Our mission & strategy

Our mission

With attention to social developments, Cofinimmo has the mission of making high-quality care, living and working environments available to its partners-tenants, from which users benefit directly.

“Caring, Living and Working - Together in Real Estate” is the expression of this mission.

More specifically, Cofinimmo’s mission is to:

promote exchanges creating well-being and inspiration in high-quality care, living and working spaces, by providing services that anticipate the needs and aspirations of their occupants;
animate an inspiring work and living environment, serving an exciting business project;
enable its shareholders to make long-term, low-risk and socially responsible investments that generate a recurring, predictable and growing stream of income, fuelling dividends and encouraging a return to the community.

Beyond the stakeholders identified above, the community itself greatly benefits from Cofinimmo’s services on a multitude of levels, whether in healthcare, the working world or simply in places where people exchange and share. Furthermore, Cofinimmo participates in the enhancement and renovation of public and parapublic property thanks to large-scale projects undertaken in the framework of public-private partnerships.

Our strategy

Real estate strategy

Healthcare real estate
Cofinimmo’s strategy consists in consolidating its leadership in the European healthcare real estate segment by diversifying its offer for tenants.

This growth will go hand-in-hand with diversification within the healthcare sector itself: originally restricted to nursing and care homes, it now offers other types of property accessible to an investor endowed with expertise and extensive experience in healthcare real estate such as Cofinimmo.

Furthermore, diversification will also take place on a geographical level through the extension of the group’s activities beyond the countries currently covered, namely Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Finland, Ireland, Italy and the United Kingdom .

Given the above, it is clear that the share of healthcare real estate in Cofinimmo’s overall portfolio, which already reaches 75%, is bound to grow significantly.

Property of distribution networks and PPPs
Property of distribution networks, as well as public-private partnerships (PPPs), and healthcare real estate share the characteristic of generating high, predictable and indexed cash flows within the framework of usually very long-term contracts. As such, they fit perfectly into the Group’s strategy.

Property of distribution networks and PPPs, however, are two niche markets that only occasionally present opportunities. As such, they cannot be counted on as a growth engine in the forthcoming years.

Nevertheless, with these markets being only accessible to a limited number of sufficiently qualified investors, Cofinimmo intends to study opportunities as soon as they arise.

Office
Since it was establishment in 1983, Cofinimmo has been a major player in the Brussels office market, which consists of various sub-segments.

It is in this market that the company has built its real estate expertise for 40 years. Cofinimmo’s staff is experienced in the management from A to Z of large-scale projects, including the design, construction, renovation, conversion and development of sites, in view to renting or even selling. They master all aspects of the building life cycle. This know-how has expanded from offices to healthcare real estate, property of distribution networks and PPPs, which benefit from the synergies thus created.

In paralel with the development of the healthcare real estate segment, Cofinimmo is focusing on the rebalancing of its office portfolio between the various sub-segments, to the benefit of high-quality buildings located in the Central Business District (‘CBD’). The rental vacancy in this segment, lower than the average of the Brussels market, makes it possible to achieve higher net yields.

Benefits of the strategy for stakeholders:

Our vision

Financial strategy

In order to implement the real estate strategy, Cofinimmo has developed a financing strategy based on the following principles :

diversification of financing resources,
regular access to capital markets,
debt-to-assets ratio close to 45%,
optimisation of the duration and cost of financing.

Cofinimmo also pays particular attention to the coherence between its financial strategy and its sustainability objectives.
For more details, please refer to chapter ‘Strategy’ of the 2023 universal registration document.

Sustainability strategy

Cofinimo, being a major real estate player in Europe, has been committed for more than ten years to a global sustainability strategy.
In response to the risks generated by climate change, it decided to raise its environmental ambitions. The strategic thinking in 2019 led to the ambitious business project launched in 2020 of reducing the portfolio’s energy intensity by 30% (compared to the 2017 level) by 2030 to reach 130 kWh/m² (project 30³). This objective has been established following the science based targets methodology, which has made it possible to objectivise the effort to be made in order to contribute to the global objective of limiting global warming to à maximum of 1.5°C. It is in line with the Paris Agreement concluded at COP21 and involves not only the office and healthcare real estate segments, but also all activities directly managed within the company.
Cofinimmo’s approach of the risks and opportunities linked to climate change is explicitly in line with the recommendations of the Task force on climate-related disclosures (TCFD).
For more details, please refer to chapter ‘Strategy’ of the 2023 universal registration document.