Bureau Veritas Sa

During the questions and answers session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing pound key five on their telephone keypad. Now I will hand the conference over to the speakers. Hinda Garbi, Chief Executive Officer and Francois Chaba, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Good evening to everyone. Welcome to Bureau Veritas' third quarter 2025 revenue presentation. Thank you for participating today through the webcast for the conference call. I'm joined by Francois Chabat, our Chief Financial Officer. Bureau Veritas has demonstrated another robust performance this quarter. We have continued to make significant progress in implementing our LEAP28 strategic framework, leveraging Bureau Veritas' diversified and resilient business portfolio and geographical footprint. I'd like to thank our colleagues around the world whose commitment and efforts have contributed to our strong results. Starting with our revenue performance, our revenue in the third quarter reached 1.6 billion euros. Our organic revenue growth demonstrated remarkable resilience, progressing by a healthy 6.3% against challenging comparables. This performance demonstrates the effectiveness of our strategy and highlights our team's strong execution capabilities. Additionally, we continue to execute our LEAP28 active portfolio strategy through targeted acquisitions accounting for 3.1% of the growth and net of divestments contributing 0.8% to our revenue. These acquisitions are aligned with our portfolio objectives and contribute to further focus our portfolio. As anticipated, the euro's strength against most currencies resulted in a negative currency impact of 4.8% for the quarter. Based on our robust year-to-date performance and taking into account our consistent strategy execution, we confirm our 2025 financial outlook. If we look at our mix, there are several key elements I would like to highlight. All geographies and activities demonstrated resilient growth. Three of our core businesses representing 61% of our portfolio, including building and infrastructure, Industry and certification grew mid to high single digits organically, while marine and offshore grew a strong double digit. Geographically, Africa and the Middle East once again posted a strong organic growth of 15.7%, driven by energy projects and by building and infrastructure activities in the Middle East specifically. In Asia Pacific, we achieved an 8.6% organic growth with strong performance in South and Southeast Asia. Our performance in China recovered with a high single-digit expansion. Our European operations delivered an organic growth of 5.2%, led by activities in France and Southern Europe. Finally, the Americas region recorded a 1.9% organic growth. Our activities around buildings and infrastructure and energy achieved very high growth, offsetting softness in Brazil. Excluding Brazil, our growth was over 10%. Let me now update you on our LEAP28 strategy and the evolution of our largest business. We have been executing a strategic shift in our BNI portfolio development strategy, which is articulated in three folds. First, geographically, we used to have three main growth platforms, Europe, the United States, and China. Our Europe platform is well established, mature, outperforming the market thanks to our resilient portfolio activity, predominantly geared towards the OPEX business. The U.S. is doing well in all subsegments, and we are building on this momentum to keep growing organically and to expand our capabilities inorganically. To offset China that continues to struggle from a lack of public investment, we are assessing new markets around the world. We identified growing opportunities in emerging markets in countries such as Australia, Indonesia, or the Middle East. These are growing markets where a buildup of infrastructure and urban facilities is ongoing and where we want to continue to expand our services organically and through M&A. Second, we are working on evolving our mix of services by increasing our exposure to infrastructure. One strategic move that perfectly illustrates our growth approach, the acquisition of the APP Group in Australia last year. This transaction expands our geographical presence and enhances our capabilities, gaining critical expertise in project and construction management. Third, we are boosting our digital capabilities. The recent acquisition of IDP in Spain is a good example of what we are currently doing. This company provides building information modeling, project management assistance, and digital twin services for public and private companies. Finally, we consider that evolving market trends in the buildings and infrastructure space favor specific strategic and high complexity assets that represent an opportunity for growth. Looking at some of these strategic assets, We would like to share with you the progress we have made with our data centers business. The data center construction market is growing significantly at double digits. The overall need for data centers is driven, of course, by increasing demand for cloud services and the rapid AI technology and rapid AI technologies adoption. We are a key player for commissioning and QA, QC, quality assurance, quality control services, around the electrical, mechanical, plumbing, and control systems that support data centers. The aim of these services is to ensure that the facilities deliver the expected performance and required uptime. Our strong technical expertise comes from the acquisition we completed late 2017. We have since multiplied our organic revenue by more than seven times, growing at a CAGR of 28.6%. Over the period, we expanded from 2 to 35 countries. Clients-wise, we are expanding from the hyperscalers to Tier 1, 2, and 3 clients. As we look forward, we expect this business to become a critical driver of growth for B&I. I also would like to say that we are looking very closely at such strategic assets as we consider that These are very important markets and target markets for us to expand our BNI activities. Looking now at our inorganic growth across the portfolio overall. We are showing good progress on the M&A front with eight transactions signed or closed this year, representing an annualized revenue of 92 million euros. As you can see, we have been focused on the new strongholds and the expand leadership streams in line with our LEED28 portfolio plans. Since the beginning of the plan in 2024, we have closed 18 acquisitions, adding over €270 million of annualized revenue. In October 2025, we signed two acquisition agreements. The first one, London Building Control, will help us strengthen our market leadership in code compliance in building and infrastructure CapEx operations in the UK. It is a leading registered building control approver, adding 14 million of euros of revenue. Solida, a company specialized in technical advisory and project management assistance, grid connections, mainly for wind and solar assets, will help us strengthen our capabilities in the fast-growing renewables market. This addition to our portfolio will create a global end-to-end CapEx platform serving our clients. This company generated 18 million euros in 2024. I will now hand over to Francois for the financial review for Q3 revenue.

Thank you, Inda. Good afternoon to everyone. Starting with the revenue bridge on the slide, as you can see, we delivered above 1.58 billion euros in just a quarter, with an organic growth of 6.3%. The score part of the growth added 0.8% on a net basis. It reflects the impact of the Bolton acquisition on the one hand, those one relies in the past two quarters. We're talking here about roughly plus 3.1% in accretion demo revenue. And second, the offset or the partial offset by the disposal of a food-tasting business, which has been initiated at the end of last year, as you may remember, and that we have now completed in July this year. Forex represents a drive of minus 4.8%. This is mainly attributed to the strength of the euro versus most currencies. In line with what we have already indicated in July to you on the call, we can model that the full year fixed impact for 2025 should be negative by around 4%, so no major changes on that front. Overall, in the quarter, we posted a total growth of 2.3% on a net reported basis. If we take a step back now on the first nine months of the year, we delivered robust organic growth for the period at 6.6%, reinforcing a commitment to consistent expansion across the markets. On the report basis, the growth achieved 4.5. And again here, taking into account all the scope parts, on the one hand, the acquisition, which have contributed 3.2%, and the partial offset by disposal at minus 2.1%. So the net is the one you see on the page at 1.1% for the first nine months of the year. If we look now at the growth by business, both on an organic point of view and a scope point of view, four divisions deliver double-digit growth at constant currency. It demonstrates the relevance and good execution of our strategy roadmap. I would like to focus on two main divisions here. First, the growth of our building and infrastructure division is particularly noteworthy. And it fully highlights the combined effect of the, on the one hand, the solid earning growth momentum, coupled with the positive impact of our recent acquisitions. As I said earlier by Linda, we gave you a 10.8% growth scope and organic in the first nine months and some currency. So it starts to be the materialization of the change of our portfolio mix when it comes to building infrastructure. The second element I would like to draw your attention upon is the agri-food and commodity division, which is in contraction at constant currency. Here again, it reflects the now fully competitive food testing activity. Organic aggregates growth is 4.2% in the first nine months, and it reflects different dynamics across the . Here again, we see the pivot between building infrastructure on one end and agri-food and commodities on the other end. But these two examples illustrate our active portfolio management success so far. This dynamic will continue as we execute our inorganic plans. On a side note, to support this M&A strategy, we've just completed a structuring financial operation. At the end of September, we issued a bond for 700 million euros, leveraging on our A3 Moody's rating to save attractive market conditions at the time. I will now hand over back to Linda the portfolio business highlights of the course.

Thanks, Francois. Starting with marine and offshore, our top performing division with 16.2% organic growth in the third quarter. The market remains strong, enabled by the modernization of the global maritime fleet. This growth dynamic is reflected in our year-to-date new orders, reaching 12.3 million gross tons and expanding our order book to 32 million gross tons for the year. a significant 19.3% increase year-to-date versus last year. By segment, we have achieved a double-digit growth in new construction, primarily driven by accelerated delivery in key Asian markets, specifically here, China and Korea. Core in-service activities or all-place activities have also shown robust growth, delivering high single-digit expansion from both volumes and pricing benefits. In our commitment to sustainable maritime innovation, we were selected to classify and certify six dual-fuel utilizing LNG container ships for a major French shipping company, and we also secured four LNG carriers with dual-fuel systems for a Greek ship owner. Moving to the agri-food and commodity segment, it delivers a low single-digit organic growth at 2.5 percent this quarter, with contrasting trends among subsegments. Oil and petrochemicals showed low single-digit growth, with European markets gradually recovering and marine fuel assessments providing additional growth momentum. The metals and minerals, however, continue to deliver high single-digit expansion, driven by strong precious metals and on-site laboratory volume increases across the Middle East, Europe, and the United States. With the recent acquisition of GeoSA in Chile and with our existing network, we're strategically positioned to capitalize on the copper market's fast growth. Agri-activities experienced organic revenue contraction impacted by underperforming activities in Latin America and operational disruptions linked to the war in Ukraine. Government services achieved mid-single digital organic growth through contracts from pubs in Africa and Asia. Finally, I'm pleased to report, as Francois was mentioning, that the divestment of our food testing activities is now complete. On the green object front, we have successfully secured an on-site laboratory outsourcing project for a sustainable aviation fuel producer in the United States. Turning to industry. We have achieved a robust 6.9% organic growth in the third quarter against what I would consider very self-comparable at over 20%, with our nine-month organic performance reaching 10.4%. In our oil and gas segments, we have delivered consistent double-digit organic growth. Our CAPEX activities have shown strong performance with a solid backlog conversion of projects mostly in the Middle East and Asia. The power and utility segments recorded double-digit organic revenue expansion. Our services for the renewable energy sector have been particularly strong in the North American and Asian markets. The nuclear power subsegment has delivered also robust organic results with emerging opportunities, especially as we progress in onboarding our new business, the Dornier-Hunneberg acquisition we completed last quarter for decommissioning-related services. For industry product certification, we posted high single-digit organic growth. This performance was powered by strong momentum in European and US markets and the rollout of innovative digital tools for machinery or machine safety. For green objects, we were selected for a construction management services contract for a renewable energy developer delivering 125 megawatt solar and 280 megawatt battery energy storage system in California. Additionally, we were awarded a three-year contract to help a Spanish energy company detect, quantify, and set up fugitive emission reduction plans. Moving on to buildings and infrastructure. This business was among the strongest performing ones within the portfolio this quarter, reaching an organic growth of 7.1%, and achieving 4.1 growth in the first nine months. By sub-segments, our CapEx building segments delivered high single-digit organic revenue increase. The US platform was a critical growth driver in the quarter, with strong growth in data centers commissioning from the ongoing buildup of AI infrastructure. The US activity was further strengthened by increased permitting for new buildings, positively lifting the code compliance activity. The Asia-Pacific region also delivers strong organic growth through increased code compliance activity in Northeast Asia, namely Japan, from favorable new buildings control regulations. On the OPEX building services segment side, performance was solid overall, up mid-single digit organically in the third quarter. France contributed significantly to growth through an increased volume of services, favorable pricing programs and increased activity from energy efficiency related projects. In the US, real estate transaction related services performed very well, driven by a pickup in commercial real estate transactions. Lastly, business and infrastructure delivered high single digit organic revenue increase in the quarter. Strong growth in Europe from sustained projects in Italy, where we have seen the government sustain their investments there. In the Middle East region, we also recorded very strong organic growth across key markets with the developments of numerous large-scale projects. Lastly, we're building a good basis for sustained organic growth with the APP Group in Australia, where we secured in Q3 a major multi-year project management services contract with the Department of Defense. In transition services, we are partnering with the International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group, to expand resilience verification services globally. Our certification division delivered solid results in Q3, achieving 5.9% organic growth despite tough comparables and a strong 7.7% growth year-to-date. This performance reflects the solid trends underlying assurance services. Risk management and mitigation imperatives are driving many services, specifically supply chain resilience activity, and overall specialized schemes are growing. Breaking down our different subsegments revenue growth. For the quality, health, safety, and the environment and specialized schemes, Growth was high single-digit on an organic basis driven by customized certification programs and robust public sector contracts, particularly in food safety inspections. Sustainability and digital solutions delivered double-digit growth through high demand for greenhouse gas verification, forestry services, ESG audits, and cybersecurity services. We also continue to expand our customer base in cyber, so recently we secured a cyber security contract with a major social media company in the United States. In transition services, we secured a substantial lifecycle assessment contract with a major energy company in the Middle East. We also won a sustainability reporting contract for an international pharma company, providing specialized consulting on scope three emissions and data management. Finally, our consumer product services division posted a solid 3.5% organic growth in Q3 against very tough comparables, leading to a 4.1% year-to-date performance. By subsegment, soft line, hard lines, and toys recorded low single-digit growth driven by South and Southeast Asia as Western companies gradually shift their sourcing from China mostly. Our healthcare, beauty, and household delivered double-digit growth driven by favorable dynamics in the United States and a strong performance in the Chinese domestic market. Supply chain and sustainability services recorded high single-digit growth with CSR audits benefiting from increased demand for new supplies qualification as the sourcing shift progresses across Asia. Technology remains stable with mixed performance, facing challenges in wireless and mobility products, but benefiting from favorable trends in the electrical consumer area. The ongoing diversification of this business is progressing well as recent acquisitions start to contribute to organic growth. On the transition services front, we won in Q3. We had a strategic global partnership and a commitment to supply chain. We secured a significant contract with a multinational clothing retailer for supplier data management. We also won an eco-design and lifecycle assessment verification project with a global industrial technology leader. Turning now to the outlook. Considering our robust nine-month performance, the solid backlog, and taking into account the strong underlying market fundamentals, And again, in line with the LEAP 28 financial ambition, we confirm our full year 2025 outlook and expect to deliver mid to high single-digit organic revenue growth, improvement in adjusted operating margin at constant exchange rates, and a strong cash flow with cash conversion above 90%. Coming to the end of this presentation's prepared remarks and to conclude, this is another quarter we're delivering an excellent operational performance while navigating complex market dynamics and with challenging comparables versus last year. This performance is a testament to the consistent and reliable execution led by our teams and to the clear strategic priorities for the whole organization. I'm also pleased on the strategy execution front as we progress with our portfolio pivots, while also modernizing our ways of working and while building a differentiated people model. We're also fully committed to progressing on our portfolio transformation in the coming months and year as we accelerate our M&A program. Finally, we'll continue to navigate an evolving macro and market conditions. We remain confident as to the strength of our market fundamentals, the superior capabilities of our people and teams, and the resilience of our portfolio. Thank you for your attention. Francois and I are now ready to answer your questions.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key 6. The next question comes from Annalise Vermeulen from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Hi, good afternoon, Hinda and Francois. I have three questions, please. Hello. Hi. So three questions, please. Firstly, on the structural reorganisation you announced at the H1, it sounds like that's progressing, but any comments there on how that has progressed in the quarter? I think previously you spoke about starting to see some payback on that in the first half of 26. So just curious if that's still the case. Secondly, on BNI, it sounds like it was a fairly broad-based recovery, but are there any particular end markets or geographies that you would call out in terms of driving that very significant sequential improvement, such as data centres? And are there any one-offs that boosted that growth in Q3 in particular? And then lastly, just on China, just what you're seeing on the ground across your divisions in China, if you're seeing anything sequentially improve or deteriorate relative to the first half. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Annelies. Yeah, thank you for the question on the reorganization. As we've mentioned, in July, we launched the first phase of the reorganization in June. So that was for our executive committee. The team is in place. We launched the phase two for the next layer in September and that team is basically in place. We worked through the summer. That team is in place and working on phase three. What's really good is that there is clear alignment across the organization as to the value of this organization just to In my view, it's about scale, structure, and speed. It's about our capacity to make sure that we can actually execute even faster our organization. It's about making sure we boost our cross-selling, our global sales, we scale faster new businesses, and we integrate better as we are in this dynamic of acquisition and portfolio pivoting. So, so far, I would say so good, and we will continue to monitor how that progresses. I think the payback is, as I said actually last time I believe you asked me that question, this wasn't a new program. This is something we have thought through since we were building the strategy and we have baked in the fact that we'll have this organization done in 2025 and therefore we consider that the impact is within the commitments and ambitions of LEAP28. Going to BNI, we're very pleased with the performance of BNI in Q3. You're right, it's a great recovery. I would say, first of all, I think the North American market has delivered really nicely, and you have seen, right, it's a high single-digit growth in CapEx overall, and we've seen good performance on the infrastructure and also very decent performance on the OPEX. The North American market has done very well. We have seen growth across all sub-segments. Data center is doing great. The market is growing double digits and we're growing with the market. Code compliance started to recover now with the interest rates starting to come down. Commercial transactions picked up. And we have, I would say, overall, that is a good momentum on the BNI side in the United States. China is finally hitting a trough. As you recall, we have been suffering from ongoing contraction of that market. So finally, China now we're starting to stabilize. And at the same time, we have the emerging markets I talked about picking up great performance in our Middle East business, Southeast Asia, some countries there as well. So we're seeing a very nice emerging markets growth. And then finally, the mature business of Europe is actually doing well as well, as I mentioned earlier. Good volumes, reasonable pricing in some parts of it, particularly France, and some good projects on the energy management. So I would say across, it's a broad performance and not a surprise, at least for us, because we predicted this for the simple reason that we are executing our strategy on the BNI side and expecting to see this. And what's even nicer is now if I look at, if I take the organic growth and the scope, we are basically growing 10.8 at constant currency, and that's really going to be a very nice foundation for growth going forward. I'm going to ask Francois to comment on China.

Yes, good afternoon, Liz. On China, I think, as you know, we are exposed when it comes to most of our product or business lines, so certification industry, marine offshore, consumer product, and D&I. From a sequential point of view, I think we are quite positive and optimistic about China. It used to be growing in H1 around mid-single. It now construed into three between mid to high, so we are actually seeing an acceleration of growth overall as a geography. Point one, point two, very important to us the solvency of clients is as good as it has been so meaning we don't see any cash restriction whatsoever coming from our client base which is a very important element to us when it comes to operating in this country. The dynamic by segments very rapidly you have obviously an outlier which is the marine offshore division which the fact that the shipyards are concentrating in China is actually a If I say double-digit, it's almost an understatement, so it's very good. The certification business as well is very solid. Industry in which we are very much exposed to renewable energy remains very, very strong. And I think overall what we see is the BNI China remains a drag, but less and less as time goes by. And our consumer-private business, despite all what you can read on the newspaper, is from supply chain shift and so on, maintains good growth on a year-to-date basis. So overall, I think we see China very positive.

Perfect. Thank you both very much.

Thank you.

The next question comes from Suhasini Varanasi from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. Just a few for me, please. Hello, hi. I'd like to speak to you. I think the Q3 number, given the tougher comms, is actually a very strong print, and you're having easier competitors going into Q4. Is there any reason to suggest that the underlying momentum that you've seen here today should not continue over the next quarter? And maybe specifically on Maryland offshore, it continues to surprise on the upside. The book also continues to grow double digits. Can you maybe help us understand what has surprised you positively? Because I think previously you have been talking about a potential slowdown. Is that getting pushed out further and further, basically? Thank you.

Yes, thanks. Thanks, Jyotsini. You're absolutely right. I think this was a strong performance in Q3, considering that last year we grew 13% in Q3. And let's remember as well, Q4 we grew 10%. So very, very strong performance last year. So the comparables are quite tough. Having said that, I think we're confirming our outlook because we think we have a solid basis with our backlog, with our projects, with the visibility on our execution, and with the team that we expect that to, we're reasonably confident on that. Of course, I cannot be very specific on the current trend, but we had a good exit of September. We have good visibility on the project, so we expect that Q4 will deliver and confirm the outlook for the year, considering again that 10% growth last year. So I would say we don't expect surprises on that front. On the M&O side, look, it has been good performance, very good performance, maybe a little bit beyond what we expected because we were modeling that the performance of the shipyards was not going to be as strong as what we expected, or what we actually, what turned out to be. And that's why we've always modeled that we will see some moderation, because at some point, two things will work against you. One, the capacity, you're not going to keep converting, you don't have that capacity. And two, your comparables are getting tougher, right? But actually the performance of the shipyards has been very good to the point that the conversion was much faster than what we predicted. Now a few times I said I would expect it to happen in the next quarter and it didn't materialize. So I would say now we're sitting in a space where we think that probably won't be the same level of growth but we will have to watch how the shipyards perform. We also are monitoring whether there will be some capacity addition for the shipyards in China. And if that's the case, then we could see some reasonable momentum maintained. I wouldn't commit to exactly the same performance you've seen in Q3, but some reasonable momentum. It all depends how many yards are added, how quickly they come up to speed, and that's really extremely hard to predict. But look, great performance this year from our M&O teams. And the backlog, as I said, is 32 million gross tons. So it's not going to go anywhere when we expect it to be executed at some point. Thank you very much.

Thank you. The next question comes from Geoffrey Michaelet from AutoBHF. Please go ahead.

yes hi thank you for taking my question and conversation for those strong results three for me the first one is on your consumer business the tech division is rather subdued for quite a while now. My question is when do you expect a turnaround? Do you think it will take more than one year? That was the first question. The second question is on certification and notably the other solutions including training that were negative this quarter. Could you elaborate a bit on that? And the third question is on capital allocation. on the pipeline, we still haven't seen mid to large M&A deals, so you feel more pressure to bring back cash to shareholders with the new share buyback. Thank you very much.

Yes, thank you. Thank you, Geoffrey, for the question. Look, CPS Tech, I think we've been extremely clear that we had a portfolio that was misaligned with the trends of the market. If you recall, we talked about the fact that the wireless and automotive side or the mobility side, as we call it, were really suffering from their own market conditions and the demand has fallen. And as we examined that and worked on the portfolio, we knew that we needed to do a few things. One, diversify geographically because we were quite heavy on the kind of Asia mix. and two, we needed to diversify and ensure that we expand our capabilities in the electrical appliances side specifically around the world, which is what we have been doing. We made an acquisition in Mexico, we have made an acquisition more recently in Brazil, we have acquisitions in Korea, and we have acquisitions in India. So all these are coming together and my expectations on the turnaround, I think a good 12 months is probably a reasonable timeline to really work through and as all these businesses get onboarded, integrated, and we start seeing some impact. But it's true, it has been a drag on the overall performance of CPS, of our consumer product services division, and we're watching that very, very closely.

You had a very good high here. Let's say training to make your life simple. Training grew mid-single. And the other section that is mentioned represents the contraction of 2.8 million out of 1.6 billion business. So we guarantee you a one-to-one with Laurent Brunet now so that you have a fully explained explanation of this site contraction. I will not overread it if you see what I mean.

All right. Thanks, Francois. Look, on the capital allocation side and M&A, and thank you for that question. I think it's a very important one. As you have seen, on the Bolton side, we're not into a number game. We're really into a quality of target game where we have very, very specific gaps, both geographically and from a capabilities perspective. and we are filling in these gaps very carefully and very deliberately. So the bolt-on track, if you will, is working, and we're pleased with the acquisitions we're making. And the key thing with these small bolt-ons is the scaling across the group because that, for me, is a very important dynamic for us to profoundly change how the portfolio is working and to make sure we deliver on our commitments. So that's the first track. The second track of the mid-sized ones, the 100 to 500, the pipeline is good. There are opportunities we're very focused on. We have engagements ongoing, and we have discussions ongoing. Now, there are a couple of things to keep in mind when we talk about these targets. It is a very rich private equity space, so the pace and the I guess the exit of these deals may vary, may take some time. And that's really what we are working on. So you have seen us raise the talks about the 700 million bonds we issued recently. We're preparing ourselves for the ongoing discussion to make sure that as they materialize, we're very well prepared to finance that. So I think a good description of where we are today is quite, I would say, sure about what we're doing on the bolt-ons, and we're working really to focus their integration and scaling. On the mid-size, we are preparing ourselves, we're engaging with a number of targets, and as I said, in the coming months and year, we expect that we will materialize. And all this, very important to mention, these are very important pivots we're making with some of these mid-sized acquisitions we're working on so we can prepare our portfolio to be future-facing. So this is absolutely about remaking a portfolio that will be resilient in the future, building our new strongholds, be it in the renewable space, be it in low carbon, I would say, be it in very strategic space in the BNI. I talked about strategic assets before, be it in cyber, be it in sustainability, this is really what we're looking at, or consumer tech potentially. So these are the kind of things we're focused on, so there is no confusion as to what we want to do. And we've always also said, just to come back on the share by back and the shareholder returns, that when the time is right, we will consider share by backs and just for for kind of clarity, we have done two share buybacks in the last 18 months. I think it was 18 months. And those are the only two share buybacks that companies have ever made. So I think there is no shyness from our perspective to consider that, but we want to make sure that we're really, at this point, privileging the M&A because it will profoundly remake the portfolio.

Thank you very much. That's very helpful.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Geoffrey.

As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Francois Digard from Kepler Shoebrew. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. Congratulations for this figure. Sorry to just point on the only negative points, that is Brazil. It has been a drag on your performance in the Americas. Is this primarily driven by macro factors or are there company-specific issues at play here? Thank you.

Thank you, Francois, for the question. It's a fair question. Look, Brazil is a very important country in our portfolio. There are a number of dynamics. There are some operational issues we had specifically on our Agri activity. Market is good, really operational issues. And the second one were more project delays. And this is very important because on the sales front, we're doing well. We're securing deals and we're working on these deals. And that goes from B&I to industry. But on the execution side, customers For a variety of reasons, they have projects being a little delayed. I don't think it's a trend overall in the market. We haven't seen major economic concerns at this point, but we've seen some of these delays. And we are, of course, working on mitigating, looking at other revenue streams and trying to make sure we are managing all this. So I would say a bit of a disappointment for us, I have to say, this quarter. but an area we are extremely focused on and we have a number of actions to address that.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. The next question comes from Arnaud Pallies from CIC Market Solutions. Please go ahead.

Yes, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. I have in fact just the last specific one. regarding the nuclear segment that you mentioned as a solid performer in power and utilities. So I would like to know what is your exposure to this business and in which countries you have some presence and how much of your total revenue does it represent because it's a sector that is seeing a revival and I think it's interesting to get your real exposure to this trend.

Yes, thank you. Thank you for that question. I think you're absolutely right. I think the nuclear space is a bit of a revival. Now what's nice about our portfolio, we have quite a broad portfolio in nuclear, and of course we have a very nice anchor of our portfolio in France, right? We've been a long-term player in France, and that helped us build very nice capabilities. Now, what we're seeing here, what's important though to keep in mind, it's a long cycle business, and today it represents circa 1% of the group, so it's not massive yet in scale, But definitely we're watching very carefully the pipeline that is being built up. And we have already worked with other European countries. UK is one of them to mention. What's nice now is because of the needs in terms of energy and power and because of the concerns around decarbonization, nuclear is a bit in vogue at the moment. So there are a number of countries that are building up plans. There are a number of companies that are coming up with investment proposals, and we are really engaging with all of these. So our idea here is, one, is to scale the capabilities we have in France, and two, to expand our capabilities. So the first move we've made was the acquisition of the Dernier-Hunegger company in Germany, which gives us access to the decommissioning market. Very nice market in places like Germany and certainly others as we go forward. It also has capabilities and training. And we are now looking geographically, how do we expand? So Eastern European countries, there are some South Indian continent countries. There are also capabilities probably we can do in the US. So I guess it's a long game. But it's a business we're very interested in. And in a way, if I step back a little bit, nuclear is just part of the puzzle of energy that we're trying to build. We have a strong position in oil and gas. We have a strong position. We are building a strong position in renewables. Nuclear is part of it. And we're really expanding that. So it's not a surprise in a way. It's going to take a while, though. I'm trying to be cautious in terms of time because these deals take, you know, from five to ten years, I would say, rather than five.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

The next question comes from James Roland Clark from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Hi, good afternoon. Hello, good afternoon. My first question is, Once again, you sort of flagged some of the price opportunities that you've pushed through in a couple of segments. So I just wondered if you could talk more broadly about price versus volume trends in the third course and how that compares year to date and what the opportunity looks like for pushing more price through onto clients in the near term. Secondly, on consumer, you mentioned that in soft lines, hard lines and toys, supply chain shifts have been a bit of a headwind to your growth. A key peer to you is saying that it's actually a tailwind for them. So I just wondered what it is about your mix that makes it a headwind for you. And then finally, just on data centers, thanks very much for the color there. I just wondered if data center work is accretive to your B&I margin. Thank you.

Yes, yes. So look, let me start with the data centers. So data centers for us are really what we call mission critical assets, right? These are beyond all the hype on the AI. It's basically objects that need very high performance specifications. And therefore, the kind of services we do in the specialization we have developed in services with commissioning are very high tech intensity businesses. So we are not We're not peripheral to the data centers. We're at the core of the performance delivery of these constructions. So it's a very important business. It's high barriers to entry, very complex and very specific expertise, and therefore highly accretive to the group margin, not only to BNI. So very, very good business there. On the CPS side, on the consumer side, just to clarify, I think I might have, maybe it wasn't clear, that the supply chain is rather a tailwind for us because we see the sourcing shift as an opportunity to re-qualify suppliers. And we had a lot of engagements with customers who actually see it as an opportunity to question some of their practices, some of their suppliers, some of their choices. So I would say it's not a headwind for us, and in fact the growth was high single digits on the supply chain side. Where we had lower growth was on the actual testing activity in terms of soft lines, hard lines, and toys. And there, first of all, the comparables are very, very difficult versus last year. That was one. And we were not surprised by the performance there. We expected to be in the kind of low single digit there this quarter. But no, we don't consider supply chain as a headwind. It's rather a tailwind at this time. And the other thing to keep in mind is we have actually done some of these moves in the past and we are quite well practiced to do them. We've done that in 2018 with the first Trump administration with the sourcing shifts. We were able to build a learning curve there on how to quickly come up to speed. We're expanding today our capabilities in Southeast Asia, seeing that sourcing shift happening. We're diversifying our services as well in the supply chain so we can help beyond the traditional kind of basic audits you do. So it's really, you know, it's a normative performance, I would say, on CPS, but I expect it to be a good foundation for us as we build momentum and as we increase, as we actually develop our portfolio. And just to be clear, we have been also acquiring companies, and year to date, the growth of consumer products at constant currency, including acquisitions, is 6.4%. I'm going to talk about the price versus volume.

Hi, James. On the price-volume front, I would say, by and large, very limited change compared to the H1 situation. Primarily, the growth is driven by volume, up to a third of it, one-third being price. Very limited contribution of high inflation in biogeographies. So two-thirds, one-third remains where we sit at the end of September, year-to-date. When it comes to further pricing and adjustment of pricing opportunities, I think the situation is now well ingrained into our European and American operation when it comes to being able to pass the patient. But we are currently developing or developing running out pricing programs by segments or by division, by metier if you prefer. We did it two years ago in Marine Offshore with good successes. We are now entering the game for building infrastructure. So whether it compensates for lower inflation at some point in one or two years or whether it creates movement on the top line, it's too early to say at that stage, but we are not giving up on being able to to have a pricing component that is part and parcel of our growth strategy.

Thank you. Very helpful. All right. Thank you.

There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for closing remarks.

All right, thank you. Thank you everyone for your time and the questions. I think we delivered a very robust performance against very challenging comparables. I hope what we shared with you show that we are actively working on transforming our portfolio and we are really in the middle of that. And I hope you understand now better how we are shaping this new portfolio and how we are building businesses that are resilient and will be future facing. And that we will be in the coming months and year coming back with more clarity on that as we accelerate our M&A. Thank you very much.