PATRIZIA SE

Speech by Wolfgang Egger, CEO

Member of the Board of Directors and

Executive Director

at the Annual General Meeting on 25 May 2023

- published on 25 May 2023 -

- check against delivery -

- 1 -

Dear shareholders,

friends and partners of PATRIZIA, ladies and gentlemen,

I'd like to join my colleagues by welcoming you to this year's Annual General Meeting!

We're looking forward to talking with you today. This exchange is crucial, especially now that the market environment is so challenging. So we're eager to answer any questions you have about the 2022 financial year, our strategy, and of course how we're navigating PATRIZIA and our clients through this demanding environment.

As was mentioned earlier, unlike at the virtual Annual General Meetings of the past two years during the pandemic, this time you can once again pose your questions directly to us during the event. In this way, we're combining the benefits of in-person and online Annual General Meetings: we can enjoy the range and flexibility of a virtual meeting while also being able to have the direct exchange with you that we have always prized.

Honoured shareholders,

As you have already heard, the market environment has undergone a fundamental change over the past year and a half. Rising interest rates, high energy costs, Russia's attack on Ukraine, and macroeconomic uncertainty are putting pressure on many different markets - especially real estate markets. Over the past year, investment and transaction activity has shrunk dramatically, both in the real estate markets and in infrastructure. Many project developments are being postponed or scrapped entirely. For the time being, investors are scaling back their investments in real assets - which include real estate and infrastructure. Everyone's waiting for signs of interest rates levelling off and the corresponding trend towards price floors. The challenging market environment is leaving its mark on our business as well: the past year did not see the market recovery and renewed upswing in transactions and investments that was hoped for. As a result, we were unable to reach our original targets for income and growth. We are also dissatisfied with PATRIZIA's share price performance as it fails to reflect our Company's long- term value.

After all, long-term demand for real assets has never waned. Investing in real estate and infrastructure is the only way to solve future-defining issues resulting from global megatrends:

  • The green transformation of business and society is gathering pace. Without investments in modern real estate and infrastructure, we will not achieve the required level of decarbonisation.
  • Further population growth, and the urbanisation that goes along with it, calls for new concepts in urban development, mobility and logistics.
  • Demographic change, new ways of working and shifts in shopping behaviour have changed how almost all real estate segments are used and are placing additional demands on infrastructure.
  • Digitalisation and smart technologies offer a wide range of solutions. But these don't appear out of nowhere: they require expansion of the digital infrastructure as well as the modernisation of real assets.

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Ladies and gentlemen,

Investments in real estate and infrastructure are essential for shaping our sustainable future. So it is still true that real assets are investments with a future.

Over the past few years, we've kept PATRIZIA firmly on course to benefit from the long-term trend towards real assets:

  • First: We've created a future-proof international management structure that is close to both the market and business operations.
  • Second: Our business model is resilient - and enables us to emerge from crises stronger than before.
  • Third: We have a clear growth plan.
  • Fourth: We have a strong client base and continue to grow internationally.
  • Fifth: We consistently live up to our corporate responsibility.

This sets the course for PATRIZIA's future success. We will emerge from the current market situation stronger than before. After all, every crisis gives us an opportunity to

  • attract new clients,
  • invest for our clients at attractive conditions,
  • and target the expansion of PATRIZIA's product range through suitable strategic acquisitions.

We are well positioned to make the most of these opportunities. I'd now like to explain why this is the case.

First: We've created a future-proof international management structure.

Ladies and gentlemen,

At last year's Annual General Meeting, we talked about why the legal form of a European public com- pany, a Societas Europaea or SE for short, is the best fit for PATRIZIA. We also explained why we added international leaders to our Supervisory Board, now our Board of Directors.

In the previous financial year, we successfully completed the transition to an SE following your overwhelming support. Here again are the three main reasons why we made this change:

  • Being an SE better reflects the international dimension of our business and makes us more attractive to international investors.
  • By expanding our Supervisory Board - or Board of Directors as it is now - we've gained addi- tional expertise for our international growth, innovative investment solutions and digitalisation.
  • Through our new Executive Committee, we can accelerate the implementation of our growth strategy. This is because placing the activities of all our business areas close to our clients and markets allows us to make decisions quickly.

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I am sure that we have everything we need going forward. We have an outstanding management team, which recently welcomed two internationally renowned leaders. Following on from Uwe Reuter's re- marks, I'd like to add that I'm especially pleased that we have recruited Asoka Wöhrmann, who will be my successor as CEO.

  • Mr Wöhrmann is an exceptional leader in the investments industry.
  • He has more than 20 years of experience at Deutsche Bank and at DWS, one of the world's leading asset managers.
  • He has a wealth of international experience handling all kinds of investments and of course a strong international client network.
  • Mr Wöhrmann is a driver of profitable, dynamic growth.
  • Impressive credentials, yes, but I'm most struck by his integrity, values and energy.
  • He possesses the entrepreneurial passion required to inspire our clients, our management team and our employees on the next leg of PATRIZIA's journey.
  • This is why Mr Wöhrmann is the ideal person to succeed me as CEO: he will lead PATRIZIA into our next chapter of international growth.

For me this means stepping aside to make way for an internationally experienced investment manager and CEO, leaving me free to focus on my duties as a member of the Board of Directors. My top priorities will then be our most important client relationships and of course actively supporting PATRIZIA's strategic development going forward.

As PATRIZIA's founder, I will remain the majority shareholder and am looking forward to working closely with the entire management team.

But Asoka Wöhrmann isn't the only new addition to PATRIZIA. Effective 1 June this year, Slava Shafir is joining us as Chief Operating Officer. He's going to help us make our processes and workflows even better and more efficient.

  • Mr Shafir has more than 20 years of experience working in leadership positions with responsi- bility for operational processes and technology in the financial sector. His expertise will help us further digitalise our platforms and thus create the conditions for more scalable growth. To- gether, we will also further enhance our client service by incorporating new technologies.
  • Mr Shafir's CV includes positions at Alex. Brown & Sons, Deutsche Bank, Barclays Capital, and
    Corsair Capital.
  • At Barclays Ventures he worked closely with Fortune 500 companies and fast-growing technol- ogy firms to generate new income, create value for clients and drive business growth.
  • In this way, Mr Shafir has extensive management experience and technological expertise and will expand our international horizons.
  • We stand to benefit from all that experience and all these skills as PATRIZIA continues to grow.

Both Asoka Wöhrmann and Slava Shafir are strong, self-made men. By which I mean they are people with profound emotional intelligence, who always go the extra mile to achieve their goals, who provide genuine leadership while never thinking that they are superior.

Following his term as co-CEO, Thomas Wels will continue to support us in the role of Senior Advisor.

We would like to express our gratitude for all he has done for PATRIZIA. He has played a major role in expanding our international business and crafting our medium-term strategy.

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That brings me to my second point: Our business model is highly resilient.

Ladies and gentlemen,

We touched on this right at the start: after about a decade of ideal investment conditions, the climate has shifted - especially in the real estate market. Today, cost-efficient financing and swimming with the market tide are no longer enough. What we're now experiencing was aptly described by legendary investor Warren Buffett:

"Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked."

At PATRIZIA, our top priority is always to ensure stable, solid growth. This is evident in our consolidated balance sheet: our net equity ratio is over 70 percent. At the end of 2022, our available liquidity was EUR 375m. In other words, we have the cash reserves to pursue market opportunities. We can further strengthen PATRIZIA's portfolio and business model.

But what's most important is that, compared to the market as a whole, our consolidated balance sheet and our business have the greatest possible protection against devaluation in the market. This is a lesson we learned from the financial crisis and we have been steadily improving our business model ever since.

We act as a trustee for our clients and invest a very limited amount of our own capital. Over the past few years, we have systematically expanded our own holdings. At the end of 2022, the value of our principal investments was just EUR 1.8m. At the same time, the assets we manage for our investors are currently worth some EUR 58bn.

Our clear focus is on increasing our recurring service fee income. Last year, our management fees came to EUR 241m. That is a year-on-year increase of 15.3 percent. Our income from transaction and performance fees, however, is market-dependent. Here we recorded significant losses compared to the previous year, which we proactively set about counteracting through cost management. Since the end of last year, our Rebalance for Growth programme has helped us lower our costs and strengthen those areas where we expect to see the most growth.

In a moment, our CFO Christoph Glaser will take you through our consolidated balance sheet and net finance costs in detail.

Ladies and gentlemen,

What matters to me is that we have a robust business model. Even in crisis years like 2022, we have been profitable. So we're proposing increasing dividends for the 2022 financial year by 3.1 percent to 33 cents per share. This is the fifth dividend increase in a row - despite the pandemic, despite Russia's attack on Ukraine and despite higher interest rates and a much more challenging market environment. In fact, our stable business development means that the current crisis offers us a host of opportunities. We will seize these opportunities and in doing so emerge from this crisis even stronger than before. In the almost 40 years since PATRIZIA was founded, we have proved time and again that we can do this.

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Disclaimer

Patrizia AG published this content on 31 May 2023 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 31 May 2023 15:34:05 UTC.