Investor Relations Activities
In 2022, Vonovia participated in a total of 26 investors’ conference days and organized 25 roadshow days. In addition, Vonovia took part in various investor forums and numerous one-on-one meetings with investors and analysts to keep them informed of current developments and special issues. In 2022, we held several hundreds of talks with analysts and investors. The dominant topics included the business outlook in the changed macroeconomic environment, the capital structure, capital allocation and transaction activity in the residential real estate market.
After a two-year break due to the coronavirus pandemic, Vonovia’s seventh Capital Markets Day was held in Bochum on September 27, 2022. We took the event, which focused on the ecological aspect of the megatrend of sustainability, as an opportunity to delve deeper into various topics including, in particular, the “Internet of Things,” the decarbonization tool and the Energy Center of the Future with around 50 investors and analysts. We concluded the Capital Markets Day with a property tour in Bochum. The presentations held at the Capital Markets Day can be downloaded online on the Investor Relations website.
We will also continue to communicate openly with the capital market in 2023. Various roadshows, conferences and investor forums have already been planned. Information can be found in the Financial Calendar on our Investor Relations website.
Positive Analyst Assessments
As of December 31, 2022, 24 analysts were publishing studies on Vonovia on a regular basis. The average target share price at the end of the year was € 37.23 per share, with 71% of analysts issuing a “buy” recommendation, 25% issuing a “hold” recommendation and 4% issuing a “sell” recommendation.
For information on the banks that regularly report on Vonovia and value its shares, please visit our Investor Relations website.
Dividend
As a reaction to Russia’s war of aggression, central banks around the world have been increasing interest rates at an unprecedented speed.
The drawback of Vonovia’s stable business model in a regulated market is that it can only react slowly to this new environment, and the initial impact on our KPIs is negative.
However, the new environment also accelerates the megatrends around which we have built our business, especially the supply/demand imbalance in urban areas and the need to fight climate change. This will lead to even stronger fundamentals in the medium- and long-term.
While Vonovia proposes the dividend to the AGM, it is the shareholders’ prerogative to vote on the dividend, and there are basically two fundamentally different sets of expectations among shareholders.
As dividend continuity is a key priority for Vonovia, offering an adequate dividend remains an important objective due to the fact that a significant part of our shareholder base counts on dividends as a form of shareholder returns.
However, in the current environment, many shareholders expect capital discipline; it is therefore prudent to adjust the payout ratio of the dividend for the 2022 fiscal year and strike a different balance between cash retention and returns to shareholders.
This decision underlines our responsiveness to what shareholders expect regardless of our firm conviction with respect to the medium- and long-term robustness of our business model.
The Management and Supervisory Board firmly believe in the robustness of Vonovia’s stability and the success of its business model, and we explicitly confirm the general and unchanged dividend policy of paying out approx. 70% of Group FFO after minority interests. This policy makes sure that retained earnings plus the proceeds from Recurring Sales provide sufficient funds to sustain the investment program.