Good morning, everybody, and thank you for joining today's conference call. I hope you all have the presentation in front of you. On slide number three, the summary slide, as you can see, we have structured the presentation into six main sections. Number one, we attempt a sober but balanced view on the current market situation and put UBM's position in context. Two, our pipeline has even slightly grown from EUR 2.1 billion to EUR 2.2 billion, exclusively in the two asset classes, resi and office. Three, timber is the big lever for our sales success in the future and our industry leadership in ESG. Four, it will come as no surprise that the cash position is going to decide about make or break for most market participants.
With a successful bond issue as late as July and no repayments between Q4 2023 and Q4 2025, i.e., two years, we feel more comfortable than most competitors, I anticipate. Five, no doubt, the first half of this year has been a difficult one, and an extraordinary revaluation as of June 30 leaves our half-year numbers with a loss. And six, and finally, we can only present a gloomy outlook for the market in the second half. However, the good news is that we have reasons to believe our half-year loss is going to be reduced to roughly half. Moving to slide four, I would like to give you some food for thought regarding the light at the horizon of a currently very dark market environment. The law of demand and supply even works under current market conditions.
With project cancellations in the high double-digit % area, according to Bulwiengesa Research, the supply that is shrinking like a silk shirt washed at 90 degrees in the washing machine. This will have a dramatic catch-up effect once a new price equilibrium is found. The effect on the yield level is going to be dramatic, with an increase estimated around 150 basis points, plus, minus 25 basis points. But rising rents are eventually going to set off a substantial part of this effect. Of course, double-digit % growth in rent levels come with a certain delay. This cannot be denied, even in the light of a poor political debate, which is another proof of ignorance by most political parties when it comes to their belief in market economy. Undoubtedly, the demand exists.
We have a growing population, not only in Germany, but also in metropolitan areas like Vienna, which has today a higher population than it had as the capital of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. It is common understanding that Germany lacks as many as 700,000 apartments by the end of 2025. The opinions vary when it comes to office demand. This is no surprise with a rising vacancy rate around the globe. But you want to make people return to the office, you better offer them more than the comfort associated usually with home office. New office space must be super attractive in terms of zoning, look, and feel. But first and foremost, new office space must be sustainable and meet all EU Taxonomy requirements.
In other words, the new office space must be ideally made of timber, and energy supply should be a combination of geothermal and photovoltaic, or in other words, this is exactly what we have on offer. Last but not least, the question is: How much more can the transaction volume fall? With 38 newly built apartments sold in the entire first half of 2023 in the financial capital of Germany, Frankfurt, the answer is pretty clear, not a lot more to fall. Finally, it is market consensus that there is hardly new office space available in Vienna. LeopoldQuartier is one of only a handful of office projects, and if I talk about a handful, I mean 5. Clearly, only the strong will survive. At the same time, there can be no doubt that the survivors will come back stronger than ever.
Please turn to slide number five of our presentation. Where there is light, there's also shadow, or I should rather say where there is shadow, there's also light. We all got an overdose of shadow in the last 18 months, so please allow for not repeating every single bullet on this chart. I have counted more than 10 profit warnings in August and almost 10 bankruptcies in the last three months. Some feel this is healthy, some think it simply sucks. The only question which I would like to raise in connection with this slide is the question where the most likely price equilibrium can be expected? The big question is, if a market that has seen a prime yield, say, of 3% or 33x annual rent, is going to settle at 4.5% or 22.2x annual rent?
The honest answer is that we don't know. The still existing absence of any major transactions makes me say so. Will the market stand still forever? No. People need a roof over their head and need for creative and productive work process in most branches of business. It has also become common knowledge that the question of affordable housing will decide future elections. For the German listeners to this call, let me inform you that the second-largest city in Austria, Graz, is governed by a communist mayor. My hometown, Salzburg, with one of the most conservative populations I've ever seen, has seen a 20% of votes going to the Communist Party. They offer simple answers, and so does the far right, by the way, but there are also alternatives to it.
The state of Upper Austria is subsidizing interest rates for housing, with 1.25 percentage points being paid by the state of Upper Austria, and thereby lowering the current mortgage rate from 4.25% to 2.95% for a term of 20 years. If you are investing in KfW 40 housing in Germany, you can obtain a loan of EUR 150,000 for 10 years, with an interest rate of 0.01% or 0.9% over a 35-year period. These two examples clearly point the way. The issue at the moment, politics is very slow in intervening. What does this mean for UBM? Please turn to slide number six. You've all read our profit warning a couple of days ago, and Patric will go into the details. Let me restrict myself to four points.
One, contrary to portfolio holders, we have never written up our real estate to the extent you even had to write it up, like the Vonovias or the IMMOFINANZes of this world. We have made write-downs across the board on the basis of revised expert opinions, which reflect the new interest rate levels and resulting expected price levels. This is true for some standing assets, but also for a number of project developments. Two, operationally, we have made good progress. We handed over F.A.Z. Tower, sorting out the little hiccup with the buyers, as you would expect it in times of high stress levels. We were best in class regarding rentals in the first half in Frankfurt with our Timber Pioneer, strongly supporting our strategic direction.
Even if it happened beyond 30th of June 2023, actually, end of July, we have obtained a long-awaited Bauvorbescheid for Baubergerstraße, or as we call it now, Timber Factory. This also means that we have received payment for the second 50% of the purchase price, with the respective positive effect on our liquidity in Q3. We are not only proud of healthy liquidity levels, but also of healthy equity and loan-to-value ratios. The best thing in this context, after the November repayment of our 2018 bond, there are no repayments due until Q4 of 2025, i.e., over two years. Last but not least, we can proudly present you with one of the highest quality pipelines in the industry when it comes to meeting the future requirements of real estate investors.
These requirements are almost exclusively circling around EU Taxonomy, ESG, and sustainability. Looking at slide seven you can see what I mean at first glance. 72% of our pipeline is in timber, making it 100% future-proof. We have a healthy 50/50 mix, roughly, in resi and office. We do not do retail, we do not do hotels or any other asset class, which is under extreme pressure. Ninety percent of our portfolio is in Germany and Austria, with no political or currency risk, and in markets which we really know by heart. We are on track to become the leading developer of timber projects in Europe, period. Nothing to add. Please have now a look in more detail on slide eight.
As already mentioned, we are convinced that this shortage of supply will secure the demand for a long time in the future, and with the respective positive effects. There's a huge annual supply gap in all of the cities in which we are developing apartments. So the numbers that you see are annual numbers, annual gap numbers, and we are proud of producing 3,300 apartments in cities like Vienna, Prague, or Munich. I think the slide speaks for itself. Please, therefore, turn to slide nine. The office of the future will be built in timber. Office buildings are a key element to achieve a company's net zero goal, and it will be the corporates who will most likely afford the bill.
Almost one-fifth of currently existing office space is useless in 2030, unless it is managed to green or converted for other purposes. So expect vacancy rates only knowing one direction, but this doesn't make us nervous. This is why we are bold enough to acquire what is going to become the highest rise timber building in the world, the Timber Marina Tower in Vienna. It has been up to us to redesign it in timber, in cooperation with world-famous architect Dominique Perrault. Out of our more than 300,000 square meters of timber construction floor space, 230,000 square meters is in the office class, asset class, and the reasons are obvious. But let me not get carried away with our vision.
Let me much rather hand over to Patric, who gives you the hard facts on the financial as well as non-financial issues. Patric, please.
Thank you, Thomas, and good morning also from my side. Please, please turn to slide number 10 now. It might come as little surprise for you that UBM is still the best in class in terms of ESG ratings. ISS ESG confirmed once more our undisputed industry lead. UBM is the only company in the DACH regions, real estate, and construction industry with a B- rating. UBM is also among the top 1%, top 1% of companies with a platinum rating of all companies assessed by EcoVadis worldwide. In June, we also made it again into the Austrian Sustainability Index, VÖNIX (Voenix). Currently, we are analyzing our existing corporate carbon footprint in detail and will then set hard-coded targets for the coming years. With our timber strategy, we have the greatest lever in our hands on the operational front when it comes to carbon footprint for a developer.
UBM's timber construction pipeline saves approximately 50,000 tons of CO2, which is roughly the equivalent of the weight of five Eiffel Towers. An impressive number and an important prerequisite to continue advancing in green financing. Please turn to slide number 11. After releasing UBM's Green Finance Framework in April this year, we took the window of opportunity in a very challenging market environment in June and issued UBM's first green bond. We were satisfied with the retail market's demand for our new product, allowing us to place EUR 50 million. This demonstrates that despite the highly challenging market times, and you can assume it was really highly challenging market times, we continued to have access to the capital market.
Important note, the payout date was on July 10, so the proceeds from the green bond are not reflected in the cash position end of June. Based on the graph on the right side, we have already accounted for the new green bond. Following a tender offer for the 2018 bonds to be redeemed in November, the redemption amount for it has reduced from EUR 120 million to EUR 91 million in the first quarter of this year. However, the most significant information from this graph is that we won't have any repayments from the first quarter of 2023 to the fourth quarter of 2025, which provides us with enough headroom to adapt ourselves to the challenging real estate market.
Please follow me to the next slide, where we will take a closer look at the cash position, which is probably the most crucial information at the moment. Our cash position has decreased to EUR 214 million at the end of the first half of this year. Many of you might recall that back in 2021, we were accused of hoarding too much money. Two years down the road, we are now appreciating the caution of cash, as cash on hand is the only currency in the current market environment. Likelihood of survival is the flavor of the day, not growth or balance sheet potential. On the right-hand side, we want to provide you with an overview of the key inflows and outflows.
In the first half of the year, we allocated EUR 52 million for the repayment of the hybrid bond and had an additional outflows due to the acquisition of the Timber Port in Düsseldorf, as well as dividend payments and interest payments. The successful handover of the F.A.Z. Tower in Frankfurt had a positive impact on the cash position. For the second half of the year, we already banked inflows from the green bond and the Timber Factory, which is now Baubergerstraße. We have made payments due for the Timber Marina Tower project and wait for the redemption of the 2018 bond, as already described on the previous slide. In summary, we are comfortable with our current cash position, but we continue to look at cash management as our top priority.
What we have witnessed in the first half year was that the situation on the transaction market remained unchanged, a complete standstill. Prior to the publication today, UBM issued a profit warning because of the outcome of the updated valuations by our surveyors. In total, the revaluations led to write downs of EUR 31.3 million and a corresponding negative effect on half year results. By the end of the first half, EBITDA amounts to -EUR 31.6 million. We aim to halve this loss by the end of the year. By the end of the first half, equity amounted to EUR 400 million. The reduction in equity compared with December 31 is not only a consequence of the negative net income in the first half, but also refers to repayment of the 2018 hybrid bonds prematurely in March.
Since the hybrid bond is accounted for equity under IFRS, the equity ratio also decreased as a result. With an equity ratio of approximately 30%, we are still within the lower end of our target range of 30%-35%. Our net debt increased to EUR 606 million, and as a result, also the LTV. In summary, our balance sheet still proves relative strength and provides UBM with some headroom to wait for a stimulation of the transaction market. May I now hand back to you, Thomas?
Certainly, Patric. Let me finish the formal part of our presentation with the outlook for 2023, 2024, and maybe even beyond. We expect the following: The transaction market is going to remain in a complete standstill for the rest of the year. However, we shall be able to reduce our current loss level because of the Timber Factory Baubergerstraße effect. As already mentioned several times, we have received the money already, and you will see the effects as early as Q3. This will help our strong financial position to remain strong, and the liquidity position is the competitive advantage going forward. There is hope for 2024, but we all do not know. There's too much dust in the air, and troubles like Evergrande or Country Garden in China may easily spill over. So we only expect a very slow market recovery and will act accordingly.
Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that our products are second to none when it comes to EU Taxonomy and the return of the market to a new normal. Let me stop here. Thank you for your attention, and open the line for your questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star, followed by one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star, followed by two. If you are using speaker equipment today, please lift the handset before making your selections. Anyone who has a question may press star, followed by one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question comes from the line of Simon Stippig with Warburg Research. Please. One moment.
From me would be-
Please go ahead.
Hi, can you hear me well?
Yes, we can hear you now.
Great. Thank you. My first question would be in regard to the outlook, what you just mentioned, 2023, complete standstill, a little bit unsurprising, I would say. But then in 2024, could you just give a little bit of an additional insight in regard to projects for the next year? I know that potentially there is the Timber Pioneer, then Astrid Gardens, Gmunder hofe, et cetera. But what do you expect there also in regard to cash inflow, liquidity, and then maybe one smaller question in regard to Timber Pioneer, because you had signed an LOI on the lease. Did this LOI materialize? And then also, is there anything in regard of transactions? I would then ask another question after that. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, Simon. I think I got you. You tried to figure out, I mean, even if the situation is very bad, how much better could it get in 2024? I think first of all, you have to differentiate between the resi market and the office market. In the resi market, our sales have also slowed down quite significantly, but we have sold 52 apartments, i.e., more than the entire of Frankfurt in the first half year. And we've been quite successful with projects like you've mentioned in Prague. But the same is true also for our German projects, as I said, at a much lower pace. I do not see them die down completely.
It probably is more the buyers, who have almost entirely, or at least a very high percentage in equity, that are buying, now. Their negotiating position is excellent, and I tell you, I know what I'm talking about because I try to sell my house in Cologne. When it comes to office, there is a-- You, you pour salt in my wounds because I must admit that I have been, kind of very optimistic about concluding a second lease contract, which would make Timber Pioneer fully leased out.... Because of course, Universal has signed a contract, but the LOI that I have talked about has not materialized. So, we still have around a third of Timber Pioneer vacant, and not a lot has moved over summer.
We recommence our efforts, now that everybody is back from vacations. As I said, if you want to have a lease, a green lease, in a timber construction office building, we are the only ones in Frankfurt, which makes me kind of cautiously optimistic. I think the kind of great challenge is when is the first transaction setting the price equilibrium in the market, you know? I, quite honestly, I'm at the stage where I don't care if the yield has increased by 175 basis points even. If at the end, we can say, this is the transaction that has set the new equilibrium. But we haven't seen this.
I believe, and that again, sounds maybe overly optimistic, that by the time that this transaction happens, we will see others follow. There is plenty of money waiting to be invested, and it's not only the funds in London, okay? Which I would almost call vulture funds, that are circling around real estate and hoping for 15 times 15, 15 times, annual rent, okay? Which would be, something like 7% yield. I'm talking about, the real estate investors that have an intention to hold for then 10 years and benefit from the indexation of the rent levels. So that would be the catalyst, and it's almost unimaginable for me, that this is going to continue throughout 2024.
But I have very well-educated kind of market peers that say they don't exclude this because of the length of the upward trend. One final remark, and I hope that I've answered the question, otherwise, I'm delighted to answer a follow-up question. Final observation from my side is, and as I've mentioned, my age already at the beginning of the conference call, I think I was not on air. I'm now 60, so my life experience tells me whenever something is going down really quickly, and this has happened now to the real estate market, it's also recovering more quickly. This is the only good thing that I can find by a deteriorating market that has deteriorated, I dare to say, from beginning of April to beginning of August, in a pace that I would have never dreamed would be possible.
Now, that is kind of, you know, the counterargument why we would kind of muddle through an entire further 18 months almost. Has this answered your question?
Partly, yes. The one question or the one item that's still open to me is maybe that the projects of next year, where do you see your liquidity level then ending up in 2024? I know it's difficult, but as you have no refinancings, at least in regard to bonds-
Yeah.
I mean, it should be a net cash inflow, a part-
Yeah
... of potentially any investments into new projects.
Yeah.
Is that assumption right?
Yeah. Look, in the conference calls, and I know that you've participated in all of them, so I may refer to them. We referred to events in our case that are completely kind of, you know, independent of the market development. One event happened, and it gives us EUR 45 million, almost EUR 45 million, and this is the purchase price payment for the second half of the Timber Factory. So we have not only promised, we are also going to deliver, and as I said, we've received the money, so it's easier for me to talk about it in the third quarter that you may add to the bill. At the same time, you know, we still feel strong enough that we also make sure that we don't fall into a big hole.
I think this is a German way of expressing it, into a big trap, which is that eventually, we have to tell you for two years, we have no income because we haven't acquired any projects. And this is the background of the Timber Marina Tower. You must be aware that a project of this size and of this profile would never be possible to acquire at this stage, unless you are in a situation as we see in the market right now. Of course, we are kind of, you know, betting on certain rent levels, on certain, certain construction costs and everything else, because we don't even have the zoning permit as yet. But,
... This is the nature of our business. So bottom line, okay, we are spending money. We've given you the EUR 24.5 million, and the EUR 8 million of credit that is included, which gives you like EUR 16 million of cash out for the Timber Marina Tower. And I've given you now the number of almost EUR 45 million of cash that we received from the second half of the payment for the Timber Factory. And everything else is kind of, you know, mathematics, so that we can say, looking at the chart, that for me is the most explicit one on slide 12, we are coming from EUR 423.3 million, and we are now at EUR 214.3 million.
That was 2021 compared to half year 2023. But we are not kind of having to rely on a market recovery, so that we don't run out of petrol, so to say. We would never do that.
Okay, great. That's actually good news. And I guess EUR 45 million of cash inflow, gross, from the side of the Timber Factory, that should be plenty. Maybe in that regard also, you are at the lower end of your target range in regard to the equity ratio. So I assume that in the next quarters or until year-end, 2023, you should actually get well into the middle of your range. Is that assumption right? And then maybe if not, then, I mean, you feel comfortable right now, because, I mean, actually, your liquidity position is quite high and should, yeah, potentially be stable with the outflow of the bond, but the inflow and maybe some operative movements. Is that assumption right?
Okay, let me start with the equity ratio. So where you are right in your thoughts is we have not seen the effect from the Baubergerstraße and what is coming from this one yet in the half year numbers. So it is right to assume that in the third quarter there will come something from this. And that was also the reason why we were bold enough to say that we will be able or aiming for halving the negative results from half year to full year. So only coming from this perspective, there is in our assumption something in that the equity, the total equity should be a little bit higher at year-end than it is now. Otherwise, it wouldn't make sense what we are saying.
In terms of balance sheet, I mean, there is also a good assumption that the balance sheet, despite the fact that we are investing further in our project and that a good part of the projects are only also fully consolidated, so we will see an increase from this side. But on the other hand, we will pay back the EUR 91 million, which will shorten our balance sheet. So if we lay that together, the equity ratio should be a little bit better than today. If I see it halfway between 30 and 35, I would say that is a little bit too optimistic currently. In terms of cash, I think most of the things are set.
We know that we have the inflow from the Baubergerstraße or the Timber Factory, which the EUR 45 million, there will be other inflows, which are also to a certain extent, banked from the project in the Czech Republic we have sold, and where we give over the apartments to the buyers. Because that is a different game than, for example, in Austria or Germany, where you get the bulk of money only when you hand over the apartments. So you are not getting it over time, you are getting it as a bulk at the end. So there is some inflow from this side, and we are confident that you feel happy at the end of the year with the cash position we still hold in our hands, and having repaid the EUR 91 million.
Great, thank you. I've plenty of more questions, but I don't want to hijack your call. Maybe just one more from my side. In regards to the banks, how do they stand in regard to project financing? Anything changed? I certainly, I think you mentioned the last call, equity levels have increased, but a part of that, is there anything important to mention?
No, not a real update compared to the last time, but I'm happy to say again what I said in the last call. So, I mean, banks are still financing at least our projects when we come to the table. So we have decent offers when we are asking for a financing of a new project. That is still the fact. It is different in terms of the equity levels needed if it is a resi project or an office project. That was always the case, also in the good old times. But, on the office project, the banks are more cautious than they used to be, and so we are more talking about levels LTC of 60 instead of 75, or sometimes it was even able to 80 or higher to financing such a project.
So when we start an office, and Thomas pointed out that we are betting a bit of our farm on this asset class as well, we need to cater for the equity which is needed in order to make the project happen.
... But still, the resonance from the banks is still okay when we are asking for financing, for project financing.
Okay, great. Many thanks from my side.
Thank you for your question.
The next question comes from the line of Stefan Schraff with SRC Research. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning from Frankfurt. To the operator, it's SRC Research, much better than SRH, just to mention. My first question is about, my first question is about the pipeline. It's more than EUR 2 billion, and what do you think here about the speed doing your business here? And we all know pipeline is important, yes, but at the moment, you know, it's not too easy, perhaps with the banks and also with tenants and the whole shaky economic situation, which might prevail in the next year. So how do you think in general about your pipeline and about the speed of progress you are doing here?
Stefan, as I know you well enough, I know exactly what the direction of your question is, and you're absolutely right, because this is the Catch-Twenty-Two question. We were talking a lot more about bargain hunting in our previous conference calls than we do today. Because if the order of the day, if you want, is that you have to keep your liquidity as high as possible, okay? A bargain will be, you know, scrutinized much more than in the past, if it's really a bargain, and our appetite is limited. But it is, you know, we are not kind of, you know, stuffed.
It's not like after an eight-course meal, and that we say we are stuffed, because, as we've mentioned several times in the past, liquidity management, okay, has been our focus, since March 2020.
Mm.
I tell you, the first thing I look at in the morning is our liquidity status from the previous night. And you know, I'm kind of you know, questioning why is it EUR 500,000 less? I'm not like, usually I'm making stupid phone calls when it was reduced by EUR 10 million, and I couldn't kind of you know, understand why, because I've forgotten about something. It's changed dramatically. And when I think the hidden message behind what you're saying is: Guys, you know, we don't care about the next kind of you know, world highest, world best. We care about you surviving. And basically, that is what Patric has said in his formal presentation.
The question today is not to present you with our earnings growth over the next 18 months.
Mm.
The question of the next 18 months is to make sure that we survive this storm, even if it doesn't, you know, end any time soon. And that is exactly how we look at it. So we still look at things. I think this is our obligation. We have still, you know, people who are following the market. I think this is our obligation as a developer. But basically, you know, we are pretty well aware where our biggest competitive advantage is, and our biggest competitive advantage is that with more than EUR 200 million of liquidity, we are better off than by far more than 90% of our peers.
Yes. Yes, yeah, you know, you perhaps you remember one of your former annual reports. There was a UBM quoting, "Profit is an opinion, but cash is a fact." And, yeah, that's, that's the point, a little bit. So, next question is about the Timber Pioneer in Frankfurt. You made a very marvelous rental contract with Universal Investment in the first quarter of the year, and then there are still 2,000 or 3,000 square meters to rent. Is there any progress here in the lease negotiations for the remaining space at Timber Pioneer? And, how do you think about the sale of the Timber Pioneer?
Is this possible for a good price next year, or you think it might happen, a situation that you keep the Timber Pioneer in your books? And if you talk about properties in your books, also the question about the hotels in the Netherlands and the Czech Republic and the two German hotels, what is the operating situation here? And I guess it's too early to say something or to consider to sell them at this point, at this point in time.
Look, let me start with the question and then hand over to Patric for the more nasty part of the question. Look, not a lot has moved over second half of July and August, but this is not a surprise when it comes to Timber Pioneer. I mean, everybody is on holidays, and while I know that people have returned in Hesse a bit earlier than we do from holidays, it's still, and we can see it from the participants in this call, not full presence as yet. But let me assure you that we are not getting tired of, you know, really making a noise about the uniqueness of what we have to offer with the Timber Pioneer.
I believe, even if there is a lot of talk about the deteriorating economy, particularly in Germany, because Austrians hate to talk about negative facts, there is enough demand for a unique product, product like ours. But you will understand, because I've been a bit too outspoken in my last conference call, that I'm more cautious about my expectations when it's leased out. Why am I mentioning this? Because only if it's fully leased, we can think of selling it. I mean, there is no, no way of otherwise doing it. Will we do it? Or will we decide to keep it on the books? Of course, if it's common knowledge that rents are rising faster than purchase prices, it would make sense to keep it on your books.
But then we are a developer, you know? I mean, our balance sheet has its limitations. We are starting a number of projects. We are not postponing all of our projects, last but not least, because the meter is running on the interest rate side. And so therefore, I would say that our paramount interest is to sell the Timber Pioneer rather than keep it on our books. And the only promise that I can make is we are not going to sell it at a fire sale price, because with more than EUR 200 million of liquidity on your books, you're not in a position where you are forced into fire sale prices. Patric, you want to add something?
Of course, maybe to the Timber Pioneer, what Thomas said, I mean, as a plan B, we have to cater for that in terms of the balance sheet. But the good news with the Timber Pioneer is it isn't an equity project, so there is not too much balance sheet capacity we need to have in our mind when we need to keep it. And most of the equity we need for this project is already in, obviously, because we are quite advanced when it comes to the construction. So one need to have a plan B for this one as well. But what Thomas was referring on is the plan A would be to see that we get the liquidity out of it, and avoiding any kind of fire sales.
But let's see if the market is able to give us the opportunity for this one. Second part of your question as well on the hotels, on the hotel standings we have. Different picture, I have to say. Let's start with Düsseldorf, because that is the hotel who's able to earn at least the interest rates, plus whatever is needed to pay back the loan. So it is a hotel where I don't need any cash to inject, and it's just doing as good in terms of performance, that it can pay not only its bills, but also its debt.
Potsdam is close to that, still needs a little bit of money when it comes to paying back the part of the loan, but is able to pay its interest at least, and a little bit more than the interest, but not enough to pay the full thing. Kronberg is also one which, where the performance is coming up quite well. I mean, that is a hotel which is still in its ramp up phase, but nevertheless, what is coming out of the hotel in terms of cash flows is enough to cater at least for the interest rate. The one which is really still in its ramp up, and when I say ramp up, it is in a phase where we have hoped for a faster ramp up, but that didn't come as we were hoping for.
That is the Sugar Palace. So we need to really push for a faster performance improvement and hope that we are through with the negative phase of this hotel. But currently, we are paying into this one.
Okay. Okay, I see. So, any sale transactions are not too close at the moment. I think perhaps in one or two years it might be more likely, but not at this point in stage.
I mean, in the current market positions, that would be only possible, I mean, to sell it for a kind of fire price, thing.
Mm. Okay.
The question is, if we would take such a hit, just assume it for a second. We are not planning for that as our plan A, but just for a second, assume such a hit. The question is: What are you going to do with the market? Is there an alternative or, is it good to have the money in your bank account because you are hoping for something? But currently, plan A is we can't sell it, and we keep it.
Okay. Okay. Thank you, guys.
Thank you, Stefan, for your questions.
Thanks, Stefan.
Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I hand back over to Thomas Winkler for any closing comments.
Thank you, Poppy, and thank you for everybody who's been with us for almost an hour. It's not coming without saying that there is interest in us. I thank you for, you know, still writing up research and following us closely and taking a differentiated view. And hoping for being able to give you some better news in the Q3 call and have a nice day.