Bouygues SA (EN) Earnings Call Transcript

Presentation of the Bouygues Interim results for 2025. This call will be recorded, and I can assure you I ask you to ensure that I'm going to comment this morning's results with Pascal Grander, and we will then take your questions at the end of the presentation, ourselves, of course, and the heads of the various business segments here with us this morning. Let's begin by the landmark events of the first half 2025. Before going to the details here, I should remind you that when we presented our first quarter results, quarter results, we reminded you that the macroeconomic and geopolitical environments remain very unstable. That said, the results for the first half year are good, strong, so we can confirm the outlook for the group for 2025. Now if we look at the main indicators for the first half year, what we find is, first of all, the group sales figure is up slightly over 12 months, thanks largely to the construction businesses. Secondly, the group's CPA is up quite sharply over the year. This was driven mostly by Equans and the construction businesses. Thirdly, that's not including the one-off contribution to tax on profits in France. The net income group share was up on last year. May I remind you that the impact of the Budget Act and the social welfare funding law for 2025 have had an impact on our accounts, a burden, I should say, of EUR 100 million, approximately, mainly driven by the additional tax on companies. Finally, at the end of June 2025, our net debt was below the level at the same time last year and included approximately EUR 1.2 billion in acquisitions, net acquisitions that is made over the last 12 months. Okay. The key figures for the group in the first half 2025. May I remind you that, as usual, the first half results are not representative of the full year results, mainly because of the seasonality of Colas' businesses. Colas does not have any business in a lot of our regions during the winter periods and Equans also has an impact, of course. The group sales figure for the first half reached EUR 26.9 billion, up 1.3% over the same date last year. And on a like-for-like basis, that was a 0.7% increase. COPA for the first half rose EUR 49 million over 1 year. And amounted to EUR 796 million. Net income group share amounted to EUR 173 million. And this amount is not comparable with the figure for the first half of 2024 because this half year, it includes the exceptional contribution for large companies in France for a total of EUR 47 million. This additional tax or so tax is on a comparable basis, would see our net income group share improved by EUR 34 million to EUR 220 million. The effective tax rate for the group was 54% in the first half of 2025. The tax, the additional tax deforms the -- significantly deforms the effective rate of tax in 2025, more so in the first half year because of the seasonality of our business. And of course, the way this surtax is calculated. Finally, our net debt totaled EUR 8.5 billion at the end of June 2025 compared with net debt of EUR 8.7 billion at June 30, 2024. This is a good performance given the acquisitions we've been making over the last year and in particular, the acquisition of La Poste Telecom. Let me continue with issues concerning the environment -- let me drive for a few seconds on what we are doing in this area, in particular, on a markup that we presented at VivTec in all the solutions we do. In a short video, showing you the main solutions we have devised in order to have ideal solutions or the best possible solutions to climate change short video. [Presentation]

There you are. Now just to give you some more specific information concerning our approach to environmental issues on Page 8. As illustration, construction signed a partnership for a large-scale rollout. This is a low-carbon cement technology provided by [ EcoSem ]. It's aimed at significantly reducing the carbon footprint the construction sector. We hope to use this on a very broad scale. It's an important stage in the commitment we have aimed at significantly reduce the carbon footprint of our construction projects. Bouygues Telecom has entered into a new power purchase agreement, or PPA, as we call it, for the supply of electricity. This is a 15-year agreement that was signed on June 17 last with Suez. -- under which Suez will supply us from January 1, 2027, supplies with 53 gigawatts a year of electricity. That is 800 gigawatt hour over a 15-year period. This is based on the transformation of household waste. B is still working on biodiversity, particularly its so-called fresh gardens. Colas has continued to work on its restoration of waterways and wetlands. Equans is working on the circular economy. And early this year, it entered into the so-called circular industry coalition. Finally, TF1 plays an important role in raising awareness about biodiversity, climate change, sustainable consumption and waste and has devoted quite a number of items on. Let's begin with construction. I'm on Page 11 now. As you can see, the backlog is at the very high level of EUR 33 billion. This gives us a very good visibility for future business. The increase has been driven by international reconstruction and Colas. Looking at this backlog in greater detail, is Page 12, beginning with Colas, backlog is up EUR 900 million a year to EUR 15 billion for road. At the end of June 2025, the share of the backlog should be carried out over the next 18 months, had increased by EUR 500 million by comparison at the end of June 2024. In the first half of 2025, up slightly on roads and up sharply outside of France, partly in EMEA, that's Europe, Middle East and Africa and in Asia Pacific. In rail, the first half was marked by the signing of several contracts for EUR 700 million in the U.K. and Morocco, in particular. In the second quarter, Colas was also awarded new road contracts particularly in Canada, Finland, the U.S. or in the U.K. We continue with Page 13, Bouygues Construction where the order book stands at EUR 17.2 billion, and that's an increase of about EUR 1.3 billion year-on-year, and this is underpinned by public works, the backlog is up 15% year-on-year. And by Baltimore France, where backlog is up 5%. And the order book for international Baltimore is down very slightly on down 1%. June 2025, the share of the order book to be performed over the next 18 months is around EUR 200 million higher than at the end of 2024 at the Bouygues Construction part of the business is related to major projects, which are not awarded on a regular basis, and so order intake is not identical 1 year to the next. For example, 2024 was a great year of a major products in the first half of 2024, Bouygues Construction got contracts for the construction of the Grand Paris in Line 15 S2, about EUR 570 million or the Rabat hospital worth about EUR 490 million. And in the third quarter of 2024, Bouygues Construction also got the 2D contract in Australia with over and these major deals create distortions in order intake and backlog, and this is inherent in major products, and this doesn't call for major or any special comments. But in any case, these major products generate business for several years and the way in which these big projects are -- in fact -- for the size well nuclear plant because the consortium that [ Ingle ] Point was renewed for 1 year but the orders will be only recognized as the batches as the loss are awarded. So you don't see suddenly a big order for the whole plant because it is gradually locked by a lot that the orders are recognized. And so Bouygues Construction got orders worth EUR 4.1 billion over the period, a significant proportion came from what we call traditional businesses, products that are worth less than EUR 100 million, and that accounted for about 77% of the total order intake over the hard year. And that's good news because it shows that our teams today are dynamic, but also construction also got a number in France. And then in line with previous quarters, Immobilier is still facing challenging conditions. At the end of June, its order book stood at EUR 800 million and in France, the commercial sector is weak, but housing orders are up slightly, plus 2%. An increase in block orders and stable unit orders in spite of the disappearance of the Pinel scheme, the tax saving tax incentive scheme. This growth in bookings and reservation should enable Bouygues Immobilier to gradually rebuild its book its order book of time. Let's took to the construction activities, the financial results on Page 14. Construction activities reached 12-point sales reached EUR 12.7 billion, up 3% year-on-year up also up 3% on a like-for-like basis. Colas sales were stable year-on-year. It's mostly to do with the rail business, up 12% year-on-year with the continued growth in soft mobility structure. The road sales were down slightly. Slight growth in France, slight growth in EMEA, strong growth in Asia Pacific, but a decline in North America. Bouygues Construction sales were up driven by the 3 divisions: Baltimore International, Baltimore [ France ] and Travel Public Works. And finally, Bouygues Mobilier sales were up 6%, housing sales up slightly 1% in New York, of which plus 5% in France and commercial property sales at EUR 37 million for the half year. This is a spot situation due to the delivery of a EUR 36 million project in Q2. Let's go to Page 15, current COPA. As you know, every year, because of Colas' seasonal business, there are a number of countries where between November in March, there's very little going on. The performance for the half year is not representative of the full year results. Having said that, COPA for the construction business stood at EUR 26 million at the end of June, up EUR 47 million year-on-year driven by improvement at Bouygues Construction, near stability at Colas in spite of unfavorable conditions, weather conditions in North America and lower losses this year than last year for Bouygues Immobilier. And talking about Bouygues Immobilier, [indiscernible] COPA is impacted by a seasonality effect. Its business in the first half is usually less than the second half of the year. And then the smaller loss recorded compared to the first half of is related to cost savings, and that is what [indiscernible] implemented in 2024, a slight improvement in operations in 2025. So look at Equans now, sorry, on Page 17. The key figure for -- for H1 of Equans. At end June 2025, Equans had an order book of EUR 25.8 billion, which is slightly down 2% compared to end June 2024. It benefited from an order intake of EUR 9.4 billion over the half year and has a substantial pipeline projects. However, Equans has noted some delays in launching the data center projects, and there's been a temporary slowdown in the Gigafactory market, a critical item of its strategy the margin on orders is improving gradually. Sales for Equans reached EUR 9.2 billion in the first half of 2025. slightly down, down 1% year-on-year sort of wait-and-see attitude that we saw in the first quarter in some industrial and service sectors continued in the second quarter, but that doesn't challenge the [ provable ] medium and long-term trends. And on a like-for-like basis, sales was also down 1% year-on-year. COPA reached EUR 364 million. So that's margin operations standing at 3.9%, up 0.7 percentage points compared to the first half of 2024. So that's a nice illustration of the Perform plan. On the following Page 18, Equans is rolling out its strategic plan. It aims for '25 [ sales ] close to 24% at constant exchange rates. Previously, Equans were looking at a growth slower than in 2024. And now it's targeting an operating margin close to 4.2%. And initially previously, Equans was targeting a margin of 4%. So there's a slight increase in the COPA target for the year 2025. And then finally, has confirmed that it's now aiming for a conversion rate of 80% to 100% of EBIT to cash flow before WCR. I'll remind you that Equans' target is to catch up with the organic growth of the sector's comparables and to achieve operating margin of 5% by 2027. Let's look at Bouygues Telecom, its operational review. This is Page 20. You can see that the sales performance is strong in the fixed line business. Growth continued in fiber, you have 244,000 new customers in the first half including 95,000 in Q2. FTTH customers now reached 404 million customers, 84% of the total fixed line base compared with 77% a year ago. The fixed line customer base now stands at EUR 5.3 million, up 105,000 customers over the half year, including 36,000 over to two, the good momentum achieved at the end of 2024 on BIG and B&YOU Pure Fiber. This offer continues with the improvement in customer satisfaction and good satisfactory level of churn fixed ABP was stable year-on-year at EUR 33, and this is because the market has become more competitive and the numbers remain stable. Page 21, Bouygues Telecom's performance was good in the mobile segment in a competitive market. At end of June, it had 18.4 million mobile package customers, including machine to machine. So that's an increase of -- again, an increase of 105,000 customers over the half year, including 43,000 in Q2. This is more than the first half of 2024, where we got 76,000 new -- 76,000 new mobile customers. This is because of the positive effects of the BIG offer. Its favorable impact of convergence, fixed mobile in a satisfactory level of churn. ABPU, mobile ABPU, including lab [ poster ] become stood at EUR 17.3 per customer per month. Again, in the market where competition has been tough, especially driven by SFR since the end of February. If you look at Page 22, sales billed to customers in first half '25 are up 5% year-on-year. Including La Poste Telecom sales would be stable year-on-year. Total sales were up 3% over the period, including other sales, and that's handsets, accessory and works, and that's slightly down slightly to down 2% year-on-year. EBITDA after leases reached EUR 956 million, it's stable year-on-year, if you leave up post Telecom, the stable EBITDA after leases reflect several factors. Growth in sales built to customers, continued efforts to to control costs, high energy cost. You may remember that Bouygues Telecom no longer have these energy price hedges, and that the increase in energy cost will be about EUR 80 million by 2025. And then the IFER tax on mobile networks has increased operating income then from ordinary activities was down to EUR 306 million, and that's because of higher depreciation and amortization charge in line with the CapEx -- with telecom's CapEx trajectory and growth operating investments, including frequencies excluding frequencies were in line with the target, EUR 706 million. The outlook now we have adjusted our outlook for build customers in 2025. First, sales built -- not including Bouygues Telecom, bills to customers which should be close to 2024. It will be slightly higher, slightly lower, depending on the duration and the intensity of the competitive pressure that we are witnessing now, Bouygues Telecom previously targeted a slight increase in sales build to customer compared to 2024. On a like-for-like basis, excluding coding like La Poste, and now we add La Poste Telecom's contribution telecom confirms its target for 2024. EBITDA after the leases should be close to '24 La Poste contribution to EBITDA after leases will be limited in 2025, the full effect should be expected from 2028 onwards. And so for 2025, we're looking at EUR 1.5 billion in gross operating excluding frequencies and that's mostly to prepare for the migration of La Poste Telecom's mobile...

The results were published on Tuesday morning were very solid audience figures, the share of women under 50 years of age where decision makers at 33.7%. The 3.7% in the case of [indiscernible] in the First half year sales were stable at EUR 1.1 billion. Media figure was down 1%, which includes advertising figures and down 2%. The nonlinear market was impacted by the macroeconomic uncertainties in digital, [ TFR ] has continued to post good performance with advertising sales up 41% over the year. This confirmed just how attractive this is for advertisers. [ Studio ] with Neon, it was up 6% for the year. That includes EUR 11 million for GPG whose business is obviously focused on the end of the year. TF1's COPA was stable, broadly speaking, on the EUR 31. Cost of program was EUR 451 million, down slightly over the previous 12 months, which is a reflection of the premium programming maintained in the first half year and the -- of course, the Euro football competition in 2024. Marginal activities was 11.9%, up slightly year-on-year. Moving on to Page 26. The outlook for TF1 in 2025. After the first part of the year marked by a more challenging advertising market, but more challenging than expected. There's still limited visibility. TF1 maintains or confirms its 2025 guidance of strong double-digit revenue growth in digital margins broadly stable compared to 2024. And a growing dividend policy in the coming years. I'm now going to give the floor to Pascal Grange, who will give you a more detailed presentation of the financial statements.

Thank you, Olivier, and good morning, everybody. Just a few additional explanations on the financial statements as of June 30. Concerning the income statement, this is Page 30. I'm not going to dwell on sales and COPA, which have already been explained at some depth by Olivier. First of all, in the first half year 2025, we posted EUR 53 million in PPA amortization, mainly EUR 25 million due to Equans or later Equans, book at Bouygues SA and EUR 18 million at Bouygues Telecom. Secondly, nonrecurring items. These are not representative of the business that they amounted to minus EUR 55 million in the first half. This amount is largely due to Equans and is booked partly at Equans and party at Bouygues SA. Overall, this represents the first half year a total of EUR 47 million. Third thing I'd like to mention is that interest expense includes lease obligations, other income and expenses, a total of minus EUR 109 million, which is very close to the figure in the first half of 2024, which was minus EUR 185 million. Fourthly, concerning the bottom half of the statement, income tax was EUR 210 million higher than last year. This was because we had better operating performance in the various businesses. This amount does not include the surtax on profits for large companies in France, which amounted to EUR 58 million over the first half year. Finally, the share of profits of joint ventures and associates was minus EUR 4 million. That's an expense. It was plus EUR 6 million last year. This was because of the end of the positive contribution of co-promotion in a tertiary at Big Immobilier. As a result and taking into account the impact of the EUR 47 million surtax on profits the net income group share was plus EUR 173 million, down EUR 13 million over the previous period last year, but this contribution was nonetheless up EUR 34 million if we factor out the surtax, the one-off surtax. Page 29. Net debt at June 29 was of EUR 8.5 million by comparison with EUR 8.7 million at the same time last year. It's a variation of roughly EUR 2.5 billion, mainly due to the usual seasonality of the group's activity. This variation is comparable to the one we observed between the end of 2024 by comparison with the year-end '24 was mainly due to the following items. Net acquisitions, net of disposals, EUR 120 million, mainly acquisitions by Colas and investments by Bouygues Telecom and joint ventures. This was also due to the change in shareholders' equity for EUR 132 million, which mainly includes the first half year, the raising of the exercising of stock options. Dividend payout was EUR 861 million. That's less EUR 75 million paid to [ weages ], the remainder being paid almost entirely to minority shareholders in [ ETF ] and Bouygues Telecom. Operations and Other, which amounted to an expense of EUR 1.6 billion is something I propose to look at in detail now just a couple of seconds on the next page, Page 30. Begin with net cash flow. This includes the lease obligations. Net cash flow was EUR 1.725 million, up EUR 90 million in the first half of 2024. [ Noticing ] frequencies, operations at another EUR 1.6 billion. This is higher than last year at the same period. Free cash flow before working capital requirements was EUR 439 million, up sharply on the first half of 2024, when it was EUR 205 million, change in working capital requirements and others was a customer now impacted by seasonal effects, impacted by seasonal effects. Variation at the end of the first half, which was an expense of a little over EUR 2 billion, slightly higher than during the corresponding period, 2024, when it was an expense of EUR 1.7 billion. [indiscernible] 1/3 of that variance comparison to 2024 was due to currency translation and the cash financial debt and financial instruments category. Let's now look at the group's financial structure, Page 31. And we'll have seen that net debt has improved somewhat by comparison with the same period in 2024. The improvement is much sharper if we make analysis for the net acquisitions made during the period. By comparison with year-end 2024, the variation reflects the seasonality of our activities, gearing amounted to 62% at the end of June, which was up 3 percentage points over a 12-month period. Finally, the rating agencies have given the group good ratings, Southern [ Pause ] you say, an A- negative outlook at Moody's, our ratings A3 with a stable outlook. The group's liquidity is amounts to a total of EUR 13.4 billion. a very high level indeed. This amount is comprised of EUR 2.2 billion in cash and EUR 11.2 billion in undrawn medium- to long-term facilities that have not been drawn down, of course. If you look at the bottom right, the bar chart shows the maturity schedule, which is debt maturity schedule that is, which is well spread over time. That is at the end of my presentation with the statements. Thank you for your attention. And Olivier, I can give you back the floor now.

Thank you, Pascal. I propose to turn the page, so to speak, and say a few words about the outlook for 2025. Moving on to Page 36 directly. Am I on Page 36? In a very uncertain global environment. The group 6 business segments will continue to prove their ability to keep pace with -- to adapt to developments in their respective markets. They will pursue their efforts to improve profitability. As a result, the [ week ] Group is targeting for 2025, a slight increase in sales of current operating profit from activities by comparison with [ 2020 ] security funding law for 2025, this is the has an impact on net profit attributable to the group. And the effects are estimated to date at around EUR 100 million. So this additional corporate income tax is a one-off and should only have a bearing on 2025. Sorry, I will went too fast. I overlooked something very important. Speaking of turning the page, Usually, after Pascal, I move on directly to the outlook. Not so this morning, I will look something very important. I apologize to Pascal. Let me come back to Page 33 to tell you that this change in the group's governance. Before talking about the outlook, the 2 two I want to say. First of all, the Board of Directors has been informed by [ Martin ] Bouygues that Pascal Grange, who has just spoken to you, Pascal Grange, who is our Deputy CEO, and announced his intention to handle over his executive office to the Board of Directors at the end of 2025 with the view to his upcoming retirement. The upshot of that is that the Board of Directors has also been informed of the appointment of [ Stefan Storl ] as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of the group with effect from August 1. I should add that [ Stephane ] has been with the group and have been a very extensive career with the group in there with us, 30 years in operations and functions. He will join the Group Management Committee. And initially will report to Pascal Grange. So he will be appointed to his new job as of tomorrow morning. Pascal, I think you will hear again. Yes, that is confirmed. He will still be in position in February next apologies. I went directly without thinking to the outlook very [ Pablo Venafi ], I apologies. Speaking of [ Pablo Vin ] reflexes, I will talk about the calendar. So we will have the results for the first 9 months of the year, which we'll be giving you on the fifth of November. It's a Wednesday. After that, we will be at our disposal with all the heads of business segments here to take any questions you would care to put to us this morning, concerning our businesses. Maybe I should add that Etienne Jacolin will be speaking on behalf of Equans because [ Jerome ] is not here this morning with the with the C suite. So let's begin, Q&A, please.

[Operator Instructions] Next question is from Mathieu Robilliard from Barclays.

The line is now open. Please go ahead, sir. Good morning, Rob. Thank you for your presentation. First of all, I have a question on Equans. You said you were expecting a slowdown in data centers and giga factories certainly the start-up of these for a quarter or 2 now, we've noticed that there are geopolitical changes and the desire on the part of Europe to regain a certain solvency in this area. Is there a reason to believe that there will be new dynamics in the data center market. I was wondering if the fragility or weaknesses that you've identified at Equans were specific to France because of macroeconomic uncertainties? Or is this something more general or more widespread in Europe? Second question is -- are you exposed to this sector outside of France? My second question was on telecoms. Obviously, I'd like to ask you if you wish to comment the rumors in the press. According to which there are talks between the French telecom players with a view to concentrating the market. I'm just curious to know if you would confirm this or not? But in telecom trends, Terry, there is not much growth in the fixed lines. In mobile, if we include La Poste, on a pro forma basis, the market is probably slightly down. Is this because of lower offers? Have you stopped raising prices? Could you give us some insight into what's happening the broad trends?

Okay. Let me answer about data centers but also giga factories because in both cases, there's been a change of technology. In Giga factory design, or initial design for batteries type batteries have changed and the design that we have been using up to now has been stopped. What's happening is that we are redesigning these Giga factories differently. The second phenomenon is that there's been the growth in EV sales is not as high as anticipated. So let's say the transition to electric vehicles is slower than expected. That said, yes, there has been a slowdown because, a, the change of technology; and b, because of the market which is growing more slowly than expected. We've also closed down [ Novo ] in recent months. As regards data centers, the 2 phenomena. The first of these is a broadly speaking, data center technology is evolving. Before I hand the technology was called air cooling, the microprocessors were cooled by air, if you prefer. Then we have much more powerful microprocessors for IA, which required liquid cooling. So with the change in design from air cooling to liquid cooling, which is the first thing. And this was accentuated by the fact that we have AI models that work with -- so it is some doubt about the fact that we should be doing air cooling or liquid cooling or a combination of the 2. In all events, data centers, I think, there's kind of wait and see for them. The second thing I'd say is the data centers are mostly designed for American upper scalers. There's been a relocation of data centers in the U.S. Up to now, we did not have data centers in the U.S. This is a market we have ventured into recently. We've taken an order for a data center. So data centers are an area where we have full control of the technology, be it in air cooling or water cooling. We fully understand the industrial aspects. This is a market we expect to develop substantially because the rise the power of Artificial Intelligence is very -- will be very significant. We have know-how in this area, including in the construction of large data centers, which tends to be the way we are heading. So it's not something we're worried about. There's a bit of a kind of a wait-and-see phenomenon. Let's be cautious. That's for telecoms or 2 parts to your question. The first question, well, [ Benoit ] is getting ready to answer the second part of the question. First of all, it would appear that there's a possibility of the French market consolidating because after restructuring of debt, it could well be that SFO could come out to the market. So there could well be an operator for sale. If so, will we be capable of consolidating the market? We feel that the European rule -- hard and fast rule for operators is changing, particularly since the Drake report of last year. So concentration may be possible. Consolidation may be possible, provided SFO is a [ bid ] up in such a way that the French market remains competitive. Now we need some in-depth talks with operators to see how we could divide up to keep the market competitive. We have to put a price on each of the parts and submit a price that will be acceptable to [ dry ], I should say. Up to now, any discussions have been very, very embryonic. As for the market dynamics, I think, yes, Yes, concerning the ABPU in fixed and mobile. There are 2 phenomenon. The first of these is because of the strategy that we implemented late last year with a big offering. This is a strategy that's really aimed at anchoring customer loyalty and [ met ] conversions. This means that we have what we call cumulative offers if they take out more subscriptions with us, which, of course, this has an impact on ABPU. But it reduces churn, both in fixed and in mobile, the second part of this strategy aimed at convergence and [ agri ] loyalties. And since early this year, we've had fewer adjustments than in the past. So -- the dynamics in ABPU are not as strong, but we have improved the churn that we observed throughout the first half year. They are the two consequences of the big strategy we implemented late last year. Secondly, in the mobile market, in particular, as Olivier mentioned, the market has become more fastly competitive since February or March of this year because of price drops to entry level or new prices and particularly with the SFO, which has an impact on the entry level of the market, the web and has an impact on the overall ABPU in mobile phones. Already big offering are of a different nature altogether. Thank you, Benoit.

Next question is from [ Veny decent ] [ Udo ].

You have the floor. Good morning, everyone, and thank you about Equens. Can you give us an updated list of countries where you have a 4% margin where you could have proximity agreements and when can we expect more acquisitions at Equans? And another question about Equans and then my colleagues can ask about Bouygues Telecom. On the U.K. subsidiaries, I get the feeling that when you look at the data available on the Internet, the U.K. is the one where you have the lowest profit margin. Can you give us more color or granularity on Equans' profit margin in the U.K. and the outlook, when will the U.K. be in a position to engage in acquisitions and reach the 4% profit margin?

As [ Eitan ] thinks about the second half of the question, let me just remind you that we were able to generate 4.2% at the end of the year I mean this averages out. And so it means that some countries have already reached 4%. Now right now, we are entering the stage where we can start the M&A growth [indiscernible]. Do we need to have M&A in a number of countries, acquisitions. It's because in the service industry as we get more a higher presence in the country to get a better market share. And therefore, we can increase profit margin. That's why we want to have acquisitions. The countries that have -- that are above 4%, number of them. We considered some acquisitions, but we didn't complete anything. I mean we keep looking. But I mean, of course, until such time as the deal is signed, we can't tell you about that, but we are now entering a stage where we could have Equans engage in acquisitions in a number of countries. And we've basically reached a 4% mark in most countries, and that's the main goal. Etienne?

Right. As you know, Equans is a major player in the U.K. You also know that the decision was made to gradually cut down some businesses, but the construction business what we call new build. That process is still underway. And so this will come to an end close shortly. We are not ruling out acquisitions in the U.K. It's not our priority now. And of course, we're developing other markets, I mean, datacenter, even though there's been a temporary slowdown or solar plants where we are gaining ground as well.

Next question comes from Eric Ravary from CIC.

Good morning, everyone, and I have 3 questions. Number one on Bouygues Telecom. Reading in the news, we find that your joint venture with the SFR well, you could have a couple of mobile sites being acquired. Can you give us figures on the number of sites? And will the cash be well, 50% of that cash go back to the parent company. Second question about Colas. We have a less favorable condition in France, on the Road business as the elections are coming up. Can you comment on lower business in H2? And then Equans and data centers and gigafactories, can you tell us just how much that weighs in Icon's sales in 2024.

We'll start with Pierre then.

About H2 in France, the -- I mean, sales are stable. The order book is looking good. And of course, we are looking ahead to next year after the elections because election years indeed tend to be a bit slow, but this is a very traditional cycle, nothing new.

Thank you, Pierre. What about Benoit on the sites?

Yes, with SFR, we started disposing of some of the passive activities as part of [indiscernible] and that's what we've been doing for a number of years come we have -- we're talking about [ patents ], not active equipment. So we disposed of a number of pilots over the years. But then part of the towers were joint property between us and SFR, about 37 sites in the [ Croson ] area. And so we're finalizing this. I mean the disposal of these [ piles ] 2,700 pilots. Regarding the financial impact, this is being finalized, but -- of course, this will mean lower debt, about EUR 350 million cut in Bouygues Telecom's debt by year's end if the operation is completed by year's end.

About the data center. Yes, about the data center, they account for about 5% of Equans business. As we said earlier on, we've never conducted so many studies on new projects. Of course, there's a temporary slowdown, but we have a European team to step up growth in that business, and we are now entering the market in North America to start on new territories.

Thank you, Etienne. What about the giga factories they ask? No more questions on the French channel. Would you move to the questions in English?

Hi, everyone. If you just a quick one related again to SFR rumors. I mean, most press reports to just that a breakup is the most probable outcome. And I was wondering, in your view on all of this being hypothetical, how can that be done in a way that all parties are satisfied.

So about the dividing up of SFR. Well, SFR, as we speak, is finalizing its own debt restructuring. And so this is a prerequisite for any disposal. What we think right now is that the European Doctrine has changed. And so a possible consolidation of the market moving from 4 players to 3 players is now seems to be possible, at least that's what it looks like. The work being done in Brussels or Paris. I mean the examination of this issue in Brussels or Paris won't change much. So we might be able to move from 4 to 3 players. But for that to happen, a number of conditions must be met. Number one, we have to be able to divide out things in such a way as -- well, provided that all players are prepared to engage in this. So you need to divide out customers in line with the competition rules. You need to find to put an attack price on the various parts. At the end of the day, you need to have a price that is acceptable to the seller. So if you put all these things together, it means that it means you need to have in-depth talks and that hasn't taken place yet. And so it's early days now to talk about consolidation. But on paper, at least some of the conditions seem to have been met for that to happen. Should the operation take place after a firm offer, you probably need about like 18 months for the Competition Authority to study the case. And then for this to reflect in the accounts of the players that we've take another 24 to 36 months to make any difference. So this is a long-term thing, and we're talking about 4.5 to 5 years.

Next question comes from Akhil Dattani from JPMorgan.