Operator
Hello and welcome to the Gecina 2026 Half Year Earnings Presentation. For the first part of the conference call, the participants will be in listen-only mode.
During the questions and answers session, participants on the phone are able to ask questions by dialing pound key 5 on their telephone keypad. Today we have Beñat Ortega, CEO, and Nicolas Dutreuil, Deputy CEO in charge of finance as our presenters.
I will now hand you over to your host, Beñat Ortega, to begin today's conference. Thank you.
Beñat Ortega
Good morning everyone. Thank you for joining us today to review our performance for H1 2026.
Three themes will guide today's discussion. The first half of 2026, we continue to deliver growth in both revenues and earnings.
This growth comes with stronger long-term fundamentals, a higher quality portfolio, and healthy leverage. We are actively working to build tomorrow's self-funded sustainable growth for the next years.
I'll come back to this point at the end. Let's start with H1 2026 key achievements.
Leasing activity was sustained this semester. We signed 48,000 square meters in 6 months, sustaining a rental uplift of 13% while keeping our occupancy high around 94%.
Looking ahead, our pipeline surfaces under term sheets now reaches 50,000 square meters, including discussion with major tech players. We expect this discussion to close before the end of the year.
On the multifamily side, we signed 650 leases with a strong increase in occupancy, up 170 basis points year on year. This shows the ramp-up of the strategy we've been deploying for 2 years now: furnished and serviced apartments, as well as coliving solutions alongside our traditional family units.
A good example of the way we capture strong rental uplift is the proactive roll-out of our fully managed offices. We offer a plug-and-play product, one point of contact, one invoice, and flexibility, and the market is ready to pay for that.
It now represents more than 16,000 square meters across 16 buildings in Central Paris, where this offering is most relevant. Based on market trends for traditional leases, we achieve rents 30 to 40% above market values after deducting our costs, including capex.
Basically, we achieve rents similar to redeveloped assets without entirely vacating the building for 18 or 24 months. This is particularly relevant for typical small-sized traditional Parisian office assets.
We have already targeted 40 assets and we expect to double this portfolio by the end of 2028. We are also working hard on customer satisfaction to retain our tenants for longer.
This enhances our visibility on occupancy, higher for longer, and strengthens portfolio resilience overall. Thanks to proactive renewals and renegotiations, our tenant retention rate was 10 points higher this year than the 3-year average.
This reflects a broader market trend, one that was probably reinforced recently and that helps explain the apparent subdued take-up since tenant retention doesn't fully show up in market data in France. This translates into our capacity to grow revenues.
Our rental income grew by 2% on a like-for-like basis, outperforming indexation by 100 basis points in a context where inflation has been slowing down until recently, which is no surprise. It's even been up 7.6% on our housing portfolio thanks to a solid catch-up in occupancy and growing rents per square meter.
On a current basis, the contribution from our different growth drivers—organic growth, the immediate accretive acquisition we made last year in Paris, as well as recent pipeline deliveries—offsets the disposal of mature residential assets as well as asset repositionings and potential conversions. Going from the top line to the bottom line, we continue to optimize our property costs to generate a solid increase in rental margin, up 160 basis points year on year.
Zooming out to the broader cost base, H1 confirms a significant decrease in our EPRA cost ratio from 21% in 2021 to 14% now. Same focus on financial costs, which remain well contained thanks to our strong hedging policy and disciplined financing strategy.
All in all, earnings continue to grow and we confirm our guidance for 2026: recurring net income expected to be between €6.70 and €6.75 per share—euro per share. We deliver this growth while improving our fundamentals, from portfolio quality to tenant base to robustness of our financing platform.
We have obviously worked on improving the quality of our portfolio. In a context where more than 4% of office stock was converted in housing or hotels in Paris' most sought-after locations, we have been firmly anchoring our portfolio in the prime side of the market and where prime rents continue to grow in real terms after incentives and above inflation.
This is a long-term effort and it requires consistency over time. Thanks to proactive disposals, even in subdued investment markets, acquisitions, and redevelopments, Paris and Neuilly's share of our rents has already grown by 7 points since 2021.
Those 7 points will become 20 points by 2031, all else equal, representing a doubling of our Paris and Neuilly office rents in 10 years. At the same time, we have made our portfolio more prime: 65% of our office portfolio has been restructured over the past 10 years and we have identified 40 assets to further deploy YouFirst—our fully managed office offering—to be more appealing against our competition.
On this journey, we have also reinforced the quality of our tenant base and we take pride in hosting more blue chip names—you see on this slide—French or global leaders alike in our portfolio, the last one being Mondelēz Group in Boulogne last month. Values are holding firm, broadly stable like for like.
Central location values in particular are up 0.3% in an investment market where Paris now concentrates 75% of transaction volumes, in line with what we observed in 2024 and 2025. This isn't a surprise; investment market generally tracks the leasing market, and tenants favor centrality and quality.
One important news behind the figures, we have also renewed our independent appraisers, and all assets have been assessed by a new appraiser this semester. One of the key fundamentals we pay great attention to, as is our financing structure.
Summarizing H1 in a nutshell, our credibility was confirmed again with both rating agencies reiterating our best-in-class credit profile for the eighth consecutive year. The bond we issued in May, €500 million over 5 years at a very competitive spread of 68 bps, is a further proof of our competitive advantage against our peers on the bond market.
In this context, we continuously maintain visibility with stable leverage, all future growth already funded for this year—I'll come back to this—strong liquidity with new credit lines and bonds, and efficiency of our financing platform with strong hedging and contained cost of debt at 1.6%. Safe debt, then, as our model funds its own future revenue and value growth.
In 6 months, we closed €250 million of disposals of mature assets at a rent loss rate of 3.1% to fund the capex of the redevelopment pipeline launched end of 2024. Another €80 million was secured in July at a rental loss in average of 2.4%.
This year's financing need for development is €265 million. The return on capex invested in Paris and Neuilly redevelopments is 10.6%.
This is how we approach capital allocation tools on an agnostic basis, always with the aim to combine: improving portfolio quality to drive future long-term rental growth, keeping leverage at a safe medium-long-term level in support of our rating, and selecting the most cash-flow accretive investment for shareholders, and adjusting at any time for the best option. Signature in Paris CBD is a good illustration of this approach.
It's a destination asset for corporate headquarters and already a leasing and value creation success just 12 months after acquisition. Our leasing progress is 15% above our initial underwriting.
€150 million of value has been already created in 12 months. Through this transaction, we have reinforced the portfolio quality with more prime central value—the CBD share of our portfolio grew by 4%.
We funded the acquisition and refurbishment without impacting leverage by selling a mature student housing portfolio yielding below 4%, and value creation is already there with an updated yield on cost of 7% on actual rents. Let me now turn to how we are building tomorrow's value creation.
When we look at the market, it's important to stress that Paris stands out as one of the few global cities offering such a diversity of tenant base. It's the leading financial hub in Continental Europe and a corporate and industrial powerhouse hosting 88% of CAC 40 headquarters.
Additionally, in a centralized country like France, it's also home to most national and global public institutions. It's less known, but Paris is also becoming Continental Europe's leading hub for AI and tech.
Several reasons explain this: the depth of the talent pool in Paris—scientists, engineers, data specialists; the existing ecosystem of hundreds of startups and AI leaders; and capital velocity with strong public and private investment now reaching €109 billion after Choose France. It already shows up in the figures—the real estate figures.
Tech companies take-up has doubled between 2023 and 2025, concentrated in prime submarkets with major transactions from Datadog, Mistral AI, or Shab's Vision. Same story on Gecina's rent roll: tech, fintech, and healthtech rents have doubled across our office portfolio between 2021 and today, and tech now represents 17% of our total office rents.
Zooming out a bit, in the last weeks we have interviewed, together with IFOP, 500 French CEOs regarding AI, and 2/3 said they have already an AI strategy deployed or are working on one. Interestingly, 9 in 10 of those business leaders surveyed think that artificial intelligence will impact the office—not to replace it, but to make it more strategic and collaborative.
Among 72% of leaders who expect their real estate strategy to evolve in the coming years, the main move expected is flight to quality, favoring central offices best connected to public transport, flexible and collaborative workspaces, and amenitized and serviced office buildings to attract and retain the best talents. The destination assets we are designing are aligned with these trends.
They are also modular by design to adapt to evolving needs. This thinking on the product is key, in my view, to meet the market with the right offering and deliver the expected annual rents of €80 to €90 million once delivered and fully let.
The first signs are encouraging: Signature now is 60% secured; we have advanced discussion on 3/4 of 35 Capucines; a healthy pipeline of visits and discussion across all projects, including a first fully managed office in Croissant project. In May, we also launched works on Shake, the new name of the T1 tower in La Défense.
We'll bring the codes of hospitality, modern services, and curated design to transform the experience of this tower. This 18-month refurbishment will reposition the tower on the strong side of the market where you have seen that vacancy has been down recently, and we already have interest, though it's still early for prospects to commit.
Looking forward, and we have already confirmed guidance for 2026, the next cycle of growth is progressively taking shape. 2027 will be likely a transition year with much depending on the pace of pre-leasing of the Paris and Neuilly pipeline.
From 2028, in a normalized inflation environment, rent contribution from the redeveloped assets will sustain rental and earning growth, together with the progressive re-leasing of Shake. As you can see, we are working hard on the short term to deliver growth today while also preparing tomorrow's value creation, always with the same discipline on capital allocation to extract more value.
Thank you all for listening, and we are now happy to answer your questions.
Operator
If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key 6.
The next question comes from Florent Laroche-Joubert from Oddo BHF. Please go ahead.
Florent Laroche-Joubert
Hi, Beñat. Thank you for this presentation.
I would have two questions. The first one on the asset value, I understand that you have a new appraisers.
Could you maybe give us maybe more colors about their comments on the valuations for the central IS and also maybe a comment on what has happened in La Défense and I think there's a one-off effect maybe on T1B. Maybe after that I can ask you my second question.
Beñat Ortega
Listen, the trends in Paris central locations are a bit the same regarding rents. We had a positive cash-flow effect on our Parisian assets and appraisers have, based on the current situation, expanded a bit the yields on the prime portfolio.
That's why growth has been a bit more limited than the previous semester, with no major changes regarding appraisals. On La Défense, yeah, there is a small impact on La Défense on the T1 and B towers, and that explains most of it.
Florent Laroche-Joubert
Okay. Thank you.
Maybe my second question would be on the leasing side. I think this is the first time that you report the square meters signed on term sheets.
I understand that when you sign on term sheets, the rents are quite secured, let's say at 99% or something like that. How can we compare this volume of 50,000 square meters signed on term sheet compared to previous period?
Is it above, same, or below what you were able to sign in the past?
Beñat Ortega
I would say that the situation in France is a bit in a wait-and-see mode. That's why we gave a bit that indication.
Conversations take longer than before. That's why we have more volumes in term sheets before going to signature than what we had before.
As it was a sizable amount against what we signed during H1, we thought it was interesting to guide you a bit on where are the current discussions with tenants.
Florent Laroche-Joubert
Thank you very much, that's very useful. Thank you.
Operator
The next question comes from Ebrahim Homani from CIC. Please go ahead.
Ebrahim Homani
Hello. Thank you for taking my questions.
I have two if I may. The first one is about the rental margin.
Is there room for further improvement in H2? My second question is about your dividend distribution policy.
What payout ratio to expect in 2026 given the regular rental improvement?
Beñat Ortega
Ebrahim, can you just repeat the question please, which just got interrupted in the call?
Ebrahim Homani
It was about the rental margin in H2. Is there room for further improvement?
My second question is about your dividend distribution policy. What level of dividend could we expect in 2026 given the
Beñat Ortega
Regarding rental margin, we worked a lot on that during the first half, like we did on the previous years. I think we should be a bit in line in H2 against what we did in H1.
Really, it's a series of super small amounts, a very detailed work by the teams on both resi teams and office teams, which is paying off now. It should be rather similar during H2.
Regarding dividend policy, I think we gave somehow a view that the dividend that will be paid today based on the current distribution rate is rather fine and that we can sustain that dividend for the medium term and progressively increase it alongside with leasing. The message we'd convey in February during our annual earning call is still in line with what we have in mind now.
Ebrahim Homani
Many thanks.
Beñat Ortega
You're welcome.
Operator
The next question comes from Benjamin Legrand from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Benjamin Legrand
Yes, good morning and thank you for taking my questions. Just two questions from my side.
The first question would be on the guidance and what you expect over the second part of the year considering where you are at the moment. I see it as a bit shy, I was just wondering what you expect.
Then the second question would be in La Défense regarding Idemia if you have any news coming from them if they could be staying or not in their tower. Thank you.
Beñat Ortega
We had in mind to have different semesters between H1 and H2. It's a lot of small elements, but we are still in line with what we were planning to deliver for year end.
That's why, in fact, we have kept the guidance like it was. Leasing is progressing according to plan, so that's why we are capable to confirm the guidance even during this complex situation.
Regarding La Défense, obviously, I will not be able to comment precisely on one tenant discussion, but regarding B tower, which is for everyone the building which is next to T1 tower, where Engie has a sublease, which is called Idemia, and we are progressing well on being capable to keep occupancy on that building. Sorry, we are still working on it and negotiating, I will not be able to comment precisely on the specific Idemia name.
Benjamin Legrand
Thank you.
Operator
The next question comes from Jonathan Kownator from GS. Please go ahead.
Jonathan Kownator
Good morning. Thank you for taking my question.
How do you see the investment market? Obviously, your valuations are down slightly.
Valuers you've changed. Do you have appetite, and do you think there's liquidity for additional disposals in the market today?
At the same time, can you please also highlight opportunities of reinvestment and how you compare today investment opportunities, do you see any in the market versus potential share buybacks? Thank you.
Beñat Ortega
Thank you, Jonathan. I think we all saw the stats regarding investment market in Paris region, which are really shy.
Liquidity is pretty limited. Still some in Paris inner city, but still pretty shy.
The investment market following Iran and the rise in interest rates have been declining in terms of volumes. That's probably why appraisers have thought that it was a slight decompression of our yields and therefore, no major moves to be expected in my view on the Parisian market or investment market.
Same goes with regarding
Jonathan Kownator
Sorry, just follow-up very quickly. Gecina, for instance, was highlighting that insurance companies have been collecting capital and have been trying to reinvest in some areas, they were highlighting actually foreign investments, but what are you seeing from that type of investors currently?
Beñat Ortega
A bit, but no massive move. I agree with you, they have collected a serious amount of money, especially in assurance-vie, the life insurance business, but so far we have not seen them really active on the market.
Jonathan Kownator
Okay.
Beñat Ortega
It might change, but so far I see the market pretty muted.
Jonathan Kownator
Okay.
Beñat Ortega
What is left there is probably family office. You saw that there was some rumors regarding Pontegadea trying to buy Capital 8.
It might be executed in the next days, but we are not in the deal. Outside of family and pension fund money, not much to say.
Jonathan Kownator
Okay. What are you seeing in terms of reinvestment opportunities in the market, and is that something that you would consider currently?
Beñat Ortega
I think it's in line with the question regarding share buyback. Our hurdle for capital, cost of capital is pretty high, we are obviously very careful and demanding on the returns regarding acquisitions.
As the market has a bit frozen, in the next months I don't see so many opportunities in the market for acquisitions. Again, it might change, the situation is pretty volatile, yeah.
Jonathan Kownator
Generally speaking, can you help us understand, obviously, why liquidity currently is low in the market, but what's your appetite to continue disposals? Obviously, you've been doing some disposals in H1 that are funding your pipeline.
What is your appetite in principle to test the market if you find some pocket of liquidity in there?
Beñat Ortega
Our appetite is always the same one, huh? We disposed €3 billion in the last 4 years.
We try to find as much liquidity as possible on our portfolio, and then to have the milk to reinvest in the best cash-flow accretive opportunities. We are very pragmatic on the situation.
Like you saw, we have secured almost €300 million disposals this year, which is, after what we did last year and the year before and the year before, a proof that we are very dedicated in fact to rotate capital at fast as possible to generate shareholder return.
Jonathan Kownator
Okay. All right, thank you.
Beñat Ortega
You're welcome. Thank you, Jonathan.
Operator
The next question comes from Aaron Guy from Citi. Please go ahead.
Aaron Guy
Hi team. Thanks for taking the questions.
Can I just ask for a bit more color on the Paris occupier market? In particular, the supply-demand imbalance.
You've got rising tech demand that's pretty dynamic at the moment, traditional businesses fighting to retain talent, and also hiring to apply sort of AI. Is there enough supply response?
Is there new opportunities in that market? When you look at tenant affordability, should we expect that prime rents continue to rise sort of going forward?
Beñat Ortega
It's the million-dollar question. The last leases we signed in Signature were the highest of Gecina's history.
Obviously, when we deliver prime, flexible, large floor plates, amenitized buildings next to the best transportation hub in Europe, obviously we can capture even higher rents than before. That's still working pretty well.
Obviously that neighborhood concentrates a lot of different occupier which are looking for more square meters and more space or better space. You saw that JLL took some stuff, we had consulting firms, we have seen also tech firms taking square meters in the neighborhood.
On the best spots and the best assets, we still see great appetite and growing rents for the most prime assets. At the same time, because the situation is uncertain, and that you saw on our Q1 and H1 results, we see a growing clientele for flex office business.
Coworking, occupancy are pretty high and we have seen great appetite for our serviced office business. That's another way to capture a growing clientele.
In more general terms, the market is more wait-and-see, so that's why to grow our company, we are trying to build the products and the services, in fact, to capture those growing clientele.
Aaron Guy
Thanks. Just on invest markets.
Aside from the specific sort of asset differences and issues, when you look at the investment market more broadly, you mentioned that since the Middle East conflict, there's been a bit of a tempering of demand. If that was to resolve, would you expect some of that demand to come back?
Are there any other issues that you think are holding the investment market back?
Beñat Ortega
The Middle East situation has been quite frustrating to be fair because when we saw what was occurring in autumn, clearly we were seeing greater investment appetite. Blackstone bought a big asset, and we saw a series of large transactions at pretty tight yields and high value per square meter.
Obviously the Middle East situation has frozen a bit the situation. That shows that before that situation and rising interest rates following Iran, there was clearly an appetite for prime Parisian assets on investment market because of again that balance between scarcity of qualitative products and pretty decent occupier appetite.
The situation is still a bit the same. Hopefully the situation will bounce back if the Middle East situation and interest rate situation clarifies a bit.
Aaron Guy
Yeah. Just one quick technical one if I can.
Just on the EPS guidance, are there any sort of key up or downside risks that you see within your range?
Beñat Ortega
Not really. That's why we had a quite precise view on 2026 when we gave our guidance because most of the time in our business, the volatility of our earnings 12 months ahead is linked to pre-leasing of pipeline.
We had a good view on renewals and re-lettings on our existing portfolio. That's why we gave a tight range in which we are still there.
We still have some leasing to do to achieve the higher range of the guidance, so that's why we gave that, but that's what the rationale is because limited pipeline delivery in '26 gave us a pretty precise view on where we might land for 2026. We are basically in line with the plan for the last months.
Aaron Guy
Perfect. Thanks, Beñat.
Operator
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone.
Beñat Ortega
On the bottom line, as we were 100% hedged, therefore that gives you a good indication on the earnings.
Operator
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Ana Escalante from Morgan Stanley.
Please go ahead.
Ana Escalante
Morning. Just one quick question on maintenance capex.
I believe that in full-year presentation, you said that you would expect in a run-rate just below €100 million per annum, but it looks like this half, you've already spent six €75 million in maintenance capex. That run-rate was more maybe medium-term guidance for '27, '28 onwards and this first half is more of a one-off?
Or has this changed at all, and you now expect to spend a little bit more in maintenance capex?
Beñat Ortega
Thank you, Ana, for your question. You're right in what you say.
It's rather one-off that might last 1 or 2 years. What I gave as an indication is we are more catch-up capex on our housing portfolio—some facades to change, some balconies to repair.
That takes some time, but once that period about catch-up capex on the resi, we should re-enter into a significantly lower maintenance capex average.
Ana Escalante
Thank you.
Beñat Ortega
All right, we are having written questions and I'm going to take the one by Sultan Awad from Kempen, which is the first one: who is the buyer of the resi disposals, could they do more or do you see more appetite? The second question is: it seems the committed capex for 2026 is now covered, if so, is it fair to say that any additional disposals would be recycled, or would you prefer more headroom on leverage metrics?
Regarding resi disposals during H1 and the new one, it's a combination between core funds looking for resi assets overall—build-to-rent is quite a popular investment thesis these days—and public entities or state-owned entities buying those assets. The last is we have a unit-by-unit disposal program on some assets.
We have sold probably €25 million of housing assets unit by unit to individuals. It's rather diversified.
We have, as I said to Jonathan earlier on, we try to find the best buyers and try to find all the pockets potentially available for us for disposals. Very pragmatically, as we always do, we try one to fund the company, so that's why funding the pipeline was priority number one, and the next one then will be and we will see how the situation evolve during the year, what we do with the additional proceeds, if any.
Again, the investment market is not buoyant these days, if any, we will see if we further improve our balance sheet through deleveraging or we find cash-flow accretive reinvestments of any type. Really, we will look at the situation in the next months very pragmatically depending on how much we can sell and what is the best option for the long-term prospect of the company.
Operator
The next question comes from Kanad Mitra from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Kanad Mitra
Hi team. Many thanks for taking my question.
Kind of was already wondering about touching on your last point. Given that the investment market liquidity is lower, and your business plan kind of at this point is recycling assets into development pipeline, how confident are you to carry out that plan without raising leverage?
Another question again, can you shed some light on the kind of deals that you're seeing in the occupier market, which are like AI-led tenants? Just a little bit of color would be nice.
Thanks.
Beñat Ortega
Yeah. Liquidity on the investment market is limited, but it's hopefully temporary.
We have quite a seasoned and proactive investment team looking at opportunities. We'll obviously over the next months, being super proactive, engaging with as many investors as possible to find the best options.
We'll try really to continue as we do on the leasing side, in fact to be as proactive as possible on any type of deal. Regarding leverage and reinvestments, again, we will observe the situation and find the best options, hopefully.
Regarding the occupier market, on the large deals, and it will not surprise you that we are quite a diverse tenant base like I mentioned during the presentation in Paris, when you look at the large deals which are on the market these days, we have energy companies, we still have some luxury names which are looking for square meters—we signed a lease earlier on this year with a very well known luxury company including serviced office, by the way, with them. We have also tech names which are pure AI, but also the famous large-tech US names.
There is French AI companies in the market, Mistral signed a large lease in Paris last year, but there are two or three pretty large transactions that might occur. Not sure in our buildings, but let's say they are active on the market.
We have seen also banks expanding again their footprint. It's quite diverse, in fact, the leasing market, even if it's quite slow, but they are deals in the market.
Kanad Mitra
Thanks for the answers, that's peerless.
Beñat Ortega
You're welcome. Thank you for your questions.
Nicolas Dutreuil
All right, we are having another question on the chat, from Sheetal Jaitly from Deutsche Bank. Two questions here: portfolio values were down 0.5% like for like with a yield effect partly offset by a rental effect.
Do you expect further yield pressure in non-central submarkets in H2? That's the first question.
The second question is: you completed €250 million of disposals in H1 and secured another €80 in July. Is the disposal program largely complete for 2026, or should we expect further asset sales, and any target for 2026?
Beñat Ortega
Portfolio values, yields, and rents, I think it's too early. We just got the H1 appraisals right now, we will have to observe the market after summer and to see the way it goes.
It's really too early to answer the question. At least we know what was in H1.
Like I said, we rotated all our appraisers also to give you as much confidence in the strength of the way we operate and provide the value of our portfolio in our balance sheet. On the second question, I think we don't have really a disposal program in place.
It's really being proactive on capital allocation like we have always been with those three views: trying to through disposal improve the average quality of what we have, keep the leverage, and find the more accretive investment opportunities. We are still in that line.
We start the year with zero and we try to do as much as we can.
Nicolas Dutreuil
I think we're done with the questions as there is not anymore question in the room. If it's not the case, then we can give the floor to Beñat for concluding words.
Beñat Ortega
Again, thank you all for listening and for your questions, and we are very happy to meet you very soon after this H1 earnings call. Thank you all.
Bye-bye.
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