Demire Deutsche Mittelstand Real Estate AG

XETRA:DMRE

Earnings Call Transcript

[Ingo Hartlief, executive]

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, everybody, and welcome to our results presentation for the first 3 months of '22. Thank you for dialing in this morning. I trust you are all well and healthy. With me here is, as always, Tim Brückner, DEMIRE's CFO; and Michael Tegeder, our Head of Investor Relations.

I'm sure you have had the chance to look at our results already, which I would summarize as business as usual. I have presented our annual report just about 7 weeks ago and at the end of Q1, and there have been no significant changes since then and within the first quarter '22. I consider this is a good news as we neither have been affected by corona anymore nor by any impact of the war in the Ukraine. Further on, the strategic review of our major shareholders is still ongoing, and so it is currently impossible for us to comment on this.

Now after these relevant points are made, let me shortly summarize the most important KPIs and the development in Q1. All of the 4 pillars of our REALize Potential strategy have, again, contributed to a good start into the year '22. In '21, as you remember, we were particularly successful in selling real estate with 11 properties leaving the portfolio. For this reason, some operational KPIs are declining when comparing the first quarter of '22 to '21. The reference base has decreased.

The successful acquisition of Cielo with a rental volume of around EUR 10 million per year is not reflected in all operational KPIs due to its joint venture structure. The effects of Cielo are to be seen in the financial results. Nevertheless, our asset management contributed again with a strong letting performance of more than 42,000 square meters, which helped to increase the annualized contractual rent to EUR 79 million, up by nearly EUR 1 million versus year-end '21. The acquisition or [ better ] transaction team has worked diligently in Q1 '22 as well on both acquisitions and disposals. We have not signed or executed any transaction '22 so far, but are confident to provide you with news flash on this in near future.

The financial demonstrates what I have mentioned earlier, solid numbers down year-on-year due to disposals. Tim will elaborate on this in a minute.

On processes, we have further streamlined processes with our property manager, STRABAG. This will become more and more important as the year goes on and inflation remains high for the execution of index-linked rental increases as well as for tenants utility builds in times of strongly rising energy costs. As important, we are on track to publish our first sustainability report later this year. All that makes us confident for the future development of DEMIRE, and I am happy to confirm our '22 guidance on rental income and FFO.

Let's have a more detailed look at our KPIs and follow me to Page #6. Here we are, leasing performance. The letting result has been strong in the past and is the highlight of our set of results in Q1 '22. More than half of that result was achieved in the logistics segment, especially in our asset in Leipzig. Overall, the signed contract secured about EUR 2.9 million of rental income per year with a WALT of 4.5 years. About 42% of the signed contracts are new leases and some of them will kick in later this year. The extension of these contracts as well as the indexations that kicked in already led to an increase in our annualized contractual rent by nearly EUR 1 million since year-end '21 to about EUR 79 million.

Next slide shows vacancy and WALT. Vacancy and WALT remained unchanged versus year-end. We expect these KPIs to improve as the new or last year agreed leases kick in later this year like the Amazon contract in Leipzig we reported already. By the way, please note again that all the numbers on this slide do not include Cielo.

Tim, please go along with details about the financial performance.

[Tim Brückner, executive]

Thank you, Ingo. Welcome from my side. I will update you on some highlights from our Q1 financials. As you can see on Page 9, rental income, as expected, is down due to disposals. The profit from the rental of real estate down due to the aforementioned disposals and the increase of energy costs that we were being confronted with starting basically from the last quarter of 2021. But as you see from the numbers, that increased further in Q1.

The positive impact from impairments of receivables as COVID-related payments come in better as previously expected. So that is basically a sign that we have good tenant relationships where our asset management is in regular contact and convince tenants to pay their outstanding rents. The financial income shows positive impact from the Cielo JV. Subsequently, FFO I is only slightly below Q1 2021.

The balance sheet is stable with strong cash position and equity up by the quarterly earnings without any revaluation effect in Q1 '22.

On Page 11, we show the stable LTV on our target LTV level of about 50%. You might be interested what the pro forma effect is after the proposed dividend that we may pay after our AGM next week. The pro forma LTV number would be 51.6%. The average cost of debt is stable at below 1.7%. The refinancing is only due in H2 2024. So DEMIRE is well positioned to stand firm in the current storm and also withstand further [indiscernible] events. Back to you, Ingo.

[Ingo Hartlief, executive]

Thank you, Tim. After all, and to conclude, we delivered solid results in Q1 and are looking forward to and feel prepared for the further development of '22 the whole year. With this sound start, we are confident to achieve our rental income guidance of EUR 78 million to EUR 80 million due to the disposals over the course of the last year and to generate FFO of EUR 38.5 million to EUR 40.5 million. Thank you very much for listening. We are now happy to answer questions if you have some.

[Operator]

There are no questions on the call at this time. I'll now hand the call back to your host for any additional or closing remarks.

[Ingo Hartlief, executive]

Thank you again for dialing in. I hope to hear you again in our AGM next week. Stay healthy. Goodbye.