Thank you, operator, and welcome all to our half year results conference call this morning. Thank you for joining us.

We have with us on line, Jeremy Lewis, Evert Jan van Garderen, Tom Newton, Peter Mills, Roberto Fraticelli and Valeria Di Nisio. I will now hand over the call to Jeremy Lewis.

Thank you, Anna, and good morning to everybody. I think despite of what's happening in the stock market at the moment, from our point of view, it actually is a good morning.

A slight degree perhaps of exhaustion, we've had an extraordinary busy period, whether it'd be buying properties, selling properties, leasing properties, developing properties. And thank God so far, they're all being managed extremely well with our vacancies low.

The direct investment result, you can see, is pretty solid, and that's -- the biggest increase has been rental income. And that's come from the acquisitions we've made.

The biggest chunk actually comes from Italy, and I suppose I Gigli, where we've put in or Valeria has put in, Primark, Zara, and of course, we bought the hypermarket there. Sweden, we're up in rental terms about EUR 1.4 million, which obviously comes from the developments we're doing, Hallarna in particular, and other things in -- of course, we've been selling properties, the sales will come later.

And generally, as I was saying, the direct investment result of about some 5.9%, you can see are in rental terms, the majority then of the EUR 5 million in result, comes from the uplift in rents. Interest costs are down a bit and all the other various sectors was a bit up and a bit down.

But they're the major factors. So I think sound results.

Yes, I mean, the property income, as I said, the biggest jumps are from those 3 properties really because we've added space. Now like-for-like growth is still pretty solid.

Now those are not like-for-like, we've added properties. And again, I think you can see, if you look at the table, Italy is the best at 5.6%, followed by Sweden 3.7% and then France, which one can belittle 1.9%.

But given what's happening or has happened in France and certainly amongst some of our competitors, others have done much better. No, I think 1.9% in the market of increasing supply in France is pretty good.

But anyway, the -- Tom will talk about France, and of course, Roberto, Italy and Peter, Sweden. And I won't talk too much about them.

But overall, with the acquisition of Woluwe, which Tom has been largely responsible for with Vincent and others, and therefore, the disposal of the smaller properties in Italy, I mean, that's a binding contract there but probably won't be completed until probably June, I think. But clearly, what we're trying to do in comp terms, as always, is buy as quickly as possible and sell as slowly as possible, making sure that we have the funding in place which we'll need.

We did make a comment here, which I would enlarge on, that even though we're sort of 39% and 69% or whatever it is, around 70% on debt to equity, of course, that's going to increase, depending on when properties are sold and whatever else is bought. Obviously, our target is within a year to get back to current levels if we can.

Interest rates are rising a bit, I think the swaps are up, the 10-year swaps, the euros are up a little bit, but nothing dramatic, certainly nothing like the U.S. And quite why the markets are panicking so much at the moment, I don't know.

But all I can say when it comes to stock prices, even though clearly we continue to trade at a discount to NAV, as do some others now or more others, our relative performance, I'm glad to say, has been pretty good. Clearly, we'd always like to do better.

But no, I think the business is pretty solid in all markets. I think it's rather a good discipline if we find good things to buy, Valbo in Sweden.

Yes, it's been there a long time and it's got a bit dodgy over the years. And we think there's a lot of potential there because it is the only center in a very good catchment.

So no, all in all, of course, things are never perfect. But no, we're pretty happy with the year.

But the retail sales are up not dramatically, but at least they're not down anymore. And that's an improvement.

And I think generally with the European economies, certainly our economies, including Belgium now, of course, the GDP growth looks pretty solid. Just a quick word on Woluwe, which Tom will talk a lot more about.

It is quite unique. It's not the biggest center, it's a total of 45,000 meters.

But we intend to add another 10,000 to it pretty quickly if we can get the consents. But it has no competition.

It's in one of the very best areas of Brussels. There are 2 other schemes that were planned, Neo and Uplace, neither of which have looked likely going to get, probably in the case of Uplace, ever get consent.

Neo has been delayed and delayed and delayed. So it's an extraordinary situation with very low densities in a very wealthy city.

Now of course, Molenbeek and other parts of Brussels are pretty poor, but where we're in is very rich. So no, we're thrilled with that.

Clearly, in the longer term, we would expect to have more than 1 property in Belgium. But that's enough to be going on, where there's a lot to be done there.

But the present managers, we think, are highly professional. But they have the difficulty of the property being owned by certificates, which haven't been able to raise any more capital to do improvements that we think are necessary.

So they'll be staying on, I think, for at least 18 months. And we've built a good relationship with them, and particularly AG, I think.

So no, we are thrilled with that. It's a center we've all known for, how many, 30 years or something.

And it has always had a good reputation in Brussels. So anyway, I'll shut up and Tom can talk about that.

So there we are, NAV down a bit on June but clearly up on a year ago December. We said at the time and it's not surprising that probably yield sits at bottom and therefore values peaked there.

Any increase in values coming on is probably the more healthy sort of increase and that will be from rental growth. And given our very low vacancies, which we don't expect to change, and Valeria perhaps can talk about the general feeling amongst retailers, yes, of course, some are not doing very well and others are doing brilliantly, H&M at the moment are somewhere in the middle.

But yes, there is no loss of confidence out there. So no, we remain confident as well.

So right, I'll shut up and hand over to Evert Jan. Perhaps you'd like to talk about money.

Yes, thank you, Jeremy. Good morning, everybody.

In the call, I would like to say a few words about the change in our loan book and how we are funding the recent acquisitions and the consequences for the equity and debt of the company. In the beginning of July, we concluded a Swedish krona loan of SEK 880 million, equaling EUR 91 million, for a term of 6 years with Nordea Bank at a fixed coupon of 2.46%, so 2.46%, to finance the shopping centers in Norrkoping and Karlstad in Sweden.

The sale of Mellby in Laholm and the sale of 421 in Göteborg resulted in the repayment of loans also in Swedish krona. And this happened for an amount of SEK 442 million, which is almost EUR 45 million.

And during the 6-month reporting period, we prepared for the funding of the acquisition of the Woluwe shopping center, together with ABN AMRO and ING, and entered into a bridge facility of EUR 475 million to enable our newly incorporated Belgian subsidiary to acquire the Belgian assets. Half of this facility will be converted into a 7-year bullet loan, granted 50-50 by the 2 banks.

And the loan will be secured by a mortgage over the shopping center. The other half of the facility will be repaid over the next 18 months with the net proceeds of the sale of our 4 Italian shopping centers and net proceeds of further planned sales.

But it will also help that we get funds deriving from new financing of shopping centers in our portfolio, which are not yet financed long term. And examples are Val Thoiry in France and C4 in Kristianstad in Sweden.

In addition, there are some larger properties, which are currently financed at very low loan-to-value ratios. So there is room for refinancing at more normal loan-to-value ratios, providing thus additional cash resources.

For the recent acquisition of the Valbo shopping center, we entered into a 7-year bullet loan for an amount of SEK 442 million. And as I said, that is representing EUR 45 million.

And we did that with Aareal Bank, a German mortgage bank and again secured by a mortgage over the property. And this loan, of course, funded part of the acquisition price.

So as you can see, we've been quite active in the Swedish market. And the new Swedish krona loans, of course, helped us to increase the natural hedge for the Swedish krona currency risk on the back of a growing value of the property portfolio in that country.

The equity position of the company was slightly lower compared to the position we had in June as the revaluation of the property portfolio for the reporting period was small and a cash dividend of EUR 75 million was paid out. The stock dividend taken up raised another EUR 27 million of new equity.

The net debt portfolio was also slightly lower and amounted to just over EUR 1.4 billion from EUR 1.5 billion in June. And the net debt to adjusted net equity ratio at December, and this is all on the basis of proportional consolidation, increased a little bit to 70% compared to June when we reported 67%.

But it was lower than last year December when we reported 72%. And the net loan to property value remained stable at 39%, which we also reported in June.

For this calendar year 2018, only one relatively small noncurrent borrowing will mature and that is for an amount of EUR 30 million. And for 2019, there are no noncurrent borrowings maturing at all.

So we can fully focus on the funding of the repayment of half of the bridge facility entered into to purchase Woluwe shopping center. The average loan term of the portfolio at December remains 5 years and the interest costs are hedged for 87% compared to last year's 77%, which is mostly done by interest rate swaps for an average term of just over 6 years, although the part of fixed interest rate bank loans has increased in the last 6 months and the overall interest rate remained stable at 2.6%.

The strong rental uplift with stable overall expenses, comprising property expense and interest and overhead, contributed to a direct investment result of EUR 1.16 per depositary receipt for this 6 months period, which is EUR 0.09 more than for the 6 months in the previous year. And that concludes actually my brief observations.

And now I would like to hand over to my colleague, Tom Newton, who will speak about France.

Okay. Well, thanks, Evert Jan.

[Foreign Language] Okay. Quick review of France and I'll talk a bit more about Woluwe.

Let's start with sales in France, which is the key to everything because no sales growth, obviously no rental growth. We've actually had a pretty good 12 months in France.

We're actually up 0.9% for 12 months and plus 2.6% for 6 months. If, however, we strip out our good friends at FNAC, who are doing most of their growth online rather than offline, to the detriment I have to say of ourselves and the Passage du Havre, strip out FNAC and our 12 months figures, we're actually doing 2.1% in France and the 6 months a very healthy 3.5% in France.

So overall, the climate in France looking pretty good. And I would like to give people the split, this is the 3 months on 3 months figure throughout the year, so you can see how the year has evolved.

March on March, 3 months, we did minus 1.7%, so a weak start to the year. June on June 3 months, we did 0.2%, so sort of flat during the electoral period.

We had a Macron bounce, an uncontestable Macron bounce in September because 3 months on 3 months in September, we did 8.2%. And then I'd have to say, we had a bit of a hangover perhaps in December because December on December 3 months, we did minus 1.4%, so perhaps a bit of a slowdown after the year, the exhilaration of Mr.

Macron being elected. The stars of the show in the France continue to be Chasse, where we did 11% sales growth over 12 months.

Val Thoiry continues to do very well with a very healthy 8%. But the really good news is that we've actually had a bit of a renaissance both at Les Atlantes and Hyeres, which in the previous year, each shopping center saw a rather big, beefy competition arriving in the secondary catchment.

Les Atlantes is now positive again, plus 2% for 12 months. And Hyeres is positive 1.5% for 12 months.

So that's very good news. So that's the good news.

The weaker centers, I'm afraid, have all been in and around Paris, Passage du Havre, yes, I mean, as I said, FNAC is down. So that's affecting us.

And in the Val d'Oise, in MoDo, Taverny and Cormeilles, the [ 12 months ] is flat. Rental growth, yes, I mean, we're not top dog in France.

We know that perfectly well. But [Foreign Language], we're doing pretty well.

We did 2%, 1.93% rental growth to be precise. And that is a credit to Nicolas and the 3 wonderful ladies who surround him, who did 72 deals during the year, which is a record for us, but on average, up to 12.8% with a split of 14% on the renewals.

And the reletting is actually a bit less, 9% relettings. But what is great from that is that each and every center in our French portfolio is showing rental growth.

So that's obviously looking like good news. I agree totally with Jeremy that the valuations in France will now only be driven by rental growth and obviously sales growth because for a while, I've been saying to myself, "How on earth can these valuations keep going up?"

And I think we'vehad a little bit of dose of reality in this December valuation because we're down a tiny, tiny bit. The main reason we're down in December is because our values at Tour, in particular, I think, got ahead of themselves.

And quite sensibly, they've not tend to be not the value of Tour. So our initial yield is now 4.9%, which make to me rather more sense than the 4.5% they had in June.

But overall, I think that the investment market -- I'm thrilled that we got Rivoli away when we did at a very nice valuation uplifts because I think -- 1 or 2 analysts, I think, have picked this up already, right? And without mentioning any names, there are a couple of centers in Paris, which seem to be taking rather longer to sell than they were perhaps earlier in the year when Hammerson did jolly well to get Nancy away at 4.7% and the Strasbourg at 4.25%.

And those are the yields upon which our valuers have been valuing our portfolio in December. So that's France.

And I repeat our sales growth looking good at the end of the year and our rental growth is jolly, jolly good. Our OCRs are absolutely fine, so all good looking forward.

Switching across to Belgium. When the dossier of Woluwe came in, we instantly got extremely excited because Jeremy, Peter and I have been around for heck of a long time, knew this shopping center jolly well from when we were in the Belgian market 12 to 15 months ago.

So we got jolly excited. Yes, and we bid aggressively.

We know we've been aggressive. But frankly, when the best asset comes up, you have to show willingness to buy it.

So what have we bought? We bought 5 hectares in the best sector of Brussels to the east of the city center.

We bought 5 hectares with its own metro station. And it will have 2 tram stations.

Fingers crossed, if the STIB, which is the Belgian metro organization, do their work in September this year, we'll have 2 of our own tram stations outside the center. In terms of wealth, our primary catchment of 235,000 people has a wealth of 20% above the Belgian average.

So we've bought 5 hectares, very good public transport, very wealthy districts. So that's the fundamentals.

Looking at the pictures, which Anna has put in the presentation, you'll see that it's hard to get excited about the exterior of Woluwe shopping center. In fact, when you drive past it, it's really rather disappointing.

But that's something which we can fix. So the 2 things we're really being focused on during the acquisition, obviously zooming in on the OCRs, which were a little bit higher than we're used to at 13%.

But the reason for that is quite simply the sale density is at EUR 8,000 a meter, which is also higher than we're used to. So the OCR is at 13% of EUR 8,000 look okay.

And the other thing, which we've been focusing on very closely, in fact, we've had every single lawyer in Brussels looking at it, is the urbanism, the planning in Brussels. And we have convinced ourselves, I think, with a certain degree of confidence that an extension of around 11,000 square meters looks to be feasible.

Please nobody ask me how much that's going to cost and nobody ask me what the yield is because I don't know at the minute. We've got some more work to do on that.

But overall, it looks pretty healthy. Jeremy has mentioned that we need to do a cosmetic refurbishment.

We absolutely do need to do a cosmetic refurbishment. And that will focus very much on the entrances and what my colleagues in France would call the [Foreign Language] to make the thing more attractive to a better customer journey, I think, is the French expression of that.

And I think -- I will give a figure for that. And I think we can quite happily spend EUR 10 million on this shopping center in improving it.

And again, credit to AG, who own the shopping center, who have managed it very well, very competently for the last 20 years or so. We're getting on very well with AG, they speak our language.

In fact, being Belgian, they 3 languages. They speak very good French, very good Flemish and very good English.

So we're getting absolutely fine with them. And we will be managing it with them and building up a partnership over the next couple of years.

So we're very much looking forward to it and we're absolutely thrilled to be owning Woluwe. And I think with that, I will now hand over to Roberto down in Italy.

Fantastic. Thank you very much, Tom.

Let's start with the hot topic, that's asset sales. As you know, end of December, we signed a binding agreement with IGD for the sale of our 4 small assets in Mantova, Sarzana, Imola and Bologna.

We expect the sale to be finalized before possibly the foreseen date, which is end of June. So hopefully, if we're lucky, end of April, beginning of May, but we'll see.

The price, of course, as you know, is EUR 187 million, which reflects both June and December valuations. The second hot topic possibly in Italy is national elections, which will take place on March 4.

So the big question is who's going to be the winner. The latest polls suggest that the center-right coalition, which is Berlusconi, Lega and Forza Italia, has around 37% of the votes while the Five Star Movement and center-left coalition at around 27% each.

A government led by the Five Star Movement is currently considered pretty unlikely. What's also important to note is that no party has included in its program any referendum, neither on the euro nor on the EU.

There's also some positive news on the Italian economy. 2017 GDP, according to ISTAT, which is the national statistical agency, is expected to be at plus 1.6% year-on-year.

And the forecast for 2018 is also expected to be 1.5%, so quite good numbers. And the official unemployment rate is still coming down to 10.8%, which is down from 11.1% 6 months ago.

Italian traders were more optimistic with the consumer confidence index increasing to 116.5 from 106.4 in June 2017. Retail market, according to Savills, the investment volume on the retail real estate market in Italy reached over EUR 2.2 billion in 2017, which is down from the EUR 2.7 billion in 2016.

So there's been some yield compression but was mainly on prime assets and mainly driven from scarcity while yields increased for secondary properties. Our December valuation showed an increase in values of just 0.3% compared to June.

And the overall increase over the year compared to December 2016 was 7.5%. This is mirrored by a small decrease in the average net initial yield, which is now 5.2%, which is still pretty high.

Like-for-like rental growth for the 12 months, as Jeremy correctly said, was a strong 5.6% like in June 2017. It's a very good result also considering the headline inflation is still minimal.

And the main contributor to rental growth came, therefore, from the 163 renewals and relettings, so a big thanks to Valeria and the leasing team, which generated an average rental uplift of almost 24% and an increase in revenues of over EUR 3.7 million. Well, we got -- we got 10 empty units in our shopping centers out of the almost 900.

And most of them, it's just strategic vacancy as a consequence of refurbishments of the extension programs. Retail sales turnover increased slightly, was a positive 0.4% over the year with boutiques contributing the most while medium units and hypermarkets were within the negative territory.

Carosello, Collestrada and Sarzana were the top performers. While a decrease in turnover were registered in Castello, Curno, Fiordaliso and La Favorita, was mainly due to increased competition.

But the overall number of visitors year-on-year in the Italian centers also increased slightly with I Gigli reaching over 19 million visitors, Carosello, 9 million. We also had a nice surprise from Cremona Po, who performed very well and reached over 5 million visitors this year.

It's also important to note the occupancy cost ratio is kept in a healthy and sustainable 8.4% on average. Carlo and our asset managers have been working very hard on our extensive program of refurbishment and extensions.

In Cremona, we acquired 2,500 square meters of retail area from the hypermarket and also an adjoining piece of land of around 10,000 square meters, where we will build a retail park, which will further improve the retail offer of the center. Building activity here has already started, showing good interest from both national and international retailers.

In Perugia, we have formally submitted to the local authorities our request for a 19,500 square meters gallery expansion. The project also includes a 27,000 square meters IKEA store, which will be developed and owned by IKEA.

So it's going to be a strong anchor to the center next to the existing Coop hypermarket. As you would expect, several national and international retailers are keen to come.

The existing gallery has already undergone a light refurbishment, especially the food court area and the parking. And the effects have become visible with a strong increase in both footfall and turnovers on the 9-month period, which is almost 5% each.

Last but not least, Curno. We expect works for the new 3,000 square meters food court expansion to start before the end of the year, earlier if possible.

Leasing is progressing very well. And we'll also use the opportunity to further improve access and parking facilities.

And now over to Peter.

Thank you. Well, in Sweden, retail sentiment generally remains optimistic amongst both consumers and retailers.

We've enjoyed another 12 months of strong like sales growth in the galleries, up 3.1% with all shopping centers and most sectors showing positive figures. Like-for-like rental growth was up again at 3.7%, as 2017 saw a return of some limited indexation.

However, the major contributors to the rental growth came from the 50 relettings and renewals we completed over the year, producing an average uplift of over 17%. This result reflects well on the skills of our leasing team and their relationship with the retailers.

But it also demonstrates that for strong centers, there's still very healthy demand for physical space. And this is best illustrated at Halmstad, where in October, we opened the new extension, having completely prelet it to around 40 new shops while at Kristianstad over 80% of our 90-unit development is already prelet a full 9 months ahead of opening.

Valuations were up, but the rate of increase was lower over the last 6 months at 1.3% than the 3.8% achieved over 12 months, reflecting the fact that yields, which currently average just under 5% of cost of portfolio, are clearly leveling off. However, there is no indication of yields rising at the prime end of the market despite the recent weakness in the residential markets and future uncertainty about taxation in the property sector, which will not become any clearer until 2019 at the earliest, well after the elections.

Agents still report plenty of investment demands for prime retail as most recently illustrated by CBRE GI's EUR 100 million acquisition of Port 73 in Haninge at a reported yield of around 5%. We have been busy on the transactional side and last month completed the purchase of Valbo shopping center located on the E16 motorway outside Gavle.

An established and dominant regional center, Valbo serves a catchment of 250,000 people and is let to 70 tenants and adjoins and is partly let to IKEA. At an acquisition price of EUR 116 million, the property yields around 5.3% and provides opportunities for growth through refurbishment, tenant rotation and active asset management, which may in the future includes an extension.

We also completed the sale of 2 properties in the last quarter, Mellby and 421, which were identified as offering more limited potential for further development and growth. At a combined sale price of just over EUR 100 million, the give-out yield was almost identical to the ingoing yield at Valbo.

On the project front, we opened the rebranded, refurbished and extended Hallarna, formerly known as Eurostop, located outside Halmstad. And attention there is now focusing on refurbishing and partly rebuilding the smaller northern gallery, the hotel and the 4,000 square meter XXL sport unit.

And when this work is completed during 2018, Hallarna will provide a total of 44,000 square meters of either new or fully refurbished space for around 90 tenants. Meanwhile, progress continues at our 40,600 square meter C4 development outside Kristianstad and is currently over 80% prelet with the opening programmed for the end of September this year.

C4 will be the only regional center serving a catchment of 300,000 people and has therefore attracted a strong tenant lineup, including a CityGross hypermarket, which is already open and trading, a large-format H&M, Lindex, KappAhl, Stadium, New Yorker and all the Varner Group and Bestseller brands. While we are continuing to make stage payments on the construction, the final purchase price is calculated on the actual net operating income achieved, capitalized at 6%, a significant discount to current yields for established regional centers.

So looking forward and with yields likely to be flat, future growth will come from more -- from rental growth and from our ongoing and future projects. And with inflation now up to around 2% and with HUI, the retailers' organization, forecasting retail sales growth of 2.5% for this year and next, the prospects for rental growth continue to look encouraging.

And on that note, I will hand you back to the operator.

My first question would on -- just a small question on Halmstad, on the value uplift there. I think it's quite significant for the last 6 months.

Is it reflecting CapEx, your fee uplifts or a combination of more factors? Could you maybe elaborate a bit on that?

Yes. I think it's just the uncertainty of the development becoming less as the income becomes more real.

I mean, in fact, this is a very profitable development. And overall, we're going to grab the profit of close to EUR 40 million.

As we've said, it's a 7% return on the EUR 75 million CapEx. And we've taken it gently through -- the profits coming out from the values gently through the scheme, stopping off when we achieve planning, which was a very quite a long process and now during the preletting.

And I think there's still probably about 1/3 of that profit still to come out, which we will do as and when we finish off the hotel, the XXL units and the last units in the northern gallery. So there is more to come, but the uplift is really grabbing the development profit from the scheme.

Okay. And then my second question, more on basically strategy and financial strategy.

As you have noticed, some of your peers have, as your own stock price has -- but there, your peers may have suffered more also because of statements on their dividend payout ratio and their CapEx requirements. In what aspects do you recognize yourself or your portfolio in the sense that you need maybe more CapEx going forward?

And how do you feel about the payout ratio of your dividend?

Thank you. No, I mean, we would not hold back the dividend to make CapEx payments.

I mean, we have schemes on the go and we're sufficiently funded to do that. No, I mean, in terms of dividend, you've seen the first half results, it will be probably -- well, you can make a judgment as to whether the second half will be the same high roller or I couldn't possibly comment.

But it's certainly looking forward, the dividend is very sound, the dividend will not go down. That has, as you know, been our thesis since we've established the company.

It is a machine to produce steady, reliable, predictable dividends for shareholders and nothing has changed. Now of course, Woluwe is a big, big purchase at a low yield.

But of course, we funded it through the much lower yield at around 2% or whatever it is. I mean, clearly the 18-month bridge, half of that will disappear in 18 months and it will become a long-term loan.

But unless interest rates go up massively, that's not going to have an effect. And of course, we've got -- I won't go to detail, but you could imagine, we have a sales program designed to ensure that our debt levels don't go through the roof.

It will all vary, of course, depending on the timing of purchases and sales. But no, I mean, it's, I think, to hold back the dividend due to refurbishment seems to us not a course we'll follow.

Well, we certainly won't. Stock dividend, of course, you'll remember over the years has provided us with, I don't know, EUR 25 million to EUR 30 million fairly regularly.

And it would be fascinating to see what happens with the withholding tax in the Netherlands, the dividend withholding tax. Because clearly a number of people have taken up the stock to quite properly and legally of late there.

We'll see what happens in the future. But my impression is I think those that take up the stock do it because they want to not dilute it in any long-term holding in the company.

But we will see next year. No, but I think underlying -- if there are major extensions to come and we haven't got the money, we won't do it.

It's as simple as that. And Roberto has talked about the things he is doing.

Peter has obviously talked about the finishing off of C4, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And we'll be spending money over the period when we settle into Valbo.

But again, there's nothing that needs to be done, I think, that has to be done to maintain income there. I think anything we do there, we'll see an improvement.

So no, too often, there's no link at all between refurbishments and dividend.

And could you comment on the potential or the trend in your portfolio in terms of, let's say, fit-out costs? Do you see increasing, let's say, CapEx, whatever you want to call it, on that side there to maintain rents or...

Not really. No, I mean, clearly tenants like Primark have a good negotiating position.

And one pays then some millions, not huge amounts of millions. And Valeria can comment on this later.

I'd like to just give you an update on how retail is as I'm seeing things. But for the average tenant, no, I mean, there's no fit-out payment.

But the ones you really need, they're well aware that you really need them, so whether it be the Zaras or the H&Ms or most obviously recently the Primark. We think we're negotiating on several other properties.

But no, I mean, the theory is, and I think the theory has been proved in I Gigli, that with those major anchors, the ones, footfall, turnover and therefore eventually rents go up elsewhere. Clearly, some of them compete directly with other stores.

But no, there are no major performers there at all.

Just following on the point made about the different withholding tax in the Netherlands and is also a discussion about maybe abolishing this Dutch REIT regime. And I guess there's maybe not much to say on it yet because it's all unclear.

But I mean, I guess you're closely following the situation...

Well, Evert Jan is -- or I think almost probably sitting in the ministry's office somewhere. But Evert Jan, would you get...

Yes. No, what I can say, Erik, is, of course, everybody is still awaiting the first designs on how they want to do it.

And the first step will be, of course, to change the laws and therefore abolish the dividend withholding tax, which obviously has nothing do directly with the fiscal investment institution regime. On the other hand, of course, you then start to question, "Well, wait a minute, if the corporate entity is not taxed and there is no taxation anymore at the level of the shareholder, what happens actually then?"

Or are we just to carry on with the system without any withholding at the distribution you have to make every year as, let's say, an FBI fiscal investment institution? Or are there further consequences?

And that is, of course, the first question mark. And I don't know answer, Erik.

The other, and that's a little bit a separate matter but obviously links in with the Dutch dividend withholding tax discussion, is whether the FBIs in the near future are no longer allowed to invest in Dutch real estate. That has been announced as well as a step in order to sort of repair the leakage, which is currently happening because foreign investors can use legitimately, I mean, there's nothing to stop them, but for the moment, they can use the FBI structure to invest in Dutch real estate.

And in the end, in some cases, they don't pay any tax, any Dutch tax over Dutch real estate, which in itself, of course, is you can say not a correct situation. At some point, you have to pay some taxes where the property is.

So again, it remains to be seen how that will develop. We actually don't have any Dutch property.

It will not affect us immediately. But we're on top of the case.

We're monitoring this, of course, and talking with our other Dutch colleagues and with advisers on how this could maybe be implemented in due course and so on. But for the moment, we're all awaiting further news out of The Hague.

But Erik, obviously, one of the arguments we're using, particularly Evert Jan, is it would be especially in competition with Belgium. And the Netherlands and Belgium have a sort of wonderful love-hate relationship.

But it will be extraordinary if the country that really founded REITs and FBIs in the [ club ] ends up with none at all, whereas we're now seeing increases -- a new structure is being developed in Belgium, which actually intrigued us with Woluwe and other things. No, I mean, we're -- well, Evert Jan, of course, and [ Manea Tonkens ] and others are trying to make a strong case as possible.

But we'll see. As Evert Jan says, we can't hope -- we hope that it is sensible, but...

Of course. Okay.

And maybe one follow-up question on the disposals. I mean, I think the statement says there are some planned disposals.

Anything you can say on that in terms of where it is...

No, I'd rather not. I mean, we are sort of just coming on to the market with properties in all countries.

Obviously, the people are saying, "We love Belgium." But no, we've got ourselves.

It's -- no, honestly, I have to say yet again that if we had our [ multi ] fund, I wouldn't be sending any of them. I mean, they all have their pluses and minuses and some are big and some are small.

But I have to say the some of the strongest turnover growth in probably the last 10 years, we now have a very smallish property in Sarzana, which we're now selling, but yes. No, it doesn't make sense to concentrate as far as we can.

But no, we clearly have a plan. But plans don't always come off when you want them to.

But actually, whether the market is going to weaken a bit with rising interest, I can't tell. But interest rates are not rising that much in Europe as we said earlier.

But the irony, the real irony, the paradox, the infuriating difference is there is so much money around in the unquoted funds, the venture funds or the unquoted property funds and all the rest of it. So at the physical level, there has never been probably stronger demand, whereas we're seeing all the quoted securities in a complete league with the stock markets.

So now that's a bit depressing. But there's not much we can do about it, I don't think so.

Yes, I mean, just before I do, perhaps, Valeria, is there anything -- of course, as you know, our Group Leasing Director is Valeria Di Nisio. Is there anything you'd like to say about general demand from retailers in our markets?

Well, Jeremy, thank you very much for the question. As we mentioned, we have had a very busy year in all of our countries, Italy, Sweden and France.

And I'm expecting very busy to come also in Belgium, believe it or not. We had almost 290 leases signed.

And as you know 20.2% -- with a 20.2% rental increase on these leases, a significant number is that 30% of all the new leases signed we do with new retailers, brand-new retailers coming in our centers. Clearly, there is a strong demand from retailers for our shopping centers.

And this is also well demonstrated by the low vacancies, which is in our shopping centers. Also a remark which Tom forgot to mention regarding Woluwe is that right at the same moment, the market got to know that we were buying the center, I started receiving e-mails and calls from our retailers, one congratulating us because clearly it's a 50-years-old shopping center celebrating this year, in fact they're 50 years old, hence extremely a strong position in the Brussels market.

And our retailers are very well-known and already got an extremely long wish list, retailers wanted to come, not necessarily us wanting them to come. But a long list of retailers, which I'm expecting to meet in the next meeting in London, at the RECon London.

So I can say, Jeremy, yes, the request from retailers, it feels very strong.

Good, thank you for that. No, and that's what matters most, of course, that we can pontificate about all sort of things.

But unless the retailers are selling more goods and want more space, then obviously this is not going to be successful. But despite all the concerns about the Internet, there's more and more click and collect, if you like.

And we are still seeing -- I mean, obviously the major examples of H&M and Zara doubling the size of their shops partly because of the Internet, that what they want to do is offer the physical goods in the same huge range that they do on their websites. But no, I mean, we're not seeing any diminishing at all.

And in fact, obviously we're exceptional, we know that. But no, one shouldn't be overconfident, of course.

But when we're seeing more and more and more that the web, the Internet sales are actually complementary, not destructive, of retail sales for the better retailers. And there's an interesting aside perhaps.

And that is if you look at the detail of our turnovers, which you'll see more in our annual report, the turnover growth in the smaller boutiques actually has held up very well in many cases better than the medium-sized stores. And you might argue that the medium-sized stores are more in direct competition with the Internet, offering that huge range and sort of emphasizing cheapness above everything else, whereas I think shoppers like the variety offered by the smaller boutiques.

So they are not going to disappear. So no, I mean, looking forward, we have been probably suffering from a touch of exhaustion at the moment.

But we've got so much to do and we're enjoying it immensely. So no, next year will be tough but very enjoyable, I think.

Thank you very much. I think that concludes our call for today.

Operator, please close the line.