Thank you for attending today's GTC 2025 Annual Results Call. My name is Sarah, and I'll be your moderator for today's call. All lines will be muted during the presentation portion of the call, with an opportunity for questions- and- answers at the end. If you'd like to ask a question via text, you can do so by pressing the Q&A button at the bottom of your screen. I would like to pass the conference over to our host, Michał Kuzawiński, to begin. You may go ahead.
Thank you, Sarah, and good morning, everybody. Welcome to our annual results call. We have with us today our CEO, Botond Rencz joining us from Budapest office, and our CFO, Jacek Bagiński, joining us from the Warsaw office. I'm Michał Kuzawiński, Head of Investor Relations. As Sarah said, today's presentation will be followed by Q&A. If you'd like to ask a question, you can either type your question in the button provided on the bottom of your screen, or you can also email the question to me. Without further ado, I'm passing the voice over to Botond now.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Michał, for the kind introduction. Welcome everybody. I hope that there is beautiful weather everywhere where you are listening in to this call. At least in Budapest it's looking really fantastic spring weather. Welcome to our 2025 results call. I'm very happy that we also have Jacek, our CFO, on the call today so that you get all the right information that you would like to understand about our company results. Some of you may remember that we have taken over the management of GTC in the autumn last year. Together with the other management Board members, we are very much focused and interested in driving a positive future for GTC. I can report to you that we have already made quite some important steps forward.
Before we begin, let me reiterate some of the messages from my first annual letter as CEO of GTC. Some of the challenges we have already tackled, but there is still a lot of inheritance from the past that we are dealing with. Our mandate is very clear: to stabilize, deleverage, and to strengthen the group's foundations. For us, the immediate critical items remain liquidity protection, extension of debt maturities, balancing the leveraging through disposals with improving operations and stronger collaboration across the regions. We also want to continue with asset sales, and we'll be very much focused on cost and efficiency improvements. As part of this process, we began a review of the acquisition and the business potential in the German market.
Following a detailed reassessment we started last year, we did the market sounding, and we are preparing the process of selling parts of the portfolio in a cluster approach, selectively monetizing regional concentrations. At the same time, we are cognizant that the risks, the prices achieved may be in some cases materially below the book value of assets. As we embarked on the ambitious deleveraging plan, including the selective disposals in Germany, we will still strive for maximization of the disposal value by working on the operational improvements of the asset occupancy and achieved NOI. With that in mind, I would like to give a little bit of a overall picture of our financial performance, and then I will ask Jacek to go into more details into the financials. Now, on the slide that you are going to see, I would like to discuss three things.
First, the review of our financial results. Secondly, our progress on refinancing. Thirdly, removal of going concern uncertainty from the audit opinion. In terms of financials, on one hand, our revenues were increasing 8% year-on-year, including Germany, which is obviously quite positive. On the other hand, when you look at this increase and you take the German revenues out, revenues were down 5% to EUR 179 million, with underlying like-for-like down 3%. Reflecting asset disposals and weaker income was the reason for this like-for-like reduction. For the first time, we introduced adjusted EBITDA definition to reflect a number of one-off items which weighted under reported earnings. After eliminating these one-offs, that Jacek will explain later, our adjusted EBITDA was down 6% year-on-year to EUR 102 million.
On the balance sheet side, the group's net loan to value amounted to 57% as of the 31st December 2025, as compared to 52.7% in 2024. This is mainly due to impairment on investment property, largely in Hungary and in Poland. EPRA net tangible assets were 8.3 PLN per share. Where we did very good during this year was refinancing. This was probably the most relevant and important action for us. We refinanced the June 2026 unsecured EUR bonds with EUR 455 million secured bonds due October 2030. Repaid the remaining EUR 299 million after the balance sheet date in March 2026. We also refinanced EUR 340 million of bank loans falling due within 12 months.
One thing that is very important for us, and that is that the emphasis of matter going concern material uncertainty was removed from the audit opinion, which is an important confirmation the work done in refinancing and liquidity management was meaningful. At the end, we continued deleveraging the company, improving operational excellence and cost control by entering 2026 with much better liquidity position as before. I think now this is probably the right time for myself to give the mic to Jacek, who will go a little bit more into the details of the numbers. Jacek, the mic is yours now.
Thank you very much. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Let me start from going into more details on the financial results as outlined by Botond just a minute ago. First, something that it's a great achievement of the company in 2025, which was the refinancing of the bonds. As you guys remember, in October last year, we issued EUR 455 million new bonds that are due in October 2030, with a coupon of 6.5% yielding around 7.7%, including the discount. Out of that, net proceeds were close to EUR 430 million. These proceeds were used to repay EUR 494 million of outstanding bonds into tranches.
First tranche, EUR 195 million was tendered in October 2025, the remaining, close to EUR 300 million was redeemed early in March this year. The dates that you see are assumed all obligations under the new, secured notes. The refinancing finished. On the rating side, Scope, which is the rating agency, upgraded the issuer rating to B with positive outlook, while Fitch rated the new secured notes with B+ and kept the rating watch negative designation subject to the bank refinancing progress. We'll be meeting with Fitch in a couple of days to present them with our latest results on the refinancing of the outstanding loans.
After the balance sheet date, we also refinance EUR 330 million of the bank loans falling due within 12 months, of which EUR 230 million was extended by at least five years. As a result, from close to EUR 890 million of short-term loans and bonds showed the balance sheet as of end of year. The EUR 300 million was already repaid and EUR 330 million refinanced until today.
As Botond was emphasizing, I'll just repeat because it's super important for the company also and for the investors, is that the most important external confirmation of this process, the refinancing process, is that the auditors removed the emphasis of matters regarding material uncertainty related to going concern from the financial statement dated end of 2025. If you can guys flip on the next slide. This is the portfolio. Not much happened here. On the portfolio, the only change here is the lower value after revaluation losses and also some disposals during the year. I will elaborate it later. Total investment portfolio, as you can see, is EUR 2.8 million, including the notes in our Kildare, the data center development project.
Adjusted total investment portfolio, excluding non-current financial assets right now is right around EUR 2.6 billion. Next slide, please. On the, on the office, the performance of the office, the picture here is stable, although there are differences between the countries. Obviously, the good thing is that we managed to lease a lot, so leasing activity reached over 100,000 sq m in course of 2025, only 25,000 sq m or 24,000 sq m in Q4 alone. Occupancy improved by 1 percentage point from 82% - 83%. Weighted average lease term declined slightly to 3.5 years from 3.8 years.
On the leasing, obviously the good thing is that we signed a number of meaningful transactions, including City Gate in Bucharest at around 9,000 sq m, Centerpoint 3 in Budapest with UNIQA at around 6,000 sq m, Advance Business Center in Sofia at around 5,000 sq m, and V188 property in Budapest around 5,000 sq m. Next slide, please. On retail portfolio is doing very, very well as in the previous years. Again, we continue with leasing activity. The leasing activity in course of 2025 reached or exceeded 50,000 sq m, and only 19,000 sq m were leased in Q4. Occupancy is constantly good and strong at 96% at year-end.
The weighted average lease is similar at the end of 2025 as at the end of 2026. Obviously, we see a good and strong tenant performance in course of 2025, with retail turnover increasing 5% year-on-year and more than 30 million visitors in our shopping centers with 1% growth of footfall. Key leasing examples, including here are Galeria Jurajska with the fashion brand extension and expansion of around 3,500 sq m, Reserved at around 2,800 sq m. In Galeria Północna, we extended with Sinsay at around 2,700 sq m, and another one in Belgrade, we contracted with H&M at around 2,300 sq m. Next slide, please.
Residential portfolio, we purchased it, as you remember, late 2024. Here you can see a slight improvement in occupancy from 83%- 86% year-on-year. The portfolio value is basically stable at that valuation of EUR 453 million, same square meters as we purchased it at the end of 2024. Again, we have still 5,200 residential units. The average headline rate rent increase slightly from EUR 7 per sq m to EUR 7.2 per sq m. Obviously, there is a lot to do with portfolio, and obviously we will elaborate about it later during the presentation. Next slide, please.
On P&L, we are introducing adjusted EBITDA parameter. This is because of the large number of one-off items which impact a lot of the KPIs that we are using in the company measuring the performance. This is obviously largely driven by the refinancing transactions, all the advisory works and the number of other one-off items that we recognize in particular in Q4 last year. Looking at the income statement, this was already reported by Botond, revenue from the rental activity increased from EUR 188 million- EUR 202 million, which is 8%+ . Obviously, on the other hand, if we exclude Germany, there will be a drop.
On the cost side, the cost of the rental operations increased from EUR 57 million- EUR 73 million. This is mainly driven by the consolidation of the business in Germany, but also there is a cost and inflationary pressure on our property expenses. Gross margin from operations was EUR 129 million versus EUR 131 million last year. It's pretty flat. Excluding Germany, unfortunately, it fell by 10% to EUR 118 million, which is something that we are looking at and I'll be working to improve. Admin costs and expenses, no, just stay on with me for a minute. Admin costs increased substantially.
Again, the reason is the consolidation with the German business and the related one-off expenses that we recorded in course of 2025. EBITDA dropped, unadjusted EBITDA, I would say, dropped substantially from EUR 106 million to EUR 75 million. Adjusted EBITDA, which I will explain in a minute, was pretty stable, was, basically we recorded, as you can see here, EUR 102 million of that adjusted EBITDA comparing to EUR 108 million. The drop is mainly related to the disposals of some assets in course of 2024 and 2025. On the financing front, you see the substantial increase of the financing costs from EUR 40 million- EUR 87 million.
This is mainly driven by the financing which was put in place to finance the acquisition of the German business. That obviously resulted with the increase of the weighted average interest rate from 3.45% - 4.56%. Overall, together with the write-offs that we had, and you obviously see there is a massive write-off of EUR 146 million, mainly related to impairment of the assets in Hungary, which is around EUR 78 million. In Poland, around EUR 53 million. That are basically the massive numbers coming from the recent valuation reports.
That, taking together with the substantial increase of the finance cost, resulted in the net loss of EUR 155 million compared to the profit that company recorded in the year ending 2024. Next slide, please. Okay, this is the, I would say reconciliation of the EBITDA or the reported EBITDA to the adjusted EBITDA. You see a number of, I would say one-off non-recurring items that were recorded in particular, and you see this in Q4 last year, was almost EUR 22 million of one-offs related to, I would say, non-recurring business activity. Obviously, the largest items are in U.K. office impairment of around EUR 5 million, severance payments at EUR 2 million.
The advisory costs on the bonds of EUR 3.5 million non-recoverable VAT mainly related to disposal of land was EUR 5.3 million. Some other non-recurring costs related to the German operation is EUR 7.5 million on the annual basis. Basically, you see on the last columns on the right, these EUR 27 million were originally accounted for in the administrative expenses, which is EUR 14.6 million and other expenses of EUR 12.6 million. Next slide, please. On cashflow from operating activity was EUR 78 million compared to EUR 98 million last year. The decline is largely due to higher admin and other expenses, while gross margin from operations was largely unchanged year-on-year.
In investing activity, the company spent EUR 80 million on real estate and related items, mainly assets under construction and CapEx and fit-out. At the same time the company generated EUR 136 million proceeds from sales of investment, including land of [Ilanof] and the buildings of GTC Satellite, GTC Moderna, GTC Future, Matrix C, Matrix D, C, GTC X, and Nabrzeże. You see there is a list of disposals. At the bottom was, reporting will continue disposals in course of 2026 in order to deleverage. Change on deposits. The substantial increase of deposits mainly represent the amount set aside in GTC Finance for the repayment of the old bonds.
On refinancing or financing proceeds, on financing proceeds from long-term borrowings were EUR 493 million, mainly from the new secured bonds and the Galeria Północna loan, while the repayment of the borrowings and bonds were EUR 218 million. Interest paid obviously increased, and you saw that obviously the accounting effect of it on previous slide. Obviously cash-wise, you see the negative outflow of the interest expenses of EUR 61 million compared to EUR 33 million recorded in 2024. At the end, the cash balance is stronger, which is a combination of the disposals mainly, and the repayment of the bonds, is stronger. The cash balance is EUR 107 million at the end of last year.
All right, the next slide, please. Here, obviously, there are some lines that moved materially, but the balance sheet, you know, number or the total asset didn't change substantially. You can see basically that investment properties declined from EUR 2.7 million- EUR 2.6 million. This is mainly due to the sales of the land and reclassification of Artico building, but also the revaluation that we recorded and reported to you on the P&L. Asset, per se, dropped from EUR 155 million to EUR 20 million, and this is mainly due to disposals realized in course of 2025. Deposits increased from EUR 44 million to EUR 290 million.
This mainly includes cash, secured for the repayment of the outstanding or old bonds. Cash and cash equivalent increased, as I reported on the cash flow and the total asset didn't change materially as you can see from one year to the others. Can you just go to the next slide, please? On equity and liabilities. On the debt position, this slide still shows the balance sheet picture as of end of last year. It does not include the full refinancing actions that the company undertook in course of Q1 2026. Short-term financing, debt financing, as you can see here, increased from EUR 220 million to EUR 889 million.
This was mainly, you know, because the remaining EUR 299 million unsecured bonds as certain loans in Poland, Hungary, and Germany were reclassified to the short term. Long-term financial debt decreased from EUR 1.4 billion to slightly above EUR 1 billion for the same reason, despite the addition of EUR 455 million new senior secured notes and EUR 84 million local Galeria Północna loan. Since the balance sheet date, close to EUR 300 million of bonds were repaid and EUR 273 million of short-term bank loans refinanced, a substantial part of the short-term debt position has been dealt with already. Next slide, please. On credit metrics, just maybe a few bullet points. The net debt is approximately similar year-over-year.
DLT, however, increased from 52.7%- 57%, which is, or really 56% when adjusted for cash on escrow accounts. Weighted average of the debt declined from 3.3 years to 2.9 years. This is obviously, as I said before, this is the balance sheet date, so this is before the refinancing actions taken by the company in Q1 this year. Weighted average interest increased from 3.5%- 4.6%. Looking at the maturity profile, still the balance sheet, there is a substantial amount of the short-term debt. As I said, most of them was dealt with in course of Q1 2026.
The, obviously, the main message on the refinancing and the, and the balance sheet is that the company significantly reduced the refinancing risk relating to the bonds and the short-term loans. Obviously, we will focus on the deleveraging and operating improvements, as it was reported to you by Botond at the beginning of the presentation. That's all on my side. Please, Michał, take it.
Thank you. Thank you, Jacek. Sarah, we are ready to take questions. I can see from your email that you asked the participants to send the questions by email. Is the Q&A button not working for the participants, Sarah?
Hello, sir. Yes, currently, we advise that there is an issues with our system right now. We advise the participants to send their questions to data@netroadshow.com with the email subject Q&A-GTC.
Yeah. I think it would be easier for participants to just send their questions directly to me. You all have my email address. I sent you the invitation to this call, I sent you the results this morning. If you can just reply to my email from this morning and send your questions. I suggest to allow a few minutes for participants to register the questions now. Sorry for the technical problems. Okay. The first questions have arrived from Jakub. Jakub Caithaml from Wood. Then again, if you would like to ask a question, sir, we have a technical problem with the Q&A feature on this call. If you'd like to ask your question, please email your question directly to me. That's michal.kuzawinski@gtc.com. Let's have questions from Jakub.
Jakub asked the first question: FFO seems some EUR 20 million-EUR 25 million negative for the year. If we think about 2026, what will be the key changes versus 2025? Should we expect that the entire difference between adjusted EBITDA and EBITDA will improve the results, with probably some offset by even higher interest costs? What else? Seems to be a question to Jacek. I'll just say that we reported FFO for the year of EUR 33 million. Jakub, please, and everybody, please review our revised FFO definition. From these results, we define FFO as adjusted EBITDA, less net interest paid, less net taxes paid. FFO is accounted for after adjusted EBITDA.
There was a question.
Jacek, I mean, the remainder of the question is for you. The outlook really for FFO for 2026.
Guys, there will be, I would say, a combination of a couple of elements. Obviously, as we discussed and presented, our intention is to increase the EBITDA from the operating assets. This can be done by a couple of elements. First, the increase of the occupancy, and then, which is, I think, I don't want to say easier, but something more manageable is to substantial decrease of the property expenses in combination of the administrative expenses and other costs which are under our control. That, however, going forward, obviously, will be somehow impacted by planned disposal of assets that you will see in course of 2026.
As Botond was saying, our main objective is to deleverage the company this and next year from a, you know, pretty high LTV of 56%. Actually, no, the main focus will be on the improvement of the operating efficiency in combination with the sharp reduction of the costs.
Thank you, Jacek. The next question from Jakub is on the U.K. office. Jakub was not aware that we have a U.K. office, so probably he would also appreciate some outlook on this operation.
Botond, you want to explain, because it was also a surprise for us.
Yes, it was a surprise for us. For some reason in the past, the company decided to have open an office in London. We are in the process of investigating how we can close that office because we are not actively using it, so to speak. We already identified what is the best legal way to terminate the office. That is going to be, I would say, representing us some cost savings when we are successfully closing the office in London.
In that adjustment, you see that the full fit-out has been written off of that office.
Yeah.
The next question from Jakub. Jakub is asking: What is the status of Kielder project and likelihood of its disposal?
Maybe I will start with the status, and obviously, Botond, if you can add up, you are very welcome. The project is developing well. The first 16 MW was, out of 179 MW, was already connected. The, we expect that additional power will be connected in the course of 2026. Obviously, as you probably know, we have a tenancy contract with the Hyperscaler signed already and in place. The financing for the project that will allow it to develop is in place. I would say, the project is advancing not as fast as we expected, but I think it's going into the right direction.
There may be some, I would say, delays with the connection of power, but that would be only a question of time. It's doing, I would say, relatively well and substantially better than I would say, comparing to the same period of 2025. In regard of the disposal, I don't know, Botond, if you want to say a few words on our plans.
Yeah
...in regard to Kielder.
When we look at our disposals, and this relates to Kielder as well, we are scanning the market and open for selling our assets. We do not want to dispose our assets at a discount price. We want to actually find what is the proper market price for this asset. This asset has a lot of upside value. As Jacek mentioned, there is a bit of a delay in the project. Everybody, the investors and, are very comfortable that this project will be successful. It's not a very simple project, necessarily to sell and find the right price. Selling land is a lot easier. You have a bit more liquidity. It's very simple more or less to assess the right value.
We don't want to sell at any price, but we are open to sell at the proper price. I think that is probably the answer to Jakub's question.
Thank you, gentlemen. This is not the end of questions from Jakub. Next question from Jakub is: Where do we target LTV by the end of 2026?
Jakub, really this depends on the dynamics of the disposal of the assets. As Botond was saying, there is a plan to dispose a number of assets, but obviously we do not want to rush with that, not to compromise with the price. We will be looking, I think, you know, reasonably to decrease that LTV from 56% to some number closer to 50%. Again, that really would depend on the dynamic of the disposal of our assets. We should be aiming at around 50% by the end of this year. You are muted.
Cannot hear you, Michał. You are talking, but not possible to hear.
Thank you. Thank you, Botond. That's, yeah, mute feature is, yeah, treacherous sometimes. The final question from Jakub: What was the average interest rate on the loans which have been refinanced in the first quarter of this year?
Actually, it was pretty similar to what we managed to do. I think the margin on that loan was at around of 2.1%, and we managed to extend those loans at the similar margin, which is a pretty big achievement of the company.
It was, I think, even a little less than 2.1.%
Yeah.
Above 2% and below 2.1%. For us, it was very important that we could do this and the pricing was actually pretty good.
Yeah.
Thank you. We have questions from Vikky Chen from IVO Capital Partners. Vikky would like to clarify if the 57% net LTV as of December last year includes both the new and old bond?
Yes, it does.
Thank you. Thank you, Jacek. Vikky, so, we both have the debt and cash from that new bond, so the repayment does not change the picture on LTV.
It did.
Because it's-
No, it did. As I reported, basically, if you look at the structure of balance sheet, This is what I said, the LTV, after the repayment or excluding, let's say, that double bond counting and cash also, that LTV as at the balance sheet would be closer to 56%.
Thanks for clarification, Jacek. The next question from Vikky. Vikky has a question: What is our plan for the remaining short-term debt due this year?
We will refinance. We simply refinance. We are well-advanced in discussions with the banks. Whatever is left after the end of Q1 of this year will be refinanced in course of Q2 this year.
I think, Jacek, if I recall it correctly, it is probably less than 10% of the total short-term we had. It's relatively small compared to the refinancing of the short-term loans. Most of the homework has been done by far.
Maybe just if we can elaborate on it. Vikky, the fact of life is that, as Botond said, we will refinance the short-term loans. If you look at what is going to happen in course of this year is that as we elaborated, we intend to sell a number of assets. In course of, obviously, as a consequence of the disposals, we'll be using cash to repay of the senior loans provided to finance assets that we intend to sell. Obviously, on one side, obviously, the in the short run, we will refinance.
I would say in the perspective of the next three quarters, obviously, we will be repaying loans, not only short-term if they are not refinanced, but also long-term from the proceeds from disposal of the assets.
Thank you, gentlemen. The final question from Vikky is whether we expect the Rating Watch Negative outlook to be resolved post the German loan refinancing we did this month. I mean, if you allow me, gentlemen, to answer that question.
Please.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Because I'm dealing with Fitch the most. We are meeting the Fitch team in mid-May. Obviously, we hope that they will reflect the tremendous progress we've made on the refinancings in the rating outlook. Obviously, they are an independent research company. Would you like to add anything, Botond or Jacek?
No.
No.
Thank you.
He summarized very well.
Thanks. We have now questions from David. David Macher from Unity Asset Management Foundation. David has a few questions on Germany, and generally he is asking, when do we plan to sell the portfolio, and only part of it or all of it? That's his first question.
Okay. Maybe let me start with the answer. We have started selling some elements of the German portfolio, but roughly we stand at 1% of the total portfolio that we sold. We do not have to sell it super fast, we are planning to continue the selling and of course, seeing how the market is reacting and what are the prices that are being offered. I wouldn't say that we want to sell all of it or we want to sell half of it. If we are getting attractive prices, we are continuing to sell, and also with that would actually enable us to reduce our debt on that portfolio as well. We'll continue to progress with the disposal of the German portfolio.
Thank you, Botond. David also asks, the total disposal plan for the next two to three years, roughly how much of the portfolio do we plan to sell? Botond, can you comment?
I think this is a very valid question. Purposefully, in the past, we did not want to disclose exactly what is, let's say, our target threshold. As you can imagine, in some of our markets, the liquidity is varying. Sometimes there is liquidity, there is not. I think we can say it is going to be, I would say, substantial if you look at the balance sheet of the company in the coming two to three years. When you also reflect about our borrowings, that is also reasonably substantial. For us to cure that, we will need, let's say, corresponding level of assets to be sold.
There is no, let's say, number drawn in the sand that unless we sell this, we are successful or not successful. It is going to be, I would say, substantial when you look at the overall portfolio because of our in-depth situation.
Thank you. Another question from David. David asks if the German portfolio is currently profitable on either EBITDA or adjusted EBITDA level. This is something we are not disclosing in the financial statements, I'll just say. I don't know, Jacek, if you would like to add any guidance.
Everyone can calculate, right? Basically, looking at the consolidated balance sheet and P&L and, as you look at the slide related to the P&L, right? Where basically we report that to the level of NOI, right, Michał?
Correct. Correct.
Obviously, below there are administrative expenses which are substantial. I would say EBITDA level, the portfolio is profitable. Obviously the pro-profitability is substantially below profitability of other businesses that we have in other countries, right? This is more or less the answer to your question.
Thank you, Jacek. The final question from David is related to the severance payments, which were included as adjustments in EBITDA. David asks if these were severance payments related only to 2025, 2025 payments, and if there are any expected severance payments to be paid in 2026?
If the answer to the question is yes. Basically, the severance payments were incurred and paid in 2025. If we expect to have further severance payments, you need to ask our supervisory board. Maybe, maybe not. Let's see.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, David, for the questions and the sense of humor as well. Do we have any more? I think that would be it. Thank you for your active participation, everybody. Thanks for the questions. I'll just pass on to Jacek and Botond for their final remarks.
Thank you very much, Michał, for leading this webinar, and I would like to thank everybody for their attention. For us, I think it was a very critical year last year, and now I think you guys can see that our financial situation is finally stable again, and that actually enable us to go to the next stage of turning GTC around in 2026. Jacek?
I have nothing to add. Thank you very much, guys, for participation, and wish you a nice and hopefully sunny short holiday.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, everybody.
Have a great day.
Thank you, everyone.
Bye-bye.
Thank you. Bye-bye.
That concludes the GTC 2025 annual results call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your line.
Thank you.