Hello, good morning and welcome. Welcome you all to the result presentation of NEPI Rockcastle for the year 2025.

I'm welcoming everybody here that came to the JSE, but also everybody that is online. At the end of the presentation, like always, we will have our little Q&A.

If you then would like to ask questions, you can do this of course online, but also of course everybody here in the room. Welcome first of all to our result presentation.

Now, the best way to predict the future is to create it, I think we have been creating also in 2025. You will see this later on also on, let's say, the pipeline that we have, the new energy business that we are pushing.

I think what is behind this a little bit, what we often discuss in the team, we all live in a world that is quite unpredictable and it became even a bit more unpredictable, I think, looking more across the fence of Central Eastern Europe and seeing of course the geopolitical, let's say, difficulties that we're facing economically. An economy that is less predictable doesn't really make us feel good, right?

At the same time, I'm always telling, guys, then let's focus on that what we can influence and where we can create ourselves, and let's not focus too much on those things where we have actually no ability to change. When we talk about this to create it ourselves, then that is very much actually of course on the results of the portfolio, stability, our balance sheet, and everything that comes with it.

What has changed here? Of course, we are still the CEE market leader with our 60 assets in these eight countries, but I think there was a change which I think should be mentioned, and that is that when you look at it now, that Poland is with 35% the same level than Romania with 35%.

With these two big acquisitions that we did by the end of 2024, I think our portfolio within the region is even better balanced, and I think that's something that we could achieve especially over the last 15 months. When we look at Central Eastern Europe, well, it still proves to be the place to be.

Just look at the forecast of economic growth for the countries we are operating in, and that's 2.3%. When you see the rest of Europe that is supposedly maybe growing by 1.2%, Central Eastern Europe is still kind of a motor, the new Europe that is creating more growth than the rest of Europe or most of Europe.

Where does it come from? Of course, unemployment rate, we still have record low unemployment rates, especially, I'm looking at Marek, in Poland as an example.

I've been checking this number here a couple of times actually with the team. Annual growth of purchasing power, which is of course for us a super important number because it reflects of what kind of turnovers we could do within our portfolio, we saw a growth of 13.3% over 2025.

For now, at the moment, I think it's going to be continued also in 2026 that we will see growth. Of course, what plays a role in Europe is if then the European Union is going to spill another €410 million into the region, then that has an effect on our overall economy.

Therefore, I think 2025 was for sure also driven by the momentum, the positive momentum we have still in Central Eastern Europe despite everything that goes around it, but at the same time also I think of the ability of NEPI Rockcastle to benefit from it. Now delivering on our strategy, though, first of all, and I think for you investors most important, distributable earnings per share up by 3.1%.

We gave a guidance in the summer 2.5% up to 3%, and fortunately we reached more in the upper part. That was driven mainly of course by the operational results, by the 11.2% growth in NOI.

That's not like-for-like, that includes these two big assets that we actually incorporated from December 2024 onwards, but still a like-for-like growth of 4.4%, which means we have been growing above inflation. That's very important for us to understand that we're not just picking up the inflation and sending invoices out to tenants that are a little bit higher, but that we really create value on top of that.

3.6% growth of tenant turnovers reflected of course by purchasing power, not everywhere the same. When you look into countries, of course, there are differences, but this is the average that our tenants have been growing.

We'll come to this a little bit later, what the effect of this is, especially also on our occupancy. Now what else?

Strategic developments, we still have a development pipeline now of 850 almost €850 million. It went down a little bit because meanwhile we have already delivered some of the pipeline that we have been presenting already six months ago.

We will later on see a little bit of what has been delivered actually during this period of time and actually what are the big investments, what is behind this €845 million investment. Out of that money, obviously 8% will be additional GLA.

This GLA will be delivered until the end of 2028, you can already anticipate certain growth for our portfolio because a majority of this is already under construction. Value-enhancing asset rotation, well, let's talk a little bit about these two assets that we acquired by the end of 2024.

These two only have delivered this 50 almost €58 million additional NOI, and that represents currently 9.4% of our total NOI. You can see these were big machines that we were acquiring here, and they have been delivering.

Marek, I think, will talk about this later, give you a little bit of a more detailed view actually on how these assets have been performing in the market and how they have been performing versus the rest of the portfolio, but are proven to be a good move. Also on the valuation side, only in 2025 valuation for these two assets went up by €43 million, 5.4%.

For me, it's actually not the right number. I'm more looking at the moment we bought them because this was just one month earlier.

When you look at the valuation of these assets from December 2024, you shareholders gained €78 million on these two assets from a valuation perspective, and of course this helps us also to keep our LTV at a pretty low level. I think this rotation is something that will be also looked after in the future.

Also looked after in the future, I think, is the new business stream, our renewable energy. You remember we started in 2023 when we got first time a return out of it, which was this 38 MW, which is obviously operating.

These are all rooftop panels which are actually sitting on the assets that we're operating. That creates at the moment close to €10 million additional NOI for our shareholders.

Now, but that was just the starting point, and I'm very happy to say that aligned with our investment committee that they are always, let's say, supporting us here, we have another 55 MW, is compared to the 38, 55 MW in the testing phase. In Crivina, Argeș, we already, let's say, put another 54 MW onto the grid, there is production already, but you need to go through the testing phase until you finally, let's say, can sell it to third party, well, to ourselves actually.

That's already under production, but at the moment we have a little bit snow in Romania, and with snow on your panels you can't test. Give us a few weeks more and a couple of days of sunshine and this will hit the P&L.

Then we have another 220 MW that will come online until the end of 2028. What is this?

Number one is we are taking this not only to Romania, we are actually providing this to all the countries we're operating in, to all the 60 assets in all the countries. That is a rollout that will be finished by the end of 2026, this year, that will be fully online.

Then we have a second big field, PV panel field, that will come online until 2028. We decided, and that has to do with, let's say, obviously this market, that meanwhile to install batteries makes financially a lot of sense.

Prices for batteries went down, so that's why we are investing on top of this into a BESS system in order to optimize actually the production that we have, and to optimize of course here the income for our shareholders. That's delivering on the strategy on, let's say, more the operational side.

When we look a bit more on the balance sheet side, I'm looking here at Eliza, she will give you more details on this later, but total valuation went up €162 million, which leads to this pretty low gearing of 32.8%. Again, rock solid balance sheet, I would say, from NEPI Rockcastle.

The €1 billion of upcoming maturities is taken care of. We already refinanced out of this €500 million, and the rest is going to be refinanced very soon.

As you can see, NEPI Rockcastle definitely has no problem to get additional money on board if we need to or if we need to prolong actually our maturities. ESG in progress, out of the total consumption of the portfolio, we already have 85% green energy.

Out of this, we are producing 80% ourselves. With, let's say, the execution of our development pipeline within energy, this will go up 48% surely, I think, within the period up to 2028.

Then you ask yourself, yeah, but if you already have 85%? This 85%, they come from where we are buying energy in the market which is green, or in Europe you pay for coupons in order to make sure that it's green-labeled.

Of course, this is a cost. What we're doing is, with this 80% in self-production, we're making out of a cost an income.

That's the difference. I would love to see this number, the 18% growing, and it will grow over the next coming years.

Engaged teams, value creation for NEPI means that we want to have the full chain of creation of values within the company, we're doing everything from A to Z. We only use third-party service providers where this make not the decisive difference to our business.

Everything is in-house. I believe that to have this grip, operational grip on our portfolio is very important and differentiates us also, I think, from a couple of other companies.

Meanwhile we are 680. When I started, I think we were at 400 or so.

The reason for this is simply of course that the company has been growing from €5 billion to €8 billion, and now we have a couple more assets, need of course more staff. At the same time, cost control is a very important topic for us all the time.

When you compare, let's say, our administrative costs across the peer group, you will see that we are very much on the lower side. This comes of course then with an effect: 62 cents per share on earnings, up 3.1%, as I said.

Maybe on this slide to maybe focus a little bit on two things. One is, and I'm happy to say that, Marek, Marius, the team, especially our leasing team did an amazing job last year because it's the first time that we see in this portfolio, I think it's the first time, we see in the portfolio that we have actually only 1% vacancy.

That's nothing. You always have vacancy because one tenant is moving, void periods, one tenant is moving out, one tenant moving in takes time, then need to rebuild.

To have only 1%, that was always our goal, Marek, and I have to say last year you really hit it. That's really nice.

With actually our occupancy cost ratio, the cost of retailers for the space in principle is super stable, 12.4%. A year ago we were 12.2%, it just makes no difference openly.

I think retailers still very happy, and that is documented actually of course also in the fact that when you look at our turnover per square meter, the efficiency of the space goes up actually also by 3.9%. With this, I'll be back a little bit later, but with this I hand over to our designated new CEO, Marek Noetzel.

Marek, please go ahead.

Thank you, Rudi. Good morning.

It's a beautiful day to present the marvelous results of NEPI Rockcastle. My job, last time in a hat of COO, is to unpack actually how we got this NOI growth and how it added to the overall growth of the EPS for the year 2025, and then to tell you a bit more what's ahead.

To start with NOI, let's look at it on portfolio level. It is 4.4% like-for-like, or should you look at overall portfolio, overall 11%?

Obviously, as Rudi mentioned, various countries added at various pace, and there are reasons for that. 40% overall in Poland is purely function of adding Silesia and Magnolia, and I think it's very fair to zoom in a bit more on those two acquisitions when I get there to tell you what has changed over a year and why we believed our strategy pays off and how it paves actually our strategy going further.

Other than that, the countries growing between 5%, 6% is something that you would expect on normalized basis, with a bit two underdogs, which is Hungary and Slovakia. There's reason in Slovakia, which is slower economy, and there is a lot of initiatives we have implemented to actually boost the growth, and we should see that in coming future.

Hungary is purely function of the changes we do to Arena Mall. We have two properties, one weighs a lot in overall results, and we are spending over €30 million to turn around the mall.

A lot of GLA was closed for operations in the year of 2025. They have reopened towards end of the year, they will contribute to the growth of '26.

What we can share is that the tenants that reopened in their new forms are trading better than we expected, we believe Hungary will catch up, and so would Slovakia. Bulgaria, 9%, we are still enjoying the changes that the team have executed in one of the shopping centers, and as far as the growth is considered, there are already new ideas to further improve the operations, we are very excited about Bulgaria going into the future.

Other than that, there are no surprises. We delivered as what we promised, and we have a lot of ideas to improve the performance for each country for the year '26.

How we got to this growth, of course, I like to say we are as successful as our customers are, and when I speak customers, I mean our tenants. When you look at their performance, at the similar footfall year-to-year, about 350 million visitors, the customers are spending over 8% more per visit.

That's a remarkable number, and that continues to be the case. We see similar amount of customers, but the way they shop is different.

They are much more educated, they have their phones, devices, so that they come to stores and they know exactly what they want, and then cross-selling with other tenants happening, which is a good sign. EPRA vacancy, as Rudi mentioned, at the same time went to the lowest since merger, 1.2%, and I will drag a bit more about the vacancy and what is comprises of and what are the prospects for the future.

The team managed to actually improve the base rentals at the pace of 4.6% on top of indexation. One very important thing to make it comparable, 4.6% reflects the effective rentals.

By that, we mean rentals discounted by any incentive, should there be any incentive toward tenants. It's pure effective increase of the base rentals for the year 2025.

The occupancy ratio at longer-term average around 12.2%, 12.4% is what the market is used to, and we are happy with that number because that means that in the coming future we can further improve the base rentals of the portfolio. Operational cost recovery at almost 95%, which is very satisfactory.

Before I move further, I would like to thank Marius and Iustina because it is them who run the teams that actually drive the income of the company and have the laser-sharp look at the cost management, so that we can come here and enjoy those results with you. Moving further, looking at the segments, not a surprising picture because we kind of shown the same picture.

Maybe one point worth mentioning: electronics, there is nothing to worry about. It's more function of the changes we do to our shopping centers and having to close some of the beauty, fashion compliments, entertainment leading the way.

This, as much as we are used to that picture, this is very important for us because that actually paves the way for the teams when we prepare the marketing and the leasing strategy, because we look at those numbers to see who is the new overperformer in the market so that we can grasp the growth of this new, exciting tenants, of which I will tell you more in few slides. Looking at the performance of tenants, I mentioned 4.6%, which is remarkable.

Just think about how much work we had to put all internally to get there: almost 1,500 lease agreements. It's five every day, including weekends.

This is amazing. That of which 30 well, actually 1/3 are new leases, and you can imagine those take much longer than extensions.

I want to thank again the team because that's remarkable, and I think this is the highest nominal number of leases we signed. We haven't really increased much the capacity of the team, I think that we are well prepared for what's coming.

As I said, occupancy at level of 12.4%, average for few years, slightly higher, sets us well for year '26. Then looking at EPRA, I want to zoom a bit because 1% for retail is actually rounded number, because the very exact number is 0.96%, and I like that number, but since we round, be it.

Overall is 1.2%, which is driven by offices. We have had some leasing expiries in Serdika, and looking at the pipeline of it, I'm sure that overall, even maybe in August, but for sure next February can go below 1% for the portfolio, which will be remarkable.

One year later, what has happened to Silesia and Magnolia? Rudi mentioned the magnitude of the two acquisitions on overall earnings.

Put it into perspective: two properties delivering 9.4% of NOI. That's just amazing.

That tells you what is our strategy. We want more of Magnolias and Silesias of this world, and there are reasons for it.

When we bought both, the operational vacancy was between 1.6% and 2% respectively. It's now zero.

Not only it is zero, but there is line of tenants that want to open. Because there is such a demand, we already have plans to extend, rightsize, and improve both Silesia and Magnolia.

You think they are big, but we have space and demand to add between 10,000 to 15,000 GLA. Of course, we need to make it accretive to the earnings, and we already have contracted architects working on the design, and we would be very happy to present to the board and approve significant capex at accretive rate, obviously.

Of course, the valuation uplifts, Rudi mentioned that one important thing, and Eliza will cover that, valuation yields haven't moved much. All you see is actually effect of what we have internally done, which is purely NOI-driven.

What the team has done, that we have taken the budgets of the previous owners, we did a zero-base approach, we really took it out and we rebudgeted as we are used to get to different assumptions and pushing harder, and then you can see that in NOI growth, but in uplift. On total shareholder return, I think those really reflect how and where the company should go in the future.

Balanced tenant profile, we showed this picture, and again, it's quite similar, but I think it's purely function of us teaming up with those tenants who drive the future of the retail: LPP, Inditex, all of credible overperformance compared to others, and we have amazing relations with any of them. There's a lot of exciting projects we are working on currently.

Leasing opportunities and expiry, not big change. If you sign on average five years long agreement, the expiry profile will be similar, but it's very interesting to see how much we have done already for the year of '26.

If I remember correctly, we're closer to 15% when presenting half-year ago, more about half of the job for '26 was done, and we're already working on '27, '28, so that we can manage the renewals and get the uplifts at the optimum point in time. Then openings, I would like to look at that slide and the next one because you see here, as I like to call them, the usual suspects.

These are the retailers of the future. Look at Zara, Sports Direct, Nike, Reserved, they are all the overperformance, and I can only give you examples of Zara reopening in Arena Mall at much bigger space, and the sales density went through the roof.

What I wanted to say is that it is important to work with those top brands, but we mustn't fool ourselves. The market is going for consolidations.

It's not only opening new stores, it's as well for those tenants managing their portfolios. They open with us, but they close elsewhere.

What I want to say by that, I think we have this leverage and platform to actually be there in the front row, and we do have the sense of the changes coming, and it can be either risk or of opportunity. For us, that is clearly opportunity.

When then you combine this picture of those anchors, usual suspects, and add to that a bit of, I like to call it love and attention, then you end up with adding to your portfolio the unique concept. Think about Bonarka, this influencer concept store.

This is amazing story to case study further, because this is actually one of the top influencers in Poland, born in YouTube, super successful, and they have opened in Bonarka the store. Not only have they opened, we get proper rent, but the performance, the quality of the footfall that they bring is totally different to what we are used to.

Why we do it? We test it, and once proven successful, we will scale it up.

I can tell you, to date, this is very successful story. If you combine that little things, you might thought, with the previous slide, this is our recipe for the optimum tenant mix.

Then think about Medicine, think about other unique stores we opened in Serdika, etc. That there's a lot of work happening maybe under radar a bit because everybody is looking at the big tenants of the world, but those Popeyes, DMs, Rituals, Skechers, etc., taking them across our portfolio is the DNA of the company.

I'm very proud that we continue those amazing partnerships. Nothing that I have said would be possible if we didn't get it financed, and here I would like to invite Eliza for the stage.

Thank you, Marek. Good morning, everyone.

Thank you for being here at our annual results. Preparing myself for this presentation, I was also thinking a bit about the future, the same as my colleague.

I reflected at the changes that we are experiencing nowadays where the algorithms and the artificial intelligence, actually, is reshaping how we shop, how we communicate, and how we do business. We are living in a world drowned with data, and in this world NEPI Rockcastle is offering something simple yet essential, which is experience.

If we are looking also at the economy, the economy is increasingly built now on intangibles, and we are offering something else. We are offering tangibility.

We are offering €8.2 billion in assets where people can walk, can touch, can meet, can connect, and live their lives as humans. I strongly believe that the more digital the world becomes, the more important and precious the physical experience is going to be.

NEPI Rockcastle sits at the very heart of this proposition. With this thought in mind, I will guide you today to a tangible set of good numbers, and I will speak about the distributable earnings, funding, and valuation.

Is something that I got used to speak about. On the distributable earnings, as Rüdiger also mentioned earlier, we have a 3.1% growth in distributable earnings per share.

I will start to unpack a bit how this was possible this year. The like-for-like NOI contributed 5.6% growth relative to what we had in the previous year, and this shows the strength of our leasing operations, the asset management initiatives that we had it, and a good recovery of the cost.

Then we are having the acquisitions. 10% of the growth in the DEPS comes from the acquisitions, from the disciplined integration of the properties that we bought, so that to deliver at the NEPI standard.

The revenue from energy activity doesn't necessarily move the needle this year because we managed to deliver our first greenfield project towards the end of the year, the results are going to come in 2026. Obviously that all this growth was possible only with funding it, both debt and equity.

Each of them naturally are coming with a cost: 4.2% increase in the cost of debt, and 4% dilution coming from the increase in the number of shares. Then we have also one last element, which is the corporate expenses and taxes, which have also been rising by approximately 4%.

Here I would like to spend a minute of more time to unpack it, and I will start with taxes. If we are looking at the current tax expense this year, they represented 6% out of the distributable earnings before taxation.

I must note that this year we benefited from a one-off event because we won a tax litigation in one of the countries of operation, and this led to the reversal of a historical provision. Without this reversal, the current tax expenses would have represented 7% out of the distributable earnings per share.

For next year, we envisage to have an increase of this current tax expense relative to the distributable earnings per share by 1 percentage point, which is going to be 8%. Now, leaving this aside, from 2025, we became subject to Pillar Two, which means that we are required to pay 15% tax rate in every country that we operate, and obviously that we have countries that have higher and lower taxation rate relative to this 15%.

All in all, we are having some tax losses that we can use as mitigants for Pillar Two for 2025 and 2026. Then, from 1st of January 2027, we are meeting the criteria of becoming a REIT in Netherlands, and in this way, we are going to be exempted from applying Pillar Two.

This is, let's say, the way forward that we are pursuing. Then I would like also to comment on something else, which are the fiscal austerity that happens in Romania, which doesn't have anything to do with, let's say, the corporate income tax that is reflected on our P&L.

Indeed, we had a tough year, and most probably 2026 will be tough as well, but none of the changes in the legislation in Romania is affecting the corporate income tax. There are measures which are rather affecting the purchasing power and the behaviors of consumers, but not the corporate income tax.

For the time being, I'm not foreseeing anything happening in the current tax expense in Romania. With this, I hope that I covered one of your concerns in relations with the tax expenses, and if more questions are going to pop up, willing to take them after delivering what I want to deliver this year.

Us. We are very serious, very consistent, and we deliver a dividend that you can count on: 90% payout, which is among the top in real estate in Europe, where we are offering two options for settling this dividend, either as a repayment of capital or a cash out of distributable profits, each of them with some implications in terms of withholding tax in Netherlands.

This is going to be settled, and the wallets are going to fill up at the beginning of April. A circular is going to be released soon, the finance team is working on it, stay tuned.

Now that I'm done with the dividend, I will move to something that I take particular pride with my finance team, on the funding strategy and the balance sheet. One of the highlights of 2025 for sure was our seventh bond issue.

This was a €500 million green bond with a coupon of 3.875% for one of the largest tenor that we have, which is eight years. The surprising element in this bond was that at its peak the order was eight times oversubscribed.

From here, I'm taking some information and some messages, a tangible message from the market, that they are trusting our strategy, our creditworthiness, and our commitment to sustainability. Apart from the bond issuance, obviously that we didn't stay put, we increased our RCF capacity by €70 million, putting us in a position to flexibly act upon any kind of merger and acquisitions and opportunities that may come.

Our green energy business started to self-finance. We contracted an energy-related loan of €45 million, out of which €21 million was already disbursed.

On top of that, we're looking also at some other properties which are mortgaged, and we decided to optimize the level of the LTV, and this is how we came with the top-up in one of our secured loans of €32 million. Exactly one week ago, we signed a €225 million unsecured funding to advance our development pipeline with three counterparties that we have and we don't have business with, namely ING, SMBC, and Intesa.

With this funding, we are very well prepared to approach the coming year. The results that we got out of it is that we manage the upcoming maturities.

For this year and for the next year, we have €500 million maturities in bonds, but we are going to approach this in the second part of the year most probably, coming in the market with a new bond. Then we are ensuring a liquidity which is over €1 billion, 32.8% LTV, which is something in a very safe level, and the cost of debt of the outstanding debt together with maintaining our revolving credit facilities of 3.2%.

This come also with the best rating that we can get: BBB+ from Fitch, and BBB with a positive outlook from S&P. Also from June, we have been included in the EPRA index, in the Emerging Index, and this is a recognition of our scale, of our governance, and the way we approach the future.

That's all I would say on funding strategy. I would also want to present you here the per-valuation gain and how we got to €8.2 billion in assets.

Some of you might have already noted in the financial statements that we invested €70 million in capital expenditure to preserve the standard of our properties high. Now that we recovered the €70 million in capital expenditure, but we also benefited from a fair value gain of €162 million, which means that we are strategically investing in our projects so that we enhance the value three times of the investment that we are putting in.

The main drivers of this valuation this year was Poland, coming with €90 million in fair valuation uplift, and out of this, 2/3 are due to the Magnolia, Silesia, and Gdańsk, which are our last three acquisitions. The other two winners are Bulgaria and Romania, making up for the remaining €70 million.

With this being said, I want to end my finance part by saying that our commitment is very straightforward. We want to deliver on every metric that matters for you.

For this, what drives us every day is to find the right balance in between pursuing growth and ensuring a solid and safe level of balance sheet. Now, I will guide you to something that I'm considering a very inspiring story of NEPI Rockcastle, which is our sustainability journey.

Four years ago, we had ambitions. Today, we have results.

Our photovoltaic capacity stands now at 92 MW. What started, let's say, as an initiative under Rüdiger's leadership now converted into a revenue-generating business line.

We installed 38 MW back in 2022 and 2023. In '24, this delivered results.

Then in '25, we decided to have our first greenfield photovoltaic plant that was delivered in October and is going to bring results in 2026. Obviously that we won't stop here.

We are going to roll it out for the photovoltaics on the rooftop of our buildings for €10 million, we will continue the greenfield photovoltaic plants in Romania for €70 million, and as Rüdiger mentioned at the beginning, we decided to have also the battery energy storage system for €100 million for €47 million. In total, we are speaking about a pipeline of over €120 million.

I would say that this is the sustainability that doesn't only reduce emissions, but also create value for you, for the shareholders. Obviously that I'm in the section of sustainability, it's not only what we deliver and we can produce, but it's also what we are committed to.

As Rüdiger mentioned, 85% of our electricity is sourced from renewable sources. We have six countries that are at 100% of this renewable electricity quota, with Romania being at 99%, and having Poland, where the transition to the renewable energy is a bit more complex because we have a coal-based industry there, but it's rising every year at 53%.

Obviously that the market couldn't stay put, and we have been recognized for our efforts in sustainability. We have all these prizes here: EPRA Gold, the five-star GRESB that we got for the first year, an increase in the CDP rating, and we also delivered the sustainability report that was compliant with the CSRD regulation.

It may sound like the badges that we want to collect, but actually these are the standards that we are living by, because we are always aiming high. With this thought in mind, I will turn the floor to Rüdiger.

Thank you, Eliza. Thank you so much.

Sorry, just a quick zip. All right.

Oops. Where are we here?

Here we are. Looking a little bit, of course, deeper into our development pipeline, I mentioned it already, €845 million that we gonna, actually invest over the next let's say 2, 3 years and up to 2028.

Out of this, of course the majority goes into our core business, please don't have a misunderstanding that we are just super happy to invest into energy. No, of course we are addicted to our core business, and that's why €671 million will go actually into two greenfield developments, I will talk about it in a minute, but also in extensions and refurbishment of existing assets.

You see, when you look at the growth of our NOI, that a lot of this also comes from the income-producing part of the portfolio where the team is investing into asset management activities that are yielding. That's important to understand.

That's another 194,000 m² GLA. Again, it's about 8% of additional GLA coming to the portfolio until the end of '28.

Eliza mentioned it, 120 I will not repeat it, €127 million will go into our energy business over a period of time, again, to '28. On top of this, we have €47 million in investments into residential projects.

Again, not to be misunderstood, we are not becoming a resi developer. What we do here is simply that we have exceeding land around our shopping centers, which actually have a value.

You cannot really sell them, what are you going to do with it? Why not utilize it and make money out of it, and build a residential building?

These are smaller investments. We currently have two of those ongoing in Romania, one in Brașov, one in Craiova, right next to the center, of course supporting also the center with footfall.

These are developments not to lease at the moment, usually we sell them. You remember that we had Vulcan in Bucharest, which we sold, I think, for an amazing price to the market.

That's what the pipeline is about. I wanted to showcase a little bit because the numbers are a little bit dry, but when you look at where we invest this, this is an outstanding, I think, investment across Europe because our Promenada Bucharest mall, which is in the absolute top district, District Number 1 of Bucharest, that's where the money sits, if I may say so, there we are investing in total cash €200 million, €290 million.

That is a lot of money for just one project. You could also say why do you take the risk?

The risk is minimized here because, as said, the location is just amazing. We already are operating there a shopping center, but what we do is we're adding 55,000 m².

It's not going to be just a shopping center, here we are also incorporating a hotel, a four-star hotel, a theater, and on top of the hotel we will have more than 10,000 m² of offices. It's a mixed-use project in itself in the heart of the city, and it's well on the way.

We are already constructing for more than two years and first will be the retail part open, and that's going to happen in Q1 2027. I can tell you that we are on time, very important, and in budget.

Looking at the board members here, they're always taking care that we are there, and that's good. What is super important, and you see also here the reflection in the market, that we have already terms signed and agreed for the retail part of 77%.

What does that mean? This derisks your project tremendously.

All the let's say anchor tenants like Inditex, like Peek & Cloppenburg, the cinema, that's all signed. We can all sleep well at night looking at investing €290 million in one project at the very moment.

It will be a super outstanding project, I think, for NEPI Rockcastle once this is opened, and I'm very sure that the valuation will go through the roof over the next couple of years. There is nothing comparable in Romania, nothing.

Not only these, let's say, let me call it a megaproject, I call it my little monster, we also have the smaller ones, which is of course, what means smaller? 65 60,000 m² on the way in Plovdiv.

We are close to obtaining the building permit here and hopefully we can start soon with the construction here, going to be delivered also in 2028. Then we have a retail park that we are developing currently in Galați.

Galați is in Romania, and it's a 38,000 m² scheme and we hope to deliver this in Q1 2027. A retail park scheme, we already are operating a shopping center in that city very successfully, and we learned by this that there is more demand by retailers as what we can deliver in the shopping center, we will be shoveling a bit around with tenants and we'll open additionally a retail park in Galați.

Pogoria, very nice story, it's typically one of these stories where we have an asset that works very well, but we cannot accommodate, let's say, all the tenants that are willing to come. Here we did an extension of 4,800 m², it's of course a much smaller investment, but it's part of our pipeline and it's 100% let, and actually we have already opened it on 5th of February with a Polish team, so that's already delivered to the market.

Now coming back of course again to our energy pipeline, we've got currently this 22 PV projects across the six countries 10 million that need to be delivered. By the end of the year, 54 are already completed, as I said, and then the team will deliver the rest over the next coming years.

I think the return out of that business will move the needle of your distributable earnings in the future, I'm pretty sure. A mandate to deliver, well, most of you know that I'm leaving the post of being the CEO of NEPI Rockcastle, and I thought maybe of course, and I hope you'll allow me and forgive me that we are looking a little bit back over the period of time of my mandate, and together with Eliza and Marek, it's not only me, it's the team of NEPI Rockcastle, because I think maybe we have bit been spoiling you over those years.

We do a little bit of comparison here between when we started in 2021, where have we been in 2021 and where are we today. I think it also gives you a little bit of confidence in NEPI Rockcastle for the future.

This is not going to stop overnight. A lot of seeds are already in the ground.

When you look at these numbers, the NOI has been rising in this period of time of 78%, from 347 to 618. Property value, because of course of the acquisitions, we were a little bit bold, I have to say, in the market, went up from €5.8 billion to €8.2 billion, which puts us actually on the third place in Europe.

You are owners of the third biggest stock-listed retail real estate company in Europe, just for you to know. Then we have distributable earnings, for you of course very important, for me as well, €210 million when we started.

We managed in four years to double it and a bit on top. Per share, because you can read it down there, we went up by 80%.

Why 80% and not 110? Very simple, we needed some cash in order to let's say fulfill our acquisitions, we did an equity raise of €300 million.

With your support also, we did a couple of scrip dividends where we had a very good feedback from our shareholders that enabled us actually for growth. We raised some €3.1 billion over this period of time, 2.5 was of course a debt in the debt market, the bond market mainly, but not only, 600 billion on equity.

Then we went shopping: €1.2 billion cash outflow, but at the same time an uplift on fair value of €1.4 billion. A lot of numbers, but I think it's been an okay track record over this period of time.

As I'm leaving the company, with this I would like to say thank you. Thank you first of all, let me start with that part of the business, the team, because as a one-man show you're doing nothing, right?

You all know that. You need to have a very strong team, and this is a very strong team.

I'm super happy that, let's say, we have continuity here with Marek being here the next one in the driving seat. Thank you, team.

It's been an amazing ride, and I think we have also been enjoying it a lot. It was not only hard work, Eliza, it was also a lot of fun.

We like this kind of challenges. Number one, but also a big thank you, and I see some of them came here, our chairman, the chairman of the risk committee, the chairman of the investment committee, I would like to thank a lot also the board of NEPI Rockcastle.

Why? Because this is not possible if you don't have a board that supports you and a board that trusts you.

They have also been challenging us, but at the same time they gave us the necessary support in order to deliver to the shareholders, a big thank you also to our dear board members. Thank you to you, shareholders.

Again, the majority of our shareholders coming from South Africa, not only, but definitely the majority, and the South African shareholders have been putting some trust in this bunch of European people running the business all the way thousands of kilometers far away, and it has been showing also by, let's say, AGM decisions. We needed to do equity raise, we needed to do a lot of things where our shareholders in principle have been with us, and not just hopping in and hopping off.

Thank you all from my side. For me personally, it was an amazing time with NEPI Rockcastle.

It has been a lot of fun, and yeah, but I will stay to be a shareholder for sure, and I will see how Marek and the team will keep on this company growing. With this, I would say thank you, and hand over because when it comes to the part of the presentation looking forward, I'm already yesterday, let's look at the gentleman that is responsible for tomorrow.

Thank you, Rudi. Let me go back to that slide because this is amazing.

We call it mandate they delivered, but from my perspective and the team it is like no pressure, team, no? No pressure.

Try to do at least the same. Before we go into looking the future, I would like to invite Eliza because I have few words and then Eliza, but we would like to thank you, Rudi.

We are talking on behalf of over 680 NEPI rockers for not only delivering the numbers and taking company to totally different level, but as well for getting this route by having some fun as well. This is different company and we play in Champions League now, and I think if you deliver those numbers, but at the same time you have fun and you enjoy working together, then I think you have all the ingredients to be a successful company.

I think my biggest challenge is actually to keep that spirit, and I will make sure it's there, and you will be our friend forever of course, Rudi, thank you for that. Eliza.

I looking at the numbers because obviously these are my sweethearts. I think that in this year NEPI Rockcastle not have only performed, but it transformed, and you are leaving this company as a legacy that every CEO would like to have.

No pressure, Marek. Looking forward to write the next chapter of growth, but we are starting from a rock solid base.

Thank you. Just few words looking forward.

When I looked at that slide, I insisted on having all those four faces because I concluded it takes four to out out-perform the team of three of Rudi, there we are. Being very serious, I would like to first of all thank the board for appointing me, and thank you investors for all the of the words of support throughout the process.

This is very important. It's a it's a big challenge, but as well I I feel very privileged to actually being able to run this company, cuz if you love what you do, then then this is this means a lot to me personally.

At the same time, it's a team effort, I would very happy to obviously continue with Eliza the successful route we have. There are two new faces to the board which I would like to announce, part of that story, you know.

Marius, I'm very happy to to have Marius succeed my my to be my successor as chief operating officer, and I'm super happy as well that Anca joins the top management team as chief investment officer. You you all know them, but what I wanted to say, when I what I mean by team effort is that this team has been through the good times, but as well bad times.

I think this is the bad times that shape the companies, and this is where you get to know whom you can count on, and we have all been through COVID. Can it get worse?

I don't think so, with closing shopping centers, opening, and managing all of that, and we made it. We are there still together, I think this team of top management is well shaped to manage whatever comes in the future, be that good or bad, hopefully more good than bad times, but I think this is all down to the team.

I'm very happy, and I would like to congratulate for those very well-deserved promotions. Last but not least, this is all internally resourced talents, and I'm super happy that this company with six eight of 680 people delivers the talent that can take the the journey further, and and as such, we should be happy.

Looking forward, there is no revolution to what will happen when I take over, because obviously you don't change the winning team, as you don't change the winning strategy. That is all about organic growth, obviously.

It's about the developments, whatever we can and however we can do at accretive rates. It's the M&As, which probably will play bigger role in the future as obviously, just by the nature of the market, there will be less greenfield opportunities, obviously.

Last but not least, new income streams, and that mainly is energy business, which has enormous potential. What 38 MW do in terms of revenue, and you know our pipeline is, the math is quite easy to scale it up.

That will become, already is, but it become even more material to the earnings of the company. The guidance for the year '26, 3%, and maybe let me unpack it a bit because we already got some questions, obviously.

Expectations versus what we guide, but let me put in the context, because I think each number without context is just a number. We are talking about 3% of the growth year-on-year, but think about the expected inflation in euro between 1.5% to 2%, probably closer to 1.5%.

We are telling to the market we will double of that, while at the same time we will refinance the bonds that expire at higher end, that's just mark-to-market, not much we can do. On top of that, we are carrying the cost to the company of the biggest developments in retail market in Europe, I would say, just looking at Promenada.

Promenada combined with Bonarka, €360 million, which we are continuously funding, not seeing a income yet. The income will come, and it will create additional value because the yields are way above the weighted average cost of capital.

Then I leave the analysts comparison to our peers, but what I wanted to say, please look at 3% as in the context of what we do, how much work we have, and how we look at the balance sheet. One and last, but very important point: of course we carry the cost of the new developments, and in short term you look at P&L and then we end up with 3% growth, but at the same time the capex we reinvest in portfolio helps us to actually save the balance sheet, because it all ends up increasing our NAV.

Please look at the 3% in the context, bigger context of that, compare to the rest of the market, and then I dare to say 3% is just the beginning and that more will come. With that being said, I think we would like to not finish yet.

I would like to surprise you, I would like to ask Rudi to the stage again. It wasn't planned intentionally.

Rudi, the floor is yours.

Now of course we want to showcase and of course what we've done '25, and delivery and and we want to make sure that our shareholders are all happy. I got a message this morning from one of our shareholders who was asking me to do something maybe a bit out of the normal.

It's an important shareholder to NEPI Rockcastle, I already ask for your forgiveness. Can you please, Zsolt?

Thank you, that's enough. That was a special request by one of the shareholders, Rudi dancing on the stage, forgive me for a little bit of taking myself not too serious.

I hope you have been enjoying the presentation so far, and now we are coming to our Q&A. Please go ahead, ask questions.

We will be here with Marek, Eliza, and prepared to answer questions. I lost this thingy here.

Thanks for that, Rudi. Misha from SBG Securities.

Just two questions and hopefully you can give me a bit more detail there. Can you guys give clearer timelines on when you expect the solar PV output to take place across 2026, 2027, and 2028?

Just sort of help with the modeling a bit.

Until the end of '26 of this year, we shall have installed all the 22 additional locations throughout the whole portfolio, so that will be, let's say, the next stage. 54 we will have online, another 54 MW will be online, I think now in the first quarter of this year.

It's really just a weather coincidence that with this testing, just to explain, you need to demonstrate the full capacity of the field, and that means you need to have at least one day of full sunshine and not having snow on your panels, obviously. That's what we're missing at the moment, we're just waiting more or less for this one day and then we can finalize the paperwork.

We have been already producing energy there, but we could only sell it for a very cheap price to the state-owned company so we made only €400,000 on it. Okay.

That's the next thing that comes online already this year. Then we have actually for these fields, we are investing this €47 million into batteries.

I think this will be maybe delivered until the end of the year as well. Then we have the next big PV greenfield development, which is on the way, and up until to 2028 it will hit our P&L.

It comes in stages, and one has to say, openly, we started with a business that is not our area of expertise. We've been hiring people that are pretty smart about it, but still it's a new business to the company and that has chances and it has risks.

We have been trying, or we are weighing this, and we are saying we're not going to go, let's say, maybe as big as we could have from the beginning, because we need to have kind of a learning phase and see how this moves on. When you look at it this year, just gives you the example, we were a little bit above budget with our returns.

Why? Because in June, July we saw that the energy prices went up, and we could adjust our prices to the market prices, and that gave us roughly a million more on revenues, so that's how the rollout will look like under the premises that, together with the investment committee, we have this already, let's say, decided, and now it's a matter of execution.

Thanks. Obviously the higher the energy prices are, typically the better for you guys as NEPI Rockcastle, right?

Actually what we do is, we're treating actually the energy business as a standalone business to make it also to ourselves very transparent. Of course, it gets consolidated within the NEPI Rockcastle numbers, you don't feel any difference, but that's important for us to understand also on how profitable the business is, to make sure that we're not mixing up things here.

I think this is good for us to see that we see this growth. The prices, we are selling this obviously to our retailers.

We've got 8,000 clients, 620 MW annually. The business model actually pretty simple.

You already have the market, you have 8,000 clients that need commodity, that need energy every day, whether they have a client in their store or not, makes no difference. Right?

You have the consumption, and what we do is we build up the production and we sell actually on the market price, and it's again value creation in the sense of that we are just covering this value chain that usually we pay to others. There is not a lot of magic around it.

To execute it is a bit more complicated, but we see now it works. I think we've built up a not a big team, but we've got a very good team of energy specialists that are running that business, and so far they have been delivering in time, in budget.

I have been with the team, for example, to China because we wanted to meet, let's say, our providers here of equipment and to learn again also how that market works. We are big enough, let's say, with what we have in the pipeline to be a relevant client for those companies.

That was very, I think, very helpful. Prices are for now very stable.

What we see is, and you all know this, that energy is currently the bottleneck for a lot of, let's say, investors, especially those that go into AI, that go into data centers. That's the complete bottleneck, and wherever there is on the front line.

I think you will see this similar in Central Eastern Europe in the near future that also the gigacenters and so they will come to Central Eastern Europe sooner or later. Once the war is over, I think you will see a higher demand there.

I think it also prepares maybe NEPI Rockcastle for the future, not only to sell this energy to ourselves, ourselves meaning our SPVs, our assets, our tenants, but maybe also in the future to sell energy to third parties.

Thanks. Then just lastly, will you be staying on in any kind of capacity with regards to the energy business, or are you doing a complete retirement and breakaway from the company?

That is not planned, no.

Okay.

It's wrong question, you're asking the wrong person. You need to ask someone else.

Thank you. Just with the rationalization that you're doing on the electronics sector tenants you have on the GLA, with that change in there, are you typically expecting an uplift in the rentals for that GLA that's going to be expanded into different sectors?

In short, yes, because the electronics stores rightsize and relocated, in some cases, to their optimal sizes at normally higher rentals. We signed new longer agreements, and this market of big, over 4,000 m² electronics stores came to an end.

They are just smaller and produce more per square meter at higher rental, this is where it goes. Actually there's a lot of value unlocking.

Of course, in short period, when you do the refit and you capex it and you do the changes, you have some lag in the earnings, but eventually it's aimed at higher value per square meter eventually.

Thank you.

We have online questions if there are no further questions in the room, or you want to think about it for a moment, then we can maybe look at as well. We've got Eugene today with us to help us with those questions.

A little bit louder.

In that very order, first of all, it's extraction of value from existing portfolio, because this would be first year in long that we have actually like-for-like, almost, portfolio. There are some new openings to the developments, think about Pogoria, which will know add over million euros of NOI, just this one property.

There are some new stores opening in Arena, in Bonarka. We will gradually open a few stores renewed in Promenada.

We will just see the benefit and the impact of those units which were closed in the last year, this is asset management initiatives-driven growth. Then there is extraction from current portfolio.

As we have still 8.6% of GRI to extend, and OCR is reasonably low, if you see what historically we have been able to extract on top of indexation, that's another engine for growth. We assumed still killing vacancy, we can still do quite a lot, so that we want to get overall portfolio below 1%, and these are the engines for the growth.

Of course, with refinancing of bonds, it will eat up a bit of the growth. Continuous funding of developments before they start producing income is another small drag, and overall it gets to 3%.

Thank you for that question because, as I said, 3% must be put into the context. Think about the development pipeline we have.

I dare to say we are the busiest landlords in the market, and that's for good reason, because those properties will produce at very accretive yields and the income will happen. As I said, those days of being able to deliver greenfield developments or big extensions will one day dry out, obviously, because the market is just as big as is.

I consider that as more, let's say, short-term drag for long-term gain on earnings and NAV, that's very important as well.

For 2026, I think that I have already gave a guidance that the current tax expense is going to represent approximately 8% out of the distributable earnings before taxation. The REIT status means that we are going to keep this tax rate, or maybe a bit higher, but definitely we won't reach the 15% as per the Pillar Two.

I am not necessarily in the position to guide for beyond 12 months, but this, let's say, ratio of the current tax expense relative to distributable earnings before taxation should be in between 8% to 10% by achieving this REIT status for the next, let's say, 24 months.

Yes, when I'm speaking about becoming a REIT, I'm referring to the parent company in Netherlands. Except for that, there is no other country where we operate to have a REIT legislation, neither Romania, nor Poland, reason for which we are going to go with the taxation rate in that country of operation, be it 19% in Poland or 15% or 16% in Romania.

Indeed, the REIT status comes with some limitation and we have an obligation to distribute a particular level of our income in cash as out of the profits, actually, with the remaining of it having the board discretion whether it's going to be scrip or it's going to be repayment of capital. We will maintain the repayment of capital, but only for a particular portion of our dividend.

Thank you, because this question was something that I wanted to cover when I unpacked the taxes, and the administrative expenses is just that the taxes caught me much stronger than the admin expenses. Indeed, we had an increase in the admin expenses this year, and half of it's due to some, let's say, recurring elements, such as the amortization of the photovoltaic plants, because there is going to be a replacement period, 18 to 20 years, we need to amortize for that.

We have also an increase in our fee related to the digital platform and cyber security, which are non-discretionary expenses. We care about that and we want to keep everything safe, this is half of the increase.

The other half of the increase relates to the advice on our tax controls in Romania, and this is rather of a one-off nature. The second one relates to the conclusion of the CEO mandate and the succession in leadership, and this is also of a non-recurring nature.

Yes. There is going to be approximately 30 basis points relative to what we have now, an incremental 30 basis points on what we have now.

It depends on how you are looking at the cost of debt, whether it's only related to the debt which is outstanding or it relates to also maintaining the liquidity coming from RCF, because what is outstanding is a 3.75%, but maintaining the liquidity and the committed debt facility comes with a lower cost, making the 3.2% that we have now in our results presentation and the financial statements. In short, the incremental portion is going to be in the range of 30 basis points.

Well, 3% is the expectation for distributable earnings per share, and then various elements of the business added to the 3% growth.

No, that's very easy. We never, in order to not make the life of our competitors or potential partners from whom we buy sites to not make their life easier, we tend not to say too much about the yields, other than, and our weighted average cost of capital is easy calculation, actually, and whatever we do, one of the criteria is that those big developments have to be accretive to the earnings, I think this is the best comment we can get or the best answer that we do make sure that we spend money wisely and that has to be accretive, of course.

Let's share the answer.

You take the first part, I take the second.

Yeah. When it comes about the consumer behavior, this is one of the reason for which the turnovers in Romania have been flat for the last, let's say, 3 to 4 months of the year, because the behavior of the consumer must adapt to the new changes.

Yes, it is what it is. We have taxes on the dividends, we have the VAT expenses, the real estate, the residential real estate is a bit on a standby.

We have been to even worse times in the back, and we are a resilient people, reason for which I'm expecting that in the next 8 to 12 months the situation is going to settle. On the negotiation, Marek, over to you.

Yes, negotiations are obviously function of performance, and one needs to put that into context. We didn't get these questions when Romania was actually the fastest-growing economy in CEE for so many years, taking our tenants' performance to highest ever levels, you need to look at it in longer perspective.

It's a bit slower now and maybe a bit difficult for some of them, but still it's a very profitable market. We look at it as a, let's say, short-term roadblock, but longer term we are sure that Romania has, like the whole of CEE, an amazing growth potential.

Now when you get at top of Mount Everest, it's difficult to get higher, the air becomes thin, but one needs to put as well Romanian situation into perspective. If you look at amount of retail per capita, it's lower than in Poland, for example.

What I wanted to say there is that, yes, it's a bit slower now, but again we are not in any of the cases oversupplied with retail, etc., etc., which are the dynamics for some of the Western markets, I'm very positive about Romania going forward. I know these things will normalize in mid to short term, and we continue to be bullish on Romania's GDP growth.

It's very mathematical. It depends very much on what will be the statistical office of Europe to announce, but we expect, seeing how the inflation moved in Europe, that should be somewhere between 1.5% to 2%.

The more we know, the closer to 1.5%, 1.7% it probably will land, but the final number will come.

I think this is to be going further. I guess when you combine all the elements of what we have been recurringly delivering, which is look at inflation, look at base rental uplift, connect that with the expiry profile, then it becomes quite mathematical thing, if you exclude developments, obviously.

Then on this recurring business normalized, without new developments, new acquisitions, one might expect that to follow between 3%, 4%-ish depending how the economies and inflation goes to 5%. Then if you add the developments, if you think about the pipeline of potential acquisitions, then 3% to 5% should be our base-case scenario, further fueled by acquisitions, and let's not forget about the energy, which will, if it continues to increase at the pace envisaged, it will further add value.

When I say 3%, 4%, add energy, add acquisitions, add developments, and that's the target for mid-term for the company.

Here I think that I said in the previous presentations, not necessarily today, that there is this, let's say, valuation yield that we have constant one year from another, and I'm expecting some compression of this valuation yield. Nevertheless, for the time being, the valuers are not willing to, because of the lack of transactions in some of the geographies or because they purely want to be on the conservative side.

I believe that there is a potential for compression of at least 10 to 15 basis points, but for the time being, I think that we are on a stable valuation yield and we can nevertheless enjoying the uplift coming from our operational performance.

If I would add to that point, that we do not control cap rates. This is the market.

What we do control, and this is why we buy what we buy and develop where we think it's worthwhile, because we can control NOI. If it's mathematical, it's yields, market, and NOI, us.

You have seen the example of Silesia and Magnolia, and that's exactly the case: stable yields, but NOI going up resulting in valuations uplifts, and this is our game. If we add to that compression of yields, which may happen, we'll be even happier, but we don't count on that because how can we, right?

We can't project the future on cap rates.

I would add only one single thing, that every time that we went for a disposal, this disposal was done for a premium to the book value, there is potential to be unleashed over there.

Thank you.

Do we have any more question from audience? No.

I just want to congratulate you guys. Great results.

We are very confident with the team going forward, and Rüdiger, we wish you well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

yeah, thank you.