Hello, and welcome to the SPIE half year 2021 call. My name is Josh, and I will be your coordinator for today's event. Please note that 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 call. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question. If you require assistance at any point, please press star zero and you will be connected to an operator. I will now hand you over to your host, Gauthier Louette, to begin today's conference. Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for attending SPIE's conference call. We did deliver strong results for the 2021 first half of the year. Both revenue and EBITDA are already back above pre-crisis levels. I'm particularly pleased with the fast recovery of our margin and with our excellent working capital performance, which led to an acceleration of our deleveraging. During this semester, our bolt-on M&A activity was also very dynamic and focused on our strategic priorities. This strong first half of the year leads us to upgrade our full-year guidance. First, I would like to share with you some good examples of our expertise, in particular, to help our clients reducing their energy consumption. On slide three, in the U.K., we have improved energy efficiency of a ventilation station supplying the Kingsway Road tunnel under the Mersey River. We have supplied and installed high-voltage switchgear, low loss transformers, and control cabling. These new systems will save about 440 tons of CO2 over the lifetime compared to the old ones. They will cut costs by more than GBP 10,000 per year. This contract demonstrates yet again that when our customers look for energy efficiencies, we are part of the solution. On slide four, in the steel industry, our AMPERE solution allows our customers to significantly reduce the energy consumption of arc furnaces used to recycle scrap metal. This solution can cut CO2 emission of an electric furnace by 1,800 tons per year. This is the equivalent of 900 cars traveling 20,000 km. Since 2016, 1 million tons of CO2 emissions have been avoided by our industrial customers who use the AMPERE solution. On slide five, since the pandemic started, we have been very active to supply the healthcare sector with appropriate solutions. Here we installed IT infrastructure and communication systems for COVID-19 vaccination centers in Osnabrück in Germany. This infrastructure that was implemented within a very short time, the first system being ready for operation within two weeks of the first inquiry. Fighting the pandemic, as we all know, is a race against time, and we are proud to take part. On slide six, every year our CSR policies are rated by EcoVadis. In 2020, we were awarded gold for the seventh year in a row. In particular, EcoVadis commended SPIE's increased focus on sustainable development, dialogue with stakeholders, and implementation of new policies and initiatives aimed at managing CSR risks. Now, moving to the highlights of H1. We are pleased to report strong H1 2021 results with revenue and EBITDA above pre-crisis levels. Dynamic bolt-on M&A focused on the group's strategic priorities, excellent working capital performance, driving acceleration in deleveraging, and with such a good start, we are confident for the balance of the year, and we upgrade our full-year guidance. Our H1 organic growth was at +9.7% compared to H1 2020, and we were back to the high activity levels recorded in H1 2019. Total revenue growth was at +9.1% and at +1.7% compared to H1 2019. Our H1 EBITDA margin was at 4.8%, up 170 basis points compared to H1 2020 and back to the pre-COVID-19 level of H1 2019. Our leverage ratio, which is as usual higher in June than in December due to our seasonality, decreased markedly to 3x at June 2021 compared to 3.6x at June 2020. On slide 10, in terms of organic growth, Q2 2021 showed a strong rebound at 19.1% organic, confirming a firm business recovery following the significant impact of the sanitary crisis last year. This does reflect the strong resilience of our business, which is increasingly driven by two powerful trends, the energy transition and the digital transformation. Slide 11, looking at revenue growth by segment. France enjoyed a strong rebound, up 21.1% organically compared to a low base in H1 2020, when the first lockdown had been particularly strict. Germany and Central Europe showed unabated strong growth against a remarkably resilient H1 2020. Organic growth was at plus 5.6%, of which 6.5% in Germany alone. Let us keep in mind that the organic decrease in H1 2020 in Germany had been very limited to only minus 0.3%, so it's really an excellent performance in Germany. Northwestern Europe was back to organic growth at plus 2%, and oil and gas and nuclear was only slightly down by -1.4%. On slide 12, we compare our revenue with H1 2019. Compared to H1 2019, our revenue was up 2.1% overall and stable organically, which means that we are back to the high level of activity recorded in H1 2019. Germany and Central Europe is at 4.5% organically. It shows the strength of our positioning, in particular within the transmission and distribution segment. France is slightly up organically compared to a very dynamic H1 2019. This does show a fast and sustainable return to high activity levels. Northwestern Europe is 4.4% below H1 2019, where we had high comparison basis in both the Netherlands and Belgium. Oil and gas and nuclear down 10% organically. As you know, the crisis in the oil and gas sector has been severe, but we've seen our business starting to recover. bolt-on M&A, part and parcel of our model. In 2020, M&A activity was interrupted by the sanitary crisis. It did resume in the second half of 2020, and we have been very active since the beginning of 2021. We made six acquisitions totaling EUR 192 million of full-year revenue, and we now target to acquire a revenue well in excess of EUR 200 million over the full year. Our acquisitions are focused on our strategic priorities. Energotest in Poland, EUR 12 million of revenue in automation systems for power and industrial plants. WirliebenKabel, literally we love cable in Germany with EUR 25 million of revenue in telecom networks. KEM in Austria with EUR 30 million of revenue in telecom networks as well, and both these activities are exposed to FTTX and FTTH activity. Wiegel in Germany, EUR 50 million of revenue in HVAC services. Valorel in France, EUR 5 million of revenue in industrial piping, especially in the pharmaceutical sector. Lastly, very recently, Infidis in France with EUR 70 million of revenue in data center infrastructure. Quite a busy start of the year, but this is not the end. Now moving to our activity by segment. In France, a sharp rebound in revenue and EBITDA on a low H1 2020 impacted by strict lockdown, which was in fact the stricter lockdown we had to endure. EBITDA margin was up 290 basis points compared to H1 2020. We see good momentum in Tech FM. We see a continuing high demand for telecom network services, and now the 5G revenue has started to ramp up. Business service and commercial installations were healthy. Industrial services are still lagging a bit as the market has not yet fully recovered. We tend to see some improvement on this side as well. I mentioned the recent acquisition of Infidis, which makes us one of the French leaders in data center hyperconvergence services. Lastly, with regard to margin, EBITDA margin is expected almost back to pre-COVID level in H2. Germany and Central Europe. The strong growth did remain unabated in Germany and in Central Europe. As we saw, Germany delivered a very strong performance across the board. Transmission and distribution services were fueled by energy transition investment in the electrical grid. Tech FM and building technology and automation were also well-oriented. The German EBITDA margin was close to H1 2019 level. In Central Europe, we saw a moderate revenue contraction in Hungary, mainly due to contract phasing, while revenue growth was strong in Switzerland. In Northwestern Europe, we have really very good news regarding the continuing margin expansion on the back of the successful organization and performance initiatives of the previous year. EBITA margin was up 230 basis points compared to H1 2020, and 170 basis points compared to H1 2019. In the Netherlands, revenue caught up in Q2. After a slow start, we see good trends in energy and water infrastructure and smart city services, while the demand from industrial customer, and primarily petrochemical, did remain low. EBITDA margin made significant progress. In the U.K., revenue grew strongly against H1 2020, while some customer are still a bit slow to make decisions. Both EBITDA margin and working capital improved, which is very satisfying on the back of all the efforts performed last year. Belgium rebounded, but revenue settled below H1 2019 level, as the building sector remained affected, while energy and transport infrastructure were very active. To oil and gas and nuclear, we also did see a rebound in nuclear, and we see positive signs in oil and gas, where we expect growth to return in H2. Altogether, EBITDA margin improved by 90 basis points compared to H1 2020. Oil and gas services revenue was down against a resilient H1 2020. Business levels improved in Africa but were offset by a number of contracts ending in the Middle East. The good news is that growth is expected to return in H2, while EBITDA margin, as you see, will remain high, benefiting from the reorganization conducted last year. In nuclear services, revenue rebounded on the low H1 2020, which, as you will remember, had been impacted very early by COVID-19 restrictions. The Flamanville EPR contract continues to ramp down, and margins remain very high. Altogether, at group level, our EBITDA margin was back in line with H1 2019 level, and we see three good news on this chart. First, the strong pickup of margin in Northwestern Europe. All our organization efforts and performance initiatives are paying off. Second, the high level of margin maintained in oil and gas and nuclear. Third, the potential for group margin to exceed 2019 level and to be above 6% as soon as 2022, when France and Germany and Central Europe will be back to pre-COVID-19 levels. Now I hand over to Michel, who will comment on our financial performance. Thank you, Gauthier, and good morning, everyone. I am on slide 20. As Gauthier has already mentioned, we achieved in H1 a strong rebound in all of our key figures, which are all at or above the H1 2019 level that you can see on the right column on this chart. Compared to H1 2020, group revenue was up by 9.1% at EUR 3.3 billion. EBITA was up by 71% at EUR 160 million. EBITDA margin was at 4.8%, up 170 basis points compared to H1 2020. Adjusted net income more than doubled to EUR 82 million, and net income rebounded sharply at EUR 57 million, while we had a loss last year. I will come on in detail the P&L in a minute, starting with the revenue. Gauthier has already detailed the top line by region, but let's see the brief summary now. Our 9.1% revenue increase takes into account a 9.6% increase at constant Forex and a negative Forex impact, - 0.5%. We have already commented the 9.7% organic growth. Growth from acquisition is limited to 0.3% due to the phasing of our acquisition all over the semester. It will mechanically be much more significant in H2. I remind you that the negative scope effect is due to the disposal of the U.K. mobile maintenance activities made last year in March. On next slide, you can see that our adjusted net income rebounded strongly, resulting primarily from the sharp increase in our EBITA. In addition, our net interest charges were slightly reduced due to our lower level of net debt and our lower leverage. Our financial charges were negatively impacted by negative Forex, while it was positive last year. Our adjusted tax rate was almost stable at 32%. On slide 23, you can see that the reported net income rebounded sharply to EUR 57 million. Amortization of goodwill was stable. Restructuring costs were close to zero. Other non-recurring items were minimal as well, while last year they reflected the accounting loss linked to the disposal of our mobile maintenance business in the U.K. Let's move now to the cash elements. The very good news, I could even say as usual, is the underlying improvement of our working capital at end of June. Our working capital, which is structurally negative, improved by seven days on an underlying basis. It represented -22 days of revenue at the end of June, while it was -15 days at the end of June 2020, excluding the impact of social charges and taxes deferral schemes related to the COVID-19, which have been paid back at the end of June 2021. On this chart, the gray area on the bars represents the impact of the COVID-related delayed payments. This chart reminds you that it was only -3 days at the end of June 2018, which shows the magnitude of the progress we have made since then. The continued improvement in working capital is a result of our very strict cash management, which primarily translates into an excellent level of cash collection across the group. As you can see on this chart, the seven days improvement result from a two days improvement on trade receivables, four days improvement in trade payables, one day improvement in accrued income net of deferred revenue and advances received. Overall, seven days at -22 days compared to -15 days at June last year. Due to our usual seasonality pattern, our free cash flow is negative in H1 by EUR 338 million. Despite the payback of the social charge and taxes deferred, it is better by more than EUR 40 million compared with H1 2019, thanks to this very strong working capital performance. Compared to H1 2020, this year, we have resumed M&A activity as of this point, and we have spent so far EUR 48 million, and dividend payment as well for EUR 70 million. Compared to end of June 2020, our net debt decreased by EUR 83 million. Our leverage ratio was at 3x at end of June 2021, showing an accelerated deleveraging compared to end of June 2020 level at 3.6x. This makes us very confident to reach 2.0 at the end of this year, which compares to 2.4x at end of December 2020. Our credit rating from S&P is unchanged at BB, and we have now a BB rating from Fitch. We are not rated by Moody's anymore. You will note that the leverage, including IFRS 16, is about the same, slightly lower at 2.9x, in this chart. It's not in this chart, but in terms of debt maturity, there is no change, no debt maturity before June 2023, so nothing new here. Now I would like to stress this deleveraging over a long period because this chart shows the seasonality pattern of our leverage. It's interesting to note that with a delta of 0.6x increase in H1 2021, we are back to pre-SAG acquisition pattern. If you remember the SAG acquisition made in 2017, and it increased the seasonality of our working capital as T&D activities are more exposed to weather conditions. Since then, we have improved the working capital of these activities with improvement in processes and cash collection, but we have also improved working capital in other geographies like the Netherlands and the U.K., for instance. This concludes my part, and I will now come back to Gauthier. Thank you, Michel. Since the beginning of the year, we have experienced very healthy business trends in most of our activities and geographies. The rebound in the group's EBITDA margin has been faster than anticipated, and we are firmly lastingly driven by the energy transition and the digital transformation. On the wake of our strong H1 results, we upgrade our full-year outlook for 2021, and we now expect group revenue at or above 2019 level, EBITDA margin at 2019 level of 6%, full-year revenue to be acquired through bolt-on acquisitions well in excess of EUR 200 million, and a strong reduction in the group leverage, now expected at around 2x at year-end. The proposed dividend payout ratio will remain at about 40% of adjusted net income attributable to group. We will pay an interim cash dividend of EUR 0.13 per share, which is 30% of the approved dividend for 2020, on September 27, 2021. Before we turn to Q&A, let me invite you to join us for Investor Day that will take place on September 20. This event will be an opportunity for us to give you insight on SPIE's commitment to sustainability, and to show that when it comes down to climate change, we are clearly on the side of the solution. This concludes our presentation. We are now ready to take your questions. Thank you very much. If you would like to ask a question on today's call, please press star one on your telephone keypad now, please. Please ensure your line is unmuted locally. I will then speak to you individually and then introduce you into the call. Star one on your telephone keypad now, please. Our first question comes from the line of Ebrahim Homani from CIC. Please go ahead. Your line is now unmuted. Hello. I have two questions, if I may. The first one is about your margin in France. How do you explain that the margin is below its 2019 level, despite revenues 2% higher? The second one is about your guidance of EBITDA margin. Based on your guidance and EBITDA margin of 6% in 2021, should we expect the margin higher than 7% in the H2? Which segment we suppose will develop margin? Thank you. Well, regarding the margin in France, as we explained in the past, life is not fully back to normal, especially in terms of productivity and how we have to deal with the sanitary situation on our job. Also we have a number of constraints there. Sometimes work having to be interrupted because of suspected cases, quarantine, et cetera. This is one element. The other one is, as we say, now we have a 20 basis point impact from the rollout of our ERP system. We expect the gap to diminish in H2 also, thanks to underlying improvement. As we said, we expect the margin next year to be back to pre-COVID level. Regarding margin in H2, yes, you are right. It will be around 7%. That's the plan which explain the diminishing in the gap we are announcing for H2 in France. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Simona Sarli from Bank of America. Simona, please go ahead. Yes, good morning. One question. Firstly, on the leverage. Clearly at year-end, as you said, you are going to be at 2x net debt to EBITDA. Presumably in 2022, you are going to be well below the 2x. How should we think about capital allocation beyond 2021? Secondly, now with the option for the facility management business of ENGIE that have started, is there an update that you can give? I assume that now you have a little bit more visibility on the perimeter and very high level, if this would make strategic sense for SPIE, and how you're offering and positioning compares to ENGIE, and if there would potentially be any antitrust issues in France. Also lastly, if you could please comment on if you have started seeing an improvement in the commercial activity across your regions related to the green investments. Thank you. Maybe I can start with the first question on the leverage. As a reminder, the leverage at 2.0x at year-end will be thanks to a strong improvement in EBITDA, clearly. Since we have resumed dividend payments, M&A activity, and we would have repaid the full social charges and taxes debt from last year. I think it's already a good performance. Although the debt could be probably stable, we will see, but at least the leverage will be there. Moving forward, I think the capital allocation will not change. We have always clearly stated that our strategy is to use our cash flow into three different type of capital allocation. First of all, deleveraging is one element. Let's say that we always say that 1/3 of our cash should be allocated to the deleveraging, 1/3 to the bolt-on acquisition, and we'll continue. I think the first half-year, this year has demonstrated this: our ability to execute fast. Of course, the dividend payment that will remain 40% of payout. No change planned on the capital allocation strategy. Regarding ENGIE sales of the securities, the project called Bright. First of all, I would like to remind that SPIE's plan on the standalone basis is a very strong and robust plan, and was the independent European leader with a clear way forward. Really it's a good plan, and we're not desperate to make any acquisition of any sort. However, the Bright topic is an important event on the market, and it is our duty to look carefully at it. That's what we are doing right now. It would only make sense if it was a safe way to significantly accelerate our value creation. This is what we are studying at the moment, and it's very early and too early to draw any conclusions. I think we'll need more time before we form an opinion. Thank you very much. Our next question comes from the line of Eric Lemarié from Bryan, Garnier. Eric, please go ahead. Yes. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I got three, if I may. The first one on your new guidance regarding acquisition. You mentioned bolt-on acquisition when in excess of EUR 200 million of revenues. Should we expect SPIE to continue, in the same rhythm of the first semester in the second semester? Do you think you could reach contribution in term of several revenues around EUR 400 million this year from bolt-on? This is my first question. My second question regards your last acquisition. In this, if I'm not wrong, you mentioned in your press release and in this presentation, EUR 70 million of revenues generated with only 63 people. If I'm not wrong, it's more than EUR 1 million of revenue per people. It looks very high compared to your previous bolt-on deals. Is there any reason for that? Should we expect Infidis to generate much stronger EBITDA margins than the regular bolt-ons you make? The last question on this ENGIE and Bright deal, do you expect that once the deal will be done, do you expect the competition level in the market in France to ease a bit to be less tense? Yeah. Regarding M&A, well, obviously we have a good pipeline, but it's unlikely that we will be doing as much in H2 as we did in H1. There'll be more acquisition in H2, clearly, but we're not advertising EUR 400 million total for the year. Regarding Infidis. Yeah. These are very, very specialized services in the area of data centers. It's services we're familiar with because we acquired a company in this sector a number of years ago, which is S-Cube, which has been performing very well. Yeah, we have 63 permanent people. Sometimes there is, obviously, some contribution of subcontractors and the services are, as I said, very specialized. It's a higher level of turnover per head, higher than what we are used to, but similar with what we saw in the previous acquisition with S-Cube. The level of margin is very good. Yeah, absolutely. Regarding Bright, absolutely, this is a very important element. Whomever, is the winner of this auction, we clearly see that there's room for improvement on the margin level. We have mentioned in the past that, this player tended to be disruptive on pricing. Expect a benefit from the whole industry of a change of shareholders. Thank you. Sorry. I realized that I failed to answer the last question of the previous. For this question, I would choose the Green Deal. It's a bit early in terms of translation into production. What we see is there's more tendering activity in this regard, stemming from various players, including public authorities, both at national and local or regional level, and also various other customers. We have given examples today, also stemming from the industry. Clearly, the concern about decarbonization of the economy is spreading everywhere and spreading fast. A lot of tendering activity in this regard is taking place right now. Thank you very much. Our next question comes from the line of Nicolas Tabor from Stifel. Nicolas, please go ahead. Good morning. Thank you very much for taking my questions. The first question would be to understand the trends in the revenue and organic growth. Looking back at the Q1 slideshow, it seems that your overall group organic growth decelerated compared to 2019, right? I know there's many moving parts, but I wanted to understand if there's something to flag or at the group level, other than maybe more restriction from COVID, and maybe what would be then the exit rate at the end of the quarter. As you said, at or above revenue for the full year, and you're already above in H1. Is there any particular headwind we have to think about other than COVID, obviously, which is difficult to predict. Is there something like contract phase-out or any pressure that you want to mention? Then, apart from the revenue, on taxes paid, it was much lower despite higher profits. What to expect in H2? It's a more technical question. Then, on the net working capital, congratulations on the strong improvement. Is there any reason those seven days should reverse in H2? Does a lower outflow in H1 mean the lower reversal in H2? How should we think of that evolution sequentially? Thank you very much. Well, we are not worried about the trends, and you may see some little variation in terms of growth from one quarter to the other. We will mention that a lot of significance in our type of activity. I think what's important here is that the trends are supportive and we're looking at H2. No particular worry at all in this regard. Yes, you have a bit of a contract phase or thing, but all together, we will not see a very different H2. Again, underlying trends are supportive, so we're fairly confident in this regard. Yeah. Concerning your second question about the taxes, if I understand well, your question is about the tax being paid in H1. Yes, they are lower than last year, but we have to keep in mind that, usually you pay your tax on the prior year results, so it's logical that they are lower this year. If you now think about the P&L, they will be higher with a higher taxable income, clearly. It's difficult to plan the tax at mid-year in terms of P&L because, it's assessed on a full year basis. We try to show a tax rate that is the one that we could expect at year-end. Based on our estimation today, the adjusted tax rate should be around 32%. The tax rate that you will see on the P&L could be higher because you have sometimes a movement on the deferred tax elements, which is a bit complex and technical, but we already know that, for instance, the deferred tax liabilities in the U.K. will increase, and it will have a negative impact on the P&L, simply because the tax rate in the U.K. will increase from 19%-25%, for instance. I won't go too much technical details, but let's say that if you keep in mind that in the P&L, it will be around 32%. In terms of cash, yes, it will be slightly lower than last year on a full year basis. Then your third question about working capital. Yes, it's clear that you have this seasonality, so you will have a reversal of the working capital in the second half, clearly. This is how we will reach the 2.0x level in terms of leverage. If we discard the repayment of the social charges and taxes that we have explained. The overall performance should be quite positive and above the 100% cash conversion we are used to target in the operations every year. Did I answer your question? Yes, thank you very much. Do you have information on the exit rate that you can share with us for the end of Q2, to have an idea of when we exited the sanitary restrictions, how the business was coming back? No, it's not meaningful. It's too small a period of time. Again, as organic growth on the quarter, has, in my view, limited meaning and even shorter period. Generally, the COVID, I mentioned a bit of disruption due to COVID in terms of organization of sites and that sort of thing. Generally, the impact is limited. In terms of decision making of our customers, it might have a bit of impact, but in terms of production flow, we were able, more or less, to produce everything that is in the order book at a normal rate. Now we have readapted to the situation and save for a few odd events go there, we're back to normal. We have very few people now on temporary unemployment. We have a few sites that are still closed, like trade fair in Germany or a few sites where there's less activity, like operas or theaters, where we do maintenance and some work preparing for the events. At group level, this is very limited. Thank you very much. Thank you. Our next question comes from line of Peter Testa from One Investments. Peter, please go ahead. Okay. Hi. I've got three questions, please, that go one at a time. If you look at your comments you made about ENGIE and Bright, you made a point that only if there were a safe way to significantly increase value creation. Maybe if you could just give us a reminder of how you view hurdle rate on M&A and how you take account of the difference between a large transaction and a small deal, given different risk criteria and thinking about that and also the different implication of the capital structure. Just give some reminder of how you regard their value creation from M&A. Obviously, talking Bright, it's a very much larger deal than usual. If I look at one of large deal, which was SAG, transmission distribution activities in Germany, we have seen clearly an improvement of the margin. We have seen a very significant improvement of the working capital, we did materialize the synergies that we had advertised at the time of acquisition. In terms of integration, making the cultures match, et cetera, I think we have made excellent progress in a limited number of years. Looking at an M&A deal, you have to look at the integration aspect, the synergies, the reaction of the customers. You see you have to also look and show that your balance sheet and your leverage remains very reasonable, these are the typical features that you need to take into account, wherever the deal is. Okay. Is there a different view on return requirement given scale and risk, and maybe also the fact that one could be funded by cash and the other may not entirely? Well, no. It has to be a good deal. It has to make sense in terms of value creation, whatever the size and the type of the deal. Okay. The second question, please. If you look at your recruitment, can you give a sense on how recruitment is stepping up in your major zones in Q2 or maybe expectation in H2 in recruitment, and the extent that which if you are indeed stepping up recruitment and whether there's any impact of this on margins from either having more people come in that need training or reengaging with subcontractor networks, which actually in fact the growth may also have a margin impact, but will be repaid with growth as the resources of SPIE grow. Well, it doesn't have an impact on margin. We're in a constant flow of training and recruitment and apprentices, different training for different technologies, and then recruiting people. We recruit at group level, 3,000, 4,000 people a year, depending on the state of the activity. It is completely built in our cost base. There's no impact on margin. It's totally built in. Thanks. Can you give a sense on how recruitment itself has stepped up in Q2 and what you think in H2 in your major regions? Well, obviously, we were recruiting every year, everywhere at the moment. In fact, even last year, we never stopped recruiting. Last year, we still recruited close to 3,000 people. As you remember, last year, we had steady growth, actually, in Germany in H2, and we had to deal with it. Also, even in France, some technologies evolve, customer base evolves, and you have to address that and keep recruiting. We do not see a major step up right now. It's upward strength since H2 last year. In fact, since the previous year, it has only been slowed down at H1 last year. Apart from that, it's an upward trend all the time. Okay. Recruitment is one thing, but you also have to work on talent retention, and I think the loyalty of our employees is strong. Our resignation rate remains low. We see schemes like employee shareholder schemes, they're also designed to enhance the loyalty of our employees. Yeah. Okay. The third question, please, is if you could give some sort of sense on the commercial side of activity. There's obviously a lag between projects being announced, one, and launched, and coming out of COVID-19 can create some time aspects of that. I was wondering if you could give some sort of sense on what you see in terms of pipeline or maybe more specifically book-to-bill Q2 versus Q1 or something like that, please. Well, book-to-bill is increasing. Clearly, we have a good order book. Our backlog is increasing, and backlog for this year and backlog for the years to come. It's a very positive trend everywhere. That's great. Thank you very much. Just as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, it is star one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from the line of Charles Scotti from Kepler. Charles, please go ahead. Yes. Hello. I have three questions, if I may. The first one, on oil and gas, the business seems to be lagging the rest of the group's activities. What are the outlook for oil and gas in H2 and 2022? My second question on Northwestern Europe, do you see room to further improve the profitability in this region and potentially close the gap with the rest of the group, or do you think the profitability is structurally lower? Finally, on your shareholding structure, I can see that CDPQ is no longer in the share capital pie chart. Can you confirm that they sold off their entire stake in the company? Thank you. Regarding oil and gas, we have been affected by the crisis, both directly in terms of dealing with the sanitary situation and indirectly because the oil prices have been low for quite a while now. It's improving now. The second element is more internal. We had a number of contracts in the Middle East, assistance to commissioning, at some stage, the commissioning is meant to be complete, obviously, this contract has not been replaced so far. We look at a better H2, we think we'll have high single to double-digit growth in H2. We think that the oil price has moved up, the situation tends to normalize in oil and gas. We're looking at probably at next year with more optimism. Regarding Northwestern Europe, there is room for further improvement in margin, definitely. I'm really pleased with the improvement we have shown already. U.K. is on a decent trend. Obviously, U.K. will remain dilutive at the group level. I'm not advertising anything different, but we have seen a significant improvement and also in terms of cash generation. This is very satisfying. Netherlands are doing well, and I think Netherlands will be the first to reach the group's average, so the 6%. They're not far from that this year. Belgium is also progressing above close to 5%. At some stage, definitely, apart from U.K., I expect these countries to be at or close to group's average. Regarding your second question, CDPQ is no longer a shareholder, as they have exited completely in the recent months. As part of the strategy to move to private equity, as opposed to be minority shareholders on non-public companies. Okay. Very clear. Thank you very much. Thank you. Again, just as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, hit star 1. We do have another question from Eric Lemarié, from Bryan, Garnier & Co. Eric, please go ahead. Yes, thank you. Just a quick follow-up for me. Could you remind us what is the maximum leverage for SPIE in case of a large acquisition? To what level are you ready to go? We would like first, in any case, our goal is always to deliberate. In case of a bigger acquisition, our goal would be to remain with a BB rating. It means that we should not exceed a 3 or 3.5, I think should be the max to stay with this rating, because I think it's important. Thank you. That's clear. Okay. Thank you very much. We don't have any further questions in the queue. Just as a final reminder, it is star one if you would like to ask a question or make a contribution on today's call. We have question from the webcast, coming from Christophe Chaput. The first one is: Since the acquisition of SAG, can you give us an idea of the improvement in working capital that you have benefited from? We have to check. In a nutshell, we are now in a position where the rule of the German and Central European business is in negative working capital all year through. At the time of acquisition of SAG, we had, due to the way SAG was dealing with the customers and payments, et cetera, we were in positive working capital territory almost all year through with SAG. It's a significant improvement. The cash conversion rate of Germany has been constantly above 110%-120% over the past six years. The last one from the webcast. Regarding the tender offer on the Green Deal project, would you say that the pricing is rational and thus the margin should be the average? Yeah. I think at the moment, we have not too many complaints about pricing discipline in our industry. Really, there's no reason to share, on the contrary, that margin would be affected because of this Green Deal projects. On the contrary, there's a lot of expectation from our customers in this regard, in terms of what we can offer, how we can help them. Competencies are valued, we do not expect any sort of price pressure from this direction, clearly. Generally, we mentioned that we expect 2022 to be above 2019 in terms of margins. We expect to be above 6% in 2022. We expect this trend to continue the years after. My midterm goal is to reach 6.5% at group level and not too far from now. Really, the pricing environment is decent, and we are working hard on the underlying improvement as well. I'm really confident about the margin trend. Again, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question on the phones, it is star one. We have no further questions in the queue. I'll hand you back over to your hosts. Well, thanks a lot for attending this conference today. I think we're on a good path. As I keep telling, it's a good time to be an electrical engineer. I think that our H1 results do evidence this statement. Thanks a lot for attending this session. Have a nice summer. Talk to you in October. Have a good day. Bye-bye. Thank you. Bye. Thank you very much for joining today's call. You may now disconnect your handsets. Hosts, please stay on the line. Thank you.