Very sound balance sheet enabling the Company to position itself for new investments. Mercialys has continued moving forward with its divestment strategy, with Euro 110 million of sales and preliminary sales agreements at end-2021. The Company has continued to scale back its exposure to its primary tenant and further consolidated its balance sheet, which shows a very optimized loan to value ratio excluding transfer taxes of 36.7%. These developments are enabling Mercialys to relaunch a strategy for growth, built around four major pillars over the medium term: developing services (particularly digital), capitalizing on client knowledge, capitalizing on all spaces, implementing its development pipeline alongside opportunities for targeted and accretive acquisitions.
Resilient portfolio value confirmed once again through asset divestments. Limited contraction in the portfolio value including transfer taxes, with -0.6% like-for-like over six months. EPRA NDV of Euro 17.60 per share, down -4.5% over the year, but up +2.5% in the second half of the year.
Level of retailer sales returning to the normalized level from 2019 and footfall representing 86% of the 2019 basis, highlighting the outstanding resilience of the sites, despite major operating constraints during the periods when they were open. The marked improvement in the current financial vacancy rate, from 3.8% at end-2020 to 3.2% at end-2021, also illustrates the performance achieved by the assets.
Organic rental growth of +3.0% in 2021, reflecting the contrasting impacts of the health crisis. Very strong turnaround in the EBITDA margin, up from 74.8% in 2020 to 84.0% in 2021.
Funds from operations (FFO) are up +6.5% (+5.0% per share), significantly higher than the target to be at least stable versus 2020.
Sustained yield level, with a proposed dividend of Euro 0.92 per share for 2021, representing 85% of FFO for the year and a yield of 10.7% on the closing share price from end-2021.
2022 objectives: excluding the health situation’s potential impacts on operations, Mercialys is targeting growth of at least +2.0% in funds from operations (FFO) per share, with the dividend to range from 85% to 95% of 2022 FFO.
