Thank you, Sagar, and good morning, everybody. Only six weeks since we have last met, and for some listeners, it might even feel shorter with all the May holidays. As expected, the first quarter did not bring a trend reversal for the real estate market or UBM. However, we have a few interesting news to share in the next 20 minutes or so. Please turn to slide number three, the summary slide. Our asset sales program 2024 started quite promising. The same is true for our resi sales, which more than doubled compared with the same period in the previous year. We continue to execute our timber pipeline, which is worth mentioning in such challenging times. This is also true for the fact that we continue to invest in our future.
The cash low point has been passed end of March, and we have filed our audited green bond report. We also try to be more specific regarding our outlook. I would say so far, so good. So let me go into more detail by turning to slide number four. As mentioned in our previous call, we have started our asset sales program 2024, which produced quite promising results in Q1. We were able to sell five plots in Arcus City to a Czech construction company, who has done the conventional construction works for us in Arcus. We have also started to sell Poleczki Business Park, building by building. Remember, we were always hesitant to do that. First buyer has been PPL who is also the tenant in one of the buildings called Madrid. We expect, by the way, further sales over the next couple of months.
Finally, our minority share in the Andaz Prague, IGO Industries, decided to take the opportunity and increase its stake from 25% to 40%. These transactions accumulate to approximately one-third of the planned asset sales volume of EUR 75 million of cash in this year. We have more new good news. We have also been quite successful with our residential sales, as can be seen on slide five. With 37 apartments sold in Q1, we have more than doubled the number of sales compared with the same period last year. The number actually equals almost 40%, 40% of last year's sales, and underpins the general sentiment on the market that resi will lead the recovery of the real estate market.
Another evidence are the more than 50% of apartments sold in Vienna's Village im Dritten, the PEAK project, which is one out of five projects that we do together with ARE in Village im Dritten. We have sold these 50% of apartments in the last five months since start of marketing. We are all also fully convinced that the-
So sorry to interrupt. We had lost your audio in between for five seconds.
Okay. Sorry, then let me restart and by mentioning that another evidence for the recovery of the real estate market is residential, and more than 50% of the apartments sold in Vienna's Village im Dritten, the PEAK project, have been sold over the last five months. We are fully convinced that the imbalance between less and less supply on the market and the continuously high demand is going to widen as the market crisis progresses. This should give us additional tailwind. We are therefore determined to execute the 3,000 apartments in our pipeline and believe that they are going to come exactly at the right point in time. Talking about the pipeline, please turn to slide number six.
We have prioritized our project with an even clearer focus on resi and on timber, with the following effect: Some projects have now been moved beyond Q1 2028, or we are going to put them up for sale, which slightly reduces the pipeline to a sales volume of EUR 1.9 billion. However, and contrary to the reaction after the breakout of COVID, as can be seen on the chart as well, we remain fully committed to invest in our future. 56%, 56% of our pipeline are now residential, and 77%, so another increase of two percentage points, is going to be in timber hybrid. More than 90% of our projects are in Germany and in Austria. This percentage figure remains unchanged. All of the existing projects are developed to building permit stage.
It then depends on the market situation and the demand, if we are, one, executing the project, two, selling it with the building permit, or three, develop it in stages. This gives us the necessary flexibility to focus on what is most important, and what is most important is our cash. However, there's a much better person talking about cash. Patric, please.
... Thank you, Thomas. Good morning, everybody. Please turn to slide number 7. Before we take a closer look at our current cash position, I would like to present a new slide on the topic of cash investments today. Cash can be preserved short term by not funding an existing pipeline. Most of our competitors have stopped their investment activities. While we are still operating and investing at full speed in UBM's record year of 2019, we had to reduce our investment activities in 2020 due to the outbreak of the pandemic and the shift in our strategy. However, things cleared up pretty quickly, and we were able to raise money again, resulting in more than EUR 420 million of liquidity by year-end 2021.
Despite our constant focus on the cash position, it is evident that this puts us in a position to invest significantly. While we were somewhat more cautious in the first quarter of 2023, due to the standstill on the transaction market, we doubled again our investment in the first quarter of 2024. The message of the chart is clear and important: We continue to invest in our future. Please turn now to slide number 8. The most important message of slide number eight is mentioned in the headline. We have passed the low point in our liquidity at the end of Q1, assuming that our planned asset sales are coming on time, in line with our timeline.
Thanks to the successful transactions in the first quarter, we have managed to maintain our cash position at a fairly stable level, despite the investment mentioned on the previous slide. Our cash position at the end of the first quarter was still at almost EUR 130 million. This should have also been the low point, and this is also why we have indicated the cash balance of EUR 144 million exactly in the middle of the second quarter and before further asset sales. There is no doubt that cash is the most crucial parameter, particularly for future financing. With the majority of the asset sales still to be completed, we can also confirm today that we will be paying the hybrid interest in June, despite not paying a dividend for the 2023 financial year.
We want to continue strengthening the trust of our bondholders and are also looking forward to engaging with some bondholders before the summer break. We have emphasized this in our previous calls, but if you look at the right side of the slide, you can see that we have no bond repayments due until the fourth quarter of 2025. This provides us with a significant competitive advantage in the current environment and gives us confidence that we will see a window of opportunity in the coming quarters. To sum it up, we are pleased with the current performance on the cash side, where we passed the low point, if sales come in as planned, and remain fully committed to the capital markets to ensure we do not find ourselves in a tight spot at the end of 2025. Let's move to slide number nine.
First, the positive news. Our balance sheet remains in a healthy state. Our equity ratio is at 30%, which is still within our target range of 30%-35%. We have constantly maintained this range for years and aim to keep our equity ratio within this range moving forward. Additionally, our loan-to-value ratio stands at just above 50%, a level we are feeling comfortable with. Now to the earnings. As many of you might have expected, we were unable to move the EBT into positive territory in the first quarter. The primary reason for this were the ongoing lack of new project transactions and the significant loss in the value of the Czech krona. Fundamentally, and as Thomas has mentioned, we focus on liquidity rather than profitability in this transitional year.
Overall, it can be said that we, as a real estate developer, continue to demonstrate relative strength, even in the midst of very adverse circumstances. Before I hand back to Thomas for the outlook, I would like to circle back to the bond market. On Monday, we published our green bond allocation report. Why is this important for us to mention? We have promised our green bond investors that we will exclusively invest in green projects as regulated by the UBM Green Finance Framework. We committed to, we are committed to having an external auditor review the use of proceeds once a year. This review took place, end of March 2024, and the report can be accessed on our website.
The EUR 50 million from the UBM Green Bond 2023, which was exclusively invested by retail investors, has been allocated to the Leopold Quartier and the Timber Pioneer. This demonstrates our commitment to green finance and to the principle of promise and deliver. Additionally, it is worth mentioning that there will be no step-ups for the two sustainability-linked bonds issued in 2022, 2021, sorry, as we have maintained our excellent ESG ratings. I would like to thank to all of our investors for the trust, and now we'll hand back to Thomas.
Thanks, Patric. This brings me to the last slide of our formal presentation, and I want to draw your attention still to the backup slides. There is a lot of information contained there as well, but let's turn now to slide 11. With all the unknown parameters, it is almost impossible to give you a good guidance of what to expect from us in the future. However, we still try to do our best in this respect. For 2024, we expect to reduce our losses significantly compared to the last year. But we still expect a loss, given the extraordinary market circumstances. The overarching imperative is liquidity over profitability. This should change in 2025, the year in which UBM will return to profitability. Tailwind really comes from two angles. The one, which I have mentioned already, is the lack of supply, with more and more projects getting canceled.
The other angle is the rising rent level due to indexation. It works as an inflation protection, but with a delay. The lack of supply is, by the way, also true for the light industrial and office segment. Most of the existing office space does not comply with ESG requirements, particularly from larger, company tenants, and there is hardly any supply of light industrial space. For 2026, we are convinced that the survivors of this industry crisis will take it all, as certain reactions by investors and tenants might then get exaggerated, with the pendulum swinging in the other direction. On this rather optimistic midterm perspective, I would like to thank you for your attention and open the line for your questions.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone phone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have 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. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Our first question is from the line of Simon Stippig from Warburg Research. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning from Hamburg. Thank you very much for the presentation, and thank you for the opportunity to ask some questions. First of all, very positive to hear that you're paying your hybrid investors. I think that's a clear mark of strength, even though you're not paying a dividend. But the first topic of my questions would be in regard to disposals. Could you here hand over some more details in regard to the valuation? Was it sold at book or at premium? And then also you mentioned your EUR 144 million at the fifteenth of May in cash level. Just to clarify, that would include all the sales you mentioned in today's presentation, meaning the Andaz, Poleczki and Arcus City. And then two follow-ups on these presentations.
If I look into your Note 9 of your report, then, I saw that you sold the 15% in two equity accounted companies. I assume it's the Andaz Hotel, and -- or but what would be the second company here, or was the purchase across two companies? And then also one in regard to Poleczki. Could you here also mention, the implied multiple of the sale? And then I would have one or two more, after this question. Thank you very much.
Okay. I tried to tackle your questions, and maybe if I have missed out on one, please let me know.
Sure.
So, first question, what I think the value of was it the book value or premium, the Prague transaction on the Arcus City, the Poleczki, was on the Andaz. Was a book value transaction, so, we didn't lose anything, but we didn't gain anything, because otherwise we would have probably had some positive results from that. But more or less, that's it. Then there was a question on, I think, what are the two companies in the Sugar Palace? The companies in the Sugar Palace, the equity companies, one is ourselves as the owner, and the other one was already the 15%, the 25% stakeholder, Ortner, who have now bought the other 15 percentage point to 40%, to 40%. Okay.
Ah, and your second question was also, I think, in the direction of, is there more than one company with the Sugar Palace? Yes, there is more than one company, because there's a prop co and an op co. And in both of the companies, it is true what I said. So Ortner owns 25% before the transaction and owns 40% after the transaction. It's true for both companies. I think that's basically it. Well, there was one question on the cash. Yes, the cash of the transactions in the first quarter is included.
Of course.
But I want to make clear that any further sales coming in the second quarter, hopefully, are not included as yet. So there was no closing in the second quarter when you look at the cash position of EUR 144 million.
Perfect. That's all clear. And the one was also in regard to the... apologies, because it was quite a big block of questions.... in regards to the disposal. The last one was in regards to the Poleczki and, what implied multiple you sold it, and also, did you sell it at book or premium to the, book value of Q4 2023?
Madrid was also book value. Implied multiple, they call it cap rate in the Polish market, is around 9.5%. So you have to turn that around.
Great.
Yeah. Okay. You anyhow know what a cap rate is, right?
Yeah. Thanks.
Yeah.
Great. That was all clear. And then, two more. One would be in regard to the guidance. Could you detail it a little bit more on what you can expect in 2025? Would it be a level we saw in 2021 or in 2020, or a little bit more detail on what we could expect would greatly help in our forecast.
Yeah. Look, Simon, I, Simon, I understand your question. But it is always, you know, offering you the little finger and then getting pulled out the entire arm, which is a bad translation of a German saying. I ask for your understanding that we don't want to be more specific on this one, as it is now end of May, and we're talking about 2025, with all the unknown factors. I mean, if you could tell me how much your expectation is for the interest rate decreases in Europe and a whole host of other questions, I would find it easier to answer, but it's too speculative on this one.
I think the more important one is, for the reasons that I've given in my presentation, that all indications are that we should be able to generate a profit again, and hopefully, as the year progresses, we can be somewhat more specific as we have less variables in this equation.
Okay, great. Thank you. Just one ... If I, if I would slightly different or if I would ask the question in, from a different direction, then, I assume that, higher inflation following to higher interest rates, that would be the biggest risk to, your guidance you gave this, this morning?
Yes, absolutely correct. Nobody expects it, which doesn't make it less likely. But of course, with, you know, inflation in the European Union now being well below 3%, it is difficult for us to see. There is another thing worth mentioning. Usually it's Patrick who mentions it, but let me steal his argument. We have an inverse interest rate curve, okay? So we also shouldn't be overly optimistic when it comes to interest rates on a long-term basis, the long-term interest rates, I should rather say. Because that must come right as well. So, keep that in mind. It is also a certain risk in the guidance.
Okay, great. Thank you. That's all. And last one would be, if I may, in regard to the Timber Pioneer. You mentioned yesterday that you handed over or you will hand over, at the end of the year, the office space to the tenants. Here, what you also mentioned in the last conference call, you expect the progress in the lease up of the last around 30% of the space. Could you comment on that? And then also, what would be great, your expectations in sales multiples in Frankfurt. And also, I assume there would be a little premium to your ESG standard in the Timber Pioneer. How high would you assume is that premium defined by multiples? Thank you.
Yeah. Well, okay, last question. Very good question. Number one, we have handed over to Universal. That was also published. Now, they do the build-out, and they are intending to move in in Q4, okay? So the ... But the handover has happened and was signed off by Universal, and we are quite happy about it because it means that we have handed over an almost flawless, you know, property. There's always a couple of things that need to be, you know, improved, but it means that the tenant is satisfied with what he has been given. And there are some pictures that we have published from the handover, and the offices look really great.
We're only waiting for the furniture for the entrance hall to arrive, so that you will also see new pictures of the board. We are in advanced talks with potential tenants, but, you know, as long as the ink isn't dry, and, you know, with everybody being super cautious, I don't dare to give you a clear guideline until when we will have concluded the 29% of the remaining non-leased-out areas. But I'm pretty confident, and the demand is there. The viewings are there, and as I said, we are in advanced talks with two potential tenants for the remaining 4,500 square meters.
When it comes to multiples, look, that is super speculative because you have seen the transaction volumes in Frankfurt. If you ask my personal opinion, which is always a bad idea, to ask what is your personal opinion on where do the multiples in Frankfurt stand at the moment, I would say they are roughly at 17-18x annual rent. Okay? We expect a premium for the Timber Pioneer, and it must achieve a premium. But you see what a premium in these market circumstances means simply, because, you know, it's the first timber-hybrid building in Frankfurt.
There is talks with potential brokers for this building already, and they have all coincided in expressing their conviction that there will be a premium being paid for the Timber Pioneer because of its unique nature. I hope this answered your question.
answers it perfectly. Thank you very much for the opportunity-
Thank you.
-to ask the questions.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Stefan Scharff from SRC Research GmbH. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning from Frankfurt. Stefan here from SRC Research. My first question would be some constructions to come soon in Germany and also in Vienna. The Timber Port construction to start in Q4 2024, and Marina Tower to start in first quarter 2025. Both follow the EU taxonomy rules. Both get a high LEED Gold or DGNB Gold certification. So what about the market in Düsseldorf? And what about the market in Vienna for such new such new very good high products? And are you already in talks with some tenants here?
Yeah. Look, let me start with the easier question, which is on the Timber Marina Tower. First, it still takes a bit until we can start construction there, really, because we still wait for the zoning permit. Okay?
Mm-hmm.
So that makes a big difference. And it's stated in the backup. This is why I refer you always to the backup on slide 15 of the full presentation, that completion of the Timber Marina Tower is expected in 2028. I mean, I still would like to say that we are in contact with interested parties for office space in Vienna, because there is a lack of office space in Vienna, believe it or not, and it is regarding the Leopold Quartier. So for the Leopold Quartier, we started the marketing on the 16th of April. I remember this date because that was also the foundation laying ceremony in Leopold Quartier.
And ever since, we've seen quite some interest, also for bigger-sized tenants, which is a positive one. It comes particularly from larger-sized companies that need to rent something that is compliant with the ESG regulations. That's a positive one, and that is what makes us optimistic. On the Timber Port project, or less specifically, on the Düsseldorf market, it is much more difficult for us to give you a clear indication for this. I mean, we have an absolute prime property there, opposite Trivago in the MedienHafen in Düsseldorf.
So if something works, it is there, but it is indeed a project, okay, where we have to think twice if we start it and test the market before we really start it. We have not half as good indications for the interest of tenants in Düsseldorf as we have in Vienna. Okay?
Okay.
I want to be clear on this one. Yeah.
Okay. The normal construction start would be in the fourth quarter 2024, but it might be that it's a bit later here also.
Exactly.
Okay, I see. The second question would be very general on the hotel market. What is the performance of your hotels in the first quarter? And, what is also the performance perhaps in April and May, as-
Mm-hmm.
Half of the second quarter is almost over now?
Mm-hmm. Let me start with the easier one, which is the second quarter. We are pretty optimistic, particularly for Germany, which is no surprise. That we will see a very good rates and very good occupation figures. In Poland, it seems to us from the pre-booking, particularly in hotels like Gdańsk, that a lot of Polish holiday makers have decided to make holidays at home for whatever reason. But so the booking situation there is also better than expected, so that we believe we will see a satisfactory second quarter, okay?
Always with the caveat that we don't know what the wars both in the Ukraine that is affecting, and in general in Israel is going to be the effect. The first quarter, okay, we were not fully satisfied with the hotel performance. One must also say this. This is particularly true for the Netherlands, which came a bit as a surprise, and I have no good explanation for it, other than sometimes, and please don't quote me, I still say it in public, you get the impression as if the Dutch don't want to have any tourists both in the Netherlands. Yeah, both in the Netherlands and in the both in Amsterdam and in The Hague. We have an improving tendency there, okay?
But that has something to do with the seasonality, because January is always usually the worst month. Okay?
Yes. Okay, okay. Yeah, I think for Germany, with the soccer Copa Europa coming, so there should be some rising rates for at least for Potsdam and Düsseldorf, and that should help. So, my... I have another question. It's about some days ago, there was an antitrust filing mid of May or so, that Raiffeisen-Leasing might be interested to buy a company or 80% of a company named W3, which is in the list of your assets, and it's an equity joint company. Perhaps you can say a bit more here about if there is a transaction to come and what is the status of negotiations.
Good, Stefan. You really must be bored to read antitrust filings. But I guess you have managed to set an alert or whatever. It's true, I can confirm that we are in advanced talks with Raiffeisen-Leasing on them buying our 80% stake in W3, as we call it. W3 is an office building where the airport train lands in Vienna. It's next to Raiffeisen Bank International's headquarters and next to the Hilton Hotel. So, you must have seen it already. And as I said, it's 20,000 square meters. It's half office, 10,000 square meters, where Raiffeisen is also the tenant, and the other half is commercial, particularly with a cinema.
So, Raiffeisen Leasing wouldn't have filed for antitrust clearance, if they were not intending to buy it. And, you know, I always make the cautionary statement, you know, until the ink is dry, we can't say anything, but it indicates the advanced talks in which we are.
But there are long-standing rental contracts with all the tenants, with the commercial tenants and also with Raiffeisen. So it's a long-term standing asset in your portfolio.
Look, it's a bit like in Poleczki, you know? Basically, Raiffeisen is renting half of the building, so they know best, you know, what their intentions are. And there were some rumors a long time ago that they might move headquarters and concentrate their offices. I think they are all gone. They have refurbished their headquarters, and they are going to stay in Vienna, which makes all sense. And so it makes also all sense for them to approach us and say, "Why are we not paying the lease to ourselves?" I guess that's the background there.
I, I see. Okay, thank you.
Sure. Thanks for your questions.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Philipp Etting from RBI. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, guys, and, thanks for the presentation and answering all the, all the questions thus far. I only have two more, basically. You stated in your filings that you, that you did an equity injection, so you had to come up with additional equity in the, in the projects in the Czech Republic. Could you maybe shed a bit more light on why that was the case and how much it was? And, the second one is, maybe just to get a feel from, from your side on the residential market. You mentioned that supply will be lower than demand in the future, but this, in my opinion, does not eliminate the, the issues with affordability. And how do you view affordability in the, in the years to come in, in residential?
This would be the two questions from my side. Thank you.
Let me start with the first one, with the equity injection, how you call it. So, it has to do with the financing of the Sugar Palace. And the Sugar Palace, as in many other projects we have, the Sugar Palace was financed in the development phase by shareholder loans, basically, and a very thin equity. And in the development financing, the bank see that the shareholder loans more in an equity. So when we are coming into the spending financing, bank was asking for debt equity swap in order to make the company with more hard equity and less shareholder loans. And basically, that was the transaction you are referring, you are referring to. So the amount was roughly EUR 50 million. EUR 10, sorry, EUR 10.
Okay. Thank you. So on a net base, how much cash could you take out of the sale of the 15%?
We are not, we are not giving any purchase prices because usually we agree that there is no mention of the purchase price. I gave you an indication that out of the EUR 75 million that we are shooting for in terms of cash, and I stress cash, okay? Roughly a third came out of the transactions that I've mentioned, out of the three transactions that I've mentioned, which is the plots in Arcus, the sale of the Poleczki Madrid building and of the 15% stake in Sugar Palace, but we are not giving any more details on this one.
Thank you.
When it comes to your... I'm sorry for not being able to be more specific, but agreed is agreed. On the residential side, look, we all, I think, have our opinion on KIM, okay? And I'm not abusing this conference call to make my comments on the KIM regulation, and for the German listeners, maybe the KIM regulation regulates as much as you have such regulations over in Germany, how much of your disposable income is permitted to go into financing of your apartment. But I promise not to give my opinion on this one. Despite of this regulation having been in place, we sold 50% of the apartments in our first development in Village im Dritten, PEAK Homes.
Now, Peak Homes is a formidable development, and I can understand why there is such a high demand. And you could also say, "Well, the Village im Dritten project was also somewhat delayed, so there's a backlog." But I don't buy this. I think, okay, that people have realized that apartments are not going to get any cheaper, right? There are indications that apartment prices have fallen off of existing apartments in 2023. Yes, that is true, and they must have fallen because the peak was 2022.
But now, all the indications that I'm getting from reports on the talks that we have with, I wouldn't call them investors, with owners, you know, who usually use these apartments for themselves, is that they are struggling to get the financing, but they get the financing. They probably shoot for a 65 square meter apartment instead of a 75 square meter apartment that they would have preferred, and that the layout of the apartment is decisive. And I can tell you, and you can check it out yourself on the homepage or by even visiting it, as you are from Vienna, Philip. The layout of the apartment is second to none. They are super efficient, okay, in terms of how space is used up.
And I believe if you have the right product in the right district, that's also important when it comes to Vienna. It's the Third District. It's, I mean, very close to the airport. It offers all the public transport and amenities as well. Then there is a market. And this is why we have been fairly bullish in our presentation, at least for us being rather on the conservative side, that the recovery is going to be led by the resi sector.
Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot, and I will jump back into queue.
Okay. Okay. Thank you for your questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Thomas Winkler for closing remarks.
Well, promise, you won't hear from me in the next six weeks again, or after six weeks. We now are busy, you know, trying to close the transactions that we are currently negotiating. Despite the fact that we have to report a loss in the first quarter and that we can't give you confidence that we entered the profit zone in 2024, I'm pretty convinced that we've seen the low point in our industry. I believe that the recovery will be slow. I'm not optimistic that it, you know, turns into the other direction with the 25 basis points everybody expects from the EZB to come. But we see first indications which make us sound somewhat more optimistic than we were in the last conference calls.
I also want to thank you for your constant attention and the analysts on the call for always following up on what we publish. It doesn't go without saying, because people, you know, are a bit sick and tired of hearing of the real estate industry, and we appreciate this very much. For those who live in Austria, I wish you a nice, long weekend because I haven't heard of anybody who intends to work on Friday. And in this respect, all the best and happy Monday.