Hello, and welcome to ARGAN Half Year 2024 results. My name is Alicia, and I will be your coordinator for today's event. Please note, this conference is being recorded, and for the duration of the call, your lines will be on a listen mode only. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the presentation. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question. If you require assistance at any point, please press star zero and you will be connected to an operator. On today's call, we have joining us, Aymar de Germay, ARGAN's General Secretary, member of the Executive Board. Francis Albertinelli, CFO and member of the Executive Board, and Samy Bensaïd, Head of Investor Relations. I'll now turn the call over to Samy Bensaïd. Please go ahead. So welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us for this conference call relating to ARGAN's H1 results, as well as short-term and medium-term prospects. This call is being recorded and will be available on our website for a public release afterwards. Aymar de Germay and Francis Albertinelli will refer to a presentation available on our website, argan.fr, under the Financial Documentation tab of the Regulated Information. Then, we will open a short Q&A session. In addition to the presentation, please note that the press release was published. I now hand it over to Aymar and Francis. Thank you, Samy, and good evening to all. Starting from page four of our presentation, we provide some key figures at end of June 2024. First of all, we are now back to growing value of our port- portfolio from end of December 2023, with a fair value of EUR 3.8 billion on the back of a cap rate that has slightly increased to 5.3%. That is to say, plus 20 basis points from end of December. Please note that our portfolio is independently appraised by CBRE every half year. Our NAV EPRA NTA remained fairly stable, close to 79 EUR. Other positive outcome of the half year, our debt ratios have decreased significantly with, for example, our LTV ratio down four points to 46% from 50% at the end of December 2023. Finally, this debt reduction is coupled with sustained increase in our main financial performance indicators with, rental income and recurring net income up high single digits, respectively, for +8% and +7% from end of December. Now, moving to page six for a quick overview on French logistics real estate trends over six months. Take-up has decreased down 31%, compared to a 5-year average, mostly as a consequence of, wait-and-see attitude on a backdrop of increased economic uncertainty. On the other hand, pockets of more dynamic activity come from pure logistics players and the restart of XXL formats, driven by e-commerce. Page seven, the national vacancy rate remains low at 4.3%, based on CBRE figures end of June. This shows that there is still pressure for clients to find attractive sites to rent and gives us a strong position in our market. Finally, on slide eight, we now have a restart of investments with a strong increase of plus 27% compared with H1 2023, and also a historic share of logistics and industrial real estate of 36%. This confirms that our industry is a sweet spot amongst the overall real estate sector and gives confidence to pursue our pure-player strategy, as well as our selective assets disposals program. Now, moving to page 10, to provide some color on our client base. As you know, our strategy is to develop and rent our warehouses to blue-chip clients, whose solvency has deeply been reviewed before any commitment. This year, ARGAN has increased its client portfolio with 4 new tenants, namely U Proximité in food distribution, DACHSER in logistics, 4MURS for personal and home equipment, and finally, a major European group we cannot disclose due to confidentiality agreements. Slide 11, the distribution of our rents shows a stable picture from end of 2023, with food distribution and logistics pure players representing 60% of our rental income. Page 12, a few words on our main clients. The top 12 customers make up 70% of our rents, with Carrefour representing 28% of the total. This is notably a historic legacy with a portfolio acquisition in 2019. The partnership with Carrefour is still strong, with new projects developed by our common JV this year, as we will see later on. Few last remarks on rents split, slide 13. An important aspect of ARGAN's business model is to avoid rental income risks. This is why we secure long, fixed-term contracts. As such, the average remaining fixed term length is 5.5 years, a level fairly stable throughout the years. Additionally, shippers represent more than three quarters of the volume of rents. Finally, the weight of rents purely indexed on the ILAT, a French index related to inflation, is increasing with 62% of the total now compared to 60% end of December 2023, as all new rents are ILAT indexed and new leases also include ILAT indexation. Overall, indexation impact of the full 2024 stands at 4.6%, with indexation impacts being applied on January the first of each year. After rental income structure, we now go to page 15 to provide some key figures on our portfolio. As indicated, fair value stood at EUR 3.8 billion end of June. It is also important for ARGAN to have enough development prospects by constantly adding land bank. As such, the potential for additional buildable area stood at around 500,000 square meters at the end of the period. This represents at least five years of average development for ARGAN on a historic basis. Also, occupancy stood at 100% for the sixth consecutive quarter now. Finally, one important aspect is related to sustainable development, as 50% of our portfolio is certified, notably with at least BREEAM Very Good level being currently used. We make all our new developments with the autonomous warehouse model, meaning a warehouse that produces its own green energy, stored on site with batteries, for extra production dedicated to self-consumption. On Slide 16 now, as said, fair value of our portfolio turned positive, complemented by a strong contribution of our developments. Conscious of time, I am moving directly to page 19 and 20, to present you some elements on our developments for 2024. Leaving room during the Q&A session if you had questions on previous slides. Page 19, we have delivered four sites in H1, in attractive areas in Normandy for two logistics players, DSV, a historic client, and DACHSER, a new one. Close to Mâcon and Montpellier, respectively, for U Proximité, a new client as well, and for Carrefour. Slide 20, H2 projects include our biggest development of the year with Carrefour for an XXL format in Normandy, through a brownfield turnaround, showcasing our sustainable commitments. This project was delivered at the beginning of this month, and three other projects will be delivered at the end of the year, with two new clients, notably. Overall, 2024 is another historic year in terms of development, with 170,000 square meters of new warehouses and EUR 180 million of investments with a high average yield approaching 7%. We reached the end of our comments regarding business and portfolio developments. I am now handing it over to Francis to comment our financial performance and outlook for 2024 and in the medium term. Thank you, Aymar. Good evening, to all. Let's go, if you want, on slide 22. Here are some highlights on our debt policy already shared before. By no longer using debt, at least until 2026, we intend to strongly decrease our debt ratios. By the end of 2026, our goal is to have an LTV of 38% and a net debt on EBITDA of below 8x. Medium term, we target a balance mixed between amortizable mortgage loans and bonds. Our net refinancing milestone is in the end of 2026, with the refinancing of our EUR 500 million bond. Another feature of ARGAN's policy is to have enough RCF lines to guarantee at least a year of rental income, meaning at least EUR 250 million. Finally, this debt policy and ARGAN's sound financial model are appreciated at an investment grade level by S&P, with a triple B minus rating and a stable outlook. On next slide, next slide, sorry, number 23 now. We give more details on the debt structure and financial costs at the end of June. We maintain our strong hedging policy with less than 3% of debt having variable rates. We will not anticipate the cost of debt to move from 2.3% in the two coming years, provided that the EURIBOR three-month remains at a level similar to today, meaning just below 4%. The debt maturity is also fairly long, at more than 5 years. As said, our main milestone is late 2026 for our bond, which represents 27% of today's debt stock. One final point on debt, to say that the ratios have already strongly declined in H1, thanks to value of our portfolio now increasing on the one end, and thanks to a capital increase in an amount of EUR 150 million euros, that took place in April. We are now moving to slide 25. As you can see, 2024 is projected to generate EUR 197 million euros of rental income for ARGAN. This means 8 consecutive years of growth for ARGAN company, and a yearly average growth of over 14% since 2016. On page 26, we detail the strong growth that we have once again recorded in H1 of +8% from last year's. The main impact comes from indexation of 4.6%, generating close to EUR 4 million euros of additional income. The second item is a full year effect of 2023 deliveries for close to EUR 3 million. Now, on the next slide, page 27. ARGAN has a model for solid value creation at the bottom line, as our rental income increasing +8%, generates a growth of +7% for our recurring net income group share. Now, on slide 28, a very quick comment on the IFRS consolidated net income. The positive news for H1 is that the change in fair value of our portfolio is now turning once again positive, thanks to rents increase of +4.6% on average. That overall compensate the slight increase in capitalization rate of 20 basis points to 5.30%, excluding duties. We believe that on this front, H1 2024 should probably mark the peak, provided, of course, the economic backdrop does not deteriorate. One last point for financial items on page 29 now, to detail our EPRA NTA, that is quite stable from the end of December 2023. This results from the positive contribution of our net income, with close to EUR 3 per share, as well as for the fair value of our assets, with close to EUR 1 per share. This was compensated by the mechanical dilution of the scrip dividend and the successful equity rise for EUR 150 million, that led to 2 million shares being created for a unit value of EUR 74, as well as the impact of the dividend paid in cash. We will now provide some color on our short and medium-term outlook, broadly confirming announced targets. As you know, we have a financial roadmap for 2026 to accelerate growth and strongly decrease our debt. One major step contributing to this roadmap was the equity raise mentioned early for EUR 150 million, and for which we provide some information on slide 31. Without going too much into the details, we have two main targets. First, improve our financial key figures by accelerating growth and debt reductions, and secondly, add liquidity potential for ARGAN shares. Moving now to slide 32. We here provide our targets for 2026, with an average annual growth rate of +7% for rental income over the 2024-2026 period on the right side. On the left side, as we are no longer subscribing new debt and boosted by the capital increase along selective asset disposal, our debt ratio should decrease quickly, with the LTV going to around 38%, provided cap rates remain stable.... net debt to EBITDA should decrease to below 8 times from 9.5 times today. Our last comments will be on slide 34. We give here some projection for the end of 2024. With development still ongoing, our portfolio should still grow in value to EUR 3.9 billion and in size to 3.7 million sq m. Our debt ratios will also decline, provided cap rates reach a peak as we anticipate, with an LTV down two points further, compared with June 2024 to 44% end of December 2024. Finally, we confirm our targets for 2024, with a rental income and a recurring net income set to both growth +7% to EUR 197 million and EUR 135 million, and dividend per share for EUR 3.30 that will be put to shareholders at the next assembly in March 2025. This closes our remarks on the presentation. We now open the floor to questions and hand it back over to the operator of the call to start this Q&A session. Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star two. To leave room for everyone to ask questions, we kindly request you limit yourself to one or two questions. You will be advised when to ask your questions. We'll take the first question now from Stéphane Aouat from Invest Securities. Your line is open now. Thank you. Yes, good evening, and thank you for the presentation. I have two questions, if I may. The first one regarding your rental uplift. Could you share the reversionary potential as of the end of June? I have in mind it was between +5% to +10% at the end of last year. And lastly, regarding the current French political context, to what extent could this situation impact your ability to execute your development strategy in 2025 and going forward? Thank you. So hi, Stéphane. This is Samy on the line. So just to answer on the reversionary potential for us. So when comparing current market value rents to the average rent that we have for us, so there is a reversionary potential of 6.5% at the end of H1. So this is a hypothetical reversionary potential. So now moving to, sorry, to politics? Yes, hello, Stéphane, Aymar speaking. In fact, it's not an easy question to answer because, as you know, there was not a clear majority at the end of the elections in July. And, the French parliament is clearly fragmented, and there is no coalition yet to govern the country. So it's very difficult to have a position today. If we have a technical, as we said, government, the policy in France should not be very different from what it was before. But if there is a new kind of coalition with the left wings, it could change a lot of things. But today, we consider that there is not a big possibility for the left wings to build a coalition with a majority in the parliament, and so, consider that the situation will be stable. Okay. Thank you. Thanks again. We'll take now the next question from Pierre-Emmanuel Clouard from Jefferies. Your line is open now. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. Actually, I have two questions on my side. Maybe just if you can give us your view on the rental growth in France, especially given the fact that the vacancy rate more than doubled in less than two years. So do you see rents evolving from now on, especially with the political uncertainty that we have today? And the, the second one is on the valuation of the portfolio. When I'm looking at CBRE data, we have a prime yield in France closer to 5% today for prime, you know, prime in the Paris region, a brand-new asset. Today, given the fact that your portfolio is only located at 30% in the Paris region, I was struggling to understand how I can reconcile the 5% of CBRE with the 5.3% of your portfolio. Hello, Pierre-Emmanuel. Once again, Samy on the line. To answer the question on the rental growth trends, as you know, we take into account the ILAT index of Q2 each year to apply it following year from January first for all our ILAT index rents. And you need also to take into account, as we said in the presentation, so that the stock of the rents is 60% fully ILAT indexed. 24%, capped at 2% for the ILAT, and pre-indexed for the remaining parts, 14% with an average of 1.5% pre-indexation. So when you take this into account, and if we look forward to next year now, the last ILAT index, so the one published for Q1, was just slightly above five percent, so 5.1%. And when you take into account, so our rent composition, it would lead to about 3.8% mechanical application, so indexation for next year for our rents. So now we will need to see where the Q2 ILAT lands, but we could say that it would be above 3.5%, at least indexation for next year for us. So this is for the rental growth. And now, if you take into account when we move, sorry, to the valuation part, so indeed, we have a cap rate, including rates, at 5%, which is aligned with the last CBRE prime level. But you need also here to take into account that we have under market rents for some of our assets. Which leads to, let's say, a compression of the cap rate. And if we were to apply market trends to our portfolio, then cap rates, the cap rates, including rates, would be more around 5.3%. So somewhat 30 basis points above the prime rate. We are very close to the prime rate, but this is how you can reconcile indeed the alignment, let's say, in terms of published values that you have between CBRE prime rate and our own cap rate. Okay, thank you. That's very clear. And maybe to come back on market trends, maybe if you can give us your view on the negotiation, renegotiation with tenants that you are currently doing now. Is there more or less tension than before, or more wait and see stance? How do we can assess the current tension on the market currently? Well, on our side, it's very clear because all is defined in our leases. So, we apply from January first, when it's ILAT indexed, the full ILAT impact, and we have had no pushbacks for January first, and no pushbacks, we believe, for the upcoming lease application. So, we don't have any kind of, let's say, tension or pushbacks from our clients. Okay. Thank you. We'll take now the next question from Florent Laroche-Joubert from ODDO BHF. Your line is open now. Thank you. Hi, good evening. Thank you for this presentation. I would have three questions on my side. My first question would be actually on your development and deliveries for 2025. Would it be possible to have some visibility on where you are in terms of investment for deliveries in 2025? My second question would be on the disposal plan. If you could maybe give us an update on where you are for the disposal to be executed in H2? And my third question, if we take into account the assumption that you will have some deliveries at the beginning of H2, how can we say that your guidance is conservative at the end? Maybe if we expect a higher recurring income in H2 against H1 for the annual guidance in terms of recurring net results. Thanks. Thank you. Florent- Disposal. So, Florent, once again, Samy. Just, I will start with development and, and then Aymar will, will go through with the, with the disposal side. So for development, so we, we stick to our plan, meaning, two hundred million euros for, for 2025 and 2026. And, as we said, along our capital increase, we already had, some, some developments that were secured, for pre-let developments. So, so here we, we are confident with the- with this target. And then as we said, for the envelope of two hundred million euros, it's not necessarily one hundred million euros for one year and one hundred million euros for the second year. It, it is split between the two. So, well, it can be 80, 120 or the reversion or the reverse. But, this is our intention, and we are quite confident with this one. So, now hand it over to Aymar for the disposal side. Hello, Florent. As you know, we have a program of EUR 180 million of assets to be sell between 2024 and 2026. For this year, our target was around EUR 80 million. And I can say that we are right on the track, because in Q2 we sell one asset near Cannes for EUR 18 million. And we are working today on the selling of one another asset for EUR 60 million. And, to be clear, we should announce something maybe at the beginning of after the summer. But the discussions with a buyer are going well. And now one final point on the target. So, if they were a precautionary target, no, we stick to these targets, as we said. So we are confirming EUR 197 million for rental income and EUR 135 million for recurring net income, so the group share part. And we are confident to get to these targets, but not over-achieving this for the end of the year. Okay, thank you. That's very clear. Yes. Thank you. We'll take now the next question from Amal Aboulkhouatem from Degroof Petercam. Your line is open now. Thank you. Oh, good evening, gentlemen. Thank you for taking my question. Most of my questions have been already answered, but perhaps just a follow-up on the point you made on the political context in France. If we do an exercise of, like, a political fiction, what would be the main risk that could occur if the left would take the power in France? And how could that impact your growth plan? In fact, maybe no, I consider that there is a quite no possibility for the left wing to have a majority in the parliament, the actual, the current parliament. So, the program presented by the Nouveau Front Populaire, I think wouldn't be applied, won't be applied. But if you look at the program, there will be more more taxes on companies in France. And Mm-hmm. And certainly, bad climate for business. And, maybe you read some articles on newspaper and, some companies today are waiting to engage new investments. They are waiting. Mm-hmm. and they want to see what will be the direction, the political direction, what will be the future government to make their investments. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So there is this kind of wait-and-see situation. And it's for me linked to the fear that it could be the left wing that takes the government. But for me, it won't be the case. Indeed. So because there was also, before the, these elections, also a comment in the press that few tenants have perhaps too much space today. They have been, let's say, overstoring products, and there might be some vacancy inside warehouses. Have you heard, seen anything from your existing tenants that they might perhaps have some overcapacity? We haven't had any kind of comments. On our side, we see that warehouses are quite occupied, so... And, as I said, we have a 100% occupation rate, and we don't see signs that it would deteriorate, so. And we see, and it's written in the report of CBRE, a comeback of the e-commerce actors, and they take square meters. They want to rent new square meters, and maybe it could compensate. But as for ARGAN, we don't see any problem today. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. We'll take now the next question from Céline Soo-Huynh from Barclays. Your line is open now. Good evening. I got two questions, please. The first one is on valuation. So you're calling the trough on valuation, but do you actually see transaction growing at 5.3%, which is your current valuation? For example, what is the yield you dispose the asset in comp at? And the second question is about reversion. When we'll be able to see some kind of positive impact from reversion into your, like, for, like, rental growth? And also, would you be able to publish that, like, for, like, rental growth going forward? Thank you. So Céline, yes, in terms of valuation and yields, in terms of transactions, so we have seen few transactions, and actually they are restarting. I said earlier, we have an uptick in terms of investments and transactions. And the yields that we have seen from some reports are between 5 and 5.5%, and sometimes even lower, for few prime assets. So at the 5.3% we discussed earlier, is quite reflected currently. Now, for the current asset itself. We will sold it at value. So, it was a good deal in terms of asset sales, yes. And, the tenant had the option to buy this building. And so, they used this option to buy it. And the price was included in the rent- Yep. the initial rent So, yep Price was fixed, prefixed. Now in terms of reversion, so as we said, we have a reversionary potential, but due to the way, with the portfolio of lease renewals at this stage this year, we don't have reversionary potential for 2024. So it will be for the coming years. That's very clear. Thank you very much. And thank you very much for taking the time, doing a presentation. Thanks a lot. Thanks for joining. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star two. We'll take now the next question from Kai Klose from Berenberg. Your line is open now. Yes, good evening, gentlemen. Two quick questions from my side is on page 27 of the presentation. Could you remind us what was the reason for the reduction in the current expenses? Maybe there was something special in H1 last year. I just want to understand if the level for the first half is a kind of normalized level going forward. And the second question also on that page, on the interest costs. I saw that the average cost of debt was still at 2.3%. So is the increase driven by higher hedging costs or was there anything special? Thank you. Good evening. For the current expenses, yes, H1 is slightly above H1 2023. We have some expenses linked to... Options that were raised. Oh, remuneration. Okay, mm-hmm. But in fact, we will have this kind of expenses on H2. Got it. It's only a simple move to H1 to H2. The global amount of current expenses for 2024 will be globally the same as it was in 2023. Got it. Thank you. We'll take now the next question from Wim Lewi, from KBC. Your line is open now. Yes. Hi, good evening. Thanks for taking my question. I had a question on the LTV. Can you explain a little bit the rationale to go down to 38% by 2026, as well, you're selling EUR 78 million of assets and you raised EUR 150 million. And also it seems that the cap rate seems to stabilize now, so what it seems that you're preparing for something, or can you maybe explain the rationale? So, hi, good evening. So basically for... This is Samy. For the LTV ratio, so, as we said, there are three factors, actually. So first of all, we have a natural reimbursement of mortgage loans for around EUR 100 million per year. And this is something that that will continue, and we do not make any kind of new mortgage loans until the end of 2026. So this is our first commitment. Second, on the other hand, we have raised so capital in April, which has contributed somewhat to the 4% decrease in terms of LTV over H1. Lastly, indeed, we have an assets disposal program in amount of EUR 180 million for three years, 2024 until 2026, of which EUR 78 million this year. Why do we keep this strategy? It's because getting back to a level under 40% is a healthy level, and is also a requirement from, let's say, the financial community for ARGAN. So this is why we have deployed this strategy to keep a solid balance sheet for the coming years. We will have to refinance our bond in 2026. So it's a way to be in the best conditions to go to the market in 2026. Plus our commitment in ESG topics. It's a way to have the best. The best key features, financial features for us. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So it actually pays back in better financial terms for the refinancing of the bond, if I can summarize it as that? This is a good way for us to have the best interest, right, yeah. Okay. All right, right then, a second question on the potential buildable land that you present? ... of 500,000 square meters. Can you give a bit of color on that? Like, is that owned land or is that under option? Is it permitted, is it or are they typically more extensions that you still have to ask for permits? Any color on that part? So yeah, actually you're right, within your question with the way this is made. So we don't have land bank in the same way as you may see, for example, for international players who are our peers. We have options to buy land, so you won't see it in the balance sheet for parts of the land bank that you see for the 500,000 square meters. So part of it is options for land, and on the other hand, we have extensions indeed on our existing land, so already bought. And this is a way for us also to develop. And for example, this year we have one asset for which we are doing an extension. So this is something that is recurring for us, and this is part of our model. So, you're right, 500,000 square meters is made of part extensions and part options. Okay. And is there a rough split, 50/50, 40/60, options versus owned extension? It's about 3/4 in terms of extension possibilities. Okay. And 1/4 enter for options. All right, and then just one last quick question. As we see, as you mentioned, international peers, and then I'm thinking locally, from my point of view on Montea, WDP, VGP, and they all say, France is very hard to get new greenfield land. So they're looking at brownfields, more and more, these projects pop up. Is that something also that you're looking at or that you think falls within your experience? Yes, we do some projects on brownfield. It's the case for the new building for Carrefour in Caen. We did it on a brownfield land. It was a former factory of Citroën. We did it for Amazon in Metz. It was a military zone, and it's the case also for the operation 4MURS that will be delivered at the end of this year. It's built on a military zone, too. Yes. So it's a way for us to find new areas to build. Yes. Okay. In France, we have today the chance to find also greenfield, because you have a lot of land prepared by the political authority to welcome new activities. We are able to find this greenfield land today. Yes. Okay. Thanks a lot for taking my questions. We don't have any further questions at the moment. As a final reminder, please press star one to ask a question. As we don't have any further questions, I will hand you back to Aymar de Germay and Francis Albertinelli for any closing remarks. Thank you. So thank you very much for taking part to our H1 2024 results presentation. We of course remain available to answer any questions you will have of this call, and wish to those of you who go on holidays happy summer, happy summer break, and joyful Paris Olympic Games. Thanks to all. Goodbye. Goodbye. Thank you. Goodbye. Thank you. Bye.