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Vonovia headquarters in Bochum
Photo: Marcel Kusch / dpa
The business of renting apartments is one of the industries that are not suffering from the corona pandemic.
The largest German real estate group Vonovia even significantly increased its profit in 2020 and sees itself on a growth path for 2021 as well.
Last year, profit from operating business - the key figure for real estate companies - increased by 10.6 percent to almost 1.35 billion euros.
The Dax company announced that acquisitions in Sweden in particular contributed to the positive development.
"Despite the challenge of the corona crisis, we continued to develop positively, and we are also optimistic for 2021," said CEO Rolf Buch.
Vonovia had around 416,000 rental apartments of its own in Germany, Sweden and Austria as of December 31, 2020.
In the Federal Republic of Germany, the market share with around 355,000 managed apartments is around 1.5 percent.
Investments in new buildings for the company's own stock, in maintenance and modernization, however, decreased by 1.8 percent in 2020 to a total of around 1.94 billion euros.
CEO Buch explained that the pandemic had delayed individual construction projects: "Due to Covid-19, construction sites were paralyzed even in the first lockdown." Since the risk of infection on construction sites has been classified as low, this is no longer the case.
Last year, the result of the Swedish housing group Hembla was fully taken into account for the first time.
In recent years Vonovia had taken over several companies, mainly abroad, and invested in the modernization and construction of new apartments.
The expansion course and the higher rents achieved as a result of modernizations have been increasing operating profit for years.
For 2021, the group is aiming for another higher profit from the operating business of 1.42 to 1.47 billion euros.
A dividend of EUR 1.69 per share is to be proposed to shareholders at the Annual General Meeting on April 16 for 2020, twelve cents more than in the previous year.
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fdi / Reuters