NEPI Rockcastle N.V. (NRP) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the NEPI Rockcastle interim results. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Rudiger Dany, CEO. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the results presentation of NEPI Rockcastle for the first 6 months of this year. And let me maybe -- does it work, the technical? Could somebody connect this here? Sorry for the technical hiccup right at the beginning, this is what presenters love when it doesn't work. Here we go. Let me start a little bit with the quote, "Success is not final," and I think we've all been witnessing this by the year of 2020 after an amazing year, 2019, when COVID hit us. And we went actually into 2 years of a bit of agony also with NEPI Rockcastle not being able to deliver actually the results we would have loved to deliver. But let's say, this, failure was, as it says, not fatal. And already by the end of 2023, only 6 months ago, I had the pleasure to present to you actually the best results -- set of results for the company in its history. And I can assure you that the NEPI Rockcastle team has the courage to continue. Actually, just a couple of days ago, Societe Generale was publishing a research report about NEPI Rockcastle saying that NEPI Rockcastle is the king of shopping centers in Central, Eastern Europe and I think they are not far away from reality. Well, if we would see a picture here -- this would be amazing gentlemen, but I can even talk without the pictures. Operating 59 assets across these 9 jurisdictions obviously makes us the market leader within the region with, of course, Poland and Romania, our 2 biggest markets that we're operating. In Poland, more than, I think, 38% -- sorry, Romania and Poland with 26%, that, of course, are the heavy weights that we're operating in. And when we look into a little bit what are the underlying economic assumptions that we see there for these regions, you will see there -- oh, see myself. You will see that this region is a little bit, let me call it, doomed to grow. We have a very nice comparison here where you would see that the economic growth within our region forecast for '25, and we talk about the countries we're operating in, is about 3.2% while the rest of Europe is only, let's say, supposed to grow not even half of it, only 1.2%. So again, NEPI Rockcastle is in the right spot at the right time, and as I believe, with the right team. Now where does this growth come from? And especially where does the purchasing power come from because we are relying obviously on purchasing power for our retailers? And you see that the unemployment rate within our region is only 4.7%. Wages -- salaries have been outpacing actually the increase of inflation. So that's why we see a purchasing power growth of more than 10% in the last year. And for now is what we see also by the turnover of our retailers, this is progressing over the year of 2024. And to make it even maybe a little bit more tangible, just look at the EU funds. So EU has decided to spend over EUR 100 billion into Central, Eastern Europe. It is the frontier line to the East, and therefore, a lot of funds will flow into these regions and especially into those countries that we are operating in. I mean, we saw this. It repeats itself, just look at Poland a decade ago and how much actually European Union has been pumping into Poland and where is Poland now? And I think this will be -- you will see a repetition of this when we look at a big country like Romania. And that's also proven by the fact that NATO decided to spend EUR 2.5 billion on building the second big NATO base in Europe. The biggest one so far was in my home country, you all might have heard of Ramstein. Now the next one is going to be built very close to Constanta, where we fortunately do have a big shopping center, and this will create at least another 15,000 jobs in that region. So also the geopolitical downside that we see currently in the region that we have the European crisis going on across the border is also, in a way, and it's a bit maybe also sad to say, helping the region to grow. Now -- but what does this mean actually? Currently, what does this -- how does -- has this effected actually our results? So high quality of our portfolio means that we saw an increase on NOI of 13.5% nominal and that led actually at the very end to a growth of distributable earnings per share for the first half year of 5.6%. And this actually came not necessarily from so much more footfall into our shopping center, it was only like 1%, but the average ticket that a customer spends on our retailers went up by 8.7% and that was one of the big drivers. But also the growth of NOI was not only driven by more turnovers or more turnover rent, also by an uplift of -- our base rental uplift and as well by saving costs. But my colleague, Marek will go into the details later on for you. Strategic developments, we currently have 8% of our current GLA under construction and permitting. And most of this will be delivered already until the year end of 2026, and so it will become actually valid for our P&L already in 2027. That is a pipeline of EUR 817 million, and we'll go later on a little bit more in detail and also touch on a couple of those projects that are currently already under construction or in the permitting phase. We have, we call it, asset rotation. What does it mean? We permanently want to obviously optimize the quality of our portfolio. I think that the growth that we show has to do very much with the quality of our assets across those countries. But still, there is always room for improvement. And currently, we're looking at assets to acquire additionally to the portfolio of around EUR 800 million. One of you might -- some of you might have already seen in the press that we're currently here also in negotiations on an asset that is around EUR 360 million. And I hope that we can complete transactions soon and come back to the market with good news. Now what are we investing there? I would compare it very much to our last acquisitions that we did from Gdansk, which we bought with -- for EUR 250 million and is currently, by the end of June, in the books for EUR 330 million. So that's the kind of asset that we're looking at. So assets that are really value-enhancing, that give us actually growth in the future from two sides. One side is, of course, that we can manage them up and create more NOI than they currently do, but at the same time where we see we have a very, very good chance here to improve the valuation of the asset as such. So acquisitions, our team is very busy there at the moment. And at the same time, we are also disposing assets. So we just had in front of the conference here a little discussion outside, why are you selling an asset for EUR 177 million that showed this growth over a period of time in Novi Sad? Well, first, one has to say we had a valuation here of around EUR 145 million. Our acquisition team found a buyer that is ready to spend EUR 177 million. The deal is still to close, but the CPs are fulfilled. So we are very, let's say, motivated that the deal will go through, and that's an 18% plus to book value. Now Novi Sad is located in Serbia, very small country on the Balkan. By the way, not investment-graded. And there is -- the capital, Belgrade, is totally, I would say, over-retailed, saturated and there is no room for us to grow in that country. And a country like this has a very low liquidity in the capital markets, meaning potential buyers that would sign you an NDA. So once, let's say, we could close a deal here at this price level and then, of course, reallocate these funds into new assets that will show us growth in the future, I think this makes a lot of sense. New businesses. So I'm actually pretty happy to present to you already an additional revenue that we wouldn't have seen if we wouldn't have invested into it of EUR 4.1 million. It's a starting point, not a really big number, but you see that it pays off. So we have decided, as you know, by the end of 2022 to spend EUR 34 million into photovoltaics: to have photovoltaics on our rooftops, to have photovoltaics on our parking. The total investment was EUR 34 million and we invested this over a period of only 12 months. After 12 months, we completed the whole plan, 27 projects within Romania. And the outcome of the investment so far is that we have revenues here of EUR 4.1 million. So you can do the math yourself, add another 6 months, maybe a little bit on top, put in relation to your investments. So this is a very high-yielding business that we are adding there to our regular, let's say, real estate business. And maybe also to understand what we do here is we are not selling energy to the free market. We are selling energy here, green energy, to our retailers. And they have to buy this energy from us because we operate in shopping centers. So it's a little bit of a different model, let's say, than a normal regular energy company that needs to have a marketing team and try to find customers. So we have all these customers, we have the consumption. We are just actually adding the production and selling it. And by the way, this is -- has a double effect because it's, of course, lowering our CO2 emissions. So our ESG targets we can fulfill, I think, even a bit earlier than we are expecting. And on top of this, our retailers are super happy that we can provide them with on-site production of green energy because our retailers have the same topics in Europe than we do. Everybody needs to bring down their CO2 levels, and to have this being delivered directly from the landlord is obviously a benefit. We have another 24 projects underway. We will spend another around EUR 15 million on taking this not -- taking this out of Romania also into all the other countries we are operating. So this should be completed, so another 7 countries. This should be completed by the end of 2026. And on top of this, we've recently decided to spend another EUR 100 million in greenfield projects. What does that mean? So we are actually not only installing PV panels on our parkings and rooftops, we are now investing into predeveloped sites, plots, where we will start producing green energy off-site of our shopping centers. And we will do this in Romania. And with this investment, we will get to approximately 100% of our consumption -- or tenant consumption throughout the portfolio in Romania. And that is a substantial investment that we will start. And I think the first part of this 159 megawatts, I hope that we can deliver this already by the end of -- first part of it by the end of 2026. And that will definitely -- the new income stream will definitely, let's say, very profitable for our investors in the future. But we are further on delivering on our strategy. So also sustainability, sustainability of our business is very important to us. And you've seen that we have an uplift on valuation. I mean, not too many real estate companies do have this at the moment, of EUR 134 million. That is mainly driven or only actually driven by our operational results. So yields actually -- valuators kept the yields actually pretty flat. So this EUR 134 million simply comes out of the very positive operational result that we've been able to produce. And that obviously lifts the overall value of the portfolio. And that also helps to keep our loan-to-value very low, 32.2%. As said, NEPI Rockcastle, I think, is very well prepared for the future looking at this rock-solid balance sheet and what we want to do in the future. So I think the position we are in is very good. Especially also that we don't have any maturities -- no, not any, but nothing really major maturities coming up throughout the next 2 years. But Eliza will come to this topic a little bit later because we have a bond expiring still this year, but it's already refinanced and Eliza will give you all the details about it. ESG in progress. Well, 21% of the Romanian portfolio we already generate ourselves and we expect this is going to grow next year, already up to 25%. And then later on, as I said, we will add on the predeveloped or then finally developed photovoltaics fields and that will then give us actually the chance to get all the way up to maybe 100%. On the total portfolio, already at a minimum, we are using 75% of the energy is already green energy. So we're already buying green energy from third-parties in order to provide our portfolio with green energy. I think what is also very important for us and I think for you as investors as well is the team. So we have currently over 650 NEPI Rockers that are working across these jurisdictions. And what is very important to us is, as we said on there, 93% engagement index. What does it mean? It means satisfaction and the way people are engaging themselves into the company. And that makes the difference, I think, also for the success that we can currently show to you. So that should be mentioned. And we have, meanwhile, integrated, as you can see there, 19 shopping centers, which were outsourced to third-parties, meaning they were running the on-site center management. And we decided 2 years ago that we want to have 100% grip on the whole value chain of NEPI Rockcastle, and we have been step-by-step in-sourcing all of these 19 assets operationally into our NEPI Rockcastle way of running a show. And that's also a reason why, of course, let's say, gradually, we went up with the number of our employees to 650, but that internalization of assets is now totally completed. And I truly believe that this really helps us also in the future to show growth on the income-producing side of the portfolio. Now what does it mean in distributable earnings? So of course, we're happy to say that we are up to 5.6%, which means we come to EUR 0.3012 on distributable earnings, and later on, Eliza will explain what it means then finally for the distribution. But that's where we are at the moment with this increase of 13.5% on our NOI, EUR 274 million in the first half of the year. I think it's a really good result. And also, this drives, of course, the efficiency per square meter. We did not add as much square meters, so that's why our turnover per square meter also went up with 2.8%. And the other, let's say, operational KPIs, I think, are just very good and very stable because we are repeating them, which means the collection rate up 97%. We have always been in this range, 97%, 96%, 98%. We have an occupancy cost ratio. What does it mean? The real cost that retailers have actually now looking at what they pay on rent, but also what they pay on service charges. So the total cost that a retailer has with us on average is at 12.9%, which is a very healthy number. And also maybe gives us -- I hope not too many retailers are joining today, but I think it gives us also, let's say, the opinion that we can have slightly, of course, increasing our rents because this is a rather lower number, especially when you compare this to our peers. So also room to grow there. And then we look at, of course, our total investment property value, and we're a little bit proud with this increase in valuation that we are now above EUR 7 billion. I think this is a big number for Central, Eastern Europe, believe me, in our industry. And a dividend yield slightly down, 8%. Simply has to do with the fact that, fortunately, our share price, your share price, has been increased by almost 25%. And I think if we look at it as of today, should be a notch more. So it's going in the right direction. Okay. We, as management, have not too much to contribute here. This is a market in itself and -- but still good that it goes into this direction. Loan-to-value, as said, very low. Good positioning. Rock solid. And that's where my part of the presentation ends. And I think I would like to give -- hand over actually to my colleague, Marek, who is running the operations currently very successfully. Thank you so far.

Thank you, and good morning. It's always a pleasure to come and present the results, especially they are as good as they are. And before I jump into crunching numbers and telling you actually how we got to the NOI we got, I would like to focus a bit on the backbone of our business, which is our customers and tell you a bit of what kept us busy in the first half of the year to understand the needs of our customers, the trends in the market, where the market is moving so that we can adjust our strategy on leasing marketing acquisitions. And when I say customers, that's where we think about the 165 million of people who went for our shopping centers. But when I think about customers, I think first about our tenants. We run over 7,000 agreements and [ we roll over ] 1,000 every year, and these are our primary customers plus customers that come to our shopping centers, which I like to call them customers of our customers, but those are two targets group that we need to understand in order to run a successful business. And to start with our retailers. We have organized for the second time very successfully, I must say, Retailers' Day. This year it was beginning of June in Bucharest, last year it was in Warsaw. And we had 120 senior CEE representatives of our tenants. And I can tell you the interest was much bigger. We just physically couldn't host more, but we will improve next year. But that was a super event where we spent a day listening to very interesting presentations, having panels with our tenants to understand their needs, but as well to tell to our tenants what are our challenges because our business needs understanding from tenants as well. We are in the same boat, so to say. It was very successful. We listened to ING talking about economics, and I can tell you really can talk about economics to make it fun and enjoy to listen. So we will, for sure, continue. There are over 7,000 reasons why we should continue next year and we finished the day with visiting shopping center construction site of Promenada, a very rare opportunity because I can hardly name any other that scale -- not greenfield but development of shopping center in CEE. So this is how we look at the relationships with tenants. And this is just one of the initiatives, there are more throughout the year. But retail being heart of our center -- center of our heart means we need to really build those relations and maintain them. When it comes to customers visiting our malls, we are living in the forever changing world where consumer trends change and it's very easy to miss the boat. So it's very important for us to understand the needs of our customers. And one of the initiatives we have successfully finalized H1 2024 was actually portfolio clustering. What we did, we spent a lot of quarters and a bit of money to actually analyze the customers visiting our malls to understand why they come, which brands they are looking for, their age profile, et cetera, et cetera. It was very in-depth analysis of over 50 shopping centers in order to be able to actually silo all the portfolio into three categories and each of the categories have some similarities. And the reason for that was to actually us more knowledgeably manage the portfolio and prepare leasing and marketing strategies for silos, not necessarily per asset level and with that comes, of course, economics of scale. But the level of knowledge we got doing the studies about our customer is of huge value and it really helps us. And you can see in our shopping centers this will now continue to be one of the strategies going forward. Another example, we all see the growth of eSports segment, all of you who have teenagers know that this Gen Z, they like to spend time playing games. And we have organized already 10 events in our portfolio, more are to come. And it was a huge success. I'm not talking only about people who visited our shopping center to cheer and play actually, but over 7 million people reach in social media and 13,000 people and more online visiting as the events go. We did attract Gen Z to our shopping centers, but we got the spin of effect in media and the value of that is just amazing. So that's a very cool event and we will continue doing similar. And last but not least, talking about direct communication with our customers. We are happy to report that now, SPOT, which is our loyalty application is rolled over the whole portfolio, each country each property. And that's a super powerful tool because not only can we communicate, not only can the customer collect the points, exchange them for whatever gifts, et cetera, et cetera, but we can as well inform them in online basis how and what is going on per shopping center and they are ready as well to share their information so that we can learn from them what they would like to see in our shopping center. It's just making our lives easier. It's a very powerful direct marketing tool. Over 0.5 million downloads already. So that's a huge number of people using that daily, and the number of users has grown over year by over 100%. So not only people downloading, but they use it and there is more customers interested to actually be part of that SPOT community. And now a bit on numbers. So Rudi already had in his slide these 4 pillars strategy for the growth. I would like to deep dive a bit from purely asset management and leasing perspective what we do per each strategy. And first of all, for our teams, it's very important to take very good care of our shopping centers, or put differently, extract value from existing portfolio. And that only comes, if you think about the previous slide, you need to know your customer, you need to know where the demand is coming from, only then can you deliver 10% on a like-for-like basis or on all portfolio basis, 13.5% with base rental uplift 3.6% for first half of the year. And please remember, this is above inflation. So yet again, very good number. But NOI comprises of cost element, and Rudi mentioned, strict cost control. What does that mean? As well is that we really have very rigid rules on cost recovery with our tenants and we did manage to get to as high as 94% recovery rate of service charges while we maintained a collection rate at very high level of 97%. So that is very important to look about those numbers combined. Rudi said a lot about building new business lines, so I will not repeat what Rudi said. I'd just like to say that we are the biggest retail property owner in CEE, but at the same time the biggest roof owner and parking owner. So why not capitalizing on that? And Rudi said a lot, so I will not repeat. But we will not stop because not only this is green, but the beauty of that is that the cost stream of the company becomes actually revenue stream. So it's very lucrative for the company. Acquiring best-in-class assets. I remember at the presentation when we announced for the first time results of Copernicus and Gdansk, we said that we have a number of very strict conditions looking at new acquisitions, et cetera, et cetera. And two of them are whatever we buy needs to have the look and feel better than average of our portfolio. But the other one is that there must be value to be unlocked. We are not buying to just keep 7% year-on-year. We need to and we want to grow that. And Gdansk is a very good example of similar -- of such activities. We bought it at EUR 250 million. As Rudi mentioned, its revalued to EUR 330 million. And it comes from NOI increase, which is driven by leasing the property to full. When we bought it was over 4% vacancy level, now it's 0. There's no unit available. We actually have a waiting list of tenants, which is cool. And then we did manage to re-, kind of, organize the way the whole process of reconciling service charges was managed by previous manager to actually take Form Gdansk to 0 leakage and that leads to 27% NOI. Again, Forum Gdansk over 97% collection rate. So this is very cool. And the reason I say about it is that whatever new comes to the market, we would like to repeat this story. So don't expect us to grow Gdansk every year by 27%, but I think for the 1.5 years we have done a lot to Gdansk and I would like to say the best is yet to come, hopefully. But there are a lot of other acquisitions and we, as long-term strategic owner, have much better leverage to actually do the things we do to Gdansk to other identified properties in CEE, which we are working on. And last but not least, new developments. As I said, we are long-term owner. We don't develop to calculate IRR and dispose after 2 years. This is not us. We buy it and do it for long term. That's why whatever property you see us developing is top-class quality and efficiency. And as such is Craiova. We are very proud to bring over 20 retailers new to the region. We are very proud to open the first -- some of the first brands ever to Romania opening in Craiova. And on top of that, we satisfied 70% of energy consumption by our own production on-site. So it's a super-cool story and hopefully there is more to come. And now looking at the growth from country perspective, I think it's very interesting to look at that perspective and one of the reasons why it's good to have portfolios of properties across the geographies because countries, of course, naturally grow at a different pace. And there are some comments I would like to make here. First of all, Romania and Poland being the biggest exposure of the group are, again, performing very, very well, with Poland going as high as 15% on a like-for-like basis. The reason is super performance of tenants. Year-to-date, almost 15% turnovers went up in Polish portfolio, but as well a lot of cost recovery initiatives. Romania, again, 9% on like-for-like basis, super good result. But look at Bulgaria, 17%. We are now in a year where we actually enjoy what the team and [ Luc ] and Marius were doing to Paradise for such a long time. It was a painful process, but now we are done and dusted. We have retenanted. We have actually closed minus one, to reopen it again in a proper layout. We have introduced new tenants, Peek & Cloppenburg, all the Inditex brands, et cetera, et cetera, because we knew there is potential and we knew this will come and it's coming. 17% in Bulgaria. And this is very important to look because Bulgaria is growing fast because we did what we did, but the economy is solid, and that actually proves that our Plovdiv project is the right thing to do. We are working hard on getting it off the ground. And I can already tell you it's 40% pre-let with the main anchors. And the rents we did manage to achieve from those 40% is 7% above what we budgeted. So I think we can really, really do Plovdiv another super success story. Hungary minus 1%. You will ask question why? This is purely a function of us managing 2 properties only there, but Arena is undergoing now refurbishment, retenanting. So a lot of tenants are in the refurb mode, so to say, or relocating mode. Therefore, there is no base rental produced and this is the reason for Hungary minus 1 percentage, but that will change once we do what we need to do and why not following Bulgarian story. So we are right on track with the conditions we assumed for Arena, and I think it will play out very positively. So the slide before what we achieved wouldn't be possible if it wasn't for our dear customers. The footfall is kind of flat, plus 1% or 165 million visitors, but more importantly, the basket is -- size or spend per visit increased over 8%. And that's another period when we report footfall increasing, but basket size growing even faster and this is actually proof of customers' confidence. Low unemployment, increasing purchasing power lead to clients simply wanting to spend more and entertain themselves. And that takes us to a 12.9% occupancy ratio. Not only is that actually sustainable, but actually unlocks the door for another base rental uplift as the expiries come and I will speak about those in few minutes. When we break down the tenant sales increase per month, you can see each month it was positive, but 8.7% increase for half of the year wouldn't be a good number if we don't put it on a relevant basis and we compare it to estimated inflation for the half of the year, which was around 2.5%, 2.6%, and we are way above that. And if we compare that to our dear competitors' reported between 3% and 4%, we are doing much better than inflation and much better than competitors, which is proof of us doing the right things to our properties, I dare to say. And if we look at various segments, we are very happy to say that all of them are performing well. You can yet again see health and beauty and services being ahead of the pack while fashion to which we are the most exposed is doing fairly good at 7.5%, a bit behind entertainment, DIY and sporting goods, but that is changing in time. The most important is the numbers are positive for all the segments, and we see no structural risk of any tenant or any segment that would make any harm to the operations of the company. And now the previous slide takes us to the actually balanced tenant profile. I am actually happy to be boring again because we show it every half year, but that's fine because this is a very good slide. Top 10 of our tenants graded, all of them have European coverage and most of them as well global. So these are graded super good, well-performing tenants. Should we extend the list to top 20 to 30, it will be another round of super well-performing tenants, we are happy about it. At the same time, as you can see, expiry profile. It -- first of all, all the leases, everything we do, and I know these questions are asked each time we are here, so let me say they are triple-net agreements. Most of them, they are backed by guarantees, euro-denominated, indexed to euro every year in January with no exceptions. And the expiry profile allows us to unlock the value as we go. It will never be higher than 20%. It's purely a function of for how long we signed the agreements, and that's about 5 years. But at the same time, it steadily allows us to work on our base rental uplift as those expiries come to negotiations. You can see we are already almost done with '24, we are working on '25 . I think half year ago it was closer to 20% that we reported. So we already are working on next year. So gradually you will see the expiry profile shifting towards the future. But we are very keen and we like prolongations in those market conditions. Speaking about our tenants. We've had some openings, but I would like to focus maybe on two of those. I said a few words about Arena Budapest and you can see actually the effects of one phase of the work, which was introducing Primark, the first and only Primark to Hungary, and for long, the only in Budapest. It's simply a function of lack of opportunities, but I can tell you in the first few weeks -- first 2 or 3 weeks, the footfall for Arena went 170% up. Since the opening till today, we checked with Marius in the morning, it's plus 30%, amazing number. These people come, new customers, and they stay, which is very cool. But we are not done yet. We are putting all the -- we will be the only shopping center in city with a full set of Inditex brands and -- reserved and the group is refitting. So there will be a lot of quality changes happening to Arena and this is just start. Another cool is the opening of SportsDirect, which I think we reported last time, and they are neighboring with Primark. So it really is becoming the dominant shopping center in the region. I could tell you a lot of studies of the other, but I would like to mention Victoria's Secret in Mega Mall because it actually has blocked the traffic in shopping centers at the opening day. We usually don't like it, but in this case we did like it, it's cool. I just want to tell you that this is one of those brands long awaited, and this is how we do it at NEPI. We are chasing those opportunities because we know they make a difference to the operation of our shopping centers. But there are more openings coming because we have signed some cool agreements, and this is now in the executing phase, let's say, tenants are fitting out. And of all of those, I would like to focus on Rituals. Not only is that one of the most successful tenants in its category measured by the sales densities, but this is the first opening to Romania and that is with NEPI. So this is how we utilize the 9 countries coverage and the efforts of leasing team. And you will see more of that. Chanel, another great story. There are only 3 boutiques like that. This is -- actually 2 in Warsaw, [indiscernible] and Arkadia, signed, not open. The first is Gdansk, Forum Gdansk, and that's a very unique tenant. And when I say unique, you need to see what -- how creative they are in actually promoting the stores. They invite celebrities, et cetera, et cetera, so there's so much we can capitalize on opening those cool and very unique brands and actually tells the story of Forum Gdansk, this is where we want to take that property. And again, I could speak hours about other tenants, but being respectful of time, let me just have closing words. So I think we have proven the retail market is there, it's doing fine and we can even make it better. And we put the sentence here, "We are shaping the future of retail." And I was reading this multiple times, each time when I read it, I think, of something else and being thought it's a bit confident, a bit arrogant, maybe, I don't know. But actually, what it means to us that there's a lot of responsibility on our shoulders. We are not only managing the, let's say, retail environment, but what we do to our shopping centers have impact on local communities. We actually do impact the way people spend their time, entertain themselves, what they do, et cetera. So I think this is the first thing that comes to my mind now, it's a great responsibility, but as well pleasure and we are proud of being able to actually do what we do, having fun doing that and making some money for our investors. So with that, I would like to pass to Eliza, but I have one more thing I want to say. Each time I present after Eliza, and Eliza is so kind that she always thanks me and she says great results, congratulations. So I would like to congratulate her on her results before she presents. But believe me, and you know by now, this is a super cool set of results. So Eliza congrats and welcome to the stage. Thank you.

Thank you, Marek. Thank you. Very nice turnaround on your side. Good morning, everybody. While last time I joined the meeting -- the results presentation remotely, this time I'm very pleased to be here with you and to be back in the business, maybe even more than usually because this year I celebrate 10 years since I joined NEPI Rockcastle and since we are working together. And on top of that comes the fact that I will get you through a very good set of numbers, which is going to be great in all three areas of my presentation, namely, distributable earnings, funding and valuation. On my first slide, I would like to step a bit and to highlight the importance for us as a group of managing the financial performance. And what I mean by that is the fact that what we see today in our results is actually the conscious and efficient efforts in managing the financial resources of this company in the way that we are taking most of the growth generated from operations, from acquisitions, from developments and we are aiming to translate this to you into distribution to our shareholders now or at a later stage after fueling the growth opportunities that we have. With that being said, I would like to go to the distributable earnings for this period, which is EUR 0.3012, is 5.6% up relative to previous period, which was EUR 0.2852. And now I would like to guide you through the main components of this growth, which is strong performance, both from our existing properties but also from the new developments and the new business line that we have, which is the energy activity. So the 10% like-for-like growth on nominal terms converting to a 7.4% uplift on a per-share basis and this comes from the indexation, the asset management initiatives and everything which was covered already by Marek. Then we have the developments, which is actually Promenada Craiova being the largest development that we completed last year. And this comes with an uplift of 2.7%. And then we have the energy activity, which is 2.2%. All these new activities, developments, new business lines are very valuable for us as management, and we aim to capitalize on them year-on-year. On the other side, we -- in order to have this performance on the operational, we need to incur costs, which are finance, taxes and administrative costs. They come with an offsetting effect of 4.3%. We are still living in an environment with sticky inflation with interest rates still not stabilized. But we are negotiating hard that to keep the shareholder value. Last but not least, we offer last year 2x the scrip dividend. And the antecedent dividend that is like a one-off, let's say, adjustment on the P&L, it comes with a negative effect of 2.4%. So all in all, 30.12% is the growth -- is the distributable earnings per share, which equates in absolute numbers approximately EUR 200 million. EUR 200 million that we decided to distribute to you 90% out of it, which, relative to our peers, it's still a significant gap. So we are distributing consistently 90% of the distributable earnings. And looking at the European peers, they are at 70%. And because we had, let's say, the champion of return to shareholders, despite the fact that we have a lot of opportunities that Rudi already mentioned and he's going to unbox for you also a little later, we are giving you the option of whether you want to keep this money in the business to fuel the growth or do you want to take the money as a cash dividend? Therefore, we are offering you EUR 0.2711 with all the three options on the table. It's either cash with the two options attached to it, repayment of capital or distributable out of -- or distribution out of profits or it's the scrip dividend. The way in which the scrip dividend is going to work, it's the EUR 0.2711 relative to the VWAP that is going to be applicable at the moment of the finalization announcement. We are going to issue a circular. We are under regulatory approvals, but this is the plan to go. So covering and concluding on these 2 slides. We have growth opportunities. There is a very good market context for us. We were working for that, and we want to capitalize on that. And we are aiming to grow together with you and to leave as much possible -- as much money possible in the business so that to fuel the growth. Moving further, this slide is about, let's say, the health of our business because we had -- as you may remember from the previous year, we had for 2024 and we still have a significant maturity of EUR 500 million bond. Nevertheless, at the end of December and then subsequently this year in April, we managed to secure an overall funding from IFC of EUR 440 million covering 90% of this debt. Therefore, for this year and the next year, we don't have any significant maturities to manage, and therefore, we are well positioned to go and capitalize on further opportunities. Our net cost of debt, it's still a low one at 2.6% on a net basis. We disbursed the trance of the IFC loan, the majority of it, EUR 390 million, but we placed this excess liquidity in good deposits so that to enhance the distributable earnings. Whether we are a well-managed business? I think we are. A 32.2% LTV, we are safe and prudent and well positioned to attract even more funding in the business. Are we positioned to, let's say, be agile in the market? Yes, of course. We have a liquidity of EUR 1.3 billion. On a normalized level, it's going to be EUR 900 million after repayment of the bond and this puts us in a very good position to act on the market. Whether we are well rated by the credit rating agencies? We are at the maximum possible. We got a BBB+ from Fitch. And considering our geographies, this is the maximum that we can get. I'm very proud that we managed to get this rating back in 2022 where still the remains of COVID were there because of our KPIs on the finance and operational areas. And this investment-grade credit rating is also factored in the net cost of debt, which is also embedded in the growth that we are generating. So to sum up on this slide, I think that we are very well managed. I think that we have the right balance in between being prudent and being bold, and this is going to pay off and we are going to be better positioned to act upon the market opportunities. Last but not least, this was also touched upon by Rudiger and Marek. We have an increase in the valuation, 2% relative to December. On the P&L side, you are going to see EUR 134 million. No change in the valuation yield, which is 6.95%. The valuers in the CEE area prefer to have a cautious approach and to see transactions in the market before acting upon the valuation yield. This is despite the fact that the interest rate started to decrease. They, nevertheless, prefer to have this cautious approach, which is good and bad in the same time. But on the other hand, I will remind you that never ever NEPI Rockcastle disposed of an asset at book value. It has always been better than the book value. And this year, I think that we exceeded the plan by having a premium to book value of 18% with the Serbian disposal. So this is in a nutshell the things that we are doing in finance. We are exceeding our plans and this is done by our ongoing efforts of being the best in what we are doing. And I have also another point to cover, which is ESG, which is something that all of us here are taking care of, but I have the pleasure to be a member in the Sustainability Committee and ESG is one of our priorities. Our efforts are externally recognized by having certification prices and rating. This is also helping us in the funding area. And from a business performance point of view, it was already mentioned our projects in the area of the green energy: the revenue that we are generating, but which comes with an improved carbon footprint, the fact that 21% of the energy consumption in Romania is covered by the self-produced energy by us. We are aiming to get to 25% next year and still some other improvements that Rudiger will uncover for you, and the fact that we are looking for securing at least 75% of the entire consumption from renewable sources. On the governance and standards, as some of you may know, as a listed company, we need to comply with the European legislation. This year, you are going to see a sustainability report, which is going to be audited. So whatever you are going to find there as data point is going to be backed up by auditors. We have, let's say, a high standard in our reporting, both financially and sustainability side. And all the carbon emission-related KPIs are going to be Scientifically Based and reported on in the sustainability report. With those being said, I will turn the floor to you, Rudiger.

Thank you, Eliza. Yes, where would I be without them? Probably nowhere. You can feel that, right? So building the future and we come to the point actually of our developments, I want to dive a little bit deeper into our development section. It's an important, let's say, pillar, one of the four pillars of growth that we see for the future of the company. And currently, we have a total pipeline of EUR 817 million and we've been breaking it down a little bit for you of, let's say, where are you actually spending this EUR 817 million in the future. And of course, the majority goes into our new retail development. So currently, actually, we're talking here about 2 greenfield developments and 5 developments that are more related to extensions and refurbishments across 4 countries. And most of this will already be delivered, as I said, by the end of around 2026, the majority of this. But as well, together with, let's say, the rollout of our energy project across all the countries plus the investment into solar fields in Romania, we will spend another EUR 115 million on a new business line that will deliver, as I said, as we see the much higher yields in principle than our pure real estate business. And on top of this EUR 47 million on residentials, again, we will not become a residential developer. I will show the projects in a moment. Here, again, we talk about projects that are related to our shopping centers, so where we have an exceed of plot of land next to our shopping center that we already bought and we are just extracting additional value out of these plots. So that's why we do a little bit of development in residential. And actually, these residential developments are always for sale. So we are not building up, let's say, a company here that needs to manage rental contracts with private individuals. We are selling this off and it's just part of our income in the future. Now let's look at a few highlights, so I will not go through all the pipeline. It's in the annexes, you can have a look at it. But let's look at the highlights. So of course, the highlight with the EUR 280 million total investment is Promenada Bucharest. It's our flagship asset in Romania. And you can see at the picture that we already got it out of the ground. We've been digging 7 stories down into the ground in order to provide for parking. And now we are very happy that we get out of the ground. And this is an extension of 55,000 square meters on an already existing 40,000-square meter shopping center. So we are doubling this year. And this is not only retail. This is a mixed-use project where we are actually adding retail, where we're adding offices, 4,000-square meter platform for each floor, which doesn't exist in Bucharest. So we have, I think, a very unique position here for the office part. And we will add here most likely a hotel where we are in the process because there is a high demand currently in Bucharest for modern hotel schemes, especially in the area of Bucharest 1. Bucharest 1 is the richest part and the most -- busiest part because it's a CBD, it's the business hub at the same time of Bucharest and there's very little, let's say, supply on hotels. So that's the biggest investment we're currently working on. Ploiesti Shopping City, again, a 40,000-square meter shopping center in Romania, where we are adding 6,000 square meters. Will already be completed by September. And of course, it's already -- as it's almost for completion, it's already rented 96%. So very advanced. But more important actually, and I said it in the past here, we're not only adding square meters. What was so important for this asset that we are generating additional parking because the center is so much asked for that we have traffic jams all the time and we're missing out on turnovers already on the existing tenants because simply people can't park. So that's very important, not only the additional retail but additional parking will help the asset to grow on its total GLA. But we've got bit more highlights here. The two resi projects. One is in Craiova. You know that we just opened in October here our more than 60,000-square meter brand-new shopping center in that city, which is operating well. But we have additional space here and that's why we are currently looking at developing here 11,800 square meters of resi right next to the shopping center. If you remember and the ones that have been maybe on the last investor tour, there's a bridge actually that is connecting the building with the main road, pedestrian bridge. And this building will be right next to the pedestrian bridge, also connected to the pedestrian bridge. So it, of course, creates a little bit additional, yes, catchment area for us. Brasov also where we have not a big scheme, but we have a smaller retail scheme here exceeding land. And here, we're looking to invest into a 21,000-square meter resi project over the next 2 years. So both of them, we have just started with the permitting process, and we'll keep you posted on the progress. And then last but not least, of course, our photovoltaic projects, EUR 15 million rollout over 24 locations across our portfolio, plus that we are currently securing the predeveloped plots that already have a grid connection in Romania that will then actually bring up actually our capacity to more than 160 megawatts for our portfolio in Romania. So these are just a couple of highlights on the development side. But when we look into the future, it's not just development. I think Marek has explained quite nicely how much we take care of the current income-producing part of our portfolio and we see definitely a big possibilities to grow also in the future. We have been talking, for example, about Arena Mall, where we're spending more than EUR 30 million in the next couple of years in order to bring this asset on to the next level. Something similar that we did, for example, with Bonarka because this is one of the top-notch assets in Budapest, you're in the capital of. So this is definitely, I think, a very good move to push the asset forward. And just one example for this operational growth of the assets that we're already working with. Then we've just talked about the development pipeline. We are very, let's say, sure that we will deliver on it. Out of the EUR 817 million, by the way, we have already spent EUR 200 million because they are already under construction. And then acquisitions and asset rotation. As said, at the very moment, when you look into the M&A market in Central, Eastern Europe, it is, I think, a super good moment. Why? Because cap rates are currently still, for us, the pricing is very interesting. We see assets coming to the market and we are currently in exclusivity on assets that have not been on the market for the last 15 years -- no, 10 years. Why? Because they are owned, let's say, by the typical German pension funds, which have a long-term holding strategy. Crisis back and forth, they don't care. They just are long-term holders. And to be able to acquire some of this product now for the current pricing, I think, makes a lot of sense for us, especially when they have -- and that's what Marek said, where we see with our, let's say, asset management qualities where we see how we can even make them better, how we can improve the NOI over a foreseeable period of time, let's say, the next 2, 3 years. So we have an incoming yield. But with our teams, we've already said, okay, if we come in here, we're going to take it there. That's what we did with Forum Gdansk. So -- and there, we are currently looking at two very, I think, great opportunities and we hope to be able to come back to you soon and report on the signing of it. And then the new income streams, I think I've already explained, talked a lot about it on what we're doing there, adding additional income stream, high-yielding income stream to the company. And these four pillars, I think, will help us and I'm very sure that we will grow this company over the next couple of years being in the position as we are and as the region is. Now -- but we will do all this while at the same time, let's say, keeping our robust balance sheet. I mean, this rock-solid balance sheet that we have, I think that is for us a goal definitely to keep it as where it is and we will not take any risk just in order to grow, which we think is not -- should not be applicable. So I'm sorry to say, we have to revise the guidance of NEPI Rockcastle's growth of DPS until the end of the year. We were growing in the first half of the year faster than a bit we expected. And then looking into the next 6 months, if the situation stays as is, we should be able to deliver more to you. And that's why we decided, together with the Board, to raise the guidance from 4% to 5.5%. Yes, I know, NEPI Rockcastle has always been rather conservative on giving guidances and -- but we think are here in a position to deliver to you more than we had in the guidance 6 months ago. So that's a little bit good news for the future. But I think if the situation stays as is and the purchasing power is as strong as it is, we can believe that we get there. Now Capital Markets Day. So please be our guests. We just wanted to take the opportunity here at the results presentation to inform you that we are planning to have Capital Markets Day of NEPI Rockcastle in Bucharest. You all are invited to come there physically or join us online. What is it about? We would like to -- we will send out actually at a later stage, of course, a bit more about the content. But we want to discuss with specialists, economic specialists, from the region but also with U.S. investors of the possibilities that we see, the opportunities that we see in the market how could NEPI Rockcastle profit from this. And that's why we said we would like to go a bit deeper on to these subjects, not only here and in the one-on-one meetings, but also to provide you with additional information about our company, about the markets we are operating in, the opportunities that we see to do this and spend one day together in Bucharest. Obviously, we would also like to brag about our developments there and take you to one of our construction sites at Promenada in Bucharest. So you can see live actually what's going on and not just on numbers and pictures. So maybe mark it to your calendar and you will get further information a little bit at a later stage. So solid as a rock is NEPI Rockcastle. And with this, I think we're coming to the end of our presentation, and that gives the opportunity for you to ask questions or remarks. And we can do this right here in the room, handing over a microphone or maybe also the ones that are online, don't hesitate, send us a text and we are happy to answer questions.

All righty.

Eliza, can I ask a question. Great results. My question is, what is your hurdle rate on a yield basis on your developments and then on your acquisitions. What do you look to from a yield point of view?

Well, they obviously need a spread. When we go into developments, obviously, we take a development risk. And our development risk needs to be paid off for. So if we look at, let's say, current cap rates in the market for top-notch assets, we are somewhere around 7-ish, let's say. Let's say, between 6.5% and 7%, depending on the asset. Now obviously, when we look at something like Plovdiv, just looking at a gentleman here in the room who is a part of the investment committee would not let me go with a 6.5% to 7% because we're taking a risk here and we want to be rewarded for it. So there, our development yields need to be much higher than this, getting as close to double digit as we can. So there needs to be obviously. But I'll give you the example maybe because I know where you come from. We talked about our new development that we hopefully start by the end of the year with construction in Plovdiv in Bucharest, which is EUR 175 million investment. And we look very closely at what do we see on the cost side. Of course, we saw an increase of construction costs over the last 24 months, like 20%. And we will not develop and will not start pouring concrete if we don't have, on the other side, the relevant increase on the rent side, right? So -- and that's why Marek mentioned it, for that asset, for example, we have already now without -- not even starting construction, we have pre-agreed location and terms agreed with almost 50% of the tenants. Almost 50% of GLA already agreed. So you know the market wants it, right? But it's not only of the square meters, also about, let's say, what are tenants ready to pay. And there, we are 7% currently above the ERV that we were -- let's say, that we've got actually the approval of the investment committee. So very careful looking at on both ends. During the whole process, what do we see on the -- in our tender results, tender processes on construction at the same time, what is the market giving us? If it is not giving us this return, we just don't do it. It's simple as that. We don't need to do it. Okay. Further questions in the room or anywhere else?

With regards to the energy business, do you intend to manage that yourself internally or are you looking at outsourcing it?

No, we intend to manage this completely ourselves. We already have built up a small team here. So we have hired 3 specialists who are in the field, which are working for us already since 2022. And of course, we have the total organization of NEPI Rockcastle when it comes to, let's say, things like bookkeeping and stuff. We have this all. So that's easy. So no, we want to manage this completely in-house for the moment. It's a very -- it's a different business and it needs specialists in the field. So when I'm saying we manage this ourselves, then this means that not we as retail -- real estate specialists are managing this business completely. So it's managed by specialists that come from the energy business. And I mean, of course, we at C-level will have a look at, let's say, the opportunity and the risk profile in the business and are responsible for the business, but we have people that know this market extensively better than at least I do.

Just a couple from [ Mazi ] here. Just two questions, one relating to the resi development, I think what makes this development different from the previous development? My understanding is that wasn't -- that didn't take off as well as you had planned in terms of just time line sales, and competitors as well in that space are not doing well in that region from a resi perspective. And then secondly, what margins are you expecting to develop -- I mean, to generate on those developments? And then -- so that's still tied to resi. And the last question just on M&A, the size of the market. So you mentioned it's a good time. Do you have a sense of the size of the opportunity that you're looking at? And obviously, you can't really disclose how much you're going to allocate towards it, but just the relative size?

Yes. Now coming to your first question. I don't know where you have it from that our resi development was not successful. Or maybe I didn't understand that correctly. So you're talking about Vulcan Residential, that was the first resi project that we did. 254 units, sold at the moment 218. And Eliza, what was the yield that we had on this?

Yes. I wanted also to add this. So you may see in the financial statements that we sold -- the sale of this year were for EUR 14 million with a cost of EUR 10 million. So here, you can deduct what was the return on cost.

I mean, if this is not a nice return for our investors, I mean -- okay, give me a better example. No, I think it's because we're extracting value here out of, let's say, land plots that already exist. And we do this cautiously and we're not, let's say, spending a lot of money on it, but I think it's a very well-yielding investment IRR that we get there. And we will do the same and we're looking at, let's say, of course, the same kind of profitability on the other two projects that we currently have under the permitting stage, if this answers your question. Number two question that you had on the acquisition pipeline. Well, we're looking currently, as I said, on those assets, which, let's say, are really core asset, big assets in the markets in major cities. So we're not talking about small acquisitions here. So I would say the average pricing that we need to look at is somewhere around EUR 350 million per asset, if that answers your question.

Yes. Thanks, it does. I guess in terms of total assets. So in other words, the full pool, that EUR 350 million per asset is fine, but how big is the market itself as in if you were to add all...

The market is obviously much bigger. When we look at the total pipeline, we presented here, we're looking at EUR 800 million currently on the table as possible acquisitions. But what means the total market? Of course, there is more on the market currently for acquisitions. Not everything fits into, let's say, the kind of quality that we would like to acquire. That's why it's just, for us, out of scope. But there are also assets that might be -- might fit in from a quality perspective, but we don't see the potential for them to grow because they're already squeezed. There are assets at the moment, you can buy, which are really good assets. Same pricing, around EUR 300 million-plus. But where we regularly go with the asset management team and the acquisition team and we look at these assets and we ask ourselves, okay, what's more to do here? How can we create value -- additional value here for our shareholders? And if it's just related to the guessing or the -- how does one meet guessing, but let's say, to the assumption of the future that you would see a yield compression it's not good enough. We need to be able to do, let's say, really work with the asset and create more value on the NOI side.

I've got a question just for Marek. You've seen quite a lot of events, especially in Poland, with the Ukrainians fleeing the war in that country a few years ago and then with quite a lot of political change about 6 to 9 months ago. What's the feeling at the moment on -- the sentiment and the outlook actually on the ground, I mean, from your guys and your team and more importantly from the tenants and the growth perspective?

Yes. Thank you. it's actually a very good question because we haven't touched on that. You would notice that there was a huge political shift in Poland from 8 years under PiS, which was more far right a little bit anti-European, so to say. We moved to the coalition, which is very pro-European, much more liberal and much more. You can see Donald Tusk in media everywhere and he's one of the European leaders actually. And that translates into all the segments of how we work, live and then Poland became again more investable. That's what I heard, it's not my phrase. I heard that people say there was a lot of investors sitting at the fence saying, let's see what happens in October. If the previous political scene will not change, then we are not in. Now we can see it is improving. You can see on the short-term changes the cost of Polish debt went very low. That 10-year bonds Polish are lowest for a long time. It's what has strengthened against euro, 7% from that period, that's a lot. So there are as well some numerical changes that happened that help the economy because rolling -- the debt in Poland is much cheaper than it used to be. So that's one side. But on the other side, when you have this feeling from your government that Europe is our future, that NATO is our future, that they want to invest in security, EUR 0.5 billion in close period of time as a response to what's happening in Ukraine, that also gives you confidence that this is the way this country and the whole region should go. So I think it's by, all means, positive. And actually, another important point Rudi mentioned, EUR 100 billion of EU funds. But should the change not happen, Poland will be excluded to a big extent. And we are talking about very cheap loans and nonrefundable even injection of cash to actually turn the economy to more green, but as well into infrastructure, et cetera, et cetera. So that will have a huge spin-off effect on the whole economy, Poland, but the whole region as well. So by all means, positive change, and yes, it's -- we -- our heart goes to Europe and this is where my generation and my kids' generation, this is where you see our future.

Can we take questions on the conference call, please.

We have a question from Ben Richford of Bernstein.

Just got a few questions, maybe do them in turn. But the disposal you made, which was in July, I'm just wondering how is the gain being booked in the interim accounts, a simple first question.

So the disposal took place in July. This is a subsequent nonadjustable event. Therefore, as of 30th of June, the Serbian property is reflected as an asset held for sale, but the fair value is similar to the one as of December because the EUR 177 million that we got as transaction value doesn't have anything to do with the valuation of the asset. This was the effort of the negotiation of our team and it's going to be capitalized in the second part of the year -- accounted for, sorry, in the second part of the year as a gain on transaction. So wait for that to be finalized because it was subject to and it is still subject to condition precedent in relation to funding from the buyer.

Great. Second question, so leisure was an underperforming category in the first half in terms of growth year-on-year. I just wondered what the intention is with leisure over time? Do you see potential to increase the leisure component in your centers, partly as an offset to structural change that might come from growth in online?

Well, probably the best would be to break actually down the whole segment of entertainment and should we extract cinemas, the number would be high double digit probably. But cinemas -- the success of cinemas is purely a function of what Hollywood would produce and release. And we have experienced last year strikes in Hollywood. I actually don't know why would you strike working in Hollywood, but it doesn't matter. But what I want to say, a lot of movies that has been produced were delayed. And what we hear from cinemas, we heard that last -- at the end of last year, they said '24 we would be minus 15%. And more or less, they are there, purely just calculating on a like-for-like basis the new movies. But they said 2025, we will have accumulation. So we -- they expect that actually 2025 will make up for the change. So we see that as an, let's say, operational bug in the system in Hollywood rather than a structural change because when we have blockbusters released, we see numbers very comparable to pre-pandemic. So we don't see Netflix or other streaming services being the competitors to the segment. But one needs to notice that cinemas are changing the way they operate. They put much more effort into redefining the services they sell to their clients, and I could talk for hours what we did with cinemas in Poland, for example, reclining seats, et cetera, and how it impacted the operations in a very positive way. But the most important thing is there is no structural or operational or change in the system that would make us worry about cinemas going further.

Okay. Great. And then just a final question. You've obviously got an interesting pipeline that you've identified, both in terms of the developments that are ongoing and some sizable potential acquisition opportunities and your shares trade pretty well versus the net asset value of the company. Would you consider equity EBIT to fund some of these large capital outlays or just tap the market more opportunistically?

Well, I think -- that's obviously also, as you said, driven by opportunities and whether they realize or not. But in principle, we're looking at all funding sources. So first of all, the ones we have, already the liquidity given. Secondly, obviously, as you see, we are disposing assets, which will help us also to acquire, let's say, a new pipeline. We're looking into -- we can look into the debt markets. I think with the LTV, we have -- we still have a lot of room here. And on top, as you said, also an opportunity or a possibility would be to raise some more equity. So all of these options are at the table. Always at the same time, obviously, looking at the opportunities we have and whether they are actually really creating this add-on of value for our shareholders that we're looking for. I hope this answers your question.

We have a question from Francesca Ferragina of ING Bank.

My line dropped many times, so I'm not sure you have already discussed what I am to ask, but I have a few questions. The first one is regarding the guidance revision. At what level you were surprised the most and why? And also, can you discuss what is the like-for-like that you now expect for the full year, let's say, from now on? The second question is still on M&A. Is there any market that you would like to prioritize over others? And what type of tenders do you see on the market at the moment? The third question is on indexes. Anything can be expected for next year, are you working on it? And then the other question is on the Serbian disposal. There was a big -- very generous premium over the book value. Can you elaborate a little on this? And is there any potential impact on other assets on the portfolio? That's it.

If possible Francesca, I think it's better to take the questions one by one. The one that I fully understand was the one in relation to the indexes. Are you speaking about the indexes such as, let's say, EPRA indexes? Or what kind of indexes are you referring at?

Yes, yes. These type of indexes, yes.

Obviously, that -- this is something that we are looking at and we are targeting to be part of the EPRA index. EPRA index has particular methodology of calculation in which they are considering some frontier markets such as Croatia or Bulgaria. And as soon as we get a bit more -- I mean, we are borderline. They are expecting that most of the income to be generated in 75% -- I mean, 75% of the income to be generated in developed markets and not more than 25% to be in the frontier markets. We are now with an income of 27% being generated in frontier markets, namely, Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia. As soon as we are going to dispose of Serbia, having other uplift in the fair valuation, we are in a great position from the beginning of 2025 to be included in this index. If we are going to be included in this index, we are going to get better visibility and this is a good chance for us, let's say, to have an even better, let's say, enhancement of the shareholders' base. So this is the ultimate outcome. We are not going to do any kind of, let's say, restructuring in the business for the sake of being included in an index. But this is something that we are pursuing and we are putting consistent efforts to be there, including being in touch with the right authorities and the right people constructing these indexes. So this was the only question that I -- we understood, I think. If you can start with the first one, please?

Yes. I'm sorry, my line is very bad. And the first one was regarding the guidance revision. You said that was driven by the strong operational results. At what level you were surprised the most, let's say? And what is the like-for-like level that you expect for the remaining part of the year?

Well, most surprised, I mean, obviously, we do a budgeting process at the end of the year, like every company, and needs to be approved by the Board. And you look into the future, it's a glass full. And I think it's not really a super surprise to get from, let's say, a guidance of 4% to 5.6%. That's just a reaction of the fact that purchasing power has been really strong. We did not expect, let's say, that turnovers would keep on, let's say, having these really strong results up to that amount because this is driving our average rent and our turnover rent. At the same time, we had a really good results as well on our marketing income, so meaning short-term leases. And on top of this, we could decrease costs. So -- and yes. So it's not really -- it's been a surprise for the first 6 months, but it's, let's say, a knowledge that, yes, it just went a little bit better than we thought. And that's what we need to incorporate, of course, for the next 6 months. And that's why, together with the Board, we decided to be a bit more brave and give a guidance of 5.5%. And I hope this answers your question. And feel free to ask your next question.

And the remaining question is still on the M&A opportunity. Is there any market that you would like to prioritize over others, for example? And what tenders do you see on the market recently?

Yes. As I said, so we see more product coming to the market that we haven't seen for years, especially when we look at the size and the quality, which obviously fits very well to the quality of our assets at NEPI Rockcastle. That's what we see. The -- first of all, we definitely are only looking into markets that are within our current jurisdiction, so meaning in Central, Eastern Europe. So we are not investing into product or -- planning to invest into product that is outside of our region. I think I explained that the region we are operating in is the one that is going to grow. So it makes sense to stay in that region. And when we look at it at a country level, you know what, it's actually not so much related to a country, it's more related to the asset itself and its catchment area. Where there is an opportunity, whether this is in Bucharest or whether this is in Warsaw or whether this is, let's say, a top-notch second asset in Croatia, as long as, let's say, the quality of the asset, the catchment area, the NOI, everything, all our metrics that we have in our -- and I'm looking at Anca, our Head of M&A department, she has a whole list of criteria we need to fulfill. As long we can tick these boxes and this creates additional value, sustainable value, over a period of time for our shareholders, that's what we look at. But it needs to be in Central, Eastern Europe for the moment, for sure. And of course, maybe in brackets here, of course, we look at the same time into things like -- let's take the example of Hungary. Hungary is a country at the moment, which is not perceived, let's say, as economically and also maybe politically as stable maybe in the near future. So you see that foreign investment is slowing down in that country. So yes, we take care of our assets that we operate there. As I said, we spend money on Arena because this is a flagship in Budapest. But would we necessarily -- if I have the chance to invest either in Hungary at the moment, I would have the chance to invest into Poland, you would -- let's say, if the assets would be comparable, you would definitely have a closer look at Poland. So we need to take this obviously also in consideration, what is the prospect actually, economic situation and political situation in the country over the next couple of years. Any further questions?

No. No other questions online. So we take the ones from the -- so first one, it's for Rudi. Do yields on the remaining EUR 100 million on the renewable energy pipeline generate similar yields across geographies?

What are the yields? Across the...

Geographies in the energy projects that we target for?

All the energy projects we are targeting are highly double digit. So from, let's say, our feasibility studies, we are not talking about something that is currently, let's say, below 20%.

I think that answers the question. Another question for Marek. Marek, can you talk a bit more -- elaborate more about Primark rollout across Eastern Europe and how can we accommodate them in our centers and in which?

Thank you. Actually, it's an interesting question because Primark's appetite following the first openings in CEE is getting bigger and bigger with each opening. It simply is that the concept that landed very well in this environment -- in this context and they would want to open more. And of course, we are one of the biggest partners for them. But I must very bluntly tell you that when we design tenant mix, we do not -- they are -- not all locations are for Primark, let me put it this way. When we speak about property like Bonarka, 100,000 GLA, everybody can be there. But when I speak about property, let's say, like Promenada in Bucharest where we have less GLA, we must be selective. And then we need to put Primark in those locations where the audience or catchment area is supporting that kind of the concept. We would think about Forum Gdansk, we would open another Chanel there. So we could do more physically, but it's knowledgeable decision that we make. And we go with Primark where it works for both. The reality is that Primark could open anywhere and they will be successful. But I don't think it's suitable given our marketing and leasing strategy. And this categorizing of shopping centers, they would be a good fit everywhere. I hope that answers the question.

Another question still for Marek. Can you comment on how property management fees and utility expenses are likely to evolve?

I don't think that it will much differ from where the market goes. Actually, you look at energy prices and it's actually going down. So we are hedged. We produce now more of energy than ever before and that will continue to grow. So I don't expect any surprises there, if that was the ultimate question there. And property management fees, that was the question, right? Since we manage our properties, I think the risk of any unexpected fluctuations is 0.

But here, if I can add a bit on the utility expenses. Considering the fact that we have the self-produced solar energy, the utility expenses started to decrease and we actually converted the cost into a revenue because virtually the costs associated with generating green energy are totally immaterial. So going forward, these utility expenses, if we are going to look at the year-end, we are expecting to see them lower relative to December 2023 because of this reason.

Put differently, what we control, we do control and we know. Whenever we can hedge, we can hedge, but we cannot influence government's decision of increasing minimum wage because that, of course, then translates into our operation. But again, this is what we budget for because in advance, we know what we can expect.

Some more questions for Rudiger on acquisitions. How competitive is the acquisition environment? Are there many buyers looking at the assets? And another questions. Are these expected acquisitions going to be accretive from the beginning?

Well, the first question, I can -- and the second question I can answer really quickly, the question -- the answer is very simple. Yes, it will be immediately accretive. So we are not buying into distressed asset where we first need to spend, I don't know, millions in order to get them somewhere. So these assets are definitely delivering to the results immediately. You will see it already next year, hopefully, if we can close some deals. That's number one. Number two, yes, of course, there is competition in the market. Let's say, the deals we're currently talking about have not been, let's say, publicly in the market. So these are, let's say, off-market deals. Let's say, our M&A team, myself, we are very well connected to, let's say, the retail real estate industry in Europe and it is our job to hear the grass growing. So maybe this answers the questions, but yes, there is obviously competition out there. It depends, obviously, always on what kind of assets we are talking about. If you talk about assets that are in the range of, let's say, EUR 300 million-plus, that's a ticket price per asset, which not a lot of companies can do. And please also understand, and that's a big benefit also for you as investors, that we can go and negotiate and say we can send you a check. There is no CP on financing. That is, of course, I think, a very good position we are in, which helps the execution of the deal, number one; and secondly, to bring down the price. So that's how it goes.

I just wanted to find out with regards to the influx of refugees into Ukraine and Poland. Did that contribute to your growth and to what extent percentage-wise? And if we look at after the war within Ukraine, what is your action plan strategically on how to grow business within Ukraine, say, when the war should end? Is there any plan that you have in place?

Yes. Maybe I'll take this one. So yes, the answer is yes. Obviously, the influx of refugees into our countries has been enormous and it had a demographic effect. If you have more than 3 million euros moving into a country of Poland, which has 48 million euros of total population, then this has an effect. The second part of this question we cannot answer because we are obviously -- we cannot differentiate whether a customer is Polish or Ukraine. So we -- they're not showing their passport when they pay. So hard to say. But obviously, what we saw, especially in the beginning, a lot of people, of course, came and they -- and everybody came. And we had people that were maybe, let's say, on the lower end of the social structure of the society, but we also saw the super-rich coming. So the 5-star hotels in Bucharest were all booked, and you could see all the Ukrainian license plates. But at the same time, there were people coming off the border with a plastic bag and they needed support and they needed to start living and they needed to spend. Governments have been helping a lot. And a lot of private individuals, families have been helping a lot throughout Europe one has to say and that has helped. Most of them are still there. So we are still, in a way, profiting from this. Found a job, trying to stay there. How many will go back? Hard to say. So the estimation is currently that I'm reading about is that at least 30% will stay. When -- look, it's just, I think, very simple. Where do you go back to? When you come out of Odessa or you come out of, I don't know, one of the Oblasts that are currently under fire, everything is destroyed. So where do you go back to? So I think that it's true that quite a substantial amount of these new, let's say, part of the population will stay in the region. That's at least what we can expect. So yes. Does this answer your question?

Yes. The second half was...

Us moving into Ukraine. Yes, as said, I mean I've been managing assets in Ukraine and it's a country that like all the countries have differences. So when you are in the region, which is closer to Poland, Lviv as an example, that's a different story than if you would go, let's say, to the region where we currently see the war happening. So -- but in principle, I never say never, but for the moment, we don't have plans. I think we are all so much focused on hoping that the war comes to an end and there will be a peace, and that is the minimum what we need. And then we will see what happens. But of course, if the country needs to be rebuilt and you need to understand that the Ukraine had already a substantial amount of shopping centers, good ones, I mean, I was in Kiev only a couple of years ago and they have a proper shopping center industry there, part of it is destroyed, but part of it is still functioning. So we'll see. But we have no concrete plans at the moment already looking at -- I think this would be -- actually, I would say I wouldn't really feel good about it. The neighbors are already coming in and see where they can fish cheaply. So I don't know. It's not our style. Let's see. Let's, first of all, hope that just simply the killing comes to an end. And then we see.

Thank you, Rudiger. l think this answers your question, okay. We have one last question from the platform and it's about cost of debt. So it is -- what's the cost of debt for the unsecured debt that we are getting now both for bonds or bank? So can you elaborate on that a bit?

Okay, thank you. If we are looking currently on the yields of our bonds, this indicates a potential, let's say, issue of -- in the range of 5%. So this is public information, you can find it on Bloomberg. When it comes about what we brought home, the individual cost of debt is not something that we are disclosing for each facility. But you have seen in the presentation that we are on an average net cost of debt of 2.6%. This is increasing from 2.5% last year. And as I also announced in the last presentation, we are expecting this cost of debt to widen, but not more than 50 to 60 basis points relative to 2023. So in the range of 3% to 3.10%, this is going to be the maximum that we can reach for the next 12 months.

So thank you, Eliza, for the answer. There is no other question, so I think we can close.

Thank you.

Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us today. And again, you are all invited to our Capital Markets Day in Bucharest. So keep it in calendar and then we keep you informed. And thank you for joining today, whether here or online. Thank you.