The impact on alstria’s P&L should be limited as the rent will remain due and will essentially relate to the voluntary rent waiver which alstria will consider on a case-by-case basis in particular for the most affected tenants who will not be in position to bear the weight of the rent arrears.
Strongest balance sheet in the corporate history
alstria has taken advantage of the favourable economic conditions of the past years to prepare the Company for a cyclical downturn. alstria’s net LTV was 27.1% as of the last reporting date (December 31, 2019) and net debt/EBITDA was 8.5. The REIT equity ratio reached a record level of 70.9% as per December 31, 2019 (vs. legal obligation of 45%).
alstria did not buy any new properties year-to-date but sold five properties in the current year for a total consideration of EUR 82 million, generating a gain of 6% on the last book value. Of these five disposed properties, four transactions have already closed for a total consideration of EUR 61 million and one is expected to close in the coming months (EUR 21 million).
EUR 121 million of free cash after debt repayment and committed capex
alstria will repay EUR 37 million of Schuldschein loan due in May 2020 and EUR 327 million of capital market bonds due in March 2021. These liabilities, as well as the current committed capex of EUR 198 million are comfortably covered by the current cash position of EUR 683 million and future inflow from disposals already signed of EUR 21 million. The next debt maturity of EUR 325 million will not come due before April 2023.
Annual general meeting and dividend
As announced previously alstria has postponed its annual general meeting that was initially planned for 23rd of April 2020 to a later date still to be fixed.
There is substantial uncertainty in both the length of the current lock-down and the depth of its impact on the overall economy. More specifically it is impossible to reasonably assess the impact on the ability of alstria’s tenants to pay rent in the medium term. While the current assumption is that the vast majority of our tenants will not run into liquidity problems, it is also clear that the longer the economical standstill, the higher the pressure on tenant cashflows will be. Considering these circumstances and consistent with the prudent approach the Company has taken over the years, alstria’s management board is withdrawing its current dividend proposal for the year 2019. The dividend proposal will be reassessed when the Company will have better visibility on the full impact of the crisis on its tenant’s economic situation, and therefore on the Company’s own cashflow. This reassessment will be made prior to the calling of the 2020 annual general meeting and will be communicated to the market at the latest within the new invitation thereof.
Invitation to a telephone conference on April 3, 2020
alstria’s management board, CEO Olivier Elamine and CFO Alexander Dexne, will host a telephone conference on April 3, 2020 at 1:00 pm (CET) to answer questions that market participants might have, which will also be webcasted on our website (www.alstria.com).
The dial-in details will be published on our website www.alstria.com in the course of this week.
Financial figures:
Explanations to the utilized financial figures can be found on the website of alstria office REIT-AG under www.alstria.com/en/glossary.
