Carrefour Sa

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Cal4 Half Year 2025 Results Webcast and Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 and 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 and 1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Mr. Alexandre Pompard, Chairman and CEO. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining today's call to review our performance for the first half of 2025. As mentioned in our press release, the second quarter marks an acceleration in our markets. and the good commercial performance in our three main geographies, France, Brazil, and Spain. In Europe, several factors are supporting the recovery in consumption. After two challenging years, market dynamics are clearly improving as purchasing power is up, supported by rising wages and lower inflation. This is a sign of a developing on more supportive trend with volumes improving. We believe this positive momentum will persist for the second half of the year. In France, we posted positive like-for-like sales across all formats in the second quarter, a first since 2023 and the end of hyperinflation. Our rebound in price competitiveness is recognized by customers as we gained market share in both volume and value. Returning operating income rose by 20% with operating margin excluding current match up to 1.9%. Spend showed the same positive momentum. Q2 was the third consecutive quarter of sales growth with an acceleration versus Q1. We improved our recurring operating income by plus 9.4%, driven by food retail and supported by a rebound in financial services profitability. In Brazil, the group delivered strong performance during key commercial moments, notably around the Easter season in April. Atacadero continues to gain traction despite high figures last year related to the consequences of May's floods. We delivered another strong semester. Returning operating income grew by plus 6.5% at constant exchange rate. Beyond the performance of our three core countries, the group is also advancing its strategic review in two main fronts. First, on capital allocation, we already took full control of Carrefour Brazil and sold a 7% stake in Carmilla. Today, we announced that we have entered into exclusive negotiations with New Princess Group regarding the sale of all our operations in Italy. When we launched our strategic review in February, our objective was to drive the company forward with radicality. This operation comes in the right line with this strategy. Despite a successful turnaround between 2020 and 2022, we only had the marginal market position in Italy. Over the past two years, market conditions deteriorated and so did our financials. These planned transactions will contribute positively to Carrefour's financial profile, including improved profitability and recurring cash generation. Second, purchasing power and price positioning remain top priorities. That's the rationale. behind our new European purchasing alliance, Concordis, launched on July the 7th with Cooperative U. This new alliance builds on the experience of our European platforms, Eureka and CBLT, and reflects our ability to structure partnerships that are both efficient and inclusive. Concordis will enhance our price competitiveness by pooling volumes and offering a platform for price negotiation and international service sales with multinational FMCG brands. It will be fully operational for the 2026 negotiation on an initial term of six years. Discussions are already underway with other potential retail partners in Europe. It's therefore a major project for the coming years. In parallel, Our operational initiatives are delivering results. 400 new proximity stores were opened in Europe in H1, reinforcing our leadership in this format. Store conversions to lease management are progressing as planned. The integration of Cora and Match is also advancing well. Transformation costs impacted our H1 results by 80 million euros, as expected, But synergy targets of €130 million by 2027 are fully confirmed. We continue to build on our core strengths, Carrefour branded products, e-commerce GMV rose by 29% in Q2. We run strongly by Boise and France. We delivered €610 million in cost savings and are fully on track to meet our €1.2 billion target for the full year. All in all, Our first half results are partially blurred by the integration of cohort match, but they remain fully in line with our expectations. EBITDA is up 1%. Retiring operating income is stable at constant rate despite the temporary impact of integration costs. As discussed in February, net free cash flow is down, reflecting an expected normalization of working capital contribution after the hyperinflation period in Latin America and the consolidation of CORA unmatched. On sustainability, we exceeded our CSR targets again, achieving a 107% score on our CSR index. We made significant progress on climate and plastic agreements, with major industry partners that we named Sustainability-Linked Business Plans. Looking ahead, we are fully focused on the new next steps of our strategic review, driven by the full engagement of our teams on close collaboration with the board. The planned sale of our operations in Italy illustrates the way we intend to proceed with speed, discipline, and a clear focus on value creation. We will keep you regularly informed as new decisions are made and milestones achieved. We are confident in our perspective for the second half of the year. We expect the positive market trends seen in Europe, especially in France and Spain, to continue. In Brazil, we expect the business to be well-oriented. In this context, we confirm our 2025 objectives. Slide growth in EBITDA, recurring operating income, and net free cash flow. We enter H2 with confidence, but also clarity and determination focused on what matters and ready to take bold decisions. One last word to tell you that the board of directors has decided to propose the renewal of my mandate at our group's next annual general meeting. I want to express my gratitude and pride at the opportunity to continue my mission at the helm of this great company. Over the past years, we have profoundly transformed Carrefour. We geared leadership positions in our core countries and strengthened our financial foundation. In a new environment that demands bold choices, my intention is to keep pushing to unlock the full value creation potential that Carrefour carries within. You can be certain that I will devote to this task all my energy and my patience for Carrefour. Thank you for your attention. I will now hand over to Mathieu for more detail on your financial performance.

Thank you, Alexandre, and good afternoon to everyone. It's a pleasure to be with you to cover our H1 2025 financial results in detail. Let's start on slide 9 of the presentation. As explained, we have seen a broad improvement in market trends in the food retail sector across most of our countries, with a particularly clear acceleration on volumes in the second quarter in France and Europe, together with some growth in prices. That comes after several quarters of restoration of purchasing power thanks to wage growth outpacing inflation. Moving to slide 10 and like-for-like sales. Our top line increased by 3.7% on a comparable basis in H1 with a marked acceleration in Q2 at plus 4.4% versus 2.9% in Q1. I will detail performance by region in a minute. Moving on to slide 11 and more details on Q2 sales. Total sales for the quarter reached 23.9 billion euros, increasing by 5.2% or by 10% at constant terms. Group like-for-like sales were up 4.4%. Expansion and M&A had a positive contribution of 5.5% over the quarter, mainly due to the consolidation of Koha and Match since July 1st, 2024. Petrol contributed negatively for minus 0.9%, and the calendar effect was a positive 1%, mainly reflecting the shift of Easter, which fell in April this year, versus March last year. Forex had an unfavorable impact on total sales growth of minus 4.8% over the quarter, essentially reflecting the depreciation of the Argentine peso and the Brazilian real against the euro. Moving to slide 12, the recurring operating income for the group in H1 amounted to 681 million euros, or 1.6% of sales. It was down versus 743 million and 1.8% last year. The first semester's recurring operating income is penalized by two effects. On one side, an exchange rate effect of minus 62 million euros and the effect of the consolidation and integration of COHA and MATCH, which represented a negative 80 million euros over the first half of the year. Excluding these effects, Recurring operating income would show growth in absolute terms and as a percentage of sales. Let's turn to slide 13 with more details on the performance of France. Like-for-like sales increased by 2.1% in Q2, with all formats growing over the quarter, reflecting improved market conditions in the country and careful, solid commercial performance. On a side note, non-food sales were stable in Q2. Over the quarter, Carrefour continued to reinforce its price competitiveness with new waves of price decrease and the reshaping of its loyalty program, Le Club Carrefour. We notably strengthened our price leadership in fresh products. Market shares kept increasing in volume terms over the period, excluding core hand match. At the recurring operating income level, the impact of Cora and Match was a negative €80 million, in line with the indications provided at the beginning of the year. The integration process is progressing perfectly, and we confirm our objective of €130 million of synergies by 2027. Excluding Cora and Match, the recurring operating income for the historical perimeter grew by a strong 20%, in the first half of the year, with a margin expansion of 34 basis points. This strong achievement is a confirmation that all the initiatives implemented in the frame of Carrefour 2026, namely on private levels, e-commerce, costs, franchise, are making their way to the bottom line while allowing for further price decrease. Moving on to slide 14, and our performance in Europe. We saw positive trends across our European markets in both volumes and value. This led to all countries accelerating like-for-like sales in Q2 driven by Spain, which showed a strong momentum. Italy and Belgium returned to growth, while Poland stabilized over the quarter. Recurring operating income for the semester was shaped around the strong performance of Spain, where recurring operating income grew by 9.4% year-on-year, as well as solid improvements in Belgium and Italy. On the other hand, we saw ongoing competitive pressure in Poland. Overall, recurring operating income was stable in the European region in each one. Let's move to slide 15 with a focus on Spain, where we continue to see a positive and dynamic market driven by both volumes and prices. We continue to invest in prices over the semester, which strengthened our competitive positioning against key competitors. This contributed to an accelerated like-for-like growth in sales in Q2, with a good performance of fresh products. We also saw momentum in non-food sales at plus 3.1% like for life. In parallel, Spain continued to expand its footprint with 68 new convenience stores open in the first half of the year. Another good news in H1 was the recovery of profitability for the financial services in Spain with a recurring operating income slightly up. Moving on to Latin America on slide 16. Carrefour posted solid growth in Q2 2025, with like-for-like sales up 9.7%. Despite an uncertain consumption environment in Brazil due to high inflation and record levels of interest rates, we continue to perform well, with sales growing by 4.4% on a comparable basis supported by Atacadao, up 5.4% like for life. In the retail segment, food sales remained strong, growing at plus 7.6% like for life. This was notably driven by our new commercial strategy towards B2B customers. In the meantime, we stabilized sales at Sam's Club and we continued to grow e-commerce business by 36% in Q2. Finally, Banco Carrefour continued to perform well. In Argentina, Carrefour delivered almost 39% year-on-year growth while increasing its market share both in value and in volume. Its performance was supported by ongoing growth of NPS in a context of decreasing inflation and volumes that remained negative in the market. In terms of profitability, we increased our recurring operating income by 2.5% at constant exchange rate in the region over 8 In Brazil, our profitability increased by 6.5% at constant exchange rate, led by solid profit growth at Atacadao and at Banco Carrefour. The published number for recurring operating income was affected by negative Forex. Moving to the top part of our global P&L on slide 17. As you see, all ratios are impacted by the consolidation and the integration of Cora and Match. If we exclude Cora and Match, you see the continuation of trends we had in the past. A decrease in gross margin rate of 12 basis points reflecting price investments and more stores and franchise. A decrease in SG&A as a percentage of sales of 30 basis points reflecting cost savings and switch to franchise. Operating margin increased by 10 basis points excluding core and match. Moving on to the bottom part of our P&L on slide 18. Non-recurring expenses increased to 529 million euros, reflecting the impairment of Carrefour Italy for 460 million euros. Reversely, we had lower restructuring costs in H1 versus last year. Our cost of debts remained stable. We reduced our other financial expenses versus last year, primarily on the back of high historicals from Argentina. As we said last year, H1 2024 was impacted by a strong negative forex effect following dividend distribution from Argentina and by a significant negative impact from the application of IAS 2019. The normative tax rate increased over the semester, mainly due to the geographical mix of profits before taxes within the group. Bottom line, net income, group share, excluding discontinued operations and exceptionals, reached €210 million compared to €313 million in H1 last year. Excluding core and match, it amounted to €275 million. Now turning to net free cash flow on slide 19. As expected, H1 net free cash flow is down versus last year on the back of the consolidation of Koha and Match, representing minus 180 million euros, lower real estate asset rotation for minus 81 million euros, and lower contribution for working capital on high historicals, notably due to high inflation in Argentina in H1 2024. Let me highlight the key moving parts. EBITDA is up by 21 million euros. Our financial results normalized after a negative H1 2024 in Argentina, as I explained earlier. We reduced the cash out linked to restructuring plans. As expected, working capital had a lower contribution in H1 this year. It was impacted by the consolidation of Cora and Match on the negative side of the annual cycle for 80 million euros. Besides, we face high historicals in both Argentina, which experienced higher inflation last year for 170 million euros, and Brazil, which had an acceleration of sales last year following the flooding at Rio Grande do Sul for 130 million euros. And finally, capex were slightly lower than H1 2024, which is primarily due to seasonal effects expected to reverse in H2. As we now systematically do, we provide on slide 20 net free cash flow, excluding real estate, capex and disposals. Carrefour generated net real estate proceeds of 32 million euros in H1 2025, down from 112 million euros in H1 2024, mainly due to a decrease of disposals. Excluding real estate, net free cash flow totaled minus 2.1 billion euros in H1, down 300 million euros versus last year. On slide 21, we have highlighted the profile we expect for H2 and full-year net free cash flow versus previous periods. For H2, we expect growth in EBITDA as we expect to benefit from the more supportive market environment and to maintain our good commercial and operational dynamics. Coherent match shall not weigh on profits versus last year anymore in H2. We anticipate a stable financial result and much lower outflow on restructuring costs on high historicals in H2 2020. Working capital contribution should be closer to historicals in H2. CapEx should increase EBIT in H2, pointing to a stable amount for the full year. Last, our pipeline points to a higher level of real estate asset disposals in the second semester after a low H1. So this points to a stronger net free cash flow in H2 versus historicals in line with our objective of slight growth in the full year 2025. Moving on to net debt on slide 22. Net debt amounts to close to 7 billion euros on June 30, 2025. It is up versus June last year, primarily due to the cash out for the acquisition of Cora Unmatched, which occurred on July 1, 2024, for 1.1 billion euros. Net free cash flow over the last 12 months amounted to 1.1 billion euros, and covered dividend payments for 826 million euros and share buybacks for 258 million euros. A few words now on the refinancing of local debt in Brazil, as you can see on slide 23. Following the acquisition of the minority shareholders of Carrefour Brazil, we decided to simplify our debt structure and refinance most of the 1.5 billion euros of BRL-denominated debt. This local debt has variable and very high interest rates, with the SELIC rate at 15%. We intend to refinance this debt through a net investment from Carrefour Group, which will allow us to benefit from the Group's lower cost of debt in euros. We expect that most of this refinancing shall be finalized by year-end, with first steps starting soon. We believe that this refinancing could lead to a positive impact of around €100 million on net income and net free cash flow on an online basis as soon as 2026 with a few benefits already in 2025. I will finish my presentation with a few words on the disposal of the Italian business that we announced today on slide 24. Firstly, Italy is a highly competitive and fragmented market dominated by strong local players with increasing pressure from discounters. As you can see, Carrefour Italy accounts for around 4% of group sales. In 2024, the business posted negative recurring operating income and negative net free cash flow, confirming challenges despite recovery efforts. As you understand, divesting this activity will particularly improve the financial profile of the group going forward. The estimated net impact on the transaction on the group's treasury is minus 240 million euros, taking into account Carrefour's financial contribution to support the transaction. We expect to close the operation by year-end 2025, pending regulatory approvals. On that note, I thank you for your attention. Alexandre and I are now available to take your questions.

Thank you. To ask a question, you will need to press star 1 and 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 and 1 again. We will now take your first question. And your first question today comes from the line of Monique Pollard from City. Please go ahead.

Hello, afternoon, everybody. Thank you for taking my questions. three, if I could. The first one was just about France. Obviously, like for likes have improved materially, quarter on quarter, with you making the point that the price investment's having a good effect, volumes up. Just wanting to understand whether you think you're outgrowing the market in France on an organic basis, because also conscious that slide nine, you show values and volumes up in the French market overall in the quarter. The second question I had was on Concordes, the new strategic buying alliance. I'm just wondering if you're able to help us quantify any potential margin expansion you could see from this strategic buying alliance going forward. Or more importantly, if you didn't intend to maybe see this as margin expansion opportunity, but an ability to reinvest for pricing, just some sense of the savings you think that could be made over time, particularly as that buying alliance potentially expands. And then the third question was just some colour on the regional contribution for the other European segment. So obviously Spain doing well. I'm just wondering if Spain is still the most profitable region within Europe, ex-France. And then on Italy, where you give the negative recurring operating income from that segment from last year, and you talk about that financial support that you're giving on the transaction. Can you just give a bit more detail as to what that financial support means? Thank you.

Thank you for this serious question. I will start by France. You're right, we beat the market in terms of market share in the volume I would say the last 18 months, you probably remember that for one year and a half, we have decided to reinvest strongly in France with different type of mechanics of reinvestment in order to restore competitiveness. The good news as we told you before is that our customers have reacted very positively and very quickly to this price reinvestment. And for a year we have beaten the market in terms of market share in volume. And we managed to do that, as you've seen in this release, in improving our profitability, mainly thanks to high level of cost savings. the contribution of France in the 610 million euros of cost saving is strong, and to a series of strategic initiatives including, of course, transfer of stores to lease management, increased profitability from e-commerce and so on. So to sum it up, the objective of course is to continue to invest. That is what we have done in the first semester. We have conducted waves of price decrease, three waves of price decrease of 10%. New loyalty program with Le Club, 10% discount on fruit and vegetables on the organic products, and local decrease of prices. So that's what we have done in the first semester. We get market share, and the NPS is highly positive. And so that's the type of dynamic we were seeing. Searching when we launched this reinvestment 18 years 18 months ago concerning conquer this I Don't think we have given any figures But just a word on the way it is structured as you know, the objective is to optimize negotiations with suppliers with two types of negotiation and On the one hand, pre-net price negotiation. On the other hand, international service negotiation. Eureka and CWT will be service providers for the alliance. More precisely, commission agents of the alliance. Through the alliance we have already with EU, our volumes reach 100 billion euros. We have the objective to reach 1 billion and 50 in the next years. We have already contact with partners. We are very convinced that it would reinforce our price competitiveness. Of course, we have very clear objectives, but we want to move. And to continue to structure that, it will be operational in 2026. And of course, it's at minimum six years for this new Concordia alliance. Concerning your question on Europe, yes, Spain is both the most important and the most profitable country. We are very pleased with the dynamic in Spain, the dynamic of the market, positive inflation, positive volume on trading up, and the dynamic of our own performance We have reinvested. We are a price maker, as you know, in Spain. We deliver market share increase in volume, and we are convinced that the second part of the year would confirm all these positive dynamics.

On Italy, to be very straightforward, we make a capital injection of 240 million euros to support the project of Nucrin's group and we will sell the company for an equity value of 1 euro. So all the assets, liabilities and performance of Carrefour Italy will exit the perimeter of the group. So in the press release relating to this divestment, we have mentioned to you The recurring operating income of Italy last year, the net free cash flow of Italy last year in 2024, and so I think you can easily compute the impact on the group.

Thank you. And is there any debt that's going to Italy that's coming out as a result of the disposal?

It's marginal. Again, the net impact is 240. OK.

Understood.

Thank you. Thank you. We will now go to our next question. And our next question comes from the line of Rob Joyce from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

Good evening. I've got three or so. Let's go. Thanks very much for taking them. I guess just second half of the year now, looking at France, you mentioned you expect strong sales momentum to continue into the second half. I'm assuming margin expansion. Can you just give us an idea what kind of sales growth you're anticipating for the second half of the year? And is that sort of 34 basis points of margin a realistic expectation for the second half in France, ex-Coromatch? That's the first one.

Is it easier to go one by one?

Go maybe for the other questions, Rob, and we'll take them.

Perfect. And then the second one is just in terms of the guidance. So we're saying EBIT small up. Is that with Italy as discontinued in there? And also, could you help us understand what that means for EPS, which was down sort of 30% and a half? What are we expecting at that? for the year um and then in terms of the uh working capital um actually no oh yeah working capital in the second half um just intrigued where do we expect to see those um sort of more positive inflows come from it looks like in brazil for example some of the the factoring balances have been slowed In the period, a negative impact from some of the factoring over there. I'm just wondering if that's something you're going to continue to see drag now you're in full ownership. And then, look, I just say the first, the final one is just in terms of the refinancing in Brazil, taking debt in euros and having earnings in Rai. Can you just comment on that? You know, comment a lot in the release about constant FX earnings and the drag from FX. I'm just wondering if having the debt in euros but the earnings in foreign currency is creating trouble for the future. Thanks very much.

Thank you. I will take the first one about France. The conviction is that the dynamic of the market would remain the same. There is positive momentum and we do think it would last in the second part of the year. At the same time, we are convinced about the fact that we are capable to continue to gain market share. We have the good dynamic, the good commercial dynamic, a very performant price positioning, several initiatives on offers and on all in all. We are convinced that we will continue in the same pace of market share than we had in the past. So I would say profitability should keep improving on the comparable basis in H2. Of course, we don't precisely quantify. the conviction we have is that we are capable to keep improving on the same basis in each one.

On your second question, Rob, you were mentioning the impact of Italy in the EBIT guidance. We'll see when this is discontinued. We've not really taken that into account. So the guidance is confirmed on the same perimeter as we gave the guidance at the beginning of the year, so the entire perimeter of the group, and then we see, depending on when the transaction occurs and how it impacts the numbers, it will have a marginal effect. Your third question relates to working capital in H2 and where the improvement should come from. So you see, first, the improvement will come from the ABDA. So we have an expectation from a better acceleration of ABDA in the second half. I think that, you know, addresses to all geographies. Obviously, France has a strong underlying performance, but which has been lowered by the impact of core and match. The core and match will not be a drag on profit in H2 anymore, so we should see the full potential of our operations. Then restructuring costs, as we're showing in the presentation, will also be a positive. heavy restructuring costs that were cashed out in H2 last year, notably in France. So that would come mainly from France. Working cap should be mainly neutral in the second half of the year. We commented together, and you analysts asked me questions on the very high level of the contribution of working capital to the net free cash flow in 2024. We were very clear that there were a number of one-offs, including Cora, including Argentina, including Brazil there. And so we said it was not a normalized level and that everyone should expect a much lower level in 2025. Here it is, no surprise, mainly an H1 effect, as you see, and a more normal H2. And so that's the main drivers. Then your fourth question regards the refinancing of the VRL debt. So we'll have a flow of interest from the intra-group debt that we will put there. So that will be hedged because it's important for P&L. So we always hedge our flows in the groups. That's part of our policy. For the principal and the net investment that we'll be making in the country, we normally don't hedge this. So you're right, most of the debt of the group is in euros, and then our profits come from different parts of the group. To minimize the impact, the net free cash flow from Brazil is limited over the past because we invest a lot in the country. So most of the net free cash flow of the groups comes from Euro-denominated countries. So I think the impact should be marginal.

Thank you. Just one quick report on Italy. Are you going to be liable for any leases going forward? Is there any liabilities that remain?

Sorry, the line was bad. Do you mind repeating, Rob?

Just a quick follow-up on Italy. Will you be liable for any of the leases going forward?

Sorry, any leases?

The leases, the lease debt in Italy.

Yes, this is... part of the perimeter that is divested. So indeed the IFRS 16 leaves with the perimeter.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. We will now take the next question. And the next question comes from the line of Sridhar Mahamkali from UBS. Please go ahead.

Matthew, I think the line was a bit poor. Sorry, this is three questions, and can I just follow up on what Rob was asking there, please? Just to start the follow-up, will there be any contingent leases, i.e., will they come back to you from New Princess Group somehow if New Princess isn't able to honor the leases? Is there something there that we should think about? That's the first one, just to follow up on what Rob was asking. I couldn't hear the answer right at the end. Sorry. And then three questions for me. I guess France's margin is surprisingly robust, particularly given very modest like-for-like in the first half, pretty much flat. X-quarter match, obviously. Can you explain maybe just a bit more in terms of what are the big drivers, what are the meaningful drivers, and why you think that's actually sustainable into second half, again, X core and match basis. And on front, again, can you give us an update on where we are with the franchisee litigation process, please? That seems to be making its way. And finally, I think, Machi, you referred to pipeline of potential real estate disposals in the second half. If you have visibility, are you able to just help us in terms of what we should be expecting for the full year or second half? Thank you.

I'm not really sure I get this question. Italy has leases. They lease a very high number of their stores. So it's really the Italian business, you know, which has the benefit and the liability associated to leasing these sites. And so as part of the divestment, we are divesting the Italian business, the Italian company that we have in Italy. And so all the lease commitments and liabilities that are relating to this Italian business will go with the business and will become the responsibility of the new owner. Okay. Is that clear?

Yes, yes, yes.

Absolutely.

There have been situations where the leases ultimately came back to the sort of previous owners. And that's why I think there's a bit of a clarification.

No, that's not the way we run our operations. We run our operations on a very decentralized basis. So each country is responsible for its own operations and there is no apparent guarantee or that kind of thing when we sign a disease. So they will all become the responsibility of the new owner.

On your questions about the profitability in France, we are pleased that you measured that the increase of the margin is very high. Just to avoid paraphrasing exactly what I've told before, it's the result of a series of actions that you know very well, of course. the magnitude of the price reinvestment and the fact that it's a complete reinvestment, both in permanent price, in new loyalty programs and so on. Huge cost savings initiatives, stronger than expected, and all the strategic initiatives contribute to that, e-commerce, retail media, transfer to lease management, and the positive trajectory in volumes on price, obviously, and the performance. If we try to take one step back, I would say that all the actions we've taken in recent years to protect our performance in France during challenging periods are now turning into growth drivers as market conditions improve. what our model is before to improve profitability in downtown and to unlock additional performance when the environment becomes more supportive. And that's what happened in the first semester in France. On your question on convenience and franchise, maybe if you authorize me one word, it's an incredible semester from convenience and franchise therefore in France. The record level of stores opened. The fact to have attracted two master franchisees with 100 stores. We have never known so many applicants for new stores. dynamic in terms of capability to attract new franchisees to open source to gain market share is really incredible and the figures is clear, plus 7.4 like for like in Q2 for convenience. Concerning the franchise discussion on disputes we can have with some franchisees, you know my priority is always to to reach agreements with all our franchisees. I don't like having one franchisee which is not happy. We have 6,000 franchisees, so it's not so easy to have only happy franchisees. We managed to find agreements with some of them, and it's positive, and we still have discussion on disputes with a tiny number of them. Nothing's new on that. There has been a technical decision, purely technical, Nothing on the merits, and we do think that on this aspect, nothing would happen before the second part of 2026. But my objective before that is to reduce at the minimum the number of franchisees we don't have any agreement on. join us want to find agreement and we are always open to that because i want them to be happy when they are happy to open a second store first store the type of dynamic we are looking for

On your last question, Shreda, which relates to the rotation of our real estate assets, so we should have more divestments in the second half. We've had a relatively low H1, which impacts the net free cash flow performance, but H2 should be stronger and stronger than H2 last year. pointing to a year, I don't know if that was clear in page 21 of the presentation, where the contribution from real estate disposals should be lower to equivalent to what we did last year.

Thank you.

Thank you. We will now go to our next question. And the next question comes from the line of Francois Degas from Kepler Super. Please go ahead.

Good evening. Thank you to take my questions. The first is about current match. I'm not clear if we are talking about a net negative contribution or simply the isolated integration costs. So are you in the amount to communicate including the positive revenues, the positive profits from the ongoing business there. That's my first question. Second one about Italy, I understand that you are selling everything. Can you quantify the real estate value, if any, that is disposed on the amount of IFRS debt that you are getting rid of? On third question, you recently signed with Vision about electronic labeling in France. What kind of level of savings do you expect from such a new provider? Thank you.

Thank you very much, François. So, the impact of both the consolidation and the integration is a negative 80 million euros. You will find in the presentation, probably in the appendix, that the implementation cost, I mean OPEX, amounted to 50 million euros over the quarter, over the semester, sorry. meaning that the underlying performance was a negative 30 on the core and match perimeter. The business has much lower performance in H1 and much stronger performance in H2, so this is what's behind the number. On Italy, I don't have a specific number on the assets and liabilities that have been disposed, but we take the point and see how we can get back to you all on that, if that's an important point. And Envision, Alexandre?

Envision, as you probably know them and they are very performant, they are the preferred partner on the electronic level of Walmart. We have discussed a lot with them on how they could help us to digitalize our operations and improve the quality of the management of our stock under the dynamic of our pricing. We have implemented two tests in our stores. We are very pleased with the first element that gives us real positive points to implement that at scale, but of course we have to find a good way to finance it. But it's really very interesting. It's really one aspect of our AI plan on our digital plan. It's to find new tools, not to have only one test and experience, but to scale up and to accelerate the quality of our operations, to streamline our operations. And Vision could be a very good partner. So we are very enthusiastic about that. the first results of the initiatives we have implemented a few weeks ago.

Thank you. If we could come back a minute on core-on-match. You said, Mathieu, I think implementation cost of 50. And you said earlier that there will be none in H2. So finally, it is less costly than expected because I had in mind something like 100 for the year.

No, so I think that's page 26 of the presentation, Francois. So we said we would spend 100 million euros of OPEX in 2025. So this number is confirmed. We said that the majority of this cost should occur in H1. And it's not the case. It's 50 million euros. And so we expect another 50 million euros to occur in the second half of the year. So we would stick to the 100 million for 2025. The spending of this one-off cost will be more balanced between H1 and H2 than we had anticipated earlier in the year.

But you will have profits from the underlying activity in H2 that you had not in H1?

Exactly. And so the underlying activity, like Carrefour, like probably any food retailer, has a much better operating profit in the second half of the year versus the first one.

Okay. Thank you, Bert. That's very helpful. Thank you very much.

Thank you. We will now go to the next question. And your next question is, It comes from the line of Frederick Wild from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Good evening. Thank you for taking my questions. I'm afraid I've got three as well. First of all, on the margin expansion you expect in half two, if I read the slides right, you saw about a 20-bit expansion in underlying margin, XFX and XCore match in half one. Is that a good guide for the second half of the group as a whole, or can it accelerate beyond that? plus 20 bits then secondly I think you described Brazil in half to as being well orientated could you help us understand what this means please as the consumers stabilize there or is there more risk from you know some of that negative news flow we've been hearing out of Brazil and finally just on the bigger picture I suppose it's a little bit cheeky to ask, how far do you think there is to go on the strategic plan? Do you see it as being nearly done? You've obviously announced a raft of things over the last six months. Can we expect a similar sort of intensity of news flow, or pretty positive, of course, over the second half and beyond? Thank you. um hi fred uh thank you for your question you mind repeating your second one which was not very clear sorry for that apologies it was on the brazil consumer so when you're talking about the half to outlook um uh that you expect the trends to continue especially in france and spain you described your expectations for brazil as being well orientated and i just want a bit more help understanding what that means in the context of you know quite some concerns over the Brazilian consumer at the moment.

Thank you very much. Very clear. So first question on the margin expansion. So we're not going to guide. We have a guidance for the profit for the year. been confirmed on the back of the good underlying dynamic. Again, that doesn't exclude any deconsolidation effect from Italy. And so I don't think we're going to get into more detail on that one. Sorry.

On Brazil. I would say that there are some concerns about the market. There is inflation, as you know, quite at a high level, which is positive for Atacadao. The interest rate is high, which is negative for the purchasing power of the customers. So all in all, I would say that the market, the volume of the market is positive, but was not so dynamic in the first semester, particularly in the Q2, even if there were some comparable not favorable. So volume positive, but not highly positive. But we are very confident about the rest of the year, less by the market in itself, but by our own performance. We really see a very strong commercial performance of At Akadao, we gain market share. The B2B and the B2C activity of At Akadao is positive. Retail is, as you know, it's 75% of our activities in Brazil, and so when At Akadao is going well, Brazil is going well. Retail is more mixed. But generally positive, and the Banco Carrefour is in a very good trend. So I would say that we have many elements to be positive for the H2 in Brazil in a slight volume market, considering all the elements of this market. On your question about the strategic plan, I have to admit that our objective is to have many new announcements in the future. As I told you in February, we wanted and we have decided to be very active, dynamic, no taboo, radical in the way we approach our new strategic plan. As you've seen, in less than a quarter, we have had many announcements. Carrefour, Brazil, Carmela, Italy today, and of course, it would, and reinforcement of CapEx in France, it would continue. The objective is really to continue to unlock the value where it is, to give the priority to the best assets, to find partnership in other situations. And you can be sure that we would continue to move and to take bold decisions on many subjects.

That is very clear and helpful. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much, Farzad.

Thank you. We will now take the next question. And the next question comes from the line of Rob Joyce from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks for letting me come back on again. Just two on sort of small areas of the accounts. The Argentina EBIT sort of halved in the half. I was wondering if you could help us understand what happened there and help us on the outlook. And the second one, similarly, on the central cost, the global function looked to be down significantly in the half. Can you help us understand what happened there? And again, what we should think for the full year. Thank you.

Thank you, Rob. So you're right. The EBIT has been down in Argentina on the back of pressure on volumes in the market. The evolution of a number of politics over there. has put pressure on purchasing power and the market has been experiencing some negative. So we're the price leader over there. So there was a strong sensitivity to price. So that puts Carrefour Argentina in a great situation to gain market share, and we've gained market share at an incredible pace. But still, there is a bit of pressure on volumes. Then we have, you know, this hyperinflation accounting which, you know, with very sharp changes in the trends of inflation can create a few technical effects. So I'm not going to give you an outlook for the year because we see that the situation can be quite volatile on a number of fronts. I think the clear message is that the performance is good, that we're performing better than the market, and then there's a few technicalities. On central costs, it's mainly cost savings, which occur here. So, you know, they've been saved. A number of that was more H1 related. So we'll see what happened in the second half, but I think a portion of that was H1 related.

Thank you very much. Merci a tous. See you very soon. And have a very good summer season. Thank you.

Thank you. That concludes today's presentation. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.