(News Bulletin 247) – Committed to the sale of its health business, the property company has started a review of its office park. Icade will define the outlines of its future strategic plan between “end of 2023 and beginning of 2024”.

Icade, engaged in the sale of its large portfolio of hospitals and clinics, has begun a review of its office property assets in order to sell or transform those that have become obsolete, its managing director, Nicolas Joly, told AFP.

“We have done substantive work on the review of our office assets,” said Nicolas Joly, new managing director of the real estate subsidiary of the Caisse des dépôts et consignations (CDC), which published its half-year results on Monday.

“Roughly three-quarters of our office assets are adapted to respond to centrality, flexibility and environmental issues”, he says, the rest being divided between offices located in “over-supply” territories and obsolete offices that the group is considering selling or converting. Icade relies on its property development activity to facilitate these transformations.

Announcements between the end “between the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024”

The announcement of the group’s next strategic plan will take place “between the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024, depending on the evolution of the macroeconomic context”, promised Nicolas Joly.

Icade is in the process of selling its health property, which had establishments in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal, to the property management company Primonial REIM.

It has already sold nearly two-thirds, which brought in 1.4 billion euros and allows it to drastically reduce its debt, which fell from 6.6 billion to 2.9 billion euros. “Icade was no longer able to sustainably sustain the growth of this activity”, justified Nicolas Joly.

The proceeds of this sale must be shared in two stages with the shareholders, to whom an exceptional dividend of 2.54 euros will be offered in 2024 and again in 2025. The current dividend will be set at the “legal minimum”, according to Nicolas Joly, and higher than that paid in 2022 which was 4.33 euros.

In the first half of the year, its revenue excluding health property investment amounted to 697 million euros, up 1% year-on-year on a like-for-like basis, and down 20% in absolute value. Net current cash flow, the profitability indicator it uses to establish its objectives, amounted to 111 million, up 0.4% on a like-for-like basis and down 46% in absolute value.

For 2023, the group has set itself a net current cash flow target of between 2.96 and 3.05 euros per share.

(With AFP)