Sodexo S/Adr

Good morning. Thank you for standing by and welcome to the Sodexo fiscal year 2025 results call. I advise you that this conference is being recorded today, Thursday, October 23rd, 2025. I would like to hand the conference over to the Sodexo team. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our fiscal 2025 results calls. I'm here with Sophie Bellon and Sébastien de Tramasur. They'll go through the presentation and then take your questions. We ask you to please limit yourself to two questions and one follow-up. The slides and the press release are available on FedEx2.com, and you'll be able to access this webcast on our website for the next 12 months. Please get back to the IR team if you have any further questions after the call. I remind you that our Q1 fiscal 2026 revenues announcement will be on Thursday, January 8. With that, I now hand over to Sophie.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. We spoke to you a couple of weeks ago regarding our governance changes, and today we are going to cover our fiscal year 25 results and our priorities and outlook for 2026. Just on the slide here, a brief summary of what we're going to cover today. When I became a CEO in 2022, our priorities were clear. Reposition Sodexo as a pure-play food and services company and simplify the organization. Over the past three years, we've made solid progress, streamlining the portfolio, refocusing on food, accelerating key investments, and strengthening client relationships. These were essential steps to build a strong foundation for sustainable growth. In financial year 2025, Results came in line with revised guidance, reflecting both operational and commercial challenges. We are actively addressing these with targeted action plans in commercial and in U.S. universities. We are also continuing to strengthen our foundation. With this in mind, fiscal year 26 will be a year of transition and the start of a new phase for the group. Thierry Delaporte will soon take over as CEO bring the right experience and profile to drive operational execution, accelerate commercial momentum, and lead the group forward. But let's now first take a backward perspective on our key achievements from the last three years and 2026 priorities. Before, Sébastien walked you through the fiscal year 25 results and the resulting fiscal year 26 guidance. Turning to the next slide, while I won't go into every detail here, this timeline of recent years shows the major steps of our shift to a pure plate food and services company. We have simplified our structure through geography, reorganization, and the sale of soffin sod. We have actively managed the portfolio by spinning off Plexi and making other non-core disposal, while pursuing targeted acquisition to accelerate in food. So, if we look now at the impact of this refocus on core activities, you can see that there has been real progress in the numbers. Let me pick out some highlights. Food now covers more than two-thirds of our portfolio, up from 62% in fiscal year 22. We have modernized the offer based on data-driven insights across culinary, digital, and sustainability. Digital engagement has surged. Almost 6 million active consumers up from just over 1 million, showing how we're expanding our reach and creating new growth avenues. Our branded food offer now represents over 50% of revenues versus less than 20% three years ago, improving client experience, standardization, and operational efficiency. Integra has more than doubled in size, boosting procurement benefits, and we've also advanced catalog compliance. both strengthening our competitive edge. On sustainability, we are hitting the targets we set on workplace safety, carbon, and food waste, thanks to close collaboration with our clients and partners. And we are leading by far the industry on those aspects. And all of this is creating tangible value. Our underlying earning pressure has grown at 14% combined annual growth rate, and we have seen a marked improvement in our return on capital employed. Moving on to commercial performance. We have made a solid improvement in retention and development compared to the pre-COVID period. Over the last three years, our average retention is 94.5 versus 93.5 between 2017 and 2019. Likewise, on development, We signed around 1.7 billion euros of new contracts per year, including cross-selling, compared with 1.4 billion euros before the pandemic. This is a result of our ongoing focus on processes, team culture and competence, but also client relationship. However, this does not reflect our full potential with fiscal year 25, presenting some commercial challenges. In fiscal year 25, Retention came in at 94% due to the negative impact from the loss of a global account and softer performance in North America, in particular in education. Performance is uneven across a business. For example, in U.S. healthcare, we delivered retention above 97%. And in France and Australia, we were above 96%. On development, H1 was strong, especially in Europe and rest of the world, but H2 softened and total new business landed at 1.7 billion euros. North America, which remains our largest market, is where we need to improve. We have clear actions underway. We are addressing near-term priorities in U.S. higher education, and we are strengthening our U.S. sales team through expansion and training. We're also investing and reorganizing to make sure we capture the market's potential. I will now walk you through in more detail how we are addressing the challenges in U.S. higher education. We clearly had some performance gaps over the past couple of years in this segment, and it's translated into market share losses. Since February, together with Michael Zadis and his team, we have carried out a comprehensive diagnostics process to fully understand the root causes behind this lag. A few key issues stood out. First, our footprint is still too concentrated in small and mid-sized institutions. Second, we have not focused enough on mid-plan renegotiation. And third, we've had some resource misalignments. The remedial action plan is already well underway. Michael has put in place a new organization with culinary and digital now reporting directly to him, and he has re-energized the team to drive best practice and greater standardization. Our sales function was clearly subscale, so we have expanded the team by 50% with the newly hired sales executives already in place and operational. We are also targeting more large universities and athletics, working more closely with Sodexo Live. To strengthen existing relationships, we are growing our account management team and refreshing our broader team, bringing in new talent where needed to ensure the right capabilities are in place. Execution is a big focus. We are currently renegotiating 75 meal plans for implementation in fall 2026, and we have rebuilt the meal plan team, which had been disbanded during the COVID period. Now we are harnessing data and tech to methodically track what's selling, where, and to whom. We are deploying digital platforms like Everyday and Grubhub and strengthening our own retail brand to streamline the offer. This plan is clear, but it won't be executed overnight. Some levers will take time and given the timing of the selling season fiscal year 26 is largely set already. The goal is therefore to restore growth momentum and capture new market opportunities progressively from fiscal year 27 onward. Michael and his teams are laser focused. Michael has visited more than 20 campuses in the last three weeks. The feedback is very consistent. Universities are under financial pressure, they are becoming more business-driven, and they are open to change. That creates challenges, but also a lot of opportunities, and we are now in a much better position to seize it. So, as you can see, we have set focus priorities in the U.S. for this year, short-term, very execution-driven, to put us back on a stronger trajectory. With that in mind, fiscal year will very much mark itself as a year of transition. It will still reflect some of the commercial challenges we have just discussed, but also the investments we are making to strengthen our foundation, to drive efficiency, accelerate digital, and prepare for long-term growth. Sébastien will get back to that. We have a strong foundation to build on, with a solid balance sheet and the flexibility to invest where it matters most. We are the number two player globally with a balanced portfolio across region and segments. We have the scale to leverage procurement, technology, and operational excellence across the group. Our culture remains a key driver of sustainable performance, purpose-driven, people-focused, and deeply engaged with our clients. Retention in our industry drives resilience, and our teams are proud to deliver on our mission every day. And of course, we operate in a large and attractive market, still 50% insourced, with significant outsourcing opportunities ahead of us. Looking ahead, I'm also very confident in the next phase for Sodexo. On November 10th, Thierry Delaporte will join us as Group CEO. He brings over a decade of leadership experience in the U.S., strong digital and AI expertise, and proven track record in leading large people-intensive organizations. He's operational and execution-focused and deeply aligned with our values. He's the right fit to take Sodexo into its next stage of development. And with that, I'll now hand over to Sébastien to take you through the fiscal year 25 financial and fiscal year 26 guidance in more detail.

Thank you, Sophie. Turning now to our fiscal 25 performance. Overall, our performance was in line with our revised guidance. Organic growth came in at 3.3%, slightly higher at 3.7%, excluding the bad effects from the major sports events and the leap year in fiscal 2024. Underlying operating margin was 4.7%, up 10 basis points at constant currencies, while on the reported basis, it was broadly flat due to the FX headwinds. Pre-cash flow was 459 million euros, including the exceptional cash out of circa 160 million euros related to the finalization of the tax reassessment in France. And including that, our cash generation remained robust, with an underlying cash conversion of 91%. Underlying EPS reached 5.37 euros, representing a rise of plus 3.7% at constant currencies. And the board will propose a dividend of 2.7 euros per share, up 1.9% versus last year, and in line with our 50% payout policy. So now let's have a look at our performance by geography. Breaking down our results further, all regions contributed positively to our performance. Our largest region, North America, delivered 2.8% organic growth, reflecting strong results in Sodex Alive, and business and administration, along with solid underlying momentum in healthcare, despite timing impact, and partly offset by contract losses in education. In Europe, organic growth was plus 1.7% or 2.7%, excluding the bad effects from the Olympics and the Ruby World Cup, with steady progress across segments, notably in healthcare and seniors and so they survived. The rest of the world delivered a strong organic growth of 7.5%, which was mainly driven by strong performance in India, in Australia, and Brazil, which remain key countries where we are strengthening our positioning and consolidating our market share. And overall, close to 86% of our revenue in this segment are generated by business and administration services. On margins, North America was stable at concerned currencies, while Europe and rest of the world improved 20 basis points, lifting the overall margin for the group of 10 basis points to 4.7%. And the margin also reflects procurement efficiencies and benefit from our global business services program. So now let me guide you through the full P&L picture. Fiscal 2025 consolidated revenue reached 24.1 billion euros, up 1.2% year-over-year. As already mentioned, we faced currency headwinds this year, mainly from the US dollar and several Latin American currencies, which had a minus 1.8% negative impact on revenue. And we also saw a small net impact from acquisition and disposal of minus 0.3%. Underlying operating margin, as we discussed, was stable on a reported basis and improved 10 basis points at constant occurrences. Other operating income and expenses reached minus 154 million euros with minus 97 million euros of this related to restructuring and efficiency initiatives covering our global business service program, ERP implementation, and other organizational optimization. Operating profit came in at close to 1 billion euros compared with 1.1 billion euros last year. Net financial expenses were 88 million euros, lower than expectation due to some one-off gains. The new USD bond issuance had little impact this year. as high occupants were largely offset by cash interest income and gains from tendering existing bonds. However, net financial expense will increase next year as a result. The tax charge was 198 million euros with an effective rate of 22.2%, reflecting updates on the tax credit and use of previously unrecognized tax losses in France. And looking ahead, our normative tax rate is expected to be around 27%. As a result, group net profit reached 695 million euros, translating into 785 million euros of underlying net profit, which was up 3.7% at concerns currencies. So let's now turn to cash generation, which remains a key strength for the group. Free cash flow in fiscal 2025 was €459 million compared with €661 million last year. The change in operating cash flow mainly reflects the exceptional tax outflow for around €160 million relative to the finalization of the tax audit in France. Working capital remained well-contained and net capital expenditure increased by 3% translating into a capex-to-sales ratio of 2%, rather in line with last year. Acquisition net of disposal amount to an outflow of 93 million euros, following the acquisition of CRH Catering in the United States and Agapo, a GPO in France. Both acquisitions fully align with our strategy to strengthen our convenience business in the US and our procurement capabilities. Overall, our free cash flow remained solid, supporting both reinvestment in the business and shareholder returns. Then at the end of the financial year, net debt stood at 2.7 billion euros, which was slightly higher than last year, while EBITDA increased by 2% over the same period. So this translated into a net debt to EBITDA ratio at 1.8 times within our target range of 1 to 2. During the year, we repaid the €700 million bond maturing in April 2025 and successfully issued a €1.1 billion bond. And part of the proceeds was used to repurchase some of our 2026 bonds. Overall, the balance sheet remains solid and gives us the flexibility to invest in growth. So now that we have looked at the performance and the financial for the year just ended, I'd like to take a step back and talk about how we are accelerating our investment in foundations that will drive our long-term efficiency and profitable growth. This is really a strategic phase for the group as we are making significant investment into our HR, finance, and supply system and our full NFM platform. In short term, this will put some pressure on margin, but it is essential that we position ourselves for improved efficiency and stronger profitable organic growth. We will continue to invest in sales and marketing, especially in North America, to ensure more consistent net new business as sophisticated earlier. An important part of our investment program is supply chain management. with a strong focus on the US, where we are optimizing processes, systems, and ways of working to improve both cost and agility. The idea is really to bring more sites into a single, unified purchasing system, giving us much better visibility on spend, and allowing us to track compliance in real time. We are also standardizing our menus and recipes, so that they automatically link to other guides and purchasing system. And that means simpler execution for our site manager, stronger compliance, and more leverage from our volume, including greater cooling between our on-site operations and Integra. All of this is about making compliance and efficiency happen at the site level, And we are now incentivizing our unit manager directly on compliance. Another key area is our digital and IT foundations. Our global ERP rollout is a perfect example. It allows us to standardize end-to-end processes, secure our infrastructure, which is instrumental in all aspects of our operation. Obviously for data and performance management, but also to strengthen client account management by giving teams better visibility and faster insights. We are also investing to enhance our analytics and AI capabilities to support better decision making, sharper performance tracking, and faster execution across the organization. Finally, Global business services is another major focus. We are transforming support functions into a shared service model. We center in Porto, Mumbai, and Bogota, now employing over 900 people. And these teams are centralizing finance, HR, other functions like supply and legal. And by doing this, we are driving efficiency, standardization, and innovation while also creating talent hubs for the future. And we are already seeing some early benefits. For example, in the U.S., more than 90 positions were moved over to the Bogota Center during the summer, improving competitiveness, process harmonization, and supporting employee administration, recruitment, and tender preparation. So this is really the second leg of our near-term priorities, the first being the U.S. turnaround that Sophie discussed before. And this investment positioned us to capture growth more effectively in the future and over time, and the margin improvements will follow. It's also about building the right platform today to deliver stronger performance tomorrow. Now moving to the outlook for fiscal year 2026, As we mentioned previously, Fiscal Year 2026 will mark a year of transition as we proactively address the commercial challenges faced in 2025, especially in North America. And at the same time, we are accelerating the investment in our foundation, as just mentioned, to build a stronger platform for future efficiency and profitable growth. With that in mind, our guidance for Fiscal Year 2026 is as follows. We expect organic growth between 1.5 and 2.5%. This includes a minimum plus 2% contribution from pricing, neutral to moderate contribution for both like-for-like volume and net new business, and a one-off reclassification trigger by the renewal of a large contract. And this last point relates to a large norm contract currently being renegotiated, and under the new terms, we will act as an agent rather than a principal, meaning that revenue will be recognized on a net basis. And this will mechanically reduce reported organic growth by around 70 basis in fiscal year 26, with the new terms of the contract taking effect during the second quarter of the year. And our underlying operating margin should be slightly lower than fiscal year 2025, reflecting mix and timing of growth driver and the targeted investment we are making. In terms of quarterly phasing, we expect a relatively soft start with growth gradually improving over the year. mainly driven by North America, where the impact of last year's education losses will be most visible early on. In addition, several contracts existed last year will annualize in the second half. Now I would like to conclude with you on our capital allocation priorities. We remain focused on discipline execution, and that also applies to how we allocate capital. Our capital allocation framework remains balanced and consistent, designed to support both near-term execution and long-term value creation. First, we continue to focus on organic growth, with acceleration of our investment and CAPEX objectives remaining unchanged at 2.5% of revenue. We remain selective on M&A, targeting meat, meat-sized, bold-on acquisitions that are creative and aligned with our strategy. On average, we expect to allocate about 300 million per year to M&A, mainly focused on convenience, GPO, and food services in our key existing markets. And recent acquisitions fit perfectly within the framework, and the closing of the acquisition of Grupo Mediterranea expected to happen by the end of the calendar year. It's also part of this objective to strengthen our food services position in our key market. And this acquisition will allow us to double our food credit expense. Furthermore, we are committed to optimizing returns to shareholders. Our dividend payout ratio is unchanged at 50% of underlying net income. ensuring an attractive and balanced remuneration for shareholders. And finally, we keep a close eye on liquidity and balancing strengths, with a leverage ratio maintained between one and two times, and a commitment to preserving our strong investment rate ratings. Overall, these frameworks support our mid-term priorities while providing the flexibility to adapt. With that, we are very happy to take your questions.

Thank you. This is the operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touch-tone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. First question is from Jamie Rollo, Morgan Stanley.

Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Two questions then. First, could you please quantify the margin guidance? What is slightly lower, please? And also, is that pressure in all the regions or is that going to be concentrated in North America? And the second question is you're describing 26 as a transition year, but you said 26 the other day that the new CEO probably wouldn't announce their review until maybe early summer. Which, could that not mean that 2027 then is another transition year if there were further changes to be made? Or are you going to be doing all of the implementation in 2026? Thank you.

Thank you, Jimmy. So, I would take the first question about the guidance. So as I said, the objective is to have an operating margin to be slightly lower than fiscal year 25, reflecting really the mix of phasing of our growth driver and also the phasing of the targeted investment we have to do. Then the reason we did not give a range is that because there are a lot of moving parts. Again, at this stage, we do expect margin to be slightly below fiscal year 25. There are different drivers. Again, the low organic growth with small optimization in terms of volume increase. And then there is a timing of the investment. And also, we do expect also some headwinds from the frame and from the exchange rate that will also impact our margin. So a lot of moving parts are the reason why we decided not to quantify this guidance.

So thank you, Jimmy, for your question. I will take the second question on the transition. So 2026 will be a year of transition in several ways. First and foremost, it's a year marked by a change in leadership with the upcoming arrival of Thierry as a CEO next month on November 10th. It's also a year of investment to continue to lay the foundation for sustainable future growth. We are investing heavily in our HR, in our finance, in our procurement system, in tech and data, as well as in our food and SM platform. And in the short term, this way on our margin, but I think it is essential to prepare for the future to be more efficient, more agile, and to support sustainable growth. So, for example, you know, in the supply chain, particularly in the U.S., where we are improving our processes and systems to better manage our expenses, and also we want to increase our compliance in real time. We're also investing in data analytics and artificial intelligence to better track the performance and execute faster. And does it mean another year of transition in 27? No, we are not standing still. You know, we have our new-term priorities, U.S. education as an example, the investment in the commercial, and, you know, and our underlying organic growth is between 2.2% and 3.2%. So we are moving forward, I know, and we are in the action.

Thank you. Can I just come back on the margin answer? I appreciate you can't give guidance on lots of moving parts, but obviously with a margin of under 5%, every 10 basis points is quite a big impact. I mean, is slightly lower, nearer to 10 basis points or nearer to 30?

Again, as I said, Jimmy, we are not quantifying the guidance at this stage. We are talking about a slight decrease in terms of margin. And to also answer your question, the pressure on margin will be mostly in the U.S. because, again, as I said, our focus on Accelerating investment in silent marketing and all the supply initiatives will be also focused on strengthening our position in North America. Thank you.

Next question is from Esther Weingraud, JP Morgan.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I've got three, please. The first one on U.S. education and higher education more specifically. Could you give us some initial colors on the full-term enrollments? Then on North America again, you elaborated on the action plan underway in the U.S. When you talked about targeted investment to enhance foundations of profitable growth, is it mostly investment in U.S. higher education? And within this, is it mostly about expanding sales higher? You mentioned 50% expansion of sales teams. And last question is just on your question. On modeling details, you've got that slide in the PowerPoint. On other income and expense, you guide for 160 million, which is a broad slide here on here, despite the step-up in investment this year being an investment and transition year. So I was a bit surprised there's not more of an increase there. Thank you.

So thank you, Estelle. I will take the first question on U.S. education and Sébastien's who can answer on the other two questions. So, first, you ask on the enrollment. The early indication from our boarding data show that we're about 0.7 below last year in our comparable base, and it really varies from a campus to another. Some are growing. Others are slightly down. Geographically, we're seeing softer trends in the Midwest and Northeast, while the Southwest and Southeast are showing increases. And these figures are still preliminary, and we'll have a more definitive year-on-year view once final enrollment numbers are confirmed over the next few weeks. But obviously, we're not standing still, looking at that. Let me remind you the measures we are taking, and I told you to boost volume. retail and, of course, to win new clients and the next selling season. And, you know, I explained that earlier in the presentation. Also, if we go specifically on international students, enrollment for the fall 2025 is expected to drop due to visa delay, denial, revocation, post-graduation restriction. So it will mostly graduate program and will be most affected. We could reduce demand for housing, dining, and other campus services. And under-grade services like mandatory meal plans are less affected. And also what we see that universities are adapting with, for example, mid-semester starts, which may mitigate some of that decline. And, of course, we will monitor those trends closely and be ready to adjust our offering, our financial planning, and the support to respond to the potential changes in the campus demand. And also, as I said, you know, on the slide, we're really investing, investing in ourselves for. We expanded ourselves by 50%. So I think it's – and also investing in our account management team. So we are in the action.

So on the second question regarding the investment and the acceleration of the investment in North America, so we have specific investment as described by Sophie for the education segment, but we are really targeting investment across the organization. We want to strengthen the sales. and marketing organization, not only for education, but for all the segments and all the investment regarding supplies, not only for education, it's again for all the businesses. And on your third question, so we are guiding other income and expenses at 160 million, flat versus fiscal 25, but the combination of the different restructuring program is slightly different. We had many regional restructuring programs to optimize the structure at the region level in fiscal year 25. We will have less in fiscal year 26, and we will increase our investment again in our GBS programs. The restructuring costs related to the GBS will increase in fiscal year 26. But if we combine both, yeah, it's slight between fiscal year 25 and 26.

Okay, thank you. Next question is from Jafar Missari, BNP Paribas.

Hi, good morning. I have three questions, if that's okay. First one is in terms of your operating models and services, you mentioned some of the qualitative targets that you've achieved this year. Branded offers, more than 50% of revenue. Integra, more than doubled. Carbon emissions, minus 34%. Food waste, you didn't quite get to minus 50%, but not far. There was another one on digital and new services, 10% of revenue you haven't said, but I assume you're not that far. My question is, you've achieved most of your soft qualitative targets, and yet the overall financial performance was disappointing. What is your assessment here? Did you take targets that were not the right ones and they need a complete rework under new management? Or was the delivery not deep enough? I guess you can get to 50% branded by changing a logo on the site. So have the teams delivered on these targets the right way, a way that benefits the business, or have they delivered sometimes in a cosmetic way that has not really helped cross-sell or cross-fertilize the business? Second question, shorter, just on business development. You said yourself your average signings pre-pandemic were 1.4 billion each year. In H225, this is where you are, 700 million. What have you seen? Is it the industry? Is outsourcing less dynamic? Or would you say it's entirely market share issues on your side? And lastly, on folder 26, net new business, if I look at the forward-looking retention and signings, it looks like it could be a plus 1%, but you never quite get there. And I think that was one of the issues last year where you had 1.6% forward-looking, but you don't quite get there because you lose more staff, because the contracts take time to ramp up. So in terms of net new, could you help us a little bit more in terms of your assumptions in the guidance?

Okay, thank you, Jafar, for your question. So first, on the first question, yes, we have delivered. I think, you know, when you talk about the offer and the branded offers and the fact that we have reached, you know, our target, I think it's the first step. No, it's not just a logo in a restaurant saying that we're implementing, you know, a new offer. It is much more than a logo. It's, you know, a menu. It's a number of SKUs. that are linked to that menu, and it's more compliance. So I think it's a first phase, and I agree with you that it's not driving gross profit enough yet, and we're fully aware of that, and especially in the U.S. where our compliance at the site level is not sufficient. And that's why, you know, starting in September, all our managers are incentives from the site manager upwards are incentives on the compliance. It's new. You know, it's for every member in the organization. I think also when you have... So it takes more time than just changing the offer. We need to go deeper now. Second, when we talk about, for example, the digitalization and the fact that now we have 6 million people that can have access through digital platforms, digital access. It will also drive the revenue because we have seen that, you know, and it will also drive the margin because we will be able to answer better what people want on a daily basis. So on your third question, I will let Sébastien, answer, and then I will get back to you on the net development.

Yeah, so on the net new, you're right. I mean, the net impact, if you take the looking forward KPI 1.4%, then the in-year impact expected for 26 will depend, obviously, of the net new from 26 as well and the in-year impact. It depends on the fading of the development, fading of the retention. And it's the reason why we took this year a more cautious approach, I would say, baked into the guidance, as we said, that the net new impact in year expected for fiscal year 26 should be between neutral to moderate contribution. And, again, the paying development retention is extending this cautious guidance in terms of net new impact for fiscal year 26.

And in terms of the last question was about the development, right, and the 1.7 billion. Clearly, you know, this year, as I said it in my introduction, financial year 25 has been a challenging year, and on new development especially, In the second half, we had a good start in H1. And what we see, you know, and the second half was very disappointed. What we see is that, for example, in the U.S., our rate with big contracts is not sufficient. I think we are doing well in healthcare, and we had a good net development. We had, as I said, a good retention. in healthcare in the U.S. this year, but we also had a good development, so a net development above 2% in healthcare in the U.S. We have invested for a while, you know, in those teams. We have teams that are capable of addressing and winning large contracts, and we are in the process also of building and strengthening those teams in the U.S. and in the other segments. That being said, you know, there are countries or geographies where, like France or like Australia, where we are really market share and where we have a good net development rate. So we need to make it happen everywhere.

Thank you. And that last qualitative target that you didn't explicitly say, the 10% of revenue from digital and new services, did you achieve that in 25?

I'm not sure I understand your question.

I think in your qualitative target you had doubling Integra and you had reaching 50% branded offers, but you also had a target to reach 10% of group revenue from vending and digital and new services. I just wanted to check if that one was on track as well.

On that one, we are slightly below this 10% objective we defined at the beginning of it. Yeah, we are on 8% in terms of covering from advanced models.

Thank you very much.

Next question is from Simon Le Chiffre, Jefferies.

Yes, good morning. I've got three, please. First of all, on organic growth for next year, could you clarify the timing of the demobilization of the global account and also the timing of the impact of the reclassification of the contract? I don't quite get why organic growth should drop from 4% underlying in Q4 to kind of 1.5% in Q1 and then how you would then accelerate in subsequent quarters. Secondly, on this contractual classification, could you clarify if there is any impact on profit and on margin in percentage terms? And lastly, in terms of the organization, I mean, I noticed that Michael is managing government services on top of universities. What is the rationale for this, and does that mean you do not necessarily believe in a strategy focused on sectorization, similar to what your closest competitor is doing? Thank you.

So I will take the first one. So regarding the timing of demobilization of the global account, if you look at the one we lost in fiscal year 24 and the one we lost in fiscal year 25, basically the overall impact for fiscal year 26 is minus 50 basis points, and it's combining both its similar impact between H1 and H2. Regarding the reclassification of a large contract in North America, so here we are talking about a preemptive renegotiation and to extend the duration of this contract. As I said, given the new term of the contract, we move from gross revenue to net revenue. And overall, we are renegotiating the economics of the contract. We are not expecting any significant impact in terms of margin, in terms of European margin.

And on the third question, on organization, you know, why is it together? Because it has been historical. You know, the person that used to be in charge of government then died. extended his role to the university. Yes, of course, we are doing market sectorization. It's the only exception. I want to remind you that for us, government is not a priority. It only represents 4% of our revenue and with a huge contract that you know, U.S. Marine Corp. And so it's been part of that portfolio. And I don't think it's, you know, it doesn't affect, you know, the bandwidth that Michael has to put on universities. And just for the U.S. Marine Corps, because it's the biggest part of that government business, you know, it still runs for another 18 months. And And, you know, we are working proactively to – we expect the client to launch an RFP, but we are fully engaged in the process and also, you know, yeah, fully engaged in the process.

And I will go back to your question – sorry, I'll go back to your question about Q4 underlying versus the guidance in terms of organic growth. We have to keep in mind that Q4, the mix and the weight of education is lower, so it means that this had a positive impact in our Q4 organic growth. It will not be the same for the full year, 26. And also, we had a very strong Q4 fiscal year 25 in Sodexo Live, with more than double-digit organic growth in the U.S., with some specific events, and this will not, obviously, reproduce the full year 26. We will not have 10% double-digit organic growth in SodexoLive during the full year 26.

Okay. Just on this impact of contractual classification, can you quantify it? Is it going to impact you as soon as Q1, or does the impact start later in the year?

Okay, so we are currently, again, under a negotiation of this contract. Again, it's a preemptive extension of the contract. Today, we are expecting to sign the renewal of the contract in Q2. So the impact will start in Q2 fiscal year 26, and it will impact negatively the organic growth by 70 basis points for fiscal year 26.

Would it mean that you need to accelerate organic growth after Q1 to offset this impact on top of the rest, right?

Yeah, and that is the plan, again, with some ramp-up of development. And, again, the staging of the next slide will be quite different between Fiscal Year 2025 and Fiscal Year 2026.

Thank you.

Next question is from Leok. Carrington, CT.

Good morning. Thank you. If I could ask two questions. Firstly, I appreciate he doesn't officially start for three weeks, but did Thierry Delaporte have any input into setting this guidance? And then secondly, just on the margin outlook again, in terms of practically pushing margins down, mixed phasing investments, Is it correct to say these are all headwinds? And in terms of the relative importance of all, three of them, is one more important than the other? The investment sounded significant, but I wonder if you can quantify that. Thank you.

So thank you, Liu, for your questions. I will take the first one. So regarding... The involvement of Thierry, of course, we had a few preliminary discussions with him, but I remind you that he's only starting on November 10th. However, the financial year 20 guidance reflects the work of the current team. It's also the result of a bottom-up approach based on the visibility we have for the year.

Okay. On the investment, we are not providing any specific quantification at this stage of each investment. We'll do it in another time, I would say. And again, they are moving past on this timing of the investment. It's the reason why we said that, again, it will have this negative impact in terms of a margin for next year.

Thank you.

Next question is from Kate Xiao, Bank of America.

Thank you for taking my questions. I've got a couple. The first one is a follow-up on the previous question on branded offer you mentioned, Sophie, that, you know, now the first step is done and you need to go deeper now. I wonder if you could elaborate what that means. Do you mean, you know, a further, I guess, change of the organization, change of the team so that it's more brand-focused, more sectorized, and would this be a big task for the new CEO? That's my first question. And the second question also on just investment. I think, Sophie, you mentioned before for fiscal year 2024, you spent more than $600 million on IT data digital. I wonder what that number is for 2025, and do you see a step up in 2026 if you could just – Obviously, I appreciate you cannot give us exact numbers, but the level of step-up would be really helpful. And then just number three, specifically on retention, I think you mentioned that you're doing preemptive renegotiations with big contracts. I guess any progress there? Are you doing more in terms of preemptive retention, preemptive efforts to help really with retention, if you could elaborate on the efforts there? Thank you.

Okay. So I will take the first questions on the branded offers. You know, I think it's a work, you know, as I said, that started a couple of years ago. And when I mean go deeper, it's that, for example, we are implementing, you know, a in education, a brand that's our one and all brand. It's close to a billion of revenue thanks to the active conversion of the sites during the summer break. Now it's our largest brand globally and regionally. So it means, you know, that now the team have adopted the brand, but then, you know, we need to – to make sure that the implementation is happening right, that the right recipe are implemented, that the right menu, the right products, and it's by, when I mean go deeper, it's making sure that operationally it's happen on each and every site the way it should happen. That's why, you know, I explained that, for example, in the US where When you implement a brand, like I just said, for university, it implies a lot of people. We have also added for every single manager, you know, the compliance, because that's what will, you know, improve the margin and the profitability on those sites. And then about Thierry, you know, of course, he will make his assessment of the situation, but definitely, you know, implementing the brand and not just putting names but an offer that matches the brand. the client and also especially the consumer needs with price points, more standardization, less SKUs, better leverage on our purchasing powers, simplifying the bid process. All that takes time, but it will definitely help us make progress. Maybe, Sébastien, you want to answer the second question?

On the investment in IT and digital, based on all the ongoing programs, we have been increasing our investment in Fitech OPEX and CAPEX in fiscal year 25 compared to fiscal year 24. And again, with this acceleration of our transformation with ERP, with the finance supply platform, the food platform as well, AI and data, Again, this amount will continue to increase for fiscal year 26.

And in terms of retention, you know, as we said, we have made progress, and there are areas or countries where we are fully aligned with our targets, you know, to be above 95%, and at some point in midterm at 96%. And on the preemptive bid, yes, we are pushing. I don't have the exact number with me today, but we can get back to you. And we are definitely pushing, and it's something that we want to make happen, as I said. not just in some geography, but all geography and those segments, especially in the U.S.

Thank you. Next question is from Sabrina Blank-Benstein.

Good morning, everybody. I have three questions for my panel. The first one is regarding the branded offer. I would like to have more idea of how it has been organized, I mean, who has designed the brands? Who is in charge of the leadership of the brand? My second question is regarding, you have mentioned the hiring of commercials. We'd like to understand in which area specifically, if it's regarding the GPU for a new commercial or is it commercial dedicated to the retention? and how they are incentivizing these three key segments. And lastly, it's regarding the M&A. You have mentioned bolt-on acquisition, but we'd like to understand in which areas you are focusing and what are your KPIs. Okay.

Thank you, Sabrina. So for the branded offers, you know, for example, I just discussed – or in the education market in the U.S., you know, this brand has been designed one and all, sorry, in the U.S., in the university business. It has been designed by the team, by the team in universities, and getting some support from the North American marketing team There are some grants, you know, like Modern Recipe, where we have – that we have implemented in different countries, you know, in the U.S., but also in Europe. And there we have, you know, a center of expertise at the group level, so we can, you know, accelerate the sharing of best practice between countries. But, you know, it's the countries that are responsible for growing the brand at the local level by segment because, of course, you know, those offers are different. What we propose in education is different from what we propose with a modern recipe or good eating company in corporate services, even though sometimes, you know, a good-eating company, if there is a need, could also be proposed on a campus. But the brands belong where most of the revenue happens with that brand. On the second question about commercial, in which area specifically? Well, in all areas. We hired a number of salespeople, in the GPO and in our Integra business and especially in the U.S. But we also hired, as I said, we want to increase our sales team and we have increased our sales team, I think, in the U.S. by 30% this year. And how are they... We have changed the incentive for our sales team, and we have revamped our sales incentive structure. Previously, it varied by region and wasn't always linked to the individual performance or profitability. Now we have a global commission that based a system with a consistent rule across the region. It includes clear thresholds and accelerators for overperformance and staggered payouts to ensure quality and overs. And we have also added specific incentives for renewals, cross-selling, and strategic priorities. So in terms of sales incentives, you know, we have worked a lot, and now it's really rolling out and it's really implemented for fiscal year 26, but we have really worked a lot on it. on making sure that we have the right incentive and also the right team. We have changed the number of people in our sales team.

And to the third question regarding M&A, so we have a very clear strategy regarding M&A. We want to invest in food. We want to invest in our existing market. Then we have done investment in GPO. especially in Europe over the past year and especially in France in fiscal year 25. We are also investing and we have been investing since 2022 in convenience in the U.S. So here again, we are talking about small mid-size bolt-on acquisition, very important to get the scale and the efficiency with the supply. And then we want to invest in also a key market on food. Again, market share in the U.S., in Europe, also in the rest of the world. But again, focusing on our key existing market. A good example is the acquisition, the signing of Grupo Mediterraneo in Spain. It will allow us to double our footprint in the Spanish market. And also, we can also do some small acquisitions to To gain capabilities in an advanced food model, it can be also linked to commissary and central kitchen capabilities. And in terms of indicators, we looked at the NGO payback below 10 years, and we looked at the ROCE, and the objective is to have a ROCE of over 15%.

Next question is from Andre Szilard, Deutsche Bank.

Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. Just a follow-up on investments in general. Could you give us some more color about what you plan to do in terms of IT and reporting software? Do you still have some significant investment to do on that side? And could you give us some quantification on that? And regarding CapEx, you remain relatively low with 2% compared to your main competitor. Do we need to anticipate a significant improvement on that side or not? Thank you.

So I will start with the CapEx. So you are right. Today our CapEx level is around 2%, fiscal year 24 and fiscal year 25. The objective is really to reach 2.5%. with, I would say, two main components. The first one is supporting retention and development. So we need CAPEX to sign a large deal. And as we said before, this is one of our priorities. And then we need also CAPEX for our investment in ISNT and DengiTool, especially for our ERP program. So this is really the reason for the targeted increase in terms of capex.

And just to add to what Sébastien just said, in terms of capex, as he said, and as I said also earlier, we want to sign more large deals and we want to improve our hit rates on large deals. So the way that happens, the large deals are the ones where we spend more money. And the fact that our hit rates has not been as good as expected, explain also the fact that our capex today is closer to 2% than 2.5%. So hopefully, you know, when our hit rate with those big targets improve, it will continue it will have an impact also and it will automatically increase the percentage of our car price and we will get closer to 2.5 cents.

But you still consider that 2.5 is the right number?

Yeah, well, you know, we've been talking about 2.5 and still staying at... So for now, you know, we really want to... which took 2.5, and if you know some specific deals that sometimes it happens in, you know, in Sodexo Live or in universities in the U.S., if we need to go beyond, you know, we will go beyond, but not systematically.

Okay, thank you.

Next question is from Johanna Jourdan, OdoBHF.

Yes, good morning. Two questions for me. First one, could you please remind us the level of renewal in last contract to come in 26, and can you update us on where you stand there on those renewals? And second question, can you update us on the ramp-up of the healthcare contracts that were delayed in 25 or late to start, and in particular, the CAPTCS contract in North America? Thank you.

So thank you, Joanna, for your question. So the level of renewal for the large contract, I think you're talking about the GSA contract because last year we had, in fiscal year 24 and 25, we had a big number of those GSA contracts in renewal. And today, this fiscal year, we don't have any. So there will not be any. any renewal of those large contracts, and a very small number also for fiscal year 27. The contract that we discussed earlier is not a global account. And so that's, you know, for clarification on those large contracts. And then for CAPTCS, First, you know, last year we talked about the ramping up of health care and especially that contract. We have had two big contracts in health care, ProMedica and University of Cincinnati that started in June and July. So there we are on track. And And as I said, you know, we had a very good net development for healthcare during the fiscal year 25. For CAPTIVS, during the first year, as I remind you, it was a very innovative contract. And the first year, we spent more time and focus than anticipated in evaluating the existing client for the transition into the CAPTIS program. And this led, as you know, to a slower-than-anticipated ramp-up of new business. We signed the very first contract with CAPTIS members at the end of Financial Journey 5. Currently, we are negotiating with a significant number of clients. The pipeline is well-advanced and robust. And our objective remains unchanged to sign over 100 million in contracts within the first two years of the program, but since the launch was shifted to the end of fiscal year 25 instead of the beginning of 25, our target is now to reach 100 million in signed contracts across 26 and 27.

We have no further questions registered at this time. Back to Sodexo team for any closing remarks.

Well, thank you very much for your question. And as this is my last call as CEO, I would like to sincerely thank you for your engagement and your constructive dialogue over the years. I remain deeply confident in Sodexo's strength and I look forward to continuing to support the company as a chairwoman. Thank you very much, and take care.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over. You may disconnect your telephones.