Alten S.A.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Alton Conference. We're going to talk about the sales of the fourth quarter 23. Choose the language that you want to follow the conference. To do that, click on the interpretation button. We remind you that to follow the webinar under optimal conditions, you'd better start at Zoom and then from a web navigator, a web browser. ask you directly in the Q&A module or raise your hand at the end of the conference to ask your question. Please write your name and give a name so that we can identify you. For people that are joining the conference by audio, by dialing the phone number internationally, we inform you that this option doesn't make it possible to choose your channel that you're listening to. You'll automatically have the floor without the possibility of following the slides. We cannot identify you either. That's why we ask you always to announce your name before asking your question. If you wish to participate in the Q&A, you can raise your hand by dialing a nine and and activating your microphone by dialing six. Thank you very much. We're going to hand over to Mr. Abidine. Good evening. I'd like to thank you for participating in our phone conference concerning the activity of 2023. As you may have read in the press release, the sales of the year 2023 for Alten stood at €4.68 billion, up 7.6% compared to the previous year. In France, the activity progressed by 10.2%, by 6.4% outside of France. In the fourth quarter, the rhythm of growth slowed down compared to the previous quarter, compliant with what we anticipated. but the sales was on line with the high estimation that we communicated in October last, bringing annual growth like for like to 9%. In France, the organic growth was 10.2%, and outside of France, it stood at 8.4%. In the fourth quarter, the growth stood at 3.2%, 11.3% in France, and minus 0.3% outside of France. since we sold an activity last year in the US and in the UK, like for like figures, the growth was higher necessarily, which stood in the last quarter at 5.8%. And organic growth was 11.3% in France and 3.3% internationally. In the fourth quarter, we were penalized by by a defavorable basis effect of 0.9 days left and 22 internationally. The working days had an incidence on the activity of 23, since in total, in 23, we counted 1.5 working days less than in 22. So that penalized our organic growth by 0.7% roughly. the rate of activity in the fourth quarter was 91.8%. It stood at 92.2 in the last quarter of 22. In 23, the activity rate of the group stands at 91.8% compared to 92.6% last year, or slightly down by 0.8%, which is normal since the rate of activity came back to its standard rate this year, which, as you know, was 92%. The group staffing levels are consistent with a slowdown in growth. In the second quarter, they're almost stable compared to the end of the first half year. We had sold off C Prime, which is our company in the US and the UK at the end of 22. And the group had 53,000 staff at the end of last December in 22, I'm sorry. out of the 53, 650 staff, we had 47,240 engineers. At the end of June 23, the group had 57,400 staff, including 5,550 engineers, or a group of 3,300 engineers in the first quarter, so 26 organic. By the end of December, we stood at 57,000, including 57,000 engineers in the first quarter. Our group integrated 744 engineers coming from acquisitions, but also deconsolidated, as I could put it that way, 1,380 consultants in India subsequent to a transfer of activity linked to the alliance group. To summarize for 23, The staffing levels of engineers was up by 2,700 engineers to 2,740 organic, 700 in France and 2,043 outside of France. And acquisitions net of exits represented 17 engineers. Position is important because this is quite individual that someone... that as many consultants would be leaving subsequent to an operation, and I will probably get back to this in the Q&A. As I was explaining, at the end of June, the group had progressed by 2,626 engineers organically, and they progressed at the end of December by 2,743 engineers organically. And you can see the organic growth in the group has strongly slowed down in compliance with the stabilization of the activities that we've been seeking out for a few months in the second half year. And most of the growth in engineers happened in the first half year. About of the 53,000 engineers at the end of 23, 11,800 are in France and 38,200 are outside of France. Concerning the activity of the group, whether it be in geographical area or vertically, comments and analyses have not changed from the last publication. France realized a good performance. It even went slightly over its growth rate in the fourth quarter. Southern Europe and Benelux have not slowed down or only slightly. However, the other geographies are strongly down in the second half here. In France... Despite two working days less than last year, which represents an impact of 20% in organic growth, hopefully, the activity was up by more than 10%, essentially drawn forward by the two AeroCivil and France's security. In Iberia, it was up by 14%. All sectors are strongly up, with the exception of the bank finance sector, which slowed down in the last quarter. In Germany, the activity continually went down since the end of the first quarter, down from 18% from the beginning to minus four at the end of the last, which was penalized by less working days than last year, and the annual growth of 5%. As I explained to you during the conference in October, this was the automotive sector which was dominant in Germany, which was strongly down, particularly in equipment producers, where the budgets are down and have been since the back to school in September. The deceleration was accentuated in aeronautics, was down 26% with a few percentage, which did not happen in France. And the two sectors represent 70% of sales, which is explained by the degradation of activity in Germany. the downswing in Germany. In the UK, the integration of methods that we acquired last year and that were consolidated starting from July 22 has been taken into account for calculating the growth starting from the second half year 23. This company that we acquired a bit over a year ago represents 40% of the activities of that country. And there was a very slow growth in the first quarter, has a slight decrease in the second half year. So the integration of methods diluted the organic progression of the UK starting in the second half year, which also included one working day less than last year. In the historical scope, Of the group in the UK, growth is maintained at more than 10%, even if the main sectors, auto and aeronautics, have been slowed down, although they were still dynamic. In Italy, the growth is still 24%. All of the sectors are progressing without any exceptions. In Benelux, the growth is 15%. It stays at 15%. thanks to automotive and rail, and slightly down in electronics and semiconductors in the Netherlands. We also saw one working day left in 2024. In Scandinavia, the situation is extremely close to the one we observe in Germany. The activity has slowed down throughout the year, going from 12% in the first quarter to minus 4% in the last quarter. or an average growth of 4% over the year because of the auto and trucking industries and other industries for Sweden and in Finland, various equipment areas. So, This is identical for all points of view with what we've observed about Germany and Eastern Europe. We also have had to face a decrease in activity, even if the global growth is satisfactory, standing at 17% in 2023. In Poland, which represents 65% of the zone, grew by 20%, and Romania, also increased by 15% thanks to auto and energy, despite two working days less in the second half year. In North America, the growth in activity has continuously slowed down until it was flat in the last half year. In the U.S., these are automotive sectors, which are essentially oil and gas and tertiary that have slowed down. In Canada, it's mainly the bank and finance that slowed down. Lastly, in Asia Pacific, the published growth of 3% roughly is null in the second half year. I'd like to remind you that you have to reprocess data about Asia Pacific of the strong decrease in activity in Singapore because of the end of the project in oil and gas. Singapore represented 12% of the APAC area in 22, and it only represents 3% now in 23, so we're down 75% due to that. Recalculating Singapore, the impact is down 10% in cumulative data at the end of the year. The growth is still satisfactory, sorry, it's plus 10%, which reflects the reality of the activity in this zone for the Alton group. In China, which represents 35% of the zone, was penalized by a strong slowdown in telecom, which is significantly down, down to 5% only. On the contrary, auto, the automotive industry, which represents 35% in China, still is up by 30%. In India, 30% of sales in the APEC area are also up by 12%. Two countries are significantly growing, which are worth noting. Japan, up 11% of the zone, a slowdown in the last quarter with a peak of 17%. So the global growth was 29% in electronics and tertiary. And South Korea, continuing to grow, represents 10% of the zone, growing by more than 25%, thanks to auto. If we analyze our activity now vertically, nothing new compared to the publication in October, but a summary here reveals that automobile is up by 15%, with a strong increase in automakers globally up 25%, with a rhythm of increase which is not weakening with the exception of General Motors and Ford in the US and one in Sweden. The slowdown in activity with equipment producers, notably in Germany, which did not grow over the year. In Germany, where some are even actually down, there's a downswing for many of these. In rail industry, the activities are up throughout the year. The average growth is 7%. But Q4 was more than 10%. Aerospace remains very dynamic, especially in civil aviation. The spatial activity is growing, but much more weakly, whereas civil aviation is more than 25%, with a slight slowdown in Q4 in Germany, which hit the equipment producers. Defense and naval security activities progressed over the year. Rhythm of growth was stabilized around 30% in the second half year. Energy is down by 8% due to the oil and gas activities, which represent 2.2% of sales. and now it's down 33% this year in oil and gas. We had to face up to the end of big projects in Africa, in the US, in the Gulf, as well as the withdrawal in the second half year of 22, which weighed heavily on the activity. We don't see any reason that this activity would for the moment pick up again in 24. We'd have no information in that direction. Other energy sectors, nuclear, Equipments and chemicals are up on an average of 10%. Life sciences, whether it be pharmaceuticals or medical equipment, are growth homogeneously to the tune of 5%. And industrial equipments and electronics and semiconductors growing by 8.5%. With a slowdown of significance in electronics and semiconductors, which was strongly growing, Almost stable in the second half year and other industries only slowed down in the last quarter. Telecoms. The share of the group has grown. It is stable. Slightly decreasing in Q4. The operators are continuing to grow, whereas Kipin providers are down significantly. because of the end of many projects, many 5G projects that were ongoing and now it's done because those are over. In the finance and banking sectors and insurance, same thing as for retail services and the media and public sector, these were up only by 3.5% this year, growth which was mainly in the first half year. And in bank finance, the slowdown in activity is quite clear in France. it was a decrease in banking, whereas even if the activity slowed down in North America, it still is positive in the last quarter. The other retail services and media and public sector also slowed down in the last quarter. So that you can see that ultimately the analysis of activities in 23, we can consider for geographical areas and vertical areas is quite contrasted. With the exception of oil and gas, which is down, and telecom, which is a decrease as well in sales, which is stable, and all sectors are continuing to make progress, even if most have slowed down in that second half year. or they may not have grown in the second half here, with the exception of automobile, aeronautics, and other sectors, which represent globally for these three sectors, roughly 40% of sales. With respect to external growth, even if other companies, no deal has been finalized since last year, since the month of October. We should close normally a few deals during the first quarter. Total in 23, we have acquired five international companies for 24. As we had anticipated, the activity slowed down in the second half year. So this will be the prolongation of the second semester 23, even if it's too early to identify a trend. As you know, generally we have a better visibility in what could happen in the first half year at the time of the analyst meeting, which will happen in a month's time. After the first contact with startup of new projects at our customers, we think that the globally, the activity should intervene in the second half here, at least in some sectors, such as automotive and Germany, where have indications on the part of our clients, which plan on a restarting of projects at the beginning of the summer. The macro economic. situation as to whether it's starting up again in the second half year or not, and due to this fact the the onboard growth for 24 is modest because it's 2.5%. And the calendar is waiting for a calendar which we are expecting in France. and a bit less outside of France. As usual, in January, we're not giving any guidance in this period of the year because it's too early. We hope that we will have a satisfactory growth, even if it'll be less necessarily by 23 than 23 and 24. I'd like to hand over to you now. I think that some of you may have questions for us. So I am available to you for this purpose.

Hi, Bruno. Can you hear me?

Great. Thank you. Just a few questions from me. So if you could just repeat your last comment on the growth for 2024, you said it should be modest. Did you say around 2.5%? I didn't catch that. If you could just repeat that or clarify that point. And then at the second, if you could just maybe comment on what you said on the activity improving in the second half. So maybe... what's driving the confidence in that and with the visibility on that and basically which sectors will drive the recovery in the second half. And if that means you think growth during the year should bottom out in 2Q, is that what you mean by that? Thanks, Bruno. Maybe just a quick follow-up on that and then one more as well. I guess that sort of implies that growth will bottom out during into Q. I guess that's what we should imply. And I know you don't disclose the margins on this call, but given the growth you saw in Q4 and your comments on the first half of Q4, How should you think about the margin for next year? I know that you had some costs in 2023, which will not repeat in 2024. And maybe, you know, your utilization level will not be headwind as well. So could you talk about some of the moving parts of the margins as well into 2024?

Srinivasan Parthasarathy, So thanks and sorry go ahead.

Srinivasan Parthasarathy, Now, and and. Srinivasan Parthasarathy, Is there any you can see on the level of price increases that you're able to put through in the current environment and maybe that could also contribute to the the margin.

I now have a question from Nicola David.

Mr. David, you can ask your question.

Can you hear me?

So while Mr. David fixes this, we have another question from Laurent Dor. Can you hear me? Perfect. Thank you very much. Good evening, Bruno. I had a couple of questions. First of all, you talked about a transfer of 1,400 consultants in India. Could you give us more details into that transfer? We had a consultant work in India for the Reliance Networks, which went up to 1500 people, slightly lower than that. So a consultation was done at the end of October, early November from Reliance to Take a look at this MSA with a drastic cost reduction. And so we answered with price levels that weren't what they wanted at all. So the contract was denounced. It was expiring. So the re-internalized part of the consultants and they asked us to transfer to another local company that took over and took the consultants and seems to apply the rates that they were expecting. And what does that represent regarding turnover? Not much. 20 million dollars. Okay. So it's a small headwind for organic growth. Did it started the Q4 ends of November, but we're going to treat it as a transfer as we did with C prime. The turnover for 2023 is going to be re based from, from this exit. And you talked about the employees employment. How are we doing with attrition? There's a lot of trials that has been done and way back to levels of 25%. But for 2024, the idea is to be to between 20 and 25%. So do you think it's stabilizing? I'm don't know, but I think it's going to, uh, go down, but I, I think it's going to stay in this range. Other question on 2024, if you look at some regions in which we still, we see the very, uh, dynamic Italy, Spain, France, uh, and, uh, Singapore, if we figure what is your, how confident are you about this overperformance? Is it going to stay? The growth can and possibly will slow down. It's not impossible. I'm not sure we're going to have a 25% growth, uh, for a third consecutive year in Italy. So of course, eventually there's gonna, it's going to slow down to like, uh, Benedict's for instance, has capacity, but we are confident and we believe that, uh, the, it will stay, uh, quite, uh, dynamic and, and substantially higher than the average in our group, but all regions, France included. For France, we haven't seen a good rebound in Q4. And in Italy, because Italy, we've seen exceptional performances for years. Can you give us some granularity on this segment? Sure. We have a excellent, uh, management team, but did, did you get new, uh, customers say we have, uh, some clients that have developed to have, uh, growing, but it, so a lot, a lot came from our existing clients. I don't know what the ambitions you have in for the three to five year period on this region. There's no business plan in particular. Okay. Well, lastly, I know that's something that was touched on with the first question, but for banking, we have some feedback, which isn't great. Yes, I confirm. So what's the risk factor? I'm having not a flat, but showing degrowth. We've done it. We've seen it in France for the fourth quarter. In France, we've seen degrowth on Q4, and so therefore H1. We'll see degrowth in... For each one, we've slowed down quite a lot in North America in banking, but it is stabilizing now. On the contrary, in other geographical zones, Italy or Eastern Europe as well, or even Asia, the activity in the banking sector is quite stable. So it doesn't seem to be a global trend anymore. And France, France is really the country that is the most affected by this. France, regarding banking, it's 8% of the French turnover is banking. In Italy, I think we're at 17%. So to sum it up, it's not going to be great, but... So to answer the question you're about to ask, if I look at France, aerospace is 30% of turnover. And the automotive industry is 12. So since there's two strong sectors, if we compare them to the 8% of banking, the impact will be quite diluted. This is why I say the growth rates for 2023 won't be the same for 2024. I mean, then again, we've been saying this for years for Italy that we're not going to do 25% again in Italy. But even if it slows down, I think there's regions where we will see some overperformance. Okay, that's very clear. Thank you very much, Bruno. Have a great evening. Are there any other questions? So I have a question that I'm going to read because I got it from text. So I'm asked about the visibility on the sectors that went well in France, uh, arrow, uh, auto and defense, as you all know, we have, uh, projects with good visibility on three to six months. So to answer the question, arrow, uh, for aerospace, we have long-term projects and there are no signs of slowing down of the activity. To the point where we're expanding in Toulouse at Airbus' request. France has a strong position in... So we have MBDA, for instance, as a client in defense, talking about defense security. There is a strong demand that is going to develop because we've seen a lot of progress during 2023. For automotive, we've seen a lot of projects. We've won a lot of projects for French companies. There are transnational projects with Stellantis where we're still quite confident. The main topics at hand for automotive is going to be about productivity. I was talking about the German companies, but the French are seeing the same issues with maybe the difference that R&D has already been offshore, but where the German companies are more in the very early first steps. Just for those that are on the phone, remember that you can raise your hand with the number nine and activate the microphone by pressing six. Can you hear me? I had several questions to go back on the involved growth of 2.5% in this growth. Does it take the reliance contract into account or is it excluding activity transfers? It's taken into account. So how... As we did it for C prime, I consider that our revenue for 2023, our turnover is... So it takes into account. So there's the... Because the project is lost, but the engineers leave with it. So... I see 2024 growth will be compared to 2023 without this project. But again, it's not going to have a considerable impact because we're talking about 20 million. Second question, I wanted to check if I had the right number. If we... Is the next FRA at plus 630? No, that can't be it. Minus 650 plus 1480. So we're at minus 650. It was consolidated. I consolidated it to... companies that counterbalance. So the minus 1,480 is correct, In India, we acquired the completed with 576 consultants, one that we bought in Poland that was consolidated in October with other consultants. So 168 for Poland and 576 in India, which wasn't included on the 30th of September. Third question on methods. Can you give us some insight of what they can do in 2024? The fact that they're really focused on public sector, does that give us a perspective that are kind of unrelated to macro, but the issues that we had in 2014, three, was it more about integration management or 2024 be similar to 2023 for methods? Method historically hasn't seen a significant growth. And same goes for profitability because they have a very large number of freelance. They're all freelance, even though they've worked in the company for years, which is quite common in the UK. It's more than half of the staff. So That also takes a toll on the raw margins so that it's obviously weaker margins. So mostly public sector, which is – it takes a lot of time in the UK. So the intercontract rates are high, way higher than our standards at least. And we weren't really – we didn't have a – with the manager or culture, so to say. So the team is changing at methods. There's going to be a new manager, which should come from a competitor, a company where the profitability rates are around 10. So we hope that it's going to... We hope it's going to give a good impulse on, on all, on all these elements. So into contracts, sales, et cetera. Can't say much more on that. Because the decision-making cycles are longer than in private, which isn't new, of course. And another question on US versus Europe. Do you have more visibility? Because you were highlighting the... Uh, the elements where we saw the first signs of, uh, a restarted is, is there a difference? Can you see a difference between us and Europe? Do you see, uh, signs of, of, uh, uh, rebound different to Europe or the macro level? No. Except for automotive, which is linked to a large project that was won over with Altintic US. There's no significant difference. And my last question on last time you were saying plus five on the year. Is it something that you think can be repeated for 2024? Because historically you would do more on life science. Life science has grown a lot and the growth rates were very high until two, three years ago. And since that mark, if we look at the big, the, the, the, the, the big players in, um, pharmaceutical, whether it is CR or manufacturing, we've seen, uh, buys from retail which lower budgets and if I I'm going to if we look at Sanofi I don't know if I should name them but they reduced the rates so there is we've seen a significant decrease in the growth in life sciences and Which I believe to be more structural. I don't think we'll see 15% growth rates in Sanofi, Novartis, Merck, etc. And my last question. If you look at 2024 compared to your, uh, three year plan, the, uh, goal set by, uh, Simon were, well, do you think they can be reached in 2024? Will 2024 be a lower, um, and are you counting on 2025, 2026? And honestly, I can't really answer this questions. I don't have a crystal ball. I, we have a budget, which is the first forecast for the year. From my point of view is ambitious. I'd show, I show more, more, more caution for 2024. We have 50, 60% of the group that is showing a flat, a flatter trend. So we're now going to move on to the next questions and go back to Mr. Nicola, David. Good evening. Can you hear me this time? I apologize for earlier, had some issues with my microphone. A couple of questions. I wanted to come back on the bar growth is 2.5%, because when I look at the network organic recruitments for the year, and the implicated growth on stuff, I get to 5% growth for GANEC. There's been a lot of recruitment in Q1 to last year. But if you don't recruit at the beginning of the year, I do understand that if I get the average from Q1 to Q1, we get to 2.5.

Is that how I should interpret it?

so yes, there's, uh, so the, the reasoning as you, uh, describe. So if I, if I, if I, uh, compare, if I look at this at 31st December, so I take the, the, uh, workforce for 31st December. I'm, I'm, You use the same activity, right? I compare it to 31st December of 2020, the 1st of January 2023 with the average of 2023. So we get a differential, which on average is 2.5%. And I projected on the... So in background, what it means, if I take the end of 2023 and I don't recruit anyone, so flat year with no sequential growth, what will be my turnover? So it's an annual, uh, vicious, not just, uh, Q1. And so it takes the also prices into account. But regarding pricing, does it take into account the embarking and not price increases in itself? Yes, which is but there are mixed effects on prices which aren't unusual. The increase in offshore has consequences on the evolution on the revenue per head. It's two different things. There's the price increase versus a salary increase. That's piloting and business management. That's how it's our job to do that correctly. And then if we only reason with the top line, so the turnover, will there be pricing embarked? It's not because we're at 2.2% increase. It doesn't mean we're going to see them in the revenue. It's going to depend on the turnover. It's going to depend on the uh, engineer mix, the, uh, geographies, which changes and where we see, uh, growth on high costs or low cost countries. So it's not, it's not mechanical price increase. Doesn't get added to the, this growth like this. Yes, no, that's very clear. But for 2023, we've seen net price increases. But you can't really tell. And the offshore rate increase, how much was it for 2023? 1,500 people offshore for 2023. Including M&A?

Are we talking about M&A? Yes, of course. That's clear. Another question was, indeed, with respect to that, what's the philosophy about hiring in Q1? The activity is not doing too badly in the geography. Do we need to do some organic increase in staffing levels or do we need to be prudent? And with respect to this organic growth, is that figure satisfactory or do you want to do more? No, the figure is disappointing. We have really done so little in Q4 and even for the second half year. You look at this historically in the group. These are levels of hiring that sort of average. Usually it's, you know, 800 and a half year. We can see clearly that we've hired a lot in 21 and 22 and 22. We hired 6,500 people, a lot of activity with 30,000 net hires in H2. We did 1800 in Q1, 23. And if you look at the curve, we did 1,600 in 85 in Q4. So there was a, we shut down, there was a sharp decrease in growth at the end of the first half year, which is the consequence of a very strong growth. The two previous quarter is growth. You can't interpret on a quarterly basis. It's not a crisis in our activity. The fact that we stopped growing means that our customers are maintaining their budgets, which are very high. And the level of investments is high, because we're much better than the situation in the end of 2019. You see, it's disappointing. You mean absolute terms or because you're hiring more? You could have grown more if you had hired more because there was a slowdown. I was trying to understand. Were you held back by an ability to hire? No. We steer the rate of activity around 92%. If we hire to put people under contract doesn't make any sense. Unless it's just an entry door to, you know, join a project, but we were very bullish in our activity, which was the beginning of 23 in the last quarter, given it's not true in all sectors of activity, especially in all geographies. When you have a sustained growth, then, you know, projects will be coming online. We're not going to lose the opportunity because we're not growing. For example, in the banking in France, we've been hiring more in projects. So the justice of the peace and recruitment is the rate of activity. If the rate of activity, that's very granular. It's per branch, per agency. if you have departments of 200 or 300 people, and if it goes up 10%, if you don't have the necessary skills, you have to look outside to win that project. Otherwise, they wouldn't hire. So de facto, this is the fruit of a slowdown in the activity, in the commercial activity. That's clear. So it's disappointing that Because the activity is not enough. It's disappointing with respect to the plan. And so for Q1, you're not necessarily going to be expecting a big change. That's right. When we see the expectations of the market in what you did in 23, are there any factors that would lead us to think that it was because of the Q3 there was a deviation, or could we stay on those expectations? No, it makes sense. It's consistent. Great. Thank you so much. We have a question by phone. If you could please say your name before you start your question. Dial six. Hi, Bruno. I have a few answers to my questions already. Do you have the Salesforce 23 pro forma? about the transfer, but also if you have activities over 12 months, what would that be in terms of the sales figures for 23? And the second point, could you maybe quantify the M&A in Q4? Do you have any information to give us? And the last point would be the price spoken about a difference in aeronautics between France and Germany. It's more difficult in Germany. Could you elucidate, give us some facts about that to illustrate the reason for this? I'm going to answer the first question about the pro forma. It's $4.85 billion. Zero. Concerning the last question, in fact... Projects with Airbus, it depends who's project leader. It depends on the nature of the project as well. It so happens that there are more projects that are started in France than in Germany. So the consequence of that is that things are going well in France, and in Germany it's a bit slowed down. The aero activity in Germany is still satisfactory, but compared to France, it slowed down in Q4, which is not the case of France. And the second question, I can't remember what it was. The pipeline of mergers and acquisitions. M&A, we have today, we have a company in Germany, which is for sale by an investment fund. And there are other investment funds and the expectations are quite high. I think we'll know a bit more by February. We have one company in Poland We have a big company in Asia, which has deals as well. We're looking at another case in the U.S. So those are the main items. We have a company in South Europe as well, which is a good deal. About the ones that are further so long, those are the ones. There are quite a few. There are a few. Great. Thank you. Thank you so much. Have a good evening. One last question from Mr. Derek Marko. Sorry, I just wanted to check something, a theory out with you, your comment about Q1. When you look at the price sharing between Q3 and Q4, There must be a big dichotomy between countries that are still working well, or verticals that are still going well, where you're firing, and the other sectors where there's a strong slowdown, where there's been destocking. I think Q3 in October was plus 350, and it winded up at 385. And so in November, December, we destocked a lot in sectors that were not doing well. So if you start from the principle that these are the stairs in a stairway, for example, in banking in the U.S., in the next quarter, ultimately – We're going to be seeing growth that are brought forward by countries or verticals that are going well. But when it's negative, do you agree with that? So I'm surprised you're not more positive about certain aspects. In February, I'll tell you in February how I see things. The 350 in October, I communicated that. What you were saying in Q3, we didn't do much. But in October, it picked up. Plus 350, no, we lost staff in some geographies. We reduced staffing in Germany and in India as well. because the demand wasn't as high. We continue to increase in Morocco. So indeed there are areas where we stabilize things in terms of hiring and others that went down. We had let people go. We adjusted in any case. It was only in France where staff continued to grow. In France in Q4, there was real performance there. We did 180 net hires, which is pretty much for France if you compare it to the total staff. So globally, internationally, between areas which are working well and other areas which work less well, we did the stock better. It's not a very elegant expression, but I guess we'll reuse it. At least it's clear. We had to get rid of around 100 people. Well, if you're talking about destocking people, you're talking about discrete steps you're going down on a stairway. At some point, it's going to stop with the high growth you have in other areas that are still working well. I agree. But all areas that are going down for the moment all the verticals that are growing, I'm not sure that it stops in Q1. In terms of sales, but I'm talking about in net staffing. I've understood. I think it can continue in Q1. That's clear. It was very clear. Thank you, Bruno. Have a good evening, Derek. We have a question for Mr. Dorr. I just want to ask a point. Still a question of staffing levels and a comment on the pickup of the recovery in Q2. Now about OS1. It means you're going to be coming back in Q3, Q4 with an almost zero growth. So starting from that point, you can model various quarters. Is it not be more prudent to bet on a reacceleration so you can have the time to rehire at the end of 24 rather than half of the year? Well, I mean, if it's going to pick up in sales, we'll see that in September. So generally it's a period where we have significant recruitment campaigns. There's a lot of people that change companies during the summer and beginners that show up in September. And we do have indeed, we have to react very quickly in terms of recruitment in that context. We're very well organized. We have very good performance in recruiting. Either we have projects that we know are gonna start up you know, in September. And we'd have to start thinking about that in June and July, ramping up to have people ready. But what's sure is that in the context of activities in the sectors that are slowing down, in countries that have slowed down or in where we have no visibility even, today, I don't think we'll take a risk. If we don't have clear messages from clients, we're not going to be hiring, you know, blindly about contracts where there might be slippage. I understand. But what we're trying to just see is the seasonality of your sales. If we take the hypothesis that the But if you're not hiring in H1, you're going to be in an activity in terms of hiring zero. Do you have the ability in a few weeks to ramp up on that growth of, say, 5%? Oh, yes. Yes, I'm not worried about that. We have a... a very powerful ability in terms of recruitment. This can generate a delay of one or two months because you have to find the people, they have to quit their other job and things like that, which was the case in 2021. Because in fact, we started in onboarding people starting in September and October. but the demand was from June. But you're better off having a month or two delay for hiring rather than hiring people upstream to hypotheses. If you don't have any consultation, in reality, the hiring process is kicked off by managers, starting from a point in time where they observe There are more consultations and more contracts that have won or projects that are going to be starting up. When you feel the activity is picking up, we can take the risk of increasing to do some hiring for no project in particular. In terms of the actual contracts, one, but it depends on the kind of project as well. We wouldn't take the risk to erase the margin in 24 by picking up a bit too far upstream. That makes sense. Now, to summarize, we're starting with a certain level of growth. You can accelerate in day two or day three, and that's it. and hoping the activity will pick up again a little for Germany, as you said, and we wind up with a T4 that would be accelerating. That's your way of seeing things? Yeah, that's it. End of Q3 and beginning of Q4, that's where it would be accelerating. Thank you so much. That's how they built their budget, you know, without revealing any secrets. Last question. Before we go on to the conclusion even no more questions i'd like to thank you. For having participated in our conference, a lot of interesting questions i'd like to wish you all a wonderful evening our meeting. For presenting results takes place on the 22nd of February. By teleconference. Once again. we're no longer doing any in person meetings. So we'll be able to have exchanges again. And we can maybe talk about the way what's been going on in 23. But you've understood the message. And we could give you maybe more indications, at least the first half year of the year that's just starting now. Thank you and good evening and see you soon.