Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the PSP Q1 to Q3 release conference call. I am Yusuf, the Chorus Call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode and that 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 Giacomo Balzarini, CEO of PSP Swiss Property. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everybody, and welcome to our Q3 results release. As always, for the Q1 and Q3, I will do a very quick rundown on the key figures, and then I would immediately open to Q&A. Perhaps to start on the market, if we talk about the letting market, and we wrote it in our release, we are confronted with a very solid office market in the CBDs of Zurich, Geneva, also Bern. As we said also in the previous quarters, Basel is still a bit behind the curve. We have some letting interests, but there is still a little bit of a push of past oversupply. But we are confronted with a solid demand in the CBDs, as mentioned, of our primary markets. On the transactional side, we start seeing transactional evidence in the CBD of Zurich again for very low yields.
We just recently saw a prime asset going to the market at slightly above CHF 100 million for a 2% net yield, and there's currently one in the market which might go even below 2%. Outside of the CBDs, liquidity is there, but the yields are clearly a bit more on the outside. If you go on slide 10 of the presentation, just to give a little blink on the key numbers, rental income grows by 5.8% on the first nine months, pretty in line with what we reported till summer. Like-for-like rental growth comes a bit down to 3.7%. 1.4% is linked to turnover rent. As you remember, we had a strong impact in the Q1 of this year. 1.6 percentage points is indexation, and 0.7% are different other factors. If you go then on the valuation side, we saw in Q3 two assets which had to be revalued.
Just as a reminder, we have a full portfolio revaluation full year and half year, and in Q1 and in Q3, we have to revalue the portfolio of single assets if we see a certain materiality. And this was evidenced in the asset which we have bought last year in Westpark. We had a better letting success as the value expected. And the same happened in Seefeldstrasse in the CBD of Zurich. On the cost side, you see that the overall expenses are very much under control, allowing us to continue to operate an EBITDA margin of 84%-85% with a strong cost discipline. And on slide 12, you see the increased financial expenses, but those expenses, thanks to the reduced interest rate environment, we've stabilized at that level. I said it mid-year.
We expect, if we replicate the current curve, that the financial expenses going forward will grow CHF 2 million-CHF 3 million by year and not the higher amounts we mentioned even a year ago. If you go into the vacancy rate slide 16, you see a vacancy rate of 3.6%. We adjusted our guidance by year-end on 3.5%, especially also because we decided that we will turn the Wallisellen assets in a development project. We are working with the city authorities on the rezoning. We have good visibility that we can pursue this path. There will be a public vote next spring. But this clearly contributed also a little bit to vacancy reduction for the Q4. But overall, vacancy guidance has been adjusted. And if you go then on the projects, I would say pretty much in line with our expectations, we have the opening of the 12th this week.
Hochstraße is currently already in motion, and we start a new project, a little one in Bern, the Bollwerk. EBITDA guidance for the year-end has been confirmed at CHF 300 million. This is what you see on slide 34. And as I mentioned, we updated our vacancy rate guidance due to the reclassification of Wallisellen to 3.5%. In a nutshell, this is a quick rundown of the results. And I would kindly ask you to start with the questions.
We'll now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from that queue, you may press star and two. Questioners on the phone are requested to disable the loudspeaker mode while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Kai Klose from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, gentlemen. Just a quick question from my side regarding the personnel expenses for the nine months. They were a little bit lower compared to last year. Are there anything specific or a normal level of fluctuation?
We expect lower bonuses for top management for the full year, and this is a reflection of that.
Thank you.
The next question is from Steven Boumans from ODDO BHF. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. So you provided a constructive view on the transaction markets. Does that mean that yields for your portfolio are most likely to be flat or maybe slightly down at full-year reporting?
I would say I would expect rather flat because I think the valuer will take this transaction evidence as a confirmation and as a hold. But clearly, I cannot speak for them, but I would say that's rather a strong confirmation of the current yields.
Okay. That is clear. And expected ERV growth?
We see it in the Q1 and Q3 revaluation gains. They are driven predominantly by the fact that the in-place rents are higher than the expected market rents. However, I think with an expiry profile of 14%, 15%, 16%, it does only come in very slowly. But if you look on the annual report, on the annex, you see roughly a gap of 4% between the in-place rent and the expected market rents by the valuer. So I think that's something which should materialize over the course of the time if we continue to be able to renew at current conditions or even better.
Okay. Clear. Thank you.
The next question is from Ken Kagerer from ZKB. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning, everyone. I have three short questions. The first one regards the expiries in 2026. There are 19%. Could you just let us know what the highlights there are and where the risks are with regards to those expiries?
If you look at the expiries on 2026, I think the one we have is in Geneva, the Pictet. Although this clearly depends also on their developments. We have to see how this is aligned. We are also already in discussions with two potential tenants. Then we have two expiries in Zurich West, which we think are a non-issue for that because they just moved in and they demonstrate quite a solid business model. Then the same holds true for an expiry for a law firm in the CBD, which we think that is not really an issue. And then we have one which is clearly the acquisition we just undertook at the Rue de Rothschild, which we said we have a sale and lease back. We will vacate that building, reposition that building, and then bring it back to the market as a hotel.
We are currently finalizing the lease agreement. So this will be clearly classified then as a development project.
Thank you very much. The second question regards your LTV. And my question would be, if you found a great opportunity on the acquisition market, how far would you go with the LTV?
I think we have demonstrated in the last years that we are ready for opportunities, but very disciplined on the loan-to-value. Having said that, I think there is room, but there's reasonable room. All the rest is opportunity-driven. It has to make sense for the shareholder, and this for both aspects from an income point of view, but also from a debt point of view.
No quantification as a limit or so there?
No, we always said clearly that our ambition is to keep a Single-A rating, but there are elements which we cannot influence. This is the V, and other than that, we also don't want to take too many risks, so we will continue to be opportunistic. We think in the last years always bought assets, but we are not changing our risk profile.
Thank you. And that brings me to my third and last question. Could you give us a bit of an outlook on the turnover-based element in your rents? What do you expect from that for the next one, two years?
The turnover part is linked to a few hotels and to a few restaurants. It was originally roughly one percentage point of the overall rent roll. Today, with the new hotels and the strong turnover, roughly two percentage points of the overall rent roll. I think we have consummated already one, one and a half percentage points. I think we'll continue on that path.
Excellent. Thank you very much for answering my questions. Have a great day.
Thank you. Thank you.
The next question comes from Ventsi Iliev from Kempen. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, Jacob. Just one question from my side. On the pipeline, we already see you added one more project. And of course, the asset in Geneva is going to be repositioned. But could we see more from you in the coming period?
Yeah. I hardly hear you. I think if I got it right, it's regarding the pipeline. And the.
Sorry. I could repeat.
Yes, please.
Yeah. So indeed, it's regarding the pipeline. We already see you added one project in Bern, and you talked about the repositioning of the asset in Geneva. Could we expect more from you in the coming period?
Yes. We have a few projects in the pipeline. It's a repositioning. One is another one in Bern, where we are already signing a lease agreement post-repositioning. We are working on a very CBD asset in Basel at the marketplace. We are discussing since year with Lausanne on the development, on the lot parking, on the land lot we have in Sébeillon, which we should be able to materialize also in the next one, two years. So there is further room within the portfolio to develop. But clearly, it will be more on the magnitude of the portfolios and of the projects you have seen lately, and no huge and big schemes.
Okay. Clear. Thank you.
The next question is from Eleanor Frew from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi. Morning. Two questions on rental growth for me. Firstly, how does rental growth differ in the strong locations you talk about versus the weaker locations?
First of all, you have complete different levels. If you talk about prime rents in Zurich, Geneva, you are at CHF 800, CHF 800 +. And if you are able to really like in Zürcherhof or the Füsslistrasse, if you are able to vacate the building and then bring it on the market as a new product, rents can be selectively almost doubled. Whereas in the non-prime area, if you go especially towards Zurich North, there is a substantial rent reduction you have to foresee. If you are in Bern or in Lausanne with a new product, we can push rents to CHF 400- CHF 450, I think, which is roughly, I would say, almost say 20% above the highest rents. But it has to be seen. It comes with an investment. It has to be a new product. But then you see rent growth in that area.
Thank you. Very clear. And then secondly, have you started to think of your overall rental growth expectations for next year? Would you expect something similar to this year?
Yes. If you don't mind, we typically guide for the following year with our full-year results. I think what we can say is clearly that indexation makes roughly 1%, a bit less than 1%. That's what we see now coming out from the inflation in October numbers, which will be put into the systems and then charged to the tenants. Besides that, if you don't mind, we come out with our full-year guidance on the EBITDA guidance, and from that on, then also on the top line.
Thank you.
The next question is from Matteo Lindauer from Vontobel. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my question. I have a question regarding the B2Binz property. Could you give us some color on that property and the vacancy rate?
Yes. The B2Binz, we have received the building permission for the fit-out of our anchor tenant. We are just finalizing the last two elements to start with the fit-out. This took a bit longer. But they take the ground floor and the first floor. As you remember, we had basically signed three floors with an international auditor and this summer lost it, unfortunately, last minute, but are now in exchange of final lease agreements with a pharmaceutical company on one full floor and the second floor with another tenant. I think here it took a bit longer, but what we see is that the product is very attractive. We have quite a lot of interest. But we would expect that within the next year, we should be able to almost fully lease up the B2Binz.
But the priority now is really to fit out ground floor, first floor, bring in the House of Interiors, which is a strong anchor tenant, and then continue to lease up.
Perfect. Thank you.
Thank you.
As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and one on your telephone. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Balzarini for only closing remarks. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much to everybody. And I look forward to have further exchanges over the next couple of days. Thank you. Bye-bye.
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