Acquisitions and operations improvements fuel a 12.6% increase in NEPI Rockcastle’s NOI
NEPI Rockcastle achieved a 12.6% increase in net operating income (NOI) to €152 million during Q1 2025 when compared to Q1 2024, driven mainly by two large acquisitions in Poland during the second half of 2024 as well as several asset management initiatives for its existing portfolio. On a like-for-like basis, the Fund’s NOI increased by 5% with short-term income and improvements in cost recovery contributing to its NOI growth.
“Driving growth in NOI through earnings accretive acquisitions has been a highlight of our strategy in recent years and the strong results in Q1 validate the positive impact of the two major investments made in Poland in 2024,” comments CEO, Rudiger Dany.
“At the same time, we continue to proactively manage our portfolio, regularly Refreshing the tenant mix and improving the layout of our properties, to meet consumers’ evolving preferences. Alternative revenue sources, such as energy, parking and media sales revenue, are growing faster than rents, which were indexed by a lower percentage compared to previous years due to a decline in inflation. The strength of our markets, and our dominant position as the largest owner, developer and operator of retail real estate in Central and Eastern Europe, is evidenced by consistently high occupancy and continued demand for space across the portfolio from international retailers.”
Footfall was marginally lower (by 0.7% like-for-like) in Q1 2025 compared to Q1 2024 with like-for-like tenant sales (excluding hypermarkets) increasing by 3.7%.
During the period, the Fund signed 411 new leases and lease renewals for more than 95 500m2 of which 21% by gross lettable area (GLA) are new leases, reporting that strong demand from international retailers looking to expand in Central Eastern Europe (CEE) markets make up 74% of its newly leased GLA.
NEPI’s EPRA retail vacancy was 1.7% on 31st March 2025 with an overall portfolio EPRA vacancy of 2%. Rental collection for Q1 2025 was 98% (99.7% for 2024) at the end of April 2025.
The Fund’s development pipeline under construction (or permitting) totals almost €788 million (including extensions and redevelopments of existing assets together with green energy investments) of which €250 million had been spent by the 31st of March 2025.
NEPI reported +- €1.2 billion in cash and available committed credit facilities on the 31st of March 2025 with no significant debt maturities before October 2026.
Its loan-to-value (LTV) ratio was 31.2% as of 31st March 2025 with the value of its investment portfolio €7.9 billion.
NEPI’s Board reaffirms is guidance released in February 2025 that distributable earnings per share for the year will be approximately 1.5% higher than 2024’s distributable earnings per share with no change in the Company’s current 90% dividend payout.
