Moderator
Hello and a warm welcome to today's earnings call of the UBM Development AG following the publication of the H1 figures of 2026. We are delighted to welcome the CEO Thomas Winkler and the CFO Patric Thate, who will speak in a moment and guide us through the presentation and the results.
After the presentation, we will move on to an analyst Q&A session. As an institutional investor, we would like to invite you to contact UBM Development AG directly after the earnings call to clarify any questions you may have.
With no further ado, Mr. Winkler, please, the stage is yours.
Thomas Winkler
Thank you, Mareike, and welcome everybody. Thank you for joining UBM's conference call on the first half of 2026 with what I would say a fair number of highlights that deserve the name highlight.
Looking at slide 1 of our presentation, what did we achieve? Our turnaround has solidified, and we were able to report a significant earnings swing before and after tax.
Second, the boom in residential sales continued, and with more than 200 premium apartments, we repeated the record sales number from last year. Three, we are making good progress in affordable housing, our major strategic initiative, more details later.
Four, the enabler is a strategic sales program, as announced previously. With first assets having been sold at or above book value in current market conditions, it could be called a good start.
Five, our equity ratio has further improved and even lies above our target range of 30% to 35%, while our net debt decreased to just below €475 million. The outlook is all about affordable housing, affordable housing, and affordable housing.
I see a good chance that we can take a leading position again in this segment. More in a minute.
Let us first zoom in on the half-year earnings swing, looking at slide 2. An earnings swing from a loss of €6 million to a profit before tax of more than €7 million cannot be overestimated in a transitional year like the year 2026.
Enabled by our successful resi business on the one hand and the first asset sales on the other hand, it also shows up in revenue increase of 36%—36%. We are not back to normal, but the direction justifies some optimism.
To have a closer look into the resi boom, please follow me to slide number 3. We hit last year's record level spot-on, and projects like LeopoldQuartier CITY, Villen im Dritten 11A, or Na Plzeňce phase 1 are sold out by now, because you get the figures here by end of June.
The boom holds. Please allow for highlighting the Prague residential market.
From the launch of our sales in Na Plzeňce phase 1, we were able to increase the square meter price by no less than 20%. You are sold out, you might say, and my answer is, true, but only for phase 1.
We see the same interest in phase 2, which is in the mirrored project on the other side of the street in Smíchov and shows up in the order backlog, one of the hottest districts in Prague. The Czechs are almost obsessed, if I may say so, with owning real estate, and particularly their own apartment.
We have a different trend in Vienna and the big cities in Germany. In Vienna, almost 80%—8-0%—of the apartments are for rent.
This market is grossly undersupplied, and our initiative in affordable housing is precisely targeting this market. Please turn to slide 4.
What is the issue? Even though Vienna has been a shining example for reasonable cost of living compared to cities like London, Paris, or Zurich, we now see an interesting phenomenon.
Those who are and have been happy campers, if I may call them, do not move out of their apartments, even if they are too big when the kids have moved out. The few new apartments are facing demand by a growing number of people desperately looking to find some living space at reasonable cost.
I'm not sure if we should call this locked-in or locked-out phenomenon. The issue is neither unique to Vienna nor easy to fix.
With the apartments coming to the market at square meter prices well above €8,000 and the current interest rate environment, we see rents promising a reasonable return close to €30. This, however, represents often a portion of the disposable household income well above 40% to 45%, far from affordable.
The same is true, with regional differences, for many of the attractive cities in Europe. This constitutes a serious political issue, with people demonstrating on streets in many countries, the pictures from the news.
We, this is the developers and the construction industry, are challenged to bring down the cost of housing by thinking out of the box. UBM, together with Paul Living, develop a first pilot project in Vienna to prove that affordable housing, eating up a maximum of 35%, better 30%, of the net household income, is doable.
It is a new way of thinking rather than stripping of quality. It is moving the construction site into the factory and assembling standardized elements rather than building prototypes, because nothing else is what we are doing up to now.
As can be seen from this slide, we are talking about timber-frame wall facade elements with pre-installed windows and outside shading. We are talking about every apartment with a balcony photovoltaic for hot water supply and a heating or cooling by heat pumps, all of this resulting in a very low monthly operating cost of €1.70 to €1.90 per square meter.
Pre-installed central home technology piping and electricity units on or plug-in systems reduce the need for skilled workers. The same is true for the bathrooms or the kitchens; they come complete.
With prefab elements, we are talking scale effects and a significant reduction of construction time. This, combined with a number of highly efficient layouts, is the solution.
The best is that UBM is not only sitting on the land for the pictured pilot project, but six more plots in Vienna resulting in over 50,000 square meters of rentable area, perfectly located for the purpose of affordable living. I shall provide you with some more information in the outlook.
Before this, I would, however, like to ask Patric to share with you a bit more of the commercial considerations behind affordable housing and also update you on our financials. Patric?
Patric Thate
Thank you, Thomas. Good morning, everybody.
Back in May, I walked you through our sample calculation for affordable housing. A net selling price of around €5,000 per square meter, a monthly rent of €15 per square meter, an annual return of 4% for an institutional investor, and as one of the key factors and the residual of the calculation, a land price of €850 per square meter residential floor area.
The obvious question was, does that 850 stand a reality check? This slide tries to get answers.
The table on this slide offers you an overview of how much we can invest in terms of land price per square meter residential floor area across 15 cities in Germany and Austria. How do we get to our figures?
We take the rent that is achievable in each city, capitalize it at the 4% yield an institutional investor expects, and derive from that the land price we can justify pay. That is the dark green bar.
The light green bar does the same thing from the other direction. It starts from average net household income, applies the 33% that a household can reasonably devote to housing, and derives the land price.
The dashed line running across the chart is the €850 per square meter from our sample calculation. Take Vienna, the third example from the left.
An average market rent of roughly €22.5 per square meter justifies a land price of around €1,641 per square meter. Measured against household income, the figure is even about €1,794.
As we developed our strategy, it was clear that we would see regional differences. That is the point of this slide.
In order to achieve the yield an institutional investor expects, we don't have to achieve acquisition with €850 per square meter residential floor area in every city. In nearly all of the investigated cities, the price per square meter could be higher.
In other words, our model does not depend on finding exceptionally cheap land in one particular city. It works across a broad set of markets, including the six cities marked with an asterisk where UBM is already developing residential projects.
Land cost is highly location-dependent and directly tied to achievable rents. This chart is not a shopping list, and it is not a statement that we will pay these prices in the end.
Two takeaways from this slide: first, the affordable housing calculation is not a Vienna special case, the arithmetic works across our markets; second, we are entering the segment with a clear, quantified benchmark for what we are prepared to pay. Please turn to slide number 6.
At the full year presentation and again in May, we told you that we need to free up cash from our standing and non-strategic portfolio in order to refinance the strategic shift. This slide is proving a successful start of our sales progress.
The first is Ekazent-Paket-6, a standing asset or rather a package of leasehold rights to various commercial properties in Vienna and the greater Vienna area. This partial sale transaction amounted to around €35 million.
UBM's ownership share was 50% of that. The cash inflow to UBM is €11 million, of which €10 million was received in the second quarter and a further €1 million will follow in the third quarter.
The second was a non-strategic asset held 100% by UBM. The volume is €10 million, and here the full €10 million comes to UBM in cash: €5 million in the third quarter of 2026 and the remaining €5 million in the first quarter of 2027, not part of our cash numbers yet.
Taking together, that is around €21 million of cash. The most important point is both were executed at or above book value.
No doubt this will not apply to every transaction in the future, but it is an encouraging start. Please turn to slide number 7.
This slide brings me back to the two ratios we watch most closely: equity and leverage. Starting on the left, equity stood at €374 million at the end of June and the equity ratio at 36.6%.
That is above our target range of 30% to 35%, and it is the highest level in the last 3.5 years. The drivers are the positive half-year result and, more significantly, the €25 million of Genussrechtskapital issued in the first quarter.
A ratio at this level gives us flexibility at a point in the cycle where we are building a new pipeline in affordable housing, and we would rather enter that phase with capacity than have to create it. Turning to the right-hand chart, net debt came down to €475 million from €546 million a year ago.
That is a reduction of €71 million year-on-year and the lowest level we have reported in years. The loan-to-value ratio stands at 46.5%.
Two key messages from my side: first, the equity ratio is above our target range; second, net debt is at its lowest level in years. With that, I would like to thank you for your attention and hand back to Thomas.
Thomas Winkler
Thank you, Patric. Why do we think affordable housing is the next big thing, particularly for UBM?
Let us have a look at the market environment, as described on the right-hand side of slide 8, by the way, our last slide of the official presentation, but there are plenty of slides in the backup that I would refer you to because they are really interesting. Austria is seeing rent rises on average of 5%; Vienna is expected to be even at 7%.
This is well above inflation and is going to continue above inflation for the foreseeable future. As mentioned before, Vienna is a traditional rent market, with 77% of the population being renters.
With less than 10,000 apartments expected to be completed this year and approximately only 2,250 freely financed apartments, which are also free on the market, compared to an estimated 13,000 to 15,000 needed, it is easy to see a growing demand for affordable housing. The situation in Germany is no better, rather the contrary.
According to the Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil, Germany is short of 1.4 million apartments today. I've seen a figure yesterday of 1.34 million apartments, doesn't make a big difference, and with an expected 185,000 units completed in '26, the shortage is growing by 200,000 per annum.
A growing number of permissions, which we see in Germany, together with a growing number of cancellations, which we also see in Germany, does not change the picture. This is underpinned by a very low number of listings in most urban markets in Germany.
While the promise of €23 billion of government subsidy programs gives hope, the political debate in cities like Berlin does not help. The Warsaw rent market, with rent levels above €20 per square meter and month, is rounding up the situation.
Here we have a potential of another 50,000 square meters right next to Poleczki Park; it's actually part of Poleczki Park not being built up. This means UBM has identified a potential of more than 100,000 square meters of affordable living in its existing portfolio.
Nothing is ready to be built immediately, but we have all the ingredients in-house. This perspective justifies the headline of our outlook: affordable housing is the next big thing.
I'm not sure if I already mentioned this one. I guess there are a number of questions, and let me open the line now for them, and thank you for your attention.
Moderator
Thank you, Thomas and Patric. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll now move on to the analysts' Q&A session.
We kindly request that only analysts ask questions during this Q&A session, and all other participants are invited to contact the investor relations team following the call. Thank you for your understanding.
To ensure a dynamic and interactive discussion, we encourage you to ask questions via the audio line. To do so, please click the raise hand button.
If you are dialed in by phone, please use the combination *9 to raise your hand and *6 to unmute yourself. Should you not have the opportunity to speak freely today, you can also place your questions in our chat box.
We already received some raised hands. Mr.
Stefan Scharff, I will ask you to unmute yourself. You should be able to ask your question now.
Thomas Winkler
I don't hear anything, unmute doesn't work?
Moderator
Yes, I send an invite to unmute.
Thomas Winkler
Yes, now we hear.
Patric Thate
Okay.
Stefan Scharff
Good morning, gentlemen. My first question is about the affordable housing projects to come in Germany.
When will we see the first project, and perhaps there is room to change some project types in Munich for affordable housing? The second question is about the bond market.
You tapped the bond market almost in every of the former years in fall, September or October, November, are there any plans to go to the bond market again? I know the equity ratio is quite high, but also we have the cash position slightly below €100 million, and it was mostly between €130 or €150 million.
Thomas Winkler
These are your two questions, Stefan?
Stefan Scharff
Perhaps I have one or two, one or two more.
Thomas Winkler
Excellent, excellent. Then let me start.
Of course, as an UBM expert, you have noticed that we didn't mention Germany. The reason is we have one small plot identified that could be used for affordable housing.
We're currently investigating it, and we hope that we can report on it in our Q3 call. By and large, the properties that we own at the moment are not ideal for affordable housing, for the simple reason that they are in super-prime locations and therefore the land cost is above our limits.
That kind of even answers your question with Munich. Part of the Munich project, as every resi project, is, of course, for subsidized living, and that's a different story, but that has nothing to do with our affordable housing.
Our affordable housing is a different way of building the properties and is clearly targeted for an institutional investor to buy it and rent it out, whereas the locations that we are talking about here are all locations for ownership, preferably. I hope this answers the first question, and the second question I hand over to Patric.
Patric Thate
Hi, Stefan. Bond market tapping was the question, if I'm right.
What we always do, we take a closer look at the market, and meanwhile I have the impression that not everything what Mr. Trump is doing in the US is immediately doing a lot of fluctuations in the market.
If the markets are in a good condition, we are, as always, looking carefully and think about if we can do a bond transaction or not. In terms of cash, yes, of course, when you are in a strategic environment where you want to change the strategy and start a new asset class, affordable housing, there are some sources of cash in the company.
One is the cash we are sitting on, which is a little bit lower, as you have pointed out, as we have repaid a bond with €73 million in the second quarter. You can use money from the market, and if there is a good opportunity, we will look at that and see what we can do with it.
Stefan Scharff
Okay. How are the sales generally doing in Germany?
I know you have the Mainz haven project, and there are still some apartments to sell. How is the sale progress doing there?
The other question is, you also mentioned it in your half-year report, you have the five hotels to sell. What can we expect here about transactions to come in the second half of the year, or is it still too early and it's more a topic for '27?
Thomas Winkler
Again, you are always identifying the gaps, which is fair enough. Look, we've always been picturing Germany as the upside, and I still hold this up.
As much as we love to talk about the Czech market or I should rather say the Prague market, as difficult it is to talk about the German market. You have seen price developments in the German markets going the wrong direction from our point of view, because prices have not increased anymore.
The Germans, if I may say so, as I have lived long enough in Germany, are very, very kind of pessimistic at the moment. The overall mood in the market is not ideal for selling really good quality apartments as we have them in Mainz.
Still, okay, we see a slow kind of pick up, and I keep up my hope that Germany, okay, because there is very low sales figures included in the first half year, is an upside more than anything else. Now, you have asked for our hotels, and that's also a good question, and I must say I've been more upbeat about the hotel transaction markets like 6 months ago than I am right now.
We see that over summer, even the kind of drought situation, the lack of water in the rivers and therefore the river tourism, the ever-changing situation with Iran, and things like this have again made hospitality business plans a bit more cautious, which is not helpful, okay, for negotiation speed. We're still in talks on our hotels.
We also very openly have flagged that we want to sell them. We are a developer; we are not a real estate management company.
I don't dare to give you a good timing, not even kind of is it still in '26 or is it in '27. My hope, of course, is that we will sign and close accordingly at least one deal in '26, but as I've described, I can't give you a guarantee on this one.
Stefan Scharff
I see. Perhaps I have one final question.
It's about the two offices in Mainz, the Timber Peak, and also in Frankfurt, the Timber Pioneer. Here are some in Frankfurt, just a little bit, and Mainz a bit more, some office space available.
Are here some current negotiations, or let's say some rental contracts you can talk about? No,
Thomas Winkler
nothing that we want to talk about, because it's stupid to talk about something before the ink is dried. We see interest, and even though interest is materializing in a signed contract now in a timeframe more of 9 to 12 months than 3 to 6 months, I'm optimistic for some progress in this one.
The Frankfurt market is the most difficult one when it comes to buildings outside CBD and outside the towers, okay? Even there, my colleagues tell me that they do rent activities with 500 square meters to 900 square meters, which is very little per tenant.
Yes, you are right, the things are slower than expected. It comes back to the overall kind of broken spirit that I must say we are seeing in Germany, but there is interest that could materialize in contracts also for Mainz, which is actually a great situation because you can live where you work.
You have the 15-minute city materialized, and it's a really beautiful icon building, the highest, by the way, in Mainz, and it is in timber construction.
Stefan Scharff
Okay.
Thomas Winkler
Stand by, we keep the tension up.
Stefan Scharff
Okay.
Thomas Winkler
Thank you
Stefan Scharff
very much. Thank you.
Moderator
Thank you so much. We have a further raised hand by Elias Kneue.
I will ask you to unmute yourself now. You should be able to place your question.
Elias New
Yes, good morning, gents. I hope you can hear me.
I guess my first question is really on the outlook for the second half of the year. Since you didn't issue any guidance for the financial year, I was just wondering if you could sort of share your expectations for the second half following the strong first half, and whether you sort of expect the second half to be in line with what we've seen in the first half or perhaps even better, both for top line and, I guess, bottom line.
If you could comment on that, that'd be very helpful.
Thomas Winkler
Yeah. Look, there's a reason why we haven't given an outlook, and I think it's justified given the volatility in the market.
I've also read the kind of, if you want, cautionary statements of my colleagues, and we're not in the rent business. If I had a rent business, it would be a lot easier.
On the top line, you see that we have been making quite a significant increase. That our top line always depends where the transactions take place, because if it's at equity, it doesn't show up in the top line.
We've seen the progress in Q1, we've seen the progress in the half year. I hope that this momentum continues as much as the sales momentum in the apartments continue, and I have no doubt that the sales momentum in the apartment sales with the order backlog of almost 100, or let me be more precise, of more than 90, okay, which is eventually going to be converted to more than 90%, I probably should say 95%, into contracts eventually, because it's just the notary that is missing or the interior construction agreement that is still missing or something like this, is looking and encouraging.
When it comes to the rest, Patric and I may repeat this, we are always very straightforward. Yes, it's encouraging that we sold assets at or above book value, but Patric explicitly said don't expect that to happen all the time.
What is our strategic challenge in this one? It is do we prefer speed over profitability?
Okay? This question we ask ourselves every time we have an offer concrete enough on the table.
I'm saying this even though we've taken down some of the values in the course of the aftermath of the Russians invading Ukraine. I'm afraid I can't be more precise, not because I don't want to, but because I'm unable to do so.
Rest assured that we try to do everything, okay, to optimize this kind of equilibrium that I've been talking about.
Elias New
Great. No, that's very helpful.
I guess my second question is on the cost side. In the first half of the year, you've reported material costs significantly down, which is due to lower construction activity.
I'm just wondering sort of for the second half, should we expect material costs roughly similar, and when do you sort of expect construction activity to pick up again? Sort of 2027, at what point?
That kind of would be helpful. Also, I guess on the personal cost front, also personal costs down slightly.
Number of employees now at 188. What are sort of the expectations for the full year here?
Is there further reduction in headcount expected?
Patric Thate
Let me start with the material costs, because this is obviously a question to the CFO. There is no one-to-one relationship of construction activity to that number.
Why is that the case? It depends a little bit on where is the construction happening.
Is that in the at-equity area or is it in the fully consolidated area? The second thing is, the numbers also influenced on do we sell IAS 40 as an asset deal, and they are also going into that number.
There is not one-to-one relationship, but in terms of what you've phrased, you are right, construction activity is not very high at the moment in the fully consolidated area. That has to do with the project cycles we are in.
What is to be expected there? There are some project in terms of residential which are coming up to stream soon.
That is probably Senftenauer and Unterbiberger in Munich, for example, or also in the Czech Republic, the second phase of our project. I expect that this number will pick up sooner or later, of course, because otherwise we are not investing enough money into the market.
I hope that we will see a good thing then in '27 and in '28 coming from our new asset class which we are hoping to ramp up soon.
Thomas Winkler
Absolutely. Elias, I'm grateful for your question, even though it makes me kind of appear to be a bit thin-skinned talking about it.
Over the last 3 years, we've halved our employee number, okay? This is one of the worst things that you go through as top management, to decide that you have to address your cost base, and the cost base that we can influence the biggest is personal costs, okay, because very little can we do about interest rates or others.
Now we are down at 188, and this is a end of the second quarter number, and I know that this number is going to drop by a single-digit number still, because of people that are still included in the statistics, but are going to leave us. However, we are now at the bottom of the box.
We are where we want to be. On the contrary, we are looking for new colleagues on the technical side and on the finance side in Munich, for example.
Then the question is how quickly will they come on board, because usually you have long notice periods. The thing that I have to point out is that other than in Austria, okay, the kind of annual salary increases, okay, come 1st of July, okay?
There's a little bit of buoyancy in this one, and I'm not deep enough in the numbers to be honest if that is offset by the further reduction. I think what you can take away from what I'm saying is, we have costs well under control.
While it is the worst thing, I can tell you still in 30 years or more than 30 years of work, to tell people that they better look around and see if they find a job somewhere else because we can't afford them anymore, it is that for me, okay, mentally, I'm at the end of this exercise, and I believe as much as I believe in affordable housing that we're also going to get our projects started. We are always depending on public authorities, getting the right construction prices, and what have you, because nothing is less fulfilling, okay, than sitting there and racking your brain when the thing is getting better.
In this respect, our kind of headline that the turnaround solidified is perfectly appropriate.
Elias New
Great. No, that's super helpful.
That's all for me. Thanks.
Thomas Winkler
Thank you for your questions, Elias.
Patric Thate
Thank you.
Moderator
Thank you very much. We have another raised hand from Christian Bruns.
I will ask you to unmute yourself, and you should be able to place your question.
Yes, hello. Congratulations to this swing in half-year earnings, and my question is, you mentioned of course the cash inflow from the disposal of standing and non-strategic projects, but I would be interested to know what the impact on earnings is.
I think you said it's at or above book value, but could you be a little bit more precise?
Patric Thate
Happy to do that, Christian. We have pointed out that there were two deals.
The one was the Paket-6 deal and the other one was the deal we call it [Waeschekrone?] internally.
The Paket-6 deal, that was last year already, the impact we had from that in terms of number. That was roughly €2.8 million positive, because the deal started last year.
It was at equity IAS 40, and therefore we have to reflected that in the full-year numbers. The deal we are talking about this year, the second one, that is a €5 million number roughly in terms of EBT coming from this one, was a very good deal we are striking there, and that was in the first half, the impact on the EBT.
Thank you. Maybe if I might add this, I would go for speed and prefer it over profitability.
This is only my personal opinion.
Patric Thate
Thank you, Christian. We try to balance that all the time so that everybody is happy with us.
Yes,
Thomas Winkler
of course, of course. Yeah.
You're right, freeing up cash for something so good looking, prosperous as this affordable housing is probably the right thing to do. Affordable housing.
Exactly. Thank you.
Moderator
Thank you very much. With this, we have received no further questions.
We come to the end of today's earnings call. Thank you, everyone, for joining and your shown interest in UBM Development AG.
Please feel free to contact Investor Relations with further questions. A big thank you also to Thomas and Patric for your time.
I wish you all a successful day, and hand over again to Mr. Winkler for some final remarks.
Thomas Winkler
Thank you. There's very little to say other than we are never satisfied, but we are reasonably happy with what we've achieved in the first half, okay?
We are looking ahead already to the second half and the first half of next year. We've got big plans.
I hope that came through nicely. We don't only have big plans, we are good in execution, and that has been proven by these numbers.
Thank you for those who bear with us up to now. I hope you found it interesting, and as mentioned, always come back to us, happy to answer any follow-up questions.
Have a good day.
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