EPIC Suisse AG ($EPIC)
Earnings Call Transcript · March 12, 2026
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Operator
OperatorLadies and gentlemen, welcome to the EPIC Suisse 2025 Full Year Results Conference Call. I'm Vicki, the Chorus Call operator. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Roni Greenbaum, Chairman. Please go ahead, sir.
Ron Greenbaum
ExecutivesThank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. A big welcome to all of you joining our EPIC Suisse AG conference call on the annual results 2025. My name is Roni Greenbaum. I'm the Chairman of the Board of Directors of EPIC Suisse. Joining me on this call, as usual, are CEO, Erick Parizer; our CFO, Valerie Scholtes; and our Portfolio Director, Philipp Kuchler. You should have received our press release this morning, and you can find on our website, epeic.ch in the English section of Media and Investor, our annual report 2025 as well as the presentation to our call. Let me start by saying that we are very pleased to report record results in line with our expectation for the fiscal year 2025, and we are delighted that our development projects, PULSE and Campus Leman - Building C already contribute meaningfully to this year rental income growth of 3%. For the next 30 minutes or so, Erick and Valerie will take you through the slide in the presentation, after which we will all be available for Q&A. I pass it to you, Erick.
Erick Parizer
ExecutivesThank you, Roni, and good morning, everyone. I would like to join Roni's comments and to also welcome you all to EPIC Suisse Financial Year 2025 Results Conference Call. This annual report 2025 marks our fourth reporting year of EPIC Suisse as a public company, and we are proud of what we've achieved during this time in terms of top line growth, in terms of our cost discipline and the progress of our development projects. During 2025, we also held our first Capital Markets Day where we had a chance to present our vision to the investment community and those who participated could visit some of our properties first time. In December 2025, we carried out a capital increase, which was well oversubscribed and very successful. This increase in capital provides us with a great platform to continue our growth in responsible and disciplined manner, just as we always did. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the investors who participated for their trust. Now to the numbers and achievements of the year. It is a great pleasure for me to share with you all today once again record results and to update you on our ongoing operations and developments. As usual, let me start with a quick overview of the economy. As you can see on Slide 3 of the presentation, inflation in Switzerland has cooled off from its peak in December 2022 at 2.8% to 1.1% in December 2024 and 0.2% in December 2025. According to the Swiss National Bank, it is expected to continue remaining low at 0.3% in 2026 and 0.6% in 2027. GDP growth has come down since December 2021 at 5.1% to 1% in December 2024. Expectations that GDP will continue -- will stay at a growth level between 1.1% and 1.7% between 2025 and 2027. Consumer sentiment remained negative and stands at around minus 30.1%, indicating continued uncertainty from the consumer side. Please note that these numbers do not take into account the recent escalations in the Middle East. In this economically and politically challenging environment, our company continued to grow and the market value of our real estate portfolio grew to CHF 1.7 billion, as you can see on Slide #5. The real estate portfolio as of 31 December 2025 was split according to market value as follows: 54% in the Lake Geneva region, 34% in the Zurich Economic area and 12% in other locations, notably in cantons of St. Gallen, Bern and Glarus. The portfolio remains also well diversified by sector with market values per sector as follows: 43% offices, 34% retail, 22% logistics like industrial and 1% developments. We have 25 properties with almost 370,000 square meters of lettable area as at 31 December 2025. The net rental income yield of properties in operation during the year was 4.4%, excluding developments, and the portfolio continues to benefit from a long WAULT of 7.9 years. On Slide #7, you can see the main highlights of the 2025 financial year. In financial year 2025, we continue to grow our rental income by 3% to CHF 68.2 million compared to CHF 66.2 million in the financial year 2024. The majority of that increase was thanks to the start of the rental income from our 2 completed development projects, which began to continue meaningfully -- which began to contribute meaningfully to the rental income in the second half of 2025. On a like-for-like growth basis, the growth was 0.7%. Reported vacancy for properties in operation continued to come down and was only 3.4% during the year. For a reminder, this reduction trend has been going on for a few years now. During 2024, the vacancy was 4.2%. During 2023, it was 4.6%. And during 2022, the year when we became a public company, it was 5.8%. Our WAULT remained long and stood at 7.9 years at 31 December 2025 compared to 8.2 years as at 31 December 2024, despite the fact that 12 months have passed by. Also, EBITDA, excluding revaluation of properties increased during the financial year 2025 to CHF 54.8 million compared to CHF 53 million during the financial year 2024. We continue to have a very solid equity ratio at 53.5% as at 31 December 2025. This positive ratio was improved compared to the 49.9% in December 2024, thanks to both our robust results and the successful capital raise in December 2025. Finally, at the upcoming AGM, our Board of Directors will propose to increase the dividend to CHF 3.2 per registered share. Slide 9 summarizes our portfolio key figures. On 31 December 2025, after the transfer between categories of PULSE and Campus Leman Building C, we have 26 properties in operations and 2 properties under development, Nexus Brunnpark in Roggwil and Campus Leman Building D in Morges. Our total portfolio value increased to CHF 1.68 billion. On this slide, you can see the values of our 2 segments, both after and before the transfer between categories of our completed developments. The value of each segment after transferring the completed development to properties and operations are CHF 1.67 billion for properties in operations and CHF 11 million for the remaining 2 properties under development. The value of each segment before transferring the completed development to properties and operations are CHF 1.5 billion for properties in operations and CHF 184 million for properties under development. Like I mentioned, the vacancy rate for the properties in operation during the year was reduced to 3.4% in 2025 compared to 4.2% in 2024, 4.6% in 2023, 5.8% in 2022 and 7.6% in 2021. I already commented on the WAULT, which we consider at 7.9 years to be very attractive. As usual, we do not report the individual market value per property, but on Slide #10, you can see the portion of the top 10 properties in operations after transfer of the market value of the portfolio as well as the respective uses. As you can see, the top 10 properties in operation represent 66% of our total portfolio value. We have 4 properties in operations with a value in excess of CHF 100 million. The average property value amounted to approximately CHF 60 million, while the smallest property we have in operation carried a value of about CHF 6 million. So overall, we consider our portfolio well balanced also from a risk perspective. Slide #11 reflects the change in market value of our portfolio with an increase in value of 4.4% during the year. This increase was mainly driven by CapEx of CHF 37.2 million in total, which was split as follows: CHF 28.1 million investments in our development pipeline, mainly PULSE with CHF 24.3 million investment and Campus Leman Building C with CHF 3.8 million investment as well as CHF 9.1 million investment in our properties in operation during the year. The increase was also driven by the unrealized revaluation gain of CHF 33 million, which we had following the year-end valuation of our portfolio. On Slide #12, you can see in blue the breakdown of the revaluation per sector as of 31 December 2025 and the comparable numbers for last year. As in previous years, all our properties were valued by the independent valuer, Wuest Partner, who revalues the properties every 6 months. As mentioned in the previous slide, the revaluation resulted in a net unrealized revaluation gain of CHF 33 million. This was driven by gain in each of the sectors and was split as follows: a gain of CHF 11.9 million in the office sector, a gain of CHF 6 million in the retail sector, a gain of CHF 7.4 million in the logistics sector; and finally, a gain of CHF 7.7 million in properties under development. The average real discount rate decreased to 3.32% in December 2025 compared to 3.38% in December 2024. On Slide #13, you can see in the top table, the evolution per sector of our vacancy rates during the year compared to the previous year. In the bottom table, you can also see the like-for-like growth for the 2 reporting periods. You can see in the top table that the vacancy per sector was as follows: Offices vacancy rate was reduced quite substantially from 6.7% in 2024 to only 3.8% in 2025. Retail, the vacancy rate slightly increased from 2.9% in 2024 to 3.6% in 2025. Logistics/industrial, an increase from 0.7% in 2024 to 1.6% in 2025. Having said this, the increase of vacancy in Swiss francs is immaterial and stands at circa CHF 100,000. As you can see, the overall vacancy has been reduced from 4.2% in 2024 to as low as 3.4% in 2025. I have to stop here for a second and congratulate and thank our team for all the efforts and hard work in achieving this very low vacancy. In the bottom table, you can see the like-for-like growth of our rental income in financial year 2025 per sector compared to the previous year. Office sector growth of 2.4% in 2025 compared to 0.4% in 2024. Retail sector remained more or less constant on a like-for-like basis compared to an increase of 2.3% in 2024. Logistics sector, a slight pullback of 1.9% compared to a like-for-like increase of 1% in 2024. Having said this, the slight pullback amounts to only about CHF 200,000 for the entire year. Overall, a like-for-like growth of 0.7%, as mentioned earlier in the presentation. As just presented, the main driver of this growth is from the office sector where we had new tenants moving in, namely com.West in Zurich, Lake Geneva Center A in Morges, Provencenter in Lausanne as well as in Biopole Serine, where tenants accounted for full year rent in 2025. On Slide 14, you can see the list of our top 6 tenants. The top 6 group of tenants are all very solid tenants and represented 52% of our 2025 net rental income. The contracts with those 6 tenants have a WAULT of 9.8 years and the total net rental income in 2025 amounted to CHF 35 million from these 6 tenants alone. The other CHF 33.2 million of net rental income are well spread over circa 170 tenants of different sizes. It is important to note that as much as 89% of our rental income on a weighted average basis is linked to CPI. On Slide 15, you can see the expiry profile of our leases. As you will notice, more than 52% of our leases will expire post December 2031. Out of the 6.5% expiring in 2026, 56% relate to contracts with either no fixed maturity already renewed or relet or currently under negotiations, while the remaining expiries relate to surfaces that are on the market. In 2027, we only have 2.3% of expiry. I would like to pass the word to Valerie, who will go through the financial numbers in detail.
Valérie Scholtes
ExecutivesGood morning, everybody. It's a pleasure for me to report on our 2025 annual results following another productive business year marked by 2 main events. On the one hand, our developments PULSE and Campus Leman Building C recently were completed by the end of H1 2025, started to contribute to our top line. And on the other hand, EPIC successfully conducted a capital increase by raising CHF 70 million in gross proceeds in December 2025. And in line with our past conference calls, I will cover 3 main topics, which allow investors to follow EPIC in a systematic and comparable manner. First, I will comment on the equity and bank debt, secondly on the 2025 performance of our portfolio, and finally, how this performance translates into earnings per share and dividends for our shareholders. And as usual, for each of the key figures tables, I will highlight the major points, and then I will elaborate on those on the following slide. It's important to note that for KPI reporting purposes involving the P&L, the properties are considered as per the category they were classified in as at 1st of January 2025. And this is the case, for example, for the reported vacancy or the net rental income. The transfer between investment properties categories is only effective on the last day of the financial year, i.e., on 31st of December 2025. And this means that PULSE and Campus Leman Building C were classified in investment properties under development construction during the financial year 2025. I would like to start my presentation on Slide 16 with our balance sheet key figures table. And as mentioned in my introduction, EPIC conducted a capital raise through an accelerated book building in December '25 by issuing 875,000 new shares for gross proceeds of CHF 70 million. And in order to optimize the financial cost, CHF 60 million out of those proceeds were used to temporarily repay the debt at year-end, which contributed to the reduction of the total mortgage secured bank loans from CHF 662 million by the end of December 2024 to down to CHF 617 million by the end of December 2025. And this also contributed to the lowering of the net loan-to-value ratio from 40.6% to 35.5%, respectively. And vice versa, the capital raise was also one of the factors, but not the only one, as you will be able to see on the next slide, which positively supported equity increased from CHF 820 million at the end of '24 to CHF 921 million by the end of 2025. And this also corresponding to an increase in our equity ratio from 49.9% to 53.5%, respectively. Now the '25 return on equity, excluding revaluation effects, dropped slightly at 4.9% compared to 5% in the prior year, and this is also due to the December capital increase. Now the next slide, we show you that our 2025 profit of about CHF 60 million contributed almost as much as the capital increase, net proceeds of CHF 67 million to the equity growth. Slide 17 provides with our equity bridge. And then in addition, at the AGM 2025, the dividend per share was increased by CHF 0.05 to CHF 3.15 per share, amounting to a total distribution of CHF 32.5 million in April 2025. And this dividend yielded 3.9% relative to our 2024 year-end closing share price. By the end of December 2025, our IFRS NAV came to CHF 32.52 per share, already taking into account our new number of shares of about [ 11.2 million ] and it reached CHF 93.67 when we disregard the net deferred tax element. On the liability side of our balance sheet on top of the debt reduction, the group also benefited from lower financing costs during the year, as you will be able to see on Slide 18. As at 31st of December 2025, the weighted average cost of debt was further improved to 1.1% or 0.2% lower compared to the prior year. And the weighted average residual maturity remained unchanged at 3.7 years, but the hedging proportion of our bank debt at the year-end stood at 69%. As you all know, we use interest rate loans and interest rate swap in order to hedge our financing costs as well as [indiscernible] The year end revaluation of the derivatives led to a net unrealized loss of [ CHF 11.7 million ] in financial year '25 compared to a loss of CHF 5.3 million in the financial year 2024. While the foreign exchange revaluation of the related underlying U.S. dollar loans resulted in a net unrealized gain of CHF 11.6 million in the financial year 2025 compared to a loss of CHF 6.6 million in the financial year 2024. And when those unrealized effects are put aside, the adjusted financial result corresponds actually to a net expense of CHF 8.6 million for the financial year '25 versus a net expense of CHF 9.1 million for the prior financial year. And the positive variation of CHF 0.5 million relates mainly to the reduction in bank financing costs, and this was primarily driven by the progressive reduction of the [ SMB ] reference rate over the 2 reporting years. Now the bottom graph provides you with the bank debt maturity profile over the years, also breaking down by type of financing, fixed, variable or hedged with swaps. And the only loan coming to maturity in 2026 relates to this. So let's move now to the performance of our portfolio during the financial year on the next slide. Slide 19 is a great slide to present, thanks to the many upward looking through arrows, which underpins our sound and profitable growth strategy. As already explained by Erick, our rental income grew by 3% or CHF 2 million between the 2 reporting periods as our 2 developments, PULSE and Campus Leman Building C started to contribute to our top line with rental income of CHF 1.5 million, although they were just recently completed by the end of H1 2025. The net operating income grew to a lesser extent by 2% or CHF 1.2 million compared to the prior year, and this is because of higher direct expenses related to properties as PULSE is still in its letting phase. And when we exclude the development, the direct expenses related to properties remained flat at CHF 6 million over the 2 reported periods. The year-end appraisal of our portfolio led to an unrealized revaluation gain of CHF 33 million in 2025 versus a gain of CHF 23.4 million in 2024, as Erick already explained to you. The revaluation gain of CHF 25.3 million for the properties in operations during the year explains the marginal drop of 0.1% in the rental income yield from 4.5% in 2024 to 4.4% in 2025. Now thanks to the CHF 0.5 million reduction in aggregate operating expenses, the EBITDA, excluding revaluation of properties rose by 3.2% or CHF 1.7 million to CHF 54.8 million for the financial year '25 compared to CHF 5.3 million (sic) CHF 53 million for the financial year '24. The net results -- financial results led to a total expense of CHF 8.2 million in 2025 versus CHF 21 million in the preceding year. As already mentioned, once the unrealized effect of the revaluation of the derivatives and the related underlying U.S. dollar loans are ignored, the adjusted financial result decreased by CHF 0.5 million, driven by the lower bank financing costs. And as I always mentioned, it's important to note that the periodical revaluation of the derivatives at each balance sheet date as well as the foreign exchange revaluation of the underlying U.S. dollar loans, they will unwind over the contract duration. And therefore, this does not impact the group's operation, cash flows for dividend distribution. And finally, our 2025 profit, excluding revaluation effect shows a really pleasing growth of 4.8% or an increase of CHF 1.9 million, reaching a total of CHF 42.5 million compared to CHF 40.6 million in the prior year. As usual, the next 2 slides illustrate graphically what I've just said about the 2025 performance of the business. The graph on Slide 20 shows visually our main P&L components from rental income to EBITDA, excluding property revaluation. And the second graph on Slide 21 compares the main KPIs between the 2 reporting years. On the one hand, on Slide 21, this slide shows that we had a better performance in 2025 in absolute terms compared to 2024 for each of the 3 main P&L components. And on the other hand, this slide also shows that our NOI and EBITDA, excluding revaluation margins remained attractive at around 90% and 78%, respectively, although previously [indiscernible]. The next slide will answer the question of what this year robust performance means in terms of cash out for the investors. The funds from operation is our KPI that measures our ability to distribute the dividend. And for the year 2025, the FFO amounted to CHF 42.8 million and represents a 4.9% increase compared to the FFO in 2024 of CHF 40.8 million. And on this basis, the Board of Directors will therefore propose at the upcoming AGM to be held on 10th of April 2026 to increase once more the gross dividend per share from CHF 3.15 last year to CHF 3.20 this year. And in line with the previous year, the total distribution of CHF 35.9 million will be made out of our foreign capital contribution reserves and therefore, will be free of Swiss withholding tax. And based on our year-end closing share price of CHF 87, the dividend of CHF 3.20 per share corresponds to a comfortable dividend yield of 3.7%. Moving to the last slide of my presentation. Slide 23 provides you with a summary of the information per share for the 2 reporting years, which also reflects the solid set of results we had in 2025. Please keep in mind the December 2025 capital increase and the change in number of shares when you look at this table. And before passing back to Erick, I would like to conclude that our business keeps growing in a steady and sound manner, and we are looking forward to gradually complete the letting of PULSE while also remaining focused on our properties in operation and getting ready for our next development. Back to Erick.
Erick Parizer
ExecutivesThank you, Valerie. On the following slides, I would like to share some information with you on our development projects, starting with PULSE on Slide #25, which was completed on time and on budget and inaugurated in May 2026. We were honored to have Federal Councillor, Mr. Guy Parmelin, join us for the inauguration, underscoring the project's regional significance. As most of you already know, PULSE is located in Cheseaux-sur-Lausanne. It is a cutting-edge property designed for life science and high-tech companies and has a lot of very positive features on sustainability. The building offers gross area of around 43,000 square meters of fully modular space with contemporary architecture, high-tech facilities and customized layouts. The property is expected to obtain environmental certifications, Minergie and BREEAM. Project costs amounted to a total of about CHF 130 million. The target annual rental income communicated previously is CHF 7.5 million, which corresponds to a yield of circa 6%. So far, 37% of the target rent is already secured with the following tenants or subsidiaries of these groups: Thermo Fischer, Philip Morris, Kidelis, which is subsidiary of Eldora SA, a chain of about 300 restaurants, Tibio and [indiscernible] facility under the brand Bubbles, mainly for children of the PULSE tenants' employees. The leases with these tenants are for 10 years, excluding early breaks, providing us with stable cash flows and again, a good impact on the WAULT of the portfolio. I would like to point out that we are having at the moment positive discussions with several interested parties. Sometimes discussions take a little longer, but I would like to say, and this is important, discussions are positive, and it is these discussions which reinforces even further our belief that PULSE is well designed and that it is a high quality and a very attractive building. We are confident that further leases will be signed during 2026, which would meaningfully increase the occupancy rate beyond the 37% currently signed. Moving on to Campus Leman Building C on Slide 26. As you can see on the images on this slide as well as on the cover of our annual report, this building is an exceptional modern building in the second phase in this outstanding campus, which we have acquired as an old logistics center back in 2016 and started its conversion back in 2018. We are pleased to report that the building was completed during H1 2025 as planned and was mostly occupied by the time construction was completed. With 85% of the target rent as of 31 December 2025, only the top floor that is floor 5 is not leased yet. We are now in discussions with a potential tenant to take this top floor and remain bullish that soon it will be fully let. Once this building is fully let, the target rent is expected to amount to CHF 1.2 million. As expected, construction cost of the building were around CHF 15 million as budgeted. We've invested a further CHF 1.7 million in tenant fit-out, which fully amortized during the terms of the lease of one of the tenants. We expect Minergie-P certificate to be issued for this building. On Slide #27, you can see our ongoing development of Nexus Brunnpark in Roggwil. As most of you know, we have received the preliminary general building permit for the extension project of Nexus Brunnpark. This permit gives the official feedback from the authorities on items such as, for example, size and volume of the building, planned redirection of the river running through the site, access roads, traffic, et cetera. The preliminary building permit was for a building of a gross area of 30,000 square meters with a gross volume of 425,000 cubic meters. Currently, we're in the process of selecting the general planner and the technical team that will work on the building permit, which we aim to submit later this year. Given that we already have a preliminary general building permit, in our view, this final and enforceable building permit is a matter of when we will obtain it rather than if we will obtain it. We feel that such a large logistics plot of land in such an attractive location in the Golden Triangle between Bern, Basel and Zurich is very rare, and we are confident of the potential of this development. On Slide 28, you can see the location of the third and final phase of the development of Campus Leman where we plan to build Building D. We are now in the process of running an architectural competition and plan to select the architect soon with the aim of submitting the building permit later this year. This is the smallest building on campus, but we feel it is an important final pit for the entire campus, first of all, to close the courtyard from the southern side and secondly, to allow additional flexibility to current tenants on the site to expand the operations if and when necessary. On Slide 29, you can see our development on En Molliau in Tolochenaz. As a reminder, Tolochenaz is currently included in our properties in operation as it is fully let and generates rental income. The reason that we also include the property in this section of the presentation is that we expect the property to be redeveloped. Once this takes place, the property will be moved to development segment, most probably in phases as the future development will most probably be in phases. We were informed by the municipality of the strong wish to complete the master plan in the coming months, and we are awaiting the final approval from the on canton Vaud authorities. The new master plan is expected to improve the flexibility of the building rights. However, and this is important to note, substantial building rights are already in place, allowing future development to take place regardless of the outcome of the new master plan. Finally, as most of you know, this site is classified as a strategic development site by the canton Vaud. Moving on to ESG on Slide 31 and Slide 32, where you can see our forecasted decarbonization pathway for energy source on the top image and the forecasted decarbonization pathway per scope in the bottom image. As a reminder, the Board of Directors approved in 2023, the decarbonization pathway until 2050. This was updated in accordance with the latest findings. Emission intensity in the measurement period July '24 to June '25 was 14.9 kilo CO2 per square meter for Scopes 1, 2 and 3, which is low compared to the Swiss average. There was a slight increase compared to 2023, 2024 period, and this is primarily due to a colder winter, higher consumption in one building and more accurate electricity data from a tenant whose usage was previously estimated. With our recent development, PULSE, and further actions to be taken over the upcoming years, we are confident to achieve the set goal. Let me now take you to our outlook on Slide 34. EPIC Suisse prime focus remains the sustainable and mid- to long-term growth and profitability of its portfolio and consolidation of the lettings of the recently completed developments. The net rental income from these developments already began to positively impact our net rental income in 2026, and we expect this impact to become even more meaningful in 2027 and beyond, as additional new leases are signed with potential new tenants. Assuming no materially adverse changes on our operations during the year, the company's guidance for this year's net rental income is an increase of 2% to 3% compared to 2025. And with this, we end the presentation part of the call. I would like to now open the line for Q&A.
Operator
Operator[Operator Instructions] First question from Dagmar Morawitz, awp.
Dagmar Morawitz
AnalystsSo I've got a question on the trend of the vacancy rate. Will the downward trend continue? Or do you have a target or target range? And which of the sectors will rise and which will fall looking on the Office, Retail and Logistics space?
Ron Greenbaum
ExecutivesI think in any case, the vacancy rate at the moment is very low. So it can be any change in the tenancy can have a minor modification, but we anticipate it to remain low, but obviously, we don't know what will happen during the year. But the target at the moment, it's relatively low target.
Erick Parizer
ExecutivesYes. Basically, just to add on to Roni's comments, we don't guide on vacancy. But as Roni said, the 3.4% is very low for the portfolio and the market in general. What I can say is that for next period also, what we'll do, we'll have reported vacancy and adjusted vacancy. And like we did previously for the new developments that we do in order to be very transparent to see how the lettings is coming along is we will show 2 separate KPIs. One of them is the reported vacancy and the one is adjusted, which basically adjust them for the development giving us time for the occupancy rates to increase in line with our expectations. Regarding the sector, we also -- we don't guide on this as well.
Operator
OperatorThe next question from Philippe Zuger, Zurcher Kantonalbank.
Philippe Züger
AnalystsI do have two questions. The first one is regarding the development projects. So if I got it right, you probably would get the building permit for Roggwil this year. If you get this, when would you be able to start the construction process?
Erick Parizer
ExecutivesWhat we aim to do is to submit the building permit this year. So we most likely will only get in 2027. At the moment, we're working with the general planners and technical team to select which team we want to work with. And we'll probably submit towards the end of the year because we still have to go through this process. So probably, hopefully, we'll get it sometimes in 6 and 12 months after submitting it. And then the construction, we imagine could take sometimes around 18 months.
Philippe Züger
AnalystsOkay. And regarding the Tolochenaz, you mentioned like the current status of the permit. Does it mean that you would be able to start already with a part of the plot and the construction process? Or would you wait for the master plan?
Ron Greenbaum
ExecutivesWe have to wait.
Erick Parizer
ExecutivesWe wait for the master plan, but we expect the master plan to come this year. I mean this is the feedback we received from municipality, they're pushing for it. So it's not too long to wait now. Then we'll have to submit the building permit and construct. And to go back to the first part of the question, indeed, we -- it will be in phases. At the moment, we have 5 rental contracts on the site. And it's such a big site that it will be too much of the market to absorb it once. So we probably do it in phases. So yes, this is -- so it will be done part after part, yes.
Philippe Züger
AnalystsBut also for the first phases, you have to wait for the master plan.
Erick Parizer
ExecutivesYes, that's correct.
Philippe Züger
AnalystsOkay. And then -- last question. You didn't mention the acquisition side. So where do you see opportunities in the market? We heard a lot of commercial buildings that they are in the market. How do you see it?
Erick Parizer
ExecutivesThe market is tight. We see it. It's difficult to find attractive opportunities. I think what we aim to do is what we did in the past few years, which is basically to look for opportunities to value add. We do see some opportunities in that. And we hope that we'll be able to do something this year. But again, it's too early to speak about it, but it will be probably development. We also scan the market all the time also for yielding assets. But given the low yields, it's difficult to find attractive opportunity.
Philippe Züger
AnalystsAnd by which sector or which type of use are you speaking?
Ron Greenbaum
ExecutivesWe're looking by project by project. So we're looking across those sectors. And we're looking industrial, we will -- in the right places, we'll also look even on retail, which we see based on our performance and the portfolio -- in our portfolio, it's doing really well. So we're looking across. As Erick said, we will probably move, it will happen to development or building which we can reposition.
Philippe Züger
AnalystsAnd in which sector or which type of use do you see the tightest spreads?
Ron Greenbaum
ExecutivesI think at the moment, the stress in the market is all across the sector. So we are -- if you look on offices, recent transactions show that the yields have been very low. If you look on Industrial, even in Retail, you look recent transactions really -- so we are looking at the pressure on other sectors at the moment. It all depends, by the way, on locations. There are some properties which are high yield and dated buildings, but the location is not where we would like to put our development on.
Operator
Operator[Operator Instructions] At the moment, there are no more questions registered.
Ron Greenbaum
ExecutivesThank you very much. I would like to conclude the call. Thank you for everyone who participate and looking forward to see you on the 10th of April for those who are coming to join us.
Operator
OperatorLadies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call, and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.
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