Econocom Group SE (ECONB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

[Foreign Language] Welcome, everybody. Welcome here in Puteaux for the 2024 financial results meeting. Due to the strike in Brussels, the meeting is taking place here in Puteaux within our HQ in France. Today's speaker will be Jean-Louis Bouchard, our Founding President; Angel, our CEO; and myself. The agenda will be around 4 points, as usually, strategic update, 2024 financial performance, outlook for next year, and we'll have a Q&A session. Before leaving the floor to Jean-Louis, let me share you a small video with a certain number of key transaction and milestone events of the 2024 year. [Presentation]

Okay. I will start in English, but I need -- I will just address 3 subjects. First, remind you rapidly what is our business, what is our job. We've been asking ourselves this question for 50 years, and it's still changing. But thanks to Havas and other people, we are starting to understand a little bit what is our business about. The second, will be our main challenge. And the third one will be Angel. So the first challenge, and we've been working on it, what is Econocom? What do we do? Because we -- every time people try to compare us to other companies, it's never exactly the same. It's always a bit different, but there is bits and things which are the same. But mainly, what is happening? The tech industry, the tech offering in the last 50 years has been booming and is still increasing in speed and in diversity. Within this tech offering, we have thousands of customers, mainly in Europe. And those customers, they are like us, they are a bit lost among all this offering. What is Econocom? Econocom is 500 salespeople, but not sales. We have technical sales, very educated in tech, but they're also very good sales. And this -- all those 500 people, they meet with customers all day, and they together -- put together parts of this tech offering, bundle it into contracts and finance those contracts. So this is 500 sales, about 2,000 administrative and 5,000 technicians, but highly qualified technicians in most of the countries. We have services in Spain, Belgium, now starting in Germany, in France, almost everywhere. And as you see, we can sign contracts. We also have partnerships with people outside of Europe, and we can sign support contracts with very large companies in 100 countries throughout the world. So our business is really technology-oriented. We try to masterize this technology or anyway, we put pieces to pieces and make it together so we can install it and make it work at customer space. And on top of it, we finance it most of the time, 1/3 of our business is financing, 1/3 is equipment, delivering equipment and 1/3 is servicing those equipment, making those equipment and solutions work. So this is our business. Our challenge. The main challenge because when we will be presenting you what we have done in '24 and what we forecast for '25, the main challenge that we've been enduring, but it's more and more every year is that we call it One Econocom. It's our strategic plan, but what does it mean? Customers are getting larger and larger and larger all the time. And those customers, they want an offer not in 1 country, they want an offer worldwide or at least European-wide. So -- and also our suppliers, people that provide tech, which are software, hardware, whatever they provide, even finance, they also want to address large company covering Europe. They don't want to have a large company only in Belgium or only in Spain. So we need to have European coverage. To have a European coverage means we have to -- that's what we call One Econocom. But it's a huge challenge for us because we have been resilient for 50 years. The reason we have been resilient, not only it's because we have very talented people in our group, but because it was very diversified geographically and business-wise. But now if you want to have One Econocom, then you have to put things together. You have to have more unity. So you have to change communication. You have to change rules. You have to change the world, the way you operate. But you want to also keep the creativity. So it's a double challenge to make One Econocom bigger and stronger and operating smoother, but at the same time, we need to keep all the creative people and talented people and keep them from fighting too much together. So it's fun to do it. But it's not only Econocom, this is all big organization have this challenge. But it's even more challenging for Econocom because we don't have a major product with our name on it. We have creativity all the time. The third thing I wanted to talk to you about is Angel, okay? I've been working with Angel 19 years. And I've been very stupid for the last 7 or 8 years because 7 or 8 years ago, Angel came to me and said, okay, I'm having fun in Spain. Well, he started Spain with 10 people. Now they are 1,800 people. So he was driving a lot of them. Thank you. But at the same time, he said, okay, I'm in France. I like this group. I would like to work with administration -- with the management of the group. And well, we both agreed on it, but other people did not agree on it. So eventually, it did not happen. So I try to pass the help to my son, Robert, but the group was not ready for it, and he was -- he did not know enough Econocom to be able to be successful too soon. So it did not work. Then about 2, 2.5 years ago with Angel, we hired Patrick Van Den Berg to help us to manage the group. Eventually -- well, it was okay, but not successful enough. And we decided last July, July '24 to promote Angel as CEO. And I should have done this 10 years ago because I'm so fond of Angel. He's been doing such a very good job. He has a very good team. He will present it to you. And as you see, I'm very happy with it. I'm very relaxed. I'm doing my job better than before. My job being -- I still handle the group attractivity, communication with [indiscernible]. I'm in charge also of hiring or coaching the hiring of the 50 key people to manage with Societe Generale. That's mine too. I'm also Chairman of the Board, and I'm learning how to chair the Board. So I still have a lot of activity. I'm working half time, but I love it. Thank you. Angel.

Thank you, Jean-Louis. Thank you very much. So the first thing I wanted to say is to explain what happened in 2024, and we will be speaking about the new governance and so on. And the first thing I want to tell you that I'm very glad to keep on being the CEO because you know that from time to time, 6 months is enough. But I will keep on being the CEO, and I will try to do my best efforts to keep on being the CEO of the group. So what happened in 2024? We make a good year in terms of first year of the strategic plan, meaning that we are preparing the group for the future. So the good thing is that when you structure a strategic plan, you know what you want to do at the end of the building of the plan, and you know what you don't want to do. So we decided to divest some activities. We decided to invest in some activities. We decided mainly to have a very strong organic growth because we don't have -- we don't want to have a lot of debt. And then in the first year, it was a very big challenge to recruit a lot of new sales and agents in order to reinforce the group. So this is what we call [ mission impossible ] and it was a success in 2024. So the recruitment, and we will be coming back to that afterwards, have been a success. Also from the marketing point of view, also from the organization of the cross-selling between activities and countries, we made many evolutions in the organization, and I think that we are ready for the future in this sense. So the top line is good. I know that the bottom line is different, and we will be speaking about the reasons why. And Philippe will show the figures, and I will be coming back after Philippe will show the figures. But in the top line, I have to say that 3.6% total growth, organic growth because we did not have the acquisitions in 2024, as you know, personally, I think it's a very good trend because the market was bad -- and in the distribution, for example, that is now the main activity of the group is more than EUR 1.2 billion turnover. We had a flat market in Europe. We have a negative market in France. That is our main activity. It was less 2% in France. It was flat all over the 2024. And we started in the first half of the year with a slowdown, but the last months were better, and we expect -- and we will be speaking about the trends for the next year. The last months were better. And at the end, we are also positive in the distribution activity all over the group, plus 0.5%. So very good organic growth. Compared to the previous year, it was 1.2%, and then we are at 3.6%. Then we did not have any opportunities of acquisitions, and we preferred to start selling [ the bagging ] but we closed a tactical deal in January in Germany that is a target country for the group and in refurbishment that is a strategic vertical for the group. The new governance, you know that the Board decides about the strategy. The Executive Committee, I'm very happy with this Executive Committee. We are mixing experience and different capabilities with Philippe that is a newcomer because he came in September. Israel that is here from 2018 coming from Altabox. It is a very nice company that Econocom bought. And Quentin as a Global Group Tech and now facing all the challenges in artificial intelligence. He is a very nice ComEx, we meet twice a month, and it's a very good environment. But we are not alone. We have a general management committee that is based everywhere because it's all the country managers of the group and is very business focused. We meet once a month in different cities. And this is the engine for the business and the development of the group. And we also have 4 women that are very good ones with the main support functions of the group. These are the management that is in the website. This is a very good team, and I'm very proud about. And I want also to say, and it was in the video that we onboarded almost 20 top managers in 2024. So we onboarded a lot of sales. We onboarded also a lot of managers. For the Q&A, we will be all the ComEx on the stage, you will be able to ask about anything. And we will be able, I think, to answer about anything because we are very complementary. So if you have marketing business issues, it will be Israel. All the issues coming from artificial intelligence, it will be Quentin. All the things about finance and M&A, will be Philippe, and I will be also there, but it's not so important. We have also Anne Bruchon, that is the Secretary of the ComEx and very nice to work with Anne and to prepare all these sessions that are very important. This is the main point for our future. The sales force recruitment, the reinforcement of the sales force of the group. And I'm very proud to say that we onboarded more than 60 agents and sales in net in 2024 in the group that it was more than expected. I remember that we are now about 500 sales and agents in the group. Then, we said at the beginning of the strategic plan that we wanted to onboard 100 new agents in the 3 first years and 160 sales and agents in net. And then we expect to be about 600 sales and agents at the end of the 3 first years of the plan. 600, it's a lot of money because the revenue in the average between EUR 5 million and EUR 8 million for a good agent or a good sales. So you can make the calculations, and it can be a very powerful improvement of our organic growth. The marketing and the organization of the cross-selling of the group between the hands of Israel, I think that, there is a huge work that was done in 2024. It was 1 portfolio. We mean it's all the offerings of the group. And this is quite a huge document, very nice. And we are training all the sales of the group in order to be able to tell to the clients which are all the offerings that we can deliver, all the offerings of the group. And then we put in place also the new Gather brand for audiovisual, audiovisual. It's a business where we want to become the leader in Europe. We could say that we are the leaders because we have already EUR 230 million turnover, but we are looking for some other companies in some -- in Germany and U.K. because we are very present in France, in Spain and in the Netherlands. This will be a development. We will be seeing that in the next years, and Gather will be a powerful brand in Europe. From the point of view of the tools, we finalized with [indiscernible] in place all the tools for the leasing activity. So we have new tools, sustainable tools, and it allows for us -- it's important because it's much more easier to make international deals. And we are going to the P&S and services activities. And also on this side, a big effort is to be done on artificial intelligence, and I will come back on that. So we sold Les Abeilles. It was very good. We were not aggressive in '24 because we want to preserve our financial solidity. That's very important. And the acquisition in Germany is not a big company. It's a medium company, but it's strategic because it's first, Germany, second, reconditioning -- refurbishment. Refurbishment with leasing, it's all the life cycle of the assets, and it's one of the business of the future. So we are very glad about that. This is a company that is now -- is a B2B company for IT devices and is now refurbishing about 100,000 devices with a capability of refurbishing 150,000. And we will be seeing the refurbishment at Econocom Group. [Presentation]

And now Philippe, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Angel. So I will present the '24 financial results. As mentioned by Angel, in 2024, Econocom benefit from a very strong growth, fully organic, standing at 3.6% compared with 1.2% on the previous year, which I think is a true testimony of the effort which has been put in the sales force enhancement and development. This, and I think it's quite important to mention, has been delivered throughout all our 3 business units. In the context of a mixed market in Europe with certain geography experimenting with difficulty with a [ lag ] of order, including in particularly France, which has been exposed to political turmoil. One other thing which is, I think, important is that last year, the guidance given by Econocom to the market in respect of the development of the revenue was a bracket of 3% to 5%, and we've been able to fully deliver the guidance. Coming on the 3 business units, as you can see, we experimented significant growth in the TMF segment, benefiting from the development of the usage and leasing approach compared to the ownership approach. The Products and Services business unit also experimented a positive growth. And Services was able to deliver a 3% growth in a market challenged by a certain number of forces that we will come back on it later, including in particular, AI. In respect of the margin, as mentioned, in 2024, we invested quite a lot in the enhancement of the sales force with the 60 sales and agents, which lead us to have a EUR 7 million additional expenses on the back of the P&L. Nevertheless, we were able to maintain our operational margin at a 4% stable profitability compared to last year, which I think is quite an achievement. Without this EUR 7 million investment in the P&L, we would have been able to grow and enhance the profitability of the group compared to last year. And we expect that next year, those investments in the sales force will not only turn into turnover development, but as well into profitability with enhanced profit margin. Then when we look at business unit by business unit, so on the Product and Service -- and Solutions business unit, the growth was up 0.5%. So we top up EUR 1.2 billion revenue in a market marked by certain adverse events, including France, which we think now is fixed, obviously, significant growth were experiment in certain geography and my colleague, Israel will come back on that. And we maintain a 3.3% profitability in this context. It's worth to notice that Products & Solutions is one of the business units we -- who bear probably most of the investment in the sales force development and the EUR 7 million I mentioned. On the Technology Management & Financing, we experimented very significant growth led by the attractiveness of the financing solutions. The development was, in particular, strong in the Southern Europe area, including Italy, including Spain, where the development of the business was significant. France also experimented positive development and the profitability remained robust at 4.4%. For the Services business, we had the growth of 3%, as mentioned. France and Spain delivered strong development of their turnovers, and the profitability there stand at 5.1%, which is the highest profitability in the group. Then looking at the overall P&L, as mentioned and explained. So in respect of the revenue, we had a solid development of the revenue standing at 3.6%. Operational margin remained robust despite investments in the sales force as discussed. We had a lower operational profit as the P&L was marked by a certain number of exceptional items, including, in particular, exit costs, write-off and certain number of transformation investment for the future. The profit stands, hence, at 38.4%, decreasing compared to last year due to those 2 items, i.e., investment in the sales force and those one-off items. Net profit stands at EUR 37.7 million as we had a certain number of negative events, including, in particular, on discontinued operation. As you may recall, during the first semester, we were able to show a positive development of the discontinued operation, thanks to the profit in conjunction of the disposal of Les Abeilles. During the second semester, one of our operations, Synertrade, which is an e-procurement platform experimented a certain number of cyberattacks, which lead us to have a certain number of extraordinary costs in conjunction with the remediation of this cyberattack impact. Adjusted for nonrecurring items, the profitability of the group stand at EUR 60 million, which is totally in line with what we experimented last year. Besides the P&L, we had a very significant reduction in the net financial debt at Econocom. One point which I think is worth to be mentioned is in 2024, the group was able to recoup a positive cash flow generation at operational level, unlike what we experimented in 2023. So free cash flow arising from the operation stands at a positive EUR 45 million, which is very solid figures and a turnaround compared to 2023. Then we had the benefit of the disposal of Les Abeilles and certain number of share buyback and dividends that you can see on the table and the negative cost of the IFRS 5, the cash cost of the remediation of Synertrade, which is an asset marked to be disposed next year in 2025. In respect of debt ratio, we are now underpinned by this EUR 96 million of debt, net financial debt, a very solid debt ratios with a gearing of 0.2 and the leverage below 1x EBITDA. Besides financial figures, as you know, Econocom is very much involved in the extra financial items. So I will not go into details around all those achievements in the ESG. One point really worth mentioning is that in nowadays' environment, more and more of the tender offer that we have to respond to our clients need to be fit in respect of ESG requirements. So it's not only an option besides the fact that Econocom is for quite a long time involved and committed in this ESG route. It is now a prerequisite to be in a position to answer positively towards tender offer. On top of those milestones, we achieved, in 2024, 3 major events. So we are able to improve our gold medal at EcoVadis with an increase of 4 points. That's quite an achievement in a difficult and even more challenging environment compared to 2023. That's the first point. Second point is we had our target at SBTi, which were approved and it's also quite an achievement. Not so many company can tell the same. And we launched Econocom Impact, which is a new digital outlet to present our road map and commitment, which is feed -- fed sorry, by all the commitment and the initiatives at group level throughout the various business units and throughout the various teams. So now Angel will share with you some outlook for 2025.

Thank you, Philippe. So takeaways, we said that the growth -- organic growth in revenue seems to us to be a good one, but mainly the most important thing is that we reinforced a lot our sales force for the future. Strong reduction in the debt. We are very prudent in that sense. So we want to sell and before buying a lot. So that's very easy to understand. We will keep on -- we had our first acquisition that is completely in our strategy, bb-net. And very important, because I don't want to forget that on the bottom line, we are not so good this year. We have a big challenge. We have a big challenge that we are facing everybody is artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is impacting our business, and we have to prepare our operations in order to be able for the next years to be prepared on that. It means that we have to face transformation, and we have to reorganize some business models, some delivery models. And this is something where we have to make some investments and also some expenses in order to be able to be profitable for the future. So for '25, our guidance will be to have growth higher than the one we had in 2024. Why do we think that this is possible? First of all, because we expect a return from the investments on the reinforcing of the sales force we made in 2024. Second, because the market trends, we think that will be good, will be better at least. So if I tell you about what the context the U.K. analyst company is telling us, they are telling us that we were in distribution in Europe, plus 1% in '22, minus 2% in '23, flat in '24 and expected to be plus 3% in '25. So this is the second reason that we'll be good for our development. So also, we will have for our total growth, some new acquisitions, very targeted, strategic, targeted, synergetic. And we will be -- keep on going with the transformation needs that we will have because our main aim is to be preparing the group for a very solid performance for the next years. So we are not just only working for the short term. We are working for the medium and long term. We have a strategic plan that is coming to 2028. We want to have a solid group from the financial point of view, profitable growth and very good efficiency, becoming the leaders in Europe about the digitalization for our clients. Questions and answers. So Jean-Louis, do you want to -- or we -- and maybe we can ask our ComEx to come on the stage and we will be able to have all your questions. Otherwise, we need to...

Anne, you have the questions?

Yes.

I think you already received.

Yes. We received several questions on the platform. The first one is about the situation of the growth for Econocom compared to the market. And globally, how is Econocom positioned in the face of the evolution of the IT market?

I can have it if you want. Okay. So regarding that question, I think it's good to make -- it's good to -- we already talked a bit about this, but it's good to make a bit story on this. The last -- when we were preparing the figures for 2024, the year -- context was telling us that it was going to be a year of growth between 3% to 5% at the moment. And then we started the year. Q1, suddenly everything changed. No, no, no problem. The growth is going to be in Q2, later Q3. But finally, we were able to find that growth in Q4. So as Angel explained, our situation was quite good compared to them. Market flat, Econocom growing more than 2%. Maybe if you want, I can also speak about 2025. That's pretty good.

Yes.

So Angel explained that the market for 2025 is expected to grow 3%, I shall explain on that. You got my opinion, apart from it in Context, IDC and so on, I see that the next year is happening -- is going to happen. Why? Q4 was a good period. So there was a clear growth. And there are 3 other main reasons. First one is, artificial intelligence is really happening. So that's really a trend that's going to happen. Second point for me, much more important is that Windows 10 is going to finish in October this year, about to finish. We have to operate into Windows 11 in October this year. So many of the laptops that are right now running in all the markets should be changed into a new one, thanks to that beautiful chip that is needed for Windows 11, that is good. And also, I think the last trend is, it's now a period. If you remember and go back 1 minute to the COVID. When we were in the middle of the COVID, there was no laptops in the market. So all our main customers were trying to find whatever that was there. So many of them right now, they are having laptops from Dell, Lenovo, HP or whatever it was in media market. So it was really, really a tough moment. And now it's the period after 5 -- 4, 5, 6 years that when everything should be changed. So that's why, again, the trend, I think, is really positive. So if we compare that with 2024 and the resilience that I think is one of the main points that is for us good is the resilience of Econocom is how it is possible that the company -- that in 2024, the market is flat, but be careful with that word because it's flat in general in the market. If we compare really with our product mix, it was really decreasing in some of the countries, especially in France. And we have the resilience to grow in that market, more than nearly 3.6%, but is for me fantastic. If we go to 2025, what we have to cover is it's a good moment. If we're expecting that growth of 3%, we need to change that resilient in the opposite way. So for me, for us, the good point should be increase our growth. Angel was telling more than 3.6% for that. I think because he is going to be in our bond, so I hope it's going to be good.

Sure, I'm sure.

So -- but I think it's possible. So I think the IT market for sure needs that growth. And I'm sure that Econocom is going to be able to change it and develop a higher growth than expected. So I think it's enough or any other about the market.

We received several questions on exceptional costs and nonrecurring expenses. Can you elaborate on this topic? And can you give the trajectory for the coming years?

Yes, I will tell. Transformation means in many of our activities exit costs. So these are exceptional exit costs that are in exceptionals because these are positions that are not replaced. And when we speak about artificial intelligence and the impact, and I will let Quentin develop on that. We need also to write off a certain number of obsolete tools in order to be replaced by other ones. So, Quentin, maybe you can develop on the artificial intelligence subjects that you are developing on group level.

I was not prepared to talk about it, but let me provide. So on artificial intelligence, I really think it's a race that we are running both on the global tech providers they are racing, I guess, it's really passionate to follow this race. And for us as well, it's a race to be able to leverage it to use it as much as possible for our customer for performance -- and we are working a lot with Philippe Goullioud, who is leading the services activity, to really be able to leverage it and make it good for our customers and also for our employees. And it's really a good experience to work with you on this, Philippe, because Philippe also is really willing to win the race, and we are trying to win the race. And how do we know if we win the race or not? It's the customer who are telling us if we are ahead of the race or not. And we have already a lot of pillars in production where the feedback from customers and from employees is very good. And also, we are doing a lot of presentation to our customers in France, in Spain, in Belgium and customers are saying, you are well positioned in the race. So if we know that we are well positioned, we want to run even faster to win this race, and it's really, again, passionating topic that we are advancing.

And for the next years, I will complete because I don't forget completely the question. I think that in '25, we will have to make -- keep on making efforts. And our objective is to be '26 and mainly '27 and '28, a very profitable and growing company.

Yes, I may just because he's shy. When you change management, usually, you have this kind of things happening. The new management tries to come up and look at what the previous management has done and make some changes, and those changes can be costly. And also, the former management did not always have the courage to address all the subjects at the same time, at the same level. But the new management has this courage. So thanks to them where the profit is less, but the future is brighter.

We also received a question on the treasury shares. Can you elaborate on share buyback policy?

It has not changed since a few years. We believe -- I believe as a main shareholder that the share price is very low. And I think a good investment for Econocom is to buy back its own shares because it's underpriced, but this is my belief. But I might be wrong, I might be right. But in the last 50 years, I mainly been right, more than wrong. Maybe we have some questions in the room. [Foreign Language] If somebody wants to ask a question in the room? All the other questions were prepared by us to be easy.

So excuse my English. Could you tell us a little bit more about what sector you consider as tactical for Econocom to make an acquisition? What kind of sector kind of businesses?

Yes. So in respect of tactical acquisition, I would say there are a certain number of geographies where we feel there are room for growth for Econocom. So Germany is one. Northern Europe, like Netherlands is another one, and countries like Italy and Spain as well. Then in respect of the underlying business, we think that audiovisual is quite an attractive segment, experimenting quite growth, slightly higher than other segments. Infrastructure and networks also as we have a positive competitive advantage, thanks to our size and our knowledge. Also, it's grow more -- it's a faster-growing market than others. So I think that those segments are probably the more -- the segment where we look at the most in terms of potential acquisitions.

If I can add something on that, the strategy of Econocom has not been like some other competitors with only 1 product in many countries. And this is why the profile of Econocom is so resilient. So we are about mainly in 10 countries in Western Europe that are not risky countries. These are very good countries. Now I know that we speak about Europe is not in a good shape and so on. But I remember that I was speaking with a general manager of an insurance company saying, yes, risk in Europe, maybe it's a little bit higher, but there are no other places where the risk is better. So we are targeting very rich and good countries, and we are diversified in activities. And this is why the model is very resilient. Then what we would like is to have all our activities in these main countries. As Philippe was saying, in Spain, we already have a good operation, but we also want to improve in Germany, in Italy, in the Netherlands, in Belgium, in U.K. So we really want to be One Econocom in all these countries to be a real player in each of these countries, and we are completing our activities in these countries, of course, depending on the opportunities, but with the aim of being a complete One Econocom in each of these very good countries that we think that in Western Europe, will have in the next years good prospects.

Remember, our strategic plan is 2/3 organic, 1/3 acquisition. So organic, we just recruited 60 people. As Angel said, the average production per sales is between 5 and 8, he is prudent, let's say, 6. And if you divide our revenue, which is EUR 2.7 billion by EUR 450 million which was -- it's about an average of EUR 6 million. Now 6 more -- 60 more people and 150 more people at the end of the plan or 3 years because it takes time to ramp up. That's about EUR 800 million, EUR 900 million. So the organic is being taken care of. It's not finished. It's a big job. It's very difficult because we recruit people, and we need to make them succeed, which is the second step. And we still need to hire 60 more this year and next year. So we have challenges. But acquisition, we're aiming at EUR 400 million, what -- EUR 400 million. So, okay, we are starting. There's nothing urgent. And we don't want -- as Angel said, we don't want to spend too more money too fast because it's easy to be shiny, but it's difficult to manage. Anne, can you speak loudly because we can't hear you very well?

Sorry. A question on the results from discontinued activities. How do you explain the gap between the results posted end of June and versus this -- the result end of year?

Discontinued?

Yes.

Yes so in the June 30 results, we had the benefit of the capital gain of the disposal of Les Abeilles in the discontinued activity at P&L level. Within the discontinued activity, there is 1 operation named Synertrade, which is an e-procurement platform, which was negatively affected 2x by a cyberattack by Cactus during the second half of 2024. In conjunction with those attacks, there have been certain number of consequences. One was the, let's say, slowdown in the commercial activity for obvious reasons. Each and every of the potential client prospects slowed down their decision-making process in respect of becoming effective customer. That's one point. And the second aspect was the need for a certain number of investments to fix the IT infrastructure. So this operation is under very close monitoring by the Econocom group. This is something we closely monitor at ComEx level. We had some sharp decision, including, in particular, the change in management team of this operation. We expect Synertrade to be disposed in 2025 on the back of the initiative which are taken, both in terms of reorganization, fixing the IT tools and regaining some momentum in the commercial space.

Another question about the footprint of the group in 2030. How do you envision just after the strategic plan is achieved?

I will try to make that question short, if I can because...

Do you notice when the questions become very difficult, we send a very tall guy. Okay. This is already a difficult question. Quentin will be with me. I will be last.

Well, the question is not easy, but there is an answer for that. When we prepare the strategic plan with the team of BCG, Boston Consulting Group, one of the things we prepare is we are always talking about finance, products and solutions services, okay? So we -- first thing we prepare is how our customers are expecting? Now I go to the answer, okay, but just to put a bit of context on that, okay? So we have to prepare that, and we change all this language into more related to workplace, infrastructure, audiovisual. That is the same, but with a different world, okay, that -- really our customers are really understanding much better. Based on that, we prepare the matrix. So which is the Econocom situation right now in workplace, in infrastructure, in audiovisual and in finance, country by country. And then the next thing is we have to fill the gaps. So if we go to U.K., that right now I know it, we are quite good in finance. We are quite good in workplace, but we have to develop infrastructure audiovisual. So making the answer short, how I see the situation in 2030, I see the situation filling these gaps correctly because that's something that is going to happen. But more important than that is being really, really creative because maybe that metrics related to workplace, infrastructure, audiovisual maybe can have changes because the market is changing, the market is evolving. Situation is changing every day. But that's more or less the strategy under our job. Is okay the answer?

But 2042, I will be 100 years old, so I'm very interested.

On the platform, we have a question on the dividend. and the repayment to shareholders. So why did you cut your dividend even though the balance sheet is strong and profits should recover in 2025? Why did you cut your dividend?

Pardon.

Why did you cut your dividend?

Why did I cut the dividend? Well, we had this discussion yesterday at the Board. We decided to keep the same level of dividend compared to the profit. So compared to the total profit, we distributed -- we decided to do about 40% of the profit as dividend, which has been the policy in the last probably 5 years or 6 years. So we -- the number would be between EUR 0.09 and EUR 0.10 per share because the number of share has decreased. So we have decided to keep the same policy. No question in the room.

Can you hear me?