Mercialys SA (MERY) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello and welcome to the Mercialys Full Year 2024 Results Conference Call presented by Mr. Vincent Ravat and Mrs. Élizabeth Blaise. Please note, this conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]  I will now hand you over to Vincent Ravat to begin today's conference. Thank you.

Good evening, everyone, to this presentation of our 2024 results. This year, Élizabeth and I are switching to English to remove the filter of translation. We hope none of our French counterparts will mind. No filter either on our results from the politically volatile environment of last year as we have concluded yet another year of excellent performance. France is and remains a major market for retailers. On one hand, historical retailers are redeploying with success. On the other hand, new structuring retailers are extending their network.  Over the past few years, we, at Mercialys have also been multiplying projects to adapt our assets, diversify our tenant base, expand our pipeline and refocus our portfolio on the best location and geographies. And all this shows in our results, continued growth over time. Let's move directly now to Slide 5 for a graphic illustration of what I just said. Here, we can see that throughout a fluctuating and economic environment since 2021, we have effectively demonstrated a positive momentum over the period. Our net recurrent earnings has steadily increased, rising from EUR 1.10 per share in 2021 to EUR 1.21 for the whole of 2024. We will come back to it in details further on. Meanwhile, we have also managed our balance sheet with strategic foresight. Over the period, we have maintained our loan-to-value ratio at a conservative level below 37%, including rights. Mercialys' Board of Directors will submit a proposal at the general meeting for a dividend of EUR 1 per share. If approved, it would offer a dividend yield of 9.9% on last year closing share price and an average yield of 10.2% over the last 4 years.  Once again, we are likely as we do not have all our peer results yet, to offer one, if not the highest payout ratio and dividend yields among our peers. Overall, our very robust cash flow and financial health are a testimony of our ability to steadily return value to our shareholders as our REIT status commands while giving us ample capacity to look for growth. We attribute our steady results to our focus on suburban retail locations. They are extremely successful in France. All surveys, like the one detailed on Slide 6, comfort our strategic orientation. Indeed, for most consumers, peripheral shopping centers come as a first choice. This can be explained by 2 main factors. Firstly, population shifts towards suburban areas have increased demand for these retail spaces. And secondly, their convenience and accessibility cater to remote working and car-powered living that are here to stay. Suburban shopping centers have all characteristics to thrive in the current consumption landscape. Additionally, peripheral retail assets have been trustworthy source of liquidity for our balance sheet. According to BNP Paribas Real Estate, they have represented 56% of all transaction in retail in France last year, up 27% year-on-year. Our track record of disposal has helped us to effectively maintain a low LTV compared to our peers. It has also helped us reduce what was in the past an oversized single tenant exposure.  We have now fully diversified our tenant base. No single retailer accounts for more than a few percent of our income. In the medium term, we aim to mitigate further our rental risk by having no single retailer over the 5% income level. This will enhance further our already well-balanced portfolio and provide a stable income stream throughout retailers' business cycles. Our earnings growth is also a result of our focus on streamlining our property portfolio for enhanced operational efficiencies. In 2024, we sold 2 small shopping centers in Montauban and Rodez and also sold some remaining lots we owned in Millau, each average under 5,000 square meter.  Following these operations, our portfolio comprises 46 sites, as illustrated on Slide 8. Four of those sites are set for major development in the very short term in the case of Niort. They represent less than 2% of our portfolio. We have categorized 9 assets as being nonstrategic over the medium term. They represent less than 4% of our portfolio. Excluding those secondary assets I just mentioned, the core of our portfolio now comprises 33 asset. They represent 95% of our total asset value. Those assets average 30,000 square meter in size. They are leaders or co-leaders in their catchment area. Their retail leadership is visible in their average vacancy level standing at only 2%.  As we can see on Slide 9, these 33 assets are located around dynamic cities such as Marseille, Aix-en-Provence, Toulouse, Renne or Grenoble. They are all located in 4 key geographic areas where we have selected -- that we have selected for their economic and population dynamism. The map on Slide 9 speaks by itself. The darker the color, the higher the living standards. That is where we are focusing our investments with the exception of Paris, where we have no strong historical presence and where competition among shopping centers is too fierce for us. We are, therefore, concentrating our attention on the regions of Rhône-Alp, as you can see, in the Swiss border, it concentrates about 1/4 of our portfolio. The Southwest Spanish border and Mediterranean region representing almost 30% of our portfolio value and Brittany-Atlantique region, Reunion and Corsican regions where both population and tourism are growing, and those represent 40% of our total portfolio value. As I mentioned earlier, while refocusing our portfolio on specific geographies, we have also significantly diversified its hypermarket anchoring. In this respect, as you can see on Slide 10, our tenant mix is strengthened. We are no longer reliant on the erratic performances of any single hypermarket operator as we were in the past. And history shows us that all retail operators have cycles. Our rental exposure to Intermarché and Auchan are quite similar, around 5% now. We are also exposed to Carrefour for a bit more than 2% of our rent, and as you can see, also to Lidl and Aldi. And we are looking to further diversify this mix as explained on this slide. The presence of multiple strong operators across our portfolio will and is already enhancing its stability and attractiveness. Without surprised, as illustrated on Slide 11, the recent consolidation in the French hypermarket sector has significantly strengthened the order of the remaining hypermarket retailers. For operators like Carrefour, Auchan and Intermarché, who participated in the acquisition of lease rights from Casino and Cora, these acquisitions represented immediate additional market shares. For them, it resulted in more operational efficiencies, economies of scale, wider market presence as well as pricing power. This consolidation leading to a more concentrated food market could have resulted in higher prices for our consumers. Interestingly, recent surveys, one of which you can see results of on the right of the slide, clearly show that on average basket prices at those chains have actually dropped during the last 12 months of consolidation. Thanks to a reduced inflation, the existing hypermarket operators seem to have leveraged their additional strengths. By growing, they offer better value, improved loyalty, all to the full benefit of the consumers' purchasing power. It is an understatement to say that competitive pricing strategies are a key driver of food traffic and sales performance. Successful French hypermarket retailers have clearly understood that. Shoppers are more likely to visit where they feel they are getting good deals. However, it is generally less intuitive that accessibility is another critical factor of visit. And not just another, it is the first actually. This stands out in the result of the recent survey detailed on Slide 12. Accessibility ensures that customers can visit without hassle, making the shopping experience more enjoyable and encouraging more frequent visits. Even less intuitive is the result of another study finding that 41% of Gen Z individuals prefer shopping in store. They are driven by competitive pricing and the ability to experience product. This is a new interesting trend. All these factors described collectively enhance the attractiveness of Mercialys value proposition of peripheral accessible shopping center with a wide and price competitive product offer. That is why while diversifying and constantly renewing our retail mix, we have continued to put our focus on attracting retailers renowned for their accessible pricing. In total, 87 new brands have been introduced in our portfolio in the last 4 years, and all segments of our retail offer are now anchored by top tier accessible brands as illustrated on Slide 13. Among segments, we have continued to bring down our exposure to the personal items. It dropped from 31% in 2020 to around 29% in 2024. The textile segment is unfortunately considered by consumers as an inherently discretionary area of spending. At the same time, we made strong gains in the culture, leisure and sports segment, growing them from 16% of our rental income in 2020 to close to 20% now. The health and beauty is another segment of very strong growth. It now generates almost 15% of our total income. On Slide 14, you can see that this active asset management and strategic positioning shows positively in the footfall and sales performance of our portfolio. Our footfall is up 2.7% for the full year 2024 compared with the national panels growth of 1.2% only. Given the fact that we faced last year disruption because of the changes in the hypermarket retailers incurring our sites, it is all the more satisfying to see that we are outperforming the national panel. These disruptions that we had to face have indeed led to partial attrition affecting product supplies and temporary and over hypermarket closure for several weeks. Actually, our 150 basis point outperformance of the national benchmark would stand even higher at plus 210 basis points, if we were to exclude from the calculation the site of Brest from our reporting footfall perimeter. Brest, as most of you already know, has been impacted by Casino's hypermarket closure during the fourth quarter of 2024. Solutions are being put in motion to replace them. Our global increase in visitor flow contributed to sales growth for the retailers in our centers. Their sales grew by plus 2.1% in 2024. This is also outperforming the national index. These figures had a direct positive effect on our occupancy cost ratio. Before commenting the figures on Slide 15, I want to reiterate that our occupancy cost ratio do not include the OCR of the hypermarket stores that we own. It would indeed artificially drive down those numbers. At end 2024, our OCR, excluding food store though stood at 10.8% on the same low level as end 2023, even after the impact of strong past indexations. It's sustainable level and the positive sales and footfall dynamic of our shopping centers will be a driving force to fuel the rebound in reversion, which I will cover further ahead. Equally supportive of this dynamic is our collection rate for rent and charges. Over a 12-months period, it showed significant improvement of 150 basis point to 97.7% at the end of 2024. We have seen that we have a portfolio at Mercialys that is refocused in dynamic regions, newly re-anchored, actively managed with a diversified mix of leading accessible brands. This also means higher occupancy as evidenced on Slide 16. Our current occupancy stands at 97.1%, while our total financial vacancy, including strategic vacancy for project, dropped 30 basis points year-on-year to 4.1%. It is the lowest level since 2019. And if we focus our attention on our 33 strategic core sites that I described before, I'll remind you, it's 95% of our portfolio. The average vacancy rate stands only at a 2% level, just as I said before. Our improving occupancy rate and our positive retailer sales trend will help rebuild reversion potential over the medium-term, as I mentioned earlier. Excluding specific store reformatting operations detailed here on Slide 17, the reversion rate for 2024 on our portfolio already shows a slightly positive level of plus 0.3%. It is a reversal from the below 0 reversion trend of the post-COVID period. We have worked actively on transitioning units to more adapted formats to accommodate leading retailers. This is already helping driving footfall up and will further enhance our shopping center attractiveness forward. Thanks to our investments in active asset management, we are rebuilding our reversion potential to take over from the indexation, which accumulated to 14.2% of increase since 2022. In parallel, despite the increasingly polarized political debate on CSR, we remain committed to invest in social and environmental projects that make business sense for our colleagues, our customers and our communities. Our company CSR leadership is illustrated in Slide 18 by significant new achievements in 2024 in our 4 Fair Impacts for 2030 strategy. Our waste recovery rate increased to 68.5%. We effectively implemented a zero pesticide policy. 100% of our core centers remain BREEAM certified within a more demanding version of the framework. We have renewed best-in-class performance in terms of gender equality, and we also received a renewed great place to work certification. Additionally, we continue to make steps towards carbon neutrality as seen on Slide 19. Mercialys has been a pioneer in reducing its greenhouse gas emissions. Back in 2019, we were among the first ones to have our carbon trajectory certified by SBTi. The regular investment made in our portfolio over the past 10 years have allowed us to be way ahead of this trajectory. Therefore, we have decided to adjust further our trajectory to make it fully net 0 compatible by 2050. This new trajectory is currently being submitted to the SBTi for certification. This revision is not expected, though to result in any significant changes in CapEx for the company over the medium term. Now I hand over to Élizabeth for a detailed look at our financials.

Hello, everyone. The strength of a REIT's balance sheet is fundamental, starting with the management of its debt maturities. And as such, you can see on Slide 21 that Mercialys carried out 2 refinancing operations in September last year, a EUR 300 million bond with a 7-year maturity and a 4% coupon was issued. Subsequently, the early redemption option was exercised on the remaining EUR 200 million bond maturing in July 2027, which had a coupon of 4.625%. This restructuring optimized the average cost of debt, extended the average maturity of drawn debt back to 3.8 years at the end of 2024 and bolstered the balance sheet liquidity. Apart from EUR 42 million in commercial paper, Mercialys has no drawn debt maturing in 2025, but the refinancing of the bond maturing in February 2026 will be addressed this year. Mercialys also has undrawn financing resources amounting to EUR 385 million, stable compared to the end of December 2023 with all undrawn bank lines, including ESG criteria. At the same time, our cash balance stood at EUR 284 million at the end of 2024. On Slide 22, you can see the favorable trend in the cost of drawn debt, which stands at 2% at the end of 2024, an improvement of 30 basis points compared to the end of 2023. A dynamic cash management strategy and the favorable impact of the financial restructuring I just described offset the extension of variabilization products implemented in previous years. The spread between the average cost of debt and the portfolio yield is also at a historic high, illustrating the value creation of the portfolio relative to the leverage. You can also see that the debt was entirely at fixed rate in 2024 and at a constant debt structure through the instruments in place, fixed rate debt coverage would stand at 96% by the end of 2025. On Slide 23, you can observe that Mercialys financial structure has remained very healthy with an LTV ratio, excluding transfer taxes at 38.2% as of December 31, 2024, compared to 40% at the end of June 2024 and 38.9% at the end of 2023, significantly below the banking covenant level of 55%. The LTV ratio, including transfer taxes, stood at 35.7% at year-end. The ICR ratio stands at 5.5x, an improvement from 5.1x at the end of 2023 and again, well above the minimum level of at least 2x set by banking covenants. The net debt-to-EBITDA ratio also demonstrates the balance sheet strength, standing at 6.8x. In its latest review, in October 2024, Standard & Poor's reaffirmed the company's BBB rating and maintain a stable outlook. These strong financial foundations will drive investment in 2025 through 3 main dimensions. The first on Slide 24, will be represented by the second phase of acquiring the remaining 70% of the portfolio management company, Imocom Partners. The amount of this investment to be undertaken in February is subject to performance conditions and is currently being determined. Since December 2023, Mercialys has held 30% of this structure, which manages the OPPCI Imocom Park, holding a portfolio of 33 retail parks across France valued at approximately EUR 650 million. Mercialys benefits from an immediate return on this investment through management fees from the existing fund and potential new funds. This transaction also enhances Mercialys visibility among tenant brands and significantly expands its ability to engage in commercial or mixed-use real estate development projects. The 2 other investment dimensions are detailed on Slide 25. On one hand, Mercialys has built a development pipeline of already identified project with a medium-term deployment potential of EUR 418 million, concentrated in the 4 geographic areas where Mercialys has a strong real estate footprint. The company's development will remain focus on the retail sector while leveraging its various real estate expertise to participate in tenders issued by cities or local authorities seeking to reposition districts, and I'll give examples of these projects shortly. At the same time, Mercialys may pursue acquisition of existing commercial real estate assets or related activities, including shopping centers, retail parks or storage centers. These investments would target leading sites or those with the potential to become market leaders in their catchment areas. Maximum targeted investment amount is EUR 200 million with a strict yield on cost criterion of at least 7%. A few examples to illustrate the pipeline. On Slide 26, you can see a project aimed at transforming an aging site in Saint-Denis, near the Stade de France in the Paris region into an open and landscaped district. In 2025, Mercialys in partnership with a developer Telamon, will continue this project, which involves volumetric construction above the shopping gallery that we own, including 270 apartments and a student residence covering nearly 15,000 square meters. At the end of the project, Mercialys will remain the owner of the renovated retail spaces. On Slide 27, a second example this time in La Réunion. We have previously mentioned this project, which will be developed on a 3-hectare land reserve owned by Mercialys and will complement the company's presence in the eastern part of the island. In 2025, progress is expected on the 15,000-square-meter mixed-use business park project, which will complement the existing downtown offering with a retail park format without causing overcapacity in this catchment area. This project is already 76% pre-let with a projected yield on cost of 8.4%. Back to Mainland France on Slide 25. As part of its expertise in mixed-use projects, Mercialys signed a sales agreement in January this year with a public entity for a 1.6-hectare land reserve in André for EUR 4 million, adjacent to the leading shopping center it already owns. The project involves the construction of a district on this land, combining residential, retail, office space, healthcare hubs, leisure, and dining facilities. It will significantly enhance existing assets while offering a new district to this regional city. Similar to the Saint-Denis project, Mercialys will retain the retail space upon delivery scheduled in phases for 2030 and 2032. If we move to Slide 29, Vincent mentioned a moment ago the hypermarkets in Brest and Niort, where the GÉANT brand ceased operations in the fourth quarter of 2024. In addition to the ongoing legal proceedings, Mercialys is also in discussion with Casino regarding the operational evolution of the hypermarkets, allowing for potential reletting, if necessary, which would enhance the overall attractiveness of both sites. Here, you can see a potential restructuring project for the Brest hypermarket. The plan involves reducing its service area to accommodate food anchorage operated by 2 complementary segment players, along with the creation of 3 midsized stores. This project would further strengthen the shopping center, which currently comprises 71 stores and 7 midsized units, maintaining its leadership within its catchment areas. Similarly, on Slide 30, you can see the potential restructuring of the Niort Hypermarket. Once again, the current store would see a significant reduction in its surface area to make way for a supermarket, therefore, reinforcing the shopping gallery through the creation of 3 midsized stores. This transformation would lead to a full revitalization of the site. Now let's move on to the details of the financial results. Based on the operational activity described by Vincent, you can see on Slide 32, the evolution of invoice rents, which increased by plus 0.9% to EUR 179.2 million. This increase is a result of strong organic growth, up plus 3.9%. This growth stems from the combined positive effects of indexation by 4% and variable rents by plus 0.3%, reflecting the strong performance of tenant brands in our portfolio. The contribution from casual leasing remained stable at a high level during the period. At the same time, the organic growth was tempered by actions carried out on the portfolio, which have a slight negative impact of minus 0.5%. In 2024, scope effects weighted on rents by EUR 4.9 million, mainly due to the disposals of 4 hypermarkets in July. Lease rights amounted to EUR 0.4 million. Overall, rental revenues totaled EUR 179.5 million as of December 31, 2024, up plus 0.9% compared to the end of 2023. Moving to the analysis of net recurring earnings on Slide 33. We observed an increase of EUR 1.5 million in rental revenues, I just mentioned. Net rents amounted to EUR 172.3 million, up 0.8% compared to the end of 2023. EBITDA stood at EUR 147.2 million, down minus 1.5% compared to 2023. EBITDA margin remained at a high level of 82% with a slight decline compared to 2023, driven by expenses relative to the site repositioning carried out alongside the takeover of hypermarkets, marketing efforts, consolidation of information system as well as a slight increase in staff costs. Financial expenses optimized through cash placement, hedging instruments, and bond operation previously mentioned, declined by 8% compared to 2023. The share of net income from associated companies declined by EUR 0.1 million and minority interest decreased from EUR 11.2 million in 2023 to EUR 9.7 million in 2024 due to the disposal of 4 hypermarkets which were 49% owned by a fund managed by BNP Paribas through the Hyperthetis company. Overall, net recurring earnings amounted to EUR 113.1 million, up 3.8% compared to 2023, resulting in a per share of EUR 1.21, an increase of plus 3.7%, a significant outperformance versus the 2% objective for the year. Looking at the change in asset value on Slide 34, you can see an increase of plus 1.1% over the year on an excluding transfer tax basis and plus 1.3%, including transfer taxes. This rebound following a generally downward trend between 2019 and 2023 due to the pressure on appraisal year rates is driven by strong rental dynamic and the stabilization of these rates. Indeed, as shown on Slide 35, the appraisal rate, while remaining slightly up by 4 basis points over the year, declined in the second half of 2024. This reflects a plateau effect on our portfolio, where valuation relevance has been repeatedly demonstrated by arbitrages. The 6.65% appraisal rate offers a spread of 344 basis points compared to the risk-free rate at the end of 2024. You can also observe that the appraisal parameters, the CAGRs of rents, rents level, average metric values appear highly sustainable. I will conclude on Slide 36 with the evolution of the EPRA NDV, which stands at EUR 16.45 per share, down by minus 0.5% over 6 months and 3.8% over 12 months. This EUR 0.65 per share change over 12 months is mainly driven by the dividend distribution of EUR 1 per share, compensated by the recurring net income of plus EUR 1.22 per share. Then you have the change in unrealized gain and losses of minus EUR 0.0 per share, including a rate effect of minus EUR 0.67 per share, a rental effect of plus EUR 0.96, and other effects for minus EUR 0.32. And finally, the change in the fair value of fixed-rate debt at minus EUR 0.57 and derivatives at minus EUR 0.25 per share. Meanwhile, the NTA, which is not affected by the changes related to the fair value of debt and derivatives, remained stable over the years at EUR 16.29 per share. And I'll hand it back to Vincent for the 2025 outlook and objective.

Thank you, Élizabeth. Page 38, you can see that the environment remains positive overall for the retail real estate sector in France. Consumption continues to be fueled by an appetite for physical shopping as well as by a purchasing power reserve linked to a savings rate that remains higher than its historical average. This appetite for consumption will continue to be structured around pricing imperatives, as I described earlier. In this context, we have seen how we have worked at Mercialys to further improve the quality of our shopping centers to diversify our retail offer and to structure it around accessibility. We believe that the best assets, mostly held by REITs like Mercialys will continue to attract leading retailers in a context where current significant barriers to entry will limit retail spaces creation. To conclude, Page 39. In terms of perspectives, Mercialys is starting 2025 with significant strength as we demonstrated. We also have a couple of specific challenges this year. We need to address, as we said, firstly, the impact on our net recurrent earnings of the disposal completed in 2024. And secondly, the impact of the refinancing of our bond maturing in 2026. But thanks to our solid underlying operational performances and robust balance sheet, enabling us to be opportunistic buyers, we feel in a good position to address those challenges without bumps in our results trajectory. Consequently, we have set the following objectives for 2025. Net recurrent earnings in a range of EUR 1.22 to EUR 1.25 per share, and a dividend of at least EUR 1 per share. This minimum distribution guidance will contribute to maintaining a particularly attractive dividend yield for the stock at the current valuation metrics. In conclusion, and overall, we can say that Mercialys' solid track record characterized by consistent earnings, high dividend yields and strong balance sheet makes it a reliable and attractive investment for those seeking stability and income growth. We thank you very much for your attention and are ready now to open the traditional session of Q&A.

[Operator Instructions]. The first question comes from the line of Alex Kolsteren from Kempen.

I have 3 at this point. And the first one is on the Brest project and the consideration that you present. In the news, we saw that the [ Claire ] might be interested in taking over the Casino lease, but the fact that you now present a potential project, does that mean that these talks have ceased?

Okay. I heard that you had 3 questions. So I'm going to answer to that one.

Sure, go ahead.

Yes. Indeed, there has been some press release on the projects of replacing the hypermarkets markets that were closed and not replaced yet by other operators. We are presenting a potential project because currently, we have a tenant, and this tenant is Casino and Casino is paying its rent. We are in no possibility to remove them from their legal rights. We are just working on potential outcome, which would be the outcome that could be – could have been mentioned in the press. This type of transfer involves also the approval of antitrust authorities. It's very difficult for us to comment before they have given their opinion.

All right. That makes sense. I'll list my other questions and then you can answer them at once, maybe that's easier. So the second one is, if I remember correctly, in the previous years, appraisers applied a risk premium on the asset yield, which were led to Casino. Have appraisers now removed this discount that other operators have now taken place in those assets? And then lastly, could you maybe run me through the main assumptions behind the guidance for next year, so the indexation, the cost of debt, et cetera?

So on your second question, we wished that appraisers had the forward-looking valuation. It's not always the case. And we can see that there is, in general, a drag between what happens, and how it-- when it reflects in the valuations. And that drag or delay is usually 6 months to 1 year. So the answer is no. It has not yet fully shown in our numbers.

And just on the guidance, you can factor in the scope impact on the asset sales that we did in July last year, which, of course, will be a negative impact on cash flow. As I mentioned also, we will address the refinancing of the 2026 bond, hopefully with even better conditions than we did in September last year, given the change in the interest rates. But on the upside, as you mentioned, we still have quite a relatively strong indexation compared to historical levels. You have the details in the press release of the impact of the different index that are published. We are mostly impacted by the index that are published for Q2 2024, Q3 2024. So respectively, plus 3.7% and plus 3%. We also have the impact of the investment in Imocom. And as Vincent mentioned, we are also keen on restarting investment this year.

[Operator Instructions]. The next question comes from the line of Florent Laroche-Joubert from ODDO BHF.

I would have 2 questions. The first one on your acquisition pipeline. So you are saying that you would like to restart investment and acquisitions. So could you please give maybe some additional colors on your criteria and maybe if you have already identified some targets? And my second question would be on your dividend policy. I think that we can see some changes on your dividend policy because the previous years, you were more guided on a payout ratio. And this year, you guide more on the cash – on a fixed amount of dividend. So could we expect that maybe for the further years, you will keep this type dividend policy, so with maybe at least EUR 1 per share?

Yes, you noticed well, Florent, for the dividend policy indeed, we listened to investors, our shareholders, and analysts on the leasibility of that dividend policy. And then we indeed felt that the demand -- overall demand was EUR per share guidance. So that's why it's supposed to stay as is, unless there are more comments about that, and then we are open to any suggestions. Regarding acquisition, that links to Alex last question. If you calculate the impact on our disposal of 2024 and the potential higher differential financial cost of the refinancing, you would see that without acquisition, it would be very difficult for us, especially in the case of low indexation, to reach the guidance in recurring net earnings that we gave. So that must mean that we have fairly reasonable confidence in making some acquisitions in the year to come.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from the line of Stéphanie Dossmann from Jefferies.

Maybe a follow-up on investments. Maybe in terms of target -- LTV target. What do you aim to reach in terms of LTV if you consider investments and sizing opportunities on the market? Would you contemplate potentially equity rate? And maybe which -- do you think of going outside France, for instance? And another question maybe on the EPRA cost ratio, which is deteriorating a bit. I suspect it comes from other expenses. But just to make sure, what do you account for in other expenses and why the overall EPRA cost ratio deteriorates, please?

Stéphanie, to answer your first question, we've never set any targets in terms of LTV. What we've always said and what we reiterate this year is that we will strive to maintain the BBB rating. And in accordance to that, I gave a scope for investment and acquisitions of about EUR 200 million. And if you do the math, you will see that as we start from a very sound LTV structure at the end of 2024, it leaves quite healthy headroom compared to any covenants or the ratio that would put pressure on the rating of S&P. So we are very at peace with this kind of amounts. In terms of issuing capital or whatever, we will be -- we would be very flexible in the instrument that we use for acquisition. What we mentioned was that we would be comfortable with EUR 200 million of cash outstanding. If we would find ways to optimize the means of doing acquisitions, of course, we would use them.

But we would only issue capital in non-dilutive way. So that would depend on how much we are -- what type of acquisition we do and at what yield.

Of course. Outside France, same answer as we did on the previous year. It wouldn't really make any sense for us to buy any individual asset outside France, excluding from buying a whole platform or portfolio. So that, of course, we are not averse to it, especially in Continental Europe. You have several interesting markets on retail. But again, considering it through probably not on a one-on-one individual asset base. On the EPRA cost ratio, we remain from what we've seen so far on the publication, among best-in-classes still on the EPRA cost. Of course, we went from a very high level of EBITDA margin last year, 83.9% going back to 82%. From year-to-year, we have been trading in that sort of range, depending on some investment that we can make. And I mentioned several of them, for example, on marketing, repositioning of the name and of some sites in parallel with the change of operations with hypermarkets, some also spending on CSR, some spending on IT systems as well to keep on track with productivity, but nothing specific to mention there, and we will strive to remain at such high levels.

The next question comes from the line of Kai Klose from Berenberg.

I've got 2 quick questions, if I may. The first one is on the cost items regarding the personnel expenses. There was a relatively small increase compared to '23. I just want to understand, is this now kind of a normal level we should expect in terms of personnel costs going higher further? Or would you expect to increase the number of people when you're doing a bit more investments and looking more for selective growth? The second question is on the allowance for provisions in '24, which was lower compared to '24. Could you just elaborate, is this for some specific items in '24 or still a bit backwards looking for some COVID-related incidents?

On cost items and more specifically the staff cost, we had some higher increases in the past years, given the -- given 2 items, inflation that we were -- all our companies, including across Europe and the U.K. have had to reflect. And also, if you remember, we have internalized all the functions across the Board from 2019 to the beginning of 2023. We have also consolidated the management structure, some also divisions, both operationally, asset management, for example, but also, as I mentioned, like IT-related teams. We believe that right now, we are on a cruise speed, so to say, on staff costs. And apart from, again, inflation, you should have no significant changes going forward. In terms of provisions, no specific changes. There is nothing coming from COVID-related situations. These trades have all been made over the past few years. We have less provisions accounted, so EUR 901,000 compared to EUR 4.8 million in 2023. It depends on the different litigations that we can have, and it was a very quiet year on these aspects.

There are no further questions. So I hand back over to you, Mr. Ravat, to conclude.

Thank you, everyone for listening to us, and we are pleased to see you soon in various roadshows.

And we'll be happy to take any further questions if you need by tomorrow. Thank you for listening, and goodbye.

Goodbye.