Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the PSP Swiss Property Full Year 2021 conference call. I am Sandra, the Chorus Call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. The short 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. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. 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. Giacomo Balzarini, CEO of PSP Swiss Property. Please go ahead, sir.
Good afternoon to everybody, and thank you very much for attending this conference call. As always, I'd like to do just a short introduction and then to go directly into the Q&A, to really have time for questions, I think, in these interesting geopolitical times. We are very pleased with the reported results today. We closed the business year, full year, 2021, I would say, on a record level operating wise and also with regard to valuations.
I think most important for us is the achievement of a solid operating result, beating our EBITDA guidance, delivering a 3.8% vacancy rate and more so also providing an outlook for the year that we will achieve a below 4% vacancy rate, which underlines our comfort and our clear view that we have the right assets on the right spots with the respective demand. With regard to the rental income, we have shown a good solid rental growth of 4.5%, predominantly driven by an acquisition in Geneva and by the completion of projects. More so we have a net profit EPS of CHF 4.48, which allows us to increase the dividend not by CHF 0.05, but by CHF 0.10 to CHF 3.75, which indicates also a bit our confidence for future dividend growth of the company.
If you look in the past, we have always increased our dividend by CHF 0.05, in certain cases CHF 0.10. If we increase by CHF 0.10, it's because we have a good solid view that we can continue the next years on our CHF 0.05 path. If we then have our comfort and confidence to even further go up, we would then adjust as well. I think this is for us a very important message, especially because the dividend comes out of earned income without any gain from valuations and without any disposal gains. This comes on the back of a quite strong balance sheet, loan-to-value below 33%. Clearly also with credit metrics, ICR, and durations, which are very healthy considering the most recent increases in rates.
Also, we have seen in the last few days already a drop in the rates again in certain instances. Having said that, I would say positive on our outlook. We will continue with our focus strategy, even more concentrating on CBD allocation, trying to optimize asset by asset. In line with that statement, clearly also the asset swap we have undertaken with Swiss Life, where we swapped three assets of us with two assets from them, getting really neighboring assets and providing a base for future value growth, rent growth, expansions.
Small transactions, but I think that's a bit our path, step by step, continuously improving earnings streams and cash flows, which allows us then in situations like the financial crisis or most recently through the COVID crisis, to be able to continue to deliver on expectations and to deliver a solid dividend path. Having said that, I would like really to stop here. I know that we are followed, probably by the market, so we can go directly into the Q&A.
We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who has a question or a comment may press star and one at this time. Once again, for your question, please press star and one. The first question comes from Reto Portmann from zCapital AG. Please go ahead, sir.
Hello. Could you please give some details of the assets that swapped with Swiss Life?
Reto, I hear you very, very.
Sorry. Could you please give some details about the assets swap you made with Swiss Life and for the reasons for that?
Yes, I apologize. You have a very bad connection. I understood details on the assets swap. On the assets swap, we bought or took over two assets from Swiss Life. One is Lindengasse 10, which is neighboring our Bahnhofstrasse 81 and really covering now the full block between Globus and Bahnhofstrasse towards the Pestalozziwiese, rounding up that area. The second block we were able to get is Mühlebachstrasse 2, neighboring our building, Mühlebachstrasse 6. Don't be surprised. I had to walk that block also twice. There's no Mühlebachstrasse 4. We have these adjoining buildings really in front of the Stadelhofen Railway, which, as best, will be completely refurbished in the coming years by the architect called Calatrava. I think asset value size, as we mentioned, rather small.
, we got these two assets, plus paid an additional roughly CHF 10 million. In exchange, we gave or sold Rue du Pont in Lausanne, Winterthurstrasse, and Löwenstrasse. I would say both portfolios have, I would say, similar rental income. We get a bit more rental income, but I would say it's equally sized, equal income. I think the beauty about it was quite a long process. It's that there's a value creation potential for both parties. We have neighboring assets, and so it's although small for both, it's win-win for both. It goes without saying that we have in place rental contracts, so there's no urgency here to do, , restructure or refurb. Clearly, we bought some potential.
We exchanged some potential and we continue on this strategy to look where can we round up our positions.
Is the line better right now or?
I hear you, I hear you very badly, but I can understand a bit.
Okay. I want to ask as well about the reclassification you did, especially the one in Wallisellen. This CHF 3 million investment volume seems very low.
Well, as I mentioned this morning to Andreas, and I had a talk also afterwards. For us, reclassification has nothing to do with vacancy because we anyway disclose vacancy amounts. Wallisellen is a business park which on the one hand, out of these five buildings we have, I would say three and a half well-functioning buildings. There is a very good solid tenant structure. We had Microsoft as a long-standing tenant, but over the years, , there was a clear direction towards rent reductions on the back of the additional supply which came into the region. In view of the clear fact that Microsoft left the building, we went through what is an alternative we can do. We can continue to try to find tenants, big tenants for that building, something we are doing.
More so, we have started intense discussions with local authorities to see on how can we really reposition a number of those 5 buildings. I've mentioned this morning it's difficult to say how many. I would say it's not all the 5, but it can be 1-3. It's also difficult to say to which, because depending on what area we can rezone, we would then try also to perhaps move tenants. There's a certain complexity, but in early stage. It's for us, basically unlettable at the moment because our prime focus is really to follow that route, which in our view, would generate most value for a shareholder. Clearly, if somebody comes now, as Reto mentioned also this morning, a big tenant taking the whole building, , we could review that situation.
The priority we have is to continue that path. On the back of that, it's clear that we reclassify assets based on our guidelines, which are basically a full scale. We reclassify it. As it is disclosed, it's nothing to hide, right? We talk practically about it. We talked a year ago about it. We talk in meetings about it. I think this is for us, a non-event.
Okay, thanks a lot.
For any further questions, please press star and one. Mr. Balzarini, so far, there are no more questions.
Well, I thank everybody for attending the call. I look forward to the interactions, and I wish you a great day. Thank you. Bye-bye.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call, and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.