Fnac Darty Sa Ord

Good morning to you all. Thank you for your presence. I'm very pleased to be with you this morning to share our 2022 results after the presentation made in January 2023. The year 2022 took place in an unprecedented context. with the war in Ukraine, which made the exit from the COVID period particularly complex from the specialized retail sector. In this context, I'm very satisfied with the way in which the group has coped with this situation with serenity. The proof is in the results we are presenting to you today. We continue to outperform our markets thanks to the strengths of our brands and the relevance of our everyday strategic plan, which focuses on value creation services and customer relations. This success is collective and we owe it to the involvement of all our employees who are engaged for more committed and responsible consumption. I'm very proud of this. In a context of inflation and pressure on purchasing power, our proposal makes sense, allowing customers to choose increasingly durable products and to be able to repair them. For this presentation, I will first review our activities and the key successes of our strategic roadmap. Afterwards, Jean Brieux, our CFO, will present our results in detail, and then I will take the floor again for the conclusion and the outlook, and will be available in the end to answer your questions. I would like to start by emphasizing the extraordinary resilience of our group over the last three years. We have overcome the COVID crisis. We've come through an unpredictable and difficult year of 2022. And yet our sales reached just under 8 billion euros, up 7% on the 2019 pro forma. Our gross margin improves to 30.3% in line with its 2019 level. And our current operating income robust 231 million in a context of significantly higher inflation than in previous years. Since 2019, in the three main product categories that we distribute, household appliances, technical products, and editorial products, we have seen growth in value, which, however, masks more contrasting trends in volume, with certainly an increase in editorial products driven by books, but a drop in volumes of household appliances and some technical products. These developments are having an impact on the retail sector, which is undergoing a major transformation in all segments, including players in difficulty, mainly players without critical size, too much stock with low web penetration. A tightening around specialists such as FNAC Darty, which is recognized and appreciated by the French for its know-how in the distribution of goods and products. A lower than expected growth in e-commerce, which impacts pure players. and supports the idea that the omnichannel model chosen by Fnac Dati some time ago is the winning model. The transformation of our model around our everyday strategic plan is key to understand the performance of our group in 2022 and beyond. The trajectory we've been taking for the last two years with our everyday plan has allowed us to outperform the market. This is no accident. It is the outcome of our strategic choices transformation to transform our model. Firstly, with our omnichannel model and the winning complementary of stores and web platforms, customers came back to stores, hence a good performance for scores. Omnichannel sales remain at a high level of 50%, a real differentiating factor compared to pure players in particular. Our second strength is our powerful range of products and services. Our positioning, more focused on premium and sustainable products, allows us to better pass on price increases and thus secure a high level of gross margin. Our extensive range of products and services is available, both in-house and in the marketplace, to meet the different expectations of our customers, innovative products, second-life services such as repairs, subscriptions or ticketing. Highlights accompanied by targeted sales events on some product categories, which ensure a high level of sales while preserving the gross margins, such as Black Friday sporting events and so on. The omnichannel experience is at the heart of our model. We have consolidated in 2022 a significant part of the increase in e-commerce activity, and we've been able to absorb this growth into the omnichannel model. By 2022, with the lifting of health restrictions, stores have recovered a significant portion of the traffic level. Our omnichannel model is playing its full role, accounting for one in two sales. An example of the potential power of the omni-channel model is the video salesperson function. The number of connections has been multiplied by 2 in 22, approaching 300,000 connections. It's a great success, especially since the conversion rate of a digital purchase is four times higher with a video salesperson. Our network of nearly 1,000 stores is a key asset in our model, in our omnichannel strategy. We've pursued an active policy of opening new stores in 2022, mainly in the franchise format, accounting for the vast majority of the 40 or so store openings this year. In addition to the traditional Fnac and Dati stores, In particular, we are continuing to develop Darty cuisine with 11 openings, six of which are in franchise format. Other openings have been made internationally, again under franchise. Another important element, our action. on unprofitable stores, which today represent less than 5% of the total number of stores. 100% of the target stores are now concerned either by a transfer project already carried out or by an action plan currently being carried out, planned for the end of 2025. Regarding Switzerland and the partnership with Manor, we developed until mid-2022 the project as we conceived it together, a development project aiming at installing Shop-in-Shop in several Swiss regions. In view of the performance, we decided with Manor to focus the activity on 17 Shop-in-Shops at the end of the first half year 2023, mainly located in French-speaking Switzerland, an area where the FNAC brand is already well known with nine owned stores already established, reinforcing our position as a reference player in the region. And finally, we've just announced a project to restructure the iconic FNAC store in Madrid, opened in 1992 in the Plaza Cayo, right in the middle of Madrid. so that the inhabitants of Madrid will have a better shopping experience. in line with the new expectations geared towards service and leisure. Overall, we aim to have a 100% profitable network of stores by 2025, and we are well on our way. I have spoken to you about our products, stores, employees, but Fnac Darty is above all its customers. The proof is the importance we attach to customer satisfaction within the group and to all the actions we implement every day to meet it. For example, customer satisfaction measured by the NPS will be above 60 in 2022. We are very proud of this performance as it has risen sharply by 8 points since the launch of our everyday plan in 2021. We are also capitalizing on our solid base of loyal customers with more than 11 million committed customers. This is a major and differentiating asset, and it is one of the pillars on which we are building the future of our group. With more than 7 million FNAC members in France, we have just launched FNAC & Moi, MyFNAC, a new relationship base with our customers. This loyalty program enhancement is aimed at all our FNAC member and subscriber customers with no time limit. This service includes, for example, a loyalty fund or kitty to reward the most responsible behavior of our customers. For instance, buying a second life product, choosing click and collect delivery, or repairing a product via the group's after sales service. This service also includes a partner pass for year-round discounts in over 90 stores. partners laws. So moving towards informed, responsible and sustainable consumption is what our customers are asking for and it is our responsibility to respond. In terms of innovation and quality of customer relations, DartyMax is an example I'm very proud of and the success of which is confirmed each year. DartyMax is over 800,000 subscribers by the end of 2022 with a target of 2 million subscribers by the end of 2025. A very high level of customer satisfaction with over 6 million products covered by the repair service. High value customers with 50% higher recurrence purchase than a standard customer and an average basket 50% higher. With Dartimax, we create a relationship of trust and transparency with our customers. This new service also offers support for the maintenance and upkeep of our customers' domestic appliances. Customized advice via video is offered in order to prevent the risk of breakdowns and to better use their appliances, thus extending their life. This increases their commitment, and it is our vision of the distribution of tomorrow. Beyond being a reference player, we aim at becoming a subscription operator committed to its customers. Our raison d'être is based on several axes. First, enabling informed choices. It's in the DNA of our two brands, which have invested in customer advice since their creation. In 2022, we improved our sustainability score through better product selection and working with manufacturers to improve quality.

So in addition, we also wished to accentuate durability, sustainability of our prices and our spare parts, giving special attention for the group to maintain a balance between economy and repairs. And, of course, we shall continue to publish a lot of information to provide our customers with better advice, as we do with Labofnac, and we've been doing that for over 50 years. So this is innovation that we are offering, and independent tests are making us a reference with our stakeholders, partners, and customers. Repairing was a reference for our model and we are at 1.7 million repaired products in 2019 and we shall reach 2.3 million units. We are preparing the future of this model for repairs and we are moving fast. We are investing a lot to train our technicians. We have opened since 2019 41 tech academies and that have already received 500 people coming for training, more than half recruited on a permanent contract basis following their own training and reception of diplomas. We were the first retailers to open our own training center for training repair technicians in Metz, Ennery and to train apprentices coming from all horizons, a professional reinsertion and retraining. Other openings will follow, covering in 2023, going from Marseille to Ile-de-France and Nice. Now, concerning the future, infrastructure is also very essential. We have inaugurated a new site at Tour Val-de-Loire, which is the biggest site for repairs in the west of France, and we've opened a new service centre near Chilly-Mazarin, covering 10,000 square metres and with an ability to repair 220,000 appliances per year. This includes a major warehouse for spare parts with 40,000 references and a repair space including a shop floor for training. As you will find, repairing products is a major focus for our development, particularly for circular, responsible and local economy. Our offer, Second Wife, meets these eco-responsible concerns that are growing in our customers. But it's not just a provision of second choice. It includes the same guarantees of quality and conditions of delivery, service operations and guarantees. As for new products, and of course, at very attractive prices. To begin with, we have started with a virtual strategy of sourcing products within our ecosystem with our customers, B2C and B2B, and with our suppliers, major companies. partners and reconditioning. All our products concerning Second Life are from telephony and IT equipment. In all, the volumes of this Second Life product has gone up by plus 34% in 2022. And on the marketplace, nearly one in three sales is a second-hand product. And this is essentially thanks to books. And we shall continue on this dynamic pace in 2023. Now, in conclusion with this first part, I'd like to share our commitments concerning climate. Being responsible also means investing in energy sobriety, and we are expecting a drop of 15% of electric consumption in France by 2024 as compared to 2022. This aim is included in the variable remuneration that we have signed up with all our employees in 2022. This was the ECOWAT commitment charter concerning content-worth actions. For instance, modernization of all our stores with LED lighting and centralized management systems for buildings, which would be less energy consuming. We shall be investing 20 million euros in the next two years, and a large part of our capex will be consecrated towards these stores. Besides, we've signed up with Valeco, an agreement to increase green energy for our group, and this will be enforced as of this summer, and we shall use solar energy. These measures are part and parcel of our commitments for Horizon 2030, validated by the SBTI, that is, 50% of reduction of CO2 emissions within Scopes 1 and 2, and a drop of 22% of emissions related to the use of solar. So there you go. This brings me to the end of the first part, and now let me give the floor to Jean Brieux, who will give you details concerning our financial results. I'll come back to the conclusion later. Well, thank you very much, Enrique. Good morning, everybody. I suggest that we take a look at the operational performance level of the group within each geographical area before we finish with the financial performance level. Let's first begin with slide 16, turnover and the gross margin. As Enrique said, we are at 7.9 billion euros, which is a drop of just 1.2% of data published and of 1.9% of comparable data. And this is against a background of much tension in purchasing power. and high inflation after a 2021 year, which was a record year. In the course of the second semester, which was very important for Group of Black Dart, he came up with good sales, particularly with excellent sales events, back to school and back Friday. The sales events targeted four private individuals at premium products. On the other hand, sales in December were down, and that led to a drop in total of the total semester of minus 57 million euros compared to 2021. And the group, however, has shown a level of sales which is greater in 2019, pro forma, by plus 7%. If you look at the distribution channels, these sales... have been pulled forth by sales that were normally found with customers coming back to stores after nearly two years of restrictions. Sales on lines, as far as they were concerned, were pretty normal, stabilized after two years of great strength. This return to normal... and the trend in the market compared to FEVAD in e-commerce for 2022. On this point of view, the sale of technical products online is down by 19%, but an increase of 3% in 2019. It's one of the plus points of Daati and its omni-channel channels that it has maintained a high level of 50% online. Let me now talk about each area. We'll start with France and Switzerland. It's showing very good sales of just a drop of minus 2.1% comparable to the last year. In France, however, the Bank of France data tells us that Fnac Dati is outperforming sales in general. Switzerland, on the other hand, is taking advantage of sales taking place in the shopping shops of Fnac. that are in the major manor stores, particularly those in the French-speaking Switzerland. If you look at this category of products, the changes are more contrasted. In effect, sales volumes in IT equipment, electrical appliances, suffered in a context of flat consumption by households and the base comparison for the last two years in terms of equipment from households. Apart from that, there is increase thanks to Darty Max and the coming back in force of ticketing. Nature and Découverte has also increased sales compared to the year before, the period during which the stores were still closed in the first semester. Now let's talk about the Iberian Peninsula. In this area, this was the only one to show growth in 2021 and 2022, a 2.1% increase. And this is essentially due to Portugal with excellent sales in stores and in virtually all product categories. Spain showed a drop in the competitive environment, which is still quite good. After a slow recovery in certain areas of the group, the group increased. which is related to a slow withdrawal of health restrictions. Iberian Peninsula in 2022 went back to its 2019 pro forma sales. Let's go on to Belgium Luxembourg. Here the sales are down by 4.7% to data comparable of the earlier year. This is essentially for two reasons. A drop in volumes of sales in electrical appliances and technical products on a very high comparative basis. From this point of view, electrical appliances represent one-third of sales as opposed to 21% for the rest of the group. And secondly, a very high inflationary rate of 10% on an average in Belgium. On the other hand, services continue... to show good dynamics and particularly Vandenboer Life and subscription for repairs equivalent to Dartimax, which was launched in Belgium in 2021. And compared to 2019 Performa, this area is showing a growth of plus 3.6% in sales. And finally, last May, FNAC opened its third store in Brussels in the shopping centre of Woluwe. FNAC here. now has 14 stores in the Belgium and Luxembourg area. Let me now talk about the gross margin. As announced, Flaque D'Arti has managed to maintain its gross margin thanks to its positioning on premium products, and therefore it can easily pass on an increase of prices to customers. it has chosen also to have all its main sales events by talking of just these premium products. And thus, the group has shown an increase of €36 million as compared to 2021. The rate has also gone up by 80 basic points compared to 2021 to 30.3%, and which brings it back to its 2019 performance. Now, outside of the dilutive technical effect of franchises, which was minus 15% on the 2022 basis. The increase of plus 95 basic points is 50% thanks to a product mix, which is thanks to excellent performance of sales in stores and particularly editorial products. And now, thanks to a very good programming, very diversified, ticketing has gone back to its earlier levels of performance with the health restrictions going down. Now, here you'll see that operational costs reached 2,000. €2.179 billion in 2022, plus 3.6% compared to 2021. In this swift hike in inflation, Group has shown its operational agility once more right through the year to limit the impact of inflation, which is at its highest ever as compared to earlier years. We have certain performance plans now that we have set up in our various managements so that we've been able to make up for the inflation for the whole year. Plus, there's a 40% increase in the payroll mass, which went up by 3%. And this is essentially due to the historical, the impact in the past of the closing down of certain stores in the first semester of 2021. related to the health crisis, and the average increase in 2022 of wages to account for the increased inflation, plus the exceptional purchasing power bonus, which was paid out in 2022 to 80% of employees worth nearly €7 million. Apart from that, the increase in costs are concerning expenses, operational expenses for deployment of new activities. So we have opened 14 new shop and shops in the first half year and therefore that brings us to 27 total shop and shops in FNACS in Manor.

Let's move on to the other items of the income statement, slide 18. 231 million in 2022, down by the rate is 2.9% for the operating margins. The decline in the current operating income mainly comes from the Switzerland region, which nevertheless has an operating margin of 3.1%, accretive at a group level. The Iberian Peninsula shows its... Current operating income increased by plus 6 million euros compared to 2021 with a margin rate of 2.3% thanks to solid commercial execution and good cost control. Belgium and Luxembourg region posted the decline of the recurring income, current operating income of minus 4 million. This decline linked to the impact of inflation high in this region. The non-current items amounted to minus 27 million euros in 2022 compared to minus 10 million euros in 2021. This difference is mainly due to exceptional expenses related to the restructuring of the real estate portfolio, including the closure of the FNAC Italy 2 store at the end of the first half year. €204 million compared to €260 million in 2021. Net income from continuing operations group share amounts to €100 million in 2022 after taking into account non-current items, stable financial expenses over the year, minus €45 million, and a tax charge of minus €54 million. This latter is logically done by the minus €20 million compared to last year, in line with the drop in the group's results. Therefore, the effective tax rate is almost stable compared to 2021. Net income from discontinued operations, minus €132 million, as the group announced on 17 November. In the context of the litigation relating to the disposal of Comet in 2012, NAGDATI was ordered to pay an amount of €129 million. This amount includes €89.6 million million pounds of repayment plus 22.3 million sterling pounds of interest in legal counts, 2.6 million in legal fees in connection with this litigation. As announced, the Group has appealed this decision. As such, the Court indicated that it aimed to enter the appeal on the grounds that had been granted by the High Court by 12 July 2023. As a result, the consolidated net result Group share will be minus €28 million in 2022 compared to €116 million in 2021. Slide 19, free cash flow from operations, end of December. The free cash flow from operations excluding IFRS 16 is minus €30 million in 2022 compared to €270 million in 2021. This significant decline can be explained by the following factors. One-third of the variance is linked to a decrease in cash flow in connection with the decrease in operating profit over the year, a variation in working capital requirement, which explained most of the gap with a level far from the normative levels recorded so far, with, on the one hand, fewer receipts were recorded at the end of the year due to a significantly lower than expected level of sales in December. More disbursements were recorded at the beginning of the year in connection with an activity that was had been particularly strong at the end of 2021, inventory levels remained under control, increasing by only 3% due to less activity than anticipated at the end of the year. Over the year, The inventory turnover rate remained at the level usually seen in previous years. Finally, free cash flow this year includes operating investments of €131 million up to €15 million compared to last year. This level is, however, in line with the level previously communicated to the market. These three elements – cash flow from operations, change in working capital requirement and investments – explain the decline in cash flow recorded by FNACDOT in 2022. The group is already working to return to a level of free cash flow from 2023, more in line with the levels of the previous years, and thus being able to achieve its objective over the period 2021-2024. Slide 20. Net financial debt, excluding IFRS 16.0. 5 million euros, 31st of December 2022, compared to a net cash position of 247 million euros, 37 December 2021. As you can see from the graph on the screen, the variation in financial debt is mainly explained by two points. Firstly, the free operating cash flow of minus 30 million euros I've just explained to you. the disbursement of the full amount related to the litigation concerning the sale of Comet by the Quesal Group in 2012, well before the acquisition of Dati by FNAC. As already is pointed out, because of the decision of the High Court, the group was ordered to pay $131 million including the amount of the award interest, the investigation interest, cost of proceedings, legal fees. Then you have dividends of €2 per share paid to the shareholders in 2022 in respect to the 2021 results. And finally, the interest paid of €28 million stable compared to the amount disbursed last year. Finally, a few words about our financial structure on slide 21. The group has at the end of 2022 a shareholder's equity of €1.5 billion and a net cash position equivalent of €932 million. On top of that, you have a €500 million RCF credit line undrawn at the end of 2022, the maturity of which has been extended. The group has still an option to extend it to March 2028. Furthermore, as you can see from the graph on the screen, the next major repayment date is 2024. As such, the group has wanted value upstream to secure the refinancing of this next major repayment of the 300 million bond maturing in May 2024. Therefore, the group put into place a delayed drawn term loan of 300 million euros. This facility can be drawn down only once to pay only the bond maturing in 2024 and will have a maturity of three years if drawn down with an option to extend for two years. With this option, the Group can maintain its current bond line until maturity while benefiting from the low initial annual coupon of 1.875%, thus securing its level of financial cost. In addition, as of 31 December 2022, the covenants relating to the financing were all met. Finally, the Group is rated by the rating agencies Standard & Poor's Scope Ratings and Moody's, which in the first half of 2022 assigned the ratings to BB+, BBB, and BA2, respectively, all three with a stable outlook. I will now hand over to Enrique to conclude this presentation with some elements of the outlook and the shareholder return policy for 2022. Thank you very much, Jean Brieux. And to conclude slide 23, we are more agile and competitive. Of course, the market context is still uncertain, and the level of inflation is still high at the beginning of the year. Also, for the first half of 2023, we expect to see a slight decline in sales due to a context of sluggish consumption coupled with a sharp rise in cost. Inflation is expected to peak at the end of the first half, as anticipated by the latest INSEE forecast. On the other hand, for the second half year, we anticipate better market conditions with more favorable historical data, a level of inflation that could be lower than the first half year, and which would probably gradually return to a more normative level of around 3% towards 2024-2025. Above all, we know that we can rely on our strengths, the full engagement of our employees to continue to outperform the markets, our positioning centered on premium products, allowing us to differentiate ourselves from players positioned more on the entry level, the growing contribution of services, in particular Darty Max, enabling us to build customer loyalty over the long term and maintaining our margin level as well as possible.

Thank you. For the year 2023, we are going to increase the price reduction plans and we are expecting it to be twice as higher than the earlier years to limit as much as possible the impact of price increase. The group will also improve its efforts to reduce energy consumption and gain in more agility in certain stores by looking closely at how to reduce the opening hours of certain stores, worked on logistic cost optimization and negotiate whenever possible concerning rents, particularly for all the leases that are reaching maturity. Secondly, control our cash. As Jean-Brieuc just said, this would be with the strict monitoring of our purchases and procurements of goods, and we shall maintain a strict level and control of our stocks with good rotation. Thirdly, we shall also be very attentive as to operational investments, and that is why we are keeping aside a maximum of 120 million euros for 2023. Now, let's just talk about energy and energy costs for 2023. That's a major element at stake. Now, on the right side, you can see the sharing of energy sources for the group for 2023, as in the earlier years. 50% of 2023 volumes will be in line with the RN, which is the regulated nuclear energy prices, and that would be at 42 euros per megawatt hour. 10% come from the agreement that we've signed up with Valeco for solar energy, and which will be enforced as of mid-2023. And the rates would be lower than 90 euros per megawatt hour. The remaining 40% will come from The price of the market, which has gone up a lot. We have a cover which covers us up to 2024 with Solvay and which has completely changed its way of doing. We are, of course, asking for total repairs and financial prejudice as a result. We were forced to sign up with another exposure agreement with another supplier just when the prices were at their highest. On the whole, we expect that energy costs will be up plus $30 million or $50 million with a greater impact in the first half year compared to the second half year. Besides, we've also got a revolving... moving cover strategy for the whole year to cover these prices. Now, concerning our aims for 2023, we expect our current operational income to be just slightly lower, around €200 million, and that shows the full mobilisation of the group and all its employees to limit the impact of a price increase on the income. X, not including energy costs that I just mentioned to you, we find that our income is in line with the progress that was expected in 2022. The drop will be more pronounced in the first half year. and keeping in mind the seasonal activity and the weight of our traditional costs. However, what's important is that we have confirmed our free cash flow operational clean flash flow aim at about 500 million, which is a total for the period of 2021-24 at a total of 240 million up to 2025. Now, in conclusion, and... Our policy of payout to our payholders is a commitment that we had undertaken during launching the Everyday Strategic Plan. And we confirm our policy of a payout of dividend of 38%, and that would be €1.4 per share, which would be paid out in cash or in shares, depending on the choice of the shareholders. So this concludes my presentation. I thank you very much for your attention. And before you ask your questions, maybe some news about the group. Now, quite obviously, as we read, and I'm sure you have heard the latest news that was released by the press in terms of our shareholders and the new projects and the new concentrations. So it was a lot, you know. So what I'd like to share with you, and before we take in your questions, we are not confirming any of the news yet. And I don't know where all these rumors and information comes from. However, if you just take a step back, the consolidation in our sector, the way we were with the coming together of NAC and DATI still makes sense. The group has really made a success of this consolidation. As a result, we are now pretty solid the way we are. And once again, we can play a very active role for our next consolidation. Now we are available for all your questions, if you so desire. Well, we've got our first question that is coming in. Can you give us details of the categories where there's a drop in volumes? As we said, you heard in the early part of the presentation that It's really household appliances, which are showing the greatest off-band technical products like televisions and computers. So quite logically, these are the products. There was the greatest increase, if you like, in sales during the COVID years. And so quite obviously now it's stabilizing. So as we said, household appliances. However, we saw that there was a recovery in sales. cultural products telephony which made up for some of the loss but that's changing too now a second question thank you very much give us the details of the quality of your stock we have a very healthy level of stock At the end of the year, it was slightly higher because we were expecting a better performance in December. And this volume was pretty quickly absorbed by the sales in January and all the sales events. We are quite happy that our rotation rate is extremely high and the renewal rate is also fairly high. And today we don't really have any problems with quality of our stocks nor of availability as such. It's really much better now with the stabilization of our supplier chains. Plus, that means we've got a better cover and better availability. Now here's a new question coming up. negative growth in 2023, and do you feel that sales have improved between January and February? I can't say much about the first quarter, and that is why we're going to have a next meeting in the end of April. And in the first quarter, we are not looking at it on a monthly basis because the early part of the year, January, is always the sales year. February normally is a slow month because it's just after sales and also because it's a shorter month. So I think it'll be in the coming months that we'll give you all these details. Yes, it's interesting that even in this period... that we have been anticipating, particularly this drop in consumption, there is a sort of logic that we follow concerning our resilience. And you can see that in the proof of our results at the end of the year, particularly in December. You saw what happened with the war in March when the activity continued to be very good, and this was probably because of the value effect rather than the volume effect that prevailed. However, activity was at a good level. Let's not forget that the group... has a base of about 7.4 billion, and that was before COVID, and now we're at 8 billion, and we have consolidated this base since 2021. Now there's a new question, and I think this is about energy. So who's going to replace Solvay Energy to provide you with energy? It's the energy group. It's the energy group that will replace them. As we had said, at the end of the year, we were mid-2020, to find a new partner to guarantee our energy supply. Now in France, as you know, it's mandatory to have a supplier to have access to regulated energy. And this contract was breached and that's why we had to find a new partner. So when did you know that this contract will no longer be honored? Well, we just found out about it at the end of the year. There were changes in conditions to guarantee the right to this access to historical energy, nuclear energy at the same price. And this came over in 2022.

Jean Brieux, one question for you. What about the free cash flow in 2023? We expect the first half year down, degraded in terms of operating income, current operating income compared to last year, especially because of declining figure and high cost. During the first half year, we'll have the full impact of inflation costs of last year. Last year, during the first half year, we were at the beginning of the inflation, plus the inflation effect of the half year, and the sales will be rather down. So that's why there will be a decline, an expected decline in the current operating income during the first half year. The effect will come from the cost and And for the second part of the question, the free cash flow, we'll see over the year. I'm not going to give you any guidance as to the free cash flow for the half year. Thank you. Another question. Vivende announced the selling of his own publishing subsidiary Edities to be able to take over Aschet. What is your opinion on that? on this transaction and it would be the best scenario for FNAC-Darty. This transaction is in progress. We're not going to comment on it. We always say that we're very sensitive to the fact that the editorial world has major shareholders able to invest in the future of this group to secure the diversity, the editorial diversity, and to have the industrial strengths. So we have no specific comment on this transaction, and we'll work very closely with both, I'm sure. New question. Thank you. The recruitment of new subscribers to Datimax seems to slow down. The objective of 2 million subscribers in 2025, is it still attainable? Yes, of course. Thank you for this question. It is attainable. We are on the right track. We have not slowed down. It's already 800,000 subscribers. subscribers and we are very satisfied with the rate of subscribers and we also see that the satisfaction score is on the increase the churn rate is extremely low and it means that it will keep consolidating and the spontaneous awareness is increasing we have a lot of requests and in all channels In our Fnac stores, we start selling that out through our partners. There are partners like Sofanko and others. They will start offering the Dartimax offer. So this plus all the franchise and owned stores will enable us to have this objective of 2 million subscribers in 2025. We have a new question. Could you please tell us the structure, volume and price on the top line of 2022? Can you anticipate the price rise in 2023? The price rise is rather modest. It all depends on the categories, of course. The cumbersome products consuming more transportation costs were more impacted than small prices. It varies between 10% and 100%. Some categories have not really increased or slightly increased in price. On average, it would be between 5% and 10%. And the volumes, as I said, it varies. It depends on the categories. We have sales revenue of 8 billion euros. And so we have to do... see each category to have an average. For 2023, the price rise will be more limited in 2023, and we start seeing... Later on, a decline in inflation for the second half year, and then the long-distance transportation costs will also decrease later on in the year. So if all this is confirmed, our prices will be normalized at the end of the year. A new question. the services like DatiMax start to get bigger and bigger. How much do they contribute to the sales and the margin?

Well, there are two points to be kept in mind. The program as such, DatiMax, and what we're getting for subscriptions, and you can calculate them, two-thirds of our network is with the cheaper products, which is at €10 TTC per month. So that's about €120 per year per customer. And then to answer the rest of your question, you know, You'll get to see how much it contributes to this turnover margin. I cannot give you, unfortunately. It's extremely profitable. And this activity more than makes up for the stopping of the guarantee extension, because we've stopped that, which has dropped ever since we started the Dati Max. Anyway, this is great. But what's really important is that this part, which is so profitable, and thank you very much to all our employees and the 2,500 technicians who've really launched it. But what's also important is the customer behavior And that brings us additional turnover because these customers of DartyMax, they buy products which are more expensive and they buy them more often. So you've got a very profitable product, plus you've got customer behavior, which takes you towards more premium products and more stable prices. So, you know, it's a win-win situation with DartyMax. Christian, could you tell us, economize even more on your financial costs? Well, unfortunately, the answer is going to be no. Today, in terms of financial costs, the group, and I'm not including... I'm not talking about corporate tax. We are paying 7%. We are paying 7% tax. And given the market today, it's going to be complicated. We'll have to work on indebtedness particularly. And what's more, as he said, talk about external growth, which should make up more for this cost, plus give us added value for our dividends and shareholders. I think we've completely rationalized our costs and interpreted We've secured them because there's no major outstanding paybacks until 2026. Reimbursements, that is. Let's wait a few more questions, seconds for more questions. It's come. Can you remind us which products are covered by DatiMax and which is the best formula? This is a new customer. Well, thank you, Darty. Max has three kinds of formula. There's the Maxi, which is essentially for household appliances. And then there's the extension of warranty for smaller electrical products at €14. And multimedia, it's €19.99, €19.99. And as Jean-Brieuc just said, that covers two-thirds of our total quantities of Anyway, these formulae were launched after we'd launched the plan. So now we've got new customers coming in for premium, plus all the existing customers who liked the first formula. And now they're gradually moving up towards formula two and three as well. And that's an excellent thing. Let me just emphasize that DartyMax is a huge success. As you saw, it's about 800,000 subscribers for just this year. And we are moving towards a model which is likely to be more reliable, customers very satisfied, and who are likely to spend more at the FNAC. Because when you're a DartyMax customer, all products bought from us are naturally covered by this guarantee. So once you've got your subscription, There's really no reason to go elsewhere and buy elsewhere. So we get more customers. They feel secure thanks to the quality of service provided by our teams. That's very important. And that's why hiring on certain platforms that are good. And once we get our customers, we are moving them upwards in our portfolio of products. So that means they'll spend more. So this will be consolidating our turnover. And plus, I do hope so, that we shall be able to pay less for the ownership costs of these new customers. So these are the plus points of this program. 800,000 is a big number. And you can imagine that... At 2 million subscribers, it will completely change the profile that we have of our way of working with our customers and customer loyalty and customer profitability plus our teams. I'm insisting. We started this business also in Belgium with Darty Max, but this has started in Belgium where we can provide all or the entire range of products and Now, other countries are also expecting us to provide this service, and we hope that we'll be able to do it in the coming months. This, I think, brings us to the end of our Q&A session, and I'd like to thank you all very much for listening in and for all your questions. And let's fix our next appointment soon for our next financial result. So thank you very much, Sambrian, all of you. Thank you.