LUXEMBOURG (dpa-AFX) - Commercial real estate specialist Aroundtown intends to skip the dividend for the past year. The Board of Directors has decided not to propose a payment to shareholders at the Annual General Meeting on June 26, the company announced on Tuesday evening. The background to the decision is the ongoing market uncertainties, which limit the predictability of future developments. This also limits the impact on Aroundtown's debt and financing costs.

In view of these uncertainties, the Board of Directors believes that the company should remain conservative with regard to capital preservation and continue to focus on strengthening liquidity and reducing the debt/equity ratio.

Aroundtown was deep in the red after the first nine months of the year. Due to the devaluation of the real estate portfolio, the net loss amounted to just under 1.4 billion euros after a profit of around 578 million euros a year ago, as the company announced at the end of November. The Group had already posted the majority of the loss in the first half of 2023.

The entire real estate sector has recently been hit by high inflation and the rise in key interest rates. These factors brought the long real estate price boom in Germany to an abrupt end. Aroundtown subsidiary Grand City Properties had already announced two weeks ago that it did not intend to pay a dividend for 2023.

Investors were now disappointed with Aroundtown. In an initial reaction, the shares lost almost two percent on the Tradegate trading platform./he/ck