Luka Mucic faced his first annual general meeting as Vonovia’s chief executive with a bold promise to slash debt and a bitter controversy over the exit package for his predecessor. The gathering in Bochum saw investors broadly endorse the group’s strategic direction, but the glare of a €15 million settlement for former boss Rolf Buch threatened to overshadow the bigger picture.
Mucic laid out a clear roadmap for Germany’s largest residential landlord. The core target is to trim the loan-to-value ratio from roughly 45% to about 40%. To get there, the company plans to sell property worth as much as €5 billion over the coming years. At the same time, it is aiming to lift adjusted EBITDA to up to €3.5 billion by 2028, compared with the roughly €2.8 billion expected for the current year.
Shareholders largely backed the new chief’s plans. They approved a dividend of €1.25 per share for the 2025 financial year, up from €1.22 a year earlier, with payout scheduled for 26 May 2026. The stock traded ex-dividend on Friday, a technical adjustment that left the market’s attention on the underlying business. Attendance at the meeting came in at 58.91%.
The real friction point was Buch’s farewell. Shareholder representatives from Deka Investment and DSW criticised the structure of the payments, which include a core severance of about €5.8 million, a €3.3 million non-compete compensation for a one-year restraint, and more than 210,000 virtual shares to be cashed out at the end of 2027. Activist funds and proxy advisers argued that the non-compete allowance should have been offset against the severance. DWS and Deka were among those voicing displeasure. Chairwoman Clara Streit defended the payout as contractually sound, but for a company demanding trust in its cost discipline, the optics are awkward.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Vonovia?
The market remains sceptical of the value on offer. Vonovia’s shares closed at €22.42 on Thursday, leaving them down 7.05% since the start of the year and off 22.07% over twelve months. The discount to net asset value is stark: the EPRA NTA stood at €46.57 per share, meaning the stock is pricing in high financing costs and execution risk. The gap to the 200-day moving average is 10.83%, while the relative strength index of 56.0 suggests no extreme oversold condition.
That caution reflects the headwinds Mucic still faces. Interest expenses rose again by roughly €20 million in the first quarter of 2026, and the planned disposals must deliver real cash flow relief. The company’s core German rental market continues to tighten, with average rents up nearly 4% to €8.26 per square metre. Vonovia now manages more than half a million homes across Europe.
Investors will get the next fundamental update on 5 August with the half-year report, followed by third-quarter numbers on 4 November. Until then, the new CEO must prove that his efficiency agenda can close the gap between the book value and the share price — and that the noise over Buch’s departure is just a distraction from a credible deleveraging story.
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