Edenred SE (EDEN) Earnings Call Transcript

Things before beginning, let's watch an invigorating film on Edenred. Queue the video. [Presentation]

So that's a breath of fresh air on our general meeting. We can say that the Edenred yachts go faster than hippopotami. They represent the spirit of boldness and courage. I am very pleased to welcome you at the Edenred General Meeting to be held at Comet Bourse. At my side, Julien Tanguy, CFO of the group; and Philippe Relland-Bernard, our Legal Counsel and Board Secretary. [indiscernible] office of the court is there to supervise our proceedings. I thank members of the Board, who are attending this meeting. You have Mr. Cedric Appert; madam Maelle Gavet; madam Graziella Gavezotti; Mr. Bernardo; Sanchez and Mr. Philippe Vallée. I'd also like to welcome our statutory auditors, Mr. Pierre Jouanne from EY and Mr. [ Graham Knel ] from Deloitte. In order to form the bureau, I call scrutineers, come just represented by Mr. Sebastien Davasse with 1,375,000 shares and voting rights, also DNCA represented by Arthur Morel holding 4,672,000 shares and voting rights. My warm thanks to them for agreeing to act as scrutineers at this meeting. I propose with the agreement of scrutineers to appoint Philippe Relland-Bernard as Meeting Secretary. Philippe?

Thank you, Bertrand. Good morning. So we will now proceed with the formalities. This combined general meeting was convened by the Board on the 26th of February. All formalities were accomplished as per legal requirements. On the quorum for this general meeting to take a valid decision, the quorum must be 1/5th of shares with voting rights for the ordinary meeting, a quarter of shareholders for the extraordinary portion. The attendance sheet is being finalized, but I can say at this point that 4,770 shareholders holding 270 million shares with voting rights. That's 87.96% of shared with voting rights. On the documents necessary for the meeting on the desk were the documents required by law, notably the notice of meetings in the legal gazette duly published. And in the meeting notice of the 17th of April, the full list will be consigned to the record. All documents made available of company shareholders prior to this general meeting as per applicable laws. To facilitate the vote on the resolution and to swiftly display the results and electronic voting process that you're familiar with be used, you will have received the voting tablets. Don't forget to return them to our attendance when you leave the hall. Back to you, Bertrand.

Thank you, Philippe. So I can declare open the combined general meeting of Edenred. At the outset, I'd like to thank the 12,000 employees of Edenred. Without them, nothing of what was achieved in 2023 would have been palpable. They're great, bold, imaginative full of courage and resilience from the bottom of my heart, and on your behalf, I'd like to thank them for everything accomplished in 2023. A special thought for my Brazilian colleagues of the Rio Grande do Sul. As you know, this southern region of Brazil, is submerged by ceaseless rain. And the 150 employees of Edenred who are in Porto Alegre, unfortunately, 56 of them were affected, 30 had to be rehoused and 10 lost their homes. I know that on your behalf, but also on the behalf of the management team, our thoughts are with them. And the More Than Ever fund partly managed by Graziella here present will be at their side to ensure that our employees can return to decent living condition as soon as possible. Edenred one day, Edenred every day, we never leave our employees by the wayside wherever they are in the world. I'd like to thank you, dear shareholders, for your loyalty and your support over these many years of transformation and growth for Edenred. Your support and loyalty are essential for us. So what has been put in place for this general meeting, broadcast live in French and English and the documents are available on our website edenred.com. Of course, the Universal Registration document, but also the integrated report. What was our shareholder dialogue in 2023? Firstly, we had meetings with institutional shareholders. Over 1,100 investors were met with up 7% versus 2022. We attended 12 road shows and 13 conference. We focused on individual shareholders. Close on 380 individual shareholders were contacted throughout France. We were present at the Investir Day fair in Paris during which we met with 5,000 participants. Two shareholder letters were sent out. This sustained shareholder dialogue in 2023 received the bronze trophy from the Revenu magazine. Edenred was on the podium of the Institutional Investor Magazine rankings in 2 categories. Our shareholder base, well, has a big free float. It stands at 99.8%, including 3.7% of individual shareholders. The shareholder base is mostly U.S. and U.K. based. 44% in the U.S., 16% in the U.K., France 18%. We've come a long way because 8 years back France only presented 8% of our shareholder base, but we can continue. Who are the main Edenred shareholders? Capital World holds about 10%, FMR Loyalty Fidelity fund just over 5%, Select Equity, a North American fund, that holds 4.9%. Edenred is the everyday platform for people at work. But before showing you a video to give you a better understanding of what we're doing and the changes in Edenred, I'd like to share with you a short message. During the presentation, we'll recall that Edenred operates on high potential markets that are largely underpenetrated. To tap this potential, our strategy is to offer a set of digital solutions that fully meets the changing needs in the workplace. The excellence performance achieved over the years is the best proof of the relevance of our strategy and its good execution up until the last autumn, our share price grew strongly, reflecting excellent performance in our ability to tap that potential. Share price performance that in 2023 was crowned by our entry to the CAC 40. But since the autumn, the share price performed less well. Believe me, shareholders that we're fully aware of the frustration that you may feel, and I can assure you that we also share that frustration. The poor share price performance transient is the fact that certain events may have come to the minds in these certain events. Political statements on the reform of the restaurant voucher in France and a legal episode in Italy, the difficulty is the stock market timeframe doesn't always interact well with the judicial time line. The responses that we provided thus far haven't removed the doubts. It's frustrating for you, it's frustrating for us. Let me tell you that we are confident in the outcome of the reform of restaurant vouchers in France. And secondly, in Italy, we've entered a legal battle concerning a call for tenders back in 2019. We are, however, convinced that if there was a problem in our response to this tender, it's only a technical aspect. That was no fraudulent intent on behalf of our Italian subsidiary and its management. However, it's an issue that we take extremely seriously. We're totally uncompromising in terms of compliance, in terms of respect for regulations in the 45 countries where we operate as well as in terms of ethics. I think we got great procedures in place, but Julien Tanguy will set out to you the additional efforts we're undertaking to strengthen further our roles, our training sessions and our internal controls. Let me tell you that it is a subject that I'm focusing on extremely closely, and I commit to implement everything so that Edenred is beyond reproach. Back to our share price, we're confident in our ability to a very soon return to the valuation levels that we were at barely a few months ago. Edenred is the daily platform for people at work. A video just to really explain what this reality covers. [Presentation]

So yes, we are Edenred. There are 12,000 of us, and everyone is fantastic. Now let's talk about a couple of key figures. 2023, EUR 41 billion in business volume; overall total revenue, EUR 2.5 billion, up 24%. We've got EBITDA at EUR 1.094 billion, up 31%, and free cash flow generation is at EUR 905 million, which is up 27%. 12,000 employees and the percentage of women among executive positions is 37%. We've been able to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 61% and our awareness of nutrition and food waste is now in place with 60% awareness in our head count. We've got more than 250 programs, 100 programs for our employees, 30 countries. Mobility is the objective, 90 programs across 35 countries, and Complementary Solutions, 60 programs in 30 countries, so a wide-ranging portfolio for employees for solutions and mobility. This portfolio matches the essential needs of all of our stakeholders, for example, employees, this gives them purchasing power and well-being and also an easier experience of mobility. For our client companies, we've been able to increase employee engagement and optimize overall compensation, and we've also been able to better control the cost related to vehicle fleets. For our partner merchants, we generate revenue for them. We increased engagement and loyalty. And finally, for public authorities, we are able to formalize the economy and create local jobs whilst also providing behavioral incentives such as for nutrition and mobility. The Edenred platform is unique and it is global in nature. Keep that in mind, we've got 60 million users now worldwide, 2 million partner merchants and 1 million corporate clients. The overall volume of payments that we handle is now EUR 100 billion. This platform is made up of 4 different layers. The lower layers are the layers which enable us effectively to upscale. These are the layers that enable us to share resources across all programs worldwide. These are the infrastructure layers and also our services, our digital services layers. On that second layer, you can see the importance of connectivity. That is important because what Edenred wants to do is to be a distributed and distributive platform. That means we distribute our own digital services, but we also, on our platform, distribute digital services that have been developed by other people, and we are accepting the idea of our services being distributed by other platforms that are not Edenred's own. This connectivity with what is known as API, so the ability to use other people's services, is an important capability as we develop Edenred. Then we have the upper layers that our business applications and digital experience layers. This is what a user would use when they're using our platform on their phone. This is developed locally to make sure that it is relevant to the local audience. We are present in 45 countries with 250 different programs as a reminder. We're investing in this. It gives us more flexibility and more connectivity. We are investing indeed significant amounts. The overall technology investment has been EUR 480 million, and that was the case in 2023. 70% of that went to the platform, 20% to infrastructure and 10% to security and compliance. EUR 480 million, that is an increase of EUR 95 million versus the previous year. We discussed connectivity. This is all about the API so that we can be distributed and a distribution network. We distribute more than 3.6 billion annual API messages across our platform annually. That gives you an idea of scale that we're at and the scale we aspire to reach. 60 million users, sorry. If you look at the largest platforms in the world, Uber Eats, for example, they're at 80 million users. So a little French player like Edenred branching out from restaurant vouchers can actually punch up and play with the big world players. They're no smarter than we are. Now they are no smarter than we are. But we also accept help when it's offered. Men and machines working together is always better than people on their own. This is why we intend to leverage all of the potential of data and AI. We already have 200 data practitioners working for Edenred. We've got 1 platform for global data. This is known as a data lake, and we now have more than 50 use cases using AI. AI enables us to increase the productivity of our employees using Eden Chat. This is our AI resource pool that we use to leverage our data, and we also use AI through virtual assistant that can answer our customers' queries. To give you an idea, EVA is our digital virtual assistant. And customers believe that her service is better than if they were working with an Edenred employee for a cost that is about 50% lower. So indeed, AI is a reality here at Edenred. If you look at our strategic plan, you noticed this is called Beyond. This is our strategic plan that was defined for 2022 to 2025. At the end of 2023, let me give you an update of where we are at on that road map. First of all, this strategic plan is based on deep changes that are very positive for Edenred. The first of these changes is an in-depth change of the way we work. Changing the way we work, in my opinion, involves 3 things. First of all, for all of the employees around the world, there's an equation that needs to be solved, attractivity, retention and engagement. The second big change in the world of work is people around the world becoming aware that health is the greatest asset of workers and health requires 3 major things. First of all, food; secondly, physical activity; and third, psychological well-being. Through these 2 major equations, you can understand just how well positioned Edenred is to help people move forward. And I would add a third thing to this. There are generations arriving in the labor market right now that want benefits that are customized to their needs, i.e., having the same benefits for everyone is no longer a reality that's possible in 2023 and beyond. So it's up to HR managers to meet those 3 needs. And the best way to do that is to implement Edenred Solutions. We have digital solutions, modular solutions and solutions that meet the needs for good food, for physical mobility and activity and psychological well-being, and they are fully customizable. And what we're seeing in the labor market is also true for mobility. Our fleet managers that we work closely with are constantly asking us solutions for what is known as softer mobility. So a full platform for fluid and effective management of vehicle fleet is what we're working on right now, and that explains the growth of our business of more than 20%. To drive these changes, we have a plan. And that plan is called Beyond. Now what is Beyond? I know that we already shared this with you recently. First of all, Beyond involves continuing to drive growth in the underpenetrated growth markets. That is and will continue to be about 60% of our growth. Secondly, we're going to accelerate beyond food, fuel and payment. And I'll be coming back to this. These are all the new services that we can provide through our digital platform that I explained a couple of minutes ago. And then finally, thirdly, seizing new business opportunities. You saw in the video that we had the new agri platform that we're working on. This is part of the extensions and expansions of business ideas that we didn't even have a couple of years ago. But let's take a look at the second part of our strategic plan, which is Beyond, so new services. As you can see, we kicked off working with employees for food and meals. And anything beyond food is already 31% of that product line. On the mobility side, we started off with energy card. Anything beyond energy, what we're calling Beyond Fuel, is already more than 30% of our revenue in mobility. Edenred is changing, is moving forward, and we are looking at distributing more and more digital services to our 60 million users. An example is engagement. We're starting off with bonuses for employees. We've got our platform with Edenred Solutions and also third-party solutions that were developed by other platforms, but that are being distributed on our Edenred digital platform. For example, in Mexico, if you want to get access to remote medicine, we have Medicato. Medicato is not developed by Edenred, but it is distributed to the millions of Mexican users that we have via our Edenred platform. So we have this platform for employees and through acquisitions that were done for Reward Gateway and GOintegro. Reward Gateway is present in the U.S. and Australia. GOintegro in the South American continent. Thanks to these additions, we are now able to provide extra solutions, recognition, well-being and employee communication. It always comes from the same place. How can we provide more solutions to our users without ever forgetting that magical equation that is health equals food, times physical activity times well-being at work and going and being happy at work is something that GOintegro and Reward Gateway all about. Now to be clearer than words, sometimes images speak louder. Here's a quick video on what our benefits and engagement platform is and means. [Presentation]

I know you go, and what is true for employees is also, of course, true for mobility. So we kick things off with energy. And then around energy, we develop digital solutions such as maintenance. In Latin America, we are now the #1 player in that field. We've got toll paying solutions in Europe as well. There's a single toll paying solution that is digital and available already in 27 countries. And also freight management in Brazil, we are combining Edenred and PagBem's operations to become largest player there. And maybe the most important thing is electric vehicle charging. With an Edenred, you now have access to more than 570 charging points. Charging up in EV is one thing. But when you listen to fleet managers, you quickly realize that that's not enough. Fleet managers, they are struggling with the implementation of the infrastructure right now. So actually having those charging stations and not just publicly available ones, but the ones in the offices. Secondly, they need to manage those charging stations. They have different voltages and different spreads. And how do you manage a hybrid fleet of hybrid vehicles, EVs, ICE engines? And how do you consolidate home charging on the road charging and workplace charging? This is why we purchased Spirii. Spirii is the European leader and the software-as-a-service platform in Europe for meeting exactly those needs that I just mentioned. And the first contracts that we are already signing are very promising when it comes to Edenred's ability to support our clients as they transition towards greener mobility. To better understand what we're doing, we have another short video for you. [Presentation]

I'm showing here an example when I speak of distribution platform. What are the digital services? If we accept that they're distributed by another platform, we can access markets that we can't treat directly. Digital toll paying in Brazil, the toll market in Brazil is growing. The market we're addressing today is a B2B market. We are selling our toll solutions to transport companies. But the B2C market, individual users that we are is 11x bigger than the B2B market with the same double-digit growth momentum. It's a market that we can't address directly. We're a B2B platform. So we tied up with Nubank that is the leading digital bank in the world that serves 85,000 Brazilian customers. And if you're a Nubank user, you reach for your mobile phone, you're checking the amount of money that you have on your new bank digital account, and you will receive statement saying, do you want to access a digital toll payment solution. In a number of cases, you will answer yes. And in four clicks, you become an Edenred solution user, which is in Brazil called Edenred Taggy. That's how our digital services can be delivered by other digital platform to open up new markets. As long as the two digital platforms can be interconnected and that's a 4-layer platform that I presented and the API platform that is to call the services of another to allow platform interconnection. So the plan Beyond '22-'25 strengthens Edenred's financial and nonfinancial ambitions. You'll recall that our financial ambition is to have all organic EBITDA growth above 12%. We delivered 30% in 2023. Cash is king. We need that cash to reinvest and grow Edenred. So our conversion rate, we commit to have an annual free cash flow on EBITDA ratio that is above 70%. At Edenred, the economic performance must go hand-in-hand with extra financial performance. That's why our nonfinancial performance is very import. We've committed to become net zero carbon by 2050, following the SBTi, stringent methodology on Scopes 1, 2, 3A on the most demanding trajectory of 1.5 degrees. So dear shareholders, owners of Edenred, rest assured that your management team is exacting in terms of financial ambition and also in terms of nonfinancial ambition. If we step back a bit in terms of and take a wider view, what is our ambition today? Our total revenue is the order of EUR 2.5 billion. We're targeting EUR 5 billion by 2030, the bulk of those EUR 5 billion will come from our organic growth. And as you've seen, our markets are underpenetration. Our courage, our boldness, our quest for innovation to offer more services will drive this organic growth across 60 million solution -- users of our solutions, but we'll also seek M&A growth opportunities that will allow us to accelerate our expansion headed to EUR 5 billion by 2030 on this chart. You'll have noticed that in terms of the curve 2023 allowed us to get slightly ahead of the target that we set ourselves by 2030. I'll now hand over to Flore, who is in charge of the sustainable development program at Edenred. Please give her a warm welcome because her mission isn't easy, and she's doing it with a lot of talent.

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. So within this growth, nonfinancial growth is very important for Edenred. Like last year, we'd like to continue to accelerate the group's CSR strategy. For that, it's crucially important for us to build on our DNA. Since 1962, we know the group has built its DNA on giving employees access to hot meals. So it's on the back of this DNA that we want to build our commitment to ESG around 2 major levers. Firstly, as a company to strengthen our position as an employer of choice, but also to reach net zero carbon by 2050 and to be a trustworthy tech for good for all our partners. We want to commit as a committed company for ESG, but also give access to all our partners and this through our 250 solutions across 45 countries. For this, we have our purpose that commits and guides our full ESG action plan. Enrich connections for good is our compass that guides all our engagements. And for that, we've identified a number of quantitive indicators to focus the group on this ESG program. IdealPeople, our ambition is by 2030 to have at least 40% women among executive position. We've come a long way in 2023. We've reached 37% behind this figure. We're not just working that population, but it's the group that will seek out the best talents. 52% of our employees are women, 44% of managers are women. So with this initiative, we can grow all our teams. On the planet section, we want to be 0 -- net zero carbon by then. We're already in a strategy, reducing our carbon emissions short term. And we're doing that with particularly intensity on Scopes 1 and 2 minus 61%. How did we achieve that? By very close management of our facilities, but also by increasing the amount of renewable power that we buy today 25%. With this initiative, we want to give all our partners access to these commitments, users and restaurant owners worldwide. In '23, we reached over 60% of our retailers and merchants through eating well and also promoting access to new mobility solutions. Beyond Fuel, this is built on quantitive indicators that are important, recognized by the main rating agencies. The most demanding, we see a few here. Euronext for the second year in a row, the CAC40 ESG. By S&P Global, we're a member of the Sustainability Yearbook for a number of years now. Likewise, CDP, which is focusing on carbon and climate. With this international recognition, we seek to continue our acceleration and do that through our solutions. Firstly, on Mobility Solutions. In 2022, Edenred launched the global program, Move for Good. The aim is to support all our clients throughout the world in a transition plan. Transition plan for that step one is measure. We can only reduce what we measure. And so we support as a priority, our customers in measuring their individual emissions so as to promote awareness and reduce. What are these reducing plans? Raise awareness on good practice, eco-driving, better routes, but also reduce energy consumption. In Latin America, we support our customers for a better use of bioethanol that reduces substantially the carbon footprint of fleets and e-charging solutions. In Europe to support our customers with turnkey solutions that ensures more sustainable mobility of our customers across regions. Last point, we also support our customers through compensation programs by certifying offsets by the gold standard of ECS to support carbon capture projects with high value added. So these are services we can offer to all our customers to promote the mobility transition on the environmental front. We also have solutions that will allow us to assist the integration and inclusion from the financial standpoint. Precarious workers in many countries are very often excluded from the banking system, maintained in the informal economy that deprive of rights that apply to the labor world. But Edenred solutions really promote inclusion will allow regular, steady incomes, helping the user to improve their cost of living and spending power. Take a look at this video for financial inclusion. [Presentation]

So these 250 solutions based on solutions across country promote a better environmental footprint, social financial inclusion and behind all these solutions, there are 12,000 committed employees. I'd like to hand over to Jacques Adoue, VP in charge of that and the group.

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Let's not forget that without our 12,000 employees, none of this would be possible. 12,000 employees. Who are they? They come from diverse backgrounds, 45 countries, were present across continents, rather young, 38 average age with almost perfect gender equality, 52% women, 48% men, 87 different nationalities, which proves that we're a very multicultural organization. Know that within Edenred over and above, our purpose enrich connections, for good. Our values are of prime importance. Our five values: Respect; passion for our customers; simplicity; entrepreneurial spirit; imagination have been with us since 2017, and guide our actions daily because as Augé read, the values are not mere words, it's our DNA with us every day in our professional lives. So these values are reflected in an attitude. We have 11 commitments today that a part of our managerial actions, and our managers today day-to-day know how to direct their actions and onboard their teams. And we have launched the Dream Team, Bootcamp and at Edenred, no performance, whatever level will have -- we'll never excuse an attitude that isn't in line with our values, over and above our values, over and above what drives us every day. Diversity and inclusions are actions that we view as fundamental. Just to illustrate our commitment. Shown here are two examples what we've done this year in terms of disability with the organization at group level of an inclusion, we devoted to disability supplemented by local actions across 12 countries. And then gender diversity, which is a prime focus area in France. In 2023, we were awarded the first Elisabeth Moreno prize recognizing the most innovative company in terms of diversity and digital professions. That guides our employees, managers daily, makes us very proud to work for Edenred. And beyond people, I'll call up Emmanuelle for the brand.

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Now it's true, as Bertrand and Jacques just told you, we have 12,000 employees and they're a formidable asset for us, but we have other assets such as our brand. And it's kind of a brand on the rise. Now of course, you all know Edenred. But it's important to note that we're not widely known in a wider audience. We're here to not only be visible but also to be a brand that is requested by users. This way, we'll be able to make people want to use our solutions and we'll be able to drive business. So where is our notoriety at right now? We carried out a study in France recently, and we are very proud of the results that came back to us. Our reputation went from 1% in 2018 to 10% brand awareness in 2023. That is one out of every 10 French people that recognize as Edenred brand. You might think that, that is still a little bit low; indeed, but I think it's at least fantastic progress over 5 years. There are a number of things that contributed to this brand recognition. First of all, faced with the boom in the number of brands around the world, we decided to migrate all of our portfolio to a single brand called Edenred. Across 45 countries on all our websites, all of the cards that you can see there, our apps, Edenred has become the single brand. There's no longer any brand dilution. Beyond converting the brand, we also would like to commend our sales teams in their work promoting our brand in what they do. Of course, being listed on the CAC40 brought limelight to our group in France and abroad as well as our regular action on social media, in the press or via our website. Finally, our sailing sponsorship program has supported year-after-year our brand visibility. Having a huge red and white logo on sales is something that everyone can recognize. And I would like to take this opportunity to announce that this year, we are going to be joining the Ocean Fifty class. This is a multi-haul class. And this year, we have a performance goal, of course, but also a visibility goal for that. Earlier, Bertrand touched on the power of our platform. And through these grades, we can see that our digital presence on the latest Edenred+ app is particularly good. What I mean by that is the users that already know us love us. What we need to do now is to get more people to know us. This is why early 2024, we decided to go beyond, to go even further in investing in our brand. And therefore, we launched our very first advertising campaign for Edenred in France. This will serve to get us better known and to also create emotive resonance with the French people, and we have a video for that. [Presentation]

There you go. I'm sure you couldn't miss these if you were around. We had this deployed in 52 cities around France. We had it in the streets, by roadside, stations, radio, Internet, social media, everything. And for the very first time, we decided to showed the main advantage that we give our users and associate that with purchasing power through the messages that you've seen. Edenred is here to be spent. We had some popping colors. And that advertising campaign based on Edenred is like dot, dot, dot has enabled us to connect with the wider audience. The results of this advertising campaign have meant better recognition and also a positive reputation. We are now recognized as a trustworthy brand, that's fun, that's digital and that is modern, all of the things that we want to be known for. Right now, we have a strong brand that has better visibility and you can count on us to continue to promote it. Thank you for your attention. And I'd now like to give the floor to Julien for the financial part.

Thank you. Emmanuelle. Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, good morning. I'm very happy to be able to share with you our financial results for 2023 for Edenred. Bertrand has already touched on some of the financial numbers. If you look at total revenue, we have a year at which we have busted through the EUR 2.5 billion threshold. As a reminder, we broke the EUR 2 billion threshold in 2022, that means 23.7% growth of our total revenue. For EBITDA, so our performance, we are at EUR 1.094 billion, that is up nearly 31% versus the previous year. And finally, Bertrand reminded us that cash is king. FCF is at EUR 905 million. Our guidance and commitment was a conversion rate of at least 70% of our EBITDA to free cash flow. This year, we converted 83% of our EBITDA to FCF. That has enabled us to invest, and I will come back to that in a minute with our financial leveraging. Looking at growth, growth is well spread across all of our product lines. We have growth of more than 20% in our EMPLOYEE BENEFITS business line. You can see that, that accounts for 63% of overall revenue for the group. For our mobility solutions, for professionals, we generated 16.2% growth. That business represents 25% of overall operating revenue for the group. And finally, in complementary solutions, we have seen growth higher than 10% for a business that accounts for about 12% of overall revenue, so double digit growth across the board for all of our operational business lines. Double-digit growth is also something you'll see across the world. First of all, in Europe -- in Europe, we generated growth at 16.5% like-for-like. Europe represents 62% of overall revenue for the group. 15.3% growth in Latin America, a little bit less than 30% of our overall revenue, and the rest of the world put in growth at nearly 33%, accounting for 9% of overall sales. So we have a split of our business between Europe and Latin America, the ratios haven't really changed last year, because the two continents are putting in comparable growth. Now I mentioned growth in EBITDA. Right now, we are at EUR 1.1 billion in EBITDA, a growth of EUR 258 million versus the previous year, 34% like-for-like growth. EBITDA growth also comes with growth in margins. As you can see, our margins are now at 41.5%, significantly up more than 2% versus the margins that we announced in 2022. And that goes to show the effectiveness of the upscaling of our platform. We have fixed costs on our P&L, and we're seeing that the more we grow our platform, the better we're able to improve our EBITDA margin. For FCF, I've discussed this earlier, the -- our ability to generate free cash flow. We went from more than EUR 700 million to more than EUR 900 million, nearly EUR 200 million increase, with a conversion rate that is still at an extremely high ratio, 85% last year, 83% this year. One of the properties of our business model is our ability to generate FCF. FCF means that we can reinvest quickly, and well, whilst keeping our debt under control. Our debt ratio at the end of 2023 is at 1x. That means that it would take a full year of EBITDA for us to pay back all of our debt. Net debt EUR 1.1 billion at the end of the year. At the end of the previous year, we were at EUR 300 million. Bertrand discussed this. We carried out a major acquisition for the group Reward Gateway. What we can note is that after spending EUR 1.3 billion on that acquisition, and through our ability to generate free cash flow, we have been able to keep our debt ratio under control. This means that we have the ability to fund further acquisitions and to continue our development. This is something that we did do during the first quarter of this year. We announced a number of acquisitions. Bertrand also reminded us of Spirii, for example, which is a major player in EVs in Europe. And we had an acquisition in Italy, [ePay], that will enable us to position ourselves in the mobility market in Italy, also an acquisition in Brazil, which will consolidate our position as a leading player in employee services in Brazil. Finally, cash generation and the good business performance of the group together enabled us to increase the dividend, the dividend that we would like to put to your vote in the coming minutes, is a dividend which is at EUR 1.1 per share, up 10% versus last year. As you know, our policy is to gradually increase dividend. And now with the business performance we have, we're able to implement that. We were at EUR 0.75 in 2020, EUR 0.9 in 2021 and we're now at EUR 1.1 per share in 2023. Growth and performance is being recognized. We are now on the CAC 40 listing, we have been for about a year now since June '19, and we are also in the Euronext Tech Leader list, which recognizes some of the tech leaders in France. Edenred is now one of the top tech leaders in France and probably the largest fintech. Let's now talk about our share price. In the long term, our share price in the long term has been up 3x, 200% growth, therefore, significantly outperforming the indexes that are CAC40 and SBF 120, commendable performance, therefore. And as Bertrand reminded us in his introduction, we've also experienced two major events that had an impact on our share price over the last months. The first event was the announcement by Olivier Gregoire, the delegate Minister for SMEs and Commerce of a new measure to make restaurant vouchers in France more sustainable in the long term, financially. She explained in the media that this long-term availability of vouchers would require involvement from stakeholders such as employees, employers, restaurants and also the issuers of the vouchers. The minister also announced that it would be made digital in France, that digitization should come in, in 2026. That is very good news for us, seeing as we are already leaders of the digital market in France, and also leaders for restaurant vouchers. That was announced in October. So in the coming weeks or maybe months, we are likely to see the decisions handed down from the ministry, ways to improve distribution of restaurant vouchers in France. The second event that we experienced was the announcement of an investigation in Italy into a public tender that happened in 2019, and I'll be coming back to that in just a few minutes. And also, the measures that we have implemented on the Executive Board alongside with Bertrand to better improve internal control within the company. If we look at a longer time frame, understand that the analysts that look at Edenred right now, there are 19 of them, 14 of them are suggesting that they -- suggesting buy on our shares. So they're optimistic about our share price, and they do this based on their analysis of the situation and our financials. If you look at the average of the expected share price across our 19 analysts, EUR 63 per share would be the consensus, we were at EUR 45 last year -- last night, sorry. So that's the overall analysis of our share price. I'd now like to move on to a brief explanation of what happened in Italy, what was announced in February, and come back to some of the measures that we have implemented to improve internal control, which was strong to begin with, and I'll be giving you a couple of examples of what we've been doing at Edenred, to make sure that we are running our business in a way that is fully compliant with law and ethics. Let's start with the Italy case, and Bertrand already mentioned this. First of all, what happened? Let's take a step back and look at the timeline. In May 2021, we won 4 out of 15 lots as part of a public tender that was being done by what is known as Concept in Italy. Basically, this is the procure -- the state procurement center. It's called Concept 9, because it was the ninth tender for restaurant vouchers for Civil 7s in Italy. We got 4 out of the 15 lots that were made available. Business volume, about EUR 600 million over 2 to 3 years. The idea is that you get business volume, you get allocated business volume that you then issue, and then once you've gone through that volume, the contract comes to an end and you move to the next contract, so that will be Concept 10. The award of this contract and the fact that we won 4 of them was contested by one of our competitors, known as Repas. They have roughly 5% market share in Italy. This competitor took us to court, contesting the way that the public tender had been carried out, and we won in the first instance. So an Italian judge looked at the case and said that there was no particular issue with the way the tender was implemented. The competitor appealed that decision. And in [apparent] form, they won, and we had to hand back one of those lots. In February 2024, we were made aware of a criminal case being brought against [indiscernible] Repas. In Italy, it is possible to make business deals a criminal case. So basically, we were being accused of not providing all of the relevant information as part of the tender process and EUR 20 million were allocated to this. The prosecutor believes that this is the amount of money that we would have won through this tender. We see this as the revenue generated by that contract. So EUR 20 million were placed in escrow. Next, the court is going to look at this. We have a prosecutor that has put the case to a judge, and we are going to then move on to a hearing phase before the judge. This process is likely to last about 2 years. So this is going to be a long process. And as Bertrand said, the timelines for the justice system is sometimes very different from the business type of timelines. We still don't know exactly how this is going to play out. And of course, we're available to work closely with the Italian courts, and to explain exactly what happened and how we managed the tenders. Before February 2024, there were a number of things that were set up within the group to -- as I explained to make sure that the way we do business is fully in line with our compliance requirements and business requirements. First of all, within the group, we have a whistleblowing system. This was set up years ago, and this is available to all of our employees, enables them to communicate and to talk about anything that they feel may not be compliant with business ethics, such as anticorruption, antitrust and competition law and also money laundering. It's very simple. There's an e-mail address that people can write to, if they believe that someone in the company is not behaving in a way that is compliant with our ethic standards. Secondly, we have a full range of compulsory ethics and compliance training modules for business ethics and compliance. So when you join the company, when you become an employee, you need to follow these training courses. These courses are tracked, so we know who has attended what, and they are compulsory. So if people haven't done it, we get back to them and we get them to do it. And these training courses are changing over time very regularly at Edenred, and this applies to everyone, by the way, not just to the Executive Committee, everyone needs to follow the training courses available on our platform called EDU. We've also reviewed our ethics charter. There is compulsory training when you join Edenred and also you need to sign the charter ethics alongside your work contract. And the sign rate is, of course high, because it is a compulsory condition if you want to work for us. Finally, we have risk and fraud committees set up at the e-quarter, so Edenred Holding and also in each company -- in each country, sorry. This is done under the Department for Risk and Compliance, so with Philippe and his teams. Locally, in Italy, very specifically given that this is the case, since June 2023, we have ISO-37001 certification. This is the highest level of anti-bribery certification that you can get, when it comes to the fight against corruption. And once again, the certification was obtained nearly a year ago. Let's move on now to what we've changed since February 2024, and since the case was brought to our awareness. First of all, we have decided to set up a new process for public tenders. Across all of our countries, we're going to be setting up a procedure that was set up with a big advisory firm, internationally recognized consultants, and we're going to be rolling out that procedure across Edenred, by the end of the second quarter 2024. This procedure requires each contract, public or private contract, to be assessed based on a risk matrix, based on the country, public or private nature, amount and nature of the products and the services offered. Depending on the identified risk that we will identify using that matrix, we will then be able to set up an approval committee for the tender. And depending on the perceived risk, that committee will either approve or not moving forward with that organization. And that committee will be present at different levels of the organization, depending on the size, and it can go all the way up to the three business lines that we mentioned earlier. Seeing as we have that triple layer control, we've adapted our audit trail, sort of work processes applied by internal audit. When our auditors visit the country from now going forward, they will make sure that the new procedure that has just been drafted is being properly implemented. And internal audit, by the way, also carries out a number of other controls. And those controls are going to be adapted to the new procedure. That is what I wanted to share with you for what is happening in Italy and the various measures that we have implemented group-wide. And now I'd like to come back to the financial performance for the group. This will be an opportunity for me to talk about the figures that we published for the first quarter. An excellent Q1 similar to last year's performance. The eighth consecutive quarter of growth, organic growth above 20% for Edenred. This is something that needs to be borne in mind. This growth marks the eighth consecutive quarter of growth. We were previously growing at lower growth rates, plus 20% growth over the last 8 quarters. Total revenue to close on EUR 700 million in Q1, with growth coming in at 20.5%. Now this growth will continue and our ambition is to continue this growth, both profitable and sustainable. As Bertrand said, our solutions meet the growing needs of a changing working world, and we're there to accompany our customers in the new era of mobility transition to E-vehicles. We're in underpenetrated core markets. We're going to continue to work to generate growth and to ensure that more and more company worldwide can use our products for their employees, but also fleet managers, and we continue to strengthen our leadership through acquisitions, previously mentioned next, and it's a focus of our strategy beyond extend our portfolio of solutions through targeted acquisitions, reward net way in last year, but also the acquisition of Spirri discussed earlier, work more on underpenetrated markets, extend our portfolio of solutions by leveraging the unique digital platform that we have and 1 million corporate clients worldwide, loading 60 million users, accessing 2 million merchants with a broad range of solutions. The performance in 2023, Q1 2022 confirms this and our ability to deliver our midterm commitment that you're familiar with, stemming from the Beyond '22, '25 plan. EBITDA growth of at least 12% and a conversion rate into free cash flow of this EBITDA to at least 70%. So much for our financial performance over the past 15 months. Back to Bertrand to discuss group governance.

Thank you, Julien. Thank you, Flore. Thank you, Emmanuel. I listened to you very closely. And you delivered fantastically. I'm very fortunate in being able to work with you. I think we should hold general meetings more frequently because the advantage of staying connected means I can share good news with you. We've signed in France, our first Reward Gateway contract. And so the Edenred adventure continues, continues beyond with engagement solutions. Well done, Arnold in the room. So governance serving Edenred. Firstly, the Board of Directors. Well, what are the governing principles of the Board? They're consistent with the [indiscernible]. We've got a Board of Directors comprising 12 members, 90% independent directors, 50% women or [indiscernible] governance, includes 3 committees, Audit and Risk, compensation, appointments and CSR Committee. And lastly, the Commitments Committee. Shown here are the photographs of our eminent members of our Board. I'll just focus on four of them. The first being Cedric Appert, whose employee representative director, was elected in 2020 for 4 years. Nathalie Balla, who come and introduce herself in a few moments. And this general meeting be an opportunity for you to vote on the ratification of our coaptation. Dominique D'Hinninn, whose term is up for renewal at this AGM. And lastly Graziella, who's been an employee representative director for 4 years, and I'm pleased to announced you that 48 hours ago, Graziella was unanimously reelected by the employees for another 2 years. Combination of the various directors' skill sets, one is an Edenred Director, supplying skills to promote Edenred, and we're very careful in choosing the right skills to continue to move forward with Edenred's destiny. In 2024, you're asked through resolution #4 to renew the term of office of Mr. Dominique D'Hinninn, who was Lead Director and Vice Chairman of the Board since the 7th of May 2020. There's no need to introduce Dominique. His qualities are remarkable. I'd like to call up Natalie and the ratification of our quotation is proposed to you under resolution #5. Natalie, who are you and let us discover how fortunate we are to have you on the Edenred Board.

Good morning. I'm delighted to be with you today. And Edenred, who am I after PhD in economics and finance from the university of [indiscernible] in Switzerland, I joined retail groups as a manager, the largest e-retailer in Germany. And in 2009, I was fortunate in joining PPR to Chair [indiscernible] that wasn't in great shape. And in 2014, I decided with Eric Cortel, my partner, and all the employees to take over [indiscernible] with a responsible, realistic, ambitious plan to transform the catalog company to an omnichannel platform in Europe that we achieved successfully. And in 2022, when we sold [indiscernible] to the Galleria Lafayette Group, [indiscernible] is continuing to grow. And so I'm delighted. I'd indeed be very pleased to join the Edenred Board, which is a very fine company, allowing the largest number to benefit from key benefits, in terms of what was mentioned regarding health. I think that probably covers it.

Thank you, Natalie, for devoting your time and expertise that are considerable to us. So the process for selecting directors follows five stages. We determine the skill sets. And with the help of consultants, we review candidacy, lengthy interviews and the candidates are shortlisted and proposed to the appointments Committee and the Board. The Board is sovereign in its decision to propose to the AGM. The group's directors were also very careful for employee directors in the case of Edenred. Graziella and Cedric are the two directors representing employees who are appointed by the Social Economic Committee of Edenred. And of course, gender equality is a major area of focus for us, and your Board includes 5 men and 5 women. So there's gender equality, and the governing bodies is something that we have made great progress within the group, 52% women and 48% men. Management bodies, we've grown from 37% -- from 21% to 37% last year. The rule is meritocracy, one moves forward on a merit basis. But of course, one develops diversity and gender equality and talent pools, well, quite naturally, this gender quality grows 21% to 37% over 6 years within management bodies. Your Board in 2023 was extremely active, as you can see 16 recurring matters, and also specific matters addressed. The takeaway here in these 16 matters, the group's strategy, risk control and assessing opportunities and also tracking the implementation of CSR policy, people-planet progress was the source of many hours of work and brainstorming sessions. We also have new matters addressed in 2023. Net Zero carbon by 2050. It's a very ambitious goal following SBTI, the most ambitious curve, which is 1.5 degrees. And so that exercised our attention fully, and also compliance with CSRD. This regulation is arriving. We need to be ready for first reporting in 2025. And so it requires a number of measures, skill sets and mobilizing talent within Edenred so that things go as smoothly as possible. And thanks to [indiscernible], I know that we are making good progress. Is there a dialogue between the Board of Directors and Executive Committee, it's ongoing and sustained every year. We have a strategy board meeting over 3 days, allows the Board to meet the teams over many sessions. We interact on the issues of topical importance and strategy to have this ongoing dialogue, and it's integrated in group process. Every new director has an onboarding process that's pretty powerful. And in fact, we have a high satisfaction rate on the ex co-participation reported in the Board's annual assessment. Your Board is assessed on an annual basis, self-assessed every 2 years and by an external assessor every 3 years. And so on ExCo dialogue, the scores are very good. Management succession process. It's far reaching, regular. We have every year a detailed review of top management succession plans that are discussed by the Board. We try and address all situations. Urgent situations also transition over time. And we also have a timescale for that. If you want to find out more, it's at Page 308 of our URD. Your Board, as I said, is assessed on an annual basis for 2 successive years by self assessment, then external assessment performed by a professional generally from a prime management consultant. 2023 was a year of self assessment on the basis of a questionnaire, in accordance with the recommendations of the FF [indiscernible] code, the score is very satisfactory, up versus the previous self assessment on a scale of 1 to 5. To give you an order of magnitude, we're between 4.5 and 5, and yet, it's a continuous improvement process. Of course, there are things that we can improve upon, and the two areas of improvement where the Boards asked me to work. The first is to provide regular feedback on group acquisitions and their integration. That's an area of improvement for us. And two, organize training sessions on technical topics and innovation in line with Edenred's strategy. We're in a digital business with fast-moving payment technology developments and a lot of new technologies. All of us as Board members, we need to move forward, understanding these technologies at the same pace, and we'll ensure that the technical training sessions are even more prominent. The Board has three committees, Audit and Risk Committee. Bernardo will come to that in a moment. Compensation, Appointments and CSR, Dominique will speak to that. Lastly, Commitments Committee, chaired by [indiscernible]. Any commitment to buy out a company of over EUR 50 million need to be approved by the Commitments Committee that submits its recommendation to the Board. The Commitments Committee comprises four members in addition to Jean Roman, Cedric Aperal, [indiscernible] and Philippe Vallee, all making their contribution to ensure the acquisition projects are good ideas and that integration happens as smoothly as possible. So much for the excellent governance of Edenred. Over to Bernardo Sanchez-Incera, who's the Chair of the Edenred Risk Committee.

Thank you, Bertrand, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders. My role today is to present to you what the Edenred Audit and Risk Committee has been doing in 2023. We have a committee that is made up of four members. You can see the photos on the screen. The committee met 4 times in 2023, with an overall attendance rate of 94%. The main duties of the committee in 2023 are related to the relevance and exactitude of the accounting rules applied working alongside our statutory auditors. We do this to make sure that the accounting information gives a clear and consistent view of the financial performance of the group, and of the business that it is running based on its strategic goals. On the screen, we have some of the major things that we've been doing in 2023. We had a number of meetings on looking at the accounting and financial data. This helped us make sure that they were of high quality. They gave a complete and exact view of the financial performance, and that the financial information that was presented and published was correct. The Audit and Risk Committee also, of course, handles risk, therefore, we handle risk that has been identified within the group. We do this using an important tool for the group, which is the group risk map. The group risk map is an overview of all of the risks that affect the group in all different fields, including CSR. The map gives us an overall view that changes over time of society, the group and its environment. Each identified risk then leads to an action plan that aims to minimize control and manage that risk. This is probably one of the major virtues of Edenred, and this in large part comes from our CEO. We identify problems and we sort them out. As you just heard from Julien a few minutes ago, we are particularly careful when it comes to training our employees, especially in fields related to compliance and ethics. We have a compulsory training course that any new employee must follow. And this is true for the Board members too, by the way. And the plan has been followed. I believe that the latest figures were between 88% to 94% of our headcount that has followed those courses. And the Audit Committee is here to make sure that the plan is being followed, and we do receive regular updates on that. Finally, during 2023, we were able to progress in our fight against money laundering. This is, of course, highly important and sensitive and the group has given itself cutting-edge tools to make sure that the transactions that are being carried out are compliant. Thank you for your attention. I'd now like to give the floor to Dominique D'Hinninn, the Chairman of the Compensation Appointment and CSR Committee.

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Just a few words on the way we work in some of our roles at the Compensation, Appointments in CSR Committee. The committee is made up of three members, and each of these three members bring their experience in a number of fields. The committee met 4 times in 2023. And our mission is related to, on the one side, any renewal or appointment to the Management Board's, preparing succession plans, compensation for corporate offices, so CEO and members of the Board, and also the incentive plan for employees. We also finally look at the CSR commitments taken by the company and the strategy that's being implemented to follow those. Here, we have a list of the number of things that we did in 2023. I am not going to read through the slide. One of the main tasks of the committee is to look at the compensation policy for our CEO. There are four principles that we apply for the compensation policy, and this has been the case for a number of years. First of all, continuity. It's important that the compensation structure remains unchanged over time. And seeing as this is a CEO and Chairman of the Board, we have been using the same structure since 2015. Secondly, of course, we have compliance in line with the applicable laws and the [indiscernible] code. Comparability is also important so the compensation package needs to be comparable to similar CAC 40 companies. And finally, it needs to reflect performance. This is, of course, a fundamental component, especially as the group, as you've seen in the numbers, is doing very well with performance that is well beyond that of other companies in the CAC 40 and the performance criteria up to -- go up to 82% of the compensation package. If we look at the compensation policy that is being put to your vote, this is [indiscernible], so for the coming financial year 2024. The compensation for our Chairman and CEO is based on a fixed compensation package of EUR 1.03 million. And then there is a variable component based on targets that are set each year. 120%, if all targets are achieved and can go up to 180% if they go beyond those targets, but also it could be zero if none of the targets are reached. There's also long-term compensation, which is the free allocation of performance shares. The number of performance shares that are given to the CEO can be reduced if they do not achieve the performance targets that are set, and this is calculated and measured over a 3-year period to take a longer time period into account. The long-term and performance components explain the shifts in compensation for our Chairman and CEO. We will be asking you to approve or not approve the compensation in an ex post capacity. So for last year, this compensation policy is based on exactly the same things that I mentioned previously for the ex-ante vote so EUR 1.03 million. No increases in that in 2023. And then due to the extraordinary financial performance of the group in 2023, the variable compensation component is nearer 180% than 120%. So we have annual variable compensation at EUR 1.849 million. And then long-term compensation with allocation of 53,000 shares for a value of EUR 2.587 million. This is in line with the compensation policy that you voted last year. It's just a result of that policy and those calculations, and it shows the excellent performance of the group in 2023. In line with applicable French law, we have for you a breakdown of the ratio of compensation for the CEO versus the average of employees in the group. So we have the French averages and the group averages. The ratios are relatively stable, although they have increased a little bit in 2023, due to the performance of the group and the presence of performance component in the compensation policy. And of course, that would increase more for him than for employees who are not incentivized in that way. This is to be viewed in the light of the results that we've already shared, net profit, EBITDA and revenue. Moving on to the next slide. This is for the Board of Directors. Once again, this will be an ex-post vote, so for the financial year 2023. There were a number of meetings that were carried out throughout the year. So we're looking at EUR 840,000 spread across the members of the Board, depending on the attendance rate of the board meetings, committee meetings and their actual physical presence. For the ex-ante vote, so for the 2024 policy, we are recommending that envelope goes up to EUR 1 million, up from EUR 840,000. And this is due to the desire to slightly increase the compensation packages for the members of the Board in 2024 onwards, and also gives us the ability to appoint an extra member to the Board. We have 12, including the employee representatives and our CEO. And we are recommending we increase the number of independent board members. So that is for all of the resolutions that we'll be -- being put to your vote this year and a lot of work from the committee went into these recommendations. Thank you for your patience on these very detailed and technical points.

Thank you very much, Dominique. I'd now like to give the floor to our statutory auditors. This is Guillaume Crunelle from Deloitte.

Ladies and gentlemen, members of the Board, on behalf of the statutory auditors for Edenred, Ernst & Young and Deloitte, I would like to report on our mission for 2023. Our aim was to have reasonable confidence that the corporate and annual accounts did not contain any significant anomalies. Both of our firms were involved with the company in France and abroad in all significant entities. We had international coordination and modalities that were set to make sure that we had significant information and enough information for our qualified opinion. 2023 was mainly marked with the major acquisition that we told you about earlier, and there were no other main changes that would be applicable under IFRS standards. Our approach and our study took into account the specifics of the group, field, regulations, risk, information systems and other internal control mechanisms. And with the agreement of the CEO, I would like to suggest that I don't read the entirety of the report as it is available in the documentation that has been made available to you, but rather to summarize three main things. First of all, the consolidated statements of the group. You can find this on Pages 64 to 68 of the universal registration document. There are three key matters for 2023 that are in that valuation of goodwill and intangible assets, recognition of debt /related to vouchers in circulation that need to be redeemed and valuation of provisions related to litigation claims and tax risks. Secondly, our report on the corporate accounts on Pages 136 to 139 of the URD. For the accounts, we had one key audit matter for the financial statements of the holding company, assessment of equity investments and related receivables. For each key matter on the consolidated and corporate accounts, we analyzed the major estimates put forward by management, the elasticity faced with other hypotheses and the overall quality. Our work also involved a specific study into publication of the financial annual report in compliance with the [indiscernible] standards. Overall, our opinion is unqualified for the consolidated accounts for Edenred and for the corporate accounts for the year. Thirdly, we also have drafted a number of reports, including reports that are put to your vote today, including our special report on party agreements. You can find this on Page 387 of the URD, and that will be the object of the 11th resolution. We'd like to remind you that we were not informed of any party agreements that needed to be put to the AGM this year in line with the 2L-235 Article of the Thomas French Commercial Code. And no other noteworthy agreements for the rest of the financial year. There are a number of reports that are being put to the AGM, Pages 385 and following. This is related to Resolution 16 to 21 and 23. We will be asking for your vote on this, and there are no further observations from us on these resolutions. Finally, as an independent third party, Deloitte has drafted a report on the consolidated extra -- nonfinancial, sorry, performance based on environmental and societal criteria as presented on pages 262 to 264 on the URD. Based on the procedures implemented, we have not identified any issues that would bring into question the reporting of nonfinancial performance, which is not being put to your vote today. Thank you for your attention.

Well, thank you for that, Guillaume. I suggest we now move to the Q&A session. So each shareholder being entitled to the preservation of his image, the shareholders who speak won't appear on the webcast, those who don't want their name to be disclosed may not necessarily give their name. So during the session, you can put your questions directly by raising your hand, ask for the microphone, the attendants present will hand the microphone to you. Once you've asked your question, I ask you to return the microphone waiting your answer. And please keep your questions short, it will help me. I'm always a bit talkative. So I need your assistance as to provide you with a concise answers. In addition to the regulations, the answers given by the Board to written questions were published on the company's website under General Meeting. In order to promote discussion with you, shareholders present in the room, I suggest that we don't revert to those written questions, which were partially answered. Today's presentation focused on sustainable development, climate by diversity or share buybacks. So let's begin the Q&A session. First question, please.

I'm [indiscernible]. I've got a question on ESG. You're committed on Scopes 1, 2 and 3A on to in your company is pretty symbolic essentially 3A. So do you have the proportion between 3A and what lies behind it that we don't mention. Second question, I was quite convinced by your explanation on Italy. There's EUR 20 million at stake. Where are they in the financial statements? Because if they've already been included in the accounts, we have some pleasant surprise in the offering because they could be reintegrated. And yes, for the share price, I think it was the [indiscernible] broker who really trained his sites on you by saying you had the problem in Italy. And what else was, oh, yes, the rival of [indiscernible]. Well, so I think in the share price, so you went down. That's a bit contrary to what you showed us. So could you give us some kind of positive information?

Well, thank you, sir, for your three questions. So I'll talk to you about the share price and maybe Julien can address the EUR 20 million in Italy and [indiscernible] on Scopes 1, 2, 3A. So on our share price performance, well, firstly, as I explained, the share price has held up very well over 8 years with time [indiscernible] outperforming. This time, we're probably frustrated like as you are by what we're currently going through. We're very confident in the fact that the French uncertainty will be removed by Madam Minister, digitalization, excellent thing and the reform, I think, [indiscernible] in the right direction for all players and the leader Edenred because Madam Minister has constantly said we want to strengthen the scheme and the restaurant voucher in France is only used by -- the restaurant voucher is only used by 25% of employees. We're very often in around 50%, 60%. There's a lot to be done to grow this market in France, this social benefit. So this first uncertainty will be lifted and investors, the most skeptical, will realize how much this case is true in France. There's greater penetration to be achieved. It's a system that is hailed, but as it's regulated, sometimes the thinking process is on the regulation. It's political, legislative pace that isn't that of the stock market. But once it is -- it takes off, it gives a boost. On Jefferies, the takeaway really is it, 19 analysts follow us, there are 14 who are favoring buy and the target price is at EUR 63. So I think it's above all that, the takeaway here, and you've got a Jefferies, an independent analyst, who has a business case has just entered the market. When you enter the market, it's always probably easier to enter with a different view from the others. It's down to us to convince over time, it's not going to happen overnight to lastingly convince, explain so that this gentleman comes over to our side. Berenberg, they were sell at a highly discounted price versus Edenred. Berenberg is a buy at EUR 67. So there's nothing impossible if we remain valiant. It's up to us to convince the unconvinced. Final point on that is that with a very sound company, low leverage, generating cash flow, double-digit growth for the eighth consecutive quarter up over 20%, investing every cent of a euro to prepare the future. As you've seen, I think that all these efforts will end up by paying off. Put differently, the market's always right, but not every day. It's down to us to leave that zone as soon as possible. For the EUR 20 million of this Italian adventure, Julien.

So I mentioned during my intervention, the fact that the EUR 20 million or an estimate made by the Italian prosecutor, who looked at the case and represents the total revenue generated by the tender in question or not what we made. And so the prosecutor was trying to identify the sum that we made. So that EUR 20 million number is overestimated in terms of our risk. Secondly, we're in the pre-trial phase and the investigation phase. It's the view of the prosecutor. We hasn't gone to court. We're going to enter that of a trial phase. We're going to be able to defend ourselves. So this amount isn't provisioned in our accounts, and that for two reasons. The first reason is the reason I [indiscernible]. Secondly, the event occurred in February and the amount that we're talking about of EUR 20 million, is not significant in terms of the EBITDA generated during the course of 2023, because we're talking about EUR 1.3 billion. We're going to enter the process that probably going to last for some 2 years. And as I said, we'll defend our rights and see how the case is judged and on the basis of decisions by the judiciary, how we treat that in our accounts. So no good surprises on the EUR 20 million already provisioned. It's up to us to generate some good surprises on the operational front by expanding Edenred. ESG scopes 1, 2, 3A, perhaps [Flore], you could answer that.

Yes. So Edenred is disclosing the ESG GHG Protocol Scopes 1 and 2. So our direct emissions represent less than 8% group emissions where, of course, where we've committed to cut our emissions. We're also working on Scope 3. That's all the indirect emissions, of course. Our zero net carbon goal on the SBTI by 2050 covers the full scope of direct Scopes 1 and 2, but also Scope 3 in order to genuinely be a solution provider across our value chain on our common footprint. Specifically, on the use of our products, as I said, we want to support the transition model of our customers. That's how we presented. Move for Good, which over and above our direct value chain also supports our customers in their own carbon reduction plans, in particular on mobility matters by bioethanol or e-solutions, but also ecodriving conditions and offsetting remaining emissions, which means that, today, we're committed on this ambitious target of zero net carbon by 2050. And a final point, we need your help to reduce carbon emissions in absolute terms. When you're a group growing strongly, already when you're a group that's growing moderately, it's not easy to achieve. When you're a group growing strongly, such as us, it's an even bigger challenge. But in Edenred, we don't shy away from challenges, we're going to proceed rigorously and stringently. Why? Because we want to do that. It's our generation. And decarbonization is possible. And so as it's possible, and it's the challenge of our generation, we'll do it.

Next question. Yes?

Good morning, Mr. Chairman of the Board. Thank you for taking my question. I'd like to come back to actually the question asked by the previous person. There seems to be a mismatch between your 30% performance over 2023. And last year, at the last AGM, where you said we should buy, I bought at 61 and now we're at 44. So you have lost 15% in your share price since the 15th of January. It seems very difficult to me to accept this situation. I believe there's a real contradiction in terms between your performance and the share price that is currently the situation. Looking back at the share price, we're basically back down to 2019 and it's now 2024. So if you could please get us back on track, ASAP.

Madam, I would like to thank you for that comment, and thank you for your motivating words. As you said, yes, there is a contradiction at play here. The strong growth that we are generating is profitable and sustainable because we're also reinvesting every penny into the future, and that doesn't make sense with a share price that is EUR 44, EUR 45, and it's kind of pushing up to EUR 46 right now. So we are moving up a little bit. But it's time for the French uncertainty to dissipate. And in fact, the concerns, the pessimism was overblown, but that's just how the markets behave sometimes. We need to continue to teach people about what's going on in Italy. We need to continue to explain it. And that's just business as usual, really. And as a captain of the ship, I am confident in the future. I see better weather in the future. And I'm sure that we will be recognized for our excellent financial and nonfinancial performance. I agree with your frustration. I'm a shareholder as well. So I'm in the same boat as you are. And you can trust that we will all work together tirelessly to break through this plateau. And it is going to take some patience. The cogs of the market sometimes turn at a different speed than the cogs of business. Gentlemen there.

Good morning. Indeed better days are to come. My question is what was the organizational and financial impact of entering the CAC 40? Generally, it's negative. What is the risk of the Edenred platforms being hacked? And what are you doing against that? And third question, what about ForEx, especially the dollar situation and your coverage of the depreciation of the Turkish lira, seeing as you have a company that is involved in Turkey. I'm a shareholder, and I'm not too worried about the future.

Thank you very much for your question and also for your encouraging words. Let's start with the coverage, Julien.

Okay. So for currency coverage, as you know, we work in 45 different countries, and we apply a principle, which is that the money that comes through our platform is then going to be paid back into the local economy. So the money that's generated in a country never leaves that country. And with the exception of maybe consolidating accounts, but then the money doesn't actually leave and also when we pay dividend. So in the example that you've given, every payment that's made in the Turkish lira remains in Turkey. So there's no ForEx risk related to those reimbursements. And this is true in Brazil and Mexico and the U.K. In every country, that money stays in the country. As to coverage, we only cover a single thing at Edenred, which is the dividend payment. And we cover this because we tried to pay dividends as late as possible in the year when dividends come from countries with high interest rates. For example, you know that in Brazil, we have interest rates that are higher than 10%. So we leave the money in Brazil as long as possible, and then we cover that exchange rate when we believe that the rate -- the spot price of the real makes sense to withdraw. That's how we manage ForEx risk, which is a moderate ForEx risk because it really is just dividend payment. Regarding your second question on hacking. That's an excellent question. Let me give you a couple of numbers. If you look at Edenred as a platform, we have EUR 100 billion that flows through that platform every year. Out of those EUR 100 billion, that EUR 60 billion is just in and out, about EUR 40 billion is the amount that we handle as issuers and owners. These volumes are very high, and they're going up every year. Therefore, our ability to have strong systems on the platform that are highly resilient to cyber terrorists is extremely important to us. So I presented the technological investment, EUR 480 million, which is up 20% versus the previous year. Out of this EUR 480 million, 10% of that is directly allocated to compliance and cybersecurity. That means that we're consistently and tirelessly investing on getting more people, first of all, because our operations are getting bigger. And we're investing in information systems that enable us to have real-time monitoring of all of the transactions and to secure them, and updating, of course, regularly as well. That means that when you use the Edenred app, there are now very sophisticated systems on that app that are way more sophisticated than they would have been last year, the year before and the year before that. So we're securing things, but also making sure that usage is still easy for our users. There are some compromises. There are some trade-offs to be made, but we always go on the side of caution and security even if that means sometimes making our usability a little bit less good. Is there a hacking risk at Edenred? Yes, of course, there is. That risk has been identified and is heavily weighted in our matrix. And that means that it is a constant source of attention for management and constant effort, making sure that we are always updated as a company that works in 45 different countries. That means that we have very strict procedures to make sure that cyber terrorists are always kept well away from our vault. You also asked about the impact of our listing on the CAC 40. Now it's true that when you enter the CAC 40, there's more limelight on you. That means that compliance under Philippe has been strengthened. I believe that this is something that we would have done anyway, but entering the CAC 40 kind of gave us that initial impetus. We've also strengthened our financial communication because now we're dealing with investors that are more and more international and more sophisticated. And we're entering indexes that require more sophisticated financial communication and also more in volume. You've seen the number of road shows, the number of investors that we met with went up in 2023 versus 2022. There you go, in a nutshell, that is what we've done, more compliance and outside communication that has increased in quality and in volume.

Okay. In that case, let's continue on. Gentleman there in front of me. Good morning.

On the topic of the share price, you haven't specified the impact of the spin-off of Sodexo. I would like to know whether that valuation has gone down and whether there are more investors that are going to change their position based on the spin-off and whether there are more analysts working on that. The Anglo-Saxon world, the investing world across the U.K. and the U.S. is extremely digital. The French-speaking world isn't really as digital when it comes to the investment culture. People want those coupons. They want their paper vouchers. So are we talking more fintech competitors, more Sodexo-like competitors? What's going on there? What are -- what's the competitive landscape like? And what's going on in the English-speaking world as it's more digital.

Well, first of all, on the spin-off of the employee benefits business for Sodexo, that was spun off a couple of months ago. If you look at the valuation multiples, they are slightly lower than Edenred. That means that there is a leadership bonus, Edenred basically being twice as large as Flexi and Edenred's EBITDA is higher than their revenue. So there is a size benefit, and we've seen that in our growth over the last 8 years. 8 years ago, Sodexo was about the same size as [ Red ] Edenred. And that explains the valuation multiples. Are people playing the arbitrage game? Maybe, but if you look at the share price, I think that is negligible. I believe that the expectation for regulation in France is probably the main contributor to the share price plateau that we're experiencing right now, although we are breaking through that right now. As you know, it's -- you go down using the elevator, but you have to climb the stairs back up. There will probably be arbitrage because the [ Flexi ] comparison base is smaller than ours and also probably because the EBITDA margins over there is about 5 percentage points lower than us. So their potential to improve might be seen as higher. It's up to us through our investment and our strong growth to continue to pull new investors along with us. For the English-speaking world, it's something that's very important for us. First of all, it deserves to be said, revenue in France is 16% of the total and the English-speaking world from our shareholder and business perspectives is really what we work on every day. As to whether the entire world has digital employee benefits, the answer is yes. France is actually right behind the pack on digitization. Restaurant vouchers are about 60% digital in France. We are 75% digital at Edenred, which means that there's still 40% of people to switch over to digital restaurant vouchers. And those government measures are going to increase that, and it's excellent news for digital leaders such as us. Elsewhere around the world, most solutions are digital, and that's true of the English-speaking world. Latin language-speaking world, Latin America, Brazil, we're seeing digital innovation forces at play that really are quite impressive. It actually is France that's behind the rest of the world. That's the first thing. Secondly, all of our products are digital. There is no Edenred product coming out that isn't 100% digital, and you saw that through the videos that we presented to you. So we are perfectly ready to face tomorrow's world. And if we weren't, we probably wouldn't be experiencing the kind of growth that we've seen in 2023 and in the first half of 2024. And our digital skill set is spread around the world in our Edenred digital centers in Romania, in France and in Mexico, and we're currently considering opening up a fourth digital center to draw on the digital resources there. On the competitive landscape, we have local, regional and global competition. Digital toll paying in Brazil, for example, I'm sure that you've probably never heard of our competitors over there. There's -- they're called [ SIMBA ], for example. That's a Brazilian player, or [indiscernible] is a Brazilian player over there. So for each of these programs in each country, we have local competition. And that is where our worldwide presence and our economies of scale help us invest in more digital, in more sales, in more marketing. We have regional competition as well, but there's less of it because regional platforms aren't that present. And in global competition, our main worldwide competitor for employee benefits is [ Plug Seed ]. We've already mentioned that. For mobility, we're probably looking at WEX and FLEETCOR in the U.S., and DKV, which is German [ Euro ] in the Czech Republic and euro [indiscernible] Polish and Belarus, Russian. These are regional or local players that we deal with, and that depends on the business line. Suffice to say that Edenred is in a competitive environment that is global in nature, but that is very quickly broken down into local regional and global playing fields. And we have about 10 competitors in each situation, and our platforms are doing pretty well in generating growth.

Thank you for your questions. So I'm going to follow the attendance. So a question from over there, please.