Cibus Nordic Real Estate AB (publ)

STO:CIBUS

Earnings Call Transcript

[Operator]

[Audio Gap] [Operator Instructions]. Now I will hand the conference over to CEO, Christian Fredrixon; and CFO, Pia-Lena Olofsson. Please go ahead.

[Christian Fredrixon, executive]

Well, good morning, everybody, and welcome to the Cibus Nordic Real Estate's Quarter 1, 2024 Presentation. And as we just heard with via that lovely robot voice there, I am Christian Fredrixon, and I'm CEO of the company, and I'm joined here by our Group CFO, Pia-Lena Olofsson. So let's get cracking on the presentation.

To summarize the period, it's been a solid start to the year. We have stable cash flows in our underlying businesses. We are, of course, in the daily goods business, which in itself is a very stable underlying business. People are still buying food and groceries. The main point for the quarter is we've been very busy on the bond markets, taking proactive measures and extending our maturity profile and lowering our margins on bonds, but I will get back to that in a separate slide shortly. Our rental income is up 3%, driven by indexation through our 99% index-linked lease structure. Our operating -- net operating income is up 2%. We have a high surplus ratio of about 92%, but there's some seasonality in our property costs.

Profit from property management, up 4%. And when it comes to unrealized changes in value, we have a positive EUR 4 million change on our derivatives as interest rates have increased during the quarter and we have a negative EUR 22 million unrealized property value change, generated from a general change of yield requirements and one specific property in Finland, where we had an unrealized value chain.

Next slide. Thank you. We just had the AGM last week, and the AGM resolved the dividend of EUR 0.9 per share in monthly payments. And then the next slide, this slide may not look much, but this is actually one of my favorites. I think it says exactly as I said over the last quarter, it says exactly what we do, converting food into yield. And even adding to that, even Cibus, even the word means food or nourishment in Latin. So this is what we're all about, daily goods and the grocery. And then looking at us and not much has changed since the last quarter. We still convert food into yield. We focus purely on daily goods properties. We aim to create stable cash flows out of these properties. We've been listed since 2018 and 2021 on the mid-cap and we have a market cap of around SEK 8 billion. And if you're interested and if you like, daily goods, we want to invest in it. It's good to know that we are the only sole listed daily goods real estate vehicle in the Nordics for that kind of exposure.

We've grown from Finland into a pan-Nordic grocery player, and we pay monthly dividends to our shareholders. And then looking back at our expansion time line, started in Finland 2018 moved to Sweden in 2020, 2021 into Norway and in 2022 into Denmark. Our properties at the end of this quarter, a well-diversified portfolio. No change there that's been -- you'll recognize many of these figures as there's been no transactions during the quarter. 451 properties in 4 countries. Our current earning capacity has grown 2% year-on-year to EUR 114.1 million. Our property value is down 1.2% as mentioned earlier there. And we still have the same properties, so we also are just shy of 1 million square meters of property area.

And then again, just touching on what do we mean by stable cash flows. And we try and build stable cash flows from top to bottom in our results. We focus purely in daily goods and why daily goods. It's a noncyclical business. People buy food in all business cycles. Our tenants are financially strong counterparties who operate in a market with high barriers to entry. 84% of our rental income is from daily goods tenants. And worth mentioning is that excludes pharmacies, for example, and all Nordic state-owned alcohol monopolies. 97% of our properties are anchored by daily goods tenants. And when we say anchor, we often mean the only tenant in our properties as our average property size is about 2,200 square meter, which itself is a medium-sized supermarket. In those cases where we do have other tenants, it's maybe a flower shop or some kind of very small extra area.

As mentioned before, 99% of our leases are indexed-linked, strong tenants. That means a full pass-through of CPI gives us annual growth in our operations. And for us, just talking briefly about our tenants, doing very well. Sales growth is higher than CPI in all our markets, so sales are growing for our underlying tenants. We have a steady world and the store location stability is in itself in the daily goods business, very stable. Often when you have established a store in a location, their store will be there for decades. You create customer awareness and the stickiness of the site is very long term. When it comes to our portfolio, geographical diversification, we're in 4 countries, and we're in several regions within these countries. 451 assets, where the largest one is 1.7% of our net operating income. So it's a very, very well diversified portfolio, both geographically and also in very many small assets.

And as mentioned, about 2,200 lettable areas and average size. So that kind of -- that's the basis, and that's the underlying how we create a stable stability on the income side. And then when it comes to the cost side, over 90% of our leases are either net or triple net, and that shelters us from property cost increases. So that boils down to a very stable NOI and then we add on that, the stability in interest rate costs by hedging almost 100% with 97% interest hedging at the moment, and we have a diverse funding sources. So that kind of boils down to the stable cash flow that we aim to produce. One of our key metrics is earnings capacity per share, and it's our focus. We've historically delivered value to our shareholders through dividend yields, earnings per share growth and total returns. We've had historic operational stability, which is now proven and historic noticeable yield spread even through the business cycle of high inflation.

And our main growth driver, 2024 is increasing our earnings capacity per share. And happy to show you that now this is the third quarter in a row since the dip in mid-2023 where we have increased our earnings capacity and our aim is to continue to grow it. And why did the earnings capacity grow now in this quarter? Top line indexation growth, as mentioned, and we have been active doing bond refinancing, which I'll get back to on the next slide. So a pretty busy slide, but let me help you through it. This is all previously known information from the bond issues we did earlier this year.

As mentioned many times before we create -- we aim to create stable cash flows, and that goes also for our financing activities. For most commercial real estate companies, refinancing risk is one of the most important risks to manage, of course, and this quarter, we took steps to lower this risk in our bond portfolio by proactive measures. So we carried out 3 new bond issues during the quarter. And the purpose was to address the bond maturities we have in late 2024 and late 2025. So we're well ahead of the game now and taking active measures on this already now. So to the left, the first bond issue we did, which we talked about on the last earnings call as well, the new EUR 50 million bond, which was at the time the lowest margin ever for us considering tenor and that handled the bond -- it's planned to handle the bond in -- maturing now in December 2024.

And then as things in the bond market improved even more for us during the spring here, we carried out 2 new bond issues even to handle our 2025 and -- December '25 and our September '25 bonds. And the outcome was great and fantastic for us. We've now addressed all bonds maturing over the next 2 years, 2024 and 2025, so the next 1.5 years. And our next bond maturity in practice is in February 2027, subject to the redemption of the outstanding bonds are maturing now in '24 and 2025. So from this bond operation, we have managed to lower our average bond margin from 6.0% to 3.8% and we managed to extend the maturity 2 years from 1.6 years to 3.6 years. So what we managed to do is go longer and cheaper on our bond financing, which is great.

When it comes to our shares, we have a very liquid share with a turnover of SEK 53 million per day. And when it comes to our shareholders, it's strong and familiar names for those of you who've been following us for a while. We're very proud of those names. I'm very proud of our large number of shareholders in general. That's it for me for now. Over to Pia-Lena.

[Pia-Lena Olofsson, executive]

Thank you so much. We have some significant events during the quarter. As Christian said, we have focused on finance activities during the period. In January, we issued a EUR 50 million green senior unsecured bond at a margin of 4%, which was the lowest margin ever taking tenor into consideration. On the 18th of March, we announced that we considered issuing new green bonds and launched a repurchase offer for all bonds maturing 2024 and 2025.

On the 20th of March, we announced that Cibus had issued 2 green bonds; one EUR 80 million bond with a duration of 4 years with a margin of 4% and one SEK 700 million bond with a maturity of 3.5 years at a margin of 3.5%. And now these bonds are the lowest margins to date. The 21st of March, we announced the result of the repurchase offer, and we have repurchased bonds corresponding to EUR 32.8 million plus SEK 541.3 million. After the period at AGM, our Board members were reelected. The AGM also decided an unchanged dividend of EUR 0.90 per share divided into 12 payment occasions.

Looking at some key figures for the first quarter. Rental income was EUR 30.5 million. Net operating income grew with 2% to EUR 28.1 million. Net financial items was minus EUR 13.4 million, and profit from property management grew 4% to EUR 12.2 million. If we go into details, there are some items affecting comparability in the first quarter. In administration costs, we have partially doubled CEO costs during the quarter. In net financial items, we have a negative exchange rate change of minus EUR 0.3 million. Unrealized changes in property value was minus EUR 22 million. The negative change in value was partly due to higher yield requirements in the property portfolio, but also due to a negative unrealized change in the value of a property in Finland. The total effect was dampened somewhat by the increased rent level as a consequence of indexation.

At the end of the first quarter, 2024, the average initial yield in the portfolio was 6.5%. And then we have unrealized changes in the value of our derivatives that was plus EUR 4 million in the quarter. Our earnings -- current earnings capacity shows a net operating income of EUR 114.1 million, which is an increase of 2%. Indexation has increased the rent but currency effects and a slightly change in occupancy has dampened the increase. Profit from property management plus expenses for the hybrid bond was EUR 51.7 million. And adding back the noncash items, profit from property management was EUR 0.96 per share which is an increase of EUR 0.01 per share since the last quarter.

Looking at the net operating income in a comparable portfolio, we see that the effect of indexation and other rent increases amount to 4.8%. Indexation increases going forward will increase NOI and cash flow, while the financial expenses are 97% capped. Cibus segment as countries. Finland is the largest market with 68% of the NOI during the first quarter. Denmark and Sweden, both contributed with 14% and Norway is the smallest with 4% of NOI. Property value is fairly in line with the annual high distribution. Civil strategy is to give a share of a strong dividend on a monthly basis. AGM, as mentioned earlier, decided on an unchanged dividend of EUR 0.90 per share divided into 12 payment occasions. The dividend yield on the closing share price of SEK 140.30 at the end of the quarter was 7.4%.

Looking at the balance sheet. Property value was EUR 1.764 billion. Secured debt was EUR 886 million, giving a loan-to-value on secured debt of 50.3%. Unsecured bonds amount to EUR 189 million but this includes EUR 21.5 million of the December '24 bond that is callable in June. And net LTV was 58.7%, at the end of the quarter. Our net asset value, or NAV, was EUR 680 million or EUR 11.9 per share. Our remaining lease time was 4.8 years at the end of the first quarter and continues to be stable around 5 years. Regarding funding, more than 80% is bank loans, 100% of the bank loans are interest rates hedged, 17% of funding sources is unsecured bonds. Of this, 83.5% are hedged as well.

Our hybrid bond amounted 2.7% of total funding and have a first [ call ] in September 2026. Based on the earnings capacity and taking all interest rate hedges into consideration, an increase of the market interest straight with 1 percentage point would affect profit with less than minus EUR 0.5 million annually. An increase of 2 percentage points would affect profit with minus EUR 0.9 million annually. As you can see, the largest part of Cibus hedging is interest rate caps which means that lower interest rates can affect Cibus paid interest going forward. Cibus covenant is on the new bonds, an ICR of 1.5x and net LTV of 70%. At the end of the first quarter 2024, we had an ICR of 2.2x and a net LTV of 58.7%. Over to you, Christian.

[Christian Fredrixon, executive]

Thank you, Pia-Lena. So back to the future now. The -- an outlook for 2024, just touching upon that now. For the year, our focus will be on continuing to grow our own capacity per share. And it is a very important metric for us, and we'll be keeping a close eye on that. Just underlying in our business, CPI 2024 in all our markets look like they support rental income growth through indexation in their own right. We see stable development in the underlying daily goods business with sales growth larger than CPI in all our markets. Of course, ongoing situation here with Central Bank Communications and an inverted swap curve indicate falling interest rates in our markets. And all in all, of course, falling interest rates are good for the real estate sector in general but also for many tenants and also consumers, of course.

So interesting to follow how that develops during this year. A point here will increase investor interest. I think that's -- it's fair to say that in volatile times, there's more and more focus on stable companies and stable cash flow in operational sectors. And that's something I feel when we meet the market and there's more and more interest in the stable cash flow in our business and our underlying daily goods businesses in general. And one way to look at that is in the MSCI Property Index of 2023, they had a presentation where they showed every single sector. And this is just Sweden, by the way. Sweden MSCI 2023 Property Index, where they showed all of the sectors and how the total returns were for 2023. And there was only one sector or one subsector, one submarket, which had shown positive total returns for 2023, and that was supermarket.

And I think in general, that says a lot about the stability of the underlying real estate business of grocery and daily goods. And also just looking out abroad and in Europe, we see in Europe and the U.K., there are very many specialists. The only thing they do is buy their own supermarkets. The number of REITs in the U.K. and in Germany and also in other continent -- place in Continental Europe, which only focus on supermarkets. And I think that's a trend that will be highlighted and emphasized going forward due to the nice stable cash flows of this business. And when it comes to the property transaction market, I think there'll be more activity as we go into 2024. Grocery assets and daily goods, they trade at positive yield spreads, which means they can be financed, which means that they can actually throw up cash flow from day 1. And I think that's an important thing that many investors are looking for in this market.

And also importantly, the average lot size is small. It's a liquid product in its own right because there's many buyers who can buy it. And I hope that I think that during this year, we'll see that there are creative business opportunities for us, and we have a motivated competent organization and ready to react on these when and if opportunities arise. The outlook for 2024. ESG, as put in, in the title here, there's both an E and an S in ESG. And I think that's very important to bring that out for daily goods and grocery real estate. When it comes to the E side of things, we have a green framework and sustainability-linked framework in place under 2023, working under those now.

We are working towards a climate-neutral and a carbon-neutral target of 2030. One of our main things we're working on there is energy efficiency. These buildings, they're small, but they consume quite a lot of energy in building a store to think about when you go to your own supermarket, it may be cold outside, but it's warm inside, but then you need to cool the grocery. And in the summer, it's the other way around. So energy efficiency is a focus, both for us and for our tenants. And as you know, we have 90% of our leases -- our net leases. So we need to work side-by-side with our tenants in order to implement and work with energy efficiency. The good thing is that our tenants are, of course consumer -- property -- consumer companies, by now they have millions of consumer visits every week.

So we work closely with them in order to achieve these environmental goals. When it comes to the S in ESG, of course, it is the daily goods and the real estate that within the daily goods segment is an important part to play in everyday life. I mean it's very important to the population to get food and food supplies and food logistics. And this is, of course, the last -- the grocery chains and the real estate is the large -- latest and then the last part of the logistics chain to get food to a population. And also, when it comes to mental health and society, the grocery store or daily goods store is often the only physical meeting places in the modern world in many locations.

So it's very important that these places keep to a -- keep to be accessible and safe marketplaces, and that's something we work with our tenants in order to make them accessible and safe. And so what are our focus areas going forward, starting to the left, stability and the earnings per share. Growth earnings -- we want to grow our earnings capacity per share, as said before. We continue to deliver stable cash flows and dividend paying capacity. We're looking at cash earnings per share accretive potential transactions continue to optimize the balance sheet as required. And then as I briefly touched on before as well, the ESG side of things, social infrastructure as part of a resilient society. That's what our properties are. Daily goods is a very important meeting place working with energy efficiency and targeting our climate neutral goal by 2030.

And then the last slide for us, the primary reasons to invest in the Cibus share; high and stable yield, firstly, favorable value growth potential through indexation and our aggregation strategy where we buy assets and put them into our portfolio, monthly dividends. And then number four, here, stable and long-term underlying sector with resilience and stability. And really to wrap up, so it's been a good start to the year, a stable start. The bond operations made us go lower and longer, lower margins and longer maturities. We've grown our earnings capacity for the third quarter in a row and that we have a goal to increase our earnings capacity per share going forward. Thank you.

[Pia-Lena Olofsson, executive]

Now we're open now for questions. .

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Svante Krokfors from Nordea.

[Svante Krokfors, analyst]

A couple of questions. First one to Christian, you had now been a couple of months as the CEO, is there anything in the organization that you feel that you want to change or will change?

[Christian Fredrixon, executive]

Yes. No, 100 days tomorrow actually here at Cibus. It's been a great, great start and it's been great fun. I think it's a very stable company. We know exactly what we're doing and we have a stable property portfolio. We've had a growth from 2018 up to about 2022 and then been on a pause for a while. So I'm hoping that we, sooner or later, will be able to move into more of a growth mode again, of course. And I think we have an organization which is very fit for that. I mean, we are, as you know, very lean and small organization, just over 10 employees. And but that also gives us a lot of flexibility. If we were to start growing, we can easily add properties in any of our regions because we work with the local partners and then local partners are on standby if we were to start growing again.

And that gives us -- that gives us great flexibility also to look at where we can do the best deals? Where do we get the best returns in which market? Is it Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, so we can look objectively all -- on all of our markets, thanks to that flexibility.

[Svante Krokfors, analyst]

That's clear. And how do you look at the M&A side? I mean, your share is now trading broadly in line with EPRA NRV. So I guess that increases the likelihood also that you could consider partly equity-financed transactions.

[Christian Fredrixon, executive]

I think there'll be opportunities in the market going forward. I hope there will be and I think, as mentioned before, I think it is a liquid product, and there are potentials to make transactions out there. When it comes to M&A, we have cash. We have cash to do small acquisitions, of course. I think payments, in kind, are a potential for us also. And we have a liquid share, which pays a nice dividend. I think that's something that's sought after and attractive to many parties in the market who may be looking at doing some deals with us.

So going back to that, yes, let's see what we can do on that side. And to comment what you mentioned there on the equity raise. I mean, the history of the company is that it has grown through larger transactions. For example, when entering a new market. So the company has done 6 equity raises in order to grow in the past.

[Svante Krokfors, analyst]

And then a couple of operational questions. Looking at your surplus ratio, it declined from 93% to 92.1%, and your occupancy rate declined from 94.8% to 94.1%. Could you elaborate a bit, is the decline in surplus ratio? Is it solely based on lower occupancy rate? And what are the reasons behind the occupancy rate decline?

[Pia-Lena Olofsson, executive]

I mean we do have small variations, but we are an active -- working with our property portfolio. So as you can see also in the -- we are always looking to see if we can have new tenants into our vacant properties. So it's just a slight change in occupancy, but that's something that we're working with and nothing larger change. When it comes to the surplus, then of course, that has an effect of the property costs, and that varies over time. In Q1, you always have more cost for heating and snow removal. And of course, that differs between the years and things like that also. And also, depending on what is charged through Cibus and what goes directly to the tenants, that also has an effect. So I would say that nothing dramatically and that we are working actively with our portfolio when it comes to vacancy.

[Svante Krokfors, analyst]

And perhaps regarding the -- what was mentioned in the CEO comment, the write-down of the asset in Kesko asset in Lahti. Could you elaborate a bit on the size of that, I guess, it's a relatively big piece, and it appears that the write-down is quite substantial compared to the -- I mean it sounds like it could be almost closer to 50% write-down of that asset if it's part of that EUR 22 million. But could you give some color on the situation regarding that property, I guess, it could be closer to a 1% economic occupancy rate [indiscernible] for you.

[Christian Fredrixon, executive]

Sure. Happy to talk about that. I mean the -- it's one of our largest assets. It's -- it's up there among the top 5. And the situation is this, that this is like this. And it's fun to you, you are Finnish. So you know the city very well, of course. But it's one of the largest cities in Finland, of course, and this is a very central location. And what's happened here is that Kesko has outgrown our property, as I understand it. And they've acquired a site opposite us to build their own store location and a larger store location for this store. And I mean, this is the kind of things that happen in a portfolio of 450 assets. This is, of course, one of our largest, of course, and therefore, it's a big -- it's an impact worth mentioning here. And -- but when it comes to the actual situation, so our tenants have decided that they want to build something for themselves. They're staying in the area. They're moving on the other side of the street. I mean I think that validates the strength in the location. We are already in discussions with other grocer retailers to come into the location.

And that's also what happens, is my experience from my years within grocery real estate, when you leave a location as a retailer, there's a [indiscernible] to someone else who wants to come in because it is cut-through competition among the retail chains. And if someone were to come in here, of course, but that's good for us, and it can show the strength in the location, as mentioned. But speaking of this one, in particular, it's worth mentioning that we were, only last week, also awarded or told that we've moved forward as one of 2 finalists in creating a new community health center on the site. So I think this demonstrates improves how we do work proactively with our portfolio to see if there are things we can do, if and when a tenant were to move out. But I don't think it's no biggie for us, this. It's, of course, a substantial write-down in million euros, of course, but there's ample opportunity to continue working with this product -- on this property.

[Svante Krokfors, analyst]

And then you also, in the CEO comment, you mentioned about retail chains buying assets. How do you look at this -- what's the reason for the increased activities, sharp increases in CPI-linked rents? And do you see this as a positive or negative from your perspective that, for example, Kesko also bought in Espoo, one of their biggest supermarkets into their own balance sheet.

[Christian Fredrixon, executive]

Yes. I see it as very positive that the retail chains are there and they have the financial muscle to buy the -- their own properties and their own store properties. I mean, it, in effect, creates a floor of pricing. I think that's what we see now is that the prices have -- index has pushed up rents and pricing has more or less remained the same, as you can see, in all property companies and also in the segment where we are as yields are pretty stable. I mean, at some point, the retail chains are triggered to buy their own assets and perhaps develop them. I mean that's my experience from my years in grocery real estate as well. And if you want to redevelop a store, and you're a financially strong grocer, what you do is you buy back the store, you change it around, you perhaps develop a couple of hundred square meters, something, you sign a new lease, and then you sell it back to the market.

I mean that's one way of making money, apart from making money in your grocery business, on that side of things. So I see it as a positive thing that the grocers are actually active here, working and putting -- bringing a floor on pricing but also being active and -- I mean, also showing how important these sites are. If they didn't believe in the sites and didn't believe kind of in the physical store and the future of their sales, et cetera, they wouldn't be buying them back and putting money and spending capital on these assets because I mean they're a low-margin business, right? So they need to be lean and mean as well in our balance sheet.

[Svante Krokfors, analyst]

That was a good answer. Then a question regarding the energy performance of buildings directed by EU, which has been worked on for a couple of years and now has become a law, which seems to increase the pace of renovation and energy efficiency improvements. How do you see that impacting you going forward?

[Christian Fredrixon, executive]

Yes. Exactly. I think it's great that these things are moving forward and that things are starting to move. I mean we all need to work on the resilience against climate change, of course, every day. We have our 2030 target of our climate neutrality and what -- I mean, and there are several ways to work around some work together with our tenants. So -- and as I understand, this -- the law you're referring to there, that's a 2050 directive or to actually lower energy consumption in buildings in general because it is one of our largest carbon dioxide producers is, of course, the real estate sector and not just building and new construction, but of course, daily operations and daily management. So I mean, it's a very important thing to look at, and we're working with it already with energy efficiency.

[Svante Krokfors, analyst]

And then the last one, you mentioned that balance sheet optimization is one of your key focus areas. How should we look at your target LTV is 55% to 65%. You are now at below 59%. So should we expect you to stay still at the lower end of this?

[Christian Fredrixon, executive]

Our corridor, we want to be in is 55% to 65% LTV. And in this business cycle, we're hoping the market is foreseeing rents to come down but in this part of the business cycle, it's pretty natural to be kind of at the lower end of the LTV range, of course. What we try and do is optimize between senior banks and bonds and to get that mix right, in order to be as capital efficient as possible. So I think that's the answer to that question.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Viktor [indiscernible] Stenlof from ABG Sundal Collier.

[Viktor Stenlof, analyst]

So as usual, Svante covered a lot of ground here, but just a few follow-ups for me. You've been fairly cautious on value revisions in past quarters. You've already elaborated quite a bit on what the key drivers for the revisions this time around [ R ]. But do you see any further negative revisions ahead or any risk of that? Or do you think you're finished, and we'll go back to the more cautious approach going forward?

[Christian Fredrixon, executive]

I think it's difficult to foresee the future. Let's start that way. We are coming from a period of very volatile, real estate transaction market. And I think that, in general, the valuers need more transaction evidence in order to really understand where the market is. But we're seeing more and more evidence, of course, coming through. I mean, one -- my own personal view is that when looking at going forward, real estate is kind of a derivative, in one way, of interest rates, right? I mean it's very capital intensive business, you never really repay your debt, like an operational company, you simply refinance. I mean it's a refinancing play, the whole real estate industry in itself. And because I mean, it's a stable -- that's why and stable cash flows.

And so in theory, if interest rates do show start to come down, not just the swap curve, but actually do -- really do start to come down. Then in theory, that should mean, of course, the property yields in one way or another will follow that development. When it comes to valuations, of course, it's important to remember that there's always a lag to valuations. I mean that's the nature of them. They need transaction evidence, right? So when it -- the lag means that in a rising market, value is lagging and also the falling market value is lagging. So I think the question one needs to ask oneself, is where the bottom? Has the market bottomed out? Yes and no, and take a view on that.

[Pia-Lena Olofsson, executive]

Yes. It's also important to emphasize that we always, every quarter, have external valuators valuing our portfolio.

[Christian Fredrixon, executive]

It is what it is.

[Viktor Stenlof, analyst]

Understood. And if we could see into the future, maybe we wouldn't be having the jobs that we have now, doing something more lucrative with our time. Turning to a few operating items. The average lease term has decreased 2 quarters in a row here. Any comments on the outlook for the lease term going forward? And how much of that downtick is related to the last year property potentially?

[Pia-Lena Olofsson, executive]

I mean, the world we're working, of course, actively with our portfolio, and we have discussions with the tenants to prolong the lease work. And we do that always on a portfolio basis. So we don't discuss [indiscernible] 2 properties at the time. We talk about our portfolio of properties, which means that the extension comes not only 1 or 2 properties at the time, it can take -- can be many at a time that are planned. So I mean, as you can see on the graph that I showed on the presentation, the vote has been very steady around 5 years because we're working actively to prolong the leases. So I mean, that's something we are going to do also forward and have a continued -- try to have longer leases and 5 years is a sweet spot that we think is suitable to have.

[Christian Fredrixon, executive]

And some points there, some examples, in the CEO comments on the quarterly report. In Malmö, we've signed a new lease for a company. Coop, still a number of years left on the lease but we like when the properties aren't empty. So we've managed to get Mathallen in a new real estate local chain -- soon to be chain. This is the second store so that's a new grocery lettings. We've also done an ex grocery store in Finland in [indiscernible], in Turku, which where we have led to a card loss on a new 5-year lease and then looking to develop building rights above the building.

In Denmark and Norway, we've also been active. Signed a 5-year leases in Norway and in Denmark, some leases. And -- we signed a 10-year lease, for example, in Nastola in Finland. We have Lidl and Tokmanni as our anchor tenants on the daily goods side, but we signed a 10-year lease with [indiscernible]. So -- but -- on the -- I mean, 84% of our rental income is daily good. So I mean, that's where we should focus when we look at the world. That's an important thing for us. And as Pia-Lena mentioned, we did that -- those renegotiations, they're ongoing every year.

[Viktor Stenlof, analyst]

Yes. So just touching on that since you mentioned the Turku property that you rented to Carglass. You've had the residential development business on the back burner for some time now, but in the CEO letter, and now you mentioned that you're planning to seek permission to develop residential building rights. Should we expect that resi development business to come more to the forefront, ahead?

[Christian Fredrixon, executive]

We won't develop the residential by ourselves. I mean what we do is we create the value by obtaining the zoning plans and then we will happily pass on the actual development to the experts in their field. I think -- it's too early to say, but the [indiscernible] property. But if that were to be turned in to a park -- or to turned into a health center, then the same thing would go there. That's not something we would develop ourselves.

[Viktor Stenlof, analyst]

Understood. And then last question for me. We have a slight uptick in -- sequential uptick in central admin, any specific reasons for this?

[Pia-Lena Olofsson, executive]

I mean we do have variations over the years or the quarter, so to say, over the quarters. And the only thing that I would say, and as I mentioned in the report is that we had a double cost for CEOs since Christian came in, and there was some handover before [ Sverker ] left . But also, we have, of course, some seasonality in administration costs.

[Operator]

There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any written questions and closing comments.

[Pia-Lena Olofsson, executive]

Yes. Thank you. We do have some questions on the web. I think we have covered some of them. We have what strategy for managing tenant relationships do we have? And of course, I mean we work very closely with our tenants because we are a corporation partner with them. And of course, we have a dialogue and always talk regarding the properties in portfolios. So we have a very close relationship with our tenants and very much contact with them. Do we have more questions?

[Christian Fredrixon, executive]

I mean, in general, I think many have been touched upon. Let me just have a look through here, tenant repurchasing properties. We touched upon that. There are a couple of questions direct on certain players or grocery chains and kind of detailed questions on their finances. I prefer we don't comment our tenants or the actual single companies in the market on the financial outlook, et cetera. So I'll pass on those questions. What we feel is that we have a very geographically diversified portfolio and also a portfolio which is diversified among the major tenants in each country -- sorry, the major grocery chains in each country.

So just to summarize, thank you for listening, and thank you for your questions. I hope we will hear from you and meet again at our Q2 results presentation on the 17th of July 2024.

[Pia-Lena Olofsson, executive]

Thank you.

[Christian Fredrixon, executive]

Thank you.