Luc Tonneau: Managing Director of the Wilink Group holding company and CEO of real estate activities

Transcript

Elisa Brevet

Hello everyone and welcome to the BeeBonds podcast. Today I'm pleased to welcome Luc Tonneau.

Hello Luc.

Luc Tonneau

Hello Elisa.

Elisa Brevet

So Luc, you are the Managing Director of the Wilink Group holding company and CEO of the real estate business. You have over 20 years' experience at the helm of key financial initiatives for diversified international companies and SMEs.

You have also been CFO of the Wilink companies since 2013. A group that you built up from a merger of three groups of companies, resulting in an increase in turnover of 250 %.

So, before we get down to the nitty-gritty of the campaign, Luc, tell us about the Wilink Group.

Luc Tonneau

The Wilink Group is Belgium's leading independent broker for private individuals, the self-employed and SMEs. As you may know, Wilink offers the full range of financial advice, solutions and services.

It really is the first financial shop to cover activities such as insurance, investment, credit, banking solutions, wealth planning and, what brings us here today, property investment.

In figures, we have more than 350 employees in 20 sales outlets.

And these resources enable us to offer financial peace of mind to the 130,000 customers who have placed their trust in this group. Sales of 50 million euros a year are diversified across all these activities.

Elisa Brevet

Very good. Thank you for that information. So now we're going to look at the campaign and this new Elitis Property Management spin-off. Can you tell us about it?

Luc Tonneau

Yes, the Elitis Real Estate and Wilink Real Estate brands have already been developing the new-build investment property brokerage business for over ten years, always focusing on the relationship with developers for the distribution of their property projects to individual investors. This is really Elitis Real Estate's target or niche.

In the meantime, more than 300 units are sold through this channel every year. And always to investors looking to diversify their assets in a market where the stock market is sometimes turbulent.

There is also a rental yield in a market that is in demand and, finally, a long-term capital gain in a Belgian market that has always shown itself to be bullish. To support sales, Elitis has developed a rental management department over the years.

Why should we do this? To support these investors in their dealings with tenants, managing agents and other tradespeople. It wasn't necessarily their hobby to deal with property investment.

And in 2022, so this year, we've decided to spin off the business and give it a boost by housing it in a new structure called Elitis Property Management.

Elisa Brevet

So what exactly is Elitis doing today?

Luc Tonneau

Elitis Property Management currently manages more than 1,000 units. It does this on behalf of owner-investors who are looking for professionalism and peace of mind when it comes to managing their property assets.

It can start with just one unit. That's the whole management aspect of Elitis. In addition to this management aspect, thanks to its IP professional accreditation, which, I would remind you, is the Institut Professionnel de l'immobilier (Professional Property Institute).

Well, EPM can be entrusted with the letting and resale of these same properties under management, so that together with Elitis they form a complete ecosystem from A to Z that offers every comfort to the investor.

Elisa Brevet

So tell us, why this fund-raising? What are your objectives?

Luc Tonneau

The objective is a great ambition. And the ambition is to very quickly double the volume of properties under management in order to achieve better national coverage.

And then, as is often the case in consolidation and integration phases, to seek synergies to rationalise the management of our teams. We therefore expect to see a significant and virtuous effect from portfolio acquisitions.

We have a number of projects in the pipeline where, in addition to these acquisitions, we may also be able to manage properties on behalf of third parties, in particular estate agents who do not have these skills in-house.

Elisa Brevet

So why did Luc turn to crowdlending? And to BeeBonds in particular.

Luc Tonneau

For us, crowdlending is a way of increasing our visibility on the market.

For us, this campaign is really an expression of our dynamism and our ambitions. What we're also looking to do is offer an attractive return to our customers and partners, or to any investor who chooses to support us in this double-digit growth.

So you asked me, Elisa, why BeeBonds? We looked at the market and found BeeBonds to be very flexible in its approach. And, I think, a guarantee of seriousness for any investor.

This is because they call on the professional services of PWC and Deloitte, who were involved not only in putting together the application, but also in auditing it and preparing the approval that is filed with the FSCMA.

Elisa Brevet

How are you going to repay?

Luc Tonneau

That's a very good question. I think that what counts and what marks investors out in their choice is the search for recurrence.

And this recurrence is precisely at the heart of the management business model, which is based on regular revenues. These revenues already cover the company's fixed costs, and have been generating stable and growing cash flow for several years.

Another security factor is the notion of recurrence, which creates value. This is something that integrators and investment funds are very keen on.

Elisa Brevet

All right, then. So if you had a final message for Beebonds investors, what would you like to say?

Luc Tonneau

Well, I'd like to repeat the two pieces of advice that Warren Buffett always gives investors to explain what has made him so successful and so wealthy.

Quite simply. 1) Choose companies that are simple and true to their core business. 2) Only invest in companies you understand well.

And I think, in this respect, Elitis Property Management meets a long-standing market demand and occupies an essential segment in this property value chain. And all these skills complement each other.

So taking part in this campaign now is an opportunity to support Elitis Property Management in its ability to react to acquisition opportunities and to finance its growth in general.

As I said, this will enable us to double our activity in 3 to 4 years.

I see on the website barometer that over 55 % of the fundraising has already been subscribed.

So this is a very good start, which means we can already guarantee the first projects we had in mind. And I'm convinced that in the next few days we'll be able to reach the total envelope needed to complete this same ambition.

Elisa Brevet

All right, that's the end of this episode. Thank you all for listening and especially thank you to Luc Tonneau for accepting our invitation.

Luc Tonneau

Thank you Elisa.