Accor SA (AC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and welcome to the Accor Q1 2025 Revenue Conference Call. Please note this call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] [Presentation]

Apologies. It's a little fast, but it certainly has pace and rhythm. I'll be dwelling on this in my presentation later on as will Martine, when she talks about the financial results, and of course, we'll have plenty of opportunities during the Q&A session. I'm sure we have ample opportunity to raise some of the points you saw on the video. So let me begin asking Besma to begin with the legal formalities and to walk us through what's going to happen in the next 2 hours.

Thank you, Sébastien. Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, good morning, and welcome to this combined general meeting. I'm going to begin with the legal formalities beginning with the bureau, which will be comprised of Sébastien Bazin, who will chair the AGM. Ugo Arzani, representing Qatar Investment Authority and Tarek Fontan representing Kingdom Hotels, Europe Limited. [indiscernible] will be today's tellers. They represent either by what they own themselves, the number of what they have, they're accepted to act as tellers. I will be acting as Secretary for today's AGM. As every year, this AGM will be webcast. It will also be available on replay on our website. As Sébastien said, the group will devote the last 30 minutes of today's AGM to a Q&A session and to questions submitted by shareholders before the AGM as well as questions driving directly via a platform available for those of you following the webcast. A notice of meeting was published in due course, respectively, on the 16th of April and 7th of May '25. A notice of meeting also published in a legal gazette on the 7th of May '25. On the desk here, we have at your disposal, all the documents and reports put before today's AGM or provided for by law. Insofar as they've been at the disposal of shareholders before the general meeting, we propose that we dispense the bureau from reading them. Documents that shareholders were entitled to have also been at your disposal at the head office of the company or sent to shareholders who requested them. They're also available on the desk here. As for the attendance sheet, it's currently being counted, but we know as of now that over 1/4 of the shares comprising the share capital are represented as a result of which today's AGM can duly conduct its business. I also propose that we dispense the bureau from reading the full agenda because you've already been sent this agenda. In a few seconds, I'll be talking to you about the resolutions put before you for approval. I should clarify that there have been no additional resolutions submitted for approval for today's agenda. Thank you for your attention.

Thank you, Besma. I'm now going to give the floor to our Chief Financial Officer, the lovely Martine Gerow, if you would please take us through the accounts.

Good morning. Thank you, Sébastien. Good morning to one and all. I'm very pleased to comment at the group's performance in 2024. Let's begin with the main highlights. After a sharp pickup in 2023, 2024 once again saw solid growth, solid of growth of our sales and income. Very solid RevPAR in the fourth quarter of 24%, was up 5.8% on a like-for-like basis, again, by comparison with fourth quarter of '23. That was higher than anticipated. Over the year, growth was also very strong, resilient with annual RevPAR growth of 5.7%, which is higher than the guidance we gave of between 4% and 5%. Our network of hotels also expanded by 3.5%, in-line with the guidance of between 3% and 4% for 2024. This is an increase of 1 percentage point from a comparison with the growth of the network in 2023. So our portfolio of hotels has expanded once again. The pipeline increased by 3.8% in volume with a value increase that reached a record level. Strong dynamics led once again to good financial performance. The group's revenue rose to EUR 5.6 billion, up 11% on fiscal '23. The revenue of Managed & Franchised hotels, M&F as we call them, was up 7% to EUR 1.39 billion. The margin also increased. Recurring EBIT rose to EUR 1.12 billion. Operating margin of M&F also rose by 1 percentage point. The group's recurring free cash flow was up 3% to EUR 614 million. That is the equivalent of a cash conversion rate of 55% of recurring EBIT. Pretax profits of EUR 850 million was up 25%, thanks to the big improvement in entities account for the equity method, substantial capital gains on the disposal of AccorInvest. The income tax also increased quite substantially because of the tax basis and the taxes we activated. This has led the net result to decline by 4% at EUR 610 million. Diluted earnings per share rose 5%, thanks to the share buyback program. In 2024, we continued to reinforce the group's balance sheet by means of several transactions summed up on this slide. This enabled us to extend the average maturity of our debt with an average cost of debt stable at 2.5%. As you can see on the right-hand side, the return to shareholders has remained high within 2024, an annual return of 7.5%, 3.1% in the form of dividend and 4.4% in the form of share buybacks. That is a total of EUR 686 million return to shareholders in 2024. As in 2023, we achieved and even exceeded our guidance for 2024. Our results were in line with the guidance we gave at the Investor Day in June. And in the case of EBITDA, we were at the top end of the bracket. We're also confident about our ability to maintain a strong dynamics in the medium-term and to reach the guidance given at the Investor Day, and that are now summed up here on the right-hand column. I now propose to review the main highlights of the first quarter of 2025. Revenue rose, as you can see, in a macroeconomic and geopolitical context that was somewhat turbulent. We continued our growth dynamics, thanks to the diversification of our portfolio, both in terms of segments in terms of geography, but Sébastien will tell you more about that. RevPAR in the first quarter rose 5%, once again on a like-for-like basis. That is over the first quarter of '24. So growth is still strong. The network expanded by 2.7% over sliding 12 months, and the pipeline grew by 4.9%, so accelerating once again, this is on a sliding 12-month basis. Now these 2 growth levers have enabled Accor to post revenue growth of 9.2% in the first quarter of this year. We are also strengthening our position in buoyant markets with acquisitions in Mexico, Royal Holiday Group with 3,200 rooms, Mexico being the fifth biggest tourist market in the world, but also a top rate partnership in India, another market with very high growth both internally and internationally. We also benefited from conducive market rates earlier in the year to make a bond issue -- an 8-year bond issue for EUR 600 million. Finally, we completed the first share buyback tranche for EUR 200 million ending on the 28th of May last year. If we now look at our performance by region and by division. Now RevPAR for the 2 divisions is up. Stronger growth maybe in Luxury & Lifestyle, which is less sensitive to the economic situation. Premium and mid-scale and economy increased its RevPAR by 3.4%, largely thanks to a price component with contrasting performance by region. Europe, as you can see, posted weaker growth, particularly in Northern Europe. Counter effect was not as good on a beneficial in France and the trade fairs were not as favorable in Germany. That said, in April, at the start of the second quarter, we found that the growth dynamics are stronger in Europe than in the first quarter. Middle East and APAC, up 4.6% despite the weakening of demand in China. If we factor China out, the Middle East and the Pacific Asia would have risen 8%. The Americas continued to post double-digit growth as was the case in the fourth quarter of '24. As for Luxury & Lifestyle, RevPAR grew by 8.3%, driven by prices in occupancy rates with good dynamics in both segments, namely Luxury & Lifestyle. The combination of good performance in the keeping of our promises, that combination is risen share price which since this time last year, the 31st of May last year has risen by 17%. So the share price up 17% after growth of 24% announced at our last AGM. As you can see, the CAC 40 dropped 2% over the same period. Now in pursuit of our dividend payout policy, which is to pay out 50% of the group's recurring cash flow, we will be proposing for 2025 a payout in respect of 2024 on the payout of a dividend of EUR 1.26 per share. That's up 7% of last year. Let me now give the floor back to Sébastien.

Thank you. Thanks, Martine. So let's take a higher view of things, not that it wasn't the case previously, but let's extricate ourselves from the numbers. Okay. We've seen this slide every year. And what you saw is actually what's on left. The key figure was 1.459 billion international travelers just prior to COVID, colossal number, that's normally growing between 2% and 5% per annum. That's been the case for 30 years. You saw the sharp drop of 1 billion in visitors for reasons known. We know that by the end of the year. Hopefully, by the end of summer, the months ahead of time will come back to 1.5 billion international travelers to grow far more. Why? Our industries are pretty simple to read, in fact, it's not that difficult to predict, and so we were able to answer the question why are we this industry? The answer is that we depend on 3 growth drivers. As long as the 3 growth engines are firing on all cylinders, we have no worries about the industry itself, then we have to ask ourselves questions about what geography, with what organization, but the 3 growth drivers are the following. The first, fairly simple to remember, have we or not within the global population growth of that population year after year, the number yesterday, one-off are from 8.3 billion people on this planet over the next 5, 10 years will continue to grow in terms of global demographics. Second number. Within that global population, do we have or not a growth of what we call the middle-class people who've acquired through their job, their skills enough to put money aside to travel? Answer is obviously, yes, and it varies according to the geographies, it's very strong, notably in India. More about that later. And the third growth driver do we have means of transportation? Are they growing? Are they more efficient, year after year? We're talking about airlines, airports trains or cars. The answer is an obvious yes. So going forward, we'll see a growth in the number of travelers. Number of travelers, most important, domestic, 80% are hotels worldwide filled with people who live less than 2, 3 hours away. 20% international travelers will have growth between 3% and 5% or likelihood. It won't be uniform, but worldwide. Second question, since we know the industry is faring well, what geography need we accentuate or present? Here, you have something broadly dissimilar on the right-hand chart that we didn't have previously. You see the region growing the most in terms of level versus 2019 is Middle East. Why? It's a nascent destination, clear cited governments have the wherewithal is growing strongly, Saudi Arabia, Qatar or in the U.A.E. Africa is growing well. Notably, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa is beginning to build airports and benefiting the economic situation. Europe is almost in the dry dock, but be careful Northern Europe between minus 1 and 0. Not the case in Southern Europe, faring well. Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal. Americas, minus 3% weak. We should be able to return to positive growth over the next 12 months. Strong growth in LatAm versus North America. ASPAC, it's a bit deceptive here. I should have made this one clear. It's above all China that's on the decline in other aspect countries, notably Indonesia, Philippines, Southeast Asia faring very well. So that broadly the picture. Who are we? Where is Accor? Sorry, this very crowded chart, very much an eye chart. Region, 5, 6 regions in this slide, we've separated China from ASPAC deliberately. First line, what's our current situation? That's to say number of hotels or number of rooms, and the fee is actually revenue. See that U.S., North America only represent 4% of Accor rooms, it's very little. Having said that, they represent 12% of Accor Group revenue shows that the American business model. No surprise, our American peers are faring well. The RevPAR is highest. You see the pipeline, what we're currently signing in developing is in proportion where unfortunately, what we've done. It's actually only 3%, I'd like us to grow faster, but it's the most competitive market than where you have five American players dominating 80% of the market. Latin America, not hugely important for the group even if been leader for a long time. We have 5% of revenue, 3% of future revenue. What we need to look at closely here are the 3 geographies on the right. You see that China 4% of the current pipe will move to a quarter going forward. That's where we're opening 1/4 of hotels going forward. ASPAC, 21%, that will grow to 28% Middle East 11%, 30% of the pipe. When you add up, the 3 hotel opening numbers over the next, 66% of hotels over the next 3 years to be opened will be in China, ASPAC or Middle East. That's good news. That's where growth is the strongest. That's where Accor's focused. It's a bulk of its efforts for 10 years. Now we're not going to leave aside here Africa. We'll continue 1/4 hotels, 26% will be in Europe and North Africa. We also want to show you a few charts. Not necessarily the most iconic, but those are the ones we wanted to show you. You got the Agadir Sofitel. You got the Benin Cotonou Sofitel, great hotel. The Sofitel Raffles, Luxury & Lifestyle. Mama Shelter in Nice, go there this weekend, and 24 hours at Copenhagen, a new hotel signed a few months ago in Long Beach, L.A. A new Fairmont, wonderful building dating back to the 1920s. For PME, Premium Mid-scale Economy. You've got handwritten, that's a new collection brand. It's a soft brand, a brand that we can stick on the existing hotels to be distributed by Accor and have handwritten my name devised. I think Mor came up with our Swiss hotel, Slovakia, you've got the Grand Mercure in China, ibis Styles, Australia. You've got another handwritten in Indonesia on the beach and Novotel in the Congo. You saw in the video, but unfortunately, it was very fast. We opened up almost 300 new hotels in 2024. There's just a dozen here of the 300. We'll probably open more, further 300 hotels in '25 and an additional 300 in '26. That's the famous pipeline I mentioned 3 minutes ago. Now you may not have seen this coming into the building this morning. I hope you didn't miss the flowers. There's florist here, been here for some months. For those of you who are so kind to use their device. When you hand in your device, you'll receive a bunch of roses. And above the florist, there's a sentence in red or yellow, depending on the color of the day, which really the purpose, the purpose the raison d'etre what brings us together really is to understand and to ask ourselves a simple question. We're present in 120 country, close on 360,000 employees. We do a service business to welcome and look after others in different cultures, different countries with different brands. We asked ourselves a question, what do we have in common? Well, this sentence is the result of 56,000 inputs entered by people who wanted to express what they felt about belonging to the group. So I'm going to read it slowly on the next slide. Pioneer artisans of responsible hospitality. We promote dialogue between cultures with passion and generosity. Every word counts. And that's why we have rolled it out into 4 pillars. Firstly, art of hospitality. We remain an artisan. It's a job that changes every day where we improve every day number of unexpected things can happen about 50 unexpected events that we need to address. The art of hospitality, the sentence but if I got to pick 4 out of 8. Engagement is the first in which we ask our 360,000 artisans to draw on their personality, their creativity, curiosity and to ask without having to answer a question without referring to one -- to a customer wants to serve very important to empower our people and want to be empowered. Secondly, responsible hospitality. There's a paradox in what we do is that we know each in every time we open a hotel in the group, we have an energy footprint. We're going to consume electricity, water, many other things besides very often in places in which where they're short of electricity, water and other essentials. So the second sentence here is that we strive to make every day contribution to society in the environment. Simple to write, more difficult to deliver. Before we open a hotel somewhere deprived of a few resources, how we show that the local community will want to welcome us with passion because we give them far more than we take from them. If we take something from them, we're going to take as little as possible and raise it by going net zero. I'll tell you how we're going to measure all that. Dialogue between culture, strong commitment. Every day, we strive to promote interculturality. I think that's the way it's written. Never mind. This idea of accepting a different language, accepting different privileges, education. And so the more these cultures interact better, they get to know one other personally. I think it's probably the best medicine against all the walls, if we could meet in listen to one another. Passion and generosity this question of equity equal opportunities, hugely important, especially in the group, as you'll see in a moment, is hiring many people per year. Social environmental goals. First thing to be done. I mentioned water earlier. Are we cable in measuring it? Once you can measure it, can we reduce the intensity of consumption? We pledged to find 80% of our hotels in the world must have a measure that we can track over time. We've reached 92% last year. Wasn't easy because in many countries, there are no water meters. Secondly, franchise hotels were a bit further away. We planned to impose only 50% of our franchised hotels have to have the same metrics. We managed to get over 1/3, 2/3, 60% eco-certified criteria imposed by global and European organizations. Here, again, the target was 30%. We're at 36%, and we'll go far further to be north of 80% of all our hotels worldwide have to have this hallmark. Eco certification are prime important for the younger generation. 70% of youngsters, below the age of 30, when they pick our hotel destination, they look at the specific commitments of the hotel in terms of environment and social. Diversity inclusion. The target was 39% of male-female diversity. We're close. With all decisions, I think, will go well beyond 39%. Heartist Culture. This word was introduced 8 or 9 years back. It's the contraction of two english words. The first is the heart and the second is to be an artist. And so we conflated the two words to become Heartist. We have 360,000 people were working under an Accor hotel banner. That's colossal. What's even more striking is that we need to hire over 110,000 new people a year. Why? Because 20% of our existing people leave because they want to do another job, maybe another brand or at least to recover their freedom. That's about 72,000 people to be hired. Since we're opening 300 hotels a year, we need an additional 50,000 for the hotels. You add the two, you're close to 111,000. What's great about this ability to attract talent is that 2/3 of these people. And it's better done than said 2/3 haven't had the privilege that I've had and therefore, never had this opportunity to have a secondary education. A very few have completed their higher education, 2/3 have never worked before. So it's a school of life and we hire every year 70,000, 80,000 people who've never worked before and have a robust educational baggage. That's why many of them tend to leave after 3, 4, 5 years because they've got the self confidence, the self-belief to move to more adventures. 80% of Heartists undergo training if only to offset what their educational shortcomings. To put all that in place, we're one of the biggest partners worldwide for schools or universities with 250 partnerships across countries. Now once we've defined who we are, what our purpose is that we can reach out to a number of people, well, we look at what we can do. We have the privilege to have a job who are in the Accor environment. So we put in place a year ago with the social care and impact team and so we put in place volunteering program to all our people can you give us donate an hour, a day. 4 days of your time to programs, volunteer programs that you'll contribute to share who you are and what you've learned with your close friends and relatives on two themes. We tried to be as focused as possible. One is quite legitimate is social mobility and the second one is a shelter and protection especially for young stores and women. We put a platform to guide everyone we need to supply some information. After barely a few months, we already have 70% Heartists and 30% of hotel owners who pledged to sign up to be available on the platform, the initial results, as you've seen in the head offices, Paris, London, Germany, 53% of employees signed up in the main Global Capital is listed here. Those who've done it, 97% are absolutely delighted, which leads me to believe they'll return year after year. What is surprise me and what pleases me now and is a diversity of missions, 1,800 missions available worldwide on the platform with 360 different associations. So you can understand how it works. You go on the Accor website, single click, you can pick your topic, your social mobility, shelter, protection, other associations or initiatives. So that's what was put in place. I congratulate all those who contributed to this effort to define the program. Let me tell you that is probably one of the differentiating factors versus our peers. Accor recognized, especially since COVID. And as you know, thanks to you all. We are able to set up a fund, an endowment fund with the Heartists Foundation, we're able to donate to 180,000 people worldwide over EUR 37 million people for want of food, access to health care, we're able to have that the past 4, 5 years. Accor recognize probably the only group, the group in which the human factor makes a difference and acceptance of various cultures and privilege as of what I wish to say. Back to Besma who's going to talk to you about governance.

Thank you, Sébastien. We're going to begin with the composition of the Board of Directors. In 2024, the Board was comprised of 13 Directors, including 2 ladies, representing the employees. That's 64% of independent directors and 55% of the directors were women. The software ventures being factored out of this calculation. This year will be asking you to reelect Asma Abdulrahman Al-Khulaif, Ugo Arzani, Hélène Auriol-Potier, Qionger Jiang, Nicolas Sarkozy, Isabelle Simon and Sarmad Zok. Just to remind you the Board as on the recommendation of the Nominations and and Compensation Committee has assigned to appoint Isabelle Simon as a lead independent Director to replace Iris Knobloch, counting from today's Annual General Meeting and subject to a reelection by the shareholders. You are also being asked to reelect Sébastien Bazin. His term of office was to end in the next year's AGM. Finally, the Board of Directors has decided to ask you to elect Katherine Fleming as an independent Director of the company. As Katherine can't attend today, she still wanted to speak to you by video.

Good morning, everybody. My name is Katherine, Elizabeth Fleming, and I am Chief Executive Officer and Chair of the J. Paul Getty Trust based in Los Angeles. This is quite a huge institution that supports the world of art. We have 2 museums, amusement center, a research center, a preservation center and a foundation. By way of my work, I am constantly traveling. I live in New York between New York, Los Angeles, Paris and Athens. What that means is that I live either in a hotel or in a plane. I love everything that has to do with the world of art, culture, the human imagination and the future. I really apologize for being unable to be with you today, but I hope that with this short video, you will have become the opportunity to know a little bit more about me. Thank you.

Thank you. I'd like to add a word or two to what Katherine has just said. Katherine was in Los Angeles, but I wanted to say these few words in French. Katherine Flemming is quite an extraordinary woman. She has travel nationality, American, as you can hear from her accent. She's also British and Greek. She has spent part of a childhood in Greece. She has a number of PhDs and other university qualification. She was dean of one of the largest universities in New York between 2016 and 2022, managing a budget of $6 billion in New York. She was asked to join John Paul Getty, the trust, which is probably the biggest trust in the world in the field of the arts foundation with the presence in 120 countries, 1,400 people, $9 billion. This is the foundation that supports innovation and research and culture in a lot of underprivileged countries. She told us that she would be delighted to join a European Board of Directors, particularly as we are involved with the underprivileged if this can help particularly, I suppose, we have a good understanding of the future. In innovation and research, she's very much an expert in artificial intelligence, but her triple nationality role as an academic or knowledge of Southern Europe, her access to the world of art are such that in the very near future, possibly 50% of the people traveling in our hotels will be seeking experiences. The experience is very often the reason people come back. So it's absolutely essential to have somebody with an international culture, with a good understanding of the world for having traveled extensively and who accept to put her knowledge, experience at our disposal. To the fact that she speaks at least 4 languages, I think you'll be surprised by how energetic she is because she is in Paris 3 to 4 days a month. So you'll see alongside us. We hope you will be very present at our Board meeting. We are very, very happy that she chose Accor over quite a number of other companies and we've been delighted to have her.

Thank you, Sébastien. Well, after today's AGM and subject to the approval of the resolution, the number of directors will have increased to 14, including 2 ladies represent the employees, the proportion of Independent Director 58% and the same for the proportion of women. I propose now to move on to talk about the Board's committees. First of all, the Board itself, in 2024, the Board met 12 times, the attendance rate was an average of 88%. At the Board meetings, the Board in particular authorized the partial contribution of assets from luxury to our subsidiary, Accor Luxury & Lifestyle SAS that you approved in our last AGM. We also set up a process for the drive analysis information on sustainability and authorize a buyback of a block of shares from a minority of shareholders. Now as you know, the Board has 5 special socialized committees. First of all, audit, compliance and risks, which meant 4 times and average attendance on rate of 58%. In particular, this committee prepared the Board of Directors work in examining the annual and half yearly accounts, but also the sustainability report, the materiality and the whole analysis of information on sustainability, also the measures taken by the company in the field of cybersecurity and personal data protection. The Commitments Committee, which were open to all directors met twice in 2024 with an attendance rate of 75%. This committee examined the various proposals in the field of acquisitions and disposals. The International Strategy Committee discussed geopolitical, international issues and the impact on the group's activities. The attendance rate was 100%. The ESG Committee met 4 times in 2024. The average attendance rate was 88%. This committee examined in recommended CSR objectives and the annual variable and Long-term compensation of the CEO and also examined the sustainability report and discussed the group's CSO strategy. Finally, the Nominations and Compensation Committee, which met 3 times in 2024, an average attendance rate of 95%. Let me now give the floor to Bruno Pavlovsky, the Chair of the Nominations and Compensation Committee to report to you on the work of his committee. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, good morning. Thank you, Besma. I'm very happy to be here again this year to talk to you about the work of the Nominations and Compensation Committee as well as the compensation of the executive directors. In 2024, the Nominations and Compensation Committee examined in particularly the criteria governing independence of directors. It discussed the gender mix policy. I also discussed to talent management. It reviewed the results and the working of the Board and its committees and proposed plan of action. The committee also examined the composition of your Board and recommended the appointment of an Independent Director, Katherine Fleming that we've just heard now just heard from and the renewal -- the early renewal of Sébastien Bazin as Chair of your group. The committee would like to underline the excellent strategic work carried out by Sébastien Bazin, which has changed the group intent also requested that the road map for the period 2027 be approved. So thank you for helping us with these very ambitious objectives. Concerning the compensation of the executive directors. You are being asked to vote as every year on the information concerning the compensation and advantages paid or attributed to the executive directors for the year just ended, but also more specifically, the compensation and advantages of benefits paid for this same period for our Chairman and CEO, Sébastien Bazin. That is what we call the say-on-pay exports. Concerning the directors for 2024, an amount of EUR 1,365,862 was paid to the various directors based on their attendance rate and the number of meeting Board and committee meetings they attended. After the compensation of our Chairman and CEO, the fixed component of Sébastien Bazin's compensation is unchanged since the first of January 2016 at EUR 950,000. This annual variable compensation was based on the achievement of the objectives that we set together. Just for the record, the quantitative objectives concerned EBITDA, free cash flow, the net growth of the number of rooms and the following ESG criteria, the percentage of hotels management franchise that had defined a reference value in water consumption by year-end 2024. Second criteria in the percentage of hotels of all types eco-certified by the end of the year. And thirdly, the percentage of women occupying a position at least equivalent to Vice President, according to the group's internal classification again at year-end 2024. To this, we added qualitative objectives concerning the finalization of the turbo organization, talent development and the implementation of the CSR plan. After appraising the level of achievement of each of these objectives, the Board cited that the variable compensation of Sébastien Bazin's compensation package will be EUR 1,813,893 gross. That's 129.6% of the reference amount, the potential being a maximum of 150%. Your Chairman and CEO in 2024 was also attributed performance-based shares and compliance with the compensation policy subject to vesting rights. In addition, in the context of the ex ante-say on pay, you're also being asked to vote regarding the compensation policy for executive directors in the future. Concerning the policy for directors, it will be unchanged in 2025. Concerning the compensation policy regarding our Chief Executive Officer and Chairman, I should add that we discussing this matter with shareholders that have been since the last AGM. After hearing the comments and suggestions from the shareholders and after taking into account the votes at the last AGM, your Board at the regulation of the committee has decided to adjust the compensation policy in 2025. Let's begin by what hasn't changed. The fixed compensation for 2025 will remain unchanged. Indeed, the reference amount for variable compensation for your Chairman and CEO will remain at EUR 1.4 million. The variation is between 0 and 150% of this reference amount, depending on the level of achievement of the criteria decided by the committee. The quantitive objectives, which represent 80% of the annual variable components are financial, EBITDA and free cash flow, but also extra financial, nonfinancial, namely the net growth of the network and the three ESG criteria is as follows, the reduction of our water consumption at year-end 2025, the percentage of hotels of all times eco-certified by year-end 2025. Finally, the percentage of women in a position, at least equivalent to Vice President, according to the group's internal classification. The quantitative objectives, which represent 20% of the annual variable compensation are based on communications and the implementation of the road map for '25, '28 and indeed talent development. Finally, Mr. Bazin can receive up to -- formal shares up to 28% of its gross annual competition, the level of achievement and mechanism have been made more stringent, particularly if these conditions are not achieved. Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, thank you for your attention.

Thank you, Bruno. I now propose to hear from Jean-Christophe Goudard from Ernst & Young, to report on the annual accounts, Statutory Auditors' Report.

Thank you, Besma, Chairman, ladies and gentlemen. We have 8 reports to talk to you about this year. As is customary, I propose to sum these up on behalf of the college of Statutory Auditors'. There are 3 categories of reports. The first 2 concern will come under the authority of the ordinary AGM, concern our report on the annual accounts, the statutory accounts and consolidated accounts, our special report on related party agreements. The third category concerns our reports on resolutions under the authority of the Extraordinary Annual General Meeting. These resolutions concern authorizations and delegation to be recorded to the Board to carry out transactions concerning the share capital. So let me give you our conclusions straightaway. Report on the accounts for the period ending December 31, 2024, this is the first resolution. Our report is on Page 460 of the universal registration document, at least on the French version. The annual accounts or compliance with French generally accepted accounting rule. They are true and sincere and give a sincere image of the activities carried out during the period and the need of the financial situation of the company at the end of the period. The second part of this report, you will see our valuation of participation of shares, representing 7.6 billion shares at 68% of the total of the balance sheet. We will go into that in greater detail. Returning to specific variations. This concerns information given in the management report and other financial documents submitted to you. We're also concerned the Corporate Governance and information concerning the acquisition of participations of stakes in the company and the identity of shareholders. We have, in particular, points to draw your attention to. The second report concerns the, our report on the consolidated financial statements for the period ended December 31, 2024. This is under resolution #2. The report is on Page 429 of the French version of the Universal Registration Document. Our conclusion concerning the accounts is that we to find that old are in respect of IFRS principles as adopted in the European Union. There are true answers here and give a loyal true reflection of the activities carried out during the period and indeed of the financial situation at the end of the period. This is by all parties concerned by the consolidation question. We are talking about the consolidated accounts, which is all the entities held or controlled by the group. Third report concerns are report on related party agreements. This concerns the 11th resolution and can be found on Page 353 of the French Universal Reference Document. May I remind you that we are asked to report to you on the basis of information we have received and the reasons for these conventions. It is up to you to appraise the relevance of this. We have not been informed of any such related party agreements during the period. As for rated party agreements previously approved by the AGM in the past and still in effect, may I refer you to our report for those? Finally, third and final point concerning the resolutions under the extraordinary AGM. Concerning the 24th resolution, which proposes that the Board be authorized to reduce the share capital by canceling all are part of ordinary shares. We have no observation to make. As for the general delegation of powers from resolution 24 to 28 and resolution 30, which proposes a delegation authority to the Board of Directors for a period of 26 months to carry out capital increases to the issuance of ordinary shares, our securities with or without preferential subscription rights. That will give you our conclusion directly, subject to subsequent examination of the conditions of any such issuance, we have no observations to make regarding the termination of issuance price for the 25th and 26th shares. Furthermore, as this report does not specify the conditions on which these shares will be valued, this is for resolution 24 to 28, we cannot form an opinion on how the share price will be calculated. The final conditions for these shares have yet to be the challenge. So we cannot, at this point in time, express an opinion. As a result, the proposed suppression of the preference subscription rights in 24 to 26, will give rise to an additional report when and if the allegations of authority are applied by the Board of Directors. Concerning the 31st resolution, which authorized the issuance of free shares or performance per shares. We have no comments to make. And concerning the 33rd resolution which proposes that delegation given to the Board to decide the issuance of shares reserved to employees with a members of the share ownership plan, subject to subsequent examination. But at this point in time, we have no opinion to form concerning the issuance price, the final conditions whether and if these issues are to be carried out, we will draw up an additional report if necessary when and if these delegation authority are applied by your bottle directors. Thank you for your attention.

Don't go too far, Christophe. I'd just like to share with the meeting. The fact that it's the last presentation by EY that has been at the company side for close on 25 years without a break. And so Jean-Christophe, I just wanted, on behalf of the Board, the management, to say a couple of things that are important that we've all lived through. First, in the role of the Statutory Auditors', a very difficult one, which is to bring its rigor, discipline, a new perspective on what is done put in place and the financial statements to be drawn. At the same time, as you plan these exacting standards with your team, you've seen multiple transformations of the group, many people, great many executives, sometimes a lot of to-ing and fro-ing and it's fairly uncommon to have a auditors team have been able not to deal with contradictions, but the fact that these policies were adopted by management accepted by shareholders, but required a considerable fleet footedness on your part so as to have a sufficiently wide perspective. So it's not to run candid prevailing legislation, and that you are able to support us even guide us to put in place things more efficiently. And so without that agility benevolence, the group wouldn't be where it is today. So thank you for undertaking all these tasks. I hope that your sail through common waters in the next 12 years, but Jean-Christophe, my thanks to your team. I know that you're going to leave for a few years, but you can always return after a break. Big thank you.

Thank you, Sébastien, my big thanks to you for your trust.

So now I'm going to ask another firm PwC, Julien to come to another topic that's hugely important, a bit more recent. The sustainability report.

Thank you, Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, shareholders. So as part of this first year of application of CSR, we've issued a sustainability report included in Chapter 3 corporate responsibility within the company's registration document on the basis of verifications undertaken. We've noted no error emission or major inconsistency regarding compliance of the process put in place by Accor with prevailing legislation, be it as part of the double materiality review presentation of sustainability, data and disclosing indicators with the -- in line with the taxonomy. On the basis of our assignment, we've issued limited assurance without reservation on sustainability. Our report comprises a comment regarding the presentation of sustainability. And so without challenging the conclusion of our report, we want to draw the attention of the reader to some information in Section 311, introduction to the sustainability report covering the reporting scope and principles for preparing environmental and social indicators. Thank you.

We now move to the resolutions to be presented by Besma. It's very short for something that's hugely complicated. Thank you.

And so now before we move to Q&A, I'm going to briefly present our resolutions starting with first to third resolution approval of the financial consolidated statements for FY '24, allocation of profit and distribution of a dividend of EUR 1.26 fourth to 12th, renewal of mandates as directors appointing of a new director for statutory term of 3 years, won't return to the nomination of Mrs. Katherine Fleming presented 13th to 16th resolution aimed at appointing Deloitte as statutory auditor, sustainability auditor for a period of 6 financial years as well as the renewal of PwC audit as statutory auditor and also sustainability auditor for a 6-year term. 17th to 20th resolution concern what we -- now the say-on-pay exposed, compensation 2024 as Directors, Mr. Sébastien Bazin presented by Mr. Pavlovsky as well as the say-on-pay ex ante that concerns compensation policy for Chairman and CEO and directors for FY '25. 21st resolution asks that you note the conclusions of the auditor's special report on the absence of new related party agreements. And related party agreements concluded during prior years, they continue to be in effect during FY '24, '22, '23 to renew the authorization to cancel treasury shares, a maximum of 10% of the share capital at a maximum purchase price of EUR 80 per share. 24 to 30 aimed at renewal for '26 months, the authorization to the Board to increase the share capital company by issuing shares or securities, giving access to the share capital with or without preferential subscription rights. Ceiling is planned within a limit of a total cap of 50% of the share capital and a sub-cap at 10% of the share capital, full capital increases. Without preferential subscription rights, these authorizations cannot be used during a public tender. 30th resolution authorized the Board to allocate performance shares to employees and corporate offices with a limited 2.5% of the capital. 32nd limits the number of shares to employees at 15% of allocated shares. 33rd resolution asks you to authorize the Board to issue ordinary shares or securities giving access to the share capital without preferential subscription rights for an employee share ownership plan. 34th resolution proposes that you amend the bylaws. In the same case of staggering terms of office to reduce the directors' terms of office to 1 or 2 years to allow the Board if it wishes to take certain decisions by written consultation, including electronically to include to 68 the age limit of the CEO and Deputy CEOs and to amend certain provisions. Lastly, resolution 35 concerns powers for formalities. Thank you for your attention. Let's now open the Q&A session.

Thank you, Besma. Let's start with written questions, the Advisory Shareholders Committee. I'll have them I'll read them and try and provide some answers. The first question probably what role for AI, today and tomorrow? It's more than relevant that we address every day, the answer following what we're doing today. First thing is mustn't be afraid of AI. It will be predominant. It will be important to be present. We must not only accept it, but factor it in, roll it out within the group. There are 2 facets that are totally different AI. There at least 2, they're probably well over 100, 2 that are important for you, for me. First thing, it's going to promote the customer pathway how you interact with your customer before he arrives in the hotel. To track that relationship will be guided far more efficiently, far more personalized in the customer journey. Whilst the customer is staying in the hotel, the tools linked to AI or automation enablers, that will allow our people as long as they've had them and are up the learning curve to be far more efficient, swifter to break from administrative tasks that had no added value will give comfort and efficiency in the human interaction between our employee and the customer. To assess all that, it's very complicated, probably very impactful, a number of things put in place by the group. First thing, led by Alix Boulnois here in the room, put in place an AI gen excellent center, led by Francois Xavier 18 months ago to take all this knowledge of what exists today to measure the impact, the validity, the importance and thereby to allow us to assess these tools and not be behind the curve. Center of Excellence spends its time with the team to have kind of a watch sell and make it more efficient. Second thing put in place by the group, you probably, many of you already use ChatGPT. We got a ChatGPT agreement. That is our own instrument, Accor will field questions, won't make us too dependent on outside enablers, Accor GPTs, used by people either in hotels or a head offices. We got chatbots, they're also AI-driven to answer very efficiently to queries that are less important for our customers before or after their stay. And lastly, Accor signed many major corporate partnerships with key international players, notably the latest with IDS, A U.S. partner on pricing changes 1,000 times a day. Sales force, Opera, IDS, all these big software systems are based on AI. So we decided one not to be afraid. Two, the factor it and thirdly, to roll it out. And fourthly, to not be dependent on it. That was the first question on AI. We can return that later for those. Alix is in the room, she's far more knowledgeable and can follow that up. Second question, how do you assess the geopolitical risks when Accor invests? Here again, it's a hugely important question. We assess them as best we can in a context that has never been so volatile. First thing that's important is to remember. Decisions taken by your group for 10 years. Now, to exit real estate and paying rent Accor service, these risks are less and less impactful for the group because we don't have rent obligations. We don't have dozens of billions invested in real estate. So what we can lose is 5% of revenue or building. The other 95% are no longer borne by Accor. The activity transformation to asset-light is a big shock absorber when it comes to legislative risk. Second thing, we never talk about it. It's a good opportunity this morning within the group. We've got a division for safety and security, and Xavier is in the room, that has a specific tasking. It's kind of a watch tower that analyzes through the embassies worldwide international organization, all political macro economic, social and climate risk. And so this unit most providers real time, all the information we need, so as to take a valid decision on the investments. Third factor is that we have a Board, and on the Board, there is a Committee for international strategy chaired by Nicolas Sarkozy, and this committee is tasked with assessing closer the governments, the leaders, the geopolitical context, the group's commitments, countries need we exit, need we accelerate, meet with the leaders so it's that committee that assesses all these issues and kind of plays the role of devil's advocate on decisions we've taken in the past are no longer relevant today. Those are 3 ways of responding to something that's not going to disappear any time soon. Up till now in the context we've seen for 10 years, the group has been able to maneuver so as not to get bogged down the risk and are record sufficiently strong to meet those risks if it were to persist. Third question, can you tell us the group's and core development strategy in India? Well, this is a nice one. I could talk to you about it for 35 minutes, but I won't do that. India is without a doubt the most important market of after tomorrow. Yesterday's market was the U.S., that is 1960, 1990. Yesterday's market was Europe, 1970 to 2000. Today's market, China, starting at the end of the '90s is going to continue to 2025. The market of after tomorrow is India. That started out 5, 6 years. Probably become the biggest hotel market worldwide by 2050 for loads the reason. It's the most populated country with 1.45 billion people, for the largest global economy. It will move to third place in 5 years, has the strongest continuous growth for 5 years between 6% and 7%, largest tech infrastructure, highest number of engineers, where you've got a mega health financial economy, many others, the middle class growing strongly, 1/3 of the country today is ranked middle class, and they move to 2/3 in 6, 7 years. Country that has the least hotel infrastructure. You take the 5 biggest hotel operate together. They have 1,500 hotels. You take the top 5 hotel groups. Together, they have 25,000 hotels for an equal population. You're well below 1,500 is against 25,000. There's not the slightest doubt that in 5, 7, 10 years, that will be 1 or 2 dominant players in India. We decided not to miss the boat. I think we missed the U.S. boat. Of course, we didn't miss the U.S. -- the European boat. We didn't miss the Chinese boat. We're not going to miss the Indian, but we have to entrust part of the strategy, at least the execution to Indian players as an Indian player we know well because he's been our partner for over 20 years. InterGlobe when we started out together with a tech partner, view the hospitality well, but had not set up what is today the largest airline in India. InterGlobe airline. And InterGlobe is the major shareholder and the founder Indigo 62% market share of air transport in India, and it's the #1 client for Airbus in terms of number of aircrafts. They have 130 million passenger over 10 years. Air France-KLM has fairly cross the 5 million mark in 50 years. So quite probably, IndiGo Airlines is set to become the world's largest airline in the next 20 years. So we forged a partnership between InterGlobe IndiGo Airlines, a tech player, Tribo going great guns to combine the skills and the leadership, all the various companies that I've just mentioned is such that it's pretty likely that Accor will become one of those 2 leaders in India. It will take time, hugely complex. It's a wager we must take. We made it public precisely 2 months ago in Bangalore. There you have it. Now we can move to questions from the room. Gentleman, here in the front.

I would like to ask two questions. My first question in terms of creation of a new booking platform. My second question concerns the group's new profits. Recently, Accor announced that it was developing a new digital ecosystem devoted to the booking of meetings and events. This platform will centralize 6,500 hotels worldwide with access to 2,500 meeting rooms and over 8,000 bedrooms. This initiative is aimed at harnessing the growth of a very high-growth market valued at several billion dollars according to the press release announcing the launch of this platform. My question is, what share of this market do you propose to harness? My second question concerns the group's new profits. AccorInvest, the former real estate business is changing its names and becoming Essendi, I think it means a way of being, it is still owned by its former parent company, which like to dispose of it by the summer of 2026. Since 2010, Accor Service which has become Edenred has taken off and has removed itself from the group, followed by AccorInvest to become Essendi. So Accor is no longer what its founding member is Paul Dubrule and the late Gérard Pélisson, imagined way back in 1963, which pegs the following question. How do you see the group's profile over the next 5 years? Is it going to focus on its Luxury & Lifestyle business, which is probably the most dynamic and most profitable? Will it become just a player in the luxury industry, playing in the big league were alongside LVMH, Hermes and Kering?

Thank you. Thank you, sir. Preparing the launch of this platform you've mentioned. Well, The business has changed, but take about 5 years ago probably since COVID, the Accor Group was 60%, almost 2/3 business in which ours was a business oriented and the remainder being leisure oriented. Well, COVID has completely changed the way we work. A lot of people work remotely, a lot of people take extended weekends. So the balance between the 2, between families, between employers and employees, all that has changed. And there's no going back, but that's not really what we're talking about here this morning. We have found that the leisure side of the business, which was a minority. It's now closer to 50%, 50% or better. Even though people who were leisure on Monday to Fridays, it's hard to know. But what we do know is that business travelers with the groups and conferences was always more profitable, both in terms of occupancy rate and back with teams and repeat business from these large groups that use Novotel, ibis and so on. But in the current state of affairs to accommodate these people, it was essential that we have onboard technology to ensure that everything was as agile and as simple as possible, including invoicing. So because of this change in market share, the very least we could do was to preserve our market share in terms of the number of rooms we have in each country. It's approximately 1/3, a little more in Europe, so we're aiming at least 1/3 of the pie. But as we are the leaders in Europe, we are targeting half of that pie, and we're not leaving more than necessary to our American counterparts. In the mid-scale, Novotel and Mercure very good large-scale hotel that can meet the requirements of these clients. We have not spent and largely my fault, we have not spent enough time on Pullman, Mövenpick and Sofitel, which are also large hotels. We have left too much room to our American competitors. In mid-scale, we will have more than our share of the market. In premium brands, we're going to have to pick out what we seem to have missed, that's bringing. Moving on now to your second question, nothing, doesn't compare. That's not very kindly Mr. Dubrule and Mr. Pellison constantly accelerated the growth. They were audacious, they took risks. They bought out [indiscernible] restaurant vouchers did a lot of things, sometimes not everything works, not everything will work for us either. But this idea of winning over share of challenging our ideas, this is mindset that has never changed back in the 1960s. I believe that our 2 founders, Gérard Pélisson said so before is that, I think they fully understood the need to eliminate risks from the balance sheet in property ownership, better off that they'd be in the hands of others than our listed company. And Paul Dubrule suddenly recently, he said this only recently. So Essendi will be leaving the group, but this has always been something we said we would carve out. Essendi is a very good company, a very well-managed company and the biggest hotel owners in Europe are finishing the task. It wasn't possible during COVID. But we completely refunded Essendi, its balance sheet is now completely healthy. The performance, it's just as strong as Accor Group. So quite naturally by next year, we will have disposed of this entity. I wish long life to Essendi. We'll be managing hotels on their behalf. But I don't think this, in any way, renegs or anything or is any departure from what we have undertaken. And Luxury & Lifestyle is not the most profitable because Jean-Jacques will be giving an to me. It's the most dynamic, yes. It's the one with the segment with the strongest growth, but it's also the easiest because it was the least present. So growth is easier to achieve. It so happens that the mid-scale is more -- it has lower growth, but it's more profitable. So good cash flow and much in mid-scale. But -- so there's no real eagerness to have a preferred segment. We do not Luxury & Lifestyle is not our favorite segment. That would be unfair. Another question. I've kept the mic. Please.

I just had an additional question. Just to add to what's just been said, concerning the external the outsourcing of awards. I was involved in the franchising of Mercure and [indiscernible] probably had a difficult period in time. At the time, is outsourcing the franchisee experience certain difficulties. So at what point in time do you take over when it's necessary for the group's relation?

Now it's not our intention to take back or take over. We listen to any difficulties that any of our franchise of managed hotel owners' experience. It's important to understand the risk. But if they want to share the situation with us, fine, nor do we wish or have the ambition to take back hotels even if there's any fragility, we are not going to backpedal. Now as far as helping franchisees with dealing with the banks or disposals to another party, yes, that is something we can do. Where things get very difficult is that we are not bankers, and we're not going to deputize for bankers or real estate companies. We feel such cases now that we had 3 years ago. But if franchisees of hotel managers and difficulty. Well, it's true that they invest less. And if they invest less, the brand will deteriorate. Customer experience will deteriorate because bedrooms or bathrooms haven't been renovated. And that is something that people sense. So this is a downward spiral that's very complicated for hotel owners to manage because they haven't got the means and they know that if they don't do this, things are not going to improve. It's a downward spiral. So when we need to preserve the standards, we need to talk among adults with our franchisees and say, look, we can maybe help you find a solution. But if you don't find a solution, we will not be able to stay alongside you in the next 5 years if you don't solve the problem. There are unfortunately such cases.

Earlier on, you mentioned problems that occur every day in a hotel. I'd like to refer to 2 problems I had recently in [indiscernible], I wrote to a hotel explaining that I had a problem with my bank card. I was told I'd be refunded in September. October arrived, still unpaid. I wrote through the head office. I wrote to the hotel, Likewise, in November, December, January. In February, I wrote a registered letter to head office. And finally, the money was refunded 8 months later. Second, more recent experience in [indiscernible] just a week ago at 8:30. I saw, oh, you didn't see the e-mail we sent to you today. The hotel is full, your booking dated back 5 weeks was canceled. I was told that I could book. I could -- I was said to another hotel, 300, 400 meters away at night. What happens e-mail that we sent to them. I received a check in. nothing happened. Whats happening with you? I have questions about the safety of my bank card because despite booking 5 weeks in advance, I still don't get a room. What happened?

I'm not sure there's any connection between your bank card and the room. I don't know much about this. I don't know if anybody here can answer that. First of all, it's not acceptable. Secondly, I don't know if it's the hotel owners fault. I don't know if it's the booking platform's fault. What I can say is that it's not acceptable, and we have to find a solution. Bear in mind that we answer over 8 million clients a day, so mishaps occur. [indiscernible] We have people who receive all messages. Probably 100 or hundreds of you every day with similar experiences every day. What we do is we strive to ensure that as few as possible, the numbers being reduced. And it's unacceptable that you wait 7 months to be refunded. That's absolutely unacceptable. So I'll talk with Alix about this. Alix, could you stand up, please? Alix, if you would, I'd like the gentleman to see your face if you turn around to face the gentleman with the pale blue shirt.

So I really apologize for this experience. Please come and see me in-person, and we will deal with the matter together.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I have a question concerning your franchisees. What percentage of the franchisees do you have in your portfolio? Do you sometimes ask franchisees to leave the group and other franchisees who leave you because they found a better franchise elsewhere?. They are the 2 questions? Also, a question about your competition. How are you faring by comparison with your competition? Now that you're venturing further into the luxury segment, how will you be attracting the competition that's already well established?

45% franchisees in terms of number of rooms and 75% in the number of hotels. Very often, the hotels are fewer rooms. In France, it's close to 70%, between 70% and 80% of franchised. We decided to accelerate the development of our franchisees, our franchise business, particularly where destinations where we are leaders, particularly in Europe. This is because that is a lot faster because we have the skills and the money available. Love demand for franchises because, in other parts of the world, particularly in the Middle East, we continue to work on a managed basis. But in so far, we're talking about a very large talent of global capital. We would like to secure a better paid management contract. If we're talking about a smaller city or provincial city far from capital cities, then we prefer franchisees because the owners tend to be more agile we spend. So it depends on the size of the hotel and the location of the hotel. We don't have -- one business to be better than the other. In both cases, we are well compensated. In both cases, the work is the same. It's to ensure that the brand does well and to enhance the booking system. As for the competition, well, we have lively competition. We are the world's fifth hotel group. We are the foremost hospitality group if you leave aside the U.S. and China. We will never be the biggest in the U.S. or China. So we need to preserve what's been wonderfully put together in the last 45 years is our stronghold in Europe. We're also #1 in the Middle East. Asia Pacific, we are #1 in Southeast Asia. We need to preserve Latin America, which we're #1. And we want to become #1 in India. So happens that hotel groups have great respect for Marriott, Hilton, Intercontinental and others. We have healthy relationships. We're all growing. The difficulty comes from new technological platforms. We have higher costs with the online agencies with Airbnb. It will probably be a positive or negative impact because of artificial intelligence. So the competition really comes from new tools and technologies and new alternative forms of hospitality, including Airbnb than from the competition be hotel groups. As I said earlier, the growth driver was strong enough for each of us to be able to eke out sufficient growth.

You didn't answer my question about the franchisees who leave the group because they've found a better alternatives or to you go separate ways because the contract.

My apologies, I overlooked that. Concerning employees who leave to find other, there are very few who leave the group to go elsewhere, less than 2% per annum, it is terribly small. The other way, we have much more on a lot of franchisees who join us from other hotel groups because our distribution is better in certain regions and particularly in Europe. So Accor Group's distribution capacity is much higher than other groups, except in the case of Paris, where Hyatt- Hyatt only have 3 hotels, so they can distribute 3 hotels. No problem. So with no concerns about employees leaving further brands as long as brand identity is strong and are well sold, as for franchisees that we asked to leave, the percentage is also very low. It's less than 5%, can and should increase. As what I said earlier on, we spent more and more time on the brand identity, the brand's promise, the experience, current relations. We have to be in demanding if in particular cases, these standards aren't met and over time for a period, let's say, more than 2 years, we have no alternative, but to ask the franchisee to leave. And we have the means in the contract to terminate our franchise agreement. In many ways, Accor has been probably too lenient over the years in this respect, let's say, not demanding enough.

Accor is the ambassador of know-how French refinement. And what are your ambitions in the luxury segment and with the top-end Palace and so on. Do you intend to go more upscale? My second question is concerned in the U.S., which is a highly competitive market. The group has left Motel 6 a few years ago in the lower end. So what's your position in the U.S. at the moment? A lot of tourists will be boycotting the United States in the foreseeable future, and we'll be spending more time in Europe and probably in France, Finally, in Africa, indeed, in certain countries in the north of Africa, France isn't always very welcome. Is that reflected in the occupancy rate of your hotels? Or is it just a matter of foreign policy?

Extra luxury? No, we like extra luxury. Firstly, we went there because we decided that it was a growth opportunity. Thirdly, to be active, responsible, we didn't have the brand. So we had to come up with the right brands, acquire them to pass on the expertise that we didn't have, all that over 7 years, we decided to dive deeper into extra luxury with Orient Express, the brand Orient Express. I told you about it last year. It's expanding. No revenue because it's just started with the new Orient Express Hotel, the Minerva in Rome, downtown Rome, an amazing hotel opened 5 weeks ago. Another one in Venice, the Palladio set to open in December. Trains will arrive in 2027. And the ship that's being built, the Atlantic shipyards at the PM visit on Monday, that's today fully assembled, 226 meters, 26,000 tonnes, masks the size of this building will -- the water will enter the dock soon, and it will be ocean-ready in May 2026. We'll be at the Cannes Festival early May 26. So we're entering something that's important in the U.S. This Orient Express, we've teamed up with LVMH, and we couldn't find a better, finer partner. The U.S., you're right. We with Motel 6 Red Roof 25 years ago, wasn't an out standard success for lots of reasons, good or bad. Unfortunately, cost us a lot of money in the U.S. It's the world's largest market ahead of China. It's the most profitable market in the world because it was the biggest, the most profit. That's where our U.S. trends are the most present. 85% of hotels, number of rooms in the U.S. are in the hands of 5 U.S. companies. 85% and the 15% remaining, maybe 5% will come to us, but 10% never. We have to sometimes take a cold shower, a really cold shower, and you realize that you can grow in the U.S. with the Fairmont brand with Sofitel, both a very strong reputationally. Sofitel can expand faster in some 10 cities in the U.S., but maybe we can do it on the small Hoxton Mama Shelter. Lot of discussions with Jean-Jacques is said to recognize that the risk is too high for results that are too low to go today with our mid-scale brands to the United States. Time was probably right. 25 years ago, we had the right timing. We didn't have the right execution. Let's accept the territory is controlled by people. Stronger now. Let's conquer other territories where they're not as good as we are on. Third question, Africa, North Africa, well, not at all. It's true there's been a number of conflicts or at least disagreements between governments, notably European governments. We don't sense that at all in the expansion of Accor and North Africa. Not at all. We're growing in strength in Morocco. Don't at all sense that in sub-Saharan Africa. We're the leading investor with the Qatar sovereign fund -- Kasada sorry, forgive me, we have deployed EUR 1 billion sub-Saharan Africa, the biggest investor exclusivity of Accor brands such a demand from the local population and develop the economic fabric. Accor has welcomed across all African countries including those that have disagreements with our government Barely 3 minutes left. We have a gentleman in the center there. If you could give them the mic.

Yes, just to pick up on the customer experience. When you say that the customer, there are no -- the revenue, the RevPAR is changing. I mean what that's due to? I mean, by how much the RevPAR? And secondly, what are you doing to collect the maximum amount of feedback regarding the customer experience? Have you already put in place in terms of AI, in terms of tech? Can you tell us a bit more about that?

So. you're going to meet Alix Boulnois for the second part of your question, Paul, Alix, you were right to come. But I can't see you. I don't know who you are in the dark. There you are. Okay. Light blue shirt, green jersey, that's easier. So to ask the first part of your question. Second, we can do that with the NPS, loads of ways of measuring customer satisfaction, and that's as it should be daily. Revenue, first thing, do simple math. I'll keep it really simple. Accor receives on average 5% of the revenue of our hotel. And that whatever the brand. When you have a Formula 1 hotel or ibis Stars, you have to have an ibis budget, a room at EUR 100. You'll get 5% of daily revenue of EUR 100. When you're in the Raffles Hotel, you got a room at EUR 2,000 and now receive 5%, the 5% at EUR 2,000. So I'll get 10, 15x more as I go upscale, same quality of service, even the services there involves more human capital in terms of revenue per room. The more you go upscale, the higher the revenue. In absolute, it doesn't mean the margin is high, less human resources services in an ibis budget than in Raffles. But when you go up scale, you make far more money in absolute terms on a higher run rate. That's how it works. NPS relations, I hope there are croissants and pastries left afterwards, but don't begrudge me. We'll get back to you. Question from a gentleman over there.

Chairman, good morning. I represent Accor employees, who are shareholders. I'd like to have your few points on your vision, ambition and strategy on our Accor brand portfolio that's pretty significant and sizable. Well, the Accor brand portfolio comprises 47 brands as of last night, there'll probably be a few more going forward?

I tend to say that we're fully satisfied with the diversity of those brands in terms of customer response, positioning, price points and customer relations, geography. There are no gaps in our setup. I thought 12 years ago when I arrived, we were too present in Europe in lower and mid-scale. We wanted to support our expansion of [indiscernible]. We moved from 14 to 47 brands. It was done deliberately in a focused manner over 10 years. So there are no gaps. No countries where we didn't want to be. India, we want to move faster to India. Otherwise, that place will be taken by someone else. We can take that place with our 47 brands. Maybe just to answer your point more specifically in the 47, you got about 20 that are global brands. You got Novotel, Mercure, Pullman, Sofitel. And these brands are set to expand across continents, countries where we can be present. You've got other brands that are solely local brand. Siebel, you never heard about solely present in Australia, a bit in New Zealand. Above all leave it in Australia, New Zealand. They know it well. It's very strong. Don't take the risk of expanding it regionally far less globally. Other brands that are regional are not set to become global. The way we assess that, 80% of the revenue is achieved on those 20. Focus your resources on 20 brands. Let the local players in the countries decide to protect the brand that it exists and meets the customers' needs. That's our attitude. I'm surprised myself, we're not seeking other existing brands on the market and that we'd like to target maybe it will happen. People will be the path to our door, but we're not seeking that. Thank you all. Let's now move to the vote on the various resolutions.

Before moving on to the vote on the resolutions, 5,492 shareholders are present or voted by correspondence. That's over 172 million shares represented. The filed quorum is 71.73% as a result of which the AGM can conduct its business accordingly. Since 2019 abstentions and blank votes are no longer counted, and they are factored out of the calculation by virtue of the legal dispositions in place shareholders have been able to vote by Internet. Over 205 million votes have been expressed accordingly in this way. We propose that the bureau be dispensed with an extensive reading of the shares, given the presentation have already been made. Before voting, let me draw your attention to the voting system with our devices. I propose to show you a short video just before we begin the votes. To vote on these resolutions, you will have received a tablet. This tablet is strictly personal and can only be used for today's Annual General Meeting. When voting begins, the voting window will we displayed automatically on your tablet even if it's in sleep mode. In order to vote, it's very simple, press the button corresponding to your choice, in favor, abstention or against. Press okay to confirm your choice before voting is over. Once your vote has been confirmed, it cannot be changed. Please return the tablet as you leave the room. We can now move on to the votes. First resolution concerns approval of the statutory company financial statements for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024. Voting is underway. [Voting]

The voting is over. The resolution has been approved. The second resolution asks you to approve the consolidated financial statements for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024. Voting underway. [Voting]

The voting is over. Resolution approved. Third resolution concerns the allocation of profit for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024, and determination of the dividend. Please vote now. [Voting]

Voting is over. And resolution has been approved. Fourth resolution, renewal of Sébastien Bazin's mandate as Director of the company. Voting under way. [Voting]

Voting is over. And the resolution has been approved. Fifth resolution concerns the renewal of a Madam Asma Abdulrahman Al-Khulaifi mandate as director of the company. Voting underway. [Voting]

Voting is over. Resolution approved. Sixth resolution, renewal of Ugo Arzanis' mandate as director of the company. Please vote now. [Voting]

Voting is over. Resolution approved. Seventh resolution, the renewal of Madame Hélène Auriol-Potier's mandate as director of the company. Voting is underway. [Voting]

Voting over. Resolution approved. Eighth resolution, renewal of Madame Qionger Jiang's mandate as a director of the company. Voting underway. [Voting]

Voting is over. Resolution approved. Ninth resolution, renewal of Nicolas Sarkozy's mandate as director of the company. Voting underway. [Voting]

Voting is over. And the resolution has been approved. 10th resolution, renewal of Madame Isabelle Simon as director of the company. Voting underway. [Voting]

Voting is over. Resolution carried. 11th resolution, renewal of Sarmad Zok as director of the company. Voting underway. [Voting]

12th resolution, appointment Katherine Fleming as director of the company. Voting underway. [Voting]

Voting is over. Resolution approved. 13th resolution, appointment of directors a statutory auditor and charge to certify the financial statements for a period of 6 financial years. Voting underway. [Voting]

Voting is over. And the resolution has been approved. The 14th resolution, renewal of PricewaterhouseCoopers audit mandate as statutory auditor in charge to financial statements for a period 6 financial years. Voting underway. [Voting]

Voting is over. And the resolution has been approved. 15th resolution, appointment of Deloitte as statutory auditor in charge of certifying sustainability information for a period of 6 financial years. Voting underway. [Voting]

Voting is over. And the resolution has been approved. 16th resolution, renewal of PricewaterhouseCoopers audit mandate as Statutory Auditors' in charge of certifying sustainability information for a period of 6 financial years. Voting underway. [Voting]

Voting is over. Contrary to what the screen said, voting is over and the resolution has been approved. 17th resolution, approval of information concerning the compensation of all corporate officers referred to an article L22-10-91 of the French Commercial Code. Voting underway. [Voting]

There is a technical glitch. We may go back to the 16th resolution. If we could have the 16th resolution on the screen, again. We're going to vote a second time. 16th resolution, renewal of PricewaterhouseCoopers audits mandate as statutory auditor in charge of financial sustainability information for a period of 6 financial years. Voting is now underway. [Voting]

Voting is over. And the resolution has been approved. The 17th resolution, approval of information concerning the compensation of all corporate offices referred to end article L22-10-91 of the French Commercial Code, voting underway. [Voting]

Voting is over. And the 17th resolution has been approved. 18th resolution, approval of the fixed variable and exceptional components of the total compensation and benefits in kind paid during the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024 or granted for the same fiscal year to Sébastien Bazin, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Voting is underway. [Voting]

Voting is over. The resolution has been approved. 19th resolution, approval of the compensation policy for the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, voting underway. [Voting]

Voting is over. And the resolution has been carried. 20th resolution, approval of the compensation policy for directors. Voting underway. [Voting]

Voting, now over. And the 20th resolution has been carried. 21st resolution, Statutory Auditors' special report on related party agreements govern by Articles L225-38 et seq. of the French Commercial Code. Voting underway. [Voting]

Voting is over. The resolution has been approved. 22nd resolution, authorization for the Board of Directors to trade in the company's shares. Voting is now underway. [Voting]

Voting is over. And the resolution has been approved. 23rd resolution, authorization for the Board to reduce the share capital by canceling shares. Vote open. [Voting]

No more voting. Resolution is passed. 24th resolution, delegation to the Board of Directors to carry out capital increases with preferential subscription rights by issuing ordinary shares or securities giving access to the share capital. Please vote. [Voting]

No more voting. Resolutions is passed. 25th resolution, delegation to the Board of Directors to issue ordinary shares or securities giving access to the share capital without public and offer with preferential subscription rights. Please vote. [Voting]

Vote closed. Resolution is passed. 26th resolution, delegation to the Board of Directors to issue ordinary shares or securities, giving access to the share capital without preferential subscription rights an offer governed by Article L.411-2 of the French Monetary and Financial Code. Please vote. [Voting]

No more voting. Resolution is passed. 25th resolution, delegation to the Board to increase the number of securities to be issued as part of a capital increase with or without preferential subscription rights. Please vote. [Voting]

No more voting. Resolution adopted. 28th resolution, delegation to the Board to carry out capital increases by issuing ordinary shares or securities, giving access to the share capital IN payment for contributions in kind granted to the company. Please vote. [Voting]

No more voting. Resolution is adopted. 29th resolution, delegation to the Board of Directors to increase the company's share capital by capitalizing reserves, profit or share premium account. Please vote. [Voting]

No more voting. resolution is passed. 30th resolution, limitation of the total amount of capital increases that may be carried out under the above delegations. Please vote. [Voting]

No more voting. Resolutions adopted. 31st resolution, authorization for the Board to grant performance shares to employees or executive officers. Vote is open. [Voting]

No more voting. And the resolution is adopted. 32nd resolution, restriction on the number of free shares that may be granted to executive officers of the company. Vote is open. [Voting]

No more voting. And the resolution is passed. 33rd resolution, delegation to the Board to issue ordinary shares or securities without preferential subscription rights for an employee share ownership plan. Please vote now. [Voting]

No more voting. Resolution is passed. 34th resolution, amendments to the bylaws. Please vote. [Voting]

Vote closed. And the resolution is adopted. 35th and final resolution, powers to carry out legal formalities. Please vote. [Voting]

No more voting. We're getting there. Just when we're coming to an end. Have to redo it. Powers for formality, second try, 35th resolution, powers for formalities. Please vote. [Voting]

Still not working? Okay. Third time. Vote is open. Show break. Let's wait for things to settle down. Vote is open. [Voting]

No more voting. Vote closed and resolutions adopted. Thank you.

Before we close this meeting and to let you on your way, I'd just like to say a few words. There are important people in your life, important people in my life and a person present in this room that has never really stepped forward, not his style or is his desire. Madam Iris Knobloch. Iris next to me was at my side for 12 years as a role that's very ungrateful, not an easy one, Vice Chairman, Lead Director, which is the role that requires being an orchestra conductor to manage the deliberations of the Board to review the agenda to make sure the various Board members heard or at least listen to. But all above that, it's a task that's important for me because the person that I can confide in. It's very difficult to confide in one's employees and also to express one's doubts to 10 or 12 Board members. So that comes at a time where we need a shock absorber, someone with an attentive ear, someone who's going to propose some suggestions or tell me it's not the right time to make a suggestion. The group has undergone a lot of changes, challenging times with COVID, and will know other difficult times and Iris, unfortunately, 12 years doesn't allow a Lead Director to continue to exercise that function, and she's a wonderfully replaced by [indiscernible], who's next is -- not leaving vital that she completes her term. And next year, after the AGM. But I'll miss you, Iris, an important period in my life. I've told you a lot of things. You never betrayed me. Never disclosed things said in confidence. Thanks for ensuring this length. That was probably the red thread, so it's not to lose the trust and confidence forged between us. So a misunderstanding that's as it should be, you kept everyone on board sailing in the right adventure. And you also were an attentive ear to shareholders who could reach out to you without going by management, and we need to express their doubt. So dear, Iris, I know that I've freed you from the 15 years. You may know Iris also chairs the Cannes Film Festival. So she hasn't slept a lot during the last fortnight in Cannes that the government appointed a German citizen at the head of the Cannes Festival. It's great to have you with us, privileged. Thanks so much. Now meeting adjourned. You're free to leave. Don't forget to return to your devices, pick up the flyers on your way out. If flyers aren't enough, we'll be happy for you to buy another one.