Good morning everyone, and welcome to Eurocommercial Properties half-year results conference call. My name is Ilaria Vitaloni, and I am Investor Relations Officer at Eurocommercial.

I'm joined today by our CEO, Evert Jan van Garderen, and our CFO, Roberto Fraticelli, who will take you through the key highlights of our half-year results and provide an update on the business. With that, I'm very pleased to hand over to Evert Jan to start the presentation.

Evert Jan, over to you.

Thank you, Ilaria. Good morning everyone, and welcome to Eurocommercial Properties half-year results for 2026.

Thank you for joining us. On the slide, we posted our 35 years anniversary because we were founded in 1991, and that's a useful moment to reflect on what has created over time, but also to focus, of course, on what we hope and will create in terms of value.

During the first half year of 2026, our centers continued to attract more visitors, our retailers delivered good sales, and occupancy remained exceptionally high. That was all, of course, also a result of our active leasing and asset management initiatives.

Today, Roberto and I will explain how these operational and financial developments fit together, and why we believe they provide a sound platform for continued growth. I will begin with the operational review, and Roberto will then take you through the financial review.

Of course, after our presentations, we will open the line for questions. I'll start with a brief reminder of who we are, where we operate, and the long-term consistency of our approach.

Eurocommercial was founded and listed in Amsterdam in 1991. Actually, we will celebrate that soon with ringing the gong or the bell as as we say in Amsterdam later in end of October, because it was the 1st of November when we were listed.

From the outset, the company has pursued a selective, long-term investment approach with our first shopping center acquisition in France, Les Atlantes, followed by Curno in Italy in 1994, which, by the way, we still own, a nice shopping center in Bergamo, but then also entered in Sweden with Burlöv Center near Malmö, followed by Belgium in 2018 with Woluwe Shopping. In April this year, Avion Shopping in Umeå became our latest acquisition.

Today, the portfolio comprises 25 shopping centers across Belgium, France, Italy, and Sweden, with a value of approximately €4.2 billion. Although the markets and consumer preferences have changed considerably over 35 years, the core of the model has not.

Own high-quality retail destinations, stay close to retailers and customers, invest where the return is attractive, and manage the assets actively for income growth. Our portfolio spans two complementary formats.

At the one hand, we have the convenience-led suburban assets, anchored by grocery stores and essential services. These centers obviously benefit from frequent visits, and serve the everyday needs of our local communities.

On the other hand, we have the destination flagship assets, where fashion, premium, and international brands, leisure, entertainment create a broader day out experience. Between those two ends of the spectrum, there are the categories you would expect like health and beauty, personal care, food and beverage, services, and social experiences.

These categories are important because they support recurring visits, and make the centers relevant for more than a single purchase. Our strategy connects investment selection, operational execution, financial discipline, and value creation.

First, the investment strategy. We focus on prime shopping centers in strong European markets, with dominant catchments, solid economic fundamentals, and long-term growth potential.

Selectivity is essential. We do not seek growth for the sake of growth.

We look for assets where the quality is really important and where we can see an opportunity to improve the operations. Secondly, our operational strategy.

We actively manage the centers through leasing data-driven insights and targeted asset management. This is where our local teams create value, improving the tenant mix, reconfiguring space, introducing new brands, and ensuring that each center remains relevant to its customers.

Third, our financial strategy, which is a solid and robust strategy, and Roberto will talk about it more in his presentation. Then, finally, that's probably what it is all about, is value creation.

The first three pillars must translate into outcomes for shareholders: rental and earnings growth, attractive returns from capital expenditure, better portfolio quality, and disciplined capital recycling. Italy.

We We can't escape from Italy because it's currently our star. Not only because it is a star, it also represents 44% of the portfolio, and continues to deliver strong operational performance.

Importantly, 75% of the portfolio is rated A by analyst from Green Street, reflecting the quality and competitive position of these assets. The figures on this slide show how our remerchandising programs have supported performance at the three Italian flagships: Fiordaliso, Carosello, and I Gigli, evidenced by the important KPIs: uplifts on renewals and relettings, rental growth above indexation, and retail sales.

These results demonstrate that remerchandising is not a cosmetic exercise. It is a disciplined operating tool.

By improving the offer, creating the right space, introducing retailers that customers want, we can strengthen trading, improve rental tension, and enhance the long-term quality of the assets. The remerchandising pipeline, which is shown here, is moving from construction and temporary disruption into income generation.

We see here the examples: CremonaPo with a new Primark store, but also at Collestrada a new Primark store. In I Gigli, we will have Lefties and Lidl opening in October, bringing the present program in that shopping center also close to completion.

In France, at Val Thoiry, we're also remerchandising and redeveloped that will take some some more years, but it also includes the opening of a Primark store. During these projects, affected units can be temporarily non-income producing.

That has a limitation in terms of rental growth in 2025 and 2026. As these stores open and the areas return to full-income operation, we expect the income contribution to become increasingly visible with the full effect of the current major projects expected in 2027.

If we look at completed projects like Woluwe Shopping and Carosello, we have put here on this slide some amounts, and they speak for themselves because, after completion, we can really measure the returns, which are nice, double-digit figures. If we look at nearly completed initiatives, which are shown here, they also deliver the projected presented results.

You can see what we have invested in I Gigli, Collestrada, and CremonaPo, and what the expected rental uplifts are. Obviously, the amounts and therefore returns they vary, but it's also important to stress that over the next years, it will become even more clear what the returns will be.

The spin-off of the remerchandising projects will also be noted in the medium- and long-term. The important point is not simply that each project is attractive in isolation.

Together, they demonstrate a repeatable model. We identify an opportunity in the merchandising mix, design a practical reconfiguration, secure the right retailers, manage the temporary disruption, and then capture the benefit through higher productivity and rental income.

As these projects become fully operational, we expect stronger trading and income contribution during 2027. We're also assessing further remerchandising opportunities across the portfolio.

We will remain selective, and will communicate them once the relevant agreements are sufficiently advanced. Avion Shopping in Umeå is our latest acquisition and a good example of the type of opportunity we seek.

We completed the acquisition in April for approximately €111 million, adding a modern, dominant, regional shopping center with around 80 shops and restaurants and a strong mix of national and international brands. As you can see, the turnover growth and the footfall growth for the first six months of 2026 are very encouraging, and the property is currently yielding 8%.

We have agreed terms to acquire Mood, a leisure destination adjacent to our shopping center Fiordaliso for an amount of €7.5 million. The investment offers an attractive yield of approximately 14%, providing immediate income generation.

The strategic value goes beyond the initial yield. Fiordaliso, the adjacent retail park, and Mood can operate as a more integrated destination.

The three components offer complementary reasons to visit: shopping, services, food, entertainment, and leisure. This is a relatively modest capital commitment with both immediate income and redevelopment potential, but it is also consistent with the direction of customer demand.

Leisure and food and beverage offer increases dwell time, support evening activity, and strengthen the relevance of our destination beyond traditional retail hours. Then we go to the operational results.

Here we see the half-year results across the key operating indicators with rental growth, rental uplifts 4.7%, rent retail sales at 4.6%, and still a very low vacancy figure of 1%, a nice OCR stable at 9.2%. Then, of course, footfall quite encouraging over the 6 months at 3.2%.

Without footfall, the rest of the KPIs will never be achieved. Very nice to see that.

If we actually look at the footfall momentum, it was broad-based across the portfolio because we have visitor numbers overall increasing at 3.2%, but we can see that the flagship centers performed particularly well. The rounded average figure of the flagships is approximately 4%.

I have to say that I Gigli is excluded from this comparison because of all the works in in the shopping center. By country, footfall increased by 3.2%, as I said before, and that's a healthy pattern.

It's not dependent on one center or one market, and it is continued despite construction-related disruption in parts of our portfolio. When we look at the retail sales growth, the 4.6% I already mentioned, and here you can see the split over the countries.

Italy, again, very strong with 7.3%, but also Belgium had a had a nice uplift of 3.8%, and the other countries still also have a a plus. In the sector mix, it was also encouraging.

Outstanding performance by services, food and restaurants, and health and beauty, but all the other sectors also really a plus. You could say that basically only sports was the only category to decline with -0.9%.

The spread of the growth matters. It shows that performance is not being driven by a single category.

You need all those categories to have a nice result overall. Again, I cannot of course repeat again that Italy's strong performance with 7.3% reflects the strength of the assets and the benefits of the merchandising work already delivered.

If we look at the rental growth, like-for-like rental growth overall over 12 months, that's how we measure it under our models, was 2.5%, approximately 190 basis points above indexation because we all know that 2026 was certainly not the year of indexation. It was very small, in some cases, almost zero.

Italy was the strongest contributor at 5.4%, supported by active leasing, relettings, and remerchandising. Belgium delivered 3.5%, which we think is reflecting really the good performance at Woluwe Shopping.

The overall result demonstrates that even with low indexation in most markets, the portfolio can generate organic growth through leasing and active management. When we look at EPRA vacancy, again, very stable and low at 1%, really unchanged from the year end, and actually a bit lower than last year June.

Italy, of course, with an extremely low vacancy of only 0.2%, but also Belgium below 1%, France and Sweden improved. France to 1.4% and Sweden went from 3.4% at the end of the first quarter to 2.6% now as new lettings were secured.

The brand names on this slide represent a mix of established international retailers and relevant newer concepts. They include fashion, beauty, sport, jewelry, value-led formats.

These are brands consumers want, and we offer them in our centers. The common theme is relevance to the local customer.

We use group relationships to engage with leading brands, but the final mix is tailored center-by-center. The right tenant is the one that strengthens the destination, complements the existing offer, and can trade sustainably in that catchment.

Over the 12 months to 30 June, we completed 308 lease transactions compared with 269 in the previous period, and a lower figure for '23. Out of these 308 transactions, 207 were renewals with existing tenants, whereas 101 were relettings with retailers taking new units.

Across all those renewals, relettings, we see an average rental uplift of 4.7%. The additional detail, you can also find in the press release.

Particularly, of course, it's interesting that new lettings achieved 7.9% overall in in our centers. To tell you a little bit more about the last 6 months, we completed 160 transactions at an average uplift of 3.5%, and most of that was actually concentrated in food and restaurants, health and beauty, and gifts and jewelry.

There there were strong country-level performance as well, as you can see on this slide, with in Italy renewals producing 5.2%. That was a strong figure for renewals.

Of course, relettings with Swedish which was in Sweden achieved a double-digit is again a nice figure to look at. If we then look at the lease expiry profile, it's we think well spread.

A large share of rental income is secured beyond 6 years. As the chart shows, the expiries in each of the first six annual bands are manageable.

Approximately 35% of rental income, or more than €81 million, has a lease end date beyond 6 years. This profile provides useful income visibility and reduces concentration risk.

It means we're not dependent on renegotiating an unusually large portion of the portfolio in a single year. We cannot escape from saying something about artificial intelligence, AI, and where does it create value for Eurocommercial.

We have identified four practical areas where AI can create value for us. The first is tenant and visitor engagement.

We're using AI to improve marketing, events, and leasing effectiveness, and to understand the drivers of footfall and sales more clearly. The second is intelligent data and reporting.

We're building data platforms to automate reporting and enable conversational analytics. The aim is to give our teams faster access to consistent information, and allow them to spend more time interpreting and acting on it.

The third is process automation. We're targeting repetitive internal workflows, such as turnover reporting, invoice processing, and contract-related tasks.

The fourth is workplace intelligence. Enterprise large language models and licenses are available across the organization.

We have today 96% of our total staff using it every day. That's, of course, nice to see.

We're we're approaching AI pragmatically. The objective is not technology for its own sake.

It's better decisions, more efficient processes, stronger engagement supported by appropriate governance and human oversight. During the first half, we completed our advanced several major decarbonization and resilience projects.

Across the group, 85% of our shopping centers now carry the EPC rating A, B, or C. Renewable electricity represents 97% of landlord-controlled consumption, and 64% of tenant-controlled consumption.

We have also integrated asset-level climate risk assessment into our business plans. These measures reduce carbon intensity, improve the energy performance, and strengthen long-term resilience.

They also protect the competitiveness and value of the assets as regulation, energy markets, and customer expectations evolve. Our priorities fall into four connected areas.

First, value creation. We will drive rental growth through active leasing and positive rental reversion, completing the current remerchandising projects, and do all the other things I talked about, strengthening tenant mixes, remain alert to accretive acquisitions of course, because that could be an external growth opportunity.

Second, important: cost control. We actively manage our interest rate hedging, optimize property operating costs, while maintaining asset quality, and preserve a lean and disciplined overhead.

Third is digitalization. I talked about AI and all the other tools we're using, and therefore it can improve our overall digital engagement with tenants and customers.

Last, but not least, the ESG. We will continue with the decarbonization roadmap, and do all the other steps as we have discussed and presented in our detailed half-year report.

The common thread of all of this is, of course, disciplined execution. With this, I would like to hand over to Roberto to take us through the financial performance and capital position in detail.

Thank you, Evert Jan. Welcome, everybody.

This is a fantastic opportunity to go through the financials. We first focus on what we do.

Our focuses are on the strategic capital allocation, the remerchandising projects. There you've heard Evert Jan saying all about the work that has been done, and that's also thanks to our fantastic leasing teams, the technical teams.

There's plenty of of work which which which has been done. We look also accretive acquisitions, right?

We've done Woluwe, we've done Avion, we've done Mood, right? That's that's great.

Second focus is earning growth. What we do is increase, of course, the income, but also focus on the cost discipline.

One of the highest costs that we all have is, of course, the interest expenses. Our 3.2% average cost of debt, the 80% hedging and the refinancing being done as much as possible.

We then go to the resilient balance sheet. LTV at around 40%, net debt to EBITDA at around 8, those are targets that we have.

We like to be around those numbers. Then increasing returns.

That you've seen the strategic CapEx, what they do, what kind of returns they can deliver, we're we're very happy with that. If you look at the financial results, just to give you the usual highlight, you see that the direct investment result is +2.6% to €60 €68.7 million.

The NTA the net loan-to-value went up a little bit. That was of course due to the acquisition of Avion of Avion.

The portfolio valuation is uh went up a bit to €4.2 billion. As you see, the average cost of debt is stable, and we reiterated the guidance at €2.45 to €2.50.

Let's have a look quickly at the direct direct investment results, what are the main components. As you see, there is a nice increase in rental income.

There's an increase in property expenses, mainly related to Avion. There's also an increase in bad debts, there's some more provision that we took for France.

Then there is a positive 1.2 in the net service charges. That's also related to a one-off that we had in Belgium.

The company expenses also improved. Then you see the 1.8 um um higher net interest expenses, and that's partly of course due to Avion, we acquired the company, we're financing it with loans, but also partly due to the increase in in the Euribor and the Stibor.

You might remember that we aim at having 80% hedge, 20% of our loans is unhedged. Then you got a little bit of positive news on corporate income tax and others.

If you look at the valuations, valuations increased a little bit. That's nice because this is a a good growth, because it depends on the NOI on the increase in earning per share and in the estimated rental values of the of the assets.

The and the net initial yield are stable, this is a good growth, because it's a growth which is based on the increase on net operating income and ERVs. If you go to the EPRA NTA, we are trying to show you just the main impact on the on the changes of the EPRA NTA for for this year.

EPRA NTA, we add the direct the direct investment results. Then of course, we do the adjustments with that which are needed for the for the EPRA.

Then you see that the biggest impact is the dividend distribution, the 1.83 which we distributed. There is a bit a little bit of stock dividend up, because of course we issued at a premium compared to the share price.

Then you see the other main impact is the 20 negative, which is related to the fact that the exchange rate with the SEK with the krona krona was lower compared to the Euribor. If we then go and look at the source and use of funds, you see we acquired Avion shopping center for €111 million.

Then of course there is a part which is your dividend, which has been paid. There is a little bit which is dedicated to the CapEx, the accretive CapEx that we've mentioned.

There is a bit of increasing cash. Where does it came from?

€40 million came from the operating cash flow, and the other €22 million came from increasing borrowing. You can see the parallel between the increase in borrowings and the acquisition of Avion shopping center.

Now let's look at our priorities as well. What do you what do you want to do?

We still look at prudent leverage. The target of net loan-to-value at around 40%, net debt to EBITDA at 8.

Diversified funding, we are still very happy with our banks, and our the provide us with fantastic funding and are very easy to contact and very reasonable when negotiating. We're very happy with that.

We still keep an aim of 80% of hedging. That gives us also a little bit of flexibility of acting into the interest rate market the moment that we see that the curve can be more favorable to us than than in other times.

We also want to keep the long-term visibility. The debt maturity profile, you will see in another slide, is really kept more in in the long term.

If we go to a snapshot of what we've done in H1 2026, say the main thing is that of course the cost of debt remained unchanged at 3.2%. We increased the leverage modestly, thanks to the fact that we acquired Avion.

We give you of course the overview of the key financial metrics, which more or less in line with some improvements here and there, compared to December 2025. Now, this slide, we show you what we've done in 2026.

We concluded the financing that we had signed in 2025, and that's for around €588.5 million. There you also see the new loan on Avion shopping center, which was done with SEB.

We're very thankful to to our banks, and we're also a bit showing off with this slide, because there is not a lot to do then in '27 and '28, as we will see in the other slide. If you look at the maturity profile of our loans, you see that 2027 and 2028 basically a little bit of amortization on the existing loans.

The real refinancing will come in 2029, '30, and '31. We still have a lot of time in front of us to look at the renegotiations and the refinancing of of our assets.

Now, a little note also from an accounting perspective to our 35 years. Um, you see in 1991, we began with a portfolio of let's call it 330 million Dutch guilders, which we translated roughly into the €150 million.

We went from there into to the actual portfolio size, which is €4.2 billion. The portfolio there was diversified.

We had some some residentials, we had some offices, and now we clearly show our focus on the shopping center. We had no leverage at that time, and now we have a leverage of let's say 40.9%, which is also helping in increasing the results that we then provide to you.

What's really interesting is, of course, since inception, since the the beginning of this €150 million, we actually gave a a total return of 6.42 per annum, which we hope you are satisfied with. That's really thanks to all the employees that we have, past, presents, all that work that they did.

Thank you to to all of them for this. Let's look at try and finish.

Eurocommercial, if we look at this year, the first seven months of 2026, we actually also have a delivered around 15.1 of percent of total return, which which is also nice. Here in the table, you can see the increase in the direct investment result up to 2.44, and the increase in the dividend up to 1.83.

If you do, as you could, the direct investment result that we produced in 2025, which is 2.44, and divided by the share price that was there at the end of December, which was 26.05, then you get a nice investment of around 9.4%, which is not bad. Where to cheat?

Then we go to the guidance. Direct investment result reaffirmed €2.45 to €2.50 per share, with further growth expected in 2027.

What we want to stress out is that of course you've seen all these remerchandising programs that we have, obviously, merchandising projects. They are fantastic, but of course they take a toll on 2026, and they will fully contribute in 2027, because all the remerchandising that were done that we're doing, they are still running for part of them in H2 2026.

Some of them will open for Christmas, 2026, which is also the aim that we and the retailers have. We want to be there for Christmas, do the entire season, and all be happy and merry with with that result.

2027 is the year where you actually see the full contribution of Avion. You see the full contribution of all these remerchandising projects.

With that, we go back to the operator. We thank you very much, and we are ready for your Q&A.

Hi, good morning everyone, and thank you for the presentation. I have some questions on your development pipeline.

In your report, you mentioned that you're in the planning phase of an extension project in in both Carosello and I Gigli. Do you have any further details, maybe the investment size, or the return metrics and the time of those extensions?

We we are very hopeful, Lynn. As in Italy it's they're very quick with permit permit permits, providing them and everything.

We've been doing this for some years. I'd say the hope is that we get a proper approval from this for this plannings in the coming 2 years, maybe.

What we would like to do is, of course, come up with the final project once we are sure of what kind of permits we get. How many square meters, how many licenses, where about, so that we can actually then finalize all the of the mix.

For now, let's say, we're asking. We've been asking.

We continue asking. We have positive vibes, but with politics, you never know, so that that's why we're a bit careful on that.

With the 2 years, noted. Then, secondly, on Val Thoiry, the redev- the doing on the Leroy Merlin sites.

Just there, I think you mentioned that it will take a bit longer than initially expected. I was wondering if you could give some timeline there, and maybe some color on the on on the redevelopments.

Lynn. Let's say Val Thoiry, it it's not so much that it is taking longer than expected.

It's It's just a very long remerchandising project, and it involves indeed also '27 and '28, as I said, and that has all to do with indeed Leroy Merlin. Currently, they have outside the gallery, they have a stand-alone let's say unit box, which they they rent.

They're now building their own unit, their own store on the other side of the road, where they where they bought the land. That those building works are currently happening.

It's It's still on on schedule, but, it takes quite some time to to really build it. Then they have to move out.

Then we need to refurbish that entire unit to make it ready for the retailers we we have signed up, including Primark. By the time you've finished, it it will be end of '28, maybe early '29 even, when when these tenants are opening.

Particularly, one of them is important as well to to move there, is Decathlon. Then they will leave the the gallery, giving us nice space back for which is good space in the middle of the center, to lease to attractive tenants within Val Thoiry.

Val Thoiry is a is is a little bit slower. I I would not say it's an escargot, but, we will get there.

This is a nice project, because Val Thoiry is of course one of our centers in in France, which still perform very well, close to the border with the location in near Geneva. That's that's the plan over there.

That makes perfect sense. Maybe a last one, if I may, on remerchandising.

Indeed, your top-line has an impact on the strategic vacancy coming from the remerchandising projects. I think the impact will be slowly phased out in the second half.

Could you maybe quantify how much you would expect to to gain in total as of the second half, when the remerchandisings are are ending, in terms of top-line?

Yeah. I think the second half is is not yet the period where we see the the full return kicking in, as as we said, that there are a few important openings scheduled for Q4, typically also Primark, but some some others as well, ready for Christmas.

As Roberto said, we we we are always on on the same page with our retailers, that these openings must happen before the the the real the most important season of the year starts. I'm afraid that, we really see those benefits appearing in '27, Lynn.

That's why we also, we we reaffirmed our guidance, no problem with that, but, the the the real benefits will follow in '27. Roberto, [further comment?]

Yes. No, because some of them are opening end of October, some of them are opening in November.

That's really focused on the on on the Christmas. We're giving them the We asked them to put their brand new um um store, right, something very nice and flashy.

We're giving them also the time to build it. The the the impact will will be will not be a lot, Lynn,

yeah. Thank you.

Yep.

Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions.

I have a couple. Let's start with the first.

For the new remerchandising projects that you see in your portfolio that you haven't started, what kind of size are we talking about? It's like €10 million, or €50 million, or even more in the next three years?

Do you also expect solid double-digit returns similar to what you disclosed today for that?

Thank you, Steven, for for your questions. Let's say, the message we wanted to give very clear is, listen, these remerchandising projects, which we have started and on are now in in nearly completion or have been completed, but it doesn't mean that that we will stop or have no further possibilities.

As a matter of fact, you will not be surprised to hear that, we see more and further potential in Italy. I think I Gigli, Roberto, and you can maybe give some more detail.

Also Carosello, these are really big shopping centers where we can do more. Of course, that's the potential we will certainly try to unlock.

Maybe some some more. Now,

Steven, you're absolutely right. You've seen the amount of CapEx that we foreseen for the for the current one, I Gigli, Collestrada, and CremonaPo.

There are many more that we are of course planning. What we try and do is to select the moment.

You might remember the trigger moment. When we finally achieve an agreement with one of the major retailers to start the remerchandising program.

What we do is, of course, we are in negotiation, there's also confidentiality. Once we have agreed the terms, then we can come up also with the project that we would like to do, how much we think we're going to invest.

We do not want to do that in advance, because, of course, we have nothing agreed yet, if that makes sense, Steve.

That makes sense. Thanks.

We'll wait for more nuts, hopefully, on the next reporting dates.

Compared to the past.

Maybe a different question than on M&A opportunities in the broader sense. You talked about joint venture of Woluwe.

Is that something to expect in the next 12 months? Maybe also the other way around, do you see Are you currently in acquisition process?

Maybe is it more like the Swedish acquisition, or maybe more like Mood acquisition? Can we Can we expect something from that, let's say, in the next 12 months?

Any color is welcome there.

Thank you, Steven. Always a good questions to ask, of course.

Let's say, to start with your first one on joint ventures, we have always said we're we're open to to look into joint ventures. We have two.

We could do more, particularly probably on on our flagships. That's always on the table.

Currently, I I do not expect that, we will see there immediately changes. The the problem is always, you've seen it with these remerchandising projects, that it's nice that we can, put so much effort in it, but it's also nice to to, in the end, also have the the fruit, the results from it 100% rather than than in in in sharing it 50/50.

There's always a little bit this dilemma. No, I'm not ruling it out.

I think it also is linked a little bit to the overall appetite for retail property and and probably more and more also for, shopping centers, which is being evidenced by more transactions over the last, couple of months, year, than than before. That, institutional money is back in in shopping centers.

That that obviously is important, because a long-term investor in into one of our centers, where we obviously take the lead and do all the management, could could certainly be helpful, and unlock for us funds to to reinvest. On your other question, we're always monitoring the markets, and indeed, Mood is a result of, okay, you can say it's it's very close by because it's it's next to our our mall in Fiordaliso.

No, we were always looking at where we can do accretive things. I think Avion is a is a clear example with an asset where where you know it's yielding at a nice level.

We were very active with with the leasing there. As you may recall, we had some higher vacancy in that shopping center than we're used to in our other centers, but that was actually the potential.

We've done already a first nice letting to a toy retailer, Lekia. There's more to come.

Hopefully, we can announce it at some point. It always takes a bit of time to reshuffle here and there.

No, we're we're we're absolutely looking into what what is possible. Yeah.

Clear. Then my last one.

You mentioned the positive investment markets. Institutional money is back.

Seen a lot of transactions. Does that entail H2 revaluations could be higher than H1?

Let's say the valuations, what what we saw really is that we got uplifts in value because we had a higher NOI. No yield shifts or changes.

It obviously, depending on what we will see further maybe this quarter, next quarter in in the markets, that there could be some some change in yields. If yields don't change, then I think what we will see is just a reflection of further increase in rental income, which obviously suits us because we we will have more rental income due to the remerchandising.

I I I think it's encouraging to see, typically also more in in in Southern Europe, all those transactions and how active these markets is. Obviously Spain, but now also Italy.

That is certainly, I think, a positive signal.

Yeah.

Roberto, I mean

Yeah. Now, true.

We we look at the ERVs positively, because of course of the remerchandising. We also monitor the Euribor, because you never know where the interest curve is, and that of course is an impact on on on on perceptions.

We might see some improvement of yields in in some in some particularly in some countries. It's the valuers who then at the end decide whether they are happy with this evidence, yes or no.

Okay. Clear.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you, Steven. Thank you.

Yes, hi. Good morning.

I've got three questions, if I may. The first one, you mentioned a slight increase in bad debt and provisions in the first half.

Maybe you could give more details for which region and maybe a certain group of tenants that applied. Second question is on page 33 of the release, the ERV of the portfolio compared to December was slightly lower.

Is this because you captured some of the rent version, or is there any other reason for? The third question is on Avion, the Avion in Sweden.

Is there any potential, or could you give some details if there's potential for any future remerchandising, or do

you know? Yeah.

Thank you, Kai, for for your questions. For the bad debts, I'll I'll hand over to Roberto to talk about that.

Let's say, we highlighted some tenants, in particular in France, right? We said, well, maybe let's take an extra provision for them, just to be on the safe side, because we've seen some tenants where their financial statements and where their balance sheet was deteriorating a bit.

We decided to take some extra provision, just in case. For concerns the page 33, the lower, let me see.

What was your question,

Kai? That was the the the ERV.

The

ERV. Ah, yeah.

That's mainly related to France, huh, from memory.

I think obviously, we we follow the EPRA definitions carefully. We have to to put the annualized net net rents in, and in the case of of France, the the amount you see in the table is a bit lower than at the end of December, reflecting also some of the deals we had to do we've done in France in terms of getting, nice, good brands in.

In some cases, we we then not did achieve the passing rent. That is that is the effect.

Other countries it's it's different. In France, you can see that.

Then

on Avion remerchandising. Indeed.

The the the remerchandising, if we can use it a little bit more as a let's say container for all sorts of leasing activities, major leasing activities to improve the occupancy, to improve the tenant mix, then Avion is an example typically where the the the vacancy, which is there, higher than in our other centers, that's exactly the opportunity. We are quite excited about reducing that vacancy.

We we see a lot of potential. We are in a lot of discussions at the moment.

Hopefully, we can be more vocal on this later in the year, because that that is then a big plus if we reduce the vacancy in in Avion, particularly on the on the first floor of the the gallery. Ground floor is is fully occupied, but the first floor, that is where the potential is.

That that's certainly one element. The other element for Avion is that we we also have possibility to increase the food and and beverage offer outside.

On the parking, there's currently now a McDonald's, but we can do more food offer there on on a plot of land, which is included in in the deal. I I think that are the two special features of Avion where we can create value.

Perfect. Many thanks.

The very last one, if I may. The appointment of a new group leasing director, is it a bit of a reflection that more international tenants ask for a different type of contracts, or is it more for the evolution of the group going forward?

No, we're let's say, we're very happy to, have been able to announce this appointment, because as we're active in four countries, and we see a lot of the retailers who, are active in in our countries. We see some going from north to south, maybe not too many yet going south to north, but hopefully, with Laurent on board, we can help them a bit.

No, I I think it's it's really important that, we are acting as a group and coordinate the leasing, making sure that, we we we really, of course, country by country we're doing deals. In some cases, it's also very good to look from a group level, international level as the retailers do.

I think we are very happy to have Laurent with us. It it will further help in in all our leasing and remerchandising activity.

I think the number one key activity of Eurocommercial is leasing. We we'll maximize the efforts to to perform.

Okay. Many thanks.

You're welcome, Kai.

Hi, team. Thanks for taking my question.

I've got a question on the additional rent that you published on the three remerchandising projects. Does this take into account the temporary disruption?

In other words, does the rental uplift there reflect the incremental higher rents compared to no remerchandising, or does it reflect the incremental higher rents compared to a vacant unit? Yeah.

What we try to do, and we try to describe it on the top, is we're comparing, let's say, 2027 rents, which we know because we we signed the contracts, with was rental income before the we started with the entire operation. That we give you two moments which are unaffected by the works.

What was the rent in 2020 what is the rent in 2027, and we take out inflation, just not to cheat, so that we can show you the increase then that is achieved also, which is going to be achieved, that's for sure for the future, with the remerchandising and the renewals and relettings. Yeah.

Okay. That's very clean and quite spectacular.

A lastly, on the

It is, Pieter. You you can do the the math to see what it is in percentages.

We we thought we just give you the amounts.

Yeah. Say, for I Gigli, to be completely and totally fair, of course, we replaced an hypermarket, right?

The step up that you do compared to other retailers is higher.

Yeah. Okay.

Thanks. A final one on the OCRs.

Year on year, these dropped like 90 bps to 9.2%. In the same period, the retail sales were up 0.3%.

What that's that explains less than half of the drop, the higher retail sales. What are the other drivers than in the drop in OCR?

Yeah.

You're correct, that there's this increase in sales. There's also more efficiency for what concerns the the service charges, so that also helps.

Of course, that is countered by our greed to increase the the rents. I'd say the two main factors are, of course, the increase in turnovers, which is driven by the increase in footfall, which we are trying to achieve also with this project.

Also, all the ESG that you've seen, the solar panels, the refurbishments, and everything, that's all aimed also at try and manage, in a more active way, the the service charges, so that we can provide lower the service charges in the future because we improve the the production, for example, of electricity and that kind of stuff.

Okay. That's very helpful.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Pieter.

Good morning. Can you hear me?

Hi, Benjamin.

We can hear you very well, Benjamin.

Good morning. Hi.

Hi. Perfect.

Thanks for taking my questions. Just just a couple for me.

You just mentioned the greed to increase the rent, also considering your OCR, which is pretty low, let's say, lower than it used to be. I'm just basically wondering how much higher we're going in terms of pushing the rent in terms of rental uplift.

Can you actually go higher to what we are seeing before, or should we expect this reversion to to stabilize now? Also, related to to the, let's say, like-for-like rental growth, in some of your peers, we see that the like-for-like is boosted compared to your performance, while if I look at the the the operational performance of your retailers, you're actually better.

I think a lot of it comes from initiatives. We talk about screens, we talk about marketing fees, etc., etc., which is not something you really mention a lot.

I'm just wondering if it's some potential for you guys also to to push your like-for-like rental growth higher in the future. That would be my two questions.

Yeah. No, thank you, Benjamin, for for the questions.

If we look at, like-for-like rental growth and then also look at, our uplifts on renewals and relettings, and then you say, of course, there is there is some connection. We should not forget that the renewals, relettings is just a proxy of the whole portfolio, around you could say almost 20% of our minimum guaranteed rent.

That that is basically what what you can do, because these contracts either expire and you renew or you find new tenants, whereas the rental growth is the whole portfolio. The rental growth we measure is also including, any if there is a lease incentive, a step-up, or maybe maybe a short rent-free, it's all in there.

In the renewals, relettings, obviously, you you you really measure what your future rent will be. We basically also, it's I I know that some of our peers use ERVs, but we we still keep an eye on the passing rent.

I think that is that is quite a a a difference, but good to mention, I think, for the explanation. If we look at, income from screens, income from electrical cars, as as some of our peers called it, specialty leasing, yes, we do that as well.

It's basically included in our rental income because we we we are not operators as such. We we try to lease space, or surface, or or whatever it is.

We we don't show a special line income line for that, which also has to do with our Dutch REIT status, because, in the end, we we are a REIT, but we can only be a REIT if we, invest in property and lease property. That's what we're doing also in the specialty leasing.

Be assured that we do all those things, meaning that we whatever we can lease, we do lease in space. We're not operators who are suddenly turning ourselves into a marketing company or a parking company or an electricity company.

Yeah.

Maybe also to add, if you look at the future, of course, there was also the the remerchandising projects, which had an impact on the like-for-like. Also, the impact that you will see, and that's what we're building now, it's actually for the renewals and relettings for the future.

Right now we are building new revamped shopping malls to attract more people, to increase turnovers, but then, of course, let's say around between 15% and 20% of the leases are actually under renegotiation every year. What you will see is that turnover is increasing for for the retailers, by the next round of negotiations and we will be able to increase the rental income by a higher percentage, because of course the benefit for from the results of this remerchandising, if that makes sense, Benjamin.

Yeah. It it makes perfect sense.

The for the, yeah, for the specialty leasing, yeah, screens, etc., it's just because, some of your peers, it it really sounds like it's the driver of the like-for-like performance, a portion of it, at least. I'm just wondering if it's if it's going to be a real driver for you, too, or if it's just following the same pace as your, let's say, standard rental income?

Let's say, we're we are busy with screens, we are busy with a lot of stuff, with parking as well. That's all included in the in the rental income, because we see that as leasing of spaces within the shopping center.

That's if you look at Tesla, of course, they install new car chargers, they pay a lot of money. If you look at screens, you can rent them out and they also provide a lot of money.

What we try and do is, for example, use part of this money for the service charges, part of this money is really rental income, depending on also on who does the investment. Sometimes you ask the provider to put the screens on, and you accept a lower rental income, but then you also have a lower CapEx.

Sometimes you agree to install the screens, and then you can ask for a higher rental income. Depends from a lot of things.

Okay. Thank you.

Thanks a lot. You're welcome.

Morning, guys. Just, yeah, very quick question from me.

I wondered if you could just provide a comment on the new development that may may come online in 2028 in Brussels, very close to your flagship, the is it the Broeklin development, and just how you're thinking about that from a competition standpoint? Thank you.

Thank you, Tom, for for your question. Indeed, a project which has been there for for many, many years, and which which has now been more activated because after a number of rounds, there's finally a a permission to to build.

Let's say, retail there, but also from memory, there there can be a data center and other types of of property. It's a it's a big plot on the ring Brussels.

Obviously, I can only refer to public information, but but let's say what we understand that the project is being promoted, that, they're they're looking to obviously, for for tenants, and and also look for a planning to build it. According to the latest news, at least the the plans have been extended, or let's say postponed, for another year.

Let's say if it happens, we have to see what in the end will be built there and and how it is leased. I I think it's also a fair comment that this is in Flanders, and aimed at customers in in Flanders, whereas the catchment which Woluwe has is mostly in in the east and the south of of Brussels.

There will be maybe some overlap, but our our catchment is Francophone, French-speaking people in in Brussels and and in Wallonie. Whether that will be competition, difficult to to assess.

For now, we don't we don't see that really as an as an issue for Woluwe. We'll see what what the future brings.

That's all I can I can say about Broeklin.

Thank you.

Hey, Amal.

Hello, good morning. Thank you for taking my question.

Just to come back on France and the the performance, I'm just struggling to get to reconcile the footfall increase with the retailers' sales increase. It's like 4% footfall increase, with 1.4% retailers' sales.

Is there any specific explanation here?

We we probably need to stop them to to to shop. No, Amal, it's indeed it's not always a a clear correlation, or that that more footfall translates into into more turnover.

I think so far, we're happy that at least the footfall is is growing. That's a good sign, but the turnovers hopefully will will follow.

Indeed, we spotted the same, let's say, I'm not saying anomaly, but there is there is this this gap. Hopefully, those turnover numbers do improve as well at the same pace as the the the footfall is is developing.

Roberto, any? Ah,

true. What we also look, for example, if you take I Gigli, and of course there's a negative footfall and a negative on the turnovers, because if you close the hypermarket, for example, that has a lot of footfall and also quite a significant turnover.

For us, let's say, let's say the the the the income at the end, it's not really a huge income, because of course they pay lower rent than the normal tenants. For example, if you close the hypermarket in I Gigli, then you will see a decrease in in visitors numbers, which is higher than the decrease in turnover.

Those are things that could also play, because this has been, as last year, a bit of a a year of change, with all these these remerchandising projects. We are I think as curious as you are to see what will be in 2027 when we get rid of all these disruptions, to see what is the real impact on footfall and what is the real impact on on turnovers, if if that makes sense, Amal.

Right, it's not linked to Les Passages, for example, which has a specific situation on the way to the transition? No?

Yeah. Let's say, Roberto was talking about about Italy, and and you're you're particularly also looked at France, where you you mention Passages.

Actually, there the figures are are are are quite encouraging in terms of of also the footfall. Then we know it's a passage.

As I said before, we need to stop those people in Passages to have to to to make them shopping. We're we're doing that by by also some changes in the tenant mix over there.

Hopefully, we were successful. That was the conversion of the hypermarket in Intersport.

That's also maybe. Okay.

Then,

just to follow up on France, would you consider asset disposal or asset rotation to finance future growth, as if we have been successful to acquire in in Sweden and in Italy and France is is weak is weaker than the other markets, if you are looking at this, is it the market is not easy for sure these days?

Let's say, we asset rotation obviously is is on our our agenda, but that also means that you you you have to to see where where are the opportunities, really. Where are the markets?

As I said before, we see that a market like Italy is opening. France is is quite soft, you could say.

It's something which may have to do also with with the macro, politics, etc. Therefore we're very glad that we are acting in four markets and not in one, so that we can still make use of our country weightings.

As you have seen by just one one transaction, yeah, we let's say in Sweden, now Sweden is is the number two country in the portfolio, and France number three. These these things vary.

I'm sure France will will recover, and it's it's a big country. It's a big market.

At the moment, yeah, probably a bit more struggling than our other markets. We'll we'll we'll focus always on all our four markets.

Asset rotation is always nice to do, let's see where where the opportunities are. For the moment, I think in in in France, we don't see a lot of transactions.

Maybe that improves, I hope. Yeah.

Okay. Then the last question on my side, just on the guidance.

If you if you see the direct result per share for in H1 and multiply by two, we are we are already above the the guidance. Is there anything to expect in H2, or is it just out of caution that you didn't raise the guidance?

Indeed. H2 this year, you could say caution, there are a few elements which which play a role for us.

Of course, timing of when rental income kicks in. We already talked about opening of stores mostly before Christmas, but that of course will then not contribute so much in in this year.

We monitor the Swedish krona, which is a volatile currency, was quite strong or relatively stronger in the first half, but now has has weakened, is above 11 again for some time, which always has an impact on on our earnings. It's all marginal, but these things all add up.

The other effect Roberto talked about is an increase in in the 3 months Euribor and the 3 months Stibor. Not massively, but compared to if you look at Q1.

By the way, then we did quite some swaps, we're very happy we did so. We have a part, it's only 20%, even less than 20%, of floating debt, but obviously we roll it over on 3 months Euribor, 3 months Stibor, and therefore the expense will also be a bit higher.

All in all, we we said, let's just we we reaffirmed the guidance, no problem, but we also need to be realistic. As you know us, we're we're we always, try to deliver what what we estimate in a proper way.

I do know indeed. Thank you very much, gentlemen, for the answers.

Appreciate it. Have a nice

You're welcome.

Thank you very much, all of you who listened into this conference call, and also all those analysts who asked the questions. All very useful.

We're we're very happy that we could today communicate our results and have this call. I I think on on balance, we can say very happy with the operational results and and and all all the other facts we talked about.

From us, Roberto, myself as the board, we would like to thank everybody.