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spk01: Thank you. Good morning and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this presentation of CDG's first quarter and full year 2023 results. The call today is hosted from Paris, where Mrs. Sophie Zucchia, Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Jérôme Servre, Group CFO, will provide an overview of the quarter and the full year results, as well as provide comments on our 2024-2026 environment and market trends, as well on our financial trajectory. Let me remind you first that some of the information contains forward-looking statements subject to risk and uncertainties that may change at any time. And therefore, the actual results may differ materially from those that were expected. Following this presentation, we will be pleased to take your questions. And now, I will turn the call over to Sophie.
spk09: Thank you, Christophe. Good morning and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. And thank you for participating in this Q4 2023 and for your conference call. On this call today, we will review our Q4 and full year 2023 operational and financial performance. We are also taking this opportunity to provide further insights and share with you our view on the 2024-2026 market environment, the business outlook and perspective of our core and new businesses, and an overview of our expected financial roadmap. Moving on to slide four. Today, CDD is a clear leader in our core businesses of geoscience, earth data, and sensing and monitoring, thanks to our expertise and our advanced technology. We have also successfully expanded the scope of our business to address energy transition, mainly through CCUS and minerals and mining offerings, which are natural step-out extensions of our core products and services. And beyond oil and gas, we are developing two new businesses, high-performance computing and digital solutions, leveraging our geoscience technology and capabilities, and infrastructure monitoring, which leverages our sensing and monitoring equipment and solutions. In 2023, revenue from these new businesses grew to around $90 million, and we anticipate they will continue to develop at a fast pace moving forward. Slide five on ESG performance. I'd like to begin by highlighting the particularly strong ESG ratings of CGG. We set an ESG framework with ambitious targets across social, environmental, and governance areas, all of which are included in the company's and its leadership's objectives. We are well ahead of our carbon emission objectives and expect targets to be achieved much earlier than original commitments. By the end of 2023, we have already reduced our scope 1 and 2 by 58% since 2019, and that is post-investiture of our acquisition services, and have increased our green energy mix to 65%. Our HSE performance remains excellent, and we'll continue to ensure it is maintained at the top percentile level. Our risk profile is low and controlled given the footprint and activities of CDGs. Our key focus on diversity is to set ambitious gender diversity targets and ensure that this targeted percentage is achieved across all levels of the organization. We are already at 25%, which positions us in the best performance of our industry. Our performance is also recognized by rating agencies with an MSCI rating of AA, which we have maintained for the last four years. Moving on to slide 7 now, and looking at our Q4 key figures, our Q4 revenue was $320 million, stable year-on-year. Segment Q4 2023 EBITDA was $122 million, including $13 million penalty fees from vessel commitments and $8 million equipment inventory write-offs. Q4 net cash flow was positive at $48 million and including $18 million contractual fees from Vessel Commence. Looking at 2023 now, our full-year financial performance significantly improved year-on-year. Revenue reached $1.125 billion, up 21%, and we delivered $32 million of organic net cash flow while investing in the development of our new businesses and our HTC capacity, and paying $66 million related to contractual vessel commitments. We finished 2023 with $417 million of liquidity at the end of December, including $327 million of cash and $90 million of undrawn RCF. Going on to slide 8. Macro oil and gas trends over the quarter remained stable, with a long-term range for oil prices around $80. This provides a solid backdrop for a continued increase in client spending in our market. Q4 2023 revenue mix was quite different than last year, with all business lines landing near similar levels. Geoscience was $98 million, up 41% year-on-year, driven by the delivery of large processing projects. Earth data was $103 million, than 29% year-on-year, as our clients remained disciplined on their budgets, prioritizing spend on drilling and other shorter-term-to-market activities. This was further exaggerated by the shift of lease rounds in Brazil and the Gulf of Mexico, delaying seismic spend in those key basins. Sensing and monitoring was $119 million, up 14% year-on-year, sustained by a high level of land and known equipment deliveries in North Africa and China. With Q4 revenue stable year-on-year, we ended up the full year at up 21%, which is a significant achievement. Going on to slide 9. Looking now at each of our segment business indicators. 2023 DDE segment revenue was $672 million, up 2% year-on-year, as double-digit growth in geoscience was offset by lower Earth data sales. When corrected for the $19 million revenue related to our land library footprint in 2022, DDE growth was actually 5%. The profitability of DDE mechanically decreased based on sales mix. Slide 10 with geoscience. In 2023, driven by our leading imaging technologies, geoscience performance was excellent. External revenue grew to $335 million, up 18% year-on-year, with growth coming from all regions. The geoscience business remained strong, supported by demand for new technology to precisely understand the subsurface, both for exploration but also importantly for development and production where technology can bring significant shorter term value to our clients. Our advanced technology is particularly valuable for OBN processing given the high acquisition cost and the step change in quality our unique imaging technology can deliver. We continue to benefit from the success of the elastic TLFWI technology, which is now implemented in all regions and powered by CGG's ever-growing and highly optimized HPC capacity, which has now reached 510 petaflops. The backlog dynamics at the end of the year are not indicative of the trends that we see in the industry, and we expect to recognize multiple significant projects going forward in backlogs. Coverage for 2024 is very similar to last year at the same time and expect our plan for 2024 to be fairly secure.
spk08: Going on to EDA, slide 11.
spk09: 2023 Earth data revenue was $337 million, down 10% year-on-year and down 5% when adjusted for the $19 million revenue of land data library in 2022 that we divested. Pre-funding revenue was high at $194 million, bringing the pre-funding rate to 113% as we focused on the highest quality projects. After-sales were $143 million, significantly down year-on-year. However, we must keep in mind that in 2022, after-sales were boosted by a particularly large amount of transfer fees, around $55 million. So when correcting for the sale of land library and transfer fees, the four-year 2023 after-sales were down around 9% year-on-year. We did not see the traditional Q4 year-end after sales, which suffered based on delays in bid rounds in both Brazil and the Gulf of Mexico. In general, clients were more disciplined in 2023 with their year-end spend. Now to slide 12. 2023 was a year of tremendous growth for our sending and monitoring segment, with revenue at $453 million, up 68% year-on-year. Sales were driven by a marine segment which tripled year-on-year, supported by very large deliveries of OBN equipment for operations in China and in the Middle East. Sales from our new business in SMO were also up 45% at $48 million. SMO adjusted EBITDA was $56 million in 2023, a 12% margin. Q4 margin was impacted by very small inventory write-downs decided as part of a performance improvement plan that was launched at the end of 2023. Normalized from those one-offs, SMO EBITDA margin would have reached 14%. Let me now give the floor to Jérôme for more financial details.
spk04: Thank you, Sophie. Good morning and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I will comment on our Q4 and full year 23 performance. Let me start with the Q4 income statement on slide 14. As highlighted by Sophie, Q4 was a solid quarter with our segment revenues at $322 million, stable year on year, mainly driven by a high geoscience activity strong earth data pre-funding revenues, high deliveries of land and OBN mega crews, but low earth data after sales due to the late bid rounds. Segment EBDA reached $122 million, a 38% margin due to a dilutive business mix, 8 million inventory write-offs as part of the launch of the SMO performance improvement plan, as well as a negative impact of 13 million of compensation fees related to our vessel contractual commitments. Q4 23 segment operating income was 15 million positive. Looking now at full year 23, our revenue at $1,125,000,000 was up 21% versus last year. 2023 EBDA was 400 million, including the negative impact of 44 million extra costs linked to our vessel agreement and the same 8 million of SMO inventory write-off. DD adjusted EBDA was at $367 million, a 55% margin, while SMO adjusted EBDA was 56 million, a 12% margin, and as Sophie said, normalized from the stock write-off close to 15%. 23 group net income was positive at $16 million. Moving on to the cash flow statement on slide 15, and starting with Q4 23. Q4 23 segment operating cash flow before change in working capital was $130 million. Q4 23 segment net cash flow was high at $48 million after $21 million of positive change in working capital, but still including $18 million of vessel commitment fees. Looking at full year 23, segment operating cash flow before change in working capital was $406 million. CapEx were 232 million, down 11%, with EDA CapEx at 171 million, down 17%. But Industrial CapEx was at 44 million due to final investment in our new data center in the UK. Full year 23 segment free cash flow was 181 million, up 21% year-on-year, and including 3 million positive change in working capital, thanks to a very tight management of SMO inventory, global client overdues, as well as supplier penmanters. After 91 million cash cost of debt, 35 million lease repayments, and 24 million related to the adult vessel compensation, full year 23 organic net cash flow generation was 32 million. As a reminder, 22 net cash flow at breakeven was positively impacted by 65 million of exceptionals, including the divestment of our US onshore library. Slide 16 and the group balance sheet. Group liquidity amounted to $417 million, including $327 million of cash liquidity, plus $90 million of undrawn RCF. Group gross debt before IFRS 16 is 1.2 billion versus 1.16 last year. Group net debt before IFRS 16 improved to 871 million versus 858 million last year. Group gross debt after IFRS 16 was 1.3 billion including 1,146,000,000 of higher bonds, up 22,000,000 due to the euro-dollar negative exchange rate impact. 20,000,000 of accrued interest. 103,000,000 liabilities, up 10,000,000 year on year. And 32,000,000 of other loans, mainly 20,000,000 for our new UK data center. Group net debt was $974,000,000. And the leverage ratio of net debt to segment EBITDA was stable at 2.4 times at the end of December. I now hand the floor back to Sophie for an outlook on the 24-26 market environment.
spk09: Thank you, Giro. I'm on slide 17. In this section, I'd like to give you some perspective for 24-26, including market elements that are relevant to CGG and long-term outlook for our business. In the rapidly changing and volatile environment that we've seen over the last few years, thanks to our consistent investment in people, data and innovation, we managed to position CGG as the clear technology leader in its core geoscience, earth data and sensing and monitoring businesses. This has been achieved while investing in new businesses beyond the core. We expect CGG to benefit from this in the next few years, both from our leadership positions in the strengthening exploration and production market and in our select new business markets that are growing rapidly. Let's go to slide 18 now. Despite the business variability and volatility that we saw in 2022 and 2023, as some projects in the Middle East shifted from 2022 to 2023, and some resales were delayed to year-end 2023, we believe that going forward, the underlying industry fundamentals remain solid and favorable to CGGP. The strengthening of exploration, development, and production market is expected to continue. Priorities of our clients on short-term, short-time-to-market projects and their search for new, lower-cost, lower-risk, and lower-carbon reserves, especially offshore, will continue. Their focus on mature producing basins is driving demand for high-end imaging and increased OBM data acquisition surveys, a backdrop that is favorable to our core activities. Since 2018, we have focused our business on the more mature active areas and on technologies relevant to development and production. Based on this, together with our clients' focus, we now have more exposure to the production part than the exploration part of our client budget. The number of offshore FIDs is increasing, and we participate through geoscience and increasingly with nodes in sensing and monitoring and even Earth data in a large number of the projects focused on development and production. Middle East activity is at the height in many years and will continue ramping up to acquire, image and utilize high-end SiteMate data, more and more leveraging high-end algorithms and integrated datasets to extract the best value from the data, all areas where CDG excels. Finally, our clients are increasingly looking for the next mature basins and are positioning in areas such as Suriname, Namibia, East Med or Brazil. Let me highlight some of the key fundamental positive market trends that should specifically benefit our core businesses. Moving on to slide 19. First, starting with ocean bottom nodes. They are a must-have for our clients. Despite the cost of OBN acquisition, which is typically 5 to 10 times more expensive than streamer acquisition, more and more OBN data is acquired globally, while less and less streamer data is acquired. Most offshore mature producing basins require an increasingly more precise understanding of the subsurface to de-risk opportunities and optimize fill development and infill drilling. Quality and precision matters to all our clients in the Gulf of Mexico and increasingly now in the North Sea, Brazil, Middle East and parts of Asia and Africa. We see these trends strengthening going forward. Given the OVN economics, data complexity and the importance of detail and precision, it makes sense to apply the best processing technology to extract the maximum insights from the data. Our highly specialized application of forward-forming version, powered by our 500-cent petaflops of computing power, delivers images and reservoir characterization as was never seen before. This makes the work of interpreters much faster and easier and allows our clients to significantly de-risk and optimize their portfolio of opportunities. CGD is leading in the OBN processing space, with approximately 80% of the addressable processing market. We have also positioned in the node space in our SMO division, with the GPR300 that represents today about 36% of the install base. Our OBN acquisition software is used today by most OBN acquisition companies, and we are expanding the range of our OBN products to cover deeper water depths. Earthdata also participates in the OBN market by developing OBN projects like the two projects we acquired in Norway in 2023 and the one we are acquiring right now in the Gulf of Mexico. We have so far invested $113 million in cash capex for OBN data and plan to invest more than $100 million per year from 2025 onwards when we no longer have stream and vessel commitments. Let's go to slide 20 now. Middle East and North Africa are driven by national oil companies that are taking a long-term view on their oil and gas assets and hold approximately 50% of global oil reserves and 40% of the gas reserves, many of which are at the lowest break-even points. Clients in the region have historically been heavy users of seismic because of the complex geology and imaging challenges. Efficiency together with quality and precision are critical to optimize exploration, development and production. More recently, there has been a significant increase in offshore data acquired, particularly OBN. CDG has processed 100% of this data in the last few years. Ascending and monitoring equipment under the brand of Surcell is widely used in the region and is a reference for our clients, not only on land but also offshore with our GPR 300 known that has been used to acquire data in Abu Dhabi and is currently in operation in Saudi Arabia. During the period of 24 to 26, the Middle East and North Africa are expected to accelerate high-end seismic activity with very ambitious large land and offshore projects with a potential of around 3 million square kilometers per year. This trend should have a strong positive impact on our core businesses of SMO for the equipment and FGO science for the data processing. Now onto slide 21. Finally, digitalization has the potential to bring large efficiency and quality gains to our industry, and the technology and take-up is maturing. The improvement in AI tools and easier access to large computing capacity is driving a new wave of digitalization that will see AI and LLMs used at scale in the oil and gas industry. It will increasingly enable our clients to unlock the value of previously siloed and inaccessible subsurface data and improve and reduce the time for decision making, all while lowering overall costs. At CDB, we have deep expertise in data, high in mathematics, advanced algorithms, and high-performance computing. We have developed many AI-based tools, including our Data Hub solution for data curation and classification, allowing our clients to extract new insights from their data. Revenue from Data Hub has grown fourfold in 2023, while we have developed a strong group of AI machine learning scientists. These digital trends align well with our strengths and will be a major driver of our growth, not only in our core markets, but also as we expand into new markets. Slide 2022. We expect these positive macro trends to benefit each of our three core businesses. For geoscience, high-end acquisition and more precise imaging are required by our clients to optimize their current production and find new oils. This requires the most advanced geoscience and data science algorithms supported by massive high-performance computing power and importantly computing power that is specifically optimized for the industry's unique and complex challenges. an area that CDG has been a leader in since the 1950s when we installed our customized first computer so that it could handle the size constraints of seismic data. Our continued innovations in high-performance computing and advances in high-imaging technology, such as our unique elastic four-way conversion, combined with the growing demand for OPN and high-density survey, which we know how to process and analyze better than anyone, result in clients continuously turning to us to address their most complex and business-critical challenges. For Earth data, we will benefit from having some of the most comprehensive high-quality data in the most important basins today, from the mature Gulf of Mexico, North Sea and Brazil basins, to the emerging basins of Suriname and the equatorial margin. We will also continue to invest in new surveys, In particular, OVNs with discipline to achieve high levels of pre-funding and high likelihood of up-to-scale. For SMO, our top-line growth will largely be driven by ability to provide the market with the most accurate, reliable, and operationally efficient sensing systems and solutions. We recently penetrated the fast-growing OBN market, with now approximately 40% of the installed base, and are expanding our full range of capabilities to further grow into this strengthening market. A large land installed base and the increasing demand for mega-cruise, particularly in the Middle East and in North Africa, will continue to drive business growth. Going into slide 23. The unique capabilities that are highlighted in our core businesses, mostly developed for oil and gas, are the cornerstones that enable us to expand into new markets by addressing emerging needs. Our equipment, data, and unique subsurface and imaging expertise is highly transferable into the low-carbon markets of CCUS and minerals and mining. CCUS is starting to pick up with most of the focus today being on characterization of future reservoirs and design of the monitoring scheme which is often required for permitting. High-end imaging is required to fully understand the future of these large-scale storage reservoirs. We also have all the modeling tools to understand the long-term behavior of the reservoir and design the optimal monitoring scheme. Minerals and mining is a space that is becoming increasingly relevant to us, as mining companies must look for the energy transition materials under cover. This means that the easy to find ore near the surface has been discovered, and companies now need to go deeper under the surface, which then requires more advanced geoscience and data science technologies. Such technologies are also useful to optimize extraction around existing mines, In this space, we will support the exploration and development of minerals through offering the regional data needed to provide a better understanding of where the commercial ore bodies are under the surface and the advanced imaging technology needed to refine the deposit with more precision. Finally, we can provide the solutions and services during the exploitation to support its optimal operation, and as an example, monitoring the stability of the mines and tailing them. We expect both CTUS and Myrnos and Mining to bring revenue to our three business lines of Geoscience, Earth Data and SMO in a similar way as Olingas. In addition to these near step-outs, we are pursuing two large fast-growing markets, still heavily leveraging our existing capabilities. These opportunities have the potential to change the profile of CGG. The first is the high-performance computing market, where demand for computing to address modeling and AI requirements is exploding. With a highly specialized 510 petaflop solution in use every day, we have demonstrated a deep expertise that is built on decades of learning and customization. We are offering HPC Cloud as a service alongside support services to help clients optimize their workloads. We see this as a unique and needed niche that many clients are searching for and are seeing growing interest in the market.
spk08: We are also focused on partnering with HPC infrastructure suppliers to develop a combined offering.
spk09: The second market is infrastructure monitoring, where regulation agencies, infrastructure management or engineering companies are embracing digitalization. This will allow them to optimize the life of their expensive assets and anticipate issues before they arrive. Ascending technologies, systems and solutions, together with our ability to analyze and integrate datasets and apply the latest AI technologies, are finding exciting applications in understanding the dynamic behavior of complex structures such as bridges, railways, tunnels and wind turbines. Now on slide 24, our core businesses addressable market is expected to be around $3.3 billion in 2026, which will represent a 4% to 6% CAGR over the period of 2023 to 2026. This includes the geoscience, earth data, and sensing and monitoring market. As we embarked on developing new businesses to provide long-term growth potential for CGE, we targeted three broad market sectors that more than double our current addressable market with an additional $4.4 billion. These include the low-carbon CCUS and minerals and mining markets, along with our targeted HPC and cloud solutions markets and infrastructure monitoring. Not only are these markets very material, but they are also high growth, leveraging accelerating trends around energy transition and digitalization. Today, we have a small market share, but with our unique and mature technology and solutions, we expect to grow faster than the underlying market. Looking at slide 25 now. In these identified new areas of growth, we believe that our capabilities differentiate and position us to generate significant value for all of our stakeholders. Low carbon would plan to capitalize on the emerging surge of investment in CCUS by repurposing our data library and imaging and monitoring design capabilities to secure presence at early stages of these projects. Minerals and mining need more advanced technologies to identify new and more complex deposits, as well as develop existing mines more optimally and safely. This requires more geoscience data, advanced technology including imaging and modeling capabilities, as well as sensing and monitoring solutions, all areas where we excel. We're actively working on paid client projects to deploy such capabilities. In HPC and cloud solutions, We built a unique, highly customized end-to-end capabilities, including high-end scientific computing, advanced algorithms, application optimization, physics-based and data science, technology, software, and associated middleware. All of these enable us to offer a customized solution and clearly differentiate us from other industry players. We are focusing on a few target sectors, such as biotechnology and artificial intelligence. In 2023, we brought on board our first clients in biotech and generative AI, and have just delivered a dedicated infrastructure for AI, setting the stage for our growth in this space. For infrastructure monitoring, as we grow beyond the cold market, We can deploy our sensing and monitoring capabilities combined with our cloud computing, analytics, and imaging capabilities in sectors where effective infrastructure monitoring is critical to business success. Our portfolio of equipment, service, and solutions offerings are truly game-changing for operators of civil infrastructure, railways, and even wind farms. Our acquisition of Duocom has been a major market entry accelerator, which we plan to scale up in the coming year. We should more than double our revenue between 2023 and 2026 and double again between 2026 and 2030, provided the underlying markets do pick up as we anticipate. Now let me hand the floor back to Jérôme for an outlook on our financial roadmap focused on cash generation and balance sheet deleveraging.
spk04: Thank you Sophie. I would like now to give you an overview of our 2024-2025 financial trajectory. Starting with our 24 financial objectives on slide 27. As already mentioned in our trading update in January, CGG anticipate 24 financial results to be similar to 23. Our 24 segment revenue are thus expected to be aligned with 23. Geoscience will continue to grow, driven by technology and demand for low carbon processing. Earth data after sales to increase driven by transfer fees and by the favorable impact of the delayed December 23 licensing rounds. Sensing and monitoring expected to be done versus 23 based on fewer planned mega-cruise. Note that our 24 revenue growth will particularly be fueled by our new businesses. Regarding our 24 segmented EDA, we expect it to be positively impacted by the business mix. 24 EDA cash cashback is expected to increase around $175 to $200 million, with pre-funding above 75%. Overall, CDG is anticipating 24 net cash flow to reach similar level as 23, Although, just to remind you that our vessel capacity agreement will again significantly impact negatively our 24 cash. Let's now look at year 25 on slide 28, which is a more representative year for CGG cash generation. Indeed, by 25, we should generate around 100 million of net cash flow, benefiting from several factors. The first one being the end of our contractual vessel commitment in January 25, which will mechanically bring about 50 million after tax of additional cash versus 23. Secondly, we are committed to deliver productivity improvements and performance excellence. In geoscience, we will continue to raise our productivity through increasing the use of AI into our workflows, as well as leveraging our HPC capacity. In EDA, we will keep on ensuring our investments are only targeted at high pre-funding and high return surveys. But last but not least, in SMO, as previously mentioned, we have recently launched a performance improvement plan aimed at lowering the break-even point of the division. All aspects of the business are being challenged, from sales and marketing to operation and R&D, in order to lower and further flex the cost base as well as reduce the capital employed. Finally, the last two elements supporting our 25 cash objectives, our revenue will grow, as previously outlined by Sophie, and therefore generating additional cash, while in the meantime, we'll continue to further invest in the development of our core and new businesses. All these elements, end of vessel commitment, productivity improvement, growth and selective investment, give us confidence that we will deliver 100 million of net cash flow in 2025. Moving on to slide 29. Based on the solid cash generation over 2024 and 2025 that we've just outlined, plus the fact that we have reduced our minimum cash need to run operations to 100 million, we confirm our clear financial roadmap over the period 24-25, starting with the extension of the FTF this year in 24, a re-rating discussion with the rating agencies, and with over 350 million, 300 million, sorry, of cash available by 25, a debt repurchase program and our reduced refinancing before Q1-26. We would finally like to announce the launch of the first tranche of 30 million debt buyback already in 2024. I'm now handing back the floor to Sophie for the conclusion.
spk09: Thank you, Giro. With continued demand for our technology and new markets maturing, we are entering into an exciting new era of growth for our company. In the next two years, we have clear priorities. First, maintaining our leadership in our core businesses, benefiting from the positive cycle. Second, accelerating the development of our new businesses. And third, implementing our financial roadmap and deleveraging our balance sheet. Thank you for your attention and we're now ready to take your questions.
spk06: Thank you. To ask a question, you will need to press star 1 and 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 and 1 again. Once again, that is star 1 and 1 to ask a question. We will now go to your first question. One moment, please. And your first question comes from the line of Jean-Luc Romain from CIC Market Solutions. Please go ahead.
spk05: Good afternoon and thank you for taking my question. I have a question on generative AI. You showed it can boost your revenues very . Can it also have a negative impact in that by maybe accelerating the time from data to the image, it would have a deflationary pressure on your pricing?
spk09: Yeah, thank you for your question, and bonsoir, Jean-Luc. So actually, we see AI, and generally AI, which is a subset of it, as more of an opportunity, and we are using it as an efficiency tool ourselves. Actually, the way processing works, it's physics-based. So the way we're getting into those more precise images is using basically equations that we're modeling, and it's based on physics. So the AI comes as a complement to really aiding that process. So, so far, we don't see, we haven't seen a situation where AI just by itself could actually replace or give a better answer than the physics-based approach which we have.
spk07: Thank you very much. Sure. Thank you.
spk06: We will now go to the next question. And your next question comes from the line of Guillaume Delaby from Societe Generale. Please go ahead.
spk03: Yes, good afternoon Sophie and Jerome. Possibly a tough question for you. Thank you very much for providing us, let's say, a vision for the next two years. My question is, basically, if I understand correctly, you have dramatically increased your computer power. I also understand that Q1 is probably likely to be relatively good. But I would say, besides that, could you maybe provide us with one or two other data points which basically could give us some more confidence about the credibility of the plan and something to give us confidence that this is not going to be, let's say, some kind of a blue sky scenario. So how can we be reassured? Could you provide us with maybe one or two data points to reassure us? Thank you.
spk09: I'm not sure I understand the question. The proof of the data point is that this has been, if you look at our core market, we've been following our strategy, which has been to continue differentiating using more computing power to provide completely differentiated solutions. And our bet has proven right, because if you look at the data of Geoscience, our revenue per head is increasing. We have continued pricing power, and we continue to deliver the solutions that the clients need to optimize their fields. And you look at it, the other proof point that we gave you is our participation in the OVN market. OVN is more complex data set, so that the market is headed into more complexity, and more complexity plays in the favor of CGG. So that's sort of, in general, the nutshell for the core businesses. But were you asking the question on the new businesses?
spk03: You know, basically, in your vision, basically, in order basically to generate this $100 million cash flow in 2025, you need to increase your revenue. I understand that, in fact, you have increased, basically, your computer power. But my fear is that this might be, I would say, some kind of blue sky scenario for the next two years. So what might happen if, you know, things do not go your way? How can we be reassured?
spk04: Let me take this one, Guillaume. So, I mean, we generated 30 million this year in a pure organic fashion, which was not the case in 22, as I said. And you may remember it was on the back of 65 million of divestments. If you add the mechanical effect of the Shearwater contract, this year we paid 65 million of cash to Shearwater, 45 in the ABDA, 20 in the idle vessel compensation. We will pay obviously a bit more tax, so that's why in my speaking notes I said 50 million of mechanical positive impact after tax of Shearwater. You're already at 80. And what we've launched in CERCEL to the performance improvement plan to lower the break-even point, I mean, we are looking, as I said, at all aspects of the business. And I believe we can provide you a range, a rough number, but something between 20 and 30 million is clearly within reach over this period. So you're already at 100 million. And then we are not betting on the growth. I mean, we believe that we will be growing. CAGR for our core business, mid single digits. I mean, BTC, by definition, because we are small today, will grow much faster. to basically achieve this growth, we'll need to invest capex. But if at the end of the day, we realize we can't achieve this growth, we always have the opportunity to cut on capex. So at the end of the day, for me, the 100 million, I'm really confident we can make it.
spk03: So basically, the 100 million basically is somewhat covered, let's say, 60 million by the end of the agreement with Shewater. 20, 25 million of, let's say, self-help within. So basically, what you are telling is that on those 100 million, 80 million is, let's say, already mechanical, more or less.
spk04: So it's 30 plus 50 plus, you said 25 for the productivity improvement, you're already at 100. I mean, if you take the growth and take a fall through attached to the growth, let's say that we will grow about 100 million. We will definitely generate between 20 and 30 million of additional cash. I mean, we'll consume a bit of working capital, pay a bit more tax, but overall, What I'm telling you is the fall through is about that range. And you know that in 2023, our capex was a bit low on the EDS side. So we believe that a more normal level is around 200. So the 30 million that we generate on the growth will be offset partially by the investment in I told about EDA, but we also want to continue to invest in our new businesses. So that's how we got to the 100 million.
spk03: Okay. Thank you. This was very useful. Thank you.
spk06: Thank you.
spk08: We will now go to the next question. And your next question.
spk06: comes from the line of Baptiste Lobac from Odo. Please go ahead.
spk02: Yes, good afternoon, Sophie and Jerome. I have two questions from my side. The first one is regarding, let's say, trends for Q1. We are already, let's say, at the beginning of March. Can you give us some color regarding Earth data and multi-client sales during the beginning of the year? And the second one is regarding transfer fees. that you mentioned for 2024. Can you give us some colors of these transfer fees versus 2023? Thank you.
spk09: Thank you. Thank you, Baptiste, and good evening. So on the Q1 multi-client trends, remember it is driven by two revenue streams, the famous after sales and then the pre-funding. We have... Ongoing surveys which will bring us good pre funding so that will be positive from that side and as we mentioned there is some delays in In these rounds last year that will get some benefit in Q1 So right now we're expecting for a good Q1 basically on the on the multi client side on the transfer fees is this to M&A going on right now for which we do expect transfer fees and in terms of the volume of We keep referring to the 2022 number, which is sort of exceptionally high. And last year was exceptionally low. So I would position 2024 somewhere in the middle. So we do expect transfer fees this year, more significant than last year, but not as big as 2022.
spk08: Okay.
spk02: Thank you very much, Sophie.
spk06: Thank you. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 and 1 on your telephone keypad. That is star 1 and 1 to ask a question. We'll now go to the next question. And your next question comes from the line of Alex McBride from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
spk00: Hi, this is Alex McBride from Bank of America. Can you hear me? Yes. Hi, thank you for taking my questions. I have three questions, please. First question is one we've asked before, but it would be great if you could comment again. Given your strong liquidity and better free cash flow visibility, perhaps it makes sense to deploy some cash towards redemptions, perhaps in the form of tenders. Is that something you are currently considering? Also, any color on the process and timing for such a transaction?
spk04: So as we said, we will do a debt buyback of 30 million this year. And the timing still has to be confirmed. And the form, will it be an open tender or through the market, we still have to decide on that one. I don't think we will do it too late in the year. I mean, now it's announced.
spk00: Okay, thank you. And then you discussed delayed licensing rounds in Brazil and Gulf of Mexico. Could you give us an overview of what is happening there? When should we expect these to happen?
spk09: We did, actually. Yes, hi, Alex. So those licensing rounds were going to happen sometime in Q3 and earlier Q4, and they both got delayed to the last stage of December, with always creating some uncertainty and therefore clients delaying their purchases. And so we did see in Q1 some of those purchases being pushed into Q1. But they did happen in the end. But sometimes... Connect is not immediate. Clients digest what blocks they have and they look forward, okay, what do they need? So there's not like a mechanical, always a mechanical immediate effect.
spk00: Thank you. Lastly, how should we think about the equipment business in 2024 versus 2023? Could you give us any color on any new large projects on the horizon?
spk09: Yeah, remember I pointed out that in our business of sensing and monitoring, there's really two revenue streams in a way. One, which is somewhere, let's call it $217 million, between $250 and $300 million, which is recurring revenue based on the install base. And so keep in mind that we have around 50% market share. We're highly exposed to the market. So that's that. And then others is related to larger deals and more specific deals. And last year, we had a very large quantity of those large deals, in particular in Saudi Arabia, that drove a lot of business, North Africa. And this year, we did mention this in our trading update, we see a lower volume of those large deals, with some of them, including the one in Saudi Arabia, that is moving on. Its date is undefined, but it's being pushed definitely into 2025. and maybe later. So in general, generally speaking, and that's how we guide it, that we see sensing and monitoring down, not because there is a specific issue, it's just the way the sequencing of those deals happen.
spk07: Okay, thank you.
spk08: Thank you.
spk06: We have one further question. And the next question is a follow-up from Jean-Luc Romain from CIC Market Solutions. Please go ahead.
spk05: Thank you for taking my follow-up questions. Actually, there are two. The first is for Jérôme. In case the first tranche of debt that goes well this year, under what conditions would you to think about making a second range this year. And second question is still on the SMO market. Any streamer sales on the horizon or is OBN completely displacing and making streamers unuseful?
spk04: Let me take the first question. So the 30 million are all granted for this year. As we explained to you in the financial roadmap, the refinancing has to happen before Q1 26. And in all honesty, the likelihood that it will happen in 25 is actually quite high if you look at all the different windows, including the blackout period where we can do an issuance. So bearing that in mind, I much prefer to keep a good chunk of my cash for this refinancing, or I would be okay potentially to do another tranche just before the refinancing. But likelihood we'll do a second tranche in 2024 is pretty low, keeping my firepower for 2025.
spk09: Yes. So thank you, Jean-Luc. I'll get to you on the streamers. So the streamer market never disappeared. As I mentioned, we have an install base. And right now, it's actually, there's been a lower number of vessels in acquisition. But right now, as we speak, there are five vessels in acquisition using our equipment. And so this is like the install base and this equipment is aging. So there's been, I mean, throughout COVID and now, it's been a recurring revenue stream for streamer replacement. What hasn't happened, like we were hoping for, is like the whole set of streamers would be replaced, and that is a $13 to $14 million sale that we did last year for Qigong, but that was oceanography. That wasn't like a cooling gas business. What we haven't seen is the clients going and re-equipping the whole set of streamers, but certainly replacement continues, and it is a good, healthy revenue stream. I would expect that that base replacement will go up as definitely those streamers are getting into 12 years old now. They were designed for like five to seven. So definitely pass the lights if you want. So I wouldn't be surprised to see an increased level of recurring streamer cells, which has never stopped anyways. But it's not been as significant as the OBN because the OBN is a market that's equipping itself for a higher demand. So it's just a different business dynamic. It's not a replacement market. It will eventually, OBN will eventually go into more of a replacement market when you've fulfilled all the needs for the market. But so far, you need both.
spk08: You still have the replacement, but you're really ramping up the number of nodes in the market.
spk05: Thank you very much. Sure.
spk06: Thank you. we have another follow-up one moment please and your next question comes from the line of baptista back from odo please go ahead
spk02: Yes, thanks for taking my last question. Just would like to come back on your comments regarding streamer versus OBN. Do you have enough capacity on the OBN side? Should you increase your capacities on this side? Is it possible to transfer a streamer line to an OBN line? Can you give us some color on this point? Thank you.
spk09: Yes, thank you. Good thought. It's actually, those are very different animals. So OBN is actually more derived from land. It's an object that's self-standing, whereas creamer, you need, it's an assembly line that is quite long, you know, where you have a lot of sensors on one line. So different objects. But yet we've shown our ability to rub up and down over the last few years and respond to demand. We need a certain time to do that. And we're working, of course, at shortening the manufacturing cycle. But we are anticipating that demand. And so that means we're putting on our manufacturing plan a certain number of those OBMs. So we should be able to respond to market demand.
spk08: So far, we have been.
spk07: Thank you very much.
spk06: Thank you. There are currently no further questions. I will hand the call back for closing remarks.
spk09: Well, thank you very much for attending this late evening call. I appreciate it and will be available for any follow-up questions in the future. Thank you very much.
spk04: Thank you indeed. Have a good night.
spk09: Bye.
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