VGP NV: a Transformative Year and a Significantly Stronger Platform Provides Foundation for a Good 2021
26 Febbraio 2021 - 07:00AM
VGP NV: a Transformative Year and a Significantly Stronger Platform
Provides Foundation for a Good 2021
26 February 2021, 7:00am, Antwerp (Berchem),
Belgium: VGP NV (‘VGP’ or ‘the Group’), a European
provider of high-quality logistics and semi-industrial real estate,
today announces the results for the financial year ended 31
December 2020:
- Record net profit of €370.9 million, an 80.4% YoY increase
- Strong business growth across the portfolio
- Signed and renewed rental income of €45.2 million, bringing
total signed rental income to € 185.2 million, a 19.5% YoY
increase
- A record 33 buildings with 869,000 m² under construction at
year-end
- Land bank expanded to 7.65 million m² – a 23.2% YoY
increase
- A record 27 projects delivered with 531,000 m² of lettable
area, representing €29.1 million of annualised committed leases
(entire completed portfolio is 98.5% let)
- Limited impact Covid-19: nearly all due payments received on
time and very limited reprofiling
- Launched third joint venture for VGP Park München and completed
four successful joint venture closings for a total value of €666
million resulting in €405.6 million net cash proceeds
- First joint venture expanded to a €2 billion net asset value
target and discussions with regards to a further expansion through
a new joint venture are underway
- Year-end gearing ratio reduced to 25.2%, supported by two
successful share placements
- Intention to propose to the Annual Meeting of Shareholders a
distribution of a gross dividend of € 75 million which equates to €
3.65 per share – a 24.2% YoY increase
VGP’s Chief Executive Officer, Jan Van Geet,
said: “The past year was transformative for VGP in many ways.
Despite unforeseen challenges, we created an equity base growth
from €700 million last year to €1.3 billion today as we outpaced
many trends and significantly increased the number of mostly
pre-let projects under construction driven by strong lease growth
and enabled through cash recycling with four joint venture closings
and two successful share placements. Looking ahead at 2021, we are
seeing the same strong operating trends continue, leaving us
convinced that this can also be a good year.”
Jan Van Geet continued: “We have kicked off several iconic
projects in the past year including our new parks in Laatzen
(Hanover) and Bratislava. Furthermore, we have several
milestone projects in the pipeline including VGP Park Moerdijk –
the largest development project in The Netherlands – and more and
more brownfield projects including in Giessen where we acquired a
32-hectare former US military airfield and in Wiesloch, Heidelberg,
where 13 hectares will be redeveloped at the historic site of
Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG.”
Jan Van Geet concluded: “We have strengthened our teams across
the board, including Last Mile logistics and renewable energy
expertise, which will enhance our product offerings and deepen our
engagement with our clients. We have also continued to invest in
our communities – for example, through our contribution to the
first 16 projects identified by the VGP Foundation. I want to end
by thanking our colleagues and partners, who quickly adapted to the
pandemic and safely helped our existing tenants, the communities in
which we operate and by ensuring construction projects were
delivered to our clients on time.”
FINANCIAL AND OPERATING HIGHLIGHTS
Strong new leasing activity continued
- Signed and renewed rental income of € 45.2 million driven by
625,000 m² of new lease agreements signed (corresponding to € 34.0
million of new annualised rental income), combined with 209,000 m²
of lease agreements renewed (corresponding to € 11.3 million of
annualised rental income)
- The new leases signed are geographically well spread: Germany €
13.3 million (39%), the Netherlands € 5.9 million (17%), Spain €
3.9 million (12%), Slovakia € 3.0 million (9%), Romania € 2.4
million (7%) and the remainder in Italy, Czech Republic and Latvia
(each 5%) and Hungary (1%)
- Terminations represented a total of € 3.7 million or 71,000 m2
(of which 65,000 m2 within the Joint Ventures’ portfolio)
- The total signed lease agreements represent € 185.2 million1
annualised committed rental income (equivalent to 3.22 million m²
of lettable area), a 19.5% increase since December 2019
Record level of construction
activity
- During 2020 we delivered a record 27 projects representing
531,000 m² of lettable area, which equates to €29.1 million of
annualised committed rental income
- At year-end we had a record 33 projects under construction or
869,000 m² of future lettable area, which, once delivered and fully
let, will generate €55.2 million of annualised committed rental
income; the portfolio under construction at year-end was 79%
pre-let2
Implications of Covid-19
- The entire VGP team has been operational throughout the crisis
with full access to central systems. None of the VGP workforce has
been furloughed and the Group has not taken any government
support
- The lockdown measures implemented by governments across Europe
to combat the spread of the virus resulted in widespread disruption
across many sectors of the economy. In some cases, this has
impacted the operations and cash flows of VGP's customers, which
has in some limited cases affected the level of rent we were able
to collect from such customer. VGP has worked constructively to
support customers facing genuine cash flow challenges by offering
to reschedule rental payments or reprofiling
- Rental collection has continued to progress well with rent
collection since start of the Covid-19 pandemic at 99.7% of total
rent billed
Record land bank expansion
- Acquisition of 2.57 million m² of development land and a
further 2.2 million m2 committed subject to permits which brings
the total land bank (owned and committed) to 7.65 million m² (a
23.2% net increase since December 2019), which supports 3.60
million m² of future lettable area
- Included within this land bank is more than 450,000 m2 gross
lettable area related to VGP Park Moerdijk. On 26 November
2020, VGP entered into a partnership with Roozen Landgoederen
Beheer in order to develop Logistics Park Moerdijk (“LPM”) together
with the Port Authority Moerdijk on a 50:50-basis. The total
development land of LPM amounts to circa 140ha with a total
development potential of circa 900,000 m² of lettable area
- In addition to the land owned and committed, negotiations are
underway for a further 1.49 million m² of new land plots which have
a development potential of 0.66 million m² of lettable area
- More than in prior years, we have acquired several brownfield
projects including our new project in Giessen where we acquired a
32-hectare former US military airfield and in Heidelberg where 13
hectares will be redeveloped at the site of Heidelberger
Druckmaschinen AG. Brownfield projects are being considered due to
their often-strategic location in the vicinity of metropolitan
areas and as it helps nature conservation. We are evaluating
several other potential brownfield projects
Significant strengthening of the team
- The team expanded to >260 FTE equivalent as we hired 40
additional people across the organization
- We have strengthened our teams across the board, including Last
Mile logistics and renewable energy experts, which will enhance our
product offerings and deepen our engagement with our clients
Balance sheet significantly strengthened
- In June 2020, VGP and Allianz Real Estate entered into a new
50:50 joint venture for the development of VGP Park München. This
is the third joint venture with Allianz Real Estate
- The managerial and governance setup of the new partnership is
similar to the first two joint ventures with VGP serving the new
joint venture as its sole asset, property and development manager.
Contrary to the two existing joint ventures which concentrate on
the acquisition of income-generating assets developed by VGP, this
new joint venture will initially be focussed on the development of
VGP Park München
- Also, four successful closings with the joint ventures were
completed for a total gross asset value of €666 million. The
first joint venture conducted a closing in October 2020 for €166
million and the second joint venture conducted a closing in
November 2020 for €258 million. The third joint venture
successfully completed its seed closing in June 2020 for €187
million and closed a first transaction of €55 million in December
2020. These four transactions combined resulted in €405.6
million net cash proceeds
- On 21 April 2020 VGP successfully completed an €200 million
offering of new shares (equivalent to 10.8% of shares outstanding)
at a discount of 4.6% compared to the last traded price and on 3
September 2020 VGP successfully completed an offering of 929,153
existing shares (equivalent to €109 million or 4.5% of the shares
outstanding) at a discount of 4.2% compared to the last traded
price
- These combined proceeds and existing unutilised long-term
revolver facilities provide VGP with significant headroom to
reinvest in its development pipeline and continue to grow the
business. Gearing3 at the end of 2020 stood at 25.2%
providing significant leverage headroom
Significant growth in renewable energy power
generation
- VGP Renewable Energy N.V. has been setup by the Group in 2020
to broaden the ability of the Group to assist our clients in making
their businesses more sustainable in a cost-effective way by
offering green energy, smart energy management and facilitate our
clients in their transition towards a green truck and car
fleet
- A total PV power generation capacity of 42.5MWp is currently
installed or under construction through 36 projects. This is being
realised through a €16.2 million investment to date. In addition,
the pipeline at the moment equates to an additional power
generation capacity of 53.3 MWp
Progress towards our Sustainable Development
Goals
- We have made significant progress towards our Sustainable
Development Goals and have introduced new goals for 2021 including
a target to be net carbon neutral on our footprint for scope 1 and
scope 2 emissions in compliance with PAS 2060 by 2025 and comply
with CDP climate change disclosure
Outlook 2021
- It is with confidence that we look at 2021 and beyond.
Development activities should continue to operate at elevated
levels during 2021 supported by solid demand from potential tenants
as we expect technological changes and e-commerce to continue to be
an important driver for demand across our platform. Our existing
land bank provides the foundation for growth over the coming years
and VGP expects to be able to continue expanding its rental income
and property portfolio through the completion and start-up of new
building projects in 2021
- Focus on expansion of service offering through VGP Renewable
Energy, through increased production of green energy and
facilitating our clients in their transitioning towards green
energy
- Finally, we expect in the course of 2021 to be able to announce
the details of a further expansion of our first joint venture with
Allianz Real Estate beyond the €2.0 billion expanded target and we
anticipate to be able to conduct several closings with the joint
ventures in the course of this year
KEY FINANCIAL METRICS
Operations and results |
2020 |
2019 |
Change (%) |
Committed annualised rental income (€mm) |
185.2 |
155.0 |
19.5% |
IFRS Operating Profit before tax (€mm) |
419.4 |
252.4 |
66.2% |
IFRS net profit (€mm) |
370.9 |
205.6 |
80.4% |
IFRS earnings per share (€ per share) |
18.58 |
11.06 |
68.0% |
Dividend per share (€ per share) |
3.654 |
2.935 |
24.6% |
Portfolio and balance sheet |
2020 |
2019 |
Change (%) |
Portfolio value, including Joint Ventures at 100% (€mm) |
3,843 |
2,771 |
38.7% |
Portfolio value, including Joint Ventures at share (€mm) |
2,468 |
1,897 |
30.1% |
Occupancy ratio of standing portfolio (%) |
98.5 |
99.8 |
- |
EPRA NTA6 per share (€ per share) |
65.78 |
39.89 |
64.9% |
IFRS NAV per share (€ per share) |
63.44 |
37.66 |
68.5% |
Net financial debt (€mm) |
560.9 |
604.2 |
(7.2)% |
Gearing7 (%) |
25.2 |
37.2 |
- |
CONFERENCE CALL FOR INVESTORS AND ANALYSTS
VGP will host a conference call at 10:30 (CET) on 26
February 2021The conference call will be available on:
- Belgium: 0800 58228 (toll free) / +32 (0)2 404 0659
- UK: 0800 358 6377 (toll free) / +44 (0)330 336 9105
- US: 888 394 8218 (toll free) / +1 323 701 0225
- Confirmation Code: 1934802
A presentation is available under Financial & Operating
Results through VGP’s Investor Relations website.:
www.vgpparks.eu/en/investors/publications/
FINANCIAL CALENDAR
Annual Report
2020 |
13 April 2021 |
First quarter
2021 trading update |
14 May 2021 |
General meeting
of shareholders |
14 May 2021 |
Dividend
ex-date |
21 May 2021 |
Dividend payment
date |
25 May 2021 |
Half year results
2021 |
27 August 2021 |
Third quarter
2021 trading update |
19 November 2021 |
CONTACT DETAILS FOR INVESTORS AND MEDIA
ENQUIRIES
Martijn Vlutters (VP – Business Development & Investor
Relations) |
Tel: +32 (0)3 289 1433 |
Petra Vanclova (External Communications) |
Tel: +42 0 602 262 107 |
Anette NachbarBrunswick Group |
Tel: +49 152 288 10363 |
ABOUT VGP
VGP is a pan-European developer, manager and
owner of high-quality logistics and semi-industrial real estate.
VGP operates a fully integrated business model with capabilities
and longstanding expertise across the value chain. The company has
a development land bank (owned or committed) of 7.65 million m² and
the strategic focus is on the development of business parks.
Founded in 1998 as a family-owned real estate developer in the
Czech Republic, VGP with a staff of over 260 employees today owns
and operates assets in 12 European countries directly and through
several 50:50 joint ventures. As of December 2020, the Gross Asset
Value of VGP, including the joint ventures at 100%, amounted to €
3.84 billion and the company had a Net Asset Value (EPRA NAV) of €
1.35 billion. VGP is listed on Euronext Brussels and on the Prague
Stock Exchange (ISIN: BE0003878957).
For more information, please
visit: http://www.vgpparks.eu
Forward-looking statements:
This press release may contain forward-looking statements.
Such statements reflect the current views of management regarding
future events, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties
and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially
different from any future results, performance or achievements
expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. VGP is
providing the information in this press release as of this date and
does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking
statements contained in this press release considering new
information, future events or otherwise. The information in this
announcement does not constitute an offer to sell or an invitation
to buy securities in VGP or an invitation or inducement to engage
in any other investment activities. VGP disclaims any
liability for statements made or published by third parties and
does not undertake any obligation to correct inaccurate data,
information, conclusions or opinions published by third parties in
relation to this or any other press release issued by VGP.
1 For Joint Ventures at 100%
2 Calculated based on the contracted rent and estimated
market rent for the vacant space.
3 Calculated as Net debt / Total equity and liabilities
4 Proposed dividend per share to be approved by the Annual
General Meeting of Shareholders of 14 May 2021.
5 Proposed dividend per share over FY2019 was €3.25 per share;
based on new shares issued this was adjusted to €2.93 per share
6 EPRA Net Tangible Assets. Other metrics, EPRA Net
Reinstatement Value and Net Disposal Value can be found in note
12.2
7 Calculated as Net debt / Total equity and liabilities
- VGP_Press_Release_FY2020 - EN
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