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.

Thanks, Mark. Slide 7 summarizes our performance for the fourth quarter. As mentioned, we've strategically taken on vacancy, and we had 94.9% of our same property residential suites occupied at period end. Although growth in the occupied AMR was strong at 6.8%, It was offset by higher vacancies as well as an increase in operating costs due to elevated repairs and maintenance and insurance expenses. As a result, our same property NOI was down by 2% and our margin decreased to 76.2% for the fourth quarter of 2024. Diluted FFO per unit also decreased by 5.3% to 3.6 Eurocent for the three months ended December 31st, 2024, primarily due to disposition partly offset by lower interest costs following significant repayments of debt. I'll also briefly walk through our financial performance for the full 12-month period as outlined on slide 8. Due to this decision and higher vacancy, partly offset by rent growth, operating revenues were down by 2.8%. On the total portfolio, operating costs as a percentage of revenues were relatively stable, and our NOI margin remains strong at 78.4% for the year ended December 31, 2024. On the same property portfolio, strong rent growth was offset by elevated vacancies and higher R&M and insurance costs, resulting in the decrease in the margin to 76.6%. Saluted FFO per unit was down 4.3% to 15.4% for the current year, with an increase in non-discretionary capital expenditure Our diluted AFFO per unit was down by 7.3% to 13.9 Eurocent, and our AFFO per way out ratio was 86% for 2024. This reflects the stable monthly distribution of 1 Eurocent per unit, equivalent to 12 cents per unit annualized, which sustained a relatively high distribution yield throughout the year. We've highlighted our financial position and liquidity on slide nine. As mentioned, we used part of the net proceeds from our strategic disposition to repay a meaningful amount of outstanding debt in order to strengthen our balance sheet. This lowered our leverage with a conservative ratio of adjusted debt to market value of 40% as of December 31st, 2024, down from 58% at prior year end. We then had available liquidity of 133 million euros, comprised of cash on hand and the full 125 million in unused capacity on the revolving credit facility as of year end. We also ensure that all our debt covenants continue to be met. Slide 10 shows our mortgage renewal profile. It continues to carry a low weighted average effective interest rate of 2.3%, which is almost entirely fixed, and it has a weighted average terms of maturity of 2.5 years as of the current year end. After paying down mortgage debt associated with this position, part of the net proceeds were reallocated into prepayment of certain additional mortgages maturing in the near term. As such, going into 2025, we have a total of 34 million euros in mortgage principal maturing in the year. This is substantially from the 227 million which was originally set to mature in 2025. We now have a well-positioned balance sheet to support the REIT's strategic objectives going forward, and on that note, I will turn things back to Mark to wrap up.

Thank you, Jenny. We're very proud of what we were able to accomplish in 2024, especially in the context of an operating environment that continues to face macroeconomic, political, and regulatory challenges. We have stated that our mission is the maximization of value for unit holders, and we believe that this past year has shown our true commitment to that objective. We were pleased to have kicked off 2025 with a special unit holder meeting in which a resolution to amend the REIT's declaration of trust was passed. This provides the board with maximum flexibility in assessing and executing on the most attractive opportunities available so that eRETS can continue to make significant progress on the execution of its strategy in the year ahead. So far, we are maintaining momentum on that. and have already closed on two dispositions of an aggregate 279 suites for combined gross proceeds of €56.2 million. Moving forward, we are going to continue to explore every opportunity to surface value in a responsible, disciplined and timely manner and expect to generate strong returns for all unit holders in 2025. With that, I would like to thank you for your time this morning. And we would now be pleased to take any questions which you may have.

To ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. If you change your mind, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure that your device is unmuted locally. We have a question from Alexander Leon of Day Hardeen please go ahead.

Thanks operator and good morning Mark and Jenny. Good morning to start off with maybe an obvious one and that would be if you can maybe give us your thoughts on maybe the expected timing on when you expect to be able to sell off the remaining assets and maybe on the ability to achieve your IFRS fair value.

Uhm? Well, we've not officially broadcast the strategy for the balance of the portfolio, but the unit holder meeting is an extremely strong signal of what the board and management is thinking. I can tell you that we are very confident with the transaction market in the Netherlands. It would appear that strength is growing in the interest of multifamily, especially privatizers. There is clear signs of trading. There is very high confidence that our IFRS values are realistic. And like I said in the presentation, we will be very disciplined in the review of maximizing value for unit holders. But you can expect sort of clarity from the company on the path forward. But if last year was any sort of signal, you can expect that we will keep the same commitment to 2025. Okay, that's great.

And you made a comment there about strength of the market. So that hasn't been impacted at all, maybe with the recent geopolitical events and maybe some of the volatility that's caused?

No, the Netherlands is facing very similar housing crisis to Canada, some slightly nuanced differences, but when you look at sort of the direction of regulation, the government clearly is leaning towards home ownership versus rental, would be how we interpret things. And the housing crisis and the need for housing remains extremely, extremely strong, which makes the market for privatization quite good. So lots of things happening in Europe, um netherlands is definitely remains a safe haven where people want to live so with all the geopolitical issues in europe um the netherlands has got its own influx of people and just not enough homes okay so great to hear uh maybe the last one for me um and that's just

I mean, continuing on this kind of pattern of questioning, I'm just wondering, now that there's a little bit of a higher proportion of regulated suites that are left over, do you think that's going to impact maybe the pace of sales at all?

No, because at the end of the day, people are looking at the privatization value. So the return impacts as a result of regulation are not ideal for the REIT. but the privatization opportunity of the apartments are extremely appealing for those that want to go into the privatization business. This is the beauty of having individual title. Punitive legislation only slows down the production of homes and makes the privatization of each individual unit even higher.

I appreciate the color. I will turn it back.

Thanks.

As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. We have a question from Syram Srinivas of Cornmark Securities. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Alpena. Good morning, Mark. Good morning, Jenny. Congratulations on your position so far this year. I just have one question around the entire plan for the REIT. And maybe, Mark, if you think about 24 versus 25, How would you characterize the transaction market appetite in terms of the kind of buyers you're seeing out there, both in terms of the kind of assets they're acquiring as well as the overall investment appetite?

That's a great question. What we've learned about real estate is that every asset is different. So because eREZ has a portfolio that's quite geographically diverse, the appeal is quite diverse in terms of who the buyers are. So I can tell you for what's left, there are a couple of housing associations that would be the most frothy buyer. There are privatizers that are family offices, and there are funds that are seeing the opportunity to privatize in the Netherlands that are gaining steam and raising capital. So the ideal buyer is our job to maximize value on each and every asset, and it's quite diverse. Now, the good news is I've characterized that differently than in maybe 2023, even when we go back, where there was just a lot less buyers in the marketplace. There was virtually no trading activity. And what we've seen is just sort of a continuous gain in momentum on the buy side, but diverse.

That makes sense, Mark. And maybe just kind of doubling down on that one. When you kind of put it in the context of, you know, privatizers looking at these assets and the privatization opportunity, and then you kind of view the historical trend of all these housing associations primarily kind of trying to acquire more units now to get to the affordable living side. Does that impact the valuation of these assets in terms of how they look at it? Or is it just generally, you know, privatization in the perspective there?

That's another great question. And you can take comfort in the fact that when we do our valuations, there is a privatization component that's built into those valuations. Now, it's not perfect and nor is any sort of math calculation or valuation. It's a benchmark in the marketplace. But we're able to steer our thinking knowing that privatization is built into our valuations.

That makes sense. Thank you, Mark. I'll turn it back. Thanks so much.

We currently have no further questions, so I will hand back to Mark Kenny for closing remarks.

Thank you, operator, and thank you to everyone for joining us this morning. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact any of us at any time. Thank you again, and have a great day.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your