Central Business Centres plc, a commercial real estate firm which has a total of €40.25 million in bonds listed on the Malta Stock Exchange (MSE), would take over 19 years to repay its debts if its profits remain at the current level.

Edward Rizzo, a Director of the stockbroking company Rizzo Farrugia & Co., flagged the “truly exorbitant” debt-to-earnings ratio – a key metric of financial health – in his weekly column.

The net debt to EBITDA ratio – expresses a company’s debt burden relative to its earnings by calculating the number of years it would take for a company to pay off its entire debt burden assuming the present level of earnings remains unchanged.

Edward Rizzo

CBC’s debt-to-earnings ratio of 19.4, noted Mr Rizzo, is “truly elevated by any standards or benchmarks used.”

To place this into context, Malta Properties Company plc and AX Real Estate plc, operating in the same sector, have a ratio at 8.5 times, and Exalco Properties Limited (Guarantor to the bonds issued by Exalco Finance plc) at 3 times.

CBC’s high debt “exposes the company to an elevated risk of refinancing when their current bonds or bank loans are due to mature,” noted Mr Rizzo.

Particularly “disappointing”, he added, was that Calamatta Cuschieri, as authors of the Financial Analysis Summary published in the recent prospectus dated 23rd October 2025, described CBC’s debt-to-earnings as “healthy”.

Mr Rizzo additionally called out the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) for allowing the definition “once this document was reviewed by the MFSA prior to its recent publication.”

CBC has been in the headlines in recent months as it called a meeting for holders of a €3 million unlisted bond at the end of August 2025 which was just three days before its redemption date. Holders of the private debt instrument agreed to extend the redemption date until 28th February 2026

CBC also intends to issue additional bonds of just over €16 million during the course of 2026.

Mr Rizzo concluded: “In my view, there also needs to be a conscious drive that the right terminology is used by financial intermediaries and all market participants in the important documents that are intended to act as educational tools for the investing public.”