Hermes Intl Sa Unsp/Adr

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Hermès 2024 full year results presentation. I'm now going to give the floor to Mr. Axel Dumas, Executive Chairman of Hermès International, and Eric Duhalguet, Executive VP Finance. Over to you.

Good morning, everybody. Thank you for joining us for the publication of the 2024 annual results. We are delighted to welcome you once again to our Sèvres store. I'm happy to present to you the results of the group in a more unpredictable economic and geopolitical context. The results of this year show the strength of the AMAS model as well as the agility and the commitment of its teams that I warmly thank. This model is based on a vertical integration with a strong local presence. It testifies to the strong desirability of our creations in all the , all the divisions supported by artistic directors, a very demanding quality, preservation, and transmission of our know-how. Longstanding and new customers were present everywhere in the world. In 2024, the house stayed its course, maintaining its equilibria. attached more than ever to the respect of its values. We pursued strategic investments in our production capacity to secure our supply chain and prepare the future, as well as in our network everywhere in the world to accompany the dynamism of the sale in the long term of the house. In all, over three years, Hermès strengthened its operational investments by 2.5 billion, of which more than 60% in France. We continue to strengthen our teams. The House went beyond the threshold of 25,000 people at the end of December, of which 62% are in France. Faithful to its responsible employer commitment and the will to share the fruit of its growth with those who contribute every day to it, Hermès will be distributing at the beginning of the year a bonus of €4,500 to all its employees worldwide in 2024. 2024 is also the victory of our partner horse riders in Versailles at the heart of summer. So much emotion with five Olympic medals for the Hermès saddle. That has now come to the salient. Carried forward by the theme of 2024, the Faubourg spirit, the creative teams of the 16 divisions headed by Pierre-Alexis Dumas gave free rein to their inventiveness. Let's give you a few examples. In the leather collections, alongside the iconic models, new models such as the Haut-Acohois, Ancel, or Arsene met with great success. To be noted also the creation of Hermes Horizons dedicated to the making of bespoke objects. The collection of women and men's ready-to-wear received a beautiful welcome all over the world. And the successful launch of the new feminine fragrance Berenia created by Christine Nagel. The eighth collection of haute bijouterie called the Forme de la Couleur imagined by Pierre Hardy was revealed end of June in Paris and presented in Beijing and in Taipei. It met with great success. Great success also for the home division with the Milan Fair as well as the dinner set. And let us emphasize the launch of the Apple Watch 10th series. We thus celebrated 10 years of our beautiful adventure with Apple and success of Technocraft. In order to strengthen our vertical integration, we pursue investments in our production capacity. In 2024, we inaugurated our 23rd leather workshop in Riom in the Puy-de-Dôme in the former tobacco manufacturing factory. In 2025, we'll be inaugurating a new leather workshop in Lille-des-Pagnac in Charente and work is being pursued in two other sites, Loupe in Gironde and Charleville-Mézières in the Ardennes which will open 2026 and 2027. The capacity-rated investments continue in all other divisions with namely projects in Normandy for perfume and beauty and Limoges for tableware. Hermès also pursued its invests in logistics centers, the digital and information systems to accompany the development of the group. Finally, securing supplies is something that we continue with historical and long-standing partners of Hermès. Hermès thus continues to strengthen and expand these sectors of excellence in all the divisions founded on long-term relations. Let us now come to the exclusive retail network, integrated network. True to our desire for balance of geographical areas and multi-local approach, we've extended our network to have our collections come close to local customers. New addresses have been inaugurated in the U.S. in Princeton in New Jersey or Asia with the opening of Wuxi in China and two openings in Tokyo in Japan. Amongst the extensions and renovations of stores, I would like to mention Lille and Nantes in France, Atlanta in the USA, Oregon, Shenyang, Shenzhen in Beijing, SKP in China. The creation of Hermès expresses itself also through its 17th division of Hermès, that of communication. In the second half of 2024, we've continued to talk about the universe of Hermès in an offbeat and joyful manner for the public, mystery at the grooms that took place first in Shanghai with the event Hermès and the Making in Mexico, Seoul and Zurich, where nearly 60,000 visitors had an exchange with artisans and craftsmen ten divisions and discovered how objects are made. And finally, Petitage went to Hong Kong and New York to reveal his joyful, unexpected and unique creations with the approach of reuse of materials that are asleep.

Now let's talk about our commitment to sustainable development. First of all, in keeping with our social model, we paid out 350 million euros in 2024. That includes the exceptional bonus and incentives and profit sharing in France. Hermès continued to reinforce inclusivity and diversity programs. We now have 48% of women in the top 100 of our highest executive positions. To guarantee an inclusive work environment, Hermès recruits and retains people with disability, a total of 7.12% in France. We continue to roll out our environmental strategy. Our decarbonisation plan was deployed to all the divisions and led to a 64% reduction in Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions compared to 2018. and a 50% drop in intensity for scope-free over the same period of time. Nature is a source of exceptional material and lies at the heart of our model. We continue with our science-based targets for nature initiative to set scientific objectives to preserve biodiversity. We remain committed to supporting our local footprint by drawing on local know-how and local employment, especially in France. We sped up job creation in 2024. with the recruitment of 2,300 new people, 1,300 in France. And in other words, that is 7,000 new jobs across three years, which I'm particularly proud of. To keep up with the growth of our business and to train employees to master our know-how, we continue to roll out our in-house training programs through the Ecole des Savoir-Faire Hermès and its professional training programs across 10 regions. We have also made progress in the non-financial area. For example, the AA rating by MSCI, our presence on the A list of CDP, which puts us among the best environmentally performing companies around the world. The the Grand Prize Emploi France for the first time that we've received from the Impact Rating Agency and the Grand Prize for Employer for People with Disability. And then the Transparency Award which rewards our financial information in the regulation, regulated information. Now, for our activity in 2024, our performance was solid. Our revenue in 2024 reached 15.2 billion euros, up 15% at constant exchange rate and up 13% at current exchange rates. For Q4, the revenue stands at 4 billion euros, up 18% at constant and current exchange rates, with good performance in America and robust growth in the other regions.

In 2024, all regions have shown solid performance. France, plus 13%, and Europe, plus 19%, recorded strong progressions sustained by robust demand. Japan, plus 23%, benefited from sustained and regular growth carried by the fidelity of its local customers. Asia, excluding Japan, plus 7%, had a remarkable progression thanks to sales up in all of the countries of the zone. America, plus 15%, confirms an excellent performance. They line others, integrate sales, retail sales of stores of Dubai and Abu Dhabi henceforth in global integration. The changes in geographical breakdown reflected the progressive integration of the Middle East. Let us now look at the activity per division. In 2024, all the divisions except for watches flagged progress, which was solid. Leather bags, plus 18%, had remarkable growth. Clothes and accessories, plus 15%, pursued growth. It's a solid dynamism thanks to success of its collections. Silk and textile division plus 4% benefited from the diversity of its creations in the women and men's collections. Perfume and beauty plus 9% are in progression with namely the sex of the new women's fragrance, Beringia. Watches, minus 4%, which was penalized by more difficult context and a high comparison basis, pursued its development around watchmaking exceptional know-how. Finally, the other divisions, Hermès of Hermès, plus 17%, which includes the jewelry and the home, are growing strongly. The evolution of this distribution reflects the dynamism of leather. May I now give the floor to Eric de Alguet, Executive VP, Finance, who will present the results to you.

Good morning one and all. 2023 was an exceptional year. The group delivered a solid performance in 2024, both in terms of results and cash flow generation. Current operating income stood at 6.2 billion euros, up 9%. Available adjusted cash flow reached 3.8 billion euros, up 18%. The revenue was in excess of 15 billion euros in spite of negative currency impact and the depreciation of the Japanese yen and the Chinese yuan compared to euro. Our gross margin rate stands at 7.3% versus 72.3% in 2023, which, I remind you, had a positive currency hedging effect and a very good sell-through rate. Communication expenditure reached 637 million euros and made up 4.2% of sales after a speeding up of events in the second half of the year. Admin and commercial expenses, which include the costs of our distribution network and the support functions, as well as the variable rent, reached 2.9 billion euros. As was planned, the group beefed up its headcount in distribution and the divisions to keep up with the increase in footfall in the stores and with higher production. The other expenses and income reach €941 million. They are made up of depreciation of tangible and intangible assets and depreciation of our usage rights. They also include the expenses attributable to our employee free share plan for all employees. The current operating income, therefore, reaches 6.2 billion euros versus 5.7 billion euros in 2024, free, sorry, so up 9%. After a record level of 42.1% of sales in 2023, operational profitability stands at 40.5%, so the same as in 2022. The financial result is the product of 283 million euros versus 190 million euros in 2023. That includes the currency hedging costs and income on cash and with higher interest rates that reached 400 million euros in 2024. And that explains most of the improvement of our financial result. Tax expenses amount to 1.8 billion euros, therefore an effective tax rate of 28.7%, close to what we had forecasted in our half-year sales. Net income from associates reached 44 million euros against 155 billion euros in 2023. And that's down to the consolidations of our activity in UAE, which were previously included through our equity method of accounting. We have a result of 4.6 billion euros, 7% up for the net profit group share. Net probability is in excess of 30% in 2024, slightly lower to 2023, but higher than in 2022. On this graph, you can see that there is an uptick in our revenue and net results across the last four years. Over the last 10 years, our annual growth rate of our revenue and net income reached respectively 14 and 18%. Operational and operating investment reached 1.1 billion euros in 2024. The group sped up its investment in distribution and in the production and division. 611 million euros were devoted to secure our stores and their strategic locations and to develop our distribution network in China with Beijing, Shenyang, and Shenzhen, in the U.S. as well with the projects, for example, of Phoenix and Nashville. 244 million euros were invested in real estate, digital and information systems to keep up with the development of the métier and to secure our supply chain. 212 million euros were dedicated to reinforcing our production capacity, for example, in our new leather goods production units in the Rion, Loupe, Lille d'Espagnac, as well as in the upstreams for hardware and perfumes. Our operating cash flow stands at 5.4 billion euros and increases at the same pace as our net result. Cash flow for activity reaches 5.1 billion euros. It grew by 19% because of a lower need of working capital requirements. After taking into account our operational investments and the repayment of lease liabilities, available cash flow stands at 3.8 billion euros. There's also our non-controlling interest in UAE that is factored in and non-controlling interests to Europe. be more vertically integrated. 2.7 billion euros of dividends were paid out and Hermès International bought back 40 million euros of shares. Our net cash, therefore, is 900 million euros higher than it was and reached 12 billion in 2024. As on December 31st, 2023, cash makes up 50% of our total assets and equity, equity more than 17 billion euros making up more than 75% of our liabilities. Therefore, we have consolidated our financial structure which allows us to remain independent and to roll out our strategy with confidence. The ordinary dividend, which will be approved by the General Assembly on April 30th, is €16 per share, so that's a 36% payout close to previous years. It will be paid out on May 7th, and a €3.50 down payment will be paid on February 19th. And there will also be an exceptional dividend of 10 euros. Thank you very much for your attention. And over to Axel, who is going to be talking about the outlook.

Thank you, Eric. I now come to the prospects of the group that remain unchanged in an economic and geopolitical context that is more complex. The group embarks on 2025 with confidence thanks to its highly integrated artisanal model, its well-balanced retail model, and the creativity of its collections and its loyal customers. In the beginning of 2025, Hermès keeps the course attached more than ever to its fundamental values of quality, creativity, and know-how. The theme of the year, Drawing to Craft, From saddle stage to the line, design drawing is the start of everything in MS. We pursue the dynamic of job creation, multi-local and multi-division, as well as investments in production capacity. We will continue to accompany our suppliers and all our partners. We will also invest in... omni-channel distribution network with openings and enlargements of stores, namely today in Florence. I would like to once again thank all the employees who have once again led to this very beautiful success, as well as our customers all over the world. We are now available with Eric to answer to your questions. We will now be going on to the questions. Limit yourself to two questions per person. And you can press star 1 to ask your question.

Good morning. I hope you can hear me. Antoine Pej from BNP Paribas. Two questions for me. First of all, you said that all countries in Asia grew in 2024, and yet in Q3 there was a little bit of a slowdown in Asia. What is your outlook for Asia? There was a little bit of a slowdown. Was that down to the real estate crisis, or is it more concerning? And then ready-to-wear makes up 30% of your revenue. We talk a lot about lever goods at Hermès, which makes sense, of course, but ready-to-wear seems particularly resilient. Your clients who buy ready-to-wear, are they the same people who buy handbags? Is there competition in ready-to-wear with other players out there? Thank you very much. Okay, so you've asked a supple question about China without actually naming them, so well done. But yes, indeed, you are right. All countries, including Greater China, have grown in 2024. Now, there are two things that I'd like to say. First of all, on the beginning of the year, it's very difficult for me to answer your question. You know my theory. I don't know if it's a theory. But with the change in the date of the Chinese New Year, and this year it's been moved quite a lot. Last year it was very early in January. This year it's quite late in February. So it's very difficult to give you any figures. and New Year celebrations are very important in China. Last year, we had a very strong New Year and a very good performance, and yet things had slowed down previously in China. Now, Hermès overall is quite resilient, and sometimes we are affected, but later than others. So it might hide the fact that we're affected by the crisis, but, you know, we are like everybody else. We follow the same laws of, like, gravity, for example. I think that 2025 will be a complicated year for me to communicate with you because it's not going to really happen in a quarterly matter. There will be cutoffs with deliveries, so you'll have to take a step back and look at the whole year. And the comparison basis effect also might make you feel that T3 is not very good, T4 is a bit disappointing. But the big picture is that there are some positive signs, but not enough to expect a full recovery. I mean, in economics, more than really happens, it's what you think is going to happen. If you think that tomorrow is going to be better, then you're going to spend more whether tomorrow is actually better or not. In China... We are in a situation where some steps have been taken which are encouraging, but how long are they going to last, we don't know. The real estate market is going to remain quite sluggish for some time, but that doesn't stop us from recovering. Look at Japan, for example, and the real estate market there, which has been sluggish for a very long time, and yet we have good performances in Japan. So I see some positive signs. Now, I'm not going to go so far as to say that structurally we are ready for the recovery. It's a bit early in the day, but we are very resilient and we're building on that resilience, but it's a bit too early to draw any conclusion. And I'll go next. even further by saying that for this year, it's more interesting to look at the real value rather than the percentages. It makes more sense. And, yes, for the rest of your question, and ready to wear. So we've always wanted to have... different metier to balance things out, balance out our regional presence. This was our desire with Florian Can to invest in China but also in Europe and also in Japan. And here we're integrating now the Middle East, so we want to have something integrated and balanced. And we have the same ambition for the divisions. We invest in leather but also in jewelry, et cetera, et cetera. things to be balanced, but not artificially. So we're not going to sabotage the lever division to have a nicer division elsewhere. And that can be the trap if you think too much through the lens of percentage. So we do invest quite a lot, and our objective is to balance out the different divisions. Now, to go a little bit further on that, inside the métier, we want to have also some balance. We don't want one model that drives all of the growth. For leather goods, for example, we want many different items to be successful. For that diversity, we were quite successful, three main successes, or four, or rather, sorry, there are many successes, but I'm only going to mention three of them. We had shoes, for example, that took up quite a lot of space, and then jewelry, which I mentioned, and ready to wear. which led us to discovering a very loyal customer base. And in spite of everything that my teams do, I answer the questions, which people advise me not to do. They tell me to stick to the message, but we have great clients. Our lever client base is a bit broader and more diverse. But for ready-to-wear, I think that... our clients are slightly more exclusive, a bit more resilient, and there are more of them. So we've probably won them over from other clients for both men and women. Okay, I'm going to continue down the road.

Sorry, Luca.

Edouard Robert Morgan Stanley. I have two questions on the products on leather. You have exceptional performance, 18% of the year, 21 over the quarter. It's above what was indicated to us here last year. We've spoken about volume growth of 67%. So if you could come back to the explanation of and also give us an indication of the level of inventory at the end of the year. It appears that inventory totally are 220 days above your historical level. Can you give us a breakdown or an indication per category of product? And the second question, to come back to jewelry and watches, there's a divergence in performance that we haven't seen in many years. with the excellent performance of jewellery and less so for watches. If you could give us the reasons for this divergence, please. What is our objective, Eric? six, seven percent of capacity on leather, says Eric, to which we add the price effect, which is nine percent. And after the space of delivery means that some quarters can be better than others. So we have a strong delivery end of 2024, which explains that we're slightly above our forecast. But the pace in the middle, medium term remains identical to some because sometimes I ask my teams a little more. So I don't want to wrongly communicate with you. No, frankly. The quarters play a big role in the comparison basis and then the desire to succeed of our teams and it was a wonderful year, 24 results, but difficult in terms of stress and work. It was less simple than years where everything was simple. 2024 we pay for the errors and the good decisions come time and again so this desire to succeed so there was a real dynamism in T4 so the levels of inventory for leather are slightly lower than what we have normally and the reconstitution of the stock because 22-23 were years which are very tense which is below our objective so if you look at 2024 it's below what we would What we were doing before, I've been helped for 12 years, and I'm not just thinking of three, four years back. So there's a sort of renormalization with our inventory going up. But Eric explained it well in terms of the gross margin, which impacted us and which is slightly different for leather, where I must say, whether it's the U.S. or Asia, wanted to end the year, you know, we were not asking for so much. So it's dynamic and it's nice to know that there's always this demand and there was this desire of our customers. They wanted to please themselves. Jewellery, watches, these are two divisions which are quite different, really, although they're classified in hard luxury category. One is very feminine and one is more masculine. Was it more difficult? We have a success, continuing success with jewellery. We have a creator, Pierre Hardy, who is very good, very strong, and that's the first meeting I was in charge of in Hermès, and when I was in charge of it... who was the one person I was replacing, said, don't worry, it's so small that it won't be visible in the accounts of the group if it goes bad. And I took it as a compliment. And my spouse told me, no, that's not at all what you should have understood from his comment. And today is very big and I'm very attached and I'm very proud of the team and the work. which is much better than what I had done then. So it's really been able to put forward a different aesthetic offer, very different to what's done at the Place Vendôme. And right from the beginning, we were very strong partners where women, you know, were not being offered this jewelry, but that they were buying for themselves. Watches was always a bum and bust of the market as such. was very challenged in 24 for all the brands, and I think we better resisted than some thanks to our retail network, which we have, which is ours. And to take back my initial analogy, I think we also made some mistakes, and so we have things to improve in-house, and I remain very confident for the follow-up. I hope, because we have a fair amount of investments to come in watches, so it must work. Look, I go through the whole row as I promised, and then I'll come back... Look, good morning, Axel and Eric. Two questions on production, if I may. You have creators of employment which are great and focused in France. Given what's happening internationally and the fact that the new American administration is presenting the invoice, as it were, to the net exporters, is it conceivable that that you can create production in the USA for some divisions, for the divisions to be more favorable in terms of the capacity that you could find there to minimize or at least to reduce the customs duty effect that may target the sector. Second question. You are amongst the players who are most integrated upstream, and that is an important quality, at least in ready-to-wear. And given the fact that ready-to-wear is becoming more and more important, is growing in your plans, do you have any direct investments planned in this division, in this activity? Thank you. Luca? Well, first of all, one of the things that worries me the most is the evolution of geopolitical relations at the moment. You summed it up well. The figures speak for themselves, producing 75% in France, 10%. percent of our sales are in France. So we produce in France and we sell all over the world. So we do need commercial exchange that is balanced. And we've always had the weakness to believe that trade brought people together rather than driving them apart. Is that still true? We have the right to believe things in your little corner that others don't believe in anymore. That's what it is. Exchange, commercial, cultural enriches us rather than the contrary. So it's a source of concern. But that being said, it's not the custom duties that worry me the most. It's more the tension amongst the peoples. The house is what it is. The house is what it is. daily 190 years old. We've known custom duties growing up and down. If the customs duties go down, we increase the price to make up for the customs duty because often our price, we don't have any marketing policy for price. We have increased the price as a result of our increase in cost of production and monetary fluctuation. So next time I can tell you that next we increase our prices because of these two factors plus customs duties. We'll increase, and our American customers will understand, will remain loyal, and those who find it too expensive will come to benefit from our hotel infrastructure in Paris and will buy at the Faubourg. So I regret this, but I'm not especially worried, particularly worried, not at all. famous last words is how I take things. And obviously, you are right. Vertical integration policy means that we will tend to make investment to integrate and protect our production capacity. ready-to-wear, and jewelry are divisions that are slightly more complicated to integrate because each one has their speciality, and you need many to be autonomous. One is better than for setting. I'm talking of what I know better, one better for stamping, lost wax castings. They're more diversified and wide. Nonetheless, we've strengthened this year in... in jewelry. We've taken many shares in companies in the shoe as well. In shoes, we have a real production unit in Italy which is growing. We have a capacity of 200 people. Thank you, Wilfred. And in the ready-to-wear, we are beginning to take shares. We are trying to help the French ecosystem because you still have a ready-to-wear ecosystem for ready-to-wear in France. The shoes are in Italy. But, you know, production for leather, we make a lot of leather clothes. so forth so it will go in that direction but it's slightly more complicated than in leather once you learn the saddle stitch then you know how to make all the bags but that's the sense of our history with pros and cons with everything is going well that's great because it's fixed cost but when things are not going that well bad luck you've got too many overheads good morning

Alan Verger from Goldman Sachs. Two questions. First of all, on the growth of the scope, to which extent do you believe that this can lead to extra growth later on? And have you changed your plans in the opening of newer stores around the world? For example, in China, where it's more volatile and more favorable in the U.S., in spite of the tariffs? And secondly, on operational margin, is there a big difference between the regions and the divisions? And what is the volume level that you need to keep stable margins or margins that grow slightly year on year? Well, I'm going to start off, Eric. Well, it's quite interesting, your question, because when I started out managing the group in 2013, I was looking at Florian to make sure I don't say anything silly, although this is filmed. There were 313 stores at the time, and now we have 293. So we have fewer stores. stores than back then. So it's not by opening more stores that we became more successful and increased fourfold our revenue. So we don't grow our scope by opening new stores. However, it's not necessarily the same stores in the same space or place. They might be bigger as well, which allows us to give more space to the different . you can look at our strategy for balancing out the divisions. And if you want to balance out the divisions, you have to be able to show them off in the stores. We could have decided to have 500 stores, all the same size, but you would only have had small-level goods, which would have been probably not the right way to go. So that's the first thing to say. And I'm a bit embarrassed to say it, but never mind. It's that our long-term strategy is a long-term one, and we don't really tweak it. Four or five years ago, with Florian, we said, okay, the U.S. remains a market that we need to conquer, so we are opening stores in the U.S., and that's working out quite well. And we can go to new cities with Phoenix and Nashville in 2025. I'm trying to find actually a little bit of time to go to Nashville. And sometimes we have two stores in the same city, like in Miami, for example. And in the LA area, we have three stores. So yeah. Now, regarding our policy for China, it's actually even worse, so to speak. And it's what I answered actually this morning. At the time, I was a CEO and Florian Grand, in charge of retail, was the head of China. And in 2010, we decided to have a strategy whereby we opened a new store in a new city every year. That was 15 years ago. We've been rolling out pretty much the same strategy and it seems to be working out. So I must admit that we do have a strategy and we kind of stick to it. We are not specialists when it comes to seizing opportunities swiftly. And likewise, we continue to invest in all our zones, even the longstanding zones like Japan, for example. And I'm very proud that we've opened two new stores in Tokyo. There are fewer stores today in Japan than 10 years ago. and we've got a fantastic new store actually in Japan. Ginza is a lantern, and our other store is like a glowing, burning candle. Now, for the margin, before he comes up with a proper answer to all these questions, we never make any decisions on the margin. The margin is a consequence of our strategic decisions And in our balanced theory for resilience, it actually only works if you've got the same margin everywhere. So we are very integrated. We have more margin when it works well, a bit less when there are some headwinds. But for the product, in any case, we try to have the same margin across all the divisions so that you don't have more margins on the desirable product than on the one that is harder to sell. Because 10 years later, it might be the other way around. And if you have the same margin everywhere, then it doesn't affect your margin rate too much. And we try to not fall into this trap of saying, okay, this product is selling well, we're going to push up the margin. So our business model is about having very similar margins so that when the desirability of one product changes and goes to another, it doesn't impact things too much. Well, I think you've said pretty much everything. Our margins are indeed... very consistent because we also have our clients bear the extra costs when we export abroad. Our fixed costs, well, that's what we said earlier about the vertical integration. These are the kind of elements, fixed costs, that can impact profitability down the line. But structurally, if we have higher production costs, then we... essentially pass this on to this market. But, of course, that will vary from one market to another and from one year to the next. We have another question over there.

Next time. Sorry. You need the microphone. That's the only thing.

Hello, this is Adrienne.

And the Financial Times, congratulations on your results. I wanted to come back to the question of Lucas. You said that the consequences of custom duties if applied by the U.S. would be absorbed in the price. You did an average of about 8% of increase of annual price in the last years annually. Do you intend to anticipate the same trend this year? How does the application of these rates pull things upwards? I understand that you will not be changing your method of production, but have you done any overstocking of certain products in the USA in order to offset the inventory? which could be affected by the customs duties. Thank you. Questions are cruel because these are probably good things that we should have done, but which we didn't do. Firstly, the price increase of the 2025 are done over the year. We don't have the vocation of doing so. We try to be covered over the year. They're 6% to 7% this year. And the big major disparities are related to forex. We hedged all year long, but which are the currencies in 2026? Need, am I, dream, everybody panicking in communication, but if we could not increase prices because the dollar goes up and not the euro, then we'd be delighted as well. You know, we don't have a growth policy by price or scope. The growth we are looking for is organic growth. So I can't say to you, unfortunately, I mean, I can tell you that it'll be more or less the same thing, 2%, 3% inflation on the raw materials and our production costs. But then that could be offset by a contrary change in in currency. Every SAO currency will go in the right direction. That'll be great. I won't need to increase price. That doesn't always happen. Then there's the exception of the customs duties. If we are applied customs duties, then we'll see. At the world's level, international level, I don't know. whether a certain percentage will get the needle to change worldwide. But our policy up until now was to put custom duty in the production costs and have them vary according to the duties. 67% that Axel was mentioning that was retained in 2025. Its aim is to cover the cost price of our objects that has increased by 45% and only a part of the negative impact exchange currency effect, the negative impact which is of 200 million euros in 2025. We'll be doing that reasonably and it doesn't cover all of the negative impact of the exchange rate. and excess overstocking in the U.S. Our American teams are very dynamic in Q4, as you were able to see in the figures. They could have kept a little more, to my taste. But then, you know, we're in the multilocal, so each country manages themselves with their margin of liberty.

I'll ask two questions, although I probably could ask three because I waited quite a long time. So one will be easy. Financial, second one is a little bit more philosophical. So the financial question for Eric, how should we think of the margin for this year? I know the margin is not the objective, but I guess what are the known... things at the beginning of the year in terms of effects. I believe you had last year at the beginning of the year some exceptional hedging gains. So how should we think of effects for this year and anything else? Basically, I want to know if the margin should be up or down. And the second question is for Axel. It's more related to the leather goods category. I think investors have been used to the leather goods category being quite resilient in the sector. And we are seeing now something that has never been seen before, which is leather goods category is actually quite weak, obviously not for you. So I'm just curious if you have any high-level observations about that. Why do you think that leather goods category is weaker for your peers? Could it be that the customer has changed, they focus more on the quality, craftsmanship, resale value, anything you could share? That would be really appreciated. Thank you.

So regarding the profitability, we consider that the level that we have today of more than 40.5% remains quite high. And as I mentioned before, we are not going to pass to the customer the negative currency impact this year. So this should show a slight negative impact on the gross margin. This is it.

Thank you. So I will take the philosophical question. Of course, it's one of our core métiers and it's the historic métier of Hermès. But when I did my first internship at Hermès, Before it was more striking because it seemed very quick. Now it seems very old. But the turnover of the group was 54% with silk and 9% with leather. So there is some change, I think. And me, I'm quite an adept of the game theory more than the division. So my job is that all the métiers can succeed, all the métiers have similar margin, and then the client will pick. Maybe in 20 years, I don't know if I hope or not to be there to present the result. Maybe I should do something else at one point, but in 20 years you will have the first metier will be jewelry and shoes and the rest. So we need to be in a position to deal with the unexpected. So that's the thing. And we are lucky enough to have an incredible result in leather goods. Very difficult for me to answer you without looking pretentious or snub on that. I do believe that... We have an incredible craftsmanship, and our artisans are unbelievable. We still have the supply chain to get the best leather possible. It's a struggle to find this kind of quality of leather. It's less and less, and with the industrialization of farming and all that, it's been a difficulty, and that's why we invest so much in tannery to try to compensate by having investment. But I think... I think we don't have the same product in a way. In a way, I would say our cost of goods in leather is much higher than the selling price of other bags, so it's not the same product. Is it good or bad? I don't know. Maybe we are just terrible at managing cost of goods.

I've got two questions for you. The first question is on the early year trends. You told us that China was difficult to decipher because of the timing of the New Year celebrations. But what about the other regions, about the U.S.? Is it still booming as in Q4 and still on Q1 of 2025. Could you maybe give us a flavor of the sales for 2025, Q1? Is it going to look like Q1 of 2024?

And what about price increases?

Okay, so every year I have an idea of where that figure is going to go, and I don't tell anyone. This year I have no idea, so I'm definitely not going to tell anyone. It's too difficult to forecast, to be honest, because a bit like Christmas in Q4, it can go either way. And it's the same with the Chinese New Year, the date of which changes every year. What I truly believe in is that there is no overall broad trend that has been impacted by any of that. But then if you look at The figures at the end of the day, there might be some small changes. China, it's too early in the day to say anything. In the U.S., a very booming Q4, but they might not have a huge amount of stocks to help them in Q1. We were impacted by the fires in Los Angeles, by the blizzard, but the demand seems to be there. So it's going to be difficult for me to talk to you about the results in 2025 quarter by quarter. I think you'll need to take a step back. But the overall trend of demand and desirability are there and seem to be very similar to in previous years. Now, you also have to take into account that we are going to be comparing things that are quite different with production capacity, which is different. But in any case, it will be interesting. In any case, I don't see any global shifts in our industry, no huge changes. changes in trend. And in our Hermès scope, I can't see any huge changes in desirability, which goes one way or the other in terms of footfall. We have a lot of very loyal customers who come to us in China, but I can't see a recovery on the horizon. And in the U.S., footfall is quite important. But what about the stocks? You know, I had to explain the figures when they were not very good for leather. I remember some time back, a few years ago, and we had a lot of people who were sick at the time. in the workshops. And if these viruses go around, you have a lot of people who can't turn up to work, and that can lead to a 3% or 4% drop in production. And then you also have the stock effect. You can have huge stocks and then sell them at the right moment. And sometimes demand is there, but you're out of stock. And if you do plus 15 on plus 15 percent, I mean, when you're looking at the percentage increases, it can be a little bit misleading. We had 3.8 billion euros of revenue, and half of that was in Asia and Pacific, thanks to the Chinese New Year. So it's going to be a very high comparison point. Okay, I'm going to let the microphones decide who asked the question. Can you tell us a bit more about the evolution of the revenue in Asia and in the U.S.? And tell us about the main opening and main renovation of stores in 2025. Well, it's actually quite amusing for us because For us, it's really the countries that matter when it comes to nationalities. For example, take a look at Japan. Our success in Japan is driven by the Japanese clients, unlike other players where people buy in Japan but they're not Japanese. So we pretty much sell to Japanese people in Japan, to Chinese people in China, et cetera, et cetera. So we're not even really performing any analysis. I mean, Eric will probably tell you the opposite. If you do so, please do it kindly and gently. But it's quite striking in Japan because everybody is affected in Japan and we are not. Now, there are some explanations to that. Maybe we don't have enough stock, so the capacity is not there. Or is it because our clients are so glad that they find the products they want in their country and they think that they won't be able to buy it elsewhere because each store picks what they have. So they don't go and look elsewhere. They buy at home. And Japan is among one of the cheapest countries in Asia, which hasn't happened in decades. So we don't have clients who are looking for a good deal, so to speak, and who want to use tourism to that end. So this is why we sell to the nationals in the countries where we operate. And the two big exports is Middle East and America. These are the countries where we've got a larger export client base. And the U.S., it's true, they're very sensitive to exchange rates. They'll look at the exchange rate and maybe buy elsewhere. But the Chinese customers have bought their products in China, not elsewhere. And you could have contradicted me. I am used to it by now.

Stores, I said Phoenix and Nashville, Florence, Florence today. Florian Cron will be leaving in a moment because he's going for the opening of the Florence store today. Kitzbühel would allow the teams to go skiing. Phoenix, Nashville. In Asia Pacific, Shenzhen and Guangzhou as well. And we're closing Ekebukuro Saibu in Tokyo because we've opened elsewhere. So we have five openings. over the year, 20 projects of enlargement as is the case every year. Yes, yes, we have the enlargements. Do you want to tell us? It's spread out in France and Europe, America, Asia Pacific, even Japan, Omotesando, or in the Middle East, Dubai Mall. So it's very well balanced for all the regions. If you want to make a case, the kids will end this year.

Who has a microphone?

Who has a microphone? Can I ask a question? A question on your growth driving force. You showed an interesting growth, average growth of 10 years, 14%. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that this growth was driven widely by the hiking volume over this period. Now you've come to a size of 15 billion in revenue and we saw that 24 price was an important component of this growth. In the future, do you consider that you have to expect a kind of slowdown of volume growth which could be offset probably by a higher valorization like in jewelry? This was particularly true. a Metier division like leather, would it be where you have the highest average prices? Could it benefit from a valuation strategy proposing products with an average price which would be higher, offsetting, therefore, this standardization of volume? Several subjects here. I can't tell you exactly what will be the growth of the group in 10 years' time. If you'd asked me 10 years before, I had done some good calculations, saying I'll retire at 65, grow. When we said we'd grow by 7% a year, we thought at that time that it was great and very ambitious, which led me to a revenue of $12 billion. Today, I'm presenting $15 billion. And I said to myself, maybe I should leave under retirement. I thought of age rather than the revenue. So sometimes, you know, you say, pinch me, I think I'm dreaming. And 15% of growth seems enormous. But in your question, you must distinguish. But you did so. Let me specify price effect, what will increase because my cost is increasing, and the value effect, which is very different for me. And that is where you are right. We can't follow it. That's not an artisanal model. The volumes as such, that doesn't mean we won't grow in volume. You need a value effect in jewelry, for example. We have a lot of silver jewelry today, gold, and gold is diamond. For leather, I think we've already done well. We have a value offer, which is very strong. But we are making effort in valuing watches, silk and textile, ready to wear. is highly valued and thanks to some of the other companies. The MS model goes through products with high added value, but where you have to be careful. And I talk about the ethics of aesthetics with my team. That's not a marketing plan. You shouldn't just doing value for the sake of value. There has to be an aesthetic reason. It has to be beautiful. There must be know-how. I'm very proud of our ties, which are not the most costly of the expensive of the market. They're not always worn by everybody. My vocation is not to make expensive ties just to offset or compensate for the drop in volume. There has to be a reason. What I really try to do is not to be held by the finality. It's to keep the way of doing at the heart of the system. So value, we can do value, but it has to have an aesthetic sense as well. If it's too expensive just for the sake of it, no. We have a normal trend to have such incredible artisans that they can work with incredible materials, which could be more expensive and gives products that are really quite impressive. But we'll never say, let's do a little more of this just to increase the value. No, it's the product that's at the heart and the desire to do so, make them or not. And they're products that we love and they don't work. We don't only have success in MSC. And that's great because if they're only successful objects, then I wouldn't have attempted enough. There's product, there's know-how, there's materials that drive us. Then, you know, we'll see where the stories are. There's a part of risk we sell desirability, dreams. That's the soul of our industry. Juliette Garnier for Le Monde. What can you, what can, what could you bring to you? And in fact, can you talk about the extension of a range for beauty? Do you intend to go more on haute jewelry, haute jewelry? Three points, okay. Haute couture. I say this honestly. It came out in an interview that I had the pleasure of doing. Are we thinking about it strategically or not? I'm not so sure. But once we've said it, we thought that was a good idea, actually. That's nice. Honestly, I thought that the teams are going to get angry with me, saying, what did you say? And they said, oh, very nice. We've been thinking about it for a long time. What are we interested in? It's a know-how. We already have a very high level of quality of leather. That's incredible. And so we said, why not? Why not? What will it bring? What is so it'll bring problems, but let's hope it'll also bring pleasure. And so I'm very excited about Haute Couture. We'll see what it gives, but I think it's very nice. And especially since it didn't come through strategy or marketing where we just said to ourselves, why not? When? When? I don't know. Ask Guillaume to send the production when we deliver for the podium. Oh, by when? Well, I guess 2026. We'll try the time that is put in place. But if it's 2027, why not? You know, the idea is to do things well. For beauty. There are several subjects, depending on the vocabulary. What we call beauty is makeup. We'll continue with makeup to extend our range and certain products that we will renew. We will launch, for example, the silky lipstick this year. Very excited of the success of beauty. I think we've done incredible work. I have a preference for the lipstick, but that's my problem. Nail polishes are very good, too. So we'll continue. And then we're preparing ourselves. What has another word is cosmetic skin care. So we have to find the right way of doing it. The laboratory, it has to be ideas. And the, you know, we talk about technograph with Apple, you know, discuss this with Charlotte, who's in charge of our communication. We talk about technology. you know, similar approach for the skincare. I'll test it on myself to see whether we want to commercialize it or not. And then for jewelry. It's a subtlety that may have escaped you, but we don't say haute jewelry, but we say haute bijouterie. We remain bijoutier. In Hermès, we say chaussure, and other companies call them soulier. And behind the idea of the haute bijouterie is the idea that we're quite different from the Place Vendôme. which starts from a big, you know, gemstone and works around it, but we base ourselves on the design. There's a lot of paving, there's a lot of drawing design, and then they put it in shape, so it's a bit different as an approach. So we continue to do haute bijouterie with a lot of success. The teams under the aegis of Wilfried Guerin want to maybe because we have a presentation every two years maybe we want to accelerate this pace but we'll see whether you know because for me what the time of creation is very important too because our collections every time at our scale are a small event. So it mustn't be with too many constraints. We're lucky with the bijouterie to be off the fashion calendar, so it must have a sense. So I say, yes, there will be more and more, but only if it's something that we like. With Pierre Hardy, we're submerged with design because he's amazingly creative. but we're not going to force ourselves to do so. There's no marketing plan behind this. I explain this every time there's no marketing in ECMAS. That doesn't mean that we don't get 50 CVs a day that I want to join your marketing department. So communication isn't perfect, is it? but that's more or less our development plan, but we've got lots of things on which we're happy. The new bags that will be coming, we're always looking for new leathers, very excited about the hand-woven that we do in Nepal on cashmere shawls. So in all these divisions, there's a lot of projects. For those who are interested in it, like myself, very exciting.

Gali Mathieu from Barclays. Two questions on my side. Can you tell us a bit more about the fires in California and tell us about the impact it had on the stores and will continue to have maybe on the stores? Second question on China. Could you maybe quantify the impact of the Chinese sales? Will they drop or not, like your competition? Well, there are two questions I don't really want to answer, but I will do my best. It's very difficult to quantify for us the effects because somebody who doesn't buy a bag because the store is closed will find it elsewhere. So the impact has to be looked at from a bird's-eye view. Of course, there are some losses. but it's difficult to quantify these losses because they tend to pop up somewhere else as a wind. We did have a store which was quite close to the fire, so we had to, there was a power cut, and there was another store that we closed for safety purposes. And then there were climate events in the U.S., be it the blizzard in the north or the events in Florida that meant that this year there were ups and downs. All of this will be offset elsewhere during the quarter. But I don't think there will be a huge impact or not the kind of impact that you can see overall in the overall figures. But it was a difficult time. And now for our clients in China, it's a very important customer base. Greater China has grown less than other countries, even though they have grown. So inevitably, the share of Chinese clients has dropped. relative to the total number of customers. Do we have other questions? People over the phone, maybe? Ladies and gentlemen, you can now ask your questions online by striking or typing a star and one on your phones. Two questions per person, please. First question from Thomas Chauvet from Citi. Over to you. Hello, Eric and Axel. Your net cash increased to 12 billion euros. This very high figure, is it going to lead to extra bonuses, an extra dividend? Are you going to buy up another brand to maybe balance out the risks even further? Or do you not want to grow too much and become ubiquitous? Second question on the strong increase of revenue with the strong increase in headcount. It was plus 10% and 25,000 employees altogether, I believe, for last year. How do you manage... to have a corporate culture that everybody kind of buys into and understand in spite of this very rapid and strong growth. To which extent are you remaining true to the values of your great-grandfather Axel? I know that society has changed quite a lot, but you're nearly at 20 billion euros of revenue. How do you keep this original spirit of a workshop? Okay, so two tricky questions here. On your first question. we are going to stick to our cash flow management strategy, which is that of the thirds, so a third of investment, a third of value sharing and dividend, and a third of cash flow, so that we precisely can weather a difficult year, which I'm sure will turn up at some point. One example, during COVID, we were very happy to have our available cash, which allowed us to not decrease the dividend, which we've never done at Hermès. And secondly, it allowed us to pay everybody's salary without having to ask any support from the government. So it's always good to keep some cash for a rainy day, let's say. So, strategically, there is no change in our policy. We're not going to be deploying capital to buy up other companies. We might need capital to beef up our vertical integration because that is important to us. Now, I don't want to say, you know, it's never going to happen, but it's not our priority right now to buy up our companies. Now, we know how to do Hermès. I'm not sure we know how to do anything else. I'm not sure that we could buy up another company and impose on it the Hermès model. I think it would be counterproductive. And actually, you might have seen this year that some people want to do a bit like Hermès, but it doesn't really work out at the end of the day. because the success of Hermès is down to the things that we do really well and then the things that we do really badly. But it's all balanced out and gives us this kind of unique positioning. So unless you're a deviant, you know, you can't really do bad things to other people and hope that there are good repercussions for you. Okay, that's the end of my psychoanalysis for today. But that leads me nicely into your second question. your question, which is about my main cause for concern at the minute. In other words, how can we keep this mindset and this culture with a company that's grown to 25,000 people? We've got 2,300 new jobs this year, which means that at least 3,000 people have arrived, people have left, retirement, et cetera. So how do we keep this culture going? It is a strategic issue. We are working on it and we work on it because we will only be successful if we can keep this culture. We need to remain at this kind of human scale. and keep this entrepreneurship spirit. This is why the different divisions are independent. The countries are very independent. And actually, I fight against bureaucracy at Hermès with more or less success because every company that grows tends to increase its bureaucracy. We need to avoid that at all cost. We need to have production units that remain at a human scale. We continue to have Levergood workshops with 300 people working there and no more because when you have 300 people, you know everybody's name and you can have a chat with people. We know that if we had Levergood production units with 500 people, productivity would go up. However, it is important for us to keep this kind of human scale. And then there are two important issues. First of all, recruitment. We recruit a lot of people. And we need to be able to know who is adapted to work at Hermès. who can understand the long and sometimes unclear speeches of Axel Dumas, who can understand the decisions of Hermès. Culturally, we're very Japanese. There's a lot of chat, a lot of oral tradition, and we try to find a consensus. If you... arrive at Hermès and ask, who's got the final cut? Who is going to decide for everybody else? Well, we can't answer that question. It doesn't mean that it doesn't work, you know, that's not great, but it's just not our culture. And then a lot of training, because that's also our future, cultural training and managerial training. I think a company is only as good as its managers work and the middle managers work as well. So we've invested a lot in training and in imparting our culture to newcomers. And people are really at the heart of Hermès and Hermès' future. And when it comes to people, you know, it's not scientific. So we do our best, but it's really at the heart of our future development. If we sacrifice people, then we lose the whole magic of Hermès. So at Hermès, the true star is the... craftspeople and the people selling the product in the stores. And I'm always amazed by the technical ability of our craftspeople and of our salespeople. If I'm a bit concerned at any point, I'll go to the Faubourg and see that they are clients. Maybe Florian is sending me fake clients to reassure me, but I do see clients, you know, talking with our salespeople, and all of that is quite amazing to see the relationship and the bond that they have. So I'm always amazed, and we need to keep that. That means we need to continue to work with characters, with people who don't really necessarily fit in anywhere else. But, yeah, 3,000 new people a year, it's quite a lot, and it's actually a greater cause for concern than the margin is. Apologies, Eric, for that.

Another question? We'll take the last question online that comes from Claire Boulot from Challenge. You have the floor. Thank you for taking my question. I have two. First of all, to react to Thomas' reaction to your growth that maybe one day you'll be at 20 billion. It's a simple and complex question. How do you explain this positive anomaly of Hermès? This company, which is the only one to have this growth rate and margin, while we see for the other actors of this sector, it's becoming more complicated. And my second question is, Walmart, you know, there's certain issues that you're protecting. How do you protect yourself from certain phenomena? It's a good question. It's the last question I'll be able to talk to take you up to 2 p.m. I have no explanation other than the fact that we try to do our work well, do it with authenticity. And I believe that it may be the difference. Communication is the 17th division of Fairmas. That's important where we don't do marketing. We don't try to create an illusion by paying people to wear our products. I think there's a kind of authenticity, and I also believe that it's not the success of MS, but the world came to us. I continue to believe that there's been important, strong psychological effect of the financial crisis of 2018, saying what is expenditure, what is investment, what is good but finally not good. how many AAA obligations, bonds, you know, sort of transformed. And so, finally, there was a return to the true, the craftsmanship. And I think we benefited from that. And then... And to talk about the ubiquity of our brands, the strength of Hermès is that we don't do that much volume. After all, we do more volume, but not that much volume as compared to other houses. We remain – our production of bags is quite artisanal. We do more volume in perfumes, of course, and some will say maybe not enough, not enough. Agnès de Villers will say that – And then, I feel like saying that what's important, you know, we have to remain faithful to ourselves. We're called Hermes, so we like to talk about Greek tragedy or myths. I very strongly believe in the myth of Ulysses. We were asking the question to Jean-Pierre Vernon, saying, who is your favorite hero? And he said, everybody says Achilles. He's strong. He chose glory. Even he was ready to die. I like Ulysses because Ulysses is clever. Apparently, parenthesis, that his god is Hermes, so that's a good thing. And he says horrible things, but he continues, never stops. And even when things are well, when they suggest that he become a god, which for a Greek is not bad, well, he does continue. And others could have stopped, but he continues in his project, which is go back to Ithaca. So you have to remain faithful to yourself. And sometimes it's more difficult in the success than in failure to remain faithful to oneself, true to oneself. The only difference is that we try to remain true to ourselves. And the one good thing that we've done is to remain true to ourselves when things were not going well and especially when things were going well and not overdo it, you know. Then we're very happy with the results of 2024 and the fact that we really remain very demanding on quality at every instant. I'm not saying we manage every time, but it's really important to give importance to creation. That's essential. We're one of the rare houses where the artistic director is at the executive committee. It doesn't depend on a marketing department. So we've really tried... And then, you know, the... attention granted to each one and the multi-local and the multi-division. The head of ready-to-wear is independent like the boss of the USA is very independent. So all of this leads to a dynamic which is good but on which you have to remain very humble. The world is changing very quickly. You have to adjust. And I try to draw satisfaction first and pride for the teams, but not thinking that I've found the magic recipe of the ready mix. No, I do it with great humility. So I have a corporate answer. I have a corporate answer, but I'll give it both. We have no comment on this subject, the fakes on fakes. counterfeiting is something we take very seriously with its economic and social consequences you know difficult to know what exactly to think about it apart from the fact that it irritated me annoyed me sometimes I found the comment in the press At a time when everybody is talking about, oh, AI will take a copy and Birkin is protected, so making a copy like this is quite, you know, detestable. It's really, you know, stealing the creativity of others. So that is the negative side. side. But then we have a watch on social media and it was quite touching to say we respect Amos. We can afford it. But in the meantime, I feel like dreaming about it. So nobody bought this fake product thinking that they could find an equivalent product. They know about the difference in quality. And there were things that were quite touching, saying we want to be part of it. We get the feeling we're selling products rather than a style and a household is between the two. So I find that... The counterfeiters who allow themselves to do this is something that is really unacceptable. And the fact that things make people dream is a compliment. There was no ambiguity. My fake watch is like the real watch. It's a recognition of know-how. I can't go in as quickly as possible into this universe. So it's a beginning. Some people profited from it because it's really very basic counterfeit products. And sometimes people were quite touching. So we'll fight it with all the means, but we are dealing with people who know the law very well. We're very strong teams. We're good at fighting counterfeit, but the corporate answer is simple, but there is an ambiguity in the situation that you have to face up to. So I think the sermon is over. I'd like to thank you very much as usual. I'd just like to conclude with a personal note on this subject because I feel very grateful to head a company like Hermès, but I appreciate the values and the people who work in it. I wanted to say that I'm very lucky to come in the morning and to know that I'm going to come across lots of employees of Hermès, in particular my executive committee, and it's a great pleasure. So I'm very grateful to have the opportunity of presenting very good results to you. Very grateful for that. And I hope it will continue and that we will remain, whatever happens, true to ourselves, even with quotas which are too positive or not positive. Thank you very much.