Ladies and gentlemen, a warm welcome to the AEVIS VICTORIA SA publication of the 2024 annual results. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode. The floor will be open for questions following the presentation within the telephone conference, please dial in if you have a question for the speakers. Let me now turn the floor over to your host, Antoine Hubert.
Thank you. Hello, everybody. Welcome to this webcast. Today we are three speakers, Mr. Fabrice Zumbrunnen, CEO of AEVIS VICTORIA, Mr. Michel Keusch, the CFO and CIO of AEVIS VICTORIA, and myself, Antoine Hubert, delegate of the board of AEVIS VICTORIA. As you know, I'm going to give you an overview. That was my last year as a delegate of the board of AEVIS VICTORIA. Fabrice Zumbrunnen is CEO of AEVIS VICTORIA since May 2024. Is already into the two main segment, as a board member since May 2023. Already one half year that we are working together. AEVIS VICTORIA is an investment company focused on service to people with investment in healthcare, hospitality and lifestyle, and infrastructure related to both segments. Healthcare, as you know, we have Swiss Medical Network, we have Réseau de l'Arc, we have Viva, which is the joint venture with Visana for the insurance product.
Nestlé Health Science Innovation Hub, two minority investment into AD Swiss, which is Bellecura, and Well, which is a second digital initiative in healthcare. Hospitality and lifestyle, we have 11 hotels, 10 in Switzerland and one in London, U.K. We have 27 shareholding into BAT Group. Batmaid the Swiss leader in housekeeping providing. Infrastructure, Swiss Hotel Properties, our real estate company for hotel, and Infracore, minority participation, 30% into the leading infrastructure company for healthcare, together with Medical Properties Trust, who own 70% in Infracore. Just remember that we are in joint control because we have 50% of the voting rights as MPT has. The most important highlights of this past year, 2024, and the first quarter, strong performance, deleveraging, successful investment activity has lead to significant value creation. At the AEVIS VICTORIA level, we have opened the Genolier Innovation Hub after a three-year construction.
We have also acquired the Spital Zofingen, we have sold our 40% into TCS Swiss Ambulance Rescue, which is now the leading company for ground rescue in Switzerland. At Swiss Medical Network level, we had a strong business activity in both hospital and health medical center. We confirmed the valuation of Swiss Medical Network with the deal, the acquisition of Spital Zofingen from the Kantonsspital Aarau. We have now Kantonsspital Aarau as a shareholder in Swiss Medical Network with 3.7%, but also as an important medical partner. Kantonsspital Aarau is the sixth hospital in Switzerland. It's almost same level as the university hospital. There are very strong synergy that can be deployed between our two companies. We have also, in the first quarter, reduced debt of Swiss Medical Network. The debt has been reduced CHF 50 million net.
We also have a strong growth in integrated care that will be explained more in-depth by Fabrice Zumbrunnen later. The MRH Switzerland, so our operating company for hospitality in Switzerland, a very strong business activity with more than 10% growth. Another record year in 2024, and the two first months of 2025 are confirming the trend and the growth of this activity. Swiss Hotel Properties, the portfolio is very strong. The last acquisition for Swiss Hotel Properties was in Q4 2023. That was a set of apartment building and retail space in Zermatt, an additional package that we bought from Credit Suisse Hospitality. At Swiss Hotel Properties, we have started to sell some non-core assets, so various real estate assets in Zermatt, apartments that we have started to sell, and also land for development in Crans-Montana and Gstaad. At Infracore level, very strong portfolio. Market value is quite stable.
We have deleveraged Infracore of CHF 80 million net by repaying completely CHF 100 million bond, and we have a slight increase in our mortgage, so the net deleveraging is CHF 80 million. The portfolio also has grown in the first quarter 2025 with the addition of the real estate of Zofingen. The main operational building of Zofingen has been integrated to the Infracore portfolio. As you know, we are an investment company, and we had strong deal activity since 2018 at Infracore level, with first share capital opening in 2018 with Baloise, then in 2019, with the sale of an additional stake to Baloise and a stake to MPT. Infracore has a milestone in Q2 2024 with the completion of the Genolier Innovation Hub, and in Q1 2025, as I said, acquisition of the real estate in Zofingen. At the hospitality business.
Hospitality is fully consolidated with operation in MRH Switzerland, but also with the real estate in Swiss Hotel Properties. As said, in 2019, we had the acquisition of Seiler Hotels, the operating company. In 2020, we acquired the real estate of these hotels in Zermatt. We also acquired the Schweizerhof in Zermatt. 2022, acquisition of L'oscar in London and Adula in Flims. The additional package from Credit Suisse Hospitality in Zermatt, Q4 2023. We started in Q1 2025, the sale of these apartments in Zermatt. We have 20 apartments and studios for sale in Zermatt, in the center of the village. Swiss Medical Network, the first investment in Hôpital Jean Bernard was in 2020, 35%. We increased then our stake, and we started a joint venture with Visana Versicherungen and Canton Bern in 2022. Visana also acquired a stake of 11.1% in Swiss Medical Network in 2023.
We were able to launch Viva, the new insurance product, 1st January 2024 in the region of the Jura Arc, so on the Canton Neuchâtel, Jura, and Bern. Q3 2024, we acquired the Centro Medico. The deal was signed at Q3 and closed early Q1 2025. This acquisition of Centro Medico, 10 medical centers in Ticino, has made possible the launch of a second integrated care region in Ticino. In December 2024, we acquired also Spital Zofingen from Kantonsspital Aarau, and they became a shareholder with 3.7%. We launched the Viva product in Ticino 1st January 2025, and also, as said, during Q1, we sold real estate in Zofingen to Infracore and to third parties. BAT Group, we acquired a minority share in 2021, then we increased our share in 2022 and 2023. BAT Group is now profitable since Q4 2023.
It has been profitable during all year 2024. It's pursuing its growth in 2025. Just to remember, we did a similar investment in Medgate back in 2015, that we did exit in early 2022, with a very good return on investment. I'm going to hand over to Michel Keusch, our CFO CIO for the full year 2024 performance of AEVIS VICTORIA. Thank you very much. Michel?
Yes. Good morning. I will make a review of the 2024 period for the year for the group, starting with the statutory accounts, which is obviously the best way to understand the value of our group, which is, as Antoine was saying, a pure investment company making deals every year, buying, selling companies. The best way to capture the value of the group is to look at the statutory accounts. Then obviously, I will give you the full visibility on the different participations within the group going for healthcare, hospitality, and so on. Starting with the statutory numbers, we see a net profit of CHF 26.5 million, which is a great figure comparing to a loss of CHF 8.8 million last year. This year, obviously, it reflects the good investment activity and basically the deals in Switzerland and also the divestment of the TCS business, ambulatory business.
Looking at the balance sheet, the statutory balance sheet, the two key points is first the level of the participation in terms of book value. We see CHF 656 million. If we compare this to the market value of those participations, which is more than CHF 2 billion, it shows clearly the significant amount of hidden reserves and also the strong value creation capabilities of the group. The second point, which is a highlight for us as well during this year, is the strengthening of the capital base with the equity ratio being now 70%, very strong at 70%, and also low leverage ratio, now less than 15%. Diving into the different segments, starting with the healthcare segment, which is obviously the biggest within the group.
We see here the best way to look at the bottom of this chart, where you see the organic performance to have it on a really clean basis. We see a good organic growth, 4.4%, for the healthcare segment and resilient margins. We see a EBITDA margin moving up 10 basis points to 16.6%, and EBDA margins moving up 30 basis points to 5.7%. It's a sound performance, but obviously it doesn't show the whole picture. What we do for the first time this year, we try to give more visibility and granularity to the investors of what is within this healthcare segment. As you can see on this slide, 90% of the segment is related to hospitals and about 8% is related to ambulatory services. You clearly see on this picture that the margin profile of those activities is totally different.
Here we clearly see a strong improvement of EBITDA margins for the hospitals. We see that moving up from 18.2% EBITDA margin to 19.4%. This is reflecting obviously operating leverage. It's reflecting our cost reduction programs, slowly the reduction in energy costs and so on. It's a good performance. For us, it's satisfactory. At the same time, you see on the bottom of the chart the dilution from ambulatory, which is costing us CHF 3 million of EBITDA and about CHF 10 million in EBITDA for the year. Obviously it could be tempting and some do that to divest the loss-making activities. We do the opposite. We do this investment because it's an investment in the future. We need it for two things. First, the expansion of our integrated care concept across Switzerland where we need those ambulatory services.
Also second, we know that the industry is going in this direction with the uniform financing, the recent votation on the EFAS. We need to be prepared, and we will be agile and make those activities profitable. Turning to the hospitality segment. It's very pleasant performance with organic growth of 10.1% during the year. It's obviously more than the industry in Switzerland. The reason for that is a strong increase in the revenue per room of about 8.5%. This is resulting both from an increase in occupancy rate. We are now at 54% for the group, but also a further increase of the average room rates. We are now reaching CHF 580. This is related to the repositioning of our hotels, which is helping us to further increase the average room rates. Obviously, as you see on the right side of the chart, the profitability.
It's a fixed cost business, so when you can grow your top line by 10%, the rest is following. On the real estate segments, here you see SHP. This is purely related, obviously, to the performance of the hotel business. You see in the middle the EBITDA moving up by 26%. This is strong because it's not only the performance from the hotels, but also the increase of the scope. Basically, it reflects the acquisitions we made, which have now a full year impact in 2024 on real estate, mainly in Zermatt. Then you see on the left side the increase of the market value of the portfolio and what is very pleasant to see as well, a decrease in the LTV ratio on the right side now about 46.5%. For Infracore, which is a 30% stake for the group, it's a similar story.
We see a good increase of EBITDA. The market value at the end of 2024 was CHF 1.3 billion. Since the beginning of the year, we are even above CHF 1.4 billion, because the recent acquisition in Zofingen was at the end of the year, still in Swiss Medical Network, but now moved partly to Infracore, so this is further increasing the size of the portfolio. Here again, on the right side, you see a decrease of the LTV ratio to 43%. Last segment, the others segment. This is a small segment where we have all our different ventures, all the gems of tomorrow. It includes the Innovation Hub, but also Nescens. I will not go too much in detail here because Fabrice will talk about it more in detail later in the presentation.
You see here, more than, let's say, almost CHF 11 million dilution on the EBITDA level. We will come to that later in the slides from Fabrice. If we sum up the whole thing in terms of the value of those participations on the next slide. Sorry. Here you see it. Here you see all the different parts. We try to make it visible for you. Swiss Medical Network, CHF 1.5 billion. MRH Switzerland, CHF 0.4 billion. Swiss Hotel Properties, CHF 0.4 billion. Infracore, CHF 0.2 billion. We deduct the capitalized overheads at the holding level and also the net debt at the holding level, which give us the total value of CHF 2 billion. If we compare this to our market cap, which is about CHF 1 billion as of today's prices, it shows a discount of about 50% to this sum of the part valuation.
A second way to look at it, and we like to look at this also this way as a cross-check, is to look at the value of our real estates on a per square meter basis, because this tells something to everybody. You see here that on the hotel side, our portfolio is valued at about CHF 6,800 per square meter. This compares really favorably versus the benchmarks in Switzerland for similar hotels, which is more about CHF 8,000-CHF 9,000. On the Infracore side, we see a value per square meter of CHF 6,200, which also compares very favorably towards the average of CHF 10,000 for the healthcare real estate. I will pass the word to Fabrice, our CEO, who will talk more about 2025 and to give you an outlook per segment.
Yes, good morning, everyone. We had a very good start in 2025 with a growth of 25% in the first two months. This was driven by acquisitions, via acquisitions of hospitals, Zofingen and Centro Medico, and by organic growth of 4%. We are expecting very strong revenue for this year. We are really working on the integration of both acquisitions and in the preparation of a third integrated care region. Speaking of integrated care region, we are in the second year of Réseau de l'Arc with a real success. We could more than double the number of our members, raising certainly the strong performance, the customer satisfaction, and the fact that we could keep our premiums unchanged in 2025. We are very optimistic about this promising model.
As I have already told you, we are the first region in the Réseau de l'Arc in Jura, in the region of Bern, Jura, and Neuchâtel. The second one is reality now in Canton Ticino, and we are really looking forward to our third region in Zofingen for 2026. Something very important to mention is the fact we are continually improving our margins, and we are saving programs we have already presented last year, and we are really good on track in 2024. We could reach more than half of the CHF 20 million. That is our goal. Something will help us from this year is the slight reduction of energy prices. As you probably remember, we decided at the beginning of the war in Ukraine to fix our energy costs. Next slide, please. This is a very interesting snapshot of the maturity phase of our hospitals.
In red, you see our turnaround cases. In yellow or orange, our ramp-up hospitals, and in green, our stable growth hospitals. Red means an EBITDA under 10%. Orange is an EBITDA between 10% and 20%, and green is more than 20%. Obviously we are really working hard to position our hospital better to have the right measures, optimizations, et cetera. I want to give you two examples how we can manage it. The first example is Villa im Park and Zofingen. We will have a joint management of both hospitals. Obviously there are very important synergies and we are very optimistic that next year you will see a real improvement of the profitability for these two hospitals. Another example is Bethanien, already in the green field here.
In fact, it reflects the already positive effects of the transfer of our activities of Klinik Pyramide in Bethanien. We think that we will reach very strong figures this year. Hospitality and lifestyle segment, obviously after a very good 2024, we are still on a very good track after more than 10% growth. We had a 4% growth in the beginning of this year, with a very strong winter season in Zermatt and also a very strong performance here in Zurich that we want to mention. As you know, it's something very important for me, the continuous optimization of our concept. There is always room for improvement, something that we could prove in the last years. I take the example of food and beverage. We are really working on to even strengthen our positioning and our performance in this scene.
A very solid performance of MRH Switzerland. On the other side, we are very happy to mention that with Batgroup, we could successfully integrate Putzfrau, and we reached a record turnover of CHF 48 million. Maybe even more important, we could reach positive EBITDA during the whole year. As Antoine already mentioned, the first turning point was Q4, the last quarter of 2023. We are really observing a very strong and optimized performance. We are the leading home cleaning company in Switzerland. We are very positive for the future of this company. Next slide. Segment others, we have the Genolier Innovation Hub with our grand opening last year in September 2024, with very strong strategic partners like General Electric, Accuray, for example. It was only the starting point.
We are now preparing the next evolutions with very promising contacts. We'll, in the next months, have new partners, new ideas. We will organize very important hub conferences already this year. The interest is very important for many companies and for startups, for innovators. The launch of this Genolier Innovation had a very strong impact on the attractivity of the whole campus in Genolier. Obviously we could attract our new doctors, talents. We will also invest in research. It's a very strong step that we could make with the Genolier Innovation Hub. Important for us to mention that we are only at the beginning of a very long journey. Our goal is reaching a cruising speed, a full capacity in 2029. We are very good on track. Nescens. 2024 was a pivotal year for Nescens.
We have decided to focus on a new operation structure with new management. We decided to discontinue unprofitable activities to entrust the medical services to the clinic of Genolier, because our main focus is really preventive and regenerative medicine. We have a unique profile in this very promising business. As you know, with François Pralong, one of the pioneer in the longevity field in Switzerland, we have very long track record. We want to focus on what we are doing very well, that is to say, our exclusive and personalized programs. Something very important, we invested in our development capabilities and in new projects. You will see more of Nescens in our hotels, for example, and we will have the best of our revitalization cures in our hotels.
We will start with La Réserve Genève and this plan to step by step mode to have, as I said, more Nescens, more program of Nescens in all our hotels. Speaking of Nescens Cosmeceuticals, as I said, we have invested in new capabilities. This is to say that we will be able, in the second half of this year, to launch new products and to, if you have verified the whole product line, that with the clear goal to position it in a top premium segment. This week, for example, we presented our new concept in the Globus Geneva, and we are very optimistic that this new positioning will bring us very strong results for the coming years. I've already reached my conclusion. Something absolutely unchanged is our strategy. We are still focusing on deleveraging and further unlocking value potentials in all segments.
That's very important for us. All segments have potential. We continue to invest in services to people. Real added value is something that really motivates us to have new ideas, to bring new concept on the market, and something also that we could do last year with the strategic alliance with Kantonsspital Aarau, KSA. We want to attract new strategic partners, and this for our path to integrated care. The collaboration with KSA is very important for us because we will have, even in a very specialist and high-level medicine, the possibility to have a full integrated care vision. We are very excited about this partnership and very happy to have them on board. We are looking for new strategic partner for the next years after Visana, KSA this year. The financial outlook in hospital.
I think that the improving results that we have seen in 2024 are really very promising, we are working hard to reach new heights this year. We think that the measures that we have taken should bring us very good results. As mentioned, for example, our cost-cutting, our efficiency programs, and we are, as I've said before, on track. Hospitality, after a strong winter season, we have a very good start that's optimistic about the full-year results, even if it's very complicated now with many uncertainties what will be the real figures this year. The reservations are very promising, and we think that we are very well-positioned in this highly competitive business. Infrastructure, as we have developed positive performance last year with both acquisitions, and this will be reflected in the year-end valuation.
We are still working and considering that there is a very strong potential in infrastructure. Something that Antoine already mentioned, the disposal of non-core and non-EBITDA-generating assets should contribute to increased revenues and deleveraging. I think that the example that Antoine mentioned, Zermatt, our apartments in Zermatt or land in Crans-Montana, already give you an example of what we are doing in this field. Like every year, we don't want to mention targets, margin targets or revenue targets, because of the diversity of our investments. I hope that you, with all the examples that I've mentioned, that you have understood that we are on a very good track. I would like to conclude with this slide. Something very important for us, the strong track record of value creation. This is our motivation.
We had a very impressive journey in the last year, the recent acquisitions showed us that there is a very strong potential. A strong not only growth potential for the group,
We could make our vision a bit more tangible. I speak of integrated care on one side, on the level of quality that we have reached with our hotels and, of course, our infrastructure are supporting the whole strategy. I think that we are at the end of our presentation. I'm very happy to answer your questions.
Thank you very much. Dear ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to state your question, please press nine and then the star key on your telephone keypad now to enter the queue. I repeat, the combination is nine star. Please press nine star now to state your question. Please keep in mind that asking questions is only possible within the conference call. If you haven't done so yet, please dial in. To cancel your question again, the combination is three and then the star key. One moment please for the first question. I repeat, the combination is nine star. There seem to be no questions incoming. Last call, please press nine star now on your telephone keypad. Ah, the first question, is from Kevin Shutt. One moment, please. Kevin Shutt of Beller Capital International AG. Over to you, Kevin. Please go ahead. Please go ahead, Kevin.
We can hear you.
Thank you for taking my question. There's one question from my side. Why was the stock price under pressure even though numbers were solid?
Yes, hello. Thank you for your question. Actually, it's a good question. We were asking ourselves the same thing 10 days ago when we basically pre-announced the figures. We got a lot of good compliments from peers and bankers and so on. Suddenly we saw the price losing almost 15% in a week, or let's say in 10 days. We had no clue about what was happening, obviously completely uncorrelated with our fundamentals. We discovered later on that the SIX made some changes in their indices. Usually, they do that always at the end of September. Here in the middle of March, they decided to change the methodology for the ESG indices. Basically the SPI ESG index. For some reason, we were excluded from this index. We don't know why, actually.
They haven't communicated the criteria. We were excluded from that index. As a result, obviously, all the index funds had to sell their shares. This is why you had almost 200,000 shares being traded within 8 days, which obviously for our company is a huge volume. This made the stock tumble by 15% in a week. It's purely technical, purely related to this rebalancing of indices, and obviously not at all related to our fundamentals.
Your question has been answered, I believe. All right. Thank you very much. As there are no more questions in the queue for now, final call, please press nine star now to state your question. There seem to be no more questions incoming. I hand back over to the host.
Thank you very much. Please note that we are always available for further question if you want, or for one-to-one meeting. Please feel free to contact me, Michel or Fabrice, through our investor relation desk. We will be happy to answer any question. Thank you for attending this conference today. Wish you a pleasant day under the sun. I wish you a good 20, 25 years. It was my last year as delegate of the board. Thank you for the trust also for the past year. I hope I will be elected as the chairman at the next general meeting. I will pursue with this renewed and strong team, the development and the growth of AEVIS VICTORIA in the future. Have a good day. Thank you very much.