Aedifica Aktie

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the annual results presentation of Aedifica. We will start the session right now. We have more or less 1 hour available, and I do apologize because we really have back-to-back meetings today. So we don't have much time to really go beyond the 1 hour that we've scheduled. As usual, the results will be presented by Ingrid, CFO, and myself. And we will walk you, first of all, through the slide deck, a couple of selected slides from somewhat bigger deck that you will find available on the website and then afterwards, take your questions.

So not to lose any more time, starting the presentation. And as a quick introduction before Ingrid will take over and walk you through the numbers, a quick view on what really happened in 2025 and how we perceived 2025. And I think the best way of explaining it is by having a quick look at this slide, looking at what we were planning to do and what we really did. I think one of the first things that, in our view, are quite important is that the investment market and the project development market in healthcare real estate is back up and running. We see clearly a more dynamic market. We'll go into that and the reasons why, but we also see it in our own numbers and what we have been doing. So we have been refueling development pipelines, acquiring standing assets more than we expected, so for close to EUR 300 million. And we do see clearly, compared to 2024, that this number is going upwards.

Looking at deliveries coming out of our development pipeline, we were more or less on target with 1 or 2 of these projects that have been delivered just after the new year, but we are actually more or less on target. Now compared to 2024, this is a lower number in nominal value, but it basically reflects the market. In the past couple of years, we haven't been refueling the pipeline as we were used to, but we're now back in a phase where we are refueling the pipeline and these project completions in the future will become more contributing to the growth of the portfolio and the top line. And then asset rotation, there, we did what we wanted to do. The must-have to us was divest the Swedish portfolio because as we explained, it was not contributing in a similar way as other geographies to the EPS of the company. So this was a matter of capital recycling.

But towards the summer of 2025, we stopped really pushing hard on divesting because we were live in the market with the Cofinimmo transaction, and that comes in the very near future with a quite ambitious divestment and asset rotation program. So this for 2025 was no longer one of our top priorities. But I think the main thing that comes out of this slide is that we clearly see the changes in the healthcare real estate market that we wanted to see a more dynamic and liquid market, which is basically quite promising for the future.

Now this being said, over to Ingrid, so she can present the financials.

Okay. Good morning. So we will have a look on the income statement. First of all, the EPRA earnings, they are up by 4%, driven by an increase of 8% in the operating result, mainly coming following an increase of the net rental income. We also worked on a further improvement of the EBIT margin, so we can show a strong EBIT margin at 87%. The financial charges went up compared to previous year, although we can still have a very low cost of average cost of debt at 2.1%. The increase is mainly related to the fact that there was a slightly higher average amount of debt outstanding in the course of 2025. The low average cost of debt is related to the hedging that the company has in place. At the end of 2025, the hedge ratio still stands at 88%.

Then you have the corporate taxes. That's the line where you see most of the variance. So it's mainly related to the change of the fiscal system in the Netherlands, the ending of the FDE regime. In 2024, there was still a one-off refund from previous years of EUR 4.2 million. And this year, we recognized in the account accruals for corporate income taxes in the Dutch entities for EUR 4.84 million, explaining the difference in corporate taxes that you see between the 2 reporting years. So this leads then to the EPRA earnings of EUR 244 million or EUR 5.15 per share.

Then we move over to the net result. So the changes that are included from going from the EPRA earnings towards the net result are noncash elements, mainly related to the changes in fair value. So this year, we can show changes in fair value for the investment properties of EUR 75 million. This is the most pronounced in countries like the Netherlands, U.K. and Ireland, where we saw strong increases in the valuation of the investment properties. In the Netherlands, mainly driven by the indexation, U.K. and Ireland supported by a strong tenant cover.

Then we have the gains and losses on disposals. So this is not a new element. You have been seeing this in our income statement since the end of Q1. It's related to the disposal of the portfolio in Sweden, which was sold with a small discount of 3.9% compared to the latest fair value, but the amount also includes the recycling of the historical currency translation from equity into the income statement.

We will now dive a little bit more into detail on the rental income. So globally, for the portfolio, rental income is up with 7%. When we look on a like-for-like basis, we see an increase of 2.7%. This can be split in between 2.6% coming out of the rent indexation. Then we have positive rent reversion of 0.4%, mainly supported by some contingent rents in the U.K. And then there is a slightly negative impact from the currency translation in the like-for-like of minus 0.3%. When we look at the individual countries, you can see that in most countries, the like-for-like is very close to the indexation that we see in each of those countries.

What is standing out is the U.K. related to the contingent rents. This year, we also had a historical catch-up of contingent rents, representing GBP 3.2 million. This is not included in the like-for-like. So in the like-for-like, this figure of 4.7%, it's only contingent rents that are related to the previous 12 months that are included. The second country that is standing out is the Netherlands, where we still had strong indexation and we're also able to increase the rental income on some assets related to the fact that we changed the lease agreement more to a B2C model.

Moving over to the debt-to-asset ratio. So at the end of 2025, we can report a debt-to-asset ratio of 40.8%. It was slightly below our expectations related to the fact that there is an increase in the fair value of the investment properties. Our financial policy remains unchanged. So that means that we target a debt-to-asset ratio in the low 40s, and we consider 45% as a maximum. The debt outstanding at the end of the year represents EUR 2.5 billion. We still have a good balance between financial resources, debt resources coming from bank facilities and the debt capital markets. In 2025, we have mainly been focusing on refinancing with the banks and adding new financing to the debt portfolio as well for a total amount of EUR 585 million. The tenors on those maturities are between 3 and 7 years, and the average credit spread is around 110 basis points. We have also been working on extensions. So often credit facilities, they have extension options at the discretion of the lender, and we were able to extend those and keep the same conditions in place.

And lastly, as a third point, I would like to add that we increased our treasury note program. So there was an additional EUR 100 million that was added to the program, and that was also fully used by year-end. So this allows us to have strong KPIs regarding the debt. So currently, we have a BBB rating with S&P. There is a positive credit watch related to the transaction that has been announced between Aedifica and Cofinimmo that if the transaction can be executed following expectations, there is a probability that the credit rating would improve towards BBB+. Our interest coverage ratio is strong at 6.2x. The covenant stands at 2x. We have a net debt-to-EBITDA of 7.8x, very few encumbered assets. Most of the financing is still done on an unsecured basis. And 53% of our financing is related to sustainable financing. Most of the cases is sustainability linked KPIs that are integrated in the credit facilities.

When we have a look on the debt maturity profile. So there, you can see that there's not a lot of refinancing that needs to be handled for 2026. There are some debt maturities starting to kick in, in 2027 and 2028. The timing of the refinancing of those can have an impact on the average cost of debt for 2026. But we still have a lot of headroom on the committed credit facilities, so more than EUR 740 million. This allows us to be able to be in a position where we can say that the financing needs for the company are covered until May 2027 and with a weighted average debt maturity of 3.4 years. Hedge ratio, as I just mentioned, still high at 88%. It will stay at that level until the end of 2027. Then you see it gradually declining in 2028 and 2029. So what we will do is the same policy as we have been following in the past, where we will add additional swaps to the hedging portfolio based on opportunities that we see in the market.

Handing over to Stefaan.

I'm going to walk you quickly through the portfolio slides, but focusing on what I think is probably the most interesting thing, and that is about the operator performance. But starting with the portfolio itself, a quick helicopter view on a couple of things. No surprises here. This is totally in line with everything you've seen in the past. Focus of Aedifica's� portfolio is clearly on seniors housing, so elderly care, senior housing. Numbers haven't really changed compared to previous year. The geographical footprint of the group, there has been some change, namely that we divested Sweden in the first quarter of 2025. As I mentioned already, that was a matter of capital recycling.

And that now for the first time, I think Spain is popping up with a very small 1%, but we have been delivering a couple of projects in Spain in 2025. And looking at the future, we are focusing a lot on being more active in the Spanish market. Otherwise, absolutely similar image to previous years, the 4 somewhat bigger countries, each around 20%; Belgium, Germany, the U.K. and Finland. And then the Netherlands coming in at 11% and Ireland, where we started investing in 2021, now standing at 7%.

Our tenants. Now this slide, once again, is not really showing you anything new compared to previous years. So it still shows a very strong mix of the somewhat bigger European players like Clariane and Colisee in our portfolio with a lot of local heroes. If I'm not mistaken, the top 10 is exactly the same as it was in 2024. We have a big focus, as you know, for historical reasons on the profit sector in Europe. This sector has been growing and consolidating in the last 10 to 15 years. But we have exposure to not for profit and public operators up to 10%, out of which the Finnish municipalities, 4%, they're popping up on this slide are within the top 10 of our operators today.

And then I think what I was referring to earlier on, and in my view, the more interesting slide. So what is happening with the operators in Europe. First, look, occupancy, underlying occupancy, resident occupancy, we have been showing these numbers now for, well, I think, 1 or 2 years. What we do see now end of 2025 is a very strong occupancy throughout the whole portfolio. Looking at the average for the mature care homes in our portfolio, we're above 90% now at 91%. Maybe explaining a couple of things. Mature care homes, we are applying a very simple and straightforward definition. A mature care home is a care home that is trading for more than 2 years. And if that is the case, it enters into these numbers.

Secondly, we have been working very hard on improving the coverage, and you will see the numbers at the bottom of the slide in the 5 countries for which we are now showing occupancy numbers, we are reaching almost 100% coverage. So this is not a selected part of the portfolio to show you the best possible occupancy. It is really giving a true image of what is happening in the portfolio. Finland is still not on this slide, but even in Finland now, we made a breakthrough in 2025. We're now starting to collect numbers from a couple of operators. As soon as we reach -- well, statistically relevant coverage, we will start also showing you numbers for Finland. But the numbers that we have for Finland are absolutely in line with what we see for the rest of Europe today.

Maybe when looking at the countries themselves, as I said, strong performance throughout the portfolio. But one thing which to us, well, it came as a quite positive surprise even though we had the signs already before is Germany. Germany now at 90% in the portfolio. You know that we have been doing a lot of development activity in Germany pre-2022 with deliveries coming in also after 2022. We now see that the ramping up is really coming to maturity and that the German portfolio also in terms of occupancy is absolutely in line with the rest of Europe. So that's quite strong and positive news also looking at the future.

But then something that we now added for the first time is a bit more information about rent covers in our portfolio. You know that we, in the past, already mentioned the U.K. numbers, but now we're adding 3 other countries. Once again, before we dive into these numbers on the back of a quite high coverage. So this is not a selected number of a couple of care homes to show you the best possible situation. It really is reflecting what we see happening in the portfolio. Maybe singling out, first of all, the U.K., you have comparable numbers in the past for the Aedifica� portfolio. It remains a historically high, absolutely very strong rent cover of 2.4. These are numbers on 30 September, but LTM for the last 12 months. It's even a bit higher than it was in the number that we mentioned at the end of '24, 2.3. So the U.K. operated market keeps showing an incredibly strong performance.

Then looking at the other countries, Ireland, for the people that attended our Capital Market Days in Dublin, I think, in early 2025, we already mentioned there that we see rent covers in Ireland around 1.7. We're now at 1.8. Once again, a very strong rent cover knowing that we started doing business in Ireland back in '21 by acquiring a couple of standing assets, but soon after we start building the portfolio more to development, in this case, more forward purchasing deals. So this is a fairly young portfolio with mature assets, but fairly young. But what we do see in the portfolio in Ireland is that ramping up is going at quite remarkable speed, meaning that for most of these Irish care homes, 12 months after delivery of the asset, we already see occupancy rates going above 80%, in some cases, even reaching 90%, whereas in the rest of Europe, you probably would start to see these numbers after 2 years.

So even when we consider them to be mature, we do see that they come in at somewhat lower numbers and keep growing afterwards. Ireland is really doing much better than the rest of Europe. And on top of that, showing a very strong rent cover. And then you have Belgium and Germany, the 2 countries where we have been explaining in the recent past that we do see operators bottoming out. We're now in Continental Europe, should not expect to see a 2.4 rent cover in the near future because these are countries where there's a lot more public money going into the financing of the operators. But as we mentioned, these countries were clearly bottoming out.

What we do see nowadays, and once again, it comes in as a quite strong message is that on the back of the increased occupancy and lots of other signs that we had in the German market, we now also see a very good rent cover in Germany of 1.6. To put things into perspective, you probably know that over the past 10 years, when asked about rent covers and underwriting criteria, we each time said that what we use as a rule of thumb is that when we are underwriting new contracts, we would like to see a rent cover of at least 1.5. Now Germany is back above the 1.5, at 1.6 and Belgium is actually very close to the 1.5. So you do see, I think, on average, quite strong -- very strong to good rent covers throughout the portfolio in Europe.

Once again, Finland, because we don't have the data coverage comparable to what we see in the rest of Europe. So I'm not going in too many details, but the limited numbers that we see are definitely not deviating from what you see on the slide. So I think it is really becoming a European trend, occupancy back at almost pre-COVID levels and rent covers growing back to normal territory, even strong territory with differences between some of the countries where in some countries, it goes a bit slower than in other countries. But I think that we do see an operator performance in Europe, which is totally recovering, and it is starting to show in operator activity in Europe. To add or to mention one example recently in Germany, where we have seen Domidep taking over Vitanas. So we do see a lot of signs of an absolutely improved operating climate in Europe.

Then going forward to -- well, in this case, lease maturity, I'm not going to spend too much time on this. You know that we have a quite long WAULT and that today is standing at 18 years with a 100% occupancy rate. We really only have a couple of buildings which are vacant today. It's I think also a result of a quite active and proactive asset management that we have been applying certainly in the '22, '23, '24 years. We're transferring buildings to other operators if and when needed, but it results in a very strong occupancy rate. And -- but also maybe pointing out that we are basically activating our asset management in countries like Finland, where on average, the WAULT is a bit lower. It has to do with initial duration of lease contracts that are more around 15 years. But we're making a lot of efforts to make sure that we keep the WAULT also in these countries at a quite high level, resulting in the fact that only 1% of our total portfolio will -- at least 1% of the leases for the total portfolio will come to an end in the next 5 years. So basically, I think that we've managed the portfolio quite well in that respect.

And then valuation. Pretty much the same message as in the past. What we do see now is that when you look at the average fair value yield for the whole of the portfolio, we're now at 6%. So we're actually stabilizing around this 6%. If you look at what happened in 2025, you will see that we've seen like-for-like value increases around 1.3%. If you just look at the last quarter, it's plus 0.4% to 0.5% with a couple of countries outperforming. The Netherlands coming in with 4.9% has also to do with the fact that inflation was much higher in the Netherlands compared to, for instance, Finland, where inflation was actually quite low in 2025. But also the U.K., and I think that is still reflecting the exceptionally high operator performance in the U.K. market.

But what we do see in all of the countries are clear signs of a market that has bottomed out and is basically already starting to turn to growth again also in terms of value. Some of the countries, we do see pluses and minuses. But on average, a lot of signs that the market is back on its feet. And adding to that, that this is also being underpinned more and more by market evidence because we do see a more active investment market. So it's not just valuers making up their minds. I think we start to see more and more evidence in the market.

And then a slide that also is very important to us because this should reflect what we think will happen in the market. It is becoming a more active investment market with lots of potential because operators are back, rent payment capacity is improving. And as we announced at the beginning of 2025, to us, that means that we want to rebuild our development pipeline, and it's actually what we're doing. If I'm not mistaken, end of 2024, we were around EUR 160 million, EUR 170 million. We're now back at EUR 276 million. You do see that we have been quite active in Ireland. I just mentioned that ramping up is going so fast. So there's a clear demand for new capacity in Ireland, and it shows in the numbers.

Our pipeline in Finland, where, as you know, we are full developers is growing again. So after a couple of years where we were slowing down, we're building up the pipeline again, and we're doing it on the back of the criteria that we want to see happening. So that means yield on cost of 6.5% and development margins around 15%. And based on those criteria, we're building up the pipeline in Finland today. We remain active in the U.K. given the strong operator performance, but I flagged before, we remain cautious in the U.K. because we want to avoid building the portfolio on the top of the market when prices are relatively high, which is, I think, to a certain extent, the case in the U.K. today.

And maybe adding, which is not reflecting in this slide yet, but as I mentioned, that we do see a lot of interesting things happening in the German market that just after the year's end, we signed a first new project in Germany. So you do see a lot of potential to build up the portfolio. And then going to the right side of the slide, it's not just about volume, it's also about getting interesting yields. So we are now at a 6.5% initial yield on cost for the whole of this pipeline, whereas I think end of '24, we were around 6%. And if you go back a bit further in time, it was more around 5.5%. So you do see the market becoming more active, more dynamic, and you do see yields and value potential, which we clearly can achieve in this market already today.

So basically, looking back at 2025, actually quite happy with the year, not just in terms of our own results, but more specifically in terms of operators' performance, clearly improving in Europe and becoming -- we're reaching promising territory. And also when we look at investment and development activity, we see a lot more potential in this market. Now then looking forward to the future before handing over to Ingrid, I think it's quite clear that what will be probably catching all the attention in 2026 will be the result of our exchange offer on the Cofinimmo shares. I'm not going to walk you through these slides. You know it. I think that the only -- and the main thing right now is to flag that we are in the middle of the initial acceptance period.

Talking to a lot of people and well, coming across a lot of support in the market. So our feeling is that things are going absolutely well at this point in time. You know why we are doing it. So we explained the whole rationale behind this operation. I can only confirm and repeat what, by the way, also is in the prospectus today. But add to that, that we do really believe that this operation comes at the right point in time because we do see the European healthcare market opening up again, and we do see European operators improving their performance. So I think it is absolutely the right point in time to create this platform that is operationally and financially stronger than the 2 companies in a stand-alone situation. But that then is my bridge to Ingrid so that she can explain what are potential scenarios for the future for Aedifica, either stand-alone or combined with Cofinimmo.

Okay. So this year, it was a little bit particular situation, I would say, to give guidance to the market on our financial outlook for 2026. So how did we approach this? So first of all, we had a look on the business plan and Aedifica�based on the current portfolio. On that basis, we can say that we have a stand-alone budget, excluding any impact of transaction costs related to the project, the exchange offer. Based on the assumptions that we have in that model, we come to a rental income of EUR 370 million. This is an increase of 2.5% compared to 2025.

I think that I need to add as well that in our pipeline, as you might have seen, we are expecting deliveries for 2026 of EUR 160 million, but they will be delivered in the course of the year. So during the first 3 quarters, we are expecting approximately EUR 35 million to be delivered. And then in the fourth quarter, it will be EUR 50 million. So the increase in rental income coming out of the deliveries will be spread out over the year. Then we have a new investment target, EUR 300 million, in line with what we have been announcing this year. But also in this investment target, an important part of it will probably be related to new projects. So for the announcements that we made in 2025, 75% were projects that are added to the pipeline and hence, only later onwards start to contribute to the rental income.

So for this budget, we made the assumption that part of it will kick in around the summertime, part of it will rather only contribute for 3 months to the rental income for the part that is related to the acquisitions. And we also included an assumption on asset rotation. So it's a little bit a standard amount, I would say, EUR 100 million. If you take into account the portfolio of EUR 6 billion, that will be spread over the year in the form of disposals. Then other assumptions that we included and an important one is the average cost of debt. We see it still standing at 2.1% in 2026. This is based on the credit facilities that we currently have in place.

Depending on what we will be doing for refinancing, there might be some impact on the average cost of debt. I'm hinting on the fact if we would go to the bond market, something that we had on the planning, taking into account the average debt maturity that is standing around 3.4 years. So going to the bond market, that would have an impact on the average cost of debt because we are doing the refinancing earlier than that currently is foreseen in our budget, and that is also needed from a liquidity perspective.

Then we have the assumptions on the exchange ratio. So there, you can see that we are cautious on sterling. So in the past, usually, we had sterling standing at EUR 1.15. So currently, in the budget is EUR 1.13. If we would assume that current sterling would be trading at EUR 1.15 where it currently stands, this would lead to EUR 0.03 additional earnings if you have a full year impact.

Then the debt-to-asset ratio, we do not include in our budget any assumptions on changes in fair value. So that means if the valuation of the existing portfolio remains flat, our debt-to-asset ratio probably will be around 42% by year-end. Taking into account all of these assumptions, we are expecting that the EPRA earnings will be above EUR 247 million and the EPS will be above EUR 520 per share.

Having said that, I must add to this that probably this stand-alone budget is more like a theoretical exercise because most likely, we will be in the second scenario, where we will take control of Cofinimmo at the end of Q1. So what will be our priorities under that scenario? So first of all, we will have the first consolidation that will start at the end of Q1. So normally, the capital increase is expected to take place on the 30th of March. So there will be, for 2 weeks, contribution to the income statement coming out of the consolidation. We will work on the integration. So the scoping, planning and the execution; we are targeting to do most of the work in 2026. And it will also allow us to start working on the synergies where we do expect that the full run rate impact will occur in the course of 2027.

We will also focus on the disposal of the healthcare asset disposals, the EUR 300 million that are related to the approval of the competition authorities. So that will also be one of the priorities in 2026. And then we have the intention to work on a legal merger in the second year half of 2026. So this legal merger will allow us to take 100% control of Cofinimmo and to delist Cofinimmo. So taking into account all of these elements, we do not know the exact holding percentage that we will have during the first consolidation exercise, makes it difficult for us to give EPS guidance for 2026 for the combined entity.

So there, we will come back to more detailed guidance for the combined entity at the publication of the half year results, which will happen in the beginning of September. But what we can say is that the dividend policy of Aedifica� remains unchanged. So that means that we will continue to distribute 80% of the recurring consolidated EPRA earnings towards the shareholder in the form of a dividend.

Stefaan?

Yes. Okay. I think that we are now coming to the end of the presentation part of this session. Maybe to allow you to have a bit more time to ask questions, I'm not going to make a long speech about the conclusion. I think it was quite clear. We do see a much improved healthcare real estate market. We are quite confident about the future potential, both of the combined entity, Aedifica, Cofinimmo and the market itself.

But this being said, let's switch to the Q&A. [Operator Instructions] So if you have questions, now it's time to start raising your hands.

Steven Boumans.

I have a question there. You are very constructive on the investment market. Do you also imply that the EUR 300 million stand-alone gross investment target that is a bottom? And second, to what extent could we see some yield compression for the portfolio in '26?

Okay. The EUR 300 million that was mentioned in the stand-alone is, in my view, indeed more a minimum than maximum. So I do believe that there is more to be done in the market, both in terms of asset deals, rebuilding the development pipeline and perhaps even M&A. So yes, I do think that if -- well, we could do probably more. That's one thing. Secondly, yield compression. Yes, always difficult to predict that. This being said, I think that we more or less are now at yields that I think makes sense and will be there for a bit longer time. It might depend from one market to another that there might be some first signs of yield compression kicking in. Sometimes wondering whether that is not happening today in Spain, for instance. But given our expectations in terms of long-term interest rates, I do not see a lot of yield compression kicking in, in the near future. But as I said, the market is really shifting into a much more dynamic mode. So we'll have to see what really happens.

Aakanksha from Citi.

So three questions from my side. The first one, mainly on the acquisition opportunities in the market. So I guess you mentioned that there is an increasing number that you're seeing. Markets are more dynamic now. I just wanted to understand what are the main drivers for the increasing number of deals that are coming to the market now? Is it just because operators want to offload into the property companies, so propcos? Or is it increasing distress in the market? Or is it just the fact that operators are -- the profitability of operators is improving, and that's making it more attractive for more players to enter into the market? So that's first part of the question.

And the second part would be on the acquisitions. What are the top 3 geographies where you are most keen on acquisitions? That's the first question, and I'll take the other two as we go along.

Okay. First of all, so the drivers of this increased activity in the market, to me, are definitely more positive drivers and not negative drivers. So it's not distressed. It's much more the fact that operator performance is improving. And some countries definitely are trying to do something about the lack of capacity. Now for instance, the indication I gave about the Irish market, the fact that ramping up is going so incredibly fast is a clear indication that there is need for more capacity. And this, combined with operator performance that is improving, it means that operators are turning back themselves to growth. They want to build more capacity because they can do it right now and they can turn it into a profitable business model. So it is really a quite, I think, positive trend that we see returning to the market.

On top of that, we do see increased -- well, first signs of an increased M&A activity in the operator world. We have already been approached by some operators asking us if we would be ready to accompany them in those type of operations, if there is some real estate that they want to take out of the balance sheet when acquiring competitors. So these are things that basically we didn't see in '22, '23 and '24 and that are now more and more popping up again. So it's definitely not distressed situations. It's much more -- well, the market shifting to really growth again.

And then the top 3 countries, that's always a tricky question. But today, top of mind, I would clearly say Ireland, Spain and then U.K. and/or Finland, maybe a slight preference still for the U.K. Why do I say Finland? Finland is because we're full-blown developers. And we do see that development activity potential is increasing and allowing us also to make -- well, operator -- sorry, development margins, healthy development margins again in Finland, which in the end is creating equity, allowing us to leverage on that. So I think that these are basically the countries that we do believe are very interesting today.

I should add that I'm actually becoming more and more positive for Germany, but it's more the cycle that it starts to go upwards in Germany again. So that's, I think, also a lot driven by timing, not waiting too long before you start building up positions in a country and you have to do it at the right point in time. So Germany might be at the right point in time if what we see happening confirms in 2026.

Okay. That's very clear. The second question will be just on the yield on cost on the pipeline. So it has definitely improved to by about 40 bps compared to last year. So what are the main drivers here? Is it just the tenant profitability improving and you're being able to charge higher rents?

I think in the end, that's probably the most straightforward answer. I have been explaining in the recent past that when we look at the market, basically, what we've seen in Europe is a total disbalance between our cost of capital, cost of construction that went up a lot and then rent payment capacity that was in most of the countries under pressure. And what we do see now is in lots of countries that rent payment capacity is very healthy again and increasing. So -- okay, I think also the cost of capital is slightly improving. So given the fact that buildings have become more expensive, we have a certain cost of capital urging us to go for certain yields. So yes, the third factor being rent payment capacity, and that has clearly improved. So I think that, that is the main driver today in terms of new developments.

Perfect. And the third one, I think Ingrid mentioned lease agreements changed to B2C. I think that was for Netherlands. Could you just put some more color around that? Is it something more country-specific or something we can see more of an increase?

Why I mentioned it is because it did have an impact on the like-for-like. So those are 2 independent living assets where we went to a model that is B2C, that is related and creating additional rental income for the company because we are invoicing directly to the tenant, but it also involves some increase in the maintenance charges that will come to the company. But it is a model that we are exploring a little bit. So something that could be part of our business model, but it will remain marginal in the portfolio as a whole, I would say.

Yes. I think, Aakanksha, at this point in time, it's very country specific. So it's clearly something that we see a lot happening in the Netherlands where also other domestic investors are stepping more into B2C models, but always teaming up with an operator. So there is a third party involved, which is the operator, which is providing care, but this is more independent living where the investor landlord really signs a lease with the resident.

What we did in the Netherlands is because we -- these are actually buildings that we acquired a couple of years ago, where we had a master lease with an operator, not for-profit operator. But they, for reasons of their own, they wanted to get out of the master lease, but keep focusing on providing care in these buildings, whereas we -- well, clearly, if we could take over their position, that would immediately for us result into higher rental income with also more operational costs. But in the end, it seems to be a very profitable operation. And it is actually totally in line with lots of investments that we see being done by domestic investors in the Netherlands. So it is a bit of an experiment, promising experiment, but at this point in time, very typical of the Dutch market here.

Frederic Renard from Kepler Cheuvreux.

Maybe a question on the underlying occupancy rate within your nursing homes. Can you help me reconcile a bit the high occupancy rate that you disclosed in Belgium with the relatively low rent cover of 1.4x. That's maybe -- and linked to that, I would like -- well, you know that Colisee changed its shareholder recently. I'd like to see a bit if you had been able to discuss with Blackstone among other recently.

Yes. Okay. No specific -- Belgium, in the end, the rent cover is not only depending on occupancy. It's actually also depending on the revenue that the operators are getting out of it and cost management. So what you see in Belgium today is the market bottoming out at a rent cover, which is not excellent, but definitely not poor or bad either. But where there is room for improvement and improvement, and this is answering your question, I see it coming mostly from managing staffing costs. So what we do see in Belgium in some assets happening today is something that in the past, you've also seen in Germany and even if you go back a bit further in time in the U.K. is that they have to turn too much to agency workers, which come in at a much higher cost compared to employees and for which they are not really being refinanced, knowing that in Belgium, wages of care takers are actually being refinanced through the social security system. So that is something that the Germans were able to address, the U.K. also, where there is room for improvement in Belgium at this point in time will automatically lead to an improved rent cover.

And then secondly, but it is more of a political thing, I think that also my opinion, but once again, which could lead to a lot of improvement in terms of rent covers also in Belgium has to do with the pricing flexibility. I think that in certain parts of the country at this point in time, the prices are overregulated and basically slowing down operators in trying to adjust their revenue to the real cost they are experiencing. So in a nutshell, this is why even at the higher occupancy, you see somewhat lower rent covers in Belgium. But there is a clear path forward to improve these rent covers in Belgium.

And then your second question, sorry, you have to remind me quickly.

On Colisee specifically.

Colisee. You mentioned Blackstone, but we haven't entered into a dialogue with Blackstone at this point in time. But what I can say about Colisee is that we had a dialogue with the local management of Armonea in Belgium, which was a very, let's say, constructive dialogue. So as far as I can tell today, but it's not -- at this point in time, nothing more I can disclose because I do not want to, well, intervene in perhaps ongoing conversations at another level. But we had -- let me repeat what I just said. We had a very constructive dialogue with the local management team in Belgium. So I think that we did what we needed to do and that we stabilized the situation.

Okay. But I guess you know that at some point, they will try to force you to lower [indiscernible], but we'll see later on.

As I just said, we had the dialogue with them. I'm smiling at this point in time, so you don't see a lot of problem I face here.

Valerie Jacob from Bernstein.

I've got three, if I may. The first one is on your 2026 stand-alone guidance. You're guiding for 2.2% like-for-like growth, stable cost of debt and some net investment. So I just wanted to understand why your guidance is so conservative, if there is something I am missing here.

Okay. Well, I'll take the first part. I think conservative, it's coming from the fact that we have been very conservative in budgeting the portfolio growth. So as I keep repeating, we do see a more active and dynamic market. But we know from experience in the past that you can, at the end of the year, show a very high number in terms of new deals that you have been announcing throughout the year. But it is more the point in time that they become cash flow generating, which is important in terms of your guidance. So yes, I expect that we will be very active in terms of investment and refueling the pipeline, already indicated that the EUR 300 million that we mentioned is perhaps also even or even so conservative. But the real impact of that is something that you will see once all of these new deals start generating cash flow in the portfolio. And that's not on the 1st of January. That will be spread throughout the year.

And then secondly, maybe adding to that is that we come out of a period where the pipeline hasn't been refueled a lot. So we have to get back to cruising speed. And to me, cruising speed means that you have a constant flow of deliveries coming out of your pipeline at interesting yields. This is what we're now building up again. And on top of that, you have your ongoing investment activity throughout the year. So once you reach that cruising speed, you will see more impact on the top line. So I think it's more of a timing issue as far as I am concerned. But Ingrid?

Yes. What I would also like to add is, like I said in the beginning, this is a little bit of a theoretical budget because if you would have put in on a stand-alone basis, a much higher assumption on the investments. Because in reality, we think we will invest much more, but we also think that we will take control of Cofinimmo and there will be capital recycling, allowing to finance and to redeploy that capital and to finance the new acquisitions. If you just put it into a model, much more investments, then your DTA goes up or you have to add in as well a capital increase. So you have to think about the stand-alone budget as a theoretical exercise with the EUR 300 million, which is in line with what we did in the previous year and what we are very confident that we can realize in 2026 as well.

But for us, the most plausible scenario is the second one, where we will take control of Cofinimmo, where we will be working on the divestments that we have been announcing to the market, and we will redeploy that capital. And then it mainly comes to the timing issue element that Stefaan just has mentioned earlier.

Okay. My second question is about your investment strategies. I mean you are doing a lot of very small development of just like EUR 10 million, EUR 20 million. And I just wanted to understand how you think about this type of deal versus scaling the platform with some large portfolio deal. I mean, you're trading close to NAV now, so you could even raise equity. So I just wanted to understand how you balance the size and the profitability of all your sort of potential investments.

Okay. It's actually a very straightforward answer here. We know from experience that the existing platform with our decentralized model with country teams is giving us access to a lot of local deals and very often also to very interesting deals, meaning relatively higher yielding or when talking about development offering, development margins, which basically are creating equity and allowing us to leverage on that. It's something that has been a strength of Aedifica�in the past, and we want to keep that strength, absolutely. So we're going to keep doing this using the network that we have throughout Europe.

But I do agree with you, also looking at the challenges that we will have if this Aedifica�, Cofinimmo combination comes through and the quite ambitious divestment program, including the noncore of Cofinimmo that we also will have to scale up in terms of somewhat more sizable M&A type of deals. So looking at the future, it will be a combination of both.

Vivien Maquet from the Degroof Petercam.

Two questions on my end. Maybe first, I did not get it right, but you mentioned that you want to avoid building the portfolio in the U.K. at the top of the market, but you also mentioned that it is your third perfect geography. So I just wanted to get a bit of clarity here. And does it mean that you also see risk of price correction? Because if you think it's the top of the market, then you will assume maybe a risk of price correction.

Yes. Maybe taking that one, first of all, maybe underlining, I'm still a firm believer of the U.K. market. So I was not sending out any negative messages about the U.K. But it's just -- actually, it's always all in the timing. We have acquired a U.K. portfolio back in 2018, 2019 from an investor that wanted to step out of the market because they were afraid of Brexit. Okay, that was a bit of a mixed portfolio, but we managed it and brought it to a higher level of quality. And then we started adding a lot of new buildings and mostly through development of forward deals. And that has been very profitable.

What we do see now is that the U.K. market and certainly the operator performance is at a very high level, but it remains at a very high level. I do not see at this point in time any indication of a price correction in the very near future. I would actually say that if you look at how active certain U.S. healthcare REITs have become in the U.K. that you could even make a case that prices might go up or at least performance and activity in the U.K. market might even go up, et cetera.

But we're long-term thinkers. And what we want to do is when we look at the metrics of our portfolio, we also look at what is the average cost per room, the average cost per square meter, the average rent per unit, things like that is we keep an eye on that also. So we want to avoid doing too many deals that maybe today from a strictly financial perspective seems interesting, but when you look at all of these other metrics, come out as quite expensive deals, where you know that if the market would correct at a certain point in time, those are the deals where probably you will feel the pain afterwards. So that is what we're trying to manage carefully.

And this being said, repeating again, still very positive about the U.K. market. But if rent covers in the U.K. would come down to 1.8, that still is a very, very strong rent cover. But if you're buying a lot of assets that really are depending on the rent cover of 2.4, even at 1.8, you will feel the pain. So that is what we're trying to avoid.

Okay, clear. Then a question on the disposals, the EUR 100 million, I assume it does not include any Belgian assets. And maybe can you provide an update on the identification of the EUR 300 million portfolio? Are you working mostly on your, I would say, stand-alone portfolio or any update there would be great.

Yes, maybe the EUR 100 million you were referring to in the stand-alone scenario, as Ingrid said, that's a quite theoretical approach. And basically, what we do see as normal asset rotation for Aedifica�stand-alone is that we -- 1% to 1.5% of the total portfolio every year should rotate and then you get to these type of amounts. In real life, we think that the base case is much more the one where we do combine Aedifica�and Cofinimmo, and then you have this, what you were referring to commitment towards the Belgian competition authorities of having to dispose EUR 300 million of Belgian assets.

Do we have -- there's not a lot I can tell you at this point in time for lots of reasons, also keeping in mind that we are in the middle of an acceptance period. And I should clearly avoid telling you anything which is not already publicly known and in the prospectus. But this being said, I confirm what I've been telling the market before. When we were talking to the competition authorities about this, we did some market sound ourselves, of course, very limited to just talking to a couple of parties we know. And we got positive signs that there is interest for these type of portfolios. So that was confirming -- sorry, reassuring for us.

And then secondly, yes, we have built a case where Aedifica�stand-alone has identified a portfolio, which we can use to accelerate things if need be and if the opportunity would arise. But after taking control of Cofinimmo and certainly after the legal merger with Cofinimmo, legal merger that we see happening in the second half of 2026, we can, of course, look at the whole of the portfolio. And in any case, think that the divestment will not take place before the summer of 2026 and might take place towards the end of 2026, and that will be after the legal merger.

Okay. Then two quick questions on the guidance. First, on the 42% debt to assets, you assume as of 2025, that does not include any revaluation.

No, it doesn't.

okay. And then it does not include any potential agreement you will get with Armonea either, right?

I think it does, to be quite honest.

Very difficult to answer that question for us. But let's say that I'm not expecting additional impact coming out of such a kind of agreement.

So if you have an agreement, that will be already [indiscernible] and therefore, should not [indiscernible] negative on your guidance, right?

Yes.

But as I said to Frederic earlier on, we had a quite constructive dialogue. So I think we know where we will land, and we know it already today. So it's, yes.

Indeed, just to know if it's already in the guidance or not.

Stephanie Dossmann from Jefferies.

Maybe just a follow-up on the disposal side because just to clarify something, are you able to dispose of assets in the Cofinimmo portfolio ahead of the merger if you agree legally, I would say, with Cofinimmo's management?

Yes, of course. Not today, after taking control and then we have to agree between the 2 companies because basically, in the period between us taking control, which will be mid-March, if everything goes according to plan, of course, and the legal merger that we see happening somewhere in the second half of 2026. In that intermediate period, you still will have 2 companies with their own governance, but with a controlling shareholder, it will be like a group, parent company being Aedifica�, subsidiary being Cofinimmo. Yes, we can agree within the group to team up together to do this. That's possible yes.

All right. So I don't know if you can give some color on the disposal of the offices. Do you have advanced discussions on those?

Yes. The offices -- sorry. yes. The only thing I can tell you today is that we -- and when I say we, I am really talking Aedifica�at this point in time. We did get a lot of inbound from parties in the market that were making clear that they could have some sort of interest in the portfolio, being it part of the portfolio or the whole of the portfolio, which basically was also a very pleasant surprise to us. But we did not engage at this point in time into any really material discussions. I think it's -- we need to wait until we are in this group situation. But we clearly do have some ideas of what could be possible. That's absolutely the case.

And will it be piece by piece or as a portfolio?

The only thing I can tell you is that we've got interest -- well, as I said, inbound, just people telling us that when you start acting, please talk to us. And that really goes from the whole portfolio to parts of the portfolio and I guess, also for asset per asset.

All right. Fair enough. On the rest of the disposals targeted, I mean, the EUR 300 million committed. Will it be more on peripheral assets or to lower exposure to specific operators, such as, of course, the big one you have in your portfolio? Colisee, [indiscernible], Korian?

Once again, very -- I think what you should expect to see is that, that will be a portfolio that reflects the reality of the Belgian Aedifica�portfolio today. So I think more or less answering your question, yes.

Yes. And maybe on the coming merger or the offer actually, what indicators do you watch to anticipate the tender level, I mean -- and the outcome of the initial period? Do you have feedbacks? I mean, what key indicators do you look at, proxies and so on?

Yes, indeed, we have proxy advisers who give us some informal indications. So...

Can you say something more?

We are communicating a lot at this point in time also towards retail and towards institutional shareholders. As I mentioned, I think, at the beginning of the session, the feedback that we get is straightforward positive. So that's one thing. We will have to see whether people then tender or not. We keep an eye also on the stock price, of course. And I think the stock price also has a clear indication that the market is a true believer of this combination. So I should turn it in the other way. We do not get any negative feedback or pushback in any way at this point in time.

Okay. Maybe just the last one, very quick. If I'm correct, there was a slight expansion in the yields in Belgium. What is related to?

Yes. No, no, that could be the case. I think it is really, as you said, a slide. So it could be just a rounding. But this being said, what we do -- basically, what we have seen in the latest quarters is that, well, inflation increasing rents are driving valuation at this point in time because what we do see is that there's not a lot of yield decompression going on either. So yields are more stabilizing. But when you dive into one specific part of the portfolio, it could just very well be a mix -- what we do see in lots of countries with perhaps the exception of the U.K. and the Netherlands where it clearly is a very strong positive. Lots of other countries, it's a combination of pluses and minuses. There might be corrections for certain assets, but there also are upward corrections for other assets So it could be just the impact of these pluses and minuses at a certain point in time.

But we do not see anything specific happening with the yields in Belgium. I could say on the contrary, there was for the Belgian market, a quite big deal being done a couple of weeks ago by a listed REIT acquiring from the biggest profit tenant in Belgium at a yield of 5.75. So that is really underpinning the valuation.

I think there are still people willing to ask questions, but we are basically out of time. Can you -- I do apologize for this, but as I said, we are a little bit in a situation of having back-to-back meetings today. But if we couldn't address your question, please feel free to reach out to Delphine. We will come back to you ASAP. And once again, my apologies that we can't make more time available at this point in time. I thank you very much for your attendance, and we're pretty sure that we will be in touch in the very near future. Okay. Thank you all. Bye-bye.

Okay. Good morning, everybody. Welcome at the half year result presentation of Aedifica. We will, as usual, walk you through the results and add some color to the results that we published this morning. Starting from the highlights that we identified for the first half of the year. I think what you probably have read already this morning that we are presenting solid to strong results for the first half year. Portfolio value standing at EUR 6.2 billion, generating EUR 181 million top line, leading to EUR 123 million result, EPRA earnings that is, which we will explain in further detail during this call. I think that one of the main events during the first half year is the fact that we exited from the Swedish market, leading to 7 countries in which we are doing business today.

Also important to flag is that we see that the positive trend in terms of like-for-like valuation of the investment properties continues in the first half of 2025. When looking at the investment program, as announced, we are working on refueling our pipelines. We will go into further detail also in that respect. And when looking at the balance sheet, I think that we are -- as was already the case in previous quarters, presenting a quite sound and strong balance sheet with 42% debt-to-asset ratio.

Now this is about the highlights before I pass on to Ingrid, who will dive into in more detail about results and balance sheet. Maybe just bringing to your attention that as announced, we are working once again on growth in the sense that we're working on refueling our investment and development pipeline. We have given guideline for 2025, meaning that we are expecting to increase the pipeline and order portfolio with EUR 250 million of new investments and/or projects. As of today, we are standing at EUR 121 million of new investments and projects added. As you can see on the map, focused on 3 countries being Finland, where we have a combination of standing assets and new developments that we are adding to the pipeline, but also in the U.K. and Ireland, where we have been active.

Looking at the existing pipeline, 7 projects have been delivered, which is roughly EUR 65 million. If you said that or compare that to the guidance that we have given, I think it's clear that we're well on our way on executing and delivering on the strategy that we announced for Aedifica. So once again, you can see that we're more than halfway in terms of the EUR 250 million guidance that we've given for new investments and projects, and we're quite confident that we will be able to deliver on the EUR 250 million, go into that later.

Project completions, more than halfway and I'm fully expecting to deliver on the guidance. And then asset rotation, I think there, the main thing to be flagged is that the deals that we absolutely wanted to do in 2025 have been done and I'm mainly referring to the exit in Sweden. So that means that we're more than halfway. The remaining EUR 70 million, to be quite honest, is becoming for us more a nice to have than really a must-have, but we are still working on some transactions as we speak. Now this being said, so in terms of highlights, I think I flagged what we needed to flag, and I'll let Ingrid dive into the details of results and the balance sheet.

Okay. Good morning. So my turn to guide you through our income statement and our financial strategy going forward. So first of all, let's have a look on the income statement. So what you can see here are the EPRA earnings as already noticed probably in our half year results. EPRA earnings are up compared to previous year with 4%, leading to EUR 123 million, EUR 2.59 per share. This increase is mainly driven by the increase in rental income of more than 9%, combined with a good cost control, helping to increase the EBIT margin towards 86.6%.

For the full year, I do expect that in the second year half, this EBIT margin might slightly decrease, but we do expect full year that we will still be above the 86%. Then let's have a look on the financial charges. So you see an increase in the financial charges compared to previous year, but still, we can report a low average cost of debt of 2.2%, supported by the hedging. Hedging currently stands at 87%. And also for the 2 years that are coming, hedging percentage remains high, above 80%. And then gradually in 2028, we have some more refinancing to be done on fixed interest rate debt.

Then the main difference this year is coming from the corporate taxes. As you are all well aware, there came an end to the regime of the fiscal [indiscernible] in the Netherlands. So this has an impact in the accruals of the current taxes in the Netherlands where the full year, we are expecting that it will be an amount around EUR 5 million. And when you start comparing with 2024, I also need to bring a reminder that in 2024, we benefited from a one-off refund of EUR 4.2 million, which, of course, is no longer the case in the numbers that you see on 2025.

Then moving over to the net result by including the noncash elements. So first of all, the changes in fair value of the investment properties. So the valuation itself was positive on the first year half, a like-for-like change of 0.5%, where we mainly see increases in the valuation of the assets in the U.K., the Netherlands, Ireland, driven by the indexation. Then we have the line gains and losses on disposals, where you see a loss of almost EUR 12 million. As a reminder, this is a loss that is related to the disposal of the portfolio in Sweden, which we already reported at the end of Q1. The Swedish portfolio was sold with a slight loss less than 4% compared to the fair value. But there is also the impact of the currency translation, which in the past was booked under the equity. And following the disposal of the assets in Sweden, this amount is recycled in the P&L. In itself, it has no impact on the NTA because in the past, it was already included in the equity.

And then you also see that the deferred taxes went up with EUR 11 million. This is driven by the difference between the fair value and the fiscal value of the assets, mainly in the Netherlands and this -- East Finland.

The increase of the rental income. So rental income went up from EUR 165 million towards EUR 180 million. First of all, we have the impact of the acquisitions and the deliveries, a bit more than EUR 10 million, partly compensated by the disposals. And secondly, we also have what we can call the organic growth in the portfolio, driven by the indexation, plus EUR 4.2 million and the impact of the contingent rents. So contingent rents are mainly coming from the U.K. and supported by the strong performance of the U.K. operators.

As we already announced in the guidance this year, we have a catch-up of historical contingent rents, which were invoiced in Q1. So you can consider that an amount of EUR 4 million is nonrecurring, is exceptional and has been booked in Q1. For the remaining of the year, we are expecting that on a full year basis, we will have what you could call normal contingent funds, but still based on the operational performance of the operators of around EUR 1.5 million to EUR 2 million.

On this slide, you can see the same increase of the rental income that this time presented on a by-country basis. So like I just explained, there is a strong increase in the U.K. following acquisitions and deliveries, but also supported by those contingent rents. And in Finland, it's mainly coming from portfolio growth. In the like-for-like calculation itself, there is an increase of 3% that can be split between 2.5% coming from rent indexation, 0.2% rent reversion and 0.3% coming from the currency exchanges. The historical catch-up is not included in the like-for-like, so we deducted that from the calculations.

Finland is showing a somewhat lower like-for-like 0.7%. This is driven by the fact that the inflation in Finland currently is quite low and most of the lease agreements were indexed at the beginning of January. All other countries, I would say, show a like-for-like that is very close to the inflation in each of the countries. Germany laying a little bit behind because in Germany, you do not have the full impact of the inflation and it only is traded when a certain threshold is reached.

Moving over to our balance sheet. So the debt-to-asset ratio, 42.4%. If we deduct the excess cash that we had on the bank accounts at the end of June, it's around 42%. More importantly is that when we do the forecasting that we are expecting that by year-end, our debt-to-asset ratio will be around 41%. Traditionally, the debt-to-asset ratio is at the highest point at the end of Q2 following the payment of the dividend.

Then our funding, our financial resources. So first of all, we have a total financial debt of EUR 2.5 billion, out of which the resources are 55% coming from bank facilities and 45% is coming out of debt capital markets. With the banks, we continue to work on the refinancing of all of the debts that are maturing. So as you can see on this slide, our debt maturity schedule is well spread over the time. Most of the maturities for 2025 are currently handled. We still have EUR 50 million of drawn and undrawn facilities that probably will be refinanced in the coming weeks. It also means that we have headroom available on committed credit lines of approximately EUR 600 million, and this is already after deducting the backup facilities for the commercial paper program. So we have enough financing in place to cover all needs until the end of 2026.

Moving back to the previous slide. So what you can see on this slide are our main debt KPIs, I would say. First of all, the interest cover ratio, still very solid at 6x. The covenant with the bank stands at 2x. Also going forward, we do expect that although the interest cover ratio will slightly decrease in the coming years following an increase in financial charges, but we will expect that we will remain above the 5x for the coming 2 to 3 years. Net debt to EBITDA also decreased compared to the previous reporting 8.2x. We barely have any secured financing. So most of the financing is done on unsecured basis and only 4% of the assets are unencumbered. We still benefit from a BBB credit rating from S&P. As you all might have picked up is that following the announcement of the transaction on Cofinimmo, there has been a positive credit watch where S&P is stating that if the transaction completes following the announced terms, this could have a positive impact on the credit rating.

So I can hand over back to Stefaan.

Thank you. Walking you quickly through the main portfolio features as at the 30th of June of this year. I guess not a lot of surprises here. The focus of the company still is to a large extent on elderly care and senior housing. The 88% that you see on this slide is basically 1% higher than the number that you saw at the end of the first quarter, but that increase is mainly due to the exit in Sweden, where we did not have any exposure to elderly care homes and senior housing. So in itself, no surprises. When looking at the geographical footprint of the portfolio, once again, I think you will find something very similar to what you have seen in the recent past. So the main 4 countries each around 20% still are U.K. in first instance, followed by Belgium, Finland and Germany. We do see Ireland over the past couple of years growing a lot, now standing at 7% with the Netherlands standing at a quite stable 11%. Maybe also flagging that we delivered our first project in Spain a couple of weeks ago. So the minus 1% now is basically representing one asset in Spain.

Looking then at the tenants, and I think that, as usual, this is probably the more interesting topic. Now first of all, what you do see here is the tenant diversification, which in itself has not really changed. Our main client remains Clariane standing at 10%. So what you see here is, I think, a quite well spread tenant pool, more than 140 different groups. You will find the bigger European players, you will find national heroes, local heroes, but also some not-for-profit players. Also drawing your attention here to the Finnish municipalities, which are good for 4% of the total outstanding contractual rents of the whole of the portfolio, but it means that when looking at the Finnish portfolio, municipalities, so public operators are a very, very important part of our Finnish activities. And we do expect that to remain the case also in the future, might be even growing, though we do see private operators becoming more and more active in the Finnish market. Again, we'll talk about that later.

Talking about occupancy, there's a couple of remarks I think we can add to this slide. Now first of all, when looking at the coverage, what you see is that for 5 of the 7 countries that we're doing business in, we have a very strong coverage, up to 100% in 2 of the countries, but well above 90% in 2 others and in the Netherlands now at 82%. Now this coverage is increasing. Okay. Spain, we only have one asset which has recently been delivered, so it's not really relevant. The Finnish market remains the one where we are putting a lot of efforts into place to try and convince operators to be more transparent and communicate about occupancy and financial KPI. It is work in progress, but we did make some progress as we reached an agreement with the first operator and working on an agreement with the second operator. So this being said, not expecting to see a high coverage in Finland in the next 1 or 2 quarters, but at least it seems like the trend is changing also there for the better.

And as usual, you know that we refer to Attendo publications where you can get some flavor about what is really happening in the operating market in Finland. Now this being said, when looking at the occupancy numbers themselves, first message clearly is that the average occupancy in the care homes in the 5 countries where we do have sufficient information remains around 90%. So it's a high number. Looking at the different countries, you will see that as was the case in the previous -- in the previous quarters, sorry. Some of the countries are at 90% or above 90%. What we do see in those countries is that a certain seasonality is starting to kick in, meaning somewhat higher numbers or slightly higher numbers after the summer, slightly lower numbers after the winter, but that is the type of seasonality that we also noticed before COVID. So that basically means that we're getting really back to a normal pre-COVID situation in these countries.

I think what to us is more striking and more important is what is happening in Germany now. We now see Germany in our portfolio coming in at 87%. But if you look at the like-for-like growth, which is basically comparing mature assets at March 2024 and at March 2025, we do see almost 400 bps like-for-like growth in occupancy, so which is a clear indication that also in Germany, the trend has changed and occupancy is absolutely picking up.

Now what does this mean in terms of rent covers and operational -- operating margins of the operators? Well, as this was the case in previous quarters, we can show you the rent cover for the whole of the U.K. portfolio of Aedifica, which remains at a very, very high level above 2, very strong rent cover on the back of very strong operating margins well above 25% floating with 30% in the U.K. portfolio.

We are working and collecting more info in some of the other countries like Finland and Belgium. So I promised this already before, but it is evolving in the right direction. So hopefully, in the near future, we will be able to also show you rent covers for the Belgium and the Irish portfolio. Now this being said, to add some flavor to what we see happening in the countries. I think that, first of all, we can confirm that U.K. and Ireland remain very, very strong performance in terms of operating performance. We do see a lot of positive indicators and trends in countries like Finland. We're once again referring to Attendo, which recently, and I think it was 2 weeks ago, flat, slight improvement of their margins. But more importantly, for the first time, if I'm not mistaken, not just referred to increased fees they're getting from the well-being countries, but they basically also referred for the first time to the positive impact of the somewhat lower staffing requirements that apply in Finland since the 1st of January. So they do start to see the first positive impact of that on their margins. What we also see in Finland is clearly that our development pool is growing. and that some of the bigger operators, private operators like, for instance, Attendo, but also [ mainline ] are absolutely turning back into growth modus. So quite a lot of positive trends in Finland. Looking at the Dutch market, we do see a very stable market, which recently a new study published by BDO indicating that in the -- I think it was mostly talking about the intramural part of the market, but this being said, they flagged that they now see fee increases outpacing cost increases, which once again, on the back of growing occupancy, seeing also revenue per resident growing is what we want to see and it's clearly what is also happening in the Netherlands now. Maybe also about the German market, where we have seen some issues over the past couple of years.

Once again, I think that we can confirm that the positive trend that we saw is still continuing. We mentioned already in the past that high cost in certain regions are increasing to levels which seems to be very promising. We keep hearing from the German team that also the idea of allowing more flexibility in staffing requirements is also starting to kick in, in more regions, which should be helpful for the German operators. And as we just flagged, we did see this quarter really the occupancy in our portfolio improving. So that makes us also quite positive about what will be happening in the German market in the near future. This being said, we do see a positive trend, and we confirm the positive trend that we have been talking about regarding operators over the past couple of quarters.

Now as I I keep repeating myself, does not mean that there is not still a risk of certain incidents and then talking about incidents. We flagged in the press release that when looking at Colisee, we only can confirm what we said at the end of the first quarter. Rents are paid at June 30 and occupancy of the Colisee, but in the case Aedifica's, basically the Armonea in Belgium portfolio, occupancy in that portfolio is absolutely in line, actually above the average of the Belgian market. So there's nothing new that we can tell you at this point in time about Colisee.

About Argentum, which is German operator that at least for part of its portfolio went into insolvency. There's only 2 assets involved in the Aedifica portfolio. One of these assets is an absolutely top performer and is, by the way, in a self-managed insolvency of Argentum. So we do not expect any impact on that asset. coming out of this insolvency procedure.

The other asset is one that we were redeveloping and that will be if everything goes well, but will be transferred out of the insolvency to a new operator in 2 days from now on August 1. So that is an issue that we are -- well, if things go well, has been solved by now. I think that, that concludes a bit on what we have to tell about what we see happening with operators. So we do see a positive trend that continues, and we do see slightly -- we do see gradually improvement of operator performance in Europe on average.

Walking you through some other features. Now first, the lease maturity still stands or the WALT at least stands at 18 years. We have a 100% occupancy rate within the portfolio. And I think that what is important to flag also is that when looking at the maturity of the leases, only 1% of leases will expire in the next 5 years. I think that in itself is also a quite strong feature. Looking then at the portfolio valuation, as I mentioned at the beginning of this session, that maybe the trend continues or the positive trend continues. Looking at the fair value yield as at June 30, we do see an average fair value yield -- gross fair value yield of 6% for the whole of the portfolio. But when looking at what happened like-for-like, I think that now 18 months on a row, we do see stable to slightly increasing valuation, which meant for Q2 2025, an increase of 0.21%. If you look at the whole of the first half year, it's 0.5%, but also important is to notice that it is now slightly positive for all of the countries in the portfolio. So the trend is more and more confirmed.

And then one slide that we particularly find interesting this time because it is an indication of the fact that we do see -- gradually do see a more dynamic health care real estate investment markets in Europe. Our pipeline year-to-date, this is not the exact June 30 number because we took into account some of the deals that landed just after June 30. But year-to-date, our pipeline is standing at EUR 178 million. I think that interesting is to have a look at the geographical split where historically, we used to have a huge pipeline in Germany. We do still have a pipeline in Germany, but it's basically --or it's, to a large extent, one bigger project that is being executed right now. Historically a legacy project, but that has been renegotiated. But I think it's more important to look at the other countries that are becoming more important. And I guess without surprise, we're talking about the U.K., Ireland and Finland.

I can confirm that our Finnish in-house development team is building up once again a pipeline at the yield targets that we're looking for and that we're also building up a pool of potential future projects that might become committed and that we expect to become committed in the next quarters, whereas both in the U.K., but certainly also in Ireland, we do see still a lot of potential. I think that this is reflecting in reality of operator performance in these countries, which allows us to find an interesting balance between the cost of construction, our own cost of capital and the rent payment capacity of operators. And that clearly reflects into this geographical split.

In terms of expected delivery date, you will see that we still expect EUR 43 million of projects to be delivered this year and then roughly EUR 65 million and EUR 70 million in '26 and '27. Maybe reminding you that all of these projects are 100% pre-let. So there is no speculative development going on within Aedifica. But I think the main feature here is now that we finally reached the 6.5% initial yield on cost -- average yield on cost for the whole of this pipeline. You heard us talking in the past about the targets that we're setting. I think now the legacy deals are behind us. The past is behind us. We're now building a new pipeline, which is clearly reflecting the yield on cost that we want to see around 6.5%. And then perhaps underlining and stressing that we do expect to be able to continue refueling this pipeline.

When talking to the country teams and our investment team, I can confirm that on average, we do see a much larger, bigger pool of potential deals that we are analyzing continuously. So that is a first indication of a more dynamic investment market. We also have more important, what we call preapproved deals or pool of deals, meaning deals that we have analyzed that have green light within the company, but that still need to become committed. So we really do see a more active investment market in Europe, which gradually is keeps improving. Then maybe just as a quick reminder, Aedifica is, well, was founded in October 2005. So we have our 20th anniversary this year that we already celebrated with the team, and this puts me in a position to thank the team for the efforts that have been made over the past 20 years and over the past couple of years, and that is basically a big part of the success of Aedifica over this period in time.

With some more detail on where these people are working, but you see that we have a very international team with a relatively small mean and lean HQ in Brussels and then most of the other people dedicated to one of the countries in which we are doing business with the somewhat bigger number in Finland, clearly reflecting the fact that we have a full development in-house team in Finland. And that then brings us to the outlook, which I will let Ingrid.

Okay. So at the beginning of the year, we have given guidance that for 2025 for the full year results, we are expecting EPRA EPS of EUR 5.01 per share, and we announced a proposed dividend of EUR 4 per share. Now after this 6 months, the results that we have just shown to the market this morning, they are ahead of budget. So -- but at the same point in time, we also take into consideration that we have the exchange offer on Cofinimmo that is outstanding and where certain elements are currently unknown like the exact timing and also the number of shares that will be tendered and that will have an influence on the EPRA earnings for the full year 2025. So for that reason, management decided to keep the guidance on a standalone basis as it was announced at the beginning of the year and at EUR 5.01 per share. So depending on the rollout of this transaction with Cofinimmo, later onwards, we can provide more specific guidance on this.

Okay. And so we made the bridge towards the Cofinimmo transaction. So a quick update on where we are standing in the Cofinimmo transaction. So a lot has happened since May 1, of course. Main milestones up to now, first of all, the fact that we were able to reach an agreement with the Board of Cofinimmo regarding this transaction, which then led to an exchange ratio of 1.185 Aedifica shares for each Cofinimmo share. So a deal that is recommended now. Second main milestone is the EGM of Aedifica on July 11, during which we got approval of our shareholders for the capital increase that we need to be able to execute the exchange offer.

And we -- well, we got approval with an overwhelming 99.9% approval rates for which we like to thank our shareholders. Right now, we are in the more at least, if I'm allowed to call it like this, administrative phase. So basically, teams are working now on prospectus approval with the FSMA in Belgium. And we're working our way through the merger approvals that we need to be able to execute the deal. Now as you all know, the Netherlands and Germany already approved. We are in Belgium right now in an ongoing procedure with the Belgian market authority. Today, we are in the pre-notification phase of this procedure, meaning that it is the investigation and prosecution service of the IPS of the BMA, which is conducting its investigation.

Now this is a phase which is, first of all, totally confidential. And secondly, it is a phase without any strict deadlines. So basically, what the IPS is doing is they're talking to the market, they're sending out questions to whoever they deem interesting enough to ask questions to, including, of course, Aedifica and Cofinimmo. That phase is ongoing, as I said, confidential without strict deadlines.

And that has led then to the press release that we sent out, I think, 10 days ago, flagging to the market that we expect that the indicative time line that we had put forward previously is probably not the one that really in the end will be the final time line. So it's an ongoing process. At this point in time, there's absolutely nothing more that we can tell you about this, expecting that you probably will have a lot of questions, but I'm afraid that there are not a lot of answers that we can give at this point in time.

I think that this concludes the presentation that we prepared for you and that we can switch now to the Q&A. Looking at the people here on our side, if I'm not mistaken, you can either raise your hands and ask your question or you can use the chat room. And Delphine, I let you manage the question.

Stephanie Dossmann?

This is a quite good set of results. I must say, I was a bit frustrating not to see any increase in the guidance, but I understand your -- the rationale behind that. Cofinimmo did the same actually. So -- but maybe in terms of financial expenses, you're mentioning that you are currently discussing with banks and negotiating future refinancing. And given the guidance you gave on the synergies on financial costs with Cofinimmo, what kind of financial terms are you discussing currently? Do you see the impact from these synergies already?

So also there, I must say that the current situation, yes, there are a lot of unknown parameters. So I can say when a part of the negotiations that we're doing with the bank, they look more at, I think I still on a standalone basis. And what we have been refinancing, especially at the beginning of the year, there you can think about a credit spread, I would say, close to 110 basis points for the loans with a tenure between 5 to 7 years. But most recently, I did notice in the discussions that we are currently having that they start taking into account the transaction and also the potential impact that it might have on the improvement of the credit rating. So currently, I do see credit spreads that are a little bit lower than the ones that I just discussed. But to be transparent, we have not signed on those conditions yet.

And maybe a second question on the evolution going forward of your asset values. How do you see them evolving, especially on the yield impact? I appreciate it's growing from the rent impact. But on the yield impact, do you see any yield shift going forward?

First of all, I fully understand the question because it's a question that what we have ourselves. I think that right now, there's not really a lot of market evidence that yields are compressing. So you refer to the fact that valuation moves into the right direction or at least moves upwards, but mostly on the back of rent increases and indexation. We do see 1 or 2 markets today. But as I said, this is basically us talking about what we see happening, not necessarily what the appraisers are already doing. We do see some markets where we start to feel some pressure on yields when we talk to developers, when we talk to operators. So it could be that we might see some pressure on yields in the forthcoming quarters. But right now, it's hard to tell.

Personally, I'm expecting to see for the next quarter something similar as what we have seen in previous 2 quarters in terms of valuation.

Okay. Very clear. And maybe a last one. It's a bit tricky and maybe too early to say, but regarding the combination with Cofinimmo and the potential disposal of noncore assets. Did you have any approach from buyers, potential buyers or discussions underway? Or what can you share with us on that?

There's not a lot that we can share at this point in time for lots of reasons, but I think I told the market already before that since we announced the offer on the shares of Cofinimmo that indeed parties have been reaching out to us about noncore assets, but we're not engaging in any discussions at this point in time.

Just maybe in other words, do you see more and more interest from investors for Belgium offices currently or not because there has been a shift, I would say, in the mood from investors on the office side in France, for instance. I was wondering if it's better in Belgium currently.

Yes. I hear you, but it's absolutely not up to me to make statements about the Belgian office market at this point in time. What I was flagging is that the fact that the transaction is out in the open created some momentum apparently towards Cofinimmo-Aedifica. That is something I can confirm. People have been reaching out. But jumping to conclusions, I think that other people is much better placed to make that comment. It's definitely not up to me to make that comment right now.

Frederic Renard from Kepler.

So just to come back on the comment, I guess, the mark of interest you received on the Belgian office were more opportunistic than anything rather than a core investor. So it's more like people looking for you to sell it at a big discount, I guess. Well, you probably won't comment on that, but that would be.

You gave the answer. I'm definitely not about to comment on that. But once again, we are not soliciting anything right now in the market. When people reach out to us, it's their own initiative. The only thing I flag is that, yes, people have been reaching out to us. As I said, apparently, the transaction is creating a certain momentum, but there's no other conclusions, I think that you can draw from that at this point in time. And not going to speculate or make comments about who has been reaching out.

Then I will not ask the question I had also on the competition authority because I think you answered already. And then maybe --

Sorry about that [indiscernible]

Maybe a comment on the type of portfolio that you are seeing on the market today in the health care space. I was just wondering the level of yield you would be requiring for this portfolio? Are they in line with your pipeline at the moment, which is around 6.5%? Or would you be ready to take a lower yield because there is maybe some upside somewhere else? Can you comment a bit on that?

Yes, absolutely. The 6.5% you referred to, that's basically what we want to see for our development pipeline, which is a combination of in-house developments and forward deals. Maybe starting with that, we do see, as I mentioned, a lot more activity, certainly in Finland. And with that, we're clearly reaching the targets. But we also do see in countries like U.K., Ireland, Spain, that there is a lot of potential to do forward deals. And forward deals, and I think we keep in mind yield targets that are around 6% to 6.5%, depending on what type of development we're talking about. And we want to see on average an average yield of the total pipeline around 6.5%. Do we see potential in that range? Yes, clearly, in Finland. Yes, clearly, in some other countries, there are countries where yield expectations are probably more between 5.5% and slightly below 6%. But then it will just depend on how -- basically how we assess the impact of the -- what the impact of these projects will be at EPS level. So it means we're diving into more net yield, et cetera.

But yes, there are a couple of countries where we do see growing potential both in terms of volume, but also in terms of reaching the targets that we've been setting ourselves. When you're talking about standing assets, existing portfolios, I think that there, the reality is more closer to what I've been telling the market before that we would love to do deals around 6%. I think that there probably is a market now somewhere between 5.5% and 6%, depending on the country, et cetera, et cetera. So that is more a matter of negotiation, trying to find a solution so that we can meet pricing expectations, but also our own expectations.

Understood. And maybe final one, sorry, on the contingent rent. I'm not so sure I got all the explanation for the EUR 4 million impact this year. Is it one-off or not? So Ingrid can you repeat it?

Yes. So formulas that we have in the lease agreements regarding the contingent rent in a couple of cases for some assets, this was actually referring to a period in the past over 3 years. So what you currently see the EUR 4 million that I said that was more to be considered as a one-off. That is a catch-up from those past year, and that's also the reason why I excluded from the like-for-like calculation. But besides that, we also have and that should be also more the case going forward, contingent rent formulas that are more based on the yearly performance of the operator.

And there, it will be calculated on a yearly basis. Of course, we do not know exactly what will be the amount and will be there every year because it depends on the operational performance. But there, we estimate that on a yearly basis, we see, I would say, EUR 1.5 million to EUR 2 million of more recurring -- more recurring contingent trends. So this is something that we already had in the numbers in the past, but the impact is growing. So it's related to the operational performance that they are doing well. So that also means that the amounts that are related to the contingent trends are increasing. So this is something that you will see on an ongoing basis that this year, there is a one-off element of approximately EUR 4 million.

[ Melanie Simmons from Valance ]

One from my side. So it's positive to see that Colisee is still paying the rent. However, we understand from one of your peers that they are having arrears leading to some assets from Colisee in Belgium. So can you elaborate if there are any discussions ongoing for your assets? And if you're working on a backup plan in case the situation does change within Aedifica's portfolio?

Okay. Lots of -- first of all, I can confirm that we are collecting rent for all of the assets within the portfolio. So that's one thing. Secondly, I'm not going to comment on whether or not there are discussions ongoing with Colisee, but I think that you probably know that we have a culture of having a constant dialogue with all of our tenants and clients. So yes, of course, we are in contact with them. And then thirdly, remind me the third part of the question. Do we have a backup plan? Sorry. But that's also part of the way that we see the asset management of our portfolio is that we always try to anticipate what might be happening in the portfolio.

And this is just not about Colisee, but if you want also about Armonea in Belgium. We do think that we have a good understanding of the quality of the assets in the portfolio. And if we think that within a certain tenant portfolio, there are some weaker assets, we, of course, always work on possible backup plan if need be. So that is exactly the same approach that we're also applying to the Colisee-Armonea portfolio in Belgium.

So to understand, at this point, there's no clear indication that at Q3, the situation could be different?

Now you're asking me to look into the immediate future. I'm not in the driver's seat of Colisee in France. And I think that, that is where they are setting out their strategy. But at this point in time --

Valerie Jacob from Bernstein.

I just have a couple of questions. My first one is, I understand that there is many uncertainties around Cofinimmo. But if I think about Aedifica on a standalone basis, if I think about H2 versus H1, you've already mentioned the EUR 4 million of contingency rent. Is there anything else that we should know? Or can we just assume that it's going to be the same type of earnings?

I think you can assume the same type of earnings. Of course, we had the disposals of Sweden. So Sweden was also contributing to rental income in the first quarter, which will not happen in the second year half. But I would flag those 2 elements, so disposal of Sweden and then the one-off regarding the catch-up in the contingent plans and the exceptional elements that will not be repeated in the second year half. But besides that, there are no important elements that will have an influence on the numbers, no.

Speaking on your questions, a little bit on the taxes because the taxes that are coming from the U.K. entities as we are a U.K. REIT currently. So that means that withholding taxes are only booked at the moment of the timing of the payment of the dividend, which will happen in the second year. But there is nothing major besides those 2 elements that we just discussed that will have an influence on the numbers in the second year half.

That's clear. And my second question is about the transaction cost for the merger with Cofinimmo. Can you tell us what you've booked already and what you anticipate to book in H2?

So currently, there are no transaction costs that are booked in the income statement. The reason for that is that most of the transaction costs that we occurred so far are related to the legal workflows. And that also means, as you might be aware, under IFRS, if you have a capital increase, all costs that are related to the capital increase are deducted from the capital with which you increase the equity on the balance sheet. So it's an IFRS requirement. So that means that for the moment, the cost they are not expensed and they will be reduced from the equity at the point in time that we will issue the new shares and actually have the increase of the capital in the balance sheet.

But so far, you haven't booked [indiscernible]

The other transaction costs that are more related to the advisory elements and those will be disclosed in the prospectus, and they will be expensed in the income statement. But we have not accrued them so far because they are mainly related also on a success fee basis.

Lynn Hautekeete from KBC Securities.

First question is on the reported EPRA net initial yield versus the top-up net initial yield. So it seems like you're giving less incentives this year versus 2024. Is it fair to assume that this is coming from the recovery in the operator market? And do you expect to see more incentives in the future given the situation at Armonea? And maybe related to that, can you give an indication of the current KPIs of Armonea versus the average in Belgium? Is it below? Is it in line with the average?

Maybe I can take the first part of the question on the EPRA [indiscernible] I would like to flag that in the presentation of the EPRA net initial yield. When you look at the incentive, it's actually based on a picture that is made at the reporting date and then that is extra towards 12 months. So 2024, we reported indeed quarter high this instances. You will see that mainly in the U.K. because we acquired 4 new assets in October 2024 in the U.K. and for new assets that still needs to be ramping up phase. But you can see the numbers that we reported now 6 months later that those incentives there in the U.K. that almost completely disappeared because they were given for a period of 6 months. So that's a little bit explaining why the numbers that we published, you see this big difference between the end of 2024 reported numbers and the June 2025 numbers.

So which is basically also implying that depending on development activity, you will see more or less of these incentives popping up as it is really market practice that with new assets that are in a ramping up phase, typically a couple of months of rent deals are part of the deal, which always has been market practice and market standard. Maybe about Armonea, to be quite honest, it's a bit more tricky to go into the details of one tenant because we are depending on the confidentiality of the relationship that we have with these people, all of our tenants to collect the information that they're giving us. But I just can repeat what I said before, that is that when you look at the occupancy of the Armonea assets in Aedifica's portfolio, they are in line and actually above the average that we are giving you for Belgium and the average that we're giving for Belgium is 93%. So it means that there is a high occupancy in that portfolio.

Okay. That helps a lot. And then my second question is on the operator occupancy in the U.K. So if I compare the figures versus September 2024, it seems like you had a 2% drop in occupancy. So it went from 92% to 90%, which is obviously still very high. But I just want to verify, is this because of the seasonality effect that you talk about? Because if I compare the other countries, it does not seem to have that seasonality effect as explicitly?

Yes. No. We are referring to seasonality. I should also check whether -- because these are the numbers for the mature portfolio at a certain point in time and the mature portfolio evolves, meaning that -- well, as you know, the definition that we apply to define whether an asset is in ramping up or mature is just 2 years trading. So once an asset is trading 2 years, it automatically shifts into the mature portfolio. And I can't exclude that the mature portfolio in the U.K. is nowadays a bit bigger than the one in December, and that can have also a slight impact on these numbers. But at this point in time, absolutely nothing happening in the U.K. market in terms of occupancy that we consider to be alarming in one way or another.

I think occupancy remains at -- because for the U.K., 90% is an all-time high occupancy. If you go back before COVID, on average U.K. occupancy was around 88%, 89%. So we're well above that number.

Yes, I agree. It's still very high. So that's good to see.

Steven Boumans from ABN AMRO.

I have some questions on the investment and exportation strategy. I have 3. Let's do them maybe one by one. So the first comment on the potential of new forward funded developments. But do you also see opportunities to buy slightly older assets with higher yields, but proper quality?

Yes. Yes, I say automatically, yes, yes, yes, of course. But our focus is -- we try -- but first of all, we do like development as a tool because it gives us access to the best quality assets, but also the best future-proof assets, meaning assets that we are convinced will respond to the requirements of the baby boom generation and also will allow us to keep up with our own ESG targets. So that's one thing. Secondly, so diving into value-add type of assets is not our core strategy today. This being said, if we do see redevelopment potential, we could look into that, yes. But we're actually trying to focus a bit more on core assets.

Okay. That's clear. Maybe also on the disposals, what yield do you expect to dispose assets on FX going forward?

[indiscernible] that is a tough question to answer. Why? Because we have 2 types of buckets that we see from which we can take assets and try to sell them. One is definitely a capital recycling bucket and then we're talking low-yielding assets. And the other is much more quality driven, and then we're talking high-yielding assets. So that -- and in the end, what will be the result for the next 6 months really will depend on which assets are being sold. But when I say low-yielding assets, you definitely can interpret that as absolutely below the average yield of the portfolio or the average fair value yields of the portfolio that you've seen in the presentation. And we do have assets where we do not see the redevelopment potential for the future that in some cases, will be higher yielding than the average yield of the portfolio, but it will be a mix of both.

And then my last one is, we see some large operators expanding to Eastern Europe. Can we expect you to follow in the coming years?

You said in the coming years, and that allows me to say yes, at least we're definitely not excluding that, that could happen, yes. But you said in the following years, not in the following quarters.

In the next 12 months?

No, to be quite honest, there are no concrete plans at this point in time. But yes, we are aware of the potential in certain Eastern European markets. Yes, we are aware of the fact, and I can confirm that also some of the bigger players in Europe are starting to talk to us about future development pipelines and our growth again and can we team up. So these type of conversations are also starting to happen, not saying that they're already leading to any conclusions or deals. But you do see the market. As I said, it's once again an indication that the market is becoming more dynamic and that will bring Eastern Europe on the map at a certain point in time. But whether it will be in the next 12 months, I think it's unlikely, but you never know.

Aakanksha Anand from the Citi.

So 3 questions from my side. I'll go through them one by one. The first one is on the transactions market. So I think we have noted that there has been an increased number of opportunities in the market. Could you just put some color around the drivers for that? Is the driver mainly the increasing confidence in health care as a sector? Or is it driven by more distressed assets coming to the market?

I think totally fair answer. It's a combination of 2, but the one that we find the most interesting is the fact that a lot of operators are gradually switching back to the growth mode. I referred to what we see happening in Finland with some operators. I just, answering one of the previous questions, referred to the fact that we had some interesting discussions with somewhat -- some of the somewhat bigger players. And then I mean not local heroes, but more European players that also start talking about us whether or not we can team up in terms of development pipelines, in terms of bolt-on assets when they take over new operators. We do see operators looking back at M&A deals, meaning taking over competitors.

You've seen Alloheim being active in the German market. So we're definitely not back in the market that we had before 2022 or before COVID, if you want. But we're definitely shifting towards a much more dynamic market compared to what we've seen in '22, '23 and even '24. So -- and that is in our view a very positive indicator. On the other hand, yes, I think that there are still some portfolios out there that are or might be in the near future up for sale coming from, yes, asset manager where there is a need to sell. But it's not like we're expecting fire sales. So -- but we're basically focusing a lot more on what's happening with the operators.

Understood. My second question is more on Aedifica's strategy in terms of future investments. So is it reasonable to continue to expect future investments? And by that, I mean acquisitions plus developments at, say, about EUR 250 million? Or could we go higher than that once the valuation change picks up and to maintain the 40% LTV? And what can we expect as the proportional split in terms of acquisitions and developments? Can we assume 50-50? Or will there be one more heavier than the other?

Okay. Maybe taking first of all, the last part because to be quite honest, that's the more difficult part to answer because we do -- first of all, I just mentioned before that we do like development as a tool because it gives us access to the best quality assets. You have access to the lease contracts, you talk directly to operators. So that is what we prefer to do in terms of quality and forward-looking quality. This being said, we, of course, keep an interest in standing assets because they have an immediate impact on the EPS of the portfolio. So that's also obvious. But it's more opportunity driven. When I'm looking at the market today, I do see a lot of potential in building up the development pipeline at yields which are reflecting the 6.5% average yield that we want to see.

When looking at standing assets, there are even some portfolios out there that could definitely be of interest to Aedifica, but it is always a more opportunistic approach. If you can strike such a deal, then you probably will see the needle shifting more towards standing assets. But when I'm taking a more long-term view, I think that development forward deals probably will be the more important driver in the medium-term future. Once again, the way I'm looking at the market today based on the conversations that we have with operators, including bigger operators. But nevertheless, we do see some standing asset potential. You might have to remind me the other questions you just asked.

And that was just on the volume of investments. So is the EUR 250 million the end still?

Well, of course, it will depend on the question to what extent in the future we will have access to equity. So it will depend to a large extent on how stock prices will evolve in the near future. We do have headroom on the balance sheet today of roughly EUR 300 million. But that you need to combine with some of the capital recycling ideas that we have, you have seen the Swedish deal. There are some others that we're looking into that could have an impact on the firepower. It's always difficult because if you will ask me now what would that impact be, it could go up to a couple of hundred million euros. But once again, it depends on whether or not and at what point in time we are able to execute on this capital recycling intentions.

When I'm looking at -- so that is basically what we can do in terms of the balance sheet today without having access to new equity. So EUR 300 million plus capital recycling. If -- of course, if we get access to new equity, that could change a lot. This being said, when looking at the deal potential in the market today, it is absolutely in line with the numbers I mentioned when -- okay, without becoming too precise, but when I talk to my Chief Investment Officer, it clearly indicates that what we call the pool of potential deals, which is not deals that we all are going to do, but that we find sufficiently interesting to have a close look at, that pool is constantly growing. It used to be almost dried up 2 years ago. Now we're talking several hundreds of millions of potential deals that at each point in time are on our desk.

I also refer to the fact that -- and then we're talking a bit more pipeline, we have approval of pre-approved deals, means deals that we analyze that have full approval that we need to turn into committed deals before it really is a deal. But also that number is growing as we speak and more than covering our ambitions for the immediate future. So in terms of potential, I'm actually quite positive about the markets.

That's very clear. And the third one is just on the occupancy on the 5 geographies that you shared separately from the operators. Just trying to understand, given the influx of aging population that we are expecting over the coming years in U.K. and Europe, when do you expect to see these average occupancies go beyond the 90% mark -- average 90% mark?

Okay. But in lots of the countries, it depends on how you look at it. But if I include the U.K., so there are 3 that are at 90% or above 2 below. But what will happen with these numbers is a combination of what indeed will be the demographic pressure in the countries, and we do see that pressure rising, and it will become even more important, I think, beyond '27, '28 towards the end of the decade, then it really will start having a huge impact. But it's also being influenced by the composition of our portfolio because if we keep from a development pipeline constantly adding new assets, as I said, we consider them to be in ramping up for 2 years. And we apply a very mathematical definition to give a very clear view of what is ramping up and what is mature. But in reality, in some countries, ramping up goes faster like Ireland, but in other countries, ramping up takes more time like Germany.

So that also means that we keep adding some assets to the mature portfolio, which are compared to a fully ramped up asset might still be underperforming. So in the numbers of Aedifica, I'm expecting to see gradually the number growing, not that all of a sudden, it will shift to 95% in all of the countries, but we do see the continuous pressure, and we start to see and hear from operators that in -- when I say certain regions in certain countries, if there is absolutely no new capacity being added, some of them are already close to 100% occupancy.

Vivien Maquet from Degroof Petercam.

Just a follow-up question since time is running. On the disposals, I think that you mentioned earlier in your comments that the remaining EUR 70 million are earmarked that nice to have rather than must have. Just trying to understand because you seem very positive on the investment. You mentioned that you have the EUR 300 million of financial headroom without additional disposals. So just want to understand why these are not just nice to have. Is there any lower interest from investors? Is it something that you need to read from that?

What I say nice to have is that we basically -- what we have priorities, of course. So basically -- and one of the priorities was the divestment in Sweden, and that's the important one. It's around EUR 100 million. That one has been done. The others that we have, as I said, some of them are more capital recycling oriented, others are more quality oriented. But it's not like we have any pressure to do it in a specific period of time. There's no pressure coming from the balance sheet. I think that the DTA is absolutely under control. And when we look forward, it remains absolutely under control. So we are not putting ourselves in a position that we think that we absolutely need to sell before the 31st of December. So that's what I meant with nice to have, but we are working on these deals, of course.

So it's purely a timing perspective rather than [indiscernible]

Yes. Let's say, I do not feel any pressure to have to show to the market that before the 31st of December, the EUR 70 million also are sold. We're still absolutely planning to sell them, but it will take the time it takes. There's no pressure.

Any other question in the Q&A?

Vivien, you had other questions or?

No, everything was asking for.

Okay. There's one question in the chat box referring to the 0.2% rent reversion. How does it differ across markets? Was anywhere more positive or negative?

Yes, I would say rent reversion is actually very marginal. So it's a combination of small differences that we see on specific assets. So it's not like you can make a trend out of it or start saying that in this market, there is a trend towards having a more positive or a negative impact going forward.

It's a combination of a few very specific assets where we had rent uplifts and some rent corrections. It's absolutely nothing that leads to a trend. Looking at Delphine here, if there aren't any further questions, then okay, I -- first of all, thank you a lot for attending this call and the questions. Wishing for those who still have summer holidays ahead, nice holidays, which is definitely the case for the people on this side of the screen. And well, we will be in touch in the near future. Thank you.