Hello and welcome to Peach Property Group's August 27th Conference Call and Webcast. There will be a question and answer session at the end of the presentation. Questions will be taken by phone only. I will now hand over to Gerald Klinck, CEO. Please go ahead.
Hi, and good morning, everybody. Unfortunately, my voice is a little bit weak today, so I have a little bit of a cold. Sounds a little bit like Barry White in his best days. I think we can do better, and hopefully I can give all good answers to your questions, which we can take after the presentation. For the agenda for today, we try to do it in the same format as the last ones that you feel hopefully comfortable to work through here the slides. We have some slides for people at a glance, which we also put in last time. Comments on operational and financial performance. A short update on ESG. You will find a lot of slides in the appendix and some words for our guidance. I start with the first topic here.
You see that the main KPIs of our portfolio as a company, I will put here light on three highlights which changed to last time. The first thing is the rent, the rent increase. If we compare that like-for-like, and that means we carved out the portfolio sale here, which we had last year. We come from 630 up to 658 at the balance sheet reporting date here. That is an increase of 4.4%, which is very good for us and which is focusing here on operational performance, especially in the next quarters here of the company. That is, I think, a good move. The other good KPIs here, the vacancy in the strategic portfolio dropped first time below 5%. We see here the first good news of the letting team and our new COO Steffi. That is also good that we are heading here totally in the right direction.
Last but not least, and that is, I think, the main topic also on the cover of the last quarters, the refinancing issues. We were able to repay almost $200 million here, a little bit less in the unsecured set part. All the other numbers, I think you can run through it afterwards, but I think these are the main takeaways. On the next page, also some KPIs on all of those buckets, the strategic and non-strategic compared to last time. That's here, not really a big change here. Coming to the first milestones of the last six months here, the first half of the year 2025, also very driven by our balance sheet issues. We were able to repay in January and March. In the First Quarter, roughly $180 million of our unsecured facilities. The promissory notes are history and also the maturing bonds in November.
It's also repaid in more than 30%. The next thing is also in June, we were able to find the signing here with one of the big major German funds lenders. That is also the tick of the box here. This was a very big success, I think, for the team and for Peach to win back here the trust of banks in Germany, which will be in future times very important partners for us in our balance sheets. Because as we all know, we want to go back to the secured financing facility here for the whole group to simplify our financing structure here. I think having said this, that's what the debt financing, the other topic for us this year to focus on operational improvement. That was also underlined with the announcement and the start of our COO Koch Steffi, who joined in March this year.
She's now a little bit more than three to four months here on the ground. What happened so far since the 30th of June? I think that is also important for you to have here the full picture of Peach in terms of balance sheet transformation. In July, we were able to successfully complete here the equity raise of a little bit more than €50 million, and the funds are blocked here for the repayment of the convertible bond. We have here the funds to repay that. That's also good. Second thing, and that was the big topic for us after the €120 million facility signing of the Castlelake facility of more than €400 million. That occurred in August. That gives us €100 million free liquidity. That means €310 million of secured facilities will mature in the next 36 months. We do that ahead of maturity.
That will have an impact. We do not have the attractive coupons for this for the next couple of months here for these things, but this will come due also in the next one to three years. Therefore, we have now the new coupon of Castlelake to do that. I come to that later on the FFO guidance that will have an impact on that, but I come to that later. I think the good thing is here with the remaining €100 million of free liquidity, we are able to fully repay the outstanding bond in November, and we will do that hopefully a little bit ahead of maturity. Our team is preparing ourselves here to repay that as quick as we can. In terms of in there, you see the little green hooks that is really done.
What we'll do in the next couple of days, maybe also weeks, but days means the €110 million facility will be drawn into two branches. The first branch will be drawn in the next days, maybe this week, maybe latest the beginning of next week. That is €100 million. We can repay €30 million of existing debt, and then we have the first €70 million of free cash, as I mentioned before, ready to repay the outstanding bonds ahead of maturity. The last €20 million is linked to some CPs given that we have here to fulfill our conditions here on the land register that is taking place afterwards. The Castlelake facility is fine. We are working at the moment at the CPs. You can imagine there's a lot of CPs, but maybe the main driver is here also the bank register.
We expect drawdown of that facility, which gives us also €100 million of free cash in September, October. Let's say four to six weeks. I would say with that, we were able to fulfill our, let's say, obligations to repay the unsecured facilities. Last but not least, and that is in September, the remaining €200 million of existing secured debt. The interest rates will mature end of September. We are in a good shape here with the bank, and we will expect all these things in terms of signing up on the banks at the beginning of September. I see here no red flags on that. That is also coming into within line with our expectations. A little bit more on detail on the financing later on. With that, I jump to the operational performance. As you see on page 10, that will be our EBITDA average.
Unfortunately, for compare us with the last reported date, we have this major impact of the sale. In here, a little bit of transparency, what impact of the portfolio sales in terms of rental income and other income of these things compared to the adjusted EBITDA last year, we show the red box here. The major changes in these lines where we have some additional information in the ones and runs slides. On page 11, you see our impact on our top line, the most important thing. I think overall, we can say the rental growth in terms of euros and not in terms of euro is in line with our expectation, 3%. I mentioned before the 4.4, that is euro per square meter if you compare those dates. This is here the whole timeframe of the six months. This is in line with our expectations.
You see the details in the chart above. I think that is good. Potential catch-up to market rents remain stable. You see these numbers roughly at the 736, which is the market rent compared to the 658, which is the existing rent. We have still upside here to catch up to market. I mentioned that before, vacancy is down. That is also good. We are heading into the right direction. Our main focus now is really to improve our performance in terms of our debt losses and our accelerated cost management. These things are not in line with our expectations, and they'll be put in the next couple of weeks together with the team and the CEO for pressure on it to increase that performance. The next page, number 12, shows you also some details for the upside for the market rents and what I mentioned before.
There is still some headroom left in both clusters and the strategic and non-strategic portfolios. We are in line with that. Next page on 13, I mentioned that a little bit more detailed on the vacancy. The less than 700 units, which are in terms of the vacant positions, that is a very good decrease. The main driver was our decision to sell the last big portfolio. We lost a lot of the vacancy there, a lot of costs which are linked to vacancy. That was, I think, the right decision to do. Also the first effect on operational performance given that the CEO is in place since March. You see here the first results also in that topic. Overall, 6.5% still too high, but mainly driven from the non-strategics. Also some information where does the vacancy come from? From the non-strategics, it is really our scattered portfolio.
That's the main driver. The reason for that is too far away from our peak points. That's the reason why we want to get rid of these assets. They are not bad assets, but they are very hard to manage it from, let's say, our peak points. Having said this, we jump to the next page. Development of expenses from letting. I think we have here two main line items. That is the maintenance expense. I expect a little bit lower number to be fair, but here are in effect in it roughly together with €500,000. Given that we have here some one-off charges which are linked to the 2024 period, you can say it's a one-off. Hopefully, it doesn't come back here. Not covered insurance damages also with that timing impact. I would say that's a one-off. It gives you roughly 5% of the overall repairs and maintenance.
That should be, let's say, not an impact for the second half of the year. These numbers should be lower in the second half. In terms of expenses from unoccupied investment properties, in terms of here the vacancy things, that is really something that I mentioned before. These two things, the lost income due to collection risk and our accelerated cost management, which is linked to the vacancy and also to income losses, that is our main topic where we want to put focus on. These numbers are not, let's say, good for us, and there we have to improve our performance. Other operating expenses, I think that we are heading here into the right direction. One main driver is the capital taxes. That is driven by our equity increase. That number is linked to the Swiss tax regime.
That is one driver where we have to compare here the taxes compared to the last period. That is almost a double of size here, but all the others, I think, are heading into the right direction. Personnel expense on page number 16. We look for the people, and we also improve here our teams, especially in these both, let's say, departments with accelerated cost management and also the income losses. This team is, let's say, increased by FTE. We invest in these teams that we have better terms in that positions in the next periods. Page 17 gives you an overall information of what I said before. I think that is a little bit of a service from us to see that on one slide. In terms of financial performance and with our investments, page 19 gives you a good feeling how we invest in our assets.
We spend roughly €20 million of CapEx in the first six months. 2/3 are linked to our tenant improvement with two categories. One is really to bring down the vacancy, which is still there for a long period of time. We invest in these assets in the strategic, especially. The other 1/3 is CapEx, which you would see, which is not linked to repairs and maintenance. We repair here some stuff, especially a roof, facades, and windows. Overall, we expect a range of a little bit less than €30 per square meter to invest overall in one year. If you analyze that number, we end up with more than €40 million of CapEx at the end of the year. That is in line with our expectation. That is, let's say, still a higher number compared to previous years.
I think that is also a little bit of a catch-up where in years like 2023 and also 2024, given we have our challenges on the refinancing, it's a little bit of a catch-up due to these years. In terms of sales on the next page, I think I mentioned that before my last call. We are in a good progress here to be successful with the first sales in the second half of the year for Peach Points are impacted. We are working here together with two external brokers, one for Minton, one for Dortmund. There's another Peach Point involved, which is more here in the North Rhine-Westphalia area in Gelsenkirchen-Herne. This is a portfolio which we think we can sell to one investor. I think that's the only part of these non-strategic portfolios where you can really create a portfolio deal out of it.
I think the team has a lot of experience, and we want to try to do that by our own. The aircraft is a little bit, let's say, driven by good financing stuff. There are attractive coupons on that. Not the biggest one. We have put it on the priority number two. We want also to increase a little bit of performance of these assets in that area due to higher vacancies so that you would see on the priority, which is a little bit behind the other three clusters. Having said this, the first signing is taking place in Aachen. It's more than €7 million deals. Another four, the other three, we are shortly to notarize here in the next days. Overall, this is not the highest number right now. You see the starting point of the sales program here has started after the end of June.
Valuation is, I think, the next topic on 2021. We changed the appraiser. As you know, our valuer before was Wüest Partner, who is very specialist in the Switzerland area. In Germany, it's not the number one. That is not the problem, but we try to find here someone who should confirm our valuation. We thought that is a good approach also to give you the feeling that our values are stable and correct. Let's say CBRE is a little bit more granular compared to the Wüest Partner valuation. You see that in our report. We have €60 million where we have some upside and another €60 million where we have some downside in valuation in these assets. The overall impact is slightly the same valuation like what we saw with the Wüest Partner, but I would say we have a little bit more granular approach here.
The graph shows you that in the strategic valuation, we are slightly above the values from Wüest Partner in the non-strategic, and that I think not a big surprise. CBRE is a little bit more conservative. I think that's the main takeaway. Overall, our values are confirmed by CBRE. On the next page, you see there are a little bit of more numbers for your analysis. I want to put here the highlight on the value per square meter. Over the last, I would say, two to three years, we are stabilized here on the 1,300+ per square meter. The yielding on the target range is in a ballpark of six. The multiple based on actual rent, and that's given by rent increase, the multiple is here decreasing, which gives us, I think, a fair valuation of our portfolio.
That structure, I jumped from this slide very shortly to the other one, but this is really here the actual numbers on the end of June numbers. There will be slightly here on the 2024 things, the secured one, which I mentioned before, the 200, and the remaining piece of the unsecured bonds, the 173. In 2026, the dark blue one is the convertible. I want to show you what is the impact afterwards with all the effects which I mentioned before, and that is on another slide. There you will see, wait a moment, please. Technical issue here. Page number 24. Wait, we have a technical issue here. I hope you see that page 24 on your desk. In the upper part, that is the situation here at the end of the year, 2024, where we start this year.
The lower part shows you what is the impact if we execute the signed documents with the German bank here, the € 120 million and the Castlelake facility. That shows you that everything is solved out in 2025 and 2026. There's only a small impact in 2027. You see the € 310 million , which will mature in 2026, 2027, and 2028 is now part of the 2028 maturities. That looks maybe a little bit weak because € 480 million is really a highlighted number. Let's put it that way. The € 410 million of the Castlelake portfolio is also impacted by non-strategics, which we want to get rid of in that timeframe. You can assume it's roughly € 60 million. That will drop then down to € 350 million.
We have two extension options, which we can use if necessary, so that we are able and we feel comfortable here also with the team to refinance the Castlelake things at maturity or maybe also a little bit ahead of that. We see here as a team that's not really an issue, given that we have also the possibility to split that portfolio into pieces and find maybe also other lenders or to extend it with Castlelake, which also would be great. What does it mean in terms of the weighted average cost of debt? We come at the moment from 2.90, given that we have here now the actual coupons. There's an increase by roughly 1%. We expect an overall cost of debt a little bit slightly below 4%. In terms of hedging, we are not cowboys here.
We will be hedging these provisions with swaps and also with caps so that we have here, let's say, a clear focus on planning of our costs in future times. Next page. This page is well known as the appendices for the last times. We put it in here because I think it is helpful for you. Maybe you saw that fit on also Moody’s, who are our rating agency for the corporate and the outstanding bonds. They put us now under a positive outlook. We feel comfortable when we execute the refinancing of the unsecured parts that we have here, hopefully an increase of our rating, which helps us in our reputation in the market. On page 26, overview of some financial KPIs, low that from before. Then we put in a 27, a kind of a pro forma because we know all that we have in July.
That was after, obviously, the reporting date, these equity increases. That has an impact on some KPIs. I think we put in here the most relevant ones. The NTA per share is dropping from 26 down to 78. There was a slight increase without this impact of equity for the first six months. After the equity raise, we dropped up to 1,780. There’s still a lot of discount to our actual share price. As you know, the long-term value will drop below 50. As you know, our midterm target is in the ballpark of 45. Hopefully, not the market will help us to reach that, but to increase our top line has hopefully also an impact on the valuation of our portfolio. With that, we should achieve that. The net debt component is also dropping by € 52 million. That’s a little bit of a technique.
The number of shares gives you here the right numbers for your analysis on your side. Share data, I think that is also the slide which we will every time you will see that in the appendix. I think one highlight is here to mention. As you know, we have more or less two-thirds in four hands. This proportion is not really changing, but there’s a change in our shareholder basis. One is left to company. It’s end of age. Horizon 21 increased the stake into our company. We are happy to have them with us. It gives us trust, and that’s good for us. Having said that, in terms of ESG, this is a totally different slide compared to the others. Last time, we presented you all our, let’s say, numbers which are still in the appendix with all these awards and so on.
Here is a little bit approach on the S of ESG. That is really affordable housing, what we can do here to the society. As you see on the left-hand side, there are two reports, which give us a little bit of an impact of what will be the overall average cost in these states where we are invested. One is the CBRE market report. The other one is another big one here. Our Peach Property actual rents, we put it also in the slide here. On the right-hand side, it's a little bit drilled out into the cities, especially in North Rhine-Westphalia. The overall takeaway is that we have still some upside to come to the average market, and we are still in the affordable sector.
That is, let's say, from our point of view, good because it's a little bit of catch-up to market in line with the ESG and to provide affordable housing for parts of the society. Coming to guidance, I think guidance are more or less in the same ballpark than mentioned before. You see our key milestones. The first ones are for repaying here our unsecured, I think, is textbox. The remaining pieces, operational performance and increase in platform efficiency, I mentioned that before, is ongoing. We also further execute what the status post, that's also ongoing. That will take us a little bit of time. This is not something which we can achieve in a half of a year. I would say this is an ongoing milestone process. In terms of our guidance, we stick to our like-for-like rental growth.
We feel comfortable to achieve that over the full year, 4%. The FFO, we decreased the FFO guidance. The reason for that, you can see on the next page. We stick to our guidance and operational performance and so on for our FFO guidance for 2025. I think there's a little bit of, let's say, ambitious things for the second half, but we think that we can achieve that. We have one impact which we haven't seen at the beginning of the year. That is the Castlelake impact. The decision is here made that we are going into the secured sector as quick as we can. With that, we have to repay maturing debt of €310 million. This is what I mentioned before.
If you do that for one quarter, impacts the gap between the Castlelake coupon and the secured ones which we have to repay has an impact of roughly €2 million. We decreased our guidance here to put this impact here into account. Having said this, thank you for your patience here. I'm happy to answer your question as good as I can, and the line will be open back to the Operator.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. If you do wish to ask an audio question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to withdraw your question, you may do so by pressing star two to cancel. Once again, please press star one to register for a question. One moment, please, for your first question. Once again, if you would like to ask an audio question, you may do so by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. We do have our first question coming from the line of Philip Kaiser with Warburg Research. Please go ahead.
Hello, everyone. Thanks for the presentation and congrats to the solid operating performance in the first half, especially with regards to the refinancing topic. I have one question around the refinancing, especially on the large-scale financing you've secured from Castlelake. Could you shed some more light on this financing due to the size, et cetera? It attracts some interest. Could you give us a bit?
Thank you for that sense. We had two opportunities here to fill the gap of the remaining €100 million of new cash, which we want to use here to repay the unsecured one. One thing is you can do that with an SP, then you have, I would guess, in that market circumstances, a double-digit number to pay in the coupon. That is the one thing. You are still then with an unsecured facility in the market. The security package for such kind of mezz pieces, let's say, is very hard and not attractive for a company like us. Then we have to draw pledges on the whole company. You have to pay for a small fortune stock and so on. We decided to go another way and go for a home loan.
If you do that, then you have to look, let's say, in your portfolio where you can deliver a subportfolio where such kind of a lender is the only lender in terms of these assets. We organized that with that subportfolio, but that means we also have to repay existing lenders. Unfortunately, I have to lose them as a good partner in previous years, but hopefully, there will be also some other opportunities in future times for these lenders. That's the reason why you have to repay them. Otherwise, you have a mixture in lenders and a subportfolio, which is not common for such kind of lenders. I think that was the main reason. We have, let's say, a security package, which is more linked to a classic secured portfolio that you can provide to your lend registers, other lend charters, mortgages, which are also more common.
The overall component, if you put everything into account, the loss of your benefits of the good coupons for a couple of one or two years for the secured ones. After then, you have obviously also to refinance that with the market coupons. This is what you're losing. You gain also a smaller coupon, which is more the mid of, let's say, single-digit numbers. If you put everything into account, we feel better with that solution instead of having the others for the next one to three years and have an unsecured with a highly coupon. The overall component for us is more attractive to do that with such kind of a structure of lending, which we see here with Castlelake. That was the reason behind it.
Okay. Thanks a lot for this detailed information. To sum it up, there shouldn't be any material impact on your funds from operations for the next years due to the, yeah, that single-digit.
I think you point out here really a good question because we have the problem of your situation that we get rid of almost 20% of our assets, given that the non-strategics we will lose over the next, I would guess, one to two years. We will lose top line. On the other hand, we want to invest the surplus cash into CapEx in the strategic portfolio. With that, we have, let's say, on the top line growth in the strategic ones. That will be a timing impact. If I'm being very successful in the non-strategics, I lose the top line quicker than to catch up with operational performance of my strategic portfolios.
That has definitely an impact on our FFO for the next, I would say, two to three years, which has been really hard to predict what will be the right number because that is really driven by the speed of getting rid of our non-strategics. I think that will be the challenge also from our side to you guys to give the good guidance and transparency. How does the strategic portfolio perform? There you can measure the operational performance of the group and the platform in terms of rent increase, vacancy reduction, and has a good, let's say, efficiency in our cost infrastructure. This is something which I think is our challenge in the next meeting with you to show, give you more highlights on the performance of our strategic portfolio and the non-strategics. The non-strategics then are not driven by operational performance.
It's more than what will be the sales price and what is the speed. This is what we have to find out together with you. I think FFO is harder to predict here. I think the more important number will be here our NTA. Because also our NTA will show you, especially the impact on our non-sales portfolio in the NTA number. I think for us, it's also these both numbers. Definitely, FFO is important. I think the NTA component, from my point of view, is the most relevant here, especially for the next, I would say, one to two years.
Yeah, okay. Totally understood. Makes sense. I mean, the main challenge was solving the refinancing problem. We're going to make it successful. Yeah, we will see how the FFO continues. I appreciate the details and the information. It was all from my side.
Thanks, Philip.
If you would like to ask a question, simply press star one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from the line of Hans Rudolf [guess] with Orient Pursuis [guess]. Please go a head.
Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. Could you please tell us what your strategy is in terms of repayment of the perpetual bond?
You mean the hybrid? I think the first focus which we had here was really the duty to repay the debt because that is, let's say, really a liquidity event if you are not being successful on that. That is what we achieved this year. To be honest, with all these things which we have to do here in the next upcoming two months, we are good underway with that. The hybrid is still there. We are not paying at the moment the coupon. That cuts us into our NTA at the end. You never see that right now, but you see that below the balance sheet. Is that a good situation for us? I would say I see that in two angles. One thing is that it doesn't cost me at the moment cash, which is very important for the group at this stage.
That is, on a longer way, costs us, let's say, NTA because these coupons are treated as dividends in future times. For my shareholders, it cuts in their NTA. We have to find a solution for it. I can't give you here a little bit more detail from that, but it is still on our bucket list.
Okay, thank you.
If you would like to ask a question, please press the star one on your telephone keypad. We have our next question from the line of Thomas Newhold with Kepler Cheuvreux . Please go ahead.
Thanks for the presentation and taking my questions. I only have one. Regarding the asset valuation, you showed this nice chart which compares, I think, your valuation and the outcome of the CBRE valuation. It looks like that in the non-strategic portfolio, CBRE has more a cautious valuation approach. Can you give us an indication of what the average difference is between the balance sheet valuation and the CBRE valuation?
Zero, Thomas, zero, because the valuation which we receive from CBRE is exactly what we see in our balance sheet.
Okay, that's already reflected in the AM1?
Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. Perfect. Thank you.
Thank you. Once if you would like to ask a question, please press the star one on your telephone keypad. I'm showing no further questions at this time. I would like to turn it back to Gerald Klinck for closing remarks.
Thank you very much for your time and listening to our presentation. I'm happy to discuss also further questions next time. See you next time. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's presentation. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.