Good morning. This is the conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Rexel Analyst Conference Call for the full year 2022 results. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask question. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Guillaume Texier, Group CEO. Please go ahead, sir. Good morning to all of you. Thank you very much for joining us today for this presentation of our fourth quarter sales and full year 2022 results. I'm joined on this call, as usual, by our CFO, Laurent Delabarre. Before getting into the details, I'd like to say that we are very pleased with our 2022 results for several reasons. First of all, because they are very good, reaching record highs and even beating our latest updated guidance. Also, together with the teams, we are proud of the way those results were obtained, implementing the action that we had talked about at the June Capital Market Day. This really proves the case that Rexel has reached a new level in terms of growth potential, profitability, agility, and resilience. We will illustrate that today throughout the presentation. Let's move to slide three with the main highlights of what was for Rexel a second straight record year. We will look at the numbers in detail shortly, but suffice it to say at this stage that in 2022, Rexel posted the all-time high sales, Adjusted EBITDA, net income, and Free Cash Flow, while at the same time de-leveraging its balance sheet with the lowest indebtedness ratio since the 2007 IPO. These excellent metrics were driven throughout the year by a robust performance in terms of volumes. We continue to benefit from the positive structural momentum of electrification trends in Europe, with increased electrical usages and demand for energy efficiency. We're also seeing continued growth in the U.S., and this combination results in market share gains for Rexel in several important key countries. Our business is also supported by consistently high backlogs, which bodes well for future quarters, driven both by strong underlying demand as well as continued tensions in the labor market and in product availability. In addition to strong volumes, we have had a positive pricing effect in 2022, as we continue to have success in passing through price increases, which we expect to continue, albeit at a lower pace in 2023 in most categories. This has also allowed us to protect our growth margin, supported by our database, the pricing tools. Finally, let me highlight our continued cash discipline, evidenced not only by strong cash conversion, but also tight inventory management with our days of inventories in line with 2021. I'd like to take this opportunity to publicly thank the teams for their energy and drive in challenging times to deliver this very strong 2022 performance. It's also the results of many years of transformation and improvements in our business model, which drove commercial success and margin enhancements. On the following slides, we look at some of the factors that not only drove our robust 2022 performance but also contribute to building a strong platform for continued success. Indeed, we are fully on track to achieve the objectives of our Power Up 2025 strategic plan. Our underlying profitability has risen to a higher level through strong execution of our two strategic pillars. First of all, excellence and fundamentals, leveraging our processes, tools, and best practices to further optimize our core model. Second, striving to be a differentiated leader on topics shaping the future of the industry, such as ESG, energy transformation solutions, and advanced services in order to accelerate growth. At the same time, we are actively deploying our capital allocation strategy through portfolio management, as you will see shortly, with the two acquisitions and the divestment recently announced, but also through the launch of our share buyback program during the course of the year. To date, we have bought back shares for a total amount of EUR 66 million out of our total program of EUR 400 million. We are first building a strong platform for continued growth, leveraging on three trends. First of all, we are harnessing the powerful and sustainable trend towards greater electrification, driven by the growing traction of net zero agendas, action by governments, such as the Inflation Reduction Act in the U.S., and demand for more energy efficiency in the face of rising energy prices. Second, the continued ramp-up of digitalization, which now accounts for 27% of our Q4 sales, up circa 310 basis points over the past year. Finally, a heightened focus on ESG. In 2022, a key highlight for Rexel was that our net zero targets were approved by the Science Based Targets initiative, and our efforts were rewarded by inclusion in Euronext's CAC 40 ESG index. This index groups the 40 big French companies that demonstrate best practices in ESG issues. On slide 5, we look at how this translates in two record numbers for Rexel on four key metrics. First, our same-day sales grew by 14.1% in the full year, above the upgraded guidance of circa 12% that we provided to you in October of last year. Second, we achieved a record level of Adjusted EBITDA margin of 7.3%, also coming in above our upgraded guidance of circa 7.2%. Third, the conversion of Free Cash Flow before interest and tax was 61.4%, in line with the guidance we provided at above 60%. Last but not least, our indebtedness ratio was also at a historical low level of 0.96 times EBITDA after leases, down from 1.37 times one year earlier. Having a sound balance sheet gives us even greater leeway to pursue our growth strategy. The number I have just presented, no, I think you are not on the right slide. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. The numbers I have just presented put us fully on track to achieve the 2022-2025 ambition that we presented at our Capital Markets Day in June. On slide 6, we provide you with a scorecard of the main actions we are outlining in June and our achievements in year 1. The first set of numbers relate to financial targets. As you can see, our 2022 performance outpaced the objectives that we set in terms of same-day sales growth, Adjusted EBITDA margin, and cash conversion, as mentioned on the previous slide. The second set of numbers relates to capital allocation. Here, too, you see that we are well on track. We have completed more than 15% of our planned share buyback plans or EUR 60 million out of EUR 400 million. We have acquired EUR 500 million of sales in 2022 as part of our plan to complement organic growth with acquisition of up to EUR 2 billion of sales. In parallel, we have nearly completed our disposal program of up to EUR 500 million, including one recent disposal I will present shortly. The third set of numbers relates to our business objectives. One is a continued ramp-up in digital sales. With growth of 25%, our digital sales accounted for 27% of sales in Q4 2022, on track to reach our objective of 40% in 2025. The second is becoming a leader in ESG, which was materialized, among other things, by SBTi's validation last summer of our net zero targets. On slide 7, we zoom in on another main element of our strategic plan, capturing accelerating trends in electrification by growing our business in solar, HVAC, electric vehicles, charging infrastructures, and industrial automation, what we call electrification categories. At our Capital Markets Day, we outlined the ambition of growing in these businesses at twice the pace of our traditional electrical distribution business. In 2022 businesses linked to the electrification trend grew by 25% to represent today 19% of our total sales. As you see in the second column of the slide, we saw robust and steady growth throughout the year, starting at 16% in Q1 and accelerating to more than 30% growth rate in Q3 and Q4. To help drive this growth, we are focusing investment in this area. We are first developing expertise, for instance, by tripling the number of employees dedicated to solar between 2021 and 2023. We are building up capabilities with new specialized distribution centers. We are optimizing purchasing in solar in Europe by centralizing procurement for our large European countries. We are making also acquisitions in industrial automation in the U.S., as I will detail shortly. We expect this growth to continue as there are a number of catalysts to drive it in 2023, including government plans, such as the IRA in the U.S. and the similar plan that is expected in Europe, new requirements such as the obligation to equip all large outdoor car parks in France with solar panels by 2028, and trends such as reshoring, which is a catalyst for industrial automation, among others. On slide 8, we look a little bit more closely at the reasons behind this clear acceleration of electrification trends. There are many, but three of them play a particularly big role. Corporate net zero agendas at our customers, government actions, incentives or investment plans, and the price of energy, which played a big role in many countries in 2022 to push economic actors to decide to invest in the energy transition. One question you may ask is how sustainable are those trends going to be, especially if we see variations of the energy price? We try to put on this slide a qualitative answer. What we see in the field is that the other two drivers besides energy prices are gaining momentum extremely quickly and will continue to accelerate and guarantee electrification is here to stay. Energy may experience short-term variations in price, but the corporate and governmental push towards energy savings and green electricity will undoubtedly continue. Another very convincing way to look at this is simply to read on slide 9 the energy scenarios put together by the official authorities in each country. You have a summary on this slide, which is quite striking. As you can see, energy consumption is expected to decrease significantly in most major countries except the U.S. through 2050, even though those countries are going to experience economic growth. This means huge effort in terms of energy savings, you can see on the right that we have solutions and services to address this need for less energy-intensive economies. What is obviously very impressive also is the yellow bar, which shows how much electricity in the same time is going to increase. This goal will not be reached without a strong contribution of all players, including Rexel. Major usages have to be made electric, like mobility or heating. Electricity generation, including decentralized and renewables, has to be put in place to answer the new demand. The infrastructure, as well as the electrical organization of all buildings, has to be rethought and modernized. These are buoyant trends that will help power Rexel's growth going forward. On slide 10, we focus on another key part of our Power Up 2025 strategy, which is active portfolio management to concentrate on our strengths. Let me share with you three recent transactions that include two acquisitions in North America and the disposal of our activities in Norway. We have completed the acquisitions of Buckles-Smith, a California-based company specializing in high value-added industrial automation, which will offer synergies both with our regional operations and with our global expertise in industrial automation. The company has six branches and a high quality and respected team, and it posted 2022 sales of $150 million. This acquisition was signed and closed on January 5. We also announced the acquisition of LTE in Canada. This acquisition reinforces our footprint in the attractive Canadian utility market with a set of services, products, and solutions that will be a very valuable complement to Rexel's portfolio. LTE operates two branches and generated sales of CAD 25 million last year, and the transaction was signed and closed on January the 17th. At the same time, we have also announced the signing of the divestment of our operations in Norway to Kesko. Rexel's activity in Norway, generating approximately sales of EUR 250 million in 2022, were less profitable than group average and were deemed non-strategic for market and competitive reasons. The completion of the transaction, which was signed on January 27th, is subject to the approval of Norway's competition authority, and we expect closing in the course of the first half. The three transactions combined are accretive in year one to Rexel's EBITDA and EBITDA margin, net income, and return on capital employed. They are part of our strategy to focus our resources on high value creation opportunities. If we take a step back on slide 11 and look at our active portfolio management over the past two years, you can see that since January 1st, 2021 and through today, we have carried out a total of 10 acquisitions and six disposals. All in, we have acquired about EUR 1.5 billion in sales and divested about EUR 0.5 billion. These transactions materially enhance the group's growth and profitability profile and reinforce its capabilities to address the challenges and opportunity of the energy transition and electrification trends. We are strengthening Rexel's portfolio both in economic terms with the EBITDA margin of the net acquired activities above group average, in strategic terms as we focus on fast-growing geographies, segments, and adjacencies. Moreover, these transactions were carried out at attractive valuations with the acquisitions net of disposals, making a combined multiple of less than 6 times 2022 EBITDA, resulting from reasonable acquisition prices and well-negotiated disposal terms. We are very happy with these acquisitions, their timing, and the way that integration is taking place. There are excellent examples of the disciplined approach to M&A that we presented to you in June, they further strengthen our core electrical distribution positions. Now, let me now hand over to Laurent to present the Q4 sales and full year 2022 financial review. Thank you, Guillaume. Good morning to all of you. Let me start with slide 13. The bar charts show that we continue to operate at high levels in terms of same-day growth with double-digit progression in each of the four quarters this year on top of high growth in each quarter in 2021, making Q4 2022 the eighth consecutive quarter of positive organic development. Here too, similar to previous quarters, we are displaying a very good balance between volume and price. The volume effect in Q4 was 6%, while the net price effect stood at a strong 6.4%. As expected, we had a slight negative cable price effect in Q4 of -0.8%, reflecting the lower copper price in the quarter compared to the same period last year. Moving to slide 14, volume rose sharply with group contribution of 600 basis points to our Q4 growth, reflecting favorable trends in Europe and North America. More specifically, volume grew by 7.2% in Europe, boosted by strong momentum in electrification, notably in the DACH regions, also by the more traditional business that is holding up very well in many countries, including France. On North America, volumes stood at +6.4%, showing positive development quarter after quarter, despite a more limited contribution from solar at this stage, a category of products that is expected to benefit from the IRA in coming quarters. In addition, the level of backlogs remains elevated in both countries, as we will illustrate later. Moving to slide 15, the 6.4% pricing contribution to same-day sales growth include 7.2% from non-cable product and a -0.8% from cable products. Specifically on non-cable products, the 7.2% effect is in line with expectations, slightly lower than in Q3 on a higher comparable base and in the absence of carryover effect in this last quarter of the year. Specifically on cable products, the -0.8% contribution in the quarter is explained by the lower copper price in H2 2022 compared to H2 2021. Indeed, copper price dropped to $7,850 per ton versus circa $9,500 per ton in H2 2021. Note that we have entered 2023 with a more favorable copper environment with prices slightly below $9,000 per ton. Slide 16 focus on the contribution of our three geographies to the group, +12.3% same-day sales growth in Q4 2022. You have all the details in the press release on a country-by-country basis, we'll just highlight the key evolutions of the quarter. In Europe, Q4 sales were up 16%, driven by overall market outperformance, our strong ability to capture electrification trends. Solar, EV and HVAC product families accounted for 18% of sales, growing at more than 60% and contributing to 810 basis points of sales growth in the quarter. The countries that benefited the most from these trends are Benelux, Germany, Nordics and Italy. We also benefited from growth acceleration in France in all our end markets. In North America, we posted same-day sales growth of 10.2% in the quarter. More specifically in the U.S., overall growth is driven by the robust demand in commercial and industrial businesses that offsets the declining trend in the residential segment. The lower sales growth than in Q3 2022 can notably be explained by lower residential business in the Northwest and also lower project activity in the Southeast due to a base effect. In Canada, the good performance was still driven by industrial end markets and more specifically, oil and gas and mining activities. In Asia Pac, sales were up 0.7% in Q4 2022, largely resulting from the negative momentum in China impacted by the COVID situation in December and offset by the positive trend in Australia driven by robust commercial business. On slide 17, we see that we continue to have a record level of backlogs, which bodes well for the coming quarters. Similarly to previous quarters, this is due to several factors such as strong underlying demand as well as delays in projects because of labor and project scarcity that disrupt activity. Let me illustrate this with our backlogs in the U.S., Canada, France and China that you see on the graphs. As you know, while backlogs represent a material part of the North American and Chinese businesses, around 3-5 months of activity, they are much smaller in France, around half a month of business. This level of backlog gives us some visibility for part of our business in the coming quarters. Slide 18 shows you the different building blocks of our growth, You can see it is well-balanced between organic growth and M&A, leading to 27.3% growth on a reported basis. As shown on the graph, organic same-day growth reached 14.1%, driven by the combination of volume and price described before. We also had a positive net scope effect of 7.4%. This is an opportunity to underline the contribution of our recent acquisitions, mostly Mayer, but also Horizon Solutions in the U.S. and Trilec in Belgium. We also benefited from a positive impact from foreign exchange of 4.6%, mainly from the appreciation of the U.S. and Canadian dollars. We now anticipate the year 2023 scope impact to be close to -0.5%, including the latest transaction announced early 2023, and the full year currency impact to be close to -1.5%, assuming spot rates remain unchanged. On slide 19, we show you the building blocks that led to a record Adjusted EBITDA margin of 7.3%, up circa 120 basis points. The progression notably includes a positive operating leverage impact of 156 basis point, largely from our capacity to pass through price increases. A net positive non-recurring items of circa 66 basis points as a result on one hand of a positive one-off gross margin gain on non-cable inventory price inflation for 95 basis points. On the other hand, a negative 29 basis points one-off effect from higher performance linked bonuses, notably for our sales force in a context of better than anticipated activity versus our initial budget. Lastly, our OpEx inflation impact of 70 basis points due to overall inflation that include almost 4% in pay rise and 6% in other OpEx inflation. On slide 20, you see how each geography contributed to our record profitability. Europe suggested EBITDA margins stood at 7.7%, including circa 75 basis points of non-recurring items. Profitability improved by 55 basis points from robust sales growth, offsetting investments in people, negative country mix, mostly from Germany, as well as overall cost inflation. North America's Adjusted EBITDA margin stood at 8.2%, including circa 60 basis points of non-recurring items. Profitability improved by 190 basis points, thanks to a higher level of activity, strong pricing power, and synergy from Mayer. North America has become the most profitable geography. Asia Pacific suggested EBITDA margins stood at 1.9%, including circa 40 basis points of non-recurring items. The profitability is down 50 basis points due to lower activity and bad debt in China in a COVID concept, with a negative 140 basis point impact on APAC's profitability. On slide 21, we look at the bottom line part of our P&L. Reported EBITDA stood at EUR 1.3 billion, including a negative non-recurring impact of EUR 24 million from copper price, which were lower in 2022 compared to 2021. Moving to financial expense, that stood at EUR 190 million versus EUR 133 million last year. Restated from the one-offs related to the refinancing in 2021 and interest on lease liability, our financial costs slightly increased from EUR 63.4 million to EUR 69.6 million from higher average gross debt. On the other side, the effective interest rate decreased to 2.29% in 2022 compared to 2.42% in 2021, largely from refinancing offsetting the rise in interest rates. For 2023, we anticipate financial expense to be circa EUR 95 million, excluding one-off and interest lease liabilities in the context of rising interest rates and assuming current interest rate conditions remain unchanged. In addition, interest liability should be close to EUR 50 million in 2023. Restating from non-recurring items, notably the impact from portfolio management, our income tax rates stood at 25.7%, lower than the 26.6% in 2021, mainly from the drop in the French legal tax rate. For 2023 onwards, we anticipate our tax rate to be below 28%. As a result, net income was EUR 922 million, and our recurring net income stood at EUR 912 million, up 59%, reaching an all-time high level. Moving to cash flow on slide 22, we generated record cash flow before interest and tax, reaching EUR 873 million. This reflects the robust operating result and the disciplined trade working capital management with a stable trade working capital on sales at 14%. Free cash flow conversion before interest and tax stood at 61.4%, slightly lower than last year due to the higher cash out from non-trade working capital that is expected to normalize in 2023. Gross CapEx represented 0.8% of sales, in line with our guidance of 0.9% and above 2021 level due to the investment in automated supply chain solution with the ambition to triple the number of automated distribution center by 2025. Free cash flow after interest and tax reached EUR 503 million after paying EUR 60 million in interest and EUR 311 million in income tax, notably from higher pre-tax results in 2022. Going forward, we expect a similar impact on current tax both on P&L and cash flow statements. On net financial investment, we have a cash out of EUR 57 million corresponding to the net effect between acquisition and the cash received from disposal, notably Spain and Portugal. We also paid EUR 230 million in dividend related to the 2021 result. This leads to a net debt level of EUR 1.46 billion, lower than last year, and to a indebtedness ratio below 1 time, at 0.96 time and all-time low. Let me now turn on slide 23 to our balance sheet and liquidity picture, which shows that we have no short-term repayments scheduled. Let me remind you that we refinance our two bonds last year with two sustainability bonds maturing in 2028. We have no short refinancing need, as the other half of our financing is from accounts receivable securitization, an asset-based solution with an attractive rate and no risk of interruption as we remain responsible for both receivable generation and the collection. Let me also remind you that 2022 was marked by an upgrade of our rating by both S&P and Moody's with respective rankings of BB+ and Ba1. As of December 31st, we have EUR 1.7 billion. Ladies and gentlemen, please hold the line. The conference will resume shortly. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, please hold the line. The conference will resume shortly. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, please hold the line. The conference will resume shortly. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, please hold the line. The conference will resume shortly. Thank you. Thank you for your patience. Hello. We had a drop in the phone line at slide 20 things, 25, I think. What I was saying is that we were going to share details about the execution of our Power Up 2025 strategy plan was presented our capital market, by the 26, you find a brief reminder of what this plan is about. With the first pillar, focusing on excellence on the fundamentals of our business, including development of talents and culture, building strong and lasting supplier relationships, strengthening our supply chain and footprint, digitalizing our business, and enhancing productivity. The second pillar is to strive to be a differentiated leader by leveraging data and AI, creating and rolling out advanced services, capitalizing on the acceleration of electrification trends, further growing our business through targeted M&A, and becoming a leader in ESG. On the next few slides, I will illustrate our progress through a few specific examples. Let me start on slide 27 by presenting a few supply chain initiatives as part of our ambition to triple the number of automated distribution centers that we operate. Last September, we went live with our new distribution center in the greater Lyon area in France. That is our largest fully automated DC, stocking 40,000 SKUs. This DC offers a differentiated value proposition that is fully in line with our ambitions to offer more services and reduce carbon emissions. For instance, it allows us to make 2 P.M. same-day deliveries to our branches. It offers such logistics services as kitting or system setup, and we can make also low emission deliveries inside Lyon within two hours on 6,000 SKU through an ecosystem of touchpoints. This year, we'll be rolling out three new projects in Germany, U.K. and Austria that follow a similar line of enhancing services, improving efficiency and productivity, or supporting our priorities. For instance, with a dedicated area for solar activity in the German D.C. Slide 28 provides you with an update on the rapid ramp-up of digitalization of our business that makes Rexel a best-in-class B2B player. Today, our digital sales already reach nearly EUR 5 billion. As you can see on the graph, we have multiplied the share of digital sales in our total sales by 2.7 times in a little over a decade. Going from 10% in 2011 to 27% at the end of 2022. As you know, we aim to continue growing that share significantly to reach 40% in 2025. This slide also features a few key metrics that give you an idea of the breadth and depth of our digitalization. We record 100 million visits to our website every year. Our clients launched 40 million sessions using the search engine. We have 25 million order lines on our web platforms, and we have 400,000 customers with web accounts. Let me now conclude with our outlook and our 2023 full year guidance. How do we see 2023? First of all, we are overall quite optimistic, especially when we see the momentum at the end of last year and at the beginning of this year. There are some headwinds and we are not blind to that, but we feel that the multiple growth opportunities linked to electrification as well as our own sales action plans will allow us to more than offset, reduce visibility on volume growth in what we could call our traditional businesses. Keep in mind also what Laurent was mentioning about the backlog, which gives us even an even higher level of confidence. As far as pricing is concerned, we feel we are going to operate in an inflation environment again, maybe at a lower pace than in the past 18 months. We also continue to see some cost inflation in our own cost base. We have strong action plans in place to offset them. For example, the automated distribution center that I was mentioning, as well as the rise of digital, are here mostly to give better service to our customers, but they also allow us to optimize our productivity. As mentor 2023, our management and our teams are fully mobilized with a growth-oriented mindset. What is important to mention is that they are also prepared to face all possible scenarios. We know what levers to pull should we need to secure our financial objectives, and we will be nimble to activate that if needed, which is clearly not the case today. How does that translate into numbers? You can see that on slide 31, on which we share our guidance. As far as top line is concerned, same-day sales growth of between 2%-6%. At this stage, we see positive contribution of price and volume, also likely to be positive, but with a risk should the macroeconomic environment turn more negative than how we see it today. EBITDA margin of between 6.3%-6.7% to be compared to 6.65% this year after restating the one-offs. This means that we should be able to largely offset the effect of inflation in our costs. Finally, Free Cash Flow conversion above 60% continuing on the very good cash discipline, which is now a solid feature of the group. Let me finish talking about our new purpose that we are unveiling today. It is summed up in a short statement that you see on this slide, "Electrifying solutions that make a sustainable future possible." It is completely in line with our strategy. It is in sync with the new trends we are seeing on the market, and it will serve as a powerful motivator to our teams to align our 26,000 employees behind one common goal. As always, the words are important, so let me comment them very briefly before we turn to questions. Electrifying is a reference to electricity and electrification trends, but also to the passion of our teams. Solutions is a powerful statement that we are not just about delivering products, but also expertise and services. This is more and more part of our value add in the supply chain. Sustainable refers to our ESG focus. Future is about innovation, new energies, as well as advanced digital services, which are powerful drivers of our business. Finally, make possible refers to our unique role in the supply chain. Far from a logistic and credit player that we may have been 10 years ago, we partner with suppliers and professionals to propose the best products, push new services to the market. To help make the energy transition a reality in the field. With that, thank you very much for your attention, Laurent and I are now happy to take your questions. This is the conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch tone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Martin Wilkie of Citi. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good morning. It's Martin from Citi. Just a couple of questions on the guidance. One, just to clarify pricing. I think you said you still expect an inflationary environment, albeit at a slower pace in 2023. Do you still expect sequential price increases from here, or is the pricing that you'll get in 2023 really just a carryover effect? That was the first question. The second one was you do talk about backlogs. Obviously, you yourself have a limited amount of backlog, but many of your customers and projects probably give you a bit more visibility. Perhaps you could talk a little bit about some of the visibility you have from some of those projects and larger projects that might give you some sense of projects going into the first half of the year? Thank you. Okay, thank you very much, Martin. In terms of the inflation component and the inflation environment, we continue to see a sequentially inflationary environment. We had price increase, sequential price increase, in last quarter of last year. We have price increases in generally all categories in the first quarter, I mean, the first two months of this year. I think our suppliers are experiencing and have experienced a high level of inflation. You know, they themselves have inflation in their salary base as well as in their energy consumption and also in the embedded components of energy and salaries which goes into their own components. We are seeing sequential price increases. We have a carryover effect, plus, as far as we can see, a slight sequential inflationary component next year. That's obviously not looking at copper, which is a topic. I hope it answers your question on the inflation environment, but there is carryover plus a little bit of sequential price. In terms of what we are seeing on backlogs, I mean, there are two things. You say that we have limited visibility, but in the last few years, we have seen in some countries, especially in North America, a substantially high level of backlogs in our own activity. You remember because we show that, on our slides since two years that, we have in North America, in the U.S. for example, close to five months of backlog, which is giving us, quite a good visibility on our own orders. Now, when we talk to our, to our customers in terms of what they see on the market, first of all, they are overwhelmingly extremely busy. Their main concern is to find labor, to execute the project that they have. They see, you know, we have different, differences by market obviously. What with new construction is weaker obviously, but there is such a high demand in electrification projects, in renovation, for example, and also a very strong demand in the industrial sector that at the end of the day, the backlog for our customers, large and small, remains extremely healthy as far as they can see. Actually, you know, I was, I think I told you a wrong figure. The backlog coverage in the U.S. is three months, and in Canada it's four months. It's still a high level compared to where we were at the end of 2021. Good. Thank you. That's very helpful. Just to clarify on the pricing, I mean, are we right to think that within your guidance then you have a couple of percent of carryover and we've seen another low single digit at the start of the year? Is that how we should think about it? Look, in our guidance, what you can consider is that we have between 1% and 2% of carryover, a little bit of additional pricing and flat to positive volume depending on the scenarios that we see going forward. Great. Thank you very much. The next question is from Akash Gupta of J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead. Yes. Hi, good morning, everybody, and thanks for your time. I have two as well. My first one is on digital sales target. Maybe if you can talk about what sort of investments be required from getting to 40% from 27%? Secondly, on the same topic, how shall we think about potential of cost savings through SG&A when your digital sales levels will reach to 40%? Will you be able to quantify how it will change on SG&A and sort of benefit on margins that you may see? The second question I have is on share buyback. I mean, you announced share buyback at last CMD when share price was very low. Since then, we have seen significant increase. Do you think current share price is still attractive to continue on share buyback, or would you wait for a correction to double down on buyback? Thank you. It's a very good question, Akash. First of all, on digital, it's not so much... I mean, we have continued investment in digital to continue to modernize our platform. There is no significant investment required to go from 27% to 40%. It's mostly a question of engagement of our teams, of them explaining in the field what the benefits are to the end user and continuing to refine our tools. You will not see a big bubble of investment to go from 27% to 40%. We are actually seeing good momentum on that in several countries, especially in the U.S. Now, is there a potential of cost savings in this digital investment? You know, there are two things. The margin on the digital sales is the same as the margin in the normal sales. It's just a different channel. We tend to think that we are omni-channel, and all channels in terms of the direct commercial margin have the same profitability. It's true that digital usually allows our customers on one side and us on the other side to gain time and to push productivity. In general, by the way, productivity is something that we are pushing that we are pushing every year. If I take, for example, if I take 1 example, despite the growth of volumes that we have experienced since 2019, in terms of number of people at comparable scope, we are below 2019, in terms of number of people employed. We see every year the benefits of us increasing the productivity. That's what we include overall in our global guidance in terms of margin, and that's what we include also in our global guidance that we included at our global buy guidance in terms of CMD. The details of what represents what in terms of potential are not disclosed. That being said, it's clearly a contributor to our efficiency. In terms of share buyback, look, I mean, I may be a little bit jazzed, but I consider the share price although, at record highs, to be, when I look at it in terms of multiples, relatively low, in fact. In terms of multiple, we have seen a limited appreciation despite the fact that we are on a market, on an end market, which is clearly accelerating. To me, it's very clear, that the share price is at a price which, is attractive, and we will continue to do share buybacks, and we are not going to be slowed down by the level of the share price. Once again, when I look at the acceleration of our end market, the growth prospects, when I look also at the multiples of peers and suppliers, I tend to think that Rexel is at an attractive valuation. You wouldn't expect me to say anything else. Thank you. The next question is from Aurelio Calderon of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning, Guillaume Texier, Laurent Delabarre, congratulations on very strong results. My first question is around your M&A strategy. I think back in 2020, you said that 2023, or current management or management said that 2023 expectations or targets were to get to 6% EBITDA margins and 6.5% with M&A. I wonder if you can give us an update on where we are in that journey of disposals, because you've mentioned being very close to the end of that journey. Have we added 50 basis points? Have we added 60 basis points? Have we added 30 basis points? How can we quantify that margin impact from your disposals? The margin impact, I mean, the disposals that we have done were lower than lower in profitability than the rest of the group. So you have a small effect of disposals to the positive effect of the disposal to the profitability of the group. Laurent, do you want to give more figures or? Yeah. I would say between 10 and 20 basis points, the impact. Then we'll have the impact of the acquisition and the synergies we are delivering on those which are creating additional value to EBITDA. Okay. Great. Thank you. My second question is around the North American business. Obviously you've done a very impressive turnaround in terms of margins, and obviously synergies are helping there. I wonder if you can comment if you would expect that region to become the most profitable one going forward, and especially given that some of your U.S. peers have very aggressive targets. If I remember well, you've been usually higher margin than them in the U.S. If you could comment a little bit on that would be helpful as well. Yeah. I think you're right. I mean, a few years ago, North America used to be less profitable than the average of Rexel. Today, it's more profitable than the average of Rexel. It's a big change. I think still, that we are at the beginning of the journey. We have high ambitions for the U.S.. Will it become the most profitable country in the group? I don't know. We have high ambitions, of progressing both, I mean, continuing to have a good growth rate, continuing to gain market share, through acquisitions and through organic growth, and deliver improvement, in EBITDA percentage. Why am I saying that? On many aspects, for example, one, very good example would be digital. We are far from what we consider being, the best level, I mean, the best practice, at group level. For example, in the U.S., we are still below 20% in digital, with strong improvements and good growth rates. That being said, there is potential. I could mention, the same situation in other aspects. I look at what our competitors are saying in terms of, in terms of margin ambition. We also have ambitions, which are contributing to our global ambition. Clearly you are absolutely right. We expect to see higher improvement, potential in the U.S. compared to the rest of the group. We will continue to improve the profitability in Europe with the progression of Germany and the impact of the disposals. No, it's not to say that the rest of the group is not going to progress. Yes. In comparison, I think the U.S. has great potential. This is also the reasons why we are focusing on M&A, our M&A strategy also on North America, not only, but you have seen that many of the acquisitions that we have made over the last two years were in North America to reinforce our positions there. It's a promising market. Thank you very much and appreciate the additional color there. The next question is from Ajay Patel of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. It's actually Daniella here. Thank you for taking our questions. I wanted to ask regarding sort of your, the faster grower areas like solar and PV, and if you could talk a little bit about how gross margin on those compares with your other products, more traditional product suite. You have commented on the past cables versus the rest. I guess if you could help us understand the impact of growth there in terms of mix. My second question, just more related to the cadence of like the U.S. IRA, which you probably have some relevant exposure to, but how do you see that playing out throughout the years? Is there a risk that some of these areas that are gonna benefit from a lot of tax rebates and subsidies, people just push out the investment until they have clarity on that? Or do you think you're seeing sort of the momentum regardless of this type of stimulus? Thank you. Okay. On the electrification categories, we should distinguish between the various categories. If I take a PV, for example, which was the big question in your question, I would say that in terms of margin, in terms of gross margin, it's slightly lower margin than the rest of the group, so it's dilutive to the margin of the group. Now, in terms of cost to serve, in terms of central cost, it's usually lower because the orders are bigger and take a little bit less time to process, which means that in terms of EBITDA margin, it's neutral, basically. You can consider it's neutral and slightly dilutive on the gross margin level. That's for PV. On other categories, and especially on industrial automation, it's relative, which means that it has slightly higher margin in gross margin, as well in EBITDA margin. It depends really on the category. I hope it answers your question. On the second part, which is the IRA, I would say, we have seen, especially when it comes to when it comes to industrial projects, reshoring, et cetera, immediate reaction to the IRA in terms of investment decisions of players in the U.S.. We are, for the rest, especially for the impact on, for example, photovoltaic solutions, you're right that the ramp-up is going to be more progressive, because, you know, people have to prepare, people are expecting and waiting to see what exactly is going to be part of the plan, et cetera. We will see the effect progressively throughout the year and next year probably. Two different effects, but let's not forget about the fact that for us, one big impact of the IRA is reshoring and the impact it has in terms of industrial investment and automation, knowing that, in the U.S., if you remember well, our end markets, we have approximately 30%, a little bit less than 30% of our end markets, which are dedicated to the industrial business. Clear. Thank you. The next question is from Andre Kukhnin of Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. Good morning. Thank you very much for taking my questions. I'll just go one at a time. Firstly, sorry to labor it on pricing, but wanted to just double check on that additional pricing expectation. We obviously take the copper effect aside, but you also have got some product categories that also have a rather kind of pass-through pricing mechanism like cable enclosures or Cable Management, I think. I just want to double check that you do expect additional, kind of incremental small positive pricing this year, including those effects as well. Yeah. My answer was overall, including everything. I mean, on most of the categories we see positive control pricing. We may have exceptions here and there. Overall, yes, including all categories, except for the copper effect, you know, we expect a small potential, small, incremental pricing to the carry over effect. Absolutely. Great. Thank you. On copper, just to double check, I mean, in terms of what you've been reporting as a copper effect on PNL seems a little bit different to what we calculate based on the copper spot. I wonder if you could help us calibrate that and what we should expect for 2023 with the current spot should the current spots prevail. There is a bit of lag because we are not buying copper, but cable from our manufacturer. There is a lag. There is a production cost at the inventory level. At the end, we need to move it by almost a quarter. I mean, assuming, and you know the sensibility that $500 per ton has an impact of around 0.8% on our sales. Compared to the level of 2022, we expect to have a negative impact in H1, assuming the cost stayed around $9,000 to have a positive impact next year in the second half. Got it. Thank you. My last question, just broader on the profit bridge for 2023. You've clearly given us the Adjusted EBITDA margin guidance, and that seems to be pointing to kind of around 6.5%, which compares to, I think, around 6.6 if we take the 2022 level and take out the one-off effects. Seems a little conservative given that you're expecting at least flat volume, and looks like pricing is heading the right direction. Looks like you've got some help from disposals or net M&A, and all those initiatives that you talked about, on digitalization in U.S. and Germany. I just wanted to check if there is a kind of outstanding headwind there that we should be aware of and should be baking in explicitly. Is it just the fact that it's the beginning of the year, there are some uncertainties out there, so it makes sense to kind of build guidance through the year as opposed to? That's a fair question. I think, you know that, we like to be cautious at the beginning of the year. You're right. Mm-hmm. As, you know, as I mentioned, in our hypothesis of volume, we have a positive volume expectation. When I look at the trend in January, those positive expectations in volume are fully confirmed, very clearly when I look at the trends and when I listen to our customers. That being said, in our guidance, the low end of the guidance includes a slight decrease in volume. In the EBITDA guidance, you're right that it's probably a little bit cautious, but also keep in mind that we have inflation in our cost base. We have inflation in our cost base, inflation in our salary, inflation in energy, inflation in transportation, which is going to impact us. We think that our efforts in terms of productivity, in terms of efficiency will offset most of that. But that being said, a remaining effect may be present, which explains also the slight dilutive effect to the EBITDA. There is a little bit of both to answer your question. Very clear. Thank you very much for your time. Sure. The next question is from William Mackie of Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead. Good morning, Guillaume and Laurent. Thank you for the time. A couple of questions. First of all, perhaps a question about your ongoing strategy towards automation, digitization, and specifically the investment in the distribution centers. As you roll out these larger distribution centers and enhance the distribution model, what sort of effects do you see on the necessity to carry, or the level of net working capital or trade working capital that you have to carry? What sort of productivity benefits do you achieve when you implement those? When we think forward, basically, where should the trade net working capital begin to normalize? What sort of actual savings can you achieve to offset the inflationary headwinds, particularly around employment as you go into 2023 and 2024? William, the effect of automated DC is different depending on the situation. If I take the example of the new DC close to Lyon, it was replacing an existing DC which was not automated. The fact that it's automated doesn't change much in terms of working capital. You still have the same level of safety stock. It just is accessible quicker and easier in a more easier way from the operators. The main effect is in terms of service to the customer. We may, in the long run, expect to gain market share because of increased service to the customer. The second effect is productivity. In Lyon, I think we removed 30 people based on that. You're going to have a little effect on productivity, based on that, in the places where you do such projects. The majority of the projects are of these kinds. The automated distribution centers replace existing automated, existing non-automated DC. The main effect is customer service and a little bit of productivity. There is another situation, which is, for example, the situation of our new DC close to London, in the U.K., where we replace a system of hub and spoke, where some branches had a little bit more inventory than others, and we're serving others by a new automated DC. In this case, there is an effect on working capital indeed, because we have all the inventory. The next question is from Eric Lemarié. Sorry, I had not finished. In reality, you're going to see a slightly positive effect on working capital overall based on the few projects that we have which are like the U.K. DC, but it's not going to be very meaningful. I expect for 2023 and 2024, the level of inventory to remain fairly stable, maybe to progress a little bit, but to remain fairly stable. As far as productivity is concerned, I would give the same answer. Yes, we are able to offset a big part of the inflation that we are seeing in wages by productivity. To give you just an order of magnitude of the inflation in wages, what we anticipate for next year is to have something between 4% and 5% of inflation of wages. We are going to be able to offset a little bit of that, but not all by our productivity effort. Our productivity effort are not only in the DC, they are all over the place. We try to be more efficient, thanks to digital in our call centers, in our sales organization, et cetera, et cetera. Long answer, long answer to tell you that, yes, it has an impact mostly on productivity. It's not the only place where we do productivity, and it's going to offset parts of the inflation that we are going to see on the cost base, maybe not all. That's the reason why coming back to the previous answer, that we are cautious on the margin. Thanks. Is my line still open? Hello? Hello. Yes, yes, yes. Yes. Your line is still open. Perfect. Thank you. My second question comes back to the development of M&A. Historically, there was an argument that Legrand, sorry, Rexel as a distributor could run with quite a high level of a leverage. This year you've achieved, I think, a record low level of a leverage and, you know, you've highlighted that the rating agencies have improved your rating. Looking forward, clearly there are opportunities for you in North America and other parts of the world for M&A, but how do you see the optimal balance sheet structure? What sort of level of capital do you envisage allocating to M&A on a medium-term basis each year? You know, look, I mean, first of all, you've seen that M&A is quite attractive in terms of value creation, and it's proved extremely successful over the last two years. I would stick to the target that we have given previously. In terms of leverage, we think that the sweet spot for us is to be around two. We are below two, largely below two. We are below 1, in fact. So it's comfortable. Overall our sweet spot is two. In terms of, first of all, the M&A target that we are looking at, we are looking at small and midsize M&A targets. You're not going to see us do huge transformation deals. We think that the track record that we have started to create doing a midsize and a small size acquisition is quite good, and we feel comfortable with that in terms of in terms of value creation. Now, how much are we going to dedicate to M&A? It's going to depend on the targets which are available. It's going to depend also on the market conditions. We don't want to overpay. Overall, we would say that we would, we'd come back to what we said at the Capital Markets Day, which was to say that we wanted to add EUR 2 billion of additional sales, up to EUR 2 billion of additional sales between 2022 and 2025. We have done EUR 500 this year. We are on to do that. this is in average what we have in mind, basically, in terms of contribution rate. Depending on the year, it may be more, it may be less. Thank you very much. The next question is from Eric Lemarié of CIC. Please go ahead. Yes. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I've got three actually. The first one, you mentioned this 6x EV on EBITDA ratio or combined acquisition divestment multiple. Could you share with us the multiple for the acquisition and the multiple for the divestment? I got a second question on data center because I understand that Wesco, in the U.S. was mentioning the good dynamics of the data center segments, and I was wondering how much Rexel is exposed to data centers. The question because it doesn't seems to be a big issue for you, and I was wondering why and if that could change the future. Last question, maybe could you give us some highlight on the French antitrust investigation? What you view today on that, are you more confident than last quarter, for instance, on that issue? Thank you. Okay. The answers can be quick. Six times EV on EBITDA, it's already an information, an additional information that we are giving. We're not going to get into the details of acquisitions, divestments, et cetera. I thought it was important to give you an idea of the fact that overall our M&A strategy was very clearly value creative. Data centers, we have limited exposure to data centers in the U.S. We wish sometimes we would have greater exposure. It's due to historical reasons. We know that for some of our competitors, it's quite successful. It goes up and down. You know, right now it's quite successful. It's good for them. We have other markets which are growing fast and it's mostly due for Wesco to the acquisition of Anixter a few years ago as our exposure to data centers. Antitrust investigation, nothing new. Limited evolution for the time being. No clear calendar on the next steps in the procedures, of which there are many before any cash out. We don't expect any conclusions and decisions that could lead to potentially a cash out in H1 2023. Overall, as I said several times in the past, we, I would like to remind that it's not at all a question of a price fixing. It's a question of a challenge of the specific pricing organization that is completely public and transparent in France. We strongly argue against that, and we'll continue to argue against that. No particular evolution on this, and confidence in the position that we have on this perspective. Yeah. Fair enough. Thank you. Thank you very much, Eric. Mr. Texier, there are no more questions registered at this time. Thank you very much for your attention. As you can tell, a very good set of results in 2022, but more importantly, good foundations which paves the way for I think a good 2023, with an initial two months of 2023, going clearly in the right direction. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over. You may disconnect your telephones. Thank you.