Good morning. My name is Sylvie, and I will be your conference facilitator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to BTB Real Estate Investment Trust 2021 Q4 and annual results conference call, for which management will discuss the quarter ended December 31st, 2021. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. Should you wish to follow the presentation in greater detail, management has made a presentation available on BTB's website at www.btbreit.com/investorrelations/quarterlyandannualmeetingpresentations. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer period reserved exclusively for analysts. If you would like to ask a question during this time, please press star followed by one on your keypad. Before turning the meeting over to management, please be advised that some of the statements that may be made during this call may be forward-looking in nature.
Such statements involve numerous factors and assumptions and are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties, both general and specific, which gives rise to the possibility that predictions, forecasts, projections, and other forward-looking statements will not be achieved. Several important factors could cause BTB Real Estate Investment Trust's actual results to differ materially from the expectations expressed or implied for such forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties and other factors that could influence actual results are described in BTB Real Estate Investment Trust's management discussion and analysis in its annual information form, which were filed on SEDAR and on BTB's website at www.btbreit.com. I would like to remind everyone that this call is being recorded. Thank you. I will now turn the conference over to Monsieur Michel Léonard, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Monsieur Mathieu Bolté, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Monsieur Léonard, you may begin.
Thank you very much, Sylvie. We're very proud of our Q4 results, where we reached important milestones. You saw our total asset value surpass CAD 1.1 billion, and as far as our total revenues were concerned, we also surpassed CAD 100 million in total revenues. During the quarter, we proceeded with certain acquisitions, so we acquired two class A life science and technology office buildings located on Boulevard Alfred Nobel in Montreal for CAD 73 million. The properties consist, as I mentioned, of life science tenants that include Bristol Myers Squibb for 60,000 sq ft, Hewlett Packard for almost 30,000 sq ft, ICU Medical for almost 50,000 sq ft, Innomar Strategies for 27,000 sq ft, and Lundbeck Canada for 18,000 sq ft.
These properties were acquired at a cap rate of 6.1%, creating an accretive acquisition for BTB. We also acquired, close to Christmas, a portfolio of properties located in Western Canada, and the properties are nine industrial properties and one small office property, and they're all located in Edmonton and Saskatoon. The total purchase price was CAD 93.7 million.
If we look at the different tenants that compose this portfolio, we have Amico Services at 24,000 sq ft, Drive Products at 30,000 sq ft, EPCOR Water Services at 56,000 sq ft, NCSG Crane at 36,000 sq ft, Strongco, already a tenant in the portfolio of BTB, at 37,000 sq ft, Vicwest, almost 29,000 sq ft, National Tire Distributors at 100,000 sq ft, WESCO Distribution at 26,000 sq ft, and CNH Industrial Canada at 36,000 sq ft, and the last of the summary as Saputo at 20,000 sq ft. These property also joined with the fact that we did acquire another industrial property in 2021, which is a Kirin property, 99,000 sq ft, for CAD 15.3 million, as previously announced.
As far as our continuous acquisitions, we also acquired two properties located after December thirty-first. We also acquired two properties located in, on Bank Street in Ottawa, in the Glebe area, which is a very trendy area for Ottawa. The main tenants include Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada for 20,000 sq ft, BMO Nesbitt Burns at 20,000 sq ft, Canadian Internet Registration Authority at almost 20,000 sq ft, Field Effect Software at 16,000 sq ft and so on. This acquisition again was an accretive acquisition to BTB, it being concluded at a cap rate in place of 6.6%. We also, as a subsequent event, we sold or disposed of our Cornwall property, so four properties located in Cornwall for CAD 25 million.
Early December, we had disposed of a property on Lapinière in Montreal, on the South Shore of Montreal, for CAD 4.5 million. Our rent collection stood for the year at 99.1%. Our accounts receivable were stable through the year, and we returned to our pre-pandemic level as to the amounts outstanding on our accounts receivable. Leasing activity was incredibly, again, strong, two years of strong results regarding our leasing activities. During the quarter, we leased 378,000 sq ft in lease renewals, and 77,000 sq ft new leases that were concluded for a total of 455,000 sq ft. Our occupancy rate stood at 93.4%, again, another high that was achieved by BTB through the quarter.
Regarding our key financial and operational metrics, if you're following my presentation on page two, we have CAD 1.1 billion of investment properties. Our recurring FFO per unit stood at CAD 0.421. Our recurring AFFO payout ratio at 77.9%. Our recurring FFO at CAD 0.712 versus CAD 0.877 in 2020. Our total debt ratio was at 60.5%, and that includes a percentage of 3.2% that we used on our line of credit. The total leasable area was six million sq ft. The renewals and new leases for the quarter at 41,000 sq ft. Our committed occupancy, as I mentioned, at 93.4%, and our rent collection at 99%.
I'd like to remind everybody that, regarding our retail property, we don't own any enclosed malls, and our portfolio include necessity-based retailers. We have increased our exposure to industrial segment, and I'll discuss that a little bit later. Our largest tenants are investment-grade, and we have a core market presence. Back to leasing and renewal activity. We renewed for the year 803,000 sq ft, and part of these renewals included long-term renewals with staple tenants such as Walmart, a total of 264,000 sq ft were renewed with Walmart during 2021. Leases, two leases with Staples totaling 46,000 sq ft, a lease with Rossy for 26,000 sq ft, and Quebec City for 13,000 sq ft.
We did basically for Quebec City, the town of Quebec City leasing space in our property. We did what we call a blend and extend, they increased the number of square feet that they leased from us, plus extended their term. We achieved a cumulative 5.5% average increase in lease renewals across all our business segments. In office, we increased by 2.1%, in retail 7.5%, and in the industrial segment by 14.6%. We're finalizing the construction of our now Princess Auto property located on Ethique Saint-Laurent. If you remember, during the Q1 of the COVID, we suffered the bankruptcy of Sportium, and we had previously suffered in that property the bankruptcy of Ashley Furniture.
Both were replaced, the Sportium by Princess Auto, and Ashley Furniture by Dek Hockey. We're also waiting for Lumen for the transaction to be firm with Lumen, which is a transaction that is conditional upon a slight modification of the zoning in order to accommodate the tenancy. We're in this property, which was the worst-performing property for BTB, we have stabilized it, and the only vacancy that will remain is 4,000 sq ft. In Q1 2022, we're finalizing certain leases that were concluded in 2021 for a total of 90,000 sq ft.
Part of it is the different conditional leases that were put in place, one of which is a lease with Giant Tiger in Gatineau, Quebec, for 26,000 sq ft, where we need to make a change of zoning in order to have a firm lease for that property. We did a retail property review as we discussed during our last call. We have 12 retail properties, and we have decided that we will dispose in an orderly fashion of 5 of these properties. We also included in our review two office properties, and we've decided that we were going to dispose of two of these office properties, generating proceeds of about CAD 60 million.
As I mentioned, the activity regarding the portfolio was extensive and important for 2021. If you turn to page four, you'll see that our weight of industrial properties has increased to 30%, and we intend to increase our weight of industrial properties to more or to an equivalent, at least to the office sector, and thereby acquiring industrial properties and focusing on industrial properties for the next year and in the future, and reduce the weight of the retail properties. We've already announced that we were going to dispose of some retail properties this year and some smaller office properties this year, thereby reducing our weight in the retail segment and increasing the weight in industrial properties.
Our year-over-year increase in the occupancy is 1.2% overall. In the industrial sector, 1.2%, in the office sector, 0.4%, and in the retail, 1.8%. Our lease renewals, we increased the average lease renewal rate of 5.5%, and on a cumulative basis, industrial at 14.6%, in the office segment at 2.1%, and the retail segment at 7.5%. As I mentioned before, the investment activity, we are focusing our investment on industrial and suburban office with strong fundamentals, good pipeline of value creation, and maximization of the value of the retail portfolio.
When we're talking about the maximization of the value of the retail portfolio, as you saw in our highlights and the subsequent events, we have entered into an agreement to sell the densification rights in one of our retail properties that will bring over the next five years, roughly, I would say more than CAD 30 million of unlocked value of this center, and thereby creating or realizing hidden value within our portfolio. The CAD 30 million that I just discussed has not been valued or appraised as far as our total asset value is concerned, and we are going to make adjustments as this transaction is going to come to fruition, it being conditional inter alia of certain conditions which include a change of zoning.
The disposition that we will conclude in the retail sector, as I mentioned, will be redeployed. The proceeds will be redeployed in the industrial segment. Our occupancy rate stood at 93.4% and year-to-year increase of 1.2%. The western portfolio that we acquired is 100% occupied. We had a short-term lease that was coming to maturity, and we knew at the acquisition that the tenant was not going to renew, and we successfully leased the entire property on a ten-year basis to a new tenant. That new tenant will occupy the property as the previous tenant will depart. There will be no effect on our occupancy rate as a result of that lease coming to maturity.
Regarding the western portfolio, there's a tenant that approached us to do a blend and extend, and we concluded a lease renewal in anticipation of their renewal, thereby creating a firm 10-year commitment for the property. We're still looking to acquire properties in Canada. With this summary, I'd like to ask Mathieu to dive into the details of our financial performance for the quarter and for the year 2021.
Thank you, Michel, and good morning, everyone. If you follow the presentation on our website, I'll be on page 6 with the financial highlights. I'll start on that page with the highlights for the year and for the quarter. Overall, we're pleased with the results and the good performance of our portfolio. We think it really talks about the resilience of the assets across the three segments. You know, there's been a lot of discussion with COVID in general in the market, but for us, we haven't faced meaningful headwinds from the pandemic for the last six quarters. The NOI for the same property portfolio increased by 4.8% for the quarter and 6.9% year-over-year, explained by a combination of higher occupancy rates and increase in average lease renewal.
Michel mentioned it, about 5.5% for the year, and additional recoveries that we were able to collect. Recurring FFO was CAD 0.11 per unit for the quarter. We must remember that we issued equity back in April. At the time, we paid down our credit facility, we did the acquisition of an industrial property at the end of June, and we completed the two acquisitions in November, the two office properties, and as well, the CAD 94 million acquisition of the western portfolio at the end of December. Overall, in terms of the fair market value of the assets, we have an increase of close to CAD 20 million. We saw recoveries from our necessity-based retail assets and the overall strong performance of the industrial segment.
We are moving on page seven for the rental revenues and NOI. An increase of revenue of 19.3% for the quarter and 7.9% for the year. We saw additional recoveries that we talked about in Q2 this year. As well, we see the accretive acquisitions that have supported the growth. NOI increased by 15.7% for the quarter and 9.9% for the year. Just to keep in mind, on a run rate basis, the two Alfred Nobel acquisitions in November, that was done mid-November, will have a CAD 1.1 million NOI per quarter, and the 10 properties in western Canada acquired in late December will have a CAD 1.6 million NOI per quarter moving forward.
That last transaction, since it was done on the 24th December, has a material impact on the financials for this quarter. Overall, NOI margin is up 100 basis points compared to last year. I'm on page eight, recurring FFO per unit CAD 0.11, up CAD 0.011 compared to the same quarter last year. On a cumulative basis, FFO per unit was CAD 0.421, up CAD 0.038 compared to last year. The acquisition, as I said, of the last quarter, will have a positive impact moving forward for FFO and AFFO. AFFO payout ratio was 77.9% compared to 97.1%, so it's an improvement of a bit more than 19% year-over-year.
With the equity issuance and the debenture conversions, the weighted average number of units increased from 63.6 million units in Q4 2020 to 74.4 million units in Q4 2021. Looking at the capital structure on page nine. The weighted average interest rate for mortgages was 3.49% at the end of the year, compared to 3.57% for the same quarter last year. It's a decrease, a benefit of 8 basis points, with the refinancing that we did. I think what's important to note as well is over two years it's 43 basis points improvement for the average interest rate of our mortgage book. Total debt ratio at 60.5%. It's a temporary increase of 4.7 percentage points since last year.
Sorry, since last quarter and 1.1% compared to the same period last year. As Michelle mentioned as well, last month, we completed the sale of the Cornwall portfolio for selling net price of CAD 25 million for a net proceed of CAD 19 million after paying down debt. That's part of the strategy as well, to reduce the outstanding amount of our credit facility and ultimately reduce the total debt ratio. Page ten with the debt maturities. Moving to that page, we have a total of CAD 74.4 million of mortgages coming due this year, for which already CAD 25 million is being finalized. Overall, 2021, we have completed long-term financing of 22% of our mortgage portfolio and at an average term of 6.94 years.
We were quite happy overall to see great appetite from the lenders for BTB's assets in securing long-term financing. Following the issuance, just a quick update on the debentures. Following the issuance of the Series H debenture in September 2020, we continue to receive conversion notices for CAD 500,000 this quarter and for a total of CAD 7.9 million since the issuance. It's about 26% of the debenture. Remember that the conversion price is CAD 3.64, and the unit closed at CAD 4.08 at the end of the year. That completes our presentation, and with that, we'll move to the Q&A.
Thank you. At this time, I would like to remind everyone that analysts may now ask their questions by pressing star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Again, if you would like to ask a question, please slowly press star then number one. We'll now pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A. Your first question will be from Matt Kornack at National Bank Financial.
Good morning, guys.
Good morning, Matt.
Can you give a sense with the post-quarter transaction activity plus the leasing that you've done, where you expect occupancy to trend? Also give a bit more color maybe on how we should think about lease maturities in 2022 and the potential for mark to market on those.
We're very advanced in our lease negotiations regarding our lease renewals. We don't anticipate this year to be hit by non-renewals from our tenants. You know, maybe, you know, in and out, we would expect perhaps at a maximum of 10% of non-renewal. As far as leasing space, you know, we can't talk about our industrial spaces because they're almost full. As far as leasing space in our office environment, we're getting traction, and we're hopeful that we're gonna be able to resolve some issues that we do have in certain office properties. As far as our retail, you saw the retail segment itself.
The major vacancy that we have in the retail segment is a space that we knew was going to be vacant when we acquired the property. It's an old Déco Découverte space, and that was leased when we acquired it temporarily to a user. The user wanted to renew the lease with us on a long-term basis, but the rental rates that they proposed at the time were definitely not acceptable to us, and we preferred to see that tenant go instead of you know renewing a lease at conditions that we didn't want to do. We are getting traction for that space. For the last year, we've been in discussion with tenants and brokers, and we strongly believe that during the year that space is going to lease. That's if you do the calculation, it's a substantial percentage regarding the retail environment.
As I mentioned earlier, our retail environment, whether they're grocery-anchored or, you know, pharmacy-anchored and the like, are destination-based. We received proceeds or rent payments from these tenants throughout the pandemic. What we've decided that we were keeping is basically properties that I called our coupon clippers. Why would we dispose of, say, a Shoppers location when we know that that this tenant is going to continuously pay us and to replace that, you know, that property with, say, an industrial property where there would be or could be additional risk. On that basis, we decided to keep our coupon clippers and those that are not coupon clippers, you know, we've made the decision to sell in the ordinary course of business.
It's not gonna be. We're not gonna go for a fire sale. We're not gonna massively put them on the market. We're just gonna go, you know, in a, as I mentioned, in an orderly fashion where we're basically, and I think that our acquisition in close to Christmas of the industrial portfolio in Saskatoon and in Edmonton, I mean, this is something that we definitely want to continue. We want to increase our segment, our ownership in the industrial segment, and we are going to, and we are discussing in certain discussions to acquire again industrial properties. I don't know if I answered your question, Matt, but overall in our portfolio, the portfolio doesn't show signs of major non-renewals for our leases.
No, no, that's very helpful. On the industrial side, and in terms of where you're targeting geographically for expansion, clearly Montreal has become an exceptionally hot market. How about markets like Quebec City or are there other sort of non-Montreal markets in Quebec that you'd look at, and elsewhere throughout Canada? Obviously, I think you're gonna remain in Canada at this point. Yeah, just how should we think about expansion of that portfolio? Then also, I guess as a tangent to that, this portfolio that you acquired didn't take much in the way of management, but is that consistent or do you think you'll at some point kind of build a platform to manage trickier sort of industrial assets in these markets?
Well, I'll answer your second question first. We want to bulk up in those markets, so when it will warrant it, again, we are going to have boots on the ground. Right now it doesn't warrant for us to have boots on the ground. However, as you saw from the different tenancies that we have in these properties, most of these properties, I can't say all, but most, eight out of 10 are single-tenant users with triple net leases. These tenants are self-managing these properties.
We have been in touch with local property managers, and we've decided that for the time being, we're gonna monitor whether we need a local property manager or, given the nature of these properties, whether we can manage from one of our offices. As a matter of fact, right now, the director that is managing these properties is located in our Ottawa office, so he's the head of Ottawa. We do have a direct relationships with our tenants. We established that relationship and it's going well so far. The cost of managing through a third-party manager would not be astronomical. We're monitoring and if we do have to do so, we will hire a local property manager in order to do so.
We do have opportunities continuously, opportunities within these markets. To answer your first question, where we wanna purchase is in the major cities of Canada. We don't want to go back to where we were in the smaller secondary or tertiary markets. We want the primary cities in Canada. That's how we identify where we're gonna harvest these acquisitions. Quebec City is definitely a market where we want to acquire. Ottawa, it is a market where we want to acquire industrial properties.
In the Ottawa market it's a rarity, but this is a market where we want to acquire. If you look at the largest cities in Canada, it's probably our target markets. We know that Vancouver we can purchase. You've identified that in Montreal it's a hot market. Toronto is a hot market. We're not shying away from our self-imposed obligation of having accretion from day one in purchasing properties.
Okay. Nope. That makes sense. Last one from me on the retail dispositions. In terms of the timing of those, I believe there was a component of those where they had repositioning potential, that's not in the retained coupon clipper ones or is that in those and will it eventually be executed on or is it in the ones that are being sold? If that's the case, how are you going about maximizing the value on disposition given that potential density?
We're keeping where there's densification potential. We're keeping those. We want to realize the full value as the example that I've given regarding the conditional agreement that we have signed with a residential developer. We are looking at creating the same kind of scenario for the properties that we are going to retain. There are self-standing. Let's say that we do have a self-standing Shoppers Drug Mart location of 20,000+ sq ft with no densification potential. Well, that's a coupon clipper, and even if there's no densification potential, we've decided that it would remain in our portfolio. Those that we would be selling are those that are basically stabilized. They're good properties. They're definitely not bad properties. They're good properties, but they don't have a development or repositioning potential.
Maybe just to add on that, Matt, if there's the redevelopment, it's not properties that we will assume a lot of CapEx, so it's not CapEx intensive. It's really principally based on air rights that we can sell. I think it's important to keep in mind.
Okay. I guess on the residential side there, that's gonna be sold as a rental or condo, and presumably, I guess, is it a partner that would come in and build it if that is the case?
The partner would come in and build it. Obviously, an astute partner has been chosen with experience in the residential development. The goal for us, as Mathieu's mentioned, is that we're not looking to do it ourselves. We're basically selling the air rights, keeping in control of the site and ensuring that the value that we have now for the center remains and that the proceeds that we will receive from the construction of whether they're rental or condo units is going to remain for us.
Okay. Makes sense. Congrats on a strong quarter. You reached a lot of high water marks on key metrics. Things are going well.
Well, thank you.
Thanks, Matt.
Thank you. Again, for analysts to ask a question, you will need to press star one on your keypad. Next question will be from Chris Koutsikaloudis at Canaccord. Please go ahead, Chris.
Hey, morning, guys.
Good morning.
Morning, Chris.
Actually, my questions have all been answered, so I'll drop out of the queue. Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Again, as a reminder for analysts, if you wish to ask a question at this time, please press star followed by one on your touch-tone phone. At this time, Mr. Léonard, we have no further questions. Please proceed.
Well, thank you very much for attending this morning. Again, as Matt mentioned, we've hit very high water marks, and we're very proud of it. It's been seven quarters in a row where we've built on this high water mark. Every single quarter for the last seven quarters have been building on, we've been increasing our results, and we're very proud to present this very strong quarters. All our metrics have increased in the right direction, and as I mentioned, this trend started back in 2020, just before COVID hit, when our stock was trading at, I think higher than CAD 5.50 per unit. I think that Q4 2021 is a home run for us, and we wanna keep it this way.
We like where we are, and we are managing the business in order to even get better. Thank you for your attendance this morning. Thank you for following BTB and investing in BTB. We're proud of our results, and we wanna continue on this line. We have improved our balance sheet. Our ratios are showing healthy prospects for us, and this is what we were expecting, and that's what we want, and we wanna stay there. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Léonard. Ladies and gentlemen, this does indeed conclude your conference call for today. Once again, thank you for attending, and at this time, we do ask that you please disconnect your lines.