Good evening, and welcome to Quadient H1 2024 Results Presentation. I am Catherine Hubert-Dorel, Quadient's Head of Investor Relations, and today's presentation will be hosted by Geoffrey Godet, Quadient's CEO, and Laurent du Passage, Quadient's CFO. The agenda for the call for today is on slide three. We will cover the usual, highlights, key financials, business review, and financial for the group, as well as the 202 4 outlook. As usual, you will have an opportunity to ask question at the end of the presentation, either in writing through the web or by dialing into the conference call. And with that, over to you, Geoffrey. Thank you, Catherine, and good evening. To begin with, I would like to come back on the main event of these past six months, our last Capital Market Day in June. As many of you will remember, in June, we presented our new strategic plan, Elevate to 2030. The strategy stems from the recent refocus of the group on its key strength and aims to long-term revenue growth and profitability increase, thanks to the highly predictable business model that we have. We are aiming, just as a reminder, to generate more than EUR 1 billion per year in subscription revenue. So first, I'd like to come back on what is Quadient. Quadient today offers an unrivaled customer-centric platform, allowing for deeper customer penetration, thanks mostly to it, our state-of-the-art intelligent automation platform, which is recognized by multiple third parties analysts as the leader in each of our solutions. We go to market with a recurring business model, which allows us for higher predictability of our revenue over the long term, and this is why we have been able to provide to the market with a financial trajectory up to 2030. So I am pleased to say that Elevate to 2030 is off to a solid start, with positive development across the whole organization in H1. We will detail the performance of each of our solutions in details, but let me just highlight a few important milestones with you right now. As you know, offering the best customer experience is central to the Quadient automation platform. With that in mind, we are particularly pleased with the multiple high rankings received by our digital platform, because this really sets it apart as one of the best suites, if not the best one, offering in the sector. In addition, we recently received our PDP accreditation by the French government, and we'll come back to that later. So we're ready to offer a comprehensive offering for the upcoming invoicing regulation for the French customers. We also continue to strengthen our recurring business model with further outperformance from our mail revenue versus the competition, and also the fast adoption of our open network lockers, which drives strong increase in parcel volume. Quickly turning to our ESG engagements, we're happy to announce that we have maintained our double A ranking with MSCI, another testimony of our continuous engagement toward the environment, social, and governance matters. Last but not least, we're particularly pleased with the continuous improvement in profitability of our digital platform. At the Capital Market Day, we anticipated a significant increase in profitability, and I'm pleased to tell you today that we are delivering in this improvement with an increase over six points in EBITDA margin just in H1 alone. This means we are ready... We are already 2/3 of the way to achieving our 2026 margin target, as a reminder, of more than 20% EBITDA margin. So the strong improvement in profitability of our digital automation platform is all the more meaningful that the B2B financial automation software sector is undergoing major transformation with significant interest from various stakeholders, including private equities. Our industry is under consolidation, this is a fact, and the main consolidation driver is to create the best suite of offering. In a world where e-invoicing is becoming the norm, digital communication is everywhere, and the customer experience is mostly digital. This is why being able to offer a comprehensive platform of SaaS-based modules, from communication to financial automation, is a true competitive advantage. With several years of anticipation, Quadient has developed now this platform. We have built upon our state-of-the-art initial communication expertise to develop the full range of the CFO suite, from account receivable automation to account payable automation, and with more recently, digital payment and cash app application. Into this sector and under the current consolidation trend, Quadient is in a unique position of being already at a net scale, more than EUR 250 million of revenue last year, comprehensive SaaS platform. Quadient has also a unique access to an existing large customer base, as you know, of several hundreds of thousands of customers that we are cross-selling with our digital solution into. With this solid start of a strategic plan, further deleveraging of the company, and in line with our capital allocation policy, we have decided to launch a EUR 30 million share buyback program to improve shareholders' return, and I'll come back to this in a moment. Turning to slide seven and the highlight of our H1 results. Revenue for the period came in at EUR 534 million, up 3.2% in reported figures, mostly thanks to the addition of our recent acquisitions. Importantly, our share of subscription business model continued to increase, representing now 72% of the total revenue of Quadient… or EUR 384 million of subscription in H1 alone. So let me stress that again, 384 million of subscription in H1 alone. Current EBIT for the period was at EUR 61 million. This is an organic increase of 0.3%, so mostly driven by the significant improvement in the profitability of our digital automation platform, which more than compensate the decline in our mail solution, EBITDA. On a different topic, our leverage ratio, excluding leasing, continues to decrease, landing at 1.6 times at the end of H1 2024. All in all, results for H1 are in line with our expectation, and we confirm our full year guidance. Turning to slide seven. So coming back to the fact that I'm pleased to announce the launch of a 30 million share buyback program. Just want to get into a few more details. This operation is naturally aims at improving shareholders' return, and it also demonstrates our confidence, Quadient's confidence in a few things: in the value creation potential of our new Elevate to 2030 strategic plan. Also, our confidence in our ability to reach our full year 2026 leverage ratio target. And this plan naturally is also in line with the capital allocation policy that we have announced during our presentation in June. And this capital allocation policy, right, aims at balancing a few things. On the one hand, the investment that we continue to make and accelerate into the business, notably in the mail rented equipment, but also the acceleration of the deployment of the parcel network and our R&D efforts throughout our three solutions. Also, the potential external growth, right, and potential acquisition, while we maintain a flexible approach to the management of our portfolio. We also try to balance the fact that we want to maintain a healthy and efficient balance sheet, and in particular, with a target of financial leverage ratio, excluding the leasing of 1.5x in 2026, and naturally ensuring an attractive shareholder return. This is why we had set a dividend policy based on a minimum 20% payout ratio, and the use, naturally, of the excess cash for potential share buybacks. As you can see on the slide, the program will extend over 18-month period for maximum consideration of EUR 30 million. We intend to cancel the repurchased shares, for a 10 million portion that will be dedicated to future LTI plans, in particular, related to the need for the LTI related to our employees and management team. Turning now to slide eight, for the recent shareholding change. Two legal threshold have been crossed over the period with Vesa, which is Quadient largest shareholder, that has crossed the 15% threshold upwards on June 21st, and Teleios, on the other hand, crossing the 10% threshold downwards on August 13th. Both legal declaration are available on the AMF website, which if you want to have some more details, I invite you to download them. Turning to the governance update. 2024 shareholder meeting approved the ratification of the co-option of Bpifrance Investissement, represented by Emmanuel Blot, as an independent director, as well as the renewal of its directorship. I will now hand over the floor to Laurent for the key financial figures at the group level. Laurent? Thank you, Geoffrey, and good afternoon, good morning, everyone. I'm Laurent du Passage. I'm Quadient's Chief Financial Officer, and I will start by providing you with the details of our key financial indicators at group level. Moving now to slide 10. Revenue for Quadient in the first half of the year stands at EUR 534 million. It's up 0.8% year- on- year on an organic basis. The graph on the left-hand side shows you the breakdown of this revenue by type, and on the right-hand side, the breakdown by geographies. Of note, the subscription-related revenue are up 0.7% organically and represents 72% of the total, while non-recurring revenue are up 0.9%. From a geographic standpoint, North America continues to be the group's main driver of organic growth. North America represents now 58% of our total revenues. Many European countries experienced a lower performance in H1 due to mail and posted a 1.6% organic decline, despite the growth we see in digital and locals. Lastly, international posted a 2.5% decline in the context of the change in contractual agreement with our partner, Yamato. We will come back to this later in the presentation. Turning to the slide 12, and our traditional revenue bridge by solution. While H1 revenue organic growth stands at 0.8%, the reported growth stands at 3.2%. Indeed, from the EUR 517 million you can see on the left-hand side, last year, we have a positive EUR 12 million of scope impact from both acquisitions of Daylight and Frama. This year, Forex is positive by EUR 1 million, mainly linked to the dollar, strengthening slightly against the euro. Turning to our solutions, you can see digital posted an organic growth more than offsetting the small organic decline of both mail and lockers. Moving now to slide 12. You can see here the same bridge regarding current EBIT. We are moving from EUR 65 million last year to EUR 61 million, mostly due to the scope effect and notably Daylight. Organically, as mentioned by Geoffrey, EBIT is slightly growing by 0.3%, thanks to the significant improvement in the EBITDA level of our digital business, +EUR 12 million, just for H1, more than compensating the decline in EBITDA of both mail and to a lower extent, lockers, and of course, the change in mix. EBITDA at group level is hence increasing by 2.6% organically. I suggest we now move into the detail of each solution, and over to you, Geoffrey. Thank you, Laurent. Turning to the details of the performance by solution. So now starting slide 14 for the business highlight of our digital automation platform. Again, this quarter, Quadient has been recognized by multiple software industry analysts for each of its different modules. And as you can see on the slide, whether it is for accounts payable automation, accounts receivable automation, or customer communication, Quadient is always in the top right-hand corner among the leaders or the major players. Moreover, we're also pleased with the fact that we regularly enter new rankings, as it is the case for the accounts payable automation software in the IDC MarketScape, where we ranked major player worldwide for our first ranking. These awards are just examples amongst the many that we have recently received. Highlights... It highlights the strong positioning of Quadient as the best suite in the SaaS financial communication and financial automation industry. Not only Quadient has assembled a comprehensive suites of SaaS solution, from customer experience to customer communication, but also the full CFO suite, but also each of those individual modules are among the best in the industry. Quadient Digital Automation Platform not only offers the best suite to small and medium-sized companies, but it also offers the best of breed of each of its modules. Turning to slide 15. Our strategic approach for customer success is based on two pillars: acquisition of new logo and expansion of the customer base. So for digital, as part of our focus on acquisition of new logos, we already added 1,200 new customers, just want to repeat, 1,200 new logos over the first half of this year, as we continue to experience strong commercial dynamics. The share of SaaS customers also continues to increase now, and it stands at 83%. Cross-selling with our mail customers, especially in North America, remain very active, including some large deals that we have signed. So I'll give you an example. We recently managed to convert a large insurance company, which has been a mail customer for more than 20 years, to our digital offering through our cross-selling channels. This resulted into a deal worth more than $1 million, $1 million. This positive trends is continuing to increase over the beginning of the third quarter, as we have already signed a new large deal, this time with another U.S. insurance company, a very large one, worth more than $7 million for the next five years. This deal is not a cross-sell deal, which clearly demonstrate that Quadient is successful with both its existing mail customers, but also with its direct acquisition of new logos, especially for large enterprise. Last but not least, we recently received the official registration as a partner dematerialization platform, PDP, in France, among a few other companies like Esker. This is an important milestone in the path to e-invoicing. As such, despite the delays in the implementation of the law in France, Quadient is now ready to offer our solution to its customers, French customers, who needs to comply with the future invoicing requirements. Turning to customer expansion. As you know, Quadient Hub is an integral part of our platform strategy, and importantly, it acts as an accelerator of the upsell that we can have with our customers, thanks to the platform approach. At the end of the first half of 2024, H1, all eligible customers have now been onboarded to the Hub, which is a great milestone for our upselling strategy. This strategy is already successful, with overall upsell booking increasing more than 15% in H1 alone, with more and more deals signed, combining several modules of the Hub at the same time. We also continue to improve the platform offering through both innovation. I'll give you an example, with the recently launched cash application, and also another example with additional partners integrations, which are super critical for our future. And I'll give you examples, such as the one we've done with Microsoft Business Central, but also the one with Sage 200, and that's for some ERP solution integration. But we also did additional integration with Stripe for the payment solution. Importantly, the churn rate of our Digital Automation Platform continues to decline and is well below 5%, which is a testimony of the quality of the solution offered to our customers on the platform and the stickiness, therefore, of our solution. Laurent? Thank you, Geoffrey. Digital represented EUR 130 million of software revenue for Quadient in the first half of the year, an increase of 5.9% organically and 8.3% on reported basis. I think we can move on the next slide. This growth was driven by the continuous improvement of our subscription-related revenue, which is up 8.7% organically in the period. They were fueled by positive commercial trends, as mentioned by Geoffrey, across the platform, and benefited notably from the solid contribution from the upsell and the cross-sell with mail. However, as discussed previously, digital revenue is still impacted by the negative comparison basis due to the delay in implementation of two large U.S. deals. As this was announced in Q3 2023, this is the last quarter concerned by this comparison basis. Our annual recurring revenue continues to increase and stands at EUR 221 million as of July 31, 2024, an annualized organic growth of 15.3% versus the end of last year. From a profitability standpoint now, we are particularly pleased with the significant improvement in profitability delivered again this half year by our digital solution. EBITDA margin improved strongly by 6.4 points compared to H1 2023, and reached 15.7%, representing an EBITDA of EUR 20 million, just over H1 2024. This significant improvement comes from the virtuous circle we have put in place in our digital, with the incremental revenue being highly contributive to the EBITDA, thanks to a now at-scale platform, benefiting from a high growth margin level. We are confident that this positive margin trend will continue. If you recall, we set a target for an EBITDA margin of over 20% in 2026 for our digital platform, and with this latest improvement, we have already achieved 2/3 of the objective. Now over to you, Geoffrey, for our mail business. Thank you, Laurent. I have already spoken about how important innovation is to Quadient, and this is very relevant as well in our mail business. We drive product penetration, thanks to our product upgrades and our new connected services and other transforming tools. In H1 2024, we launched a new secure barcode functionality, a cloud-based application designed to enhance the security of the customer physical communication, and we tailored this solution for small businesses that begin their journey into the digital mail solution, providing immediate benefits in document management and operational efficiency, but this also enables us to cover a large range of customers and tailoring solution according to their size and to their needs. We discussed the decertification in the U.S. in the recent past, and we are now entering the last quarters of this process, with the last day of use for the non-compliant meter planned for the end of 2024. And this is important for customers to upgrade their equipment if they do not want to lose their service. Now, with Quadient new equipment range, they will benefit from faster updates, better pricing, and reduced cost. The decertification is obviously a driver of upgrade of our install base, and share of the upgraded equipment now stands at 36.6% such worldwide, compared to 31.5% at the end of January, 2024. So if we turn now to slide 18, and starting with the customer acquisition, it is worth stressing that Quadient continues to outperform its main competitors, notably thanks to the solid contribution from our North American operation. Our mail automation platform continues to gain market share, as the quality of our product offering allows us to remain highly competitive. In Europe, the integration of the recently acquired Frama organization is progressing as planned. And as explained at the time of the acquisition, we aim to upgrade the installed base of Frama and initiate also cross-selling efforts into their customer base. With these positive trends, we expect the third quarter of 2024 to continue on a resilient commercial performance. Regarding customer expansion strategy, we recently launched what we call SimplyMail. It's a new SaaS offering for small customers in France, and the adoption has been very solid just in the last few weeks. This offering complements the physical mailing with a digital option. As mentioned previously, the solid cross-sell performance, especially in the U.S., continues between the mail and digital, with several large contracts signed. Turning to Laurent for the Mail key financial figures. Thank you, Geoffrey. Revenue for mail came in at EUR 362 million. As you can see on the chart, a very small 0.5% organic decline, and it's even up 2.5% on a reported basis, thanks to the recent acquisition of Frama, consolidated since the first of February 2024. This performance is very solid, and it's obviously outpacing current market trends. Looking into the details, it was mainly driven again by solid hardware placements, mostly in North America. This results notably from the decertification. This regulation process mostly impacted the low-end equipment, but some higher-end machines are also concerned. Regarding subscription-related revenue, they are impacted by lower supplies and declining rental levels in Europe. Turning to the EBITDA margin for mail, it stands at 25.8%. It's down 3.2 points. It represents EUR 94 million just for H1. The lower level compared to last year comes from the revenue mix, with more hardware, added to the dilution from Frama acquisition. Regarding Frama, performance is expected to improve significantly from 2025, thanks to the upgrade of the install base, as Geoffrey explained just before. Over to you now, Geoffrey, for the parcel lockers. Thank you, Laurent. So the priorities for our locker business are to continue a few things. The first one is deploying the lockers. Second one is growing the install base, while we maximize the usage. And we are innovative in all those three areas. So when it comes to expanding our install base, we're also able to find innovative partnerships, as it is the case. I'll show you the example in Japan, where we have recently expanded our install base through a strategic agreement with JR East Smart Logistics Co. This collaboration is based on the integration of Quadient parcel delivery and pickup functionalities into the JR East existing locker system across Japan's large railway network. This is the first time Quadient is expanding its intelligent locker capacities to a third-party network, and we're already pleased with the adoption. We also continue to deploy our lockers by selling them, as another example, to universities or multi-families, and such, mainly in the U.S. market, but not only. For the university segment, we have recently crossed the 250 equipped universities threshold. We have the largest market share in this segment in the U.S. This represent close to 1.5 million students using our lockers every year, which, by the way, they're gonna be accustomed to use them before they move into their adult life, professional life, into potentially a multi-family residence. These lockers are also a great representation of the diversity of the Quadient offering. From the newly developed rear-loading lockers, essential to avoid the bottleneck in the postal rooms. But I could take another example, the refrigerated lockers, as this is the case in the Bunker Hill Community College, where they are used for the student food pantry programs. So our lockers deployment continued to progress with a global installed base of close to twenty thousand four hundred lockers at the end of the period. Moving to the next slide, I'm talking about customer acquisition. As you can see on the graph on the left-hand side, we have experienced, since January 2023, an acceleration of the installed base for the U.K. and the French Open Networks combined. This acceleration is notably supported by the additional deals that we have signed for premium location, such as the Punch Pubs partners or another one, like Co-op in the U.K., but as well as the deployment of the Auchan contract in France, and more recently, the addition of columns to existing click and collect lockers, which turn them into hybrid lockers, and they are able to receive parcels from those carriers, but also from the companies who host them. For example, at Decathlon in France, so overall, we're quite pleased with the pace of deployment for European Open Networks and expect this pace will further accelerate in the U.K., notably, thanks to the support of the Royal Mail, increasing use and usage of our network. In parallel to the deployment, we obviously are enjoying growing the... We're enjoying seeing the growing volume of the parcels, and the usage rate is also increasing, which is key for Open Networks. And the trend there is also very positive. As you can see on the graph, on the right-hand side, in H1 2024, the increase in volumes in the European Open Network has been over 200%, highlighting the rapid adoption of the newly installed lockers. However, on the volume side, in Japan, have been lower than expected, though still slightly growing, and this is mostly due to the difficult macroeconomic condition impacting the retail consumption and especially the C2C volume in Japan only, which represent a significant proportion of the lockers volume for us in Japan. This is why we also diversify the object transitioning into the lockers to maximize the usage. So I'll give you an example. We recently signed an agreement with a company called KeyNest in the U.K. Under this agreement, Quadient lockers can now be used to deposit keys for short-term rentals. This represents an encouraging trend for installation and volume of our European Open Networks. On the contrary, in the United States, the trend for new installation remains a little bit below our expectation, and we're expecting the trend to actually improve in H2. Laurent will now detail the financial result of the locker business. Thank you, Geoffrey. Revenue for parcel lockers is EUR 43 million for the first half of 2024. It's a 2.5% organic decline and -4.7% on the reported basis, the difference between the two being due to the Japanese yen weakening between H1 this year and H1 last year. The decline in revenue is primarily driven by the still weak sales level from North America, where most of the hardware sales come from, and as you can see, hardware sales declined by 15% in the period. Looking in the subscription-related revenue, Q2 2024 showed a stronger organic growth than Q1 2024, affecting the solid volume ramp-up within Open Network in the U.K. and in France, as well as the positive contribution from the overall growing install base. On the contrary, the negative impact from the change in commercial agreement with Yamato in Japan in Q3 2023 continues to weigh on the local subscription-related revenue. EBITDA margin from the lockers stands at -6.7%. It's down by 3.7 points. It's representing an EBITDA this year of -EUR 3 million versus -EUR 1.3 million last year. The decline in EBITDA margin comes primarily from the negative impact of this change in commercial agreement with Yamato on the Japanese locker base. As a reminder, we have evolved from the historic fixed subscription model to a fee-per-parcel model. Turning now to the review of the H1 result at group level and slide 24, with a summary of the H1 results. This slide represents the summary of the H1 results. You will find the same information as discussed before, with EUR 534 million of revenue for the period. It's 0.8% organic growth, broken down by solution, as well as the details of the EBITDA by solutions. And to finish, EUR 61 million in current EBIT for the group. Turning now to the P&L on slide 25. The net attributable income stands at EUR 24 million for the half year versus EUR 36 million last year. It's entirely due to EUR 8 million one-off IT project write-off, but also, as expected, cost of debt increased to EUR 20 million against the EUR 15 million we had last year. Mainly due to the rising interest rates on the variable portion of the debt and the cost of carry of the partial refinancing of the bond. This is partially offset by a positive tax impact of EUR 2 million versus an expense of EUR 6 million last year, due to one-off tax benefit of IP transfers. Let's now turn to the cash flow statement on slide 26. Free cash flow after CapEx stands at positive EUR 3 million against a negative EUR 15 million last year, thanks to remarkable working capital evolution, obviously degraded compared to January, but still much better than last year, thanks to an improved level of cash collection. Good management of stock, as well as positive impact from timing difference on VAT payments, notably, that helps to improve the working capital requirements at the end of H1. On the contrary, the resilience of the leasing portfolio continues, leading to a lower cash generation. When it was sixteen million last year, it's only six million positive this year. Compared to last year, CapEx level is stable, but with a different mix and increase in mail and local CapEx for rent, but offset by lower IFRS 16 CapEx, as we will detail in the next slide. Moving now to slide 27. As I said, the CapEx level overall is stable compared to last year's EUR 46 million. On the local side, the CapEx for rent increased in order to support the open network rollout, particularly dynamic in the U.K. and in France. On the digital side, the investment are mainly focused on R&D, and the development of the platform is slightly up against last year. Regarding mail, with the CapEx linked to the new rented equipment, the overall decline in investment is linked mostly to the non-renewal of office leases, notably in the U.S. and in the U.K. That led to a lower IFRS 16 CapEx, despite the CapEx for rent. Let's turn now to slide 28. On the debt situation. The net financial debt for the period stands at EUR 726 million. It's a small increase against where we were in January. At the end of H1 2024, hence the leverage, excluding leasing, decreased further from 1.65 to 1.6, as mentioned by Geoffrey. It's on track to deliver the 1.5x leverage target by 2026, even when accounting for the share buyback program shared by Geoffrey on slide seven. So all in all, a solid financial position. Now turning to slide 29, on our financial structure. It's very solid. We are well positioned to finalize our bond refinancing through H2, as you can see. Earlier this year, we extended the maturity of our revolving credit facility from 2028 to 2029. Liquidity remains very strong at the end of H1, with EUR 194 million of cash and EUR 300 million of undrawn credit facility. This concludes my review of the financials, and now back to you, Geoffrey, for the outlook. Thank you, Laurent, so for the outlook, moving to slide 31. H1, 2024 performance has been in line with our expectation, as described by Laurent and myself, and as mentioned earlier, several adverse elements, such as the change in the commercial agreement with Yamato or the delays of the implementation of several large contracts signed in 2023 on the software side, will no longer impact our comparison basis moving forward. While at the current EBIT level, we expect the improving trend in digital to continue, and while we expect the locker solution to also pose significant improvement in EBITDA margin for H2, so naturally, we continue to expect a strong performance as well from our mail solution. It's only logical that we confirm our full year 2024 guidance and expect to deliver organic growth both at the revenue and the current EBIT level. I wanna thank you, and with that, we're ready to take your question with Catherine and with Laurent. Thank you, Geoffrey. We will start with the questions on the line. Operator? Thank you. If you'd like to ask a question or make a contribution on today's call, please press star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star two. You'll be advised when to ask your questions. We'll pause for just a quick moment to allow everyone an opportunity to signal for questions. We will take our first question from Maxime Dory, BNP Paribas. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Yeah, thank you. Good evening, everyone. Maybe first question is regarding the ARR of the digital business. We saw a slight acceleration in the last few quarters. Could you give a trading update regarding Q3 and what you expect for the coming months? You mentioned a few large contract, but more generally speaking, do you think you will keep this acceleration? And I was wondering if e-invoicing is already, you know, a support, a tailwind for orders in in Europe, or is it more something that you will rely on, for example, next year or when we will be closer to the implementation on, on the invoicing? And another question is regarding the launch of a share buyback. Well, I think it's a good idea, as the current valuation of a share stands, but should we interpret this as that you expect no M&A operation in the coming quarters? So you prefer to launch as soon as possible, the share buybacks. Thank you. Okay, so let's take the first one, which I think is the... Thank you, Maxime, for the three questions. I will try to answer them to the best of our capabilities. So on the first one, on the growth of ACA, on the digital side, sorry. I think there's a few indication if you wanna be looking forward. The first one is the information that Laurent shared with us, which is that the ARR on an annualized basis has grown now to up to 15% in H1, which is a forward-looking indicator of what the subscription revenue growth rate should be for the next twelve months. So obviously the next six months, so Q3, Q4, is part of the next twelve months. So that's one aspect. So naturally, compare to the level that we're in, in H1, we should anticipate an acceleration on the subscription revenue. Two, the comparison basis related to that, to those two customer contract that were paused or postponed, which they're still customers, by the way, will no longer be in the comparison basis moving forward. So when you have those two things in mind, naturally, we would expect the subscription related revenue growth to significantly increase in H2 for both Q3 and Q4. We would expect that level to be obviously above double digit. So a double digit versus the single digit growth that we have right now. After that, we'll need to see the level of professional services and license, but as you know, it's a small portion of the revenue now. I think it's less than 18% in H1. So, you know, having that in mind, I think you can anticipate what the business for digital would look like into H2. You wanna add anything, Laurent, on this? No, we're clear. On the e-invoicing tailwind, it's probably, and I'm looking at Laurent because he's also a CFO. So naturally, as a CFO in organization, you want to anticipate, right? Anticipate sometimes those regulation. Unfortunately, not all CFO can anticipate, so you would see that anticipation sometimes coming from the larger part of the organization. So large enterprise or sometime more, you know, bigger mid-size enterprise could potentially decide to anticipate, clearly, and I think the current performance is benefiting in terms of those of that push or anticipation of the push. On the other hand, the law has been postponed several times now. It may also be pushed further, and therefore the big wave of small and mid-sized companies will likely wait for the law timeline to be confirmed. Usually we would see that, you know, a bigger tailwind naturally, starting at that time, so probably not there yet. You want to take the third one or Laurent? On the buyback? Yes. Yeah. So on the buyback topic, I think, the question that you raised was about, I would say opposition between buyback and M&A capabilities. The buyback program that we announced is again something that we can afford, still moving to the right direction in terms of delivery and all the investment we have in parallel. It's not at the expense of what we could do elsewhere. I think Geoffrey represented clearly. It's about market conditions, about also a return to the shareholder, but it's not at the expense of the investment that we will continue to do, that were presented during the capital market day, and very clearly stated as being one of the option on the capital allocation. Just if I may, Laurent, Maxime, to your earlier point, I'm thinking about an additional point related to the invoicing. The accreditation we got from the French government, actually, twice now in the last few weeks, like other companies, like Esker, that is one of our partner. On the other hand, it's clearly a reinforcement of why customers would buy a solution from Quadient tomorrow. So those accreditation are definitely good news because it means our future solution will be accredited and recognized by the French government, and therefore, it's a differentiation versus all the other companies that are not accredited today. Next question, please. We will take our next question from Jean-François Granjon, Oddo BHF. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Yes, thank you. Good afternoon. Just two questions from my side. You confirm our organic growth for the EBIT, current EBIT for the full year. So due to the fact that we have a very limited organic growth for the first half and decrease for the EBIT, current EBIT. Do you expect an acceleration, or do you consider an acceleration during the H2 for the current EBIT? And should we take into account EUR 147 million for last year operating income to appreciate the organic growth this year? Laurent, are you okay to take the first? Yes ... two questions from Jean-François Granjon? Bonjour, Jean-François Granjon. Hello, Jean-François. So I think the first question was regarding the current EBIT evolution, H2 versus H1. So H1 this year against H1 last year, it's positive evolution, + 0.3%. It's in line with what we said. As for the guidance, we just confirmed the guidance today again for the full year. So Jean-François, the trend we are knowing is something that will be comforted in H2. The fact that we've improved significantly the EBITDA, notably on the digital side, helps even if H2 last year EBIT was relatively high. Yes, it will continue to have a phasing H2 more than H1, and H2 will still be above than H2 last year. Since that, in a sentence, that's what we're saying. H2 will be helped a little bit, I remind you, with the Frama progressive integration, and we know that we start paying off on H2, which was not the case on H1. And also, we discussed the volume improvements on the local side in Japan, the fact that you would compare yourself to an H2 last year that already had this pricing, this new pricing model on the Japanese side. So obviously, that will help the trend in H2. And yes, we will meet our positive trajectory and EBIT this year. We also expect more installation of the lockers in the U.S. in H2 versus H1. So all those are contributing factors in helping getting H2 in an accelerated trend from an EBIT perspective. Laurent, there was a second part of the question on whether EUR 147 million is a starting point for the calculation of the organic growth for the current EBIT? The hundred and forty-seven, that's a quick question I need to check. Just give me a second, Jean-François. Okay. We'll give you the answer in the next few minutes, if we can, Jean-François. Thank you. Any other question online? There are no further questions on the line. I will hand over to the host right now. Thank you. Thank you. We'll move to the questions on the web, and we'll start with a question on the share buyback. Can you explain the thinking that led to the share buyback program? And why did you choose shareholder returns rather than investing into the parcel or the digital divisions, both of which are highly competitive and which I assume still require investment in the sales force to ensure sustainable double-digit growth over the long run? So it's a very good question, and I'll let Laurent give you the answer. Yes, because I think it's quite in connection with the question that was asked just previously. Even if the one before was quite related to M&A, here it's what I said already. We are not putting that share buyback program at the expense of the investment we are doing. I think in H1 this year, we've done a level of CapEx on the locker side that was the highest since H1 2019, where we were vastly rolling out the Japanese network. You saw on the digital side that we increased slightly also the CapEx compared to last year at the same date. The investment in sales and in marketing that we need to allow those businesses are done, but we are at a level where those are paying off in term of EBITDA, in term of cash return already. So it's not cash and investment and growth at any cost. There is a return. The return we see almost earlier than what we are expecting. We are quite confident in the delivery strategy, and that's this assessment compound with the level of investment that we rightsize for the rest of the business, that allow us to include in our overall capital allocation strategy, that share buyback program. Thank you, Laurent. We'll move to some questions on the mail. I'll split them in two. First, on the U.S., when does the U.S. decertification should end for the mail business? And do you still keep gaining market share for mail in the U.S. in H1 2024? Sure. So the decertification should end at the end of this year. And so far, that's the deadline, the official deadline. It could sometimes be somewhat extended by a few months. So we have the end of the year, so Q3 and Q4, to be able to help all those customers to continue their DC-- their upgrades. And so far, we had a pretty good program, so we are quite happy with the level of customers that have migrated to a new platform. Yes, the short answer is we continue to gain market share globally. It's a little bit always difficult to know specifically in the different region. What I could just, I think, top of mind, share with you is that I believe in NOAM our performance was around. We grew in NOAM for the mail activity with the placement of hardware growing more than double-digit, right? And with an overall growth, even, you know, if we take the recurring revenue as well as the placement of new hardware in NOAM, are closer to almost a mid-single-digit growth. Which means if you compare with the performance, I think, of our two main competitor in the market, I think one was at minus two, the other one at minus four. And one of them being mostly exposed to U.S. business. That gives you a little bit of sense where we are. If we take the overall performance, you know, the Quadient mail is at - 0.5%, so almost stable, versus, again, those worldwide performance of those competition. One being a little bit more European-based with Frama and, sorry, with FP, and Pitney Bowes being a little bit more NOAM-centric. So definitely, we continue to see a stronger performance, actually almost accelerated compared to what we have experienced last year. And pretty far from, in terms of performance, pretty far from what we have shared with you for the next three years. So far, we're definitely starting the strategic plan for the first six months in a very good position at - 0.5%, so almost a stable performance. Still on the mail business, what is the current profitability of Frama? How does it compare to the mail historical profitability, and what are the objectives for Frama in 2025? Laurent, do you wanna- Frama is about breakeven today. I mean, about the time we acquired it, on 1st of February 2024, and progressively, we will bring that profitability to something even more profitable than the existing base of mail. While because today, Frama was suffering from its scale effect, knowing that they were using their own hardware within a smaller business than the one of Quadient obviously, the investment is here to replace most of their equipment by Quadient and benefit from strong economies of scales, because we have a supply chain that is relatively large and relatively mature, and get that incremental revenue and of Frama being more profitable than the one of mail that we had at Quadient. It will start paying off, obviously, in H2 this year, but looking for a full steam contribution by 2025. Moving now to some questions on lockers, and especially on the open network in France and in the U.K. Can you detail the number of newly installed lockers, both in France and in the U.K. over the H1? What are the target lockers in France? How many lockers are there in France at the moment, and what is the time horizon to achieve the target? So we're not disclosing anymore or specifically, you know, any particular numbers of lockers we have in France and the U.K., or at times for simplicity, at times for competitive information as well. If I were to give you a little bit more color, in particular, on one, is definitely in the U.K., where we have now probably increased by threefold the current level of monthly installation that we have currently in the U.K. versus what we had, I think in H2 last year. So we've definitely seen a... You've seen that on the chart. It was on the left-hand side. At the beginning of H1 also, we had increased significantly the amount of lockers in France as well, because as you know, there's several hundreds of stores of Auchan, because both the Hyper and the Super stores, and we had mostly completed those installations in H1. So we definitely have had a significant increase on both markets. Big acceleration that will continue and that we expect to continue to accelerate in 2025 versus 2024 is in the U.K. Obviously, for us, reaching 3,000 installations is a key first milestones. We'll probably have achieved a quite good portion of that in 2024. But we will go beyond. We always told you that for us, you know, having around 5,000 lockers in a given country, as long as everything else that we care about, which is the level of density, the quality of the installation, the usage, the numbers of carriers that we have onboarded, is functioning well, which is the case today. So that's why we're pretty confident that, at least at this stage, we are anticipating that we should be able to accelerate as well in 2025 for the U.K. market. And definitely just with that, you know, we should be able to be achieving or over-achieving that target of 3,000 in short order as a result. Still on lockers, I think question for Laurent. What is the current EBIT margin of the joint venture with Yamato? How does that compare with the former subscription contract? So, as mentioned by Geoffrey, this change subscription to fee per parcel has an impact in the short term on the revenue and hence on the profitability. In the longer run, the level of volume increase that we contemplate, not only with Yamato, but also on other carrier, will help us more than compensate that shortfall. With that new deal or that new contractual agreement, we are still significantly positive in term of EBITDA and positive in term of EBIT. That remains the country or the region that contributes the most, which tends to demonstrate that yes, we are in a good path of delivering profitable growth as well in other regions, even if they are less mature, for example, U.K. on its open network, but also France. But yes, it's still highly contributive to the total EBITDA and EBIT of lockers. Still on lockers, but at the solution level, do you expect the locker business to reach profitability in H2 2024? So when we call EBITDA level, you could see on that the minus six point that we have in. In the 6% we have in EBITDA in H1, it's approximately -EUR 3 million. So three million at the same time quite low when you look at the total absolute value. That being said, and hence, when you know revenue comes up, it can translate significantly to the bottom line, like the case for when it comes to volume, because basically you have already the cost embarked. It's all about the volume. We know that H2 volume usually is high. There is seasonality in the parcel we ship, and notably around Christmas is gonna happen this year as well, Japan, in the U.K., in France. It also helps the usage across the Atlantic. So there is a good trend towards going upward in EBITDA, and the soonest will be the best on the breakeven point on lockers, but we are. With the rollout we are having, yes, there is a good track towards that improvement and positive mark. Moving to Digital. Regarding the two contracts which have been paused since Q3 2023, do you have any idea of the timing of the restart of this contract, and what is the reason behind this delay? A very good question. So these are still two large existing customers, so we continue to have revenue with those existing customers, and I think they are still each probably around EUR 1 million in ARR. Obviously, we were expecting more for each one of them on a yearly basis. And those discussions are obviously active with those customers. So depending on their own budget limitation, constraint, ramp-up of their teams, as well as our own phasing to be able to support them. We are still in active discussion to potentially able to reengage into the phase and the modules that they had postponed. And whenever that will happen, we'll, we will not hesitate to share the good news with you. Still on digital, how many companies are currently certified for e-invoicing in France? So I do not have the exact numbers in mind. Today we have probably in, you know, in the tens of companies. It's a little bit. We also need. When you look at the numbers of companies, some companies, and I think very few of them actually have multiple certification, which is our case. We actually had two certification. I don't know how many other companies had two, but we'll need to be looking at that. For us, it's definitely very good news to be able to have those two certification for a respective platform, which secures obviously that accreditation on the long term for us. And yes, it is a validation in terms of buying decision for a lot of customers to know that our solution will likely be certified in the future. So it's obviously helping our customers to choose Quadient. So moving to the group as a whole, and financial questions for Laurent. Can you detail the write-off, the EUR 8 million write-off in IT? Absolutely. And it's a good transition, I think, because we just mentioned on the digital side that some customers were pausing some large projects, et cetera. I think on the IT side, projects are usually a balance between compliance, payback, and optimization of the decision making. Basically, it's not all about just a payback. We had a specific project of an ERP in North America that did end up in not having that right balance in the end, and we preferred a different path, probably more secured, faster, and reviewing across the board the benefit and the speed at which we could implement made us take the decision of stopping that specific project and bearing the cost right now, instead of having to, I would say, continue spending an amount that would not necessarily have generated a payback or benefit at Quadient level. Still at group level, in terms of free cash flow generation, what kind of level are you expecting for this year? So if you look at H1, you could say that H1 looks way better than last year. And I have to acknowledge the fact that we were particularly I would say pleased with the working capital requirements. We are cautious on stock. We've been focused on cash collection, and that's good. We'll continue to do so in H2. Still need to weigh in the balance two other things, the cost of debt and the interest paid that we'll have in H2, that will still be higher than the one we had in H2 last year. And the second point is obviously the lease portfolio. The good health of our mail business is, I would say, in the short term, consuming some cash, because basically, what you lease, you recognize into your EBITDA, but don't necessarily collect right away because the contracts are five to six or seven years lengths. Which could ultimately end up in a negative evolution, negative contribution of cash if the leasing portfolio increase in size, which is what we expect over H2. Usually, H2 is a reflection, an increase in the leasing portfolio because you have a lot of hardware placement. So all in all, I would say probably favorable compared to last year. We probably depend as well on the dynamic that we see over H2. Thank you, Laurent. Moving on to the recent deal on Esker, the recent bid on Esker by Bridgepoint. Any impact on your joint venture from this contemplated takeover on Esker? Well, it's a good question, but it's probably gonna be difficult to anticipate that. We probably contribute to Esker, both through the JV and the business, around EUR 20 million, which obviously has a significant impact, you know, positive impact for Esker in terms of its revenue and its EBIT contribution. As you know, we have now stopped to resell and market the technology from Esker outside of France, so it's really, it's our platform that we resell in the rest of the world. We've done that progressively. We have migrated some of those customers, notably in the U.S. and the U.K., so those migrations are either ongoing or finished. And we have decided to continue with Esker today to market some of their technology for the French market. So we'll need to see if their new ownership and their new trajectory has any change to that. But I believe that at this stage I have no information to believe there would be having any significant impact on the short term. Still on this takeover bid. How do you consider the projected takeover bid on Esker following several deals within the industry at over five times revenues? And do you think that a spin-off of your digital division could be making sense and be possible? So it's a good question. So there's a few things I think to take into account on the market today on this. The first one is that Quadient, as early as 2019, had announced that we believe that the market, regarding communication and financial automation, would need to consolidate so that players that would be successful and could survive and thrive, would have a pretty large platform versus what we believe was the current environment of having niche solution, just an accounts payable solution, just a payment solution, just a cash application, et cetera, just accounts receivable or customer communication. So that's what we had announced to you. That was our vision on the market in 2019. We have anticipated a lot of those consolidation moves by identifying who we felt in the market had the best technology, and this is why we did the acquisition in 2020 of our accounts payable automation solution, with the acquisition of Beanworks. We did a year after what we believe was the best technology on the market and still is today on the accounts receivable automation, in particular, because we were leveraging artificial intelligence capability that was nowhere seen on the market, and is still recognized by the industry, and that is one of the best ones on the market today. As you know, when you do acquisition of independent solutions, you have to integrate them, so that takes time. So we had anticipated that, and as a result, we are now ready on the market, before some of the other players are making their moves, to either, obviously do some additional acquisition or take companies that were, in those environment, potentially not capable to accelerate what was needed for them to consolidate the platform and potentially go private, so that private equity or financing or banking could potentially help them build such a platform or accelerate their international growth. Because I think that was the second, aspect that we have shared with you, is that we believe that in this domain, the people that will be successful not only have need to have the best platform, but also be a multi, multi-country player, if not a global player. Because a lot of the technology that we can, you know, define around the invoice management, whether they're incoming invoice or outgoing invoice, can be shared across countries. Obviously, you need to adapt to local ERPs, accounting rules, but from an engineering perspective, 90% of it is roughly the same country to country. And same thing, we are obviously a cross-border, cross-country player today. And I'm giving those information because I think it depends on the strategy of each companies and where they are at in their strategy story. What I think ultimately is that we have anticipated the fact to be global and to have a platform, before, I believe, most players, if not everybody else. We've seen in the last eighteen months, companies like Billtrust, going out of the stock market, and being acquired by, I believe, EQT Partners. We've seen a company in the Nordics, that was doing account payable, called Basware, being taken out of the market as well, so that potentially could change the strategy. We've seen now Esker, and in the three cases, we see a high valuation of each of those companies. So that confirmed to us that this segment is a highly regarded, highly valued, segment, and that therefore, knowing that we are bigger than each of the three companies that I mentioned, for example, today, in term of size, that we are in a very good position to be able to lead, the next stage of the market. This is why I would refer more to what we have announced during our Capital Markets Day: we have equipped our company, Quadient, to be able to accelerate its growth organically today, especially with the advent of the invoicing regulation that will be coming in Europe, on the one side, for Europe. We've launched our solution a few quarters ago now, or a few years ago. We have been certified by the French government, as we mentioned, for the PDP platform. We have continued our other innovation and, you know, other activities from a go-to market perspective, to be able to evolve globally, organically. Today, we are obviously in a good position to be able to benefit from those moves because, you know, these are always disruptive to competitors and players. They take time to readapt and refocus the business. On our side, we're in a good position not to be disrupted and potentially accelerate. We'll look at other potential acquisition if we see that on the market today, there is opportunity that could present itself, but we're in a good position organically, and that was, I think, our positioning, that our assumption that we had shared with you in June. There was a side of the question around- Yes A potential spin-off for the digital division. I'll add another follow-up question, which is whether we've been approached by a private equity before? Sure. So as it relates to our portfolio of three solutions, we have already always mentioned and continue to mention that we are always gonna be very flexible. So we obviously look at our three solutions independently, making sure we're the best owner of each. And we'll always continue to look at that in the future. As it relates to private equity approach, you know, it's their job to be able to look sometimes at those public companies like they do look at Esker or Billtrust or the others. So as Quadient, naturally, there's been some private equity. They always you know engage with us. But at this stage, I believe we have expanded our current trajectory on the market, as it relates to what we believe we can do organically in our current setting. Another question for Laurent on the bond refinancing. Mm-hmm. Have you started negotiation for the bond refinancing of 2025? And in the current market condition, what would be the new rate for this bond? So we already anticipated part of this refinancing during H1, as you can remember, through a Schuldschein debt, a new Schuldschein debt that we closed in May, I believe, if I can remember well, end of April or May. Mm-hmm. So we are actively, obviously, working on the rest of the refinancing of the bond. And I remind you that we only have EUR 260 million left to be paid back. So yes, we are seeking towards that and, and obviously closing into H2. The level of cost of those new debt is not expected to be significantly different than the one of H1. Hence, basically, today we have an average cost of debt that is close to 4.5%-4.6%, a bit more. If you look on the full year basis, we probably will be heading around 5% or more, a little bit more, but not much more in the current market conditions. Thank you, Laurent. And maybe, because we don't have any more question, you could- Yes ... come back to Jean-François's question. Absolutely. Sorry, Jean-François, I had to check, double-check, because I didn't want to leave you with, with something approximative. One hundred and forty-seven is what we reported last year. And then you have the scope effect of notably Daylight, which is approximately the one that we showed on page twelve, because, you know, Daylight was acquired in September. So the four million you can see, and knowing that, I mentioned that Frama was break even, that the Daylight impact of -EUR 4 million will be, close to the same for the full year. You just have the months of August that you need to add to maybe four point three, four point four million. So meaning that you need to restate the 147 to 142.5, I would say, to have a pro forma, a proper pro forma. But, no, very limited scope effect for H2 in the end. Just a H1 scope effect that we already have here. Thank you, Laurent. Thank you, Geoffrey. We have no further question at this time, so we can close the call. Thank you very much for attending this presentation and for your question. Our next call will be on the twenty-seventh of November for Q3 sales. In the meantime, we look forward to meeting some of you in the coming days during our roadshow. Thank you very much, and have a good evening. Thank you. Thank you.