Carrefour SA (CA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. It is my great pleasure to see you here at our Massy headquarters. And I'd like to greet all of those who are joining us for the presentation of our new strategic plan, Carrefour 2026. On behalf of all of our teams who helped to organize this event, I would like to say how much we appreciate your presence, which shows your interest in our group. I would like to give a special welcome to the members of our Board of Directors, who I can see here in the room, our shareholders, our teams, journalists, analysts, investors and those who are following us remotely. Today, we're opening a new chapter in the transformation of our group. In 2018, while the economy was growing, Carrefour was lagging behind. Over the past 5 years, I've worked tirelessly for Carrefour to recover and regain its ability to meet the needs of customers' daily life through innovation. This was the aim of the Carrefour 2022 plan. Let's take a look back on these incredibly intense past 5 years. [Presentation]

Everything that you have just seen is the result of the collaborative work of the 50,000 associates who make Carrefour what it is today. These are committed, courageous and supportive men and women who have undertaken this remarkable work. I've had the honor of leading this team for 5 years, and I want to take it even further. Today, Carrefour is much better equipped for the future. Today, customers are at the very heart of our model. All of our efforts are now guided by only one mantra, a sense of service, respect and attention to our customers. Customer satisfaction is our shared obsession. In fact, NPS increased by 20 points between 2018 and 2022. This is a major achievement. Today, Carrefour has reclaimed its position as market leader. We have rebalanced our geographical footprint. We exited some regions when this was deemed necessary, and we did so in excellent conditions. We now stand firmly on our 2 legs: Europe and Latin America. And in both of these geographies, we're making steady gains in market shares. Today, we have a performance-centered culture. We have become a player that delivers on its commitments. Our financial discipline is exemplary. Our balance sheet is robust. In 5 years, we've increased annual free cash flow sevenfold, and it now exceeds EUR 1 billion. It is the same performance-centered culture that has allowed us to exceed our CSR commitments. These are measured both by our CSR food transition index and by evaluations carried out by external agencies. Carrefour 2022 has created value for all, all of our stakeholders and all of our employees. But of course, not everything has been achieved. We have not gone far enough in simplifying our organization. This is because we did not want to miss out on any opportunities. We committed to initiatives that did not all bear fruit. And because we're sometimes still perceived as the inheritors of an ancient legacy, we have not fully won over the market despite lasting solid results. But today, Carrefour has something unique to offer. Our rising debt, food transition for all and our model, a digital retail company. Carrefour is back in force and better equipped to grapple with the world that has itself changed a lot. Today, we're experiencing the double shock of inflation and climate change. This is a crisis of the kind we haven't seen for over 40 years. Geopolitical threats and climate change are causing new tensions, raising the question of our food sovereignty. This is a crisis that affects our daily lives, plunging us into uncertainty, even anxiety when it comes to meeting our most basic needs, food and heating. This crisis has given rise to the fear of lasting setbacks in our achievements and a deterioration in our standards of living. In the face of all of these concerns, let us trust in the strength of our model. Our customers want us to protect them from inflation but they also want to eat healthy, responsibly sourced food. They do not want to choose between making ends meet and the end of the world. We are already by their side, and we will be more so every day. Ladies and gentlemen, we have given ourselves 4 years to deliver on the transformation of Carrefour to better protect our customers and further strengthen our performance. Our first goal focuses on our customers, our suppliers, all of our partners, everyone because our first goal is to commit to making the best accessible to our customers. And this begins with our offering. We are radically changing the Carrefour model through our private label. And this momentum is already underway. In the space of 5 years, we managed to develop a widely recognized offer on a par with that of national brands. We've proven that our products are just as good, but cheaper. We have created the cheapest brand on the market, simple with the price index 5 points lower on average than the prices of hard discounters. This is our anti-inflation response, and we'll continue to further expand it in all countries where we operate. We've expanded our ranges, and we now cover the entire spectrum of our customers' needs, in particular, with Carrefour BIO, the organic range, which accounts for more than 50% of our organic sales in France and premium regional product brands such as Reflets de France and Terre d'Italia. We've been voted the best private label brand, and this has enabled us to gain market shares. Thus, in 5 years, our private label has grown very rapidly from 25 to more than 33% of our food turnover, and in 4 years, we'll have gone even further with our private label accounting for 40% of our turnover. This will be a major turning point. This means that 1 in 2 food products we sell will be Carrefour branded. Our brand must be the spearhead of our rising debt and drive our quality standards. We have already done a lot in 5 years, and we will continue to do so by removing by 2026, 2,600 tonnes of sugar, 250 tonnes of salt and 20 new controversial substances from our products. And this approach will extend to our nonfood offer as well, starting with our tex brand, which is already ahead when it comes to responsible textile. In just a few years' time, we will thus have transformed the very heart of Carrefour's commercial model. The second pillar of the transformation of our offering will be strengthening our offer for fresh produce. Our priority will be fresh produce in ultrashort circuits. We will double the volume of fruits and vegetables produced less than 50 kilometers away from our stores. We will also strengthen our offer a fresh produce with our partner producers. Carrefour was a pioneer in this field 30 years ago when it created the Carrefour quality lines, 3-year contracts with high standards that provide visibility and outlets for our farmers with 50,000 partner producers in 2026, Carrefour will be more than ever the leading partner of the agricultural world. We'll also launch a new banner for City Centers, Potager City, which will offer specialist fresh produce with generalist prices. In addition to this offer for fresh produce, we also have a new ambition to give new meaning to our Act For Food program. In 2018, our customers' new expectations were centered around organic products, and we have since become a leader in this field. But since customer expectations have widened with the focus not only on organic products, but also on agroecology and sustainable fishing. This is why we aim to become the European leader in certified sustainable products, accounting for EUR 8 billion of our turnover in 2026. I've talked you through our offer. Now I'd like to tell you how our model will allow us to offer this to our customers everywhere and by any means. A year ago, almost to the day, we held our Digital Day event. And at the time, I shared with you a very strong conviction. Thanks to digital technology, we can turn the multiplicity of our formats from a factor of complexity into an asset by creating a unique ecosystem, offering our customers a personalized experience. The strength of our model has been proven, a customer who goes omnichannel increases spending by 22% in the first year and 27% in the second. This is our major competitive advantage. And that is why we will stick to our goal of 30% omnichannel customers by 2026. To achieve this, we must harness all levers of personalization and loyalty. Spain is an exemplary model in this respect with a unique loyalty program whose customers account for nearly 70% of our turnover, complemented by an attractive subscription offer, and we will be extending this approach to our other geographies. To attract and retain our customers, we will strengthen and enrich our range of formats and boost our e-commerce and service offering. Each and every format has its role to play within our omnichannel model. Starting with our hypermarkets. Ever since I arrived at Carrefour, I have believed in the value of this format. It's a bullock against inflation, provided that it continues to play its role as the first discount format. To this, we will not be deploying a new concept but rather a method, one which is inspired by what we already practiced in Latin America, the Maxi method. The Maxi method is above all the new way of managing the hypermarket format in a more productive manner with massified purchases, simpler shelf stacking, more pallets, more ready-to-sell products and data optimized processes. Maxi is a hypermarket format that focuses on the essentials with entry prices on display at the entrance of the store and big packs for large families. Focusing on essentials also means more simple and more readable product offerings in and out corners, well-targeted seasonal products up to speed with the latest trends because I want nonfood to become a way to attract new customers again. Focusing on the essentials means reducing our assortments. We will remove 40% of our permanent references in nonfood and 20% in food products. This method works, and we will be rolling it out in all of our stores in hypermarkets as well as in supermarkets. And let me emphasize here just how central our markets are to our portfolio. All of our discount formats are accelerating, including the most powerful of the mall Atacadao. Over the past 5 years, we've invested heavily in Brazil in this fantastic format, which is a real winning tool for our group. [Presentation]

We will continue the expansion of Atacadao in Brazil to 470 stores from 270 today. And I'm pleased to announce that we will be importing Atacadao in France. It's a bit, of course, but we owe it to our customers because it is probably the best anti-crisis solution. It's also a very complementary offer for the French market alongside our hypermarkets and Promocash stores, which will strengthen us in B2B. Moreover, it's a very strong symbolic signed for our group, almost 50 years ago in '75, Carrefour opened the first hypermarket in Brazil in Sao Paulo. In the fall of 2023, we will open the first at Atacadao in East France, thanks to the Maxi method, thanks to Atacadao and also thanks to our Supeco stores, which will continue their development in Spain, notably, we will have the leading portfolio of discount stores. We will also remain committed to making the best accessible stores for our customers just around the corner. Our convenience store formats have been one of the great success stories of Carrefour 2022. We are now an undisputed leader in the field, having opened nearly 3,500 stores over the duration of the plan, well above the target we set for ourselves. Convenience stores will remain one of our major growth drivers. We plan to open 2,400 stores worldwide by '26, focusing particularly on our European markets and always alongside our franchise partners. In addition to this multi-format approach, which we'll still expand today, we're adding another aspect that makes us stand out, our e-commerce and services offering. E-commerce has withstood the crisis very well, and we're still gaining customers. We remain committed to our Digital Day goal of reaching EUR 10 billion in digital sales by 2026. This will be possible, thanks to our growth in home delivery in France, B2B in Brazil and a number of innovations, such as the anti-inflation budgeting that we're launching at the moment, which allows us to offer our customers cheaper products for the same needs. Lastly, I'd like to say a few words about services. Our services offering enriches our entire omnichannel model as a means to both attract and retain new customers. We will expand our offering and digitalize it even further to reach 17 million customers for financial services and EUR 1.5 billion of sales for 30 daily services by 2026. Our model, digital retail company is a single platform combining all our formats and services. We are currently developing enough, which will make everything accessible at your fingertips. Last but not least, we will make best access for our customers. And this means acting in the interest of everyone means committing to the climate transition. We owe it to our customers first and foremost, every euro that as Carrefour must be impactful. We -- with a turnover of over EUR 80 billion, we can truly make the difference in that respect. We have gained a strong credibility, thanks to our Act For Food program with a resounding success. And thanks to our rigorous transparent and audited methodology and with our CSR food transition index and its attending 15 goals. This credibility obliges us to go even further. Global warming is accelerating, and we need to pick up speed as well. This is the biggest challenge of our generation. It is -- and it is one of our customers' major concerns. We must meet their expectations while also addressing the issue of purchasing power. We're taking action on 2 levels fighting against waste and fighting for climate transition. First of all, we will continue to combat all forms of waste. We will reduce our food waste by 50% by 2025. And like we do in many countries by 80% in France in '24 for our paper catalogs. We will also reduce our product footprint, increasing our bulk stakes in Europe fivefold to EUR 150 million. And we will go further, yes, pushing to make Carrefour a leader in the circular economy by recovering 100% of our store waste and using 100% of reusable or recyclable packaging for our private label from 2025 on, which means that we will not be adding to the plastic already out there. For climate, our commitment is well-known. Our group is committed to a 1.5-degree Celsius trajectory, and we will contribute to carbon neutrality in our stores by 2040 and in e-commerce by 2030. But our responsibility extends well beyond that, we must bring our entire ecosystem on board. We will ask our 100 largest suppliers to follow the 1.5 degree Celsius trajectory by 2026. Otherwise, they will be -- they will be delisted. This will truly revolutionize our industrial approach. For biodiversity as well, we must take commitments. We must -- we are committed to biodiversity. We initiated a comprehensive program several years ago to target all sensitive raw materials. There's still one major issue, B from Brazil. As of 2026, we will delist all B from high-risk areas for our brand and for all our suppliers by 2030. This is a long-term effort, a long-haul part of a broader program we are conducting to roll back deforestation. Everything I've just mentioned is ultimately, what sets us apart, our offers, our formats or commitments. And we are going to keep pushing what makes us different. And to achieve this, we must ourselves be different. We must invent the group of tomorrow. Our group needs to be more efficient, careful needs to undergo a process of simplification First of all, we must take advantage of our new geographical footprint and above all, the enormous potential for mutualization that we have in Europe. We will pool as much as possible our purchasing. All our major international suppliers will go through a single European purchasing center, Eureka. Then our nonfood offers will also be pooled in Europe. Then everything that needs to be pooled in our organization will be. We do not need to have in each country, a different team for tech, data, branding, real estate, some financial functions. It's not a question of centralizing everything here in Massy of creating centers of expertise where it's most relevant, like the Eureka Center in Madrid and allowing countries to focus on their core business, that is commerce. this new form of organization will bolster competitiveness in all of our markets, which will reduce headquarter costs and above all, it will ensure much richer expertise across the group, which is an advantage against local competitors. We will develop this new organization in the coming months. It will result in significant downsizing of our headquarters and each country will play its part. Finally, we will review all our processes in light of what digital technology allows us to do today. Look at what Walmart is doing. It's a great source of inspiration for us. This will apply to all our processes, warehouses, pricing, internal processes. Our supply chain is at the heart of this transformation across the supply chain, from a supplier to the store shelves, whether it's the truck loading rates, order placement, route planning, inventory management, digital technology will allow us to increase the availability of our products while reducing our costs and improving working conditions. Thanks to this in-depth transformation of our geographical organization, purchasing and processes. We will save EUR 4 billion over to the duration of the plan. Finally, we will build a cutting-edge group hand in hand with our franchisees. The franchise model is one of the great achievements of our Carrefour 2022 plan. While franchising was implicit in our group, we've succeeded in bringing about a cultural change. We have made it our main expansion tool for all our formats, including for some hypermarkets in difficulty, and it's very relevant here. Over the past 5 years, franchises have accounted for 90% of our store openings in Europe. We will pursue this model of expansion, including internationally. We will expand into 10 new markets by 2026 in priority in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. This means we must become a better franchisor. Our franchise partners are entrepreneurs who know their business well. We need to involve them more often in our strategic decisions, especially for merchandise, marketing and supply chain projects. Inventing the group of tomorrow also means opening up to new business lines to get the full value of our assets, starting with our data. Our data is a gold mine. Its value continues to grow. We saw its potential early on, and we were one of the first retailers to launch retail media. Last year, we stepped up these efforts with the creation of Carrefour Links. But our current model has its limitations, and we want to overcome them today. That's why we are creating a subsidiary with an industrial expert, the Publicis Group. [Presentation]

With Publicis, we are launching a partnership that will allow us to scale up and expand geographically. Our joint venture will be created in 2023. It will profoundly change our model in 3 ways. First, we will put tech at the heart of our model, directly partnering with Publicis technologies. Second, we will go up the value chain and create ourselves, retail media solutions to market to others. We are, therefore, pivoting towards becoming a media solutions company. Finally, we will roll this out across Continental Europe and Brazil going beyond the countries where Carrefour is always present. Carrefour will become a media services platform, an audience hub in a way, capable of operating media services for other companies. With this new partnership, our digital transformation will take on a new dimension, enabling us to access a new market with exceptional growth potential. We will expand our group's activities to another area, that is energy. In the face of the current crisis, energy is a field of expertise that we must be able to master. We must become a major player in the energy transition. This will involve, firstly, massive investments to reduce our energy consumption by 20% by 2026 and in 2024 in France. This will require EUR 800 million in investment as part of the plan. Energy sobriety is not a slogan. It's a reality. It's an imperative. And above all, we must and we will become a major producer of solar energy, 1 in 2 parking lots will be equipped with shade houses covering a total surface area of 4.5 million square meters of photovoltaic panels. This will enable us to produce 1 terawatt hour of renewable energy per year, equivalent to the consumption of a city of 450,000 inhabitants. We are in the process of consulting marketplace to develop this activity, and we will start fitting the equipment before the end of next year. Finally, our real estate assets place us at the heart of the urban fabric. We have a key role to play in land planning. I'm pleased to announce the launch of 100 mixed urban projects operations by 2026 in France, creating 25,000 housing units as well as leisure spaces and offices. We will soon launch a consultation to choose co-promoters, to roll out these projects on 100 sites. This project will cover a total area of 1.5 million square meters and will result in value creation of EUR 500 million by 2030. In Brazil, we will create the largest private property company in South America by opening up capital to minority real estate partners. This project will allow us to seize opportunities to crystallize value with BRL 1.5 billion in rent receives by a property company. But our most precious asset is the women and men of Carrefour. The cohesion of our group is based on one promise, an age-old one, which I hold dear, that of the social ladder. Today, one new manager out of 2 started as an employee and benefited from internal promotion. We are one of the last places where this promise of merit-based promotions lives on. I want to give this social ladder, a new impetus, first, by continuing the fight for women for their promotion, within our governing bodies, but also for equal pay with no exceptions. We will engage in another flight for equal opportunity, that of diversity of origins. I note, and I see that there are still too few visible minorities in our management positions. This must change. We will first take a snapshot of our workforce at all levels, surveying employees about their background and origins, just like the [indiscernible] does. On a 100% anonymous and voluntary basis, we will launch this survey next January and renew it every 2 years. On the basis of this survey, we will implement an action plan. First, in France, but then for the entire group to be actively engaged at every stage of an employee's working life. And I will be personally involved in this success. Finally, to be more inclusive, will we put disability at the heart of our plan. We are taking 2 commitments. We will increase the number of our employees with disabilities from 10,000 to 15,000 across the group. And we will put an end to the top 5 challenges for customers with disabilities through the provision of suitable trolleys priority checkout or the full digital accessibility of our websites app. Our partnership with the Paris Olympic Games in 2024 is a great opportunity to accelerate our initiatives, especially in cities that will host an Olympic games event. This is, I believe, one of the most beautiful legacies we can leave behind after the Olympic games. [Presentation]

I'd like to say a few words about our social model. This is a great asset for our group. It has the best-known offer in the retail industry. This is made possible through social dialogue, a model which is firmly rooted in our culture. We have agreements on all key issues for our employees from working conditions to compensation. Today, I want to go further. I want all of our employees to be able to participate and be directly associated with the value created by our group. And this is why we're launching an employee share ownership plan, Carrefour Invest next year. Our group has been lacking such a mechanism. But this plan will be adapted to the challenges of tomorrow, allocating the funds collected to finance our CSR projects, and we will be the very first to do so. Our plan will ultimately be for everyone, secure and committed. All of these goals and initiatives that I have just presented to you will contribute to our financial performance. Our first commitment is to gain market shares in all of our key markets by maintaining our competitiveness to ensure the steady growth of our group. To maintain this competitiveness, we'll continue to pursue our savings plans. Carrefour has demonstrated its ability to master and control its business model over the past 5 years, and we will keep up this level of discipline with savings of EUR 4 billion between 2023 and '26. These savings will allow us to continue to invest in competitiveness, significantly improve our operating margin and optimize the generation of cash flows. We will thus maintain a sustained growth in recurring operating income, which will also be strengthened by synergies resulting from Grupo BIG's integration. All of these goals and initiatives also require additional resources. We're, therefore, increasing our CapEx budget from EUR 1.7 billion to EUR 2 billion per year to finance our investments in Maxi, our energy transition, digital technology and our expansion, including Atacadao. But ultimately, it's a simple equation. We will generate EBITDA growth that is structurally higher than the increase in CapEx, contributing to a significant growth in net free cash flow with the 2026 target of more than EUR 1.7 billion. This net free cash flow will enable us to pursue our annual ordinary dividends positively expected to grow by at least 5% per year. The remaining liquidity will be used selectively to pursue acquisition opportunities and to continue the share buyback program on an annual basis. As you can see, this is a value creation plan for Carrefour for our stakeholders, especially our shareholders and now our employee shareholders as well. By way of closing, as you can see, this is a plan for acceleration, a winning plan. So we're undertaking a series of initiatives, which will mean that in 2026, Carrefour will no longer be the same. It will be different, of course, from what it is today. But above all, it will be very different from others. We are currently building one of the world's great leaders, which will be different, which stands apart by the power of its private label, the extent of its discount network, the depth of its digital and omnichannel model, the diversity of its commitments and the growth of its new businesses. In 2026, Carrefour will be stronger, more innovative, a company that no longer looks its age. And last but not least, I would like to mention someone else, someone we work for on a daily basis, our customers. In 4 years' time, they, too, will have changed. Let us listen to them, let us follow them, let us always strive to meet their expectations. We must never forget that our plan is not a road map for ourselves. It's a project to serve our customers. And there is nothing that motivates me more today than to share this passion for our consumers and Carrefour's mission surrounded by an exceptional team alongside our Board of Directors, whom I know are more committed than ever. And above all, alongside all of the women and men who carry the Carrefour banner on a daily basis. Thank you.

Now we will be answering some of your questions, and I'll invite Carine Kraus, Elodie Perthuisot and Matthieu Malige on stage. A special session is planned for financial analysts at the end of this press conference.

I'll take the first question. I see a very nice shirt in the room, a dark shirt. It's actually a jacket. Well, it's dabbling.

My name is Olivier Dauvers. I have 2 questions. The first is on the future of Supeco in France with the future of Atacadao. What does this look like? And what do you think the outcome is 2 years on? What about discount? How can we converge your position? Because there seems to be a sort of hiatus between the ambition to be accessible. And the fact that there's a gap between Carrefour and the best in the market.

Well, thank you very much. In response to the first question, Supeco is a format which is very complementary as regards our other discount formats. We have learned a lot about what works and what doesn't. In some countries, this model works very well. In Spain, for example, we'll be opening 80 new Supeco stores with the new plan. In France, we've established the model very well. It's taken some time because we had to understand how to adapt the format to the French market. Now we have a reduced assortment, one which is much better suited to the catchment area. We needed to come up with products such as ethnic products that were best suited to our customers. And we now have a development plan, which will be rolled out over the next few years. So these ambitions are very complementary. These are smaller stores compared to hypermarkets, but we'll continue to pursue the development of this format. The second question you asked is very relevant, of course. And I'd like to give you a bit of background before answering that question. Ultimately, how does one measure whether a company is effective in terms of price policy? Of course, there are indicators, there are indexes. And then there's the customer. What do customers think? In France, for example, over the past 25 years, our customers have told us that they're satisfied with our price policy competitiveness. This can be seen in the growth of our market share, which has grown faster than others, 25 consecutive outcomes. This shows that there is a growing market share. How is this market share built? Well, you may say, well, prices are very high. So it's to do with value rather than volume. But actually, we're seeing that advancing in terms of value volume growth compared to value growth. And this shows how competitive we are. And customers are telling us that. Concretely in tangible terms through the NPS, we use this to measure their satisfaction. And systematically, customers are showing us that they are satisfied with prices in our stores and more satisfied than in our competitors' stores. So you might say, well, that's different compared to other indicators, and I don't want to criticize these other indicators. But I think that, in particular, in this context of inflation, the index that measures the reality of prices on the basis of permanent prices is not granular enough. What we used to measure this is based on promotional policies, loyalty programs, taking into account all of these different realities. We also have to take into account the price of our private label, which also plays into this. When you have a very granular fine view of these realities, we can see in France, for example, that all of these factors drive our competitiveness. And within our business, we're seeing the translation of this. We're seeing volumes increase. If we weren't competitive, we would not be seeing these results. So what about tomorrow? Well, we'll continue investing in cost savings by EUR 4 billion in order to ensure price competitiveness. And following this, we'll be using the Maxi format to invest that money. Maxi formats are more competitive, more productive. They enable us to gain in competitiveness. We use more massified standardized processes to ensure better competitiveness. So we are building the first discount format, hypermarkets, and the Maxi method will allow us to go further in this process. The second question from Philippe Bertrand.

Yes, my name is Philippe Bertrand from [indiscernible]. I have 2 questions. First of all, will Atacadao's arrival in France be a test, a pilot or have you planned to develop a chain of Atacadao stores in our countries? My second question goes to Carine Kraus. How do you expect to enforce the fact that your 100 leading suppliers are on that 1.5-degree trajectory? Will you be sending inspectors, advisers on site? And how will you address potential tensions when there's a discrepancy between what people claim to be doing and what's actually taking place?

Well, first of all, when it comes to Atacadao, well, it's always difficult and complicated to launch a new format. It's been very effective in Brazil. The reality in France is slightly different. The context must be taken into account. But we must remember that this is a particularly effective format, particularly in the context of reduced purchasing power. So we will be rolling out Atacadao stores by 2023. We don't have a costed plan for now. We will be testing it. It is a model in itself Atacadao, and we'll be rolling it out for individual customers and professional customers. As you know, it's an ultrashort circuit model. And we will be testing it. If it works, then we will be rolling it out. But in the first stage, we will be opening that first Atacadao store. I'll give the floor to Carine in a minute, but I'd just like to say that this is no minor commitment when we tell our suppliers that they have to comply with a 1.5-degree trajectory. 25% -- or sorry, 27.5% of them are currently on that trajectory. So it's not a majority for the time being. So we'll be working alongside our suppliers in order to achieve this. And Carine will explain it to you in greater detail.

If by 2026, the suppliers are not on a 1.5-degree trajectory then they will be delisted. Well, we will be working with the merchandise division with [indiscernible], who is here. We have a CWT plan. We will be consulting them taking stock of which suppliers are already on a 1.5-degree trajectory. As has already been mentioned, 27.5% of them are on track at the moment. We won't be carrying out audits because that's not within our remit. Usually, there's the SBTI, the science-based target initiative accreditation or third-party evaluators. We will be measuring the progression rate on a yearly basis of these suppliers. And by 2026, we will be delisting those who are not on a 1.5-degree trajectory. And we'll be following a very strict legal process if we do have to proceed with delisting, but we hope to achieve 100% by 2026.

Another question [indiscernible].

I have 3 questions for you. First, out to the new brand, you talked about City Potager -- Potager City, sorry. Could you tell us your ambitions about this? How many stores will you open? What will be the concept of this new store? And second, your real estate ambitions you want to build housing units. This is a question expected. Three, I still believe in the hypermarket model, giving the climate ambitions you proposed isn't this contradictory because hypermarkets on the periphery of cities, it means that people must take the cars to get there.

So Potager City. Thank you for your questions. So this is a very small format of 100 square meters, 3 major ambitions for now, 3 stores in Ile-de-France region by 2023. And the idea is to have stores with locally sourced fresh produce, very specialized stores, different sourcing processes. We will learn new sourcing methods to supply these stores. And we also make pricing commitments. As we always do, we were promised generalist prices. Matthieu, do you want to say a few words about real estate?

Yes. So we identified 100 sites in France, where we think that we have room there to develop housing units, as you said, but also commercial units and public services. What we realized 50 years ago of these sites were outside cities, cities grew larger and larger. And today, you have real estate property companies that can be developed and serve the community in the cities. By the way, they are all already artificialized so we can do this with further difficulties. So there's a dual goal we have social goal and also a financial goal with EUR 500 million of value creation we announced.

Last question. No, you are right, all of our activities have a climate component. I'd like to take the counterexample of that when we have competitors in the U.K., for example. When you have hundreds and hundreds of trucks coming into cities to deliver goods, the climate cost, the environmental costs are very high. So there can be no commercial activity that has no environmental footprint. But we are thinking about how we can reduce our environmental being footprint. For hypermarkets, for example, hypermarkets, it will be the heart of our energy reduction program. Not just a few figures. There are many figures, but investing EUR 800 million to reduce by 20% energy consumption is huge. These are huge investments, and this means we will review everything. Cold storage, the way we manage cold and heated supply chains, lighting. So we must invest a lot to do that in hypermarkets require a lot of energy, but this can be renewable energy and hence, solar panels when you take the decision to install on over half parking lots, millions of solar panels can produce 1 terawatt hour of energy, meaning the equivalent of a city of 450,000 an hour tons. You do play an important role. You produce energy, and you take part in this immense collective effort for energy transition. This is also our responsibility.

[indiscernible]. You talked about EUR 4 billion in savings over the next 4 years. Could you give more details about this? You talked about European headquarters. Is this limited to this? How many people are there in these headquarters? And second question, reduction of our assortment, minus 20% in food and minus 40% in nonfood. Will this be international? Will this be visible in terms office? Could you elaborate on this?

So economic savings first. Now when we came in, in 2018, we announced EUR 2 billion over 3 years, and I remember this at the time, you said these savings will be short-lived. And we had real experience when we put on a plan, a savings plan. We stick to it, and we achieved EUR 3 billion in savings. First few years continue -- we did this, and we continue to do this each year because there is no model in our field of work and others, by which you cannot be able to reduce costs to be competitive. So this plan weighs EUR 4 billion, over EUR 4 years to EUR 1 billion a year. This is ambition. And often people say, this is good, what you said at the beginning, and this will -- feels a lot, but this is not the reality for us. And we are able to generate every EUR1 billion in savings. So how we will get about that. Well, let me talk about the initiatives. A whole series of initiatives related to the massification of our purchases for far too long. Each country was in silo, and we didn't massify. Nowadays, we are able to get organized through data and massify our purchases, you saw in slides earlier that we have strong ambitions. We go from -- which is shifted to Eureka, 30% for fresh bodies imported, 70% for nonfood supply chain. So you see here that massification has a very strong role to play in Europe. So this is the first series of ambitions. Second, our organization, we will pool our organization. Carrefour was built in each country it was present. Now this is no criticism at all. It's another times. And each country has had its own headquarters with all functions there. And sometimes, we had very small countries with the same functions where we need 400 for tech. You have 15 people. So performance is not synced. So we decided to have a very simple organization. The country is the center of operations in commerce for clients. And this is what must be done. This is the heart of our model, but around that, we must be able to pool all functions that can be, we weren't able to do that before. She here is in charge of [indiscernible] for Europe. She can achieve this for a year. We don't need different teams with different systems in all countries to do that. Now this covers also other functions, real estate, financial services as well. We will work for the coming weeks to build, to construct this model with our social partners in all countries. And this will result in a reduction of our headquarter costs because we have high headquarters overhead costs for now, but we won't do this for a better performance. Last point, digital, tech and data. During the Digital Day, we said this, we're not only doing growth in e-commerce for digital, it's not only having huge data lakes and additional data lakes. We also are looking to lower all the cost of all our functions. As soon as you have high-quality data in operations that can reduce comments, increase efficiency and lower costs. And this is what I showed earlier for all functions in supply chain is included. We will lower all our operations. It is all of this, which will help achieve our EUR 4 billion target. As I said, we will work alongside countries. We will build this European organization together, and we will also consult with our social partners. The new Potager City is compatible with the new franchise model developed in convenience stores, second model, the development of Maxi management. Will you continue to develop that? You have 240 stores in France. We will continue to do that in France. Now convenience, convenience stores are franchises. So Potager City will be franchised so Secondly, lease management. We developed it in 2 types of formats with different objectives and momentum we developed in the market format. Nowadays, this is a majority, about 2/3 of our formats are in this category, these franchise categories for hypermarkets. This model is very simple. Hypermarkets will remain an integral model. But for stores that are losing money for a long time, have been losing money for a long time. We had one objective not to close them down. When I arrived in 5 years ago, we presented the plan. We had a plan to close down 30 hypermarkets, but none were closed because we wanted to preserve jobs. Those which are in difficulty, the solution is lease management. And how do we see it works? Because in the beginning, we have a promise, then you have implementation, you have results. What do we see after a few years, you see 2 things. First efficiency, economic efficiency. This improves. We have had stores that were in the red for 10 years. And suddenly, they're in the green. And partner -- social partners also have a role to play. We have consultations. We have surveys on well-being of our employees in the stores. They're very satisfied with the model of that. There are some concerns in the period of transition, and then we see satisfaction. So it means that we have a model for transition that works. It means that along this plan, we will continue with these shifts and this -- the pace of it since we have stores with structural difficulties, we need to review every year with our teams, are there structural difficulties that have been resolved. So we will review every year. And there are a number of stores will continue to be shifted. But when we emphasize these hypermarkets will remain an integral model.

About franchise, what is the impact of the rising costs on economic cost of franchisees? And how does Carrefour help franchisees.

Well, franchisees has the whole of retail bearing the brunt of high cost pricing costs, energy for inflation, transportation, all costs are rising but we're striving to do, and this is what we do in all countries. With -- there are many franchisees in France, in Italy, Spain, Belgium, we are very close to franchisees today. So we have a permanent dialogue with them notably the most vulnerable because there are some franchisees that have many stores and some don't have that many. And today, there's no surprise. We see that as an extraordinary ability to adapt on the part of our franchisees. They're very fast paced and they're entrepreneurs. So we follow this very closely. The mechanisms to help them. We have vision that franchisees encountering difficulties to help, but we help them with all our plans we presented, but we see that they're bearing the -- this difficulty.

[indiscernible] I have 2 questions. To continue the question of my colleague, you talked about significant job cuts that we're talking about hundreds or thousands of jobs in what countries and during the first mandate you talked about China and Taiwan, do you think that your group has a good size currently? Or could you sell further sell in some countries?

Well, the first question I cannot answer you because we will build the European organization. We will look at which functions must be pooled and where I talked about the European purchase organization, which will be set in Madrid. We will address this on a topic-to-topic basis. We will work on all partners. We will build this new organization through consultations with social partners. And then we will see consequences for all countries. Second question for -- on our geographical footprint. You're right, we managed to pull out of 2 countries, which were complex for different reasons. China, we pulled out in the best possible conditions in the best possible time almost in difficult context, but we managed to do this, although it's difficult in Taiwan. We had also circumstances. We were at the peak of our model. We had very good partner alongside us, and we had no synergy with the group. We only had Taiwan in Asia, and we managed to do this in the best imaginable possible. So we are currently leaving Taiwan. So we have 2 blocks, Latin America and Europe. They each have a role. Latin America has very strong potential for growth and operations, and synergies. And the vision for Europe, we have -- we often ask the question for this -- that country. We want to build a true pooling organization in Europe. We need all countries. We need to massify purchases. This has values, massify food purchases, the massify the construction of food offerings. We need a critical mass solution to this. So we are launching into this new program, and we need a critical mass, and we need power to do this. And we need to streamline our organization so that the smallest countries can be competitive again, when you work in a small country, you have high cost and headquarters, you're in a difficult spot. Tomorrow, they will have higher-quality services through the pool and program we have with lower headquarter costs, and they will recover a good economic performance. So our geographical footprint is good.

You said that you will increase your efficiency in recurring operational revenue. Will this mainly come from Brazil? Or will other regions contribute to this? It did improve in France, but it might be complicated now.

Well, we set a very ambitious goal, EUR 1.7 billion of net free cash flow by increasing our CapEx up to EUR 2 billion. So you see here that strength behind this cash flow is operational results, which are expected to be very strong. And this growth will come from all markets because the plan we presented here to create value and growth in all markets. This will complement it in Brazil with the synergies, a big integration. But this is a plan for growth. And in France, we improved by 50% our results up to 2018. So we will continue on this pace in France.

Republic retail. I have a question on Retail Media. You said that you wanted to go back up the value chain. What about the joint venture or partnership with [indiscernible] and group live brand?

Well, what we want to do is to move back up the value chain using our expertise and the Publicis Group expertise to sell retail media to other platforms. And we can't do this with current partners because they're commercial partners, of course, they have their own role to play. But what we've been doing in this context would be focusing on technology to build solutions and this is innovative. It's different from the partnerships we have today, and it will allow us to scale up our business and to shrink outside the box to go beyond Carrefour to a European level market and to align with the European -- with the U.S. market, where there are lots of retail media players. We want to be able to have a strong position against Amazon. And for this, we need more partnerships.

[indiscernible]. You announced that you wanted to reach 30% omnichannel customers. How will you achieve this? And I'm not sure if you mentioned [ Kitoki ] dashboard, your start-up companies. Could we have some information on them?

Yes, indeed, we're aiming for 30% omnichannel customers because as you've seen, a customer who goes omnichannel, increases spending by 20% in the first year. And I tried to explain how we would achieve this. Well, first of all, you need an e-commerce model that's efficient. And we have EUR 10 billion planned to achieve this. And moreover, you can focus on personalization, loyalty models for subscription. The idea is to place the customer within our ecosystem. And we also have services offers, which we hope to be completely aligned with purchasing preferences. There are 30 services, daily services that we have to offer, for example, hiring tickets, car rentals. And these activities allow us to place our customers within our ecosystem. When you're building loyalty and subscription programs, it allows you to increase the number of omnichannel customers. So in physical stores and in e-commerce. And I'll let Elodie give you some more details on this.

Just briefly, start-ups are always quite complicated for major groups. The easiest way forward would to be avoiding them altogether. But I don't think we should be doing this. We need to think about what start-ups can teach us, how they can help us accelerate growth. And that's what we did. Now this can happen in several ways. For example, venture fund, which we created, or we could ensure the acquisition of majority stakes. So what we need to do is to learn from these start-ups and see how we can accelerate their development. Now I know it's quite complicated because we always want them to be profitable. But at the end of the day what you have to remember is that you may not necessarily be the most well-suited partner for the next phase of the start-ups development, in which case perhaps a different partner would be best suited for the future. When it comes to the partnership you mentioned, when it comes to [ Kitoki ], it's a subscription program. So what we've been learning from the start-ups is a B2B model and how it can grow in terms of subscriptions. So what we have learned from this is how to develop our omnichannel system as well.

[indiscernible] I have 2 questions. During Digital Day, we talked a lot about Drive and PBC. Could we hear a bit more about this? And secondly, how are you making e-commerce more profitable?

Elodie?

Yes, indeed, we talked a lot about Drive at the time, and we're still discussing drive and home deliveries. What's important to remember is that e-commerce is withstanding the crisis with high market performance, which allows us to gain new customers, new e-commerce customers. And this, in turn, strengthens the omnichannel model that we've set out. And this is a way for us to withstand this crisis and to gain customers and volume. When it comes to profitability, we mentioned this last year, particularly in the field of e-commerce, and we didn't wait until the crisis to address this issue. So we've been able to build an e-commerce model, which is adapted to distribution costs. Nowadays, we're able to replenish very quickly. We're able to prepare replenishments in warehouses. And this is something which allows us to adjust very quickly to demand. We reduced preparation costs through productivity gains in stores. We have been reducing our distribution costs.

[indiscernible] Challenge Magazine. I have a question about organic ranges. You made promises in terms of organic food and sustainable food. The organic sector is facing a crisis at the moment. Do you still believe in organic produce? And do you think that the sector will still continue to grow?

Well, first of all, it wasn't just a promise. It's actually a reality. We did become the leader in the field of organic produce. We worked in very close partnership with suppliers to build our private label offer. As I mentioned earlier, organic -- the organic range accounted for 50% of our sales in that field. So we have the offer on the one hand, and we also have a store network with shop-in-shop systems in major hypermarkets. And in addition, we have specialized chains, such as Sobi, which you mentioned. Now of course, the organic market has slowed down over the past 2 years in the context of COVID, but also perhaps related to the high cost of these products. During COVID, there were logistical issues because a number of industrial suppliers favored or gave priority to conventional products rather than organic produce. But we continue to be the leader in this field, and we have a number of ambitions. I believe that the organic market will remain strong. Now what will happen in the future, I'm not sure. But in all of our formats, whether they're specialized or generalized, I still believe in the value of this. In 2018, when we talked about quality, we usually focused on organic products. But now there's a focus on local products, healthy products, agroecology. So let us pull all of these initiatives around the common focus of sustainable products. We need to be the leader in organic products, in responsibly sourced products, in agroecology. So we have this ambition of EUR 8 billion which will make us a leader in this field. And I think that this will meet the expectations of our customers in terms of food quality. And thanks to this new category, we should be able to provide this offer. Are there any last questions? Has everyone been able to ask their question? I think Philippe Bertrand wanted to ask a question earlier, but he wasn't able to take the floor or perhaps we've already answered your question.

I left the room for 30 second, but perhaps someone else has already asked this question. I wanted to ask how the anti-inflation button worked.

Elodie?

The anti-inflation button is very simple and very useful but also very innovative. Basically, on the website when you click on one of our products, you have a button that allows you to buy the product. But now you have a second button, you can click on for the product at a cheaper price. This is an offer of 5 to 6 products who are -- which are very similar with the same type of ingredients at a cheaper price. So it means that you're not losing anything in terms of the quality of the product or in terms of your needs, but you'll have it at a cheaper price. These are often Carrefour private label products, and we're able to do this using an algorithm that we've developed over several months. We use data to address our customers' expectations, for example, by offering this anti-inflation button.

Thank you. If there are no further questions or comments, I'd like to thank you, first of all, for those who are here, those who are joining us online. We remain at your disposal to answer any questions you may have in the months to come. And thank you very much for your attention.