maybe divest properties in markets where we only have a few properties as an example. To be able to do a value creating investments in the existing portfolio.
Thank you. Question connecting to this. Could you talk a little bit about the interest in the transaction markets? You are now valued at 15% of NAV. It should be time to try to make the value visible.
Yes. I fully agree. I mean, this is the first quarter for Neobo as an independent company. I think that we really need some time to deliver a stable result and to show the market progress in figures and result. I try to really focus on the things that I can affect, working with the core business and trying to increase the return from the property portfolio. That's my focus for now. Of course, we will try to have a transparent financial reporting as possible to be able to show the market the potential in the company.
Yeah, we will see if the transaction market will open up, so it becomes possible for us to also make a statement there.
Thank you. Could you comment on the ICR going forward and potential covenant breaches?
Yes. I mean, we have a financial goal that the ICR shall be about 1.5 times. If we look at the ICR rolling 12, we are now on the 1.9%. We have a good headroom for our covenants in the loan agreements. We think that it will be possible for us to increase surplus ratio and ICR going forward.
The cash flow for the quarter was negative. How is it looking forward regarding the cash flow?
It looks good going forward. The first quarter was a weak quarter when it comes to cash flow, with high costs and also the settlement from the separation from SBB that I mentioned earlier that will be finalized in the third quarter this year. It looks good going forward.
Thank you, Ylva. We have no further question from the web. Before we end this, do we have a question from the telephone conference?
No question from the telephone conference. Now we would like to thank you very much for listening in. Have a nice day. Thank you. Bye-bye.