Accor Sa

Thank you for being connected with us. Jean-Jacques Morin is on my right. And we're going to be spending the next 90 minutes until 10 o'clock Paris time on announcing and sharing with you great results for 2022. Extremely solid. Very happy to go through it. Happy probably, and I'll do it now, to tell you that, yes, we are enjoying a nice month of January in terms of activities and likely looking forward for 2023, which is going to be an even better year of 2022. So I'm going to start with the first slide, which is a bit 20,000 feet altitude. I want to show you in between the kind of bearish environment, which was the case in October 2022 when it comes to inflation, the same person probably as economists in the world, what they have said in January 2023, which is three months, 90 days lag. Clearly, when it comes to inflation, inflation is still there, but no longer rising, and the fear was probably to go much higher than where we are now. You see it for the USA. It's still 50 basis points from 3.5% to 4%, but it is stabilizing in Europe at 5.7% and in the world. between 6.5% and 6.6%. You've seen over the last 20 days a lot of raw materials, steel, copper, being sharply down for the last 45 days, and some of them looking to be lower than 2019. And on the GDP growth, which you have on the right side, it is a more bullish environment in terms of outlook. with the USA gaining 40 basis points from 1% to 1.4%, Eurozone coming out from stagnation from 0.5% to 0.7%, and the world enjoying 2.7% to 2.9%, and you know I'm traveling quite a bit. And when you go to Singapore today, when you go to the Middle East and many other places, I must say they have a very robust environment. go a bit deeper on hospitality at large. There's two things... which are very different in nature, which is of no surprise, but we need to pay attention to this. On the left side is the domestic travel. Many of you know that, I guess, 2022 have enjoyed a very nice V-shaped rebound with the numbers at the end of the year, which is actually higher than the performances of 2019, most of it being leisure. And you've seen the numbers in America. You've seen the numbers internationally. in Southern Europe for our core, and France, which is clearly higher than 2019, and I'm probably looking forward to the record number in terms of domestic travel for the years ahead. That is not the case for international travel. It is still 37% down versus 2019. You know that number of a million five travelers at the end of 2019. I just want to remind any of you that part of that million five travelers, billion five, sorry, you have two large population. The two largest emitting market in terms of numbers of travelers happens to be America and China. You have roughly 150 million Americans traveling outside of America. And you have the same 150 million Chinese travelers traveling outside of China in 2019. Guess what? Many of the Americans are back. Almost 80% of that 150 have been traveling in the 2022 environment. Zero. Chinese travelers have been traveling over the last couple years. That is the news of the last 45 days. It's very likely we're going to see, and it's probably going to go sequentially, a lot of that 150 million people from China traveling again. It's been starting, and we've been acknowledging it, in Southeast Asia, in the hotels of Accor. Remember, 80 percent of the Chinese, when they do travel, they stay in Asia. They go to Hong Kong, they go to Korea, they go to Australia, they go to Southeast Asia. Still, we've been missing them for the last three years, and we're very happy to see them back, which is why that minus 37% may be a very different number moving forward at the end of this year. That's what it is in terms of GDP, hospitality. I give the floor to Jean-Jacques on the ACO numbers, and then I'll get back to you on the conclusion. Thank you.

Thank you, Sébastien. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Very happy to be with you for these results, which are, as you will see, nice results. As we did for all the 2022 presentations, we're going to provide respire variation versus 2019 to ease the performance and avoid base effect. This is the last time we'll do that. And without further ado, let's go to the highlights presentation. of the financial year. I mean, it's a momentous milestone because we end up with an activity in 2022, which is above 2019. The REFPA is basically 2% above 2019, and we end up the year very strongly with a Q4 REFPA, which is in fact ahead, slightly ahead of the Q3 REFPA, which we all knew was on the back of a great summer, notably in Europe. Moving to the second item here, which is the net unit growth, the last 12 months, the unit growth finishes at 3.2%. The zero COVID policy in China did affect the domestic market, but it also affected globally the supply chain with the collateral effect on other regions. Nevertheless, our pipeline, Accor pipeline, continued to grow. We ended up at 216 southern rooms from 214 last year, and there is a sustained interest from hotel investors. The conversion, which is a nice weapon when capital may be scarce, continued to be extremely high at 47% for the full year. The recovery translated into a global business volume of $23 billion, which is 5% above pre-pandemic levels. So the business volume includes the room, but also includes the funding. Moving to the high part of the table, where you see, in fact, the detail of the result, revenue is at $4,224,000,000, which is 80% increase versus financial year 2021, and 4% plus versus 2019. The EBITDA reaches a level of 674. We were basically at zero last year. And so it's a nice jump. And we are, in fact, beating the consensus by about 5%, the high end of the consensus, which we provided at being somewhere between 610 and 640 back in October. And the reason for that is Q4, as I said, ended up being extremely strong. And so, you know, the dynamic into which we enter into 2023 is an extremely good momentum. All this profit falls nicely into cash. We've got a recurring free cash flow, which ends up at 373 million. And this brings us to conversion level between ABDA to cash, which is very much what we had in the years pre-COVID. We are at about 70%. 55%, which is very much the norm around the businesses, and very much what we used to do in 18, 17, 2019. So nice drop through of profit into cash. If we move to some more details of the top line by geography, what you see here, and you see that very well with the orange bar here, is that the pricing power has remained extremely strong over the last quarters. We end up Q4 at prices which are 25% above 2019, like for like. going into each of the region. South Europe, Q4 is 12% above 2019. It's a slight improvement versus Q3, as you can see. What is nice now is we had the recovery in South Europe that came from the province, but nowadays Paris and the province are at the same level, and that translates, in fact, the return of international and European travelers to Paris. Northern Europe, Northern Europe, I'm not responding to phone calls. Northern Europe, Q4 was 5% above 2019. There was a slight slowdown in Northern Europe, and this is due to Germany. The Germany REFPA is slightly below 2019 level, and this is due to less events and low attendance. You know that the business in Germany is very much driven by fair and convention, and the German economy is one of the economies that suffer the most in Europe. However, the U.K. did very well and remained extremely strong and with very good performance between Provence and London, and this despite the rail strikes, which at one point in time could have been an issue. If you move to Asia-Pacific, nice recovery. Q4 REFPA remains negative, but you can see the curve and the speed at which things are progressing. Pacific, which is Australia, remains resilient. It has been resilient for many quarters. Greater China saw a deceleration, so you don't see an improvement in the number Q4 versus Q3 in Greater China. We all know that the zero COVID policy is now over, and you will see the effect of that change in the numbers of 2023. And notably, in fact, because... you know that the easing of the restriction on the Chinese traveler has only really started in 2023, and we see that in the numbers of January and February. The one thing which is remarkable that I would quote is that the domestic business in China in the Chinese New Year activity which was in January, is at 90% of what it used to be in 2019. So you see there that the domestic has recovered, is recovering, and that the next phase is the one that Sebastian mentioned, which is those 150 million of Chinese basically flooding into Asia as they would do, As a reference, they constitute about 50% of the business of any of their Asian counterparts. The Chinese travel largely first through Asia to the tune of about 90%. Southeast Asia is also recovering. I mean, we saw that already in the Q4 results, in the Q3 results, sorry, with Singapore and Thailand, and this is continuing. I mean, again, Japan is now open, and so all of that is going in the right direction. That means that Asia-Pacific ends up negative in Q4, but will be a springboard for upside in 2023. EMEA, which is the Middle East, Africa, Turkey, you see the numbers. They are amazing. Revpar, 73% in Q4. There is clearly here an effect, which is the Qatar Soccer World Cup. This has obviously boosted the Qatar number, but this is wider, as some of the travelers, in fact, We're staying in UAE. We're staying in Saudi. So between the Dubai, you know, World Conference at the beginning of the year, the expo, and at the end of the year, the soccer, you know, Qatar game, you can see how wonderful the performance of EMEA has been with a very strong pricing power. America has been very much recovering, as we all know, from our peers. South America is doing extremely well. In the Americas, you've got North America and South America. South America, for us, is a significant amount of hotels, more than 400. And here, again, you see a very strong pricing power. And so all of that translates nicely. If you move to the next page, which is how we translate into revenue, fundamentally what's remarkable here is that both hotel services and hotel assets end up with a growth of the revenue versus 2019. So it's spread across. Accor revenue at $4,224,000. is in fact in reality an 80% number on like-for-like basis, but 92% on reported numbers because it's boosted by the U.S. dollar strength versus other currency. You've got the details in appendix. If you look at hotel services, you see the 5% increase versus 2019. Hotel services, in fact, made of two segments, as you know, MNF, which I will detail after, and service to owner, and service to owner did benefit from the activity in Qatar, so it's showing a very nice increase of 8% versus 2019. As for hotel assets, you know that this is predominantly Australia, and it includes the Mantra business, and to a smaller extent, Brazil. And so Mantra continued to benefit. As I was mentioning before, quarter after quarter, they've been doing good. They basically stopped the zero-COVID policy a long time ago, and since then they're having success. They are having, sorry, a nice ride. And it continued to be driven by the leisure demand in coastal area. And the Australian cities are recovering but are still impacted by the lack of international and corporate guests. So, again, here with the opening of China, with more airlines going into Asia, i.e. the capacity being basically recreated, those numbers will continue to improve. If you move to the next slide, which is giving you the detail of MNF, so that's the management and franchise MNF. You've got it by geography versus 2019. You see that it is still a little bit behind, 1%, but the explanation remains the same over time. residual lack of the incentive that we get from our owners for managing the properties. You've got two places where you are behind 2019, which is Asia-Pacific and Northern Europe, so you would expect that. The other regions are very much in line in terms of revenue growth versus the rest part. And globally, which is in the end what matters, because there is disparities, there is chunk of data right and left because of the geography that is ours. But overall, we have incentive at 32% of the MNF revenue, just as a reference. 34 was the number in 2019. So we are basically back, and this leverage is now back helping us in revenue generation. And you see the numbers versus 2021, which is a 93% increase. If I move to the ABDA, so overall the group ABDA is moving from $22 million last year to $675 million this year. MNF, which is moving from $93 to $6. Sorry, hotel services moving from 93 to 661. Out of that, MNF is moving from 274 to 737. This is in the appendix. And it reflects the distortion that I just was mentioning on incentive. If you want to look at the details of this by regions, again, all of that is provided in appendix. As for service to owner, this was a big discussion back in the H1 results. where you may recall we showed a loss of 89 million euros. We did tell you back in the Q3 publication that we would be returning to breakeven, and we are at 14 million plus. So we did do what we said, which, by the way, also explains the 675 million of EBITDA for the group. And if you were to look at the H1 versus H2 balance, ABDA generation, you can see that H2 2022 ABDA is in advance versus H2 2019 ABDA. So there was really an investment that was done in H1 to rebound from the minus 25 percent REFPA that we faced with Omicron in order to ensure that the year will end up properly, and this is exactly what you see in those numbers. It did end up properly. Very well. So regarding hotel assets, EBITDA recovered 237 million in financial year 2022. As I mentioned, this is largely Australia. These are the mantra properties. And the number is in fact behind the number of 2019. but for, I would say, very sound reason, that over time we've reduced our lease exposure in Australia by renegotiating those leases and getting out of them as much as we could. So the gap in EBDA is, in fact, something voluntarily in order to exit from an asset heavy component of the business, which is the Montreal leases. Just as an illustration, the debt on the balance sheet from 2019 to 2022 has been reduced by 40%. on those leases. And by the way, for the record, the new business CBDA is positive. Moving to the EBDA to net profit bridge, a very straightforward bridge. We end up with a net profit of $402 million coming from an EBDA of $675. Not a lot of, you know, exceptional item. You see on the share of profit coming from Associated and Joint Venture the turnaround of AccorInvest, and this line is mostly the 30% ownership that we've got in AccorInvest. Core Invest is having a great year because they are in Europe, and Europe has done well, as you saw in our numbers, and they got the leverage of being an S&P business. And so that's why you see this jump from minus 273 to plus 33. The other line that is significant in terms of delta is the non-recurring item. The $554 million that you see here last year, it was coming from the OASU share that we sold and the gain recognition that was done in 2021, which you don't have that in 2022, and hence the gap. And as far as the discontinued profit, you've got here another reversal coming from the disposal, sorry, the contingency, sorry, that we took on AccorInvest when we did the deal back in 2018. And as the risk did not materialize, we're able to reverse those provisions gradually. So moving to the recurring free cash flow, so from ABDA to recurring free cash flow, here again, a very clean and straightforward ABDA to recurring free cash flow bridge. You see on the cost of net debt a slight improvement because our interest is decreasing. I'll get to that later on. You see that the recurring investment at 159 million is very much in the guidance. We have told you somewhere between 150 to 200 million. We are at the lower end of that bracket. What will happen in 2023 is that the reason why we are at the lower end is that some of the key money got postponed on some properties. And so you should expect 2023 to be slightly above 200 million. So over the two years, we'll be within the guidance we provide, but with one year being at the low end and the other one being at the high end. The other remarkable point here is the working capital is super nominal, close to zero, which is exactly what we have always been targeting. The net debt, you see a reduction of 200 million on the net debt. Obviously, the activity helps. You generate 373 million of cash. Also, we completed the full disposal of Wazoo in 2023. Part of it got executed in 2022 to the tune of 154 million. And hence, there is that element in the bridge. The third thing is that we sold 10.8% of Fenismore, you surely recall that in Q4, for €185 million. And the offset to that is a debt increase related to the constitution of Fenismore, into which you recall we bought some of the shares that we were not owning in Mama Shelter, 25 hours, and more importantly, in Paris society, and the net of all of that is this 200 million improvement on the net debt. Moving to balance sheet, some more on the balance sheet. You see that we fully benefit from the active balance sheet management that we've done over those years. I mean, we've been always actively managing the asset and liability of the company, and you see a debt profile which is very sound, the liquidity at 2.8 billion, 1.6 is cash, 1.2 is a credit line. Our cost of financing is slightly down versus 2021 at 2.1%. And last but not least, we reiterate our commitment, as we've always done, to restore investment-grade rating that we lost with the COVID, like everybody in the industry. And with this full year result, we are basically now at the level of that re-rating, i.e. our ratio, notably the debt coverage ratio, is investment-grade level. So I think this is a very good piece of news. And again, we will... We'll continue to further improve all of this situation. On the right side, you've got the debt profile that we put every year. One thing that I'd like, two things I'd like to say. First off, there is no significant maturity before 2026, and this is the IFRS debt schedule, so it does not include the hybrid debt, which you recall is to the tune of $1 billion in 2024-2025. moving to something which is important and that we've not, you know, highlighting enough in history, which is the extra financial reporting. So not only the numbers, but also what we do in matters of social and environment. I mean, we did set up ourselves a target. I mean, some of them are in in the bonuses of the top management and Sebastian bonuses, and we've been meeting all of those targets. First off, carbon emission. There is a decrease of the so-called COP 1 and 2 versus 2019, and this is in line with what we, sorry, the SLB financing that we issued one year ago. And obviously energy sobriety measures and all of that is helping. The other one which was a significant push because it impacted everybody was the single-use plastic. We've been able to remove 300 tons of plastic this year coming from single-use plastic amenities notably. And we are basically at a ratio of 84% of the hotel having removed those. So for those of you who travel, you clearly should see that. And this is something that... We really want to continue to push. ESG training, I mean, a lot of it is making sure that the head of the people is cleared up. And so there is here a school for change training that we've been having 97% of our employees complete. And last but not least, diversity and inclusion. One ratio here, which is that 39% of our employees of our management committees are composed of women, and this is an improvement versus 2021, which was an improvement, versus 2020. So little by little, we are going exactly where we should be getting. Next slide is back to shareholder and what we do from those nice financials. We are going to resume dividend. Our dividend policy, as we all know, is that 50% of the recurring free cash flow is the yearly ordinary dividend. If you do that mechanical competition, it would give 0.71 euro per share, which is what you've got on the slide. Considering the disposal that we did this year with Enismo and Wazoo, the Board of Directors decided to propose an additional exceptional dividend at the next General Assembly. And when you add up the two, you would be at 105 per share, which, for those who recall, is exactly the level of dividend that was paid between 2017, 2018, 2019. And that translates into an absolute amount of 276 million euros. With this, I leave the floor to Sébastien for some concluding remarks.

Thanks a lot, Jean-Jacques. You've been over time by one minute and 20 seconds, which actually, it's a good transition. To talk about Jean-Jacques Morin, it's part of what you have on your slide here, which is the RE-ORG, This is the last time Mr. Morin will be in front of you as chief financial officer of this company, which is a bad thing because he's very, very good. Over time. Yeah, but you pick up the time by a minute and 20 seconds. And it's an extraordinary time because he will be even better as CEO of an enormous organization, which is 90% of the number of hotels of this group and roughly two-thirds of the cash flow, which is the Eco, Mid-Scale, and Premium. It's a new life. It's a new adventure. It's the perfect timing for Jean-Jacques to go deeper into the organization. He is super excited about it. He probably doesn't show, but I can tell you he's just eager to start, which he did on the 1st of January, which means that, I guess, we have been selecting a new chief financial officer. be coming here early may so until now and early may we're going to be continuing as he does now to do can actually do a role as looking and leading eco mid-scale premium but of course still looking after the numbers but slowly transitioning to full-time job but again i you don't know how and happy I was when we found you some six years ago, seven years ago?

Seven years. Seven years ago.

The quality of the number, the quality of the reporting, the accuracy of the numbers permits the group to be where it is. I, and we owe a lot to you. So seriously, Jean-Jacques, I'm... I wish the next guy is going to be even better. I'm not sure, but he's going to be probably certainly as good. But merci énormément. So go on this new organization. We refer here to Turbo. Turbo was kind of a codename for accepting to reorganize the group into autonomous independent divisions. implemented 45 days ago on the 1st of January of this year, which resulted into a luxury lifestyle, I insist, brand-led organization. Brand-led means you will have, and you have today, Raffles Orient Express New York Headquarters, who is a new CEO by the name of Omer Akar. Fairmont. Fairmont. transitioning over from Toronto headquarter to Dubai headquarter. Sofitel M-Galerie Emblems with Maud Bailly headquartered in Paris. Fermont was Mark Wallace. And then you have Ennismore, which is the lifestyle organization that you know we headquartered in London under the name of Ennismore a year and a half ago with Shahan and Gohab. So, And I will take the leadership of that division. It's going very smoothly. People are extremely excited, and the sense of ownership, belongings, it's already there. So we're gonna have some very happy surprise on probably firming up brand promise, social content, and of course, growth and margin. Same principles applies on premium mid-scale economy, except it's not brand-led, it's geographic-led. And you have one chief for Americas, Thomas Dubas, headquartered in Sao Paulo, but covering the entirety of the Americas. You have Europe under the tutorship of Patrick Mendez, the entire Europe, which includes Northern Africa. You have Asia, Pacific, Middle East, India, headquartered in Singapore under the tutorship of Duncan O'Rourke, And then you have Greater China, which is a single-led organization with Gary Rosen. Again, the tutorship of that organization with Jean-Jacques. Jean-Jacques, I've met with him many times. So did I with Longueuil Lifestyle. I need to insist on how those two organizations have been put in place. We kind of started mid-November because the numbers were solid for 2022, so permitted to gain some time. It is... probably 10 times better than expected in terms of firmness, in terms of strength, in terms of possession. They know where they're going, and I think they want to surprise us and you on getting to better results and certainly greater focus, which was why we've done it, which is get people with the right expertise at the right time in front of client owners. And which result in point number four here, which is as you... and as we should, the first semester numbers of 2023 will be reported accordingly. So you will see by the end of July that each of the numbers that you show, that you've seen being represented to you very differently by Jean-Jacques five minutes ago, that will no longer be the case. You'll have two columns. You'll have a column for luxury lifestyle and you have a column for premium mid-scale and economy. And that is perfect. It's going to give you better clarity. What we're likely to do, and please be indulgent, we're going to get back to you soon, we probably won't give you those numbers at the end of July without being properly prepared, because otherwise you won't be able to model and understand. Very likely by the end of June, we need to organize the date and we need to define whether it's a capital market day, whether it's just a rendezvous. Pierre-Lou, Etienne, Jean-Jacques, myself, the new chief financial officer, we'll sit down. We'll sit down in some proper format to make sure we can actually give you kind of a lead of the way we are being reorganized. So I guess when the numbers are released at the end of July, you have been... had the benefit of a month to understand the way this group is functioning. So we'll get back to you, but very likely we're going to have a deep dive, let's go it that way now, a deep dive into the new organization by the end of June with the proper CEOs and executives probably on the stage with you representing what they do. On the last slide, It's simple. And I just, you don't know how much time we spend on putting the words next to one another on a simple phrase. And the first one, which is why I said simple, start with rip the benefit. If we do a reorganization, it's because we believe we can even achieve greater, better results in the years ahead. Simplified. This is what your board is all about, is more focused model and organization. Number two, sustained activity for 2023. We are today telling you that we are looking forward for a REFPA expectation. We never do, actually, by the way. We've never done it over the last few years. We usually wait until 2020. first semester to be behind us end of july to give you some kind of guidance but decided that i guess we feel strong enough that we could even though the bracket is large that we could have said that 2023 will be of a better caliber with a better revenue top line and a red bar which is as we assess today and we'll fine tune that bracket five to nine percent uh looking forward for 2023. Number three, Accor has been, for 50 years, certainly one of the best leaders when it comes to CSR, ESG industry practices. You know, and we said it, all the different executives in hospitality, Marriott, Hilton, Intercom, whomever. that you need to do it in terms of carbon reduction, in terms of food waste, in terms of energy reduction, in terms of diversity inclusion. But we also need to do it together. So we don't want Accor to be the leader and the best. We just want to make sure what we do well is very rapidly shared with the entire hospitality industry, and they wish exactly the same thing on the other side of the Atlantic. So if anything we have, which is maybe of a differentiating factor, is when it comes to diversity, inclusion, and what we do for a lot of the colleagues of our Corps, you know what we have done with the Harkis Fund, with 120,000 people benefiting from a $36 million investment. is we're going to be continuing putting even a greater sense into the caring attitude of being in the hospitality industry. It's extremely important, even more so when you have a staff shortage. But it's where we should be in front of our clients, in front of the owners, and, of course, with our own colleagues and employees. And we're spending a lot of time on it, and we're very proud of what has been achieved over the last 50 years and certainly over the last three years. And the last point is... I told you many times that I guess we spent the last three years caring about our employees, caring about our owners, of course, looking at clients being back. It is certainly time to care more and to think deeper about the shareholders' company. We need to go back to larger return of capital to the shareholders, but there is a but. which you've seen in the pages of Jean-Jacques, is as long as we fulfill the commitment to restore investment-grade rating. I hope on your question of time, and we'll spend the time with Jean-Jacques, myself, Pierre-Louis, with the rating agencies, but we need to be in a greater, more solid position, go back to investment rating, before we can be even more generous as we should be with the shareholders. Voilà, that's where we are. I did go over time by 45 seconds. So now we have the next 45 minutes, 15 minutes on the Q&A, and the line's probably going to be working. So I don't know who's going to want to go first, but let's launch the Q&A session. Thank you so much for attending so far. Richard Clarke. We have the benefit of having a few, not that many, so we're not exactly alone. Jean-Jacques and I here on the desk. But Richard Clarke has nothing to do with that being in Paris today. So he is going to actually, by surprise, show that this morning. Happy to see you, Richard, live here. So since you're here and you have your hand raised, why don't you go first?

Thanks very much. Richard Clark from Bernstein. Three, as per normal, I guess just starting on the REVPAR guidance, you gave some pretty positive commentary on how January started. It looks like if Q1 matched... Q4, that would give you 10% year-on-year REVPAR growth, so you'd be in negative territory for the rest of the year. So just wondering, are you expecting some slowdown through the year? What's the sort of cadence of that REVPAR growth? Why is it such a slowdown from what you did in the second half of 2022? Second one around, I guess, you're not going to give EBITDA guidance, but just thinking about how we can think about some of the building blocks from the 675 this year into next year. How should we think about rev par sensitivity? How we can think about incremental cost savings, unit growth into next year, and how we might be able to build that up. And then the third one, I guess anything you can give us on the timing of the rating agency's changes and then how much excess cash do you believe you have? You've got $1.6 billion of cash on the balance sheet. So once that changes, anything you can say around the sort of scope or size of potential buybacks you could do? Thank you.

Just on the rating agency, because this is obviously not in our hands, Richard. I know you know that. And we have obviously a very close relationship with the agency in the sense that we really try to make them aware of all they need to be aware in order to assess what is really the situation of the company. One of the difficulties has been the fact that Europe, as a continent, as having a delayed recovery versus the U.S. And so if you look at how the rating has been working, they have been re-rating the companies that benefited from the first wave of improvement coming from the REFPA, which has been North America fundamentally. And we think that we now have reached a point where this is the turn of Europe, and this is also the turn of Asia. So I think there is just a timing here in the way all of that gets assessed. I cannot obviously talk for the rating agency, but I would think that during this year, you know, with the kind of perspective that we see and the fact that we end up the current 2022 fiscal year with a leverage from an S&P computation, which is at the level which is required in order to be investment grade, there should be some positive movement. Again, I It's my hope. It's what I think is logical. But it is something that we need to talk to them about.

You want to go on REFPA?

The dicey question? On REFPA, listen. Here is the thing. You do something, you get hit. You don't do something, you get hit. So I don't know what to do anymore. We never give the REFPA. Right. We never give the right power at this time of year. We decided with Sebastian that as we are coming from a period which has been, you know, relatively volatile, to say the least, we are going to make sure that we provide the positive signal that. that the 2023 numbers will be better than the 2022 numbers. You know, some people were doubting of that. I mean, I'm talking, you know, investment days. Because of all the reasons we know in the world, you know, inflation, I mean, Russia crisis, supply chain and all of that, we do not believe this is going to be the case in 2023. And I think another element that I can jump on here is that, you know, there is no slowdown of the pricing power. There is a better utilization of the hotel. You know, the occupancy has been improving quarter after quarter. And there is now coming on board China, Asia more generally. and with some potential which is still significant on the other regions in terms of occupancy rate. So we wanted to pass a sign that we would be showing growth next year. Is 5% to 9% the best number? It's numbers I give on the 1st of Jan. So on the 1st of Jan, I'm not going to put myself totally naked. And so I wanted to give a signal. It's a positive signal. And the numbers for January and February is much above that number.

I guess I'll say it a bit differently, and I hope I'm not wrong. Since I alluded to Jean-Jacques being there for the last seven years, and of course he will be accepting this, with the exception of 2020 and 2021, where clearly we were a bit outside of control, our own control on the activities. I don't know of any year since Jean-Jacques has been here, and thank God, me before, where our court did not perform better than any guidance we provided to anybody outside. Never, ever have we been under what we've been estimating. I'll leave it as such. When it comes to the... ABDA sensitivities. Richard, we moved away purposely from whether it is 13 million for a point of red bar, 15 million, 12, because of course, as you know, it's very different on the upside as opposed to what is on the downside. And it's a metric that... People internally did not really assess and understand. But that was the only one we could be provided to the street for the last 24 months. So we've been shying away from it because it was not understandable and it was not clear enough for people to be motivated. What we can tell you, and we discussed it, of course, Jean-Jacques and I a couple of days ago, is since we believe it's going to be a good year for 2023... the EBDA will go up by more than a double-digit percentage. That's what I can tell you. What do we have? What do we have? Oh, sorry. We need to get people on the phone because otherwise there's not enough people in this room besides Richard and ourselves. Are we connected with the outside world?

If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Thank you. We'll now take our first question from Jamie Rowland at Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Morning, everyone. Three quick ones, I hope, from me. First of all, just thinking about services to owners this year, are you still expecting a broadly break-even performance? Secondly, could you give us a feeling for where you think net unit growth might come out this year? We have a fairly good end to the year. And so what are you seeing in terms of conversions, particularly large conversions like some of your competitors have done? And thirdly, where were you on incentive fees last year? And do you see those fully recovering back to the sort of 35% of M&F revenues this year? Thank you.

I'll take the easy one. Yes, on STO, we will be positive. We committed on that. This is what the model calls for. And so we will be positive. That's one of the building blocks, in fact, Richard, that you were asking on the bridge from 2022 to 2023, as we ended up being negative results. in 2022 net-net of H1 and H2. There is here one element of bridge between the 2022 actuals and the 2023 outlook as we see it. In terms of incentive, I think the 34, 35 is a good number. If you look at it with more historical data, Jimmy, it's a number that we've more or less done over years. You know, it has always been fitting around one-third of the revenue being incentive. The only thing, as usual, we need to be cognizant is that it's an average. And even the 32 that we've got this year is, in fact, an average between some very good numbers, like Middle East and Africa, as you would expect it from the REVPAR that I showed earlier, is way above the historical level of incentive. On the other hand, Greater China, which has got a nice set of properties and a series of Fairmont and Sofitel, is way behind the level of incentive that we had in its story. So I think the number, on average, is a good number. And then after that, there are chunks which are moving one way or the other, depending on how business evolves.

And, Jamie, I'll take the net unit growth and that. I'll tell you things you might know and probably greater clarity. It is 3.2% for 2022. It was 5.5% in 2019. And as you well know, 50% of ACOR's growth when it comes to new openings has been for the last five to seven years in Asia-Pacific. Oddly enough, which is why I've been insisting with you for the last couple of years, I don't want to shy away from percentage, but I just want to remind you that even though it looks that 3.2% is, of course, lower than 5.5% two years ago, guess what? The volume of fees of 2022 with the 3.2% net union growth is of a higher magnitude than that the volume of fees in 2019 when we had 5.5%. Why? It's a questions of mix. Why are we going fast in luxury lifestyle? Because they contribute 4,000 fees per room compared to 800 fee per room for an Ibis. So you're gonna have to be patient with me. You're gonna have to wait until the end of June when I told you we're gonna do a deep dive. because it makes no sense whatsoever to continue showing you a combined net union growth unless we disclose to you what it is per division. And then you'll see that what matters is contribution. So that will be in. So I'm not shy. I'm not even resisting. We're going to be looking for even greater fees per room in 2023. But I'm insisting, and I'm nauseous, I'm the only one here, that what matters is volume drops through margin, not percentage.

John Jack, on the incentives and statements, is there a figure for 2022? And also, Sebastian, just on the unit growth here, I can scrap the unit growth question. Are you expecting a similar revenue contribution from new openings in 2023 as to 2022, or do we need to wait until June for that as well?

I just want to make sure I get your question right. Are you asking whether the incentive percentage will be the same in 2023 versus 2022?

It was really what the actual 2022 number was. I think your 34, 35 was what you expected 23 to be. But I don't think we have the 2022 actual number.

Oh, OK. OK. I mean, it's not difficult because they give you the 32 percent. You've got the M&F fees. So you do 32 percent of the M&F fees and you will find that it is around 330 million. 330 million compares to an absolute number in 2019, which was to the tune of 360. So you are a little bit behind because, in fact, the percentage is a little bit behind. Is that answering your question, Jimmy?

No, no, that's okay.

That's okay.

That's okay.

Thank you. Thanks for being there, Jimmy.

Thank you. And I'll take our next question from Jared Castle at UBS. Your line is open, please.

Good morning, gentlemen, and congrats, JJ. Three for me as well.

Thank you. Thank you so much for me, Jared. That's super nice of you.

I still have to do our breakfast. Just coming back to a couple of things. Firstly, I mean, any views on the valuation of Accor Invest? and also kind of the least real mantra and what that could mean for cash flows. Secondly, just didn't really speak that much about it at all, but just want to get an update in terms of the loyalty program and partnership deals. How is that going? Any big signings there, credit cards, other third parties? And then just lastly, I mean, is it time now maybe to think about another three-year or five-year target to communicate to the market during the course of this year like you did in the last decade?

Thanks. You want to take the five-year, three-year target, or should I hedge it?

No, I... Jared, it's... It's a very big debate. That was the debate of the board yesterday. You know the board had to acknowledge the numbers before being released to you. And, of course, we had a session at the board level on timing of a deep dive or capital market day with the outside world. Is it too soon? When to have it? And of course the content of it to which I said that we'll spend appropriate time internally with executives and of course we'll have the board as being devil advocate before showing anything to you. But part of that discussion has been of course whether we should be daring and go into a three year let alone four or five year target. And the question was in between having a photo or having a dynamic photo. And I am in the camp of showing something to you which is dynamic, which what matters. The difficulty with this, again, we haven't made a decision, is are we really prepared with only five months of actual results and five months of ownership with the new CEOs for them to project themselves only five months after into a three-year target, which we're going to have to live and die from. So that's it. We haven't came up with a decision, but I understand the remark because I have the same thinking in terms of what we should do or not. And we may not be of the same comfort, Jean-Jacques and I, which is why Tandem has been working so well over the last seven years.

We'll do what makes sense on this one, but we understand the need to provide visibility on where the business is heading, obviously. Jared, on your question on mantra, I was alluding in my talking points that we've been intelligently, as we could, as part of the renewal of the properties, as part of the negotiation that we could do over the last four years, three, four years since we acquired mantra, to reduce that lease exposure. If you look at our account, the lease liability used to be to the tune of 300 million plus in 2018, 350, and it's today probably to the tune of 200 million. So we've reduced it by close to 40%. And so we're going to continue as much as we can to do it as a dripling, if you will, and continue to take off the balance sheet that asset heaviness, if you will. The money that we are going to get coming from the lease, if we are to sell a block of it, is not what is significant. What is significant is the reduction in the debt that we're carrying on the balance sheet, still 200 million of debt on the balance sheet, which is about 10% of what my net debt is. So that's really what we are focused on on Mantra. And by the way, just as a side comment, holding Mantra as being the right strategy because we took the loss as things dropped and they dropped as it is at least business quite significantly in 2020, 2021 with the COVID. But they've been also recovering quite nicely. In fact, the level of performance of the mantra properties, which are least property, is more or less the level of performance of 2019. The difference in absolute EBDA is coming from the reduction in number of properties. So that's also an element for why I think this strategy is being the right one. In terms of AccorInvest, I mean, there is an answer, which is on the account. The valuation of AccorInvest is to the tune today of $600 million, which is the accounting view, because we took the losses that AccorInvest have been generating on our account, as we should do per IFRS. The reality of it is that when we did the transaction of the sale in 2018, and then when we did the complement of sale of the ownership that we've got, the valuation was more to the tune of 1.1 billion from the top of my head, you know, 1.1, a bit more than 1.1 billion. So there is a big difference between the accounting and the market valuation because of all what happened in COVID. So I think 1 billion is much more between the high type of valuation. And if you look at how Accor Invest has been performing, they are not fully back to the level of net income or profit that was the one of 2018, 2019, but they are not far off. The same way that we are not fully at the level of 2019 ABDA, but not far off either. So there is also benefit here at getting one more year of good result, couple more year of good result, in order to firm up and thinking that people may have about the ownership of this stake, and this is what we're going to do. I think today the focus is getting out of that crisis and ensuring that you continue the pruning of the portfolio, which is what was started many years ago in Accor, was then pushed to Accor Invest, but the strategy has not changed. As usual, rotation of the asset is the name of the game, and so that's what we're working on. I hope this answers your question, Gerard, on Corinvest and Mantra.

Thanks. And on the partnership, Jared, it's very imbalanced in terms of signing and credit card. It's doing actually very well in the Middle East. It's doing well in Australia. It's not doing as good as we expected in Europe. And we need to tackle it better in terms of attractiveness, in terms of population, in terms of the right bank network issue, anything. So relationship is important. very good with BNP and Visa, which are two main partners. But we need to make a better push and a greater push, and then we have a new tutorship under Alex Boulnois, still with MEDI. But that's one of the things where I know we should get to a better result. We're not there where I want it to be.

You know, we've got the card in Abu Dhabi. We've got the card which is going to be set up in Korea. We've got the card in India. Just all of the things have been moving. I think the fundamental issue that we've got versus some of the other countries, in the U.S., everybody thinks credit card, and everybody owns five credit cards. In France, if you have a credit card, you are not – there are people who don't even have credit cards today. So, I mean, that's also what we need to go and battle against, but – The product that we are proposing to the market in terms of the advantages that it provides, for example, in terms of insurance, in terms of the FX treatment of the fees, all of that is top-notch. And so we have the right product. We just need to change the head of the people. Thank you very much.

Thank you. We'll move on to our next question from Gemma Mistry. And Geoffrey, if your line is open, please go ahead.

Hi, thanks very much for taking my question. I've got three. Just on the guidance range again, the 5% to 9%, I just wondered, what are you assuming in terms of the macro environment within your guidance range? And what would we need to see to reach the low end and high end of guidance? My second question is around the reorganisation. I mean, it obviously sounds like it's going very well, but obviously it's quite a big reorganisation internally, and I wondered what your thoughts are on the cost and the savings needed, perhaps to offset any costs associated with it. My third question is around pricing. I mean, pricing has been really strong in 2022? I know you said you've seen no slowdown so far, but what's your outlook for 2023 in terms of rates?

Just on the ref part, two seconds. Two things which really... are kind of actually question mark, but it's not a question of law and of the guidance of the upper end. China is how fast and strong will be the comeback of the 150 million Chinese travelers, which we enrolled in 2019, and where would they go? Are they going to go to Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia? Are they going to go to Korea? Are they going to go to Indonesia? Are they going to go to Singapore? And, of course, depending on market pricing, it's not the same. And, of course, how many of them could go to Europe for that matter? So it's a mix and geography and a quantum on where those Chinese travelers are going to come. Two is what we started with is – Fragility or not of GDP resistance of some European countries, being UK and Germany, and where we are and where there's numbers of large boxes and fair and conference and events, it's certainly going to be better than 2022, of course. But how robust would that be and which timing? That's really what guides us on having that range what it is. On the RE-ORG, the RE-ORG is, thank you for saying it, it is ahead of time because I told you they started mid-November as opposed to having started on the 1st of January. And, again, great force that I expected myself from the team in terms of taking ownership of their own duties and excited about it. In terms of timing, we are ahead, and I have no fear. In terms of cost associated with this, we said it has to be cost neutral, and that has been acknowledged and agreed by everybody within our core. So it will be cost neutral, and cost neutral is, for me, in 12 to 15 months from now, not three months so you may be having a bit of cost in the first semester which you're going to be regaining as a result in the second semester I don't know I don't want to be blurry with you but it's certainly cost neutral with a 12 to 14 months objective and no longer

I'll add something on this one. The reason for why we feel so comfortable about it is that, yes, we put this organization in place as of January 1st, but we've been working on it for more than one year. And we've been working on it for more than one year, in fact, on a desk. thinking about what needs to be done in order to ensure that the concept was working, and hence that you are not, for the benefit of focusing, creating an overhang which was too significant. And so we've been planning that thing extremely in advance, and that means that some of, you know, Changes in the way we operate are also part of the way we ensure that neutrality. So, for example, a reduction in the number of regions, some more additional shared services, further optimization of the tools. It's nothing else than continuing what was done through reset and continuing that good discipline of always thinking of how you do business. And as you are more focused, you create, in fact, a better definition of what you can optimize. When you are spread all over the thing, I mean, it creates some kind of gray zone in many places. Here, you reduce your scope, and once you reduce your scope, you do better what you need to address. So, anyway, for whatever it's worth, it's something that we've been really working on up front.

And pricing is holding, right? in terms of rate per room. Certainly for us in hospitality, as it is in other industries, you've seen the results of airline companies, where they also enjoyed a very significant uplift in pricing. So no fear still there.

I think there, if you look at some statistics and analysis done, I think what you found out is that the share of wallet of the consumer is, in fact, getting larger for anything which has to do with travel. So it's not only hotel. It's travel in general term. Sébastien was referring to airline. And so there is a series of data that has been coming out which explains why you get that. And, in fact, people, it's just a basic thing. I mean, people have been experiencing what it takes when you don't get it. So they're maybe not going to be as crazy as what happened in Q3, where there was a limited capacity in many places and supply demand in equation. But I think you're going to see that continuing, the willingness of people to spend more on travel, leisure, than what they used to do before the crisis on the one hand. And then the other thing which is going to play off is that some of the traveling capabilities are gaining again in capacity, notably the flight between the world and Asia. And so you're going to see anyway also an occupation rate effect on the REF PAR, and the fact that we really feel comfortable about the REF PAR numbers that we've been giving as of the 1st of January.

Thank you. If I could just clarify on the guidance range, are you assuming a slowdown in macro conditions or some form of recession at the lower end of the range, at 5% of the range?

No, we're not. No. Okay.

Thanks very much.

Sure.

Thank you. We'll move on to our next question from Leo Carrington at City. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning. If I could start with... Morning. I've got two questions. There's one briefly just to follow up on Aqua Invest. I think what you've said is very clear, but conscious of the lock-up of your, you know, expires in May for your residual ownership, would the intention be to, you know, start marketing this for disposal promptly, or do you think there's more of a nuanced approach in terms of seeing the, you know... seeing a 12 months of full performance before disposal for an optimal price. Just a bit more color on your thinking there. And then second question, obviously the pipeline has grown a little sequentially from Q3. Can you give some more color on the moving parts in there and in terms of signings? And maybe asking the same question a different way, just With lifestyle and luxuries, obviously, at the early stages of the implementation of the new structure, and you've launched the new handwritten collection brands, and so there are moving parts still. But do you have a view on how the pipeline mix ultimately will settle between the two new divisions, maybe in two years' time, say?

I'll take AccorInvest. On AccorInvest, the right answer to your question is that it's going to be nuanced. You need to give them a little bit more time to just make sure that they can get to a level of result, which I think is what I said before, but I just want to reaffirm it to answer your question, because anybody who's going to look at it will want to ensure what he's entering into, and hence will want to wait and get a little bit more of numbers, positive numbers, Remember, you saw my numbers when I showed you that I was losing on my 30% more than 200 million one year ago. I am at zero this year, and I think people will want to wait a bit more so that this zero becomes a positive number.

On the pipeline, as I said to Jamie, you have to accept, I guess, I do not want to go broad on this question unless I go specific on the two divisions. Because having a common number for the group as it stands today makes absolute no sense. So you'll have the clarity you need, which I want to share with you in end of June. Thank you.

I look forward to it.

Thank you so much. Do we have another question?

We'll take our next question. Sure, yes, we do. We'll take our next question from Winkersted and Barclays. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hi, morning, everyone. First question is just coming back on the cash return leverage piece. sort of assuming things progressed well on the S&P rating front, can you come back on sort of where you feel is the right level to be at in terms of your leverage? You obviously set that leverage range in a different world where interest rates were at zero. one of your U.S. peers is sort of perhaps they're on the side of caution there in the range just because of that higher interest rate environment. But how are you thinking about, you know, putting this sort of credit rating piece aside for a second, the right level of leverage now in this sort of world going forward? Second question, just coming back on that marketing swing comment that you talked about for Jean-Jacques, I think it was probably 75 million or so was the delta that we were talking about on marketing spend last year. Should we expect all of that to sort of come back into the EBITDA in 23, or are there any sort of additional spending points we should have in mind on that one? And then just finally, stepping back on the new organization, obviously, you know, a lot of reasons to reorganize in the way you're doing, but just is there any sort of end game we should be thinking about in terms of structure of the group? Ultimately, is the desire just to sort of present these two businesses as separate units, or ultimately you could consider a sort of separation of the two? Thanks.

I'll just take the easy one, which is the one on the debt, and I'll give the difficult one to Sébastien. I think below 3.5 is the right level, Vicky, that we are seeing currently. I think 3.5 is what we're discussing with the rating agency. So somewhere a little bit below 3.5 would give us the comfort we need. And it's not only S&P. It's S&P and Fitch, by the way, that we need to basically talk to and just for the sake of clarity.

Yeah, just what I – and I should have answered one of the questions before, which was the same topic, Vicky, which is why you're going back to it, because we simply did not answer. Because we missed it, sorry. I totally agree with Jean-Jacques. So post-Shelder buyback, we have to be lower than 3.5, no question about it. Otherwise, we're not going to be playing yo-yo with our commitment to restore investment grade. We should not and we will not. The numbers we have in mind, the minute we could be in a very comfortable situation, it's certainly meaningful in terms of do we need $1.6 billion cash on the balance sheet? No. Could we leave with $1 billion cash on the balance sheet? Yes, i.e. it's probably $500 to $600. It's 500 to 600. Should it be 5% of our core market cap? Yes, 5% of our core market cap is 400-ish million. So in my mind, the minute you stay well comfortable below the 3.5, if you can afford to use a third of your cash and up to 5% of your stock, we should do it in a minute. There is no better investment than this one. In terms of... separating the two autonomous divisions. Number one, give us the benefit of showing growth, performances, different profiles, because they do have, which is why I'm insisting on not providing aggregated numbers today, because we've been going deep dives, Jean-Jacques and myself and many others here. You don't know how much those two are different in terms of growth, in terms of profile, in terms of REFPA, in terms of net union growth. Vastly different, which is not a surprise, but this is exactly why we need a greater focus. And they're both... fit very well on the Accor's balance sheet, Accor's size, Accor network, and Accor relationship with the owners. So, as much as I've been blamed for not being boring enough, it is not the time to go to transformation number six. Actually, number five. We had the first one, which was get light. Then the second one, which was get broad, go big into luxury lifestyle and non-Europe. Then we had get fit, which was the 22% headcount reduction through COVID. Now we have get focus. It is not the time to go into a fifth transformation. So let's get our act together. Let's get the EBTA where it should be. Let's get great margin out of soup businesses, and that question will defer it whenever it needs to be, but not now.

And the last element of your question, Vicky, to make it very, very clear, STO positive plus, service to owner for 2023.

Okay, great. Thanks very much.

Sure.

Thank you. Thank you.

We'll move on to our next question from Andre, Julian, and Dr. Ben.

Good morning, gentlemen, and congratulations for these strong results. Congratulations to Jean-Jacques on your role. Three questions, if I may. First one is about the saving plan you put in place in 2020. Could you give us some more color about where you are and what you still expect to be delivered structurally and permanently from this saving plan in the future? Second question is about Accor Invest. I understand that you need time to fully recover, but could you give us some more color about the different options you're thinking about and what kind of discussions you have at the moment with the actual shareholders of Accor Invest. And last question, if I may. You've got a record number of brands at the moment. With the new organization, do you think about reducing this number of brands, merging some of them, or is the idea to keep all of them? Thank you.

On the saving plan, I think it does not change from what we've been communicating. I think we said it's 200 million EBITDA, and 20 of it was to come after the end of 2022, so 20 remains the right number. Again, this is very inertial because those 20 are coming from system changes. They needed times to be implemented. And so they are being implemented. And so you will get those 20 million additional in 2023.

I'll tell you a bit on AgroInvest, André. It's a very professional, sophisticated consortium of investors, which you know. You are in the hands of... former colony investors, then Amundi, then GIC, then PIF. Many of them are, of course, sovereign funds. And then you have Accor and a tiny bit of Scandinavian family offices, sovereign fund as well. So professional, sophisticated expert in terms of return and in terms of risk matters. So we've been battling, all of us together, very well through the mud of 2020 and 2021, facing restructuring a billion of necessary funds, 500 million state-guaranteed loans, and 500 million from investors. We're just out of the woods. in terms of greater performances close enough to 2019, like Jean-Jacques just talked about. So it's a matter of projecting ourselves. We've missed two years. Let's not miss the next two years. And the next two years are all about operations. and trying to reduce the level of debt by basically reorganizing, reshuffling the portfolio of AccorInvest. So as Jean-Jacques said, both you want to wait for greater results, which you're going to have. Two, you have to battle together to simplify the balance sheet of this company before you're even thinking of leaving the ship. And we said to our common shareholders and partners, we will be there with them and not depart because the lockup is over. We simply won't until the job is finished. And when it comes to brand and numbers of brands, you know, André, you know, Three or four years ago, I remember everybody telling us, I guess, ACO has too many brands. And look at how many added brands they have in a different organization. So you'll have, again, as I said, be with me end of June, me being us. Be with us end of June, and we'll go probably better granularity when it comes to what is of Sofitel versus M Gallery, what is Fairmont, what is Tribe, what is Henriton, What is Mercure? So you'll have. No, we do not have too many brands. We're not foolish. We're not naive. We have the brands we want and the brands we need.

Perfectly clear. Thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you. We'll now take our last question from Megachek at Industrials. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you very much for the presentation and taking my questions. I just have two questions. First, you have so much room. How many hotels do you still have in mainland China? And the second question is about hybrids. Is it typical that you will call back the hybrids on the first call day? Thank you very much.

You're welcome. Jean-Jacques is probably looking for greater China.

With Wazoo, we have 450 hotels. With Wazoo, you need to add the hotel that Accor is having, so probably an additional 150, I would say.

I think we have over 650 hotels in China. So the... Waju is a partnership with them. It is of the exact same quality regardless of owning 10% of Waju at the time, and of which we have nothing left because, as you know, we sold everything the last four months. So we're going to be continuing the master franchise partnership with them on Ibis and Mercure. We entered another partnership with another Chinese operator, which you know, called Country Garden. So we're not exclusive to Waju, but the relationship is extremely strong. Chairman Chichi and the teams of our core, we trusted relationship. We know each other well. I'll be again with him and Jean-Jacques. In mid-March, we'll go and sit down with Chichi at Waju. Waju is enjoying very significant growth. So, no, the reason why we entered six years ago is still very much the same today, so we should be enjoying growth. the ride together.

And on the hybrid, this has been part of our capital structure for now many, many years. It was there when I arrived, and it's a very nice instrument, and so we plan to continue maintaining that structure.

I think we should be almost leave it as such, unless there's one last question. But if it's not the case, then we need to go and sit down with shareholders, whether current shareholders or prospective shareholders of our core, and trying to actually share the very strong story of ours. Merci beaucoup. Thank you so much for having connected to this phone call. Again, Jean-Jacques, merci beaucoup.

Thank you, everybody. Bye-bye.

Thank you, Sébastien. Bye-bye.