Helvetia maintains real estate ratio at 13 percent
Helvetia Group kept its real estate portfolio for investment purposes stable at 13 percent in the past 2015 financial year. As of the end of December, it owned real estate across Europe worth CHF 6.4 billion.
Current income from real estate at Helvetia amounted to CHF 237 million in 2015, an increase of 28 million compared with the previous year. The resulting profit amounted to 56 million last year. The profit-generating result from this investment segment amounted to 293 million, yielding a total return of 4.6 percent. The total investment portfolio of the Swiss insurance group amounted to 47.9 billion last year, 60 percent of which were interest-bearing securities (value: CHF 28.9 billion). The total return across all investment segments was 1.6 percent, as Helvetia CEO Stefan Loacker explained at the presentation of the 2015 annual financial statements in Zurich.
92.8 percent of Helvetia's properties are located in Switzerland, followed by 3.5 percent in Austria, 1.4 percent in Germany and about one percent each in Spain and Italy. The real estate portfolio consists of 72.5 percent residential and 27.5 percent commercial properties. As CIO Ralph-Thomas Honegger added, Helvetia's commitment to real estate is above average in a sector comparison at 13 percent - and it intends to maintain this level. Across Switzerland, Helvetia's commitment to real estate is close to the regulatory upper limit of 35 percent. Nevertheless, the project pipeline is still "well filled," says Honegger. Just last week, Helvetia announced that it would co-finance the shell development with apartments in the Pilatus Arena project in Kriens near Lucerne. (mr)
