Jan van Geet VGP tijdens de VFB-Happening op 30 maart 2019

The success of an industrial company was good, and we are fully integrated, where we do most of our buildings ourselves. I therefore also have 182 full-time employees. Today, many engineers divide our buildings into components with us. We then coordinate ourselves, like farmers. We try to focus. Today we are active in 12 different countries. Last year we added new ones, but not many. We are active in 12 different countries. Last week we named this year. Everywhere we start building, we don't just have the flag contacts; we maintain them. We focus on the big ones for our warehouse, which has been needed since the beginning. Location, location, location. We are truly convinced. We try to be very close to large population centers, directly at the highway exit, on plots accessible by public transport. That is very important for us, with good technical infrastructure so we can attract the broadest spectrum of tenants, including e-commerce, mail-order, and automation, which require very large capacity and flexibility. We have to be operational everywhere 24/7, and we like parks where we can scale a bit with multiple tenants at the same time, because there's always something—either someone is growing or someone is having a harder time. Today, throughout our history, we have never been below 95% occupancy rate. Today we are at 99.6%, nearly 100%, and we try to build standardized buildings. I am very passionate about it. The roof floor for Amazon and many well-known clients was built in a building that was actually our standard. If someone later moves out, we think long-term. There are cases where we also have other activities—like building a printing press, logistics for Mike, many examples—but mainly we are now in 12 countries. Those 12 countries include Germany, the largest consumer market and also our biggest market. This year, 55% to 50% of our total construction will be in Germany, and that is a very significant remark at this moment. Germany is still a very important market, but not completely declining, because each year we add about 150 to 100,000 square meters. That is not declining in the overall picture, including Spain, which is also a very big market for us, where we are also growing. At the end of last year, we had two billion euros in assets. In absolute value, that is not so much compared to others, but it’s a good size. And that is simply a way to do it because we handle all the value creation. Last year I created a matrix organization with 180 people, actually mirrored on models that exist in the industry where we work. Unlike a typical real estate company, I use key performance indicators. Our people all get goals they need to achieve. I have an app on my phone with which I can monitor everything online—very stressful for my employees, but it works incredibly well. It’s recognition and just seeing how many contracted tenants we have is an important parameter. How many countries, how many partials we have contracted, and then the selection I still do myself. Officially, I make the final decision. We have in-house our own concept design and our own construction in Germany and the Czech Republic, a huge advantage where we do everything ourselves. So it starts with advice, and we also build in Spain and Italy, and in England we still use contractors for now. For now, we see good prices there. In Germany, we had to do that well to be competitive in the market. We have a very nice team that deploys tenants everywhere, and we do our own property management. Our tenants are also people, and we do differently for our tenants. We spend about 1.5 to 3% of the rent price on building maintenance to ensure everything runs smoothly as it should. Yes, we are farmers, not Montea, not GVV. We are simply a real estate company with the advantages and disadvantages at that level. In the existing model, 80% of profit is paid out, requiring constant capital increases. We try a different model: as a large developer, part of our profit comes from actual realized gains, not just theoretical in our books. When we sell to a joint venture, we get cash, like Monday's closing with Allianz—a closing of 154 million gross, and under 31 million euros in cash comes in. So that system works really well, recycling a lot of cash. So we develop, retain our own stake, and sell to joint ventures that we manage ourselves. Last year we also got 10 million views out of it, and at the same time, we maintained our growth and our assets. That is really the key to success for VGP: keeping everything, because you have existing properties that generate many new inquiries. They are just working with our team. Koenraad comes back to inspire our business. Patrick, four corners—different long-term decisions are important. That customer contact means we generally have very long leases, typically around 8 years for logistics real estate, which is very long. You see that we can convert quickly into assets, those fully built properties, which are 99% leased. So we also have a very low vacancy rate—no park has any vacancy today. All locations function well. And with growth, since 2018, we have strengthened a bit. We are a bit cyclical, sometimes with larger projects that come in or smaller ones. At the moment, we have 218 clients. We have already signed almost 15 new contracts in the first 3 months of this year. So we have a very good start in 2021, and we also count on the first phase of the grass mowing, because the second phase is being built—it's only the first phase, 9 out of 23 in nine weeks. Yes, things are going well right now. We are at 4.1 million in contracted revenue at the end of the year, now at a little over 120. The income is worth much more than before, but I have brought a few things. Do you want to sell that building? And they say, why would we? A buyer would have to invest at lower values, which pushes things down. Group 7 always focuses on quality according to the basic parameters of the newer ones that come and go, and never has problem tenants. So we never participate in that. We never look at the rouches—there are almost no vacancies. Most of them are at the peak of my computers. So a chapter somewhere about the preservation of the city and that gets written out, and then everyone, and the lowest price goes to the political lowest part of the web and the Sony. We look at our own bank and then we visit. We try to buy the most beautiful, the sexiest, and the really best plots in the market. We always buy the most fictitious plots. There are many different scratches we try to use. Most municipalities in Germany prefer to know who the Dutch are, but it works for us every time. For me, location is everything. If a location has all the parameters, I take it. We have never done otherwise. We ask for the catalog, musicians deliver, and we build the first building speculatively. Because people have to see it standing. Once it's built, it's usually even before the exterior is finished, a tenant leases it. In this market, it's very good now, but we remain cautious. We target 80% pre-leasing, so we are a bit cautious, but we are still at 77% so far. Not that we are different.