Results for first quarter 2022
- Net rental income: €28.7 million (+9.6%)
- FFO: €7 million (+20.7%)
- Net rent collection 1Q2022: ~ 90% both in Italy and in Romania
- Loan to Value down further: 44.3% (-50bps vs FY2021)
Today the Board of Directors of IGD – Immobiliare Grande Distribuzione SIIQ S.p.A. (“IGD” or the “Company”) examined and approved the interim financial report at 31 March 2022 during a meeting chaired by Rossella Saoncella.
Message from the Chief Executive Officer, Claudio Albertini
“Contrary to the two previous years, in the first three months of 2022 there were, finally, no lockdowns or significant restrictions on the operation of shopping centers to the extent that no provisions for the estimated impact of Covid were included in the quarterly accounts. The operating conditions were, however, challenging, with footfalls and retailers’ sales once again under pressure as a result of the spike in infections tied to the Omicron variant of the virus and, subsequently, the uptick in inflation, as well as the economical consequences of the conflict underway in Ukraine which eroded families’ spending power. The Company was not caught unprepared, however, and reacted immediately, signing an important and innovative co-marketing agreement with Coop Alleanza 3.0 aimed at supporting promotional activities, targeted communications, exclusive special offers and ties with the local community.
Commercial activities also continued at a lively pace, with several openings, consistent with the new targets included in the 2022-2024 Business Plan and excellent results in terms of rent collection which came to around 90% in the first quarter of 2022.”
OPERATING PERFORMANCE
Italy
After two, particularly difficult, years, influenced by the direct and indirect consequences of the pandemic, in the first quarter of 2022 the estimated direct impact of Covid-19 was not taken into account. The market environment was, however, rather challenging: with the January spike in infection rates due to the Omicron variant, despite the high vaccination rates in Italy and the milder effects, which caused more than 4.7 million people to stay at home and the outbreak of the war between Russia and Ukraine at the end of February, and the relative macroeconomic repercussions, including the increase in the price of energy and raw materials. The combination of these factors also had a psychological impact on consumer behavior which, considering that in-person events in the shopping centers only resumed in April, clearly weighed on the footfalls recorded in the first quarter of 2022 by IGD’s shopping centers which were down -20.5% compared to the same period of 2019, the last year before the outbreak of Covid-19. The figure is, however, higher than the -21.3% recorded by the Italian association of independent shopping centers (Consiglio Nazionale dei Centri Commerciali or CNCC), and much better than in both the first quarter of 2021 and the first quarter of 2020. Retailers’ sales came to roughly 92% of the 2019 figure which shows that the positive trend already seen in 2021, namely less frequent but more targeted shopping, persists: in March 2022 the average ticket came to around €26.4, an increase of more than +20% compared to the same month in 2019.
Occupancy, which continued to be high, reached 94.8% at 31 March 2022. The slight drop (-35bps) compared to 31 December 2021, is explained by a few temporary vacancies which have already basically been relet.
Commercial activities continued in the quarter, with continuous changes in the merchandising mix consistent with consumers’ changing needs and the targets of the 2022-2024 Business Plan: a few of the new openings made in the first part of the year include a new specialized medical center of 150 sqm at the Casilino center (Rome), a fitness and sports rehabilitation center of more than 1,300 sqm at the Maremà center (Grosseto), as well as a two-story sports apparel and equipment store of more than 1,800 sqm with a gaming area at the Leonardo center (Bologna).
37 leases (17 renewals and 20 turnover) were signed in the quarter with a limited downside of around 3%.
Rent collection in Italy reached a good level at 31 March 2022; at 2 May more than 95% of 2021 rents had been collected and around 90% had already been received for the first quarter.
Romania
The first three months in Romania were also characterized by the lack of specific restrictive measures and it wasn’t necessary to calculate the impact of Covid on revenues, but the environment was challenging for the reasons described above. Occupancy came to 94.1%, down slightly with respect to 31 December 2021, due mainly to the exit of a retailer from two stores which, however, are already in the process of being relet.
During the quarter marketing continued and 104 leases were signed (47 renewals and 57 turnover) with a downside of around -3.45%.
Lastly, another important indicator, namely rent collection, which exceeded 98% for 2021 and 90% for the first quarter of 2022.
NEW MARKETING INITIATIVES
In the first quarter of 2022 the launch of an important and innovative co-marketing project with Coop Allenza 3.0 was announced. The project aims to make the respective business plans as effective as possible and, therefore, combine the relaunch of the hypermarkets (for Coop) with the development of the digital strategy (for IGD). IGD’s main goal is to increase the number of the subscribers of Area Plus, managed by each shopping center through its website, which will fuel Lead Generation for the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform. There are 12 shopping centers involved in the project which will work together with Coop Alleanza, on three areas: digital, to increase the contacts of the Customer Relationship Management platform; communication, to promote events, new openings, promotions of single tenants including through the means of communication used by Coop Alleanza 3.0; publicity, to organize joint and targeted promotional activities for each center/hypermarket.
In March 31 contracts were also stipulated with a series of marketing agencies hired to monitor all the activities of an equal number of shopping centers. The main objective is, again, to strengthen IGD’s CRM platform through regional, and no longer centralized, marketing. The agencies selected will be responsible for using an omnichannel approach to take care of all online, as well as offline, communication and marketing activities for each shopping center in order to adapt, as well as diversify, the offer based on the single catchment areas and deepen the ties with the local area even further.
ECONOMIC-FINANCIAL RESULTS
Net rental income amounted to €28.7 million, an increase of +9.6% explained mainly by an increase of €0.2 million in gross revenue. More in detail, this increase is attributable to the positive impact of indexing for around 560 bps (around 90% of the leases are indexed to ISTAT’s FOI[1] index), as well as the relets made during the fourth quarter of 2021, partially offset by discounts which were roughly €0.5 million higher than in 2021.
The most significant change +€5.1million is due to lower direct costs explained by the lack of COVID impacts (€5.2 million in 2021).
The increase in net rental income in the first quarter of 2021 restated, which takes into account the sale of the portfolio of hyper/supermarkets completed in November 2021, comes to +22.4%.
Core business Ebitda rose 10.0% to €26.1 million, with the margin at 73.2%. The freehold core business Ebitda margin (relative to freehold properties) reached 75.6%. Restated, the increase in core business Ebitda reaches +24.5%.
Financial charges amounted to €7.6 million which, net of the accounting impact of IFRS 16 and non-recurring expenses, were 14.2% lower than in the first quarter of 2021.
Funds from Operations (FFO) reached €16.7 million, 20.7% higher than at 31 March 2021. Restated FFO was +46% higher.
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE INVESTMENT PIPELINE CONTINUES
Work on the complete restyling of the La Favorita Shopping Center and Retail Park in Mantua continued, as did the remodeling of the space occupied by the Portogrande center in San Benedetto del Tronto. Both of these projects are expected to be completed by the end of 2022.
In Livorno work continued on the Officine Storiche section (part of the multi-use Porta a Mare project), which should be completed after the summer of 2022.
Trading of the Officine Storiche residential units provided a positive signal as preliminary agreements for 23 out of 42 units were finalized. Considering that 73 of the Piazza Mazzini apartments are already sold (the last closing is expected to take place in the next few months), the residential portion will be well populated by the time the Officine retail section opens.
FINANCIAL STRUCTURE
Thanks to the liquidity available at the end of March, which amounted to €164.2 million, on 21 April 2022, IGD repaid the residual amount outstanding of €153,600,000 million on the “€162.000.000 2,65 per cent. Notes due 21 April 2022” in full.
The average cost of debt was 2.16% at the end of March 2022, while the interest cover ratio or ICR came to 3.5X.
The net financial debt came to €976.34 million (€942.58 million adj. ex IFRS16), an improvement of around €11 million compared to year-end 2021. The Loan- to-Value was also lower, coming in at 44.3%.
