The housing investment company increases its investments in rental apartments
In approximately five years’ time, the company has invested nearly EUR 1.5 billion in market-based rental housing. In 2016, our investments in Finnish rental housing will be approximately EUR 650 million, and at the end of the review period, there were 1,415 new rental apartments under construction, of which 1,233 were in the Helsinki region. We want to respond to the demand for rental housing, particularly in the Helsinki region, making it easier for people to move around in pursuit of employment in urbanising Finland. We are actively fighting the grey economy well beyond the legislative requirements. VVO Group’s share of the entire rental housing market is approximately 4.4 per cent.
VVO Group plc issued a new EUR 200 million secured bond after the review period on 17 October 2016. The transaction attracted a wide audience from investors in Finland, other Nordic countries and Europe and it was clearly oversubscribed, with subscriptions from over 40 investors. The bond was listed on the Nasdaq Helsinki Ltd stock exchange on 21 October 2016. The company’s goal is to diversify its funding sources in order to finance growth.
As a housing investment company, our annual investment target is 1,000 rental apartments. This target can be reached, but it would be significantly easier to increase the number of rental apartments if there was a sufficient supply of plots suitable for immediate construction in growth centres. It is possible to influence the housing situation in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area and the market price of rents by increasing the amount of plots suitable for construction and by enhancing the supply.
This year, we have divested our ARA properties that are subject to long-term restrictions and focused on market-based operations, where we can develop our operations extensively and carry out service design. Our goal is to create more offering and new service solutions in rental housing in order to make it easier to acquire rental apartments and to live in them. In rental operations, we apply overall rent without any separate additional charges – a convenient approach for our customers! Nearly all of our rents include water and broadband Internet, for example. The Lumo homenow.fi online service channel, now up and running for approximately a year, revolutionised the rental housing sector and has convinced customers of its merits: more than 760 tenancy agreements have been signed through the apartment rental service.
We believe in the power of strong expertise and an energetic working culture, which could again be seen in the Responsible Summer Job campaign: we were again at the front of the competition, coming third in the major employer category.
I wish you all the best for the remainder of the year!
Jani Nieminen
CEO
