Frankfurt The real estate giant Vonovia sees itself on course for growth after a record year and the takeover of its smaller competitor Deutsche Wohnen. “In 2021 we achieved our goals and in some cases even exceeded them,” said Vonovia CEO Rolf Buch on Friday: “Our guidance for 2022 also shows significant growth.”
Vonovia is expecting “growth of more than 20 percent for sales, Ebitda and Group FFO” in the current year. The profit from the operating business (Group Funds from Operations/Group FFO) – the key figure for real estate companies – should be in a range of around 2.0 to 2.1 billion euros.
Last year, Group FFO increased significantly from EUR 1.3 to 1.67 billion. The takeover of Deutscher Wohnen last year also contributed to the growth, at least the last three months of the last financial year were influenced by it. The shareholders are to receive a slightly higher dividend of EUR 1.66.
As a result of the merger, Vonovia became Europe’s largest housing group, with more than 568,000 apartments in numerous cities and regions in Germany, Sweden and Austria. There are also around 71,500 managed apartments. In Germany, Vonovia has a market share of 2.1 percent with more than 505,000 apartments.
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Larger acquisitions are not planned this year, said Vonovia boss Buch, and the integration of the two companies should first be completed. However, it is quite possible that smaller housing stocks, for example in Sweden, will be bought.
Also Deutsche Wohnen with business figures
The takeover of Deutscher Wohnen was preceded by a long tug of war – and several failed attempts. The integration of the Berlin real estate group should be completed at the beginning of 2023, as Vonovia boss Buch emphasized on Friday.
In the course of the takeover, it was also planned that long-standing Deutsche Wohnen boss Michael Zahn and his CFO would move up to the board of the new group. But Zahn then changed his mind. He left the company after the takeover by Vonovia at the beginning of the year. In December, he turned down the vice-chief post in Bochum that was intended for him.
Deutsche Wohnen is now managed by a dual leadership. The inspectors therefore appointed Konstantina Kanellopoulos and Lars Urbansky as co-bosses of the group, which also lost its place in the Dax in the course of the takeover.
Kanellopoulos was previously a general manager at Vonovia. Urbansky was previously responsible for the operational business on the board of Deutsche Wohnen. Olaf Weber, who is moving from Vonovia to Deutsche Wohnen like the new co-boss, was awarded the position on the board of directors for finance.
Deutsche Wohnen also presented business figures on Friday. Accordingly, Berlin generated contractual rents of 843.6 million euros, adjusted Ebitda rose by 1.6 percent to 715.8 million, and FFO I by 2.4 percent to 553.6 million.
No decision on Adler share yet
There was no news on Friday about another real estate company in which Vonovia recently became a major shareholder: the Adler Group, a company that focuses primarily on Berlin and is currently fighting serious allegations from short sellers. Last fall, short seller Fraser Perring accused the company of fraud, manipulation and deception – allegations Adler denies.
So far, however, it has not been possible to definitively refute the allegations. A special audit is currently being carried out by the auditing company KPMG. The final result is still pending, but according to preliminary information, there are contradictions and allegations of deals with allegedly related parties when assessing the company’s development projects. The incident, which had dragged on for months, had caused the SDax company’s share price to plummet and Adler had sold much of its real estate.
Vonovia currently holds 20.5 percent of the shares in the Adler Group. A company spokeswoman recently emphasized that the decision as to what would happen to the block of shares “is still completely open,” and Vonovia boss Buch repeated on Friday that no decision had yet been made. You want to do that in the fall. However, he has great confidence in the management of the company. After all, you also know two important people: a month ago, ex-Vonovia chief financial officer Stefan Kirsten was appointed the new chairman of the board of directors.
As recently as November, Vonovia boss Rolf Buch had not ruled out striving for a majority takeover.
Warning of high energy prices
Buch was also shocked by the war in Ukraine on Friday. You will help the refugees. The manager warned that the rising energy prices as a result of the war would burden tenants: “The horrendous energy prices are increasing the social imbalance in Germany.”
However, doing without Russian gas is not as easy as some people have claimed: you can’t just “put on three sweaters” and turn off the heating, said Buch, because without heating the houses would start to get moldy.
More: Demand is increasing unchecked – Six aspects that property buyers should now consider.