Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Investis Investor Conference Call. I am George, the call's co-operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Mr. Stéphane Bonvin, CEO of the Investis Group. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, and welcome to this Investor Call. As you have heard this morning, Investis signed an agreement to sell its entire real estate service business to PHM Group. This is a Finnish group with an enterprise value of CHF 240 million, and we expect to close by the end of the month this transaction. Of course, we sold all the entire real estate segment, so with all subsidiaries. And with this sale, we're also going to acquire a minority stake in PHM Group of CHF 50 million, and I will be also proposed to be elected in the board of directors from PHM. So after this sale, our strategy is to focus on our property portfolio. We already purchased during these five first months CHF 201 million properties with a rental income of CHF 12.5 million.
Thanks to this sale and the repositioning of the cash of the proceeds, of course, our equity is increasing significantly, and the LTV will be under 26% that we had at the end of 2023. That's what we did this morning. We are now ready for your question. I have with me René Häsler, our CFO. So please.
Operator, we would start the Q&A session.
We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use only headsets while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. Our first question comes from the line of Matteo Lindner with Bank Vontobel. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, everyone. Matteo Lindner from Vontobel. Thank you for taking my question. My question is regarding the long-term loan-to-value goal. What kind of range can we accept going forward? Thank you very much.
As you saw, we tried to protect the LTV in considering the two transactions, the sale on the one hand and the purchase that we had, the properties that we signed as of today. They are closed because of the normal selling conditions that we have in the Lake Geneva region. But if everything goes through as planned, then on day two, we will have an LTV on the level just below last year's end, 26%. And then I leave it up to you to do the mathematics. If we then use these proceeds to further purchase some buildings, then the LTV will probably increase by whatever we pay for the buildings. But we will always remain below the 40% that we gave as a strategic goal.
Okay. Still the 40%. Okay. Fine. Perfect. Yeah, that was my question. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Matteo.
Our next question comes from Federico Repini with AWP. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hello. Thank you for taking my question. My first question is regarding the employees. What's the headcount for this real estate services segment, and what are PHM's intentions regarding the employees? And the second question is regarding the value. You mentioned in your press release the CHF 240 million value for the real estate segment. How much money has Investis invested to build the portfolio over the years? Thank you.
Thank you for the question. So if you look in our annual report, we reported that we have over 2,000 employees, headcount. And this is predominantly what we sell. So the remaining couple of, let's say, 15, 20 people that will remain within the Investis Group, they will stay, of course. And all the rest is taken over by the PHM Group. And I think they are not.
Sorry, how many will stay in Investis?
Let's say 20. 20.
Oh, thank you.
And since PHM is not present in Switzerland so far, I mean, they have all the interest to continue with the platform that we created in Switzerland. So there is no intention to have any reorganization or whatever. But that, of course, is not in our hands. But what we came with feedback from the buyer that they are very happy with what they saw in the business. The second question is about the purchase price. I mean, over the years, as you could see, we invested about CHF 90 million in goodwill with these businesses. If you add a couple of exits that are there, more or less, I would say, at half of the price that we sell, we have purchased these companies.
I'm sorry. I'm having a hard time hearing you. Can you please repeat?
In the other way around, double of the purchase price, we have sold the business.
Okay.
Round numbers.
Our next question comes from Rolf Kunz with Maerki Baumann. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everybody.
Good morning.
I've got two questions. Could you give an indication on how much? And no, sorry. Could you please share a bit more light on the properties you bought? The gross yield looks quite high. So the question is, are there also many commercial properties you bought? And then obviously on locations and ESG status and so on. So could you share there, please, a bit more light? And on the shareholding, the CHF 50 million shareholding, what percentage of the PHM Group does this represent? And what is their medium and long-term plan with this holding? And is there also a lock-up period? These would be my questions. Thank you.
So maybe I'm going to answer on the first properties we bought. So this has been five transactions. In these five transactions, so we have two office transactions and three residential transactions. And as you can calculate, so the yield we bought, the average, is over 6%. Regarding the quality, so the two office buildings that we bought, ESG, so in Geneva, we call to see the quality of the property, we have the IDC, so [Foreign language] . And they are very, very low compared to our portfolio. So they are under 100. This means that is very this is 25% of the average of our portfolio. So it's very low. And the rest are three residential properties, almost what we have already in our portfolio. So the same consistency of what we have actually on the portfolio.
Now, regarding these CHF 50 million that we invest, René will give you all the details.
Yes. So as you saw, we invest CHF 50 million into the whole group, so not in the Swiss business. We are really then a shareholder of the group as our shareholders that invest into Investis. And the CHF 50 million then represents the minority stake of just below 4%.
Okay. Thank you very much. That's clear.
As you saw, PHM Group is controlled by a private equity investor.
So maybe to continue the last question, if there is a lock-up, so the goal is really to continue to help them to grow the business in Switzerland. And also, as you know, we developed really we became the leader in Switzerland regarding all the aspects of analysis. And for example, this business has huge potential abroad. And this, of course, is going to help to be part of PHM Group, going to help to grow this segment. Also, we had several clients, for example, of Privera, who asked us if we could manage property for them abroad. So I think there is a very many synergy points. And as I said, I'm going to be part of the board of directors. And really, the goal there is to help them to grow this business.
I'm happy to stay on board because I think we did a great job in Switzerland to build this platform. And I'm sure that we're going to create a lot of value, and especially with a private equity firm as a partner. And the goal is really to grow, not only internal growth, but also through acquisition, also in Switzerland. And so I'm happy to stay on board. And I'm sure that we're going to add a lot of value with this participation from Investis.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Welcome.
Our next question comes from the line of Philipp Z üger with ZKB. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Philipp Z üger from ZKB. I'd like to have two questions. First one goes to the do you have any agreements with PHM regarding service contracts?
So we have today a service contract with Privera as our property manager and with Hauswartprofis as our concierge. And these contracts that were entered in well in the past, they simply continue to run. This is a jungle. I mean, we are still happy customers of these businesses. And we are looking forward to receive the excellent service that they provided to us, as well as they do for all of the customers that they service.
But you're not blocked. That means you would be able to change that in the future?
We are very inclined to change, but yes, we could change whenever we would like to.
Okay. Good. Regarding the portfolio you're going to buy, the commercial ones, not the one you highlighted, the other one, is that like do that transform to residential or will it be commercial in the future?
No, we bought one end of last year, which is rented for seven more years to Bank Lombard Odier for the seven years back. This we have the idea to change it as apartments. And the property, I think one property would be not possible because it's very, very well located. It's on the Versoix, on the train station. It's fully let. It's almost very new. And there is a place where now you've seen the success in Geneva of Pont-Rouge. Everyone wants to be close to the train station. And this in Versoix is really on the train station, so it's perfectly located. And the second one there, it could be one of the two properties because it's quite big, could be changed in apartments. But actually, all the offices are also rented.
The former owner invested CHF 25 million the last three years to refurbish completely the property. So for now, we don't have the plan, but we bought it at a very good yield. Let's see in the future because we have the capability to transform it in apartments. We have the team. We have the know-how. But actually, we are happy how it works.
Okay. Regarding that acquisition, what would be the earliest date you're going to collect the rental income?
We assume that probably not in the half-year report, you will see this. We assume that in July, we can close all these deals if the government is not calling for the option rights. Mainly, I think the main question we had is with this Lex Koller because in Geneva, it takes when you get one, it's valid for two years. Then you have to ask for a new one. This time, it took seven months to get it. Now we get it only one week ago. There's a delay of 30 days. I think start of July, we're going to execute all these properties.
Okay. Good. Thank you.
Welcome.
Our next question comes from Ulrich Kaluscha with M&W Investment. Please go ahead.
Good morning to all of you. I have a quick question about using the proceeds from the transaction. So my understanding of the question is you want to recycle all the money in terms of buying new properties. There's no special dividend thoughts or things like that. So your intention is fully to recycle the proceeds. Is that right?
Yes, of course. So it's very easy to understand. I am an entrepreneur, and I want to create value. So the goal is really to reinvest. And I want to replace as fast as possible the existing results in the services into properties. That's the goal.
Okay. Thank you very much.
All the proceeds will be reinvested.
Okay. Thanks.
Thank you.
As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, you may press star and one. Our next question comes from Ken Kagerer with Zürcher Kantonalbank. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, everyone. I've got three questions. The first one will be for Stéphane Bonvin. I would like to know the reasons why the PHM acquisition was done via Investis and not as a personal investment.
It's always the same question. If in three years, I'm going to sell the PHM participation for CHF 150 million, and maybe through a big maybe IPO, or I don't know because they are private equity guys, so then everyone would come to me and say, "Hey, you took this participation because you knew that." I think I have to be linked to my investors. As you know, I think we did a very good job on the service segment. A lot of you didn't believe that we could reach these excellent margins. Now, I think I can really help PHM to improve and to continue to develop this group. I'm happy to be invested in. I think that if we're going to do together with PHM a good job, that all the shareholders of Investis have to participate to this investment.
Thank you. The second question regards the ongoing business. I understood that you will have continuously 20 employees. When I look at the segment reporting, you had eight employees in the property segment and 12 in corporate consolidation at year-end 2023. Could you just tell us how the corporate expense is going to impact the property business? At year-end 2023, it was CHF 5.5 million. CHF 4.2 million were personnel expenses. CHF 1.2 million were other expenses. Will these all go into the properties, or do you foresee a reduction of those costs due to the limited complexity of the business going forward?
Thank you very much, Ken. So no, we don't envisage any change. I mean, we are very lean today. And if you have a lean structure, you cannot cut one leg off and have three-quarters of a body. So no, there is nothing planned in that direction.
Okay. Thank you. The last question is regarding the sale. When I look again into the segment reporting, I see CHF 71 million of assets in real estate services and CHF 71 million of assets and CHF 17 million of liabilities. What exactly did you sell? Were there also some assets in the corporate and consolidation segment involved? What is going out net in terms of asset, and what is going to be replaced by those proceeds from the transaction?
So I see you have done the exercise. Looked at our segment reporting, yes, there was some CHF 50 million of assets in that business. And the businesses had two properties where the facility of the head office of Rohr and Hauswartprofis. This is building in Hausen and Mägenwil. And these two properties, we purchased and we rented back to the companies since PHM Group does not want to invest into properties but into service business. And since we are a property investor, it was a match. So we will have in the future not only Lake Geneva region, but also two buildings in the Swiss-German part, i.e., they are commercial, not residential. So we are not expanding our residential footprint into Swiss-German. But this is good. And that, of course, will reduce the net assets that you have.
And if you look at the book value of these two properties, they are CHF 10-20 million somewhere there. And so that you can take out, and then you are left behind with some CHF 30-35 million of net assets. And that is what is going out of the Investis Group.
Excellent. Thank you very much.
Welcome.
Ladies and gentlemen, this was our last question. Back over to the management for any closing remarks.
Okay. So thank you for your attention. And if you need more information, of course, you can call Investis Holding Laurence Bienz, and we can give all the necessary answers. So thanks again for your attention and your interest in our company. And I wish you a good day. Thank you very much.