Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the PSP Swiss Property Q3 Results 2019 conference call. I am Alice, your Chorus Call operator. I would like to remind you 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. Giacomo Balzarini, CEO of PSP Swiss Property. Please go ahead.
Thank you, good morning to everybody for this Q&A call on our Q3 results. As we outlined in our press release, we're obviously very pleased on the Q3 numbers, and therefore also improved our full-year guidance on the EBITDA and on the vacancy rate, although moderately, but it's a sign of confidence. Clearly pleasing with continuous top-line growth and all of that on the back of an even stronger balance sheet. I think in the merit of time, and also as we did in the last quarters, I'd like to offer the time to questions. I would really directly hand over to you to shoot with questions, and we take the best time of it.
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've 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 handsets while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. First question comes from the line of Ken Kagerer, ZKB. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, everyone. I would have three short questions. Firstly, one with regards to the vacancy outlook into 2020. The second one is related to potential revaluation gains in the second half. After the strong transaction evidence that we have seen, what can we expect here? Some companies have given a guidance there. The third one is a bit of a special one on the portfolio. What do you expect as a development with the Globus sale for the Globus am Bellevue? What can we expect there? I think in the past, certain developments have been mentioned. Is there something concrete you can tell us? Thank you very much.
Thank you, Ken. With regard to the vacancy rate outlook for 2020, as you know, we typically give the guides with our full year results. I think what I can say based on the expiry profile, which is also evidenced on slide 16, showing that we have 10% of leases expiring. Considering currently our discussions on these pre-lettings and retention plans, I think we are pretty confident, and we can continue on this low vacancy rate. The exact number and the exact guides will come out in February, but we feel pretty strong that we can continue to be around this 4% number. Please, allow us the full year numbers guide to come out in February. The second, with regard to the revaluation gain guidance, we refrain from giving revaluation gain guidance. I think this is not appropriate. It's clearly the task of the valuer.
What we observe is, as you mentioned, some transactional evidence. We clearly are letting well, and we bring our vacancy rate further down towards the year-end. I would expect, based on these factors, clearly rather a positive connotation on the valuation. Overall, the valuation is a task of the valuer, not ours. With regard to the Globus am Bellevue, I would say that's nothing to do with the global sale of the Globus. That's a project we have launched. We have briefly informed a few months ago. We have aligned lease expiries, and we are working on a set of projects and set of discussions with potential tenants to either do a refurb stronger or weaker and bring this building, which is based at one of the best spot, on a newer shape, and obviously with a certain adequate rent uplift.
There's still a few years to go. We are working now with a variety of architects on this project, but it's independent of the mentioned Globus sale.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Ken.
For any further questions, please press star and one on your telephone. The next question comes from the line of Robert Woerdeman with Kempen. Please go ahead.
Good morning. This is Robert. Apparently, there is a great difference in pricing between, let's say, prime assets, where we see yields of 2% or slightly above that, versus value- add properties, where apparently there is hardly any market for, and arguably, there is a number of those assets potentially in the market. Would this be a segment, given the fact that your platform is obviously stronger than average property companies? Would this be a segment that you could potentially act in and look at, let's say, mispriced assets?
Well, to your first point, I think it's pretty clear in this negative interest rate environment that prime assets with a good visibility on rent-linked contracts are going at the mentioned yields. I would say there is not much value- add around because I think investors who have the value- add opportunity work on this value- add opportunity. I think it has to be seen if there are mispriced opportunities. We clearly look at value- add opportunities, but still in our perimeter, so close to city or transportation nodes. We are currently concretely working on a bid for a land plot with a project close to the city of one of our cities. Not huge, it's not very sensitive. Obviously, we look at it.
I think one has to be a bit careful that you are paid still for the risk you are entering within these development projects. Although it might be a value- add story, we are not talking about 5% yields. We are still talking about quite aggressive yields. It's then also finding really the right risk return profile for this value- add project. Yes, we are looking at those, but they have to be still in our active perimeter where we see also future potential rental growth and job creation.
Yeah. Okay. Can I summarize that as you might be adding, let's say, obsolete offices on good locations if the opportunity comes by?
I would say very good locations.
Yes. Okay.
We're not looking at secondary cities where we are not in.
Yeah. Okay. Also on the transaction market, that's strong, I think that much is pretty clear. Would you be considering also potentially stepping up the pace of, let's say, the tail end of your portfolio and/or, let's say, the assets where there is literally no growth anymore? Is it something that would affect earnings too much and that you actually want to safeguard your future earnings?
Well, I think we want to look continuous to improve our earnings quality. If there are bad earnings, we are not willing to safeguard them for the future because they will deteriorate. We started a few years back a bit more active on the portfolio rotation. On the first hand, looking at really, can we extract the extra returns from the CapEx we have to do in a few years? Secondly, also what we did now with Uster, are there better uses to our properties? Can we develop a project and sell the project? This portfolio rotation will continue. Over the last years, we have really very much streamlined and optimized our portfolio. Yes, we will continue, but we will not step up now and start selling prime assets.
Yeah. No, that's perfectly clear. Then last question, a little bit nitty-gritty. For the third quarter, your like-for-like rental growth was -0.7%. For the first nine months, it was decent, 1%. What happened? How should we read it?
Yes. For the full year, you will see obviously again, close to 1% of like-for-like growth. What we had in the Q3, and this is nitty-gritty, we had a tenant arrears, so we didn't book this rental income coming from this tenant, which then was settled, and we will rebook in the fourth quarter. This was a larger tenant payment, which had nothing to do with the credit of the tenant. That was a delay on his side, but we still booked it as an arrears, and so it didn't reflect the like-for-like.
Okay. That's all clear. Many thanks.
Thank you, Robert.
The next question comes from the line of Pierre Paren, BMO GAM. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. Just on the back of the last question from Robert on the like-for-like rental growth, which was lower in Q3. If I understand correctly, you're guiding somehow for a 1% like-for-like rental growth for the full year. I don't really reconcile it with occupancy gain that you saw year-on-year, which is going to be more than 100 basis points year-on-year, because if you get to vacancy level below 4%, one could expect that your like-for-like rental growth is much better than 1%. If you could help me reconcile those two aspects. Also on the reletting that you've done so far this year, could you give a bit more indication in terms of the reversion you achieve, whether negative or positive, as well as lease duration? Any detail on the reletting would be helpful.
Yes.
Thanks.
I would say on the first question, is it at 1% or 0.9% or 1.1%? I think today it's difficult to see. We will see that at the year-end. You have to factor in clearly also the disposals on this like-for-like calculation. Overall, what we see on the pure like-for-like growth is coming predominantly through the vacancy rate reduction. It's not coming through, and that's linked to your second question, to rent growth. We have not seen across the portfolio rent growth in the first half, and we don't see across the portfolio rent growth in the third quarter. We see that for lettings of repositioned assets, refurb assets, we can get quite a strong uplift compared to market rents, to recent quarter rents.
Overall, if we factor in really the reletting of the existing tenants and we factor in additional potential rent-free periods or a big fit-out contribution, the rent is flat. That has not continued towards the half year now that we are getting to even lower vacancy rate. Clearly, the task will be to be a bit stronger on the renegotiation side. As you know, on a CHF 7.8 billion portfolio with relettings of 10%, until you see the materiality of it, this will take some time. I think that's it. Based on the like-for-like, you have also seen that we have basically no inflation adjustment we need. It's basically zero coming from the CPI.
Just as an indication on the rental uplift you managed to lock in post the repositioning of an asset. Are we talking high single digits there, double digits? Just to get an idea.
If I take the six largest, which we did in Q3, the range is from 0%-18%. There are some single digits, and there is one strong one. Yes.
Okay.
As I said, I think it's important, we have also a slide in it in the annex, that the rent income growth is coming thanks to obviously the acquisitions, net of the disposals. It's coming through the effect from the development pipeline, which comes into the portfolio maturing, and about CHF 3 million are coming through the vacancy rate. We are very happy with this. However, the underlying net effect from the rental market is flat. We see improving signs in the CBD of Zürich and in Zürich West, but this is clearly with a lower maturity profile, not really coming into the top line as quickly as one would perhaps expect from reading the news that the market is strong.
Okay, that's clear. Last one on the relettng for next year on the experience you had for CHF 7.20 million. Do you have a rough geographic split of those renewals? Are we more looking at some Zürich assets, or is it kind of widespread?
If I look at it's basically spread through the portfolio. Clearly, Zürich is, due to the size of the portfolio, the dominant part. If I look at the top 10, we have four of Zürich, we have three Bern, we have one Geneva, one Lausanne, so it's quietly spread. As I mentioned in, I think it was Ken's point, we are looking at the largest upcoming expiries quite ahead with our renewal discussions. We have a very good visibility of 2020.
Okay. All clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Pascal Furger with Vontobel. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. I have a question also from my side. The first one just related to ATMOS. Here, where you successfully increased your reletting by 16%. Is the name of this Swiss company public? Also you mentioned a further letting soon. Hasn't evaluated whether you reassess this process? I assume you must know this number sometimes in Q4. Is it fair to assume that we will see quite substantial revaluation gain related to ATMOS? That was my first question.
Thank you. Yes, the name of the tenant is public, but we cannot disclose it, as they will inform, I think, internally in the first quarter. As soon as they will inform, clearly, we will also disclose it. Secondly, we are in very far advanced negotiations for another 20% of ATMOS, which will lead up to more than 80%. With regard to the valuer, you have seen it in Q1 that we had a revaluation gain related mostly due to letting to ATMOS. There, the closing of the lease agreement happened in Q1. Here, the closing of the lease agreement happened after Q3. Therefore, the valuer will, of course, take all this information into the consideration for valuing the property by the year-end. We have no indication now on it. We'll disclose it then with the full year results.
Just a question on your inventory sales of CHF 6.6 million in the third quarter. Can you give us a rough indication how that is split by the Paradiso project and Uster one? Maybe in terms of Paradiso here, could you please share with us what kind of basically selling of apartments do you expect by the end of 2019, and what can we expect by the end of 2020? Thank you.
Yes. Well, the split is, I think, quite transparent. We have disclosed on page five that the Uster contribution was CHF 5.8 million. If you take out the Löwenbräu of CHF 2.2 million, we have disclosed, I think, first quarter, half year, we are at the Lugano contribution of roughly CHF 1.6 million. For the full year, we think from these condominium sales, we will get close to CHF 13 million± . We are, I would say, improving our sales pattern in Lugano, if it's fine for you, I would leave further guidance for 2020 at our February communication of the full year results.
Thank you.
Thank you.
If you want to ask a question, please press star then one. Mr. Balzarini, there are no more questions at this time.
Thank you very much. Thanks to everybody for attending this Q&A call. I wish you all a pleasant day and a great year and value. Thank you. Bye-bye.
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