Compagnie de Saint-Gobain S.A. (CODGF) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to you all. We are four of the country CEOs, and we are delighted to be kicking off the Capital Markets Day.

Hello, everyone, in the audience and online. I'm Carmen Bodden, President of CertainTeed's Roofing Products Group in the U.S.A. In North America, we are building on our strong momentum. I actually had the pleasure of hosting some of you at our Norwood Roofing plant 2 years ago. Since then, we have grown our market share, cross-selling with siding and adding GCP waterproofing membranes. We have invested in state-of-the-art technologies to support our customers. We take full ownership and employee engagement is at a record high.

I'm Mike Chaldecott, the CEO for Saint-Gobain in the U.K. and Ireland. I also had the pleasure of welcoming a number of you to a rainy or sunny Manchester when you joined us to see what we were doing in terms of specifications and systems with our largest residential customers and commercial customers with co-development. In the U.K., we are the leader in light construction. We are indeed at the forefront of innovation. We made the first plasterboard at our British Gypsum factory with 100% recycled plasterboard, performance and sustainability, all in one.

Hello, everyone. I am Joanna Piechowiak, CEO of Saint-Gobain in Poland and Ukraine. In Poland, we lead and win with one Saint-Gobain spirit. We increased our sales of high value-added products by 80% in 4 years. And we supplied our Saint-Gobain solutions to 29 large-scale iconic projects in just 2 years. We have the best offer to outperform our markets year after year.

Welcome, everyone. I am Marco Corrales, CEO of Mexico, Central America, Colombia and Ecuador. I led the acquisition of Cemix last year, and I'm happy to say that after 9 months, we have a great integration and a very nice addition to the group. In Latin America, we moved fast, 5 new countries in the last 3 years, outperforming our markets and accelerating growth for Saint-Gobain. Back to you, Mike.

Thank you, Marco. So you can see that we have everything it takes to lead and grow. [Presentation]

Thank you. Welcome, everyone, to our Capital Markets Day. Today, it's all about our midterm strategy for the next 5 years, not about 2025. I'm happy to say that we delivered well with a solid performance in 2025, which will be a good conclusion of our successful Grow & Impact plan. I confirm to you our full year guidance, operating margin above 11%, and we will talk about our Q3 sales at the end of the month. You just heard from our top country CEOs what it means to drive the success of Saint-Gobain, today and tomorrow. I'm very confident to open a very exciting new chapter to accelerate profitable growth, lead and grow. It's perfectly aligned with our purpose and our strategic vision. Saint-Gobain is today the world leader in light and sustainable construction. We are in every single large geography, the #1 in light building materials. We are leveraging the perfect governance by country that we have established local for local, well adapted to our local construction markets and very robust in the deglobalizing world of today. And we have a unique ability to grow not only in mature markets, but also in emerging markets. So with this strategic plan, we are truly leveraging our leadership to unleash the full growth potential of Saint-Gobain by scaling an unmatched breadth of value-enhancing solutions for customers that we have built systematically and successfully over the last years of Grow & Impact, by expanding not only on the residential market, which we master, but also on nonresidential and infrastructure markets where we are going to gain share. And by executing all this with strong local leaders, very strong country platform that are compounding growth for Saint-Gobain and very well focused on execution. We are stepping up our financial targets, mid-single-digit sales growth with a clear outperformance versus our markets, 15% to 18% EBITDA margin, all this being fueled with strong free cash flow conversion. We are ahead of vast growth opportunities, growing markets with untapped opportunities. Light and sustainable construction is at the crossroad of very powerful megatrends, be it population growth and urbanization, reshoring in some important markets. And all the climate topics are even more salient than they were 5 years ago when you think of adaptation, resilience of buildings and infrastructure against climate change, when you think of energy efficiency renovation. Let's hear some insights from experts. [Presentation]

What is important to us is that all these megatrends, they translate into vast local growth drivers region by region. You take Europe, we have ongoing market recovery to address a large housing crisis. And as you know, we see green shoots in almost every single country. We have energy efficiency that brings green value for better buildings and well adapted to climate change, and we have the upcoming investment for infrastructure and defense. North America, a huge housing shortage, 4 million homes. We have this must-have renovation to adapt for climate change and extreme weather patterns and all the investments for reshoring, including on infrastructure markets. Asia, high-growth countries, emerging markets, large population growth and big urbanization trend, aspiration from a large middle class population towards economic development and good quality buildings. And of course, all the infrastructure related to those urban development programs. To answer these megatrends, Saint-Gobain is the only provider of comprehensive solutions that bring performance and sustainability for buildings and infrastructure. If you take the building envelope, we have everything it takes. It's simple, the roofing, the facade, cladding, glazing, the flooring, the partition and all this with thermal comfort, acoustic performance, visual light, air quality, productivity on the job site. When you think of a building, we are with a crucial competitive advantage. Products in a building don't stand on their own. They are part of a system. They are part of a facade. They are part of the overall performance of the building. The fact that we have this unique ability to take everything and deliver that to our customers, measure the benefits, measure it to the architects, the occupants, the owners, the contractors, it's a crucial advantage for Saint-Gobain to take the most of those megatrends. And this comprehensive offer of solutions, we have a unique ability to leverage local leadership positions to push our competitive advantage and to gain market share across multiple product lines. Take the example of Mexico. You heard from Marco Corrales. We were very strong in glass exterior solutions years ago. We moved into interior solutions, plasterboard. And more recently, we accelerated on construction chemicals so that we have now a meaningful offer across all the envelope of the building. These solutions, our customers ask for it in the residential market. And more and more, we have broadened our access, our breadth of offer towards nonresidential and infrastructure markets with all the moves, all the acquisitions we have done in the portfolio in the last years. So now that we have broadened our reach, we have addressable market of EUR 500 billion. When you think of nonresidential and infrastructure market, where we have been historically a smaller player than residential, we make already EUR 15 billion of sales. And we have a lot of room to gain market share with relevant offer on education, on hospital buildings, on all the infrastructure, everything we have done on construction chemical was on purpose. It's a fantastic gateway to be meaningful, credible necessary in the eyes of customers on infrastructure markets. So across all those segments, we have a lot of expansion and growth opportunity. So I gave you the framework of the megatrends, how they will support our growth going forward. Let's look now at how we are steering the growth profile of the group. First, we do it by geography. In Europe, we will take the most of the recovery, and we target 3% to 5% sales growth in the coming years, leveraging the strong positions in every single geography. Take our top country platforms and seize the European recovery on which, again, we see that it has succeeded everywhere. Second, we will continue to prioritize our capital allocation towards country platforms in high-growth geographies to increase our exposure there, North America, Asia, emerging markets where we target mid- to high single-digit growth. Already in '25, we are ahead of the target that we did set in '21 towards a target of 45% of our sales in those markets. We are at close to 50%, depending on the exchange rate. And our long-term ambition is to get 60% of our sales between North America, Asia and high-growth geographies. Besides the geographic exposure and evolution, how we steer the group, second is how we widen our reach to all construction end markets, notably increase our presence on nonresidential and infrastructure markets where we target high to -- mid- to high single-digit growth, gaining share on those markets where we are now a relevant, meaningful player. As I said, what we have built in terms of platform of construction chemicals, EUR 6.5 billion is a fantastic gateway notably into infrastructure. We target to be above EUR 9 billion by 2030 in construction chemicals with a good combination of bolt-on acquisitions, CapEx and also leveraging the innovation of Saint-Gobain. By geography, by end market, everywhere, we constantly want to enrich and continue to enrich our business profile in light and sustainable construction to make sure that in every single country, we have the best solutions approach for our customers. We'll continue to do that with a very strong focus on value creation country by country to constantly enrich and take a bigger share of wallet for all our applications customer by customer, country by country. So we'll be actively steering the portfolio optimization of the group to strengthen our group profile. We target a bit more than 20% sales rotation by 2030, continue to deliver a strong value creation, ROCE above 13%, accelerate the mass of value creation of the group, keep the same criteria that has proven to be very successful for the group, consolidating leadership positions, high-growth countries and construction chemicals. On all the steering of the group portfolio, we will remain extremely focused on value creation and quality of execution. So you have seen the framework on the megatrends and the huge opportunity for growth, how we steer and we are going to steer the group profile in order to take the most and benefit the most from those megatrends. Now day in, day out in the field on the ground, we are accelerating value and growth through solutions. Solutions is something that we have pioneered 5, 6 years ago and that we have systematically been ramping up since then. It's one of the 3 growth levers that we will be using to accelerate our growth to mid-single digit and outperforming the market. When you think of solutions, it's basically answering, even anticipating customer needs. On performance, again, the products don't stand by themselves. They are part of the system. They are part of the performance expected from the end user, from the contractors. When you survey customers, contractors, and I know some of you have been doing that, a vast majority of them ask for a preferred partner delivering solutions, integrated systems. We will hear from one important customer. It's one of the largest customer of Saint-Gobain in the U.K., Barratt Redrow. It's a large builder. They built 20,000 new homes per year. And with them, we have built the largest of its kind in the world climatic chamber where on Scale 1, we can test all kinds of weather conditions and see and measure the benefits of the performance of the Saint-Gobain solutions. Let's hear from Barratt in the U.K. And by the way, some of you with Mike Chaldecott, I think have visited this site in July '24 in [indiscernible]. [Presentation]

So customers ask for performance. They also ask for sustainable solutions and sustainability where we have been innovating a lot. We are pioneered with a full suite of connecting products, low carbon [indiscernible] for sustainability. When you take green buildings corporate headquarters, on this one, we have 2x more sales because we are unique on how we can differentiate and offer that to the customer 2x more than average of a building. So truly a differentiator on sustainability solutions. If I put myself in the shoes of a homeowner in France, willing to drop my energy bill, improve my purchasing power and get more thermal comfort, will Saint-Gobain have the one-stop shop, the perfect solution for global renovation that brings value to me, value in terms of energy performance and therefore, real estate value for my home, saving on the energy bill, a good payback and trained, reliable contractors. If I move to Canada, with everything we have, we guarantee the quality. It's even our brand, quality made certain, satisfaction granted because from the roof to the ground, we can provide the guaranteed solution. So that the ceilings, the steel profile, the plasterboard, they don't point fingers at each other. If they are 3 different providers, we are the go to contact. And by doing so, we have 4x more sales than where we were 5 or 10 years ago. So solutions brings a lot to customers. They bring a lot to Saint-Gobain. They increase our value, and they increase our share of wallet. There are 3 metrics, 3 metrics with which we measure our solutions, cross-selling, upselling and specified sales. Cross-selling, you take the example of Brazil, we doubled our sales towards the top 20 customers over the last years by cross-selling all the different products, all SKUs possible. But scaling upselling, when we do it, we have on average on the high added value products, 8 points more margin. So it's more a margin enhancement than sales growth like cross-selling. And when we move towards more direct sales, specified sales, on average, if I take the example of France, we have 10 points of more added value products and therefore, more margin. So those are the 3 metrics with which we track country by country our solutions. Then there are 2 ways on how to expand in each country through solutions approach. One is broadening and enriching our offer for the entire building envelope, do well what we know well, so low execution risk across the whole portfolio of Saint-Gobain; and second, deploying our comprehensive solutions across all channels, all routes to market. If I take the first way, we do it country by country. Take the example of India, where we have broadened our offer. And of course, we will take this example, and we are taking this example to replicate it elsewhere. We started 10 years ago with 2 families of Saint-Gobain, glass and plasterboard. Since then, 85% through organic growth, leveraging the know-how of Saint-Gobain, investing on CapEx, 15% through bilateral transactions. We are now #1 in every single of the solutions of Saint-Gobain. We have multiplied our sales by 4 and our profit by 6x. Low execution risk. We know it well, and we have a fantastic leadership in India. So by country. And also, we take our value-added products and we roll them out country by country. You take Exterior solutions, solar control, coated glass for solar control, which is very important in emerging markets. It's in Brazil, in Egypt, in India, in Mexico. It's a EUR 2 billion business, more than 20% EBITDA and very strong growth. You take our full set of interior solutions, EUR 12 billion of sales, quite a strong presence of added value products -- high added value products, HAVP, much higher than most of the peers that we benchmark, 20% EBITDA. You take construction chemicals, you know the platform, EUR 6.5 billion that we have built, 18% EBITDA, 15% growth in the last 3 years. And just in 3 years, we almost doubled our share of added value products of admixtures, very innovative one to help concrete and cement players decarbonize, which is the #1 problem today, lower the carbon content. So that's also low execution risk, but adding a lot of value for Saint-Gobain on the solutions. Second way, as I said, deploying our solutions approach through all channels. On merchanting, historically, that was the major by far channel of Saint-Gobain. We do it in Indonesia, 2x more points of sales in Indonesia with active actions on the ground versus 5, 6 years ago. Retail, we are now most of the time, the #1 partner for the large retailers around the world. More direct sales with specification. You take this example of a residence in Dubai, 18 solutions of Saint-Gobain with cross-brand specification teams, direct sales specifying with the architect and increase the share of wallet of Saint-Gobain. And you take digital, it's also a very important avenue for us in terms of how we promote our solutions such as 35% in the Nordics. We track all these solutions deployment country by country, cross-selling. Our best-in-class is North America, above 60%. That means in every single point of sales of our customers, we measure whether we have multiple SKUs from roofing to siding, from plasterboard to insulation, ceilings, et cetera. In Germany, we are below 40%. So upside potential for growth. You take upselling and some of you may have exchanged with our CEO for Italy during the lunch, we are above 50% of high added value products. In the Middle East, we are below 20%, 18% exactly. So here again, a good way to upsell and improve and continue to enhance our margin. Specification, the best-in-class sticky specification, sticky margin is in the U.K. with Mike Chaldecott. Mike was on the stage to start our Capital Market in Australia. We are moving up in India as well. But again, we can learn from each other. So in every single country, we have metrics to track our solutions and how we can continue to increase growth and increase margin. We are leveraging the same approach for differentiation and growth on Industrial Solutions. They are really best-in-class in terms of HVAP added value products in terms of specified sales. And we leverage the innovation across all the group, innovation on glass, coated glass between mobility and buildings, chemistry, all the know-how that we have on polymer is very beneficial for construction chemical and vice versa, and our ceramics innovation and knowledge for process decarbonization, of course, that we use for Saint-Gobain. So that's the first growth lever, the first leg on how we accelerate growth and value for Saint-Gobain rolling out our solutions. The second is to expand and continue to expand in nonresidential and infrastructure market. As I said, we are already a meaningful player, EUR 15 billion in sales, accelerated in the last years with our move in construction chemicals. And the way we look at those markets, nonresidential infrastructure is very often, we have what we call 0 products, products that are very specific, highly technical, not easy to replicate and truly door openers for us to win in those projects. Take the example of this hotel in Dubai, we have the best-in-class in the world fire safety glazing, very important in the high-rise buildings of Dubai. Thanks to these hero products, we have been able to leverage 25 other products of Saint-Gobain with a full set of solution, not easy to replicate big share of wallet for Saint-Gobain. If I switch to another market, data center. Data center, we have a lot of hero products, technical ceilings, the best admixtures for low-carbon slabs, which is one of the critical components to decarbonize the buildings. We have a catalog for that, including our waterproofing membranes. And according to external market study, 34% of the owners and contractors of data centers use Saint-Gobain products. This is 2x more than any other building materials competitor. 20% of the cost -- full cost, including IT hardware, et cetera, of data centers is related to the building envelope and building materials. So here again, hero products, and we are winning on those markets. Infrastructure markets, as I said, construction chemical has been a fantastic accelerator in terms of gateway to the whole infrastructure market. Just to recap on how active we have been, 37 acquisitions over the last 4 years, 43 new lines and plants, very successful ones. We have the leading brands. We have the leading experts in our teams and some of you had a chance to interact with Frederic Guimbal, Steve Williams also during the lunch. We are very meaningful in areas and markets where 10 years ago, you would not expect Saint-Gobain. When we sell 10 solutions on a bridge close to the M5 in the U.K., 10 solutions on a metro tunnel in [indiscernible] in India. We have a leadership, thanks to notably construction chemicals and infrastructure markets. And on those markets, we have put together the foundations to win them. What do I mean by that? We have dedicated catalogs by end market, dedicated offer. Second, we have all the technical capabilities, the R&D, the building science of Saint-Gobain. We have also, commercially speaking, cross-brand specification teams, experts. When we win these large airport in Vietnam, it's more than EUR 20 million of sales for us, 15 solutions for admixture and construction fabrics on the runway, fire safety glass, solar control, acoustic partitions, flooring solutions, you name it. So we are recognized and trusted on those flagship projects, snowballing effect, more to gain, more to grow, more market share. On those markets, we are also leveraging -- they are demanding. We need to be sharp. We are leveraging our digital and AI capabilities along the value chain, starting with R&D to accelerate our time to market, analyzing with AI thousands of tenders on those nonresidential infrastructure jobs and also using IoT, for instance, for concrete monitoring and verify and multiple other examples where AI virtual reality is a game changer and a differentiator for the solutions of Saint-Gobain. Let's hear now from one very iconic project. This is the hospital in Nantes. I didn't pick it up because it's in France. It's because it's the largest project in terms of complexity and size of its kind in Europe. Let's hear from the hospital in Nantes. [Presentation]

So expanding in those nonresidential infrastructure markets, we target high single-digit growth. We have identified country-by-country growth opportunities. Of course, they are not the same, depending on the country, be it transportation infrastructure, critical infrastructure on energy or data centers, hospitals, education, every single of our large country platforms has action plans, growth opportunities to gain market share and win on those nonresidential and infrastructure markets. So you have seen how we are accelerating through solutions, how we are expanding in nonresidential infrastructure market. All this is done by leveraging strong country platforms as growth compounders. You know our country-by-country model, well adapted to our markets, robust in a deglobalizing world, we have put in place 6 years ago. We have not been static in the last 6 years. We have nurtured it, optimized it, fine-tuned it. Our country platforms, they are designed to capture profitable growth. They leverage deep local anchoring in terms of customer intimacy, agility with our teams. They leverage the group expertise. They own and optimize their resources and how they allocate to the best growing opportunities. Ultimately, it's a selling machine, a selling machine full cylinders on the Saint-Gobain offer across all channels. Very interesting point, our country platform, they catalyze growth with compounding M&A. What do I mean by that? They are very often the origination of our acquisitions. Out of the 126 acquisitions we made since '21, 80% of them have been bilateral after years of discussions with family owners to join us because we have the right strategy by country with local leaders. This is what Marco Corrales did in Mexico and doing it successfully in impact, it was a natural move and natural welcome for Cemix to join Saint-Gobain, not others. On top of the origination advantage, they have execution advantage because they own the synergies on the ground, the streamlined integration, they deliver, they are in charge of delivering what they bought, of course, keeping the key managers, and we have multiple examples. The General Manager of Cemix is with us. He's running all construction chemicals. You have seen that Thierry Bernard that bought to us all the construction chemicals in '21. He is now leading France and South Europe. So retention of key managers is critical to Saint-Gobain. Execution, what does it mean? India, we bought insulation 3 years ago. We were not in insulation. We doubled the margin in just 3 years. Our country CEOs and platform, they also shape their market, leveraging the Saint-Gobain brand. It starts with training of customers, big customers, small customers, advocacy on sustainable construction during national or international events and also very pragmatic local campaigns on the ground like the roadshows of POINT.P every single region in France. So we shape and we lead the market. Our country platform, they are driven by operational performance. And they leverage -- they are not alone. They leverage the group expertise on manufacturing excellence, CapEx and world-class manufacturing to benchmark the plans, on innovation, how they roll out and benefit from all the large regional centers we have in U.S., France, Germany, India, Brazil, China, AI and digital technology platform at scale and of course, commercial excellence for key accounts, sales KPIs, you name it. They also constantly strive for environmental best-in-class performance. You know that we are a well-trusted, well-recognized leader and pioneer on sustainability, not only for the sustainable offer that I mentioned earlier on, but also on how we drive our own carbon footprint with world premier on multiple processes. We set up new targets more ambitious for 2035 since we have achieved already in '24, the targets we had set up for 2030 on CO2 reduction. And we continue to lead on circular economy to answer the scarcity of resources. Ultimately, at the end of the day, our country platforms, it's a performance-based culture. Incentives totally aligned with shareholder value. 90% of our country CEO, they are local from their country. They are empowered, they are accountable. 100% of their bonus is aligned to their country, their actions on the ground, EBITDA, ROCE, cash. Second, we have 3,000 managers with long-term incentives on value creation, ROCE, share price outperformance versus the CAC40, long-term incentives aligned to shareholder value. And for me, something which is extremely meaningful is the fact that we have more than 60,000 employees from 50 countries that own EUR 4.5 billion of Saint-Gobain shares. That means the efforts on the ground, the results, the shareholder value, the share price, all this is aligned. So this performance-based culture, this is how we drive the success of Saint-Gobain today and tomorrow. I now leave the floor to Maud, who will drive us through our financial performance.

Good afternoon to all of you. So we have a plan. We have an exciting plan, and I'm very happy to share with you what it will mean, what Lead & Grow will mean in terms of financial performance. First, Lead & Grow is built on very solid foundation. We have made a step change in performance. Looking back since 2018, the group has increased operating income by 66%. We have multiplied recurring EPS by 2, free cash flow by 3, and return on capital employed has been increased by 360 basis points. In addition to that, we have delivered on every single CMD 2021 target, be it organic growth, be it operating margin, be it free cash flow conversion rate or be it return on capital employed. We have also returned EUR 1.5 billion yearly on average to our shareholders through dividends and share buybacks. And this is the result of a disciplined execution and a result-oriented organization. And beyond those results, we have built an enhanced business profile for the group with more resilience and better quality of earnings. Starting with resilience. The group has improved its EBITDA margin by 150 basis points between 2021 and 2024, despite the difficult volume environment over those years. In addition to that, we have made a significant shift in the group mix of businesses. We no longer run significant businesses below 5% of EBITDA margins, but we have tripled the share of businesses running above 20% of EBITDA margin to reach 38%. Last but not least, we have a stronger growth profile with acquisitions, bringing on average 4 points of additional organic growth to the group. Again, this is a structural shift for the group. And we will not stop there. We are aiming higher. We are aiming higher with Lead & Grow in terms of growth, targeting over the period 2026 to 2030, mid-single-digit sales growth with market outperformance of 1 to 2 points. We are also aiming higher in terms of profitability, targeting EBITDA margin of 15% to 18% over the period. And we should note here that we are moving to an EBITDA target that will ease many aspects of us driving the business, but EBITDA is the performance driver that we use when we make acquisitions. We also incentivize our managers on that particular driver, and we normalize our reporting with using EBITDA as a profitability metric. The step change in profitability, 15% to 18%, will translate in Europe in a 12% to 15% range of EBITDA margin and in other high-growth regions, 17% to 20%. You should remember here that in Europe, we are running businesses with significant lower margins because they run at a lower capital intensity, and therefore, they drive similar level of returns as other manufacturing businesses. The step change in profitability is coming from -- has 2 legs. First leg is solutions that will drive share of wallet, mix and pricing over the period. And we will leverage the same playbook as we have in the past with managing price cost spread -- positive price/cost spread as well as cost management. Second leg, of course, will be continuing steering the group's portfolio to enhance the margin. And all in all, delivering when you add profitability -- stronger profitability to stronger growth -- strong growth in EPS. You remember that cash management has been crucial to the success of our previous plan. Well, we will continue because cash management is a part, is deeply rooted within our culture. We're talking here about 36,000 managers of the group and employees of the group trained to cash management. And I'm not talking about people from the finance community. Of course, they are. I'm talking here about warehouse employees. I'm talking about sales reps. I'm talking about purchasing managers. They are all trained and drive day in, day out the cash performance of Saint-Gobain. And I'm the first of them, of course, to be focused every day on the cash generation of Saint-Gobain. Going forward, we will -- we will keep that free cash flow conversion rate above 50% with nonoperating costs below EUR 250 million. CapEx in the range of 4.5% to 5% of sales, starting from the low side of the range at the beginning of the plan and operating working capital below 15 days. We are driving the operating working capital with enhancement plans for our existing businesses and strict integration plan for our acquired businesses. Moving now to capital allocation. In terms of capital allocation, first is strong balance sheet and credit rating. We will maintain a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 1.5 to 2x, EBITDA to 2x, ensuring a strong investment-grade credit rating that gives us attractive access to capital markets and gives us as well the flexibility of implementing and rolling out the strategy. Again, a strict commitment to that investment-grade credit rating. Then looking at how we will allocate and what capital we will deploy over the period. We will deploy around EUR 20 billion through attractive and value-creative capital allocation. Starting with returns to shareholders with around EUR 6 billion allocated to dividends, sustainably growing over the period and a EUR 2 billion share buyback program that will be used as a value creation tool, enhancing EPS, obviously, and a regular benchmark for capital allocation versus our own trading multiple. We will then allocate or dedicate around EUR 12 billion of growth -- to growth investment, either through growth CapEx or net M&A. And we will prioritize those who bring higher growth and higher profitability, namely North America, Asia, high-growth countries and construction chemicals, while at the same time, applying strictly our value creation criteria, meaning for M&A WACC -- return on capital employed above WACC and value creation in year 3 and for CapEx -- growth CapEx, IRR above 20%. Of course, all those growth investments will be in line with our group target return on capital employed of above 13%. If I zoom now on growth CapEx, we will allocate 2% to 2.5% of sales on growth CapEx, leveraging 2 main opportunities. First, offer enrichment country by country, and you have here a great example of offer enrichment in India with great returns and leveraging existing footprint to implement new product lines on a given campus. Again, another example of Finland, where we implemented construction chemical line on an insulation site, saving by the few years of time to market for construction activity. Now moving to M&A, where we track systematically the value creation of our M&A., and I know it's very important to you all. For acquisitions which were done more than 3 years ago, we have, as planned, created value. Continental Building Products, where we doubled market share in gypsum in the U.S. has been a fantastic acquisition in terms of value creation of growth, sales growth. We're talking about 10% CAGR -- sales CAGR. And even most importantly, it has been a platform for growth because it gave us access to major DIY to sell the full breadth of offer of Saint-Gobain. In Construction Chemicals, the combination of Chryso and GCP was the backbone for our Construction Chemical platform, on which we have plugged our various acquisitions since then and Cemix and FOSROC are 2 of them. We have there, again, created value with great CAGR -- sales CAGR over the period. Looking at acquisitions that we have performed more recently, we are on track for value creation with combined EBITDA in line with the group or above, and with synergies in line or above. Going forward, obviously, we will continue having that discipline, leveraging on our growth compounder model to reach that target of 20% of sales rotation by 2030 with 3 criteria for acquisition, consolidating leadership position, high-growth countries and Construction Chemicals, value creation by year 3, as I explained to you. Keeping in mind that discipline on the price paid is nonnegotiable, and we have no issue saying no to an acquisition that will not create value, and of course, synergies and cultural fit. We will be very selective as we have been selective, knowing that we have 80% of M&A done through country platforms, bilateral discussions. On the other hand, in terms of divestment, it is a routine, and it will remain a routine. We will do 3 criteria, strategic alignment with the group and value and creation of synergy with the group, financial performance and maximizing value creation in terms of timing for divestment. So these are our targets. These are our figures for the plan. They are attractive targets. They are ambitious targets. And you can be sure that beyond those targets is the commitment of all of the Saint-Gobain management team. We have built those targets with the top 150 managers of the group, and you can be sure that they will be all -- all will be dedicated to more profitability, more growth, more cash for more value creation for the shareholders. And as a group CFO, you can be sure that I will make sure that those targets remain in the minds and in the actions of everybody throughout the organization. And I will now hand over to Benoit for the conclusion. Thank you.

Thank you, Maud. It's time to wrap up and conclude. We are delivering strong value creation for our shareholders. EPS doubled in the last years, 14% on average per year progression. We had a total shareholder return well above our peers and above the CAC 40. At the same time, our price/earnings ratio improved, but we still have a nice significant upside versus our light side building materials peers. Lead & Grow is the next growth ambition for Saint-Gobain with strong value creation for all stakeholders. As I said, taking the most -- making the most of large growth opportunities supported by megatrends, even more salient than they were 5 or 10 years ago. Compounding growth with our country platforms. Very good on execution to deliver value-enhancing solutions where we have been pioneer, we are leading versus any other peer. And we'll continue to do that not only on residential markets, where historically we have been super strong, but expanding and gaining on nonresidential and infrastructure markets. This is our growth ambition for the next years. We are supported by a very strong governance. Saint-Gobain has a new face. You have seen it in the last years. We have a new Board. Almost all the Board has been renewed in the last years to reflect the international presence of Saint-Gobain from North America to Asia to multiple countries in Europe. 100% of the Board members are independent, excluding me, of course. And they have a wide expertise. So a very solid Board to move around and succeed again in the future. I have around me a fantastic management team with strong credentials, deep experience. I'm, of course, biased, but I think we work extremely well together, extremely well. We are all committed to the success of Saint-Gobain. In a minute, you will see from our 5 regions CEOs, Mark from North America, David and Thierry for Europe, Camille for Latin America and Sreedhar for Asia Pacific. What it means for them, drive profitable growth, take their attractive growth opportunities in every regional market and fully lead and grow in the region. This plan, of course, we build it together as a team. It has been built bottom-up with our country CEOs some months ago. As Maud mentioned, we shared it at length with our top 150 managers 3 weeks ago. And I know that all Saint-Gobain teams are with us. The engagement of the teams of Saint-Gobain to show you the journey went up 70%, 7-0, versus where we started 5, 6 years ago. A lot of the teams and employees of Saint-Gobain, they want to show you their commitment. They want to show you that they are there to drive success and they ask me if they want and if they could, to show it to you live. Let's see. We have teams all over the world. That's my team in U.S.A. Hello US. That's US. Thank you, Carmen. They have been watching. I think we a team now in S o Paulo in Brazil watching and wanted to show to you their commitment, their passion and how they have built this plan. Thank you, S o Paulo. I think we have a team in Aubervilliers. That's our research center in France. Hello France. [Foreign Language] So they are ready to stand up for innovation and lead Saint-Gobain in the future. After that, I think we have Spain. Hello Spain. Where is Spain? Well, the flag is superb. We are all -- hello Spain. And we have teams all over the world. I think we have a team in India, in Chennai, which is the largest manufacturing facility of Saint-Gobain So that's India. Hello India. So teams around the world that wanted to show you live their commitment. After that, we have a team in Poland. In East Leake, that's our large gypsum factory in the U.K. Johannesburg in South Africa, so hello South Africa. And also Abu Dhabi in UAE. That shows you because they asked, could we participate? Could we be there to show to everyone the commitment to drive the success of Saint-Gobain. I can tell you that we are all driven. I can tell you that from the Executive Committee, to the Board, to the teams on the ground, everyone wants to succeed. We have built on the fantastic journey in the last years, and I know that with all these things, everything is possible. Everything can be achieved to Lead & Grow. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Benoit. Thank you, Maud. This is the end of Part 1. Part 2, we'll be hearing from the regional leaders. So focus on regional markets. North America, Europe, Middle East and Africa, then Latin America, then Asia Pacific. And after a short break, we will get to the Q&A session, which will start around 4:45 p.m. Now to start the regional market focus, I would like to invite to the stage, Mark Rayfield, CEO of North America. Mark, the floor is yours.

Really exciting to be here. Maybe not as exciting as my team, but very excited to be here. So I'm happy to be here. I've met some of you in your recent visit to North America a few years ago for our Investor Day. But for others, I'll just offer maybe a brief introduction to myself. I've been in the group for 26 years, joining in [ 2019 ]. For the first 20 years of my career, I've been a commercial manager. For the 13 years before I joined the group and the first 7 years in the group. It's still core to me day in, day out. I want to get every order. I want to get every last order. I want to outperform the competition. And it permeates through my team. Those of you who are here live, had a chance to see our booth, probably saw our team there and saw that sales DNA and that energy permeates through Carmen and Steve and everybody on the team. I've had the pleasure of having multiple general management roles in this organization, including 4 years in the U.K. and Ireland, where I worked alongside Mike, before coming to the U.S. back in 2019. Since 2019, I've been extremely proud to have led the execution of our growth strategy in North America, where we've taken the region from approximately $7 billion in sales and approximately 12% in EBITDA, to over $11 billion in sales and greater than 20% in EBITDA. This growth journey was driven by being intentional and focused from the very beginning on our SG&A costs to make sure they were sized correctly. On building and exterior product sales team that matched what our contractors and our distributors needed in the field, selling the full products that they used going forward. By having the proper back office for low cost to serve to our customers going forward. And most importantly as well, given the tools to our teams in the field to understand what they did drove margin and let them grow profitably and grow our margin. This has built a solid foundation and the right teams to execute our growth strategy of outperformance in North America for the next 5 years. North America is well positioned for growth. While there's some softness in new construction right now, the macro trends in residential and nonresidential for growth in the region. We have the platform. You've seen, we have the team. We have the strategy, and we have the products to grow and win in North America. Our scale in North America, our deep commercial partnerships and our breadth of product line cannot be easily duplicated. And we are continuing to grow in exciting area we have runway to grow in nonresidential. And we have built a very solid platform to do smart M&A, to complement our offering in all these categories. As I mentioned, the fundamentals in North America are very strong. If you take residential, which is 68% of our sales, we are deeply underbuilt in both the U.S. and Canada. The need to build these homes will drive demand for our products in both renovation, remodeling and new build. In renovation, we have an aging housing stock. Vast majority of homes, a large portion of homes built in the early 2000s are greater than 25 years of age now. And the average age of homes in North America is greater than 41 years. So renovation is driven by many, many different components, but repair, when your roof leaks is nondiscretionary. When your roof leaks, you repair. And this is a big part of our market. In nonresidential and infrastructure, which is about 32% of our business, the acceleration of onshoring and the investment in new manufacturing is requiring repair and new infrastructure to be driven in our business. You see some numbers here, 20% to 25% growth in data centers and over 10% of our civil projects, driven at bridges and infrastructure. So it's a huge market and that's just going to continue to grow in North America. And we're so lucky because our country platform brings the best solution for our customers, and we have a nationwide presence. We're the only American manufacturer with a full breadth of solutions. And we have scale. We have 112 plants throughout the country that build products for our customers in the region that they need those products. That's why we've invested in new capacity in the Southeast because that's where the growth is in North America. This gives us a low cost to serve and fantastic service to the customers. We also have scale and our product breadth. We have a fantastic interior solutions offer, as you see here, and a robust best-in-class exterior solutions offer and huge growth and opportunity in our Construction Chemicals offer, which is growing. In North America, we are also the brand of the Pro. Why are we the brand to the Pro because we focus on what makes our contractors and our distributors successful. We know that we focus on them. If we make them successful, we become successful. How do we do that? Through training. This massive turnover, I'm sure in every country, but massive turnover in the trades that work in construction. And nobody sells what they don't understand. So you need to be constantly training the tradesmen on how to use our products, how to use our systems and solutions, how not just to sell shingles and siding, but how to tell the complete systems. We do this with 12 dedicated training vehicles in the U.S. that focus on training our contractors on the job site and in distribution. We also have large bespoke training events called building business workshops. We have over 300 contractors attendees each time we have them. We train them on installations and products and certification, but we also give them the business tools to succeed. We give them digital tools and affinity partners. We teach them on marketing tools and affinity partners, and we teach them on professional selling skills. We make them successful, and they come back year in and year out. Many of you know, the channel to this market is distribution, and we have deep relationships with distributors from the top office all the way down the field. This distributor community has been consolidating over the last 2 decades. We've enabled and supported this consolidation. This consolidation is a good thing. It gives us more sophisticated partners that deliver more value to both the contractor and the homeowner. It also gives us more multi-platform distributors that value our broad breadth of line. And these large distributors need a supplier that can supply them regionally across the whole country. We fit all those, which brings us to built to withstand. I think this is a fantastic metaphor for our business. We are built to profitably withstand the evolving markets. When you take a look at the markets in North America for exterior products, it's heavily driven by renovation and repair and remodel, which is the weather activity. You have increasingly severe storms taking place. So this is a growing part of the market. And as I mentioned earlier, when you get to repair, it's nondiscretionary. Whether it's an aging roof from those homes that are 41 years old or whether it's a roof that's been impacted by hail. When it starts to leak, you repair it. It's a large part of our market. It's why we focused on this segment of our market for the last 2 decades, and we have the lowest exposure of any of the manufacturers to new build. Renovation and remodeling values quality, values aesthetics and is a higher-margin market in general. It also values resilience. But resilience is not a one-size-fits-all. I happen to live in New England. If you live in New England, resilience means you have to have the products needed for snow, hail, ice. If you live in Florida, you need underground and aboveground waterproofing. We have the right resilience solutions for every territory. And we lead in these solutions. We lead in the building science that designs these solutions. And most importantly, we're investing and expanding both. I met some of you at this display, and you probably could have told, I could have spent all day there talking about this. I promised Benoit I wouldn't, so I'll be brief. But when you look at this, we have the complete -- most complete residential offer positioned to meet and really outperform the market. When you look at this left to right, reinforced, climate resilient, full-home solution, there's a few things I want you to look at, mainly the revenue and margin numbers. As you go from left to right, your revenue goes 10x up and your margin 15x up. It's an amazing example of what cross-selling and upselling can do when you have the full portfolio. This is not margin that we take and doesn't go to the distributor and contractor. They benefit from this margin as well. When they sell these systems, they get better margin, they make better profit as well. And it's not linear for the homeowner. As it explains to the folks outside, when you look at reinforced, climate resilient, a lot of these type products are used when you do renovation, remodeling and new build, but often from multiple different manufacturers. They aren't designed to be used together. We aren't trained on how to install them together. So the piecemeal on the building, which is inefficient and takes a lot of time. With an integrated system that's meant to be used together, which is designed to be put together, you drop and create great ease of installation and you drop the time of installation, and you improve the performance. And the time of installation is the #1 cost when you're building a home or renovating a home. So it doesn't drive extra cost to the homeowner. Let's hear some more from Carmen Bodden, our President of Roofing, who you saw earlier today. [Presentation]

I hope folks got to see that time-lapse film with that building being built, I mean that's a full multi-bedroom home that's built in less than 5 days, weatherproofed, sealed in windows, doors, roof trusses put on top of -- roof systems put on top in less than 5 days. And that person you saw looking at it was the wife of the owner of the building who happens to be an architect. So it's his design. He designed that home. It's his specifications. He can get it weather-proofed in 5 days. It's an amazing feature that we have. But our country platform also enables us to expand into very exciting nonresidential market. We have a significant opportunity in this market, and we are already quite sizable in this market. We're over $1.8 billion in turnover, almost $2 billion now, with a target of being greater than $3 billion by 2030. We're committed to grow here as we feel this is a market that has met more pathways to profitable growth in the region, is a market that values performance, as we mentioned before, and values systems. We see this when we work on a robust pipeline. When we focus on our target markets like health care and data centers and education, where 60% of our pipeline is focused, we get in early with the contractor. We specify our products. We understand what the building needs and what we can do for the occupants. And we end up with 70% of the products being value-added products. So high value-added hero products, as Benoit mentioned, which are higher margin and have stickier specifications in the building. And we focus on innovation and our investments to make sure we can grow here. We already have a state-of-the-art acoustics lab in our Northborough facility, R&D facility in Massachusetts. We will open a state-of-the-art fire lab there later this year. This allows us to design and test and build systems that are value added for our customers going forward. This is also a segment where targeted M&A will help us accelerate and complete our systems. And this is an example of how we bring those same solutions to life in nonresidential. It's similar to what we showed you in residential, but it has a caveat that codes and complexity in nonresidential building make them even more important. Systems provide real value for the end user and ensure your performance for the contractor putting them in. And they're a margin enhancer, just like they were in residential for ourselves and the contractor. You see here, we have fire-resistant systems, moisture systems, acoustic systems. So all the systems we need, we're constantly developing more and more winning systems going forward using our fire lab and our acoustics lab. And I'm excited because we have vast headroom to accelerate growth in infrastructure. We already have a comprehensive solution in North America in Construction Chemicals, and we are #1 in cement additives and concrete admixtures. With 13 plants, 2 R&D centers and 8 application labs, this means in our Construction Chemicals business, we are designing products meant for customer in the region that they reside, with the raw materials that they have that nobody can match. It's an incredibly customer-centric model created by Thierry and his team long ago, so I'm not going to take credit for it, but an incredible customer-centric model that has allowed us to gain significant market share in North America and makes us the #1 partner for the large players in North America. And we have the ability to use our massive global platform of GCP, FOSROC, Cemix and Chryso to go into other territories like waterproofing for bridge decks where we can take the whole global portfolio and leverage that. And we have the best-in-class digital tools with Verifi where we can verify that the product arrives on site as specified and will perform as specified, which eliminates all that product being shipped back that doesn't work, eliminates credits, claims and all sorts of issues in the field and gives confidence to the end user. And we have a vast opportunity to grow in the underpenetrated but greatly growing Canadian market. Let's hear now from Steve Williams, who you might have met, who runs this business for us. [Presentation]

Which brings us to Canada, where we've had an incredibly good track record of successful M&A that's delivering value in an unrivaled country platform for growth. We're #1 in Canada, with over CAD 2.4 billion in sales. With the addition of Bailey, we have the best-in-class interior products throughout the country. And with the acquisitions we made in the exterior products, we are leading in exterior products in the country, and we have huge headroom to grow in construction chemicals. Like the U.S., we have 42 plants located throughout Canada. So again, plants local to our customers, close to the needs with a low cost to serve. And like the U.S., we have close and deep relationships in every single channel going to the market. And this offer that we bring to this channel is a huge value to them. The diversity of it, the breadth of it and our integrated sales teams that allow them to have one point of contact and sell the whole solution to their customers. We are truly the one-stop technical shop for what they need across the whole country. Which brings me to where I began. We have demonstrated that we have the people, we have the agility, and we have the drive to outperform the market profitably. Our strategy and diverse offer gives us a single family solutions that are unmatched and nonresidential solutions that are leading edge. We will continue to leverage the global portfolio and know-how in infrastructure and nonresidential to grow these segments. We will be practical and disciplined in external growth to support all this. This will give us mid-single-digit growth and 1 to 2 points of profitable growth above the market. So as you can tell, I'm excited and extremely confident for what's ahead as we lead and grow in North America. Thank you.

Many thanks, Mark. Thank you. Now from North America, we move to Europe, Middle East and Africa, together with 2 leaders in charge of this region. David Molho, who is Senior VP and the CEO of Northern Europe; and Thierry Bernard, who is CEO of Southern Europe, Middle East and Africa. So let's welcome David and Thierry to the stage.

Good afternoon, everyone. I'm David Molho. I've been working in Saint-Gobain for 16 years with a truly international background. I have worked in Brazil. I have worked more than 6 years in the Nordic countries that I know well being a citizen of Finland. And in the past 4 years, I have led our High Performance Solutions division, working hand-in-hand with Thierry, and I'm very pleased that we share this presentation together today.

Good afternoon to all of you. I'm Thierry Bernard. I joined the group a bit more recently, 4 years ago at the time when the group acquired Chryso, which is a company I was leading for about 10 years, leading and growing it. Since then, I've accelerated alongside with David, the development into Construction Chemicals. As you all know, we have a few very sizable acquisitions, acquiring them, integrating them, and numerous bolt-on acquisitions. I've done most of my career running businesses under private equity ownership. And today, I'm very excited to be part of a growth-driven value-creation journey.

Today, together with Thierry, we will illustrate how our strong country platforms allow us to accelerate growth in the nonresidential. And this is why we chose as an introduction this picture of [Audio Gap] zero energy consumption building from the Universit della Valle d'Aosta, which includes 9 Saint-Gobain solutions, from ceilings to facade and partition. Saint-Gobain is uniquely positioned to benefit from the European construction market recovery. Europe is EUR 29 billion sales, over 12% EBITDA margin. And leadership position in European countries. We are #1 in France, #1 in the U.K., #1 in Poland, as examples. And these strong country platforms will allow us to benefit from the European construction market recovery with a strong operating leverage, meaning over-proportional EBITDA growth. With Thierry, we will illustrate how these platforms allow us to accelerate growth in nonresidential, infrastructure markets, and we will also zoom on a couple of selected geographies. We are very confident on the European construction market recovery. And I start with residential. In residential, for new build after years of downturn, the need is still there all across Europe. And we see already some indicators that demonstrate that residential new build is picking up. Look at housing starts, plus 4% in France, plus 18% in the U.K., plus 34% in Poland. And for renovation, which is a less cyclical, more resilient market, driven by strong trends like energy efficiency, here again, it is picking up. Look at housing transactions, plus 10% in France, 20% in the U.K. And we also see the confirmation of a price premium. Sometimes very significant, like in France or in Germany for energy-efficient buildings. Regulation investment will drive our markets. And we will also grow in nonresidential and infrastructure. These markets already today represent 35% of our sales in Europe. We are confident we will grow in this market because in each country growth plans, we have identified segments, be it hotels, hospitals, schools, offices, some industrial segments, including data centers, where we will leverage our platforms to bring unique solutions to our customers. And investments will drive our growth in nonresidential and infrastructure. Look at the German infrastructure plan, look at the plant in the U.K., look at the plant in Italy that have been driving our growth already over the past year. Investments regulation to accelerate in nonresidential and infrastructure. And most important, we will capture this growth with a strong operating leverage. Why? There are 2 main reasons for that. First, over the past year in the downturn times, our teams have done a significant job to adapt our footprint, to adapt our cost base. And we have rotated significantly our portfolio. As a result, with volumes down 13% over the past 5 years, our EBITDA margin has improved 270 basis points. Second reason, we do not need significant investment to capture market growth. We have available capacity, and this is what will drive over-proportional EBITDA growth. Our teams are ready. They are led by empowered, accountable and native country CEOs who know very well their market, who know very well their customers, and are ready to capture growth. Look at our platform in Europe, we have solid leadership positions in all European markets. We have strong capability to deliver a comprehensive set of solutions to our customers. And we still have room to enrich our offer. Let's take the example of Construction Chemicals, as an example. We have room to grow. We have the platforms. We have the team. We have the innovation capabilities. It will be a lot, a lot about commercial activity to capture and accelerate growth. Now together with Thierry, we will dive into the most important platforms, and we will start by the biggest one, France.

Yes. When I commented earlier how I joined the group, you've seen that we've worked hard to build a global leadership position in Construction Chemicals. And stepping into my new job during summertime, I must say that there is one place where I have found a genuine and undisputed leadership. This is in France. We have a tremendous, sizable, powerful business, around EUR 11 billion of sales, profitability at 11% at the trough of the market. This business is made of very strong iconic brands, beautiful awareness, leaders in their respective spaces. Thanks to them, we address more than 400,000 customers ranging from industrial players in the glass industry, in the cement industry, in the concrete industry to small craftsmen, but also large general contractors. We are intimate with the construction market in France. What does it give us? It gives us the capability to read what is happening in the market to shape it. And we have demonstrated, thanks to that, thanks to the scale, our capability to outperform the market dynamic at one point over the last couple of years. If I go a bit deeper into how we make the difference in France, let me illustrate 3 elements. First of all, innovation. Sustainable construction is a revolution. This is a revolution because the way we will build in the next years to come, the way we are starting to build now, the way we renovate is totally new. This calls for inventing new solutions, answering unmet needs today from our customers and how do you make the difference here? Again, our capability to read every request from our large stakeholders in the construction market. We can codevelop solution with our customers. Again, either it's about small craftsmen or large contractors, and it is also going fast into the rolling out of these solutions into the market. Second aspect, I'd like to highlight is circularity. Again, circularity is a strong but emerging -- it's an emerging but strong lever coming from sustainable construction. In some projects, we are being asked to find solutions to reuse the demolished concrete to be reused for the new building. This is requiring, totally new type of solutions and additives or other type of solutions. We are leading the way in circularity. With Infina , it's a range of plasterboard, which is using today, and we are a leader in that market of recycled gypsum. In ORA , we've been the first to reuse post-consumer glass to make this low-carbon glass. Finally, digital solutions, similarly to what Mark has commented to you, it's a way for our customers to have a seamless experience with us, ease of doing business. This is how we make the difference, but we are also helping our customers to be more successful. If I take the example of CAP RENOV, a suite solution that we have developed recently that some of you can see in the exhibition just outdoor, we are helping our customers to make the right proposals for the homeowners for the energy renovation projects of their homes. It is part of a suite of more than 10 digital solutions to help our customers do a better job. Again, scale matters. Those solutions are costly, and this is how we make a difference. Let's hear now directly from Nicolas Godet, our CEO of POINT.P and one of our customers, how we win and how we make the difference in France. [Presentation]

Let's leave France now for a second and move to a bit south -- a bit in the south direction and moving to 2 of our very sizable countries, very successful. These are -- we are talking about businesses of more than EUR 2.5 billion of sales. They have demonstrated their capability to outperform the market and to deliver over-proportional EBITDA top line growth. How did they do that? The way I'd like to explain it is the routine of our management practices in terms of commercial and marketing positioning. If I take the example of Spain, and Benoit has alluded to it earlier in the presentation, we talk about upselling. Upselling, again, our capability to go early stage with the stakeholders of projects. Here, in particular, we will focus on projects where there is strong green value because this is areas where we believe we can make a better difference, a stronger difference. And that's how our Spanish team has built, has reinforced its positioning as the best go-to partner for demanding projects. Today in the Madrid Nuevo Norte, which is going to be one of the largest urbanization transformation in Europe, we are talking early stage to all stakeholders from concrete to facade to energy-efficient renovation. And again, that's our scale in the country, which allows us to do that. If I take the example of Italy, here, we talk about cross-selling, but I would like to highlight for you, over the last couple of years, we have had an educated, disciplined work of expanding our product ranges to our existing customers, but of course, increasing our share of wallet, but that's also the opportunity for our customers to sell better their solutions. You see the transformation that we've been able to do in Italy over the last couple of years. And this is what has led to this stronger top line growth, over-proportional bottom line costs. And if we move a bit north towards U.K. and Ireland, we have a very robust platform. Some of you have experienced it last year in July '24 with Mike Chaldecott, our CEO, when you could visit our U.K. facilities. It's a EUR 2 billion business running at 18% EBITDA. And one of the key success factors of Saint-Gobain in U.K. and Ireland is the strength of its specification. Our specification and commercial teams are organized by end market in order to deliver tailored solutions to our customers. In the U.K. and Ireland, we are already very strong in residential, and we are organized to accelerate in nonresidential and infrastructure. How we will do that? Through sticky specification, full Saint-Gobain systems tested and certified in our own nationally accredited facilities that makes us unique. We will leverage the full offer of Saint-Gobain, as an example, to address the need for school rebuilding with complete solutions, digital design optimization tools and full certification. We will also grow fast in the data center segment. We are following currently a large number of projects, and we target up to EUR 80 million additional sales over the coming years. And if I take a broader picture, through specification, we will win in the nonresidential and the infrastructure markets by leveraging the full offer of Saint-Gobain. For each segment, we have identified specific needs, take acoustics for hospitals or schools, take low carbon concrete or fire protection for data centers, take solar control for hotels, where we have in our offer hero products that allow us to enter very early into the project, get through the specifications and then embark the whole offer of Saint-Gobain. This together with our key account management organization is how we will accelerate growth in nonresidential and infrastructure.

And deepening on infrastructure, of course, with the strong development that we've had in Construction Chemicals, this is giving us an edge to accelerate into Construction Chemicals. In Europe, Middle East and Africa, we have a very sizable construction chemicals platform. Now it's over EUR 3.5 billion of sales. You know that Construction Chemicals, especially in the businesses that we've recently acquired, we are getting closer to infrastructure because we deal with concrete related works in infrastructure, not only, but in particular. And you all know that this world of heavy building materials is faced with the major challenge of decarbonation. We have built a positioning to be the innovative partner for the heavy building materials industry, helping our cement customers, concrete customers to decarbonize, and this is a major challenge for them. When I see these 2 examples here, the high-speed HS2 project, high-speed railway project in the U.K., we have accompanied the large general contractors, the concrete manufacturers with multiple suite of solutions ranging from highly technical waterproofing to low-carbon concrete admixtures to concrete protection solutions. When I look at this onshore project in windmills, we are accompanying here with non-shrink high-performance growth, a global account doing business in Europe and South America. Construction chemicals is going to be at the forefront of our development into infrastructure. So nonresidential, infrastructure, and now we would like to zoom on 2 geographies that will drive our growth. And I will start with Central and Eastern Europe, which is an area where Europe is currently investing massively. In Central and Eastern Europe, we have solid leadership positions. We are #1 in Poland, #1 in Czech Republic, #1 in Romania, #3 in Germany. And we will grow with the German infrastructure plan. We will grow with the massive investment in infrastructure and defense, and we will grow if and when the need for Ukraine reconstruction appears. You are aware of this EUR 500 billion stimulus plan in Germany. In this plan, EUR 20 billion per year are dedicated to housing and infrastructure. Our German organization, our renewed German organization is fit to address this demand with key account managers already in place, with manufacturing capabilities already in place. And this will also have some spillover effect into the neighboring countries. We are also ready to attend the investments in defense and in infrastructure in all basic countries, in the Nordic countries will be there. And in due time, we are ready -- we are preparing to participate to the reconstruction of Ukraine. We already have a local presence in Ukraine. We already have contracts, especially for water supply. And we are ready to deliver today from Romania, from Poland, from Czech Republic. This will drive our growth over the coming years. If we move to a new geography, Turkey and Middle East, this is an area where we have built over the last years, a very solid platform. It's a EUR 1 billion business. We believe in this region because there are strong fundamental tailwinds which are supporting the positioning that Saint-Gobain has in these countries, large population, growing population, urbanization that requires need for housing and infrastructure and some economies like Saudi Arabia, which are transforming from oil and gas to new type of sectors such as tourism and hospitality, which are the segments we've commented earlier where we can make a difference. We have grown in this region through a combination of organic growth in investing in facilities, in glass, in gypsum board, in construction chemicals, but we've also grown through major and bolt-on acquisition to reinforce our local footprint. The most iconic acquisition we've done in the region recently is FOSROC, which you know was still a global construction chemical business with a very strong footprint into the Middle East. And I'm happy to share with you, as [ Kumud ] has commented, that we are getting closer to the end of year 1 after completion and our synergies are fully on track. So here again, Turkey and Middle East, fast-growing area where we have built very strong position, well positioning us for long-term growth. Let's hear now from Ahmed Rafique and one of our customers, how we do business in this region. [Presentation]

Let's wrap it. Now, we have [indiscernible]. These are the targets that we have 6 [indiscernible]. We are confident that we will make those numbers. The targets are 3% to 5% growth of sales on average for the years to come. But more importantly, we are confident that we will outperform the markets in which we will operate by more than 1 point over the next years. We are confident that we will lead and grow in Europe because we have a fantastic setup. We are the largest building materials producer, light and sustainable construction offering in the market. We are confident that we will outperform the market with a strong operating leverage that will transform into overproportional bottom line growth. And we have built the plans operationally to seize all the opportunities in commercial buildings and in infrastructure for the years to come. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Thierry. Thank you, David. We are halfway through the regional focus, and we move now to Latin America. So I'd like to welcome to the stage, CEO of Latin America, Camille Harrissart.

[Foreign Language] Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Camille Harrissart. I joined the group Saint-Gobain 10 years ago, first working on strategy, leading Transform and Grow Program. And building on my commercial background, I was then the head of the largest distribution region in France. And following my second passion, I moved to Sao Paulo more than 3 years ago, leading some businesses in South America. Since last July, I've had the privilege to be the CEO of Latin America. And I'm very proud to lead such a fantastic team in a strong, profitable growth platform for Saint-Gobain and very excited to share now with you our growth opportunities ahead. And I'd like to start with one figure, 90%. 90%, it will be the urbanization rate in Latin America by 2050. It means 600 million people living in cities, driving a huge need for high-rise building and infrastructure. And at Saint-Gobain, we are the #1 construction player in the region ready to capture this opportunity. Historically, we have strong local team and strong presence with more than 100 plants. And over the last 5 years, we had a strong growth agenda with more than 20 major CapEx and 11 acquisitions. We are #1 in Brazil, in Argentina, in Peru, in Chile with strong partnerships and in Mexico with new positions in Uruguay, in Ecuador and in Central America. This strategy has already delivered more than 9% growth at 18% margin. And we have action plans to continue to grow in each country platform and expand in nonresidential infrastructure. Today, I will focus in 2 of them, Brazil, which is our #1 country platform in the region and in Mexico, where we are replicating our successful Brazilian success model. So let's start with Brazil. The strength of our model lies in the largest portfolio of solution with innovation at our local R&D center in Capivari, close to Sao Paulo, a unique footprint of 56 plants, which means in a country which is the size of the continent, a plant close to any of our 40,000 customers and well-recognized brands, which are clear leaders in their markets. And at the last Anamaco price, which is kind of the Oscar for construction in Brazil, where are representing more than 100,000 point of sales, we were recognized as the #1 supplier across 10 product lines. Clearly, the first one -- the first supplier showing the recognition of our customers as a go-to partner in construction. And we have plans to continue to grow. First, through cross-selling and specification. Since 2019, our sales team is organized between retail and projects. In retail, with our cross-brand team, we already increased our share of wallet on average 40% when we sell more than 2 brands. We already reached 50% of our sales in cross-selling with further potential as we see example in Italy, but also now that we have the full portfolio, especially in construction chemicals. And in specified projects, we deliver integrated solutions. I'd like to illustrate with this example at Parque Global, which is an ongoing project in Sao Paulo, where we deliver for residential building, the shopping mall, the university and the hospital. And there, we started specifying at the architect one of our hero products, which is solar control glass. We then specify to the contractor who was looking for a solution for the overall performance of the building, the fast fab, the lightweight fast fab, which also allowed team to divide its contractor time by 2. And in the end, we provided more than 50 products on this project. This one-stop-stop solution approach is really an increasingly making a difference at project specifiers, architects and engineers. And our objective is to double our specified sales by 2030. And we are taking a larger share on the value chain, positioning Saint-Gobain as the thought partner to shape the construction market. We sit at the table of policymakers to advocate on building performance, safety, sustainability. Next month, we will be present at the COP30 in Belem to present our action paper on sustainable construction. We also advocate and engage on our solution. Saint-Gobain will be the first one to prepare and to show the light and sustainable construction at the first fair on the topic in Sao Paulo next month, engaging all stakeholders on these solutions. We engage with architects. Our [indiscernible] price last year attracted more than 2,000 projects. And in the end, we massively train thousands of applicators on our solution. And you'll see in the next video how we do that in an original and impactful way. [Presentation]

His approach advocating, engaging and training is [indiscernible] and we can see the impact is too tangibly handpicked here. The first one in [indiscernible] where we significantly raised the standard for technical solution in the market. These products allow quicker application with half the quantity of product. And so with this differentiated portfolio, we capture a 40% price mix premium in the market where we are the clear leader. The second example is on plasterboard, which allow building 2 to 3x quicker than traditional construction. We are #1 on this growing segment. We are taking market share, growing even faster. And when we look at the adoption rate of Brazil, which is 7x lower than France or 10x lower than in the U.S., we see that we have a huge potential ahead of growth. So in a nutshell, we see that Brazil has proven the effectiveness of its growth model that we are now replicating across all country platforms, like in Mexico. So Mexico. Mexico is now our second country platform. Over the last 5 years, we doubled the sales to EUR 1.2 billion. Through acquisition, we went from a strong position in glass solutions to the full envelope and internal solution with plasterboard, and we built the most expanding construction chemicals platform in the country in residential, counting on waterproofing with Impact, admixture and additives of GCP and recently, mortar and façade renders at Cemix. We are successfully integrating this company. We saw impact with value creation in the first year. And Cemix in its first year is already delivering synergies and growth above the plan with further potential already identified for the next 2 years. Beyond the number, we also benefit from the strong expertise of this team, which is now unified under the leadership of Cemix. And the sales synergies are really powerful. They're creating a spillover effect in cross-selling, as we can see in this example of one of the largest retailer in Mexico, where we are adding more products under the Saint-Gobain umbrella. And thanks to Cemix acquisition, we also gained access to Central America. We are now rolling out the full Saint-Gobain portfolio in the countries where we are present in Honduras, Salvador, Guatemala, and we have plan to accelerate in this region through CapEx and M&A. In Mexico, our high-value solutions, technical mortars and waterproofing, light construction systems, thermal comfort solutions, they're growing as well 2 to 3x faster than the market. And when we combine this compelling offer with specification and building science, we really enter into specified projects. And we'll hear how we can differentiate with this compelling value proposition in one of Mexico's fastest-growing market, hotels. [Presentation]

So we see in this video how we can expand in new high potential markets. First, in residential, in this example, in Mexican hotel, we see how this market drives a huge demand in terms of energy efficiency, acoustic comfort and thermal performance. So it's a perfect fit for our engineering and account management approach. We also target infrastructure, thanks to our expanding construction chemicals platform. We are now organized to serve new markets. [indiscernible] in Peru and Chile. In Chile, mining is 40% of the all investment in the country. And we also have a strong pipeline of projects in transportation and energy, especially with mills in Brazil. Our approach includes a tailored offer and engineering expertise per specific end market. It's crucial for this kind of project. So clearly, a clear growth area for Latin America in nonresidential infrastructure for the next 5 years. So to conclude, in Latin America, our ambition is to continue to outperform the market by minimum 2 points of growth each year. Innovating and rolling out our full portfolio of solutions across every country platform, leveraging cross-selling and upselling through specification and expanding into new markets. And we know how to do it. We have a proven model in Brazil that we are now replicating in each country platform in Mexico, in Argentina, in Chile, in Peru, in Uruguay, in Ecuador, in Colombia and in Central America. I have confidence in our foundation, in our action plan, detailed action plan and especially in the fantastic team I have the chance to work with. I can tell you that we are already organized and highly motivated to lead and grow in Latin America. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Kenny. Thank you. The fourth and the final region that we will be hearing from is Asia Pacific, together with Sreedhar, Senior VP and CEO of Asia Pacific and India. Let's welcome Sreedhar to the stage.

What a pleasure to be back here genuinely because this is something I started missing. So it's now 6 months. I'm in new roles. I've spent a lot of my time on the ground, meeting the customers, visiting the project sites and spending time with the team on the ground. And I can tell you that my conviction, the fact that Saint-Gobain has a huge opportunity to accelerate the profitable growth has significantly gone up. This region, you will see the construction market will continue to grow, particularly India, Australia and Southeast Asia. We have a huge opportunity to shape the market towards light and sustainable construction, leveraging the strong country platform that we have built over a period of time. We will continue to deepen the reach, enrich the offer and leverage the construction chemical platform that we have built to penetrate the infrastructure market. We have EUR 5.3 billion sales in the region, 17% margin, and we are #1 in India, #1 in Australia and #1 in Southeast Asian countries. And we have been growing at the rate of 7% in the last few years. You will see in this region the growth of population. And the growth of population will lead to also a significant investment in the infrastructure market. We will also see the enhanced purchasing power, given the fact that the middle class population is growing in this region. And we have a significant opportunity for light and sustainable construction. Given the new construction code has been introduced in Australia and the fact that the adoption of light and sustainable construction is at a very early stage in this region. And this is going to be the single largest huge potential for us to penetrate the market. I have spoken to all of you many times the fact that India is an outstanding country platform that Saint-Gobain has built over the years. Saint-Gobain is the top brand in the country in the construction market. We are #1 in every single product line. And we have an unrivaled footprint in the country, 82 plants in all major states. And this is the single largest differentiating factor because when you are there in all the major states, your ability to serve the customer significantly goes up. Having an innovation center in India makes a huge impact of our ability to adapt the solution to the Indian market. We are the reference for sustainable construction in the country. If you have to see how we can further level up the India's strong growth story, we have 2 clear levers. One is deepen the reach in Tier 2 and Tier 3 space by significantly increasing the point of sales and also the network of influencers. We will leverage the construction chemical platform that we have in the country. And India will see a significant investment in infrastructure. With the acquisition of FOSROC, we have a leadership position and comprehensive solution to offer to the market. And FOSROC has got a credibility in the market, ability to give a technical solutions. Let's look at one example where FOSROC has contributed immensely in an iconic project in Northeast Asia -- Northeast India. [Presentation]

Let's look at the second country in the form of Australia. After the acquisition of CSR, Saint-Gobain has got a leadership position in the country. The brand CSR, the name CSR is an iconic name. It has got a credibility of more than 170 years of serving the construction market in the country. Once again, Saint-Gobain in Australia through CSR has got a significant state-of-the-art footprint, both in terms of manufacturing as well as the distribution and logistics hub. CSR is known for its ability to sell solutions. They have a very strong reputation of system talent. More than 60% of their sales, if you look at the customer profile, they buy more than 3 products on an average. It's a fantastic acquisition, great addition to the Saint-Gobain family. I'm super convinced the way we are progressing on integration. I think this is one thing which is very clear that we will be on track -- we are on track to create value from this acquisition. If we have to capture further growth, profitable growth in Australia, there are again 2 areas where we can really make a significant impact. One is increase our presence in high potential markets and segments and the new solutions. We have identified certain product lines where we can significantly increase the market share. And also benefit from the fact that we are -- CSR is part of Saint-Gobain, we have an enriched offer for the Australian market. One clear example is the construction chemical. CSR did not have in their profile, in their portfolio. CSR, with its ability and the credibility in the market to sell the solutions, they are able to have more than 40% of the cells, which is high value-added and solution cells. Insulation is going to be one single largest growth driver for CSR given the fact that they have a very compelling solutions. They have been able to demonstrate that you can reduce 80% of the heat loss using the Saint-Gobain CSR solutions in Australia. And they are very good in specifications [indiscernible]. They are very good in every single market segment, residential, nonresidential. Let's here this Paul Dalton the CEO of CSR, he talking about one of the iconic project where we participated in health sector and you see the impact of CSR brought to this project. [Presentation]

Let's look at the third country platform in the foremost Southeast Asia. This is a steep growth trajectory we have seen in the past. And this is clearly a one, single another area where we have a growth accelerator. We have a leadership position in this country. We have a broad industrial footprint and also our ability to provide an innovative solutions to the customers. We have more than 40% of the sales value-added products. If you have to look at the single largest growth potential and the outperformance in the market in Southeast Asia is product offer enrichment. We have identified clear areas where we can significantly increase our market share, high value-added glass, coated glass, insulation products and acoustic solutions and the full range of construction chemicals, especially with all the acquisition we have done in the recent past, our ability to serve the market has gone up significantly in this market. Coming to China, it's a very different strategy. We have made a conscious decision to be only in attractive and niche market segment. We have 1.2 billion sales, but more than 50% of the sales is in industrial market and more than 80% of the sales is for the domestic market. We have 41 plants across the 30 locations. We have an R&D center in Shanghai, which helps us to keep developing the new products and solutions. But one important thing in China, which is very nice, is the best-in-class digital service. We have actually invested significantly in the digital tools. In China, we respond to our customers within 70 seconds using chat box. This is just one example. I can tell you, everywhere in all the countries in the region, we are a strong influence on the distribution network because of the digital tool that we use and our ability to track the products, the moments, where exactly what's happening, our ability to engage the different stakeholders in the whole chain -- value chain is very, very powerful. I am excited in my new job because I have a committed team. I have an engaged team willing to go extra mile get for an additional deliver profitable growth. In addition, I have a leadership team which is native and local with a deep expertise in the construction market. And this is one single differentiating factor as compared to what you see in the marketplace. To conclude, I am confident to accelerate the profitable growth in Asia Pacific and outperform the market at least by 2 points. By leveraging the strong and proven country platform that you have seen, enhance the reach of Saint-Gobain comprehensive solutions to all end markets, doubling the sales in construction chemicals market and continue to invest value creative investment to support growth in the region. Thank you.

Thank you, and Bravo, Mark, David, Thierry, Camille and Sreedhar. Now you have gone around the world of Saint-Gobain on those very large growth opportunities and megatrends. I think more importantly, you have seen and touched how aligned we are together on our actions, on the strategy forward, how we leverage and accelerate value and growth through our solutions, how we expand on nonresidential and infrastructure markets, and we are a meaningful player. It's something that we are going to start. It's already there. You have seen movies, example, customer testimony from hotels in Mexico, from construction chemicals in the U.S., also Australia. So all around the world expanding in those markets. So we are extremely driven by this alignment on solutions, residential, nonresidential and infrastructure markets. At the end of the day, it's all about execution. 5% is the strategy, 95% is the execution. You have seen our commitment on execution in the last years. You can touch and feel the commitment, the drive of our region CEOs to execute well going forward. And you have -- you had some examples of our country platforms. This is where we drive the success of Saint-Gobain. So I have every confidence that we will lead and grow for the coming years that it will bring a lot of value for our shareholders and a lot of value for all our stakeholders. We'll stop there because you have been patient, passionate, I think about all the presentations. We'll take a short break. So we come back at sharp 4:50 5 -- 0, so 10 to 5 for the Q&A. Thank you. Short break, and we come back online. [Break]

So back now to the questions. Vivien will be the moderator for the questions in the audience. And after that, we will have some questions on not the Internet, but the app that you have been using. So Vivien, I leave you the floor and who wants to -- multiple questions. So...

The Q&A is open.

Your choice.

At the same time, 5 hands. So we're going to start with Cedar Ekblom right behind, then Arnaud Pinatel and then [ Elodie ] in the same order.

Cedar Ekblom from Morgan Stanley. I've got 2 questions on the North American business. The last margin you delivered in the Americas was north of 20%. And for that region, APAC and Americas combined, you're guiding to 17% to 20% going forward. And I think there's a lot of focus in the market around the margin improvement in that region and whether you are over earning, particularly in the context of new capacity being added in roofing. So could you help us understand how we should think about that North American margin going forward and whether this is a signal that you actually think the margin needs to fall? And then the second question is linked. Can you talk about how you see the distribution landscape in the roofing market in the U.S. shifting? QXO is obviously talking about trying to lift margins and one of the levers that they are talking to is getting their OEM suppliers to give them some margin. I'd like to hear what your take is on that.

So I will start, but I think it's a lot for Mark, at least the second question, Mark, you will be able to comment on the podium. We are very ambitious on the margin everywhere. And what we wanted to give you is 17% to 20% is the average margin for the 3 categories, Latin America, Asia and North America. You know that North America is slightly over that. Asia is at 17%, Latin America, 18%. So we are on the best margin in North America. We'll continue to stay ambitious. And after that, Latin America and Asia can continue to improve. So yes, the margin in North America will remain best-in-class for Saint-Gobain going forward. To highlight also what we have done recently on some investment in North America, it's modern plans. So it's very important because it helps us to lower the cost to serve our customers. It's roughly 2% addition in terms of capacity on the total market. If I take roofing, which was saturated, we were on allocation of capacity for the last years. So it's a minimal addition. And for us, not only it's the best cost to serve, but it's in the best location in the Southeast. So I'm not worried. We have this must-have renovation going forward. We have this housing shortage. So North America margins are going to remain best-in-class, no pressure for Mark. But clearly, we are driven by profitability and this consolidation of the market that happened in the last years, be it on roofing, be it on gypsum is something which is essential to us. Mark, a few insights on distribution and how they partner. You heard from Mark, when they are a national payer, they need a national manufacturer like Saint-Gobain.

So as I mentioned, commercial manager for most of my life, there's not been a year where there aren't distributors looking for extra margin from suppliers. That's just the way the world works. But we do have solutions that are driven by contractor engagement and homeowner engagement. So it's not a commodity product. The products we sell through distribution have great stickiness at the contractor and the homeowner who want the right aesthetics and the right performance, and we support that. We also have salespeople in the field that support those contractors and partner with the distributors to make sure we pull that product through distribution. And we do that with our distributor partners that partner with us in each region. So as I mentioned earlier, when we talked, the distributor landscape has evolved, but the roofing and exterior product distributor landscape has been 75%, 80% consolidated for the last 5 or 6 years with QXO acquiring what they have. It's still 70% to 85% consolidated with no change in share of QXO. So it's the same as Beacon was when they acquired it. So my answer is we'll continue to focus on partnering with distributors, making them successful through driving contractor engagement and stickiness of the homeowners. So -- and they will not be the first and the last or not the first to ask for discounts based on the size.

And when you look at other players, the fact that Home Depot bought SRS and GMS, we are the #1 partner. GMS was the largest customer of our gypsum interior solutions. So we are now even more relevant for this kind of consolidation. Same with Lowe's and ABM. So it makes us the unique -- you take other roofing players, they don't have gypsum. They don't have ceilings. You take some gypsum players, they don't have roofing or siding. So we are the unique true partner across these channels in North America.

Question from Arnaud Pinatel.

First of all, if I remember well, when you took the role as the CEO, your share price was at 29. Today is at 92. So we had great success and congratulations for that. But it was all about a turnaround story. Repositioning the group savings, restructuring. Today, if I understood well, we are entering into a growth story. So my first question is, do we need really to value Saint-Gobain no more as a cyclical stock, but as a growth stock within the building material sector and how convinced you are about that? And my second question, I was very interested by your metrics where we had the different colors, blue colors. This EUR 12 billion of CapEx M&A, you have not disclosed what is the part, which is CapEx, which is the part M&A. I don't know if you will guide us on that. But is it fair to understand or to believe that you are going to try to complete this metrics, regional and country and make it blue, dark blue everywhere, and this is the growth story. It's a very simple question.

Short answer is yes. And second part of the short answer, you have understood that it's a low execution risk because we know every single of those product lines. It happened that in some countries, you take Mexico, we were not in construction chemicals 5 years ago, but we know how to play with construction chemicals in Brazil, in Argentina. Camile didn't describe Argentina, but we have other platforms, Peru, Chile, et cetera. So we know how to replicate with strong leaders like [ Marco Corales ] to take glass, gypsum and construction chemicals. So yes, we want the blue to become darker. We had a prior version with the exact market share, but we thought it was better to have light blue, medium blue, dark blue. But yes, in principle, we want to make dark blue everywhere because then you even increase further your competitive advantage and your share of wallet with the customer. So that's the rollout of our offer within the spectrum of offer we know well. We are in the Saint-Gobain [ Tower ], 82 products. Not all the countries of Saint-Gobain have 82 products with 30%, 35%, 40% market share, and dark blue in India. My first on the CapEx and M&A, I will let Maud answer. I will take the first one. I can even tell you that when we gathered our top 150 managers 3 weeks ago, we gave ourselves the target of the share price if we do all this well, I'm going to keep it for me, but it's ambitious. And we are all driven to make sure that we beat and we deliver on this. In the last year, it was not only what you call the turnaround story, it was truly implement the country platform organization. Then each of them, they had to either turn around the business, exit, improve that. But fundamentally, it was we turn the organization by country because it's absolutely the best model for the local country market. It happens to be very robust in the world of today, globalizing world, but it was first this structural shift towards country-driven, performance-driven alignment, incentives, share value creation. So after that, yes, we have done the heavy lifting of the poor businesses or the businesses way far from the strategy that Maud has highlighted in terms of quality of earnings. And yes, we are turning into a growth mode. But again, we don't start from 6th of October. We have started systematically with this in mind to complement the portfolio. When we bought Australia, it was a growth story. And we knew that they were super strong on plasterboard and insulation and Sreedhar with [indiscernible] is going to add construction chemical, is going to add [indiscernible]. So we knew what we have prepared on the construction chemical platform on the Middle East, the investment in Mexico, in India was already putting the pieces of the puzzle so that at some point, we would be ready to lead and grow. So yes, you should think of Saint-Gobain in a different way, not look at the past, look at how well we have executed also in the last years and now the growth story while delivering good value creation for the shareholders. Maybe on the...

Yes, sure. With pleasure. So on the EUR 12 billion of gross investment, you should count about maybe EUR 1 billion per year on growth CapEx. And the rest on M&A, keeping in mind, of course, how disciplined we will be in terms of allocation. And there, there will be no surprise on allocation in terms of returns and also prioritizing on the right areas where growth will be, obviously.

Next question for Elodie Rall.

So I understood the rationale to switching to EBITDA margins in terms of targets versus operating margin. But with CapEx expected to increase as a percentage of sales, I was wondering if that is also signaling an increase in D&A as a percentage of sales. So basically, what I'm trying to get is that where does this EBITDA margin translate in terms of operating margin targets? Is that 11% to 14%, 10% to 13%? A bit of guidance would be helpful there. Second, I was wondering if you could help us break down your targets in terms of like-for-like growth versus M&A in that mid-single-digit local currency growth, including with regard to the margin accretion that you expect to come from acquisitions versus organic growth? And lastly, on that 20% portfolio rotation, how much divestment would you expect to contribute? And where would they be targeted?

Do you take the first one, maybe?

Yes, sure. So EBITDA, the story is really about aligning our reporting to how we are going to drive or how we are driving the business. Incentives of the managers are already in EBITDA. When we do acquisitions, we do it through EBITDA multiples. And of course, we are not going to increase the depreciation. When I said 4.5% to 5% of CapEx over sales, I said that we would start at the low range at around 4.5% of CapEx, which is where we are today. So no increase in the short term, but we have the opportunity to increase as we roll out the plan basically. So nothing hidden in terms of depreciation with the move to EBITDA for sure. So there, you should look at having that equivalent of 11% to 14% indeed in terms of OP.

On your second question, so we have a 1-ish type of M&A acquisition in the mid-single-digit growth. In principle, all our acquisitions are margin accretive. But now that we run at a healthy margin level, it's not as big as it used to be 5 years ago. You have seen the impact on additional growth and margin from Maud, but that's 1-ish percent in the mid-single digit coming from acquisitions on average for the next years. 20% sales rotation, at least, it's to show that we are committed to continue to make meaningful divestitures and acquisitions. I'm not going to give you precise figures otherwise, you will start guessing the candidate. We have highlighted some of the slides in terms of end markets, in terms of the evolution of certain regions and businesses. So you can cross check what it could be. On all this, it's driven by value creation. Timing is of the essence, and we will continue to do that. But we want to tell you that, yes, we are going to be active on the portfolio evolution to always steer the group to make it even stronger in terms of profit and in terms of growth towards light and sustainable construction. More meaningful, Elodie than the 2 small divestitures of last week in Belgium and Brazil, if it's behind your question.

Next question for Ephrem Ravi. Just close to you, please.

Ephrem Ravi from Citi. So 3 questions. Firstly, 2 questions following up on Elodie's question. In terms of the 20% rotation, obviously, industrial and distribution kind of goes down as a percentage of sales. Would it be fair to say that the bulk of that 20% asset rotation would come from those 2 parts of the market within the next 5 years? Or would you have a significant industrial exposure at all in 5 years? That would be the first question. Secondly, on your addressable market of $250 billion, only about $70 billion is infrastructure. Asia itself has got about $3 trillion of infrastructure spend per year. And if I do very simple global calculations, you were defining your addressable infrastructure market is about 1% or 1.5% of global infrastructure spend. Is -- does that kind of just take into account your current product suite? Or would you kind of expand that industrial addressable spend with more acquisitions in adjacent areas in the future? Because it seems to me that that's one place where you are probably underselling yourself a little bit. And the third, sorry, is on the EBITDA margin. If I take the 15% to 18% EBITDA margin and you look at your current ROCE, the step-up doesn't look proportional. So it looks like the capital employed looks -- goes up a little bit more than the margin increase. Is that a wrong impression? Or are you just being conservative with your ROCE targets?

Thank you for your 3 questions. And maybe Maud, you will take the third one. You have a good guess on what could be the candidates for divestitures going forward. Again, there will be a lot of acquisitions, and the net will be positive. There is no taboo within Saint-Gobain. So yes, we will assess the merits of all the businesses country by country and what do they bring to Saint-Gobain in terms of innovation, in terms of synergies, in terms of financial performance, along with the criteria that Maud highlighted. On your second question, yes, we have been very precise, not underselling. We want to overdeliver maybe and under promise. But it's because both nonresidential and infrastructure markets and targets and action plans have been defined bottom up with our existing portfolio of know-how and expertise. So we don't want to be in aside. We don't want to be in cement. We provide all the adhesives to decarbonize cement. We don't want to be in aggregates. We don't want to be in China, which is a big market, but commodity and no margin. So yes, this is the addressable market where we already win and we want to increase our market share. So maybe in 5 years down the road, we will have a bit more adjacencies in terms of product offer. But this is how we consider the addressable market as of today and where we want to win. You take the.

Yes, sure. So in terms of return on capital employed, we have increased the low range. You remember, we were at 12% to 15%, and we are now above 13%. We remain ambitious on that element of value creation. At 13%, we are creating value, obviously, and we creating good amount of value. So the purpose is really to steer the group's profile, enhance the quality of earnings, as Benoit just said. And to do that, we are going to maintain and be into that ambition of growing the return on capital employed, but ensuring as well that we acquire businesses with good EBITDA margins and we divest, we continue to divest and rotate the portfolio. And doing that, for sure, when you acquire, you create value in year 1, 2, 3. And then when you divest, you could also divest activities, which have been already depreciated. So then you have some kind of effect on the return on capital employed. So that's why you could have that kind of curiosity when you compare our EBITDA ambition versus our return on capital ambition. But be sure that we remain ambitious on both targets.

And we give you a floor, not a ceiling.

Next question. So Ebrahim, so just there.

I'm sorry, you had the mic, so it could have been easier.

Ebrahim Homani, CIC. I have 2 questions, if I may. The first one is about data centers. A lot of your comps are talking a lot and communicating a lot on data centers, but you said that you are maybe one of the leaders in this sector. What's your market share? Are you maybe the part of your sales generated in this segment? And my second question is on your added value products. What's the part of added value products in your actual sales and in your target, what you target in terms of added value products?

So data centers, it's several hundred million euros of sales. Sometimes it's direct versus indirect through distribution. As we have seen from this external survey, I think it's the best proof of the pudding. We are a meaningful player, and we are a meaningful player because, again, we address multiple functions, be it fire safety, be it low carbon concrete, be it technical ceilings, et cetera, et cetera. So we are ramping up. Of course, if you take Spain, for instance, we are very successful in Spain. You heard it from Thierry Bernard. All the EUR 70 billion of data center spent in Spain, today, they are in the spec. They have not been built, so that's more to come. Sometimes we read big, big numbers about data centers. It's in the project side, not yet in terms of sales, but it's ramping up very actively. And then I forgot your second question, sorry. Value products, we don't look at it at the total group. We look at it country by country, and we wanted -- I wanted to share with you the metrics that we are using on cross-selling, upselling and specified sales. So some countries, you heard it from -- you have seen it from Italy, it's already above 50%. We gave also the granularity of the different product lines. You take gypsum and insulation, it's 30%. We have some competitors in the U.S. at 3%. So that means we are addressing different markets that they cannot address. So this is the way we drive it by product line and by country. And we know that if you take glass, we can be above 50%. If you take plasterboard, we know that if countries at 10%, they should be at 30%, if not above because when the average is at 30%, that means others are 40%, 50%. So this is a fantastic way for us to grow our sales and grow our margin. And on average, when we have more added value products, I give you the average for the group, it's 8 points of additional margin.

So the next question from [ Chris Neel ] on the right.

This one is for Maud. I wanted to go back to a question he was asking earlier, a little different about the [indiscernible] [ ROCE ]. Given your expectation for faster growth, better margins, some modest improvements in your working capital, why is your free cash flow conversion still staying at just 50%? And then a follow-up to that is, how do you expect that to kind of evolve over the period? Because I think you've guided for capital intensity to increase. So should we see kind of an inverse experience of the free cash flow over that period?

I will maybe answer on the ROCE and you complement on the free cash flow. The ROCE, again, selling some depreciated assets and buying a bit of goodwill where you create value year 2, year 3. After that, the positive impact on ROCE is the growth. So clearly, accelerating growth will help continue to grow the ROCE. Maybe on the free cash flow.

Yes, on the free cash flow. So the conversion rate here, you should maybe have in mind that we are -- when you look at our conversion rate over recurring net income, you would be around 100%. So that could be a little bit misleading, but I am sure you have that in mind. And then going forward, we kept the same metric because what we intend to do is really accelerate the growth, making sure that we enable -- we dimension our working capital to serve well our customers. We feel that we will continue to work on operating working capital. We will continue to enhance the performance, but we will have also effect of the acquisitions. And at some point, you reach a level where you are approximately stable and you get some incremental improvement, but you reach the point where you best serve your customer that way. So we will remain ambitious on cash, trying to optimize, and that's what we are doing every day. But in terms of operating working capital, that's where we guided around 15 days, below 15 days. And in terms of cash -- mass of cash, obviously, growth will help us grow the free cash flow over the period for sure.

Just going to ask one follow-up. I didn't know if maybe there was any segments that are growing that you expect to be maybe more negative to the free cash flow relationship.

No, no, that's not the case.

Next question from Pujarini in the middle.

Congrats, and thanks for sharing this presentation with us. So my first question is on your revenue growth guidance, and you've given us 2 ways of looking at that target. So I quite like the fact that you've given the outperformance over your underlying markets. Could you give us your rationale for providing those 2 targets? And is there a possibility that if your expectations of how the underlying markets grow or progress from here on, if that diverges from your expectations, would that lead to some confusion as time progresses as you go towards 2030? And lastly, on the same topic, basically, I mean, what are you expecting? Or how should we think about how you calculate the underlying market growth? So it's a bit easier outside in?

Well, for us, the outperformance is very important because when we differentiate with solutions, when we know we can increase our market share and push our competitive advantage in non-resi and infrastructure, that's our performance. And we have proven that in the last years, in India, in the U.S., in France, in the U.K., we have delivered in Brazil outperformance. So we want to continue to step a bit up from the 1 point to 1 to 2 points. We have delivered on average 1 point, a bit below 1 point in the last years. And now we target 1 to 2 points. I think -- and that's the way we manage our teams regardless of the market performance, you need to outperform. We measure it through market data. We have statistics in roofing in the U.S., in gypsum in the U.S. We have statistics in France. We want the teams to have this winning mindset. We benchmark against our peers. We have done it on construction chemicals over the years, and we showed to you what we have done. So that's the way we want to deliver very well on what we can control. And if your market grows by 5% in India, okay, we delivered 10%. That's 5 points of outperformance. So that's the way we drive the market. But we are confident with all the megatrends that we have shown that, okay, it's a bit on the short term, a bit cut here and there around the world, but we have huge opportunities for growth everywhere, recovery in Europe, housing shortage in North America, urbanization and population growth in Asia and emerging markets. So we are confident we will drive on this journey to mid-single-digit growth.

Next question in front of you, Ben Rada.

Ben Rada Martin from Goldman Sachs. I had 2, please. My first is on the divestment portfolio. You had a useful slide in the deck talking about businesses that were below 5% margins. And I noted that, that's kind of gone to 0 now. Is it right to think that the divestment strategy pivots more to businesses that might not be a big strategic fit rather than purely being an underperformer on a financial basis? And then second question would just be around Construction Chemicals. You provided some good disclosure on the geographic skew for that segment. Some of the regions that were a little bit underweight there being North America and Europe, are those the areas that you'd be looking to bolster through inorganic M&A?

Rest assured that 5%, it's my job to raise to 6% to 7% to 10%. So we will continue to emulate and we are already above that threshold. So yes, your guess is right that, again, all the heavy lifting or the bleeding businesses or whatever from 5, 6 years ago, all that is gone. So it's more the strategic fit towards light and sensible construction, which is one of the main criteria on top of growth also because you have sometimes some good cash out business, okay, if they don't grow, what's the point? And at some point, you could have some trade-off. On Construction Chemicals, we have a very solid position in Europe across multiple countries. We have a very solid position in the Middle East that Thierry Bernard highlighted in India. In North America, we are #1 already in cement additives and concrete admixtures and [ Steve Williams ], who has done a fantastic job to gain market share with innovation, et cetera, over the years, is there. We are a wide open space in Canada, and we made the very first acquisition Interstar a few months ago. So we are confident that we can grow in Canada from the CAD 2.4 billion platform that we have in Canada. So yes, overall, Construction Chemical is a white space in North America, like also the non-resi infrastructure markets are a big opportunity for us to grow in Canada, in North America. Mark showed to you that from USD 1.6 billion to USD 3 billion in the coming years. So yes, that's one area of growth. And also outside of India, Asia Pacific, if I take Southeast Asia, Australia, we have large opportunities. Sreedhar highlighted that we want to double our presence on Construction Chemicals there. So yes, we have multiple pockets to grow further in Construction Chemicals. Also Camille highlighted some ideas around Mexico, Central America that we are working on. So yes, multiple growth in terms of technology, market share country by country on Construction Chemicals.

[ Jian Redlinger ] in the middle.

So 2 questions. So first of all, you made it quite clear in this presentation that you want to grow faster in non-res and infrastructure than in residential. And yet in Western Europe and North America, residential is by far the most depressed end market. So does that growth outlook say something about how you're thinking about residential compared to the other end markets? Are you particularly cautious despite the market being so far down? Or should we interpret that differently? And then secondly, you said earlier that the share buyback will be used as a value creation tool, but also a benchmark for capital allocation versus the Saint-Gobain trading multiple. Can you just explain what that means exactly?

The main topic on your first question is that we are very confident about the recovery in Europe on the residential, new and also renovation. As we said, we have seen, David highlighted all the green shoots in terms of housing transaction, in terms of housing in -- et cetera, across Europe. On average, if we forget about the recovery that will happen, on average, residential in mature markets is growing 3% to 5%. Within nonresidential and infrastructure, it's more a market share gain that is behind our ambition. So it's more this market share. There is not much market share, not massive in Europe to win versus what we can do in non-resi and infrastructure. So it's not so much a reflection on the merits or the benefits of those 2 set of markets, but more the opportunity for us to expand naturally because now we have the perfect portfolio for that. On the buybacks, well, again, what we highlighted is that we look at the share price, the Saint-Gobain multiple. When we think of an acquisition, Australia was 11, 12x, 6.5x EBITDA after 3 years. So we say, well, Saint-Gobain stock is at 8x. It makes sense to have this acquisition in Australia to build the platform. But it's always a benchmark for shareholder value creation to look at, okay, acquisitions, how do we allocate the capital versus acquisition and buyback. So we are committed to that, the EUR 2 billion in the last 5 years, we did even a bit more. And until and unless the multiple of Saint-Gobain is at a higher multiple, and I'm confident we'll get there at some point, but it's not -- it's for me to drive and work hard with all the teams for that. It's for you to know what's the best appropriate multiple for Saint-Gobain. But think that we use that benchmark to say, hey, on capital allocation, is it worth making this acquisition or not versus buying back shares? That's the way we use it with the support of the Board, of course.

Next question from [ Jean-Christophe ]...

I have 2 questions regarding the new Construction Chemistry platform. First, you have shown a slide with 20% EBITDA margin, both for Chryso and also GCP . I guess that GCP is still lower than 20% EBITDA margin, isn't it? And secondly, could we have more color regarding the setup of this new business line? Currently, you have 4 different entities, Chryso, [indiscernible], GCP and FOSROC. Will you merge them? Or will you keep them independently?

No, we run everything by country. So it's already done. We had it -- and we had organized like that when we bought FOSROC. So in all the geographies where Chryso, GCP, FOSROC were together, Middle East, India, Asia Pacific, since last fall, it was already like that to prepare the integration country by country on those multiple technologies and brands. With the deepening of the organization, 100% by country that I announced and put in place on July 1, everything is by country. So you have one Construction Chemical head in France reporting to Thierry Bernard. You have one in Germany. You have one in India reporting to Sreedhar covering all the different segments and applications. And after that, depending on the customer, the technology, making the best use, FOSROC is by far the leading head of India, Chryso is in France, GCP has a lot of know-how and presence in North America. So we use those different brands. But under one umbrella, Steve Williams is our only leader taking care of all Construction Chemicals for U.S. and Canada. So it's already organized like that. And then we leverage the different technologies.

Chryso is the umbrella in France?

It is. Yes, it is indeed. But leveraging under Chryso umbrella and brand, the technologies, the chemistry, the know-how of some FOSROC applications. If you take some specific end market, for instance, we have and we bought with GCP, Stirling Lloyd. It's the #1 leader on waterproofing for high-end bridges, okay? It's also the best bonding waterproofing for tunnel under the sea. It's Stirling Lloyd, well known around the world in terms of iconic reputation, and we keep this brand. It's a worldwide team that takes the big bridges in one country and goes around the world, pulled by the countries when there is a project. So we have all this agility across our multiple technologies and brands and presence country by country to leverage all construction chemicals. On your question, yes, we have done a very good job to improve the margins of both GCP and Chryso. You know that Chryso has been the brand, the backbone of everything we added to our former construction Chemical Business, which was more renders, tag fixing and concrete flooring applications with adhesives, admixtures, technical waterproofing, Chryso has been, I would say, the leading avenue for that. All the leaders, Thierry Bernard, Steve Williams came from Chryso, but we have inherited since then. If I take India, the leader of our Construction Chemical business in India is the former FOSROC manager. So we take the best of the different worlds. But yes, Chryso has been leading the way to this EBITDA margin.

It's still doing very well. And GCP is below.

It's less and less comparable because we have merged. So at some point, [ Jean-Christophe ], I will not be able to answer your question. What is important is the margin of Chryso in France versus Chryso in Spain versus our GCP/Chryso business in North America. For instance, we gained share in North America. You have heard from the largest concrete player, SRM. It's the combination of [ forces ] and a combination of technology. So at the end of the day, what is making sense is how do we outperform each and every player locally across the different technologies and brands.

So next question, very close Ben right behind you. Right behind there. And then it will be [ Harry Goad ] on the left.

So the first one would be just a clarification on Elodie's question on switch to EBITDA. Can you confirm that the PPA are excluded from your definition on EBITDA? And then the second one would be on your dividend policy. Can you maybe perhaps clarify your strategy here? Because when I look at the EUR 6 billion dedicated to dividend, it means a growth of less than 5%. And it seems to me that your net profit will outpace this growth by far. So that's the first -- second one. And then the third one, I don't know if you would answer, but I'll try. So coming back on the 20% asset rotation, you mentioned, Benoit, some sizable business. So beyond [indiscernible], would it be taboo to mention [indiscernible], your Scandinavian distribution business as a candidate for disposal? And I appreciate the level of volume now in Scandinavia. So the disposal would not be for tomorrow.

So I will start with the last one because I assure you that there is no taboo. Any question is relevant. In the Nordics, no surprise, the market is down. So we suffer a bit across the board in the Nordics, and I don't think we are the only one. All the different players on building materials, be it on the salary side or elsewhere are a bit below expectation in Nordics. We have a sizable business, which is structurally a good business. So we are happy to benefit from any recovery that we start to see, be it in Norway or a bit in Sweden. So I'm confident that this business will improve. After that, we always assess on the midterm or the long term, all the merits of having all those businesses together. There is no taboo. But clearly, today, the Nordic market is one of the toughest in Europe. On the dividend policy, what we want to do is to grow consistently the dividend year after year. If we can do more than what you highlighted, we will do it. What is important is we will have this over proportional growth from sales to EBITDA to EPS, and we will grow the dividend accordingly to show you that Saint-Gobain is consistent in terms of delivery. And on the first one on the...

So PPA is excluded, but EBITDA includes the nonoperating costs, restructuring costs, et cetera. So that enables to have a clear view of the operating performance.

So then Harry Goad on the left, please.

Yes. Harry Goad from Berenberg. I have another question on distribution, please. I think you've spoken in the past that one of the benefits of distribution assets is the benefits it brings to the product offering. Can you give us a little bit more color on what you actually mean by that? Are we talking market share? Are we talking margins? And supplementary is, does every distribution asset you own fit that criteria today?

So I think you heard from Thierry Bernard, what we do in France in terms of overall outperformance, leveraging everything. And it's an integrated business from building science to manufacturing, to distribution, to digital services to the craftman, to recycling services. Maybe you had a chance to interact with Nicolas Godet, our Head of POINT.P, but we do all this together in France, and we clearly outperformed the market across the board. After that, as we have done in the last 5, 6 years, again, country by country, and it's true for any business line of Saint-Gobain in any country. Years ago, it was in 2020, we sold glass in Korea. We have sold a lot of glass solutions businesses. So there is no taboo to sell a glass business. There is no taboo to sell a distribution business like we did last week in Benelux because we had a low market share, therefore, not adding to the rest of our Construction Chemicals and Carrier Solutions in Benelux. So that's the way we look country by country at every single product line, whether they add to each other, whether the connected product lines make the perfect suite of solutions or not. And if not, we sell. So that's what we have been doing. And again, distribution is part of it. In France, we are 6x bigger than the second player. So we beat them not only on growth but also on margin. And it's overall beneficial for Saint-Gobain including on our manufacturing businesses. So that's the way we look at it. Now it's true today. Will it be true in 10 years, in 5 years? Again, we are super pragmatic to constantly assess that. But in France, I'm very, very confident that we truly outperform the market, and we own the space, thanks to all that.

So one question here from [ Allison ], please.

[ Allison ] from Bank of America. Just one question from my side. So your mid-single-digit sales growth target, can you quantify or maybe roughly what's the split between organic versus merger acquisition impact?

So as I said, we expect 1-ish percent of acquisitions and the rest will be organic. Keeping in mind that we have delivered on the low side of that in the last years, mostly on price, if not anything, it was price. So we expect pricing environment to normalize. That's what we are seeing as we speak. Therefore, acceleration on volumes. But 1-ish on M&A and the rest on organic.

Question at the top of the room. Will Jones, please.

Will Jones from Rothschild & Co Redburn. First was just back on Construction Chemicals and probably really an extension of the previous questions. But are there any particular product areas you'd highlight to us where you're really underweight where you want to be? And do any of those products lend themselves more to the solutions approach than others? And then the second was maybe if you could just update us on the annual efficiency program, how you're feeling about your overhead ratios generally? Do you still see good opportunities on world-class manufacturing? And is it still the target to broadly offset overhead inflation overall?

So on Construction Chemicals, yes, we have been moving a lot on all the technical aspects and applications of construction chemicals. So technical waterproofing is of interest for us, notably for non-resi and infrastructure. We have ample opportunities still on admixtures and additives in some Latin America, in some Asia, in Canada, as I said. And then there is a space of adhesives where we are EUR 300 million, EUR 400 million of additives a bit in China, a bit in Southeast Asia, a bit in Brazil. That's one space where if and when there is the right opportunity, we could grow. It works well together in terms of bonding, in terms of feeling, in terms of -- we sell a lot of that through some of our merchant arms like in France. So that's one space within the overall Construction Chemical portfolio where today, we are almost non-represented where if and when it makes sense with the right value creation, et cetera, we could have meaningful synergies. But in principle, it's a lot around concrete repair, tunnels, high-end applications, bridges, technical waterproofing and then the additives and concrete admixtures. On the annual savings, yes, we are constantly working on efficiency within Saint-Gobain. I think it's not easy to compare apple-to-apple if you were to look at Saint-Gobain 10 years ago versus today because the mix of businesses has changed. When you sell towards specification sales, non-resi infrastructure, you have those technical teams. So you tend to sell more added value products, higher margin, but a bit more SG&A. Of course, we make sure it's not too much, and we streamline all this. We have ongoing actions everywhere it's needed because of the volumes or the current environment to drop headcount. I think I mentioned that, but I don't want to make the highlights. In the last 3 years in Europe, we dropped more than 4,000 heads. So it has been meaningful to adapt versus the difficult volume environment. So we constantly work on that on the SG&A. When we regionalized all the organization, 100%, of course, the former High Performance Solutions businesses, all their back office are getting merged within the different countries. So that's a source of benefit. And we will continue to drive all the world-class manufacturing actions to benchmark the plants, make sure that we optimize the CapEx. Maintenance CapEx has been dropped in the last 5, 6 years, and we'll continue to have all these efficiency programs around the world.

And if I add as well, it's a great way for -- a great source of synergies when you do acquisitions. If you look at CSR, one of the big areas of synergies is actually implementing within CSR, all our WCM programs that just deliver great savings in terms of manufacturing savings and better efficiency on the market. It's also enhancing our M&A strategy.

Any further question in the room? [indiscernible].

Glynis Johnson at Jefferies. A question on Europe, actually, I'm surprised no one has asked you. Just in terms of your margin, your target is 12%, 15%. You're currently at 12%. How should we think about that uptick? Is it about -- how much is the recovery? How much is essentially taking out costs now you've integrated the HPS into Europe? How much is mix?

You are talking specifically about Europe, so because...

Europe. Yes, the Europe as target...

As David and Thierry mentioned, we are very lean in Europe because we have done all those cost savings actions. So a lot of the margin improvement will come from the operating leverage stay very lean and very sharp on cost and benefiting from the volume recovery that we start to see and that we expect in the coming years. So that's the bulk of the margin improvement coming for Europe without any particular M&A. So it's mostly organic operating leverage from volume recovery.

Next question, the second row, [ Eric ], please.

Just a clarification question on the EUR 250 million restructuring costs, is it within the EBITDA margin? Or is it below the EBITDA margin?

It's within the EBITDA margin, yes.

Any further questions from the room? Ephrem Ravi on the left, please.

Sorry, a follow-up question. Solution strategy, you gave a very useful framework on cross-selling, upselling services and specifications. You gave examples of improvements but if you were to kind of try to calculate for the group as a whole, would you say those examples are at the top end of what you can achieve? Or would you -- can we consider that as representative of what you can achieve? So for example, if you take -- you said 50% of Germany is solutions or thereabouts and then say, cross-selling and double sales.

We are. We have been ramping up this solution journey. There is much more to come. Across all end markets I highlighted to you the countries which are already best-in-class in 1 of the 3 metrics. And of course, sometimes they are not best-in-class in every single of them. So of course, the goal is to raise the bar for everyone on the 3 metrics. But I'm confident that -- and it's not only the next 5 years on this solution journey, which is, again, truly what customers expect. I see now a lot of competitors jumping into that. They don't have the same breadth of offer, and we started 5, 6 years ago. So it's truly a journey that will capture value growth for Saint-Gobain for multiple years to come for the next 10 years. So it's something which is meaningful, and we are only at the beginning of that journey when North America is at 61% cross-selling to be extremely precise, why not 62% and 65% and why not increasing even more our share with the DIY partner. So that's something we will continue to push across those 3 metrics country by country.

And if you are tracking it on a regular basis country by country, is it a way to kind of incorporate into your targets you've put the chart as a conceptual chart as to how much solution selling can increase your margins by. But for sell-side analysts, [indiscernible] pool feeding would be useful on exactly how much do you expect from them.

Unless you want to join Saint-Gobain, I consider it's my job to drive this metric. We are doing it. It's in the incentives of the country CEOs. What is important for you is that you see this impact on the financials of Saint-Gobain. But after that, I think I consider with humility that it's my job to push the CEO in Italy versus the CEO of Spain and to know how to drive it country by country, application by application.

Is there any further question in the room? Otherwise, we shall turn to the Internet.

So then you will post the question on the screen, Vivien, and maybe I read them. So a question from Paul Roger from Exane. Are there opportunities to do more deals in U.S. Construction Products? Or does your market position cap M&A in this market? No, the answer is yes. There are opportunities for more deals, not only in the commercial space and infrastructure markets where, again, we are not yet a very large player, but also in residential. When you add the GCP membrane with the underlayment of roofing that Carmen Bodden mentioned, that came from an acquisition, and it's a perfect system. So yes, there are opportunities, and I know Mark is ambitious and eager to grow in U.S. going forward. We have the teams, we have the platforms. We have the know-how. We have the brand reputation. And we have the ask also from the large distributors. I meet with them, Mark meet with them very regularly. I meet with the top of them at least once a year, and they ask us to help them grow because they need national players. When we invested $7 billion in the U.S. in the last 5 years, they know we are committed to grow in North America. And that's the kind of magnitude they need for them to grow successfully across the region. So that's, yes, an area for opportunity going forward, Paul. Second question from Paul Roger from Exane. Does a new player entering the U.S. shingles market pose a risk to record high margins in this business? I think Mark highlighted very clearly and maybe Mark could complement that you need to be a meaningful player. We have 20 roofing plants in North America, adding one plant in the middle of nowhere, sorry, for my U.S. colleagues in Oklahoma and Kansas City. The big distributors, they have already 3 brands on roofing. They don't need a fourth one or a fifth one for just 50 branches around Kansas City or around a city in Oklahoma. They need meaningful national players. So there is no risk that we expect from any new player that could come to the market. Maybe back to the question that Cedar asked also, there is no new capacity addition before late '26, early '27 from existing players in roofing in North America. So if there is a new one coming with one plant in one state, okay, we will see good luck, but it's not an ask from the current distributors as long as we invest on our side to new products, competitive state-of-the-art facilities, and that's the best loyalty partnership that you can create. When you ask those big distributors to visit what you have invested in Peachtree City or in Oxford, Carolina, that's the commitment we take to them and they take to us. [ Matthias Volker ] from [indiscernible] Bank. What gives you the confidence to clone Brazil success into other different LatAm regional markets? Well, first, I have to be extremely cautious because I'm not sure that [ Marco Corales ] would like to be a clone of Brazil. [ Marco Corales ] is a Mexican manager, and they are proud and they should be. We have already done that in multiple countries. Camile didn't present to you Argentina where we have all the platform across the board and #1 position. Peru Chile, where we do it with some partners. And we are confident because we have the right people. We have [ Mariano ], Argentina. In Argentina, we have [ Marco Corales]. In Mexico, we have [ Nicolas ] with [ Perijan ] in Peru. So we know all those product lines. We have the teams. We have some leading position and then low execution, we roll it out like we did in Brazil in the past, in India as a success in the Middle East recently, in Mexico, from glass to gypsum to Construction Chemical. And those family businesses that we buy, they are happy to join us because of [ Marco Corales ], because of fires of discussion, because of local decision-making process, local for local, making the world a better home in Mexico with Mexican teams for Mexican customers. So it's not a clone, but because we adapt, we are smart in each market. But yes, I'm extremely confident. And that's for you, shareholders, again, a low execution risk for Saint-Gobain because we know how to do it. And all the teams, maybe I should have highlighted that even more. Our teams country by country, they have been tested. They have been tested in a not so easy environment in the last years, and they have proven that they deliver. [ Martin Benzene ] from [indiscernible]. What kind of insulation do you sell into data center, the technical insulation and sandwich panels all need to be fire safe. Is it all stone wool? A good majority of sandwich panels is indeed stone wool that we manufacture. We manufacture the stone wool and also in some countries, the sandwich panels. We have also some elastomeric foam for pipes. We have also some glass wool insulation in the U.S. So it varies depending on the [ different markets ] and the different specs. But yes, we have the full spectrum of insulation offer for data centers if it's specific to insulation.

Next one. We have no further questions.

Any additional last minute questions from the room? If not, thank you. Again, I'm extremely confident about the way forward for Saint-Gobain. We have an ambition growth plan. We are rolling out things we know well, our solutions, and we gave you a lot of granularity on the solutions, on the product lines and what it means, delivering solutions on the ground. We have this fantastic avenue for market share gain and growth on nonresidential and infrastructure markets. We are going to stay dynamic on the sales rotation, on the portfolio rotation. You know that we have done it. We are committed to do it. There is no taboo. Execution is key and value creation on that is key. And again, at the end of the day, the delivery of Saint-Gobain is done by fantastic country performance. Fantastic CEOs led by the 5 regional CEOs that I think highlighted a lot of impressive thoughts, experience and credentials. So I have every confidence that [indiscernible] will be a fantastic, exciting, successful new journey for Saint-Gobain. Thank you very much. Thanks for feedback, and thank you for your attention and your time.