Ipsos U/Adr

Welcome to the 2024 half-year results for Ipsos. It's good to be joined by you. I'm here with my colleague Dan Levy, our CFO, and I want to take you through where we find ourselves halfway through the year in this Olympic city of Paris. So overall, we've seen good growth at 4.7% overall. Organically, that is at 3.8%. And if you look at Q2, it was a little weaker, particularly at the end of Q2, at 3.1%. We have a positive scope effect because of the acquisitions that we have successfully made over the last 18 months. And those are working well and adding to our growth, but a negative FX effect at minus 1.8%. The profitability is good, 10.1% versus 8.7% for the same period last year. And we've also done well on our free cash flow, which is up nearly 60 million. It's 80 million now for the first half. What I'd like to do now is pass over to Dan, who will take you through more detail behind some of those figures in a second. But one key thing that we need to remember is the mixed situation in the United States. Now here, organic growth is negative at minus 2.2%. Outside the US 6.5% growth but in the US negative and that's a very mixed picture. It's caused by on the negative side the electoral cycle, the end of some of the major contracts that we have which are one-off in our public affairs work and of course the restructuring that we're seeing in the pharma industry there. I think 20,000 layoffs in the pharma industry in the US in the first part of this year. On the positive side, of course, are the businesses facing CPG clients, so in growth, and in some of those cases, double digits, strong growth in our Ipsos digital business. So it really is a very mixed picture. We've seen, as you will see in a minute, recovery in growth with some of our big tech clients. And I just spent last week in the U.S., with our new CEO, Marianne Paco, our new management organization. And what we're expecting now is stabilization in H2 and a return to growth at the beginning of next year. So outside the U.S., pretty good growth, but the U.S. is a challenge at the moment. But now, Dan, please take us through the detail of the numbers.

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Hello. As usual, I'd like to start by looking at a geographic breakdown of revenue. So we had a very good year period in EMEA of 7.6% organic growth for the first half, and that was actually driven by continental Europe and the Middle East. good performance in Germany, where the new managerial structure is starting to bear fruit. Also, solid performance in Italy. So these two countries with double-digit growth. We're talking about organic growth. Talking about acquisitions, major acquisitions in Europe, INO in Netherlands, Gemino in the UK, and an acquisition in Ireland. So all solid performance. performance for those acquisitions. And when we look at the scope effect of those acquisitions, we now have overall growth for EMEA at 10% for the first half of the year. Turning now to the Americas, it was slightly down 0.6%. Latin America is still doing well. However, the United States, they have a 2.2% negative growth. So I won't spend too much time talking about that. Asia-Pacific now, we have 4% organic growth for the first half of the year. Growth in China is still quite weak, given the macroeconomic context, which is quite murky. For the rest of the zone, we had a pullback of business for the first half, despite a solid quarter here and there. And the second quarter and the third quarter should see some of our contracts coming through, which should buoy business as we go into the end of the year. And that's particularly the case for India. If I now look at revenue breakdown by audience, our consumer side business is still doing very well. Organic growth up 8% over the half. And that reflects all of our business lines, our consumer side business lines. So that is good. brand tracking, innovation, advertising creation content. And all of that needs to be compared with the major consumer division, which is also doing very well, and which buoys up the consumer division. Talking about clients and employees, citizens, doctors and patients, they are still being hard hit by business in the United States, as Ben just mentioned. So if we were to remove the United States from those figures, all of those three segments, all of those three audiences, sorry I should say, they should be up 5% organic growth. Now looking at revenue by sector as a breakdown, I'll quickly zip through this because there's no point repeating myself. We continue doing very well when looking at major consumer divisions. because we had a huge inflation in 22, 23, and we were able to stave off the effects of that inflation. We have 60% growth in TMT, and that is predominantly thanks to the major tech companies in the United States coming back. For the rest, as I said, the pharmaceutical division and the public sector division, they are what they are. We're still having solid performance in new services with 13% organic growth for the first half of the year. Ipsos Digital in particular is up 37%. And all of the new services reflect 21.5% of overall total revenue. Let's now move to our accounts. We have 6% growth on gross margin, which is 80 basis points up. So the margin there can be explained for two reasons. First, a solid digital business, which has a margin which is above the group average, and that is still showing solid growth. And on top of that, we have also been doing a lot within Ipsos to internalize a lot of our panel and data collection work. So because of that, our data is now more reliable. and it also costs less to collect all of that data. 3.3% growth compared to 6% for our gross margin. So what that means is that we need to be a bit more cautious, and we have an overall ratio, which is actually significantly up on last year, which is 68.3% compared to 70% last year. Now, overheads. Overheads are at 8.3 million. So that is predominantly due to a lot of tech and IT spending. Now, for the first half of the year, we are at 10.1% overall, which is up considerably on last year. Now, when we look at the adjusted net profit group share, so that's roughly 18% up. Let's now look at cash generation. So we are 35 million up in terms of contributions compared to the same time last year. As we saw, there was solid inflows in the first quarter and that's because we had solid revenue in the fourth quarter of last year, so 8% organic growth all over that time period. In terms of investment, We have both tangible and intangible assets and we've still been investing in things such as our IT and our data sections. So we have 33 million in investments and this is in line with our tech roadmap. In terms of free cash flow, we are roughly at 80 million euros, which is up 56 million compared to last year. Moving on to M&A. We spent about 28 million in the first half of the year by buying up Germania and INO in the UK and the Netherlands. And we spent about $39 million on buying back shares, and that is predominantly due to the employee shareholder program that we have been rolling out. And overall cash position is 280 million euros, give or take. So we have a strong financial position. When we look at our leverage effect, 0.3 multiplies, which is compared to 0.4 for the same period last year. So we're doing very well. We have no debt maturities coming in this year. We have $300 million in 2025, which is a public bond, which will come through in autumn. And we have strong liquidity position, roughly $500 million over undrawn credit lines. with our banks. And again, they will have maturities over one year. Well, that's it for me. I'll hand over to Ben now, who will go over our tech roadmap.

Thank you Dan. And I'd just like to take you through where we are on our tech, our digital backbone and the changes we're making there which are helping improve our profitability and also of course generative AI where we have some new products that we've talked about before. These are now going into the market and receiving really positive responses from our clients. So whether it's persona bots where we're creating synthetic profiles for different consumer segments that our clients can talk to directly using Ipsos Facto, our own proprietary platform, or Signals Gen AI, which is allowing us to mine billions of social data points into insights in just a few seconds. All of those show real promise and are helping us engage more deeply than ever with our clients. So I wanted to talk just a little about a few of those before we talk about the outlook. So Creative Spark is a way of looking at ads. based on 18,000 data points, previous cases that we have, built now into Ipsos Facto and it allows our clients to very quickly understand how a potential execution for TV or for social video might perform in real life. Could we run the launch video please?

Welcome to a new era where artificial intelligence is revolutionizing advertising and media at lightning speed, where Absozi's unique blend of human and artificial intelligence delivers faster and smarter insights. Introducing Creative Spark AI by Absozi, an unmatched creative assessment and ad optimization solution that predicts human reactions to advertising at accelerated speed. Creative Spark AI combines the power of human intelligence with the speed, and the affordability of artificial intelligence to evaluate high volumes of creatives and accurately predict performance. Be it TV, streaming, or social video, built on creative sparks, trusted sales validation, curated in real-world outcomes with real people, ensures the predictions are based on the market's strongest pre-testing data. Powered by Ixos Fato, our generative AI platform, it delves deep into the nuances of human emotion and creates and get actionable insights within as little as 15 minutes. And with integrated competitive intelligence, Creative Spark AI Audit not only measures your brand's performance against competitors, it unpicks the drivers of creative effectiveness and uncovers opportunities for optimization at scale. Available as self-service on Ipsos Digital or full service with our creative excellence teams across the globe. Unlock your brand's potential and choose your creative path with Ipsos.

Thank you. And that's an example of a product that is helping our creative excellence business grow across the globe, including very well in the United States itself. So it's a reminder that innovation is fundamental to what we're doing here. PersonaBot, Ipsos PersonaBot is an AI powered solution to use to enhance our segmentation research and again here I won't run another video for you but it's interesting to you know for example we're using it for Orange in France to look at how different segments of the market react to different low-carbon solutions and again giving our clients faster decision-making over how they position their brands, how they communicate and how different segments of the market might react and really bringing to life using human intelligence combined with artificial intelligence, masses of data at speed. So again, a really important AI-led solution. And finally, HP, for example, has been using our signals GenAI, and this allows them to take millions of social data signals about their brands, different categories, using thousands of different ratings to look for trend detection, allow them to benchmark themselves and see where there are opportunities for innovation. And their head of marketing, what do they say? You gave us the insight that people want to save time to be able to focus more on the strategic, creative and fulfilling work. And I think that's a key point. the fact that the generative AI allows humans to do the more interesting and strategic work. That's precisely what we're trying to do internally with GenAI at Ipsos, where the vast majority of people are now using it regularly and outside. So in terms of our outlook for the rest of this year, I think where we are at the moment is that we can see continued growth. The acquisitions we have made have been successful. Dan has already shown you the profitability and cash generation. We are rolling out our tech roadmap, but we do have, of course, as you've seen, headwinds, particularly in North America. We've strengthened the managerial organization there. I think overall, having seen what we have seen in our review at the end of June and then in July, When we start to analyze those numbers, our guidance now is that growth will be close to that of last year, rather than what we originally thought at the beginning of this year, so at around 3%. We have just kicked off a new strategic review for the next four years from 2026 to 2030, and I will be updating you on that. But we also are able to, of course, maintain and hit our operating margin guidance of 13% or above. Thank you for your attention. Very happy to take questions and just talk through exactly what's going on.

We're now moving on to Q&A. To ask a question, please press star 1 on your phone keypad. If you wish to withdraw from the question list, please press star 2. Our first question is from Emmanuel Matou from Otto. The floor is yours. Hello, can you hear me? I hear you. La prochaine question est de... The next question is from Lynn Fortemary from Bernstadt. Please, the floor is yours.

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Remember, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1. Star 1. You will be added to the question list by pressing star 1. Our first question is from Emmanuel Matto from Alto. The floor is yours. Yes, I hope you can hear me now. I actually have three questions, if I may. So when I look at your new guidance for revenue, it seems that there is a bit of risk given that there is a very high level compared to the first half of last year. So, I mean, can you give us a bit more information just to reassure us on that, especially as we go into the second half of the year? Next question. that you were good in the health services. Could you please give us a bit more insight into your business in the health sector? Just to reassure us on that to see if you can get back to levels quickly. And final question for the United States. Can you tell us a bit about market share? I get a feeling that it's quite a tough market for all operators. But if you could tell us a bit about Ipsos' market share and is the new management there going to buck the trend? Especially given that you are going to be incorporating the new teams with the new management there. Tell us a bit about that.

The first question I will answer in English because Ben has just had the translation. So on the first question about the risk around the guidance, what I would say that it's true that we have been slightly surprised by the slowdown in Q2 and particularly at the end of Q2. We have done a new forecast exercise with all our countries mid-July and this new exercise has obviously led us to this new forecast of around three, around the level of last year. Obviously, when you do a forecast, there are always some incentives around the forecast, so it could be 2.6, 2.7, it could be 3.1, 3.2. In terms of What we see, there are reasons for some element of rebound in H2. First of all, there is the question that we have mentioned before, which is the fact that in Asia, particularly, we have had some contracts which were booked earlier last year and which are going to be booked in Q3 this year. that should fill our growth in H2. We obviously have made the assumption of a stabilization in the US which is what we see. We also have a good performance as you have seen in Europe and we do think that this will continue during H2 and there is a very important point as well which is the fact that as you have as you have noticed there are a lot of elections around the world And this election means for us electoral cycles, which is basically lower growth on public affairs before the elections and then a rebound after the elections. And that should be happening particularly in the UK, in India as well, which will drive our public affairs business in the second part of the year. I would say the new guidance obviously is a central scenario, but there are obviously risks around it. On the healthcare sector, we had said when we released our Q1 results, and it's still the case, that the pharmaceutical sector seems to be struggling in post-COVID restructuring, particularly in the U.S. You have probably noticed that in Q1 particularly, but also in Q2, there have been some layoffs in the U.S. on the pharmaceutical sector. lower drug approvals as well by the American authorities. So these are obviously headwinds for healthcare business, but we do see some early signs of recovery which will be to be confirmed in H2.

I'd also just add on healthcare that this is an area where Data analytics is moving incredibly quickly. There are all sorts of new opportunities. And actually, for example, some of the Gen AI solutions are already attracting revenue and interest from clients. So it's a complex picture, but overall the fundamentals of that market in the longer run are such that we are still confident about healthcare over time. On America, which you asked about specifically, our market share is tiny, probably anything between 1% to 4% of a very large market. And that means that if the new management who are now in place, and they're not all brand new. Many of them have been with us. for over a decade but they have a new leader and we've restructured the team that team really has plenty of opportunities and what's so interesting when I was there I spent a week with them last week is that you can see the parts of the organization that have got things working are doing the right things are growing well and other parts of course need more attention so again I feel absolutely confident about the United States particularly given that our relatively small market share in the biggest market in the world.

Merci beaucoup. Thank you very much. The next question is from Lynn Formery from Bouncing. The floor is yours.

Good morning.

I would just like if you could come back to your operating margin targets. I imagine there's going to be a bit of bounce back for the second half of the year. But what in terms of investments for the second half of the year, is that how you're going to bounce back? And second question I have about China. Do you expect there to be a bit of a bounce back? And what sort of opportunities are you seeing there? Okay, quickly about our operating margin. I think it was shown quite clearly in the presentation that we just gave you that we have some key drivers, structural drivers to boost our operating margin, be it Ipsos Digital or be it internalizing our panels. all the productivity gains that we can bring through with AI-type solutions. So that's our mid- to long-term solution, which is really going to drive operating margin in the months and years to come. Now, for Gen AI-type issues, but also when talking about our panels, our platforms, we need to continue to invest in them, and we are doing that. And that is why we have our operating margin, which would be high if we weren't investing, but we absolutely have to invest.

China, there is the beginnings of some return to growth in China, but the market remains depressed, very competitive. The economy is still very uncertain. You've seen the rate cut by the bank. in China, so I don't think we're expecting anything like a post-COVID rebound, which of course we were all wrong-footed about when China finally reopened in 23. But we are seeing some recovery. The auto sector is busy, etc., etc., but it is muted, and that's why, again, that I think we're being cautious about, we would be pretty cautious about China.

I mean, there are a lot of questions, macro questions about China. Obviously, the unemployment for the young people is very high. There are questions about the real estate sector, whether the fiscal policy is going to help the growth come back or not is not clear. And what's the government going to do is not clear from that perspective. So we do face in China more macro challenges than anything else.

So on the M&A pipeline, it's very healthy. There are lots of interesting deals. Exactly when they'll come through, however, again, there are lots of unknowns. So lots of activity, but timing on that, I think, again, really can't comment on. In terms of the new managerial organization in the US of course I hope that it comes in the next few months but I think realistically it's good to say the start of 2025 because if I look at Germany where after a long period of very low growth indeed we now have double digit growth in the first part of this year you know that manager there and then the changes that he made of course happened in the first part of 2023. So Christophe and the team are doing a good job, but it takes time for these things to come through. So I would definitely say, you know, the first part of 2025 onwards, hopefully.

Are there any more questions on the chat? Because Ben was answering some questions on the chat about M&A and the US. Any more questions?

Thank you everybody.

Thank you very much.