Good day, welcome to Arcadis NV fourth quarter and full year 2022 results call. Today's call is being recorded. I would now like to hand the call over to Christine Disch, Investor Relations Officer. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good morning and good afternoon, everyone, welcome to this conference call. My name is Christine Disch, I'm the investor relations officer at Arcadis. We are here to discuss Arcadis fourth quarter and full year results released this morning. With us here on the call are Peter Oosterveer, our CEO, Virginie Duperat, our CFO. We will start with a presentation by Virginie and Peter, that will be followed by Q&A. We would like to call your attention to the fact that in today's session, management may reiterate forward-looking statements which were made in the press release. Please note any of these risks related to these statements, which are more fully described in the press release and on the company's website. With this out of the way, Peter, over to you. Thank you, Christine. Good morning, good afternoon also my behalf. Welcome to our full year and fourth quarter results call. I'm pleased to report that 2022 has been another strong year for Arcadis, both from the perspective of our performance as well as being a year which I would describe as foundational and pivotal for the future success of our business. We have continued to see strong performance and profitable organic growth by our three existing global business areas, resilience, places, and mobility. Our net revenue for the full year is at a record high, just over EUR 3 billion. We more than replenish this revenue through a historically high backlog of just over EUR 3.1 billion. This has been driven by continued client demand in many areas and specifically related to the energy transition to new mobility and industrial manufacturing services and solutions. Our operating EBITDA margin improved to 9.8%, up from 9.6% in 2021. Evidence that our new operating model, which we put in place at the beginning of 2022, is working. I'm also very pleased with the significant progress we've made in delivering on our strategic priorities. Firstly, through the implementation of our new GBA structure, and secondly, through strategically repositioning the business with the acquisition of attractive new businesses, IBI, DPS, Giftge Consult, and HydroNET, as well as by divesting some of our non-core businesses. Finally, what has also pleased me is the fact that we have achieved these strong results in the face of unprecedented geopolitical tension and increased economic uncertainty. It has been, therefore, quite encouraging to see that our clients, despite the uncertainty and including of national governments, public agencies, and the private sector, continued to invest. They do obviously recognize the need to tackle climate change and address biodiversity loss to enable healthier lives, thriving nature, effortless transport, and more enjoyable places. The recent U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, U.S. and European Chips Acts, and the REPowerEU energy plan in Europe are obviously examples of investment packages which provide plentiful opportunities for Arcadis to offer our expertise and to create sustainable results for our clients and the communities in which we operate. Let's next zoom in on our global business areas to see what is driving the growth. Next slide, please. Our resilience business has had a strong 2022, in which we continue to benefit from increased client demand for environmental restoration, water optimization, and energy transition solutions. The last quarter has, for example, delivered a few large water project wins in the U.S., for which our digital products were a differentiator. We're also seeing significantly increased requests from clients for actionable plans on sustainability, often requiring a combination of our sustainability advisory services and our other resilience solutions. On environmental restoration, already a very strong business for us, we have identified revenue synergy opportunities as we include IBI fire protection engineering expertise with our PFAS foam products, strengthening our leadership of the PFAS market. The market outlook remains very solid for various solutions related to the energy transition, particularly in the U.K. and Europe. The recent acquisition of Giftge Consult in Germany has further strengthened our opening. Many energy clients are seeking secure and sustainable solutions with a growing focus on grid expansion, renewable energy generation on hydrogen, and the creation of local energy systems. Staying, for example, close to home in the Netherlands, we are supporting Gasunie on plans for the rollout of a EUR 750 million high-pressure hydrogen network. In Scotland, we're working with our key clients, Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks and ScottishPower Energy Networks to create the infrastructure to help generate 10 GW of renewable energy by 2026. Onto the next slide. Our Places business has seen significant change in 2022 with the acquisitions of IBI and DPS, which has enabled us to strategically reposition our portfolio, amongst others, with an entry into high growth markets. Part of this repositioning is moving away from the commercial and residential sectors towards industrial manufacturing and government agencies. From a geographical perspective, this has led to reducing our footprint in smaller countries in Asia and increasing our presence in North America. In Q4, we also announced the creation of a new architecture and urbanism business that will be part of the Places GBA. The new business, which combines IBI's building business with CallisonRTKL, will strengthen our client offering and create one of the largest architectural design firms in the world. Markets in the U.S. and Europe continue to be strong, fueled by increased public and private funding for industrial manufacturing facilities, which thankfully offsets a downturn in the Chinese property market, which manifested itself in Q4, and the delay of some investment decisions with private clients, especially in big tech. A really good example of these industrial manufacturing opportunities is the recent commission to support the planning and project management of one of Europe's largest gigafactories for electric vehicle battery cell production at the former Opel site in Kaiserslautern, Germany. The builder and operator will be Automotive Cells Company, a joint venture between Stellantis, Mercedes-Benz, and TotalEnergies subsidiary Saft. The new gigafactory will be built on a 34 ha site adjacent to the Opel plant. When fully completed in 2030, it will include three production lines with a capacity to reach 40 GW, enough to supply batteries to over 600,000 electric vehicles every year. Onto the next slide, please. Our mobility business benefited from significant rail and smart mobility wins in the Netherlands and North America, and where we've been asked to provide solutions for public transport clients, which created the organic revenue growth in 2022. The mobility market obviously also benefits from committed infrastructure stimulus funding in North America from the need to replace aging rail and highways infrastructure in Australia and the U.K., and a revival in the aviation and airports market. This is presenting itself with a very healthy pipeline of activity for 2023 and beyond. The increased use of data to inform infrastructure investments and improve the passenger experience continues to grow. Arcadis IBI's experience in developing digital mobility tools, including airport taxi dispatch software and HotSpot, a suite of integrated solutions for parking and transit payments, will further help to strengthen our offering to mobility clients, particularly in North America. Like our other business areas, the commitment to sustainability and reduction of carbon emissions continues to remain key priorities for many mobility clients. A good example is in Los Angeles, where we are working with a long-standing client, L.A. Metro, to provide construction management support services for the East San Fernando Valley Light Rail Transit project. With 35% of the people in the area being reliant on public transport, the $3 billion, 11 km long light rail project will deliver multimodal transport options, will stimulate the local economy, and obviously will reduce carbon emissions across the busy Fernando Valley Transit Corridor. I'm excited to now for the first time turn to our fourth GBA, Intelligence, and update you on the progress to date. The Intelligence GBA was established late in Q4 to advance our digital value propositions. It does signal a further transformational step in the development of new digital services, software as a service, products, and software solutions at Arcadis. The new GBA combines Arcadis Gen and IBI's intelligence products and digital capabilities and represents about 900 people. Our existing and new clients, as well as our other three GBAs, will benefit from services and solutions across the full life cycle of the assets. These capabilities give us an opportunity to provide our clients with software solutions, including support and maintenance, and, where possible, combine this with engineering services and solutions. The combination of IBI's and Arcadis Gen capabilities also provides us with an attractive suite of solutions and products which are already applied in the market, including traffic management products and asset management tools. In addition, as I mentioned, we've also set up the intelligence GBA to act as a growth enabler for the other GBAs, supporting existing client with enhanced digital solutions. As market demands for digital solutions, advanced analytics, and SaaS grows, our intelligent GBA will be a clear differentiator. It will be the cornerstone of our ability to accelerate growth and to expand margins. A good example of such a solution is CurbIQ, which is a SaaS product being sold to various cities in the U.S. to enable the mapping of curbside data, which helps cities take control over the use of curb space when, for example, deliveries need to be made, and to also manage traffic more efficiently and obviously reduce congestion. The creation of the intelligent GBA will furthermore allow us to more directly respond to emerging client and market needs, and where appropriate, work closely with startups and ecosystem partners to develop new products and solutions. Really an important and exciting development for Arcadis. Let me now hand it over to Virginie to talk you through the financial results in more detail. Thank you, Peter. Good morning, good afternoon, everyone. Maybe before we go through our financial results, I would like to highlight that our P&L includes one quarter of IBI performance, reflecting the closing of the acquisition of IBI, which happened on 27th of September 2022, and one month of DPS, for which the closing was on the 1st of December 2022. In 2022, Arcadis Group delivered a strong performance in all metrics. First, our net revenue organically increased full year by 8.9% to a record revenue of more than EUR 3 billion, driven by all GBAs. The currency impact on that revenue was 6.3%. Our operating EBITA increased by 20% year-on-year to EUR 295 million versus EUR 246 million for full year 2021. The operating EBITA margin improved to 9.8% versus 9.6% last year, mainly driven by a year-on-year improvement in places, mostly in the U.K. and in the U.S. Our free cash flow generation during the quarter was very strong at EUR 146 million, bringing full year free cash flow to EUR 173 million versus EUR 234 million last year, in line with our usual seasonality. That led us to deliver a leverage ratio of 2.2x at year-end, well in our policy range of 1.5x- 2.5x. Moving to our quarterly results on the next slide. We delivered record net revenues for the quarter of EUR 861 million and accelerated our revenue growth with an organic growth of 11.2%. Moreover, our recent acquisitions added EUR 128 million of net revenues to our quarterly performance. Growth was particularly strong in the North America, U.K., and Australia, while the protracted lockdowns in China resulted in a slight hampering of growth. Our operating EBITA was 10% versus 10.7% in Q4 2021, with improved performance year-on-year not fully offsetting the impact of fewer working days in the quarter and some additional integration costs. Operating EBITDA was EUR 116 million in Q4 2022, increasing 20% year-on-year, bringing our year-end leverage to 2.2x. Net working capital as a percentage of annualized gross revenues and day sales outstanding were strong and in line with last year with respectively 10.7% and 63 days, demonstrating our discipline in working capital management. If we turn now to the performance of the GBAs and start first with Resilience. In Resilience, market conditions continue to be strong, especially in North America and Europe, with the energy transition, demand for sustainable solutions, and climate adaptation high on the agenda. We invested in growth areas such as digital water optimization solutions and energy transition through the acquisitions of HydroNET, a provider of digital water solutions, and Giftge Consult, a leading player in the German energy transition market. Furthermore, Arcadis invested in its nature-based and biodiversity solutions, expanding its already leading global position in this high-growth market. One example that brings this to life is the Living Murray project in Australia, one of the Australia's largest river restoration project. Our team of ecologists have helped restore balance to this wetland region by collecting detailed botanical data across 72 monitoring sites over a two-year period. The data was incorporated into a final report with recommendations to establish environmental policy to better deliver water to 37,000 hectares of forest, wetlands, and lakes. The operating EBITA margin was strong at 10.8% in line with 2021 performance, driven by North America and Europe. The Resilience business closed the quarter with a backlog of EUR 895 million, representing a year-over-year organic growth of 7.6%, and which is now 29% of total Arcadis backlog. Turning now to Places. Revenue growth was driven from good demand for sustainable and intelligent buildings, including the development of data centers and gigafactories for electric vehicle battery production. One example to showcase is a project we undertook at the Maastricht University. Our teams designed the first university building to be accredited with the WELL Building Standard, which promotes high levels of health and well-being in building design. The operating EBITA margin improved to 9.1% as operating performance improved year-on-year as Places GBA started to really benefit in Q4 from its geographic repositioning. Order intake and growth from European and U.S. clients, particularly from investments in industrial manufacturing facilities, were strong. This was offset by delayed investment decisions from several property investment sector clients in Asia, validating our decision to strategically reposition the portfolio. The total backlog of the Places increased by 67% year-on-year to EUR 1.573 billion, representing 50% of Arcadis' total backlog and inclusive of EUR 308 billion of backlog from IBI Group and EUR 460 million of backlog coming from DPS Group. IBI and DPS both showed very strong order intake over 2022. Places organic backlog growth, pro forma of IBI and DPS, grew by 10.9%. Moving now to Mobility. There, market conditions remain strong in this mobility and infrastructure sector, with ongoing programs and stimulus packages continuing to drive a solid revenue and backlog growth. Decarbonization and climate change remain a high priority, as shown by our recent work to support Shell with the world's first transition from fuel station to electric vehicle charging hub in London. Airport investments are picking up, with operators investing in net zero goals and developers investing in greenfield airports in Europe. Continued strong revenue growth is driven mostly by public large transport clients in U.S. and in U.K. With IBI in, we see further rail opportunities in Canada, where we can now take a combined offering to clients, including station design and program management. The operating EBITA margin was slightly lower than last year, driven by increased investment in digital solutions and talent attraction and development. Committed funding in the U.S., aging infrastructure in Australia, and U.K. investments in rail and road upgrades have led to significant order intake on large projects. The backlog at the Mobility amounted to EUR 538 million, increasing by 9% year-on-year and representing 17% of Arcadis' total backlog, including a contribution of IBI for EUR 41 million. If we move now to Intelligence. Finally, as Peter mentioned, our new GBA Intelligence was set up in the fourth quarter of 2022, and this new GBA combines Arcadis Gen, IBI's intelligence business, as well as Arcadis other digital solutions. The performance of the Intelligence GBA in the fourth quarter is slightly dilutive to Arcadis Group, reflecting the combination of both organizations before any cost synergy. A digital product growing from strength to strength is called TravelIQ, a software-as-a-service traveler information platform to seamlessly plan trips. In Q4, we secured a commission to expand the product into the U.S. states of New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont. Residents and visitors can now travel interstate using multimodal trip planning and real-time information about incidents, traffic, and weather conditions. Throughout 2022, six U.S. states and six Canadian provinces were added to the TravelIQ platform. Backlog and order intake were strong, with continued good order intake in tolling solutions and several wins in major cities for our smart city platform. Total backlog at the end of the year is EUR 113 million, with a strong Q4 order intake at EUR 31 million. Overall, turning to the P&L, we delivered EUR 233 million of EBITA due to non-operating costs of EUR 62 million versus EUR 9 million last year. These non-operating costs include transaction costs relating to the acquisition. Net non-cash losses on the divestments of our operations in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong design and engineering business, Vietnam, Thailand, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and our environmental restoration business in France, as well as restructuring costs. Our underlying income tax rate was 31.3%, and was impacted by, amongst other things, non-deductible acquisition-related costs and non-deductible losses on divestments. The net finance expenses increased to EUR 24 million. The interest expense on loans and borrowing of EUR 40 million increased due to higher average cost debt to finance the acquisition of IBI and DPS Group and higher interest rates. Finally, net income from operations increased by 15%, sorry, to EUR 202 million of EUR 2.26 per share. Our operating EBITDA increased by 15%. The non-operating costs were EUR 62 million, but these were for the part related to divestment losses offset in other, resulting in a non-cash impact. The outflow in other working capital relates mainly to M&A costs paid related to the acquisitions. Our CapEx increased to EUR 40 million, driven by increased investments in digital and in our GEC. As discussed during our H1 results, we had a stronger generation in the second half of the year, in line with our normal seasonal pattern. Higher CapEx of EUR 40 million, in line with our annual commitment, M&A related cost cash outflows, finance costs, and normalization of working capital levels contributed to a lower free cash generation year-over-year and bring 2022 free cash flow to a more standard cash conversion rate. Now to our balance sheet to illustrate the impact of acquisitions, mostly reflected here in intangible assets, obviously, working capital in, and in our net debt. Our net debt increased to EUR 1 billion, mainly driven by the bridge loan of EUR 600 million drawn end of September, and its accordion option of EUR 150 million, exercised early December to finance the acquisition of IBI and DPS. The pro forma debt to EBITDA ratio at year-end was 2.2x, again well within our range of 1.5x-2.5x. Confident in our ability to sustain strong cash flow generation and in accordance with our disciplined balance sheet management policy, we will propose a cash dividend of EUR 0.74 per share, representing an increase year-over-year of 6%. In parallel, in 2023, we will continue our investments in organic growth with an annual CapEx between our brackets of EUR 40 million-EUR 60 million, and we will focus on refinancing our balance sheet and further deleveraging post IBI and DPS acquisitions. Just to have a big view on our backlog. On the back of our strategic decisions, repositioning the composition of our backlog has significantly improved towards region and market that are key to Arcadis. Our organic backlog growth increased by 8.9% to EUR 3.1 billion of backlog if we treat IBI and DPS 2022 contribution pro forma. The testimony of the strong growth end growth market we invested in. So-called Arcadis standalone, which means we exclude IBI and DPS obviously, then divestments and one downs, increased by EUR 140 million, being the net result of a strong order intake replenishment in the year, while backlog outflow was significant, driven by the high net revenues. IBI and DPS respectively added EUR 494 million and EUR 460 million to our backlog, representing double-digit backlog growth. We achieve a significant geographical backlog repositioning, with Americas now representing almost half of our EUR 3.1 billion backlog and with a growing contribution of Europe, especially in the U.K. All in all, a rebalanced backlog and pipeline tailored to high-growth geographies and business. With that, I will now hand you back to Peter. Thank you, Virginie, for the review of our financial progress in Q4 and the whole of 2022. I will come back to our non-financial targets shortly, but I think it would be good to first update you on the progress of the integration of both IBI and DPS, which are now known in the market as Arcadis IBI and Arcadis DPS respectively. Pleased to report that we are well on track and that approximately 70% of the revenues of IBI have been addressed and integrated into Arcadis. The architecture and urbanism business unit has been stood up, which reflects about 50% of IBI's net revenues and is now serving the clients in its new form. The fourth GBA intelligence, already mentioned a few times, reflecting another 20% of IBI's revenues, was, as I also said before, launched in early December with key management assigned, clients being served, and collaboration with the other GBAs started. As of this month, we have begun the integration of IBI's infrastructure business, whereby existing services and solutions will be dispersed across our existing GBAs. Lastly, it goes without saying that the back office integration is obviously progressing in parallel. For DPS, which only closed on December 1st last year, we have integration milestones in place, and the execution is following the same rigor as we used on IBI. In both cases, we are already starting to see joint project wins and a pipeline of client opportunities for 2023. I'm pleased to announce that Arcadis IBI already won a project to design a 12-story residential building with sustainable mass timber in North America. For DPS, a successful commission to support a semiconductor client with a new facility in Germany was secured. Our pipeline of opportunities is growing. We're currently working on joint pursuits ranging from major transport authorities and global automotive manufacturers in the U.S. to large education and pharma facilities in the U.K. and Europe. We do expect the integration of both IBI and DPS to be completed before the end of this year. Turn to the next slide to kind of recap our strategic progress in 2022. Mentioned already a few times, the creation of our fourth GBA intelligence is a transformational step in the development of new digital services, SaaS products and solutions at Arcadis. I'm confident that the breadth of the offering will delight clients and enable us to be a true digital leader in our industry. We continue to see a growing demand for sustainable solutions and advisory from clients, highlighted by strong results and a record backlog last year. The acquisition of Giftge Consult and HydroNET will only further strengthen our position in the energy transition and water markets. The addition of DPS capabilities will allow for much more cross-selling of sustainable solutions, including sustainability advisory, environmental social planning and permitting for industrial manufacturing facilities. By focusing and scaling our business across 2022, we have driven operational efficiencies through the new GBA model and greater use of the GECs. As Virginie also mentioned, we've continued to focus on high growth markets and moved out of countries in Southeast Asia and Europe that are considered non-core from a geographical or service point of view. In 2023, we see greater opportunities to further scale our operations and focus on the buoyant North American market, bringing the best Arcadis has to offer to address our clients' needs. As I mentioned before, I'd now like to focus on our non-financial targets, which obviously include our people and ESG targets, reflected on the next slide. At Arcadis, our people first approach is a key ingredient in ensuring we have an engaged workforce, excited and inspired to execute our strategy. Prioritizing our people and culture initiatives and investing in capability building for both our employees and managers is allowing us to accelerate our impact. In 2022, we've made significant progress increasing our people headcount by 21%, mostly through the acquisitions to close to 36,000 Arcadians. Our voluntary turnover thankfully continues to improve, albeit that there is further necessity for improvement. It is in that context very reassuring to see that our employee engagement scores have improved significantly in 2022, up from 30% at the end of 2021 to 39% at the end of 2022. Within Arcadis, we've also made further strides to embed diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging into our operations, creating a renewed commitment to hybrid working and the launch of global affinity groups to champion inclusion and diversity. Our percentage of females in the workplace stands at 39%, which is 1% of our target of 40%. Our progress has also been recognized by Forbes magazine, which not only ranked Arcadis as one of the best management consultancy firms, but also as one of the world's top female-friendly companies in 2022. Great achievements that we obviously plan to expand on in 2023. Regarding our sustainability ESG metrics, I'm pleased by the progress we've made on our commitment to transition to net zero. Last year, our carbon reduction target was approved by the Science- Based Targets initiative, and we've seen a 7% reduction across our scope 1, scope 2, and scope 3 carbon emission towards a baseline of 2019. Furthermore, the recent number one position in our industry by ratings agency Sustainalytics and the platinum grading from EcoVadis show that our commitment around sustainability continues to be absolutely world-leading. Next slide. All of this, what you just heard, results in the following brief status update on our consolidated commitments for this current strategy cycle. The update you're seeing on this slide reflects the very solid progress we've made on all our targets with the financial ones all on track and some additional work to do throughout 2023 on a few of the non-financial targets, most notably our turnover and the necessity to further increase the female representation across our workforce. I do hope that this scorecard allows you to support our view that we are well on track to deliver on the commitments we made in late 2020. On the last slide, to wrap it all up, and before we open it up for Q&A, let me summarize. First of all, we continue to see very robust market conditions despite geo-political tensions and economic uncertainty. We've made great strides last year with the strategic repositioning of Arcadis, specifically through the introduction of our new GBA-led operating model, the divestitures of non-core operations, and the additional capabilities we added. We delivered a very solid set of results in a year with challenging external conditions, profitable growth, very solid cash flow, and a robust backlog which provides confidence for the future. The integration of IBI and DPS is well underway and follows a disciplined and time-efficient approach. In summary, we're on track to deliver on our 2023 strategic targets and get ready to prepare for our next 2024/2026 strategic plan. Thank you so far, and over to Kevin, who will open it up for Q&A. Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. Please ensure that the mute function on your telephone is switched off to allow your signal to reach our equipment, and please limit yourselves to one question with one follow-up to allow all our participants the opportunity to ask a question. Again, it is star one to ask a question. The first question today comes from Hans Pluijgers of Kepler Cheuvreux. Yes. Good morning all. Yeah, I will stick to then to one question, but one follow-up on that one. On the IBI and DPS contribution in Q4, would you give maybe some numbers on the top line and on the margin level? What was the contribution from those? Maybe combined, if you don't want to split it out. Follow up on that, IBI tends to have lower margins in Q4 seasonally. Could you give maybe some background why they have lower margin, why you should expect normally that in Q4 consult firms have a higher margin? Can you give me some feeling on that? Okay. Thank you, Hans, and good afternoon. On IBI DPS contribution, as I mentioned earlier, they delivered together EUR 128 million of revenue in the quarter. Together, you know, the margin contribution, it's been split in the GBA, so a bit difficult for me to have all that in mind. I would say that it's dilutive, as you can see a little bit for two reasons. Main reason is number one, we had significant impact coming from fewer working days in the quarter with a shift towards America and 2 working days missing year-on-year in Canada, something we had not fully, potentially, completely anticipated. We see an impact on IBI. The seasonality pattern is also down, probably with more holidays in that season. On the DPS side, it's only one month of performance, so it's a bit less difficult to analyze, sorry. It's in line, based on what we've seen with the historical pattern. More or less, I would say that this is probably, you know, something is like one, two points on average below what we are delivering on Arcadis side for that quarter. Okay, thanks. The next question today comes from Martijn Den Drijver of ABN AMRO- ODDO BHF. Yes. Good afternoon, everybody. I'd like to come back with my first question on that EBITA margin in the fourth quarter. Exceptionally good organic growth, the drop-down to EBITA margin wasn't quite what was expected. Now, you've given some reasons, and the working days, a bit of China, there may be some other elements. How should we think about that drop-down rate going forward? Do you assume that it will improve in the coming quarters, or are there some elements that will hold you back? That's question one. Thank you, Martijn, and good afternoon. I think that, obviously part of it, you know, might continue in the next quarter. We probably have to add on top of that, small handful, I would say, you know, of integration cost. Obviously, we start aligning some of the reporting elements. I'm not pretending, you know, that on IBI I have today exactly the same reporting system I have on Arcadis, but at least, based on what I see, the data have been merged so that I can have already, you know, the capability of seeing together the data coming from Arcadis and IBI in a single platform. These sort of things, you know, will absolutely continue in the quarter to come, and that's, that goes with the integration of such two big companies. In parallel of that, you know, if you come back, for example, on the performance on Intelligence, obviously 9.1%, you know, can look a bit low compared to what is intelligence and what we expected. It's, it's a very, very good performance in my view when you add the fact that in some respects that is a GBA which is starting and finding itself with more or less two structures as we speak, you know, one coming from us with a Gen structure, with what we have in digital solution as a structure behind, and also the structure that IBI has on its side. As we will go on, you know, optimizing and delivering on the integration, we will extract cost synergies, obviously. Then, you know, that will definitely benefit first to Intelligence and to Places GBA, which are the most impacted by the integration process. Okay. Following up on Places, if I look at the organic backlog growth for Arcadis, 4.2%, that's lower than what it was in the third quarter. It's probably caused, or it is caused by Places with organic backlog growth of zero. What caused that zero? Because you, on one, as you say, robust markets, but 0% for Places seems a bit meager. Perhaps you can shed some light on what drove that 0%. I would encourage you to go back, you know, to the slide that Peter commented on Places, where you really have the shift of the backlog which is something that we've been discussing quite a while across the year. That based on this pie chart, you really see being achieved and deliver and coming to birth. Obviously, you know, more or less, if you think about Places, this vessel has been a little bit, you know, posing to absolutely redirect itself. We've seen quite a decrease in some areas like property and development, and a shift to industrial manufacturing. You can see that the share of industrial manufacturing in our new backlog is now 30%. The 30% obviously comes partly from DPS acquisition, but also in a large part from all the new projects that the team of Mark Cowlard and [Martin Caron-Velt] has been getting in all year long, you know, in terms of industrial project. That has also created a little bit of sort of optical view of the polls because this project do not come in with the same pattern. Traditionally, that also goes with the backlog that we used to have coming from the elements we have divested. We had long tails of projects that can last for longer in Southeast Asia, notably in property development. We replaced that by very big industrial manufacturing project. This project do not come in our backlog as a single element. They rather come sliced and diced. If we think about ACC projects that we've been announcing, you know, which is quite a large project, what I have in the backlog as we speak is only phase one. It's not the entire element because we recognize only what is absolutely firm and signed. What is firm and signed is only the service order of the phase one. That is what is in backlog, and the rest will be taken progressively. In our view, the 4.2% organic growth of Arcadis backlog this year is really a very good achievement because we've been managing to have this big shift of positioning while moving on growing our backlog. Okay, thank you. Thanks, Martijn. Our next question comes from Luuk van Beek of Degroof Petercam. Good morning. Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. I have a question about the contribution from price increases in your organic growth and also related to the probably rising salaries. How are you keeping up with those salary increases, and how does that look for 2023? Hi, Luuk. Good afternoon, and thank you so much. Definitely, I think that's something that we've been focusing all year long. I would like to pretend, you know, that everything has been achieved, but I'll go on with the same question end of Q3. We still have a few big commercial negotiations ongoing, and maybe in particular in some key big projects in mobility. Obviously, when we negotiate on this price increase reflecting inflation on salaries, we are not the only one being concerned, especially in these big projects, which are about joint ventures and partnerships, where everyone needs to align before we get to an end. That can be, you know, true for us, but potentially also for our client, the client itself being a client, you know, a supplier of a final client. That takes quite a long time. We are quite positive of what we've been able to achieve. I would say that the dialogue is there, the negotiations are open. We are not pretending it's an easy game, and I think that the competition, you know, is also saying that. Definitely, these conversations are ongoing, and we still have a few significant milestones to achieve on that front. Okay. Were price increase an important part of your organic growth in the last couple of quarters? I think in the last three quarters, but probably more Q2, Q3, and it still goes on a little bit in Q4, but Q4 is also, you know, about quite a strong delivery on the side of resilience, converting part of its backlog in execution with all the people that have been also joining the forces all year long. This huge effort delivered by resilience in terms of industrialization of their onboarding process, so that when someone joins the team, you know, and starts being productive and deliver, we are really change the game there and are far more efficient. Okay, thank you. Our next question comes from Quirijn Mulder of ING. You might be on mute. [audio distortion] Yes. Good morning, good morning, those in America and good afternoon, everyone. On my question on the midterm targets. You're still progressing with your with your attrition. It looks like it is 70 basis points lower, but your target is 420 basis points lower. What are you doing about it? My second question about the tax rate. Maybe you can give me an idea about the tax rate in 2023, given the fact that it is in 2022, it was quite relatively high. Yeah, let me take the first question here and on the attrition and then Virginie can take your second question. The good news is indeed that we've seen a decrease. You're also right in pointing out that we're still 4% off the goal. I don't think realistically speaking, that by the end of the year we will have reached that goal. We have to be honest and realistic. I think if you look at what has all changed in the last couple of years in the market, and with the market, which is of course still quite attractive for people, then you probably have to reconsider whether 10% or below 10% eventually is the right goal. I'm not saying that we are adjusting it as we speak because we're still pushing hard to make sure that we retain the right talent. The fact of the matter is that a lot of people's view on a job, the dynamic on staying with a company, has changed quite a bit, and not just for Arcadis but for many other companies as well. Going forward, we'll have to reassess what we consider to be a healthy attrition. Our focus, and that focus has not changed, and that started already late in 2021 when we assembled the tiger team to identify actions we could take in different places to bring down the retention is working. We see it in the engagement, which has gone up significantly in 2022, from 30% to 39%. The attrition is coming down, but it's quite gradual. Can you give me an idea about your geographical differences there? No, no surprise, I guess, that where most people see the higher percentages, let's take China as a good example, is where we see the higher percentage as well. Where most people see a high percentage and we do is in India and in the Philippines. If you then compare that with the, let's say, more mature Western countries, particularly the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., it is either just above 10% or just under 10%. Okay. Thank you. Our next question comes from. Hello. No, we heard you the first question. Sorry. There was a next question from Quirijn, which I think I owe him an answer. I guess that we probably, you know, can identify the effect of the non-deductible elements around the euro and impact of 2%. There's absolutely no reason we shouldn't be back next year to the regular 28%, which we consider as being our normalized rate. Assuming obviously, you know, we don't see strong changes in law happening here or there, probably now that our, let's say business has shifted a bit, the most impacting for us, you know, would be a change in the U.S., in Canada or in the U.K. Our next question is from Henk Veerman of Van Lanschot Kempen. Hi, Peter Oosterveer, Virginie Duperat, and the rest of the team. Thank you for presentation and the possibility to ask questions. I also have two. Firstly, on working capital, you report now 10.7% in line with the end of last year. I remember at the end of last year, you told us that the low percentage was due to some, yeah, one-off, let's say, contractual effects. Now you seem to indicate in the text of the press release that the lower working capital seems somewhat more sustainable. I remember from the CMD that the target, I think officially still is below 15%. How should we think about working capital in the course of 2023? That's my first question. Thank you. Thank you, Henk, for the question. I think it's an absolutely a valid question. Obviously, as we go across the year, we know it's not exactly the same thing also because of the pattern and the seasonality of our free cash flow generation, which obviously brings us to the most favorable, potentially, you know, working cap position at year-end based on the fact that we generate so much in the very latest weeks of the year. That's probably number one thing. Number two, you know. The reason why we do not really comment on this year-end working cap, it's because, you know, in terms of balance sheet, I obviously have the consolidation of Arcadis balance sheet with the entire DPS balance sheet and the entire IBI balance sheet. We absolutely need to understand, you know, how they are behaving in the future to see how it works. It's quite reassuring that when we add those big elephants to our balance sheet, we manage, you know, to go on delivering the same type of profile, even if, when you go to the balance sheet, you can see that potentially it's not exactly classified the same way between the various components, and that's something that we might, let's say refine, as we understand more in the future. I think that it's quite important to think in terms of cash conversion, you know, of annual EBITDA, and that's probably, you know, the way I try to figure out how it can be now. I'm quite convinced, you know, that 60%-70% of regular cash conversion of our EBITDA is absolutely something that we can achieve on a regular basis. If you calculate that, you will see that we are just a little bit lower than that this year, which is absolutely understandable due to the fact that we have some sort of exceptionals in terms of M&A costs that we've been bearing to deliver those two acquisitions. Apart from that, if you take that out, you know, we are still very well in that range. That I think is quite the goal we should have around that. Then working capital percentage, I think is a bit of a difficult one just because the pattern between the four quarters is so different than this. It's quite a good performance to be 10.7% end of this year. But you're right, it's probably, let's say, quite something that we should be able to achieve around this part of the year, while mid-year we're probably getting back again to something a bit higher because of the different pattern of the component of working capital. Okay. Thank you. That's very clear. On the question on the backlog of DPS, you reported 34% there. Can you give us some more color on how that 34% translates into organic growth within DPS in the next year? Order book, how much is that spread out in the next years? What is driving that? Are there any specific projects? Maybe also on DPS, I remember that during the call around the transaction, you mentioned that you actually are managing that business a bit more on profitability rather than growth after significant growth in the last couple of years. How do we square that, let's say, with this very strong backlog growth, and how do you expect to manage that in the next years? Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Henk. I will start and maybe, you know, we let Peter complement on some operational point. I think that number one, we have a very strong backlog on that side that we need to execute. Part of the projects that we have in, you know, do rather come in a single row rather compared to ours, you know, that might construct and dice. That's also, potentially, you know, creating a small difference over there. We have a strong backlog to execute with them this year, I think that what's absolutely true is that there is also a very strong momentum around the clients. They are positioned in a business which is really getting well, where the demand is very high and, as we said earlier, you know, we have already a kind of revenue synergy project, if we want to qualify that this way, you know, that we have in bag of a significant semiconductor manufacturing plant, you know, to be delivered in Germany. That's something that has been the result, you know, of combined team of IBI... Sorry, DPS capabilities and Arcadis Places capabilities, showing that even if we have closed only December 1st, in some cases, clients are so much demanding that they are expecting us at the door, which is quite rare and we need to benefit from that which we are doing. That I think is the momentum we see. They are overexcited by the existence of our GEC. Definitely there is a very strong opportunity. We are creating that first contact in Q1 2023 in January, and that's something which is mentioned in the presentation. We really expect also that that will help them, number one, you know, improving their profitability. Number two, also help them in the delivery of their huge backlog, and in some respects, being ready for all the potential revenue synergies that we see together. I think maybe if I can add to it, because you made reference to the discussion we had when we announced the acquisition, and I think if I heard you correctly, you mentioned that we said at that time that they tended to focus more on profitability than on top line, and we actually said the opposite. If I didn't hear you correctly, then I apologize. If I did hear you correctly, then maybe there's something lost in translation, because what we did find is that they focus more on top line than on the bottom line. In fact, that is the comment we made at the time. The growth they have seen over the last couple of years has been quite significant. Definitely, double-digit plus, if I could describe it that way. They tended to focus more on revenue and less on profitability, and we’d like to actually balance that a little better. Yeah. I was actually referring to your comments on how you expect to manage it in the next years and how you square that, let's say, with the high backlog growth. I, yeah, I think the answers were quite clear on that. Maybe if I can squeeze in one more question since I'm probably one of the last in the call. In 2022, yeah, both, let's say the whole Chinese property market as well as I think the depressing, continued depressing situation in CallisonRTKL remains quite significant headwinds for your business and for organic growth. Do you expect these two end markets, these two businesses, do you expect them to turn into tailwinds in the course of 2023? Are you really still quite negative on the near term outlook in both these businesses? Thank you. Yeah. I think the you raise a good point. I think when people talk or think about places and or buildings, they tend to think about exactly the sort of work you just described. As we try to explain, we have repositioned our places business to be much less depending on real estate and housing, but much more on other opportunities. You know, if I look at what the IBI Group's performance was, that is largely architectural as well, inclusive of the last couple of years during COVID, then it has been, you know, really, really steady. Steady being, you know, good growth and really good profitability as well. Now granted, their focus was not exclusively, but largely on Canada, where they of course, have a strong market. We're actually quite confident that with the combination, and the leadership we have in place, we will be able to see a better performance going forward despite the fact that there's still, you know, challenges in some countries, on that real estate market. We're still optimistic that with the new leadership and the combination, we will be able to improve the performance which, you, I remember from San Diego. Okay. Perfect. Thank you. That is all the time we have for question and answers today. I'd like to hand the call back to Peter Oosterveer for closing or additional remarks. Yeah, thank you very much, Kevin. Thank you all for participation and for your active question and your interest in Arcadis, of course. When we look at 2022, we sit here with pride. If we consider the external circumstances which we had very little, if any influence on, if we then consider what we did to ready the company for the future, and particularly the change to the global business area operating model, and then to pull up two acquisitions, sizable acquisitions the same year, plus two small acquisitions, and then to deliver the strong performance which we have delivered, certainly gives us a reason to be proud of what we have accomplished. We are not ignorant to the ongoing challenges in the market. We keep a, of course, a very close eye on the developments. At the same time, when we listen to what we hear from our clients, and we should listen to what we hear from our clients, and we combine that with the facts we see, in particular the growth in our backlog then, we are confident that we will be able to deliver on the targets we've set for ourselves, with potentially the exception of the attrition as Claire rightfully pointed out. All in all, we sit here with pride, and we sit here with confidence and trust in the future. Thank you again and, we'll see you again in the next quarter. That does conclude today's conference call. We thank you all for your participation, and you may now disconnect.