Antin Infrastructure Partners S.A. (ANTIN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to this 2024 AGM, the first since we became a public company, all the team of Antin and myself are very happy to meet you today for this important moment for our company, which will decide our future I declare this AGM open. I would like to thank the independent administrators for being present in the room as well as our statutory auditors. As the Chairman and CEO, I will be the Chair of this AGM. I will now name two scrutineers. I will ask Mark Crosbie and Mélanie Biessy, both members of the AGM and having the most shares to please accept this role. I will now name [ Kami Matthew ] as Secretary for the AGM. We are now going to go over the legal formalities that were accomplished before this assembly was convened. So this AGM takes place after the publication in the official publications of a notice. On the 24, there was also a dispatch. On the 21st of May, the company's shareholders and our statutory auditors were convened here, everyone necessary has been convened, and we have received no extra points to add to the agenda and no answers. And as is customary, we will dispense with reading the various reports to the meeting and the full text of resolutions. An attendance sheet has been drawn up and signed by each shareholder attending the meeting. We can already tell you that the required quorum necessary for this AGM has been met, both for ordinary and extraordinary meetings, and we will give you the final quorum at a later point.

And now we will organize the AGM according to the agenda, which you can now see on screen, we will cover what we did in 2023, and we will share our perspectives for years to come, then [indiscernible], our Director of Sustainable Development, will take the floor to present our climate strategy. Patrice Schuetz, our Financial Director, will then intervene to talk about our financial performance, our governance and our compensation system will be explained by Mélanie Biessy. The statutory auditors will then take the floor. After this, we will open the session for questions and answers, and then we will present and vote upon the resolutions. And as during the previous years, after the meeting, we will be giving you a small gift to thank you for supporting us here. Many significant steps, many significant thresholds have been crossed in 2023, especially when it comes to fundraising, of that now manages EUR 41 billion in assets, EUR 20 billion receive commissions. We've closed the NextGen funding round, it is at its target size, which shows the ability of our investors to manage new strategies. We've been prudent and disciplined in our deployment of capital with four new investments, two for the Flagship V Fund and two for NextGen I. The financial performance of our company's under management is still excellent, and the trajectory of all our funds is on target or above. In 2023, we have also continued our recruitment policy in our development policy in the U.S. to give you an idea. Among our 27 new employees, 9 work in the New York office, including 6 new professionals of investment. One point to highlight in 2023 is our financial performance, which Patrice will detail for you in a few minutes, but EBITDA has grown 48% and our net result has increased by 60% compared to 2022. This financial performance combined to the cash we have currently on hand allows us to give all of our recurring and net result out as dividends. We will now detail our activities for fundraising, investment and disposals. We have managed to raise EUR 1.8 billion in 2023, EUR 1.6 million of which are for the Flagship V and EUR 200 million for the NextGen fund. In total, for Flagship V, we have raised EUR 9 billion at the date of the 31st of December. So 90% of the target size for the fund. This represents a fund, which is 40% larger than its predecessor Fund IV, and we continue to raise funds in 2024. We have closed fundraising for NextGen at EUR 1.2 billion, which shows the ability of Antin to raise funds for new investment strategy. We've announced 4 new investments for 2023, an IPO for a Spanish company, OPD Energy, a renewable energy platform centered on solar energy and a ground-based wind power, which is the second investment for Flagship V. We've acquired Consilium Safety, the acquisition of Consilium Safety, a leader for infrastructure management which is a deferred investment for Flagship V. The NextGen fund announced two investments in 2023. The acquisition of the smart grids company, PearlX and a co company with Enviro, a Swedish company supported by Michelin to create the first global group for recycling pneumatics at a scale. This shows Antin's strong commitment to the circular economy and energy transition. We have made less disposals in 2023, in alignment with the rest of activity in private markets, Antin has sold the Hesley Group in great Britain. And now we will watch a video on our investment -- recent investment in Consilium safety. By supplying critical security and operational resilience to clients in 55 countries, Consilium Safety is a global leader for safety management. It was created in 1912 in Gothenburg, Sweden. It's now a major player on the international market. It supplies and maintains fire and gas detection devices. It's focused on four sectors, shipping, railway, energy and social infrastructure, complex official infrastructure like hospitals. These are sectors where reliable detection of gas and fires is key. The total base represents 75,000 installed systems, which guarantees operational safety for clients on a daily basis. [Presentation]

Financial performance of the companies in our portfolio was excellent in 2023. And all of our funds have been performing on target or above. This proves the strength of our investment strategy and the resilience of the asset classes we have chosen. Multiples are only stable in part of the growth of our portfolio because of the dilution effect of increased interest rates on internal valuations. This is a temporary effect, which does not change the trajectory of our funds. These multiples have indeed increased during the first quarter of 2024. We cannot compare the multiples of different funds from one to another because they are at different stages of the value creation process. In 2023, we also saw an evolution of our direction team for employees who were promoted to a managing partner, which is a first in history of the group, all have been with Antin for a long time and all our significant shareholders. I would first like to highlight that this is a natural evolution, and this is a continuation of what we have been doing. Mark wanted to focus on his role of the investment committee after co-directing Antin for 15 years. here remains the second biggest shareholder of Antin. And if this AGM renews its trust to him, he will be Vice President of the Board. At the same time, the Ex Com has been broadened with the inclusion of Stéphane Ifker, Angelika Schöchlin, and Kevin Genieser. Stéphane has been working at Antin since its creation and has led some of our most fruitful investments in digital and energy. He is the sponsor of all investments in this sector worldwide. Angelika has joined Antin 2010 and has led our investments in Transportation and Social. She is the sponsor for these sectors also on a global scale. Kevin, joined us in 2017 and created our New York office next year, which is an office he's been leading ever since. These are 50 collaborators who have done six investments in North America to the state. This evolution of the leading team shows the development of human capital in our company, which favors the development of our employees and internal promotions at every level of the organization. And now I give the floor to Felix Heon for our climate strategy. He's our Director of Sustainable Development.

Thank you Alain. As we said during the first part of the AGM, the goal of my intervention today is to present the climate strategy to you, which was officially announced last year during this very same meeting, and which is one of the pillars of Antin going forward. So just to remind you, at Antin, we consider taking into account sustainable development and climate change as a true vector for creating and protecting value for the companies in which we invest, and it's one of the key performance indicators for our fund and to guarantee growth and sustainability of our investments. So these stakes have been for a very long time and now a part of our investment strategy, influencing our investment decisions, but also being an integral part of the management process of our portfolio companies, while they are being held. We have put some numbers on this slide, which allow us to understand how these points are integrated to our investment strategy. Over the last few years, we've done significant investments in the energy transition, EUR 4.5 billion invested in companies that work in the energy transition and in renewable energy and also EUR 516 million in companies that do rail transportation. Beyond the fact that we've invested an important part of our assets under management in companies that have a strong environmental impact. We also have been integrated actively the risks and opportunity of the environment within our entire investment process. At the end of 2023, we had raised more than EUR 4.5 billion, and these are loans where that have been indexed on the ESG performance. We've also placed the socioeconomic development of territories at the heart of our investment. As you can see on the right of the slide with the 12 billion we've deployed at the end of 2023 throughout our funds to guarantee the transformation and growth of our companies. And we've created 1,700 net jobs in our portfolio since 2021. This is a net number. We have a robust ESG management system, which we are continuously reinforcing by using multiple tools and internal processes, and we use this data to give an account as transparent as possible of the ESG performance of our funds through several yearly reports, which are aligned with extra financial reporting frameworks, both voluntary and compulsory. As I've said at the start of this presentation, last year, we formalized and presented during this AGM, our climate strategy, it aims to limit the impact of our organization on climate change and it aims to adapt our investment activities to the consequences of the climate change. Our strategy is based on three pillars. The first one being decarbonation of activities in line with the Paris agreements and more specifically to maintain below 2 degrees celsius, the average temperature increase on the globe. The second is to integrate actively risks and opportunities linked to climate change throughout our investment process. And the third pillar -- that was the third pillar. And the second pillar is to accelerate investment in companies enabling decarbonization. Shown here is our total carbon footprint in 2023. Our footprint is on 2 major categories. We have direct indirect emissions linked to our enterprise activities generated three office energy consumption, professional travel of our employees and consumption of goods and services to run our investment activities. In 2023, these emissions were just over 6 kilo tons of equivalent CO2. As you can see in our slide, only represented 0.2% of our total carbon footprint. Emissions generated by firms that we finance on a pro rata of our holding 23. They represented 3,300 million kilo tonnes of CO2 equivalents. That's the equivalent of 3,000 French people. If we want to have a major impact as a company on climate change, of course, we must focus efforts on decarbonizing our investment portfolio. As announced last year, we've defined the decarbonization objectives in line with the global baseline system based by the SBTi science-based target initiative. It's an international organization that said to define sectoral decarbonization methods in line with the Paris Agreement. In our organization, our goal is to reduce by 42%. Our Scope 1 and 2 emissions between '22 and 2030. Essentially, these are emissions linked to the energy consumed in our offices. At the end of '23, we're almost a reduction of 36% of these emissions versus '22, thanks primarily to transition to 100% renewable energy in our Paris and Luxembourg offices. We transitioned our Paris, New York and Singapore offices going forward to readily reach our goal by 2030. In our investment portfolio, our goal is by 2040 at the latest, have 100% of our capital invested in company with decarbonization goal signed off by the SBT. In '23, we continued to evolve positively on this pathway at the end of the year, 12% of capital invested in companies with such goal. That's an increase of 8 percentage points over '22 in companies formally committed. Pillar 2 of our climate strategy is to accelerate investment in companies promoting transition to low carbon investing in, for example, companies in the renewable space producing renewable and directly investing in companies with heat and cold networks by pulling the energy requirements reduces the carbon content of the energy makes 2023, reflecting our progress in the delivery of this commitment. By year-end, we had 22% of capital, mid-cap flagship in companies in the renewable space on new investment in the Spanish company for wind and solar power, OPD energy and 12% of capital invested in district heat energy, 100% of capital invested in NextGen is invested in EV charging smart grids and recycling, including notably 2 investments announced early '23, one in PearlX in the U.S. and in the JV with Enviro and Michelin, the leading network for recycling old tires. In 2023, we've continued to roll out several initiatives in favor of pillar 3 of our climate strategy to embed proactively climate risks and opportunities into our investment process. So we have notably put in place a new tool for risk analysis and climate opportunity developed specifically for investment capital by [ AXA ] climate, part of AXA devoted to climate and the environment. With this enabler that we use across our funds allowed us to identify risks and opportunities potentially material for targets that are in our portfolio that linked to extreme climate events linked to global warming or regular, regulatory market or tech changes accompanying the economy to a low-carbon economy going forward. I'm going to hand over now to Patrice to discuss the group's financial performance over the year.

Thanks Felix. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. It's a pleasure to present our financial results for 2023 that were outstanding, as you can see French's and my mother tongue, so I'm going to present this in English, but keep the French slides for your convenience. As you see, we've recorded strong growth across all key financial performance metrics. Our fee-paying AUM increased to more than EUR 20 billion and was up 5.8%. Our revenues grew by 32%, driven entirely by higher management fees, which are the result of strong fundraising. These management fees are long-term contracted revenues that provide significant P&L predictability. As a result of our strong revenue growth and controlled cost increases, we substantially grew our underlying EBITDA and our underlying net income. EBITDA was up 48% with margins expanding by 7 percentage points, and net income was up by more than 60% as a result of those effects. I will now talk about our cost base. You can see that we've increased our expenses in a controlled manner in 2023. Personnel expenses account for roughly 2/3 of our cost base and the increased by 15.1% to EUR 74.2 million. This increase is driven primarily by head count growth of 10.9%. And of course, we've done a number of key hires across the firm in investment, operations and Investor Relations. And in particular, we've hired in our New York office, where we continue to grow our presence in New York, in North America, which is strategic to the firm. The remainder increase in the personnel expenses is really linked to wage increases, which are driven by inflation and promotions. Now if we move to the right-hand side of the page, you see that we increased our operating expenses, our other operating expenses by 6.2%. And if you exclude periodic effects such as placement fees, and fund administration expenses that are recharged to our funds, the increase is 6.9%. So well below the growth of our employee base and inflation. If we combine our revenue growth and these control cost increases, we've increased our profitability substantially. So our EBITDA is up 48.2% to EUR 175 million. I've already mentioned that's a 7 percentage point increase in our margin. Our underlying net income increased by 60% and to EUR 128 million, resulting in an underlying earnings per share that grew to $0.73 per share compared to $0.44 per share in the prior year. As a result of that, we're proposing today the distribution of almost all our 2023 profit in the form of dividends. So EUR 127.2 million in total which equates to $0.71 per share, a 69% increase compared to the dividend we've paid in the prior year. Out of this, a $0.32 per share dividend has already been paid as an interim dividend in November of 2023 and the balance of $0.39 per share is proposed to be paid on the 19th of June fairly soon. So now looking at our outlook. It has always been our stated objective since the IPO to grow faster than the infrastructure private markets in general. We have done that for 15 years, and it continues to be our objective to do that in the future. More specifically, and more near term, we plan to raise at least EUR 10 billion for Flagship Fund V, which obviously is a very substantial upsizing of that fund relative to its predecessor. And we also continue to have an objective to maintain or increase our profits. In essence, this means that for our EBITDA, we expect to be at or above EUR 175 million, which is equivalent -- at EUR 175 million equivalent to where we were in 2023. And that's obviously very much driven by the outcome of fundraising for Fund V. With respect to cash distributions, it's our objective to continue to dividend out a majority of our cash profits, consistent with how we've been doing it over the past years. And with that, I will hand over to Mélanie Biessy to talk about governance and compensation.

Thanks Patrice. Ladies and gentlemen, I am indeed now going to address governance and compensation. As you know, 85% of capital held by Antin held by Antin partners and employees. This shareholding guarantees alignment of interest with the shareholders who hold the free float. The Board is currently comprised of seven members, three executive directors present here and four independent directors, some of whom are present in the room. March 6, last, the Board decided to propose today to renewal the terms of Alain Rauscher, Mark Crosbie and myself for a 3-year term and to renew the term of Ramon de Oliveira, independent duration for a 2-year term with an IT staggering mandates. Russell Chambers, who's not asked for the renewal of his term. The Board thanked him warmly for his contribution to the work of the Board as well as his active participation within the Audit Committee and the appointments of -- and Compensation Committee of which he was a member. We are actually two running the slides. So subject to your approval, the Board will number, hence for six members, three independent directors. That's a proportion of 50% independent directors that is markedly higher than the minimum proportion of 33.3% recommended by MDF code for control [indiscernible] will join the Audit Committee, which remained comprised of three independent members. The Appointments and Compensation Committee will comprise two independent directors. And Lynne Shamwana will join the sustainability commitment. So it's to strengthen ties between the Audit Committee and the Sustainability Committee. I will now turn to compensation awarded to Board members in respect of FY 2023. Only the independent directors receive compensation as data Directors, the total -- maximum total amount of said compensation that is to be divided between them was approved by the AGM held on the 24th of November. That's EUR 210,000. Items of compensation for directors, shown here respect to FY '23 were determined by the Board upon recommendation of the Appointments and Compensation Committee in application of the compensation policy approved at the last AGM. The structure of compensation for executive officers of Antin respect to FY '23 was only comprised of fixed and variable compensation. Variable compensation was subject to the attainment of five quantitative criteria that represents 70% of total variable compensation and two qualitative criteria representing 30% of this variable compensation as shown on the screen. The charts here show total fixed and variable compensation of a Alain Rauscher and Mark Crosbie in respect to FY '23 as regards variable compensation. The Board said the achievement rate for quantitive objectives at 100% and the attainment rate for qualitative objectives at 92.5%. Items on which the Board based itself in defining these attainment rates are detailed in our universal registration document for 2023. In accordance with provisions of the code comment, the payment of this variable compensation is today put to your approval. I'm now going to present the compensation policy in respect to FY '24. Now compensation policy for independent directors applied in '24 will be renewed from '23 to '24 and the principles are shown here on screen. As regards compensation of the executive officer. So there's no change in the FY '23 policy will be broadly renewed for '24. In respect to 24, the Board proposes to preserve the current structure compensation for the CEO comprised only a fixed and variable compensation. The latter being capped at 100% of fixed compensation to the exclusion of any other item of compensation. That's the first point proposed by the Board and also to continue the policy of alignment of increased compensation of the CEO on the increase in compensation for Antin employees by applying to fixed compensation, the same increase of 5% that applied on average to the compensation of Antin employees. Also retain the structure of the variable compensation of the CEO with a quantitative component capped at 70% of fixed compensation and a qualitative component capped at 30% of fixed compensation with an eye to being considered consistent with KPIs disclosed to the market. This will be assessed on the basis of four criteria, no longer the five planned as part of the policy for 2023, shown here on screen. So the change involves the quantitative criteria, and we've introduced increase in EBITDA plus 5%. That's the change introduced for compensation in 2024. Thank you for your attention. I'm going to hand over to our statutory auditors for their various reports.

Dear shareholders, I will first summarize our audit report for the consolidated financial statements and annual financial statements on the brochure. You have been given the fundamental objective of our audit is to obtain reasonable assurance that the financial statements are fairly presented and that they are for representation of financial statements and that there are no significant anomalies. We certify without any reservations the consolidated financial statements and the yearly financial statements of your company in a complex and changing environment. We report to you the key aspects of the audits regarding the risk of significant anomalies, which in our professional judgment were most significant for the audit of this year. The key points of the audit related to the consolidated financial statements or to a valuation of noncurrent assets, so fund shares held, the valuation of carried interest. Finally, the key point of the audit relating solely to the individual financial participation, especially when it comes to AIP, SAS and AIP UK. We have no matters to report regarding the fair presentation of the group's management report, in conformity with the consolidated financial statement. Concerning individual accounts, we have no observations to make. After the specific checkups, regulatory checkups have been done, especially concerning information given to the shareholders, especially the report on corporate governance and management report concerning the format of the presentation of consolidated financial statements. [indiscernible] thereof and the annual financial statement included on the basis of our work. We conclude the presentation of the consolidated financial accounts, the annual accounts and the annex or in conformity in all significant ways with the European electronic information format. I now give the floor to [indiscernible], which is going to detail our special report and our other reports.

Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, I'm going to continue with the report on regulated conventions. This report has to be presented to the AGM. Our work is not to give our opinion on their usefulness or at their relevance. So before the AGM's approval, we have received no information about any convention authorized and concluded within the last year to be put before the approval of the AGM in accordance with L225-38 of the Code of Commerce. Concerning conventions already approved by the AGM. We inform you that we were not notified of any preapproved convention whose execution would have continued during 2023. Now I will tell you about the four reports which fall under the purview of the extraordinary AGM. First of all, the report on the reduction of capital resolution 14, 15. It's the authorization to consent to the Board, the ability to reduce equity by canceling shares within the framework of the law, L22-1062 of the Code of Commerce, there's a limitation to 10% of capital for 24 months. There's also a delegation of power to the board for 18 months with regards to that. The conclusion of our report is we have no observations to make on the reasons and conditions of the equity reduction, which has been planned. Now I'll report on the authorization of attribution of free shares, which exist I would like to remind you, Resolution 16, authorization to consent to the Board to attribute free shares, which already exist or new shares. The shares that would be attributed would not represent more than 2 million shares. The total number of shares that could be attributed within the framework of the current authorization could not go above the global limit of 15% of existing shares of the company at the date of their attribution. The conclusion of our work is that we have no observation to make concerning the information given in the report of the Board concerning this operation to allow free shares attribution. We still have two reports to cover. Report on a capital increase specifically for those who have an employee savings plan, with an 18-month delegation of power to give to the Board to increase equity by creating a new company shares for the shareholders who are part of the employee savings scheme. The total amount will be no more than EUR 10 million. The conclusion is that while we will need to monitor extra capital that will be decided. We have no comment to make on the current modalities of the power to be given to the Board. The final conditions in which these new shares will be made have not been made final. We have no opinion on these, or on the proposal to remove the preferential subscription possibility. In accordance with code R225-116 of the Code of Commerce. We will give you a future report once conditions have been specified. Finally, concerning Resolution 18, an increase of capital for beneficiaries, which will be employees of the group. Resolution 18 is to create shares without a preferential subscription rate. For employees of the companies of the group for a maximum amount of EUR 5 million, all inclusive, and this ceiling will be part of the ceiling of the 18 resolution and of the global ceiling of the fifth resolution voted during the AGM of 2023. This is a delegation of power for 18 months. If this -- once conditions will have been made more precise, we have, in the meantime, no notices to make about the current delegation of power to the Board. Once the final conditions are known, we will be able to give a final notice and report. In the meantime, we have no comments to make. In accordance with Article R225-116 at the Code of Commerce, we will give you a future further reports, if necessary, once the Board uses this power. And now it's our pleasure to open the Q&A session. There have been no received -- no written questions given to the Board. So we will directly answer the shareholders in the room. You have the floor, ladies and gentlemen.

[interpreted] So I'm used to be present for AGMs physically, and I know companies well, but I must apologize because I don't know your company that well. And so I have a couple of questions, maybe naive questions, I wanted to thank you for your very pleasant welcome and these are presentations, which are both convincing and well made. First, I have a question you talked about assets that generate commissions, which is a very worrying for a minority shareholders, such as myself, which is the idea that you may manage assets that don't generate commissions. Why is that?

I'll answer this question. We have EUR 31 billion in assets under management. Within this EUR 31 billion, EUR 20 billion or assets, which generate commissions. That is to say they generate revenues for the company, you are a shareholder of. Beyond this EUR 20 billion, there is co-investment, which is offered to investors of our funds, and this co-investment does not generate any management commissions, which is why it's quoted in the assets under management, but doesn't generate any commissions. And then there's overvaluation of portfolios because we are an investor that creates value. And so this extra value, which is generated is a part of this EUR 31 billion of assets under management. And so most of the revenue of our company also comes from co-investment and value created on the assets we are invested in.

So I have four questions. The first is Flagship V. I understood that initially, we were aiming for EUR 12 billion of fundraising on this instrument. I understand that now we're looking at 10 million. Could you tell us what led -- is it simply because the sector slowed down and investor appetite? Why do we have these difficulties? What is your degree of trust that we will be able to reach EUR 10 billion at Q3? That's my first question.

So concerning the target for fundraising for Flagship V, it hasn't changed at EUR 10 billion. We've indicated that we were at EUR 9 billion at the end 2023. What is the number today?

EUR 9.2 billion.

And the fund is still being raised. So we are very confident that we will exceed the EUR 10 billion target. The EUR 12 billion you were talking about are what we call the hard cap. It's not a target commitment. It's a maximum that we commit to raise with our investors. And our estimation today is that we will be around somewhere around 10% and 12%. The market, what we call the private markets was very difficult. It has been very difficult over the last 12 to 18 months, mainly for one reason, which is what we call DPI. That's to say the fact that there were very few disposals, which have allowed investors and funds to get cash back to reinvest in new funds to recycle capital in new funds. So the market has slowed down a lot. We did one acquisition, but it's true that apart from a company in Great Britain, we have made no disposals, and it's the case of many of our peers. So the big institutionals who invest with us are all in a situation, many of them in a situation where there's a cash limit on what they can invest. Nonetheless, we continue to raise funds, and I can mention one public investment with an investment of the state of New Mexico, which decided to invest $250 million, so EUR 240 million, which will be added to the EUR 9.1 billion, which our friend talked about earlier. So the market is difficult for everyone, but we continue and we will manage to exceed our target. We believe that with a lot of confidence.

Well, that's a connection to my next question. So these few acquisitions. So I understand that it's a sector. Last week, we saw a first lowering of interest rates. Does this free up? Do you feel that things are moving when it comes to the ability to manage disposals? Or is it still too soon for this reaction?

So I would say that interest rates on private markets, on nonpublicly traded broadly speaking, there are two types of debt instruments for buyout funds. You have a debt structure, which is so-called junior, and these were very costful debts. And today, we'll see debt that's 10% or 10% to 15%, so very high cost. Concerning Antin and its market, which is focused on infrastructure, the cost of debt is much, much more limited. It's more expensive than it was 2.5 years ago, but we're looking at a benchmark, which is much more reasonable. So we insist and the fact that banks have a greater ability to lend in our asset category at least. And I think in 2000, in 2022, to give you an idea of scope, we financed and refinanced around EUR 10 billion. In 2023, the amount was EUR 8 billion. It's not because we can raise as much. It's because we didn't need to, but we refinanced everything and the maturity of debt or for almost all beyond 2025. So we are very, very confident on our ability to wait for a fall in interest rates, which is starting to move in Europe, but the Fed has not moved its rate yet this week. But for very specific reasons on the American market because they have no joblessness, so this creates inflationary pressure. There's a specificity of the American market. But in Europe, rates have already started going down.

My third question is I'm something I'm worried about. So I don't know much about your trade, but I perceived these last few years, there's been a euphoria on infrastructure. Everybody wanted infrastructure with 0% interest rates. So it was a very attractive bet. So I felt that everything that could exist was taken up and the multiples were a bit high. And my perception, and I hope I'm wrong about this, is that when you present companies of the group, sometimes we move away from infrastructure strictly speaking because, as far as I'm concerned, infrastructure is very long term. It's protected from inflation and it's on a solid economic models, so when I see recharging stations for cars, it looks very long term, very costful. When I see you communicate on Proxima, we have to compete with a player that's been losing money forever. So it's hard to compete with competition that loses money. I know that you're very professional, but nonetheless, but my impression is to ask myself, aren't we going beyond infrastructure -- are we going to go beyond infrastructure in spite of the fact that this may present a more -- a steeper risk profile?

So what we call infrastructure is not a sector, it's a risk of level, and we do it with what we call the infras test. We look for essential assets in a community on which we have a visibility of cash flow in the long run, which allows us to protect ourselves against inflation with contracts. This also allows us to offer a great capacity, natural barriers to entry. Not that we are always in a monopoly but competition, I would say, is reasonable. And because we're looking for good profitability, we want assets that can grow to create wealth. So once when we think about a new investment, we always think in the following way. And we have four big sectors, four big companies, if you would like. transportation, energy and environment, digital telecommunications and medical essentials. But it's not because we have an investment in a highway, for instance, that we're going to do investments on other highways. There are highways that have no potential for growth. That there's no potential for growth, it's not for us because we can create value there.

To pick up on the point you mentioned, I mean, it's too soon to say what's going to happen. EV charging stations. Well, we can think what you like about EVs, but there will be. There are already some on the road, numbers are growing. Will it be 20%-30%, 100%? Or will it be postponed or will never be 100%, but there will be demand for EVs on the rise and therefore, for EV charging step. We're present across four countries, through two companies in the U.K., Portugal, Spain, France, and we're currently rolling out network, very pragmatically by seeking to identify the right spots to deploy the EV charging stations. Our approach is prudent in terms of size, and it's also an approach that I would say does not postulate that tomorrow, everyone is going to sell the internal combustion vehicle to buy an EV. So we're very cautious in the expansion. Everything remains to be done in investment. We're talking about size of the market, assuming, I mean, it's not our assumption that by 20%, 30%, 100% of vehicles will be electric. The number of EV charging stations is colossal in Europe, North America. We're far more prudent for our part. What we're going to do will be a small part of the response to that. for Proxima now. Proxima, it's quite amusing because we have well explained to the press that we didn't want to compete head-to-head with SNCF and we wanted to the supplement an SNCF on the Atlantic [indiscernible]. And to say a bit about what's going to happen, we'll have the first trains in '27. They have all the trains -- 12 trains to carry 10 million passengers per year, 10 million versus 320 million gives you an idea of the competition radio. The press reflecting that the general public is hugely irritated for their train situation currently, a lot of journalists without ask, so just they ask us a kind of a white knight who's going to drive down prices because prices are high, et cetera. I mean that's an interpretation is quite amusing because we had that command and the press systematically. But in fact, what we're going to do, and that's where the project is hugely interesting. We started from analysis that mobility had radically changed, evolved, heroically changed post lockdown. And remote working became the norm, and this working from home has a massive impact on where people live. And many people, for instance, living in Bordeaux and head to Paris for 2 days a week to work. So peak hours that were typically Friday evening and Monday evening, well, that no longer exists. Monday evening, it's full, Monday noon, it trains a full Monday morning, Tuesday, trains or fall every day. It's true in other regions [indiscernible] Paris Strasbourg, Marseille, trains [indiscernible] block. So what we're doing is bringing more offering. And with that offering, an offering that's tailored to the new needs, as to say the ability to work from -- you'll see on the train without disturbing the other passengers. So 12 trains sounds a lot when you're talking billions. But fundamentally, its a drop in the ocean as compared to what I see here, French railways are doing.

I got three more questions, but as a courtesy if anybody else want to ask question, I would yield. I think we have a gentleman over there.