CPI Property Group (O5G) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, everyone, and welcome to CPI Property Group's webcast covering our 2021 financial results. This is David Greenbaum, I am the CFO of CPIPG. I'm joined today by Martin Nemecek, our CEO; Tomáš Salajka, Director of Acquisitions, Asset Management and Sales; Pavel Mechura, Group Finance Director; Mindee Lee, Senior Manager of Corporate Strategy; Petra Hajna, Group Sustainability Officer; and Moritz Mayer, Manager of Capital Markets. It's a big team. You will hear from all of us during the presentation today. Frankly, the most enjoyable thing about presenting our results for 2021 is that CPIPG, once again, managed to achieve growth and capital structure stability at the same time. The key driver of our performance continues to be the quality of our assets and the expertise of our local teams in Central and Eastern Europe, along with our commitment to financial policy, which we have demonstrated over several years. COVID was a stress test, which we believe we passed in great form. Now frankly, I feel like COVID is old news. In 2021, the group took many important steps, including opening our doors to new equity investor, Apollo, and we really took our ESG standards to another level. As most of you know, we have been ahead of the curve on ESG for several years, with particular consideration to our family ownership. You might hear us repeat these themes, I guess, about a hundred times today, but it's actually true. Anyhow, we're really delighted to go through all of this with you today. During the webcast, we will be presenting from our 2021 annual management report. I realize it's a long report, more than 100 pages, but we want to get into the detail as much as possible. And this is the comprehensive document. So again, we're looking at the 2021 management report. There's also a shorter presentation on the website but today, we want to go through some pages of report. We'll also be taking Q&A on the webcast, so do feel free to submit any questions that you have. So now let me turn the floor over to Martin Nemecek to begin walking you through the highlights of 2021. Martin?

Thank you, David, and hello to everyone on the webcast. This is Martin Nemecek, CEO of CPI Property Group, and I'm really excited to speak to you about 2021 and our achievement as a company. I realize this call is targeted to our investors, but I also want to send a message to all of CPIPG's employees and partners who are listening to the webcast. As we described in our results today, I hope you also feel really proud of what the group has accomplished. I'm sure you agree there is so much more to do, and I thank you all for your contribution. Now let's start with the highlights for 2021, beginning on Page 5 of our 2021 management report. We have an overview of CPIPG key figures of the year-end. Total assets at year-end were EUR 14.4 billion, and our property portfolio was EUR 13.1 billion. Overall, CPIPG's portfolio growth was significant, about EUR 2.8 billion and came from a combination of about EUR 1.5 billion of acquisitions, plus about EUR 1.4 billion in positive revaluation. Before I describe how the group achieved such spectacular growth in 2021, I want to remind you that about 83% of CPIPG's asset are located in Central and Eastern Europe, which is where the company originated from and where we are truly expert. Berlin, Prague and Warsaw are our largest office market, and we are still absolutely committed to our investments in Czech retail, Czech residential plus our hotels in Central and Eastern Europe. The group's investment focus has not changed. The company originated from Central Europe. This is our strength and what we know best. So as I mentioned, EUR 1.5 billion of acquisitions last year. Let me describe what's behind that. The group's acquisitions in '21 included investments in companies, along with purchases of individual assets and portfolios. In Central and Eastern Europe, CPIPG continues to see a tough market for good acquisitions of individual assets. What I mean is individual properties are typically difficult and expensive to buy in Central and Eastern Europe. In some cases, we have taken advantage of this, for instance, through our disposal. However, we have also identified opportunities to purchase shares within publicly listed companies, which own good growth and underlying assets. In many cases, this is a superior strategy compared to individual property acquisitions, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe. One example of strategy is our acquisition of Globalworth in 2020 and 2021. Some of you may already know Globalworth owns a EUR 3 billion portfolio of offices in Romania and Poland. During 2021, CPIPG completed our offer for Globalworth, which we now control through a joint venture with Aroundtown. Probably the most exciting acquisition news for 2021 was that CPIPG acquired a large stake in IMMOFINANZ, which is a Vienna-based listed company that owns an excellent EUR 5 billion portfolio, covering offices in Prague, Warsaw, Budapest and Vienna, along with a retail park, which is a sector that CPIPG likes very much and where the performance has been excellent during the COVID time. CPIPG announced a mandatory tender offer for IMMOFINANZ in December '21, and in late February 2022, we announced that we achieved 55% ownership and control of IMMOFINANZ. The group also acquired shares in S IMMO, another active investor in Central Europe and also a listed company. CPIPG owns about 16% of S IMMO directly today, and IMMOFINANZ owns about 26% of S IMMO, resulting in a combined stake of around 42% in S IMMO. We'll discuss acquisitions more later on, but for sure, CPIPG has been active investor. However, we know that we can turn an excellent enterprise into these properties. During 2021, the group also invested in Italy, where our strategy has focused more on workouts and purchases of nonperforming loans. For example, during 2021, the group acquired Maximo shopping center in Rome, restructuring of a nonperforming loan made by UniCredit, the original owner, which was a permanent Italian family company, which ran into difficulty. Enterprise for the acquisition was excellent from a value and yield perspective, and Maximo is a brand-new shopping center, 100% occupied and offering the first Primark in Rome. The group also acquired some land bank in Rome, which we intend to hold for development or sell for the long term. We also invested in Berlin land bank and purchased 27 Savile Row in London. Turning to positive revaluations of EUR 1.4 billion. The key driver continues to be the performance of the underlying real estate market and the assets that CPIPG owns. A large part of the revaluation stem from the Czech Republic, where we saw significant increases in prices of both residential properties and land bank. In office, Berlin remains a star performer, with our rents growing more than 9% on a like-for-like basis, which reflects the strong environment and also super performance of our asset management team in Berlin. So that's the story of CPIPG growth in 2021. Even as the company has grown, CPIPG has maintained a conservative financial policy. Our net LTV dropped to a record low of 35.7% at year-end. Our low LTV was achieved through advanced planning and financial discipline. And in many respects, this was a part of the strategy by the company to prepare for further acquisitions in 2022. The group took a number of actions in '21, including creating fresh equity from our shareholders and from Apollo, as David mentioned earlier, plus we issued a small amount of new hybrids and made significant disposals during the second half of 2021 and into 2022. As you can see here, all of our key income measures increased in '21. Net business income, EBITDA, FFO all grew because of the contributions for acquisitions and like-for-like growth in rents. Occupancy in the portfolio is high at 93.8%, slightly improving during the year. Like-for-like rental growth was 3.3%, with the highest rental income growth coming from our office portfolio in Berlin, as I already mentioned, more than 9% like-for-like. Our weighted average lease term, or WAULT, is 3.8 years, which is longer than reported at the end of 2020, but more or less, this is our comfort zone. This is about 3 years on average in office markets like in Berlin, which allows us to be more dynamic and capture upside in rent, whereas the leases are generally longer in our retail segment. The group maintains a very high level of unencumbered assets and had a liquidity of EUR 1.2 billion as of year-end, including EUR 700 million revolving credit facility, which matures in early 2026. So the group ended the year 2021 in excellent shape. Growth in our balance sheet, growth in our income and lower LTV. From my perspective, a really great result. And moving to Page 6. David, do you want to highlight anything there?

Thanks, Martin. Just on Page 6 of the management report, I want to start by highlighting that our hotel segment returned to profitability in 2021. You can see it in the top section, net hotel income. Hotels have historically been a EUR 40 million net income business -- net income for CPIPG per every year. This is the case in 2018, 2019, the pre-COVID times. In 2020, our hotel portfolio recorded a net loss of EUR 3 million, which, frankly, I think is a great result for 2020 and shows how well we controlled the cost as an owner/operator of the hotels. In 2021, we saw net hotel income rise again to EUR 14 million, and we are encouraged by the booking activity and other trends we observing -- are observing in 2022. Gross rental income grew 12.7%. EBITDA grew 8.8%. The absolute numbers are getting larger and larger as we grow through acquisitions and organically on a like-for-like basis. As you might expect, these figures would have been slightly higher if we hadn't provided EUR 11.5 million of onetime discounts, mostly in the retail sector during COVID and, again, very early in 2021. On the other hand, EUR 11.5 million of discounts, which is less than 3% of our gross rental income, shows that COVID did not have a significant impact on our business. A lot of these other figures, I think, on this page, we've already discussed. So I do want to mention at the bottom of Page 6, you can see net debt to EBITDA of 12.7x and net ICR of 4.6x. In both cases, the ratios would have been even better if hotels were more normal and if no discounts were provided to our retail tenants. So please keep that in mind. Skipping forward to Page 9. Just a reminder of CPIPG's growth in recent years, which we have managed to achieve while maintaining our financial policy discipline. CPIPG's financial policy has not changed significantly since it was introduced in 2018. We still target an LTV of 40% or below, or up to 45% in the case of acquisitions of high strategic merit. What you can see is the LTV rose slightly above 40% during 2020 due to our office acquisitions in Warsaw and our acquisition of Globalworth, plus, of course, there was an effect of COVID in terms of more defensive valuations, particularly in the hotels. In 2021, we took several actions to reduce the LTV, including raising EUR 550 million of fresh equity from our shareholder, Radovan Vítek, and from Apollo. We announced the disposal pipeline of EUR 1 billion, which is now mostly completed, and we issued a small amount of additional hybrid. I'm repeating but emphasizing what Martin said about the key actions that we took place during the year. Last but not least, and very importantly, the group continued to repay short-term debt and issue long-term debt, meaning that our near-term maturities are very, very limited. So we think that puts us in a very good position. Now moving forward to Page 11 and taking a step back. The pie charts are a great reminder of the composition of our portfolio today by segment and geography. The table on the right-hand side contains even more useful detail. Just to summarize again, 36% of our portfolio is located in the Czech Republic; 25%, Germany, which really means Berlin; 13%, Poland. Those are the three largest segments. Of that, 48% is office, 21% retail, 9% residential and 6% hotels. For those of you that have followed us through many years, the figures have not really shifted that much on a percentage basis. Perhaps, the only major change is that the office segment has been growing, which has reduced the overall percentage of other sectors like retail in the portfolio. Now let me hand the presentation back to Martin and then on to Tomáš. They will further elaborate on our portfolio and our investments. Martin?

Thank you, David. Moving on to Page 12. CPIPG continued to invest CapEx in our portfolio during 2021. Overall, the level of CapEx was basically unchanged from 2020 and have been split between maintenance CapEx, refurbishment and development. Remember, CPIPG spends CapEx to maintain value, increase value and also to create value. Within that framework, there is a lot of flexibility to invest less or even more, depending on the market environment. You can also see on Page 12, top right-hand side, a bit more detail on the acquisitions. We spent about EUR 1.5 billion on acquisitions in 2021. As I mentioned earlier, overall, the largest investment, on a combined basis, was IMMOFINANZ and S IMMO followed by [ Italy ]. Looking at the chart on the bottom, I want to highlight disposals completed of EUR 342 million, start of a bigger pipeline of EUR 1 billion, which is on track to be completed by the middle part of 2022. CPIPG has definitely never been a large seller of assets. We tend to buy and hold for long term. This is fundamentally our approach to real estate as a family-owned company. On the other hand, in 2021, we made a strategic decisions to begin selling more assets so that we could reinvest into IMMOFINANZ and S IMMO at very attractive prices. Moving onto Page 13. I want to talk about diversification for a moment. A few minutes ago, David reminded you that the portfolio is well diversified by country and segment, but the diversification goes even deeper. Within our platforms, we aren't overexposed to any one tenant on property. We have more than 300 commercial properties, and the top 10 properties are only 17% of the total. Our top 10 tenants are only 10% of the total rent. You can see that many of our top 10 tenants are grocery stores and drugstores, strong international chains like Ahold and Tesco and BILLA and dm, who operate shops that stayed open throughout COVID. One of the tenants that I would like to highlight is WPP. You might know them. The global marketing and advertising agency, which relocated during 2020 and 2021 into our property Bubenská 1 in Prague. Bubenská is a historic property, which was specifically redeveloped at WPP's regional headquarters, bringing multiple agencies together under one roof. WPP's lease had a remaining term of 16.8 years. It was 18 years at signing, which just reflect the quality of the property. We always want to see the kind of commitments from our fantastic tenant like WPP. You can also see on Page 13, our basic average lease term of WAULT, of 3.8 years, which is longer than reported at the end of 2020. But more or less, this is, as I said, really a comfort zone. Leases are about 3 years on average in office markets like Berlin, which allows us to be more dynamic and capture upside in growing rent in the city where the leases are generally longer in our retail segment in the Czech Republic and other countries. I'll skip forward onto Page 15, just to remind all of you how our portfolio looks on a map. 83% of the portfolio is in Central and Eastern Europe. We have local teams on the ground in every country where we operate. And our administrative and regional headquarter is in Prague. In Prague, the whole portfolio is just a short drive and flight away. We are not flying, you understand, just to see the properties. We have teams on the ground. It has made a huge difference for many years and was proven even more during COVID times. Now looking at Page 17, a snapshot of our performance during COVID-19. I really hope this is the last time we discuss COVID in the presentation, but the key message is our portfolio is very agile. Because the COVID stressed us very early in the pandemic, CPIPG started releasing data around collections, open and closed units and that kind of information. I doubt many companies release more data and more frequently. This was actually an extended effort by our asset management teams to collect all the data to give investors confidence around how things were going in the portfolio during COVID. Because we have all the data, we can confidently tell that COVID had a very small effect on the group's operations and income. Overall, the group collected 97 of our contracted rent in 2021 versus 95% in 2020. A small number of discounts were provided, just EUR 11.5 million, mostly in retail. Remember, our gross rental income was EUR 402 million in 2021. So the figure is quite small, less than 3% of the total rental income. Our focus throughout COVID was on working with tenants, particularly in retail. We always thought COVID would be a short-lived problem, and we wanted to maintain the right level of occupancy and tenant mix in our portfolio. So we focused on solutions that work for both sides. The discounts were given. We typically also have an extension of the lease for 6 months and no change, no change for the headline rent. Now I'll turn the floor over to Tomáš to spend more time in individual segments. Tomáš?

Thanks a lot, Martin. This is Tomáš Salajka, Director of Acquisitions, Asset Management and Sales. On Page 23, as most of you already know, CPIPG is the leading of office landlord in Berlin, Prague and Warsaw. We are also the large owner of offices in Budapest. Through our recent acquisitions of stakes in Globalworth, IMMOFINANZ and S IMMO, CPIPG has increased our office investments in these key Central European capital cities while also adding exposure to Bucharest and Vienna. On Page 24, occupancy in the office segment remains high at 91.9%. Occupancy rose in Berlin, Prague and Warsaw during 2021, which is a positive sign of strength and capability of our teams and the market in general. Overall, leasing activity was strong in all of our core markets. Occupancy in Budapest dropped. You can see this in the chart. This is mostly because of 2 tenants who departed our properties in Budapest. Our local team has already made substantial progress to lease most of the vacant space, and we are certain we will see higher occupancy in Budapest in the near future. Focusing more on the geographies on Page 26, you can see more detail on our portfolio in Berlin, which operated under our local brand, GSG, a name, which has been known and respected in Berlin for more than 50 years. We have nearly 2,000 tenants in Berlin, and we are considered a top landlord for the creative and IT sectors. Our Berlin portfolio is operated in 3 clusters: Kreuzberg, which is the major IT and creative hub in Berlin; Rest-West, which is effectively our West Berlin portfolio, excluding Kreuzberg; and our portfolio in East Berlin. First, you can see the increase in the net rental income from EUR 97 million (sic) [ EUR 79 million ] in 2020 to EUR 85 million in 2021. On Page 28, perhaps, this is the most important slide about our Berlin office portfolio. You can see in the chart that the group's average rent in Berlin was EUR 9.55 per square meter as of year-end 2021, a very nice increase from 2020. Despite everything we have done, our rents are way below the average in Berlin of EUR 98 (sic) [ EUR 9.80 ] per square meter. And recently, several estimated that the average trend of our portfolio in Berlin should be closer to EUR 15 per square meter, meaning that we have a big upside. I mentioned earlier about the average term of our leases in Berlin. The WAULT, which is closer to 3 years, this is exactly our strategy. The market in Berlin is strong. We are investing CapEx in our properties, and we are increasing the rents very quickly, which is also why we are keeping the leases relatively short. Now let me touch briefly on some of the other markets. On Page 30, in Prague, the office market is relatively small but also very healthy and stable. We are very happy to see net rental income increase in 2021. Occupancy is high. Also, we really like the portfolio in Prague. We are one of the market leaders. On the other hand, we are not expecting any spectacular changes in 2022 either. Multinational companies continue to invest in Prague, which is -- which suits our portfolio perfectly. On Page 32, I will just mention again our Bubenská 1 development in Prague. This is a historical building from 1935. It was completely refurbished to become the regional headquarters of WPP in Prague, bringing 12 agencies together under one roof. I also want to mention that the extensive refurbishment of Bubenská 1 also led to a significant improvement in the EPC rating, the energy efficiency of the property, a historical property, which, for us, is a big achievement. On Page 34, just to discuss offices in Warsaw for a moment. CPIPG significantly expanded our investment in Warsaw beginning of 2019 and then 2020. And we believe this was a very smart decision. It is exactly the right moment to become the leading player in the market, and I'm convinced that we have absolutely the best team in the market. Our portfolio is modern, green, well-occupied and saw higher net rental income in 2021. When we began investing in Warsaw, we said that Warsaw would be a beneficiary of Brexit. This was definitely true. Now looking forward you can also see other positive possibilities. First, I want to mention that the supply-demand imbalance in Warsaw is growing. Everyone on the ground is talking about the 2023 and 2024 supply gap. While there has been plenty of development in Warsaw offices in recent years, the supply is not enough to keep up with demand well. We believe this is a very good position for us to take advantage of the 2023 and '24 supply gap. Also, I have to mention, considering all of the terrible impact of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, one possible silver lining is that about 2 million Ukrainian refugees have come to Poland, and many have come to Warsaw. Poland is playing a hugely important role in the humanitarian response. And as a result of the displacement of people, I believe you could see some demographic shifts, which could be positive for long term for Poland and Warsaw. In the interest of time now, I will move on to retail on Page 39. You can see here that the group's retail properties are mostly located in the Czech Republic. We also have properties in Italy, Hungary and Romania. Fundamentally, we like retail in the countries and locations where we have invested. As you can see on Page 40, our retail occupancy stands at 97% for the group, and I believe it's a very impressive figure. Net rental income rose significantly last year and would have been even higher without the onetime COVID-related discounts, which we have already discussed. I think briefly, on Page 41, just to remind you that in the Czech Republic, which is the majority of our retail portfolio, about half of our Czech portfolio relates to shopping centers. In general, our shopping centers are outside of Prague in regional cities. We also own retail parks, supermarkets and hypermarkets. What we do all of these properties have -- what do all these properties have in common? They are mostly food-anchored, and they are part of people's daily lives in a regional city or town in the Czech Republic, where competition from other forms of retail is limited. I state this very limited in the Czech Republic outside of Prague. Our properties do not rely on tourism. Also, very importantly, Czech Republic has not experienced the overbuilding of retail that you can see in other places like the U.S., the U.K. or the Nordic region. Keep in mind that modern shopping centers in Central and Eastern Europe only began to appear around the year 2000. Therefore, our retail properties are very well supported. There is just so much detail on retail in this report. I couldn't possibly cover it at all. But before I move on, let's look briefly at Page 49, which is the Maximo shopping center that we acquired in Rome. As described earlier, it was through the workout of a nonperforming loan. However, as you can see from the photo, Maximo is brand new -- the first new shopping center in Rome for 15 years, with Primark as a key tenant, and we are very proud to own this asset. On Page 50, just to touch on residential, which is about 9% of the group's total portfolio. Generally, our portfolio is located in the regions of the Czech Republic, mostly outside of Prague. I'm pleased to report that our residential segment performed very well during COVID, with higher net rental income, higher occupancy and a collection rate of nearly 100%. On Page 51, a map sometimes helps to explain where CPIPG owns residential space in the Czech Republic, in the Ústí region or near Liberec or near Ostrava. We often own a large portion of residential housing stock in a small city. This has a lot to do with the history behind our portfolio, which includes many apartments that used to be owned by state-owned companies before Czech economy was privatized in the '90s. In general, the residential in the Czech Republic segment has been -- has seen a very high demand. There is simply a lack of available space. We are seeing this now reflected in land prices, too. There is incredible demand right now to build residential space and benefit from that with our land bank potentially over time, but building permits are not that easy to obtain in the Czech Republic. As you might expect, considering the strong market backdrop for residential, we have invested in our Czech residential portfolio with a target of reducing vacancy. The strategy has been very successful as the growth in occupancy has boosted our gross rental income. Now let me take a break and turn the floor over to Mindee to discuss hotels. Mindee?

Thank you very much, Tomáš. This is Mindee Lee, and I am the Senior Manager of Corporate Strategy. Now moving on to hotels on Page 54. Just a reminder that CPIPG owns and operates a diverse portfolio of hotels. We own convention and congress hotels, long-stay residential hotels, plus mountain and island resorts. Our properties are primarily located in the Czech Republic, in Prague and in the regions. We also own a gorgeous portfolio of hotels in the island of Hvar in Croatia, plus a few other hotels in Budapest, Warsaw and Italy. I'm glad to say that in 2021, our hotels and resorts returned to positive performance, recording about EUR 14 million in net hotel income. For those of us that love hotels, this is wonderful to see. 2020 was probably the worst year ever for travel. In retrospect, CPIPG did extremely well during 2020 because we operate our own hotels. And as a result, despite the COVID shutdowns, we were able to control costs and keep losses to a minimum. As a result, in 2020, the hotel segment recorded only a loss of EUR 3 million. In 2021, we returned to a profit of EUR 14 million, which was a great feeling. It is nice to see people traveling again. Remember, as David mentioned earlier, hotels were consistently a EUR 14 million net income business for CPIPG in previous years. We hope and expect to see this kind of profitability again soon. Just quickly on Page 57. As you can see in the bottom chart, hotel occupancy was a rollercoaster experience during COVID. Occupancy in the first half of 2021 was impacted by COVID and travel restrictions that were only lifted from May. As a result, occupancy recovered in the second half and, overall, improved by 5 percentage points for the full year in 2021 compared to 2020. In general, I believe our portfolio is well-positioned to capture the recovery with a diverse offering of both leisure and business hotels. The outlook for 2022 is optimistic as we've observed a comeback in business travel and events inquiries. Additionally, operations in the country's bordering Ukraine have not seen much of a negative impact and in fact, have benefited from some corporate demand of staff relocations from Ukrainian offices. Lastly, let me touch on our complementary assets on Page 59. This segment is mostly about land bank, which is mostly in Prague, but also includes our industrial and agricultural assets. We treat land bank strategically. And as you can see on Page 60, the land bank we have in Prague includes an incredible Bubny site, which is more than 200,000 square meters in the center of Prague. This, we treat, as a development opportunity for the very long term. CPIPG also owns land plots in Berlin, as described on Page 61. We acquired new land plots in the Schönefeld Airport, which is more than 80,000 square meters. We also acquired 50% stakes in new developments in Central Berlin through a JV with MiddleCap. While the development activity in Berlin is small compared to the size of our portfolio, we see this as an important opportunity for the future. Moving on to Page 62. We describe our land bank in Italy, predominantly in Rome, most of it, which we have acquired during 2021. Because of -- these purchases relate to nonperforming loans and the entry prices represent truly exceptional discounts to fair value, we believe that this offers a significant upside potential. Our general plan is that our Italian land bank will be developed over time into green, modern and high-quality residential and commercial complexes, a product that has clearly been lacking in Rome. However, I want to emphasize that this is a long-term strategy. We are not in a hurry to develop, and it all depends on the environment and the resources and financial policy commitments of the group. Now let me turn the floor over to Martin to discuss some of our major strategic investments. Martin?

Thanks, Mindee. I'm now on Page 63. Since early 2020, CPIPG has been a major shareholder of Globalworth. We invested in Globalworth because its company has excellent office platforms in Poland and Romania and an active approach, which is similar to our own. In 2021, we formed a joint venture with Aroundtown, another large European owner of real estate. And we had gathered to control Globalworth. The Board of Directors was changed in December, and we now have a clear majority. Other changes may form over time, but as of right now, we are very happy with the partnership. Good example of Globalworth's portfolio and growth strategy can be seen in the bottom left picture, with the Globalworth Square that will be increased toward the end of 2021. The building is located in Bucharest prime CBD and is one of the top 3 buildings certified by BREEAM worldwide, achieving an outstanding score of 99%. On Page 64 and 65, we have included some figures regarding IMMOFINANZ and S IMMO. These are important recent strategic acquisitions for the group. I must admit this is a very sensitive period to discuss these acquisitions because we are in the market with a mandatory takeover offer of IMMOFINANZ right now. However, let me try to give you as much information as I can. First, let me begin with a story. For a long time, probably be a decade or more, there have been 3 listed companies in Vienna who are invested in Central and Eastern Europe. All of these companies are called Immo, which is short for Immobilien, the German word for real estate. For years, these companies have a complicated history and own pieces of each other. It was really mad, this cross-holding and payout takeovers. Even though the underlying properties were good and the management of the companies was well intentioned, the cross-holding and failed takeovers between the different companies creates all kinds of problems for leadership and shareholder direction. One of the companies, CA Immo, is now controlled by Starwood, which I believe should be a familiar name for many, many of you. The other 2 companies, IMMOFINANZ and S IMMO, came on onto the group's radar in 2021 after a failed takeover between the 2 companies. We have been watching them for many years as peers. But the failed takeover was just the latest signal that the lack of strong shareholder was a big weakness. What's most important to understand is these companies own properties in our region of Central and Eastern Europe, properties we know and understand. Because of the complicated history between the companies and management mishaps and lack of leadership, the stock prices have been trading well below the net asset value of the property. In our mind, this created an incredible opportunity. Then on the 3rd of December 2021, CPIPG announced an anticipated mandatory takeover offer of all outstanding shares of IMMOFINANZ. Following the end of the first acceptance period on 23rd, February 2022, CPIPG managed to achieve almost 55% ownership stake in IMMOFINANZ. Currently, the legal and mandatory sellout period in Austria is running where the existing shareholders can tender their shares to IMMOFINANZ under the same conditions as the first acceptance period. Price for the first acceptance period was EUR 23 per IMMOFINANZ share or a discount of about 24% to the net asset value. During [ care of ] late 2021 and 2022, CPIPG has also acquired 16.1% stake in S IMMO. IMMOFINANZ owns 26.5% of S IMMO, so in total more than 42%. What does this all mean? Well, the first important for you to understand is that we have the financial capacity to conclude these acquisitions where IMMOFINANZ, we update a bridge of up to EUR 2.5 billion from local banks. A large majority of the share purchases to date have been funded with proceeds from disposal and fresh equity. So we have the capacity within our financial ratios and credit rating as well. We talked earlier about our record-low LTV, about recharging our financial policy for acquisition. Well, we were preparing for these transactions and feel very comfortable about the impact. Now let me turn the floor back to David to discuss the financial policy. David?

Thank you very much, Martin. I'm starting again on Page 72, just a snapshot of CPIPG's financial policy. Our policy has been in place since early 2018, and we have maintained our adherence to the policy even as the group has continued to grow. We're fully committed to our credit rating and to gradual ratings improvement over time. The net LTV target is 40% or below or up to 45% in the case of strategic acquisitions. At the end of 2021, we achieved the new record low LTV, as we've mentioned. Of course, you have to professionally do the math, and you can assume that this is a temporary low in LTV because of the acquisitions that Martin just described, with some Q&A that's popped up about that, and we'll get into it. But really, keep in mind, we intend to finance ourselves in line with the financial policy. There's no change. You can, of course -- we described earlier, the history of the LTV, the actions that we've taken to raise equity when necessary, EUR 550 million in 2021 from Apollo and from our shareholder, Radovan Vítek. I will say that Apollo went through a very thorough due diligence process. On the other hand, as a shareholder, Apollo has simply been supportive of what we are doing. They appointed a member to our Board of Directors. His name is Tim Scoble, and I really think he's been a great addition to the Board. He brought good perspective and real estate expertise. So overall, our equity raising was a good experience, and it was good for financial policy and governance, too. The other major aspect of our strategy of equal, if not greater, importance is our disposal pipeline. I want to spend a minute here. When we reported H1 results at the end of August, we stated that the group would explore disposals up to EUR 1 billion within the next 6 to 12 months. At year-end, we'd already signed EUR 700 million in disposals and have signed another EUR 200 million about -- just about EUR 200 million in 2022. So we're well on track. The disposals cover assets in the Czech Republic, office and retail, also Berlin, Hungary. It's across the portfolio of standing assets and land bank, which could be sold at prices well above book value, but which were also not core for the group long term. Just to emphasize the point, please note that our disposals are happening at or above book value, whereas the acquisitions of IMMOFINANZ shares have been at really attractive prices at discounts. So moving forward with our financial policy, we also have an ICR target of 4x, which we are well above. On the other hand, if hotels had been more normal, we would have been even better. The group will continue to distribute some of our FFO each year via share repurchase. In the past, this was about 50%, but we've now raised the target to 65%. Still, this is far less than many of our peers distribute. Our shareholder generally prefers to invest back into the company. And I want to highlight that we're not a REIT. There's no legal requirement to make distributions, and therefore, distributions are always sized appropriately considering performance, cash flow and our overall financial profile. On Page 74, I want to also emphasize once again the progress we made in extending our debt maturity profile. We actively managed our liabilities prior to maturities and put a high emphasis on a well-laddered and long-dated debt maturity profile while always maintaining ample liquidity. As you can see, we have no significant bond maturities for several years. Again, there's just so much to cover. And I imagine we need to -- want to get to these questions. So in the interest of time, let me turn the floor over to Petra Hajna to spend a minute on ESG, and then we will go to the Q&A. Petra?

Thank you, David. This is Petra Hajna. I am the Sustainability Officer for CPIPG. Beginning on Page 84, sustainability plays an important role for us. I would like to express that we put emphasis and focus on all 3 legs of sustainability: environmental, social and governance. On the environmental side, we look into energy transition and circular economy as well as e-mobility and accessibility. From a social perspective, we focus on our internal as well as external stakeholders. This covers the well-being of our employees through development with community involvement. Internal policy delivery and compliance plus Board independence are focused area in terms of governance. Skipping forward to Page 100, sustainability plays a more important role for us each year. Last year, we revised our environmental strategy and increased our target. 30% reduction of greenhouse gases emissions intensity by 2030 from 2019 baseline is the most important one as well as our commitment to purchase 100% of electricity from renewable sources by year 2024. We also have a target to reduce water intensity by 10% by 2030 from 2018 baseline and increase the proportion of green buildings in our portfolio. In 2021, the group outperformed the required 2021 greenhouse gases emissions intensity reduction target by 12.5% and also outperformed the water intensity reduction target by 13.2%. The electricity from renewable resources increased significantly to almost 17%. In 2021, 24.2% of our portfolio in terms of GLA was certified and, in terms of total value, is 33%, which is an increase from last year's figures. Almost 90% of CPIPG's certified green buildings were BREEAM very good and above and LEED gold and above. As you can see on Page 101, CPIPG's third-party ESG ratings continue to improve. Sustainalytics rated us 12.8 from 100 in 2021, and we belong among top 5% of issuers globally. CDP score improved to B-, management level, which means that the group is taking coordinated action on climate issues and belong amongst 47% of companies that reached the management level in this activity group. We are active in many industry bodies around ESG. For instance, I sit on the Board of the Czech Green Building Council. We are a member of the Hungarian Green Building Council. And last year, we joined the Polish Green Building Council. I was also appointed as a member of the Sustainability Committee of the Czech Olympic Committee and I'm a member of the Supervisory Board of the Rethink Architecture Institute. I really would like to emphasize that CPIPG understands our responsibility as a large landlord and employer in our region, and we are committed to being a part of the dialogue around ESG in our region going forward. The group recognizes the importance of engaging with tenants. Therefore, re-lease for existing tenants and green memorandum for existing tenants are executed. Several key tenants, such as Ahold, Tesco, Kaufland, accounting for almost 10% of our Czech retail portfolio signed in the Green Memorandum during 2021. CPIPG strives for continuous improvement of reporting each year. Year 2021 is the first year when we report all regions where CPIPG is active and all relevant categories of Scope 3. The reporting approach and methodology and the 2021 across key environmental performance indicators divided by asset type and by geography are disclosed in the management report on Pages 102 and 103. The EPRA results comparing like-for-like performance 2021 versus 2020 are increase in energy intensity by 1.6%, decrease in greenhouse gas emissions intensity by 9.9%, decrease in water consumption by 0.2% and increase in electricity purchase from renewable sources by 111%. These results in part are reported separately on Page 104. CPIPG's report was verified by CI2 company, a regional partner for CDP reporting and complying with ISO-standard under GHG protocol, and was awarded the CI2 conformity certificate. The report was prepared in cooperation with the advisory services provided by the University Centre for Energy Efficiency Buildings (sic) [ University Centre for Energy Efficient Buildings ] of the Czech Technical University in Prague. CPIPG cooperates with UCEEB since 2018. Moving on to sustainable financing. CPIPG is a leader in sustainable finance, has issued 4 green bond and 1 sustainability-linked bond so far. In January 2022, the group introduced sustainability finance framework, combining both sustainability-linked and green bond framework. The framework is available on our website. The green bond allocation and green bond impact reporting is also part of the management report starting on Page 109. As of 31st of December 2021, 100% of net proceeds from the issued green bonds were allocated to eligible assets, mostly to certified buildings, almost 87%, followed by energy efficiency projects, representing 7.4% and sustainable farming with the cash certificate, accounting or 5.2%. The environmental impact of the green bond portfolio for green buildings represented annual greenhouse gases reduction of more than 26,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent an annual water savings of more than 20,000 cubic meters in 2021. The energy efficiency projects accounted for annual energy savings of almost 2,000 megawatt hours, representing more than 1,000 tonnes CO2 equivalent reduction in 2021. Renewable energy projects, photovoltaic expense in Berlin represented annual greenhouse gases reduction of more than 2,000 tonnes C02 equivalent last year. Last but not least, sustainable farming, representing more than 45,000 tonnes of soil enrichment with fertilizing in 2021. Green bond project case studies are provided for the vast majority of our case assets on Page 112. As previously mentioned, we cooperate with the University Centre for Energy Efficiency Building (sic) [ University Centre for Energy Efficient Buildings ] of the Czech Technical University in Prague to assist with the calculation and review of green bond impact metrics. In addition, the methodology and calculation of greenhouse gases reduction was reviewed and verified by an independent third party, CI2. Finally, according to the green bond framework, CPIPG is committed to verifying its reporting by an independent third party, and Sustainalytics has reviewed the green bond impact reporting as part of the annual review process performed in March 2022. The annual review letter can be found on our website as well. So this covers the ESG section, and I believe now we are ready to go to the questions-and-answers section of the report. David, do you want to take over from here?

Thank you very much, Petra. Before we do the Q&A, I wanted to make a brief comment about the ESG rating agencies maybe to vent a little bit of frustration. I've been saying for years now that ESG ratings will become core to the bond markets like credit rating. And I see this happening more and more now. And I know investors are kind of grasping for straws to find good, reliable data across a pretty large universe of issuers. Therefore, I thought it would be interesting for you to just keep in mind that we have different approaches among these ESG agencies. On one hand, you have some agencies like Sustainalytics, which spend a lot of time to see what we are doing. There are others out there, which are much more of a voicemail box and are copying and pasting. And unfortunately, we look at some of the research, and we really scratch our heads. And unfortunately, in some cases, like with MSCI, there's really no way to engage. So I would encourage our -- if any investor has any question about what we're doing on the ESG side, come talk to us about it, read -- look at the report, speak to Petra, but we're really doing things across the business, which are very special. So I wanted to say that. Now let's move on to the Q&A. We actually have quite a bit of Q&A. So I hope all of you will sort of hang with us through it. So Moritz, do you want to start asking the first question?

Sure, David. And the first question is, please could you talk about the pro forma debt capital structure since the recent acquisition of S IMMO and IMMOFINANZ as well as if there is some bridge short-term facilities that you intend to refinance in the bond the market?

Okay. Yes. Thank you. There's not much we can say about this really at the moment. Right now, what we're doing is we're simply asking you to look at the fundamentals of the companies involved. It's pretty easy, I think, to look at various scenarios and for you to understand that we're fully committed to our financial policy in terms of how we see the strategic steps going forward. Now when it comes to pro forma, I expect you will see a pro forma in our EMTN program later this month, I hope. That's the plan because as of Q1, we will consolidate IMMOFINANZ. So of course, before we come to the public bond markets, again, we would want to put a pro forma so you'll be able to see that. In terms of how we will finance acquisitions, I want to remind you that we financed a substantial chunk of our acquisitions in 2021 with equity and disposals. These are the tools we have at our disposal. But do keep in mind also IMMOFINANZ has lots of cash and a low LTV. S IMMO has quite a bit of cash as well.

Perfect. And going to the second question, it's, please, can you discuss the basis of our valuation methodology? Who does the valuation? What is the precise accounting basis? How much are physical valuations versus laptop valuation and similar things?

Sure. Let me take this question, Moritz. First and foremost, let me point you to our management report on Page 69. There is a valuation summary that gives you an overview of the valuers and the share of valuations by each of the valuers. Let me start by just saying also that we revalue our entire portfolio annually. And we might do revaluations during the year if we do see any significant shifts, upside or downwards. Also, I would like to remind you that based on the terms of our EMTN, we must have 90% of our portfolio done by external valuers. We usually the top leading valuers in the market. Some of them might be very familiar to you, the likes of JLL, Savills, CBRE and the likes. To touch on the methodology, this is quite a detailed subject, but also what I can say here is that the methodology depends on the type of assets. For example, we used the discounted cash flow methodology, mostly on income-producing assets, our retail portfolio, hotels and offices. And we also do use comparable method for land banks and residential units. And lastly, for the developments and projects, we look at using the residual values methodology. So I hope this answers the question in terms of the methodology of our valuations. Do look at the page in the management report. If there are further questions, do reach out.

Thank you, Mindee. And the next question is on, why do you say the acquisition of Globalworth was a success? You paid EUR 9.70 per share, and it's now worth less than EUR 6. How do you turn this situation around?

Okay. Well, first off, I don't really agree with the logic of the question. First, the NAV per share of Globalworth at the end of last year was EUR 8.66. And frankly, the share price is meaningless because there are 3 shareholders that control 90% of the company. So I don't -- that using EUR 6 cannot really appropriate from my perspective. Now I'm not saying that your calculation was way off on the entry price for Globalworth, but we also paid a premium for control of a very unique portfolio. We still see lots of upside in Globalworth. It's a success, by the way. The acquisition is a success because we did it in the single most credit-friendly way possible in the middle of COVID by using a risk-sharing joint venture with Aroundtown and protecting our credit ratings and behaving in the way we said we would. It's a success because Globalworth has a great portfolio and pays dividends. Now that we have control, I think you will see good performance continue. The portfolio is good. We're cooperating well with Aroundtown. Management team at Globalworth is very high quality. We like what they're doing. I suggest you just wait and see.

Thank you, David. And the next question is on our LTV. You described your LTV at 35%, but this excludes both hybrids and the M&A in Austria. What is your pro forma LTV, including hybrids and Austrian M&A?

Okay. Thank you. First, the LTV includes the first stage of our purchases of shares in IMMOFINANZ and also our purchase of shares in S IMMO. It's about EUR 750 million in total. That is what's included because it was done last year. It's no surprise, of course, that we will purchase more shares of IMMOFINANZ in 2022. For that, we have a bridge financing of EUR 2.5 billion. The bridge, by the way, is 2 years of -- effectively. Maturity is 12 plus 6 plus 6. So we have plenty of time -- at our option by the way, extension. We have plenty of time to repay any drawing, but the key question is really how we will repay the bridge. And regarding Austria, let me just emphasize again how we have emphasized that acquisition so far. We've been using disposals. We have a pipeline of disposals that is going very well with many other levers to pull, includes of equity and everything else. So I would just say, yes, you do need to look at the LTV and you need to factor in some expectation that we will need to potentially utilize the bridge or -- that we will utilize the bridge to finance further share repurchases. But the question is, how do you repay the bridge, and again, we have a disposal pipeline. We have access to equity. And we do have additional debt capacity because of our financial strength and because of the financial strength of IMMOFINANZ. On the LTV, including hybrids, by the way, the investor who asked this. So that was the second part of the question, what is your LTV pro forma, including the hybrid. I know that the investor who asked this question is very smart. And so therefore, I know he is smart enough to make the calculation on his own. I will say that the rating agencies also published the 50% version where they treat the hybrid at 50%. Now of course, if you treat the hybrid as debt, you get to an LTV with a 4 handle. You are free to do that. Let me just say something about hybrid from our perspective. We love the hybrid market. For our shareholder, Radovan Vítek, it is a great solution. Therefore, we want to treat our hybrid bondholders well and maintain access to that market over time. On the other hand, I will say it again, in the worst-case scenario, hybrids are equity. I really believe it. You would cause yourself a million problems reputationally, and with the bond -- the bond, investors would hate you. But in the capital structure, it is equity when it needs to be. So I hope I've answered your question.

Thank you, David. And the next question is CPI's acquisition of a majority stake in IMMOFINANZ makes sense given the synergies and scale benefits. Would it be safe to assume, using the same rationale, S IMMO could also be part of this enlarged CPI-IMMOFINANZ entity? Is there clear benefits of combining S IMMO and IMMOFINANZ? Martin, do you want to answer this question?

Yes. So first, I can confirm that we like the portfolio of IMMOFINANZ. As we already mentioned during the presentation, it's in the same region in the same segment. So there may be some strategic savings and synergies between the companies. But I have to just remind you that we are still in the process of mandatory takeover offer, which will end at the end of May. And following that, we'll sit together with the company and look for what we can do together, how we can unlock some savings but always respecting the minority investors in IMMOFINANZ. But yes, already, at the moment, CPIPG is a controlling shareholder in IMMOFINANZ, more than 55%, which was also confirmed on the general meeting last week where a CPIPG representative was voted on the Supervisory Board of the company. Now moving on S IMMO. Also, the portfolio of S IMMO is interesting. It's in the same region, as I already mentioned for CPIPG and IMMOFINANZ, but also even more West-oriented. So S IMMO has more properties in Germany. It has more properties in Austria and also interesting office portfolio in other CEE countries. So same logic can apply here as well. But also in relation to our shareholding as I mentioned, we have more than 42%. And we still need to decide internally -- you have to decide on mind, what are the next steps in terms of the shareholding in relation to S IMMO.

Thank you, Martin. And the next question is on our retail portfolio. And 35% of your net business income comes from the retail segment. How much of that is hypermarkets and supermarkets? 18% in the Czech Republic, but how about overall similar numbers? And Tomáš, do you want to take this one?

Yes. Thank you. In [ CEE ] it's less, because most of the hypermarket, supermarket -- stand-alone hypermarket and supermarket are in the Czech Republic. We have a little bit in Slovakia and in Budapest in Hungary. So I would assume it's around 10%, 12%. I cannot tell you the exact number, but it's less than 18%. It would be probably around 10% to 12%.

And the next question is on inflation. Can you give us a general overview? How do you expect current inflation to affect your business?

I think it's clear, the cost side of the P&L will grow. It's clear. It's going to happen also on the -- on our side, also on the tenant side. And at the same time, the income side will grow as well. I know we have indexation of our leases. So every year, we actually reflect the inflation to the increase of the rent in our agreement. So in a way, this is showing that real estate is a good hedge towards inflation. It's one of the advantages you can have.

Can I just say -- I just want to jump in and say that we included actually some data on this in our management report. And you can see that 90% plus of the leases have some form of inflation indexation, which we think is a very positive thing. And we also think -- we think it's positive for income. We think it's defensive for valuation. So we think it's actually quite helpful all around.

Thank you, Tomáš and David. And the next question is, given the increase in leverage from increasing the IMMOFINANZ stake in the first quarter of 2022, is there still a commitment to your BBB flat rating? Have you spoken to the rating agencies about further deleveraging? And what are the specific deleveraging plans from here?

Okay. I'll take that one, if you don't mind, Moritz. Can I just say the commitment to our rating is 100%. And I want to be absolutely clear, this is from our shareholder and our Board and runs all the way through the company. We care about the credit rating and believe we are already a strong BBB. We just need to keep delivering on our commitments. We are super engaged with the rating agencies, by the way. Moritz Mayer, he's asking the questions today. He was on our analytical team at Moody's before he joined CPIPG. So it shows you how much this is integrated into our thinking. If you were to see an internal business plan of CPIPG, everything we look at has all of the key rating agency and balance sheet and income ratio as key KPIs along with all of our real estate KPIs. So you have to assume it's really integral to how we think about things. Considering the size of our company now, too, as we grow, it's even more critical that we have a strong rating from our perspective because we want to have good access to the bond market. Now in terms of -- I think we've kind of touched on the -- to any refinancing associated with IMMOFINANZ, and I would just point you again to disposals, to other things, the levers that we can pull to the strength and the low LTV at the moment and our commitment to financial policy. I hate to repeat the same things over and over, but we are a little limited sometimes on what we can say.

Thank you, David. And the next question is, can you please comment on investor sentiment towards CEE property sector amidst recent Europe [ collector ] development? Are there concerns regarding higher interest rates affecting property valuations?

Okay, I will answer. On the first point, which is the investor sentiment, I would probably divide the investors into 2 categories. One of them are local investors, and the other ones are from abroad. Typically, the local investors are not so much impacted because they have raised the capital already, they -- so they are here, and they typically continue their deals. They continue investing. I don't think there is a significant impact on the local investor. And just to remind, in the Czech Republic, more than half of the transactions are done by the local investors. This is just statistics. If you look at the investors from abroad, we have, I would say, also different reactions. Some investors are more, let's say, conservative. They are waiting and see what's going to happen with Ukraine, what's going to happen with the situations. But some of them are still continuing the deals. We cannot -- we can show it on some examples because we have finalized deals which have not been signed, even if after the Ukraine invasion, one of them was with Heinz. The other one was with Microsoft. So we have done actually deals even with investors from abroad. But of course, there are some investors which are waiting for a couple of months, probably, and they will take even later on. With respect to the second question, which is, is there any concerns regarding higher interest rates affecting property valuations. Not as of now because there was excess of liquidity, excess of money. And according to the discussions on the market with the brokers and the market players, it seems there is still a lot of money to be spent, a lot of interest in the future. So we don't expect the valuations will be impacted from the interest rates.

Thank you, Tomáš. And the next question is on our hybrid capacity. And it's likely you will create a small amount of hybrid capacity after the acquisition. Will you consider doing some more hybrids to take you back to the 15% limit from rating agencies? Or would you consider the lower level, a more comfortable normalized level?

I'll take this question. I agree with you. It is likely that we could create some hybrid capacity. We -- I said earlier how much we like the hybrid market, how it's a great solution for our shareholder. We are not in love with the level that we are seeing right now. Obviously, we're sensitive to what's been going on in the market and technicals in the real estate sector and everything else. But hopefully, all of you who have been listening today really see that the fundamentals of what's going on in our business are not really reflected in the way that we're trading, at least in our opinion, at the moment. So I would just say to the extent that there's a hybrid market available to us in the future, absolutely, we'll consider using it. The other thing I want to say is that we did get one other question about how we would not -- would we ever consider not calling our perpetual notes on the first call date. And I just want to tell you again, we understand how the hybrid market works. We understand how you build a reputation in this market. You have to keep in mind we are uniquely motivated to continue accessing the market. Of course, we can raise equity through many other forms, but we very much like the hybrid market. So we know what investors expect. On the other hand, I'll say it again, in the worst possible case scenario, it's still equity. So I'm getting asked to wrap things up now. And I really just want to thank you all very much for joining this webcast. It was a long one. But if any of you have follow-up questions, please reach out to me, reach out to Moritz. You know that we're very accessible to you. So we really appreciate your support for CPIPG, and we wish you a lovely day.