Swiss Prime Site AG (SPSN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

A cordial welcome to the media conference by Swiss Prime Site, providing you with insight in the first half year results in 2020. First half year was not an easy one, of course, it was extraordinary for all of us, including our staff. And I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to all our staff. There are many of them who have quite different work to do from March to June than they originally were used to. And I would like to thank them very much for their flexibility. So let's get started with our agenda today. First of all, we're going to look at the first half year figures, specifically looking to the first half year of 2020 and then do a deep dive on the sale of the Tertianum Group. Next, we're going to touch upon the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic, then move on with Markus Meier on key financial figures, and I will then touch upon the project pipeline and give you an outlook. Now if you try to compare 2020 results with 2019 results. It's relatively difficult, especially in our case. There are 3 very specific effects. First of all, the sale of Tertianum, which we will come back to in a minute. The second thing is the tax effect in 2019 after the staff referendum. We have a tax effect this year, but it's a lot smaller than it was in 2019. And thirdly, the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic at 3 levels, by the way, first of all, revaluation; secondly, rental income; and thirdly and specifically, with regard to sales of Jelmoli. So let's get started with an overview of the figures. These are the figures. They are good, if not very good, which is a lot to do with the sale of Tertianum, of course. Our real estate portfolio has grown to around CHF 11.9 billion worth today, growth of EBIT before revaluation of just under 80%. And also rental income grew in the Real Estate segment by 0.7%, and the ROIC, return on invested capital was considerably increased from 3.2% to now 5.7%. Second chart is even more impressive, especially the increase in profit. Again, attributable primarily to the sale of Tertianum. The profit is always without revaluation and all deferred taxes. The increase was 111%. The same goes for earnings per share. And over on the right-hand side. I think these are the very important figures. We've got a strong, powerful increase of the equity ratio to now 46%, and we booked an increase in net asset value by 10.2% to CHF 75.62 currently. So bear in mind that last year, if you looked at this in terms of investment yield of the SPS stock last year, you would also have to include the dividend that we paid out CHF 3.80, it was. So this is a fantastic investment yield of 16%. 16%, that is certainly worth writing home about. Let's get started with the details of the various subsidiaries beginning with real estate, our core business. As I said, I mentioned the increase in the portfolio to the CHF 11.9 billion, and certainly, revaluation is essential there, negative CHF 47.3 million, but this has to be put into perspective of the entire portfolio. We're talking about 0.4%. 0.4% is not really dramatical. And of course, it's always influenced by current market terms, market conditions and especially at the time in May and June, the market was clearly impacted by COVID. So the very negative terms of retail figures. And these are net figures. We had a lot of positive revaluations, but the net figure was minus 47.3 million. So the negative revaluation explains like this. Net property yield went down slightly, which is due to COVID-19 as well and the loss of rental income as a result of COVID-19. We'll be coming back to this in a minute. The vacancy rate, slightly higher than the previous year, currently at 5.4%. It's important for you to know that we're not changing guidance. Guidance remains the same. We want to keep vacancy rate below 5%, but due to the implications of COVID-19, the way we're seeing them now, we will perhaps not make it, keeping the vacancy rate below 5% by the end of the year. So temporarily, we'll exceed the figure of the -- target figure of 5% of vacancy rate. But despite COVID-19, it is fair to say that there was strong letting and transaction activity, in particular, in the first months of January and February and a little more again in June. Beginning with letting success, new lettings, some of them had higher rents here in Prime Tower, then in the CBD district of Zurich and Opus of Zug where tenants are international or major Swiss companies. And we are talking about a total of 41,200 square meters of rerented space. The purchases. We had 3 of them. A fully let office property at Zollikofen near Bern, and a development plot at Uster in the canton of Zurich which is an excellent complement to the plot we already have in that place. And we have signed but not transferred yet, a logistics property at Buchs in the canton of Zurich as well. We sold 1 smaller building at Laupenstrasse in Bern at the beginning of this year. Let's look at projects quickly. We'll get back to more details later on. We carried out the study for maaglive. The maaglive premises here next door in Zurich. We got 2 building permits for the 2226 JED II building at Schlieren in Zurich and the Tertianum Paradiso at Lugano. This procedure took a long time in the canton of Ticino, but as long as we had expected. And we started construction of Tertianum at Richterswil which is a Tertianum building. And 2 important move-ins we had for Zühlke in JED I at Schlieren. This is the former NZZ printing shop building, and the second one is Lonza Basel, one of the 4 finger docks in Basel. We'll be coming back to this in a minute. And we have completed 1 project, Weltpost Park in Bern, it's building -- well, it's various residential buildings that we did not want to keep on our portfolio. We sold them and the buyer was the Allianz insurance company, and this has been completed and handed over to the investors. So much for the core business of real estate. Moving on to services. Just to give you a quick look at the various group companies, beginning with Wincasa. Wincasa increased its assets under management to CHF 71.2 billion and the digital rental contract was introduced for the beginning of 2021. This is certainly important for the digital environment and the new ERP with Wincasa. Now what can I say before coming back to it later on. Of course, there was a strong impact in the first half year at Wincasa due to the additional work to be processed on 2000 rental -- or rent requests. SPS decided to contact their tenants. First, our asset managers did that. So we're talking about all other clients of Wincasa. For the 2,000 requests without SPS customers. And shopping centers were closed. So they had to deal with that. 60 of the 90 were totally closed. 30 of them were partially closed. So this meant traditional work that was a great load on their staff. By the way, fortunately, their staff, well-equipped digitally, were able to work from home. Now the negative side about Wincasa, most of it seems to be looking good. The negative thing is that you don't get paid for the additional work currently, most of the contracts are designed in such a manner that you cash in your fee on rental income made. And if there is no rental income coming in, then your fees will be decreasing. So there's more work, but less fees coming in, countervailing trends. Jelmoli was strongly hit in terms of operations as a result of the complete lockdown. We managed in a powerful action to relaunch the food area within 3 days of the lockdown. I would like to thank all Jelmoli staff involved for the extra effort that they were taking. There was a lot of insecurity in the market regarding the virus. Can you be affected personally? Are safety measures sufficient? And so on. These were the big questions, but they did a great job, and it was very much welcomed by Zurich and its population. That was certainly a positive move. Then we can open The Circle site. Now the most recent date we got is November 5. And I would assume that this will apply. It's been postponed on several occasions, and we're going to have the relaunch of the online shop in the first quarter of 2021, when introducing the new ERP system at the same time. Let's look at Swiss Prime Site Solutions quickly. We've got assets under management increasing to CHF 2.3 billion, by 5%. We are expecting of CHF 2.5 billion to CHF 2.6 billion by the end of the year. That's our forecast for the end of the year. The target investment yield can be confirmed to be between 3% and 4% or 3.5% and better, let's say. And certainly, another positive thing is Leuenhof, the Leuenhof building, where the anchor tenant has moved in or is paying rent at least. And that's certainly decisive as Leuenhof by far is the largest asset on the portfolio of the Swiss Prime Investment Foundation. Let me also mention, on a positive note, we decreased the vacancy rate to just under 5% to 4.17% which is certainly highly positive development. And I would like to congratulate Anastasius Tschopp on being elected to the group management from the 1st of January in 2021. So much for the first comments on 2020, the first half year. Let's move on to Tertianum. And we need to repeat briefly what we sold and what we are keeping, just for you to understand. The operating business of Tertianum, let me emphasize that. It was closed on 28th of February 2020. No better timing, by the way, in brackets, just mentioning it in brackets, and the purchaser is Capvis, a Swiss private equity company. So what will be sold? We sold the operations, which you can see in bullet point #4, 80 residential and geriatric care centers in 16 cantons in Switzerland, around 5,000 employees that we handed over and 3,150 nursing beds and 1,700 apartments. So the cost block on the balance sheet has changed fundamentally. There's a huge gap without the personnel costs that we have now handed down. And what have we retained? We retained the 15 buildings, which we already own. And in addition to that, the 2 buildings or 2 projects from the development pipeline being built and 2 that are in development. So that adds to a total of 19 buildings, which will be held by Swiss Prime Real Estate limited. And just not to forget the Investment Foundation is also an owner of buildings run by Tertianum, of 9 buildings, indeed. What could the future look like? Of course, we're interested in further growth in Tertianum so that we can invest in the buildings, but the operator will be external, i.e., Tertianum as a holding company of Capvis. And Tertianum has become the largest tenant with a share of 5.7% of rental income, as always, on 30th of June 2020. Now you're saying, this may be a risk. Tertianum may be a risk. But no, it's not because Tertianum -- our buildings held by Tertianum are in city centers -- located in city centers, and this is why we don't want to own a building, say, in the canton of Grisons. There is no special zone for geriatric care centers like the hospital zone. So in terms of zones, all Tertianum buildings that we own could be reused for residential purposes and condominiums, which could be sold in the market. Of course, that would require some CapEx, but it's feasible. So the risk is certainly manageable and quite apart from that, I don't believe that Tertianum wants to shrink. And people are not going to become younger. They're going to live longer. So this is the long-term business. So much by way of an overview of Tertianum. Now I have some comments on finances and financial implications. At the top line, we've got around CHF 500 million of operating income that we lost, if you like. So at the EBIT level, at least considering last year, 2019, it was CHF 34 million that we cannot show anymore and the impact on the balance sheet then, is relatively significant. That is why we managed to reinforce the balance sheet. You saw it on the basis of the 46%. We recovered goodwill of around CHF 305 million and cash inflow amounted to around CHF 600 million. Sales proceeds. We communicated that. You saw that, it was CHF 204.2 million. Now it would all be easy if all this had been completed on the 1st -- 31st of December 2019. We did the signing, but closed only in February, which means that Tertianum still will be present in the 2020 results at least for a period of 2 months. We're talking about rental income from leased properties of CHF 10.9 million. And the actual income from assisted living in the amount of CHF 72.4 million and an EBIT contribution in the first 2 months of CHF 2.2 million. So at the end of the year, we're going to net this as well and make sure you can compare the figures. So much on Tertianum and the implications of the sale of it, of Tertianum, on our results. Now let me say a few words about the pandemic, COVID-19. Well, you've got to read this chart such as follows. On the left-hand side, we've got 0 line. Forget about the left-hand side, I mean, what is this chart to tell you? It is to demonstrate to you the dramatic change of mobility due to the lockdown. Let's leave aside people going on foot. Let's take public transport at the bottom and people using cars at the top. Let's take these curves and look at how mobility has increased again with every stage of easing of measures. Again, moving towards the summer vacation period, mobility increased anyway. And it is fair to say that the COVID-19 pandemic had extreme implication, not only on buying behavior, but also on general mobility. That's the first statement I would like to make. Second statement, which you can see at the bottom is, well, mobility related to people working from home. Will people continue to work from home? Yes, they will. Working from home will be here to stay. But this is Switzerland. This is not a different country. Everyone working in London city and covering 3 hours of travel to commute there and taking the tube that is really packed. So you can imagine that these people tend to stay home. But here in Switzerland, it's different. People like to go to work, to the offices. There are industries in which it will be easier to have people working from home and others, it will not be possible. So there will be a balance of people going to work and people working from home, but those of us who want to work from home, and there are many of them, will require more work, be it space to work in or the backup space to make available to them to -- just to make their workspaces more appealing. So the question is, how appealing does our office space have to be in future? And by the way, that applies to the entire industry. You have to be as appealing as possible so that people really are fond of going to work. Psychologically, they would want to go to work. We noticed that in our case, people -- our people were happy to get back to work because they missed social contact. You can't do everything at home. So we believe that this balance will reestablish and also in terms of figures. How did the various group companies fare? In terms of real estate, of course, they were impacted by the closure of retail and gastronomy spaces. Then car parks, parking was impacted, especially in city centers, in inner cities, and we have some investments there, which -- in car parks that were almost empty. Then we had around 500 requests for rent deferrals. We -- by the way, we processed around 350 of them. In the meantime, there was delays in transactions or no transactions during the lockdown at all. And it was difficult to let spaces in lockdown, which is easy to understand. There was insecurity in the market about the virus. You simply didn't want to conclude a rental agreement because you were having different problems. That will recover, but we felt this specifically in the first half year. Now moving on to Jelmoli. Jelmoli had to close down entirely during lockdown. We reopened the food space with a positive response in the general public. The majority of staff was sent into short-time working mode, and that was a new experience we had inside Jelmoli. For Wincasa, it was more complicated to work, although most of us were well equipped digitally. There were tenant requests that I mentioned already. 60 of 90 shopping centers were closed down. And for construction and facility management, certain projects -- construction projects were postponed, be it refurbishments or others, where Wincasa was very active for their clients. It was similar to the signing of new rental agreements. If you haven't launched your construction yet, the natural response would be to wait and see, not to get started. And this then led to postponement also in terms of fees paid on the construction projects. And for Swiss Prime Site Solutions, we have a similar picture to the real estate company, no transactions. We had a major transaction yesterday, [ youth ] for the investment foundation. So we believe that we can catch up on fees in the second half year, but in the first half year, the market was almost fallow. And it was difficult to get organized in this setting. And -- but this is really a very positive note. Swiss Prime Site Solutions processed around 100 tenant requests for their customers, and they have been processed as of today. So the implications on the results are as clear as they can be. In financial terms, what have been the implications here? So this is the real estate company. I talked about the 500 tenant request, 320 were processed by the end of June, 350 as of today. So what did we report in the top line? The loss of rental income, the CHF 1.1 million, that's rent deferrals that we granted. You will recall that we communicated that for tenants with less than CHF 5,000 and that's the CHF 2.1 million, and we also have sales based or car park rental income, CHF 2.5 million that we cannot catch up in the second half of the year. That's what we booked in the top line, and for value adjustments, we have an additional CHF 14 million -- or impairments, we've an additional CHF 14 million. How did rent collection fare in the first half year? It was at 95%, which is certainly an excellent value 95%, 29% -- 92% rather in the second quarter, which was more severely affected by the pandemic than the first quarter. So it's 98% in the first quarter and 92% in the second, which aggregates to 95% in the half year. What do we expect? And that's the forecast for the top line by the end of the year. On the core business, we expect a rent loss of around CHF 20 million by the end of the year. That's less than 5%. So it's actually fairly manageable, what we are going to lose. That's always a state-of-the-art. That's today's expectation. It depends on -- to what extent the pandemic will evolve. Over on the left-hand side, you've got the real estate portfolio. We are really set up well for COVID 19 impact. We've got the retail space of 26%, but then hotels and restaurants accounting for 7%. Now our concern is that, well, the sale has done rather well. You can see the figures with the Jelmoli and other tenants, the sales figures were very positive. Let's leave aside the compulsory mask wearing in Zurich, but our personal concern is really about the city hotels, travel industry. We saw Zurich airports figures. When do you expect figures to go up again? Who is going to move into those city hotels? And we always wanted to certainly invest in city hotels, not in tourist regions, but when we decided to do that, we had no idea there would be COVID-19. So our worry is about the recovery of the city hotels. Of course, there are better and worse schemes to recover. But we want to focus on hotel and restaurants as well. We have seen that the innovative restaurant owners increase their sales -- I don't know about bottom line, but it is possible even in such situations to come up with positive figures. I have another chart on majority structure of rental agreements. On average, we've got a majority of 6 years. This is bullet point #3. It's very positive. Well, 20.1% run for more than 10 years, especially due to Tertianum, of course, that makes sense. And below 1 year, just to explain that, below 1 year, we have a separate deal at the bottom. That's the indefinite ones that we do not even include anymore. The indefinite rental agreements for residencies or car parks can be -- have notice period of 3 months and 4.5% is their share. And the ones under 1 year have been extended to the extent of 60%. This year, by the way, does not go to the end of 2020, but it applies from July 1, 2020 to 30th of June 2021. It's not the calendar year that we're showing here. We're very precise. We're showing the half year figures, and that's why this is a forecast for the entire next business year. Of the major tenants, I have already mentioned Tertianum. We've got the 6 largest tenants shown here at the bottom right, just to show you the shift there, Tertianum is now the biggest tenant. What you're not seeing here anymore is Migros as Globus. And Globus is shown here. Globus was the largest part of Migros that we held and Globus, it ranks 4. And then we've got Zurich Insurance and Swiss Post on rank 6. So much on the maturities, structure, and for my introductory remarks, which was relatively long introduction. And so let me hand over at this point to Markus Meier to comment on the key financials.

Ladies and gentlemen, I would now like to talk about the key financial figures for the first 6 months of 2020. There have been some highlights, but also some corona-induced low lights. We had growth in the core business of real estate generated by rental income and profits from divestments. Then there was also the successful divestment of Tertianum and growth in Wincasa and in construction management fees as well as in the digital transformation, but also we had some increases in personnel expenses. Swiss Prime Site solutions was slowed down considerably, obviously, and then Jelmoli well, of course, there was a lockdown and then the food market was open. But that certainly had some negative effects in the first 6 months. This is an overview before we get into the details. And to take a look at the key financial figures. So then here, you can also see the tax effects. Last year, there was a referendum or the staff referendum. And as a result, various important cantons reduced their tax rates, in particular, the canton of Geneva and Basel city, which means that in the second half of 2019, we were able to release tax provisions to the tune of CHF 158 million. And then another CHF 6 million in the first half of 2020. Also as a result of reduced tax rates. So that had an effect, of course. And then we see negative valuation effect, CHF 47.3 million, mainly in retail, restaurants and hotels. And then, of course, various other negative COVID-19 effects. And now take a look at the development of our equity. We considerably strengthened equity. And as a result, the resilience of our balance sheet, NAV increased by 10.2% compared with the 30th of June 2019 and by 5.2% compared with the end of 2019. Additionally, the divestment of Tertianum boosted our equity. And we had sales profit of CHF 204 million. And this the -- this also contains CHF 270 million of profit. And we also were able to get back the goodwill, which we had offset at the time, CHF 3.5 million in total. So Tertianum boosted our equity by CHF 508 million. Then we also had the dividend payout of CHF 289 million. We also saw some share capital increases through convertible bonds, which -- where the share price was marked above the conversion price of the 2 convertible bonds coming out for conversion, but the actual conversions increased equity by just CHF 2.4 million. The equity ratio is a strong 46%, which is within our goal. And this is the development of our real estate portfolio, which grew to CHF 11.9 billion by CHF 150 million. The most important growth driver is our projects, CHF 106 million is their contribution. Examples are the buildings in Basel, Stücki Park and JED and West-Log in Zurich and the 2 properties in Geneva, Plan-les-Ouates and Pont-Rouge next to the new train station. Modifications and modernizations also led to equity increases. Examples here on the Barfüsserplatz in Basel. This was a former retail building, which is being converted into a banking service building, and it also contains investments into the former Stücki Mall. There was a drop in the value of existing properties, where we invested CHF 45.8 million and the revaluation effects accounted for minus CHF 53 million. We have acquired a property in Zollikofen near Bern for the price of CHF 44 million and a development plot near -- in Uster near Zurich. We sold Laupenstrasse in Bern with -- at a considerable profit and 3 smaller properties were also sold as part of the Tertianum divestment. This is our financial structure. The funds, CHF 600 million from Tertianum were then provided for investments, earmarked for investments and the obligation, which will mature in October of CHF 230 million. The capital markets were in turmoil, basically in the same week as our financial conference was in the spring. And so we kept a low profile here and were cautious. But financing compared with last year was slightly reduced, and the maturity structure was a -- continues to be very balanced and evenly distributed. And you can say that the short-term loans which are about to reach maturity have been refinanced or are being rolled. Then our future contractual obligations towards various general contractors in connection with developments and modernizations, which are covered by secured and available credit limits with various Swiss banks. As per the 30th of June, the weighted average interest rate at financial liabilities was 1.2%, which is a reduction of 20 basis points compared with the same period of the previous year, and had a residual maturity of 4.6 years. The loan-to-value of our properties is at 45.1%, which is within our targeted bandwidth of 45%. This is a summary of the group income statement of Swiss Prime Site. And here, you can see the effects from the Tertianum divestment on the operating income and operating expenses. Here, operating income was down by CHF 157 million and operating expenses by CHF 144 million. Then there's some revaluations, CHF 85 million and a reduction of CHF 47.3 million. And so revaluation gains on some of the properties here at maag area, Prime tower and ancillary buildings and some other properties in Zurich on Müllerstrasse and Beethovenstrasse. Another important contribution also came from property developments such as YOND in Zurich Albisrieden, which was opened this year. And Tourbillon Plan-les-Ouates in Geneva, as well as Schönburg in Bern and Stücki Park in Basel, which is a laboratory office building. And the loss, which led to the negative results are mainly in Zurich, but also some in Geneva and St. Gallen, mainly retail properties. The fair value average real discount rate is more or less the same, 3.05% as compared with 3.06% at the end of 2019. And this is not -- nominally, this is 3.6%. Now we had sales profit of approximately CHF 14 million, CHF 6 million from direct sales and CHF 8 million from percentage of completion from real estate developments. In relation to the progress of the construction work, additional profit will be generated via the POC of Plan-les-Ouates development in Geneva until the project is finished in 2021. And there's also a profit from the sale of Tertianum of CHF 204 million, and it consists of the equity value minus transaction costs. The equity value was CHF 477 million and minus the equity transaction in goodwill into shareholders equity offering CHF 4 million and minus the net assets sold was CHF 69 million. The transaction led to a reduction in head count from 5,400 at the end of 2019 to 1,480 full-time equivalents. We used the market environment to further reduce our financial expenses. And here, we have the tax effect. We had CHF 106 million last year tax income. And this year, CHF 3.5 million in tax expenses. And this is mainly due to the tax reserves, the deferred tax reserves, which are still approximately CHF 1.1 billion today. All this led to a doubling of the profits to CHF 320 million excluding revaluation effects and all deferred taxes. And here, this is the net rental income for the group. It shows the effect of the Tertianum divestments of CHF 21.1 million. This is the rental income from additional properties, which belong to third-party investors and not to Swiss Prime Site itself. And this is for the first 4 months of 2020. And we can also see that we sell properties from time to time, and we sold properties this year, which lost us CHF 3.7 million in terms of rental income, but this was offset by the finished projects. This is very positive. We also had additional rental income from purchases from CHF 1.9 million. This is mainly Zollikofen near Bern and 2 properties that we bought last year in Basel, Münchenstein. Those are properties with additional development potential. This now is the operating profit and the EBIT of CHF 313.6 million. And you can see here that the top line has changed considerably. This is the Tertianum effect in blue -- light blue, and we can also see the Jelmoli drop in earnings and the lower asset management fees generated by Swiss Prime Site Solutions. We also have a reduction in operating income in real estate. This is not due to corona, but this is due to the percentage of completion sale. So [ Plan-les-Ouates ], for example, will run into 2021. And so this always shifts a little bit and leads to lower income this year. And in the middle, you can see the EBIT according to segments, real estate and services. And those show a clear drop in our -- of CHF 149 million in our core business. And these were the negative deviations in the revaluation by CHF 133. And now we also have the approximately CHF 16 million as -- which are the COVID effect, which are also being reported. And now the CHF 16 million divided as follows: CHF 2.6 million reported in the top line and CHF 1 million from parking and CHF 1.5 million from rental income depending on turnover and CHF 1.1 million that we already -- rental payments that we waived during the time of the lockdown. And another, this is also included in the operating income. This is like a provision for possible future rental reductions according to our risk assessment for the second half of 2020. And now let's take a look at the EBIT from the group companies. Wincasa, as you heard, assets under management CHF 71.2 billion. So it went up. And now we are looking at the investments into the future, in digitalization, transformation of customer value center platforms, which have -- make a temporary burden on the EBIT. And Jelmoli started into 2020 above the previous year's level and above budget, but during the knockdown, the company was only able to operate the food market, where sales exceeded expectations, although margins in this area are below those of the company as a whole. This will not be able to catch up with the loss of business incurred during the lockdown. And thanks to transactions, with Prime Site Solutions had a very strong first 6 months in 2019. It was also stopped in its tracks by COVID in 2020. Tertianum EBIT contains its contribution of CHF 2.2 million, until the closing at the end of February 2020 and the divestment profit of CHF 204 million. So that was the overview of our key financial figures. And I would now like to hand over back to René Zahnd.

Thank you, Markus. Let me move on with an overview of the project pipeline and the status of the projects, beginning with a summary. So I'll give you the summary at the beginning. One figure remains unchanged, that's the size of the project pipeline. It stands at CHF 2 billion. We put together here the projects under construction totaling CHF 473 million, no longer included Schönburg and neither is YOND included in there because both of them have been taken on the portfolio. Then we've got around CHF 900 million in projects in development and CHF 600 million under reserves. Reserves, again, includes development potential that we have identified especially on properties on our portfolio, but also medium to long-term potential, which we haven't yet tapped into. So no design plan or building permit has been submitted. There is no hurry because often, on such properties, we've got good income of 4% or more. So we are getting good interest on waiting and seeing until we have the right moment for development. What do we expect in terms of rental income? A total of CHF 83 million, and we are expecting that on a project pipeline of CHF 1.4 billion, not including the potential from what we call reserves. And what net return on cost do we expect? We expect an average of 4.5%. There are projects clearly exceeding that, then Schönburg former project slowly below it. But the average of 4.5% is certainly gratifying, and it's got to be gratifying because the development business brings a certain additional risk. I'm not commenting on the next chart. That's just for you to show which projects are under construction, I prefer to show you pictures. And we are also showing the target rental income that we are currently expecting. If you add all this up, you ought to be getting up to the CHF 83 million posted before. Let me show you some pictures. YOND, on the left-hand side, 90% -- 92% of it has been let. And so this is the office -- commercial office building at Albisrieden in Zurich with an exciting additional potential of top floors special structures where we can grow inside the building. And it's typical of such a new project. And that will perhaps be the case for 2026 JED II. If it's a new product, you will only let powerfully when potential customers are seeing the project and understanding what this is all about. So these figures are very successful. The 92% of letting status is successful. And at the same time, we can inform you that Wincasa has moved in, which we're very happy with. We talked about people working from home and the average of people working from home, there is office space there for Wincasa staff, or 70% of Wincasa staff. So this is based on the assumption that 100% of staff will never be present in the office space. Due to working regulations, they can work from anywhere flexibly. So the factor of 0.7% and so 70% results from this. Schönburg is fully let. At center, West-Log will be handed over to Electro-Matériel soon. We've got 85% of letting status. This is a typical example. We have 4 interested parties, and all of them stayed on board but simply didn't want to sign in this period of time. So we are optimistic we can fill West-Log within next to no time. And other projects in -- under construction for Plan-les-Ouates, we've explained several times over, and we are pleased to repeat it that the building C&D were sold a long time ago to Hans Wilsdorf Foundation. Based on POC, percentage of completion, we're realizing gains there. And we are currently selling building E. This is currently going through the process of being sold as a whole building or in parts. And in the process of selling, we also have building A, condominiums for commercial businesses. So very exciting thing. Now come the city of Geneva, or I don't know whether it's the city or the canton of Geneva, I'm not quite sure. But the -- it's the biggest development area. And it's called PAV, Praille Acacias-Vernets which is just next door from our new project here at Pont-Rouge, and that is where we have a lot of commerce. A lot of people of -- commercial people who signed an agreement with either the city or the canton of Geneva, and have to move out in the next few years. That is why this project is so interesting. These people are looking for newer surfaces, and they are already familiar with condominiums, for instance. And so they might be attracted by what we are offering to them. What we're going to keep on the portfolio, so it's -- included in the CHF 83 million is building B over on the left-hand side. At center, we have JED 1, letting status 75%. At Zühlke, the former NZZ printing shop looks great, it's fair to say, doesn't it? And it's interesting to see the figures. It's 9,000 square meters space, 450 people working there, who are almost always present. It's a creative space. They do not work from home. Then -- and they use 20 square meters per capita. Now it's not a business like every other business, but you know that from banking and insurance industries, 8 to 10 square meters per workspace, and here -- per person, and here, we've got 20 square meters per person. So there is a countervailing effect with some people requiring more space. And over on the right-hand side, we've got the first 2 of 4 finger docks. We received a building permit for 4 finger docks in Basel. The first 2 have been built, the second stage will be triggered only when the first building is fully let. What have we let up to date? It's fully let here. And this includes the labs of Lonza. This is an office building currently being let. And when the lending status is good there, buildings 3 and 4 will be constructed. And here, we've got 2 projects under construction on behalf of Tertianum, one is Richterswil on the right-hand side, and the other is Monthey on the left-hand side. The example of Monthey shows you very well what I mentioned before, Tertianum sites, and it's easy to read here, allow for reuse as residential property. And so we would have an exit possibility there, but I don't think that this worst-case will ever apply because there is demand for care beds and residencies for elderly people. So much for projects under construction. Moving on to projects in development. Let me just say that on the left-hand side, we are seeing the CapEx involved and the curve showing when projects ought to be completed. So it's the time axis to 2026. And over on the right-hand side, current target rental incomes that we assume. And I'm showing you a few pictures regarding the status of these development projects. On the left-hand side, we've got actually two. It's just one picture, 2 projects being developed for Tertianum, one is Paradiso, where we received the building permit. It's directly on the lake, as if one building is really located on the lake. And it shows you that it's a residence or residence means for well to do elderly persons who can afford such a place. And at the same time, according to -- we have submitted the design plan. And the second project is Alto. That's not a residence, it's quite a normal geriatric center. We have received the building permit for Alto Pont-Rouge, that's the new trade station that we mentioned before, connecting Lancy with Geneva Central. Looking at this tower building, our future tower building and looking across it, you will be getting to Praille-Acacias-Vernets. It's just behind it. It's like a gate towards the new huge development potential for the city or canton of Geneva. Next is JED II at Schlieren, we received the building permit. We are not going to trigger construction unless we -- until we get a pre-letting status of 50%. The plan allows for having several tenants, single tenants and 2 major tenants. There's enough flexibility in this project. Stücki Park, I talked about that, about the buildings 3 and 4, we've got building permit for that. Next is Müllerstrasse, Zurich as a result of the asset swap with Crédit Suisse Zurich. We submitted a building permit or submitted a building application. The building will not be taken down, but will be -- everything inside will be removed, and the structure will be refurbished. We are going to try to use the model of the circular economy, recycling the aluminum facade and reuse it directly. So this is certainly a highly interesting sustainability project. Then we've got the architectural competition that we've had about maaglive. We have 2 internationally renowned architects ending up in the final round. No final decision has been taken yet. We've got 2 highly interesting projects that are entirely different. One project is based on the existing structure and the other project would erase everything. So we are going to continue to negotiate with the city, presenting 2 different options of what to do on this premises next door to Prime tower. And we are excited to see the final outcome. There will certainly be an exhibition as is appropriate after an architectural competition where all the proposals will be on show. And last but not least, we've got Rheinstrasse in Augst, where the zone plan has been granted, and we've got an interim letting situation that we're thinking about later than the other projects on the left-hand side. So how much about the status of projects in development. Now let's take a look at the outlook. Of course, it's difficult. You all know the SECO's figures. We are expecting the economy to shrink by 6.2% in 2020. The recovery of the global economy, of course, will very much depend on the general development of the pandemic. So it's difficult to make forecasts at the moment. But this year certainly not go down in history as the year of great growth. In terms of population, migration is expected to fall in 2020. Irrespective of the migration curbing initiative. And interest rates are -- we are expecting the Swiss National Bank to continue their expansive policy. The Limitation Initiative is going to be voted on the 27th of September. And then also, there's going to be referendum on the COVID-19 business rent law also in September. And -- so yes, let me say a few words because we are affected. We -- I strongly believe that this law is anti-constitutional in 3 points. And also, it would have to be retroactive. And as a lawyer, I know that this is not possible. And the third point is that now, at the moment, the idea is that the law should be valid until the end of 2022. And how -- this is hard to explain this, first 2 months and then retroactive and then you wanted to have effects until the end of 2022. That is not possible. So let's just hope that the parliament will see light and not put the law into action -- implement them all. And the other point is that since we've had this discussion, it's become more difficult to negotiate with tenants because some tenants don't care whether they wouldn't be affected by the law. They also say that they would be affected by it. I think it's a hurdle for us. And I think that our rental negotiations would already have made much more progress had it not been for this law. Anyway, let's just assume it's not going to be implemented. And so what are we expecting? The profit above the previous year. The sale of Tertianum, of course, is going to continue to have a positive effect on the annual results. And we've also already mentioned the impact of the pandemic on rental income of approximately CHF 20 million, a little less than 5%. And the vacancy rate of below 5% is going to be missed temporarily, but we expect the targets to still be good for 2020. And now we are open for questions.

[Operator Instructions] So what we're going to do is, you're going to ask the questions and I will repeat it so that the interpreters can hear it and then I'll answer. [Operator Instructions] So the large Globus properties in Geneva, Lausanne, Lucerne are not at risk. Of course, we are in contact with the new management. That's the way it should be with a key tenant, and they're not at risk. And we can say specifically that the main focus of Globus, apart from Zurich, is Geneva. Also their new luxury focus is going to be particularly implemented in Geneva and Zurich. Sorry, I forgot to repeat the question, I'll do it next time. So the question concerns The Circle. The first question is whether we are going to ask for a rent reduction? And the other question was how far we've got with employing staff, for the 5th of November for the expansion starting then. So first part of the question. Our commitment or involvement at the airport is 2,500 square meters. I keep hearing that we're rebuilding Jelmoli at the airport. That's not true. 400 square meters of the 2,500 are airside, and the airport has been very helpful during the lockdown. And so during the lockdown at the airside center, they were very helpful. And opening of the Circle. The Circle is 2000 square meters, and that's not passengers. I've never really had airport passengers in mind when I'm thinking about the Circle. But that's not -- the customers are people in Zurich North. And people working at the airport, too. And working at The Circle. And of course, here, we already have a very high rental coverage, and we're expecting 0 vacancies next year. And I think we're very well positioned for that. And particularly on The Circle, we have a very interesting rental income -- rental contracts based on turnover.

Now there was a question about staff employment. Well, we are currently looking for staff. We're trying to recruiting from both inside and outside the company. So we've made some progress here, too, where start date is the 5th of November, and we're expecting our staff to be employed by mid-October so that everything can be prepared for the big opening. So it's all well underway the expansion is working, and we're going to have 2 fantastic properties there.

Well, this is a question that we've been waiting for. No, Jelmoli is not going to be sold. And I will tell you why. We have -- of course, we calculate this. And we have calculated this with the rent from Jelmoli. And we are expecting the CHF 27.5 million of rent payments to keep coming. And we are going to confirm this for '22, '23 in operative terms. And we have also repositioned the property and try to consider smaller service areas for Jelmoli and renting out the rest as offices. And we have this calculated from an external party, and we also considered doing what Swiss Life is doing with the [ mono building ], just doing -- having retail on 3 floors and then offices on the top floors. And the message was the value of the property is CHF 800 million, whatever you do, and that's what is worth. And the second message was that variance, 2 and 3 will require an additional CHF 150 million CapEx to invest without achieving a higher fair value. So this is something that we're going to still do if we feel it's necessary, but at the moment, it doesn't make sense. So we had 3D models and calculated each and every staircase, we involved the fire experts, the static calculation, all of the engineering side. So these are really detailed calculations, which allowed us to weigh the pros and cons of the different scenarios. At the moment, it doesn't make sense from the point of view of the property to change anything. But our expectation of the operative business is, of course, black figures, not red ones. So the question is a comparison with PSP, 2 items, either value increases or cuts.

I am happy to answer that question. We have a larger portfolio compared with PSP, and we have more usage types, which were directly affected by COVID-19. 20% retail space and also our restaurants and hotels, 7%. So that's 33. And so the negative ones were just 4% of the total portfolio, that's not bad. And this could be completely different at the end of the year. At the end of the year, we may have 0. So this will depend on the market valuation at the end of the year, and that will depend on a lot of factors like -- and how the pandemic progresses. And we have decided to reduce the retail spaces in the medium term. We are now at 26%, and we want to get to below 20%. But I'm not talking about the Jelmoli in that connection. And I'm also not talking about the A locations, but about the B and C locations. And I'm not talking about food, but more about fashion. So we have to look very closely at which part of retails we want to reduce. And the second question, vacancies. Well, vacancies are an opportunity, always an opportunity because reducing vacancies will lead to additional rental income. And so it's always good to -- vacancies to the level that we have them are not a worry at all, but rather an opportunity for the future. And then there is another difference between PSP and us. You asked me about the basic vacancy rate is 4% to 4.5% and not 3% to 3.5%, and that's the development business that is accountable for that. And every year, we add new development projects to the portfolio. And these are included in the vacancy rates. Because, of course, during development, there we have vacancies, which will then be filled very quickly. And then we have the next development with. So of course, it is normal that we have a slightly higher vacancy rate than PSP.

Are there any more questions? So this is a question where the outstanding payments of CHF 10.7 million are included in the CHF 20 million that we are forecasting to have low interest yields. Yes. Yes, they're already included in the top line as the parking yields and also the sales-related rents. And this is a risk assessment. And as possible losses that we reported, but this is actually a forecast between now and the end of the year. Are there any more questions? Yes. So the question is about the share of different usage types in our projects compared with the current usage type distribution, I assume. Well, I'll start at the back end. So we're not going to have additional retail areas, apart from some properties that may have retail surfaces on the ground floor, but that's going to be the minority. Mostly, these are going to be service properties such as offices or offices of the type that we are having -- we are marketing at YOND. And we are also going to have a slightly higher percentage of residential areas, particularly in maag, because we also want to add residential units wherever that's possible, as well as logistics. Those are the 3 main segments. Well, a little -- approximately 60% is going to be services, 5% to 10% residential and approximately 20% logistics. Just to continue that calculation, the retail share is going to go down automatically. That's the logical conclusion without being active in that sense. So this will simply reduce the percentage of retail space without selling off any retail space. The question was, what would the influence be of this COVID-19 business rent law. If it was passed, which we do not hope. But if it was passed, let me summarize, and I'm only taking the CHF 15,000 cap. As you are aware, there is a range of CHF 15,000 to CHF 20,000. But you're actually free -- well, in that regard, Markus or Peter, what would be the influence -- the impact?

Well, you can assume that the figures we have calculated includes this scenario -- include this scenario because we have discussed most of it. We have 500 requests, 150 of them have been processed and for the balance. We are in the process of -- have actually progressed to about 3/4 of processing them, so it wouldn't kill us, fundamentally.

Well, it's -- the question was CHF 2.5 million and we've got CHF 1.1 million. That's what we have given away voluntarily. So if we just included everyone from CHF 5,000 to CHF 15,000 that would add up to CHF 1.4 million, and that, again, adds up then to CHF 2.5 million. Always on the basis of the CHF 15,000 cap, without that, there would be more. More questions? Yes, please. You have 4 already. Peter, the question was about utilization of Motel One.

Well, it's increasing by the week. We are currently at more than 20%. Of course, we started off at 0, then 5%, 10%, 15%. And of course, not satisfactory, neither for you nor for us, but the trend is important, and the trend is pointing upward. As far as hotels are concerned, I'm actually optimistic that we can rescue all of them to the final phase that will be sometime in 2021 because that's important for us. The total loss of a hotel would not be a nice thing, neither for us nor for the operator.

Well, the first question on the transaction market in retail. Whether there is any interest at all on the buy side? And my answer is Swiss Life. Someone, aboard the Glattzentrum and paying a hefty amount of money. So there is interest. And bear in mind that our retail spaces, not all the building would be retail. In B and C locations, you often have the main roads in villages and you have retail on the ground floor and residential space on upper level. So that can only be part of -- that can also be part of -- but we're not in the market yet currently. Question is 2 major assets in the market -- being in the market in Geneva, and whether we are actively involved in acquisition. Well, we're always keeping an eye on the market. We want to be up-to-date with what's happening in the market to position properly. So that's all I can say on that. But let me add to this question that well, we want to realize our development potential. So of course, we are condensing profit. We're working at the bottom line primarily. And I mentioned that as early as February, we are very guarded. Not saying we're not observing the market. We always do that, but we are very guarded as far as acquisitions are concerned. More questions? Yes, please. Well, we've included that in our calculations. Bear in mind, at the end of the year, when we do the budgeting for the new year, together with Peter's team, we calculate vacancy in developments. We consider what we believe to let and that is included already in our calculations. It will not bring down vacancy rates. Do you know the figure off the top of your mind? Well, it would perhaps have been negative. We have these 2 finger docks in Basel. One is fully let. The other is not let yet. So we've got a 50% letting status, and that is subject to quick change if we come to an agreement in the negotiations we're having at the moment, but it's not easy to answer, to give you a black or white answer at this point. Yes, please? You'll find that in this pipeline chart. This is why you can always see the time factor here. We're at 2026. That's -- these are the ones in development. And let me repeat that the reserves, we haven't touched. We haven't tapped into and not included here. So here, you can read that properly, which additional rental income is attributed to which projects. And in what year it will be completed? This is why we're making this available to you for you to understand. And we are keeping this up-to-date every half year because this is always subject to development over time. Any perhaps final question at this point? Well, you are allowed to ask the final question, if it's the final one. Well, that will probably be by 2023, and it will be specifically from 2 different pots, from project development to additional rental income. Maybe rental income isn't tantamount to EBIT, but around 70% of it is -- has an effect on EBIT, for you, as a simple calculation. And the other thing is, and we define that internally, it will be attributable to strong additional growth, which we want to go for in the field of asset management on the behalf of third parties. And Anastasius Tschopp was promoted not only because it is a good job, but because we want to grow specifically in this area. That's growth or capital-light growth, light capital growth and it's really justified to take up this position and to highlight on the significance of asset management on behalf of third parties. Well, I said it was the final question. So unless there's any final, final question, I would like to thank you very much for your kind attention and for coming here in the first place. It's nice to have a small crowd of onlookers when you present the figures. I would like to invite you for refreshments in the large crowd's room upstairs. So there will be enough space for you to spread and to comply with social distances. Thank you very much indeed. Have a good day. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]