AEW UK REIT plc (AEWU.L) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and welcome to the AEW UK REIT plc Q3 Update. [Operator Instructions] The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today and will publish those responses where it's is appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I would like to submit the following poll. And I would now like to hand you over to Portfolio Manager, Laura Elkin. Good morning.

Thanks, Alex, and good morning, everyone. Apologies. We are broadcasting to you with the camera off today just due to some technical problems. But hopefully, you'll be able to see us back again for the next quarter. So hi, good morning, everyone. I'm Laura Elkin, I'm the Portfolio Manager for AEW UK REIT. We are going to start today with just a couple of slides informing you about our strategy. And this is the same strategy that we have been running for the past, gosh, coming up to 11 years now for AEWU. It's a strategy that really plays to the strength of our team. So that is as stock pickers, as asset managers and just as real property geeks because all of our teams here are chartered surveyors. So we very much know the ins and outs of property and how to maximize value. And if I had to describe that strategy in one sentence, I would say that we are sector-agnostic value investors. And that means that we can look across the whole of the U.K. commercial property market to find pockets of value where we see it best from time to time. And that generally sees us always buying strong locations to make sure that we can maximize tenant demand and investor demand for our properties going forward. We like to buy assets that offer high levels of income because we believe that, that is the best starting place for outperformance. And we also like to buy assets that at the time of purchase, we are paying a price that represents a low capital value per square foot. And this is so that we can start off with not only a defensive capital starting point, but also have a platform for growth going forward. Now once we own those assets, we very actively manage them to maximize income, which is hopefully demonstrated to you by our dividend, which is one of the highest in the investment company space and has been paid now for -- consistently for 41 consecutive quarters, so effectively since the completion of our initial ramp-up. We also work very hard to maximize the capital value of our assets, too. Now anyone who follows our news stream will see that we put out our shareholder update and dividend announcement yesterday. And another really strong quarter for the company. We've had some great asset management gains during the quarter, which Henry will come on to talk about shortly. A slight dip in value, but only very small there, which was also outweighed by a profitable sale that we made during the quarter as well. So NAV slightly up. What's really positive for me in the announcement that we put out yesterday is that we were able to announce very strong earnings for the quarter. And that follows on from having a very strong year for earnings during our full year ending March '25 as well. And for me, that really speaks to how we have worked very hard to grow income in the company over that time period, but also how we are currently in a fairly stable period for the portfolio, sorry, having been fully invested since last summer. We have been fully invested for that time period, and that is reflected in those earnings, too. So the next slide is showing us here just some high-level statistics on the company. You'll see that we currently own 34 properties with just over 130 tenants. Our net initial yield at just over 8% compares very favorably to our reversionary yield at 8.84%. That gap between that initial yield and reversionary yield is determined by our independent valuers and really reflective of the kind of income growth that they believe we could achieve in this portfolio. Of course, not all tomorrow, but this is what we are spending time on our hard work asset managing to try and close that gap really and increase the income stream of our current portfolio. The vacancy rate there at just under 6% is about what I would expect to see it over the long run. It kind of very often bounces between 5% and 10%. As you will hear us talk about today and as many of you will know, we very actively manage this portfolio. So you will rarely see us with a 0 vacancy rate. We like having some vacancy here because it gives us assets to play with. It lets us talk to the tenants. It allows us to bring units to the market and drive rental income. So that is very important for our asset management strategy, and it's just where we would like it to be. I'm just going to touch as well on the bottom pie chart here on the right-hand side of the page, which shows you our current sector weightings in the portfolio. You'll see that we still have a very strong weighting towards industrial at 37%. We've been building up our retail exposure, both on the high street and in retail warehousing over the past couple of years. So those 2 retail sectors combined now total about 35%. We have always had a fairly low exposure to the office market, and that has certainly assisted our capital values in recent years. And you will see that there at just 10% of the portfolio. I'll hand over to Henry now, who can talk through some slides on our recent performance.

Thank you, Laura, and good morning, everyone. So this first slide looks at our NAV total return performance versus the peer group, 9.3% 10-year annualized NAV total return to September 2025 and 11.1% 5-year annualized NAV total return to September 2025. Now the main point I want to draw your attention to here is where we see our performance diverge from the peer group in 2019. Now this happened for 2 main reasons. One, you'll all be aware, obviously, that was the time of COVID. And at that time, we had a very high weighting to industrials and greater than 55% at the time. We also had a very low retail weighting, which was about 13% combined across high street retail and retail warehousing. So that really sort of highlights the benefits of a diverse strategy. So we were overweight in industrials, underweight in retail. Obviously, we're all aware that the industrials performed very well during that period. And we obviously saw a huge trend in e-retailing and obviously, the high street and retail warehousing did suffer to an extent because obviously, of people being kept in their homes. The other main point I'd like to point about is the performance moving away because of the weighted average unexpired lease term of the portfolio, and it's around 4 to 5 years generally. And that is obviously the point in time where the asset management team engage with tenants on lease expiries or where there might be a break option, and there will be lease renewals or lease regears. And through that asset management mechanism, we are either sort of moving on rents or extending leases and obviously adding value. So it's not a surprise that we see our performance move away then. This next slide looks at our property total return versus the MSCI benchmark, which is what we report to. 5-year property total return outperformance of 6.7% and 10-year outperformance of 4.7%. So as you can see, this is 6 months, 12 months going up to a 10-year performance. Just drawing your attention to 7 years and 10 years. I think what is impressive here is the consistency of our performance and outperformance. So over 10 years, it's double of the MSCI benchmark. Over the 5-year period, the performance is the strongest. That is at the time when we had such a high weighted sheds. And more recently, we've been selling those sheds at yields kind of around 6% and reinvesting that into higher-yielding assets in the retail sectors. At 3 years, you'll see obviously the performance isn't as strong. But I think what's impressive here is that our outperformance is the strongest over this time period being a 7.2% outperformance to the MSCI benchmark. And then more recently, over the 6- and 12-month periods, the performance is a little bit muted, but that's probably because we have not been fully invested. So we sold Coventry in December last year, and we reinvested those proceeds into Leicester and Hitchin, which obviously you are aware about. So this next slide looks at our 10-year track record. As Laura said, we went through our 10-year track record earlier this year. And apologies, there's quite a lot going on in this chart. But if you sort of move your eye from left to right, this tracks where the total return has been coming from 2017 to today. And I suppose there's kind of 3 main themes from this chart. I think the first is the consistency of the income. So that blue bar, which is very much the meat in the sandwich on this chart, just running straight through the middle at around 8%, which is obviously not surprising, bearing in mind that, that's what we typically buy our properties at net initial yields of 8% plus. It does dip off a little bit around 2022, but that was because we were looking to achieve a total return strategy on 2 assets, which led us to having higher vacancy, and that was Oxford and Glasgow, both which we sold to developers for alternative uses. But as you can see, that consistent income running right through the middle here. I think the other two themes are countercyclical buying and selling and the benefits of diversification. So with regards to countercyclical buying and selling, we were buying industrials and offices kind of in the late teens. We were selling elderly offices just before COVID, but obviously, the office sector took a bit of a hit. We crystallized lots of profits on industrials at the top of the market. And then we've been recycling those lower-yielding industrial sales into high-yielding retail purchases more recently. In terms of benefits of diversification, I've touched on this already. At COVID, we were underweight in retail, we were overweight in industrial. And more recently, when the office sector has had a tough time as a result of sort of the return to the office in the post-COVID era, we've been underweight in offices. I think finally, what is kind of underpinning this total performance is alternative uses. As Laura said, we are value investors. So when we're buying assets, we're always looking at vacant possession values and alternative use angles. And I think my final point on this, it's all very well and good buying the right assets and asset managing, but it's important to make the right decision when to sell assets and so cash in your chips and crystallize those profits to get that total return. This chart you've seen many times before, if you've been joining these presentations over the years. We haven't included the very small Hitchin sale in this one. As I said, it was a small office, which sat behind the main sort of retail fair in Hitchin. But as you can see, a 38% average sales purchase price premium, a statistic that we're very proud of. And as I said, we've been selling out of lower-yielding assets more recently, mainly in the shed sector and reinvesting into higher-yielding assets in the leisure and retail sectors. Handing back to Laura to talk about the investment opportunity. Thank you.

Thanks, Henry. So we believe that the current property investment market represents a very strong buying opportunity for our company. And this slide really sets out the backdrop for why we think that is. So what we're showing you here is average commercial property values over the last 20 or so years. And what you can see is that since late 2022 when the country experienced the Liz Truss mini-budget as part of her premiership, commercial property values fell significantly around 22% on average at that time, and they haven't recovered since. Now the main reason for that is, of course, because interest rates have been very high for that period. But another reason is that the commercial property investment market has been seeing very low volumes during that time frame. So really, what we're saying is that with average commercial property values at their lowest point now really since AEW's IPO, which is marked on the center of the chart here. Now the time now, the opportunities that we see in our pipeline represent the strongest buying opportunity from a capital value and perspective capital value growth opportunity that we have seen. Now we don't expect this position to persist into the long run. Of course, we have seen interest rates start to track down. We see signs that the commercial property investment market is starting to return to normal. But when we look at our pipeline, this very strong opportunity set still persists, and we would like to try and find some ways to take advantage of that, which as Henry has partly touched on there is sort of why from time to time, you will see us reach the end of an asset business plan and where we feel that the income and capital value of that asset has been maximized, we will recycle that into another value opportunity where we can enact our strategy. And what I'm showing you on the next slide here is really just the inverse of that. Of course, if capital values are at their lowest, then it sort of goes hand-in-hand with that, that the yields that we can achieve from these properties are at their highest. And as we've set out to you with this strategy, we are looking to buy low capital values per square foot and high-yielding assets. So really, that our pipeline today does absolutely represent a very strong set for what we are looking for. And we find a pipeline currently to offer many interesting high-yielding opportunities. Now just a bit more detail on that really and as to the particular sectors where we're seeing those opportunities. Our pipeline as a whole is yielding on average close to 9%, which looks to be very attractive for our strategy. But where are we finding that across the sectors? Now if you follow our company, you will have noticed that during the course of last year, we made two acquisitions, one in the high street sector and one in the leisure sector. And those sectors are still very much where we are seeing a strong opportunity set for AEWU. We are finding well-located, high-yielding opportunities and also seeing that those sectors are, to a certain extent, unloved by other institutional investors. And that always represents a time of opportunity for us because where other investors are viewing the whole sector quite negatively, we can look within that sector to cherry pick the opportunities that we think are attractive and represent sustainable income opportunities for an advantageous price. As value investors, this is absolutely what we're looking for. We believe that some investors are being a bit too negative on the outlook -- occupational outlook for some of these assets. Now of course, these sectors are facing a number of headwinds. So we have to be very selective about not only the location but how those tenants are trading as well. And that is what we have done in buying in these sectors over recent years. And we will continue to do so with opportunities that we see here as well. Turning to the industrial sector. This is one that we feel very positive about as well. Personally, I would feel pretty positive about the outlook for almost the entirety of the industrial sector. But of course, this is a sector that is being chased quite strongly by a significant amount of other capital as well. It's certainly the sector in which most capital that's in the commercial property investment market is currently looking. So there's much more competition here. So we have to be more selective about the types of assets that we're buying. We won't find the high yields that we're looking for at the prime end. And also that capital is chasing multi-let estates as well. So we see a lot of opportunity in single-let industrials, and we still see opportunity there in our pipeline as well. You would see from some of our recent announcements. And if you follow our company, you would have heard Henry talk about some really quite significant wins that he's had in recent weeks and months with increasing rental values on some of our single-let industrials. So we are more than happy to buy those assets because we see an income advantage in the yield on day 1, but also because we know from examples in our portfolio that we can drive the rental values going forward there as well. Just turning to the office sector. As I said before, this is our smallest sector exposure at the moment. And it's a sector which, of course, has been through quite a tumultuous occupational time over recent years following the pandemic. Personally, I absolutely believe in the office sector in big city center locations where there's a lot of surrounding amenity and where the buildings offer sort of top-level ESG credentials as well. But really, if we look at the office stock within the U.K. that part of that sector that offers those very strong credentials really represents quite a small part of that overall market. And there are quite a lot of office opportunities out there that would concern me for their lack of amenity or weaker location and also would require a significant amount of capital expenditure going forward. So whilst I find it a very interesting sector, I don't think it would ever form a very significant part of this strategy. Firstly, because we are looking to distribute a high level of income and offices are rather intensive in terms of their life cycle and the capital expenditure that they require. So we may selectively find some strong buying opportunities here, but I think it's less likely that we are likely to build up a large sector exposure within offices. Turning lastly to retail warehousing, also a sector that I like. But again, there is quite a lot of capital chasing this sector at the moment as well. So whilst we might selectively see opportunities, I would imagine that we are most likely to be net sellers in retail warehousing, perhaps as demonstrated by our most recent large sale of an asset going back to November 2024 now when we sold out of our retail warehousing park in Coventry for significant capital profit. We may look to do that where we can maximize the capital performance of some of our other retail warehousing assets in the portfolio as well. So I've kind of alluded to a couple of asset management wins that we've had in the portfolio recently there, but I'll hand back to Henry, who can talk about that in a bit more detail.

Thanks, Laura. So yes, this slide really is just a kind of summary of what myself and the asset management team at AEW are doing as a means of adding value. I mean what we're really trying to do is grow income streams, lengthen and improve tenant leases, add value through the planning system, whether that be a change of use or we're actually getting planning for something else with regards to the existing use refurbish properties where required. That doesn't typically mean offices. You can be refurbishing industrials, stripping out retail units as shells to then let to new tenants. And as a part of that process, we tend to be improving ESG credentials. And I see that there's a pre-submitted question on that, which I'll come on to in due course. Now we're delivering this sort of value add through new lettings, lease renewals, lease regears. And if you don't know what that is, that is when you will be extending a lease or surrendering the lease and doing a new lease sort of halfway through a term because you feel that there's a benefit to obviously, to ourselves and the value. And obviously, a tenant would be willing to do that as well. Rent reviews, we've had some recently -- some really good wins in the industrial sector, particularly with regards to rent reviews. We reported a very significant increase at ROM in Sheffield last quarter. Lease surrenders as well. And there are instances where tenants would like to leave early and in return are prepared to pay you a large capital sum. We don't mind that because it actually reduces our void period and enables us to sort of get on with some asset management ahead of time. Slightly more sort of niche asset management opportunities. We have dilapidation settlements. We just reported GBP 125,000 dilapidation receipt from Sports Direct at Barnsley this quarter. Maybe taking a lease outside the Landlord and Tenant Act, that means that as a landlord, you hold more cards on expiry because the tenant doesn't have the right to renew. So therefore, you can be a little bit more aggressive in your asset management angles. A case of us being very successful with that historically was at Corby where the tenant had a lease outside the act. So essentially, it meant that we could change their locks on the last day of their lease, so we could really negotiate hard on the lease renewal. As it turns out, we sold that asset to an owner occupier. They were obviously willing to buy it because they knew they could get the asset themselves without having to go down sort of more sort of painful sort of procedural L&T steps. And we also look to put sort of break options in or look to use break options as a means of sort of adding value and creating a point in time where we can negotiate with the tenant to change things in the lease. So I mean the strategy sort of in a nutshell is kind of identifying assets in our pipeline. We then very much sit down, strategize, have an asset management plan. So it means that we can sort of hit the ground running when we buy assets. We're growing income. We're adding value through lengthening leases or through the planning system. And then as Laura said, we're making the decision to sell these assets at the right time and crystallizing those profits and then recycling them into more yieldy assets. So this is Barnsley Retail Park, where we've had a number of asset management wins recently. And just to recap, we bought this back in June 2018 for GBP 6.8 million, GBP 133 a square foot throwing off an 8.5% net initial yield at the time of purchase. So some nice income there. And if you compare that price per square foot to what it would cost to build this unit, it is very favorable. It would probably cost more to build that. I'd probably say around GBP 150 a square foot to build these units. And obviously, that's excluding the value of the land. It was fully let and had a nice WALT of 8.6 years, attractive yield, a good site and a low site coverage. So retail warehousing tends to have a low site coverage, which means that there can be site intensification. So that could potentially be a drive-thru coffee restaurant here, for example, which does benefit you in terms of alternative uses. Anyway, in terms of what we've done more recently in terms of the asset management side of things, we did a new 15-year lease to Farmfoods at a rent of GBP 125,000 a year. We reported that several quarters ago. In doing that letting, we refurbished the unit, and we had the dilapidation receipts from Sports Direct, having obviously proved that loss by them spending that money on that unit. Last quarter, we did a letting to REM at GBP 98,500 a year. And then this quarter, we've had a very good asset management win. B&Q had about 7 years left on their lease. We engaged with them. We had a little bit of competitive tension here because we had another tenant who had expressed interest in an overriding lease, which is a bit of a technical property term, but essentially, they were prepared to take a lease longer than B&Q's, paying us a sort of a profit rent, which would have enabled them to get owner-occupier possession at the expiry of B&Q's lease. We used that as leverage on B&Q to regain the lease, add an additional 7.5 years of term and to move the rent on. So a really good asset management win. And as you can see, we moved the valuation by GBP 900,000, representing a 12% increase this quarter. So a great asset management win to report this quarter. This is the Hitchin asset that we bought about -- well, roughly this time last year, I think it was about March time 2025. We are including this in this presentation because, as Laura said, we have recently sold off a small office, which sits behind the main retail component of this asset, which sits on Bancroft, which is the prime retail area in Hitchin, a very affluent commuter town about 25 minutes away on the train north of London. So we bought this asset, as I said, back in March '25, GBP 10 million, a low capital per square foot of GBP 213 a square foot, so relatively cheap of an 8.3% net initial yield. Now the office had vacancy. We did have a vendor guarantee, but that was going to expire in a couple of months' time. So we've now sold up that office, and it has boosted the net running yield to 8.7%. So exactly what we want in terms of income and a nice capital profit for the company. Thank you very much. Handing back to Laura to conclude the presentation.

Thanks, Henry, and thanks, everyone, for joining us today. Yes. So hopefully, it's clear that we are feeling very positive about the outlook for our current portfolio and its performance, but also for the investment pipeline and the assets that we are able to acquire at the moment. And hopefully, our strong 10-year track record gives confidence to investors that we are able to maximize those values, maximize that income stream and deliver some strong performance through the company's strategy as well. I'd just add that we are, I guess, because of the very strong pipeline that we see and I mentioned that we are able to access that as we recycle assets. But of course, that only really creates a fairly limited appetite for reinvestment within the company. We are working with our Board to look at ways in which we can grow the equity base of our company. And this is something that we have been focusing on for quite some time, and we will very much continue to do so during the course of this year, really just so that we can provide to investors more liquidity in our shares and reduce the cost base of the company as we grow. So a benefit to investors and also so that we can access some of that strong pipeline as well. So that is a very clear focus that we have with our Board at the moment.

Now just -- I can say that we've had quite a few questions submitted. Thank you very much for those during the presentation. I'll just pick up one of these, first of all, and I can see quite a few of you asking a question certainly of this nature, but just to pick up one of them. Asking if we have any plans to increase the dividend payment from the company at the moment. So the answer to that question is that we don't have any live plans at the moment. But of course, as I think one of you has pointed out in asking this question that as a REIT we are required to distribute 90% of our income stream to our investors. So if we reach the position where we -- in distributing that amount, that would see us exceeding the 2p, then of course, we are required by regulation to do that. And of course, our Board and ourselves would see that as a very successful position to be in. So we would welcome that if we think that, that is in the best interest of the company and if we can maximize the earnings to that stage, which, of course, we would like to work towards in the long run, but we don't have any plans to do that as of today. Henry, do you want to pick up this question on the environmental?