Alten S.A. (0O1S.IL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

[Interpreted] Good evening, everybody. I would like to thank you for joining this conference call, where we'll be talking about third quarter of 2023. As you have likely -- as you likely read a few minutes ago, our turnover was EUR 3.37 billion this year. In France, the activity grew by over 9% and outside of France by 8.8%. So the group's activity has grown by over 10%, plus 9.8% in France and over 9% outside of France. During the third quarter, growth slowed, which was nothing -- which was no surprise, but there are certain elements which we will come back to. Even if the results are satisfying, the growth is in line with our predictions, which were fairly low. So our overall growth is 7.6%, 10.5% in France, 6.3% outside of France. The quarter had certain negative effects and when comparing to 2022. But overall, growth has been up 9% for this quarter, which remains entirely satisfactory. And so overall, we're at 3.3% growth. Let me remind you that the data takes [ Hanover ] into account, the data for the company sold, and that is why the growth level is lower than that of the activity. The number of working days has also had an impact on our figures and penalized year-to-date figures of around 7%. Level of activity in the third quarter was at 91%, and when compared to 2022, this is respectable. And so we have seen a drop of 1% in relation to 2022, which is entirely normal given that our level of activity has come back to normal levels. We have -- there's been little change in number of staff. At the end of 2022, we had over 60,000 members of staff. At the end of June, there were over 57,000. And at the end of September, we are at 55,000; 11,000 staff in France and the rest located outside of France. At the end of September, we had 3,000 more engineers; 520 in France and 2,700 outside of France, and we recruited more engineers. In the third quarter, we will have only gained 3 engineers. So more in France, but fewer elsewhere and there was a drop in staff levels in July and August, which is more than usual, and that is why September couldn't barely compensate. On an international level, the drop in staff was mainly in Germany, where there were 100 fewer staff and in India, where there are 80 fewer staff, whereas in other countries, the staff level is stable or even growing slightly. If we analyze the activity of this semester in terms of geographical regions, you can see that the drop, the slowdown is not general across the board. In France, Europe and the Benelux countries, growth is doing well. In France, even though there were some difficulties, the turnover grew by over 10% and 10.5% in the third quarter. So that represents 12.5% overall. The activity is dynamic in automobile industry, aeronautics, defense, where we're still growing and security. On the other hand, we're seeing some difficulties, as you know, in the banking sector and more generally in the IT sector because the retail sector in France is affected by the slowdown of activity, which was more than we had anticipated or higher than we had anticipated. In Spain and Portugal, activities are doing well, so it's grown by 16%. All sectors are growing, including banking and finance. In Germany, there was a strong slowdown in the second quarter, and this has continued into the third quarter. Growth in Germany is at 8.4% year-to-date, so 1.4%. And so it will have been 2.7% in the third quarter. The automobile industry has seen a sharp -- strong slowdown. So we can see a deceleration of activities in the aeronautical industry, and these 2 sectors represent 70% of the company's turnover. In the U.K., growth is 12.5% year-to-date, which remains satisfactory, even we see growth of -- had a growth of 8% in the third quarter. So what I would like to underline is that we have a company where we had 850 consultants, which now represents 40% of the activity in the geographical region. But the growth has been almost 0, which explains the apparent slowdown of growth in the U.K. In historical geographical area, growth is still growing at over 15%. In Italy, we see a growth of 24%, which is still robust and all sectors are growing, finance, tertiary sectors. In Benelux countries, the growth is stably maintained at 15%, which is higher in Belgium, notably in Life Sciences, but has the market slowdown in the Netherlands, semiconductors. In Scandinavia, the scenario is similar to in Germany, so the activity slowdown for automobiles and heavy goods vehicles, and there is a slow growth of 6% year-to-date. In Eastern Europe, growth remains satisfactory. It's remained 14% in the third quarter. Poland, which represents 2/3 of the zone, has grown by more than 25%; Romania grew by 17%, thanks to automobile sector and tertiary financial -- the tertiary financial sector. In North America now, so the activity grew by 5%, but we've seen a significant slowdown in the third quarter, given that growth is only at 3%. In the U.S., the slowdown is due to automobile accounts and then to projects in oil and gas sector. We already talked about this at the end of the first quarter. Canada, the slowdown is also due to banking sector. In Asia Pacific zone, we published a growth of 3.6%, but 0 growth in the third quarter. As I explained during the previous publication, we must reprocess the data, given the significant drop of activity in Singapore for end of certain projects in gas and oil. So Singapore now only represents 3.5% of the zone, so a drop of 65%. So given the results is a [ 14% ] growth, and so the figure still remains satisfactory. When looking at the other Asian countries, China has shown a significant drop, following a drop in telecom sector, so this is a significant drop. And there's also been significant drop in semiconductors and electronics. On the other hand, automobile sector has still been growing over 30%. So India, 35% of the figures continue to grow at 15%, thanks to the tertiary sector. Japan has increased its growth at plus 30%. And South Korea 10% of the growth has grown by more than 25%, thanks to its automobile and electronic contracts. So as you can see, the group's growth is fairly uniform overall when we consider the geographical areas altogether. Certain zones have seen a significant slowdown and there are 3, so Germany, Scandinavia and North America, but all other geographical regions are continuing to grow significantly. Now if we look at the analysis according to sector, so automobile industry has grown by 15%. All manufacturers have shown high growth of around 22%, though the slowdown of sales to which we can see in part manufacturers is most notable in Germany. So the sector is continuing to grow 5%, 6%. Aerospace is still growing at around 26%. In several aeronautics, the sector is doing well. Defense & Security activities continue to grow at plus 30%, so year-to-date growth is at 27%. Defense & Security have grown by 30%. Energy is over 7%, which has dropped by 8% because of the oil and gas activities. Certain significant projects have come to an end in Africa and North America. And following the withdrawal of Russia have had an impact. And to be honest, we do not have any indicators on the trends that we may experience. When it comes to Energy, the Nuclear sector, Life Sciences are still growing. So industrial equipment and electronics and semiconductors has grown by 12% across the board, even if the tech sector has slowed down generally in all geographical areas. Telecoms are stable, so you can see a slight drop of 3%. So operators are continuing to grow. Finance sector saw a slow growth in the third quarter, notably because of activities in France and in Canada. The Retail, Service & Public Sector also slowed down and quite uniformly across all geographical areas. To summarize, aside from oil, gas and telecoms, all sectors' activity growth in year-to-date and in the third quarter, even if the growth rate is slowing down. Some verticals are also affected in certain areas, particularly banking and automobile industry. Other markets are doing well and are performing fairly uniformly. Our external growth policy continues to be pursued. We launched an acquisition proposal, and we should finish the acquisition in Japan in the coming days. Other companies are underway. So for 2023, as we anticipated, activity has remained satisfactory, even if growth has slowed down, and we'll likely see the same in the last quarter. So the last quarter or the last half of the year, we may see better results than last year. And we will be able -- and it will be due to a few working days and also expected to grow organically by 9%, which is satisfactory given the current environment. If you would like -- and I will be able to give you the results. I think everybody will have -- will be up for asking questions.

[Interpreted] So we have a question from Mr. [indiscernible].

[Interpreted] Now given the growth, the organic growth, which is slightly lower than the September anticipated, the figures as described in the speech, do you believe that the scenario that has been mentioned at the time, margins in this scenario might be somewhat difficult to attain, perhaps a few basis points less? Could you remind me the margin scenario that we had referred to at the time?

[Interpreted] Let me just get back to what had been said. Okay, 0.5% to 1 point retraction -- contraction versus as to 2022. So 1 point less last year, 2.8 if my memory serves me right as to -- so this would be 9 -- will be below 1 point contraction. Let me just give you the various points. And then this will be one looking off our back. So you have the incidents and impacts of acquisitions, which will then not have so much of an impact because we had consolidated, but it's all the results did not really improve. Now we get other companies that joined the scope with negative margins or equal to 0 will have an impact as 1, some M&A. Okay. And no, as I said, 1 working day less, 1.5 working days less in this half year. We did have 1 in H1. This will have an impact on H2 and some lesser activities. And this will, of course, have a mechanical impact on margins. The business rate will be recurrent in following years because 92%, this is our target, the steering target. I'm not talking about the business rate. That's because we do mostly work package and everybody is now converting towards 92%. Now the 93% rate we had last year, it was exceptionally high. On the other hand, the time line is what time lines are all about. That's the way the cookie crumbles. If it's good -- if it's better in 2024, then we'll see the other -- the situation will be the other way around. And as you may well know, because I talked about it last month, we also strengthened the technical -- well, the work package activities actually were strengthened in many geographical zones in the U.S. Germany, mostly. And we also had in H1, an impact in SG&A, 90 basis points impact and the impact will not be as strong in H2. A lot less is impacted, but it will have -- there will be an impact. Now I don't have the H2 margin because we're only in October. But mechanically, if you add up all those different elements regarding margin evolutions, well, necessarily be below 9.8 in H2, that's a given. Independently of the factors you have said, quite rightfully, that even though fixed costs went down significantly, but the fact of having less revenues than expected won't necessarily have an impact on the amount of margins. Now we had given a guidance between 9% and 10%. Now we're in the lower range of the guidance. Now where business is conservative or is this objective. We'll just see what the future lies for us. But just for the sake of being conservative, we're not going to be reaching 10%. That's for sure. That's a given. And in terms of organic growth, around 9%, yes. Yes, we're quite confident in this respect now versus the previous guidance through rather in the lower area of the range. And this doesn't mean the margin will go down significantly between last year and this year. The various impacts on margins are related to all the various things that I just referred to, which can mechanically have an incidence on margins. And insofar as recruitments at the low level of net recruitment, is this related? Is this a deliberate decision from the part of business units in the face of the slowdown of orders? Or is it related to other parameters which are perhaps -- for example, such as resignments in summer -- in the summer, July and August. We had quite a number of resignations. Resignations end of June as usual, and then quite a number of departures occurred in July and August as well. And as a result, we had a -- the departure rate was more important than usual in the last few years. Now we've made up with recruitments in September. And October recruitments are not going to be bad. We're not at the end of the month, but I still have figures as of last week, end of last week. Now Q4 2023, will that be equivalent to Q4 2022? That's for sure. But the recruitment, the dynamic is quite up there in October. If we had recruited more people, in Q3, I would not be able to say what the impact would have been on growth and what the impact would have been on business rate because our business rate is still at 91.7 or 91.8, which means that all of the additional recruitments, which we would have actually done, well, some of them were the intercontract. Recruitments and others would have boosted growth, but we're totally unable to give such a split because we just don't know it. But the given is that a business unit automatically adjusting their recruitment dynamic and impetus because based the intercontract and depending on the project, they adjust the resources at hand, factoring in of projects and engineers are becoming available and additional needs emerge as to face up to growth.

[Interpreted] Now we got a question from Mr. Laurent Daure.

[Interpreted] Actually, I know it is early, but I would have liked to know 2024.

[Interpreted] Well, it is early. That's for sure.

[Interpreted] Yes, I know. But growth is still -- embedded growth is really withering down, so to say, and part of the market with the organic expectations, those expectations are pretty high. Today, first question. Is there a possible risk of having a contracted revenues with protocols, which clients are conveying messages? And today, may you consider that an ambitious scenario's perhaps to fish for 4% to 5% organic growth? And then I got a follow-up question after you give your answer.

[Interpreted] Now it is too early to answer the question now. The growth impetus withered down. I mean granted, it was going to be lower than it used to be, now this is a true. Now having said that, in terms of organic growth this year, let's say that we're going to be adding perhaps 3,000 engineers, perhaps a little more, 3,200. We'll just see how we'll be ending the year and this is going to be generating embedded growth for the year 2024, regardless of what happens. This is just going to be systematic, but much lower than last year's because last year, we had added 6,600 people inorganic. So we'll be twice weaker in terms of embedded growth than last year. And knowing that, I did not model those, but we have mixed impacts because part of the growth of this year was generated in the international basis and in areas that are not necessarily generating turnover per individual because Morocco and other countries were developed to address some European markets. So perhaps the first indication, but very, very preliminary to say, okay, we should consider organic growth but embedded growth is last year I figured out what it was and divide it by 2, this is quite a rough estimation. With a security buffer, 8 for example, we'll just have to add the 2024 growth. Now I'm having a look at Germany, because Germany is an important revenue per capita, which is quite important. And this is still a problem among OEMs, automotive OEMs. Now the message in Germany early this week, for instance, well, the message of local managers is as follows: OEMS are not renewing the projects. Those that are stopping no longer have any budgets and they're not relaunching new projects and they're asking you for [ people ] because budgets are going to be unblocked next year, early next year. And as a result, they're expecting a resumption of business, a resumption of growth as of Q2 2024. Now this is a message I heard from competitors as well in the automotive sector. And this does not mean that it's going to be coming to fruition, but it is a consistent speech. Now let's actually expect this resumption in Germany Q2 204, and this will be the case elsewhere as well. I don't know how long the crisis is going to last in France in the banking sector but not just the banking sector but in the market in general. But our scenario today is in the low embedded growth plus some additional growth in 2024. I'm not going to give you figures, 4 or 5, I don't know or less than that for that matter. I hope that we're still going to be generating growth around those figures. But before getting a departing snapshot, in other words, the early January, the landscape in terms of head count, activities and projects, it's difficult to really give you some kind of forecast.

[Interpreted] Okay. The follow-up question is with regards to profitability. We'd like to get back to 10. This is the ambition for next year. And the departing point is somewhat lower, 25, 30 basis points versus what we had anticipated. Now is that really refashioning this idea of getting back to a 10? Or is this a one-shot idea? And how about the structural margin?

[Interpreted] Well, the structural margin is not moving that much. We are really taking up some measures here right now so as to steer the cost. Accordingly, we're now drawing up a plan. I don't know whether I can be too vocal about it. I don't know whether it was subject to an announcement, but this is done in a country, in a European country but this is not going to be a big country, but I mean just to adjust ourselves to the beginning of the year. And we are going to take up the right measures to acclimate the cost basis to the business activities.

[Interpreted] Okay. Good. This is clear. The very last question. Now we feel that things are deteriorating, they have been deteriorating for a few weeks. Have you been observing that more companies are up for grabs and more opportunities in terms of external growth?

[Interpreted] Not really. No. There are projects that are still around. There are the same basically. There is a company that just emerged in the market, and that could be interesting in Germany, which I visited this week. The multiples did not go down, and let me tell you, they've been shareholders for 3 years plus the time lines or really [ the warehouses ]. I mean this is the right calendar, the right time to sell, perhaps even a little too late because the inflection curve is -- actually we went past that in the H1. But right now, we do not see any M&A market adjustments. Multiples are not going down and more projects are not emerging more - no, not more than in the past.

[Interpreted] Okay. Perhaps multiples will not grow again, but are there still transactions taking place now? Are there still buyers still ready to buy those multiples because if there are more, then things are going to get adjusted?

[Interpreted] Now this is sure, for sure. Funds are going to be withdrawing companies from the market until things -- Okay. Well, anyway, what can we see here is when the process of creating structured, funds are still around and industrial players are putting up strategies on those projects.

[Interpreted] We got a question from Mr. Derric Marcon. [Technical difficulty]

[Interpreted] Okay. I got the question. Okay. The question is from [ Jaco Estafan ]. Okay. He said thank you very much. I'm going to wait for Mr. Marcon's question. Perhaps he's going to try to ask the question via phone. [Operator Instructions]

[Interpreted] Okay. Sorry for this technical glitch. Bruno, okay, you have to really ask them to invest in IT. And well, the problem with the Zoom, it's actually bad and sorry for the operator, but this is not a communication tool. This is not one of our communication tools. Okay, first question is the automotive, which is generally really generating good performance. I don't know whether this 15% is over 3 months or 1 month. In Germany, could you perhaps tell us a little about what you consider is relevant in that sector because on the one hand, your message is quite pessimistic because OEMs are actually lowering their budgets or perhaps putting some other projects on hold and the situation in Germany, as it is, but the aggregated figure on it, from a top down standpoint, is rather good. Number 2 is the French dynamic. In France, the dynamic is quite strong. We understand perhaps because of Q3. But on the other hand, the performance is quite well. You did not mention any negative elements or overly negative parameters. So is this trend going to last? And if I go back to the whole question, the growth with France over 5% basically. The international level will be below the average level of the group. And question number 3, if you could get back to the areas, the weaker areas. The weakness was stronger than expected in Q3. Hence, the lower level in Q3 now perhaps, according to your comments, Germany was perhaps -- well, that had an impact on this situation.

[Interpreted] Okay. I'm going to take this -- try to take it in order. So far as the automotive sector is concerned, in other words, there is no general trend in the automotive sector. And all of the OEMs are not necessarily concerned or impacted by projects being halted. Now 15% organic growth in the automotive sector year-to-date and in Q3, only Q3, we generated 9.5%, which I mean this still represents very satisfactory figures even though we got used to high growth rates. But I mean, this is very satisfactory. In the automotive segment, now what are the issues at hand? German OEMs, that's a given. Not makers, not the carmakers. Now why? I cannot give you an answer, but OEMS, the projects came to a halt and they'll resume next year for new projects. Now Sweden, now carmakers because of Volvo 15. Same as in Germany, projects are coming to a halt. Budgets are not being put back on the table, they're not going to be back again, back until 2024. Now why? Because technical and R&D teams consumed all their budgets anticipated them. And then given the context, their managers decided not to extend them. I don't know. But the truth of the matter is that project portfolios are provided, they're actually fleshed out. You also have transition-related issues, which are boosting everybody. But in reality, this is the situation. Now the U.S. among carmakers, activities are going down -- well, not activities, no. Let's be careful. Less growth -- business growth and budgets did not -- or were not contracted. And in the automotive sector, I mean, those are the areas which we are facing issues. Now the situation is very good in France. Among U.S. carmakers, with the exception of Stellantis. Now we're pressing ahead. To the exclusion of Stellantis, in Italy, the situation is good; in Spain, same thing. Okay, we're not really facing a crisis in the automotive sector. We're facing a slowdown, a strong slowdown among some of the clients. So much for the automotive. We talked about at the analyst meeting, and we are at the top of the wave, and telecoms are in the same situation. So that will have an impact, and we'll see what happens in 2024, but not all domains are changing like in France or growing. So the 3 sectors that I mentioned are -- represent over 50% of French turnover. So what are the areas' weakness, in that case? I have mentioned it to a certain extent, so the automobile industry. S telecoms industry is dropping, and we'll also see a drop in Q4. So excluding South America, this is more or less the same everywhere. Banking, when it comes to banking and finance, we also see a slowdown of activity in North America. So energy, oil and gas is still dropping. So logically speaking, there should be investments that will start up again. But we can't -- we don't see anything on the horizon as yet. I was listening to Mr. [ Piani ] recently and what he said was that if we wanted to avoid an oil crisis, crude oil question, investment would be necessary. So it will likely happen. But in any case, we're not seeing any cause for [ tender ]. When it comes to Life Sciences, this was a sector that slowed down, but it seems to be picking up again. But as I said, Telecoms, banking and automobile industry are having difficulty. There are the growth rates that we've seen in Q3 are not the growth rates that we saw last year. As Laurent said, sequential growth is slowing down, there are pluses, there are minuses. But we won't be starting on the same footing as last year. So I can't make any predictions about 2024 because I am not able to. But I can't say for sure it'll be 4%, it'll be 6%, it will be 3%. We really have no way of telling.

[Interpreted] One last question for me to understand momentum. As you said, recruitment is happening. Recruitment in October was fairly dynamic. So we're trying to compare the dynamic that you see at the beginning of October versus what was seen in Q3 and September. Is there a real difference? Is it a positive momentum? Is it something that you can qualify as a dynamic that'll enable you to grow to a certain extent or around 4% to 5%? I'm just trying to understand what you mean by dynamic October.

[Interpreted] No. What I said is that we won't have a Q4 like we had last year, where we recruited 1,200 people. It's not -- well, recruitment will happen, around 350 people in October, to give you an idea of the figures. But October is generally a month when we recruit a lot because September, October is when we recruitment beginners, so it's not abnormal to see this level of recruitment in October. But we're not seeing the same increase in activity elsewhere. So recruitment is never very high in December, so I can't predict the future. We're also working in context where forecasts are really done from 1 week to another. So I don't know where we'll be between now and the end of the year when it comes to net recruitment. But October is generally a good month. Not sure if that was a clear enough answer.

[Interpreted] We don't have any other questions. Would you like to wait a little bit? No one else is raising their -- or has raised their hand.

[Interpreted] Yes, I'm connected weirdly. I'm connected under [ Cecile ] name. I have 2 quick questions. The first is about Germany. So you said auto and -- automobile [ industry ] was at 7% of turnover. Is there any kind of ambition to increase diversity? So there are [ unique ] countries that, well, have a lot of activity like China. Is there any -- are there any projects to diversify? And yes, when? And second question, I remember the 2 sectors that had slowed down early in the cycle, oil and gas and banking and finance? When it slowed down, and can we expect any kind of impact, positive or negative? Or is it really too hard to make any kind of prediction?

[Interpreted] In order to answer your question about Germany, yes, of course, we are trying to diversify in automobile and aeronautics industry. So this represents 67% of accumulated turnover. A few years ago, it represented at least 80%, if not more. The reason for this is because the sectors that externalize R&D the most in Germany are these sectors. And generally speaking in the world, so the other sectors externalize also, but in Germany, they externalize a lot less. So there are certain sectors where we have undertaken diversification, electronics, in Germany, telecoms, energy industry. So for the time being, these are Retail & Service activities that are a little lower than [ Fi ] but theirs is anecdotal, so there's the banking and finance sector in Germany, where we have little presence but all the other sectors are growing progressively by a few points every year, which explains the difference between 80% and 67%. There are prospecting activities, which are taking place, but as always, it just takes a bit of time. And to answer your question on oil and gas and banking and finance. So these are industries don't have the same kind of dynamics. Oil and gas represented 9% of the turnover in 2014 or '15, which was the highest, I think. And since 2015, it has dropped year after year. So we kept thinking that it would stop dropping, but it's still dropping from one year to the next. And currently, I wouldn't want to say that it will surely go back up again. But there are other renewable energy products, which are substitute. But this does not compensate for the projects that disappeared in oil and gas sector. So this is an overall trend which will obviously come to a head given the energy transition. I know there's certain projects that have been -- that were suspended given the drop in growth. Banking and finance is another topic. So it started to drop much more recently, so this year, just this year even. So we saw signs of deceleration end of 2023. This was -- there were announcements that were made. We're not seeing negative growth yet, except in France, but we will end up with negative growth in 2024 in France, I think, perhaps in the U.S. but perhaps not in Canada. Well, we're not seeing a drop in all countries. Year-to-date, we're at a little over 5%. I don't think we have hit the bottom yet. I think we'll have to wait for the middle of 2024 before seeing any kind of recovery, and that is the best-case scenario.

[Interpreted] We have a question from Mr. Aditya.

Two for me. Firstly, have you seen any change in the competitive landscape at all in your main markets? And second, can you talk about what you're seeing in terms of pricing and the correlations you're having with customers regarding that? [Audio Gap]

[Interpreted] I'm just checking whether everybody who has their hand up does have a question or whether they just forgot to lower their hand. So it looks like that was the last question. If there are no other questions, I would like to thank you for participating in this conference call. I wish you a very good evening. And I'd like to remind you that we will meet again at the end of January, whereby we'll talk about the turnover for 2023. I wish you a very pleasant evening, and goodbye. Thank you very much. [Portions of this transcript that are marked [Interpreted] were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]