Edenred SE (EDEN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

February 21, 2023

Euronext Paris FR Financials Financial Services earnings 96 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Bertrand Dumazy

executive
#1

Good morning, everybody. I am Bertrand Dumazy, and I am with Julien Tanguy, the CFO of the group, Edenred. And we are very pleased to have you today for the presentation of our full year 2022 results. If I go to Page 2, the first thing is, yes, we posted in 2022 some growth of about 25%. And this growth is marked by an acceleration in Q4. So 24.8% as reported growth for the total revenue and almost 30% in Q4. In fact, this growth has been fueled by a strong business momentum, but also by commercial dynamism. And behind that, you have a lot of continuous innovation for Edenred. So those record full year top line growth results in compelling financial performance. The EBITDA is at EUR 836 million, which is up almost 25% reported and 23% like-for-like. We also have a record net profit group share, up 23.3% at EUR 386 million. And we are also pleased to post a record free cash flow of EUR 881 million that leads to an unleveraged profile with a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio at 0.4x. So we are able to propose to the general is also true, in fact, in terms of sustainable development KPIs for Edenred. We exceeded all our targets in 2022. And as you know, we joined the Euronext CAC 40 ESG Index in September of 2022. So now when we look for 2023 and beyond, what do we see? The first thing that we see is, yes, we're going to continue to take full advantage of our unique platform. And thanks to this unique platform in which we invest a lot, we will be able to scale the core to grow further, but we will -- so what does it mean? It means more client. Then the second aspect is we're going to propose more services, thanks to our strategy of beyond food, beyond fuel and beyond payments. And finally, we will continue to invest in our tax to make sure that we enhance our value proposition and we increase the differentiation versus the competition. So to make a long story short, thanks to the growth in 2022, the investments and the ambition we have, we see a great 2023. Yes, we are and we want to be the everyday platform for people at work. Yes, we have strong commercial momentum to continue in 2023. Yes, we will continue to have an operating leverage and a solid cash generation. And yes, we are able to confirm our targets that we set in our strategic plan a few months ago, a plan that is called Beyond. What does it mean? It means that, yes, we see for 2023 like-for-like EBITDA growth of at least 12%, and we see free cash flows on EBITDA conversion rate that is going to be more than 70%. The last thing in introduction is due to our profile that is unleveraged and cash generative, we have the firepower to seize external growth opportunities, a firepower today that is at more than EUR 2 billion. So after this [psych exam], I propose you to enter into the details. So in 2022, as you may see, Page 5, our total revenue is up reported by 25% at more than EUR 2 billion. Our EBITDA is up 25% at EUR 836 million. Our free cash flow, up 70% in reported numbers at EUR 881 million. And the net profit in reported is up by 23% at EUR 386 million. In fact, the strong commercial momentum that we developed in 2023 has translated into double-digit like-for-like growth across the board. So if I move to Page 7, and if we focus on the operating revenue, you see that in H1 2022, the growth was 17%. In Q3, the growth was 19%. And in Q4, the growth was 22%. So yes, we have an acceleration of our growth in Q4, but we saw that in the second part of the year, quarter after quarter. Now if we go to Page 8, and we look at how the growth is spread, we can say that we have a well-balanced growth because this growth is double digit on every product line. In employee benefits, representing 59% of our total revenue, the reported growth is about 20%. In Fleet & Mobility, that represents 28% of our total revenue, the growth reported is 30% and on complementary solutions, representing 13% of our total operating revenue, the reported growth is almost 22%. So yes, the Edenred growth is well balanced per product line. But this growth is also well balanced by geographies. If you look at Europe, representing 61% of our total -- of our operating revenue, the reported growth is almost 18%. In Latin America, operating revenue growth is almost 34%. And for the rest of the world, representing 8% of our total operating revenue, the growth is 25%. So well balanced per product line, well balanced per geographies. And in fact, you know that at Edenred, we enjoy sustainable and profitable growth. So this top line growth drove a further increase in profitability. If I move to Page 11. Here, you can see our EBITDA and our EBITDA margin. And what you see is reported the EBITDA margin moved from 31.1% to 31.2%. And in fact, if you make the computation like-for-like, it's an improvement of 69 basis points. And we are able to post EUR 836 million of EBITDA in 2022 knowing that initially, our range or, let's say, our target range was between EUR 770 million and EUR 810 million. And in October, we have been able to upgrade, in fact, this guidance to EUR 810 million up to EUR 840 million. In fact, we enjoy sustainable and profitable growth. Why? Because cash is king, and we want to reinvest our generation of cash. In 2022, the cash generation was at its highest. Page 13, you see on the left the generation of free cash flow. And you see that the free cash flow in 2022 was EUR 881 million, coming from EUR 518 million, which means an EBITDA to free cash flow conversion of 85%. In fact, we had in 2022, an exceptional event due to the change of the regulation in Germany moving some regulated funds to nonregulated funds. So if I exclude, in fact, this exceptional event, the cash conversion is 85%. If I take into account this exceptional event of EUR 170 million, the cash conversion would have been 105%. And due to this high level of cash generation, it has a very positive impact on our net debt. The net debt moved down from EUR 816 million to EUR 307 million. It means a leverage ratio, net debt to EBITDA, EBITDA that has decreased from 1.2x to 0.4x. And not only Edenred was able to deliver a historical growth in absolute value, but also in percentage, a well-balanced growth, growth with some acceleration in Q4. We also have been able to deliver outstanding extra financial performance. And you know that at Edenred, we love being well balanced on our 2 legs, financial performance and extra financial performance. On the left part of the Slide #15, you see our target for 2022 on 3 main KPIs: ideal people, ideal Planet, ideal progress. I may remind you that behind that, there are some other KPIs. We are working with 10 KPIs. But for the 3 of them, what you can see is in terms of ideal people, the diversity at Edenred is making some progress among executive position, which is the top 350 people at Edenred. We moved the ratio of women among those positions from 31% to 33%. As to ideal planet, you know our commitment in terms of greenhouse gas emission intensity reduction. We had a target of minus 36%, and we are now at minus 51%. As to the ideal progress and our fight for balanced nutrition and against food waste, we are now at a ratio of 58%. So yes, we did well in terms of extra financial performance in 2022, and we have been recognized for that because we entered the CAC 40 ESG since September 2022. And as you can see, all our ratings have been improving as well in 2022. So that's what we achieved in 2022. Most importantly now is what do we want to achieve, and what we want to achieve for the coming years is to scale the Edenred platform. Yes, we have the mission, we have the vision to be the everyday platform for people at work. And this vision is based on 2 pillars. First of all, we are living in a new market paradigm. What does it mean? First of all, if we look at the working world transformation, we see a surging demand for differentiated and customized employee benefits solution. In 2023, more than 72% of the HR management -- HR managers, sorry, are planning to have a differentiated and personalized employee benefit strategy. And we can help them doing that. If you think about the portfolio of employee benefit solutions we have at Edenred, it's more than 100 different solutions that we are able to propose. Think about that in France, with 1 single app on your cell phone called MyEdenred, you can have access as an employee to 8 different benefits for a total of EUR 6,000 of additional purchasing power per year and per employee. And what is true in France, it's true in many countries where Edenred operates. So for example, in Brazil, you have 1 solution that is called SuperFlex once again, on your cell phone. It's a digital account and you have access to 5 different benefits that gives you a lot of additional purchasing power. And in fact, when we look at the level of cross-selling rate increase in 2022, we gained 4 points. So thanks to our platform, we are able to propose more and more additional services. And we are more -- and we have more and more clients who are looking for those opportunities. So our level of cross-selling is increasing. What is true in, in fact, our benefits business line is also true for our mobility business line. When we look and we try to understand our fleet managers you have a higher proportion in 2022, and it's going to continue like that, that are super sensitive to the energy mix and carbon emission and to the automation. And we have a solution for them. One example in Latin America, where we are the #1 in terms of Fleet & Mobility. In Brazil, the number of vehicles that are managed by our software and data powered solutions called GoHub has increased by 30%. It's a sequential growth because it's 30% from the third quarter of 2022 to the fourth quarter of 2022. So what is true in Fleet & Mobility is also true in our Corporate Payment solutions. And if we zoom very quickly on the U.S. market. The U.S. market is a super large market in terms of payment B2B. It's a market of about -- I lost it, about USD 26 trillion per year. And in fact, out of this -- in fact, USD 25 trillion. Out of the USD 25 trillion, in fact, you have 81% of, in fact, those payments that are still made via paper checks. And paper checks are super costly for the payer and for the payee. The cost is about USD 26 billion. Not only it is costly, but it's not super safe because the annual losses due to check fraud in the U.S. is about USD 18 billion. So when we interview those people, 60% are declaring that, yes, they are likely to convert from paper check to digital B2B payment. And that's the business we are in, thanks to Edenred CSI in the U.S. And so what do we see in 2022 versus 2021? The increase in terms of virtual cards issue has been by 38%. So the digitalization of the payment B2B in the U.S. is on its way, and Edenred is one of the player on this market. So yes, we are living in a world and on markets that are super dynamic, whether on corporate payment but also on mobility, but also on benefits. And on those markets, we want to leverage what we call the Edenred platform advantage. What is the Edenred platform advantage? Page 23. I remind everybody that, yes, we are doing the orchestration of specific purpose payment on the platform where you have 52 million plus users on 1 side and 2 million plus merchants on the other side. And in fact, we talk to these people, we do business with these people, thanks to our B2B2C distribution organization via 950,000 corporate clients. So our business model is super efficient by design. Going B2B means low acquisition cost, means high engagement rate and means a high level of monetization. And so the multiplication of those 3 things makes our business model super efficient, and we are at scale with more than 52 million users. And in fact, this platform is due to 4 different levers of technology, allowing us to have, on one side, local relevance and on the other side, global scale. Local relevance, Why? Because what we propose to the users and to the clients, i.e., the employee and the employer, is some top-notch digital experiences, then to be able to deliver super good user experiences, we need to have the right layer of business applications. But to be able to provide business applications below that, there is another layer that we call the digital services. And those digital services, they can be developed by Edenred and managed by Edenred, but they need to be connected with the external world as well. And finally, below that, you have a layer of what we call infrastructure that needs to be super strong because it's the foundation, the tech foundation of the digital services, so when the business application, so then the digital experiences and the ability to build those 4 layers to deliver the best and the simplest user experience is the key of the success, and the ability to make those 4 layers connecting to each other via API and connected to the external world is also key for the success. So this platform in which we invest a lot allows us to get global scale, but also local relevance. And so thanks to that, we have an accelerated time to market. So the idea is to provide more services to more clients with more innovation. So what does it mean? If I take the first layer that we call digital experiences, yes, the idea is to offer a seamless user and client experience with, for example, plastic less. We launched our plastic less offer in, in fact, a few years ago. And today, we are pleased to say that we have twice more users in 2022 with a plastic less solution versus 2021. Plastic less solution, what does it mean? No more card, no more carbon footprint on your cell phone, and you pay on the payment device of your merchant with your cell phone. We started in 2019 in Finland. And today, we have more than 1 client new out of 3 that is choosing only plastic less. And so we have 45% more plastic less users in 2022 than in 2021 in Finland. Without those, this 4-layer platform, we won't be able to deliver this service and to leverage it and to roll it out in 8 countries because we are now live in 8 countries within Edenred. If I go to the second layer that is called the business application, business application concretely, what does it mean? It means that when you think about our employee engagement platform, we are able to aggregate different services and to deliver that to the end user. In France, 1 example, ProwebCE Edenred, which is the #1 employee engagement platform in France. Think about it, 7 million active users in France, active users of the Edenred services, 2,000 partner brands and an increase in volume of 25% in 2022 versus 2021. So a lot of organic growth, but also some consolidation that can be made within the last few days. In fact, we bought 2 companies called Enjoy Mon CSE and [Cap CSE] What is done in France is also done in Belgium. So in Belgium, we are the #1 player on the market where you have circa 4 million eligible users, and we are leveraging 400 partner brands. And the growth we have is 40% in volume in 2022. But it's also true in Romania. It's also true in many different countries where we roll out, thanks to our platform, our employee engagement services. If I look at the digital services, so the level 3 of the platform where you have some connection outside the digital platform of Edenred, thanks to this API connection, we are now able to propose to our users in Europe, 33 European countries, more than 400,000 charging stations. So when you have an energy card of Edenred in 33 European countries in, you are able to charge electrically your vehicles. And if you look at what it means commercially, we have an increase of 60% in customers with mixed fleet management solution in '22 versus 2021. And so once again, thanks to this 4 layer platform, we are able to connect easily with some other solution and propose that to be the everyday platform for people at work. And finally, the infrastructure, i.e., what we call the tech foundations. We invested EUR 385 million in tech in 2022. When I say investment, it's OpEx and CapEx. This amount has increased by 28% in 2022 versus 2021. Why? Because those tech foundations are absolutely key to fuel the growth and to be secure and compliant. So that's why at Edenred, we accelerated in 2022 the investments, and we will continue to do so in 2023 and further the way. We want to continue to improve our fundamentals. We want to have the best platform in terms of stability, in terms of reliability, in terms of compliance. And we want to be the leader in terms of data power services that we can propose to our clients with 52 million users with a volume of EUR 38 billion of transactions with a growth of 25%. We have Teradatas and Teradatas that we can sort, store and exploit for delivering data powered services. So yes, we have a platform. Yes, this platform creates what we call the Edenred platform advantage. Thanks to this platform, we are able to increase our addressable market. We are able to enrich our business model, so we are able to accelerate our sustainable and profitable growth. In the enrichment of the business model, not only the platform advantage help us accelerate our revenue generation because we are strong on acquisition, engagement and monetization, but we are also able to decrease our cost to serve. So this platform creates what we call the platform advantage, but also increase barriers to entry, as you can see, Page 30. Yes, we have a large portfolio B2B2C. Once again, 52-plus million users, 2 million plus partner merchants, 950,000 corporate clients. Yes, our technology is at scale. We invested EUR 1.9 billion since 2016. We invested EUR 385 million in 2022. It's a huge and large investment, and we intend to continue to do so. Thanks to that, we are able to propose customized solutions. So we have about 250-plus programs in 45 different countries. And finally, thanks to those investments, our business volume is growing EUR 38 billion in 2022. Why? Because we are a player of trust, and we are a player that is super compliant. And there is a trust aspect when you manage those huge flows of cash that needs to go back to the employees. So to deliver this vision, we have a plan, and the plan is called Beyond, as we shared with you during our Capital Market Day in October 2022. Let me remind you a few things. First of all, Edenred is operating on vastly under-penetrated market. And within those markets, and it's true for every product line of Edenred, Employee Benefits, Fleet & Mobility, Corporate Payment. But within each of this business line, we also know that the SME segment is 3 to 5x less penetrated than the large account. So there is still a huge opportunity to go after more penetration, especially for the SMEs. So on those markets, we want to scale the Edenred platform. And scale the Edenred platform means 3 things, Page 33. First of all, we want to scale the core. So we want to grow further in under-penetrated core markets. It means more customers and maximization of this base of customers, thanks to the minimization of the churn, maximization of the upsell, the cross-sell and the pricing. And we know that it's going to represent about 60% of our total growth for the coming years. The second part of the Beyond plan is to extend beyond. Extend beyond, what does it mean? It means more client -- sorry, more product and services. So we want to accelerate our Beyond Food, Beyond Fuel and Beyond Payment service offer, and we see that in 2022. And finally, for 10% of our total growth, knowing that beyond more services will represent about 30% of our total growth for the next 3 years, then we want to expand in new business opportunities for about 10% of our total revenue. So yes, scaling the Edenred platform means more clients, 60%; more services, 30% of the growth; and more business opportunities in new territories for about 10%. And obviously, at Edenred, we love the managerial discipline and the simplicity. So you see Page 34 that the deployment across business line is done in a very simple way and the same way for every product line. If we move to Page 35, not only we are operating on under-penetrated market on which we want to leverage our platform advantage. But to do that, we will be able to extend the total addressable market. And what you see per product line is today the total addressable market of Edenred versus what we addressed today is 3x bigger in employee benefits, 2.5x bigger in Fleet & Mobility and 2.5x bigger in Corporate Payment. So the markets we are addressing today are only 1/3 of the addressable markets. And in those markets, the penetration is still low. And on those low penetrated market, the SME segment is the 1 where there is the highest potential. So if I take a few examples, and I start with Scale the Core. Scale the Core, what does it mean? It means in employee benefits, for example, we have been able to increase the take-up rate. And you see the take-up rate that has increased from 5.1% in 2019 to 5.3%. And so more penetration, additional services, innovation. Fleet & Mobility, what does it mean more clients? It means increase the penetration of the SME segment. The number of contract has increased by 21% in 2022. In Corporate Payments, more clients to Scale the Core, what does it mean developing the CSI platform ecosystem, new verticals, property management, utilities, extend our distribution network with some partners like Citi, Sage or Oracle. And so our operating revenue growth has been more than 20% in 2022. If I go even deeper in Scale the Core, we want to harness the potential for face value increases. If you look at what has happened, Page 37, at Edenred in 2022, about 45% of our revenue has been impacted by the increase of the face value. I have 2 good news behind that. The first thing is 55% did not see any increase in 2022. So it will come because the pressure due to the inflation forces the employer to give more benefits. So we still have 55%, but we're not part of this process of maximum legal face value increase in 2022. The second good news is it takes about 2 years to get 85% of the growth. So it's only the beginning of the process of maximization of the face value increase usage among our portfolio. So now if I move to the second part of the plan, the second part that we call Extend Beyond. If I take 2 examples, 1 in Portugal, 1 in LatAm. In Portugal in benefits. In Portugal, like in France, like in Brazil, like in many other countries, we are launching our multi-benefit solution to increase the purchasing power of the employees. So in Portugal, you have a super app. This super app is called Flexivel. And you have access to 4 universities: education, training, health and social support. You have access to a merchant network of 2,400 merchants, public and private merchants, and it gives you additional EUR 1,000 of purchasing power. What is true in what we call Beyond Food is also true for Beyond Fuel. So in Latin America, we started the journey of what we call the maintenance platform. But -- so it's a multi-country platform. We started in Brazil. We are deploying in Mexico and in Argentina. We are the #1 leader in Brazil. We have more than 30,000 merchants in our network, and the cross-selling is about 40% between Fuel Solutions and Energy Solutions and Maintenance Solution. So yes, we are able to provide more services in the food business, but also in the fuel business. And everywhere around the world, that's the strength of the global presence of Edenred. We are also able to extend Beyond Food's M&A, Beyond Food. So we invested into better ways. So mobility in France, Beyond Fuel, Greenpass, totally digital, cloud-based API-based solution to pay for your toll in Brazil. And Beyond Payment with IPS where, in fact, we are able to expand the CSI Edenred value proposition Beyond Payment with this acquisition so to be able to offer an end-to-end integrated invoice-to-pay offering to our portfolio of clients. If I zoom on Betterway. With Betterway, we started with a commercial partnership, i.e., the Betterway solutions are distributed via the Edenred platform. And we decided to go further with the 2 founders of the company. So in their need of financing, we invested EUR 4 million to consolidate our partnership and to accelerate the development on the French benefits market. It's a huge market. The total addressable market is EUR 70 billion. It's a low-penetrated market, 5% only. And our ambition is super strong. We want to multiply that by 10 between 2022 and 2025. So you know our strategy Beyond for the economic performance, but we also want to accelerate on ESG. As you know, the way we look at the ESG at Edenred is as a company, we want to be a frontrunner on 3 dimensions. We want to be the employer of choice. In terms of our greenhouse gas emission, we want to be net 0 carbon by 2050, following the SBTi methodology. And finally, we want to be recognized as a trustworthy tech for good. But we want also to help our clients to move towards this transition using Edenred solutions. And for that, we have a series of KPIs, 8 KPIs, and we will continue our long journey for reinforced ambition on our ESG strategy. Thank you for your attention. And to finish before we move to Julien to go more into the details of the financial performance, I propose you to breathe, listening to one of the last contract we signed. It is in Africa. It is in Cameroon, and it is a usage of our unique platform, a unique platform that is able to propose specific purpose money solution for farmers in Cameroon. Enjoy the show. [Presentation]

Julien Tanguy

executive
#2

Good morning, everyone. I'm very happy to be with you to present the detailed financial performance of Edenred after this great example of the features that our platform is bringing to many people around the world. So I propose we move to Page 46 and to review our operating revenue performance. So this performance is marked by an acceleration in Q4, driving further growth in 2022. So as you can see, our operating revenue is up 22.3% like-for-like in Q4 2021 -- in Q4 2022. That brings the year performance to a growth of 19.2%. You can see that we have a positive effect coming from currency. This positive effect is 3.7% for the full year, and it leads our performance in terms of operating revenue at 22.8% with an operating revenue of EUR 1.944 billion in 2022. So let's move to our performance per geography, and we start with Europe on Page 47. So in Q4, we delivered a solid performance in France and in the rest of Europe. The operating revenue is up 17.7% for the full year 2022, and the growth is even stronger in Q4 2022. It stands at 21.1%. In France, the operating revenue grew by 10%, both for the first quarter and for the full year. This strong performance comes mainly from our ticket restaurant offer. Our solution is successful with both large accounts and SMB. Regarding large accounts, we signed famous logos like H&M or Axon which is a famous discounter, during the first quarter of 2022. Axon has 17,000 employees in France. And the growth is also coming from SMB. We have been able to grow our clients' portfolio. Then on top of what we are doing with ticket restaurants, the performance is also driven by the success of our employee engagement platform that Bertrand presented to you. This platform is indicated to work on sales, and its e-commerce app is used by users that we can spend their gifts, vouchers and subsidies. In the rest of Europe, on the employee benefit side, like in France, our ticket restaurant sales fueled the growth, and we achieved a great gift campaign impacting both operating revenue and float generation. In Fleet & Mobility, we delivered robust growth, supported by our Beyond Fuel strategy. It means higher level of trust and deployment of added value services for the fleet managers. Now let's move to Page 48 to contemplate Latin America performance. So in Latin America, our like-for-like growth for the last quarter is above 20% and allows us to post a full year growth of 18.7%. In Brazil, the growth in Q4 and for the entire year is around 16.5% like-for-like. We delivered a strong performance for our 2 business lines. In Employee Benefits, growth has accelerated with a strong contribution from Edenred Food and Beyond Food offers, such as Ticket Superflex. And in Fleet & Mobility, the solid performance is supported by the continuous success of our Beyond Fuel solutions with maintenance and toll. In Hispanic Latin America, the growth is solid at plus 29%, allowing us to post the full year performance of 23%. We see an acceleration in the Employee Benefits business line, and we have a continued robust momentum in Fleet & Mobility Solutions with some key commercial successes deploying our Brazilian platform in new countries like Argentina and Mexico. It's done for the operating revenue. We move to Page 49 and to the other revenue. Our other revenue almost doubled from 2021 to 2022, moving up from EUR 44 million to EUR 87 million. As already mentioned, the successful campaign of this card and the momentum of our food strategy are growing the float. We took benefit of interest rate increase in all geographies throughout the year, and we generated EUR 33 million of other revenue in Q4. In 2023, we will benefit the full year impact of euro interest rates, while interest rates in Latin America or in non-Eurozone country could start to decline. On Page 50, let's look to a synthesis of our total revenue for Q4 and full year 2022 with 3 comments. For the first time ever, the Edenred's total revenue is above EUR 2 billion. Q3 was a record quarter with total revenue above EUR 500 million. Q4 is another record quarter with total revenue standing above EUR 600 million. I move to Page 51 to another record with level of EBITDA. EBITDA came in at EUR 836 million, up 24.9% compared to 2021 reported figures and up 23.3% in like-for-like. This historical level has been achieved, thanks to both operating leverage and other revenue contribution. The EBITDA margin stands at 41.2%, up 69 bps like-for-like, demonstrating a good control of operating expenses while increasing technology investments. On Page 52, let's focus on net profit group share and earnings per share. So Edenred's EBITDA is up 24.9%, and net profit group share is up 23.3%. Two main topics to comment on this page. First, the income tax expense is growing at the same pace as EBITDA, moving from EUR 151 million to EUR 188 million. And then the net financial expenses, which are moving from minus EUR 19 million to minus EUR 54 million, a variation of EUR 35 million. Those EUR 35 million can be mainly explained by 3 events. First, the appreciation of the fair value of Edenred investment in Partech funds, appreciation is lower in 2022 compared to 2021. And second, the impact from interest rate increase. Our fixed rate bonds have been swapped to variable rates, so interest rate increase has an impact on interest paid. Keep in mind that this interest rate increase has also an impact in our other revenue that we already discussed. And the third topic is the impair inflation impact coming from Turkey and Argentina. Turkey is qualified as impair inflation country since January 2022. All in all, the net profit group share amounts to EUR 386 million, up 23.3% versus 2021, and the earnings per share is EUR 1.55, up 23% compared to last year. After the P&L, we move to the free cash flow generation. So as Bertrand already explained, we delivered a very strong performance in EBITDA, and we have also generated a high level of free cash flow, thanks to FFO and cash generation from our business volume growth. Edenred free cash flow for 2022 is EUR 881 million. It includes an exceptional event as our Ticket Plus Card in Germany has been moved from regulated to nonregulated products impacting positively our restricted cash. Excluding these events, our free cash flow stands at EUR 710 million and the conversion ratio from EBITDA to free cash flow is 85%. If we dig into each line, starting with FFO. Our FFO stands at EUR 673 million, up 21% versus 2021. And you know that FFO is the first stage of the rocket of free cash flow. Then regarding the evolution of total cash inflow and outflow related to working capital, main variation are as follows. The float increased by EUR 264 million to be compared to EUR 198 million in 2021. This strong performance reflects the growth of employee benefits in 2022 and more specifically, in Q4 with a high comparison basis in 2021. Our gift campaign has been successful in Europe this year. The working capital requested, excluding float, is minus EUR 180 million to be compared to minus EUR 343 million in 2021. And keep in mind that in 2021, this amount includes the payment of ADLC fine. Excluding these events, the working capital request is quite stable from a year to the year there and is mainly impacted by PPA's direct activity. Our e-services provided by PPS to digital banks. And finally, the restricted cash is plus EUR 275 million and includes a new classification of our Ticket Plus Card in Germany. And here, again, the main variation comes from PPS Direct as the cash managed on behalf of its digital banks is regulated. The total cash related to working capital is plus EUR 359 million, of which EUR 170 million coming from the exceptional events. CapEx stands at EUR 151 million, representing 7.4% of our total revenue. Edenred is investing to grow our technology capabilities and to seize new market opportunities. Taking into account all those facts, the free cash flow stands at EUR 881 million. It has been a record year for -- in terms of free cash flow generation for Edenred. I am now on Page 54, thanks to the solid free cash flow generation. And even if we paid a full cash dividend in 2021, we've been able to get the debt to a level of EUR 307 million to be compared to EUR 816 million 1 year ago. Our leverage ratio net debt out of EBITDA is down to 0.4x coming from 1.2x at the end of 2021. I move now to Page 55, where you will find synthesis of financial position. The average debt maturity is 3.9 years, and we have no wall of debt in front of us. We do not have financial covenants, and S&P confirmed our BBB+ rating, increasing the outlook to positive from stable in April last year. Our gross debt profile -- our gross debt level amounts to EUR 2.8 billion. And the cost of debt in December is 2.2% to be compared to 0.7% in December 2021 because of euro interest rate increase during the second half of 2022. I move to Page 56. And after a record year and with a strong balance sheet, we will propose to the general meeting of a EUR 1 dividend per share, i.e., 11% increase compared to 2021. As we did it in 2021, this dividend would be paid fully in cash. This dividend is consistent with our CapEx investment with our M&A ambition and is in line with our progressive dividend policy. Regarding the CapEx, we will invest to further drive innovation and sales as explained during the CMD in October last year, we plan to invest between 7% and 8% of our total revenue every year. Regarding M&A, we have more than EUR 2 billion to invest, given current leverage and free cash flow generation. A stringent financial and strategic discipline are governing investment decisions. And with a EUR 1 dividend, we stick to our progressive dividend policy. All those figures are taking into account our objective of maintaining a strong investment-grade rating. I give the mic back to Bertrand for the end of the presentation. Bertrand will share with you the 2023 outlook for the Edenred platform.

Bertrand Dumazy

executive
#3

Thank you, Julien. And so to finish this presentation, what do we see for 2023? And I propose that we move to Page 58. So yes, I'm sure you understand that we are very positive for the coming years as to the ability of Edenred to generate sustainable and profitable growth. Why? There are 4 main reasons for that. The first reason is, yes, we are the everyday platform for people at work, and we are making the promotion of socially, economically and environmentally virtuous solutions that are enriching connections for good. And we are serving essential needs, which is a good platform for growth. The second reason is, yes, we demonstrated year after year, and we intend to continue doing so. We demonstrated a proven ability to identify and convert into business opportunities macro trends. And what are the macro trends that we are seeing? First of all, the digitization of the economy, the changes in the working world and the energy transitions. And so yes, we will be able to better address those client needs. The third reason of the fact that we are looking at the future with ambition and with confidence is the fact that we have been investing, and we will continue to invest into our unique platform. And we are able to strengthen our digital and technological leadership. And so we are able to deliver seamless user-friendly, compliant and efficient digital native solutions. And the fourth reason why we are very positive about the future of sustainable and profitable growth for Edenred is amid falling purchasing power the talent war and the need for better control of fleet expenses, yes, Edenred is able to take full benefit of the increased attractiveness of our solution. So we are scaling the advantage of our platform. We are aggregating, orchestrating and distributing a growing number of B2B solution, and all of those are going to fuel the future growth of Edenred. The future growth, what does it mean? It means that in our plan, 2022 is well on its way to deliver EUR 5 billion of total revenue by 2030. And to do that, the first or, let's say, the next step of this journey to EUR 5 billion is the year 2023. And yes, based on what we achieved in 2022, based on the investments that we are making, based on the ambition we have for Edenred, we are able to confirm our targets for 2023, targets that we shared with all of you in the Capital Market Day, saying that our EBITDA growth like-for-like in 2023 will be at least 12% and our cash conversion in 2023 i.e., the EBITDA to free cash flow ratio, will be above 70%. Thank you for your attention. And before we are moving to the Q&A session for 30 minutes, I would like to share with you a movie that is summarizing the Beyond 2022, 2025 strategic plan of Edenred. Enjoy the show. [Presentation]

Bertrand Dumazy

executive
#4

Okay. Welcome back. So it's now time for the question. I understand that the first question is Julien.

Operator

operator
#5

Yes, certainly. [Operator Instructions] And we move first to Julien from Kepler.

Julien Richer

analyst
#6

I have 3 questions, if I may. The first one, if you can give us an update on Brazilian regulation and especially on interoperability. I don't know if you have more visibility on how it will be implemented this year. The second 1 on other revenue. So you posted a EUR 33 million in Q4. Is it fair to extrapolate that level quarter-by-quarter in 2023? Or have you any idea on what will be the level of other revenue next year? And the last 1 in EBITDA margin and especially on operating EBITDA margin, it was down compared to last year. Is it something that will also happen in 2023, given the high level of growth and investment in platform, et cetera? Or do we have to expect something more flattish in '23 after the performance in '22?

Bertrand Dumazy

executive
#7

Okay, Julien, thank you for your 3 questions. I propose that we start with the other revenue. So Julien?

Julien Tanguy

executive
#8

Yes. So regarding other revenue, you've seen that in Q4, we've been able to post EUR 33 million of other revenue. Other revenue are coming from 2 things. The first one is our capacity to grow the business volume. It means that we have more float as we've seen it in the free cash flow. And the second thing is the interest rate increase. We know that interest increase picked up in 2022. And then when we look at the euro interest rates, they picked up, especially in H2. So in 2023, you will have the full year impact of euro interest rates that will stay at least at the level where they are today. Then regarding other interest rates, with season inflation is still high in Europe, especially in non-Eurozone country. So I think that interest rates should stay at the level where they are today. Then when we look at Latin America because Brazil has been the first country to have high interest rates, they could be able to control inflation and maybe we will have a decrease of interest rate in Brazil. However, I remind you that 15% of our float is in Latin America and 80% is in Europe. So for 2023 we should have a high level of other revenue compared to what it has been in 2022.

Bertrand Dumazy

executive
#9

Okay. Thank you, Julien. So then if we move to the Brazilian regulation First of all, let's remember all of us that the path, which is the alimentation for the workers, has never been so strong in Brazil. Why? Because since this summer, it is part of the law. Before that, it was only a decree. Now it is law. So the program has never been solid like that due to the fact that it is in the law. The second part that is super positive as well for the path in Brazil is the fact that by law, it cannot be postpaid. It has to be prepaid. So there is no facility of payment that can be given before the emission of the card. And the second thing is no discount is possible anymore. So that's the second part of the law that is super positive for the [PAT] program and for issuers like us in Brazil. Then as to the interoperability, as I explained the last time we talked, the concept has been launched, and nobody knows exactly what it means. That's why the new government -- and you know that there was some general election in Brazil. And the majority is now in the hands of the [indiscernible], the left part of the political stage in Brazil though this new government decided to build a commission to discuss about the interoperability, but the commission has not been nominated yet. And so there was no first meeting of this commission, knowing that, obviously, the association of the issuers is part of the commission. So to your question, anything new on Brazilian regulation? The answer is no. But there is a positive fact and the fact that the commission will sit in the coming months to discuss about interoperability. Then your third question was about the EBITDA margin and the operating EBITDA margin. In fact, if you look at the EBITDA margin, as we said, with the published numbers, the EBITDA margin is increasing. And if you look at the like-for-like number, the EBITDA margin is increasing as well. Why? Because we are a scale business i.e., the more volume we bring to the platform, the more profitable we are. And you see that the volume, the business volume has increased by more than 25% in 2022, reaching a historical level of EUR 38 billion. But what we also said, we also said that when times are super good, our job is to invest to accelerate the growth of Edenred. And the investments at Edenred, knowing that we are a digital company, are mainly in technology and in sales. We need salespeople to fuel the growth. And in technology, 60% of our technological investments are OpEx investments, i.e., to pay some developers and digital engineers. So what we did in 2022 is, in fact, to accelerate our rate of investments. And as you see, we increased our technological investments by 28%. And in fact, even more in -- in the fourth quarter of 2022, we accelerated our investments. Why? Because we know that it works. We did it, for example, during the COVID, we accelerated our investment by 6%, whereas everybody else was totally frozen. And we saw the immediate effect of this investment. We had only 1 quarter with negative growth, the Q2 of 2022, then Q3 back to growth, then Q4, even more growth. Then in 2021, we reached a level that was higher than the level of 2019. And now in 2022, we post an historical growth of 25%. So to make a long story short, if we did not accelerate our investments in sales and technology, we could have posted an even higher EBITDA margin because we are a scale business. But to fuel the future growth we took the decision to accelerate those investments and especially in Q4. Thank you. So who's next?

Operator

operator
#10

We're now moving on to Paul Sullivan of Barclays.

Paul Daniel Sullivan

analyst
#11

Just a few for me. Firstly, how should we think about the shape of growth in 2023? Obviously, you have the buildup of volume growth from '22. You've got a face value follow through. But clearly, that's balanced by tough comps and oil price headwinds. So how should we think about that? Then secondly, in aggregate, can you quantify how much inflation contributed to growth last year and in Q4? And specifically -- and are there any face value changes to note so far this year? And then just a couple of follow-ups from -- on Brazil. So whilst that commission is taking or is sitting, does that mean sort of interoperability is pushed out? Or is there no change until we get clarity from the government? And then on margin, the -- you're very clear on the tech investment and I get it. But how should we think about operating margins this year? Should we think about sort of stability given that tech investment will clearly be a feature this year, too?

Bertrand Dumazy

executive
#12

Okay. Thank you, Paul, for those 4 questions. So I propose that I start. And Julien, you stop me any time you want to add something.

Julien Tanguy

executive
#13

Let's do that.

Bertrand Dumazy

executive
#14

So if we start with the shape of growth in 2023. We said that the EBITDA growth will be a minimum of 12%. So as you know, it's a floor. And for the last 8 years in a row, we did better than the floor that we gave, even if the floor is higher strategic plan after strategic plan. I'm sure you'll remind our first plan that was called Fast Forward. And we said minimum 8, and we did it. Then the second plan on a higher level of EBITDA, we said minimum 10, and we have been doing it at the exception of the year of COVID. And here on the much larger base, because the EBITDA was multiplied by 2 in 6 years, we said minimum 12%. So how it's going to happen? Many positive trends. So many, let's say, tailwinds and a few headwinds. And the net of both is very positive. The tailwinds, as we said, penetration and especially on SMEs, we have a cell machine that we are tuning every day in which we are investing also every day. So this engine is going to continue to produce a lot in 2023. So more client acquisition. The second thing is more services. So you see that our innovation engine is at full speed, and we have more to come. We have many plans in which we invested, in fact, in 2022, and we will start seeing the first introduction on the market in 2023. And so this, let's say, level of innovation that has been fueled by investments, plus in fact, the cross-selling machine that we put in place will generate more and more revenue coming from what we call Beyond. So expect the maintenance to grow very strongly in 2023, expect our data-powered products such as GoHub, for example, to grow quickly in 2023, expect our employee engagement platform in many countries in Europe to accelerate, in fact, their growth. So the ability to give purchasing power, the ability to keep the cost base under control, thanks to our Fleet & Mobility, the ability to provide tools that help talent retention for our clients and efficiency, for example, in corporate payment, when you look at the costs of nondigital B2B payments are going to be a huge engine of growth for Edenred in 2023. There are a few headwinds in relative terms. The first 1 is, in fact, the slowdown of the economy, it's difficult to read for now. A few months ago, everybody was talking about recession. Now everybody talks about a slowdown. So we don't know yet how it's going to play. We know that there is a slowdown and a less robust, let's say, labor market. It could have an impact on Edenred. The truth is, as of today, we don't see it. So we stay cautious, but we don't see it in the performance of the Q4 and in the performance of the first few weeks of 2023. The second thing is, obviously, the war in Ukraine that could have an impact on the Eastern European countries. We don't know what's going to be the outcome. We don't know the duration of the conflict. We know that it could have a slowdown on the Eastern part of Europe. But the truth is, we don't see it as of today. Maybe it will come, but we don't see it as of today. So to make a long story -- and to make a long story short, based on the momentum, based on the foundations of this momentum and based on what we see in the first week of 2023, we know that the 12% is a bare minimum. Your second question is inflation in Q4 as to the face value increase and as to the fuel. So first of all, you know that 11% of the revenue of Edenred is dependent on fuel price evolution. And the fuel price evolution for us is mainly the price at pump. That's the first thing to bear in mind. So if you look at the positive impact of fuel price increase in 2022, for the entire year. In fact, it was about 2%. Knowing that your question was specifically on Q4. And in Q4, if I remember correctly, Julien, I think it was 0.9%.

Julien Tanguy

executive
#15

Yes.

Bertrand Dumazy

executive
#16

Why? Because as the basis of comparison between Q4 2022 and Q4 2021, in fact, was less positive as we said, in fact, during our publication of the H1 2022. So full year 2%. Q4, 0.9%. Face value increase. In fact, it's only the beginning. We -- as I said, 45% of our revenue, when we take it one by one where done in a country where we saw some face value increase. But this face value increase has happened during the entire year of 2022. Some in the middle of the year, some at the end of the year. So we didn't see the full effect, first thing. And the second thing is, as we said and we explained based on our observation, and we are a very good observer of what has happened for the last 20 years on our markets, we know that it takes 2 years before having the full impact of the potential, knowing that the potential is 85% of the legal face value increase. So to make a long story short, in 2023, we will benefit from those 45% that has just started to be implemented. And hopefully, the 55% that did not get any face value increase due to the pressure coming from the inflation and the need for purchasing power probably is going to be another engine for the growth of Edenred in 2023. Your third question was as to the interoperability in Brazil with the commission, I explained that to you, to all of you many times. We love Brazil. We have been in Brazil for the last, in fact, 47 years now. We started in 1976. We saw many political alternances. And so we know that things can take much more time than what it is said initially. I'm sure you remember a few years ago, it was said that maybe the cash coming from the PAT program would be regulated. We had many conversations with the authorities to explain us and the other issuers. It took about 3 to 4 years. And at the end of 3 to 4 years, the commission said, no, no, no, things are well done, and there is no need to be regulated by the Central Bank. As to the interoperability, no, we don't have more clarity. We know that it's going to take some time, why? Because nobody knows exactly what it means. That's the first thing. The second thing that I want to reiterate here is whatever happens we are super confident. Whatever the outcome, we are the #1 leader. We are the 1 who is growing the fastest. We are the one who is investing the cost, we demonstrated that we are super agile, and we love being creative and innovative. So whatever the outcome, we will get adapted to that. And we will probably be able to leverage the huge network that we have in Brazil. Why take some change that could come as a threat? It's mainly an opportunity when you are a leader. We have many assets in our hands. We are the one who can invest the most, maybe 20 years from now, with the best network that we have, we will get some revenues from that. So to make a long story short, there will be clarity on the concept, maybe when we don't know. We are an active player for the education of the people who decide in Brazil. And whatever the outcome, we are super confident in our ability to transform any change into opportunities. The last thing I want to say is the journey we did all together for the last 6 years is to multiply the opportunities and to divide the risks. Divide the risk is, yes, 6 years ago, our level of dependence of Brazil was high. It's not the case anymore. Brazil is more or less 20% of our total revenue. And in Brazil, more than 50% of our revenue is in Fleet & Mobility, which is another way to answer the question, but I don't like this way. I like looking at things as a huge field of opportunities for a super agile, super dynamic and ambitious player like Edenred. Then your first question was as to the evolution of the margin. So Julien, the margin.

Julien Tanguy

executive
#17

So the margin. So as we already explained, in 2022, we decided to invest in order to prepare the future growth of the company. You've seen that we've decided to invest more than EUR 380 million in tech, knowing that, as Bertrand explained, we have those 4 layers on the platform that are very important and that are built in order to simplify the use of our solution with a complexity that is hidden by the 4 layers. So those investments, if you compare to what we plan to do and what we presented during the Capital Market Day, are higher, around EUR 25 million have been invested on top of what was planned in Q4, knowing that 60% of those investments are OpEx. It means that in the P&L, you have around EUR 15 million that we decided to invest and that have an impact on the EBITDA margin. It's around 90 bps in terms of EBITDA margin, i.e., if we have not decided to invest those EUR 25 million, the EBITDA margin would have been 90 bps above what it is today. Now regarding 2023, we have a very good sales momentum, as we said, we have positive tailwinds such as interest rates and our float is growing, thanks to our BV growth. So our ambition is to keep on investing, and we will benefit from the very strong top line ambition to fuel this investment. And regarding the EBITDA margin, I believe, as Bertrand explained that we are a scale business. It means that we will be able to grow the EBITDA margin in the coming years, thanks to the level of investment we are doing today.

Bertrand Dumazy

executive
#18

Another way to say it, Julien and Paul is due to the fact that we are a scale business and a well-run business, the EBITDA margin in 2023 will improve. By how much? We don't know yet because it's going to depend on the pace of investments on top of the regular investments that we want to make.

Operator

operator
#19

And up next, we have Ed Young from Morgan Stanley.

Edward Young

analyst
#20

I feel like you've answered the margin question thoroughly. So I won't harp on that. I'd like to ask about the balance sheet, please. Obviously, a very strong position for net debt. Could you give a bit of a summary of where you are in terms of M&A and how active that is? You've always spoken about your discipline in that area. At what point in terms of the strength of the balance sheet or might even say, inefficiency would you potentially consider larger returns to shareholders?

Bertrand Dumazy

executive
#21

Okay. Ed, thank you for your question. So yes, we are totally deleveraged, which is super positive in time where the interest rates are going up and which is probably the best tribute to the quality of the growth that the Edenred platform is able to generate. So it gives us some firepower. And once again, what is the vision? The vision of Edenred is to go beyond and to go beyond, it means develop and commercialize on our platform more and more Edenred product and services, but also the ability to have Edenred products and services distributed by some other digital platforms. That's why the 4 layer and the API connection is absolutely key, but also the ability to distribute on our platforms, product and services that are developed by some other people. Betterway is a good example. Greenpass has been a good example as well. And we will do that more and more. So what does it mean? It means that on top of investments, we need to be able to buy companies to contribute to this Beyond strategy. So we are super pleased to have EUR 2 billion more of firepower. But as you said, it's not because we have the firepower that we're going to use it systematically. We will use it with the same financial discipline, i.e., the right adequation to the strategy, the right adequation in terms of synergies, and we love to build business that are profitable and sustainably profitable. So yes, thanks to the firepower and thanks to the ambition of growth and the strategy we have, you will see Edenred probably to be more acquisitive in the coming years, but keeping the same financial discipline. At what level could we consider to give back more. First of all, as you see, we have the dividend that is growing by 11%, which is in line with our progressive dividend policy, which is also in line with a growth company like us. And if for whatever reasons, we don't find the right targets answering the financial discipline and the strategy we are looking for. Yes, we could consider some share buyback knowing that 50% of our shareholding structure is in the U.S., and the share buyback is something that is, let's say, more enjoyed on this part of the Atlantic as compared to Europe. But first, we want to make sure that we have enough firepower to invest into the growth of Edenred via internal development, but also by acquisition.

Edward Young

analyst
#22

Very clear. Just 1 follow-up, if I could. In the allocation point you're being clear on. Could you perhaps give us some color on how you see public and private valuations right now? Our market -- are the prices being asked by companies realistic, i.e., is the ground more fertile for you to make those investments? Or is it just that you continue the same policy as before and you continue to be disciplined, but there's no real change from the previous situation over the last year or 2? .

Bertrand Dumazy

executive
#23

Maybe, Julien?

Julien Tanguy

executive
#24

Yes. So when we look at the multiple on the markets, it's fair to say that multiple, especially in private equity, are declining, but very slowly. If you compare the level of multiple this year compared to 1 year ago, it goes down, but only with a low level. We don't see on the private equity market, what we see with a public company and the -- I would say, the decrease of the valuation we've seen from November 2021 to the end of 2022. However, I think that because deals will have to be done, we should have a kind of convergence between private and public in terms of multiple.

Bertrand Dumazy

executive
#25

Okay. So we still have many people, in fact, in line. So let's make sure that you ask the right level of questions, not too many, if I may say so, to make sure that everybody has a chance to ask a question. So who's next? .

Operator

operator
#26

[Operator Instructions] And up next, we have Justin Forsythe of Credit Suisse.

Justin Forsythe

analyst
#27

I appreciate you having me on here. So I wanted to hit the -- a little bit parsing through the employee benefit strength we saw in 4Q. So maybe just walking a little bit through the growth algorithm because you hit that 23% like-for-like growth. So can you parse out what benefit you saw from face value increases versus growth at existing customers versus new customers? And also I think you called out in the past that gift card was driving a more difficult comparison in 4Q with an employee benefits. And so it sounds like that actually had quite a strong period. So maybe you could just hit those kind of 4 different impacts. And obviously, I think the employee for 2023 previously was a low double digit. So given the face value increases, are we expecting similar in 2023? Or is that re-rating a little bit higher? . And then just 1 side question, if you will, on the accounts payable integrations that you called out like Sage and NetSuite. Perhaps you could just talk a little bit to the competition within that for AP automation and card issuance. What is the share -- market share like within those different platforms? And how do you expect to expand that over time with a high level of competition that exist within those platforms?

Bertrand Dumazy

executive
#28

Okay. Justin, if you make my life very easy with 1 question, which is made of many sub questions. So I'll answer all of them, but I will be much faster, okay? So as to the employee benefit in Q4, first of all, employee benefit in Q4 is the biggest every year. It's, in fact, the biggest quarter due to exactly what you say, the end of year gift campaign. That's why every year, because you start from scratch every year, it's going to be a question of innovation, but also commercial momentum. And we didn't know because Q4 2021 has been super strong. So we have been a little bit, let's say, cautious because it has to be done every year from scratch. And in fact, in Q4, we did super well. Super well on gift, which is super good news as to the adequation of our offers to the market, but also the super good news as to our sales and marketing momentum and aggressivity on the market. So yes, we did 23% in Employee Benefits like-for-like. One of the main driver was a super successful gift campaign. I have to say that year after year, the sales force of Edenred is impressing me in the fact that they are always first to go beyond in terms of gift campaign. So we'll see how it goes in Q4 2023, but we know that we have a super successful engine on that. The second thing, it's everything else that I explained. We are penetrating more, especially on the SME segment. So the 20% more contracts we demonstrated in, in fact, in Fleet & Mobility, it's even higher on benefits. So the penetration engine is going full blast. And I have the feeling that there is still so much that we can do a lot. Once again, those segments are 3 to 5x less penetrated. The second thing is so more clients, the second thing, as I explained, the cross-selling is doing better in '22 versus '21, and we are not there yet. We increased our cross-selling rate by 4 points. And in 2023, we will do even better because we are getting smarter. We have much more things to offer, and we are helped by the willingness of the employers to compensate for the falling down of the purchasing power due to the inflation. So we will benefit also from that, i.e., a context that is very favorable to Edenred due to the purchasing power, but also the talent war. There is a need for qualified people everywhere around the world. There is no -- not enough labor force. And so our solution are a way to attract and retain talented people. And it's going to last for a long, long time, plus the fact that people are looking for customization. The generation Y and Z is very much into, okay, let's do things together. But when it comes to my benefits, let's make sure that it is customized and personalized. And the digital solution of Edenred, our fantastic tool for the HR Director to answer those needs. So to make a long story short, those engines that are structural, but also due to our innovation and commercial momentum will continue in 2023. Is it going to be double digit? Yes. Is it going to be at 23%? It's too early to say. Your second question is as to the AP integration. So the market is mainly in the U.S. It's a huge market. The need for digitalization is gigantic. Due to the size and to the cost of non-digitization, you have thousands of players in the U.S. So market share doesn't mean anything, depending on how you segment the market. If I take only, for example, the invoice automation we are with IPS, one of the leader, but it's a sub subsegment. So it's a large market. There is a lot of space for many players. There are a lot of players. So we will continue to grow organically at 20% and more, and we will consolidate as well because at some point of time, today, it's a land grabbing game. And at some point of time, it's going to be a consolidation game as well to make sure that the platforms are at scale. So that's the name of the game, focus in the U.S., focus on our subsegment and play the game of the organic growth and consolidation.

Operator

operator
#29

And our last question today comes from Mourad Lahmidi of Exane.

Mourad Lahmidi

analyst
#30

So 1 question on my side. On the other revenue line. So is it fair to expect the performance of Q4 to be multiplied by 4 in 2023?

Bertrand Dumazy

executive
#31

Okay. Mourad, no, you cannot do that because, first of all, the quarter of Q4 is the biggest in absolute value. So you cannot take EUR 600 million to make it simple. It was EUR 580 million or something like that.

Julien Tanguy

executive
#32

We are talking about other revenue.

Bertrand Dumazy

executive
#33

Sorry, sorry. So other revenue, Julien?

Julien Tanguy

executive
#34

Other revenue, so yes, we did EUR 33 million in Q4. As I said, when you look at the interest rates in 2022, euros picked up only starting in July, i.e., at the beginning of last year, we still had negative interest rates. So I think that interest rate will stabilize and will stay at the same level in 2023 compared to Q4 2022. Maybe you should also consider that in Q4 because we have this gift campaign that is very strong, we have a lot of float to invest. So we have a positive impact on other revenue. So the multiplication by 4Q for other revenue is maybe a little bit strong. However, we don't know how interest rates are going to evolve. When you look at what happened last year, every 2 months, we had big news regarding interest rates. And when we did the computation in June, taking into account the level of interest rate we had, we did not expect to reach EUR 87 million of other revenue in 2022. So I'm very cautious with the capacity we have to forecast this kind of revenue. However, I really believe that other revenue will keep on growing in 2023, and they will keep on growing strongly.

Bertrand Dumazy

executive
#35

But maybe, Julien, one thing we can add is structurally, it's a super good news for Edenred. The business is growing fast. So the business volume is growing fast. We put this money at work. And for the first time for the last 8 years, maybe 8 is -- but for the first half, for a certain number of years, you are able to put this money at work and to generate some revenue. And it's here to stay. Positive interest rates are here to stay. And the increase of business volume year after year is here for many years as well. So the growth in 2023 of other revenue is going to be super solid. And it's not only in 2023, it's for the years to come. Okay. So maybe a few words of conclusion on my side. First of all, thank you for having spent the last 1 hour and 36 minutes together. You understood that the performance of Edenred has been super solid in 2022. First of all, it's a historical rate of growth at 25%. It's also historical in terms of absolute value with a business volume of EUR 38 billion and the fact that we generated more than EUR 2 billion of revenue in 2022. It's also historical in the sense that it's well balanced per geographies and per business lines. It's also an acceleration in Q4, and it's also a performance that is well balanced between the financial performance and the extra financial performance. So after the year 2022, we engaged into the year 2023 with a balance sheet that is totally unleveraged, with a strong track record, with a lot of momentum on our products and services. So bear with us. More to come in 2023. Enjoy the rest of the day. Bye-bye.

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