Hello and welcome to the Elior 2023-24 full year results presentation. My name is Caroline, and I'll be your coordinator for today's event. Please note this call is being recorded, and for the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen-only mode. However, you'll have an opportunity to ask questions at the end of the call. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you require assistance at any point, please press star zero, and you'll be connected to an operator. I will now hand over the call to your host, Didier Grandpré, the CFO, to begin today's conference. Thank you. Thank you, Caroline. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Elior Group's full year results presentation. We have provided detailed financial information in our press release issued earlier today, which is available on Elior's website. I invite you to read the disclaimer on slide two, which is an integral part of the presentation. We will start with a short overview of the main group's key indicators at the end of September, and then review the financial results in more detail. The business review will highlight how we successfully improved all levels of profitability this year. Following the integration of DMS, we have developed a new ESG roadmap that we'll share during the call before concluding with the outlook for the year and take your questions. Full year 2023-2024 has been an important step in the deployment of a new Elior Group since the merger of Elior and Derichebourg Multiservices in April 2023. Indeed, full fiscal year 2023-2024 achieved a strong recovery in profitability and recorded a strong positive free cash flow, allowing the group to continue delivering. In the top end of our anticipation, the group posted a growth of 5.1% on an organic basis. The EBITDA improved by EUR 127 million to reach EUR 333 million, and the adjusted EBITDA margin increased by 170 basis points to reach 2.8%. We also recorded good progress on the balance sheet thanks to a return to a positive free cash flow of EUR 215 million. This contributed to further reduce the leverage ratio down to 3.8 times EBITDA at the end of September 2024, comfortably below our bank covenant. On a full year basis, the group continued to deploy new synergies, with analyzed synergies that further increased by EUR 6 million in H2 to reach EUR 36 million at the end of September 2024. Let's now move to Elior's full year result in detail, starting on slide seven with the revenue. Consolidated revenue exceeded EUR 6 billion in fiscal year 2023-2024, compared to EUR 5.2 billion a year ago. The 16.9% year-on-year increase reflects first a solid organic growth of 5.1% in the top range of our guidance, a positive 11.1% contribution from acquisitions, including an additional six months annualised from DMS for EUR 554 million, and the full year revenue from the acquisition of Cater To You Food Service on the US education market for EUR 20 million. The currency impact was very limited. If we look at the performance of the year on a pro forma basis, so meaning including 12 months of DMS in full year 2022-2023, the growth stood at 4.9%. This performance was supported by a robust like-for-like growth fueled by both price increases of 3.3% and robust volume growth of 2.3%. Commercial momentum remained strong, with openings at plus 8.1%, close to previous post-COVID years. Net development growth excluding voluntary exits was again positive at 1.8%. Voluntary exits were stable over the last two years, leading to a retention rate of 91.2%, of 92.7% excluding voluntary exits. Let's now move to the operational profitability. After a turnaround that we recorded in 2023, fiscal year 2024 recorded a further improvement in the Adjusted EBITDA by €108 million, or an increase by 183% year-on-year, from €59 million in 2023 to €169 million at the end of September 2024. Group adjusted EBITDA margin was consequently up 170 basis points year-on-year, from 1.1% last year to 2.8% this year. The strong performance on adjusted EBITDA came from, first, a positive seesaw effect thanks to price renegotiation that more than counterbalanced the declining cost inflation. This resulted in a positive net inflation of €41 million on a full year, with €21 million recorded in H2, following the €20 million in H1 that we presented in May. Secondly, an increased contribution from the net development of €16 million versus €7 million last year, thanks to the relevant focus on new offers and the reinforced pricing discipline. Third, the disciplined execution of our transformation plan, increasing cost synergies and operational efficiencies, brought an overall cost reduction of €55 million in 2024, following €50 million in 2023. Finally, DMS and other acquisitions added €10 million profit on EBITDA. After the net amortization of intangible assets that increased in fiscal year 2024 due to the integration of DMS and a one-shot depreciation of around EUR 10 million in the U.S., the EBITDA stood at EUR 131 million, which represents an increase of EUR 98 million year-on-year. Non-recurring charges amounted to EUR 31 million, EUR 50 million less than last year. They were mainly related to the execution of our restructuring plans in France and some reorganization decided by our new management in the U.S. for a total amount, considering all geographies, of EUR 23 million. Net financial charges amounted to EUR 105 million this year versus EUR 78 million last year. This reflects the increase in the average net debt, including the full effect of the DMS factoring during the year, and interest rates at their highest level during our first three quarters. Income tax was a loss of €36 million compared to a profit of €29 million last year. The current tax amounted to €24 million compared to €11 million in 2022-2023, reflecting first a stable tax CVAE in France, and a higher amount of taxable profit as well in France. Deferred tax amounted to €13 million this year compared to €40 million last year, following the integration of DMS and the reevaluation of the recoverability of tax loss carried forward in France. This year, deferred tax assets were utilized as a result of profit generated in France. At the end, net income stood at a loss of €41 million, significantly reduced compared to last year, while the adjusted net profit recorded a turnaround at €9 million compared to a loss of €6 million last year. Moving to our free cash flow bridges starting on page 12, Adjusted EBITDA amounted to EUR 33 million. CapEx totaled EUR 98 million, equivalent to 1.6% of revenue, slightly above 1.5% last year. IFRS 16 lease payment amounted to EUR 85 million, stable in percentage. Non-recurring cash expenses of EUR 23 million reflected mainly the implementation of our restructuring plan in Europe. Net change in operating working capital was strongly positive at EUR 107 million, driven by receivables, and after a non-recurring cash effect of EUR 23 million and a tax paid of EUR 90 million, free cash flow stood at EUR 215 million. This corresponds to free cash flow improvement by EUR 212 million compared to last year, excluding securitization. This is driven by a sharp improvement in the Adjusted EBITDA by €121 million, which remains the key driver for deleveraging, as well as a strong improvement in operating working capital by €112 million, again excluding securitization, mainly driven by customers' receivables, and to a lesser extent, the reduction in restructuring expenses, while the increase in Capex and IFRS 16 leases mainly comes from the integration of DMS and the higher tax paid from the increase in taxable profits in France and in the U.S. The contribution from the new securitization program amounted to €61 million in September 2024. As a result of the strong free cash flow generation, the net debt decreased by €124 million down to €1,269 million at the end of September, representing 3.8 times the EBITDA, showing a steady trend in the Group's deleveraging. Interest paid amounted to €91 million, and IFRS 16 debt decreased by €35 million in 2023-2024. Bolt-on acquisitions, which represented 0.4% of revenue, were mainly made in Hong Kong and India in order to expand our regional footprint in Asia. They were part of our overall 2% of capital allocated to Capex and acquisition this year. Available liquidity came to €394 million at the end of September 2024, increasing by €81 million year-on-year. We started reimbursing the state-guaranteed loan in France, the PGE, in 2024 for €56 million. The commercial papers were repaid at the beginning of this fiscal year for €20 million, and the liquidity benefited this year from the new securitization program, as I will explain in the next slide, and this new program triggered the reduction of overdraft lines by €24 million. On the next slide, just a few words on the new securitization program. As you know, some groups, entities sold their trade receivable as part of the securitization program, which was actually restructured and extended in September 2024. Notably, this new securitization program now covers the receivable from DMS subsidiaries, replacing the legacy factory program and subsidiaries in the United Kingdom and Italy. The maximum amount of the program has been raised to EUR 800 million from EUR 360 million before September 2024, and its maturity has been extended to September 2027. At the end of September 2024, the amount of receivable de-recognized under the OFF subprogram amounted to EUR 317 million compared to EUR 285 million at the end of September 2023. Proceeds from the new program are primarily applied to the repayment of the term loan, which was partially reimbursed by anticipation at the end of October for EUR 61 million. The significant increase in the EBITDA, combined with the reduction in the net debt, contributed to continuing delivering. The leverage ratio was further reduced to 3.8 times versus 5.4 last year, based on a reported net debt of EUR 1,269 million on covenant EBITDA of EUR 333 million. This ratio remains comfortably below our covenant test level of 4.0 times, but applies from September 2024 onwards. This constant improvement since March 2023, after the acquisition of DMS, illustrates the benefits of a strategy which is more than ever focused on profitability improvement and cash flow generation. This positive trend has, moreover, been acknowledged by recent improving credit agencies rating from S&P and Fitch. Now, I would like to move on to the next section of this presentation with a business review, starting again with the revenue, which, on a total proforma basis, increased by 5.1% with both segments contributing. Contract catering revenue increased by plus 5.5%, benefiting notably from a strong commercial momentum in Spain and the UK, while the portfolio rationalization concerned mainly France and Italy. Multi-services revenue increased as well by plus 4.1%, boosted in particular by the strong performance of the facility services in France. Along with the revenue growth, the EBITDA was multiplied by almost 2.5 times, which, again, both segments contributing. In the continuing trend of profitability improvement achieved in H1, the EBITDA margin raised as well by 160 basis points on a proforma basis in fiscal year 2023-2024. Over the last two years, the profitability has increased by 390 basis points for the total group, with, in particular, plus 410 basis points for the contract catering, leveraging on all drivers. Starting with inflation, in the context of continued deceleration, inflation in food, momentum in price negotiation and revisions confirmed the positive seesaw effect that was expected in fiscal year 2023-2024. As an example, activities in France recorded an average 5.4% of price increases during the year, catching up from the highest inflation level in the first quarters of the year before. The cumulated annualized price increases stood at EUR 462 million at the end of September 2024, adding another EUR 150 million this year. And as last year, we do have a carry-over, which amounts at EUR 57 million renegotiation, but will again support price effects in 2025. Net development remained positive over the last three years, although a bit lower in 2024, being presented on a pro forma basis. This was fueled by good momentum in the signature of new contracts. Most importantly, the net development is additive to the operating margin, with a constantly improving contribution to the EBITDA from EUR 5 million in 2022 to EUR 60 million in 2024. Voluntary exits of loss-making contracts were almost stable year-on-year, with a total contribution of EUR 4 million in the EBITDA, representing close to 10 basis points of margin improvement over two years. Both dynamics illustrate the management guidelines to favor profitability improvement while still growing revenue globally. The third driver is about cost optimization. As a result of continuous optimization of our operations through the reduction of our references, for instance, standardization of our menus, especially in education, increased productivity in our central kitchen and cook-on-site restaurants. New organization implemented as part of the integration of DMS did deliver the expected savings during the year. They were complemented this year by the first benefits from the partial internalization of interim and maintenance services to catering activities in France, as an example. All contributed to EUR 24 million of synergies recorded in fiscal year 2023-2024, after EUR 7 million a year before. Still on synergies on page 24, with a new organization implemented in France, Spain, and Portugal, the focus has been extended to the real estate optimization, the migration to common IT infrastructures and implications, and sales synergies that will continue to get progressively deployed towards our objective of EUR 56 million of EBITDA improvement by the end of fiscal year 2026 on a run rate basis. At the end of September 2024, annualized synergies amounted to EUR 36 million, above EUR 30 million initially targeted for the end of 2026. Regarding sales synergies, we selected a few examples for the three geographies where we combine contract catering and multi-services activities. The first one in France demonstrates our ability to offer the broad range of our portfolio of services to brand new customers. The second one in Spain provides evidence of our capacity to leverage strong relationships with existing customers to further expand the partnership, and in this case, providing a compelling contract catering offer. The third one illustrates as well our capacity to leverage our strong regional presence and foster commercial development thanks to a solid territorial anchoring. Moving to ESG, this year marked a decisive step in ESG matters for the group, following the integration of Derichebourg Multi-Services activities. Building on the commitments we have upheld in the past, we have established new objectives under our new roadmap, Aimer sa Terre Horizon 2030. This initiative aims at providing meaningful direction by aligning our social and environmental ambition within a common framework. Although the group is not yet subject to the requirements of the CSRD this year, we have proactively anticipated this regulatory evolution by structuring our strategy around double materiality analysis. This approach has identified key environmental and social priorities for our stakeholders and business activities, ensuring impactful commitments that align with external expectations and are integrated into our operations. Elior's 2033 objectives are structured around four key pillars: preserve resourcing, serve and feed sustainably, cultivate talents and differences, and support a responsible economy. You will find here some precise targets related to the reduction of food waste, reduction in greenhouse gas emission sourcing, and staff promotion, and some others which will be followed through dedicated KPIs. If we look at what we achieved already this year, results show significant progress towards the 2030 objectives summarized here by the same four key strategic pillars. As an example, the group improved notably in the reduction in food waste by 47% in one year, and the reduction in our greenhouse gas emissions by 12%, contributing this way to better preserve resources. These results reflect encouraging progress, while highlighting areas for continuous improvement in order to meet Elior's ambitious 2030 goals. Now, let me share with you the outlook for the new fiscal year. Starting with all efforts that were made throughout the fiscal year 2024 that established a strong foundation for the further development of Elior, and the start of the new year confirmed the positive trend. Growth and profitability drivers should further contribute to the fiscal year. Inflation should still record a positive balance in fiscal year 2025, while expected at a lower level than last year as inflation has been trending to pre-COVID levels. Continuous operational efficiency improvement and price discipline should further support margin improvement this year, and of course, free cash flow generation remains a priority with a conservative financial policy. As a result, the group expects for 2024-2025 an organic growth between +3% and +5%, an Adjusted EBITDA margin above 3%, a leverage ratio below 3.5 times at the end of September 2025. The medium-term ambition is confirmed with an amount of cumulated synergies of EUR 56 million at the end of 2026, and a net debt EBITDA leverage ratio below three times at the end of September 2026. Now, with some concluding remarks, full year 2024 was a critical year for Elior. It was important for Daniel Derichebourg and the management team to deliver results accordingly, and I would say, even slightly better than expectations for the year, which we did. The strong performance of the year is clearly the result of a new customer-centric and pragmatic approach implemented since April 2023, as well as the streamlined organization having a constant focus on operational improvement and operational excellence. Priority to generate free cash flow and leverage was set by the new shareholder at his first day in our organization and remains the key decision driver. Just a quick final remark on the financial calendar to indicate that future press releases will be published post-market. Thank you for your attention, and we'll now open the floor for the Q&A session. Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. We will take the first question from line Estelle Weingrod from JPMorgan. The line is open now. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. I have three questions, if I may. The first one, adjusted for exits, I mean, retentions came down a little from 93.6% last year to 92.7% this year. Could you just provide some color there? Also, how should we look at retention next year? Are there more exits incorporated in your 3%-5% organic growth guidance? I also have just a question on your margin guidance for next year, implying a 20 basis point expansion year on year. Could you provide more color on the different moving parts? It seems a bit conservative to us. And just the last one, if you can help us quantify the impact of the French and UK new budgets into next year, if it has an impact, and also on an annualized basis. Thank you very much. T hank you, Estelle. I've been cut. Okay. So starting with retention, retention has been calculated this year for all activities, including multi-services, based on 2023 revenue pro forma. Actually, facility services had historically a lower retention rate than the average in contract catering. We could observe the same for the perimeters coming from DMS, meaning in France and a bit more in Spain, but represents the biggest volume from DMS. The US were also a bit lower than last year, which was a kind of very high performance, while still remaining above the average. Spain was, generally speaking, a very active market this year, including in catering. We have, at the end of the day, one of the highest net development balance we recorded within the organization, despite a lower retention rate than last year, but I would say for the benefits of the margin improvement, and again, consistent with our strategy to favor profit improvement versus revenue growth, so on the margin guidance, and your third question indicates as well that there is still some uncertainty in the current macroeconomic context, geopolitical, and regulatory environment, so actually, our guidance factors, the expected drivers that remain largely the same, although with a lower intensity compared to last year for some of them, so for instance, we are still expecting a net positive inflation balance in 2025, but at a lower level, as the inflation has been continuously decelerating since the beginning of 2023. There are, as you are indicating, some uncertainties around labor costs and social charges. To answer to this question, it's a bit premature, I would say, to precisely quantify the impact as the evolution of the regulation is not yet finalized to our understanding. But yeah, this could be part of the uncertainties that I was mentioning. Operational efficiencies should, again, still continue to contribute to margin improvement, but I would say at a level rather comparable to the second semester of 2024, as we are entering into the fourth year of operational transformation. On the other side, synergies significantly contributed this year with a cumulative amount of EUR 29 million at the end of September, while new ones continue to be implemented and closing the gap to these 56 total synergies expected at the end of 2026 on a run rate basis should be achieved progressively over the next two years. And finally, we are still expecting a net development accretive for the new fiscal year. Okay, thank you. Just one thing. Are you modeling any contract exits in your 3%-5% organic growth guidance for next year? So the contract exits, as you have seen, were relatively at the same level over the last two years. I would say consistent with our objective to rationalize most of our contract portfolio by the end of September 2024. So there could be still some contracts, but I would say with an expected limited impact in next fiscal year. Okay, thank you very much. You're welcome. Thank you. We will take the next question from line Pravin Gondhale from Barclays. The line is open now. Please go ahead. Good morning. Thank you very much for taking my questions. I have three questions, if I may. First is, can you talk about the moving parts of organic growth in H224 and the guidance for next year, especially on the volumes and net new there? So the volume growth seems to have accelerated in the second half of this year. What were the key drivers of that, and what are your expectations for the next year, like volume growth? And then net new, excluding the voluntary exits in the second half, seems to have slowed down compared to the first half. You talked about accretive net new next year, but can you just elaborate further on that? And then finally, can you give some colors on the current trading trends? What pricing growth and net new trends are you seeing in education and elsewhere? Thank you. Okay. So regarding organic growth, the volume came from several geographies, and including in H2 as well, the impact from facility services, while in H1, actually, the DMS contribution was reported under the perimeter, and we are presenting this on a run rate basis to make the comparison, let's say, a bit easier. It was this year, in particular, if I look at comparing also driven by higher attendance in our restaurants, and as well the development, which is somehow connected to this higher attendance related to the development of what we call the annexes, so all the events which are organized around, let's say, the traditional cooking side, the breaks, and so on. So we are factoring kind of stabilization of this driver next year. As I was mentioning, we are still expecting a contribution for the inflation, but slowing a little bit down compared to last year, as the cost inflation has been decelerating over the year, and when we activate the price revision, which is, again, a mechanism whereby we look backwards the last 12 months, actually, the reduction of the inflation turns into a lower price increase from that perspective. Current trading is, I would say, in line with our guidance, with very few weeks of activities. Net development has been actually a bit reduced, as you mentioned, in the second half of 2024. You have as well an impact from comparison which is made on a pro forma basis. But as a matter of fact, the most important element for us has been the associated continuous improvement of the accretive margin, which is the reflection of an approach where we are maybe more selective and more focused on the tenders that we are pursuing and making sure that we answer at the right level of price to contribute to further margin improvement. Thank you. Just a quick follow-up on my volume question there. You said that you had the guidance factor stable volume year on year next year. But as we lap the like-for-like benefit of DMS acquisitions in the first half of FY25, shouldn't the volume growth be somewhat positive next year? No, no. What I mean is that it will be part of overall organic growth that we have factored for next year with actually a reduced contribution from that perspective, which is counterbalancing, I would say, a lower impact, negative impact from voluntary exits. Thank you. That's really helpful. Thank you. Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on y our telephone keypad. We will take the next question from line Jafar Mustari from BNP Paribas. The line is open now. Please go ahead. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. I have a couple if that's okay. On the price increases so far, you're talking about €57 million, if I heard correctly, of carry-over, which, if it's the same number as you've been sharing in the last couple of years, is basically the price increases that you've negotiated but have not been recorded effectively in the fiscal year, and so just that would take you to very strong margins in full year 2025, unless two things. One, you don't think it can pass on future inflation, but it seems to be normalizing, or you're making some big assumptions on labor cost increases, for example, so just trying to reconcile that because €167 adjusted EBIT this year plus €57 of carry-over price increases, that's 3.6% margin, so you're trying to understand what you're budgeting for here, please. And then maybe on the other end, in terms of trying to assess if the margins are capped in a way, your new business you're sharing in the presentation, EBIT of EUR 16 million on the new contracts that were opened this year, it is accretive to this year's margins, but in a way, it's only 3.4%. So is there further analysis there? Are some of the more mature contracts at much higher margins than that that you've been opening recently, and that number is impacted by recent openings, for example? Yeah, trying to understand the range of potential margins, please. Yeah. So starting with the first one, so we're here obviously speaking about the price increases prior to the cost inflation, which, as a reminder, still remains. So I would say from a comparison standpoint, the carry-over was slightly lower than what we had last year, around EUR 20 million. So we did see, as last year, a positive contribution of a price revision around education in particular. So you're correct. These are price increases that we got at the end of the fiscal year 2023-24, but have not yet impacted our account or will start impacting our results as we are entering into the new fiscal year. But they will be also to be put in front of the inflation that will continue. So what we are contemplating in our margin improvement is that we will still have a positive net inflation balance, but that should be lower than what we recorded this year. Then regarding the margin from the commercial development, what we show was actually the momentum we had in the opening of new contracts, as we wanted to highlight that this is the first and main driver of the net commercial balance, while actually the accretive margin is the difference from year-over-year basis taking into account as well the impact of the contract losses. So what it means is that as we are continuing the development, the commercial development with new contracts replacing some contract losses, we are continuing to improve the margin. Thank you. I mean, maybe just to follow up on this carry-over of inflation, I perfectly understand that in the last three years, you've had a carry-over, but it hasn't just added to the following year's EBIT because you had another year of very high inflation that took time to pass through price increases, etc., etc. So it was a bit of a race each year with that carry-over never really dropping through to the bottom line. I guess my question is specifically into 2025. Are we not finally in a year where the cost inflation of 2025, because it's low enough finally, because it's not abnormal price increases, can it finally be dealt with during 2025? And so finally, that carry-over benefits you, or do you still think you now almost permanently have this cycle of a lag that you will not be able to deal with 2025 inflation in the year? Because my understanding before is because it's very high. It's very high, and so it takes longer than normal to negotiate when it's big agreements. We're asking clients for a lot. But at some point, when inflation is low enough, we'll be back to the normal cycle with a very, very small lag. At some point, that carry-over will benefit us. Or is it not 2025 yet? Is it a bit later? No, I would say 2025 should be the year of normalization from that perspective. But again, as the inflation has been decelerating in 2023 and 2024, sorry, we are still benefiting in 2025 from a positive delta from the price revisions compared to the cost inflation. If you look at it from over four years, the last four years, or including 2025, actually, the first year, we are actually lagging a little bit behind in terms of our ability to pass through the cost inflation to our customers that created in the first two years of the inflation period a negative inflation balance. We started the recovery in 2024 as we were capturing in our price revision the highest peak of inflation from the previous month. It's still the same mechanism for 2025, at least in Europe, in the context of decelerating inflation, but at a lower level. And then, yeah, we would expect, for instance, 2026 to be balanced from that perspective as the inflation is trending to a pre-COVID level and to a kind of normalized level in terms of intensity. Yeah, that's great. That's very clear. And that's in a way that's what prompted the guidance upgrade in May, right? It's like finally you reached that tipping point and you went into a positive balance. I guess knowing that, I don't know if we were expecting a very high carry-over at the end of this year. If the balance becomes, in a way, slightly positive already, I wasn't expecting you to have that much secured that has not yet benefited revenue. So I'm just questioning if €57 million is not allowing you some more operating leverage than you seem to be assuming. That's consistent with the assumptions that we have taken for the guidance, which is at least 3% for next year. Thank you very much. Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. It appears there's no further question at this time. I'll hand it back over to your host for closing remarks. O kay. Thank you very much for your attendance and questions this morning. So we're happy to publish results that were fully in line with our guidance and expectations for next year. We remain very enthusiastic for further improving our results in the year that is just starting. And let's review this in a six-month time frame. In the meantime, I wish you a very nice day. Thank you very much. Thank you for joining today's call. You may now disconnect.