Key Events During the Reporting Period
The coronavirus pandemic has triggered severe disruptions in a large number of sectors and in all economies across the globe. Vonovia’s business model has proven to be robust and resilient throughout the pandemic. As the pandemic is still not having any considerable impact on its net assets, financial position and results of operations, Vonovia can also report positive business development in the first half of 2021. As vaccination rates increase, we expect both business and social life to increasingly return to normal.
Vonovia was able to maintain its operational processes subject to virtually no restrictions during the pandemic, also by enabling employees to work from home. Customer satisfaction actually increased significantly during the pandemic, with the customer satisfaction index (CSI) rising by 4.2 percentage points in a year-on-year comparison.
On June 23, 2021, Vonovia made a public takeover offer to the shareholders of Deutsche Wohnen SE to purchase all shares in the company at a price of € 52.00 per share. The offer comes hand-in-hand with an agreement reached with the Berlin State Government, according to which corporations of the federal state of Berlin have the opportunity to acquire a total of around 20,000 residential units from the Deutsche Wohnen and Vonovia portfolios.
By the end of the acceptance deadline for the public takeover offer of Deutsche Wohnen shares on July 21, 2021, not enough Deutsche Wohnen shareholders (47.62%) had accepted the takeover offer, which means the transaction did not take place.
By June 30, 2021, Vonovia SE had separately acquired around 18.4% of Deutsche Wohnen shares, independently of the voluntary public takeover offer.
Vonovia had already issued two innovative debt instruments in the first quarter of 2021. On January 12, 2021, it issued a fully digital registered bond in the amount of € 20 million and with a maturity of three years for the very first time. On March 24, 2021, Vonovia issued its first green bond in the amount of € 600 million. This 10-year bond with an annual interest rate of 0.625% will allow the Group to continue with its own sustainability strategy and expand the range of conventional debt instruments used as part of its financing strategy to include a green bond.
Vonovia SE also placed a total of five fixed-rate unsecured bonds with a total volume of € 4 billion on June 16, 2021. The bonds have an average coupon of 0.6875% and maturities of between 3.25 and 20 years (9.5 years on average).
Moody’s became the third major rating agency to publish a rating for Vonovia on May 31, 2021. Its initial rating is “A3” in the investment grade range, with a stable outlook.
The Annual General Meeting held on April 16, 2021, once again as a virtual event, resolved to pay a dividend for the 2020 fiscal year in the amount of € 1.69 per share. During the subscription period, shareholders holding a total of 49.18% of the shares carrying dividend rights opted for the scrip dividend that was on offer instead of the cash dividend. As a result, 9,370,028 new shares were issued at a subscription price of € 50.193 and in a total amount of € 470.3 million.