Bureau Veritas Sa

Hello and welcome to the Bureau Veritas Full Year 2024 results. My name is Caroline and I'll be your coordinator for today's event. Please note this call is being recorded and for the duration of the call, you'll answer beyond listen-only mode. However, you'll have an opportunity to ask questions at the end of the call. This can be done by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad to register your questions. If you require assistance at any point, please press star 0 and you'll be connected to an operator. To this conference, we have Inder Garbi, the CEO, and Francois Sarbas, the CFO and Executive VP. I will now hand over the call to your host, Inder Garbi, the CEO, to begin today's conference. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Caroline. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to everyone. Welcome to the full year 2024 results on the webcast or on the call. I'm joined by François Chabat, our group CFO. In the past year, Bureau Veritas delivered on its strategic commitments, demonstrating a strong performance of the top line, the margins, earnings per share, and cash. I'm delighted to report that we have exceeded all the objectives we set for 2024, showing predictability in our execution while navigating a complex macro environment. This robust financial and operational execution is fully aligned with the objectives set out in our LEAP28 strategy. These results show the excellence and dedication of our global teams in action. I would like to thank all my colleagues around the world for their contributions to these results and for their superior engagement to Bureau Veritas' mission. We ended the year with Bureau Veritas' inclusion in the CAC 40 Stock Index as one of France's highest valued companies. This milestone is a recognition of the group's consistent operational delivery and performance and denotes confidence in our future outlook. Our financial highlights for the year. A revenue of 6.2 billion euros, up 6.4% on a reported basis and 10.2% organically, with 9.6% organic growth in quarter four. Growth was driven by high volumes and dynamic pricing and was steady throughout the year. Adjusted operating profits increased by 7.1% year-on-year to €996 million, generating a margin of 16%, up 11 basis points year-on-year and up 38 basis points at constant currency. Our adjusted EPS is up 8.7% to €1.38 and by 17% at constant currency. Free cash flow totaled 843 million euros, representing 13.5% of our revenue and growing 27.9% year-on-year. This is a record high and reflects our disciplined capital allocation and our rigorous working capital management. As a result, we are committed to shareholders' returns and will propose a cash dividend of 90 cents per share, up 8.4% year-on-year and corresponding to an unchanged payout ratio of 65%. Turning now to our CSR commitments. In 2024, we continue to roll out our new CSR plans to meet our newly 28 strategy targets. In June 2024, for the first time, we presented the group's climate strategy at our annual general shareholders meeting, reinforcing Bureau Veritas' position as a leader in sustainability within our industry. Our performance this year is as follows. In health and safety, our ongoing prevention programs further reduced our accident rate versus last year. On decarbonization, we reduced our scope one and two emissions by 10% year on year. This is in line with our science-based target initiative targets for the year. For gender diversity, we still have a way to go, and we are reassessing our programs. I'm pleased to report that we have improved all our non-financial ratings in 2024, and this year we've been included in the Carbon Disclosure Project A-list. Back to the financial results for the year. We recorded broad-based growth across all business lines and regions and benefited from very strong growth in sustainability, energy, decarbonization, and cyber. Over 50% of the portfolio delivered high single-digit or double-digit organic growth. From a geographical perspective, all regions performed well. The fastest growth was recorded in the Middle East and Africa, supported by buildings and infrastructure and energy projects in the Middle East. the Americas grew double-digit buoyed by the momentum around energy and data centers. In our mature Europe business, we delivered 5.6% organic growth, benefiting from a strong reoccurring revenue that is underpinned by regulations and accredited activities. Lastly, business in Asia Pacific was strong, showing our new engines of growth in Australia, South and Southeast Asia, and continued resilience of China, which made mid-single-digit organic growth for the year. 2024 was the year we launched and operationalized the Leap 28 strategy. I'm pleased to report that we boosted our organic growth through business development and rigorous execution and have accelerated our capital allocation through M&A. On the revenue front, we delivered 6.4% total revenue growth. This performance was achieved while facing foreign exchange headwinds. On the performance side, we delivered a margin improvement of 11 basis points on a reported basis and 38 basis points at constant currency. Concurrently, we built the foundations needed to accelerate our performance programs and to make an impact on our margins from this year onwards. On the cash front, we are very pleased with the cash conversion of 114% that denotes a well-executed working capital program and a disciplined capital allocation that fuels our lab testing businesses and accelerates our digital development. Finally, in March 24, we said we would deliver double-digit growth in shareholder returns based on EPS, CAGR, and dividend yield. I'm happy to report that we have achieved more than a 20% increase, inclusive of the impact of our share buyback program earlier in the year. I would like now to share with you a brief update on our strategy progress, covering two out of the three pillars, a focused portfolio and the performance-led execution. Starting with our focused portfolio pillar, our growth is fueled by the accelerated organic growth of the existing services from market share gains and from sales of high demand and new services. In 2024, our more mature businesses in the optimized value and impact stream contributed the most in terms of incremental revenue. From 2025 onwards, businesses in our new stronghold and expand leadership are expected to gradually take over as the primary growth engines. The rapid business development and deployment of a select group of high demand and high growth services contributed to this growth. They collectively represent 15% of group revenue in 2024. These new services are critical and contributed strongly to our performance in 2024, specifically within our new stronghold streams. We expect them to continue to drive our future growth. Looking at the inorganic front now, we are actively managing our portfolio with an accelerated and focused M&A program, including some bolt-ons. I would like to make an important comment here. The essence of Leap 28 strategy focused portfolio is to attain leadership position in the markets where we operate. One approach is to pursue exclusively bolt-ons that tend to be gradual and that take time. The second approach is to pursue targets or transactions that could address all portfolio leadership needs in one go. The Bureau Veritas-SGS combination was in line with the latter. As you all know, such combinations do not always close. This was the case, and I will not be able to comment more on this matter for obvious confidentiality reasons. Turning now to the dynamic of our M&A in 24. In our expand leadership stream, we are in line with our execution plans. We completed two acquisitions, adding €115 million of revenue, and we divested a small business in China with €30 million of revenue. In our growing new stronghold stream, we completed seven small acquisitions, adding only 55 million euros of revenue, showing the fragmentation of this space and prompting us to consider other avenues to accelerate growth. Finally, in our optimized value and impact stream with more mature businesses, we are only considering M&A on an opportunistic basis. We completed one small acquisition in consumer soft lines and one significant divestment of our global food testing business with a revenue of 133 million euros. Reflecting on this first year of our LEAP 28 M&A programs, we know that we will continue to do bolt-ons for very specific needs and capabilities. We also must consider larger opportunities while maintaining discipline around targets performance, potential and returns. I would like to share specific comments on the progress of our strategy execution for key businesses. Starting with buildings and infrastructure, we have set three priorities for growth. First, we aim at market leadership in building CAPEX and specifically in code compliance and data centers. Second, we will be expanding our building OPEX services in regions where we are undersized. And third, we will grow fast our infrastructure CAPEX business. As outlined in our strategy targets, we expect B&I to generate 35% of our organic revenue over the duration of the plan, and we need M&A to reach this level of growth. The two acquisitions closed last year and the one signed last month with a collective €150 million of annualized revenue are aligned with this goal. The new stronghold stream includes renewables, sustainability, cybersecurity, and the consumer products technology segment. Most of these businesses are growing at very high rates, but only account for 10% of group revenue. Our LEAP28 target is for these businesses to generate 25% of our organic revenue at group level by 2028, requiring an acceleration of M&A to build our capabilities and footprint. In 2024, we acquired seven companies, adding an annualized revenue of 55 million euros. If we look at renewables, our intent is to expand our global platform, broadening our capabilities to support the build-up and operations of renewable assets across the world. The two acquisitions you see here are aligned with these goals. If we look at sustainability and specifically transition services, the intent is to develop needed skills and digital tools to support customers' sustainability program. In 2024, we acquired a comprehensive product circularity solution built around a leading digital and AI-enabled platform, which will be expanded to new sectors. Let me give you an update now on our sustainability program's progress. We monitor two revenue streams under the sustainability program. One is green objects and the other transition services. Transition services are the fast-growing services that are helping our customers in their sustainability transition. This includes initial carbon footprint assessments, design of transitional roadmaps, effective operational implementation and monitoring, and, of course, reporting programs. They cover decarbonization, circularity, climate risks, and supply chain resilience. The green object-related services focus on assets such as solar farms and products such as sustainable fuels that enable the transition to sustainable energy. For transition services, while the regulatory landscape continues to evolve, customers are still approaching ESG imperatives as a matter of risk management where they must protect their brand, their reputation and their competitiveness. Our revenues grew for these services at double digits carried by carbon footprint, decarbonisation programmes, supply chain resilience actions and product circularity. For green objects, we are witnessing an ever-increasing need for energy and power that conventional fossil fuels won't fulfil alone. Therefore, the build-up of low-carbon and renewable energy sources continues and customers' demand for support increases. Our revenues grew at double digits from renewables and sustainable fuels. Sustainability revenue, as the sum of these two revenue streams, was 5% of group revenue in 2023, and it is now representing 6% of group revenue in 2024. By 2028, our ambition is to derive 15% of our revenue from sustainability. That would come from both organic and inorganic growth. Finally, for the optimised value and impact group of businesses, we remain opportunistic and will consider M&A on this basis only. As mentioned earlier, we completed a small acquisition in the softline, toys and hardline business, where we continue to diversify sectorally and geographically. We also made the assessment that we don't have the capacity to scale the food testing activity. and concluded an agreement to sell it to Merieux Nutrition. The closing is ongoing and will be completed by the end of half 1.25. To conclude the strategy update, some points on the second pillar of the LEAP 28 strategy, the performance-led execution. 2024 was the foundational year for our performance programs, which are designed to capture efficiency and productivity gains across the organization. We structured these performance programs around two streams. The first is focused on creating operational leverage through modernized and digitalized process delivery, as well as through new commercial and pricing methods. The second covers functional scalability, where we are working to keep our SG&A costs as low as possible, leveraging the company's scale and digital enablement. When completed, both will benefit our operating margins with 100 basis points and 80 basis points of improvement, respectively. Importantly, we will reinvest half of those gains to modernize our systems and to drive future growth. To kickstart this part of the strategy, we completed a comprehensive process mapping exercise to identify opportunities for improvement across the company. Armed with these collected insights, we have launched well-defined programs to evolve some functions operating models to define and structure our data, bringing visibility to our delivery workflows and to capture scale benefits for different processes. In the short term, our performance management program's focus is on increased granularity and visibility on key operational metrics to capture some operational efficiencies. It also includes the deployment of pricing enhancement tools. Both of these have contributed to the 33 basis points year-on-year organic margin improvement in 2024. One example of such performance management program is in marine and offshore. The business implemented new digital tools to reduce contract leakage and improve pricing applications. This implementation helped optimize the invoicing of ad hoc services and boost revenue on margins. We will replicate this approach to other business lines like building and infrastructure and industry. The insights from the process mapping allowed us to invest into modernizing our certification service delivery. In 2024, we introduced a smart certification program, building a platform that is automating audit planning, reporting, and back office tasks, helping to optimize time-consuming manual work. This is a multi-year program that requires investment, learning, and comprehensive change management. Early implementation is promising. I would like now to pass to François for the financial review. François.

Thank you. Thank you, Linda. Good afternoon to everyone. Before we deep dive into the detailed numbers, a few words on the key financial achievements of the year, as they clearly demonstrate a step change in both growth and returns. As you see on the slide, we've delivered consistent, strong organic growth throughout the year at 10.2% on a full-year basis. This is the fourth year in a row where we closed with an organic revenue growth of at least 8%. Profitability-wise, we increased our adjusted operating margin by 38 basis points at constant currency, perfectly in line with our ambitions. On the bottom line, our adjusted earning per share increased by 8.7%. It reflects the focus on shareholder returns that we've introduced with the D28 programs. Overall, the adjusted EPS has been consistently increasing over the last four to five years, regardless of a fixed fluctuation. On a reported basis, the adjusted EPS is up now 35% compared to pre-COVID times, and dividends follow a similar pattern, as you know. Rewarding long-term shoulder is at the core of the LEED 20A strategy. Lastly, when it comes to a free cash flow generation, we delivered a 27.9% increase in 2024, again, inclusive of FX Edwins. This reflects our strong operating performance and a disciplined work in capital management. Starting now with the revenue bridge. So we delivered above 6.2 billion in the year, strong organic growth, 10.2%. This is counting the 10th quarter of organic revenue growth at or above 8% over the last 12 quarters. So a pretty sustainable achievement. Acquisition added 0.6% on the Netscope basis reflected the impact of the Bolton acquisition realized in the past few months, offset by the disposal of a non-core construction inspection business in China back in July 2024. To be noted, in the last quarter in Q4, the scope effect was stronger at 1.6% due to the acceleration on the M&A front, pretty much back-and-loaded when it comes to the seasonality in the year. Forex impacts represent a drag of minus 4.3%, leading to a total growth of 6.4% on a net reported basis. Again, on the FX, mainly attributed to the strength of the euro versus several emerging market currencies. Now, on a more short-term basis, the strengthening of the US dollar and the Chinese currency that we have observed already in Q4, The exit rate of December and the current spot rates could make us consider a somewhat more positive impact on FX for 2025, between neutral and positive as we stand. When it comes to the performance of the different businesses in the full year, including the last quarter, as you see them on the page, all businesses delivered good, if not strong growth. Three activities led the pack, marine offshore, industry, and certification. They all delivered double-digit organic growth in the full year and in Q4 on the back of a continued momentum in sustainability services. Agri-food and communities and building infrastructure both delivered mid-single-digit organic revenue growth in the year. BNI was led by both in-service and new-built activity and was mainly led by the U.S. and Middle East operations. Agri-food and community growth was driven by the strong demand for agri-food and oil and petrochemical. Finally, consumer products continued to recover throughout the year. The 10.2% growth in the last quarter led to an overall 8% performance in the full year and a gradual but constant recovery compared to the comparables of 2023. Now on the margin bridge on this next page, organically we improve our margin by 33 basis points to 16.2. Scope had a positive impact of 5 basis points. So at constant currency, we delivered 38 basis points of improvement year on year. This is aligned with our commitment to deliver consistent margin improvement every year of the 2028 plan. Forex was a drag of 27 basis points to the group margin. So on a reported basis, we delivered a margin of 18 basis points to 16% in the year. Now within the portfolio. The revenue growth and operating leverage drove organic margin higher in marine offshore, up 34 basis points. In certification, up 114 basis points, so slowly getting close to the 20% margin level. And in consumer product, up 200 basis points organically, more of a recovery frontier. In addition, where efforts to be more commercially selective by focusing on profitable contracts in industry have continued to bear fruit, the industry division generated a 74 basis point organic improvement to reach 14.3% on a four-year basis. Elsewhere, our agri-food and commodity margin declined by 91 basis points. It reflects a negative mixed effect from metal minerals, mainly in H1. And BNI margin eroded slightly by 18 basis points. The strong recovery of the U.S. operation could not fully compensate the soft performance in China throughout the year. Turning now to other financial performance indicators. On the bottom line, our net financial expense remained stable at 69 million, despite a total of more than a billion of refinancing in 2024. On the tax front, our adjusted effect tax rate dropped by 60 basis points versus 2023, lending close to 30.5%. Here, a better management of the administrative workload has enabled to reduce withholding taxes incurred over the period. We expect 2025 to be in the 30-31% range. So overall, a good scalability on the financial and tax expenses lines. So no surprise, it leads naturally to the EPS momentum that we see on the next page. So as you know, 2024 marked the first year of our LIB28 strategy, which aims to deliver a clear increase in childhood returns through EPS growth and dividend yield. I'm pleased to report that we are off to a strong start on this front. Our adjusted EPS stood at 1.38 euros in 2024. which is an 8.7% increase versus 23% and 17% increase on a constant currency basis. So this reflects our solid operating performance and the early success of our active portfolio management. We've also maintained a strict discipline in our financial and tax costs. As you can see on the slide, this is not a one-off, but a steady increase year on year on a reported basis. As you know, there is a direct correlation within Bureau Etas between our adjusted EPS and our dividend, as we de facto distribute 65% of the adjusted EPS. So for 2024, it represents $0.90 per share, resulting in a 3.1% yield as of year-end and an increase above 8% for our shareholders compared to last year. So we remain confident in our ability to maintain this favorable momentum and continue delivering enhanced value to our shareholders. So, a healthy EPS is important indeed, but a strong cash flow remains the ultimate proof of the solidity of Boa Verde's business model. Our free cash flow generation has been very strong in 2024, up almost 28% compared to last year. So, this good performance denotes, first, a rigorous working capital management strategy. The work on that front, you know, has been started five, six years ago. I'm pleased to see with you all here that this is paying off. Our working capital further reduced to 4.7% of the group revenue, which is a record low, but on the trend that you have been witnessing with me for the last five, six years. So over the last five years, we have improved our DSO by 11 days, from 62 to 51 days. And second, we've maintained a disciplined approach to CapEx, which was maintained at 2.2% of the group revenue and represents a similar level as last year in terms of cash outflow at €140 million during the year when it comes to investment. Moving now to capital allocation. Here, no surprise as well, the strategy is well-defined and disciplined. In 2024, we met our LEAP 28 ambition on all metrics. Number one, we accelerated our M&A spend from 71 million in 23 to 270 million almost in 24. These are the 10 acquisitions in Darifatou, net of a portion of our food testing divestment that we've made at your hand. On the CapEx side, we remain disciplined, as I mentioned, 2.2%. For 2025, we expect our CapEx as a percentage of group revenue to be within the leap 2028 range. And on the leverage, we're on the low end of the guidance, but within the guidance at 1.06 times, as we benefited from favorable timing of the early disposal of our food testing business. So this gives us a lot of room to accelerate our M&A program moving forward. As a conclusion, we closed 24 with a very robust financial structure. Our adjusted net financial debt stood at $1.2 billion at the end of 24. We have no major refinancing requirement before 27, and 100% of debt is at fixed rate. Maturity five years, cost of debt 3%. And regarding the $500 million bond that was due in January 25th, It's been redeemed through a successful half a billion debt issuance completed in May 24. So in summary, Duetas has delivered another set of strong financials in 24. And I would like to thank all teams across the organization for their commitment in achieving these performance milestones quarter after quarter, year after year. And I'll hand over back to Inda to share with you the portfolio business highlight for 24.

Thank you, Francois. Starting with marine and offshore, a business that delivered an outstanding performance with 13.7% organic progression, including 12.4% in the last quarter. Our growth is supported by the ongoing decarbonization and renewal of the global fleet and by the energy efficiency drive that we have been witnessing from ship owners. By segment, our core in-service or OPEX business grew double-digit with a strong volume growth. From a combination of factors, from increased numbers of service chips, also from the fact that there is higher demand from older ships for services, price increases also contributed to this outcome. The new construction activity grew a strong double digit, driven by an increase in average tonnage per vessel, bigger vessels, and the conversion of our solid backlog. During 2024, we secured 14.7 million gross tons of new orders, bringing the order book to 27.2 million gross tons, up 21% year on year. So looking ahead, shipyard capacity, we consider it fully utilised today, which could start to slow down our backlog conversion from the pace we have seen before. In the marine and offshore space, we are driving an active innovation agenda and we are digitalising at a fast pace our process to gain an efficiency. In Q4, we signed an MOU with a Korean shipyard and Siemens to adopt a design approval process utilising 3D models. Moving now to the agri-food and commodities business. We posted 5.7% organic growth in 2024 with an organic growth of 5.3% in the fourth quarter. Oil and petrochemicals delivered high single-digit organic growth from market share gains, contract ramp-ups and strong non-trade activities. Metals and minerals achieved mid-single-digit organic growth led by the upstream activities. It also benefited from a successful execution and ramp-up of multiple on-site lab contracts in Australia and Latin America. The agri-food subsegment grew at mid-single-digit organic rates. Government services posted low single-digit organic growth, recovering in half, too, in the Middle East and Africa. In commodities, customers demand for sustainability solutions, in particular regarding the environment, prompted the development of new services. In Canada, we secured a contract with a local mining company to build a low-emission, low-waste battery minerals on-site lab. Moving to industry, it was a good year for our industry business with an organic growth of 19.9% and double-digit growth across most sub-segments and geographies. This growth benefits from volumes growth driven by sustained high customer spending across all energy sectors, and that is underpinned by high energy demand, energy security concerns, and transition needs. This growth also benefited from inflation-related pricing and some currency-impacted geographies. Overall, the total reported growth of 6.1% shows the strength of this market. For Bureau Veritas, Q4 organic growth in industry was circa 20%, was in line with expectation and included a reduced contribution of inflation-related pricing. looking at the sub-segment's performance in more detail. Oil and gas recorded a strong double-digit organic growth for both CAPEX and OPEX services. The Middle East, Latin America and Asia drove the growth. Within power and utilities, renewable power generation activities grew at high double-digit, benefiting from the ramp-up of new projects. Both the United States and China led this growth through solar projects for the former and wind projects for the latter. We are pleased with the growth of our industry product certification where we recorded double digit growth in most of our activities. In industries, we are developing a healthy pipeline of projects to increase our green objects revenue. One example I'd like to share is a project with Total Energy to provide project management, owners engineering and quality control services for an onshore wind farm and solar project in Oman. Moving on now to buildings and infrastructure. We achieved an organic growth of 5.2% in the year, including 3.5% in Q4, with growth in most main geographies. The CAPEX and OPEX businesses grew at the same rate. Infrastructure and data center projects were the key growth engines for the division throughout the year. The Americas region delivered a mid-single-digit organic revenue increase led by the U.S. platforms. There, our data center's business maintained significant double-digit organic expansion. OPEX activities in the U.S. also sustained double-digit growth. In Europe, the business was up mid-single-digit organically. Most countries contributed to the growth, with Italy's performance benefiting from national infrastructure spending. OPEX-related activities grew at a healthy pace in France, fueled by volume increases, productivity gains, and favorable pricing. The Asia-Pacific region had a mid-single-digit organic growth, led by the South and Southeast Asia, as well as Australia. B&I business in China contracted following government spending reductions. In the Middle East and Africa, we deliver double-digit organic growth as our operations in Saudi Arabia benefited from numerous large-scale infrastructure projects. We continue to expand our digital capabilities in building and infrastructure to enable innovation. The recent acquisition of IDP in Spain brings capabilities around building information modeling, or BIM, allowing us to secure new contracts with a carmaker in Europe for new battery assembly plant for electrical vehicles. Turning now to certification. An excellent performer in 24, recording a 15% organic growth from increasing volumes and robust prices. In the last quarter, we grew 11.3%. If we look by sub-segment, this year's recertification cycle enabled a double-digit organic revenue performance in quality health, safety and environment and specialized schemes. We also benefited from the ramp-up of large public outsourcing contracts for food safety inspections in France and for food audits and training services in Spain. On the sustainability front, strong double-digit organic growth was achieved as we responded to high demand for carbon footprint assessments and ESG-related supply chain audits. In cybersecurity, certification and assurance services are benefiting from high customer demand for enterprise risk management solution auditing services, driving strong double-digit growth for the year. We are creating new schemes as we innovate to address customer demand. As an example, we are the only tech company at this time to be recognized as an external reviewer by the European Securities and Market Authorities for the EU Green Bond Standard. In sustainability, we secured a contract with the supplier of a major global restaurant chain to track its organization's carbon footprint for the next three years. The solution was developed by Aligned Incentives, a company we have acquired last summer, which provides transition services supporting product circularity. Lastly, for consumer product services, the division delivered an 8.1% organic revenue growth over the full year, including a strong organic performance of 10.2% in Q4, which was boosted by summary stocking at Chinese New Year timing. By segment, softline, hardlines, and toys record double-digit organic growth driven by increased demand and market share gains, with South Asia and China operations leading growth. Supply chain and sustainability services achieved a strong double-digit organic growth. Social audits and sustainability schemes are driving the growth, especially in the U.S. and China, as customers protect their brand and reputation. The technology segment contracted slightly in 2024 with a sequential improvement in the second half versus the first. The electronics subsegment faced decreased demand for wireless and mobility products, but this was partly offset by strong performance in electrical appliances from higher consumer spending. Our customers are tackling environmental concerns around their supply chains and are demanding new solution. Last year, we launched a new service called BV3E. This comprehensive offering helps companies across industries minimize their environmental risks and demonstrate their commitment to sustainability. Moving now to the outlook. We are building on our strong 2024 momentum and considering our robust opportunities pipeline, solid backlog and strong market growth to deliver for the full year 2025. And in line with our leap 28 financial ambitions, we expect to have mid to high single digit organic revenue growth and improvement in adjusted operating margin at constant currency, strong cash flow with a cash conversion above 90%. Now, before opening to questions with Francois, I would like to conclude by saying our strong operational execution coupled with a solid backlog allowed us to deliver record results in 2024. Our unique customer proximity and our superior service quality also contributed to this performance. I would like to reiterate my thanks to our customers and to our colleagues around the world. Second, we are confident in the strength of the secular trend supporting our market growth. Our LEAP28 strategy is resilient and we are clear about the execution programs needed to progress. Third, today we have a healthy balance sheet that gives us flexibility to accelerate on M&A and, when possible, returns to shareholders. We will, of course, be disciplined in our capital allocation to ensure double-digit shareholder returns. Finally, I'm confident that, with clear priorities, rigorous delivery and a good execution, we'll be well on track to deliver 2025 in line with our strategy ambitions. Thank you all very much for your attention. François and I are now ready to take your questions on the call.

Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad. We will take the first question from line Sylvia Barker from J.P. Morgan. The line is open now. Please go ahead.

quantify the benefits from restocking you think you have within consumer products.

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We missed your start. Could you please start again? Hello. Hello. Is it better? Yes, now we can hear you.

Could you please go ahead? Thank you. Thank you. Perfect. Let me try again. Good afternoon, everyone. Three questions, please. Firstly, on consumer products, could you give any quantification of how much you think you benefited from restocking or pull forward of demand, both in terms of revenue and on the margin, please? And then where do you think that division might, you know, what growth and what margins do you think you might see in that division as we go through 25? Second question, On interest costs, could you give any guidance of 25 on the P&L and also on the cash flow? Because that still continues to be quite low. And then final question, the balance sheet, because of the strong cash flow, the leverage ended up being lower than what we expected at least. We can see no buyback. Is that because you're keeping capacity for M&A? Obviously, we've had the news around the M&A situation with possibly Intertech, but definitely SGS. Are you more open to larger acquisitions? And also, if potentially a shareholder is selling down, does that impact decisions around share buybacks at all? So basically, what is this excess capacity kind of saved up for? Thank you.

Thank you, Sylvia. Those are five and three questions, but look, we'll try to answer. We couldn't hear well your second question, but let me start on the rest, please. On the consumer, I think it's important to clarify the consumer business dynamic we have today. We started in 23, and we designed a program on two fronts. One, to ensure that we are working on securing key contracts around the major sectors we cover, major customers, to make sure that – and that was the time that was reduced volumes, if you recall, in 2023. And that allowed us basically to – have a good position in market share that as volumes normalized after they worked through their stock, we could see that actually we recovered with many of these customers. So there is a baseline of growth in consumer that is actually, I would say, consistent and solid, as in not a one-off. That is what we have done. And we have also done something else, which we have been talking about for the last two years, which is diversifying our business geographically, in some sectors, and in services as well. And we are benefiting from all these sections. If I take a couple of examples, the growth, for example, in our healthcare, with two acquisitions we've made back in 22, late 22, are actually now arriving to the levels we want, and that contributed to the growth. We haven't had that in the past. We have diversified from a service perspective into upstream services and quality assurance, quality controls in the leather space, and that's also contributing. So our growth is multifaceted and organic growth based on really market share gains and very good position with growing accounts. Outcome from acquisitions in the last two, three years. And then, of course, we had some boost from things like the restocking we've seen later in the year. But I'm quite confident about the fact that this growth is significant. has solid bases, and that should give us in 2025 a good baseline to continue to grow. Of course, the dynamic of consumer space is not always easy to predict, but as I look at 2025, I think we are starting with very solid bases. Do you want to make any comments on the margins?

Yeah, Sylvia, on the margin front, I think, to be very clear, we do not expect... the margin of CPS to be lower in 25 than what it was in 24. So as Inda mentioned, the business has been reshaped with a lot of good things done on making it more resilient and with a stronger growth capacity. We've done the same on the coast base. So again, it's a recovery year for us on consumer products. And as a consequence, we don't foresee any drop in margin in the years to come.

Yeah. Sylvia, you had a question on the free cash flow and what we are doing with that and the M&A altogether. So let me maybe break it in a couple of items. On the M&A front, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, the M&A is really critical for us to pivot the portfolio and to develop these positions of leadership we have designed within LEAF 28. So while the bolt-on approach is important and necessary to fill in certain gaps, either from a capabilities or geographical perspective, it's not enough. And certainly it takes a long time and a lot of effort. So our M&A evolution, if you want, was to say that we needed to look at larger items. or larger targets that could address some of our needs in one go. And larger could start with targets that, if I look back, just to give you a bit of a perspective on this, if I look back in the last 20 years, we have done roughly 200 acquisitions. Only four were above 100 million. So You see, we were looking to expand a little bit the targets we look at. And, of course, we considered, as you have seen, the transaction that you have heard about in January with our Swiss competitors. That was one exploration of... a bigger transformative one to address many of the needs of the LEAP 28 and deliver the value that we think it should deliver to shareholders. Of course, in this case, it didn't proceed, as I explained earlier, and we are moving on to continue to look at the market and to assess always the value creation potential of the targets and our capacity to to synergize with whatever we buy and address the needs of the strategy. And of course, with the returns that we expect to deliver the double digit return I talked about. So when it comes then to the use of the cash, for us, it's important that we use the cash to allocate to this M&A that will unlock a lot of our future growth. But also when we can, we will be using it to provide the shareholder returns. But we want to make sure we are balancing those two and always with the utmost discipline to deliver the returns we promised. Could you please repeat question two? We couldn't hear you. Something around cost. I didn't hear that.

Yeah, yeah, of course. Thank you. And thank you very much for those answers. That's very helpful. Could I just have a follow-up around the bigger M&A first, and then I will repeat the other question as well. Just around the bigger M&A, obviously the transaction that you referenced did not happen, but there are another couple of larger listed peers. So would deals of that size kind of remain of interest, or was there something specific about that transaction that was particularly attractive? And then my second question was just about interest. So the one for Francois, just the P&L and cash interest cost for 25. Thank you.

So, look, just to quickly answer your question on the larger competitors, I think the key word in everything I said about M&A is discipline. We will only consider targets that make sense with regards to the strategy, with regards to the returns to our shareholders. So I think I wouldn't speculate on any transactions like that. But discipline is key in this case. You want to address the interest question, please?

So the interest, I will perhaps broaden up the answer to your question, Sylvia, onto the two lines which are below the adjusted operating profit. On the financial cost, I think it's fair to say that... We've been, again, very, very clear and disciplined in our cash pooling system that allows us to generate quite a bunch of financial profits out of this centralized cash. However, as you've seen as well, we had to refinance ahead. a maturity that was due June, January 15th, 2025. So all in, we have less cash now than we used to have at 31st of December. But you could count that the finance cost will remain very much similar, perhaps a slight increase if You know, we do more M&A. That would require more debt. But, you know, at constant scope, there is no reason it does increase. It may increase with more M&A, as mentioned. The second line that is below the adjusted operating profit is the effective tax rate. You've seen the reduction of 60 basis points. There is a lot more work to do on that front. From an administrative point of view, we are not yet where we wanted to be. You have discussion with the French state. I'm sure you're following with passion the tax laws being discussed in France. But by and large, we'll see what will be the final cost of it. But we are pretty much confident that we're going to guide between 30%, 31%. And I would say on the lower hand more than on the higher hand of the range.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you. We will take the next question from line N, from Morgan Stanley. The line is open now. Please go ahead. Hi, good afternoon. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Hi.

Hi, Annalise. Go ahead, please.

Hi. Great. Hi. Thank you. So, yes, I have three questions, please. So just firstly, specifically on the US, since we last spoke in October, we've we've had a change in US administration. So thinking about Trump's very clear stance against. sustainability and ESG. Do you see any risk to growth in your business in the US from that? I was thinking about certification, but anywhere else, and equally any offsetting factors from some of his other policies, whether that's infrastructure or projects like Stargate supporting cybersecurity demand. Just wondering if your expectations for mix of growth in the US have changed at all as we enter this year. Then secondly, again on regulation, more regarding ESG, there's been a lot in the press around pulling back or delaying of CSRD and reducing reporting requirements. I think, Hinda, in your opening remarks, you said that customers are still approaching sustainability reporting as part of normal risk management. So is it safe to say that you're still seeing that demand from your private customers? And can we expect certification to continue growing double digit in 2025? And then lastly, just on marine, you know, you've been saying for some time that you expect this to slow, but clearly it remains very robust. So I'm just wondering how much upside risk is there to growth in marine for this year? Are you seeing, for example, any increased capacity in some of the shipyards coming on stream or anything else you can point to? Thank you.

Thank you, Anli. So let me start with the question one on the U.S. administration and the whole stance taken against sustainability and energy. First of all, I think, as I said earlier, for sustainability, really what matters to a lot of customers is how can they navigate the risks associated with sustainability. We might have a lot of political rhetoric and certain administrations taking certain positions, but at the end, What we see from our customers, they have stakeholders, they have consumers, they have their own customers that they have to contend with. And therefore, they need to protect their brand, they need to protect their reputation, and very importantly, they need to protect their competitiveness. So we see that very pragmatic view to say, okay, it's not what perhaps what regulation is going to do, but from a risk perspective, this is important for my enterprise, and therefore this need is still there. So on the sustainability, particularly in the U.S., we see that very clear position from organizations we work with, and we see it in other parts of the world, by the way. It's really a risk management approach. It's really about print protection. Now, the renewable is a bit more interesting here. You have a major, of course, lever, which is the Inflation Reduction Act that is now with the latest executive orders have been kind of watered down. And of course, it will call in question some of the investments in the coming years. What we observe is that Today, particularly in the U.S., in 25, the projects are still ongoing. Now, what will happen in 26, 27 is another question. But what's important not to forget is there is a real, real imperative around growing power sources in the U.S. Between crypto data centers and the industrial activity picking up, you have massive demand and you don't have enough supply. Now, of course, there's a lot of narrative around how gas is going to take care of all of that. sure, in the midterm, maybe longer term, but in the short term, the best possible option is going to be renewable and there is a good momentum and there is an industry that developed. So I tend to be a little bit more positive in saying that private enterprise will push renewables where it makes sense because there is a demand and there is a capacity to do it. What could be a hurdle for that potentially is the supply chain to do that for some of the sources. But all in all, I think we'll see a bit of a mixed or more stable view for the year, and then we'll see how this whole industry is going to reposition in the U.S. So on that front, I'm not worried for the U.S. in 2025. We just need to understand the dynamics and how that will work. Now, keep in mind, internationally, it's a different dynamic. In the last few years, the two countries that have pushed renewable is the U.S. and China. What we're seeing now, a little bit Europe, but not too much. Now we're seeing that pivoting to see other parts of the world. Middle East, Asia are really leading the way in renewable power. So for us, that shift is clearly understood, and we're gearing up to support that. On your second question on the regulations for... what is essentially called the omnibus regulation or measures being taken by the European Union. I have to say we're actually quite positive about simplification of the regulations because the CSRD in its current form It's quite complex, and it's going to be extremely difficult for a lot of companies to adopt it easily and really make the changes. So for us, if there are a bundle of measures to simplify the regulation, we rather welcome it. We think it will increase adoption. And the other thing which is important to keep in mind is the reporting part, which is what the CSRD actually is driving, is not the biggest part of the market. The biggest part of the market of sustainability is really the supply chain work we need to do. It's the decarbonization efforts that we need to do. It's all the work we need to do on product circularity. So the bulk of the market is sitting in these areas rather than the reporting. So we're watching very carefully, but we're not worried as much as we are interested to see how it actually simplifies and how that impacts adoption, which could drive our growth. And, of course, looking into certification, just the second part of that second question, what will happen in certification growth in 2025? I think the sustainability drive is still there. We expect that to continue to be robust. And we continue to innovate. You heard me say it in my prepared remarks. The hallmark of this certification business is you are creating new schemes. That can be very specific to customers. You are creating new solutions because of the demand from customers. So provided we continue to do that, I'm quite confident that certification will have good growth in 2025. And then on MNO, you're right to mention, we've been quite factual about MNO. First of all, I have to tell you that we are pushing our very strong management team in MNO to continue to outperform. So first of all, I want to congratulate them for that. But it's true that We the capacity of the shipyards is filling up and we have always worried about how the pace of conversion of the backlog is going to happen. You just heard me say we have 27 million gross tonne of backlog. That's 20 percent growth or 21 percent growth year on year. So we're not worried about what we have is the pace of conversion. And that's where we were always quite careful with how the growth will happen. Now, we're going to watch that. What we're doing in the meantime, and this is how the team has done very, very well in the second part as well, is grow our core in-service business. And that's where we have seen massive growth. And we ended up with an aggregate growth that exceeded our expectations. I'm going to stick to that to say that I expect the business to perform well, and we will watch very carefully the shipyard capacity and how that will progress. I think I covered all your questions, Annalise. Thank you.

Yes, you did. Thank you very much, Indra. I appreciate all the color. Thank you.

Thank you. We will take the next question from Lion Sosa Shini Varanasi from Goldman Sachs. The line's up now. Please go ahead.

Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. Just a few from me, please. Judging by the tone of the commentary on this call, it feels like you're willing to consider larger transactions compared to, you know, the track record seen over the last eight, nine years. It is a little bit of a change, so I just wanted to understand, and maybe you could help us understand the criteria for with which you would value these larger transactions. Obviously, the multiples that you pay for these transactions would be a little bit different. You might have to make decisions around issuing equity. So how do you balance all of that, including revenues, cost synergies or dis-synergies, returns, execution risk, et cetera? Maybe if you could give some color on that, I think that would be really helpful. And just maybe to round off the questions that were asked in the previous two analysts, in 2025, if we had to think about the balance of growth across the divisions versus 24 levels, would it be fair to say that maybe, you know, consumer sees a little bit of moderation when growth compared to 24 levels, maybe industry as well, balanced by maybe building and construction, doing a little bit better. So maybe if you could just give us some color around general direction, I think that would be really helpful. I appreciate you don't give exact guidance, but just some color would be helpful. Thank you.

Thank you, Sohasini, for the questions. I'm going to pass to Francois on the larger transactions. I just want to say one comment. What we are seeking here is really to transform our portfolio so we don't have a particular objective to just do larger transactions. And large is a very large term, I guess. As I said, in 20 years, we only bought four targets above 100 million. So we're not necessarily thinking always large. you know, super transformative. But we're saying we need to look at larger transactions because time is of the essence for a lot of the new stronghold markets. And we need to be able to capture some of the opportunities. But of course, we have we talked about discipline before. So I'll let Francois address the question.

Yeah, it's fascinating. So my answer would be in two steps, you know, for the Bolton's acquisition that you've been used to and some of the, I would say, even mid-size one, you know, 100, 150 million euro in terms of size of business. You know, we are talking here revenues because that's the way we look at those things. as we consider a team of people we buy here. For everything that was between zero and 150, I think the discipline we have is very clear. It's based on payback time, six, seven years max, and a minimum IR around 15%. Hasn't changed. That's what we've delivered this year. So this is very much ingrained into our way to do M&A. What has changed this year, perhaps the industrialization of this, We've purchased, you know, 10 companies. The total expected revenue of this is, you know, close to 200 million. So this is basically the day-to-day. For larger targets, larger combination, you know, as good as me, if you are thinking about objects which are way above this 150, 200 million, so let's say 800, 900 billion in size of revenue, then the dimension becomes a bit different here. There are two elements that are very critical to us. A is one, why are we doing or considering those objects? I think that has been very clear. They have to fit within the LIP28 program and strategy, which is to get less diverse, more focused. So I think that's one thing that is very important to remind. And B, we need to ensure that we guarantee shoulder returns double-digit. And I think with those two things in mind, that's the way we would consider any of those deals. And it's very important we don't get blurred by adding P&Ls in a very soft manner. We are talking industry here. We are talking combination. We are talking people. We are talking making sure we build something stronger here. So and this is really what is at the core of what we would look at more than just a mathematical mathematical computation. So strategy first and show the return second. Both of them in good, sane hands.

Thank you. Thank you, Francois. So, Asini, on the second question, the way we look at the growth in 2025, first of all, I want to say something really important for us and we have been working on for a while. We have been working to make sure that with our growth dynamic, as we manage our portfolio, that we are decoupling our growth from GDP growth. And that's why we're reorienting or pivoting the portfolio to focus on high growth areas. And if you look at our growth in 2025, the way we think about it, we're thinking about a homogenous growth where we are, all our programs, I talked about market share gains in the consumer side. I talked, in fact, I didn't, but I'm going to say that on the BNI side, we are, we've put many things in place. We bought this new program. companies that will complement our portfolio and give us capacity to grow and reconnect with the targets we had for BNI. So we are working on homogenizing the growth from our different businesses, and we feel on balance the 2025 outlook. takes that into account and should provide us with a good dynamic of growth. Of course, the key thing we are doing is to make sure that we're prepared should there be upsides during the year that we can capture, like we have done in marine and offshore, as I answered earlier, we will capture that upside. But homogenous growth, and we continue to push very hard, high growth, new services, particularly in the new strongholds.

Thank you very much.

We will take the next question from line Pablo Cuadrado from Kepler. The line is open now. Please go ahead.

Hi, good afternoon, everyone. Just three questions on my side. This one is on the worker capital. Clearly very good figures you recorded this year. The question will be more for Francois, just to know that 4.7% of sales, how sustainable it could be for this year. Particularly taking into account that you have kept the 90% cash conversion versus almost 150 last year. So that's probably indicating some kind of deterioration, but just double check how you see that reference. The second question will be on the consumer product division. You mentioned low single-digit organic growth on the technology services. So I was wondering whether you can tell us if you are seeing a little bit of better demand trends at the moment or think that 2025 still will be a challenging year for you on those services. And the final question will be on the agri-food and commodity. The margin decline of 100 basic points this year, I think you explained there was an unsupportive miss. But how we should look to the margin performance for this year on distribution, also taking into account the reconciliation of the food assets, you know, any color on that,

So first of all, on the working cap, you know, Pablo, you know me, I like to do things in a sustainable manner. I'm not the man of one offs and stuff like this. So the four point seven percent has been earned the traditional way, you know, making sure we build fast and we collect even faster. We had a bit of an help at your hands. with a Chinese New Year that is very close to the calendar year end, which has helped in December to get good cash collections throughout Asia, much stronger than what we've seen historically. However, you saw the H1 numbers. They were good already on cash. So I would say if you want to put that in the model, you should put something around 5.5%, which would be perhaps a working cap of a revenue on the model for 2025 onwards. Okay. So that's, again, it's an improvement compared to the last four or five years where we are plateauing a bit around six. And let me just take a second because many burettes employees are listening to this call as well. I would like to convey a great sense of congratulations for the work done. It's been done, again, as I said, in a very sustainable manner, no one-offs. So well done, guys. It's been a great year on working cap and free cash. Second, I'll go to agri-food and commodities. Here again, the whole story dates back to H1. You've been very polite in mentioning metals and minerals, mixed effects or portfolio effects. Truth is we've lost some contracts. We paid the price for it in H1. H2 will regain growth and margin with it. So we expect 2025 to be better on that front. The food testing divestments, Let me just be a bit more precise here. These are 11 deals as we are divesting 11 countries, to make it simple. The big chunk of it has been done in December. So at the end of December 31st, we still have 12 months full of food testing business. End of December, we divested 30% of this portfolio. We've divested another 25% to 30% in January, and it goes on like this until, let's say, March, April. So by the end of April, there won't be any food testing business within our portfolio. We expect this to be slightly positive to the margin of the segment, of the agri-food and community segment. Again, it's a bit of a transition year, but by and large, as I said, slightly positive in terms of contribution. CPS tech, which was your question, so a tough year this year. And I think all in, we expect to stabilize for 2025 onwards. which normally makes you guys feel a bit more relaxed about consumer product, as I see and hear questions about one-offs or whatever upside that you're in 2024. I think one element that we see very positively is the stabilization of this subsegment of consumer product, which has been struggling for, I'm turning back to INDA, but at least a good year, more than a good year. So that should be helpful. Yeah.

And I think perhaps just to add on the technology side, last year we made three acquisitions to make sure we actually grow our electrical appliances business and go to different platforms of innovation, two companies in Korea and one in India. And those are the kind of pivots we'll continue to do in terms of really restructuring the portfolio of technology. And as we have said in the past, we have strong presence in China, in Europe, and we are growing our presence in the U.S., and we want to really diversify a little bit as well.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. We will take the last question from line Carl Green from RBC. The line is open now. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much. Just one question remaining from me. Following on from the questions from Annalise earlier on, I mean, you've made it very clear about your thoughts on how the renewables markets will pan out, certainly in the short term. But thinking about how the developed world is making this fairly rapid pivot from renewables to renewables,

We lost you, Carl. Caroline?

Hi, Carl. Can you hear us?

Yeah. Can you hear me?

Yeah, we can hear you.

Please go ahead. Thank you.

Thank you. Sorry, I'm not sure if you caught any of it before, but just very, very quickly. So following up Manolis's question earlier on, as the world switches away from renewables priority to rearmament, particularly in Europe and to a lesser extent in the US as well, is the defence segment an area where you see opportunities both organically and for M&S? just in terms of thinking about your Leak 28 strategy, and obviously you've got the sustainability target of 15% of revenues. Do you think there's a case to be made that actually BV should be pivoting as well to reflect the new geopolitical reality?

Thank you for the question, Carl. I mean, of course, we always look at sectors that are developing and where we can offer our services. We would we have a limited presence today in that space. We do some some work, of course, with confidential. So I can't really share where we do the work, but we do some work, but limited exposure today. Should there be opportunities and it makes sense from an investment versus returns? We will look at it. Not really a major subject today yet. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll hand it back over to your host for closing remarks.

All right. Thank you very much. I think we covered all the questions. Perhaps the only thing I would say is our outlook for 2025 shows, again, our confidence in the trends we observe in the markets. We continue to execute our strategy, and we'll make sure that we deliver on our commitments in terms of growth, but, of course, in margin improvements. And we have an objective to make sure we deliver growth. good constant currency, good margin improvements, and we'll give you more details and update on the performance side and the margin side in July.

Thank you very much.