Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Eurocommercial Properties' half-year results conference call. My name is Ilaria Vitaloni and I am Investor Relations Officer at Eurocommercial. I am joined today by our CEO, Evert Jan van Garderen, and our CFO, Roberto Fraticelli, who will take you through the key highlights of our half-year results and provide an update on the business. With that, I am very pleased to hand over to Evert Jan to start the presentation. Evert Jan, over to you. Thank you, Ilaria. Good morning everyone, and welcome to Eurocommercial Properties half year results for 2026 and thank you for joining us. On the slide we posted our 35 years anniversary because we were founded in 1991, and that's a useful moment to reflect on what has created over time, but also to focus of course, on what we hope and will create in terms of value. During the first half year of 2026, our centers continued to attract more visitors. Our retailers delivered good sales and occupancy remained exceptionally high. That was all, of course, also a result of our active leasing and asset management initiatives. Today, Roberto and I will explain how these operational and financial developments fit together and why we believe they provide a sound platform for continued growth. I will begin with the operational review, and Roberto will then take you through the financial review. Of course, after our presentations, we will open the line for questions. I will start with a brief reminder of who we are, where we operate, and the long-term consistency of our approach. Eurocommercial was founded and listed in Amsterdam in 1991. Actually, we will celebrate that soon with ringing the gong or the bell, as we say in Amsterdam, later in end of October, because it was the 1st of November when we were listed. From the outset, the company has pursued the selective long-term investment approach with our first shopping center acquisition in France, Les Atlantes, followed by Curno in Italy in 1994. Which by the way, we still own a nice shopping center in Bergamo. We then also entered in Sweden, with Burlöv Center near Malmö, followed by Belgium in 2018 with Woluwe Shopping. In April this year, Avion Shopping in Umeå became our latest acquisition. Today, the portfolio comprises 25 shopping centers across Belgium, France, Italy and Sweden, with a value of approximately EUR 4.2 billion. Although the markets and consumer preferences have changed considerably over 35 years, the core of the model has not. Own high-quality retail destinations, stay close to retailers and customers, invest where the return is attractive, and manage the assets actively for income growth. Our portfolio spans two complementary formats. At the one end, we have the convenience-led suburban assets anchored by grocery stores and essential services. These centers obviously benefit from frequent visits and serve the everyday needs of our local communities. But on the other hand, we have the destination flagship assets where fashion, premium and international brands, leisure, entertainment, create a broader day out experience. Between those two ends of the spectrum, there are the categories you would expect, like health and beauty, personal care, food and beverage services, and social experiences. These categories are important because they support recurring visits and make the centers relevant for more than a single purchase. Our strategy connects investment selection, operational execution, financial discipline and value creation. First, the investment strategy. We focus on prime shopping centers in strong European markets with dominant catchments, solid economic fundamentals, and long-term growth potential. Selectivity is essential. We do not seek growth for the sake of growth. We look for assets where the quality is really important and where we can see an opportunity to improve the operations. Secondly, our operational strategy. We actively manage the centers through leasing data-driven insight and targeted asset management. This is where our local teams create value, improving the tenant mix, reconfiguring space, introducing new brands, and ensuring that each center remains relevant to its customers. Third, our financial strategy, which is a solid and robust strategy, and Roberto will talk about it more in his presentation. Then finally, that's probably where it is all about, it's value creation. The first three pillars must translate into outcomes for shareholders. Rental and earnings growth, attractive returns from CapEx, better portfolio quality and disciplined capital recycling. Yeah, Italy. We can't escape from Italy because it's currently our star. Not only because it is a star, it also represents 44% of the portfolio and continues to deliver strong operational performance. Importantly, 75% of the portfolio is rated A by analysts from Green Street, reflecting the quality and competitive position of these assets. The figures on this slide show how our merchandising programs have supported performance at the three Italian flagships, Fiordaliso, Carosello, and I Gigli. Evidenced by the important KPIs uplift on renewals and relettings, rental growth above indexation and retail sales. These results demonstrate that remerchandising is not a cosmetic exercise. It is a disciplined operating tool. By improving the offer, creating the right space, introducing retailers that customers want, we can strengthen trading, improve rental tension, and enhance the long-term quality of the assets. The remerchandising pipeline, which is shown here, is moving from construction and temporary disruption into income generation. We see here the examples, CremonaPo with a new Primark store, but also at Collestrada, a new Primark store. In I Gigli, we will have Lefties and Lidl opening in October, bringing the present program in that shopping center also close to completion. In France at Val Thoiry, we're also remerchandising and redevelopment. That will take some more years, but it also includes the opening of a Primark store. During these projects, affected units can be temporarily non-income producing. That has a limitation in terms of rental growth in 2025 and 2026. But as these stores open and the areas return to full income operation, we expect the income contribution to become increasingly visible with the full effect of the current major projects expected in 2027. If we look at completed projects like Woluwe Shopping and Carosello, we have put here on this slide some amounts, and they speak for themselves. Because after completion, we can really measure the returns, which are nice double-digit figures. If we look at nearly completed initiatives, which are shown here, they also deliver the projected presented results. You can see what we have invested in I Gigli, Collestrada, and CremonaPo and what the expected rental uplifts are. Obviously, the amounts and therefore returns, they vary. It is also important to stress that over the next years, it will become even more clear what the returns will be. The spin-off of the remerchandising project will also be noted in the medium and long term. The important point is not simply that each project is attractive in isolation. Together, they demonstrate a repeatable model where identifying opportunity in the merchandising mix, design a practical reconfiguration, secure the right retailers, manage the temporary disruption, and then capture the benefit through higher productivity and rental income. As these projects become fully operational, we expect stronger trading and income contribution during 2027, and we are also assessing further remerchandising opportunities across the portfolio. We will remain selective and will communicate them once the relevant agreements are sufficiently advanced. Avion Shopping in Umeå is our latest acquisition and a good example of the type of opportunity we seek. We completed the acquisition in April for approximately EUR 111 million, adding a modern, dominant regional shopping center with around 80 shops and restaurants and a strong mix of national and international brands. As you can see, the turnover growth and the footfall growth over the first six months of 2026 are very encouraging, and the property is currently yielding 8%. We have agreed terms to acquire Mood, a leisure destination adjacent to our shopping center, Fiordaliso, for an amount of EUR 7.5 million. The investment offers an attractive yield of approximately 14%, providing immediate income generation. But the strategic value goes beyond the initial yield. Fiordaliso, the adjacent retail park, and Mood can operate as a more integrated destination. The three components offer complementary reasons to visit: shopping, services, food, entertainment, and leisure. This is a relatively modest capital commitment with both immediate income and redevelopment potential, but it is also consistent with the direction of customer demand. Leisure and food and beverage offer increases dwell time, support evening activity, and strengthen the relevance of our destination beyond traditional retail hours. Then we go to the operational results. Here we see the half-year results across the key operating indicators with rental growth, rental uplift 4.7%, retail sales at 4.6%, and still a very low vacancy figure of 1%. A nice OCR, stable at 9.2%. And then, of course, footfall, quite encouraging over the six months at 3.2%. Without footfall, the rest of the KPIs will never be achieved. So, very nice to see that. If we actually look at the footfall momentum, it was broad-based across the portfolio because we have visitor numbers overall increasing at 3.2%. But we can see that the flagship centers performed particularly well. The rounded average figure of the flagships is approximately 4%. But I have to say that I Gigli is excluded from this comparison because of all the works in the shopping center. By country, footfall increased by 3.2%, as I said before, and that is a healthy pattern. It's not dependent on one center or one market, and it is continued despite construction-related disruption in parts of our portfolio. When we look at retail sales growth, the 4.6% I already mentioned, and here you can see the split over the countries. Italy, again, very strong with 7.3%, but also Belgium had a nice uplift of 3.8%, and the other countries still also have a plus. In the sector mix, it was also encouraging outstanding performance by services, food and restaurants, and health and beauty, with all the other sectors also really a plus. You could say that basically only sports was the only category to decline with -0.9%. The spread of the growth matters. It shows that performance is not being driven by a single category. You need all those categories to have a nice result overall. Again, I cannot, of course, repeat again that Italy's strong performance with 7.3% reflects the strength of the assets and the benefits of the merchandising were already delivered. If we look at the rental growth, like-for-like rental growth overall over 12 months, that's how we measure it under our models, was 2.5%, approximately 190 basis points above indexation. Because we all know that 2026 was certainly not the year of indexation. It was very small, in some cases almost zero. Italy was the strongest contributor at 5.4%, supported by active leasing, relettings, and remerchandising. Belgium delivered 3.5%, which we think is reflecting really the good performance at the Woluwe Shopping. The overall result demonstrates that even with low indexation in most markets, the portfolio can generate organic growth through leasing and active management. When we look at the EPRA vacancy, again, very stable and low at 1%, really unchanged from the year-end, and actually a bit lower than last year, June. Italy, of course, with an extremely low vacancy of only 0.2%, but also Belgium below 1%. France and Sweden improved. France to 1.4%, and Sweden went from 3.4% at the end of the first quarter to 2.6% now, as new lettings were secured. The brand names on this slide represent a mix of established international retailers and relevant newer concepts. They include fashion, beauty, sport, jewelry, value-led formats. These are brands consumers want, and we offer them in our centers. The common theme is relevance to the local customer. We use group relationships to engage with leading brands, but the final mix is tailored center by center. The right tenant is the one that strengthens the destination, complements the existing offer, and can trade sustainability in that catchment. Over the 12 months to 30 June, we completed 308 lease transactions compared with 269 in the previous period and a lower figure for 23. Out of these 308 transactions, 207 were renewals with existing tenants, whereas 101 were relettings with retailers taking new units. Across all those renewals, relettings, we see our average rental uplift of 4.7%. The additional detail you can also find in the press release. Particularly, of course, it's interesting that new lettings achieved 7.9% overall in our centers. To tell you a little bit more about the last six months, we completed 160 transactions at an average uplift of 3.5%, and most of that was actually concentrated in food and restaurants, health and beauty, and gifts and jewelry. There were strong country-level performance as well, as you can see on this slide with in Italy, renewals producing 5.2%, so that was a strong figure for renewals. Relettings with Swedish, which was in Sweden, achieved a double digit is again a nice figure to look at. If we then look at the lease expiry profile, it's, we think, well spread. A large share of rental income is secured beyond six years, and as this chart shows, the expiries in each of the first six annual bands are manageable. Approximately 35% of rental income or more than EUR 81 million has a lease end date beyond six years. This profile provides useful income visibility and reduces concentration risk. It means we're not dependent on renegotiating an unusually large portion of the portfolio in a single year. We cannot escape from saying something about artificial intelligence, AI, and where does it create value for Eurocommercial? We have identified four practical areas where AI can create value for us. The first is tenant and visitor engagement. We're using AI to improve marketing events and leasing effectiveness and to understand the drivers of footfall and sales more clearly. The second is intelligent data and reporting. We're building data platforms to automate reporting and enable conversational analytics. The aim is to give our teams faster access to consistent information and allow them to spend more time interpreting and acting on it. The third is process automation. We're targeting repetitive internal workflows such as turnover reporting, invoice processing, and contract-related tasks. The fourth is workplace intelligence. Enterprise large language models and licenses are available across the organization, and we have today 96% of our total staff using it every day, and that's, of course, nice to see. We are approaching AI pragmatically. The objective is not technology for its own sake. It's better decisions, more efficient processes, stronger engagement, supported by appropriate governance and human oversight. During the first half, we completed our advanced several major decarbonization and resilience projects. Across the group, 85% of our shopping centers now carry the EPC rating A, B, or C. Renewable electricity represents 97% of landlord-controlled consumption and 64% of tenant-controlled consumption. We have also integrated asset-level climate risk assessment into our business plans. These measures reduce carbon intensity, improve the energy performance, and strengthen long-term resilience. They also protect the competitiveness and value of the assets as regulation, energy markets, and customer expectations evolve. Our priorities fall into four connected areas. First, value creation. We will drive rental growth through active leasing and positive rental reversion, completing the current merchandising projects, and do all the other things I talked about, strengthening tenant mixes, remain alert to accretive acquisitions, of course, because that could be an external growth opportunity. Second important, cost control. We actively manage our interest rate hedging, optimize property operation costs while maintaining asset quality, and preserve a lean and disciplined overhead. Third is digitalization. I talked about AI and all the other tools we're using, and therefore it can improve our overall digital engagement with tenants and customers. Last but not least, ESG. We will continue with the decarbonization roadmap and do all the other steps as we have discussed and presented in our detailed half-year report. The common thread of all of this is, of course, disciplined execution. With this, I would like to hand over to Roberto to take us through the financial performance and capital position in detail. Wow. Thank you, Evert Jan. Welcome everybody. This is a fantastic opportunity to go through the financials. We first focus on what we do. Our focuses are on the strategic capital allocation, so the merchandising projects, and there you've heard Evert Jan saying all about the work that has been done, and that's also thanks to our fantastic leasing teams, the technical teams. There's plenty of work which has been done. We look also at accretive acquisitions. We've done Woluwe, we've done Avion, we've done Mood. That's great. Second focus is earning growth. What we do is increase, of course, the income, but also focus on the cost discipline. One of the highest costs that we all have is, of course, the interest expenses, so our 3.2% average cost of debt, the 80% hedging, and the refinancing being done as much as possible. We then go to the resilient balance sheet. LTV at around 40%, net debt at around 8%, and those are targets that we have. We like to be around those numbers. Then increasing returns that you see in the strategic CapEx, what they do, what kind of returns they can deliver. We're very happy with that. If you look at the financial results, just to give you the usual highlights, you see that the direct investment result is +2.6% to EUR 68.7 million. The net loan to value went up a little bit. That was, of course, due to the acquisition of Avion. The portfolio valuation went up a bit to EUR 4.2 billion. As you see, the average cost of debt is stable, and we reiterated the guidance at 245 to 250. Let's have a look quickly at the direct investment results. What are the main components? As you see, there is a nice increase in rental income. There's an increase in property expenses that are mainly related to Avion. There's also an increase in bad debt. There are some more provision that we took for France. Then there is a positive 1.2 in the net service charges. That's also related to a one-off that we had in Belgium. The company expenses also improved. Then you see the 1.8 higher net interest expenses, and that's partly, of course, due to Avion. We acquired the company. We're financing it with loans, but also partly due to the increase in the EURIBOR and the STIBOR. You might remember that we aim at having a 80% hedge, so 20% of our loans is unhedged. Then you get a little bit of positive news on corporate income tax and others. If you look at the valuations increased a little bit, and that is nice because this is a good growth, because it depends on the NOI and on the increase in earnings per share and in the estimated rental values of the assets. The net initial yield are stable. So, this is a good growth because it is a growth which is based on the increase on net operating income and ERVs. If you go to the EPRA NTA, we are trying to show you just the main impacts on the changes of the EPRA NTA for this year. So EPRA NTA, we add the direct investment results, then, of course, we do the adjustments which are needed for the EPRA. Then you see that the biggest impact is the dividend distribution, the 183 which we distributed. There is a little bit of stock dividend up because, of course, we issued at a premium compared to the share price. Then you see the other main impact is the 20 negative, which is related to the fact that the exchange rate with the SEK, with the krona, and krona was lower compared to the EURIBOR. If we then go and look at the source and use of funds, you see we acquired Avion Shopping Center for EUR 111 million. Then, of course, there is a part which is your dividend, which has been paid. There is a little bit which is dedicated to the CapEx, the accretive CapEx that we have mentioned. There is a bit of increase in cash. Where does that came from? EUR 40 million came from the operating cash flow, and the other EUR 22 million came from increase in borrowing. You can see the parallel between the increase in borrowings and the acquisition of Avion Shopping Center. Now let us look at our priorities as well. What do we want to do? We still look at prudent leverage. So, the target of net loan to value around 40%, net debt to EBITDA at eight. Diversified funding, we are still very happy with our banks, and they provide us with fantastic funding and are very easy to contact and very reasonable when negotiating. So, we are very happy with that. We still keep an aim of 80% of hedging. So that gives also a little bit of flexibility of acting into the interest rate market the moment that we see that the curve can be more favorable to us than in other times. We also want to keep the long-term visibility. The debt maturity profile, you will see in another slide, is really kept at more in the long term. If we go to a snapshot of what we have done in H1 2026, the main thing is that, of course, the cost of debt remained unchanged at 3.2%. We increased the leverage modestly, thanks to the fact that we acquired Avion. We give you, of course, the overview of the key financial metrics, which more or less in line with some improvements here and there compared to December 2025. Now, this slide, we show you what we have done in 2026. So, we concluded the financing that we had signed in 2025, and that is for around EUR 588.5 million. There you also see the new loan on Avion Shopping Center, which was done with SEB. We are very thankful to our banks. We are also a bit showing off with this slide because there is not a lot to do than in 2027 and 2028, which we will see in the other slide. If you look at the maturity profile of our loans, you see that 2027 and 2028, basically a little bit of amortization on the existing loans. The real refinancing will come in 2029, 2030, and 2031. We still have a lot of time in front of us to look at the renegotiations and the refinancing of our assets. Now, a little note also from an accounting perspective to our 35 years. You see, in 1991, we began with a portfolio of, let's call it 330 million Dutch guilders, which we translated roughly into the EUR 150 million. We went from there to the actual portfolio size, which is EUR 4.2 billion. The portfolio there was diversified. We had some residentials, we had some offices, and now we clearly show our focus on the shopping center. We had no leverage at that time, and now we have a leverage of, let's say, 40.9%, which is also helping in increasing the results that we then provide to you. What's really interesting is, of course, since inception, since the beginning of this EUR 150 million, we actually gave a total return of 6.42 per annum, which we hope you are satisfied with. That's really thanks to all the employees that we have, past, present, all the hard work that they did. So, thank you to all of them for all of this. Let's look at, try and finish. Eurocommercial, if we look at this year, so the first seven months of 2026, we actually also have delivered around 15.1% of total return, which is also nice. Here in the table, you can see the increase in the direct investment result up to 244, and the increase in the dividend up to 183. If you do as you could, the direct investment result that we produced in 2025, which is 2.44, and divided by the share price that was there at the end of December, which was 26.905, then you get a nice investment of around 9.4%, which is not bad. We are too cheap. The guidance, direct investment result reaffirmed to 45 to 50 per share with further growth expected in 2027. What we want to stress out is that, of course, you've seen all these remerchandising programs that we have of these remerchandising projects. They are fantastic, but of course they take a toll on 2026, and they will fully contribute in 2027. Because all the remerchandising that we are doing, they are still running for part of them in H2 2026. Some of them will open for Christmas 2026, which is also the aim that we and the retailers have. We want to be there for Christmas, do the entire season, and all be happy and merry with that result. 2027 is the year where you actually see the full contribution of Avion, you see the full contribution of all these remerchandising projects. With that, we go back to the operators. We thank you very much, and we are ready for your Q&A. Ladies and gentlemen, we are now ready to take your questions. If you wish to ask a question, please press pound key five on your telephone keypad to register your question. If you wish to withdraw your question, please press pound key six. The first question comes from Lynn Hautekeete from KBC. Please go ahead. Hi. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for the presentation. I have some questions on your development pipeline. In your report, you mentioned that you are in the planning phase of an extension project in both Carosello and I Gigli. Do you have any further details, maybe the investment size or the return metrics in the time of those extensions? We are very hopeful, Lynn. As you know, in Italy, they are very quick with permit, providing them and everything. So, we have been doing this for some years. I would say the hope is that we get a proper approval for these plannings in the coming two years, maybe. What we would like to do is, of course, come up with the final project once we are sure of what kind of permits we get. So, how many square meters, how many licenses, where about, so that we can actually then finalize all the meets. But for now, let us say we are asking, we have been asking, we continue asking. We have positive vibes, but with politics, you never know. So that is why we are a bit careful on that. Okay. But two years noticed. Secondly, on the Val Thoiry, the redoing on the Laurent Raffault sites. Just there, I think you mentioned that it will take a bit longer than initially expected, and I was wondering if you could give some timeline there and maybe some color on the redevelopments. Yeah, Lynn, Val Thoiry, it's not so much that it is taking longer than expected. It's just a very long remerchandising project, and it involves indeed also 2027 and 2028, as I said. That has all to do with, indeed, Laurent Raffault. Currently, outside the gallery, they have a standalone, let's say, unit box, which they rent. They're now building their own unit, their own store, on the other side of the road, where they bought the land. Those building works are currently happening. It's still on schedule, but it takes quite some time to really build it. Then they have to move out. Then we need to refurbish that entire unit to make it ready for the retailers we have signed up, including Primark. By the time you finish, it will be end of 2028, maybe early 2029 even, when these tenants are opening. Particularly one of them is important as well to move there is Decathlon. Then they will leave the gallery. That is giving us nice space back, which is good space in the middle of the center to lease to attractive tenants within Val Thoiry. Val Thoiry it's a little bit slower. I would not say it's an escargot, but we will get there. This is a nice project, because Val Thoiry is, of course, one of our centers in France, which still do perform very well, so close to the border, with the location near Geneva. That's the plan over there. Okay. That makes perfect sense. Then maybe a last one, if I may, is on remerchandising. Indeed, your top line has an impact on the strategic vacancy coming from the remerchandising projects. I think the impact will be slowly phased out in the second half. Could you maybe quantify how much you would expect to gain in total as of the second half when the remerchandisings are ending in terms of top line? Yeah. Well, I think the second half is not yet the period where we see the full return kicking in. As we said, there are a few important openings scheduled for Q4. Typically, also Primark, but some others as well. Ready for Christmas, as Roberto said, we are always on the same page with our retailers that these openings must happen before the really most important season of the year starts. I'm afraid that we really see those benefits appearing in 2027, Lynn. That's why we also reaffirmed our guidance. No problem with that. The real benefits will follow in 2027. Roberto, further comment? Yeah, sure. Because some of them are opening end of October, some of them are opening in November. That is really focused on the Christmas. So, we asked them to put their brand-new store, something very nice and flashy. So, we are giving them also the time to build it. But, yeah, the impact will not be a lot, Lynn. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. The following question comes from Steven Boumans from ABN AMRO ODDO BHF. Please go ahead. Hi. Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I have a couple that I put first. For the new remerchandising projects that you see in your portfolio ahead that you have not started, what kind of size are we talking about? Is it like EUR 10 million or EUR 50 million or even more in the next three years? Do you also expect solid double-digit returns similar to what you disclosed today for that? Yeah. Thank you, Steven, for your questions. The message we wanted to give very clear is, listen, the remerchandising projects which we have started and are now in nearly completion or have been completed, but that doesn't mean that we will stop or have no further possibilities. As a matter of fact, you will not be surprised to hear that we see more and further potential in Italy. I think I Gigli, Roberto, and you can maybe give some more detail, but also Carosello. These are really big shopping centers where we can do more. Of course, that's the potential we will certainly try to unlock. Maybe some follow-up. Steven, you're absolutely right. You've seen the amount of CapEx that we've foreseen for the current one, so I Gigli, Collestrada, and CremonaPo. There are many more that we are of course planning. What we try and do is to select the moment that you might remember, the trigger moment. So, when we finally achieve an agreement with one of the major retailers to start the remerchandising program. What we do is, of course we are in negotiation, so there's also confidentiality. But once we have agreed the terms, then we can come up also with the project that we would like to do, how much we think we're going to invest, but we do not want to do that in advance because of course we have nothing agreed yet. If that makes sense, Steve. Okay. Does make sense. Thanks. We wait for more notes, hopefully, one of the next reporting days. Compared to the past. Maybe a different question then. On M&A opportunities in the broader sense. You talked about joint venture of Woluwe. Is that something to expect in the next 12 months? And maybe also the other way around. Are you currently in acquisition processes? And maybe is it more like the Swedish acquisition or maybe more like Mood acquisition? Can we expect something from that, let's say, in the next 12 months? Any color is welcome there. Thank you, Steven. Always good questions to ask, of course. To start with your first one on joint ventures. We have always said we are open to look into joint ventures. We could do more, particularly probably on our flagships. So that is always on the table. But currently, I do not expect that we will see there immediately changes. The problem is always, you have seen it with these remerchandising projects, that it is nice that we can put so much effort in it, but it is also nice to, in the end, also have the fruit, the results from it 100%, rather than sharing it 50/50. So, there is always a little bit this dilemma. But, no, I am not ruling it out. I think it also is linked a little bit to the overall appetite for retail property and probably more and more also for shopping centers, which is being evidenced by more transactions over the last couple of months, year than before. That institutional money is back in shopping centers. So, that obviously is important because a long-term investor into one of our centers where we obviously take the lead and do all the management could certainly be helpful and unlock for us funds to reinvest. On your other question, we are always monitoring our markets, and indeed Mood is a result of, okay, you can say it is very close by because it is next to our mall in Fiordaliso. But no, we are always looking at where we can do creative things. I think Avion is a clear example with an asset where it is yielding at a nice level. We are very active with the leasing there. As you may recall, we had some higher vacancy in that shopping center than we are used to in our other centers, but that was actually the potential. We have done already a first nice letting to a toy retailer, Lekia, and there is more to come. Hopefully, we can announce it at some point. It always takes a bit of time to reshuffle here and there, but no, we are absolutely looking into what is possible. Yeah. Okay, clear. My last one. You mentioned positive investment markets. Institutional money is back. We have seen a lot of transactions. Does that entail H2 revaluations could be higher than H1? Oof. Well, let us say the valuations, what we saw really is that we got uplifts in value because we had a higher NOI. No yield shifts or changes. Obviously, depending on what we will see further, maybe this quarter, next quarter in the markets, there could be some change in yields. If yields do not change, then I think what we will see is just a reflection of further increase in rental income, which obviously suits us because we will have more rental income due to the remerchandising. I think it is encouraging to see typically also more in Southern Europe, all those transactions and how active these markets is. Obviously, Spain, but now also Italy. That is certainly, I think, a positive signal. Yeah. Right, Roberto? Yeah, true. We look at the ERVs positively because, of course, of the remerchandising. We also monitor the Reber, because you never know where the interest curve is, and that, of course, has an impact on perceptions. We might see some improvement of yields in particular in some countries. The valuers will then at the end decide whether they are happy with this evidence, yes or no. Okay. Clear. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you, Steven. Thank you. The following question comes from Kai Klose from Berenberg. Please go ahead. Yes, good morning. I have three questions, if I may. The first one, you mentioned a slight increase in bad debt and provisions in the first half. May I get you to give more details for which region and a certain group of tenants that applied? The second question is on page 33 of the release; the ERV of the portfolio compared to December was slightly lower. Is this because you captured some of the rent reversion, or is there any other reason for? The third question is on Avion in Sweden. Is there any potential, or could you give some detail if there is potential for any future remerchandising already now? Well, thank you, Kai, for your questions. For the bad debts, I will hand over to Roberto to talk about that. Let us say we highlighted some tenants in particular in France. We said, "Well, maybe let us take an extra provision for them just to be on the safe side." Because we have seen some tenants where their financial statements and where their balance sheet was deteriorating a bit. So, we decided to take some extra provision just in case. For concerns the page 33, the lower, let me see. What was your question? It was the ERV. ERV. That is mainly related to France, from memory. Yeah, I think obviously we follow the EPRA definitions carefully. Yeah. We have to put the analyzed net rents in. In the case of France, the amount you see in the table is a bit lower than at the end of December, reflecting also some of the deals Deals we had to do, we have done in France, in terms of getting nice, good brands in. In some cases, we then not did achieve the passing rent. That is the effect. Other countries it is different. In France, you can see that. Good. Kai, on Avion remerchandising. Indeed, the remerchandising, if we can use it a little bit more as a, let's say, container for all sorts of leasing activities, major leasing activities to improve the occupancy, to improve the tenant mix. Then the Avion is an example typically where we had the vacancy, which is there higher than in our other centers, that is exactly the opportunity. We are quite excited about reducing that vacancy. We see a lot of potential. We are in a lot of discussions at the moment. Hopefully, we can be more vocal on this later in the year, because that is then a big plus if we reduce the vacancy in Avion, particularly on the first floor of the gallery. Ground floor is fully occupied, but the first floor, that is where the potential is. That is certainly one element. The other element for Avion is that we also have possibility to increase the food and beverage offer outside on the parking. There is currently now a McDonald's, but we can do more food offer there on a plot of land which is included in the deal. I think that are the two special features of Avion where we can create value. Perfect. Many thanks. The very last one, if I may. The appointment of a new group leasing director is a bit of reflection that more international tenants ask for a couple different type of contracts, or is it more for the evolution of the group going forward? No, let's say we are very happy to have been able to announce this appointment because, as you know, we are active in four countries and we see a lot of the retailers who are active in our countries, and we see some going from north to south. Maybe not too many yet going south to north, but hopefully with Laurent on board, we can help them a bit. No, I think it is really important that we are acting as a group and coordinate the leasing, making sure that we really, of course, country by country, we are doing deals, but in some cases, it is also very good to look from a group level, international level, as the retailers do. So, I think we are very happy to have Laurent with us, and it will further help in our leasing and remerchandising activity. I think the number one key activity of Eurocommercial is leasing. We will maximize efforts to perform. Okay, many thanks. You are welcome, Kai. The following question comes from Pieter Runneboom from Van Lanschot Kempen. Please go ahead. Hi, team. Thanks for taking my question. I got a question on the additional rent that you published on the three remerchandising projects. Yep. Does it take into account the temporary disruption? In other words, does the rental uplift there reflect incremental higher rents compared to no remerchandising, or does it reflect the incremental higher rents compared to a vacant unit? What we try to do, and we try to describe it on the top, is we're comparing, let's say, 2027 rents, which we know because we signed the contracts. With both rental income before we started with the entire operation. So that you give it so moments which are unaffected by the works. So, what is the rent in 2027? And we take out inflation, just not to cheat. So that we can show you the increase then that is achieved also, which is going to be achieved, that's for the future with the remerchandising and the renewals and relettings. Okay, that is very clean and quite spectacular. Lastly on the- Yeah. You can do the math to see what it is in percentage, but we thought we would just give you the amounts. Yeah. For I Gigli to be completely and totally fair, of course, we replaced a hypermarket. So, the step up that you do compared to other retailers is higher. Yeah. Okay, thanks. I got one on the OCRs. So, year-on-year, these dropped 90 basis points to 9.2%. Yep. In the same period, the retail sales were up 0.3%. That explains less than half of the drop, the higher retail sales. What are the other drivers then in the drop in OCR? Yeah. Well, you are correct. There is increase in sales. There are also more efficiency for concerns the service charges. That also helps. Of course, that is counter by our greed to increase the rents. I would say the two main factors are, of course, the increase in turnovers, which is driven by the increase in footfall, which we are trying to achieve also with these projects, and also all the ESG that you see now, the solar panels, the refurbishments, and everything that is all aimed also at try and manage in a more active way the service charges so that we can provide lower the service charges in the future because we improve the production, for example, of electricity and that kind of stuff. Okay. That is very helpful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Pieter. The following question comes from Benjamin Legrand from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead. Good morning. Can you hear me? Hi, Benjamin. We can hear you very well, Benjamin. Nice. Perfect. Thanks for taking my questions. Just a couple from me. You just mentioned agreed to increase the rent also considering your OCR, which is pretty low, or let's say lower than it used to be. I am just basically wondering how much higher you go in terms of pushing the rent in terms of rental uplift. Can you actually go higher to what we are seeing before, or should we expect this reversion to stabilize now? Also related to the, let's say, like-for-like rental growth. In some of your peers, we see that the like-for-like is boosted compared to your performance. While if I look at the operational performance of your retailers, you are actually better, and I think a lot of it comes from initiative. We talk about screens, we talk about marketing fees, et cetera, which is not something you really mention a lot. I am just wondering if it is some potential for you guys also to push your like-for-like rental growth higher in the future. So that would be my two questions. Yeah. No, thank you, Benjamin, for the questions. If we look at like-for-like rental growth and then also look at the uplifts on renewals and relettings, then you say, of course there is some connection. But we should not forget that the renewals relettings is just a proxy of the whole portfolio around, you could say almost 20% of our minimum guaranteed rent. That is basically what you can do because these contracts either expire and you renew or you find new tenants. Whereas the rental growth is the whole portfolio. The rental growth we measure is also including any, if there is a lease incentive, a stepper for maybe a short rent free, it is all in there. In the renewals relettings, obviously, you really measure what your future rent will be. We basically also, I know that some of our peers use ERVs, but we still keep an eye on the passing rent. I think that is quite a difference. But good to mention, I think, for the explanation. If we look at income from screens, income from electrical cars as some of our peers call it, specialty leasing. Yes, we do that as well. But it's basically included in our rental income because we are not operators as such. But we try to lease space or surface or whatever it is. We do not show a special income line for that, which also has to do with our Dutch REIT status, because in the end, we are a REIT, but we can only be a REIT if we invest in property and lease property, and that's what we're doing also in the specialty leasing. Be assured that we do all those things, meaning that whatever we can lease, we do lease in space, but we're not operators or suddenly turning ourselves into a marketing company or a parking company or an electricity company. Yes. Maybe also to add, if you look at the future, of course, there was also the merchandizing projects that would have an impact on the like-for-like, also the impact that you will see, that's what we're building now. It's actually for the renewals and relettings of the future. So right now, we are building new revamped shopping malls to attract more people to increase turnovers. But then, of course, let's say around between 15% and 20% of the leases are actually under negotiation every year. So, what you will see is that turnover is increasing for the retailers. By the next round of negotiations, we will be able to increase the rental income by a higher percentage because, of course, the benefit from the results of this merchandizing. If that makes sense, Benjamin. Yeah. It makes perfect sense. But for the specialty leasing and screens, et cetera, it's just because some of your peers, it really sounds like it's the driver of the like-for-like performance. A portion of it at least. I'm just wondering if it's going to be a real driver for you, too, or if you're just following the same pace as your, let's say, standard rental income. Yeah. We are busy with screens. We are busy with a lot of stuff with parking as well. That is all included in the rental income because we see that as leasing of spaces within the shopping center. If you look at Tesla, of course, they install new car chargers. They pay a lot of money. If you look at screens, you can rent them out, and they also provide a lot of money. What we try and do is, for example, use part of this money for the service charges. Part of this money is really rental income. Depending on also on who does the investment. Sometimes you ask the provider to put the screens on. You accept the lower rental income, but then you also have a lower CapEx. Sometimes you agree to install the screens, and then you can ask for a higher rental income. So, it depends from a lot of things. Okay. Thank you. You are welcome. Our final question comes from Tom Berry from Green Street. Please go ahead. Morning, guys. Just a very quick question from me. I wonder if you could just provide a comment on the new development that may come online in 2028 in Brussels, very close obviously to your flagship, the Brooklyn development, and just how you're thinking about that from a competition standpoint. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Tom, for your question. Indeed, a project which has been there for many, many years, and which has now been more activated because after a number of rounds, there's finally a permission to build, let's say, retail there, but also, from memory, there can be a data center and other types of property. It's a big plot on the ring in Brussels. Obviously, I can only refer to public information, but let's say what we understand, that the project is being promoted, that they're looking obviously for tenants, and also look for a planning to build it. According to the latest news, at least the plans have been extended or, let's say, postponed for another year. If it happens, we have to see what in the end will be built there and how it is leased. I think it's also a fair comment that this is in Flanders, and aimed at customers in Flanders, whereas the catchment which Woluwe has is mostly in the east and the south of Brussels. So, there will be maybe some overlap, but our catchment is Francophone, French-speaking people in Brussels and in Wallonie. So, whether there will be competition, difficult to assess but for now, we don't see that really as an issue for Woluwe. We'll see what the future brings. But that's all I can say about Brooklyn. Thank you. It appears we have one more question from Amal Aboulkhouatem from Degroof Petercam. Please go ahead. Hey, Amal. Hello, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. Just to come back on France and the performance. I am just struggling to reconcile the footfall increase with the retailer sales increase with a 4% footfall increase, only 1.4 retailers. Is there any specific explanation here? We probably need to stop them to shop. But no, Amal, indeed, it's not always a clear correlation or that more footfalls translates into more turnover. I think so far, we're happy that at least the footfall is growing. That's a good sign. But the turnovers hopefully will follow. But indeed, we spotted the same, let's say, I'm not saying anomaly but there is this gap. Hopefully those turnover numbers do improve as well at the same pace as the footfall is developing. Roberto, any? True. But we also look, for example, if you take Enghien, of course, there's a negative footfall, and the negative on the turnovers. Because if you close the hypermarket, for example, that has a lot of footfall and also quite a significant turnover. But for us, let's say, the income at the end, it's not really a huge income because of course they pay lower rent than the normal tenant. So, for example, if you close the hypermarket in Enghien, then you will see a decrease in visitors numbers, which is higher than the decrease in turnover. So, those are things that could also play. Because this has been, as last year, a bit of a year of change with all these merchandising projects. We are, I think, as curious as you are to see what we'll be in 2027 when we get rid of all these disruptions, and to see what is the real impact on footfall and what is the real impact on turnovers. If that makes sense, Amal. Okay. Yeah. It's not linked to Passage du Havre, for example, which has a specific situation on the way to the train station. Yeah. Roberto was talking about Italy, and you particularly also looked at France where you mentioned Passage du Havre. There, the figures are quite encouraging in terms of also the footfall, but then we know it's a passage. As I said before, we need to stop those people in Passage du Havre to make them shopping. We are doing that part but also some changes in the tenant mix over there. Hopefully we are successful. Also, The conversion of the upper level at Intersport. That's also maybe. Just to pop up on France, would you consider asset disposal or asset rotation to finance future growth as you have been successful to acquire in Sweden and Italy and France is clearly weaker than the other markets. You are looking at even if the market is not easy for sure these days. Yeah, asset rotation obviously is on our agenda. That also means that you have to see where the opportunities really, where the markets, and as I said before, we see that a market like Italy is opening. France is quite soft, you could say. It is something which may have to do also with the macro politics, et cetera. Therefore, we are very glad that we are acting in four markets and not in one, so that we can still make use of our country weightings. As you have seen by just one transaction, yeah, in Sweden. Sweden is the Number 2 country in the portfolio, and France Number 3. Yeah, these things vary. I am sure France will recover. It is a big country, it is a big market, but at the moment, probably a bit more struggling than our other markets. We will focus always on all our four markets. Asset rotation is always nice to do. Let us see where the opportunities are. For the moment, I think in France, we do not see a lot of transactions. Maybe that improves, I hope. Yeah. Okay. Perhaps then the last question on my side, just on the guidance, if you see the statutory pressure for in H1 and multiply by two, we are already above the guidance. Is there anything to expect in H2 or is it just out of caution that you did not raise the guidance? Yeah, indeed. H2, this year, you could say caution. Yeah, there are a few elements which play a role for us. Of course, timing of when rental income kicks in. We already talked about opening of stores mostly before Christmas, but that, of course, will then not contribute so much in this year. We monitor the Swedish krona, which is a volatile currency. Was quite strong or relatively stronger in the first half, but now has weakened, is above 11 again for some time, which always has an impact on our earnings. It is all marginal, but these things all add up. The other effect Roberto talked about is an increase in the three months EURIBOR and the three months STIBOR. Not massively, but compared to if you look at Q1, by the way, when we did quite some swaps, so we are very happy we did so. But we have a part, it's only 20%, even less than 20% of floating debt. But obviously, we roll it over on three months EURIBOR or three months STIBOR, and therefore the expense will also be a bit higher. So, all in all, we said let's just. We reaffirm the guidance, no problem. But we also need to be realistic and, as you know, us, we always try to deliver what we estimate in a proper way. I do know indeed. Thank you very much, gentlemen, for this answer. I appreciate it very much. You're welcome. That was our final question. I would now like to hand the call back over to Evert Jan for any closing remarks. Thank you very much all of you who listened into this conference call and also all those analysts who asked the questions. All very useful. We are very happy that we could today communicate our results and have this call. I think on balance, we can say very happy with the operational results and all the other facts we talked about. From us, Roberto and myself as a board, we would like to thank everybody.