European Residential Real Estate Investment Trust

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining the European Residential Real Estate Investment Trust fourth quarter 2024 results conference call. My name is Marie, and I will be coordinating your call today. During the presentation, you can register a question by pressing star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind, please press star followed by two. I will now hand over to your host, Nicole Dolan of Investor Relations, to begin. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Before we begin, let me remind everyone that during our conference call this morning, we may include forward-looking statements about expected future events and the financial and operating results of ERAS, which are subject to certain risks and uncertainties. We direct your attention to slide two and our other regulatory filings for important information about these statements. I will now turn the call over to Mark Kenney, Chief Executive Officer.

Thanks, Nicole, and good morning, everyone. Joining me this morning is Jenny Chao, our Chief Financial Officer. I want to get started with slide four, which provides some highlights from this past year. In 2024, we completed over €900 million in strategic dispositions that reduced our residential portfolio in the Netherlands to approximately 3,000 suites as of December 31st, 2024, down from nearly 7,000 suites at the start of the year. We were able to transact on these sales at pricing at or above previously reported fair values, generating significant capital that we used in part to strengthen our balance sheet. We repaid €544 million in mortgage debt, and we fully paid down the €103 million we had outstanding on a revolving credit facility at the start of the year. The result was a significant reduction in the REITs ratio of adjusted debt to gross book value from 57.6% as of the previous year to 39.7% as of December 31st, 2024. With remaining net cash proceeds, we were pleased to declare a special cash distribution to unit holders of one euro per unit and Class B LP units. which amounted to €234 million, paid out on December 31st, 2024. On the whole, this capital allocation achieved our two primary objectives, maximize returns for our unit holders and maintain strong financial management. Operationally, on our same property portfolio, average rent was €1,245, euro per month on December 31st, 2024, which represents an increase of 6.8% versus the prior year end. This reflects the continued strength in the Dutch rental market fundamentals, combined with our ability to proficiently navigate its regulatory regime. We're continuing to execute on our rent growth strategy comprised of uplifts on turnover and indexation, and in 2024, we realized a weighted average uplift of 14.9% on turnover, supplemented by an increase of 5.5% on indexation. This resulted in the strong year-over-year increase in average monthly rent and contributed to our solid same property NOI margin of 76.6% for the year ended December 31st, 2024. Turning to slide five, you will see that our occupancy has decreased to 94.6% on the total residential portfolio as of December 31st, 2024. This relates to our value maximization strategy and is mainly being driven by our disposition program. To a lesser extent, we are also intentionally keeping certain suites temporarily vacant in order to optimize rent growth in balance with local market conditions. I will now turn the call over to Jenny to provide an update on our financial performance.