Wendel

Good morning to everybody. Thank you for joining us through Visio or being here in the room for this 2020, 2023 full year result of Vandel. Very happy to To be in front of you with David, we will present you the earnings of Vandel for the year 2023, an important year for Vandel. Benoit Adriault, our CFO, will be there also to present you the numbers. And after the presentation, we'll be happy to answer to any of the questions that you may have. Again, I'm very pleased to be with you. It has been, it's the first time, not I'm presenting the earnings, but the first full year earnings I'm presenting for Vandel. 2023, I think I have to move the slides. 2023 has been an exciting year and a year of a lot of action and transformation for Vandel. As you remember, when we last met for a live physical presentation like this one, it was in March 2023, where we presented the new strategy of Vendel. Since then, I think we've been very active in making sure that we can implement that strategy and implement. and start to transform Vendel. Obviously, everything has not been done. There's much more to be done. And you can trust the fact that the full Vendel team is very mobilized in order to achieve the goals and the ambitious goal that we've set to ourselves. What have we done in 2023? So let's look at it with three angles. First on the Principal investment, you know, we've presented the dual model where we have on one side investing the capital long term of Vandel and the other side, as you know, we're developing an asset management business. So let's focus first on the principal investment. We've been pretty active during the year with a significant turnover of our assets. We've made the acquisition of Scallion, which was announced recently. in July last year and since then closed and integrated Secalio throughout our organization. We've sold Constantia Flexible which was again announced during the summer and closed early January this year. and the Wendell Gross team has made four different investments in the year. Within our portfolio companies, Stahl has been active in both starting to, I mean, implementing the new strategy which is to shift the Stahl from a laser treatment company to a specialty coating company and I think the acquisition of ISG has been a very successful one and David will come back on how it has developed since then and Stahl also had made a special dividend to all his shareholders at the end of last year which ended up at 85 million dividends to uh, um, uh, whatever. Globally, the other point that we have to see in the principal investment is that the growth of our companies has been very solid during the year, 6.5% organic growth, and that is, I think, a great illustration of the quality of the business we've invested in, and the fact that we're, despite an environment which was not so easy in 2023, we're We're very happy about the growth trajectory and very optimistic for the future in our ability to deliver value through this investment. Obviously, we will continue deploying capital and having turnover on that, and the objective is to generate more growth and returns. We've set ambitious target in terms of returns on that segment, and we will make sure that we do achieve that. Second part of the year, and I think probably the most critical one in terms of change, has been the development of an asset management strategy and starting to build an asset management platform in private assets. We've said that as a key priority when we met in March. And I think we've been pretty active in looking to different opportunities and end up in the acquisition of IK Partners, which is a highly respected team. And we view that as really one of the best partners. team in Europe for the mid-cap private equity business and probably one of the most active also GP in that sector. As you know, IT is managing 12 billion of assets today. The transaction is not yet closed, and it's not because of any issue. I mean, all different issues have been solved. There's still a few administrative things to finish, and we should be closing it probably early Q2 of this year. And our judgment on the acquisition of IKEA, we're even more happy today than we were when we made the acquisition. I mean, it's a great team. The quality of the cultural fit with Vandel team has been great. And their ability to generate value for their customers, the LPs, I think is still important. significant DPI significant divestiture during the year they made recently a new investment as you've seen so this is really really very happy and and we're working on now and making additional additions to that first helping IK to grow which would be the number one priority but also additional to that Having new GPs that could complement our strategy, our objective, as we've said during the investor day, is to have fee-related earnings in 2027 that would be around 150 million euros. And we're, I think, well determined to achieve that goal by then. Now, all of that is as one objective, return to shareholders. We want to increase return to shareholders. And our objective as a holding company is really to make sure that we can return significant value to shareholders. One of the key elements of the return to shareholders of holding companies, obviously, is dividend policy. We've set out a new dividend policy which was referenced to the NAV in March, and we revised upwards the percentage of NAV that we want to distribute to our shareholders given the way we plan our ability to generate value through principal investment and the general flows of fees that we will generate from asset management. And so this policy is basically to say we're going to distribute at minimum 2.5% of the NAV, and we will grow that percentage progressively with the growth of the asset management to potentially 3.5% or higher, depending on the size of the asset management going forward. But if we go to 2027, probably 3.5% would be the right target to achieve there when we will have 150 million of fee-related earnings. So that 2.5% result in a 4 euro per share dividend this year, which is a 25% increase compared to last year, mostly driven not by the growth of NAV, hopefully not. In the future, that will be growth of NAV that will drive dividend growth together with the increase in percentage. But here, it's mostly the change of policy and the increase in percentage that is driving the growth of the dividend. But I think it's important really to set out a clear policy that you can have clear visibility of what type of return we can make to our shareholders. In terms of capital management, we've, as you know, also announced that we were making a share buyback program. This is ongoing. We've done part of the 100 million that we've announced. And as I mentioned during the capital market day, share buyback is always a tool that we will use whenever we think it's appropriate. If we go into the financial highlight, I think first of all, and I've made it very quick comment on that, the sales of our companies has been very dynamic, 5.7% overall, which in fact has an underlying 6.4% organic growth, which I think, again, reflect well the quality of the different companies. We will go into the detail of each of them later, so I don't spoil this part. It has been also, we've seen strong margin across the board, which means that this translates into a significant increase of the contribution of this subsidiary, which is at 4.7% compared to last year. Our situation is to have a very strong financial flexibility. We have a huge amount of liquidity with 2.2 billion loan to value with pro forma of everything, which is pro forma of the sale of Constantia, pro forma of the purchase of IK performer of the potential investment we're going to make in in IK 10 that is under which is raised today by the IK team is below 10% and across our portfolio our companies still have low level of leverage so we have very significant financial flexibility which is important in this period because that give us opportunity, both to think about how investing well assets in principal investment, but also to deliver on our strategy to develop an asset management platform. NAV has been decreasing compared to last year. If we exclude the given distribution, it's 2.7 decline at 100, and it's set at 160.2 euro per share. Most of Well, all of the decline is linked to the decline in value of listed assets during the year. Berroir Veritas, for example, which is the one that weighed the most on our net asset value, had decreased by 7% over the year 2023. IHS 25 and Target 19. Apart from IHS, the performance of those companies since the beginning of the year has been totally the reverse, and you've seen that the performance, and we'll come to that, of Bureau Veritas has been highly regarded by the stock market. And we see a 17% increase in the share price of Bureau Veritas since the beginning of the year, which I think is is a good reflection of the quality of the business, and hopefully there will be more ahead after the Capital Market Day of Bureau Veritas, which is on March 20. That's a little bit what we can say about, you know, that the earnings by themselves and the net result, I mean, Benoit will go through the numbers. I'm not saying that the numbers doesn't reflect much, but I don't think it is the most important element of this earning. The most important is the change in NAV, the performance of the underlying companies, And our net result is significantly lower than last year. But last year, we had the sale of Chromology that was included in our earnings, which generated 590 million of capital gains. And capital gains, by definition, are not recurring. And, by the way, the fact that Constantia was sold on the 4th of January rather than on the 28th of December moved the capital gain on Constantia from one year to the other. So we will have the benefit of the capital gain of Constantia next year. Just an illustration that the net result by itself is highly volatile for holding companies. It's not representing the real value creation potential. Here I am. So as you see, the trend on dividend policy for euro per share is probably the most visible change of our strategy this year. And that will keep on going in the future. By the way, 26 million of share buyback. We're trying to do that in an organized manner so that it's well done. Our target is to buy at least 100 million euros. Here I am for this part. Maybe we will move now to the performance of the group companies and probably a very more important part. I start with Bureau Veritas and then I hand over to... To David, for the other companies, Bureau Veritas, as you may have seen the earnings, which were published a week ago, it's a significant growth of revenues, 3.8% published. But if you look to the organic revenue growth, it is 8.5%. And I think it's... Very important element, it shows that the tick business that has had some slow growth period since two years now has recovered significantly and we think that we're very optimistic with Hinda Garbi who's taken over the CEO position during the year 2023 on the perspective of growth of this business. This business has grown in most of its underlying business line. You see that the marine and offshore has had very, very big growth industry to certification. The one that has a little bit more suffered as being the consumer product, CPS, but they have well recovered in the fourth quarter, which I think is a good sign of where the market is heading. The margin of Bureau Veritas was established is the adjusted operating profit is up 3% and if you take it with a constant exchange rate it's an higher growth. The margin of AOP is 15.9%, and if you took that on constant margin, it would be 16.2%. So it means that compared to last year, it's a slight improvement of the margin, which I think is, again, a very encouraging sign altogether for the year to come. The debt situation of Bureau Veritas is no different from the other portfolio company. It is for the time being a low leverage, 0.9 times EBITDA as of December 31st, 2023, a slight decrease compared to last year, which gives a significant headroom in order to have an ambitious M&A program in the future. The dividend from Bureau Veritas stands at 0.83 euro per share, up 7.8% compared to last year, in line with the 65% payout ratio that was set last year. I don't go more in the outlook because I think Inda and her team made it very clear, but I think confidence in the future, meet to high single digital revenue growth, which is expected, another improvement in the adjusted operating costs. Margin is expected to end, which is very important, a very strong cash flow conversion, which is above 90%, and I think is one of the key ability to keep on investing in the future. So we're very optimistic on the future and the capacity of Bureau Veritas to deliver strong value going forward.

I'll give you the... Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Regarding Stahl, 2023 was... A solid year in a very tough environment. As you remember, high inflation, some supply chain disruption, and some muted demands in some end markets. Despite all those external forces, the year was solid. Organic growth was minus 8%, but partially offset by external growth. You do remember that in January, Steyr announced the acquisition of ISG for $205 million. and this acquisition was well integrated during the year. They're moving on a common ERP, and the synergies that we did anticipate are showing up. We are also seeing over the year in 2023 an improvement. H2 was better than H1, and definitely Q4 was better than Q3, which was better than Q2, which was better than Q1. So it gives us some hope for 2024. Regarding the margin, Stahl is showing some good price discipline, good fixed cost control as well. So you can see that the margin went up in 2023, despite the tough environment I mentioned. And again, ISG was perfectly integrated as well. In terms of leverage, despite the cash out of 205 million that I mentioned, and despite the 85 million of dividend that Vandel received, so 125 million paid by the company, Leverage is still under two times, 1.6 times, showing that Star continues to produce a massive amount of cash. It's a very cash-generative company with limited capex and limited working capital. And we were very pleased this year that Star received again a platinum rating from Ecovadis, which makes Star in the top 1% of the companies that Ecovadis is rating. So quite a performance. Scania is our, sorry, Scania, somehow I don't have the right order. So CPI, CPI had again a very good year. This is purely organic, as the company has not made an acquisition during the year, so above 15%. Across the board on almost every product and every geography, the performance has been very strong, especially in North America. The margin, as we mentioned, in 2022 was sort of uniquely high, above 50%. We said it at the time. The 49.6% is more where the company used to navigate. We had increased personal costs as the wages went up in the U.S. And we also had increased costs for venues and travel. On top of that, the company did invest quite substantially in terms of IT. We had a number of IT projects internally, trying to have better information, better data, and this had some impact on the margins as well. The leverage continued to go down, both because of the cash generation and the increase of the EBITDA, and today it stands at four times. So a very good year for CPI again. ACAMS has a strong EBITDA growth during 2023. The top line went up slightly below 5%. Remember that in 2022, one of ACAMS customers did pass a very strong order. And so it was a very high base in terms of computing the growth, excluding this very significant and unusual customer. The sales growth was more 8%. The booking up 10%, which gives probably a better view of the trajectory of the company. In terms of margin, you can see that the company has made some significant progress. This is the first year that the company is running as a standalone entity. The carve-out is now finished. There is no more TSA and links to the former parent company at TALEM. It is a fully standalone operating company as of now. In terms of leverage, we are slightly under six times today. The net debt was actually a bit up. We had a lot of one-off costs to implement this cutout. But thanks to the growth in terms of EBITDA, the leverage was maintained at below six times. A few comments on talent. We have recruited a new CEO. Neil started in early January. He's coming with a very significant experience and background from Thomson Reuters, where he did manage a very significant part of their business. And we expect this week a new CFO to join. We've been running with an interim CFO for quite some time now. And so the leadership is completely revamped at ACAMS. Scalion is the latest to join the family. As Laurent mentioned, we signed this investment pre-summer. We closed over the summer. It did continue to show a very strong trajectory and performance in terms of top line. You can see that Here, it did deliver a 15 plus percent organic growth, which is very, very strong. It is, to be fair, a market which is having some headwinds right now, and we can see some slowdown. Customers are trying to delay some of their projects. And so we need to adjust the cost base to this new environment. It takes a bit of time. You see the product being delayed and you have already hired people. So when there is a change in the pace of growth, usually it comes with the compression of margin. So even if we are showing here an improvement of margin during 2023, Recently, we saw compression of margin due to this slowdown. So very good performance, but as it is slightly slowing, it comes with some pressure as well. In terms of leverage, we are slightly under six banks. That does include the payment of a small acquisition, Dulin in Spain. It's a small group of consultants for cybersecurity for the banking industry. We are very pleased to sign. This is the first acquisition under our ownership, and the integration is going very well. In terms of talent, again, some changes at Scalion. There is a new CFO who joined. Nathalie is coming from Atos. She used to be the former CFO of Atos, and we hope that she will do some significant improvement at Scalion over the coming months. We are working hand-to-hand with the management to deliver a value creation plan. There is a clear roadmap to create value with the company, and it's really in the new DNA of the firm to run this plan. And we are very, very pleased the way that both teams at Canyon and Vanell are working together. Verdel Gross, as Laurent mentioned, we made over the last 12 months four acquisitions, four investments, minority investments. IntelliWeb, Brigade, Preligence, and Echemia, all B2B software companies, exactly in the sweet spot that we are looking for, high growth, between 10 and 30 million of run rate, and a path to profitability for each of them. It's very early innings for those investments, but very promising. As you can see, we have already 180 million invested in funds, which combined with those four investments make a commitment of 235 million in Vendelgross. And now, Benoit, for the financial results. Thank you.

Bonjour à tous. Good morning, everybody. The consolidated sales for 2023 reached 7.1 billion euros. It is 5.7% above last year and 6.4% organically. And the contribution of the portfolio companies to the net income group share is €362.1 million, increasing by 5.9%. Both reflect the very good results that Laurent and David have just presented. After deducting the financing, operating expenses and tax of Vendel, that has decreased under the effect of lower net interest expenses. deducting some restructuring costs and M&A costs in the portfolio companies and the entry from the goodwill allocation. The net income group share is 142.4 million euros. Last year, We had the disposal of Chromology with a capital gain that was 590 million euros. So we had a net income group share that was 656 million euros. The capital gain on Constancia Flexible will be booked in 2024 because the closing was early January. Concerning the NAV, so we have slightly adjusted our methodology to make it in line with the IPAVE guidelines that are the standards, the valuation standards for the private equity industry. We still use the share price for listed companies. We still use multiples of the listed peers for unlisted companies, but we have changed the way we consider the acquisition of a listed company when there is a significant difference between the acquisition multiples and the listed multiples. The impact is 1.4% positive from this adjustment on the NEV at the end of 2023. that is 160.2 euro per share or 7.1 billion. This displays a disappointing discount to our share price. If we look to the change over the year 2023, And if we adjust the dividend that has been paid in June, the NAV has decreased by 2.7% despite the good growth of the unlisted assets. At the end of 2023, the share price of Puro Veritas was €22.2 per share. Today, it's roughly €27 per share. That makes a big difference. For our development, we need a strong financial structure. So you can see here a description of the financial structure of Vendel. We have a low average coupon of our bond debt, that is 2.4%. We have a quite long average maturity that is 4.6 years with maturities between 2026 and 2034. We have ample liquidities. The 2.2 here is made of 1.3 of cash at the end of 2023, so it was before the 1.1. of net proceeds from Constantia and we also have a non-drone credit line that amounts to 875 million euros and that matures in 2027. But the main financial indicator for our financial structure is the loan-to-value ratio. It is 9.6% at the end of 2023 pro forma the disposal of Constantia and the acquisition of IK. It is well below the credit agency ceiling for our current credit rating that is BBB. So we have a very good financial structure to support our development. Moving to ESG, so we are very committed to improve the ESG profile of the group. You can see on this page that everything is improving. We have very good rating, and Christine and Glad will be very happy to answer your question concerning ESG.

Thank you very much, Benoit. So I think to conclude this, and before we answer the question that you may have, this is a year of very good performance of the operating companies, which is long-term very important. And I think you've been seeing that companies by companies. This is also a very important year in developing our private asset management business. And again, 2023 is only the beginning of it. and that gives us the ability to deploy more capital towards more growth in the future. And I think it's very important, and it's a sign of Vandel, continuous and measurable progress on our ESG policy, and we're very, very... very specific at it, and I can tell you in our dialogue with our – both in our investment policy and the dialogue with our portfolio companies, this is a key element of the dialogue, and we think it's very important long-term value drivers. And all of that, I think, generate opportunity to create more value to shareholders and to sustain double-digit TSR, starting by the ability to distribute significant dividend to our shareholders and giving you the appropriate yield. Thank you very much. This will be the end of the presentation itself. And now we can open a Q&A session and the team is here to answer any question that you may have. present yourself or... Yes.

Good morning, everyone. Sai Mason from Alpha Value. And thank you for having us here. So I would like to open this Q&A session with four questions. The first one concerns the net asset value. You recorded a 10% increase in your unlisted assets at constant perimeters. I would like to know the breakdown of what drove the value of unlisted assets up. Was it just ACOMs and the adoption of the EPEV guidelines? Regarding your discount to net asset value, your discount has widened from 47.5% to more than 50%. I would like to know what do you think about this widening of the discount and how do you intend to reduce it? Now on private equity, could you give us a word on what do you think about the private equity environment? Last year you mentioned that volumes were particularly low and that the market was closed for large transactions. What is the situation today? Is it difficult to find opportunities? Do you think that the expectation of buyers and sellers are finally in line? And how do you see fundraising, and particularly with EK Partners acquisition, how will you manage the fundraising part? And lastly, in light with the previous question, with the market anticipating several rate cuts, do you see a revival of interest regarding private equity? And would possible series of rate cuts lead to an upward revaluation of your unlisted assets? Thank you. Whoa.

I don't have a pen, so I didn't take note, but I'm trying to remember everything. The first question is on a NAV and the value of our asset and where does it come. You've seen that effectively the non-listed asset has increased by 10 percent over the period. The calibration didn't participate the change in methodology in increasing the value. You know that we had a methodology which was going from the purchase value to a convergence within non-listed. We were – the calibration didn't change that much, so it has some impact, but it's limited. The real driver is the performance of the company and the improving margin, and that's what drives a significant part of the improvement in the – and – And consortia over the year. Exactly. You're right. The improvement of the value of consortia over the year. That's the three drivers that have drove the value of non-listed assets. We don't give the detail and we will not give the detail more than that.

But then, yeah, maybe on that foot we can just show the growth in earnings at CPI 62 to 69. So you can expect some... And ACAMs. Or ACAMs from 19 to 25. So whatever happens to the multiple when you have this... The scale of those growths explains something.

I think it's what you have to take away from this meeting, that the performance of our underlying companies is doing well. Despite an environment that may be... tougher in some areas than we expected, the performance of our underlying is doing well. And that's, I think, the number one key takeaway that you should have from today. The rest of it, you basically knew the investment in IKEA and so on. So this is, I think, the number one. And our confidence in the ability to generate value by those investments. Now, the NAV discount, I mean, I've always had a policy as a CEO of a listed firm never to comment the share price because I can drive a lot on the performance or try to drive a lot on the performance of the underlying of the company. The share price is really what shareholders want to do with it. And do they want to buy the stock or not? I think we're giving clear guidelines. We're giving clear objective and ambitious targets. We're changing the profile of the company. We're showing that we're ready to – we're confident in our ability to deliver the target we've put to ourselves through dividend policy that has moved and that will be a sustainable one. Now, you know, we're holding company, and so we know that there's a discount, and we know the discount evolved. If I take... And I don't know if it's the only reason, but if I take a parallel between our share price and the interest rate, there's a very significant line. So, potentially, you may expect that some part of the discount move away with the rate decrease. But hopefully, it will not be the only driver. Number one driver for us has to be the performance we're delivering. And we are committing. and we're committed to deliver significant performance. And that will be, for me, the only long-term driver in terms of reducing the discount to the now. That's the only thing. Everything else, you know, buying back shares and so on, may help. It doesn't change the discount most of the time. So, yeah, we'll... But, again, we are... Yeah, we're very pragmatic in the way we look to that. And the share price is the only thing I cannot do.

So we're getting the PE market. So, yes, we said last year it was a top market, and especially for large transactions. A couple of data points to illustrate that. First, our own Constantia that we sold for slightly above 2.2 billion, which is upper mid-cap. So it is a big transaction, but not a huge transaction. It was among the top five last year. So there are less than three assets which were sold for more than that last year, which gives you a the sense of the space. Another data is last year, 60% of P transaction process failed, which is a huge number. So the sellers did all the work to prepare a company for sale, went to talk with buyers, and did not end up in an agreement on the price. So that was last year. Definitely a very difficult market, very difficult for buyers and sellers to speak the same language. What we see today is a lot of preparation. Everybody is getting ready to sell their assets. So all our friends in consulting firms and auditors are working really hard to prepare a lot of books. So there is a sort of queue which is happening of assets to be sold. There will be a bit of capitulation from sellers. So some people are going to be reasonable because they have to, they have to return capital to their own LPs. So we expect to see more activity, but there will still be a mismatch between buyers and sellers. So we don't expect at least in H1 to see the same pace of activity that we are used to see. So better for 24, but probably not what we saw in 21 or 22.

Well, maybe to reflect on that is and go to the last question with the environment in terms of raising funds. Today, I think one of the key elements for good funds to raise funds is to show their ability to give back money to their investors. And that's why you see people that there's a little bit of, I don't know, capitulation, which basically is just that, you know, Private equity firms need to show to the LP that they're able to have significant higher DPI, ability to give back funds before they're raising new funds. And this, I think, is a key element of the ELZ. And that is one of the big strengths of IK. IK has very high DPI. IKEA have been able to make more sales in 2023 than ever. IKEA have been very active in managing their portfolio because they have a very good quality portfolio. And that's why ICASE is, I think, a very great firm, because they are really having high-quality assets, very well managed, and the performance of what they're delivering to their LPs is very good, which means that they are in a good stance in terms of fundraising, and we're pretty – as they are – very confident in the ability to finalize the raise of their fund IK10 which is ongoing so I cannot comment on it but it's we're very very optimistic on that and very optimistic that the target in term of fee related earning that we had for IK will be there this year so there's no we're not nervous about it where as everything we're committing to that, making hard work on it, and they're making hard work to do it. It's not something that you do by just clapping your hand. It's not as easy as yours. But I think good quality investors receive money from long-term investors. Maybe a last word on what I said at the beginning. When I say I'm not – I cannot control the share price. It doesn't mean that I don't care. I do care, and I'm a shareholder also, so I care a lot.

Good morning, and thank you for that presentation. Alexandre Gérard, CIC. Three questions on my side. The first one is related to your private assets, and we would be extremely happy to maybe have some hints or forecasts for 2024 in terms of growth and margin. Are you expecting a better or poorer performance for these four assets? The second question is related to your financial flexibility, starting from a pro forma LTV ratio of close to 10%. What's your room to invest further? Is it fair to say that you have maybe some room for one equity investment of, let's say, 300 to 400 million euros without having to sell any other assets? And the last question is related to IHS investments. the target despite the resolution of the equivalent issue at IHS the share price has been falling despite that what are you doing to help them grow same question for target are you satisfied with the performance of the company and what's your implication on a day-to-day basis with those two investments thank you right so as you know we don't give guidance but

I'll try to give you like a flavor of what we see. So on style, as I mentioned, in terms of top line, we see 24 being more encouraging than 23. So 23 was a flat year, even declining in terms of of volumes. We do expect by the end of the year to see some kind of recovery in terms of volumes. And they still have the same cost discipline, so we do not expect margins to change significantly. It's a cash machine, so hopefully leverage should go down, except if they make some M&A. CPI is like clockwise, so expect double digit, I will say. I'm just looking at Olivier. You must hate me to give some guidance at this stage, but... You started by saying we don't give guidance. Let's say it's been on a double-digit pace for quite some time and you don't see any reason why it will change. Again, there is a new leadership, so maybe let's wait to see Neil and the new CFO to come with a new budget and a new plan to give some direction. But we don't see our fees to be different today than it was two years ago. There is a huge need for training and certification in money laundering. So we still have the same strong tailwinds.

And the underlying growth, you mentioned it, but I think we have to underline it. The underlying growth of top line is better than the one that you can see because of that specific contract that we have. It's not an excuse by itself, but it's important because this is really what is the trend underlying the business of ICAMS.

So Scanion, it's a tough macro. You can see that everybody's focusing on cost. You can see that all the peers are seeing that they see quarter over quarter slowdown. It's a company which is more agile and on better end markets than its peers. So we expect them to outperform the market. But the market is slowing down. So it will be growing better than market. Will it be 15% plus? Probably not. But will it be satisfactory and strong? Probably yes. And margin, as I mentioned, with this delay, there is probably a pressure on the intercontinental. The utilization rate is probably going to go down. I think we covered them all.

Okay. Then the other question you had was – remind me.

There was a – On your maximum LTV ratio. Yeah.

I think we have – I'm not going to give – but we've – let's say one way of looking at it. We say that we were potentially able to invest $2 billion within two years last year. We've made a billion roughly this year when you add up Scalion and – and IK plus the investment we can make in IK funds. So, you know, having a billion available is the right way to look at it. Without for the sale, obviously.

My last question related to the IHS.

So IHS, well, the environment, well, you have two things. You've got the performance and the... The problem of IHS is that it is moving in an environment where you've got a few headwinds. The number one is Nigeria and the currency. The currency of Nigeria has moved from – 750 naira per dollar to 1600 now. So huge devaluation of the currency. They have contract that can protect them against that, but there's always a delay of a quarter between that. That's weight a lot on their activity. And the fact that they are number one market is under pressure is never good, even if you're protected against currency moves. So this explains partially or a significant part of the of the underperformance of the share price of IHS. I think they had good news about, you know, they've announced a deal with Airtel recently. They have good news on the operating side. And so, but despite that, you know, the understanding of the market of the risk is so such that you have a pretty disappointing share price. It's trading at $2.8 today per share. So it's very disappointing. Now, as you know, we have a little bit, we've got close to 20% of shares and limited the rights in term of governance, which was what was agreed when the company was listed. We've been pretty – having significant discussion with the company on that, and we even argued strongly, let's say. And we came to an agreement. This agreement will be enforced should it be voted during the AGE-M or AGE – not M, but – well, the – Ordering. Order, right? In the ordering – board meeting that should be held before end of June, which means that then we will have reinforced rights in order to participate to the governance of this company and make change. But for the time being, we have a less active role into the definition of the strategy. Target, well, I think Target, did they publish their names, Target? Because they are listed. But Target has been doing, has, is it, Jérôme, do you know, did they publish? I cannot say things that is, I have to make sure that is public information, non-public information. I think it's not yet. Not yet. So I cannot say anything. I'm sorry. No, no. It's not. But it's despite a difficult environment, I think we're pretty happy about the performance. That's all I can say. You'll see. You'll get the result from Tarket soon.

Hi. Two questions on my side. So the first one is again on Tarket. It's not about the results. It's just on your view on the balance of the time it's taking to you and your team and the potential impact on iNavi because Target is a very small asset on the portfolio. Second question is on the dialogue you have currently with the LPs in order to buy them and potentially with asset managers.

The GPs.

The GPs, yeah, sorry. how is it evolving with let's say the changing environment we've seen some funds that are rising again and even big money this time and you have done one deal not closed yet but in the coming months are there things in your grid on which you think you may be more flexible and on the other hand things you absolutely want not to have any compromise on that

Well, first of all, Target does take too much time to the team compared to the site. Well, no, we allocate. We're very strict in the way we do allocate time and teams. We've got a smaller team that is following Target, but... But we have a good dialogue and a good discussion with the Duquesne family in order to manage that. And it's not a huge part of the team. We've got one operating partner that spends, let's say, 20% maximum of his time probably on target, and the other one is one member of the investment team. And I have a direct dialogue from time to time with them. So, no, it's a well-organized, structured discussion with the Canang family, so I don't think it's too heavy. Now, are we happy about having a connection of small investment? No. We'd like to have larger. If that's your question of going further, yes, we'd like to have a larger investment than a collection of small ones. But it's not a reason to neglect the one that we have, and I think Target is a great company, and we need to invest some time into it and create more value through that. GPs. Yeah, we have discussion with GPs. The environment is a very active environment, and you see that what we've said, and I think we've been pretty early saying that this was a turning point in this industry, and for many reasons, which was... First, the fact that the industry was not as easy as it used to be because fundraising was more difficult, because you had this period of transition in terms of generation, which was important. different environment with the increase in rates for valuing companies and all of that has changed a little bit the landscape and has made that this industry that developed fast and quickly over the last 10 to 15 years was coming to a period where they had to settle down a little bit and reorganize itself. And our view about that, I think, was pretty clear. And I think we have a very good value proposition for GPs. And we can see that from the discussion we have with most of them. We have... One clear value proposition, and we don't want to move away from it. So we are saying, do you want to make compromise and so on? For example, there is one element we don't want to compromise. We want to have control of – we don't want to be a GP stake. We want to have control of the GP where we invest because we think it's important in order to achieve what we want. We want to create a platform. We don't want to be an investor in GPs. We want to create a true platform. which means that we need to have a controlling stake in Zoo's GP, and should we, because we always have to be pragmatic, should we not have one immediately, we need to have an absolute clear path to have control in a very foreseeable future. But we want to create a platform, and creating a platform needs to have a good sense of the strategy and the leadership on the capital. On the other side, we are very clear about the fact that we want to have teams where we give full autonomy in investing because we want teams that – and we don't want to interfere into investment committee. And that's very important because we think that the number one value when we buy – well, number two value – we buy two things when we buy a GP. We buy a team that is delivering performance, and we're buying relationship with LPs. And the relationship with the LP is key, and if the LP is worried about the fact that you will change where they have invest, which is the quality of the team and how they do their process, then you will lose the LP. So this one also is for us a key element of our discussion, which is also part of the value proposition because some of the reorganization in this industry may lead to integration of teams within larger organization where they lose part of their DNA or cultural identity. our magic touch in terms of investing. So we are very, very sensitive to that. But I view our value proposition as being pretty attractive. But we don't want to rush. We just want to make sure that we always get the best team. That's what we think we had with IKEA. And we'll keep on looking for the very great teams on the market that are sensitive to our value proposition.

We have a question from the web. Why did you deny the article in Challenge about the non-acquisition of geostasy when usually you keep silent?

Because it was stating something wrong.

Thank you. Are you still interested in building up inorganically the specialty cooling business of Stahls? And what is their M&A pipeline now?

So, yes, as Laurent was mentioning, when we did invest initially in 2006, it was a pure companies manufacturing chemicals for the leather industry, leather finishing, the leather wetlands. And as you've seen over the recent years, we morphed and moved the company to being a more specialty and performance-coating business. This is a trajectory where Martin and his team are leading to. And so we, as we did for ISG last year, we are continuing this journey. So we are still looking at additional targets to go into that direction. What is the pipeline? We have assets we are looking at. Is there any chance to sign or close one soon, TBD? But it's definitely something we are pursuing.

Thank you. In line with the capital market day, your press release reaffirmed a willingness to perform a set rotation of the principal investment segments. Which asset do you consider as potential candidate for audition?

Do we want to comment that? No. No, it's a good question, but I think we cannot be specific on that. We cannot be specific. I think it's minutes to – but the only thing we can say that we have the ability to do asset rotation.

Thank you. Is there a maximum cost of bond debt that you do not want to exceed?

Is it maximum? What? Sorry. Cost.

Maximum cost.

Cost of debt. Well, I think we've got our situation that we have a huge amount of cash and a low cost of debt. So I don't think we have to face any renewal of funding before 26. So it's a question we may have to ask ourselves when we have to anticipate that in 25, but not today. So our cost of debt will stay low for the next few years.

Thank you. And the last question from the web, it's about the NEV methodology. Can you give some more color on the calibration process? What does it mean? Does it mean that you overweight some acquisition multiples? It's unclear to me.

I'm losing my mic. Okay, so... Calibration is something that is recommended by the IP guidelines. When we have a significant difference between the acquisition multiples and the average multiples of the listed peer sample, then if these different reflect specific features in terms of growth or profitability between the target and the sample, Then we apply this gap at each measurement date after the acquisition until the difference in terms of growth or profitability disappears. The difference between the pure sample and the target disappears. So it happens that we buy a company with a faster growth than the sample, then we pay one turn, two turns above the pure sample, and then we apply this one or two turns above the pure sample after the acquisition at each NAV. And we stop doing this when the growth of our asset is in line with the growth of the sample. Alexandre, do you have a question?

Three follow-up questions on my side regarding some numbers quickly. There is a negative 2.8 impact on the NAV bridge per share. I mean, can you comment on that? What's included in that number, 2.8 other minus there? Second question is related to the OPEX and financial costs in 2024 at Van Der's holding level. Can we expect a stabilization of that amount in 2024? Thank you. And the last question is related to your FOE target of €150 million in 2027. That's a consolidated amount, or that's the group share? Do you account for IKEA at 100%? Thank you.

So I will go backwards. Group share for the last question. The OPEX you should expect to reduce compared to this year. And the 2.8 Benoit will come back on stage.

Thank you. This is the cost of the structure and some of the stuff like when you buy back shares that could increase the NAV per share. So this is kind of difference. Okay.

Good. If there's no Other question from the web, Olivier?

We have a question about IHS. What is the way forward on IHS for you as one of the main shareholders?

Let's brainstorming with the management and hope to best create value. improving the governance, improving the portfolio composition, improving the financing. So it's fair to say that we have a much better dialogue than we used to.

And so we are a provider of ideas and we believe management is actively... Yeah, we think that the underlying value of the company is much stronger than what the share price reflects. The quality of the EBITDA of the company is good, but it's a little bit like the environment in which the company is moving today is difficult. So, yeah, we've got – even if we're not an active in the governance of – we're not active in the governance of IHS, we, I think, have – good dialogue with the company, and we think that the company is really clearly understanding that they have to act in order to make sure that the real underlying value of the company is better recognized by the stock market. But it takes some time for that.

Thank you. No more questions.

Thank you. Well, so if no more questions from the audience. Nope. Thank you. Thank you very much. And I think we've got a cocktail for the ones that are here and can share together. And we'll be happy to have one-on-one discussion if needed. Thank you. Thank you.