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

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Saint-Gobain conference call. I now hand over to Mr. Benoit Bazin, Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Sreedhar N., Chief Financial Officer. Gentlemen, please go ahead.

Hello. Good morning. Welcome to our analyst and investor call on the acquisition of GCP Applied Technologies, Grace Construction Products. I guess, I hope you have all received the slide show. I will turn the slide, and let you know on which slide I'm at this point. I'm extremely happy to announce this acquisition this morning. So with me on this call is Sreedhar, our CFO; David Molho, the CEO of High Performance Solutions; Mark Rayfield, our CEO for North America, who joined us from the U.S.; and Thierry Bernard, the CEO of Chryso. This is a decisive step for Saint-Gobain to establish our leadership position in construction chemicals worldwide. Let's turn to Slide #2. GCP is a fantastic acquisition, and there is a very strong strategic rationale for this acquisition. The acquisition is fully in line with our vision to be the leader in light and sustainable construction, and our strategic plan grew an impact that I presented to you in early October during our Capital Market Day. Following the acquisition of Chryso earlier this year that we have with us since October 1, we established with the acquisition of GCP, a leading position worldwide in construction chemicals. Third point, in terms of geography, GCP will allow a significant reinforcement of Saint-Gobain presence in North America and Asia emerging markets, which is also one of the objectives I presented to you in October. It is truly observe-driven acquisition, which will bring a very positive impact to our customers in terms of sustainability and performance. This acquisition will create high value for Saint-Gobain shareholders, and we will detail to you later on our very solid synergies. I turn to Slide #3. GCP acquisition is fully in line with our vision to be the worldwide leader in light and sustainable construction. GCP brings strong assets on the 2 main pillars attached to this vision, sustainability and performance. These are the 2 growth drivers of our solutions. Together, Saint-Gobain and GCP will be able to offer an extremely broad portfolio of solutions available to decarbonize the construction markets. Turning to Slide #4. Remember that slide, this is the slide I shared with you at the time of Chryso acquisition in May. GCP is the exact same strategic rationale. Construction chemicals is an attractive sector, which fits perfectly with our strategy focused on bringing solutions, offering sustainability and performance to our customers. Construction chemicals are essential to decarbonize construction with solutions for low-carbon cements, low-carbon concrete. They also have strong performance benefits in terms of increased productivity on site, better cost effectiveness, and they respond to the growing needs of the organization and infrastructure. Therefore, we have growth both in mature markets and emerging markets. Construction Chemicals are indeed a fast-growing sector supported by strong growth drivers in those 2 mature and emerging economies. Mature market growth is driven by sustainability requirements with a shift towards up to 90% low-carbon concrete by 2030, and it's accelerating as we speak. In emerging markets, growth is driven by performance requirements to address the challenge of fat urbanization growing from almost 0% to 70% penetration of ready-mix concrete. Turning to Slide #5. We had in mind, we envisioned a 2-step approach to establish our leading position in construction chemicals. The acquisition of GCP today is absolutely the logical next step after the acquisition of Chryso earlier this year. By acquiring Chryso, we enlarged our presence in the admixtures and additives sector. We also acquired the most profitable and the most innovative company in this space with very strong management and innovation capabilities. Chryso acquisition enriched our growth platform in construction chemicals, notably in Europe and Middle East, Africa. Now the acquisition of GCP extends our presence dynamics and additives in North America, Latin America and Asia Pacific, thanks to GCP highly complementary geographic footprint. With these 2 steps that we have delivered in a very agile way, Saint-Gobain is a worldwide leader in construction chemicals, present on all continents with the capacity to serve our customers around the world. I now switch to Slide #6 to describe you GCP. GCP is one of the main international players in the construction chemicals sector; around 1,800 employees; expected sales around $1 billion; EBITDA of $170 million in 2022, meaning an EBITDA margin of 17%. GCP offers leading solutions in 4 categories: cement additives; concrete admixtures; building envelope and roofing membranes; and fourth, infrastructure and foundation waterproofing solutions. GCP is presenting 38 countries with 50 plants, good presence notably in North America where GCP has more than half of its sales. The rest being in Asia Pacific and Europe. But you can see a very international presence with 76% between North America and Asia Pacific, even 81%, if I add Latin America. I switch now to Slide #7. The GCP acquisition, we have prepared it for many months with thorough diagnosis that we have done using industry experts. Thierry Bernard, who is on the call with us this morning, our CEO for Chryso, has known GCP very well for a long time and explore the possibility of a combination on various occasions in the past. Personally, I've been looking at GCP for many years. We recognize the strength and potential of GCP with a lot of very talented teams in the field and in the different countries around the world that are eager to promote their know-how, their best seller products and all their innovation capabilities. I can tell you, I feel very good about the culture integration between Saint-Gobain and GCP teams. At the same time, we are conscious on the fact that GCP has suffered in recent past from some turmoil in the corporate structure over the last 3, 4 years, some lack of stability at the top leadership and shareholding structure on how Its top line growth has been lower than industry peers and its margin has eroded, especially with the unprecedented inflation that we faced this year. Last year, under the current management, the turnaround plan was implemented and many initiatives have already been put in place, including a cost rationalization plan, which is expected to deliver annual savings of $20 million in 2022, which is well underway with the major steps being already done. First, improvements will soon bear all their fruits. On top of that, we have identified many detailed levers and a clear road map to accelerate the performance improvement of GCP. Point number one, Saint-Gobain has an experience and very stable management team, especially Thierry Bernard and Mark Rayfield, our CEO for North America. We have a strong track record of profitable growth in North America under Mark's leadership. We have been very successful on M&A integration in the last 3 years. You have seen the success of Continental Building Products, where we create value in year 2 and Chryso being also the latest example. Saint-Gobain brings also strong R&D with a lot of scale to accelerate innovation and rejuvenate the product offering. It will also enhance sales leveraging, cross-selling opportunities that we have identified. Saint-Gobain has been nominated global top employer for 6 consecutive years, and we are capable of attracting, growing and most importantly, retaining the talents, which has been one of the topic of GCP in the recent past. I'm truly happy, excited and very enthusiastic to welcome all GCP teams within Saint-Gobain. Last, Saint-Gobain brings robust sales processes, value-added offerings and a lot of sales skills that will help GCP going forward. In the next 3 slides, I would like to highlight because I think the speech is always less powerful than some charts and some maps. Let me show you in the next 3 slides, the power of the world-class global platform of construction chemicals that we are building. On Slide #8, we have the Weber footprint. Weber provide solutions for tile fixing, facade, flooring, waterproofing with a strong presence in Europe, Latin America, Asia Pacific and currently 188 plants and sales above EUR 2.7 billion. This platform has been reinforced over the years with successful successive and successful bolt-on acquisitions. Switching to Slide #9. You can see that this year with the acquisition of Chryso, we made a significant move adding on the presence in concrete admixture and cement additive with 34 plants. Chryso is present mostly in Europe, Middle East and Africa with a small presence, but fast growing in North America. And now the third slide, I'm on Slide #10. You have the colors of each brand with the blue color of GCP on Slide #10. With the acquisition of GCP, Saint-Gobain will further reinforce its global leadership position in construction chemicals with international presence with more than EUR 4 billion of total sales and more than 270 plants, very close to our customers all over the world. So a very strong presence on all continents with more than EUR 0.5 billion sales in each of North America, Latin America and Asia Pacific on top of Europe being already extremely strong. And now on Slide #11. And I will talk about the Saint-Gobain organization going forward and how we have been preparing ourselves to unlock GCP full growth and profitability potential and to execute very well on the integration plan. You know that I'm personally extremely attentive, extremely detailed on the execution plan of integrations. Our objective is indeed to maximize the value of GCP as soon as possible, and I'm very comfortable and confident about the potential of GCP to be unlocked. On one hand, and this is on the left side of the slide, the concrete admixtures and cement additives business is a global business with global technology and global operations. Therefore, it will naturally be integrated in with Chryso within our High Performance Solutions business, like it is already for Chryso within HPS. This does represent roughly $750 million of sales. Thierry Bernard, the CEO of Chryso will present in a minute, will present to you how GCP and Chryso will work jointly together. On the other hand, and this is the right side of the slide, the roofing -- residential roofing and waterproofing membranes in North America deal with local customers through local sale channels that we know extremely well. Therefore, these businesses will join our North American regional business for $250 million of sales. And Mark Rayfield, our CEO for North America, who has integrated extremely well continental real products, will lead this part and will follow up also during the presentation on this part that he will be responsible for. After Thierry, in a minute, Mark for North America, Sreedhar will, of course, cover all financials, synergies and value creation for this operation. Thierry, this is your turn, please.

Thank you, Benoit, and good morning, everyone. I'm now moving to Slide #12, maybe a first word about this acquisition. I am extremely glad to see that Saint-Gobain is investing vigorously in the construction chemicals sector. It is an additional satisfaction for my team and for myself to have joined Saint-Gobain family 2 months ago. As Benoit just alluded to, I've known GCP for now a long time. It is a respected competitor with values that fit very well with ours around work ethics, world-class product quality and a highly innovative spirit. GCP is the #1 worldwide in cement additives, a strong leader in concrete admixtures in North America. It also has strong and profitable positions in Asia Pacific and Latin America. GCP has a very broad product offering and very strong IT portfolio. In particular, recently, GCP has developed a very innovative Internet of Things solution for concrete management called Verifi that I will comment in a minute. If I can move to Slide 13. That's what I was just alluding to, Verifi, this is a unique value proposition that GCP has pioneered. It is a connected object that is installed on customers' trucks that allows them to monitor in realtime the concrete performance within the truck. For its customers, Verifi allows them to optimize the concrete properties and its performance to automate concrete property adjustments and, obviously, to maximize the truck rotation via telemetry. It also reduces concrete CO2 emissions by optimizing the raw materials, which are used in the formulation of concrete, and very importantly, it avoids return concrete, which is a very high cost to the industry. It also ensures a growing demand of customers on carbon emissions monitoring. As I said earlier, Verifi is the first mover, and it is today the largest in revenue and most complete turnkey solution for concrete producers, including consulting services to leverage IoT data. Today, Verifi has been developed mainly in North America and is currently being developed and deployed in Europe and Asia Pacific. Let's move to Slide 14. As you know, Chryso so far have a small presence in the U.S. No presence in Latin America. And at the exception of India, we had a very limited presence in Asia Pacific. With GCP's highly complementary footprint, we will significantly increase our presence in North America, Latin America and Asia Pacific. In fact, in North America and Asia Pacific, we will totally change gear, which are -- and this is absolutely paramount in these 2 strategic regions for us. We will now have a presence in Latin America on both concrete admixtures and cement additives. And finally, the combined platform is truly global and showing a fantastic balance with about 1/3 in Europe, 1/3 in North America and about 20% of our sales in Asia Pacific. Moving to Slide 15. I think what I want to share with you is that Chryso has demonstrated over the past years that it has a successful business model. And by applying this to GCP, we are very confident that we will significantly improve its performance. If we compare Chryso's performance with GCP's admix and additives business over the past years, we see that Chryso has higher top line growth as well as a higher EBITDA margin. On average, Chryso has an EBITDA margin of 20%, which is about 7 points higher than GCP. But more importantly, in several key countries, the gap is even higher, above 10 points, and this is made in 3 major countries. Our diagnosis is quite clear. We have identified levers to improve quickly the performance of profitability of GCP. First, as this was commented earlier, the stability and experience of our team to give support to GCP. Second, vertical integration in polymer production that we manufacture at Chryso in 4 locations around the world will help and drive cost competitiveness. GCP, thirdly, will thus benefit from our polymer know-how and research and development to also accelerate innovation and rejuvenate their product offering. And finally, we will leverage our sales processes, customer loyalty and value-added positioning of the offer to enhance customer experience at GCP. Now I give the floor to Mark to share what will be done with the North American segments for building envelope and waterproofing.

Thank you, Thierry. And I'll start on Slide 16. You can see here in North America, GCP has a very strong brand of premium high-value products, both for residential and commercial segments, and enjoys a high level of profitability with 24% EBITDA margin. GCP has shown success across a number of segments, which are very strategic areas for Saint-Gobain, such as roofing, waterproofing and fireproofing. It has very renowned brands such as Ice & Water Shield, which has superior performance and reputation in the underlying market for roofing; Preprufe, the best-performing waterproofing membrane in the market, known for its ease of installation; Bituthene; and MONOKOTE. These brands are top of mind with very good reputation and loyal customer bases. Also, with CertainTeed, there's 75% residential and 25% commercial, even though we have a very meaningful commercial roofing business. GCP has the opposite mix of 75% commercial, 25% residential, bringing strong specification power and balancing our reach into commercial and us adding power to residential, better balancing the combined portfolio. Slide 17. These products of GCP are highly complementary to offer and also share the same route-to-market. They also move us in a meaningful way from products to solutions, as described in our strategy at the Commercial Markets Day. On residential, there's very clear synergies on roofing and facade. Ice & Water Shield is a premium product for both new and renovation markets and completes our roofing systems in CertainTeed. On facade, we can now offer complete and best-in-class water vapor barrier to complement our facade product lines. As mentioned in the beginning, these products show the exact same route-to-market as a roofing and facade teams. So same distributors, same customers calling on every day with hundreds of salespeople on the ground. There are also excellent R&D and innovation levers that our combined teams can pull to further expand the technology resistance. On commercial, GCP has strong specification power, where they're often the basis of design and allow us to be closer to our customers earlier in the process. Again, we can move to more complete systems with CertainTeed commercial roofing solutions and GCP waterproofing solutions to truly provide top to bottom water protection for a building. We believe the addition of the GCP-SBM line will accelerate CertainTeed's growth in the commercial infrastructure markets, which will certainly grow as part of the infrastructure program in the U.S. And we even have very strong synergies between our gypsum business and the MONOKOTE fire protection business line with GCP, where natural gypsum is a core ingredient that works together on commercial markets. Now, I'll hand it over to Sreedhar.

Thank you, Mark. Good morning, everybody. Let's move to Slide 18. The acquisition of GCP is fully in line with our commitments for M&A, both in terms of strategy and financial criteria announced at our Capital Market Day on October 6. Strategically, the acquisition makes perfect sense as it ties it with the objective to strengthen our presence in North America and Asia that was initiated in 2020 with the acquisition of Continental, and enhances the value chain and enrich offerings with the aim of becoming a leader in the light and sustainable construction industry, which was initiated in 2021 with the acquisition of Chryso. Financially, this transaction is very creative by year 3, following the closing of the transaction. And our balance sheet will continue to remain solid, with a leverage in line with the objective range communicated during the Market Day of 1.5x to 2x. And our credit rating will remain solid. Let's move to Slide 19. The transaction is value accretive, it's also because it's supported by synergies, of which the vast majority of cost synergies. From the total synergies of $85 million, the cost synergies are $72 million and $13 million EBITDA impact coming from revenue synergies. These amounts are expected to be secured very quickly over the period of time. Cost synergies, which represent 85% of the total synergies, are expected to be captured through the elimination of public listing company costs, which is close to $20 million and then tuning down the SG&A for the balance run rate savings of $15 million. This is -- there is clearly a room for cost optimization, given the fact that the SG&A of GCP is at a very high level as compared to what we have at Chryso as well as uncertainties. Economics of scale in procurement include $26 million savings, expected in raw materials optimization, including the backward integration of polymerization. While Thierry and Mark did not have access to all the details, the independent team could calculate the precise potential savings from the raw materials. Savings in manufacturing and logistics cost optimization make up an additional $11 million. These cost synergies are clearly identified, and we are very confident that we will be able to secure them very quickly. 60% of the synergies are achieved in year 2 and 85% in year 3. In addition, we have taken into account a very low-hanging sales synergies with an impact of -- on EBITDA of around $13 million. And a large part of these synergies are coming from cross-selling, mainly between certainty and GCP and then some coming from Chryso and GCP. Let's look at Slide 20. But there is clearly, definitely a more potential on top line synergies, more than 13 million that was included in our business plan. We have already identified several opportunities, areas that will allow us to unlock up to $100 million of additional sales. These additional levers that could potentially be triggered include cross-selling synergies in residential exterior products, roofings and sidings; combined offerings of GCP and CertainTeed for commercial and infrastructure projects; cross-sell GCP offer to large contractors in Europe, Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific and Latin America; leverage CertainTeed gypsum and Weber footprint to expand MONOKOTE sales; leverage Chryso, R&D capabilities and cross-sell innovations in GCP regions; Screed development in North America. We are confident to continue to unpack these potential synergies as we enter into the integration process and learn more about GCP and the further possibilities. Let's move to Slide 21. We are offering GCP shareholders a price of $32 per share, representing a premium of 39% on the 30-day unaffected volume-weighted average price. The offer price implies an enterprise value of $2.3 billion, representing an enterprise value, if you take the EBITDA of 2022, a multiple of 13.2x and 8.8x if you include the $85 million synergies for the loan date. The transaction is value creative for our shareholders. As I said before, it is expected to create value by year 3, following the closing of the transaction. It is EPS accretive by year 1 by around 4% even before synergies. The transaction will be fully financed in cash and will have a very limited impact on our leverage ratio. We are, therefore, not expecting any change in our current credit rating, and we'll maintain the group's balance sheet in a very solid manner. In terms of transaction process, the merger agreement has been signed by both parties and irrevocable undertakings from both Starboard and Standard Investments, formerly known as 40 North, Standard Industries to vote their shares, which equals to 33% of the shareholding in the favor of this merger has been already opting. The closing of transaction is expected by year-end 2022, and it is subject to GCP shareholders approval and customary regulatory approvals. Now, I pass the floor on to Benoit to make the concluding remarks.

Thank you, Sreedhar. So I switch to Slide #22. And I would add, of course, that the transaction has been unanimously recommended by GCP Board last night, GCP Board and Chairman that I want to thank very much for this transaction and all the discussions we have had. This move is a very important step for Saint-Gobain, as you have understood. We are establishing a leading position in construction chemicals with a truly worldwide presence, well above EUR 4 billion in sales. This will also strengthen Saint-Gobain presence on the growing markets of North America and emerging countries, which is an important strategic priority for us. I'm very confident that this growth-driven acquisition will create a lot of high value for both our shareholders and our customers. I'm very fortunate to have a very solid leadership team by my side, not only Sreedhar, but also Mark for North America, David and -- for High Performance Solutions and Thierry for Chryso, who are fully committed to the flawless execution of integrating GCP in Saint-Gobain and create value. I want to finish, but I think that I'm also extremely eager to welcome all GCP teams within Saint-Gobain. Saint-Gobain will be a very good home for all of them, and we have, together, a very exciting and promising journey ahead. Let's turn now to your questions that I'm happy to take with the rest of the team.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Elodie Rall from JPMorgan.

So maybe a couple. So Benoit, you said that you've been looking at GCP for many years. So why now? Did you need to do Chryso first, given the higher quality of the assets and then capacity for restructuring? If you could give us a little bit of color on that. Second, in terms of the competitive landscape of the transaction, can you tell us if there are other interested parties in the -- well, you know that there are other interested parties in the acquisition process, if there is any risk of seeing any other bids in there. There were some rumors, I think, of others looking at it. And lastly, just a question on margin. First, could we have the operating margin of GCP? And second is the objective to basically get the margin profile of GCP to the level of Chryso.

Thank you, Elodie. So yes, I've been looking at GCP for several years because I've always been convinced that this is a great company, though it has been an icon in the construction sector for many, many years. And on the other side, I knew that we could not do it without having the proper base in terms of skills, in terms of management. Don't forget that we had to also transform Saint-Gobain, and that was a prerequisite. So Transform & Grow was extremely important to have the solid base in terms of perimeter, the [indiscernible] shares we had to do before jumping on the more offensive side and the organization to be ready to integrate such an attractive company like GCP. So for me, it was important to do, first, the transformation of the group. And second, to try Chryso. And by doing so, apply the absolute best company in the sector. I don't want to disclose all the discussions we had, Thierry and myself, on GCP for years. But yes, we did talk about that even before acquiring Chryso. We wanted -- we could have done things differently when Chryso was not part of the group. But yes, we have exchanged ideas, top level of what it means to have Chryso for both -- GCP for both Chryso and Saint-Gobain. I know also that GCP wanted to buy Chryso in 2017. Thierry wanted to have a reverse merger in late 2020. So those 2 companies know each other extremely well. And this is the reason why I'm absolutely confident, not only by the growth potential and the strength and the innovation of GCP, but also on the cultural fit between our 2 groups. Two -- but I wanted to be with the right methodology, step one after the other so that we are on very strong solid ground. To your second point, well, being a listed company, the Board of GCP has finished their duty to reach a full and fair value for the shareholders of GCP. So I cannot comment on what the Board has done because I don't know it. I'm sure we will learn more in the background of the merger, always in such a transaction. At some point, you have the published background of the merger, the so-called efforts by the GCP Board to get to the full and fair price. So yes, this is what has been done. And the Board of GCP reached the positive conclusion to unanimously recommend the transaction with Saint-Gobain. The fact also that we have the 2 largest shareholders of GCP securing their votes is an essential path going forward. On the third, we wanted to highlight the gap in terms of margin between Chryso and GCP, also the gap in some SG&A between our various operations because that shows how confident we are to reach those synergies without even dreaming of totally bridging the gap. So I have a theory on my side and I don't want to add pressure on Thierry, but we have all the details, all the know-how in order to deliver on those synergies and bridge the gap. And frankly speaking, in our business plan, we didn't put GCP at the top margin of Chryso. We'll do that progressively, but we are conservative on our business plan, not even putting GCP at the best margin of Chryso. So I'm very confident, as Sreedhar mentioned, we have access to a clean team on the raw material purchase, for instance. And I can tell you, there is a significant gap on the main raw materials. It's the #1 cost in the -- cost kick of those products. So that gives us a lot of confidence in order to deliver on the synergy without mentioning all the gains we have on the vertical integration on the polymers. I'll now turn to Sreedhar for the OP margin.

So OP margin LNG, expected to be in 2022, $123 million, which means 12% of margin. And EBITDA, as you know, it is $170 million and 17% margin, 15.6% to be precise.

The next question comes from Sven Edelfelt from ODDO BHF.

Congratulations on the announcement. So can you please come back on the agreement you have with shareholders, the 33.1%. Is it a binding agreement? I mean, if someone else pop up and pay an additional 10% premium on your proposed price, what happen? That's the first question. Then the second one, maybe for Thierry Bernard. How do you see the cement market evolving in the coming year? And how do you see the market penetration for your product evolving in case of an acceleration in charge of standard, and I'm talking about the U.S. cement market here. Can you give us some more color about that? And then I would have a third question on the roofing membrane, Saint-Gobain is pretty small, if I'm not mistaken, even though you've done a move today. How can you grow this business going forward? Would you develop organically? Or should you -- we expect Saint-Gobain to be targeting another acquisition to grow on that field? What's your real ambition on the liquid roofing nonbrand segment? These are my questions.

Thank you, Sven. So I will take the first one. So yes, the agreement from the shareholders is binding. I'm very confident about the transaction. It's traditional in such a deal also to have a breakup fee that are pretty expensive for any interloper to come back. So I'm very confident about the fact that the Board has recognized it's a full and fair value for the company that we have the binding agreements voting rights of the main shareholders, which gives a very strong signal for all the other minority shareholders. And that, on top of that, the transaction has been secured with a significant breakup fee that will deter any other actions. Before I turn to Thierry, I will take the third one. Just to highlight a bit figures and also, Mark, if you want to jump in, don't hesitate. Take the roofing underlayment figures, we sell roughly $90 million today within CertainTeed. The potential, just if we were to do each time you sell a square feet of roofing shingle, if you were to have the proper sale of underlayment, that should be $180 million. So we didn't get there because we didn't have the own manufacturing of those underlayment membranes. Now ice & Water Shield being the top of the mine, best brand and best product for residential roofing membranes in the U.S. I'm absolutely confident that doubling our sales of roofing membranes within CertainTeed, because it's the exact same customer, the exact same distribution channels will be an easy target for our sales people on the ground, and that should benefit the top line of GCP in that segment. Thierry, on the second question?

Yes. On the second question regarding cement demand, in particular in the U.S., maybe a preliminary remark, but you may all know. But you know that with the infrastructure plan that the Biden administration has announced, that's very positive, because infrastructure spend is highly positive for cement demand and, in particular, for admixtures demand because, usually, concrete, which is used in infrastructure, is high performance concrete contrary to, let's say, rather residential consumption. And that's going to be positive for the concrete industry and for the admixture industry in particular. Secondly, and this is also very true in Europe, but this is also visible in the United States of America, we see an evolution towards the sustainability challenges in the cement industry. And recently, we've seen an acceleration within the cement industry in the U.S. of the Type 1L cement, sorry to be a bit technical, but that's going to reduce the CO2 footprint of the cement industry going forward. This, we see that as a very positive as well for the admixtures and cement additives industry because those binders are going to change the properties of concrete, in particular. And our solutions are going to help our customers to make the best use of these new cement types and get the right performance going forward. So we are, in particular, very positive about the dynamics we see in North America.

The next question comes from Yves Bromehead from Exane BNP Paribas.

My first one is on the organic growth profile of GCP. A lot of things have changed in the last few years within the shareholder structure and the strategy with Starboard. Can you maybe help us to understand whether the company has already made a u-turn and you think that now you have already a good platform to improve the organic growth of GCP, which has been underperforming the rest of the industry? My second question is on R&D. I think a lot of the focus was to bring back a higher degree of R&D and innovation in order to translate into faster top line. I think that was one of the key strategy. I think this will be one of yours as well. How easy is this to implement? Do you need some extra investment, extra CapEx? Or can you just fit it into the Chryso R&D DNA and extract the synergies in such a way? And last but not least, coming back to the margin profile. This is clearly below the construction chemical industry. You mentioned that you want to bring this closer and close the gap with Chryso. But are there any regions where this will be more difficult, thinking more about, for example, GCP's assets in EM and in Europe? What do you need to do in order to bring those margins back to, maybe not Chryso level, but more the construction industry level of maybe mid-teens to higher-teens margins?

Thank you, Yves, for your questions. GCP is a very strong fundamentally business. It has suffered since the spin-off with Grace 5 years ago from a lot of changes. Three top management, shareholding structure totally changed. The Board, some activism. And therefore, it did create -- this is what we highlighted in -- on Slide 7, some turmoil in terms of corporate strategy. You know that the company was at play in early 2019 with a lot of public information going around, which has always a negative effect on customers, teams, et cetera, et cetera. We definitely bring a good and final home to GCP teams that will bring a lot of stability, a lot of visibility, a lot of structure for the investments and the long-term view. So I'm very confident that we will significantly improve the organic growth profile and the whole profile of GCP by bringing them stability, visibility and long-term investment. Under the current management, a lot of things have already been put in place with new hires in recent past, with a change of headquarters that was done on October 1. We don't see that yet in the profit figures for 2021. It will come, for sure, in 2022 because it's already done and finished by October 1. So a lot of good actions have been put in place recently. But clearly, when you have at the top of the company, so many changes in 3, 4 years, it has created some negative turmoil on top of some decisions to exit some countries, which we are not as profitable as expected within GCP. But in those countries, we have the footprint. We have the footprint of Chryso. We have the footprint of Saint-Gobain. So if I were to go back in this 3, 4 years ago, if GCP had been within Saint-Gobain 3, 4 years ago, those countries will not have been exited because we would have provided the solid basis for that. So there are many, many explanations about the performance of GCP over the last 4 years. We have looked at that in detail with consultants, with all the knowledge of different teams, including, of course, Thierry. And I feel very good that, yes, the platform is there. A lot of things happened in the last 12 months that you don't see yet in the figures because it's -- the turnaround has started. But there will be more for 2022, and we feel very confident about the immediate year that should have highlighted for 2022. A lot of that is already, I would say, in the bank. Maybe Thierry, you take the second question on R&D?

Yes. Happy to take this question, Yves. That's a very good question, indeed. In fact, let me first go back to how we see -- how GCP has done from an innovation standpoint over the last couple of years. What's very striking is that GCP has focused, I cannot say, almost -- I would say, almost entirely their innovation spend and efforts into Verifi. I have huge respect for what they've done on this front. As commented earlier, this is -- they've been the first mover. That's an extremely complex solution, and they've gained a leading edge on that offering. On the other side, I would say, the effort that they've put on Verifi as kind of, let's say, diverted them from the most traditional work that Chryso has typically done in, let's say, in the core products and technologies, which are necessary in the admixtures and additives filled. We are going to join forces on that front. And if you ask me, I would say our R&D efforts are now extremely complementary, thanks to that. Let me add also another thing. We have had, with Chryso, the idea to expand our R&D footprint internationally. We have an R&D center in the U.S. We have an R&D center in Europe. We have an R&D center in South Africa. We have an R&D center in Turkey. And we have an R&D center in India. These centers are going to be leveraged further with the acquisition of GCP. Finally, let me clarify a very important topic for us because I truly believe that organization and the way business is structured makes the difference in terms of rolling out innovations. So it's not only a question of R&D spend, which in itself is important. But more importantly, how do you roll out innovation in the marketplace. And I think this is where Chryso, with a very well-oiled organization, decentralized and empowered had, had and have demonstrated the capability to bring in a timely manner new solution to our customers. And believe me, our customers today in the countries and cement industry are absolutely needing new solution to help them tackle the challenge of sustainable construction and CO2 reduction for the cement and concrete industry. So I am strongly and incredibly confident that what GCP has built and what we have built at Chryso over the last couple of years are going to be extremely complementary from an innovation standpoint.

And to the third question, Yves, on the margin profile. I think Thierry highlighted, of course, the gap in terms of margin for the total. But saying also that in the top 3 countries, there is more than 10 points gap. So -- and we feel good that bridging part of this gap, if not the 100%. We have not factored that in our business plan. We have looked at that country by country. In some countries, GCP was subscale and will help them a great way. The same will do, for instance, with Chryso in India. India was below the average profitability of Chryso, but you know the strength of Saint-Gobain in India, where we have EUR 1 billion of business and where the strength of the brand, the strength of the teams of the local R&D of Saint-Gobain will help Chryso accelerate in India in both top line and profitability. So you have a lot of examples like that. So there is no one particular region where the picture is very different. But clearly, in country by country when you are subscale and suddenly you merge with the sister company, it brings a lot of stability, a lot of investment and footprint and much better reach out and solutions for the customers.

The next question comes from Nabil Ahmed from Barclays.

Hello?

Yes, we can hear you, go ahead.

Sorry for that. Actually, I have 3 questions. The first one, I think you highlighted very well the margin differential with Chryso on the concrete admixtures, but could you come back on the 22% EBITDA margin in roofing and waterproofing membrane? I guess, my question here is any exceptional in those margins, like positive price cost that will unwind up to some time? Or is it really the underlying profitability of that segment? The second question was on how do you vertically integrate polymers production at GCP in practical terms? Do you need to buy or build manufacturing capabilities? And lastly, and actually related to the second question, are there any transaction costs or any additional cost or investments you need to generate the synergy?

Thank you for your question. So no, the EBITDA margin is the run rate margin of this very strong business in North America. So that will continue, and it's a very, very solid business. Mark said it, both products, in terms of trademark, are top of mind. They are by far the best products in the industry in the U.S., if you were to pull some from customers. So this is the underlying margin, and it will continue going forward. I would say, gaining even more momentum, having the $5 billion of CertainTeed in their back to further grow in North America. And you can see that also in North America, you have seen that at the Capital Market Day, we run at 20% EBITDA for overall CertainTeed. On the -- I will let also Thierry answer on question #2. But keep in mind that any CapEx in construction chemicals is rather limited. If you add a mixing unit, it's a few hundred thousand dollars or euros. And the polymer plant, Thierry [ predicted ] that it's between EUR 5 million and EUR 10 million of CapEx, which is rather -- no, there is no additional transaction costs of additional CapEx to generate and deliver the synergies. So this is -- this construction chemicals business, and you know that very well, it's a very good free cash flow business. It's not only growing and high margin, but it's also a very good free cash flow-generating business. But Thierry, maybe more details and granularity on the...

Yes. On the polymer side, a couple of comments there. You are right. This is an important piece of our business plan, to improve the cost positioning of GCP's market through our vertical integration. And as you know, Chryso has built and has strongly reinforced its manufacturing assets for what we call PCE production, which are key polymers for the manufacture of the most important range of water reducers, which are the key family in concrete admixtures. We now run 4 manufacturing facilities worldwide. Just 7 years ago, we did just run 1 manufacturing facility. So you see that we have expanded dramatically over the last couple of years, our network of production, and we have the capability to scale up again the manufacturing capacities we have there. Obviously, we have the know-how associated with the manufacturing of these polymers. We will look at potentially expanding into new geographies, the production of polymers, to align ourselves in the best cost position where the footprint of the group will change, of course, going forward. What I would say as well is, beyond cost, what I'd like you to understand is that, by making our own polymers, we have proprietary molecules, formulation that give us differentiated offerings to help our customers themselves differentiate their own concrete formulations. And I think that -- I'd like you to understand as well that it goes beyond just cost position. It is also about innovation. It is about agility in rolling out new solutions for our customers. And our vertical integration will allow and will help, combinely, GCP and Chryso to keep doing so.

Mark, do you want to add some comments and flavor on the North America business and the roofing membranes?

Well, I think as you alluded to earlier, the synergies between the roofing membranes being, really, with the most famous brands and the most respected brands in North America as well as the flashing tapes, the liquid membranes and the overall ability within the CertainTeed business now to have a facade and roofing system is critical. And I think with the sales force of a couple of hundreds calling on the same common contractors and customers, we can really accelerate the growth there.

With such a big business overall in North America, we, sometimes in the past, we have not spent a lot of time to highlight all the product lines and details, but we have a commercial roofing business that will be fully aligned with the membranes and the know-how in that regard of GCP. We have also the vapor barrier of GCP, which will go hand-in-hand with our siding business in North America. So again, the full building envelope will be a perfect fit for CertainTeed. So we feel very good also about this part in North America.

The next question comes from Cedar Ekblom from Morgan Stanley.

I just wanted to touch base on the performance of the business this year. If we look at the margin development of Chryso this year, it's clearly been under pressure. And I appreciate all the points that you're making on synergies and revenue growth potential and refocusing the business on innovation, but if I look at some of the construction chemicals peers out there, they've actually had quite solid margin development and pretty good pricing power. Your business itself has had very good margin development and pricing power this year. Can you give us a little bit of color on what you think has been weighing on GCP's performance this year? I mean, we're looking forward, obviously, to the potential here, but I'd just like to understand where you think the starting point is for the asset.

Yes. So in terms of margin of 2021, there were multiple factors. For sure, there was an unprecedented inflation. GCP has taken a lot of steps and the impact of all the price action -- pricing actions is going to come in -- last part is going to come in 2022. So that time lag has certainly had certain impact on the margin of 2021. The second thing you need to keep in mind, as Benoit said, they have done the restructuring of their headquarters. They have shifted from Boston to Atlanta. This has been one of the important restructuring they did. And they have been working on various cost reduction measures. And this, in itself, is going to give us an impact of something like $20 million for 2022. So -- which the actions have already been taken, so it's something which is like done deal. So that's why the margin for 2022 is the more sensible number to look at because 2021 is not the right reference. And this is why we have taken 2022 as the base comparison for all our reference.

Keeping in mind that the new management team has been put in place a year ago, they launched extremely quickly action plans, some of them we have highlighted. You don't see the impact, of course, in 1 or 2 months or 1 or 2 quarters. But we have had extensive discussions and detailed discussions with the top management of GCP. And we know what has been done already, but that will bear fruit in 2022.

The next question comes from Gregor Kuglitsch from UBS.

A couple of questions, please. Can you just maybe take a step back and think about sort of overall margin profile for, I don't know which envelope you want to talk about, the EUR 4 billion, which, I think you said sort of as your total construction chemicals business; or maybe on the Chryso bid, because, obviously, there are synergies coming here. There's still synergies to be realized from the acquisition of Chryso itself. So I want to understand, kind of all said and done, I don't know, 3 years from now, what do you think the margin of these various business segments, I don't know whichever way you prefer to phrase it, right? But if you could just give us a sense of where we are today, maybe on the EUR 4 billion, and where you think that can be 3, 4 years down the line, considering all the different elements, Chryso, this deal, et cetera. That's the first question. The second question is on VERIFI. So that's obviously quite interesting and quite different. It's more like the semi software business, isn't it? So can you just tell us how big this business is in terms of revenue? Is it profitable? What do you intend to do with that business? It's obviously a little bit different from your kind of historical core. And then final question. Can you just -- I don't know if this was mentioned, but in terms of the leadership of the combined entities, I appreciate you sort of splitting them up a little bit. But can you just give us a sense whether the existing team of GCP is intended to stay -- stick around or whether that's not part of the plan?

Thank you for your question. So a good question on the long-term margin for this fantastic $4 billion-plus business we have in our hands. It's -- you know the target that we have liked at the Capital Markets Day for our manufacturing businesses, roughly 13%, 14% EBIT margin. This group should and aim at running slightly above that. So in terms of EBITDA, that's the 18% to 20% EBITDA margin that we should generate over the years. So clearly, a very strong performance and best-in-class. When I look at this segment, Chryso is already above, and we have every confidence that we'll progressively move the rest of the pack towards this best-in-class type of margin. Maybe, Thierry, on the VERIFI?

On VERIFI, first of all, that's not big today. I'm not going to give you detailed numbers, but let's say, about below 15 -- 50, sorry, $50 million of sales. The financial performance is not yet satisfactory, I think we can say it this way. This is still early stage. There has been lots of investment being put in the system, the infrastructure from a people standpoint, has now been fully built up. So that's also weighting on the P&L of that business line. And the team is -- has taken recently very decisive steps to enhance the P&L profile and the balance sheet profile as well of that business line with reducing the necessary investment costs. But importantly, I think with, in particular, Chryso's very strong position in some countries, in particular, in Europe, we see enhanced capabilities to scale up that product offering. And as I said, when you look at the P&L of that product line, now the infrastructure has been built, then any additional sale will have a very strong -- a much stronger operating leverage. And finally, new demand coming from customers, again, in particular, on sustainability KPIs, which is one of the key topics in the materials industry. So to make a long story short, VERIFI, still an early stage, but definitely, we plan to go ahead with this offering, which, as we say, is a pioneering offering in the heavy building construction industry.

And to your third question, well, several comments. Well, first, I'm very impressed with the accomplishments of GCP management team, who has initiated a lot of actions in a very short period of time. This was related to the prior question we had, a lot of good actions, which are well underway and delivering results. So I appreciate a lot what has been done. It's very important that we will close the transaction by the end of 2022. So a lot will happen also in 2022 in terms of continuing the improvement performance of GCP. So we'll rely on all the management and top management of GCP for the coming months, for sure. Discussions remain ongoing, and we hope to retain as many members of GCP top management as possible to help continue growing the business. I've presented to you how we'll integrate GCP within Saint-Gobain. I know that there are a lot of talents and skills and extremely motivated teams on the ground everywhere within GCP. And I feel very good also that this industry is consolidating, is attractive. And the fact that we give long-term visibility, combining the strength of Saint-Gobain, Weber, Chryso, GCP together, I can tell you that I'm sure we'll also receive some talent that will be easier to join us. So we are always -- I tell you that in our growth plan, for Grow & Impact, for the strategy of Saint-Gobain going forward as the worldwide leader in light and sustainable construction, my main priority is to make sure that we build everywhere the dream teams. So I'm not shy of talents and bringing more talents in the Saint-Gobain teams. And this morning, we clearly extend the pool of talents, and I'm extremely happy about that.

The next question comes from John Fraser-Andrews from HSBC.

First question is just the complementarity of the sales [ platform ] say that it's good...

Sorry, is it breaking? Could you repeat your question because it's breaking on the line. Could you repeat again, sorry?

Yes. So the first question was the complementarity of the sales exposure, I can see it's a good fit, that it spreads you nicely into a bigger presence in the U.S. But could you just say the countries that GCP exited and whether you've got those covered. So just on that. And also, will you need to make any divestments? Are there any antitrust issues in the combination? So that's the first question. And then on VERIFI, can you just set out sort of how you make the sales for that? Is that a transaction you make on the technology that you sell for the monitoring of the concrete? And how the combined business will benefit? Is it in admixtures, that the extra sales of those you will benefit from VERIFI or the rollout and sale of that technology?

So maybe, Sreedhar, do you want to take the question on divestment?

Yes. So on antitrust, together with our antitrust counsel, we have performed extensive regulatory assessment of the transaction. And we are confident that we will be able to obtain all necessary approvals. And as we said, the closure is -- we're talking about by year-end 2022.

Thierry, maybe on the sales exposure and the country...

Yes. And on the countries where GCP has exited over the last couple of years, most of the countries where GCP has exited are countries where Chryso has an existing footprint. Whether it is, as you know, GCP has decided in one of their restructuring plan 2 years ago to exit countries where their sales they were under scale, the reality is that the countries where they were and the scale we are largely in Europe and in the Middle East, which are the areas where Chryso has very strong footholds, so we are still doing business in these countries. More recently, we understand that GCP intends to exit as well a few countries that have not been disclosed yet. So I'm not going to comment that further, but these are countries where we have a very strong position. So we are not going to -- we are not going to hurt and damage, sorry, the combined footprint of the 2 companies going forward. As far as VERIFI is concerned...

And you have seen -- sorry to interrupt, Thierry. You have seen the maps -- on the Slide 8, 9, 10, the map of the 3 brands, Weber, Chryso and GCP, which are highly complementary.

On VERIFI, John, the way it is done is that VERIFI sales are, in fact, [ SAS ] revenues, data revenues coming from every cubic meter of concrete, which is going through the ready-mix track on which the VERIFI system is installed. That's the way this is done. So this is based on, as I said, quantities of concrete, which are monitored using VERIFI. We understand that GCP's team is looking after potential changes in the way they invoice their systems, could potentially be linked just to a truck-installed rather than quantities of concrete, which is going through the truck. We look at that together what's the best system going forward. Well, in terms of combined benefits, the reality is not necessarily in combined sale of admixtures. Of course, if we can do that properly, that's a plus. But more importantly, that's a great service to our customers to help them have the right data to improve their business. What we mean by improving their business is basically to avoid overengineering of concrete, to track the quality of the concrete, which avoids return concretes. And in the concrete industry, you must know that return concrete is one of the highest nonquality cost that this industry is facing. And VERIFI system allows the customer to have an end-to-end view of the quality of the concrete, which is delivered on the job site. So eventually, that's the service offering which attracts some value, and we see some traction going forward.

And just 1 or 2 points to add to what Thierry said. What is interesting is that you sell it, of course, to the concrete players, but sometimes it is specified by the large contractors. If you think of some of the biggest projects in infrastructure in the U.K., as we speak, the HS2, some of the very large contractors on the job site, they specify VERIFI. They ask to be delivered with the VERIFI technology. A second example I would like to mention is, I think, in California, because of CO2 emissions, that they want to drop as a state within California. They are asking for those kind of performance on concrete and monitoring. So you have ongoing trends, and GCP was early on in this move, which are very attractive in terms of that technology.

Just one follow-up. The $20 million cost savings, does that include the additional country exits for GCP?

No, it's done. What GCP has done is done. So it's behind -- no, it's not part of that. We don't plan to exit any GCP country in terms of cost savings going forward.

The next question comes from Jean-Christophe Lefèvre-Moulenq from CIC.

I have 2 questions. First, would it be possible, at least, to quantify the CapEx of GCP and maybe also of Chryso. And secondly, admixture of business. Admixture is mainly made with ready-mix concrete, but a mixture to cement business line is a big issue with the CO2 commitments. It's relatively easy in France and in Europe as the norms are moving next year. But in U.S., traditionally, with the cement, the main component is still clinker, which will more difficult to be changed. Or do we see a possible change in North American norms or not?

On the first one, it's roughly 4% on CapEx to sales, and it's very similar between GCP and Chryso. Thierry, on the second one?

On the second one, you are right. Europe is moving faster. We see that as a plus, by the way, as Chryso has a very strong footprint in Europe, and we believe that being in the, let's say, at the heart of what is happening from a sustainability standpoint is giving us an edge on an innovation standpoint. Regarding the U.S., things are moving. As I was commenting earlier, we see cement producers accelerating with the introduction of what is so-called the Type 1L cement, which is giving additional use of the limestone fillers. And this is driven by sustainability challenges as well. So you're right, norms are not moving yet, but the industry is moving. And we see that, again, as a very positive for us. As I was commenting earlier, these new binders, the new cement are bringing their challenges for the concrete industry. And we -- our customers definitely are looking forward to partnering with us to enhance and roll out the right solutions going forward. So things are also moving very much in the U.S.

So allow me a follow-up question regarding Slide 6. We have a breakdown of sales by region, but not by product line.

By product line? Well, you have it, Jean-Christophe. You have it when I presented on Slide 11. The way it will be integrated could basically -- North American region will take all the roofing membranes, waterproofing, et cetera. And the $750 million will join Chryso and High Performance Solutions, and the bulk of that being concrete admixtures and cement additives. So we have it there on Slide 11.

The next question comes from Mike Betts from Data Based Analysis.

My questions are on the SG&A percentages on Slide 19 and your plans there. It shows 26% for GCP, which I think is about $260 million, roughly. Sreedhar just talked about reducing listing costs by $20 million, and I think SG&A by $15 million. So that would take it down by 3.5%, if I'm right, still well-above Chryso. So have I understood that correctly, firstly? And then secondly, if you would, please, what's the right percentage for this business? I guess I'm surprised that even Chryso is so high. I mean, obviously, there are particular reasons for that, but maybe you could explain why the SG&A underlying for this business is so much higher than the Saint-Gobain average?

Yes. So I answer the second part and the -- Sreedhar will do the detail. There is a lot of prescription in this business. There is a lot of prescription so this is -- actually, the Chryso SG&A is actually best-in-class. When you compare with CertainTeed, we wanted to highlight that CertainTeed, on large businesses like roofing, gypsum, you leverage your big distributors. So it's a different mix. But that means that when you add the waterproofing membranes in the sales channels of CertainTeed, you leverage the existing base on CertainTeed. So keep in mind that this construction chemical is highly specified. You have a lot of technical support on the field direct with the concrete customer. So this is the reason why there is this level of G&A, which is, again, best-in-class. Because Chryso, indeed, is best-in-class, above 20% EBITDA margin. And on the figures, we are conservative. Sreedhar could maybe give you a little bit of flavor.

Yes. So the corp -- the way they report is they have a corporate cost separately, which is -- which includes its listing costs, and SG&A is part of the businesses. So this comparison, you need to make it a like-for-like comparison. So really, there is a clear gap between the SG&A, what you have in GCP versus what you see in Chryso. I think that would be the right comparison to make. So it is very, very clear that even the management team, themselves, feel that the SG&A is clearly a good opportunity for us to reduce rundown and make the business much more effective and cost-effective.

And the opportunity going forward is actually to leverage scale and growth because the difficulty of GCP is, on the $1 billion company, it's extremely heavy to bear listed costs. The cost listing in the U.S., $20 million, when you make $1 billion in sales, it is subscale. And clearly, in all our discussions with the top management of GCP, that was the conclusion. So country by country, GCP was subscale. So while in so many countries, 38 countries, but subscale in size, you have to bear this high level of SG&A. Why Chryso is so effective versus GCP? Because Chryso was focused on a small set of countries with a high performance. But GCP was subscale in many countries. So our goal is to take all the things and then accelerate the growth, and it will automatically lower a big wave of the SG&A as a percentage. We have been much conservative on the way we will improve the margin of GCP, thanks to this overall SG&A reduction.

The next question comes from Tobias Woerner from Stifel.

Can you hear me?

Very well, yes.

Yes. So 3 questions, if I may. Number one, also looking at the wider business of construction chemicals. Some of your peers deliver some nice double-digit ROICs as we speak. Where should we sort of put our marker, let's say, 3 years out from here in terms of ROIC, not just simply in terms of the potential EBITDA for the business? The second question is around the base and the synergies. You've explained a lot, so I don't expect you to expand much further. But the base, when I look at Bloomberg, currently, the consensus is, '22, is $165 million and roughly $130 million in '21. So there's a movement of $35 million or $40 million to your forecast. And $20 million, you say, is from the cost savings program. Maybe, Sreedhar, can you give us a little bit more sense around the additional $20 million there coming from the base to your level? And around the synergies, I mean, I hear all the things you say, but it's still quite a big number versus revenues. I mean does it come back to scale? And then the last question, you buy this company pre-synergies at consensus probably closer to 14x EBITDA, but let's say, 13.8x and 8.8x post-synergies. But you can buy your shares still at 6x EBITDA or slightly above for the same year. And I hear all the strategic arguments, and they're very powerful, don't get me wrong. But I just want to hear how you think about sort of that valuation gap, if possible, please, between your own shares and the acquisitions you make?

I'll start with the last one. Two things. First, as you have seen last week, we did buy back shares of Saint-Gobain, a bit more than EUR 500 million in 2021. This is a line slightly ahead of what we committed to during the Capital Market Day. Second, I continue to repeat that the valuation of Saint-Gobain is not right. We outperformed most of our peers, which are highly valued, and I'm very confident about the potential of Saint-Gobain going forward. And therefore, the re-rating of the margin and such a fantastic transaction like today will participate in this acceleration of the evolution of Saint-Gobain in terms of valuation. Coming back to the -- The first one, yes, construction chemical is a fast-growing business. We highlighted at the Capital Market Day that we target 3% to 5% organic growth over the years, and the space of construction chemical is slightly above that. When you look back at the presentation we made at the time of Chryso, Chryso was between 7% and above 7% regularly for many, many years in the last 20 years. On top of that, you had some bolt-on acquisitions, and we have done some recently also in construction chemicals. So yes, construction chemicals space is above average, with a 3%, 5% organic growth we highlighted for the group. Sreedhar, on the...

Yes, sure. Consensus, you just have to remember, there are 2 people who are following that. So the number, I would not give too much advantage to it. But again, I can only tell you that even 2021, [ $151 million ] is not the number which the management is going -- is expecting to deliver. So that, itself, is a gap. And if you would have noticed, the consensus have moved significantly because it's just one analyst who changed the number after the Q3 call, and the consensus was dropped significantly. So management remains confident to deliver closer to what the consensus was before the Q3. And so the gap we are talking about is $30 million. And out of $30 million, $20 million comes from the corporate; and the $10 million, one is volume, the second is also the price increase. As I said, we have taken a lot of pricing actions in the last quarter. The impact of that would come in 2022.

And if you, Tobias, want to think about the valuation of the company, look at the share price evolution over the last 3 years, and that will tell you what the stock market valued this company at a bit more than 2 years ago. So I feel good about the valuation of GCP, both for GCP shareholders and for Saint-Gobain. And I feel very good that we'll make it a fantastic value-creation business for us going forward, and such a EUR 4 billion pillar on construction chemicals.

[Operator Instructions]

Well, if there are -- if there's another question, yes, please, the last one, and then we have taken a lot of time from you. So the last one.

Okay. The last question comes from Glynis Johnson from Jefferies.

I'll be very quick, actually. Given that you are separating the businesses in order to make sure you manage your businesses correctly, I'm just wondering how you're going to measure how well the business is doing, the acquired business? And also, how are you going to report that back to us in terms of achieving synergies and the top line growth?

We will do that very clearly and very transparently like we are doing for Continental Building Products. Continental Building Products has been integrated within CertainTeed gypsum, and we continue to report to you the parameter of what we bought. And we are comfortable to tell you that we create value in year 2, and we'll provide with you the ROCE of Continental. I don't know, Sreedhar, if you want to be more precise?

No, we will report to -- we'd demonstrate to you that we have created value, and afterwards, we'll start reporting it.

So it's very easy for us to track the performance of those product lines within the North American region and within the High Performance Solutions of David Molho and Thierry Bernard.

So even with the integration with Chryso, you'll still be able to split out exactly with GCP?

Yes, it will be integrated within High Performance Solutions, within the overall global business of Chryso. It will be combined with Chryso. It's not going to be merged, and it's not a takeover of Chryso and GCP. The 2 businesses will, of course, share the resources. They'll share their talents country by country. But yes, we'll be able to continue to track the performance of GCP and Chryso. I think there is a last one -- the last question, I think, still, if I'm correct?

Yes. We have a new question from Arnaud Pinatel from On Field Investment Research.

First of all, congratulations. I'm sure that GCP will be now in a good hand, and that's very promising. But I had a question regarding the overall construction chemicals environment. We have seen the 2 largest dealers recently combining their force, with Sika and MBCC. The 2 runners up, so Chryso and GCP, are now also combining their force. How do you see the clients reacting? Is there an opportunity or a risk for you to see the clients rebalancing their market share between suppliers? And will you gain on that from this...

I will let Thierry complement what I'm saying. We feel very good that we are going to bring a larger offering, larger service, larger innovation to all the customers of both GCP and Chryso. We will make sure that GCP customers benefit very quickly from the innovation, from the new products, from the increased services that we'll bring to them, from also the investment that Saint-Gobain will add in terms of best-in-class plans, trucks with VERIFI, et cetera, et cetera. So we'll make sure that we add value, we bring better service, and we make the life of our customers, which are extremely busy, as we speak, much easier. But Thierry, you want to comment?

Sure. Arnaud, thank you for your opening remarks first. Well, when you look at the combined positions and set up between Chryso and GCP, the reality is that we are joining forces in geographies where the overlap is very minimal. Our presence in the U.S. is small. GCP's presence in North America is strong. They are strong in Latin America, we are not in Latin America. We are strong in Europe and the Middle East, they are -- I don't want to say weak, but they are not as strong in Europe, not at present at all as we are, as I commented earlier. They exited many countries in the last couple of years in these subscale regions like Europe, in particular. We are strong in India. They are not in India. And they have numerous positions in Southeast Asia and Asia Pacific, and we are not. So the reality is that I don't see a lot of constraints from customer reactions. And this is a big difference with the Sika and Master Builders combination.

Thank you, Thierry, and thank you, Arnaud. So yes, it is the right time to move ahead. And I think we have been quick to build such a fantastic business in 2021. And I think we have all the tools, all the talents to make it a very successful story. So thank you very much for your time early in the morning, and we [ appreciate it ]. I want to finish saying that to 2021 is a very strong year for Saint-Gobain. We highlighted our guidance end of July, and 2021 will be a very strong year for Saint-Gobain. We have highlighted to you at the Capital Market Day, I think, a very sound, very clear, very focused strategy. I can tell you that since then, we have changed a lot within Saint-Gobain, within our teams. They will feel even more energized with the announcement of this morning. So I feel very good about our plan going forward. I feel very good about our performance in 2021. We have a very solid balance sheet in order to deliver on this acquisition. It's an icon in the sector. For those of you who have been around for several years, GCP, Grace Construction Products, has been an icon in the construction space. So we are so happy to bring them and to give them a final home. So I'm eager to welcome all the teams of GCP, both in North America and around the world. I know I have with me, with David Molho, with Thierry Bernard, with Mark Rayfield, a fantastic team. We are all very much focused on the detailed execution. We are driven by performance, accountability, and I can tell you that you can count on us to make it a success. And I know we will do it, and we will continue to lead the charge on the leadership for worldwide sustainable and light construction. Thank you very much for your time, and I wish you a very good day. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect.