AEW UK REIT PLC

LSE:AEWU

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q2

[Paul Brotherhood]

Good morning, and welcome to the AEW U.K. REIT plc Investor Presentation. [Operator Instructions]. The company may not be in a position to answer every question received during the meeting itself. However, we will review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so.

Before we begin, we'd like to submit the following poll. I'd now like to hand over to Laura Elkin, Portfolio Manager. Good morning.

[Laura Elkin, executive]

Thanks very much, Paul, and good morning to everyone who's joining us today. For anyone who's joining us for the first time here. My name is Laura Elkin, and I'm the Portfolio Manager for AEW U.K. REIT. I'm joined here by Henry Butt, who is the Assistant Portfolio Manager.

[Henry Butt, executive]

Good morning.

[Laura Elkin, executive]

So for those of you who have joined us before, a very familiar slide to start on today, but we'll continue including this in case we have [indiscernible] me join us with us. This slide sums up our strategy. And it's the same strategy that we've been running now for the past 9 years since we IPO-ed.

We are a value investment strategy into U.K. Commercial property, and we use value investment principles to identify [ mispriced ] assets to buy. Once we own those assets, we then very actively manage them. So we have in-house asset management team, who proactively manage each and every one of our assets. And we do that in order to maximize the income from those assets. And that's hopefully demonstrated in the dividend of 2p per share per quarter that we paid out consecutively now for 32 consecutive quarters. And so that was it for the entire lifetime of running this REIT, following our initial investment ramp-up period.

We also manage the properties very actively to unlock capital upside. So you'll see that if you follow our news flow closely, not only are we generating a high level of income from our properties. We are also generating an attractive level of total return to an annualized 5-year total property return of just under 10%.

Now very key to our strategy is the fact that we are not set to constrained. We look across the whole of the U.K. commercial property market to find best value in assets throughout a range of different market cycles as we see them. So each asset is selected on its own merit. We don't, for example, go out looking for a particular sector in a particular area. We analyze all of the opportunities that come up in our pipeline, and we choose the ones that we think look like the best value.

So how do we do this? We look for a well-located U.K. commercial properties and very much a focus on location. And that's been -- has always been a strong focus on our strategy, but it's been a focus particularly recently during the last 12 months. And that is because we think that opportunities in our pipeline over the last 12 months have unlocked some higher quality locations that we've been able to purchase, and we'll talk you through some of the examples of these.

We typically buy initial yields between 7% and 10%. So that's the high-yielding nature of our properties. We access those higher yields often by buying shorter leases. So that's just simply saying that we buy assets that are, most [ often, ] towards the shorter lease end of their life cycle. If we were buying assets, when a new lease has just been put in place, that would represent a higher value for a property. When we're buying shorter leases, we often get better value, a higher income yield on the way through, a higher capital value on the way in, and we think that creates significant optionality in our business plans. And so we're often comparing purchase prices to alternative use values.

We think that's demonstrated well in our low average book value of around GBP 70 per square foot, and our low passing rent of around GBP 6 per square foot. So just to recap there on our strategy.

Moving on to the next slide, we show some high-level statistics on the portfolio as at the 30th of September. So you can see in the portfolio, we've got 35 properties and just under 150 tenants. One of the key metrics to pick up here is the difference between our net initial yield and the reversionary yields on our portfolio.

Now these numbers are independently assessed by our fund value in [ Knight Frank. ] They are not AEW numbers. And of note here is the fact that our reversionary yield is significantly higher than the initial yield. And this figure represents the inherent ability that our portfolio holds to grow income over the medium term. I think quite a significant reason for that higher reversionary yield is still because we've got significant weighting of the portfolio in the industrial sector.

Now just talking about our strategy and how we've implemented our strategy over the past few years. If you have been with us since the early days of running this REIT, you would have seen us buying quite a lot of industrials in the first few years. We haven't been buying industrials in recent years, because the values were pushed a lot higher because of demand in that market, and the yields that we were looking for were not an offer. We were not seeing relative value in that sector compared to other sectors that we were able to buy.

So over the past few years, we have moved our purchasing strategy towards other sectors and have been finding greater value. Particularly, for example, in the last 12 months in the retail sector. Now I'm pointing this out when talking about the reversion yield, is because we still hold a significant amount of weight, around 35% of the portfolio in the industrial sector. And I think the way that, that sector and the assets that we hold still demonstrate a high reversion, is much of the reason why you will see a higher reversion yield here against our portfolio.

Moving forward to the next slide. This is a slide that Henry and I put together a few years ago during the pandemic, and we were hoping it would show investors how we felt our portfolio was very robustly positioned. And to be honest, given the current economic environment and what we've seen happening in the wider economy over the past 12 to 18 months, I think this slide is still very relevant. But even in better times, I think this slide actually represents a lot of things that we look for in this strategy. So whether it's positive times or slightly more challenging times, and I think this is a really good slide to use to summarize our strategy.

So we talk here about our book values being underwritten against long-term fundamentals, such as vacant possession value and alternative use value. Just to explain in a bit more detail what that means. It means that every purchase that we make for this strategy, we are comparing our purchase price on a capital value per square foot basis or a land value basis to what we would expect the value of that asset to be if it were vacant or if it were an alternative use.

Now the reason why we do that is because we hold properties for sometimes for a short period of time, and it could be a year or 2. And sometimes, we've held our properties [ rig ] significantly longer period of time. And we all know that during medium-term hold periods and things will change. Things can change. For example, in the 9 years that we've been running this REIT, and we have seen significant change in the U.K. retail market.

Now using those metrics and comparing our purchase prices against alternative uses on the way in, mean that we have never paid a price for an asset that is far too high. And we often, in a business plan, have method of underwriting value that support the value through alternative uses will also bring a level of capital uplift. It loses who have been following us for some time.

A particular example of that is an asset in Oxford that we sold last year. We bought that as an office, underwritten by alternative use values in life sciences. And given the demand of the life sciences at the time that we sold that asset, we crystallized significant profit on the sale, because of having that underlying metric. So we use that as a method of downside protection, but also a capital upside.

I talked about the reversionary opportunity. But we think that at the moment, there is still a lot of resilience in occupational demand in our portfolio. And I've been really very pleased to see how over the last 2 quarters in particular, we've had a very busy time for asset management. And hopefully, if you have read our NAV announcements over the course of this year, you will have also seen how we have had a very busy period for the new lettings, for lease renewals, for rent reviews, and Henry will talk about some of those examples coming up and how they have been -- we've been using them to grow our income stream over that period and to add value to our assets, too.

Handing over to Henry now, who will look at some of our recent performance.

[Henry Butt, executive]

Thank you, Laura. Good morning, everyone, again. So this slide, Slide 7 looks at our EPS growth over the past year. And you will see that we have grown the EPS by 0.7 [ of p ] from Q3 '22 to where we are today. And we have done that through a range of asset management deals, growing the income through new lettings and regears and [ revenues. ]

But as you can see from this chart, we have also had quite a [indiscernible] than a period of flux, where we have been selling out of lower yielding properties and reinvesting those proceeds into higher-yielding assets. And we touched on that theme a lot in our announcements. And you'll see that in Q4 '22, we purchased [ bath, ] and these are off yields around 8%. And we sold out of [ Milton Keynes, ] which is an industrial asset and an office asset in [ Ameren ] for lower yields. So we have [ Boston, ] which will naturally feed into our earnings per share.

We then, in Q1 '23, bought [ Matalan ] in Preston, yielding 9%. And then in the summer, we sold out a [ D-side ], which was actually a vacant industrial building. So no rental income there, having an impact on these earnings. And we also sold 2 other industrial assets, in which were lower yielding. I think, roughly around 6% to 7%. One in Leeds, which is local court and the other in [ Bradford Euroway, ] where we had carried out the asset management initiatives that we wanted to tackle, and we felt it sensible to take our profits off the table at selves.

And more recently, we have recycled those proceeds into again, high-yielding assets, which Laura will touch on later in the presentation. Being NCP in York, a multistory car park with some retail and an office -- mixed use office in [ Bath, ] both high-yielding assets.

So that is how we have managed to grow this EPS over the past year by 0.7p. And with further asset management in the pipeline, we'll look to continue on that journey.

This next slide just breaks down our dividend cover since inception. And you can see that we are 94% covered since the beginning of AEW, and we like to sort of remind our investors that we do have a sort of a total return theme. And as I'm sure you can appreciate, over the years, we've had some very successful sales. [ Colby, Oxford ] to name a few. And through those profits, where we have crystallized those profits on the sales, we have the ability to top up our dividend, whether it is not fully covered through the income. And this chart here shows exactly that.

And it's probably also worth noting that we still have a lot of retained net gains from those disposals. So it's not like everything that we have the crystallized through successful sales has been paid out through dividends. The majority of that is reinvested into new properties.

This next slide looks at our performance. Our performance total return versus our peer group. It's a slight that you would have seen on numerous occasions, if you joined these calls historically. And the main point that I would like to sort of touch on here is you can see in June 2019, where our performance moves away from the payer group. You can see the years 1, 2 and 3 that it's pretty much in line with peers, but then it moves when June 2019.

And the reason for that is, as Laura said earlier on, we typically buy assets with shorter lease ends. So therefore, after 3 to 4 years, we would normally find a lease events, whether that be a rent review, a lease to new, a tenant leaving and letting the unit to a new tenant. And by doing that, we have managed to grow the income and on the back of that, enhance the value of our assets. And that is why it's not a surprise that you see our performance moving away from the peer group, because we do tend to buy assets with a shorter income profile. And therefore, there are asset management opportunities, rather than invest in long income streams, where there is no asset management.

We like to say that asset management is a beating heart of the strategy. And as asset managers, we like to get on boat of our assets, and find ways of adding value in them. And that is shown here with our total return moving away from the peer group.

This slide looks at our returns versus the diversified payer group. As you can see, we pay one of the highest dividend yields of 8.1%. And we have the highest share price total return over 1, 3 and 5 years. And that theme is mirrored as well in the NAV total return over 3 and 5 years, where we've had 12.6% and 9.8% total return, respectively.

This next slide shows our dividend in comparison to our peers. And you can see we're paying a dividend of 8.1% as of September. It's probably worth noting, obviously, that these dividend percentages move as your NAV changes. We have had the lowest discount to our NAV, with an average of about 9%, whereas the rest of our peers have discounts going into the double digits.

And it's probably worth mentioning in this slide, because the reasonable weeks to dividend stakes out there that, that dividend is so high because they're at a very high discount. I think it's roughly about 60%. And they have principally invested in offices. And we all know what the headwinds that the office sector is facing at the moment, with the hangover of COVID and the struggle of people returning to the offices, and that is obviously feeding through to valuation performance.

Slide 12 looks at our 5-year annualized property total return outperformance versus the MSC benchmark. As you can see, we have outperformed the benchmark over 5 years by 6.67%. That is a total return of 9.6% in 5 years. Over 3 years, it's a 12% total return. More recently, you can see we've not fared as well. And obviously, that's set against the backdrop of rising interest rates, which have particularly impacted industrial values, which obviously, that sector performed very strongly with developers and investors securing cheap debt over the past 2 years.

And obviously, you had all the positive occupational story with COVID. And sort of more recently, the valuation performances of our offices, as I mentioned, the COVID hangover, and they haven't fared particularly well. But as you can see, more recently, we have got that trend, and we are building again off the back of lots of exciting asset management and a stabilization of valuations.

This slide here breaks down 12 months by sector versus the MSCI benchmark. I've touched obviously on industrial. What's probably worth noting here is our office and our other performance. We have performed well in other -- off the back of doing a 5-year renewal to [ Odeon in Southland. ] So we saw some strong valuation performance there, securing our tenant for 5 years. And as Laura mentioned earlier on, we sold our office park in Oxford to a life sciences medical use developer for a significant profit, and that is why our office performance has outstripped the benchmark.

I'll hand back to Laura for some investment strategy. Thank you.

[Laura Elkin, executive]

Thanks, Henry. So I'll start here with commercial road in [ Portsmouth. ] This is our most recent investment transaction, and it was a sale that was completed back on the 6th of October. This is the most recent and perhaps final step in the capital recycling program we've been undertaking during the course of this year. The sale was made at a 22% premium to the asset's previous valuation. So a really good outcome.

What you would perhaps noticed in looking at some of our other sales that we made earlier this year, where we were recycling capital was where we were very often selling no reyielding industrial assets to reinvest into high yielding assets in our pipeline, and that's a theme that we've talked about before.

Now this asset appears slightly different in its sale, because you can see here the sale price of GBP 3.9 million, still reflects a high initial yield at just under 10%. So why did we sell it? We saw that here to take risk off the table in this location that we saw as having deteriorated quite significantly since just back in 2017.

Of course, since 2017, we have seen a lot of change, structural change, in my opinion, that won't be reversed in the U.K. retail market. And that has led to locations such as this repositioning their pictures and refocusing their pictures. And what has happened here on this street is that the timeless pitch for retail has moved away from this block.

So taking some risk off the table, we were able to achieve a sale at that significant premium to current valuation to our book values, crystalize that profit, sell the asset to a local developer for long term -- they have long-term redevelopment plans for the asset. And I'm really pleased with the outcome here. I think, yes, this is a really strong move for our portfolio. And the reason why that is, is we have been able to reinvest the capital into stronger locations in our pipeline.

So the next 2 slides coming up that I'm going to talk about show 2 acquisitions. And you'll see, really, the difference in the quality of the locations, selling out of commercial road [ Portsmouth ] and buying into city center locations in [ York ] and [ Bath ], and we see those as being much higher quality locations from which we would expect a much stronger performance going forward.

Now in the blue box at the bottom of this slide, I just included a summary, really, of some of the other sales we've made so far this year. And this is what's summarized when I talked about our capital recycling program that we've undertaken this year. A number of assets, mostly industrial that we've sold for lower yields and bought high-yielding attractive well-located assets from our pipeline.

What I think is really interesting to point out here, though, is that all of these sales summarized on this page, of which there are 5 that we've undertaken this year, have all been taken at some quite significant premiums to their book value. Ranging from, I think the lowest [indiscernible] around 7%, and up to here at Portsmouth at 22%. So hopefully demonstrating proof of our NAV to the market.

Now here, we show an acquisition. So [ Tanner ] in York was acquired back in July. We included this slide in our last presentation, but given that it was undertaken during the last quarter, we decided to include it here again. And this is a thing that I'll talk about here in York, but also on the following slide, the [ Bath 2. ]

Looking at these strong city center locations and tightly [indiscernible] and analyzing these blocks really on the capital value per square foot [indiscernible] overall. So almost, when we describe our strategy as being sector-agnostic, of course, we're very interested in what they're doing today. This is an NCP car up from which we know that they are trading profitably, and which NCP have a further 9 years on their lease.

But over the long term, to buy in this location at GBP 100 per square foot [ capital ] value is, I think, a very attractive thing to do for a long-term value strategy, when we could potentially move this block into alternative uses. So really happy with this asset from an income perspective over the short to medium term, but also from a capital perspective over the medium to long term.

And again, [ Cambridge House and Bath, ] our most recent acquisition back in September. [ Tian ] supply, excellent location. Apologies, this is the aerial view of [indiscernible]. At the top right-hand corner of the slide, there is, perhaps, not particularly clear. But the large red rectangle represents the asset. And there's a small red dot in the bottom left-hand corner of that photo, which is [ Bath ] train station.

So we are located, approximately 2 to 3 minutes walk from [ Bath ] train station. And between the train station and the historical center and main retailing pitch with the city. So this is a really excellent location, and it's really the location that we're buying into here. Again, at for this location, a low capital value of just over GBP 200 per square foot. We brought another black block in [ Bath ] at the end of last year for similar values on a capital basis.

You might be asking yourself the question, we're buying offices? And you previously heard us talk with some concern about this sector. And you wouldn't be wrong. What I would say is that we certainly wouldn't be buying offices across the board or generically at the moment. This asset has been very selectively chosen, because of that location, because of the yield it offers, because of the mixed-use nature here with retail on the ground floor, as well in this location works very well.

So it wouldn't be that I think we are set to expand in this sector at the moment. I think that's probably a little bit too soon. Henry has mentioned that we do expect to see some stabilizing in office occupational levels going forward. But it felt at this time that this asset, and based on its fundamentals, was mispriced and therefore, made a suitable acquisition for us at this time.

Just handing back to Henry now to talk through some asset management examples.

[Henry Butt, executive]

Thank you, Laura. And the next 3 slides that I'm going to just run through, touch on the 3 sort of traditional sectors, being industrial, office and retail. And I think that exemplifies how much asset management we have going on in the portfolio. And it's not focused in one specific sector. So that is obviously good news.

This first I looked at what we have been doing in the industrial sector more recently. As a reminder, industrials still make up a high percentage of the portfolio value being 36%. And we carried out a number of transactions across these 3 particular industrial units. First start with [ Oak Park in Droitwich ]. We, this quarter, secured a new letting to [ James Warwick ] at GBP 79,000 per annum, which is a low rent, reflecting this major [indiscernible] of these units. But in the previous quarter, we also carried out 2 other lettings, one of which is at a rent of GBP 123,000, moving up to GBP 148,000 throughout the duration of return, and another let an extent of [ GBP 1,000 ] per annum. So we moved on the rent at this asset by roughly GBP 280,000 per annum, and that touches on that reversionary nature of the portfolio.

Again, if we move on to [ Wakefield, ] more aversion coming through the year, but not through new lettings. What we're seeing here is we're actually increasing the rents through rent reviews. And you will see that we have done a revenue at 27% above passing and 15% above the passing. So we are organically moving on rent. And they will obviously help us. If space comes back, we need to do new lettings. So really driving that yield. This is yielding roughly about 9% at the moment. So it's ticking all the box in terms of what we want to do with regards to our earnings, but we have a reversion here of about 12%. So there's still some more rental growth to come through as lease events come around.

And then finally, our industrial holding at [ Western's ] distribution part in [ Western Sea ]. We carried out 3 revenues to [ North Sunset Council ] moving on to rent by 20%. The new party rent to GBP 3, GBP 10 a square foot, which is still a relatively low rent. Typically, rents for space a bit like this, you would imagine we'd be starting with at least 4 and would be in the mid-4. So we feel that there's probably some more growth to come through with an organic rolling refurbishment plan here.

And we have also recently renewed with [ J and Baker, ] who are, probably could argue [indiscernible] tender preferred 2 years at [ GBP 3.72 ], GBP 160,000 per annum, which is obviously a nice sizable amount of rent and key strategy.

So moving on to [ Central Retail Park and Coventry. ] We presented this slide on numerous occasions over the past year, and that's because there has been a lot of asset management going on here. And as a reminder, we've completed renewals to Next, sports direct and boots. And when we bought this asset, when was it back in -- was it? Yes, Q4 '21, that we had a couple of vacancies, 3 or 4. And we have managed to bring in a range of new tenants, and we have made an answer on this. And those tenants being [ Aleceland ] trading to warehouse. And more recently, we're looking to secure lettings to [ Salvation Army ] and my dentist.

And as you will see, we bought the asset in Q4 '21 for GBP 16.4 million, often that initial yield of 7.8, with a reversion of 12.8. And if you see in that chart on the top left-hand corner, we have grown the rent by roughly GBP 1 million since Q4 2024. And that is showing that reversion coming through.

And as a consequence, not only through securing high amount of income, but also securing strong tenants off the back of this AEW class, which means you can bring in a wider range of tenants into your retail warehousing part, rather than having a traditional tenant lineup, which is predominantly normally fashion. We managed to move on the valuation here by GBP 5 million. And there's still further reversion to come, as the [ Albian, ] the [ Iceland ] and the [ Salvation Army, ] that rent starts to come in once incentives burn off.

So it's been really, really good example of what we can do in our asset management team in driving income, which obviously has a positive impact on earnings and driving valuation performance.

[Laura Elkin, executive]

I think it's also really interesting -- the way that the relaxation of the planning strategy in the U.K. during 2020 has allowed us to improve the tenant mix here. So historically, we would have really struggle to move retail units between different retail units. They were quite -- had strong sub categories that were more difficult to move between. That was relaxed in 2020, and it really allows us to move this part from, historically, you might have seen fashion parks or bulky goods parks with a particular theme. And that trend has definitely ended now. And what we're creating here is a kind of quasi high street, and that is what will drive the footfall of the future in these types of locations, and that is what will support the investment value going forward.

[Henry Butt, executive]

Finally, [ Queen Square ] in Bristol. This has been very much a sort of a live and kicking asset over the past couple of years, lots of asset management through rolling reversion plan, securing new tenants and also keeping tenants in moving rents on. And you'll see in this slide that when we bought this asset, the average passing rent was [ GBP 16.70 ] per square foot. We bought off an ERV of '20. And despite what's been going on more recently in the office sector, we have managed to secure some new lettings, and as mentioned there, of the GBP 40 a square foot that we achieved to Konica.

We're also pushing on rents in unrefurbished space, and we managed to secure a 30% increase in rent over 2023. And more recently, at this quarter, we completed another letting to Environmental Resources Limited at GBP 35 a square foot, which is obviously less than the letting to Konica, because the space was not refurbished to the same specification as Konica.

But a real good example in offices, if you have good environmental performing assets, well-located assets, this is in the prime office pitch in Bristol. You refurbish the space to a good quality specification, and you will manage to secure these office talents. And there really is a theme of flight to prime and office at the moment. Laura touched on that, which you're talking about [ Cambridge House and Bath. ]

And off the back of those strong asset management deals and lettings, the valuation has moved up to GBP 11.5 million from GBP 7.2 million, which we bought off, which is kind of going against what we're seeing in the office sector. But that's because we've got a well-located good asset, where this asset management, rather than an office on the outskirts of town, in an office park, which may be considered, obviously, where tenants are only prepared to take 2, 3-year terms, relatively low rents, very high incentives. And it's very difficult for nano to get these office schemes to work. So we really are focusing on good quality office location, very well located in good cities as per this asset and Cambridge House and Bath.

[Laura Elkin, executive]

Thanks, Henry. I'll pick up the next few slides, where we cover an update on our ESG strategy. This first slide shows our current EPC ratings. And to be honest, these haven't changed since the last quarter's meeting, but we just hadn't been an update on some of our strategies here.

We talked about having 11 units that currently don't have EPCs that have them in draft where we were currently in the process of making improvements to those assets. I'll just highlight, that's not 11 properties, that's 11 units within actually 2 properties, one industrial located in the Southeast and one industrial located up in the Northwest.

Up in the Northwest, we've been carrying out a rolling program of [indiscernible] of the gas supply to a couple of the units where it wasn't being used. And in doing that, a simple task like that, takes the EPC rating from being noncompliant to compliant. So we've been doing that during the part of the course of the last quarter. And therefore, we'll be updating those EPCs soon. And hopefully, you'll see those move up the schedule.

On the [indiscernible] the Southeast, we are currently engaging with the tenants, who have been in occupation here for a very long time, and we believe will want to retain here. They've been consolidating their business into our location, which is always good to hear. Henry is just a negotiation with them at the moment, but we believe that in carrying out some works for the roof, we can perhaps have the ability to extend the lease, and have some payoff there between the capital that we'll be needing to spend and the valuation of the unit. So just an update on the ongoing strategies that we have in place here.

And just to touch more widely on this. We do see that during the course of our usual business in asset management, a lease comes to an end. We collect [indiscernible] from a tenant, we make improvements to a unit, we'll relet the building again, and that is effectively the lease life cycle.

In going through that process, we do see improvements to units all the time. And often, that feeds through to improvements in EPC rating. So we see, this is really being built into the course of our usual business. As a short lease strategy, I think we have, perhaps more opportunity than others to get our hands on the assets and make those improvements. So over the course of time, we would expect to see these migrate towards better ratings.

[Henry Butt, executive]

We're also -- when we are having negotiations with tenants to take new space or to renew a lease, we are, in certain green quarters, in those leases, which, to project sort of a collaboration with land tenants to improve the environmental performance of those assets. And if we were doing, for example, new letting, we would specifically state in those heads of terms that a tenant fit out should no way compromised EPC score of unit, but also typically, the tenant is sitting out unit, you would not see an improvement, but rather than the EPC getting worse.

[Laura Elkin, executive]

Just some other updates here. If anyone reads in detail in our annual report, you perhaps would have noticed when we released this back in July, that we have been, for a number of years now, setting ourselves some targets on carbon emissions. And we've been making some really good progress here.

So the first year that we undertook this was from 2018, which we use as a baseline measurement. So since 2018 compared to 2022, we saw a roughly 34% improvement in the emissions from the portfolio. So back in July when we released the latest annual report, we decided to go one step further with those reduction targets. And given that they currently set around 15%, and we have clearly done a lot better than that. To push them out to a target, that hopefully, we can exceed as well by 2030, of reducing our emissions by 40% from that 2018 baseline.

Now our managing agents are very much cleared into doing this on all of our assets, all of our managed assets, particularly those that have been in the portfolio for longer than 12 months. All of them are using green tariffs, and that is what we expect to see going forward.

We've also -- we're also undertaking at the moment, a process of rolling out. I call them AMRs here in this slide, but to use some more standard terminology, smart [ REIT ] is effectively on a number of our assets. And this helps with energy usage data collection, and we can tell a lot from our assets about the amount of energy that our tenants are actually using on site, and look to make improvements on that. So this is going to be a really key part of us, both monitoring and improving our emissions going forward. So we've currently got a rollout of about 13 of those at the moment, and looking to expand that more widely across the portfolio.

We've just got to know here on biodiversity. This is a fairly easy win for us. And we've got an example here of some recent work we've been carrying out in one of our sites in [ Debre ]. Improving and planting across the site, putting our bird boxes, putting up [indiscernible], might not like really small stuff, but actually, we believe that where we own these sites and where these kind of projects are very easy to complete and very cost light, we will undertake them where we can. And again, that is in the hands of our property managers who were asked to do that.

On all of our assets, all of the assets here in the portfolio, we've got what we call an asset sustainability action plan, where all of these actions are summarized and tracked throughout an asset hold period.

Just finishing here on our [ GRASP ] score for 2023. So GRASP is the global real estate sustainability benchmark, for which AWU has been participating in since [ 2016. ] And apologies for the rather small point. In the bottom left-hand corner of this slide, you'll see us tracking our historic growth scores since we started participating in this benchmark. And you'll see that general trend of improvement, of which we're very, very proud. Where we have plateaued on growth in recent years is really a lot to do with data collection.

So as I've talked about that rollout of smart meters, once we can find out more about the energy that our tenants are using on-site and look to make improvements there, that will be where we hopefully see -- can see in the future some improvement to our rest of scores. But it will take for those meters to be in stores for their feedback to come through and for the improvements to be made, I think, before we start to see that filter through. But for now, we're certainly very happy with our score and the improvement that we've shown in recent years.

Just handing back to Henry to conclude.

[Henry Butt, executive]

Thank you, Laura. So just to run through these salient points on this slide to conclude. So over the past year, we have continued to improve our earnings and our dividend cover. And as I said earlier on, we would further expect that to continue, going into the winter and into 2024, with various asset management initiatives coming through.

The portfolio is fully invested after a period of undulation through sales and acquisitions, and we roughly have about GBP 2 million, which we are holding back for potential asset management initiatives. We might invest on that money, but we'll see what happens. We do have a strong pipeline. We continue to always have a strong pipeline, in the event that we do decide to make sales, if opportunities present themselves. The profile is very organic, so there is a number of further value-enhancing asset management initiatives in the pipeline. So the asset management team will have their eyes [indiscernible] for further value-enhancing initiatives, as well as growing the income to add to that earnings.

As Laura said earlier on, we feel in a safe place, given that when we buy assets, they are typically underwritten by alternative use values. And the sale of Oxford last year is a classic example of that, where we could sell into an alternative use at a higher value than the existing lease.

We have a good track record of crystallizing these gains. But when we realize that we have done the asset management, which typically happens after 3 to 5 years, we feel that if there is no more juice to squeeze out of asset and we decided to take our profits off the table and sell these assets and crystallize these gains, we refinanced about 1.5 years ago. We've got a very low cost of debt set against what's going on in the wider market where, obviously, debt has increased a lot.

And as I said, to finalize, we've always got a good pipeline of assets to buy in the event that asset management initiatives do conclude, and we rather than we'd like to take those profits where would we continue to hold those assets typically on lower yields.

So thank you very much. Thanks for joining us.

[Paul Brotherhood]

Fantastic. Laura, Henry. Thank you indeed for the presentation. [Operator Instructions]

Laura, Henry, as you can see, we had a number of questions, both pre-submitted throughout today's presentation. Thank you all the investors that have submitted those questions. Can I just please ask you to click on that Q&A tab, start at the top and just read out the questions where appropriate to do so, give your responses and I'll pick up from you at the end.

[Laura Elkin, executive]

Thanks, Paul. So I'll start with what I think was a presubmitted question. Says why has our funds valuation stayed up, when a lot of other REITs have seen their assets revalued down due to higher inflation and interest rates?

So thanks for that question. I think that was from John. First of all, John, I would slightly disagree with perhaps your summation, although it does view us rather favorably. We saw interest rates rising significantly, and we have seen interest rates rising significantly and the cost of debt, particularly in commercial property, rising significantly throughout the past 18 months. And now that was culminated, really felt very strongly in commercial real estate valuations in Q4 last year when, I would say, effectively, the market as a whole and the sector as a whole saw value loss in the region of 20% to 25%. And we saw that value loss too. So I certainly wouldn't say that our own asset valuations have been immune or have stayed high, when others have fallen as a result of higher inflation and higher interest rates.

Now I would again summarize the market as a whole, in saying that I think the values have broadly stabilized throughout the start of this year. I'm very pleased that the U.K. commercial property valuation and industry took that move quite proactively in Q4 and crystallized a lot of the loss at that time. It meant that portfolio managers such as ourselves have really sort of mark-to-market their valuations, and it gives us the ability to undertake the sales that we have done during the course of this year, which we wouldn't have been able to do, if those values haven't been mark-to-market.

Where I think our values perhaps have differed to others so far this year, it's firstly, we've had quite a low -- we have a low weighting offices in the portfolio. And I think that's perhaps the one sector where values aren't so much stabilized at the moment, because of changes that we expect to see ongoing on the occupational side. So that's perhaps one reason.

Also perhaps if you imagine the 2 portfolios and both with values having broadly stabilized, but one with very proactive asset management, where asset management gains are being made throughout each quarter, and another where that isn't the case. I would expect to see better valuation performance on that portfolio, which had the proactive asset management. And that is exactly what we're seeing in our own portfolio.

And we have talked a number of times in the past with this theme about how we believe that our very asset management heavy strategy can deliver some countercyclical returns, during perhaps times of plateau in the market when we can be making games through asset management. We can see that built into our valuation. We can take those -- take that valuation uplift at a time when others aren't. And I think perhaps, if you're referring to our portfolio having had better valuation performance so far this year than some others, and then that would be the case. Hopefully, that answers your question.

We've got another presubmitted question, which says, looking ahead, is the feature good with many opportunities, despite the rising in interest rates?

Now of course, we've been -- I think we've been pretty prudent in how we've managed our portfolio over the last 12 to 18 months. We were very lucky to have taken the excellent decision, I think, to refinance our portfolio back in May 2022, which saw us lock in a low cost of debt under 3% for the next 5 years, a very prudent move.

And off the back of that, we -- I think if you'd ask me that question sort of 18 months ago, I would have said that I had some concerns about, perhaps the resilience of our tenants or how certain sectors would hold up during a period of this quite unique economic stress that we have seen over the past 18 months.

Now sitting here today and answering this question, I think our portfolio has performed very strongly, and I can talk about a number of reasons for that. That has, I think, performed more robustly than I would have expected, and our tenants have been more robust than I would have expected. We've talked in the last quarter about [ Wilco ] and the write-offs that we had to take there. We have stripped effectively that income stream from our earnings forecast going forward. And now that property effectively sits vacant as an opportunity to relet.

But that is -- that Wilco example is really just one example over the past 18 months of a major tenant of ours having failed. And I think that really has been the case across most of the market. So most of the market tenants have been more resilient than I would have expected, and perhaps that's really great to see. I'm really pleased to see how we've been able to continue with many of our asset management strategies during this time. We've made significant gains that Henry has discussed on one of the slides we have grown our earnings significantly during that period.

So are there many opportunities? Yes, I really do think there are. And the past 12 months has created some great buying opportunities for us as well, where less players have been in the investment market, and we've been able to access some really great priced assets. So hopefully, that answers your question.

Another question is what is your intention with the dividends going forward? And the person asking this question provided a number of options, maintain, increase or reduce.

So of course, the setting of our dividend is a Board policy. It is not something that is determined by Henry and I. We simply work the portfolio to generate the highest level of total returns and the highest level of earnings that we can. It is then up to our Board to decide on the company's dividend strategy.

Now what I think our Board has demonstrated over the course of the past 9 years, is that during times when we have taken significant capital profit, and that crystallized capital profit is clear, to be used to top up the dividend during times when the company is going through a period of being not fully invested, such as we have seen over the past 2, 2.5 years. That capital profit is then used to top up the dividend for a time when dividend cover [ LixHealthia. ]

So I think our Board has made no secret of the fact that it is their plan to maintain the dividend going forward on that total return basis.

[Henry Butt, executive]

There's a question from [ Gavin ] here saying, office [indiscernible], your thinking, please?

Well, I think we touched on that quite a lot in the presentation. Laura just mentioned that the valuations in office sectors are sort of on the back foot at the moment. And I feel that, whereas maybe in the industrial sector, sort of storm has kind of blown through. With what happened with values there, I feel that we are in the midst of that storm in offices.

However, of course, we have been buying offices. And that touched on what I said earlier on, again, about it's very much a flight to prime. And we're not just seeing that in cities like [ Bath, ] where we have bought, but across the U.K. and everyone is aware of what's going on in London as well.

And as long as you are buying the best-located properties with good ESG fundamentals, so not poor scoring EPCs, and providing good quality space, then we feel that the office sector, going forward, is fine as long as they are the right properties.

So I hope that answered your question. We obviously would not be buying properties, as I mentioned earlier on, out-of-town properties where we have high levels of vacancy, a churn of tenants, rents in around GBP 10 a square foot, with high incentives, weak carbonate strength. That is not an area of the office market we would like to be in. But if we see some really decent bricks and mortar in good located areas in strong cities, then we will certainly look to buy these assets.

And actually, if you have a ground floor retail and leisure presence, then that is another string to that asset base, hence, what we recently brought Cambridge House, which has that as an alternative asset management angle.

And let's also not forget that office assets do lend themselves very well to alternative uses. Particularly, if they're well located in city centers, they could be converted to residential or student use, for example, which is a very strong sector at the moment, hotel use. So as long as you were buying it at values which sit comfortably alongside alternative use values and BP values, then I think there's a good opportunity in the office sector still.

[Laura Elkin, executive]

Another question. With the income for the quarter at 1.84p per share, and the dividend announcement of 2p per share, the additional dividend payment must be coming from capital. Will this dilute the income stream in the future, if this trend continues?

Hopefully, we've covered this off with a slide which shows this dividend covered since inception, and its top-up using net gain on disposal. The Board have taken the really -- the long-term strategic decision to cover dividend using total return. Of course, we will work as hard as we can to have the highest level of earnings that we possibly can. We achieved 1.8 [ floor ] in the current quarter, and we do expect to see further growth on that.

But we are a strategy, who, at the same time, is generating high levels of income also generate high levels of total return. And as Henry has demonstrated, when we have a lot of [indiscernible] and profits on the table, we crystallize that through a sale, and then we reinvest into another asset, which can be higher yielding.

So there will clearly be times when we are going through those periods of blocks where we are underinvested, and where during those times, the dividend will be uncovered, we will top that up using capital, but that is not original capital, that is not invested capital. That's the capital profit crystallized from those sales. So topping up the dividend using that total return strategy.

[Henry Butt, executive]

Question here from [ Adrian W.] Do you keep a list of tenants who are struggling financially and at risk of default? What percentage of your tenants are on that list?

Well, yes, we do keep a list of our tenants. We use a credit rating income we called [ Coface, ] which give our tenant scores. So we can monitor the strength of our tenants.

As I'm sure you can appreciate, given that we sort of like to roll up our sleeves in the asset management team, we are visiting these properties and having conversations with our tenants regularly. We all say, when we buy properties, we will not hit all our colors to the mast with one tenant, like you might typically do with a long lease strategy. And we've seen what's happened historically, with investors buying lots of travel lodges. For example, on 25-year RPI leases and then what happened when travel lodge [indiscernible] [ CPA? ] That's not really the case at all with AEW.

We feel that we have always sort of a backup plan if 10 worst default, and we were to -- and then we can let that space to another tenant. An example is [ Wilkinson, ] which Laura mentioned, which obviously recently gone to administration, and we've we're starting the letting process for that unit there.

It's probably also worth noting that, when we touched on the sort of alternative use value and BP values, an example of that is where we had unit -- industrial unit in D side, where the tenant actually decides to vacate. Rather than actually let that unit to another tenant, we sold it to a special purchaser for a premium.

So there are normally a number of tricks that you have at your sleeve in the event of tenants defaulting. But of course, we do keep track of what's going on with our tenants. And we'll always make sure that we are ahead of the game, in the event that they do default.

[Laura Elkin, executive]

I think I would just add there as well, it's -- if I think about looking at our assets on purchase, and having to think about whether it's the lease or the bricks and mortar that carry the greatest amount of the value. And often with our assets, it's not always with our assets. It's the bricks and mortar that carry greater value. The site itself rather than the lease itself, which would be the case with the long lease strategy.

And this throws up some really quite unexpected examples. For example, during -- I think it was roughly 2020, on our property at [ Clark Rosemond Keens, ] the tenant went into administration, but because it was trading so well beforehand, was immediately bought by a stronger company, who signed a longer lease at a higher rent, we then sold the building earlier this year for a capital profit.

So when you are analyzing purchases with most of the value held in the bricks and mortar or perhaps in how that building is known to trade for its tenant, the event of the tenant going into default does not have to be the sort of bumps scenario that one might envisage.

[Henry Butt, executive]

Another question here from Jason. What part are the U.K. you're seeing the best yield at the moment? And what sort of property is that in [indiscernible] plans in the very near pipeline to add to that area?

Thanks. Well, as Laura sort of highlighted earlier in the presentation, we are set agnostic. We don't typically go after a sector, and we like that, because it means we fare quite well when we have more tumultuous times like we're currently going through at the moment.

We obviously look at value. We are value investors. And as Laura just said, we look at capital value per square foot, alongside the yield profile of assets that we are buying, and obviously, we would like to have lots of asset management upside for those acquisitions.

I mean speaking generally, I would say that probably at the moment, the industrial sector is not showing many opportunities for AEW in particular, because the yield profile of those assets does tend to be a little bit too low for us. We obviously are targeting things between 7% and 10%. And we are typically finding those in the retail sectors and office sectors, which obviously, is illustrated by our recent purchases. So yes, that is where we're sort of seeing the opportunity. Do you have anything to add to that?

[Laura Elkin, executive]

No. Thank you. Another question from Jason. And on the debt front, what is the maturity date on both our RCF and longer-term debt and the average debt interest rate?

So just to provide some clarification here, we have a [indiscernible] facility. We don't have an RCF. We have our debt facility that we refinanced back in May 2022 for a 5-year fixed rate at 2.96%. Jason, hopefully, that answers your question.

Another question from KT. Why does our REIT charge or why are our REIT charges so much higher than our peers?

Yes, just to dispel a bit of a miss here, KT. Our investment management charge in our REIT is 0.9% of capital invested, so that's not charged on cash. We have conducted benchmarking with our peers and for our sites. We think that, that charge the AEW as an investment manager charge to the company is very competitive.

Now KT, what I think you might be referring to, are -- when you look at our [ KIDs ] document, we are instructed by the FDA to compile a number of charges for the company, and list those together in our KID, which is shown on our website. And I know that the figure that we're showing in that for our ongoing charge, is a lot higher than some of our peers.

I would just state here that this charge is not the management charge for the REIT. It is a charge that is constructed, shall we say, based upon grouping together our management fee with our ongoing property costs with our cost of debt and a number of different costs. So to me, that summation of ongoing charge in our KIDs is almost a kind of fictional, should we say, figure that the FCA wish for us to put forward to retail investors because they think that, that will simplify their analysis of REITs.

It is my personal opinion that, that ongoing charge figure in the KIDs does nothing to -- unfortunately, there's nothing to simplify the work of a retail investor in trying to -- and ascertain the relative value of different investment strategies, unfortunately. I know that there is quite a belief of that. I've said that that's my personal view, but I know that there's a lot of backup for that belief in the investment industry, and that's why the FCA and the treasury are currently undertaking a consultation on the usefulness of the KIDs. And I think it may have even been discussed that, that will, at some point, be revoked as a document because it is putting forward, we believe, a misleading picture to investors. And hopefully, that helps to clear things up for you.

[Henry Butt, executive]

There's a question from Martin. On Slide 15, in the blue box at the bottom, you do not show actual gains on display sales. The information provided does not mention CapEx and care, and please provide guidance on the approximate gains of each disposal.

So I've just been looking at this. What I can say for all 3 of -- well, actually 4 of these industrial spaces is that no CapEx was incurred on any of those assets. And actually, in particular, D-side, which I just mentioned, we decided to sell the assets to a special purpose, rather than carry out GBP 1 million refurbishment That, in particular, we sold, I think, for about [ GBP 300,000 ] more than what we acquired it for. And let's not forget that we hold it for a period let to [ telecom Madelin ] who -- and when we held it, we bought it off a 7.9% net initial yield. So we received income for all that period. And then we got the [indiscernible] settlement from the tenant that they moved out, which we then didn't end up spending.

I'm sorry that the [ Caltrain Locke Court and Bradford, ] I don't have the numbers off the top of my head. Can I encourage you to have a look at the announcements on our website, where it will tell you the games and the differences between what we sold the assets out for in comparison to what we bought them. But I can confirm that we didn't spend any CapEx on any of those 4 assets.

[Laura Elkin, executive]

Thanks. Another question from Mark C. Are all of our recent purchases compliant with forthcoming energy efficiency requirements?

The short answer to that question is yes. Hopefully, we've demonstrated that with our table showing the distribution of EPC ratings in the portfolio. We have a few assets to work on, which are in hand, but they are assets that have been long owned in the portfolio and recent assets are compliant.

I would just perhaps use this time to make a point there in that if we found an asset in our investment pipeline that we felt was very attractively priced, perhaps mispriced, but has a low or perhaps noncompliant EPC rating, we wouldn't necessarily not buy it for that reason. And we would perhaps see it as an opportunity. And if we could cost in suitable cost, the ability to turn around that EPC rating and still expect to have an accretive business plan from that asset, we would still plan to buy that asset.

Of course, with real estate, I think a lot of our responsibility as managers of real estate and all of us that use of real estate, is to try and make improvements to the standing stock, and that's what one of the things that we strive to do in our portfolio. So we would take that on as a future business plan if we thought if it was priced into the purchase price.

Somebody has asked the question. Sorry, Henry, if you just [indiscernible] up, I'll see who -- Andrew G. Is charity retaining right for retail parks or a sign of desperation? Query, are there no other takers, and what do the anchor businesses like next think about introducing this type of tenant?

Yes. Really interesting question, and it's something that I've had sort of debated in the market a few times recently. Because as I've said, some changes were made to the news class order that allowed more greater movement between those sort of subcategorized retail sectors to the EU [indiscernible] that we see today, that allows more fluidity between those sectors. And that's what we -- one of the things that we're capitalizing on in the [ Central 6 ] retail parking commentary with our improvement in tenant mix.

Now the way that I believe the market has settled and certainly the way we see it, is that this is not desperation. We -- the rents that we will be receiving from the incoming tenant Salvation Army is GBP 150,000 per annum. The existing tenant Oak Furniture Land are paying us a rent of GBP 25,000 per annum. So that's a significantly higher rent. These charity covenants are often very strong and very reliable rent payers. They often trade very strongly, bringing in a lot of fit for [ 2 ] of the parks.

Now 2 of our other key lettings have been to [ Audi ] and to [ Iceland Trading ] as food warehouse, which is Iceland's, I believe, discount label. So if you think about how a charity tenants might sit within that mix, actually, it could be a really complementary user and bring a more complementary footfall onto the site.

I think I described earlier that really, we were looking to turn this park into a quasi high street, and these are the types of occupiers that you have traditionally seen on the high street. It is very much not -- the done thing today to see a retail part with roughly sort of 10 to 12 units as we have in [ Coventry, ] all with big fashion houses as tenants. That would, I think, raised more red flags in the investment market and the one that presents a very comfortable mix of tenants who sit well next to each other.

[Henry Butt, executive]

We have a question from [ Hamed Zen ] on our office asset at Bristol. How do you manage to increase the rent per square foot and [ Queensquare Bristol ] from 20 to 40? Are all the properties with 10-year lettings, usually done with much higher increased rents than 2 to 3 year lettings?

Well, to answer the latter bit of that question. Actually, it's the other way around it. If you were to achieve longer lease, typically, the tenant would pay a less punchy rent because, obviously, there is value in there being a longer contract with that tenant to pay that rent. So tenants, who typically want shorter leases tend to have to pay higher rents.

In terms of what has been going on at Bristol more generally. We have increased the rents at that asset through an ongoing refurbishment plan. So we have been spending our own CapEx on that building, and we are obviously incentivized to do that, because we can grow our rental income. We can also improve the value of the asset by attracting better quality tenants paying higher rents and taking longer leases. So that is how we have managed to move on the rents principally through an ongoing fitment plan.

But obviously, let's not forget that there has been obviously rental growth in Bristol. As office space becomes obsolete, which doesn't get investment. If you have a well located, good asset that you're prepared to spend money on, then naturally, there will be demand for that asset and that demand filters through incremental growth.

[Laura Elkin, executive]

Thanks, Henry. And then I'm afraid we've got an awful lot of questions here, and we would love to answer them all, but unfortunately, we're running over quite a lot on time. So I'm just going to take one more question, I'm afraid, and then we will try to answer some of these questions online afterwards.

So the last question I will take is from Richard G., and he says, to what extent are the individual managers invested in or remunerated by reference to the business slash its performance.

Yes. Great question, Richard. So our team are personally invested in AEW. Quite a few members of our team, myself included, have trading to take personal investments in the company. For myself, that has been quite a long-standing investment.

In terms of reference to the performance of the company. We are directly remunerated by reference to the performance of AEW U.K. as a business, not by AEW U.K. REIT. But as I said, a lot of us have those -- have chosen to take those personal holdings directly in the company.

[Paul Brotherhood]

Fantastic. Thank you very much indeed for asking so many questions. And of course, the team will review all those questions which then it publishes responses where appropriate to do so.

And Laura, perhaps just before redirection investors to give you their feedback. I just for a few closing comments, please, and then we'll wrap up from there. Thank you.

[Laura Elkin, executive]

Great. Thanks, Paul, and thanks very much to so many of you for joining us today. Apologies that we can get around to answering all of the questions, but there really are an awful lot, and I know that we have run over quite a lot on our time slot already.

Just to say that we look very positively to the future. We have seen a lot of growth in the company's earnings over the course of the past year, which gives me a lot of confidence in our strategy, and we expect to see further growth in that earnings figure going forward.

We know that the company and the business plans that we're currently working on for our assets create opportunity for further total return growth in the future as well. So we're very pleased with our positioning at the moment and excited for the future.

[Paul Brotherhood]

Fantastic. Laura, Henry. Thank you very much indeed for updating investors today. Can I please ask investors not to close the session as you'll be automatically redirected to provide your feedback so the team can better understand your views and expectations. This many take a few minutes to complete and is greatly valued by the company.

On behalf of the management team of AEW U.K. REIT plc. I'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good morning to you all.