Accor Sa

Good morning and welcome to the Accor Group's H1 2024 results conference call. Please note that this conference is being recorded. During the conference, your lines will be on listen and lay. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the presentation by typing star 1 on your telephone keypad. I now give the floor to Mr. Sebastian Bezen, Group CEO of Accor. To begin this conference, the floor is yours.

Thank you very much and good morning everybody on the phone. Very happy to be with all of you. To my next, you of course have Martin Gero, our CFO, who's going to be doing some kind of a tandem with me, with each of you for the next, whatever, 30 minutes or one hour together. So I'm going to start fairly quickly with the first slide. of what is presented to you, and I hope you guys have it easy. It's actually slide number four, which is the first one. There's two interesting surveys being done by the same organization, which is Oxford Economics. One was dated in June 2024, and you have it on the left, which is really trying to tell us what are the consumer spending likely to be for the year of 2024? And it was a precise question on travel spend. And what you see in that very simple chart is people acknowledging that, I guess, for the year 2024, only 18% intend to spend less than what they've done in 2023, 45% likely to spend the same, and then you have a hefty 37% where people are getting uh the inquiries that i guess say probably going to be spending 37 more than what they spend in 2023 and that's actually reflected in the numbers uh of our core and many other probably travel hospitality company in terms of demand and in terms of spending what's probably even more interesting is what you have on the right uh because that really take us forward uh not only for 24 but i guess projection for 2025 and that one is a bit 20 20 000 feet altitude asking A different question and it relates to many of you remember the base of international travelers in 2019 was 1.5 billion. And we're trying to compare where are we compared to that base of travel in 2019 as of today and likely to be in 2025. And of course, let's go region by region, but I'll go rather quickly on Europe. We are, and we should be in 2024, 3% above the level of 2019, and we were lacking by 8% last year, which you all know. But it's predicted to be 11% better than the level of 2019. You take North America, we're probably flat this year compared to where we were pre-COVID, likely to be 10% double digit up also in North America for next year. You have the same double-digit growth in Latin America in terms of projections by 11%. You see, and you will be surprised, when it comes to China and, of course, Asia, including China, we were lagging by a third last year. We're still lagging like 9%, 10% in terms of international visitors this year, but it should be also 10%-ish for 2025. Not a surprise either. We enjoyed all of it when it comes to Middle East. Super strong rebound and acceleration pace in last year by 11%. Still strong, even stronger, 31% this year. And look where we likely to be in 2025, 50% higher than what it was in 2019. So for the world, kind of a flattish 2% growth this year and likely to be double digit growth in 2025. Those numbers are super encouraging for groups like Accor being so well diversified in so many hosting geographies. Then we're gonna go to another slide and on purpose we give you something that of course many of you have dissected in terms of actually more granular on what Accor is but we purposely wanted to make it easy for people to read on Where are we in terms of room counts for the group? Where are we in terms of fee volume today in the portfolio? But where are we in the pipeline? And I think it is an interesting slide and I'm going to go and make some few comments. You're going to see in a minute by looking at the numbers where you have a better fee per room as opposed to a lesser fee per room because when you have in North America, 5% of the portfolio contributing to 13% of the fees of our core. Well, that tells you that the fees are pretty rich in America. And we have a 3% pipeline portfolio in North America. I wish it could be bigger, but it is what it is. But it's still a very high contributor by 12% total volume of fees as a pipeline for North America. Go all the way to the right, because that's exactly the opposite read when it comes to APAC. And that includes China, which is why you have a 34% portfolio room inventory in that region. But it's only 18% of the fees because the fee per room is probably a third, if not one fourth of what it could be in other mature market. And you see the pipeline for Accor is 51%, but it's going much higher, 31% of the fees. Why? Because we're getting in the pipeline a much greater fee per room that we had historically. You go for middle of the page, Europe and North Africa, 43% of the fees, 49%. We don't have a pipeline that represents the size of our network, which is absolutely legitimate because our network is so large and so profound, and we decided to go much deeper in the Middle East, in Southeast Asia, Indonesia, and other places. So you go to the Middle East, that gives you the right indication, 10% of room counts, 14% of the fees. Look what it is in terms of pipeline. 28% of fee contribution with 15% of our pipeline in that region. You know we're going and spend a lot of time in the Egyptian market, in Dubai, in Abu Dhabi, in Qatar, and of course in Saudi Arabia. And then you have South America, 8% of the room, 6% of the fees, and a tiny 5% of the pipeline and 3% of the fees. So that's a pretty good read of where ACCO is going and probably priorities of development. I'll go to the next page. It's really giving you in six or seven different sentences, where are we, how do we feel and what has been achieved? So you have the word achievement on the top of the page and very much related to the new organization put in place on 1st of January, 2023 premium. michigan and economy uh you guys might have seen it we celebrated the 50 years anniversary for ibis and it's been very well accepted by a lot of people we decided to do a major new brand campaign brand positioning for novotel with wwf and a lot of it is climate friendly protecting the oceans we are focusing on deeper market including japan and you've seen it with the dialogue portfolio signing which gets us into a second leadership position in Japan, and then as promised, and Jean-Jacques is actually in the room with us, we decided to deliver on a better margin in terms of execution, in terms of operating leverage for PME, and we already enjoyed a 100 basis point increase in ABDA MNF margin when it comes to PME. You go to the Lux Lifestyle, then you end up with different messages, It's all a matter of global leadership footprint. I talked to you about Middle East, Asia. We're going fast. We're going deep, and we accelerate in many of those questions in terms of accelerating our leadership, preserving it, and why not take leadership where we were not the leaders. The guest experience, we've been adding a brand to the portfolio a couple months ago called Our Habitats, which is very much also vegan, protecting the planet, and something very resorty interesting. Then we've done a partnership with LDMH on Orient Express, which is a very nice confirmation that we have to take us very seriously at core when it comes to Lux Lifestyles to be able to get partnership with those tycoons of the world, and certainly with a brand like Orient Express. So it is really going firmer on what do we stand for and you've seen a lot of the effort and a lot of our achievement when it comes to sofitel by the way which have been enjoying the 60 years anniversary for the year of 2024 and then accelerating the pipeline the development the signing the opening and you're going to see that into any small and lifestyle numbers where the pipeline which is 12 above for the last 12 months And then down below, you have the engine, the machine, what sticks us together in terms of shared platform at the corporate level. We've done and signed a big partnership with the best of the best, Amadeus, when it comes to CSR. And we've done it kind of actually following what's been done with ISD some 10 years ago and recently with Myriad. And it's about time, I guess, we joined. and benefit from the skill and the technology and the tools. Revenue management system, similar thinking, similar execution, similar signing with ideas, which is one of the leader when it comes to RMS. And then going and showing that I guess we could have all the right KPIs to join the carbon disclosure project A-list. There's not that many people on the A-list and we're super proud that I guess we've been able to join it confirming a lot of things being done by the csr people going in this organization and then my last slide for you uh probably uh one of the most telling uh which is on did we deliver on h1 uh result uh i remember you remember and we live and die by it on what has been announced in the market day, which dates a year ago in May 2023. And we gave you a lot of KPIs and we're going to get back to you every time we're going to be on the phone, every time we're going to be announcing numbers, every time we're going to be forcing ourselves to benchmark where do we stand compared to what was promised to you. And you see the actual for H1 on the left column and you see on the right column what was said at the time, which was An average growth for 2023 onwards until 2027. So REFPA, first semester, plus 6%, which is well in excess of the 3% to 4% that we got a due for. Net uni growth, 4.1%, better than the 3% to 5% range. MNF revenue growth, 10%, which is the high end of the range, the target between 6% and 10%. Service to honors, $17 million, which of course is positive. And that was promised to you. Group EBDA growth, 13%. We're very, very happy with the 504 million EBDA for the first semester, which is a record number. Never ACWA achieved half a billion for six months in the first semester, which is on the upper end and actually exceeding the 9% to 12% that we guided. And the cash conversion, we cannot do it on a semester. It has a lot to do with working capital, and the guidance was done on an annual basis, and we cannot really do it. as easily and it won't mean anything. And then when it comes to this return to shareholders, we promised 3 billion. You know what we've done last year. We've done another 686 through the first semester. So we are way in line and probably faster than what was contemplated in May 2023. So that's where we are. We feel confident. We feel strong. We feel we control the controllables. which was JJ's line to me and to many of us through COVID, this company is in good shape and certainly getting and enjoying whatever we can take from wherever the demand is with the brand needed, we are there. And we're getting through some difficult environment, of course we are, but we're also getting through an enjoyable environment and we make the most of it. So we're going to go back on the Q&A, but I just wanted to share with you that this group myself the team are extremely proud of having navigated through a difficult first semester and getting to where we wanted to be and probably marginally better than what we felt we would be at this very minute thank you so much i'll leave the floor to martin thank you sebastian and good morning everyone um and thanks for attending the earnings call for the first half so i'm going to start with the financial highlights uh which are

And you heard from Sébastien that we are very pleased with our performance in the first half, which is at the high end of our mid-term guidance. So overall, you've heard it from Sébastien, demand was strong, demonstrating the resilience of a portfolio which is not only well diversified, but also aligned with what are the highest growth geographies. In the second quarter, the ref bar was a solid 4.8%. H1 was at plus 6%. As we saw in the first quarter, pricing remains the main driver. We had a 3% increase in pricing in the second quarter. So that's about two-thirds of the ref bar. The all-capacity was also up by one point, and we closed the quarter at 68%. As we had expected and as we had already shared with you in the first quarter, we're seeing a steady acceleration in our net unit growth, which reached 4.1% on a last 12-month basis in the second quarter, and that's a point up from where we stood at the first quarter on an LTM basis. The conversion of REVPAR and NUG into revenue was very solid. As you can see, M&F revenue was up 10%. in the quarter, reaching 673 million. And overall revenue was up 11%. The combination of solid revenue growth and cost discipline drove a 13% growth in EBITDA, 504 million for the first half, and as importantly, an improvement of 160 basis points in the MNF margin in the first half versus prior year, which, as you may recall, is a goal that we are pursuing very actively. So that puts us for the first half slightly above the 9% to 12% CMD EBITDA guidance we shared with you a year ago. Earnings per share at $0.90 is up 11% in the first half, primarily from the cancellation of the shares we bought back over the period. And finally, last but not least, we returned close to $700 million to shareholders through a combination of share buybacks and dividends. And that translates into what we feel is an attractive yield of 7.9% of our market cap as of January 1st, 2024. So in the first 12 months, since our CMD, we will have returned a total of 1.1 billion euro, which is slightly over a third of the 3 billion capital allocation we committed to in June of last year. I will turn to slide 10 and give you a bit more color on REF PAR for each division, starting with PME on the left. PME posted a second quarter REF PAR growth of 4%. As you can see here, it's driven by continued strong pricing for about 70% of that growth, and occupancy gain was up in the quarter, accounting for about 30% of the year, so about a point in the quarter. The rate was actually up 3% year-over-year, and OER, so occupancy rate, sorry, was up 1 point at 68%. The performance in PME was somewhat contrasted, as you can see here across the regions. In ENA, which is Europe, North Africa, performance was contrasted with negative performance in France, upset by robust growth in Germany and the UK. In the second quarter, NRFR was up 1% with a 2% growth in rates, and a point declining occupancy in the quarter. And that was primarily driven by France, where Ref Bar was down in the quarter, and that was solely driven by Paris, which also suffered from difficult comps. You may recall that we had the air show of Le Bourget in 2023 in June, and June actually was a very, very strong month with occupancy at 86% in Paris. The province here was actually better. The province had a positive red bar growth in the second quarter. In the UK, red bar growth was in line with the first quarter. The province continues to perform slightly better than London. And in Germany, we had a very good, as expected, red bar in the quarter, particularly in June, which was up 17% on a red bar. And that was driven by the European Food Growth Championships. Mayhapak continues to be a very dynamic region, solid growth in the second quarter, up 7%, also mainly driven by rates, and very, very strong momentum in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Middle East, very solid. Refbar growth in the high teens in both UAE and Saudi Arabia. And of course, the quarter benefited from the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, which was in mid-June. Southeast Asia, Also very strong, also double-digit REFBAR growth. Countries like Thailand are benefiting from the gradual recovery of the Chinese outbound tourists. Pacific, we saw an increase in occupancy, but REFBAR was slightly negative, and that is driven by what we see as being lower demand on the leisure on the East Coast. Now, Australians are actually favoring traveling outside of the country. Now, that benefits Accor. given its strong presence, notably in Southeast Asia, which I just commented had double-digit growth, but obviously it impacts the domestic market. China continues to be challenging, while Chinese outbound traffic is recovering as expected, and again, benefiting Southeast Asia and the Middle East in particular. The domestic market is more challenged, with lower than expected corporate demand, and that is impacting rates America is very strong in the quarter. Ref Bar up 12% versus 23%. Very strong event calendar in Brazil, in Sao Paulo, and in Rio. Moving to the luxury and lifestyle division, Ref Bar was a solid 8% in the quarter. As you can see here, it was mainly driven by occupancy. Rate was up 3% in the quarter, and occupancy was up 2 points in the quarter to 66%. Luxury, ref bar growth of 6% in the quarter. All brands are performing well, primarily driven by occupancy, but rate was also slightly up. Lifestyle, an impressive 14% growth in the second quarter, driven by rates and really driven by resorts where we have very strong momentum. We continue to have very strong momentum in Turkey, Egypt, and the UAE, which benefit from still very strong leisure demand. I'll now move to the networks on page 11. As I shared in my introduction, we continue to gain traction towards our mid-term net unique growth guidance of 3% to 5%. We closed the quarter at 4.1% on the last 12-month basis. That puts us squarely in the middle of our mid-term guidance. And we had good momentum in both PME and luxury and lifestyle. With PME, on the left side, at the end of June, for the PME division was 3.7%, and that is at the high end of our mid-term guidance, which was 2.5% to 3.5%. The openings in the second quarter were boosted by the opening of 6,000 rooms from the Daiwa portfolio, which is in Japan, and those properties will be rebranded under Mercure and Grand Mercure. Current was actually slightly lower than the prior year in the first half, although we expect this to increase in the balance of year in line with our expectations. Our pipeline is down in the first half, and that's primarily due to the unusually strong level of openings in the first half, driven by the Daiwa portfolio I just mentioned, but also openings in other regions, which were also very strong in the first half. The M&F revenue per room, as you can see here, is holding at €1,200 per room. Now, moving to the luxury and lifestyle, whose portfolio grew by 6.9% over the last 12 months, and that is driven by Anismore, which grew at the remarkable rate of 24% on the last 12-month basis. We opened three M-Galleries and three Sofitels in the second quarter. One of the M-Galleries was actually in Mexico. The acceleration is fueled by a solid pipeline, which accounts for 44% of the existing portfolio of that division. And the revenue, MNF revenue per room, is €4,000, which is an improvement versus where we stood in 2023. So at group level, again, 4.1% on an LTM basis, straight in the middle of our guidance. Conversions, I know this is often a question you have, 68% of the openings in the first half, and that's boosted by the Japanese portfolio. We'll close it to our normal 57, 60% if we exceed that. I'll now move to the revenue on page 12. So revenue up 11% in the first half on a reported basis. Reported growth is positively impacted by the consolidation of Pétale-Chabot, which took place in October of last year, and that's partly offset by foreign exchange. So on a like-for-like basis, revenue is up 9%. PME revenue is up 4%, with very good growth in management and franchise, which is up 7%. That's one point above REFAR, and it's supported with good incentive growth, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. Incentives represented 34% of the M&F fees, and that's in line with the full year of 2023. And so that demonstrates the continued solid operational performance of the hotels across the regions and the segments. Moving to SDO services to owner, the lower revenue growth of 3% that you see here reflects really a baseline effect. We had actually called that out in our first quarter call, and you may recall that. related to the cost reimbursement for the FIFA World Cup. In the second quarter, which does not have these baseline effects, STO revenue is actually up 11%. We're having a very strong momentum from distribution and loyalty, which is pushing up the revenue in STO. Hotel assets and other performance remains driven by Australia and Brazil, and Australia was impacted by, as I commented, weak leisure demand, but also effects. Moving to luxury and lifestyle, Revenue was up 22% in the first half, with 15% growth in management and franchise. That's eight points above the RASPAR growth, and that is driven by exceptional growth in fees from branded residents in H1 in lifestyle. STU grew at a higher pace than RASPAR, up 9%, reflecting the growth of the network as well. And hotel assets and other, 84% growth. That's primarily driven by the consolidation of Côté des Chabots, as I indicated earlier. Turning to management and franchise, specifically on page 13, 10% growth in the first half compared to 6% growth of RevCard. So that's a four points positive distortion. And as you heard from Sébastien, that's at the high end. of our CMD guidance. So I'll start with PME. Growth in MNF revenue was robust, as you can see here, across all of the regions, and consistently above RFR growth, as was the case in the first quarter. And as I previously mentioned, this is supported by good development in incentives, notably in Asia Pacific. Regarding luxury and lifestyle, MNF revenue, again, grew at a very healthy rate of 15%. strong benefit from the branded residences in the first half, we actually doubled down our efforts on this activity, which is going to experience significant growth in 2024, although I will point out that the growth will be skewed more towards H1, notably linked to a large resource branded residence in Dubai. I'll now turn to EBITDA on slide 14. So 504 million EBITDA in the first half, 13% growth year-over-year above the high end of our 92% CMD guidance. EBITDA growth reflects mainly the drivers that we highlighted during CMD in June of 2023. So first, a sustained activity level, as you just heard, translated into solid operational leverage with M&S margin, as I called out, improving by 160 basis points versus prior in the first half. strong cost discipline on services to owner with a slightly positive EBITDA, as you can see here, and the integration of Côté des Chabots in hotel assets and others. So, more closely looking at the PME division, also very good growth in EBITDA, 9%, 360 million, that is at the high end of the CNP guidance for this division. M&F EBITDA is up 8%, benefiting from operating leverage with M&F margin improving by 100 basis points, and you know that this is a strong commitment from Jean-Jacques for the PME division. As for STO, EBITDA was positive, 13 million. Hotel assets, another slight EBITDA decrease, which is related to, again, the weak leisure demand in Australia and a somewhat unfavorable cost environment. Regarding luxury and lifestyle, EBITDA is up 13% to $196 million. Very good growth in M&F with EBITDA up 20%, which drives a 260 basis point improvement in M&F margin for the division in the first half. As for STO, EBITDA is slightly positive, but it is below last year due to the ramp-up of costs during 2023 in this division, which was, as you may recall, created in January of 2023. As for hotel assets and other, the growth in EBITDA mainly reflects the acquisition of Hôtel du Chabot. I'll now move to the rest of the income statement on slide 15. We achieved a net profit of 253 million in the first half versus 248 million prior. EPS earnings per share, 90 cents in the first half is up 11% and it's mainly from the impact of lower share count. So let me call out the main highlights. Depreciation and amortization increase is mainly driven by the sale leasebacks of our Paris headquarter in June of last year, and the integration of Potere-Chabot mainly. Very good performance in share of net profit from our equity investments, which as you can see here, is up by 40 million, and that is really driven by our 30% share in Ecolimus. In the first half, Ecolimus made meaningful progress towards its asset disposal program and that generated capital gains in the period, but the underlying activity is also performing very well. Net financial expenses, which are lower versus prior year, benefited from a favorable non-cash foreign exchange movement. Tax expense increased in the first half on the count of, one, the activity recovery, but also the tax impact of the reorganization and the extinguishment of some of the net operating losses we had, particularly in Australia and Belgium. And finally, minority interest increase was driven by any small performance. I will now turn to cash flow. On page 16, the recurring free cash flow reached $120 million in the first half, and it is below last year for the following reasons. High cost of debt, which is driven by the increase in net debt, but also the interest component, which sits in that line, of our lease portfolio, and again, this is the sale-leaseback of our Paris headquarters. Income tax increase, mainly driven by the activity recovery and the extinguishments of annuals in Belgium and Australia, as I mentioned previously. Reimbursement of lease liability, again, the sale-leaseback of our Paris headquarters, and the consolidation of Côté des Chabots. Recurring investment was $90 million in the first half, It's up slightly from last year by about $10 million, and that's really driven by higher key money as we had anticipated and planned. Working capital change is negative $123 million. We have a timing impact on our VAT, which is about $23 million. And I do remind you that our working capital change is seasonal in nature, and we do expect this change to reverse in the balance of year and be positive for the balance of year in terms of working capital changes. And finally, net debt, which was slightly above $2.9 billion at the end of June. That's a $800 million increase versus where we stood at the end of December, and it is mainly the close to $700 million share buyback and dividend, as well as some acquisition we did in the first half, non-recurring costs related to the new organization, and partial offset from recurring free cash flow. I'll now turn to page 17 with our full year guidance. for 2024. Starting with REF-PAR, we expect a REF-PAR growth on a four-year basis between 4% and 5%. Given the solid start of the year, we're confident to deliver a four-year REF-PAR growth that is slightly above our initial expectations and CMD guidance. Net unique growth is expected between 3% and 4%. This is in line with what we had signaled during our previous calls where we indicated that we would be towards the lower end of the three to five mid-term guidance. But it is still a robust acceleration versus last year, which was, I remind you, 2.4%, and reflects the trend we saw in the first half, taking into account the uplift related to the opening of the Japanese Daiwa portfolio, and as I call that, a slightly higher level of churning PME in the second half. Services to owner, squarely positive, and EBITDA is expecting between $1.95 billion and $1.125 billion, and that translates into a 9% to 12% growth versus last year, which is again perfectly in line with our CMB targets. And with this, I will now turn it back to Sébastien for concluding remarks.

Sébastien Vanhoenacker Thank you, Martine. Just two slides for me, and the two, of course, have significance. It's really an answer to why do people join Accor? Why do people work at Accor? And why do people stay at Accor? And it's really defining the purpose of this company and certainly a purpose that we share in between very different regions and very different cultures across the globe. And I love it that much because it was a 12-month exercise. We might have talked about it. I don't remember. In February, we were all together. but we have 50,000 verbal teams from colleagues of this company on the planet. And we came up with what sticks us together. And it's come that way, pioneering the art of responsible hospitality, connecting cultures with heartfelt care. And the connecting cultures, the care, the heartfelt, every word here has a very significant meaning. And this is who we are and this is what we battle for and this is probably why we are Performing as good as we could have all expected when you go to The last page you remember what we said in the capital market day There was a nice light from the management team and that slide only talked about it's all about execution Whatever it takes we need to get there So it's I just wanted to add probably to Additional words to the last line of the three-liner here, confirming sound and controlled business model. That's what we've been fighting for in terms of making sure that our business model was the right way, was rightly executed, rightly displayed, rightly understood, and making sure that we control the events because those are very different in nature in the world. And in the world of today, you'd better control as much as you could what you do for a living. That's where we are. I probably should open the Q&A session to many of you and happy with Martine and maybe Jean-Jacques if necessary, because since he's in the room, he might as well actually speak if you have a question for him. So let's go and welcome the first question.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Thank you. We will now take our first question from Vicky Stern of Barclays. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Yeah, morning. I just wanted to start firstly on Accor Invest. I think you've mentioned in the press release an equity injection there of £67 million. the likelihood in your mind today that there'd need to be a further injection there based on how the asset sale progress is going and in sort of broader terms, should we still be thinking about end of 2025, early 26 and sort of timeframe of you exiting that stake? Um, second one is a bit broader. So we're sort of one year on from the new segmentation. The market doesn't so far seem to be sort of reflecting that re-rating you've talked about for the luxury and lifestyle business. Um, So can you just remind us where you stand on the possible actions that you might want to take at some stage to crystallise that value and what the timeframe for that would look like? And then just finally on the here and now, how are you thinking then about RevPAR into Q3 and Q4? Seems like your guidance is decently confident, but just a bit of colour if you are seeing any cracks anywhere. And specifically within that, your view on whether the Olympics is still expected to be about a half a percent positive for the group for the full year.

Thanks a lot, Vicky. And I don't know how you manage all the time to be the first one questioning us. I don't know whether you have a special button or you have a special ally with whoever is organizing this.

Magic touch, Sebastian.

It has to be. On your first question, we did put in $67 million. We've been warning everybody that he was asked and needed from the shareholders to participate in the amount and extent. in order to get what we got, which was a couple years extension for the debt of ACO Invest. We have a conditional, and I can share the number, there's a conditional similar $67 million which could be re-injected from ACO into ACO Invest over the next two years. It has to do on the minimum level of sale program and asset sale that ACO Invest is currently conducting. in the years of actually starting in 23, then 24, 25. We have different benchmarks. We had one, and we have one at the end of July. We can tell you that, I guess, we sold more than the minimum, so it won't be triggering another capital call from our core in July. So it's just confirming to you, I guess, the pace and the amount is doing as planned and probably much better than planned. So we're going to have another kicker. by the fall and we're going to have another kicker by the end of the winter in 25. So I cannot tell you whether we're going to be asked to put more money. As of this minute, I don't think so because we have enough buyers for the quality of the assets, but we're going to have to be more precise with you in the third quarter release post-summer. When it comes to The one year on, and of course, I agree with you, I guess, we haven't had any benefit of any re-rating of any sort. And we see that in Yakko share price performances. I can only confirm to you, Vicky, what I said to you in February and March is I have a rendezvous close with the board of directors of this company. That rendezvous close is at the end of 2024, which is in December. And that was the time where I told each of you that we're going to have with two year passing on achieving performances for the entire group. And certainly for the two divisions, this is a time where we're going to have to assess, uh, are we properly valued, uh, in terms of, uh, uh, in terms of pieces, uh, what is it that the company should be thinking of doing or not doing, uh, in the year of 2025, uh, probably the, 12 to 18 months between 25 and summer 26. That's what I promised to each of you. That promise will be fulfilled, but you need to be patient like I am for getting those four quarters in a row for 2024, and then we'll get back to you with proper details, if any, by probably the release of 2024 numbers in March or April, but that has to be first conducted with the board and reflected by the board members and the management of this company. But we are acutely aware that, I guess, the value of our assets are not today properly reflected in the share price validation of this company. When we go to Q3, Q4, you want to?

So, hi, Vicky. So, yes, we are confident in terms of how we're looking at the second half. That's why we upgraded the respire guidance from the CMD. In terms of giving you some color around that, we expect still very good momentum in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, China. We're not planning for that region to recover given the environment. Europe, North Africa, we should have a good third quarter given the Olympics. And with luxury and lifestyle, we expect to see continued strong momentum in both of those segments.

Thanks. Sorry, can I just circle back on the first question, Sebastian? Are you still, based on what you can see today in terms of the asset sale process then, are the timeframe that you're expecting in terms of when you might be able to exit the stake?

We shared altogether that there were conditions to be met first. The first was to be able to sign an amendment extent. So did we three weeks ago to have maneuverability so that they can postpone to summer 2027. We need Staco Invest to be back on its feet in terms of performances, which is exactly the case because, as we do, they have very good performances. Third, they need to deliver. The level of debt is too high, and that's why they're conducting the asset sale program, which, by the way, not only gives proceeds back to Staco Invest, but I guess enhances the margin and profitability because what they do sell is of a lesser quality than what they keep. And then we've been discussing between Martin, Jean-Jacques, and myself so frequently. I believe it is the second semester 25 and to the summer 26 where we could and should be able to find a third party buying our stake or maybe actually finding an entire buyer for the company. and then moving on. So it's really a question of having enough asset sales being conducted so that it gets advantage as a company is digestible for a third comment, for a newcomer.

Very clear. Thanks.

You're welcome.

Thank you. And we'll now take our next question from Jamie Rollo of Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Also, three questions, please. So a pretty good net unit growth performance, 4.1%, as you say, helped by the Japanese portfolio. Your obviously guidance for the full year is a bit below that. You've had strong openings in Q2, but obviously those will stay for the rest of the year. So is that just a bit of conservatism or is there a bit of a slowdown in development or conversion activity? Secondly, it'd be great if you could please quantify the residential feeds in lifestyle. It looks like it's at least 2% to group EBITDA and whether some of that will continue in the second half and also whether the drop in holding costs, which is also another 1% to group EBITDA, whether there was any timing or phasing of costs. And then finally, Just on the tax rate, the P&L tax rate looks very high. I think there's about a 24 million internal reorganization charge there. Could you just talk about the underlying tax rates for the year, please?

Good morning, Jamie.

You have the time to do all this. That represents 1% of total EBITDA, 2%. What time did you wake up this morning, Jamie?

No tickets?

You can take it and then I'll jump in.

Okay. So on the net unique growth, what we're seeing is, and that's where we're guided, we're going to have a bit of a higher turn in PME, as I mentioned, in the second half, which is the turn that we expected. In terms of signings, we expect to have a very good year of signings, so it's more a question of when that DIWAP portfolio came in and the higher churn in the PME. The pipeline should be up on a four-year basis, as should be the opening, so really more of a phasing than anything. On the, on the holding costs that is purely a timing, a timing effect, you know, tax rates, we expect our tax rate on a, you know, on a, on a four year basis to be in the high 20s. So, which is up from, from where it was. And that's really related to as I said, the extinguishing of some annuals and the fact that we have a higher tax base.

And the residential fees, please, in Q2?

On the residential fees, it was about $15 million exceptional. And what I mean by exceptional is It's really a phasing, Jamie, because if you think about the residential fee on a four-year basis, we actually expect significant growth, but as I mentioned, it's more skewed towards the first half soon.

Okay. Thank you very much.

It's not exceptional in the sense that, again, it's a large property that just happened to be in the first half, but it's not exceptional in the sense that we expect our level of residential fees from rented residencies to continue to increase year over year. So it's more of a phasing issue.

It's a major undertaking that we've done five years ago, deciding to have our own autonomous organization for branded resi. We probably have 22 brands today benefiting from different residencers for which you get fees, including the Pullman, Rixos, SLS, Delano, and Sofitel. Fairmont and many others. So it's one of those axes of priorities where we decided we need to go deeper and we are today. Number two in terms of volume in the world behind Myriad when it comes to branded resi volume. So it's a major undertaking with great people actually headquartered in Dubai.

Thank you very much. You're welcome.

Thank you. And we'll now take our next question from Muneeba Khayani of Bank of America. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Good morning. First question, just going back to your first slide on demand, which looked quite robust and is in contrast to what we heard from Ryanair earlier this week on weak consumer demand. Just wanted to hear from you, kind of, are you seeing any signs of weakness in your portfolio, especially in Europe? Secondly, I don't know, Martin, did you answer the question on Paris Olympics benefit, and are you still expecting that 0.5, or did I miss that, if you could clarify? And then on share buybacks, so clearly very good performance since the CMD. and you did the one this year quite early. Should we be expecting anything this year, or do we need to wait for next year? Thank you.

Minibar, thanks a lot for connecting. On the Ryanair, again, I have many people in the room in front of me here, but I looked at it, we looked at it, but I hope I'm not wrong when I'm telling you what I'm going to say to you. The Ryanair second quarter stipulated that they had a drop in pricing 15 percent but they had an increase in volume by 10 so there is no slowdown in demand in ryanair and there's no slowdown in demand in many of the airline airliners in the world and certainly not in india uh in china and many places where we need uh in qatar whether or not we need those flights to be made available so and they have a price effect they don't have a volume effect so that's again that was my reading on the ryanair uh transcript uh so and what's benefited us is of course volume we need those people to get to towns and i don't mind too much what they pay and some and many of you and i think it was you jamie put a very interesting note together by saying i guess well if customers do end up being less for the travel they may pay more for the hotels and for the food and beverage and entertainment so it may be actually going our way in terms of the mix of spending for the same customer so we're not worried on the pace of demand and the volume of demand. Across the globe, of course, it's very non-homogeneous depending on countries. When it comes to the Paris Olympic benefit, we did say a year ago, nine months ago, that I guess we were looking for very, very strong summer Olympics in France and Europe. And we did say that I guess it could be a 2% increase of red bar in France, which then drives into a half a point for the group of a lot. That's no longer the case. But being no longer the case, we still meet and exceed what we wanted to do for the year. It is certainly confirmed when it comes to the Olympic time. So the two weeks of the Olympics is doing exactly what we expected and probably better in terms of pricing and well above 80% occupancy across the Echo Hotels. But we're just a little bit worried on the pre- and the post-Olympics. That's about it. So it's going to be a wonderful Olympic season, but that half a point benefit for the group, it might come in September, October. I think it would be conservative when it comes to ref bar in this region. But we don't talk about it because we don't see it as clearly as we could have projected nine months ago. And even though we say that to you, we got the fuel and the growth in other regions, which permits us to be where we are with each of you. So not disappointed, but certainly not as strong as we could have expected for a couple of months season. When it comes to the share buyback, we're still gonna be share buyback. I can't tell you because I don't want to stipulate for the board, but that's a board decision, of course, with recommendation of management, But I'll say with my word, unlikely to happen for the rest of the year in 2024. Certainly will repeat itself in 2025. But we don't foresee doing another Shababak in the months of 2024.

That's clear. Thank you. Thank you. And we'll now move on to our next question from Jenna Mistry of Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks very much for taking my questions. I was interested in your slide on the pickup in international traveler growth for next year. It seems like quite a substantial pickup. I wondered what that meant in terms of how you're thinking about RevPAR at its early stages for 2025. And in particular, I wondered if you had an early read on pricing for next year. Is there anything to flag from your business rate renegotiation, what you're seeing from leisure, indeed what you're expecting in terms of international traveler growth. And then my second question is around the Habitas acquisition. I wondered what the strategic rationale for this was and whether it contributed to net unit growth in H1. Thank you.

You're welcome. When it comes to, I'm like you, when I looked at that Oxford Economics survey on international travel, it's super comforting on what we felt, and of course it's on your projections, so it's factual for the years before, but I guess it's only telling us and give us a reading for the next year. But I'm like you, it's a 13% uplift on the base of 1.5 billion, It's a lot of new travelers, probably close to a couple hundred million, going in many directions. And I might have told you what's so extraordinary about that 1.5 billion base, because we have data since 1991, so a long time ago. And it appears that I guess every year passing, half of those international customers do end up in Europe. So on a base of 1.5 billion, 750 million and that being customers of European countries. And that's still the case and will be the case, which means you're probably going to have another 100 million, 80 million customers going to Europe in the year of 2025. That is huge in terms of red bar impact. And a lot of customers will end up in Middle East. Why? And I talked about it and I don't want to dwell too much on it because it's one of my favorite subjects when it comes to the outbound of India. You have 40 million Indian people traveling abroad and 80% of them go Southeast Asia or they go to the Middle East. That 40 million could end up being 80 million in a year or two years from today. That's a huge pickup and that has a huge effect on the Middle East hotels of Accor and something when it comes to Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Jakarta, and you can release this loan. It's where you write is when we give you a 3% to 4% CAGR for RESPA, we intend to do better, which is why we are positive on the outlook of our own industry. The pace of demand is being confirmed every day passing, again, from different origins, but it is there globally, which is why we feel strong on meeting objectives for between now and 2027. When it comes to, the only thing I can tell you on pricing, which is interesting, is that you know that, I guess, every year or every other year, we renegotiate corporate pricing with our large customer base across the globe. What I can tell you is for the last 12 months, every renegotiation that's been happening with existing customers has been going upward to an extent of 4% to 6%, depending on who is and the size of the customers. So it's just an indication that we still have pricing ability with 20 years customers for the next 12 to 18 months across from us. So that's also another comfort level. Habitat, we did not look to find a partnership with that organization. They look to us. We got a phone call from the the shareholdings and the management team of Habitas looking forward to find the right partner to help them scale, to help them probably reduce corporate costs because they don't have the benefit of the scale for the distribution angle and many other things. And they called Ennismore. And they called Ennismore because they felt, and they're right, that there's a lot of values in common. Habitas and Ennismore is a pure consolidation of founders-led brand. Each of the brands have been funded by individuals with a different culture, with different autonomy, with different mindset, with different design. Habitat is a perfectly similar pattern of what Hoxton went through, Mama Shelter went through, Rixos went through, 25 hours. So it's a perfect fit. It's very natural. It's probably fairly easy to execute. I say that because it's not me. It's done by Gohar Bisham and Sharan Parisha. And so it's a It's a very natural alliance for the exact same reason where other founders have knocked on the doors of Accor over the last eight or nine years. I'm convinced that they will benefit from the same success that we had on 25 Hours and many others. It is in a segment which is extremely interesting in terms of

ready luxury leisure tourism resort any small one not in that present so that's uh that's how it happened can i just clarify two things um you said that you intend to be better on the three to four percent is that on a medium term basis or is that for 2025 and then and then same question for pricing um you mentioned four to six percent is that backwards looking or is that for 2025

No, that's for what we sign for forward. It's pricing that corporate is accepting to pay to enter the atmosphere forward for the next 12 months. I mean, depending on contracts, some have fixed prices for 12 months and they have fixed prices for 24 months. So put in your model that it is for the next 12 to 18 months. And when it comes for demand is I can only see demand for the next kind of actually 12 to 18 months as well. I cannot tell you what the demand is likely to be in 2027, even though I believe since I said, and each of you on the phone know, hospitality industry is in direct correlation with demography and in direct relation with emerging middle classes. As long as you have a growth in demography in the world, as long as you have a growth in the proportion and the mix of emerging middle class, then we're going to have probably a nice environment to navigate through.

Very clear. Thank you very much.

Thank you. And we'll now move on to our next question from Jeff Armistari of BNP Paribas Exxon. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. I've got a couple, if that's okay. So just on net units growth, 4.1% right now. You expect to end the year lower. You've talked about in PM&E the Daiwa portfolio and the timing of exits. I just want to clarify, if you think luxury and lifestyle net unit growth will remain high single digits or will maybe even accelerate into H2, you're at 7%. The medium-term guidance requires at least 8%. And then in terms of the implied H2 EBITDA in your guidance, it looks like you're effectively saying H2 EBITDA will grow between 6% and 12%. Is there anything we should be aware of in terms of the H2 comparison base? And in particular, STO, you still expect it's positive or only positive for the year. It was 20 million in H1. It was material last year in H2, so do you think STO normalizes closer to breakeven in H2 this year?

Hi, I'm sorry. I'll take that. So on the net tuning growth year, we expect luxury and lifestyle to accelerate and come towards the low end of the mid-term guidance. On your second question, You know, in H2, our folio guidance is 9% to 12%. As I said, you know, there's a timing in the M&F fees on the residents, which is more in the first half. So while we expect, again, very, very strong growth, as we had planned in the CMZ, on residential fees, it will be more in the first half than the second half. And that's really what's driving that. With respect to STO, we do expect STO to be positive. We actually expect STO to be more or less on a four-year basis in line with where we were last year, which is actually better than what we expected when we had our initial discussion in our four-year earnings goal. And the reason for that is, and that's what I mentioned, we're seeing very, very good growth in our distribution and all the two revenues, and that's boosting our STO. So we should be in line with what we delivered last year on a four-year basis.

All right. Thank you. So there's a few things like central costs, for example, down 5 million, and that will revert. So there's something like maybe another 10 million-ish timing impact. So it's growing a bit better than 6 to 12 into H2.

Just to add up, because you know my mantra where we keep focusing on a net unit growth because it makes it easy for each of you and maybe each of us here. I just want to reiterate that what we look at is no longer the net unit growth, but it's a fee per room. That is the market for this company. And I can tell you that the fee per room as a volume for 2024 will be well above double digit growth compared to 2023. We're doing better on every signature, every opening of every brand of alcohol in every jurisdiction by a double digit when we open a hotel. So I hope one day I'm going to be able to sacrifice the Latin Negroes and for you to get into the FIFA room. I won't stop that battle.

Thank you.

I understand you can't model it, so.

Thank you. And we'll now take our next question from Estelle Winbrod of JP Morgan. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. First one on margin, again, just to clarify, so FNM margins were up nicely in H1 year-on-year, but we should still expect FNM margins to be up in H2 year-on-year. That's the first question. Second one, just on the most recent trends in the Middle East or even Asia, if you look at the industry data, the last few weeks were just a bit softer. I just wanted to check if you had any color there. Is it more a matter of some calendar or comps or anything else? And last one, again, on demand, excluding France, could you perhaps just comment on the rest of Europe? Is there anything to point to there? Any softness anywhere? Thank you.

I'll take the question. So on M&S margin, we expect to have an improvement in M&S margin in the on a folio basis will be more modest in the second half because obviously we're not going to print 160 basis points of margin improvement every semester, but it will be up on a folio basis in the 100 basis points range. So probably more slightly up in the second half. In terms of what we're seeing outside of France, in Europe and North Africa, as I pointed out, The UK is fairly steady. Q2 is very much, you know, in line with Q1. Germany, you know, good growth in the second quarter. And, you know, we're expecting, you know, kind of low to mid single digits in that market going forward. So France is really on the spot in that to be softer. On the other hand, and we have actually not spoken about that, but we're seeing very good growth in Southern Europe.

And when it comes to the Middle East, maybe we don't have the same data. The third quarter is always softer in the Middle East. It has only to do with less tensions. You're going to be happy to go to Dubai when it is a 50-degree environment, so you have less numbers of arrivals in the Middle East every time in the summer season. The high season in the Middle East is in between November and February.

Okay, thank you very much. Thank you, and we'll now take our next question from André Julia of Deutsche Bank. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thank you for taking my question, and congratulations for this solid H1. I wanted to rebound on what you were saying, Sebastian, about pricing, that travel would cost more and prices would continue to improve. Don't you think that there could be a limit in the capability of the people to spend money, considering that purchasing power has been under pressure. First question. Second question. I'm still a little bit surprised when I look at your guidance between the top line growth that was improved because you're expecting more growth. The fact that the EBIT-DMR progression is still in line with the average guidance you've been giving. So I just wanted to really understand what was going on between these differences. Thank you.

You're welcome, André. It's good to talk to you. My reference earlier today was on the corporate side, was not on the leisure side, and you're pointing out much more the leisure side. And I agree with you on We'd better be super careful on the ability and the power of people to spend money on the leisure side when they do travel and what they pay for a hotel room. I can only give you some anecdotes, for example, and it could be in Bodrum, it could be in Mykonos, it could be in San Jose. Those who've been showing absurd pricing in those high sort-out destinations are extremely disappointed with the month of June. because they were showing and asking for pride that people did not meet, and then those leisure went someplace else. And you're going to see that in different destinations over the summer. And it's probably also true for what happened for summer seasons in Europe and in France, particularly when people have been asking for the moon in some price and hotel rooms, and they did not find the demand. So it's sort of a question of supply and demand. And we have to be cognizant and reasonable when it comes to uplifting pricing. And you saw it on the red bar, and you know better than me, André, when we have a red bar, 3% to 4% CAGR for 2023-2027, we have a pricing maybe 2%, 1.5%, 2%, or 3%. We don't have an uplifting price of 5%. So I am on your camp by saying let's be careful. And we've seen it in China. China numbers are very, very kind of actually down. and not rosy, precisely because people don't spend anymore on leisure. They keep the money aside because of the difficulty of the economy with the negative growth rate in China for the domestic market. So I am like you on let's be very careful that pricing will not go to the roof, even though I believe they're still going to be uplifting year over year because the offer is not growing as much as the demand is. So that's where we are on this one. And the second question.

I'll take the second question. So hi. So if you, maybe I can just sum up the, you know, the math part one. So NUG guidance between 3 and 4, that's midpoint, you know, 3.5. RASPAR 45, that's midpoint 4.5. So that should give you an MNF revenue between 7 and 9, so midpoint of 8. And if you work the math on the EBITDA guidance, between 9 and 12, that's midpoint at 11. So high-level M&F midpoint would be around 8%, EBITDA would be around 11%, and that is actually quite in line with the CMD guidance, which was 6% to 10%, so we're towards the high end, like the midpoint on the M&F revenue and basically the midpoint on the EBITDA, so we are in line with the algorithm.

Okay, understood. Thank you very much.

Thank you. And we'll now take our last question from Alex Brignole of Redmond Atlantic. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thank you. And just one question, please. What's the China development environment looking like? Obviously, RevPAR has been a little volatile, but today most people have remained fairly bullish on the kind of development. So are you seeing anything different to that?

Thank you.

We, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a super complex environment. We, we do spend a lot of time, by the way, the, uh, the chairman of Jingjiang is coming and we hosting him for the next couple of days. He's coming for the opening ceremony. And Jingjiang is by far the largest hotel operator within China. I think they probably have close today to 15,000 hotels. And the number two, Wadu, Chairman Chichi, we were together last week having dinner in Paris, so he also came here. So they're both doing fine in terms of development, and they're both going to be controlling their own market with BTG, which I've met three weeks ago. The chairman of BTG was also in Paris, incidentally. So I can only confirm to you that, I guess, it is muddy water today. because the pace of development is not very high, and whatever it is, it's a benefit of JingJong, BTG, and Huazhou. And for each of us, you've seen what's happening with Yelten, Myriad, Accor, we've been more and more choosing to go kind of actually master franchise, trying to get our brands through a Chinese operator or Chinese developer. That is a trend. Will that trend remain for the next few years? I believe it will, because they know better, they have the agility, but the interest rate of our environment the real estate environment, most of what's happening in China is conversion of an existing hotel into a new brand, be it Chinese or being international. So it's one of those complex situations where you want to play the game, you need to be in China, you need to be big in China, you need to accelerate the pace, but you know you'd better understand the economics, the players, and you'd better respect your peers being Chinese because they do adapt better and faster than we do. We spend a lot of time on China and we have the best of a relationship thanks to Jing Zhang has been a large shareholder of this company, we've been a large shareholder of Huazhou and our connection with Beijing and BTG. Since I hate having JJ in the room as deputy CEO, and he's so happy in his job as CEO of PME. It's not prompted, so I did not tell JJ. I'm going to ask him to give his thought, but I don't know how many of you are still on the phone, but JJ, just do it your way on your field.

I think the most important thing in this presentation is that there is no surprise. Everything which is going on here is going per plan. You know, some of you ask questions, for example, on the churn and the churn of PME. This is no different than anything we've been describing on what we try to do on Pure. This is no different of what we've been describing on what we do on Accorandes. Some of you have been alighting the increase in margin in M&S. And so, you know, there are things that we control, things that we control less. I mean, the top line, is obviously something onto which, you know, the economy of China, to rebound on what Sébastien was just going through, is not exactly something where I have a strong handle yet, joke aside. But, you know, despite that, and thanks to all the elements that were put in the strategy of balancing act between geography, balancing act between operating model, balancing act between, you know, optionality on cost savings, We are where we need to be and very well where we need to be. And I think that's what I would kind of summarize what the performance of H1 is about. You know, the world is what it is, but we are going our way, totally along the line of what was described one year and a half, and you shouldn't be worried about that. So I think that's how I would summarize in less numbers than usual, but more rhetoric, where we stand.

Merci. Merci beaucoup. Thank you, each of you, all of you, to have connected for this session. We'll see more of one another. We're going to be on our way, the typical roadshow of Paris today, even though it's going to be a bit different because of the Olympics, and it's not that maybe we could actually move around Paris. Those who are still undecisive whether you should be coming to Paris, please come. I'll stay for the next 15 days. Many of us in the room will stay here. This is the moment not to miss, which is the Paris Olympics. It's going to be grandiose and flabbergasting, as the British would say. So enjoy your holiday, and then we may see some of you in London, New York, and Boston in the coming few days. Salut. Bye-bye.

Thank you, everyone. Bye-bye. Thank you. This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

Merci beaucoup, madame. Thank you.