Engel & Völkers Digital Invest reports successful financial year 2022 – Total operating income and earnings in financial year 2023 expected to be below analysts estimates

Press release

Engel & Völkers Digital Invest reports successful financial year 2022 – Total operating income and earnings in financial year 2023 expected to be below analysts estimates

• Annual Report 2022 confirms for financial year 2022 good operational development in a challenging market environment
• Total operating income of 5.7 million euros in line with forecast
• Adjusted EBIT exceeds expectations at -1.2 million euros
• No specific forecast for 2023 and following years due to extraordinary challenging market environment

Berlin, May 24, 2023. EV Digital Invest AG (ISIN: DE000A3DD6W5, hereinafter “company” or “Engel & Völkers Digital Invest”), operator of the online real estate investment platform “Engel & Völkers Digital Invest”, today published its first annual report following its successful IPO in May 2022. The company reports a successful financial year 2022.

Business figures 2022: Stable development in a challenging market environment
Total operating revenues, adjusted for costs and special effects of the IPO, recorded an increase of 27.5 percent to 5.7 million euros compared to previous year and were thus within the company's forecast range of 5.5 to 6.0 million euros. Adjusted EBIT reached -1.2 million euros, exceeding the original company expectation of -1.7 million euros by 0.5 million euros (+ 43 %). The unadjusted EBIT of -3.3 million euros is slightly above the current analysts' estimate of -3.8 million euros by 0.5 million euros. Since the company was founded, projects with a volume of more than 200 million euros have been financed via the digital investment platform for real estate. The placement volume increased to 59.9 million euros in 2022 after a value of 32.7 million euros in the previous year - an increase of 83.2 percent.

Marc Laubenheimer, Co-CEO: “The 2022 business year was successful for us from an operational and strategic perspective. In an extraordinarily challenging market environment, we were able to exceed the communicated earnings forecast and were one of very few companies to master the path to the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. This was a great proof of confidence from our investors, which we have earned as a quality-leading digital investment platform for real estate.”

Project financing business with sustained high demand
The real estate projects financed via the platform in the 2022 financial year comprise project developments of residential and commercial properties in economically strong locations. In the third quarter of 2022, the company entered into a strategic partnership with DFI Real Estate to offer investors investments in the growth segment of sustainable logistics properties. Since then, four DFI Future Park projects with rooftop photovoltaic systems have been financed. Engel & Völkers Digital Invest is thus placing a stronger focus on the topics of logistics and sustainability.

As expected, the high demand from investors for investment projects was confirmed in 2022. The extremely fast financing of the past year showed that real estate investments with an attractive risk-reward profile are in high demand among investors. Many of the investment projects were fully financed in just a few hours. The repayment of successfully completed projects also increased compared to the previous year. In total, around 32 million euros were repaid to investors in 2022.

Outlook 2023: Operational focus on lower-risk business
Against the backdrop of the increasingly challenging market environment on the real estate market and the associated generally increased risks for real estate project developments, the Management Board has once again made its risk strategy more restrictive.

Tobias Barten, Co-CEO: “Even in the increasingly challenging market environment, we expect investor demand for high-quality real estate investments to remain high. At the same time, we are seeing increased demand from project owners, as banks are currently much more conservative to lend capital. Although our project pipeline is full, we see that some real estate projects have significantly higher risks in the current environment. Accordingly, we will be even more selective in the interest of our investors and finance far fewer projects than planned from a risk perspective.”

Challenging market environment offers opportunities for inorganic growth
From the Management Board's point of view, the current market environment also offers opportunities to use the company's capitalisation, which was strengthened by the IPO, to broaden the product range through inorganic growth. This is intended to accelerate growth while at the same time diversifying revenue sources more broadly and tapping synergies.

Marc Laubenheimer, Co-CEO: “We already communicated in last year's IPO that we want to use the very good capitalisation resulting from the IPO in the future to grow through strategic acquisitions. In our opinion, the current market environment offers some very attractive opportunities for this, which we want to take advantage of.”

Due to the more restrictive risk strategy as well as the prioritization of inorganic growth this year, the Management Board currently does not provide a specific forecast on the development of revenues in 2023 and following years. The Management Board assumes that both the total operating income (sales and other operating income reduced by one-time special effects) as well as the earnings will be well below the current analyst estimate. Total operating income is expected to decline by a mid-double-digit percentage compared to fiscal year 2022. This is due to the decision to position the risk strategy even more restrictive in this market phase. Costs are expected to be in line with 2022 costs to provide the foundation for inorganic growth and product expansion and thus emerge stronger from the difficult market situation. The analysts' forecast assumes sales of 7.8 million euros and an EBITDA of -0.7 million euros for fiscal year 2023. In the medium to long term, the Management Board continues to expect total revenues to develop at medium double-digit growth rates.

About EV Digital Invest AG
EV Digital Invest AG, license partner of Engel & Völkers Marken GmbH & Co. KG, offers private investors the opportunity to participate as a co-investor in selected real estate projects via the fast-growing digital investment platform for real estate “Engel & Völkers Digital Invest”. As a quality-leading platform in the field of digital real estate investment and financing, and as part of Engel & Völkers’ global network of licensed partners, it enjoys exceptionally high brand recognition.

With many years of industry expertise, extensive due diligence and high quality standards, a financing volume of more than EUR 200 million has been achieved to date. A loyal and well-capitalized investor base with currently more than 14,000 users enables project financing within short financing periods. The market share is to be significantly expanded with a sustainable and quality-focused business strategy.

Further information: www.ev-digitalinvest.de

ENGEL&VÖLKERS DIGITAL INVEST
EV Digital Invest AG
Licensed partner of Engel & Völkers Marken GmbH & Co. KG
Joachimsthaler Str. 12
10719 Berlin
www.ev-digitalinvest.de

Contact:
Kirchhoff Consult, Jan Hutterer
Borselstraße 20, 22765 Hamburg
Phone: +49 40 60 91 86 65
E-mail: ev-digitalinvest@kirchhoff.de