Veolia Environnement Adr

Good morning, everyone. And thank you for joining us for this conference call to present Veolia's 2024 results. And I'm accompanied by Emmanuel Mening, our CFO. First and foremost, our 2024 results are very strong. And this is in spite of a rather challenging environment. All our targets were achieved or even exceeded. This is thanks to our unique positioning as well as our agility in the delivery of our efficiency programs. 2024 was also the first year of our four-year green-up plan, which, as you know, represents another step forward in the group strategy. Enhanced growth in our booster activities and geographies, combined with resilience in our strongholds, creating value and EPS growth, associated with an ambitious environmental and multi-performance trajectory. Our 2025 objectives are ambitious and we are raising our synergy targets. And finally, and this is a first for the group, I have decided to launch a share buyback plan from 2025 to 2027, sized to neutralize the impact of the employee shareholding program. On slide five, you will see our 2024 results, which are, once again, very strong. All our targets were achieved or exceeded Revenue grew by 5% excluding energy price, a growth which is significantly higher than the typical 2-3% we had been delivering over the last few years, and particularly before the Suez merger. Our booster activities in particular, this is water technologies, hazardous waste and bioenergy, grew by 6.6%. We have naturally enhanced our profitability, and again, despite a rather unhelpful environment, by exceeding our efficiency and synergies target for the year. EBITDA increased by 5.8% at the end of our guidance to 6,788,000,000 euros, lifting our EBITDA margin by 80 basis points to 15.2%. Current net income grew by 14.6% to 1,530,000,000 euros, a record high for the group, and double that of 2019, above 1.5 billion as guided. And current TPS increased by 12.4% to 2.13 euros. Finally, thanks to our strong free cash flow generation and the diversity of non-strategic assets, we ended up the year with a lower deadman targeted and a comfortable leverage ratio of 2.63 times, which is better than expectations. In view of these very strong results, we have proposed to increase the dividend accordingly by 12% to €1.40. And I'm on slide six. This chart shows you the very significant dividend growth we have been delivering over the past years, even if you exclude the COVID year. Our ambition in the green for the years 24 to 27 is to go on delivering steady growth of our next result and dividend as guided. In parallel, and as you know, employee shareholding as well as long-term incentive at Veolia are key components of our success and strategy, and it clearly aligns interests. I have decided to make our green-up objective even more value-creating for our shareholders. by compensating from 2025 the dilutive impact of our employee shareholding program until the end of the green-up plan. This decision is grounded in our strong confidence in our value creation process, free cash flow generation, and financial solidity. This is a first, as the group had never implemented a share-buy-buy program before. On slide 7, the very strong 2024 results testify on an even stronger underlying performance and our ability to react quickly and strongly to headwinds. Indeed, the environment in 2024 was quite challenging from a macro, but also from a political perspective, notably in France and Europe, without even mentioning the lag effect of the energy crisis which started in 2022 with the war in Ukraine and energy prices now coming down after two exceptional years. And as expected, Veolia has proven its combination of resilience and growth, thanks to our strategic choices, unique positioning, as well as the specific efficiency program we've put in place in France, Spain, and China, and the faster delivery of synergies. In numbers, if you look at our EBITDA growth in 24, adaptability and agility have helped us to compensate for negative minus 2% external factors, such as community prices or weather, leading us to achieve the upper end of our target at 5.8%. I'm on file 8. Ultimately, Veolia stock is really a combination of resilience and growth, as demonstrated in the last few years when we managed to increase our results in volatile energy prices, difficult macro in Europe, political and geopolitical uncertainty, high inflation and interest rates. This is thanks to what I call our winning formula, based on four key features. The first of these features is enhanced growth. Organic growth is now around 5% compared to 3% from 2016 to 2019, and this is clearly the result of strategic choices. First, the acquisition of SES, which not only is delivering cost but revenue synergies. Second, our booster activities, identified as priorities in GRUNUP, which grow faster than our very resilient, stronger activities. The second key competitive advantage of GRUP is the worldwide footprint. France is now only 20% of the group's revenue. 80% is international, of which 38% is outside Europe, with more than $5 billion in the US. continued value creation and attention to delivery. And just to mention two figures, the current net income doubled in five years from €760 million to €1,530,000,000. And ROSE at the end of 2024 hit 8.8% after tax, a higher level than prior to COVID and actually a historic high for Veolia and 320 basis points above our weighted average cost of capital. Finally, Veolia, as a world leader in environmental services, is a unique combination of businesses, wastewater and energy. This is a huge strength, and a significant share of our turnover comes from combining our businesses, from water tech to water ops, bioenergy from waste and water, or pollutant removal. PFAS is a good illustration of this, where combining water tech, water operation, and hazardous waste in our end-to-end offer, has already enabled us to achieve €205 million of revenue in 2024 from zero two years ago, so significant growth. I will now detail how our three levels of value creation, namely growth, performance and capital allocation, have been delivering in 2024, starting with growth on slide 9. 70% of the group consists of stronghold activities, namely water operations, solid waste, and district heating and cooling networks. They offer resilient and solid foundations, as those activities are macroimmune, protected from inflation, infrastructure-based, and often regulated. They grew by 4.4% in 2024 to €32,186 billion. 30% of the group are app boosters, on which we are investing 50% of our gross capex and focusing our M&A. Those are the water technologies, hazardous waste, and bioenergy, flexibility, and energy efficiency activities. They grew by 6.6% in 2024 to 12,506,000,000 euros. In the range we anticipate for green up, that is mid to high single digit growth. Finally, our booster geographies outside Europe will go faster than other geographies, namely the US, Australia, and the Middle East. These three regions combined grew by 6.3% at Constant Scope and Forex versus 5% for the group as a whole. In other words, for the first year of Greenup, our boosters have already boosted our growth. Let's now have a quick look at each of the booster performance in 2024, and I'm on slide 10. Water technologies revenue increased by 7% to €4,973,000,000. We were awarded four desalination projects in the Middle East and hit a record high level of bookings of 5.7 billion, thanks notably to our five business priorities. Desalination is one of them, but there is also water reuse, strategic metal recovery, ultra-pure water, and micropositive removals. As the Swiss revenue increased by 7.1% to 4,276 billion euros, we are very satisfied with a very strong growth in Europe, and this is despite industrial macro. Europe is up around 10%. We have delivered continued solid growth in the U.S. and started new operations in the Emirates. We continue with the construction of our new capacity in Arkansas, as well as four other plants across the globe, which will ramp up from 2025 onwards. Bioenergy, flexibility, and energy efficiency revenue was up 5.3% excluding any price. We are back in energy to a normalized level after a very high point in 2023. Let's now have a look at the stronghold performance in 24, and I'm on slide 11. Water operations revenue increased by 5.1% to 13 billion and 60 million euros. This is despite contracted volume due to weather conditions. We continued to benefit from good indexation, successful periphery negotiation in Spain, and all rate cases were approved in our U.S. regulated operations. We also enjoyed several major commercial successes, notably the renewal of our biggest contract in France with CEDIS for 12 years, worth €4 billion. Overall, we maintain our very high renewal rate, above 90%. I'm particularly proud of the EBITDA performance of our water operations, up 8.7%. thanks notably to specific efficiency plans in France, Spain, which were launched late 2023. Solid waste revenue grew by a hefty 6.2% to more than 11 billion, and this is despite sluggish macro, thanks to good commercial momentum as well as pricing. We continue to enjoy a close to 90% renewal rate in municipal and CNI contracts. District heating and cooling networks revenue was stable, plus 0.7%, excluding energy price, with a negative weather effect. As you know, we are delivering essential heating services, largely regulated and protected. Our electricity revenue is hedged, and the bonus we earned in 23 from exceptionally high electricity price was offset as planned. The second lever of value creation for Veolia is performance, and I'm on slide 12. Let's start with the synergies. As briefly explained in my introduction, we continue to deliver in 2024 a very high level of synergies, €120 million, and reached the €135 million accumulated ahead of the year's target, which had already been raised. Therefore, I decided to increase the overall objective of synergies from €500 to €530 million at the end of 2025. it is worth noting that the target of 500 million was already very ambitious, as it was initially designed for larger parameters, including notably waste activities in the UK. And we finally decided to divest those activities for antitrust reasons, but left the target unchanged. I'm on slide 13. Regarding yearly efficiency gain, we reached 398 million euros against a yearly target of 350. This overperformance includes specific action plans we launched in Spain, France, and China in late 2023 in order to face specific challenges and let those business units, EBITDA, to improve notably in 2024. Again, a demonstration of our agility. Efficiency gains of Veolia are not discretionary cost-cutting programs of which you could question the continuity. Rather, they are totally embedded in our business model and in what we sell to our clients. This is process optimization, energy efficiency, upselling, digital gains. We cannot retain, of course, all the gain in the EBITDA as we share them with our clients. Our retention rates have been between 30% and 50%. It was particularly high in 2024 due to a favorable inflation environment. Digital is a prime example to show how we look constantly for new efficiency levers. Digital again already represents 15% of our personal efficiency, but we are now moving quickly with Gen AI. The new partnership with Mistral AI, a worldwide first, is a good illustration of this. Value creation as early as also the result of continued active portfolio management as shown on slide 14. We set business priorities for the Green Up plan, which includes 2 billion of net acquisition over four years, net of diversities, of course, in addition to growth capex. Both are clearly prioritized towards boosters at 2024 illustrates. In 2024, we invested in five new hazardous waste plants to be commissioned and ramped up from 25. We also invested in decarbonization and coexist in Central and Eastern Europe with double-digit RR projects. Finally, we made several tokens acquisition in bioenergy and energy efficiency in Spain. On the other hand, we maintained a strict discipline over maintenance capex, which has not grown in 24, even slightly reduced. This slide 15 summarizes the three levels of value creation that Veolia has just detailed. Superior growth, performance, and smart capital allocation. On the latter, one more thing. we have in 24 closed faster than expected the diversification of some non-strategic assets, LIDEX, SAD, RGS, for 1 billion, while token acquisition amounted to 641 million euros. This, combined with strict free cash flow generation, led to quite strong financial headroom at the end of the year, with a leverage ratio of only 2.63 times and post-tax policy of 8.8%, a historical high. Let's now look ahead to 2025 on slide 16. We have good visibility and confidence in earning growth in 2025, despite a very uncertain environment and unfavorable external factors such as energy price and commodities. Naturally, we are continuing our effort to achieve operational efficiency, and we are raising our synergy targets to 500 30 million euros at the end of 2025. All these factors enable us to target for 2025 a solid revenue growth, including energy price, organic EBITDA growth of between 5% and 6%, current net income growth of around 9%, a leverage of less than three times, a dividend growth in line with current EPS growth. And what is new? We are launching a share buyback program. to offset the deletion of the employee shareholding program so that going forward, current net income and current EPS growth are aligned. And now on over to Emmanuelle who will detail the 2024 results and I will conclude afterwards before taking more questions.

Thank you Estelle and good morning everyone. Our full year 2024 results are once again excellent. we have demonstrated that even in a complex economic environment Veolia is able to deliver fast growing results. Revenue was up 5% excluding energy prices to 44.7 billion euros and EBITDA grew sharply by 5.8% to 6 billion 788 million euros. It is worth noting that we had a very strong Q4 with an acceleration of EBITDA growth to plus 5.6% after plus 5.6% in the first nine months. Current EBIT grew by 7.9%. The current net income increased even faster to 1,530,000,000 euros, up 14.6%, and our EPS reached 2.13 euros, up 12.3% versus last year. And net income group share rose by an exceptional 17.1%. Net financial debt reached 17.8 billion euros, lower than expected, thanks to strong free cash flow generation and dynamic asset arbitrage. As a result, our leverage ratio was 2.63 times below last year and well below our guidance industry time. Our balance sheet is therefore very strong, which gives us a lot of flexibility in terms of capital allocation in favor of the most value-creating opportunities for our shareholders and the group. Token in M&A, discretionary capex, dividend policy, or share buyback. I decided to start with our ROCI evolution. First, because ROSI is the most appropriate indicator to assess our value creation, given the variety of our business model, some being more capital-intensive than others. And also because we have succeeded in increasing ROSI by 120 basing points to 8.8% in only two years, which is outstanding, especially compared to WAC of 5.6%. We are above 2019 ROCI, before COVID and before the Swiss acquisition, which had significantly increased our capital and plot. Our target is between 9% and 10%, and we will surely achieve it. Moving to slide 20, you can see the revenue evolution by geographical segment for tech, rest of the world, rest of Europe, and France. I will start with water technology, which is one of our three boosters. it delivered another very strong year, both in terms of revenue and bookings. Revenue was up plus 7%, with sustained growth in all our business line of business, and EBITDA is up 15.7%, benefiting from our refocusing on the highest margin business line and from synergy delivery. In terms of bookings, we achieved a record level of bookings of 5.7 billion, with big wins in microelectronics, oil and gas, and desalination. In the rest of the world, revenue was up 5.3% and EBITDA grew by 11%, thanks notably to our booster geographies, Australia, Middle East, and the U.S. Rest of the world, revenue was up plus 4.5%, excluding energy prices with stable EBITDA despite lower energy prices. And finally, in France, after a difficult 2023, we continued turning the tide in 2024. Revenue grew by 4%, a significant improvement, and EBITDA grew by 7.7%. Now let's take a look at our performance by business. First business focus, water. Our largest activity representing 40% of our revenue, whose performance was impressive in 2024. Water revenue was up plus 5.6%, fueled by both our strong old water operation, up 5%, and by the booster water technology, up by 7%. As you can see, water considerably improved their profitability in 24. Water EBITDA grew by 10%, and the EBITDA margin, which was already the highest of the group, increased by 150 basis points to 18.6%. Moving to waste activities, the year was excellent for our waste heat business, which is a strong proof point of our robustness in spite of weak macroenvironment and also of our agility and capacity to implement efficiencies actions and deliver higher results. Waste activity grew much faster than in 2023 by plus 6.4% compared to 3.4% last year, thanks to continued pricing power, improved volume in Europe and good commercial momentum in the UK, Australia and Latin America. The Stronghold Solid Waste business revenue increased by 6.2% while EBITDA jumped by 11.2%, thanks to the performance plan implemented notably in Europe, which is resisting well despite soft macroeconomic conditions. The booster hazardous waste had another very good year, notably in Europe, with revenues up by 7.1% and EBITDA up by 10.8%, which is clearly exceptional. Finally, moving to energy, I am on site 23. Energy revenue is sensitive to energy price, which were down in 2024, as forecasted, so that our revenue decreased by 10.7%, and the weather was quite mild. Energy growth was plus 1.9% excluding the energy price impact and plus 2.5% at constant weather. As you know, our energy margin is well protected from the up and down of energy prices. Given the very high comparison basis in 23 regarding electricity prices, we register, as expected, a negative energy price impact of about 100 million euros in 24 at the EBITDA level. It should be much lower in 2025, and we expect our energy EBITDA to grow again in 2025, thanks to the ramp-up of our new decarbonized assets, continued efficiency actions, further heat price increases, while electricity prices will be lower than in 2024. You will also notice that the EBITDA of the energy business has grown faster at Constant Scope F4S than the Group, with an EBITDA cager of 10.3% between 2022 and 2024, nearly doubling the group of 6.9% per year. Slide 24 shows our revenue bridge and our top line intrinsic growth of plus 5%, and you will see that it is even stronger at the EBITDA level. Forex at negative impact of minus 0.5%, mostly from LATAM with the reversal in Q4. Scope impact was significant at minus 1.1 billion euros, higher than expected as we close many divestitures in 2024. The main item on the list is the lower energy prices for minus 1.6 billion euros, with almost no impact on EBITDA. The weather impact reached minus 70 million euros, minus 0.2%, better than last year in the year, thanks to a colder Q4 in Central Europe. So that the plus 5% intrinsic growth is fueled by, first, good commercial momentum, resilient volumes, notably in hazardous waste in Europe, and secondly, prices and indexation, as we increase tariffs faster than our cost base, which contributes to plus 2.7% for our revenue growth, for 1.2 billion euros. On page 25, you have our usual EBITDA bridge illustrating that external factors have played against us, whereas we have systematically overperformed on the levels in our hands. First, you can see the negative impact of Forex and Scope for a total of minus 2.1%. Forex negative impact reached minus 70 million euros and Scope minus 67 million euros. Excluding Forex and Scope, we delivered a strong organic EBITDA growth of plus 5.8% at the high end of our guidance range, fueled by the combination of a very strong intrinsic EBITDA growth of plus 7.8%, partially offset by minus 2% of negative external factors, weather and energy prices. I would like to mention here regarding efficiency gains that about 70% of them are completely recurring. We generated a gross amount of €388 million in 2024 and retained 46% at EBITDA level. Operational efficiency is really embedded in our contract performance. It is what we sell to our clients. We cannot retain 100% of the gain in EBITDA. We share them with the clients, either through the life of the contract or upon renewal. And finally, by synergies, we have indeed been running ahead of schedule and execute the integration of Suez very efficiently and above our initial expectation. We generate €120 million of new synergies in 24, reaching €435 million at your hands. We expect to deliver around 100 million of additional synergies in 2025 and have therefore raised the overall target to 530 million euros instead of 500. We decided to intensify our efforts in France, Spain, and in China with specific action plans. In France, we started a two-year competitiveness plan in order to boost the top line, turn around the loss-making sites and contracts, optimize our structures and processes. These actions already have borne fruit in 2024. EBITDA grew by close to 8% to around 1.4 billion. The objective in Spain was to boost our water activities and obtain water price increases in order to restore our profitability. We succeeded in obtaining a double-digit water price increase and launched in parallel an operational performance plan. This action enabled us to grow the EBITDA of the country by close 23%. Finally, in China, we initiated a performance plan two years ago, notably to offset the impact of the decreasing hazardous waste activities. We decided to hand the less profitable contract, restructure hazardous waste, streamline our organization, while revenue was still flat in China in 24, EBITDA grew significantly by 35%. Coming back to our financial, this slide illustrated perfectly the operational leverage of our business model. Let's see first how the EBITDA increase is fueling current EBIT, which is growing very steadily by 7.9% to €3,547,000,000 at a higher pay than EBITDA. Renewable expenses of €295,000,000 are comparable to 2023. Amortization and offer are slightly above last year. Industrial capital gains, net of provision and asset impairment of 78 million euros is 35 million euros higher than last year amount, which is non-significant and is due to higher asset impairments in 2023. GVs are stable. The increase of 14.6% of current net income is almost double the growth of current income. thanks to stable financial charges and tax rates and slightly lower net results for minority interest in 2024. The cost of net financial debt is stable compared to last year at €652 million as we booked a positive one-off of €30 million in 2023. Slightly higher cost of variable debt was offset by lower non-euro cost of financing. Other financial charges are comparable to last year. and the current tax rate reached 27.1%, comparable to 26.5% in 2023. The decrease in non-controlling interest is due to lower results in Central Europe after a very high level in 2023. On page 28, let's see how current net income translates in net income group shares. Net income increased by 17% to 1,098,000,000 euros, compared to 937 million euros in 2023. Nendigering Act 10, which is the sum of the three lines, was comparable to last year and included one of provision and associated with ongoing litigation. On slide 29, comparing 2024 with 2023 free cash flow improved from 1 billion 143 million euros to 1 billion 156 million euros thanks to EBITDA increase of €245 million, another improvement in working capital requirement of €75 million, and strict CAPEX control despite increasing growth opportunities, including our call-exit program in Central Europe and hazardous waste facilities under construction. On slide 30, you have the detail of the net financial debt variation, where you can see the different effects I have just highlighted. Net financial debt decreased by 84 million euros despite 157 million euros of negative forex impact, leading to a further decrease in the leverage ratio to 2.63 times. In the last two years, Veolia used cash coming from Suez antitrust disposals to repay debt maturities, including 364 million euros of convertible bonds bought back in August 24th, In the upcoming years, the refinancing of bond maturities will come from new debt insurance, which we have opportunistically started at the end of last year with two bond insurances at very favorable market conditions. Thank you for your attention to this excellent result, which I am pleased to present. I now hand over to Estelle.

And to sum up, I'm on slide 33. Veolia is a unique global leader in environmental services and ecological transformation. We are ideally positioned to address fast-growing demand trends across the globe, from water scarcity to decontamination to protecting human health or decarbonization. We are present in 44 countries and in each of them in the top three productivity. Slide 34 reminds you of three levels of value creation. This is top line growth, efficiency, and capital allocation, which is the backbone of our green-up plan. We confirmed the strategic plan green-up and associated objectives. They include current income growth of 10% per year on average over the period, with dividend growing in line with EPS, and growth above 9% in 2027. is all about both resilience and growth. Finally, you have on slide 35, the 2025 guidance I've already commented. In a nutshell, we continue to grow our results strongly, 5% to 6% for EBITDA and 9% at the net income level. And we are raising our synergy target, which is a sign of the agility of the group and our focus on profitability enhancements. The dividend will grow like current net income and From now on and until 2027, we will offset any dilution coming from the employee shareholding plan. Last but not least, our agenda for the year is shown on slide 36. On top of the quarterly publication and the AGM, you are all invited to participate in several sessions, notably a deep dive on waste activities in France on June 25th. We will also organize four specific sessions. webinar dedicated to our multifaceted performance and how it creates value on March 31st. Another specific session on dissemination in the Middle East in Oman on April 8th. And one on innovation, tech and AR in September 2025 in the US. Finally, we will take advantage of the integration of our new cogeneration facility in Poznań, this is in Poland, to speak about decarbonization and energy in November. Emmanuel and I are now ready to take all your questions.