Hello, and welcome to the SPIE Q1 2021 Results Conference Call. My name is Val, and I will be your coordinator for today's event. Please note, this conference is being recorded, and for the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen only. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the presentation. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question at any time. If at any point you require assistance, please press star zero and you'll be connected to an operator. I will now hand you over to your host, Gauthier Louette, Chairman and CEO, to begin today's conference. Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for attending SPIE's Conference Call for our first quarter results. Q1 has confirmed the good momentum of our activities with return to positive organic growth, even compared to 2019, and an EBITDA margin at pre-COVID-19 level. This is a solid performance which confirms the vitality of our market and the relevance of positioning as an enabler of the energy transition and the digital transformation. To illustrate this positioning, I will start with a few contract examples. On slide three, we're talking about bespoke IT solution for COVID-19 vaccination centers in France, and we're happy to participate to the fight against the COVID-19 through the deployment of an IT solution for vaccination centers. This is an installation which can be installed within five days, and we provide technical IT support during the vaccination campaign and obviously dismantling at the end. We are part of a consortium awarded with a public medical procurement contract, and this solution has already been implemented at the Clermont-Ferrand vaccination center. On slide four, as you know, we enable the digital transformation, and in this example, it is a rollout of an optic fiber telecom network in Schwedt in Germany. Optic fiber in Germany is a promising market that we have already started to address, and we recently geared up our capabilities, thanks to acquisition, as you will see later in this presentation today. In this example, our customer is a local Stadtwerke, so the municipal utility of Schwedt. We've been working for them for the past 25 years, initially on gas and electricity networks, and today on optic fiber. We see our good knowledge of the area was definitely a strong competitive edge to gain this contract. On slide five, in the Netherlands, we enable the energy transition with the development of the Koningslust onshore wind farm in order to supply 65,000 households with green electricity by the end of this year. We are connecting 19 turbines to the local grid. Our services include cabling, engineering, setup of switch gears, installation of cameras, optic fiber cables, control and security systems. As you see, it is very flat and it can get very windy. Moving to slide six. We often tell you about our strong local presence. This is an example of Moissac, a town in the southwest of France, where SPIE has been present for nearly a century. We started working on the electrification of the local train line in 1930. Today, we are active in public lighting, telecom infrastructure, and rural electrification. We are obviously strongly involved in the local life. For example, we are very active in youth professional insertion. We employ locally 70 people, some of them being the third generation of SPIE employees. Now on slide eight, moving on to the highlights of the quarter. Clearly, we have seen the confirmation of a good momentum with robust revenue trends. Q1 revenue was higher than in Q1 2020 and in Q1 2019 on an organic basis. We benefited from a strong rebound in France and a continued robust growth in Germany. Organic growth was at or above 4% in both these countries. Our Q1 EBITDA margins to that pre-COVID level equal to that of Q1 2019. We have announced two bolt-on acquisition, both in optic fiber networks and both in Germany and Central Europe, which will considerably increase our capabilities on the strongly growing optic fiber local market. On the basis of this good start to the year, we do confirm our full year outlook. On slide nine, moving to the financial highlights. Q1 organic revenue growth was + 1.4% compared to robust Q1 2020, which was barely affected at the time by the COVID crisis. If we compare ourselves now to Q1 2019, which was a pretty good quarter. We are up 1.1% on an organic basis and 2.9%, including changes in perimeter and foreign exchange. Our Q1 EBITDA margin was at 3.7%, up 10 basis points compared to Q1 2020, and equal to that of Q1 2019, it is pre-COVID levels. Moving on slide 10 and looking at our organic growth. Q1 2021 marks a return to positive organic growth, and it continues the controlled improvement on previous quarters. It confirms the good momentum already observed in Q3 and Q4 2020, with a firm business recovery following the strong impact of strict lockdowns in Q2. On slide 11, organic growth in Q1 was driven by both France and Germany. France saw a strong rebound in revenue, up 4.3% organically. Germany and Central Europe continued to deliver a solid organic growth at 3.1%, of which 4% in Germany alone. Northwestern Europe was down -5.3% organically, against a strong comparison basis. We were at +3.6% in Q1 2020, and we do expect a catch-up in Q2. Oil and gas and nuclear was down by a limited 1.2%. Comparing now with Q1 2019. Group revenue is higher by 1.1% on an organic basis and 3.2%, including acquisition and disposals. We are higher than pre-COVID-19 levels in Q1, which again illustrates the strength of our business. Germany and Central Europe is a key contributor to this performance, being higher by 4.2% organically and as much as 12.6% overall, thanks to bolt-on acquisition made over the period. France too is higher by 1.6% organically. Northwestern Europe is only slightly lower, 1.9%, which puts in perspective the 2021 versus 2020 decrease. Finally, oil and gas and nuclear is lower by 5.5% due to a tough context in oil and gas. Now on slide 13, we are pleased to see the return of our usual bolt-on M&A activity. We recently announced two acquisitions, both in optic fibre networks, both in Germany and Central Europe, which is spot on in terms of our strategic priorities. WirliebenKabel in Germany, a specialist of FTTx projects with around 130 employees, a presence in over 10 locations and revenue of EUR 25 million in 2020. KEM Montage in Austria, the Austrian leader in telecommunication infrastructure services with over 170 people and annual revenue of EUR 30 million. As I have mentioned before, the market potential in optic fiber networks in this country is considerable, as they both need to catch up compared to the rest of Europe. With this acquisition, we are very well positioned now to benefit from this growing market. Moving to our activity by segment and starting with France on slide 14. France did enjoy a strong activity rebound with a 4.2% organic revenue growth. Compared to Q1 2019, revenue is higher by 1.6% on an organic basis. Following the good recovery momentum observed in the second half of last year, growth was solid across all divisions, highlighting the vitality of our markets and the performance of our French organization. In particular, technical facility management activities are increasingly benefiting from our innovative Smart FM 360° digital offering. Market dynamism remains innovative in telecom networks and smart city services. Moving to slide 15, Germany and Central Europe. Organic growth was particularly strong in Germany at 4%, highlighting yet again the excellent trends driving the German market. On the buoyant energy infrastructure market, transmission and distribution services turned in another quarter of solid growth despite a harsher winter in Q1 this year. Activity levels remain high in technical facility management despite the COVID-19 context. In Northwestern Europe, we had a slow start in Q1, but we do expect a catch-up in Q2. In the Netherlands, good trends in infrastructure and technical facilities management were offset by low demand for industry services, especially in petrochemical, and by the impact of harsh weather conditions. Activity levels in the U.K. remain resilient given the strict COVID-19 restriction that did prevail for the better part of the quarter. In Belgium, revenue decreased to a hesitant building installation market, while transport infrastructure and transmission and distribution services remained well-oriented. Now for oil and gas and nuclear on slide 17. We did record a healthy activity in nuclear services, whose revenue increased on a very low Q1 2020. As you will remember, EDF was very fast to shut down the external activity in the nuclear plant mid-March last year. Now, the Grand Carénage program, as well as the recurring electrical installation activities, continue to provide long-term visibility. In oil and gas services, it is in fact the opposite. Revenue was down against a high comparison basis as oil market environment continued to weigh on operation. Business factors are, however, showing signs and improvement in some geographies, primarily in West Africa. On slide 18, a few words on how we value human capital, which is a top priority for SPIE. We have set ourselves a gender diversity objective, which is to increase by 25% the proportion of women in key management positions by 2025. This will be achieved through internal promotion and external recruitments with the support of our group-wide network called So'SPIE Ladies. In terms of recruitment, we want to recruit 2,200 people in France this year to support our growth. This is another sign of the vitality of our business. This year, again, we want to give students their first professional opportunity as we are looking for 600 new apprentices. With regard to employee ownership, with 6.1% of the capital, employee funds are SPIE's largest shareholder, and we are among the top 10 companies within SBF 120 for employee shareholding. As we've mentioned many times, employee ownership is key at SPIE, and we do intend to grow it further. With this, I will hand over to Michel, who will give you more details on our financial performance. Thank you, Gauthier, and good morning, everyone. I'm on slide 20. As Gauthier has already pointed out, we achieved a robust performance in an environment still very much affected by the COVID-19 crisis. Group revenue was EUR 1,611 million, up 0.2% versus Q1 2020. EBITDA was EUR 59.7 million, which is 3.7% of revenue, up 10 basis points compared to Q1 2020. As you can see on the right of the table, we are above Q1 2019 levels, both in terms of revenue and EBITDA. Here we have restated 2019 numbers just like 2020 numbers to include the contribution of a school maintenance activity in the U.K., which was reintegrated into the continued perimeter in June last year. It's a small restatement, EUR 10 million on the revenue and limited adjustment on the restatement on the EBITDA, but it gives you an accurate comparison basis. As you can see on slide 21, the revenue bridge. On top of a 1.4% organic growth, Q1 revenue change includes a very small impact from acquisition, 0.1%, and a negative impact, -0.7%, from the disposal of our U.K. mobile maintenance activities in March last year. A negative ForEx impact, -0.6%, located primarily in the oil and gas division. Slide 22 on our Q1 EBITDA at EUR 59.7 million. It was up 2.5% year-on-year, and EBITDA margin was equal to that of Q1 2019. This is a strong performance as we still have some negative impacts from the COVID-19. The underlying operational performance of the business is very good, which allows to offset those impacts. This concludes my part, and I now hand back to Gauthier. Thank you, Michel. Moving to our outlook. Looking forward, we confirm our outlook for 2021, and we expect a strong rebound in revenue and EBITDA margin, both expected very close to 2019 levels. The full-year revenue to be acquired through bolt-on acquisition is the order of EUR 200 million. A further reduction in the group's leverage and the dividend payout ratio at 40% of adjusted net income. Longer term, on slide 25, as we have mentioned before, SPIE is well positioned to benefit from upcoming European stimulus plan. The energy transition and the digital transformation are core to these plans, and we provide a large array of services that are well-positioned to address the expected growth of demand in electricity, T&D and renewable projects, smart cities, building energy renovation, the digitization of businesses and public administration and industry services, notably now for the development of green hydrogen. Based on what has been announced so far, we estimate that the portion of the stimulus plan that will be directly addressable by SPIE would be EUR 10 billion for Germany and EUR 12 billion for France. Overall, these plans will bring additional growth to our activities, and they do reinforce our confidence in a promising future. Thank you very much for your attention. Michel and I are now available to answer your questions. As a reminder, 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. Please ensure your line remains unmuted locally. You will be advised when to ask your question. Again, press star one on your keypad. The first question comes from the line of Oscar Val from JPMorgan. Please go ahead. Yes, morning, Gauthier and Michel. I have three questions. The first one on guidance. As we think about your full year 2021 guidance, that 2021 close to 2019. If you're already running above this level in a quarter that arguably had some COVID-19 impacts, can you remind us if there are any positive one-offs, the catch-up things you want that falls away over the rest of the year? That's the first question. The second question on M&A. We've had some press reports in French newspapers suggesting that SPIE could be looking at ENGIE's services assets. Can you comment on what your appetite is for larger M&A? If you can't comment on that, maybe if you could just comment if you're seeing any changes in competition or pricing in France from your main competitors. A third question just on raw material price inflation. Can you comment on if you're able to pass through higher price inflation from things like copper, and if so, how much is it impacting your revenue in terms of pricing? Thank you. Well, thank you. Regarding the first question on guidance, we do not have any one-off in this quarter. This is a perfectly run-of-the-mill type of quarter. No one-off on this quarter. The question regarding ENGIE, obviously, this is a major event happening in our industry. Yes, we do hope that whomever the next shareholder will be, we do hope that it will have a positive impact on competitive environment and bringing more discipline on the margin expectations. Regarding the raw materials, it is still early, and we don't see a lot of impact. Usually, and from our experience in the past, we're always able to pass on the increases, if any, to the customer. We have a number of indexation formulas in many contracts. As you know, our projects are small and rotating quickly, so we are able to incorporate in our tendering exercises the most actual prices with, again, indexation formula. In the past, similarly to wage inflation, which has been a question sometimes in the past also from the analyst, it is never an issue to pass on the price, and it has no detrimental effect to the margin. Okay, great. Thank you very much. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Charles Scotti from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead. Yes, hello. Thanks for taking my question. The first one on the guidance, sorry to come back on this topic, but you are facing some headwinds like lockdowns, curfews, a weak oil and gas business, and temporary headwinds in Benelux. Despite that, you are running ahead of your pre-crisis levels. What prevents you today from raising your sales guidance? That's my first question. My second question, are there still some contracts where clients refuse to accept price increases, and those that are still dragging on your profitability? My third question on optic fiber. Can you remind us the size of the business in France and the Netherlands, and is this business still growing in the two countries? What's, in your view, your sales potential in the German market? Finally, I do understand that you can't say anything on the ENGIE transaction, can you tell us what kind of maximum leverage you could go in case of a platform acquisition? Thank you very much. Regarding the guidance, the first quarter is only a small quarter. It accounts for 15% of our results. Yes, it is a good start to the year, and we are very pleased, and we are really confident about our guidance. There are still uncertainties, as you have mentioned, just a few things like some productivity issues, et cetera, linked to the COVID-19. Quite a bit still of uncertainty in front of us. We prefer to confirm the guidance at this stage and leave it there. You are right, the start of the year has been very encouraging, yeah. Contracts where customer do not accept pricing fees, as I said, there's quite a faster rotation. As I said last time, the main issue for us nowadays is case where we have to quarantine a site because of suspected cases, et cetera. It is a small disruption to the production, and it is hard to claim this from the customer. This is a sort of events we have to deal with at the moment, more than anything in this regard. Regarding the market of optic fiber in France, what we are doing in optic fiber is between EUR 150 million- EUR 100 million in France at the moment. In the Netherlands, it is closer to EUR 50 million-EUR 60 million. It is still growing in Netherlands. It is slightly growing still in France. By far, the deployment is not over at all. It is only starting in Germany, so there's a big potential, where, as we have seen on the chart, the gap between France and Germany is really considerable. We are looking now with this acquisition, we will be doing roughly EUR 100 million in this market on top what we were already doing, which was in the ranks of EUR 2,030. We expect to do more from this margin. Regarding the last question, we have no idea really about what is really for sale. Very vague understanding of the Bright topic. Clearly, we have no comment at all to make regarding any kind of leverage. We are very far from such consideration. Thank you very much. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of James Winckler from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Hey, thanks, guys. Wondering if you could let us know what U.K. growth was through the quarter. Secondly, just curious if you could talk about any. I believe there's new services, new device you talked about, one with ultraviolet light disinfection, for example. If there's new services you're seeing a lot of pent-up demand for or strong demand for in markets which are starting to reopen and return to work that you'd like to highlight. Thanks. Well, starting with the second part, clearly as our areas where we were busy in the past, which are not doing a lot at the moment. As an example, we mentioned in the past, the large contract we have with the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg for the next 20 years. The base contract, which is maintaining, cleaning, geometry, access control, and whatever, this is still working. We are still paid for the base contract. The additional revenue we derive usually from all the performances and the special features we have to bring for when the opera is working, this we don't get anything at the moment. Clearly, yes, I think there will be some pent-up demand from our customers, and from the public as well to restart. This is a simple example. It is same for hospitality, and we have customers among hotels, et cetera. They're not obviously spending right now. As I mentioned, we're also active in the aeronautics and working for Lufthansa, Air France, Airbus, et cetera. This is fairly slow right now. We can expect some catch-up later. Who knows? Maybe second half of the year or later. Yes, there should be some catch-up in this area. Regarding the U.K. growth, we had mid-single-digit decrease in the first half. It is mainly due, as you remember, in comparison with 2020, where in the first quarter we still had our mobile business. Apart from that, the organic, clearly it was more stable in Q1 compared to Q1 last year. Okay, thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Nicolas Tabor from Stifel. Please go ahead. Good morning. Thank you very much for taking my questions. The first one would be on your slide 25, on the infrastructure plan and spending. Do you have an update on where exactly you're expecting the tenders to start and the first impact on revenue? Any idea? On the second one, thinking of the more Q1 exit rate in terms of cost-based evolution. We've had the Q1 margin, but thinking of how you're going into Q2 and forward, are you, let's say, cautious with recruitments, or are you actually trying to find as much qualified employees as possible because you see that pent-up demand, and how we should think about that? Will you wait for the investment, or will you invest ahead of actually getting the revenue from either the Green Deal or other pent-up demand? A third question would be on the M&A pipeline. Where is actually the focus for you right now for the rest of the year? We've seen your two acquisitions in optic fiber in a very attractive market. Where is your attention turning now for the rest of the year? Is it still more Germany, or do you see things to do probably in France, and which segment, for example? Thank you very much. Well, regarding the timing of tenders, it is early to say. As we said, we have not based our plan for 2021 with a lot of impact from the stimulus plans yet. We think that we'll start to see the tenders probably towards second quarter or third quarter of this year. Regarding the cost-based evolution, as we have mentioned in the presentation, for instance, in France, we plan to recruit more than 2,000 people this year. If we are looking at our plans in Germany or elsewhere, we'd have not dissimilar figures. Clearly, we were gearing up for growth, but in line with what we see in our portfolio. In our type of business, we have some good view on what the customers plan to do, and then we try to adapt, not too much in advance, because then it would cost money to have people lying idle. We try to adapt with the type of growth and in the sectors where we anticipate growth. We're not investing ahead, but we're trying to really keep pace and anticipate the growth because it takes time also to recruit people. Regarding, well, it is generally not too big an issue. We are an attractive employer. We have a very good retention rate, a very low resignation rate. Since it is decentralized and with a lot of proximity to our customers, people are really able to see what's going to happen in the months to come. Regarding M&A, in terms of geography, the focus remains in Germany and Central Europe. We have more deals cooking in this part of our business right now. We want to further develop the SPIE scope. We're looking at targets in the area of HVAC. We are looking at targets in the area of infrastructure and also in the area of ICT. This area, we're also investigating in other countries. Like in Belgium, we're also looking at targets in optic fiber. In France, we are looking also at targets in the industry. Clearly, we do not plan to grow by acquisition only in Germany, but it does remain the main focus in terms of geography. Great. Thank you very much. Oh, sorry. Yeah, no, very likely the next deals we're going to announce will be in that part of the business. Thank you very much for your answers. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Peter Testa from One Investments. Please go ahead. Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. I wanted to understand a little bit on some of the puts and takes in margins still being felt in Q1. For example, PPE that might not be able to be passed on in areas which were lagging, maybe some labor utilization may not have been ideal. Are there any of these factors still present in Q1, or are they still to work through? No. Generally now, all the PPEs, et cetera, they've been passed on to the customers, or they've been included in the new bids. It is not a major issue nowadays. It is just as we don't mention to the customers the cost of safety shoes, et cetera, but it is the same now. It has become part of the run-of-the-mill business. No significant issue there. As I said, what we are facing more in terms of small disruption here and there is that sometimes a site has to be shut off and because of suspected cases, that sort of issue. Well, we have to deal with that. In the end, it does happen now and again across the geographies. Okay. Anything to say on labor utilization or labor structure, the extent to which in some of the areas they're lagging and maybe some people not used as well, or they've been reabsorbed across the business? If you look at your labor structure in general between the use of internal people, subcontractors and temps and so on, are there any areas which are still yet to normalize? No. Well, back to normal, let's say, in terms of the split between our own workforce, the subcontractors, and the temporary workers, which would vary from one country to the other due to legislation or also due to the type of activity we do, but some of it being more seasonal than others. We are back to the usual structure, which is roughly, we have from the productive workforce, we have about 15-25 temps and 10-15 subcontractors. This is a range, and we're back to that. We still have a number of people in short-term employment in Kurzarbeit or chômage partiel or furlough. It has reduced considerably, and at group level, we're talking probably in the range of 250. Right. Okay. The last question was just on, if you look at the building segment as part of SPIE, and the activity level there, how it might be changing or how some of the other factors such as Green Deal-related spending may be also starting to improve that segment of SPIE. I'm not sure I understood the question? Just the customer exposure in the building area, that part of your business, the extent to which that is growing in line or less than in line with the rest of the group. Still opportunity and maybe you are starting to see more customer activity to bring that part of the business up to group growth. Well, the facilities part, so the technical facility management, this is working very well in all our countries. Now we have growth in Germany, we have growth in France, we are doing well in Belgium or in the Netherlands. Now what we tend to expect is that if towards the second half of the year, when there will be more people coming back to the offices, it should be benefiting to us in terms of adaptation, changes of the layouts, et cetera. We're quite positive about our Tech FM business. Regarding installations, well, the market, as we said, is a bit tougher in Belgium right now for a number of reasons, but we see it more difficult at the moment. Elsewhere it's been resisting fairly well. We had a good order intake in France or in the U.K., so we're doing okay. Great. Thank you very much. Thanks for the question and answers. Thank you. There are currently no further questions in the queue. Just as a further reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Apologies, there is just one question that's submitted now, and that comes from the line of Eric Lemarié from Garnier. Please go ahead. Yes. Thank you. Sorry about that. I just got one follow. You mentioned the organic growth in the U.K. in Q1. Could you do the same for the Netherlands and Belgium? Maybe give us an idea of the organic growth in Q1? Second question, could you remind us the breakdown of revenues within the Northwestern Europe between these three countries, Netherlands, U.K., and Belgium, please? Thank you. Well, for Q1, the segment average is roughly -5%, huh? -5.3% as we mentioned. U.K. was better, as I said. Netherlands and Belgium a bit worse. Again, Netherlands in 2020 Q1 were the +2% growth compared to 2019. It's not a meltdown either. As I said, we had harsh winter conditions in the Netherlands for about two weeks, so it did have an impact, especially because we work quite a bit with infrastructure or overhead lines. As I said, we will anticipate a catch-up in Q2. No major worries there at all. Netherlands is about 60% of the segment revenue, and then Belgium and U.K., they are roughly the same size. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Jean Delebarre from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead. Yes, good morning. Can we just have an update on M&A prices? Do you see any price inflation or consolidation? Thanks. Well, the recent deals we've made are in our usual range of multiple. We remain very disciplined in this regard, and no major change. Again, we remain very disciplined, but a lot of the deals we do are on a one-on-one basis, so not that many are done through auctions. We see it helps to keep the prices very reasonable. I can also take this opportunity to highlight that, with this discipline on M&A, we have no impact on the leverage, or very limited. I take also this opportunity, although, as you know, we don't publish any balance sheet on the quarter, but at least to tell you that so far this year, the working capital and the cash collections in general continue to be very good. Although, as you know, we have a usual seasonality with the timing of certain payments, variable paid, the dividend and so on. Every year, we leverage in H1, typically in the order of one time the EBITDA, and then we leverage in H2 by an even greater number. For this year, we do not anticipate the H1 releveraging to be bigger than usual. Although, as I said, we restart M&A, and we will pay a dividend. It should remain within the one time EBITDA, from 2.4 at the end of December to 3.4 at the end of June max, really at max, compared to 3.6 June last year. This despite the fact that we will have paid back most of our 2020 social charges deferment, if you remember. We took the opportunity last year to defer social charges payment at the end of the year. This is another sign of the excellent working capital performance we are delivering at the moment. Okay, great. Thanks for the compliment. Thank you. That was our last question for today. I'll hand the call back to our speakers to conclude today's conference. Thank you. Well, thank you. Thank you very much for your attention today and for this trust you have for SPIE. We are looking with confidence at this year. I think we have shown the very strong resilience of the company, and we are now back to pre-COVID levels. It is a very encouraging start to the year, and it gives us a lot of confidence to deliver on our promises for this year. Thanks a lot, and have a good day. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for joining today's call. You may now disconnect.