Well, good evening to everybody. Thank you to join us on this call. I'm here with Jérôme Michiels, and we're going to go through the presentation and give you a little bit of more color about the transaction that we just announced today. We are very pleased to announce, as you've seen, the agreement that we've closed with Cobepa in order to Well, we enter into an exclusivity period to buy the shares of Scalian. As you remember during our session on March 17, which was the presentation of the earnings of the group, we presented also, or outlined a few items of our strategy, which included the fact that we wanted to be an active investor through the market, to invest potentially up to EUR 2 billion within the next 24 months, and that we wanted to invest in non-listed company with majority position, illustrating our will to be an active shareholders in the company we invest, because we do believe that an active shareholder in companies is how we can drive and create value in the future. We also outlined that this was exactly also the position that we wanted to have with our portfolio company. We've said that, we will invest ticket between EUR 300 million-EUR 600 million in equity. We also announced, as you remember well, that we will start, we will think, prepare, and start in the future, a third party, asset management. Today, since then, as you've seen, we've made an exchangeable bond on Bureau Veritas on March 22 for EUR 750 million, illustrating our ability to have some agility in term of financing and structuring our financing to cheap cost, together with our strong belief that Bureau Veritas can create value and move up to a level in line with the premium that we've of the issue of the exchangeable bond. Today, we announce an acquisition. We are acquiring a company called Scalian. Scalian is very well known company within the people that are active in the digital world. This is a company that start. Jérôme will go through that. This is a company that has been starting its position as an engineering company and moved to the digital transformation company. We think it's a company that has strong tailwind. It's a company that have grown 30% per year since 2015, and including 12% of organic growth. It will have, in June 2023, revenues north of EUR 500 million, close to EUR 510 million, and an EBITDA of EUR 74 million. I will hand over to Jérôme, who will give you more detail on this acquisition. My point is really this acquisition is in line with the strategy that we've defined. Is, we think it's an opportunity, a great opportunity to invest alongside a management team that we deeply value. We think this is entrepreneur, and we can create significant growth through that, and we will create significant value by this acquisition. The global valuation of the company is EUR 965 million embedded. Enterprise value ... enterprise value. Equity ticket for us will be close to EUR 550 million. Jérôme, maybe you go through the presentation of Scalian, then I'll take and talk to you at the end as a conclusion to that acquisition. Thank you. Hello, everyone. On slide two, as Laurent said it, we've entered into exclusive negotiations with the intent to acquire Scalian, which is one of the leading European consulting firms in digital, project management and business transformation. It's a French company that has been created in 1989, and they have now extended to rank within the top 10 of engineering consulting firms in France, but have also moved outside of France, as roughly 30% of revenues are now out of France. They are specialized in providing services in industrial project management, supply chain, architecture and development of embedded digital systems, which is one of their core expertise in IT applications, big data and AI. They serve over 800 clients, both in the public and private sectors, primarily industrial and services players, and have made some acquisitions in the past, 9 since 2015, resulting in about 30% of revenues derived out of France. They have a strong track record based on both organic growth and M&A, and their market is underpinned by several mega trends that make for this strong organic growth potential. We are delighted to be the next partner of Scalian, and we will be active, playing our active role of shareholder. We will leverage our expertise in the business services sector and we will back this company in its journey of growing and becoming one of the global leaders in their sector. I'm moving on page 3 to give you the key figures already outlined by Laurent, so I will not spend more time on the company itself, which is as we said, growing fast and has over 5,000 employees. In terms of our agreement to acquire this company, we're talking EUR 965 million enterprise value, about EUR 550 million of equity to be invested alongside management. They are going to be... They are shareholders, they are going to stay shareholders of this company as well. We are acquiring a large majority stake of the company. On page 4, you will see that Scalian actually fits very well with our investment roadmap and the criteria that we have set for these new strategic orientations. We believe it's a strong value creation opportunity based on the model of organic growth supplemented by M&A and the scale effect that the company already has, over EUR 500 million in sales, which is a key asset in this field where you need to be able to serve and actually to cater to the needs of clients that require expertise and complex tasks to be done in terms of digital and operations. It's a growing business supported by mega trends such as digitalization, decarbonization as well. They are very active in the mobility and transport environment, providing services to leaders in energy as well, or finance. They are very well involved within these environment underpinned by very strong tailwinds. It's a leading player that has barriers to scale with 5,000 consultants, its expertise, and offers attractive growth prospects over the long term. The financial profile is interesting as well, in terms of cash flow generation, 14% EBITDA margin, very low CapEx, very low working capital. It's a business that has very interesting features from this point of view. It's a controlled investment within our target range in terms of size, EUR 550 million. We announced that our range was between EUR 300 million-EUR 600 million. We are very well within this range. It's a situation where we will bring our expertise in terms of investing in business services companies and we will rely on the track record and our capabilities to support the management and the growth. Moving to slide 5, where you will see the positioning of Scalian, which is relying on two major pillars with a new business or a line that has been added more recently. The first pillar is digital systems, which makes about 55% of sales, where the company provides services in the environment of operational technology, be data management, embedded systems, critical systems at the heart of the processes of their customers, or IT, which is more conventional technology, but where obviously there is a lot of traction as a result of the cloudification, AI, cyber, et cetera. Operations performance, which makes about 35% of sales, is about management consulting, project management, organization, performance of supply chain, purchasing, cost control, et cetera. In the middle of these two pillars, there is this new business line called strategy and transformation, which already makes 10% of sales, where Scalian provides services in terms of transformation for the next generation industry, life cycle analysis, et cetera, and ESG as well. On page 6, you can see an overview of the sectors where the company is active and some of the logos of their clients. You see a quite diversified customer base with over 800 clients in many different fields. Very deep relationships and loyal customers. Some of them have been with the group for the past 10 years and even more than that for some of them. They are very active in the mobility and transportation sector, as well as in aeronautic and industry. They have diversified very much over the past years, expanding into telecoms and IT, expanding into bank, finance, insurance, space and defense, alternatively as part of acquisitions or through organic growth. Today they have a very balanced portfolio of blue-chip clients across many different sectors. On page 7, you see the organic and external growth track record. You can see that the company increased its sales from about EUR 70 million in 2015 to about EUR 510 million at the end of June 2023. A massive 30% growth based on organic growth of about 12% per annum, supplemented by 9 acquisitions, both in France and outside of France, and have improved our margin as a result of the scale and the operational leverage to 14% EBITDA. You can also see that the company resisted quite well during COVID. Sales remained broadly flat between 2019 and 2020, 2021, and have strongly rebounded since then. Page 8 is about ESG, a very important topic both for us at Wendel and for Scalian. The company is actually well-positioned on these aspects as a company, but also vis-à-vis their customers. They are already, they have already implemented several certifications, ISO certifications. They have received an EcoVadis Silver Medal in 2022 and have the ambition to further accelerate their ESG approach by 2025. They are a member of the UN Global Compact. We see several avenues for growth in terms of ESG for Scalian as well, as it is a fast-growing market, and given their expertise in consulting within this field, that has been expanded by the acquisition of Conergy, completed in 2022, which is active in energy, obviously, and in terms of life cycle assessment, carbon footprint, et cetera. Maybe I leave now the floor to Laurent for the wrap-up and the key takeaway. Yeah. Yeah. Really, thank you, Jérôme. As you see, this transaction is really, you know, buying a company which we think is a European leader, leading player with a very long-established relationship in a rapidly developing industry. That's important because it's the growth prospect that you've seen is a key element of that story. The long-term growth is, by the way, supported by several mega trends. Digitalization is one. Everything around data management is another one within IT. ESG issue is also, and sustainability issue is an important one that will support the development of Scalian in the future. I think the company has a proven track record of both organic and external growth, and they've been very successful in making the integration of selective acquisitions that they've made in the past. To us today, Scalian has the size to become a true platform, you know, to grow further in the coming years. The management objective is to reach EUR 1.5 billion of turnover by 2028. We strongly support that objective and think it's achievable through both a combination of strong organic growth, probably double-digit growth on organic growth and inorganic growth by making acquisitions based on the proven track record that we have and a pretty fragmented, in fact, environment. This strategy is also based on multiple growth initiatives, as I say, fragmented in France, but outside France. The geographic expansion will be at the heart of their development. We see, as you see that, there is still also growing capacity and earning upside identified in the ESG field, and we think this company can bring a lot on that. Specifically everything related to sustainability, where they can bring a lot. This is a company that really fits well with Wendel knowhow and what we've been able to do. B2B services is really one of the sectors that we've always said was at the heart of what we want to do in terms of development. We've got, obviously, a proven track record to that. I mean, you can go back to, Bureau, to, Capgemini. You can go to Bureau Veritas or Allied. Universal. Universal in the U.S. Many sectors where we have a strong track record to bring companies and grow company in that field. Last but not least, and I think it's very important, it's fully consistent with the strategy we announced a few months ago, and actually a few weeks ago, in fact, because it's well, probably not even a month. I think it's just so that we're really moving the path of what we've announced to you, and I think we will move further in the months to come. Yeah, we're very, very proud to have make this agreement. I must say that one of the key element to that also is the quality of the management team. For us, investing in great companies to make them become leaders in their sector is one of the item that we have, and we will create value. We also do that with good management team that have entrepreneurial spirit, which is exactly what we find at Scalian with Yvon Cheniaux and his team. Now, Jérôme and I are at your disposal to answer your question. As you're here, we're very enthusiastic about this acquisition, and we think we will create significant value with it. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we now begin the question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star one one again. We are now taking the first question, please stand by. The first question from Joren Van Aken from Degroof Petercam. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Yes, good evening, everyone, and congratulations with this transaction. Two questions from my side. The M&A is clearly an important part of the investment case of the business. In that sense, could you provide some idea on the return on invested capital that the business currently has, or should I ask that question once the deal is closed? A second question is there any selling shareholder in this transaction? Thank you. Thank you for your questions. Your first question on the M&A. Yes, you're right in saying that it's an important feature of this transaction. Well, the return on investment capital, obviously we're not going to disclose what we are looking for as an investor. As you can imagine, we need to deliver double-digit TSR as we reiterated as one of our targets when we outlined the new strategic direction. This investment is very much in line with this target. In terms of M&A, the company is looking for same types of business than what it is today, which means growing targets that offer the same types of margin gross margins with the ability for these targets to expand under the umbrella of Scalian and to improve their expertise and generate potentially some synergies. That's how they are looking at it. Obviously, the availability of these targets is uncertain. As Laurent said, the objective of reaching EUR 1.5 billion in 2028 is what Yvon has in mind. We very much share this vision and will be actively supporting M&A during the next years. We view that Scalian is today has reached a size to be a great platform to integrate smaller companies where they can really leverage their, the quality of their relationship with their clients by bringing additional expertise and using the expertise that those company bring. We think it's a very good platform in order to do that, and that we can really create more value than the in the future by M&A. Despite that, if you look to the performance of Scalian over the last five years in term of M&A, it has been a very good track record. All the acquisition have been delivering significant value over the term. We are very confident in the ability of the team to identify and integrate those companies. And I think they can do that because they've got now sufficient size and they're big enough in order to do that. They're, but they're still at a size where they can really care about the acquisition of what they do to integrate that into the right way to create value. Yeah, we think it's a potentially a significant acquisitive company and can value creating through that. Internal growth will be important in the story. Both, so it's both a story of organic growth and external growth. Not only external growth, but both will be value generating. About your second question on the selling shareholders, the company is currently majority owned by Cobepa, and, as Andera as a minority shareholder, and, these shareholders will sell, at closing. Management will, stay as a shareholder and reinvest alongside us. Okay, very clear. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your question. We are now taking the next question. Please stand by. The next question from Geoffroy Michalet from Oddo BHF. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Hello. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you for taking the question. With this acquisition, when it will close, the business service sector will represent more than 60% of your process asset value. Do you intend to be a holding specialized in this field, or will you try to make it evolve over time? Also, second question, the M&A pathway of Scalian was very active in the last 24 months. Did you have a, let's say, a good level of certainty on the due diligence you did that the integration of the latest targets were under control? Thank you. Yeah, Jérôme, you will take the second part. The first part of the question is. Was about the. Exposure of business services, huh? Yeah. First of all, yes, B2B services is really one area where we have great knowledge and, as I mentioned during our call, during the earnings, I said that we will invest in the sector where we have the best knowledge, but it is not the only one. We've mentioned education, we've mentioned healthcare, we've mentioned TMT as being areas where we have skills, and we're looking to different opportunities in those sectors. We don't want to become B2B services company. We're not here in the sort of asset allocation transaction. It's more an opportunistic transaction. The We have the opportunity, I think, to create significant value with this one, but we don't want to make only acquisition B2B services. We will look to other sectors. By the way, we are working, as I mentioned, on reviewing the different sectors and assessing whether we want to have new sectors where we see mega-trend that will justify that we move to that, we will come back to you if we with that. Let's say that this transaction doesn't mean that we become a B2B services company. It just show that we have great knowledge and that because we have this knowledge, we've been able to make the work on Scalian in-depth and make sure that we're a good quality platform. Maybe that's includes the fact that we've made the right diligence on the integration of the recent acquisition, huh? Yes, yes. Absolutely. We M&A is really at the heart of the model now. Yes, you're right. They've done 9 acquisitions recently, but we obviously paid a lot of attention to that and to the integration, which is even for the latest acquisitions are well advanced. They've been able to actually grow these businesses, integrate them, and they have a strong management team as well at the level of these companies that has very well integrated into the model of Scalian. I don't know whether that answers your question, Geoffroy. Yeah. Clearly. Maybe one last question. Could you elaborate a bit more on the free cash flow generation profile of Scalian? You just mentioned the fact that it was good, but. Yes. Could you help us a bit? Yes. As I said, the company generates about 14% of EBITDA. The level of CapEx is very low. That's a services business, so we're talking roughly 1 point something of revenues, 1.3%, 1.4% of revenues. Working capital is quite low as well. It's a company that closes in its accounts in June, so there is a degree of seasonality, but the working capital swings in between 3%, say, and maybe slightly over 6.5% of sales about. That's so that's, you know, quite minimal. And it's... The result of that is that the cash flow conversion is around 80%, which is quite healthy, but not untypical of services company. Okay. Thank you very much. That's it for me. Thank you. Thank you for your question. We are now taking the next question. The next question from Alexandre Gérard from CIC. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Well, good evening, gentlemen, and congratulations for that, for that deal. My first question relates to the profitability of the company. 14% as an EBITDA margin seems to be at the very high end of the, of the, of the industry average. Can you give us some more details to better understand how Scalian is able to generate such a high EBIT margin? KPIs like utilization rates of employees, turnover rates, things like that. Can we have also maybe EBIT margin of the company and the net margin of the company? And profitability-wise, in looking ahead, in 2028, does that 1.5 billion EUR in revenues also include a 14% EBITDA target? I.e., is it sustainable in the medium term? That's my first question. Second question, can you be more precise regarding your ownership in the company, just for us not to write stupid things tomorrow morning, in terms of leverage? What will be your precise ownership? Because we have the tendency to believe that the financial leverage stands at above 5 times EBITDA if we look at the difference between the EV of the company and your equity ticket. Yes, what's gonna be your precise ownership, and what's the leverage of the company? Thank you. Thank you, Alexandre. Your first question on profitability. Well, when you look at companies in the sector, I mean, if you look at Capgemini, if you look at Accenture, I mean, they are generating margins sometimes higher than 14% in terms of EBITDA. We believe it's a sustainable level to answer one of your questions. In terms of EBIT, this would translate to about 13% or around 13%. This is the result of a gross margin being in line with the industry and the management is obviously very focused on that. I will not provide you with details on the gross margin, but they are very much in line with what the industry does. They have some more profitable sectors within the business where their expertise is such that they can command higher margins. The blended margins are in line with the industry. The EBITDA at this level, we believe, can be sustained. In terms of the capital structure, the leverage is close to 5x EBITDA. You're not going to write anything silly, when you say it's around 5 times. That's in line with what we expect to have at closing. Maybe one point on the margin. We think the margin is in line. And we think that while the company will be growing, there will be potentially ability to increase margins through usage of nearshoring and offshoring, which they do very little for the time being, probably because they were too small. You need to and this is part of the project that we have, and we think that with size and with selected acquisition that we've already identified, they can generate significant value by moving to offshoring business. This is something that will be part of the plan by 2028. We don't... We expect the margin to stay at least where they are by 2028. Okay. If I may, have two follow-up questions. How do you intend to finance the development of the company? The leverage on the back of that EUR 1.5 billion target in 2028 will remain that high at 5 times EBITDA? No, the leverage will be we intend to finance through its own means, so the cash generation. Our plan is to make sure that the leverage will, well, in fact reduce over time together with doing the acquisition. Yes, it's... Yes. It will be, yeah. We have acquisition lines. I mean, as it is typical in these types of LBOs, we have 2 acquisition lines that are fully committed that will help us finance if required larger acquisitions. The plan at this time is based on the utilization of those lines and the fact and the deleveraging capacity of the company. If needed, if there was a very significant acquisition that could create significant value, we can always add a few capital in the company in order to sustain that. We never ruled that out as the plan of the company for the time being, the one that we support, that when the target mentioned by Yvon in his statement, is based on the company as it is without needed to add more capital from outside. We will be there to support growth. All right. Last question, when did you start initiating discussions with the seller of the company? Was it more than 1 year ago, or was it more recently? No, we actually, we came up with this idea, I would say, at the end of last year, 2022. We expect that at this point in time that the company would be up for sale. We formally met with management earlier this year. That was in late January. We worked very hard from then on with, and particularly over the past few weeks, to finalize these agreements yesterday. We, yeah, we've been working on this opportunity for since late last year, I would say. It's a company that has been identified by the team for a long time. As we knew the sector and the company, that's why we've been able to be fast in the execution at the end. I guess you were not the only bidders for that company, right? Yeah, I think we were the most agile bidder, which I think is important if you want to win the deal the right way. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for your question. There are no further question on the phone. I will hand the conference to Olivier Allot for web question. Please go ahead. Thank you. Question from David Cerdan. Who were the other bidders on this deal, and who are Scalian's closest peers? Okay, thank you, David. The other bidders were both private equity firms and strategy players. As you can see, the financial profile is highly attractive to private equity firms. There are some sizable players in the industry as well that showed some interest. In terms of competitors, well, they compete with various players, I mean, depending on the business you look at. I mean, they compete with Capgemini or Atos on some parts. They compete with Akka. They compete with who else could we Accenture as well. These are the largest players, but there are smaller players with whom they compete, as Laurent said. It's quite a fragmented industry, which is one of the key feature, interesting features about this business, because you can find some M&A targets, as it is quite fragmented. You have more specialized, more geographic, more local players, that exist, and this provides for interesting M&A targets. One of your competitors is Well, we are not going to disclose the precise numbers yet because I'm not sure we are allowed to. What I can tell you is that the current debt provider stays in place, which means that there is no need for a refinancing. We are adding to this debt, we'll be adding to this debt as part of the closing in order to be at about 5x EBITDA. The current facilities, if you will stay in place. They've been extended in terms of maturity. The result of that is that the pricing is competitive because the facilities are already in place and do not reflect exactly current market conditions which would, which could have been less competitive. That's what was also interesting in this transaction, is the fact that the incumbent lenders stay in place and will leave this facility, have actually extended the maturity of this facility. Thank you. Three questions from Tamar Agarwal. Could you detail around the revenue model of Scalian, e.g., share of recurring revenues, how it plans to achieve more than 25% revenue growth from 2023 to 2028? Yes. Well, one way of answering, of answering your question, I guess, is the tenure of their customers. As I said, they have customers with whom they have relationships that span over three decades, very loyal customers. The large clients actually have been with Scalian for a long time. They are very loyal to Scalian. If I... I mean, if you look at the evolution of their customer base, they have expanded the size of their customers, over the years, diversified, and the top 10 clients account for less, in terms of sales than a few years ago, and are very loyal to them. They are still with them, as I said, for more than 30 years for some of them. So there is a form of loyalty from the customers and the recurrence of revenues is related to the various projects that these customers undertake. There is always a need for a next generation of system. There is always a need for operational excellence. There are new projects, going on and on at these customers which makes. A good level of recurrence. Which means that they have high repeat business from the existing customers. Yes. That's really what make the model work well. They have high repeat business from existing customers. They acquire new customers and create the same loyalty, and they are on those long-term trends that where more, more and more clients want to invest. I think they've got a good quality teams and expertise, and their expertise is really at the heart of what people want to develop today. That's really how the... We've made the analysis of their customer satisfaction is then that very high level and that translate in that repeat business, so... By the way, we've seen also very high level of employee satisfaction- Yeah. Which is also an element of their ability to provide a good service to the clients. Thank you, Laurent. I think you answered part of the second question. Okay. What were the drivers of the 12% organic growth since 2015, i.e. how much of that was driven by new customers versus incremental business from existing clients? I don't think we can provide to you the share of between the two, but it's a mixture of the two. The business with existing customers has grown over the last years and they have been acquiring new customers where they had growing and creating a loyal relationship. It's really a mixture of that. I cannot give you a split between the two, but it's a little bit like what I explained to you at the beginning, that we have now a platform when whenever they make an acquisition of new companies, they create synergies in term of revenue because they bring the ability to provide to that customer base the expertise that they have developed with the others. They can expand that, and we've seen that during the due diligence process with many of the customers of Scalian. I don't have the precise detail about your question, but I can tell you it's a mix of the two and we've been impressed by the customer loyalty of that company. Thank you. The third question, why the revenue increased at circa 30% CAGR since 2015 to have the cost per my estimate? While you are targeting similar revenue growth rate to 2028, I want you to understand your thoughts around operating leverage benefits from the business over medium term. Well, we've not that much factoring operating leverage during or in our plan, because we think that when you grow that business, you need to invest in the teams and the people. Certainly there will be some operating leverage at some stage. However, you know, the bigger the company, the bigger the structure of the company and the organization of the company has to be. It's an important, I think, aspect that we will bring to them. We will help them making sure that they organize themselves as a company that grew potentially from 500 to 1 billion fine, which is a significant work to do. Yes, we anticipate a little bit of operational leverage. We think that the global overhead will grow at G&A, will grow slower than the rest of the cost, the people, basically, that they use and the revenues. There will still be significant G&A growth in order to cope with managing a company that is growing and need to have the right structures in order to make that in the right way. You wanna add something, Georges? No, no. I think it's complete. Yeah. Thank you. I have three additional questions from Patrick Jousset. What is the% of revenue with top 1 and top 10 customers? Patrick, top 10 is about 40% for Zero. Top 1 is much smaller than that because that's quite diversified. Yeah. Could you elaborate on the EBITDA multiple paid by Wendel for Scalian, circa 13x? Alten's current EBITDA multiple is circa 9x, multiples paid by Scalian when it acquired Target. The 13x multiple reflects the quality of the business and its growth. The comparable multiples that you can find when you look at public peers are, when you adjust for growth, are actually in line. When you look at players with less growth, they can, or with less size actually, less diversified, you can find lower multiples. We think this 13x or about multiples reflects the quality of the business of Scalian and its growth potential and its model. And if you compare it to company with a similar growth, I think, I mean, organic growth, you see similar multiples. We think it's really in line, and it really reflect the organic growth potential of the company. The last question from Patrick Jousset: Could you provide organic growth from 2019 to 2023? I don't have this figure on the back of my mind, but we can find that for you, Patrick, if you give me a minute. As you will have seen, on the chart that we prepared, actually, I mean, we recovered very, very well from 2019, and the company is now at a much higher level versus the end of 2019. COVID obviously struck some of their clients in 2020, but they quickly rebounded. The organic growth was actually very strong since 2021 and 2022. There is some M&A in there, but the organic growth was quite strong. 15, 10, 15. 10%-15% since, yes, since 2019. I think we do not have any more questions from the web. Good. Well, thank you very much all of you who have been on that call. As you see, we're very enthusiastic about the opportunity that Scalian represent for Wendel, and we think that we will create significant value with together with Scalian. We'll continue delivering the strategy that we've disclosed, the big line we've disclosed to you in March. We will see you next time, I think, for our earnings. The next release that we will do will be. 27 of April. Yeah. That's, yeah. Next week. Next week. Week after. Yeah. Weekend. Next week. Next week? Next week. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Next week. Yeah. Both. Revenue and Q1, NAV. NAV. Yes. Good. Great. Thank you very much. Have a great evening. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye.