Aevis Victoria Stock

Ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Aevis Victoria SA Publication Half Year Results 2026. The conference will be recorded. [Operator Instructions] Let me now turn the floor over to your host, Fabrice Zumbrunnen.

Yes. Good morning, everyone. I'm very pleased with my colleague, Michel Keusch, CIO and CFO of Aevis Victoria to briefly comment our half year results. Let's start with an overview of our most important investments. As you can see here, around 60% of our investment are in the healthcare area, and there are 2 of our very important areas, hospitality and lifestyle, 20% and a bit more for infrastructure. I would like to highlight the new ventures that you have in the healthcare area, Viva is the company which enables the development of integrated care. We have Genolier Innovation Hub, which enables us to be very well positioned in the innovation segment with a very interesting collaboration with the industry. And Nescens is a company focused on longevity.

So let's start maybe with the key figures. For an investment company, you know that these figures are -- maybe not the most relevant, but let's say that we are on a very good track with a strong increase in net profit with very good EBITDA. And as I've said, maybe it's obvious facts and figures, not the most important one for an investment company. That's the reason why I'll hand over to my colleague, Michel Keusch for the analysis of the detailed facts and figures -- financial fact and figures. Michel?

Thank you, Fabrice. So I will quickly run you through the figures, but also just a couple of highlights on the equity story. And actually the -- sorry, yes, and actually, why to invest in Aevis Victoria. Just to summarize a little bit the 4 investment pillars that you see in blue of our investment case. First, very focused investment approach. Everything we do is related to services to people, nothing else.

The second one, we are invested in hard-to-replicate businesses. This is the case in healthcare and also in hospitality. In healthcare, we are the leading care provider and accountable care organization in Switzerland, not only the leader, but the only one, actually. And on the hospital side -- on the hospitality side, we are the leading Swiss luxury hotel group. So it's always key leading positions in businesses, which would take years to replicate. The third one, the strong track record of value creation. As you see, over the past 15 years, our shares have returned more than 10% per annum in average, versus 8% for the SPI. So this is really a proof of value creation.

Last point, the historically high discount, which is now reaching a level of 50% or slightly more than 50%, which is unprecedented in the history of the group. So these are the 4 pillars. As we all know, obviously, a discount is an interesting entry point for an investor, but only if there are reasons to believe that this discount can be narrowed in the future. And for this, we need catalysts, and we think there are 3 catalysts currently.

The first one is a next phase of value crystallization. This is very important because in our portfolio, we're going to sell some stakes in companies to strategic shareholders. We are looking at different solutions in all segments. Obviously, Swiss Medical Network, that's the key segments where we are -- we have already officially announced that we are looking for strategic investors, and to have a big stake in the company. All this would help crystallize the value.

Second point, the enhanced Investor Relations. We are doing a lot more in terms of roadshows, Capital Markets Day, and we have a much higher transparency in our financial communication. The last point, which is resulting from the second one is that the average daily liquidity has nearly quintupled over the past 2 years. And this is a key point. 2, 3 years ago, it was maybe difficult to invest in Aevis. I think today, the liquidity has been improving very much. And that's -- it's a key point to make the stock more attractive.

Now I will quickly go through the H1 performance not in every detail, but I will try to give you the highlights. So first, and this is our key indicator at the Aevis group level, the NAV. So the NAV for H1 '26 is CHF 26.75. This is an increase of almost 7% versus last year. And if we compare it to the last year-end level, it's plus 2.3%. The discount to NAV, as you see on the right side, is now more than 50%.

These are the consolidated figures. As you see, it's going in the right direction with improvement in margins and on the EBITDA and EBITDA level. As Fabrice said before, for an investment company, this doesn't -- it's not the best indicator. It's much better to look at the different segments, which are showing the true operating performance. On the healthcare side, you see Swiss Medical Network, very good performance. First, resilient growth, but also a strong improvement in margins from 18.6% to 21.6% EBITDAR margin. And this is obviously achieved in a difficult environment for the industry.

The key driver for this is the ramping up of unprofitable hospitals in our group. We were also having the costs very much under control, material costs, also personnel costs. This is the reason for this performance. One point to mention quickly, if we split the healthcare between hospitals on the upper side of the slide, and ambulatory services on the lower side, you see that margins are improving in all segments. What is to be noted is a strong improvement in ambulatory services.

For EBITDAR, which is moving up strongly from 7.1% to 11.8%, but also the fact that on the EBITDA level for ambulatory, we're for the first time in the black figures. So this is not an EBITDA loss business anymore. As you know, this is a strategic segment for us, ambulatory. We need that for the integrated care. It's diluting margin on the first hand, but we still see the possibility to make this business profitable, and this big improvement is, I think, one of the key highlights of this set of figures.

Hospitality, there's not much to say. It's a challenging environment with what we saw with the tensions in the Middle East. Nevertheless, we had a very resilient performance on the growth side, 1% growth. EBITDA margin stable. What you see on the EBITDA margin is not the reason for concern. You see a decrease of EBITDA margin. This is simply related to the fact that we increased the rent for several hotels. But as you know, the hotels are owned by Swiss Hotel Property, which is 100% owned by Aevis. So it's going from one pocket to the other. So there is absolutely no impact, and the fact that we're increasing rent is absolutely normal from time to time.

Whenever one hotel is at the end of the CapEx cycle, this was, for example, for the Victoria-Jungfrau, after 8 years of CapEx cycle, then we have the arguments to increase the rent. So you have some adjustments from time to time. Real estate, so this is the Swiss Hotel Properties business. Here again, you see optically a decline in revenues and EBITDA, but this is only due to the fact that the gray part you see, last year, we had sale of properties in Zermatt apartments. So we have CHF 10 million extraordinary profit, which is not recurring this year. And that's why, optically, you have declined.

However, on an underlying business, it's growing and the margins are always at the level of 90%, 91%. So this is a cash cow, which is not without any variation. Also, on that real estate segment, you see the improvement of the market value. The debt has been reduced and LTV has been reduced as well. So we have now a 45% loan-to-value ratio, which is very, very conservative for this business. We are benefiting from the decline in interest rates as well and the decline of the debt. So basically, in terms of -- I forgot to mention on the previous slide, in terms of interest expenses, we saw a decline of 43% year-on-year.

Last segment, the Others segment. This is where we put all our ventures, all our start-ups. So it's mainly the Genolier Innovation Hub and Nescens. As you see, these are still loss-making businesses, obviously, for the time being. However, the loss is narrowing. So it's going in the right direction, and Fabrice will tell you more about the evolution of Nescens later on.

Just to finish on the financial framework point of view. This is a slide we show now every quarter since 2 years. You see that the debt situation is improving year after year. The point which is important in this slide is that out of the CHF 846 million net debt at the consolidated level, you see that the bulk of this debt is under SHP, which is purely mortgage-based, and with an LTV of 45%. So it's very solid.

If you look at the debt on the Swiss Medical Network side, on the left side, you see that this is now relating to a net debt-to-EBITDA of around 2.2x, 2.3x. You see at the bottom of the chart. So we are in very good hands now in terms of financial framework. After the deleveraging of the past 2 years, we're in a very sound situation.

And finally, this is the sum of the parts where you see that the NAV is now, as indicated initially, CHF 26.75 which shows a discount of about 50% currently. And last slide on my side is the historical perspective on this sum of the parts evolution, where we see a factor of 19x over the past 15 years, from 2011 to 2026.

Now I pass to Fabrice, who will talk to you about the outlook and the initiatives.

Thank you, Michel. I would like to conclude this short presentation with an update in our value creation journey. And we have here 3 of our most important initiatives. Healthcare in this business, we would like to further improve profitability. You have seen we are on a very good track, but there is still room for improvement. Integrated care, maybe the most relevant initiative in the long run with very encouraging results. And last but not least, Hospitality. We have iconic hotels in iconic destination and there is -- it's a very resilient business, but there is even more potential that many maybe think.

So let's start with the healthcare, with the improvement of our profitability. Here, you can see the pillars or the leverage possibility that we could reach, activated and will help us to improve the profitability in the next years. So I think the most important are the cost optimization programs, the fact that we can ramp up our recent acquisitions, and of course, we will have in the long run. But even now, that's the good news, a very positive effect of our Integrated Care initiative.

So you see from 16% to more than 20% and the goal that we have to reach, 23% margin, and this with the organic growth of 2% to 3% a year. So that's an overview of our different hospitals. You see 3 categories. We have mature hospitals. More than 50% of our hospitals could and can reach more than the 25%, 26% EBITDA margin, and we have the so-called ramp-up hospitals with a very good progress in the last 6 months. And here, we are around an EBITDA of 10% to 20%, as I've said, with an already good improvement.

And we have the new acquisitions or the turnaround hospitals, and you can see, if I take the example of Lindberg, that we have taken a very important decision to cease, to stop our activities. We could have a very good deal with the hospital Winterthur. And it will automatically improve our financial performance in the next months, obviously, next year, we will see all the positive effects.

And we have a very, very clear program to follow that path and to improve profitability. So as I've said, on good track, we're on a good track, but we are working very hard to improve in the future and to have all our acquisition or hospital in the right area of this rentability chart here.

Second initiative, integrated care, we would like to scale our very unique capitation model in Switzerland. This is our country, and we have already 3 integrated care regions, and we will open next year in the Bern area, a new region, integrated care region, and we are very pleased with this experience, and we could reach the first results. And we are very proud of this second year, 16% cost improvement, a very, very good performance, the best in class in the market. And our goals are very clear on the medium term, 15% to 20%. We have already reached these figures.

And in the long run, we think that we have the potential to reach 25% to 30% depending on the different realities of the regions. And our aim is to double the amount of members every year, are absolutely on track with our business plan, in fact, even better. And we see this as a transformation project, but also as a new source of revenues, which will improve the whole performance of our healthcare business. And last but not least, Hospitality. We have the extreme privilege to have iconic destination, iconic hotels. But we still believe that we can reach more than this. We have existing land reserves, we have the possibility to make acquisitions and improving also the profitability of our commercial rental retail areas. So there is very -- something very interesting here happening.

As you know, this year was not so easy. We had a very strong decline in the turnover of our guests coming from Asia and Middle East, but we could compensate this with more guests from U.S.A. and Europe. And in fact, we are very -- we are better than the market and the whole industry and it shows that our iconic hotels are very, very resilient, are beloved the destinations, and we are working hard to reinforce even in the future years, the attractivity of our hotels.

And two, I come now to the conclusion. These are really our main goals. As Michel already mentioned, this strong focus on crystallizing value across the portfolio. I think that the recent IPO of Infracore was a very good project. We are very proud to make it happen and very, very, very big potential for Infracore. But in the other business areas, I think of healthcare, we are absolutely convinced that we will have new investor who will help us to reach our strategic goals. So we are very happy with Visana, but we think that there is room for other key partners for us.

I can also speak of Nescens longevity. There is a very strong interest for many investors to be part of it and so on, innovation could be also another option for us. So we have this very, very important goal to crystallizing value across the portfolio. And as I've said, even if you are the best in class in Switzerland, there is still room for improvement -- to improve the profitability in healthcare and the scaling up of our capitation model is absolutely key; key for us; key, I think, for the whole industry. We are market leaders, we inspire many, many of our competitors, but we are still ahead, and we have a very unique capitation model. And for the rest, we will continue to focus on our value creation teams.

And if it's about new opportunities and options, I think we have plenty of them. And to conclude, we are very pleased that we could reach good results in this first half of 2026. But we have -- I hope that I could convince you that there is room for improvement, and it's only the beginning of our very long track to improve profitability, to grow. And I would like to thank all my colleagues for achieving these very good results in the first half of 2026.

So I think that was our idea, a short presentation, and we are very happy to answer all your questions. And I'll hand over to the organizer for the Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] First question is from Arthur Kuntz from AlphaValue.

Congratulations on your first half results. I had 2 questions, if I may. It's regarding the Slide 25 on the hospitals and ramp-ups and turnaround. Comparing to the slide you presented in May in the turnaround buckets, we saw that it's moving the right way regarding mature hospitals and that EBITDA margin is improving. But on the turnaround hospital, it's moving from 5.4% to 4.4%. And I'd like to know if you could break out what's driving that? Is it some residual drag from Lindberg before the transfer? Or is it Zofingen or Siloah which is weighing on the turnaround?

And I can add a question. I'd like to point out that Réseau de l'Arc is now in the lower point of the [indiscernible] in the investment part. And I would like to know what's -- if you could give us more color on the investment specifically for Réseau de l'Arc?

And finally, I had another question regarding your hotels, and it was on Slide 30, you mentioned that further opportunities to reduce seasonal pricing gaps are engaged. And I'd like to know if you could be a bit more specific about it.

Okay. Thank you for your question. To your first question, you are perfectly right. We could improve, in fact, the rentability, if you see all the hotels. But you're also perfectly right that there was a decrease of profitability by Montbrillant and Lindberg. The reason is very simple. We decided to stop our activities. And from the moment that you communicate this, you have a very strong decrease of your activities. It's a very short-term effect. As I've mentioned, next year, you will see that it was a very -- that was a very good decision, which will improve the profitability. So it's -- the reason is the decision.

The case of Réseau de l'Arc is a very particular one. It's because of the change of the canton from Canton Bern to Canton Jura. And their lower tariff reality, they are over sale, and we perfectly knew that. And we have to face a decrease of profitability without having the problem of decreasing numbers of patients, et cetera. That's not dramatic. It's the pleasure to have a conference with different realities in Canton. And obviously, Canton Jura is the poorest canton in Switzerland, and it's our job now to improve the profitability. In fact, I can say that in July and August, we could make very strong progress, but it's not something you can reach or the kind of improvement you can reach on the short term.

So we have decided to improve our efficiency. And I think that Réseau de l'Arc will be in a positive field at the end of this year. But yes, it was not such an easy step for us to go from Canton Bern to Canton Jura. I think that -- your questions and to your -- sorry, about the hotels. Yes, I think the seasonality is something very important. In fact, I have mentioned Interlaken and Zermatt. Interlaken, the good season, the high season is summer and winter, it's not exactly at the same level. And obviously, you have the other situation, the opposite situation with Zermatt.

And it's very interesting because we see a very strong increase of the attractivity of the destinations, not only because of us in the low seasons. But I think that our initiative, for example, gastronomy to our spas are very attractive points to be, to stay in our hotels and the other aspect is to focus on individuals. And we -- as I've mentioned, we could compensate the loss of many, many guests from Asia and the Middle East with very, very interesting guests from the U.S.A. And we see that these guests are very pleased to stay in our hotels.

And so we are working very hard to compensate, but you will, in the future, have always a very high season and a low season, but we are very confident that the gap will be smaller. It's already smaller than 2 years ago. So we are on a very good track.

At the moment, there seems to be no more question. [Operator Instructions]. Mr. Kuntz is back on the line, AlphaValue.

If I may, maybe I have another question also related to hotels. In this improvement, and you say you don't plan on expanding that much in the hotel and focusing, as you mentioned, on individuals. So -- and we saw it with the numbers that the pricing is improving. And I'd like to know if there's an occupancy target attached to this. I know that the occupancy is roughly flat towards roughly 55%. I'd like to know if there is a target that will be attached to this improvement in the seasonality mix?

Yes. No, no. There is no occupancy targets. Obviously, it's always a trade-off between occupancy and pricing. So we think in terms of RevPAR, we want to increase the RevPAR. Obviously, the main components because of this pricing gap will be the pricing. But we have to be careful. It's never at the expense of the occupancy. So typically, if we can keep occupancy levels as they are currently and improve the pricing, it's good. In some cases, we can even improve both but we do it very carefully and step by step. We have to check what the local competition is doing and so on.

We are in a very good position strategically in those 2 destinations because we are very strong in the 2 destinations. So we cannot only manage our hotels, but also shape the future of the destination in a way like in Zermatt, where we control most of the retail store, for example. Actually, they are renting to us in a way. So we can upgrade the shopping experience. And this is attracting a new clientele for the summer, and it helps us improve the pricing of the hotels in the summer because of this new clientele.

The same in Interlaken, where we are so strong that we can also shape a bit the winter destination or do partnerships locally. So it's a long game. But in both destinations, we can certainly improve this pricing for summer and winter. But it's -- let's say, pricing is more important than occupancy at this stage.

Okay. And maybe if there's space for one last question. It's on totally different end, it's concerning Viva. Are you confident towards reaching the breakeven point of 10,000 members by the end of 2026 or early 2027?

Yes, we are because of the new region than because of the potential on, in fact, all 4 regions. So we are very confident that we will double our members population -- our member population, but Bern area is a very interesting one. And we already figured a very strong interest in Ticino. In fact, they are -- without knowing the new premiums, there are already many people who have already chosen to be part of our venture, to be part of Viva. And I think it's a new offer. And it's absolutely logical that you need time. As I've said, it was exactly what we had in mind, as we talked about our business plan.

In fact, we are even better than we thought. And I would like to highlight the very good performance, not only on the efficiency, et cetera, but also on the quality. And we have very, very positive feedbacks of, for example, people suffering from chronic disease who told us it's the best product, the best service that we dreamt of this level of service. So I think that with -- it will help us to reach new heights and absolutely combining both effects, efficiency on one side, and the fact that we certainly, I hope more than double the population -- our members' population, we will certainly reach the goal that we have always set for the fourth year.

Seems to be no further questions. [Operator Instructions] I'll wait a little bit to see if anyone has any questions. Yes, Matthias Huber from Verium AG.

I hope you can hear me. I have a question to the sum of the parts valuation. And specifically for the Swiss Medical Network, you showed CHF 1.5 billion. Can you elaborate a little bit what are the underlying multiples and EBITDA assumptions you used for this calculation?

Sure. This was made on the Swiss Medical Network side, it was made on the previous transaction. So we took the existing transactions when Visana took a stake in Swiss Medical Network, when the canton [indiscernible] are paid, how much they paid and so on. So we took the real transaction, and this is how we calculated that. I can elaborate more directly if you want, to give you the details of the amount that was paid and so on separately. But this is the approach.

Typically, for the sum of the part, for each segment, it's rather like related to the balance sheet, like an accounting NAV, if you want, or in the case of the hotels, the operating part, it's based on DCF, and for the SMN, it's based on this transaction. Now obviously, you can relate it indirectly to multiples, looking at the EBITDA, so somebody could check what would be the implied EBITDA or EV EBITDA multiples for this. But this is something that can be derived indirectly to want. It was not the starting point.

Doing this, obviously, you will see multiples which are certainly high because it's capturing also the growth, the strong growth we expect looking forward in the next couple of years in EBITDA and also the growth which is coming from the Viva project, which, as you know, was costing money until now, and now it's turning breakeven. And from now on, will be scalable, actually and highly profitable. So this in itself has also a big value.

So does that mean that you expect for the second half of the year, a better result in Swiss Medical Network with respect to EBITDA than in the first half year and the coming years as well?

Why do you say that, a better H2 than H1?

No. Last year, the result was weaker in half 2 than half 1 in the Swiss Medical Network. So in this year, you expect a better result than in half 1?

I think we can't say so. In fact, the second part of the year is a bit weaker, but we are very confident that we will improve our performance in comparison -- comparing it with the second half year of 2025. If it's the -- but the per se, I don't think that it will be better than the first half. But we are, as I've mentioned on the right track, on good track, and we are very content. There is no reason that we would stop the improvement. So in this way, yes, we are confident, but there is also a certain seasonality in not so obvious than in the hospitality business, but there is also a small seasonality effect here in the healthcare business. But we will certainly improve our performance comparing to the second half year of last year.

There'll be no further questions. With that, I would like to hand over to your host for the closing remarks.

So I would like to thank you for your interest in our company. I was very pleased that you ask us questions that also shows that you are very interesting in what we are doing. As I've said, we are on good track. We are looking forward to the next steps. And we are always pleased to answer your questions in one-to-one. Please don't hesitate to contact us if you need more information.

Thank you very much for this very interesting session today. Goodbye.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Aevis Victoria SA publication of the 2025 annual results. [Operator Instructions] Let me now turn the floor over to your host, Antoine Hubert.

Thank you very much. Welcome to the presentation of 2025 annual results. We just published our annual report this morning. And I'm here with Fabrice Zumbrunnen, CEO of Aevis Victoria; and Michel Keusch, CFO of Aevis Victoria. As you know, Aevis Victoria is an investment company and focusing on service to people. Our investments, if you take a look at this slide, our main investments, Swiss Medical Network and VIVA, our insurance product that we have with Visana. They represent 59% of the investment. MRH Switzerland, our hospitality, and Batmaid represents 19% of our investment. And infrastructure, so our 30% shareholding into Infracore, and Swiss Hotel Properties represents 22% of our investment.

This year 2025, if we can highlight some event, it was the takeover in December 2024 of Spital Zofingen. This was the fourth public hospital that Swiss Medical Network has acquired. The first one was in 2012, Hôpital de La Providence in Neuchâtel, and then with Hôpital Générale Beaulieu, the 2 hospitals of Saint-Imier and Moutier, and now in 2024, Spital Zofingen. This has triggered important growth within Swiss Medical Network. Michel Keusch will go into detail. But this also confirms that Swiss Medical Network has the ability to work together with the public sector.

I will hand over to Michel Keusch for the fiscal year 2025 performance. Michel?

Yes. Hello. Good morning, everyone. I will run you through the 2025 figures. A lot of different moving parts. I will try to be concise to show you actually how the development was during the year.

To start with on this first slide, you see the Aevis Group consolidated figures, where you see a good development of turnover, plus 13.5%, obviously driven by acquisitions. On the other side, you will see a resilient EBITDAR and declining EBITDA. This is obviously related to the moving parts from 1 year to the other when it comes to sale of participations. So that's why it's more interesting to look at the different parts, which we are going to do now later on, to look at all the different participations. Last year, obviously, we sold a stake in Swiss Medical Network. Obviously, this creates some EBITDAR and EBITDA. And as a result, this year, we don't have this, hence, this decline, but which is not representative of a bad operating performance. It's simply that we are lacking this development, this profit from last year.

The next slide is maybe a bit more interesting, and this is how we are going to show you Aevis Victoria more and more in the future, to focus on the NAV, which is a good reflection of the sum of the parts. All the different parts are -- some of them are in cruising speed. Some of them are in ramping mode or some of them are maybe loss-making, but still have value. So it's more interesting to look at the sum of all these different values in the portfolio and to see how this is developing. And here, you see this year, the NAV per share is up 7.8%, reflecting that the group is continuing to create value. The second interesting KPI is to compare this NAV with the current share price, and we see that the discount is at the highest level ever, actually close to 50%. And the third KPI is the LTV ratio, looking at the debt at the Aevis Victoria level, at the holding level and comparing with the value of the participations. And you see here a very sound LTV ratio of about 7%, stable year-on-year.

Now more interesting, looking at the different participation. On the next slide, you see the Healthcare segment. This is the biggest part of the group. Swiss Medical Network, you see strong revenue development, plus 22%, obviously related to the acquisition of Zofingen and Centro Medico. However, on a pure organic basis, you see at the bottom, it's still 2% organic growth. And then increase in EBITDAR and increase in EBITDA resulting from this development, but you see that the margins are declining, not massively, but still it's going from 16.6% to 15.9% when it comes to EBITDAR, which is the key indicator, and slightly down for the EBITDA margin.

Now how can we explain this margin decrease? I propose to go on the next slide where you see the split between the underlying business on one side, the blue part of the pie chart, and the gray part, which is the 2 acquisitions, Zofingen and Centro Medico. And then you see the split in terms of growth, but also in terms of margins. And you see clearly that the 2 acquisitions together have margins of EBITDAR margins of 9.3%, which is way below the level of 17% we have in the underlying business, hence, the dilution.

However, if you look at the underlying business development, you see that year-on-year, we improved from 16.6% to 17.2%. So this is the key element for us that on one hand, our underlying business is continuing to improve year after year. So this is our first indicator. And the second indicator is that acquisitions, this is the history of the group, are always coming in the group with a low level of margin, and this is how we create value, because we try to buy acquisitions at a reasonable price, reposition them and then create a lot of value. So the dilution per se is actually a good indicator, because it shows that value will be created.

A second way to look at the business on the next slide, Slide 11, is to look at the split between hospitals and ambulatory. Why is it important? Because most of our peers are focusing on the hospital side. We have a very proactive strategy to invest in ambulatory, which is a low-margin business for the time being. But it's a strategic business, and we'll talk about it later on. Fabrice will talk about integrated care. Ambulatory is something we need for the development of integrated care, but it's also something we need to be prepared for the EFAS new system, which will be from 2028 onwards.

So it's a strategic investment. We think margins can go up in the ambulatory part. It's a question of time. But for the time being, you can see this as a self-inflicted pain that we have. You see that margins in the ambulatory is 6.6% EBITDAR, which is also strongly diluting the margins for the division. If you look at purely hospitals, you see that this is continuing to improve. We are now moving from 19% last year to 19.7%. So a very, very pleasant development.

I'm switching to the hospitality business. Here, we had a very good trend during 2025, organic growth of 4.5% and margins improving, EBITDAR moving up 50 basis points from 23.1% to 23.6%, very good development in all of our hotels, mainly in the Zermatt destination, but also in Zurich, for example, where we had very pleasant development.

The next slide shows the business which is related to hospitality, which is the real estate segment for the hotels, so Swiss Hotel Properties. Here, we see the market value at about CHF 900 million, up 2.3% year-on-year, which is actually quite a good performance, because at the same time we have sold some noncore businesses. So we had some divestments of about CHF 11 million. So despite those divestments, we still have an increase of the value of the portfolio, which is related to revaluation. EBITDA is very strong, plus 52%, but this is obviously reflecting the sale of noncore assets, which has increased more than proportionally the EBITDA. Margins are otherwise always pretty stable at about 90% EBITDA margin. And you see that thanks to those divestments of noncore assets, we further improved the LTV. So going from 46.5% to 45.4%. A decrease, obviously, in the LTV is something which is positive. So that's why we have an improvement on the ratio. Even you see the bulk going down, but it's to be seen as a positive.

Next slide, less important in terms of revenue contribution. Obviously, it's still not a big segment at the group level, but this is the segment where we put all our ventures, all our start-up operations. It is obviously, by nature, still loss-making. This is the segment where we have mainly the Nescens brand and also the Genolier Innovation Hub. This is still detracting about CHF 11 million EBITDA for the whole year. But both businesses have a very good business plan. We are very confident, but we're still on the ramp-up phase, so still detracting EBITDA at the group level.

Lastly, our Infracore stake. This is not consolidated, but we have a 30% stake, where we see also a very pleasant development for the market value of the portfolio, CHF 1.4 billion, up 6% year-on-year, strong EBITDA margin, and an LTV which is very, very solid at 44.5%, very conservatively financed.

As a summary of all that, on the next slide, Page 16, you have a summary of the cash flow statement and the balance sheet. I just put on the right side the key highlights to make it simpler. What you see is that we had a very strong free cash flow during the year, CHF 129 million, obviously influenced by divestments of real estate. This strong free cash flow helped a strong debt repayment. And at the bottom on the balance sheet, you see that this debt repayment had a positive impact on all the KPIs and all the ratios. Leverage ratio is further reducing from 53.4% to 49.9%. The equity ratio is improving slightly at 29.1%. If we put the equity-like loans in there, we have an adjusted equity, which is even higher. So the real equity ratio is about 33%. And you see on the net debt level, a reduction of CHF 113 million.

On the next slide, Slide 17, this is just a quick snapshot to show you the breakdown of the debt, which since last year we show this now every time we publish results to show you that this level you see at the top of the chart, CHF 865 million, which is the net debt for the whole group, is broken down in the different silos. You have CHF 164 million at the holding level and then CHF 261 million on the Swiss Medical Network part, CHF 10 million for MRH, nothing -- or CHF 1 million for the others, and CHF 405 million for SHP. It's important to look at it this way because you see that actually half of the debt is related to Swiss Hotel Properties, which is purely mortgage lending based with a very, very solid LTV ratio of 46.5%.

On the other side, on the Swiss Medical Network part, the debt can be broken down between hospitals and ambulatory hospitals. This is what we look at. This is how the banks are looking at for our covenants. And here, we have typically net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of about 3x on the operational debt. This part is obviously completely benefiting from this deleveraging that you see now year after year in our business. And lastly, before I give the word to Fabrice, a quick word on the sum of the part, which shows you what we mentioned before that looking at the different parts of the business, you have an equity value per share of CHF 26.15, which shows a discount with yesterday's price of about 51%.

I will now give the word to Fabrice, who will give you an overview on the strategy and also give you an update by division.

Thank you, Michel. Good morning, everyone. In this part of the presentation, we would like to make an update on our health care strategy. Last year, Swiss Medical Network could pursue its unique path in the healthcare market, Swiss market. And as you know, our industry faces many, many challenges with escalating costs, rising chronic diseases, aging population, and we are really convinced that our way of doing things, transitioning from a fee-for-service to a true value-based care is the way to go and the right strategy.

In the next slide, you see what covers our ambition. We have a very unique offer with insurance offering on one side and this ambition of continuum of care, which enables us to cover every aspect of the patient journey. Obviously, the Aevis footprint, as you see at the bottom of the slide, is not covering every aspect of this footprint -- of this continuum of care. But with collaborations, we are able in now 3 regions to have a very unique capitation model and with very good results in the first year. In Réseau de l'Arc, we could achieve a very strong result of 11% optimization of costs.

Next slide, please. And you see there our 3 regions. By the way, our recent acquisitions of Centro Medico and Spital Zofingen enabled us to enlarge our footprint with integrated care regions, and we are now preparing the next region in the Bern area, so a city, a new region for you. But as you see, we were able, with the right amount of agility, to offer, in different settings, our capitation model, our unique model, covering really all the aspects of the patient journey.

And we think that with this ambition, next slide, please, we will be able to generate new revenues. You see on the right side of the slide, our initial business plan, and we are really following this year-by-year. We are perfectly on track. And next year, we will, as last year, double our members or memberships for VIVA. And then we will exceed 10,000, let's say, even 14,000, 15,000 members. It will be the breakeven point for our business model.

Now on the other side, healthcare infrastructure. We could communicate yesterday -- the day before, a very important step for us. This is a very interesting slide that we are showing now over a quite long period of time. We really think that there is a strong sale and leaseback opportunity in the Swiss market because of the credit crunch with the eviction or the disappearance of Credit Suisse, but also with the reality of the Swiss Care Health business, and we are very happy to acquire See-Spital in Horgen. This is a unique positioning, the only hospital on the Southwest side of the Lake Zurich, very, very solid hospital, and we are very happy that we were able, with Infracore, to acquire the real estate that is to say building and land. And this is a promising step, and we think that we will have other opportunities in the future.

Then I will hand over to Michel for the outlook.

Yes. Coming back to the outlook, as you know, and we discussed this morning, for the hotel business, we're not giving an outlook. The year started well, but it's obviously a segment where we don't have the visibility. So we're never giving a precise outlook. However, on the Swiss Medical Network side, we are giving an outlook, both in terms of growth and margins. In terms of growth for the model, you can expect 2% to 3% growth per annum on an organic basis. It could be more, but we try to stick to this as a guidance.

For the margin, we should have a very good development for the next couple of years. As you see on this chart, on the left side, you have the starting point, which is what we just reported for 2025, EBITDAR of 15.9%. From this level, we should go to more than 20.5% for 2026. Now this could sound or look aggressive, but there are reasons to explain that. You see on the chart the 3 main elements that will help us move from 15.9% to 20.5% in 2026. First, you have the normalization of electricity costs. We had hedging in place until the end of last year. Those have now expired, which means that we are back to the spot prices, which are massively below the prices we were paying, and I think we'll at least save CHF 2 million on that basis.

The second element is the cost optimization programs. It's several programs that we put in place last year. So all the costs incurred by these programs were charged on the 2025 exercise. However, you will see the benefits in '26 and onwards. So here, there will be, among others, CHF 3 million from overhead, CHF 2 million from a new IT contract, CHF 2.5 million from a new facility management contract and so on. This will help the development of margin. The third point is the ramp-up of acquired turnaround cases. This is what I was saying at the beginning, when we do an acquisition of a diluting hospital, we see that as good news, because it means we will create value. The history of the group over the past 20 years has shown that every hospital we bought has been moving up the curve of profitability. And we still have about 40%, 45% of the portfolio, which has EBITDAR margin below 10%. So this shows you the considerable upside we still have to improve the profitability of the division.

So this brings us to 20.5% for the year 2026. It's not the end of the story. From that level, we think we can go up to 23% in the midterm with additional elements. The first one is still the ramp-up of acquired turnaround cases. This continue and will continue to be the main driver year after year for margin improvement. Second element, as Fabrice just explained, are all the effects from the integrated care. We are now reaching breakeven. And from this moment onwards, you have a very scalable business model that could bring a lot of additional profitability. And at the end, you always have the M&A pipeline, which is also a good way to add additional profitability. So that's why we are very confident to have this 23% EBITDAR margin reached in the midterm.

On the next slide, just an illustration to show you the portfolio as it stands today in terms of the hospitals and the profitability with the green points are the units with EBITDA margin above 20% and all the other ones below the ones that will continue to move up the curves.

So finally, yes, I don't know if you want to say a word. Okay, just a quick word. So as a conclusion, as we explained during the presentation, the strategy outlook is a further focus on deleveraging, which will continue year after year. We are now in good territory. As you've seen, the real estate business is very well financed with very low LTVs, and the rest of the business is benefiting from the deleveraging. We will continue to invest in services to people. This is our focus, and we have a good pipeline of projects in the 3 areas, in health care, in hospitality, and also in real estate.

As a financial outlook, so hospitals, we've just talked about it in detail. Hospitality, as said, good start of the year, but no specific guidance. And on the infrastructure side, we have a positive performance of the tenants. So this will be reflected in the improving valuations. And as Fabrice was saying, a very interesting story now on the Swiss market for sale and leaseback transaction, which will add another growth element for the infrastructure business.

So with this, thanks a lot for your attention, and we are all available for your questions.

[Operator Instructions].

I have a question here by chat. How is the See-Spital, Horgen, acquisition by Infracore financed? Does Aevis need to participate in the financing? Are you looking at GZO Wetzikon?

So for See-Spital, Horgen, there is financing through equity from Infracore provided by the shareholder MPT and Aevis. And there is financing provided through Swiss banks for See-Spital. This is an acquisition by Infracore.

Regarding GZO Wetzikon, Swiss Medical Network has been approached by some creditors of GZO Wetzikon and has been asked if Swiss Medical Network could envision to take the operation of Wetzikon if some investors buy the asset. We have signaled that we were supporting such a solution, and we were interested in taking the operation of Wetzikon.

This would also allow Swiss Medical Network to develop VIVA in this area. So it could be a strategic move that could be beneficial for Swiss Medical Network and also for the region by maintaining primary and secondary care in Wetzikon, maintaining all the labor in -- there is more than 1,000 employees in Wetzikon. And Swiss Medical Network has this experience to integrate a public hospital. As I said before, we already did it in the past for public hospitals. So that's something that Swiss Medical Network has demonstrated. So that's the answer for this question.

[Operator Instructions] At the moment, we have no questions via the telephone.

Since there is no question at the moment, I will take profit of this time to maybe dive a little deeper into integrated care. So integrated care, as you see on this slide, the idea is to go from sick care, because we are all talking about health care. But currently, we are living in the world of sick. The persons are paying premium, so they're interesting the insurance company and the state. But the so-called health world has no interest in healthy person. And that's why we think that we are working in a sick care environment. And we want to transition to an integrated care approach, that means taking care of the people when they are healthy already.

And to do this integrated care approach, you need to consolidate the different providers, primary and secondary care. You have to also have the ability to do some research and education, because if you want to hire the best doctors and the best people, you need to give them the ability to do research and to do education. And also the third component is the health plan that we developed with Visana.

And the role model for this is Kaiser Permanente. On this slide, you can see that Kaiser has 12.6 million members. They have 23,000 physicians, some 300,000 people, and 39 hospitals. And they are doing only 143,000 hospital stays for 12.6 million people. If you compare to Switzerland, with 9.1 million people, we have 38,000 doctors, 500,000 people working in the health care sector and 276 hospitals. That triggers 1.4 million hospital stays per year, which makes Switzerland the vice champion after Germany. And we see clearly that this problem is triggered by much better reimbursement in hospital, in inpatient treatment than in outpatient treatment.

And so the VIVA that we created with Visana is an insurance product. First of all, this insurance product is dedicated to our integrated care network, so Rete Sant'Anna with Aare-Netz. You can see that the VIVA premium are always among the best -- I mean, the least expensive premium and also that the increase of this premium have been a lot lower than the average. You can take Canton of Bern, VIVA increased 3.9% in 2 years, so '24, '25, '26; and the Bern average was 9.3%; in Neuchatel, 4.7% against 7%; and in Jura, 8.3% against 13.9%. In Ticino, also revised #2; Canton Solothurn #1; Aargau #2; and Luzern revised #7. CSS is very strong in this canton and has a lot of very interesting products.

If you take a look at this slide, this explains how it works. So I mean, the integrated care organization is, Réseau de l'Arc, Rete Sant'Anna, or Aare-Netz. We work with every insurance according to tariffs. So I mean TARDOC, DRG, et cetera. But we have our own population, our own members, currently slightly over 7,000. And with this members, we treat them with the most efficient way possible. And at the end of the year, there is a comparison between our population and the exact same population outside the system. And the savings can be calculated. And this saving is shared between the insurance, which allows the insurance to keep the premium low, and between the integrated care organization.

Of course, what's important also is that our population, the VIVA members, if we send these people outside Swiss Medical Network to Inselspital or to University Hospital of Zurich, these costs are included in our budget. So we are responsible with VIVA of all the costs for a member. And that's the big difference, and that's where the incentives are in line with the interest of both patients and providers.

I have a new question. So is it your target that dividend can be paid for '26 in '27? How are the shareholder loans up to CHF 20 million secured? Is there any plan these loans are repaid part and full of the next year?

So of course, this loan will be repaid over the next years. It is planned so. These shareholder loans are not secured and are part of employment contract. And is it our target that dividend can be paid for '26 in '27? Of course, the good result from '25 from some of our investments are triggering dividend. So dividend for '25 will be paid to Aevis in '26. The result in '26 forecasted for Swiss Medical Network and for the other division will allow to resume the dividend policy. I just want you to remember that until end of '25, we were prohibited to pay dividend for the hospitality side, because the hospitality received payment from the government during the COVID period. And these payments paid in 2020 and in 2021 were coming with the condition not to pay any dividend until end of 2025.

Another question. Can you give insight into the possible IPO of Infracore?

So this is a separate project that is run by Infracore. Aevis is only a 30% shareholder. So the information about Infracore and the IPO are communicated separately. So we cannot give more detail into that other than we are working on this possibility to do an IPO.

We have another question, which is hotel business, what impact have you been since the Iran war regarding booking?

So as I said, there is booking and cancellation. For now, there is no -- I mean, it's neutral. So we have not seen, until now, a decrease in the activity. Of course, there are a few people canceling, also people that cannot travel because of the closure of some airports. But there are also new bookings, because I think Switzerland is seen as a safe destination and Switzerland is open for business and also very attractive for the summer tourism. That's what we can say. We are monitoring very closely the situation, of course, and we will inform the market accordingly when we have something new.

I think I've answered all the written questions. I don't know if there is further question on the phone.

So there are no questions via telephone.

Okay. So thank you very much for your attention. And we, of course, through our Investor Relations, are always ready to meet and to discuss investment in our company. Thank you very much for your attention, and have a good day to everybody.