Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome you warmly at our Q1 2022 announcements of the results. The call is being recorded and will be available on-
Will be available on our website. Today's presentation will be conducted as usual by the management board, mainly, Zoltán Fekete, the CEO, and Ariel Ferstman, the CFO. We have also with us János Gárdai, our Chief Operating Officer. After the presentation, we will open the session for the question and answer. Hold your questions till the end of the presentation and we'll be happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you very much, and I'm passing over to Zoltán.
Thank you, Małgorzata. Welcome everyone. I would like to start with the strong results for Q1 2022 and the announcement that we are proposing a dividend payment after a while to the shareholders meeting. We will propose 0.23 PLN per share, which corresponds to a 4.6% dividend yield on the current share price. We believe that the company's solid performance last year, followed by the strong performance in the first quarter this year, plus the solid cash position of the company justifies that we return to dividend payment. Małgorzata, can I ask you to put the presentation on screen? Thank you.
In the first quarter, rental revenues increased to EUR 42 million compared to EUR 37 million in the first quarter of 2021. Gross margin also increased to EUR 30 million compared to EUR 27 million a year ago. FFO went up to EUR 16 million compared to EUR 14 million in Q1 2021. We have our current EPRA NAV is at 10.43 PLN per share. Compared to the current share price, we are trading at an over 40% discount to NAV. Our net LTV remains low at 43%. Occupancy level remains high or in fact increased slightly to 91% in the first quarter.
We have a strong cash position of EUR 278 million at the end of the first quarter. We also have available credit facility, unsecured credit line, in the amount of EUR 94 million. We believe we are well equipped to invest in the coming months. We turn the page specifically on the office side of the business. During January this year, in the first quarter, we closed the disposal of our Serbian office portfolio. We completed the development of the ExxonMobil headquarters building in Hungary, which is actually the largest location office building Exxon has in Europe. We start generating an annual EUR 6.1 million euros rent from the second quarter.
This transaction, this development itself, has an uplift on the valuation of almost EUR 30 million. We also commenced the development in Zagreb, Matrix C, after successfully leasing the first two buildings in this development. Our leasing activity also improved and we during the first quarter leased over 36,000 square meters in the office segment. Our occupancy, as I mentioned before, remains high, 89% on the office side. If we turn to the retail part of our business, I think this is the area where we have the most pleasant surprise. The retail operation that performed very well. Occupancy increased to 96%. We are seeing positive trends in all our shopping malls. Turnover levels are back to pre-COVID levels.
I'm pleased to say that. We also see a continuation of this trend on the next page. We have a comparison of footfall and turnover figures for the last two years. Here we can see. I would like to highlight the bottom line. April 2022 levels in most of our shopping malls are actually significantly higher in terms of turnover compared to April 2019. I think we could officially say that the COVID is over in terms of retail operation, and in fact, we expect further strong performance in this segment. If we turn to our portfolio, our portfolio hasn't changed significantly. We have a gross asset value of EUR 2.3 billion, 89% of which is income generating.
We continue the same split between offices and retail, so office 65% of the total income generating portfolio with 35% on the retail side. We also have active development and land bank, which represents 11% of the entire portfolio. If we turn the page to projects under construction, it represent EUR 57 million, and these include office properties in Zagreb, Belgrade, Budapest and Sofia. Some of these will be completed this year. We are also doing pre-development work in other areas as well. I would like to present our development pipeline. On the next page.
First of all, I would like to mention Pillar was completed, so as I mentioned before, in Budapest. I also mentioned Matrix C in Zagreb. This building is, although the development or the construction only started a few weeks ago, we already have almost 50% pre-lease on that property. In Belgrade, we continue the development of GTC X. It's on track. It will be completed before end of this year. This is already pre-leased more than 50%, and we have good potential to reach almost in the coming months. We also continue the development in Mall of Sofia. Here we see interest from tenants, but we also observe that the decision-making process is somewhat slow.
We have to focus our attention in this field. It's an office development in CBD in Sofia. We also started the redevelopment of Centerpoint one and two in Budapest after Exxon moved out to Pillar, to the new building. We are quite positive about the potential of this building, given the low vacancy level around 5% in the office segment in Budapest, more specifically in the most important office segment in the Váci corridor. It's around 5%. We're also progressing with the refurbishment and redevelopment of the Russo Business Campus in Budapest. On the next page, a few other projects. We launched the development of Centerpoint three, so it's an extension of the existing Centerpoint one and two.
These three buildings will offer us to lease 70,000 square meters in prime office space in Budapest. We are also working on obtaining the building permit for ABC Three in Sofia. We are also progressing and launching the residential component for the Spatio project in Bucharest. I would like to mention that we are starting our newest project in Belgrade, in Napred. This is a project which will allow us to build 75,000 square meters in the coming years. After selling the Belgrade office portfolio, we continue to be present in the market. The market is very strong. Rent levels are good. We are progressing with a new project.
As you see, we are quite busy on the development side as well since we see interesting opportunities in this segment. With that, I would like to hand over to Ariel to summarize the financials.
Thank you, Zoltán. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone. Indeed, we have a very successful first quarter of the year, operationally speaking. Very strong numbers on the income statement with an increase of gross margin of operations of 10%.
EUR 30 million this quarter versus EUR 27 million last quarter. The increase was driven mainly by our last year's significant acquisitions in Hungary, which contribute around EUR 4.7 million, including Universal and Váci Greens, the Váci 188. In addition to that, we have as previously mentioned by Zoltán, we have a very positive quarter on our performance of our retail assets. Very strong performance mainly in our shopping centers in Poland as well, which contribute to basically a rental growth of EUR 2.4 million. This was offset by the disposal of our office portfolio in Serbia early this year in the amount of EUR 4.4 million.
If you see from the first quarter glimpse, there's almost no impact regarding the disposal of the Serbian portfolio in the operational numbers. In addition to that, we have posted a EUR 3 million profit from revaluation for the first quarter versus a EUR 3 million loss last year first quarter. If we zoom in this line, basically we have booked a EUR 5 million profit from revaluation from the completion of our Pillar office building, ExxonMobil headquarters. Since the commencement of the construction, we have recognized around EUR 30 million profit from revaluation of this project, which demonstrate how we are adding value to our development engine. Around 36% profit on cost. It's a very successful project.
In addition to that, we posted EUR 1 million profit from the disposal of a land bank of one of our non-core assets. This was offset by EUR 6 million loss related to the investment of our existing portfolio in fit out and capital expenditure, which basically allow us to keep our high occupancy at 91% all across the portfolio. On the finance line, finance cost, you see, you don't see it properly from the presentation. However, we posted EUR 8.1 million on this quarter versus EUR 8.5 million last year's quarter, which is a decrease of 6% effectively on the funding cost.
You're actually gradually seeing the impact of the refinancing of our expensive secured financing for unsecured debt, in line with our new financing policy. Overall, we have posted a quarterly profit of EUR 15 million versus EUR 9 million last year quarter. On the next slide, on the balance sheet, you can see in the balance sheet, we are presenting, as usual, a very robust balance sheet with a very strong liquidity position. During the first quarter, we have managed to increase our existing portfolio in spite of the disposal of the Serbian portfolio by 3.5% to EUR 2.3 billion. This was driven mainly by the acquisition of Napred, as mentioned by Zoltán previously, in Belgrade.
An extremely well-located land plot right next to the former portfolio that we had for an additional 73,000 square meters of office space, plus investments under construction on our existing projects under development. We have finalized the quarter with a very strong cash position, EUR 277 million, excluding deposits, driven mainly by the completion of the disposal of the Serbian portfolio, freeing up cash in the amount of EUR 134 million before taxes. The capital raise round that we did back in December, which was completed in January with the successful registration of the share capital in the amount of EUR 120 million net of issuing costs.
Plus, we have managed to increase our credit lines by EUR 90 million from EUR 75 million previously to EUR 94 million. A very good achievement in the same terms agreed back in September 2021. We have available credit lines about EUR 94 million ready to be deployed for new opportunities. On the next slide, on the debt overview, we have a total debt of EUR 1.3 billion, almost unchanged from last year. Very healthy maturity profile, about five years. We keep our conservative LTV 43% with no major loans to be recycled in the next 18 months, as you can see on the debt maturity profile.
It's very important to emphasize 93% of our existing debt. It's either fixed interest or hedged, which enables us to have a very well position in the event of potential increase of funding costs as we've seen all over different markets. In addition to that, we are presenting a very healthy coverage ratio increase, 3.7 times, and an increase of unencumbered properties to 52% from 45% last year. On the last slide, on the cash flow, we managed to increase our operational cash flow in comparison to last year, and offset the impact of the disposal of the Serbian portfolio, driven mainly by the acquisitions in Hungary mentioned before, the completion of our developments in Belgrade.
Sorry, the completion of developments in Sofia and in Zagreb as well, and the significant improvement over the retail assets performance in comparison to 2021. I think with this concludes the presentation, Małgorzata, and we're open for any questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, you may ask your questions.
Hi. Maybe one question from my side, if I may. Jakub Caithaml, WOOD & Company. I hope you can hear me.
Yes, we can hear you clearly.
Great. Okay, so just like a general question from my side concerning the situation on the market, meaning, how do you assess the incoming supply on your core markets in terms of the office segment? Because what we see in Warsaw is that many projects were put on hold and basically not that much of a free space is available now for rent. I'm just wondering, how do you see the potential for the supply gap starting already maybe in 2023 in this segment in your core markets?
First of all, we don't have active developments in the Polish market. There our task is to extend prolong leases and which these days is not so difficult because corporates still takes some time to decide and move their locations. At the same time, also we obviously filling existing space. We don't see actually major impact of new developments across the board. If I move on to other markets, vacancy levels in Hungary are quite low, and lots of developments we see in the pipeline but being delayed. This is the reason why we actually decided to launch Centerpoint three.
If we look at, for example, smaller markets like Croatia, Sofia, Belgrade, in the past we've been actually very successful leasing out quickly the existing developments. Just coming back to the question, we see some pressure in Poland. This is why actually we are not launching new projects. In terms of also development costs and the rent levels, this is the market where it is priced most tightly. This is also a reason why we are not progressing with developments at the moment in Poland.
Okay. Got it. Thank you.
Thanks for the presentation. Maybe a few questions from my side as well. This is Jakub Caithaml from WOOD & Company. Maybe just technical to kick things off. Pillar was completed in March. Has there been any tangible rental contribution to the first quarter results? How much could we expect from second quarter? Would it be reasonable to expect already full rental income from this one?
In the first quarter, no meaningful amount, even in the second one, because the rent freeze, where they will start with the rent. Do you have the precise number?
Yeah. I think, the six point-
How much, how much for this year? Do we have that number?
For this year, it should be around EUR 3 million-EUR 3.5 million.
Half year.
I mean, and that's. The full
6.1.
The full 6.1% will be starting from next year. It's because the, you know, the first part is we have a couple of rent freeze as part of the leasing agreement.
Wouldn't the rent freeze be, in terms of IFRS distributed across the entire term?
Well, they're not so significant in comparison to the maturity of the lease. That's a different approach in terms of, you know. It's usually depending on materiality. This is how we do it in terms of the recognition of the rent freeze.
It's front-loaded essentially even in the P&L?
Yes.
Mm-hmm. Understood. Thanks. Maybe moving to the more substantial stuff. How would you say that the inflation and the supply chain bottlenecks are affecting your development pipeline? I mean, how are things looking kind of relative to the levels that you have been budgeting for initially?
We see obviously a rise in development costs, and we calculate with that, when we decide to launch any projects. Obviously it's not easy to predict, you know, 12 months or even 24 months going forward. Therefore we only launch projects when we see also the strength on the leasing market so that the rent levels are on the rising trend. This is what we see actually in Budapest. This is what we don't see in Poland, for example. If we look at the other markets, like Bucharest, where we are launching a residential project, there's a very strong residential resi for sale market, strong demand, and we see that to continue.
Also in Belgrade, with GTC X, first of all, there we are covered against inflation because this project started in third quarter last year, fixed price. Actually even rental levels are quite strong north of EUR 16 per square meter. We see that it covers. In terms of the new development there with Napred, it's still early. It's still gonna be at least one year pre-development work, so we don't have to decide on the exact timing of launching. In general, I can also say that construction costs sometimes go up and come down. Just to mention for structure building, I think on one of our previous calls I was using this example.
Steel, price of steel. When the Ukraine war started, it went up from EUR 800 per ton to EUR 1,200-1,400 per ton. Structure builders were pricing in the uncertainty at 1,600 or even 1,700 EUR per ton. Now we are back at around 800 after two months. In general. By the way, steel is something like 30% of structure building costs, so it's quite a significant element. These changes usually, I mean, what we experience are shorter term. Otherwise, of course, inflation will increase in general development costs. We see the strengths of the market in those markets where we are developing, and they should be able to absorb that.
Thanks very much. That's very helpful. Maybe just to follow up on this, I know that it's difficult maybe to come up with an estimate, but I mean, very roughly could you guess in case, for instance, GTC X, you would be, you know, starting today comparing to having started in autumn last year, how much would the construction CapEx be different?
It's a good question.
Good question.
What would be the rental difference?
We see rent levels rising as well, and in fact, M&A pricing levels in, you know, yields even coming down even these days despite fear of inflation. Just to get back to the question, my guesstimate, we haven't run the calculations. My guesstimate would be some 20% perhaps.
Yes.
That's.
Mm.
I don't have the exact figures.
Of course. Yeah. I don't think anybody does, but this is helpful. Thank you. Actually, you have touched on some other points which I wanted to ask about, and maybe starting with the rents. I think that the consensus is kind of forming around the view that we are looking at potentially quite sharp economic slowdown ahead. When you are discussing, for instance, the leasing of the new development projects, would you see any sort of weakness in the rents maybe comparing to the levels that you were discussing in January, February, versus what is on the table today? Or is it actually still going up despite the more kind of adverse macro outlook?
I think, for those projects specifically you're asking which are about to be launched for development or new leases and potentially new tenants in existing buildings, I don't really see major pressure on rents. In some cases, even going up. I can mention, for example, Budapest, which is explained by the 5% vacancy level, and also quite a few developments where the development activity slowed down in the last year and a half. Lots of new projects in the last two years were put on hold, which gives actually us the opportunity to build.
Other than Centerpoint three, there is only one other major project, which is about to be launched right now, in this market. There's no reason for pressure on rent levels. In regional Poland, where some tenants have been considering moving potentially, we see, feel some pressure. But I think we can maintain the current levels. If you look at Belgrade, for example, there is shortage of high quality space, increasing demand. I expect that the Belgrade market will increase. We also see that in Zagreb. I mentioned that Matrix C, which we just started the development, it's already 50% leasing level we reached recently.
I think there is, in Zagreb, an upward pressure on pricing. This is how we decide, actually. These are the things we monitor, obviously, construction costs, leasing levels, vacancy levels, when we decide which project to launch.
I think it's also important to stress that any tenants which are already made the decision to move and looking for new space and trying to secure pre-leases as a result of the pressure on inflation and the fear of having the same lease more expensive because everything's coming to be more expensive in the end, they rush and secure their leases. We see a trend of increasing of rents, and in some cases, you know, even beyond inflation, and then secure prices that might not be the same in 12 months' time as well, in terms of the leasing perspective as well. They see it also in their own operations with increase on the wages as well. By the way, just to mention, all our leases are indexed, so inflation automatically priced in. I think that's also important to mention.
Of course. Thanks very much. Maybe moving on the yield side of the equation, and probably Ariel, I mean, I guess even though that you don't have very significant, not really any significant refinancing needs in the next couple of years, I imagine that you are in touch with the banks. Can you talk about how the funding costs either for standing assets if one is looking to purchase or for developments have moved? I mean, do you already see an upward pressure? Is there a difference in the countries that you operate, maybe even overall in the readiness of the banks to provide financing?
Maybe if coming from this angle, you could more broadly speak about the transaction evidence which you may have been seeing in the markets which you operate in the past two months. Is there any evidence of yield expansion? Do you see kind of a two-speed market, a bifurcation between the premium assets and maybe the older ones having different fortunes? That would be super helpful.
Well, it's a very multiple question. I think we'll split it and also Zoltán will take some part on the yield side as well. An expectation in terms of transaction activity that we've seen in the market. First, regarding the funding cost, in truth we are covered. We're good for the next few years. I mean, you've seen on the numbers, we are hedged, we're fixed. We've done a lot of work also you see on the balance sheet side. When derivatives go onto the asset side, it means that, you know, you're on the right side of the story. So basically from that perspective, we have a very solid, you know, next few years covered in terms of funding costs, which is gonna be maintained low. Indeed, there is pressure on funding costs. There's an increase of borrowing costs.
We are seeing even under discussions of with potential banks regarding refinancing or prolongation of certain loans. We see it also on the unsecured market as well, with some sort of distortion in terms of yields on the bond market as well. But there's two angles here. Number one, it's you need to have the right assets. Not every bank is funding every asset. That's also a good question. The importance is on focus on ESG green certification. So we tick all those marks, so we are on that, you know, on that square that we can get the funding. When we pass through that, it's about the asset itself. Today, basically what we're talking about, it's an increase on funding costs between 20-25 basis points from what it was last year.
The big discussion with the banks, it's about the variable. What do we do with the variable? Because the swaps are very expensive. You know, today a five-year swap, it's around 1.5%, roughly. So that makes increase the funding cost. So the whole come to the strategy of how you will hedge our variable rates in the next few years. We are discussing with the banks. So in the end, you know, it's a double negotiation on the margin side and also on the variable side as well, of the equation. We see some increase on the funding costs. We see difference from different countries as well. We are negotiating today certain bilateral loans with very good competitive margins. The question mark is always about the variable.
How much we will hedge for the next two or three years to see, you know, the trends are coming back to what it was. Regarding the transaction activity, I don't know if
What I would like to add to this is that, okay, we have to look at the situation from a bank's perspective. Obviously this is an unstable market. This decade started tough and getting even tougher, and it will not get better. The 2020s will be about uncertainties. Of course, banks, when they decide which way, how they wanna finance, and they look at their portfolio, I think they love what they see when they look at GTC. In addition, EUR 500 million secured debt was repaid, so there's plenty of room for them to fill their books.
They like the exposure what we offer, because, I mean, if you look at the macro level, I think we are back in the situation like we were or the world was in the 1970s. Energy crisis, even political uncertainty, inflation. Nothing since, for the last 50 years, this hasn't happened. If you look at real estate valuations back then, it was real estate was safe haven. This is how they consider us. Certainly we are in the position to squeeze out the best pricing from them because they have to fill their books, and they will be much less keen to move out of more riskier segments. We are not under pressure to raise financing.
If you look at the maturity profile, the most of our debt is fixed. We are in a comfortable position in that sense. Otherwise, of course, it became more expensive to obtain financing. At the same time, I would like to mention that Euro rates and ECB hasn't started raising rates, so the funding cost is not that high. When we look at funding levels and pricing in Western Europe, for example, it's actually significantly lower than in our region.
No, that's a very good point. I think also, one could make a point about the rents having risen to a much bigger degree in Western Europe than was the case in CE and the Baltic, especially relative to wages in the office sector. Hopefully it should be also long-term supportive. Thank you very much, gentlemen.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, do you have any more questions for the management? As there are no more question, I'm happy to close the call. Thank you very much, everyone, for your participation and your time, and speak to you soon. Thank you very much. Goodbye.
See you. Thank you.
Thank you.