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MESSAGE FROM
THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
AND THE CHAIRMAN OF
THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
During 2015, Cofinimmo took advantage of a favourable economic
environment by making use of the equity markets.
Throughout 2015, Cofinimmo significantly strengthened its financial
structure. This reinforcement has been materialised through a private
bond placement of 190 million EUR in the first quarter and the renewal
of nearly 750 million EUR in credit lines. The company thus significantly
improved its financing cost and the average duration of its long-
term financial commitments. During the second quarter, Cofinimmo
looked to the equity markets again by launching a capital increase
with preferential subscription rights for a total of 285.4 million EUR. In
connection with this increase, Cofinimmo issued 3,004,318 new shares
at a subscription price of 95 EUR. The transaction was successfully
completed given that 84.3% of the new shares were subscribed by
our shareholders. The balance was issued as part of an accelerated
private placement for institutional investors. At the end of this transac-
tion, Cofinimmo’s market capitalisation was more than 2 billion EUR.
What was the purpose of this capital increase?
The purpose of the capital increase, closed in May 2015, was to fund
the investment programme for 2015-2017 and to strengthen the
Group’s balance sheet structure in order to pursue our growth within
the context of the Group’s strategic priorities. We now have an invest-
ment capacity of more than 400 million EUR to be deployed over the
next few years.
Following this financial transaction, our forecasts of a net current
result of 6.85 EUR per share for the full 2015 financial year, published
in the annual results on 06.02.2015 and in the 2014 Annual Financial
Report, were revised downwards to 6.26 EUR per share because of the
increase in the number of shares outstanding. Cofinimmo ultimately
ended financial year 2015 with a net current result of 6.46 EUR per
share.
In 2015, the company continued to implement its strategic
objectives.
Cofinimmo continued to increase its healthcare real estate activities in
Germany and the Netherlands through acquisitions and commitments
in the two countries for a total of 108 million EUR. In the Netherlands,
we particularly acquired three medical centres located in Almere,
Voorschoten and Arnhem-Zuid as well as a rehabilitation clinic in
Heerlen, which will be completely renovated, with a total capacity of
127 beds and an area of 14,700 m². In Germany, we acquired two luxury
sport and well-being centres of 7,800 m² and 10,000 m² respectively.
One is located in a prestigious residential area of Hamburg, and the
other is located on the edge of a lake in Hanover.
In 2015, we also continued the rotation policy in our healthcare portfo-
lio by selling the 95% interest in Silverstone, owner of 20 nursing and
care homes in Belgium, for 92.6 million EUR.
This year, we also extended the proactive management of our office
space portfolio with the completion of the conversion of two office
buildings into apartments, the signing of an agreement for the conver-
sion of a third building into a nursing home, and the management of a
number of office building renovation projects.
The redevelopment of the entire Livingstone site in Brussels is
completely finalised.
In November 2015, Cofinimmo sold all the shares of Livingstone II,
owner of the Livingstone II building, located in the heart of the
European District of Brussels. The shares were sold for 60 million EUR,
valuing the building at 63.9 million EUR. The gross yield for this trans-
action is 4.28% and illustrates the appetite of institutional investors for
this type of product in the Brussels office market.
We thus successfully finalised the repositioning of the entire
Livingstone site, acquired in 2002. After resiliation of the lease by
Belfius Insurance, which took effect on 30.09.2013, we optimised the
use and environmental integration of the building by making it a mixed-
use property. The use of the Livingstone II building as offices was
maintained, and the building, offering an above-ground surface area of
16,000 m² over six floors, was completely renovated. In May 2014, the
building was fully let to the European Commission for 15 years for its
new training centre. The other part of the site, the Livingstone I build-
ing, was converted into 122 apartments, all sold.
This transaction is perfectly in line with our strategy in the office seg-
ment, which consists in asset rotation and redeveloping our buildings
in order to better meet the needs of the districts in terms of develop-
ment of the territory.
Dear Shareholders,
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MESSAGE TO SHAREHOLDERS