Fnac Darty SA (FNAC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning to you all. Thank you for your presence. I'm very pleased to be with you this morning to share our 2022 Results after the presentation made in January 2023. The year 2022 took place in an unprecedented context with the war in Ukraine, which made the exit from the COVID period, particularly complex from the specialized retail sector. In this context, I'm very satisfied with the way in which the Group has coped with this situation with serenity. The proof is in the results we are presenting to you today. We continue to outperform our markets, thanks to the strength of our brands and the relevance of our everyday strategic plan, which focuses on value creation services and customer relations. This success is collective, and we owe it to the involvement of all our employees who are engaged for a more committed and responsible consumption. I'm very proud of this. In the context of inflation and pressure on purchasing power, our proposal makes sense, allowing customers to choose increasingly durable products and to be able to repair them. For this presentation, I will first review our activities and the key successes of our strategic road map. Afterwards, Jean-Brieuc, our CFO, will present our results in detail. And then I will take the floor again for the conclusion and the outlook and we'll be available in the end to answer your questions. I would like to start by enticing the extraordinary resilience of our Group over the last 3 years. We have overcome the COVID crisis. We've come through an unpredictable and difficult year of 2022. And yet our sales reached just under EUR 8 billion, up 7% on the 2019 pro forma. Our gross margin improved to 30.3% in line with its 2019 level. And our current operating income, a robust EUR 231 million in the context of significantly higher inflation than in previous years. Since 2019, in the 3 main product categories that we distribute, household appliances, technical products and editorial products, we have seen growth in value, which, however, mask more contrasting trends in volume, with certainly an increase in editorial products driven by books, but a drop in volumes of household appliances and some technical products. These developments are having an impact on the retail sector, which is undergoing a major transformation in all segments, including players in difficulty, mainly players without critical size, too much stock with low web penetration, a tightening around specialists such as Fnac Darty, which is recognized and appreciated by the French for its know-how in the distribution of goods and products. A lower-than-expected growth in e-commerce, which impacts pure players and supports the idea that the omnichannel model chosen by Fnac Darty some time ago is the winning model. The transformation of our model around our everyday strategic plan is a key to understand the performance of our Group in 2022 and beyond. The trajectory we've been taking for the last 2 years with our everyday plan has allowed us to outperform the market. This is no accident. It is the outcome of our strategic choices to transform our model, firstly, with our omnichannel model and the winning complementary store -- complementary of stores and web platforms. Customers came back to stores, hence, a good performance for stores. Omnichannel sales remain at a high level of 50%, a real differentiating factor compared to pure players in particular. Our second strength is our powerful range of products and services. Our positioning more focused on premium and sustainable products allows us to better pass on price increases and thus secure a high level of gross margin. Our extensive range of products and services is available both in-house and in the marketplace to meet the different expectations of our customers, innovative products, second live services such as repair, subscription or ticketing. Highlights accompanied by targeted sales events on some product categories, which ensure a high level of sales, while preserving the gross margins such as Black Friday sporting events and so on. The omnichannel experience is at the heart of our model. We have consolidated in 2022, a significant part of the increase in e-commerce activity, and we've been able to absorb this growth into the omnichannel model. By 2022, with the lifting of health restriction, stores have recovered a significant portion of the traffic level. Our omnichannel model is playing its full role, accounting for 1 in 2 sales. An example of the potential power of the omnichannel model is the video salesperson function. The number of collections has been multiplied by 2 in '22, approaching 300,000 connections. It's a great success, especially since the conversion rate of a digital purchase is 4x higher with video salesperson. Our network of nearly 1,000 stores is a key asset in our model, in our omnichannel strategy. We've pursued an active policy of opening new stores in '22, mainly in the franchise format accounting for the vast majority of the 40 or so store openings this year. In addition to the traditional Fnac and Darty stores, in particular, we are continuing to develop Darty cuisine with 11 openings, 6 of which are in franchise format. Other openings have been made internationally, again, under franchise. Another important element of our action on unprofitable stores, which today represent less than 5% of the total number of stores. 100% of the target stores are now concerned either by a transfer project already carried out or by an action plan currently being carried out, planned for the end of 2025. Regarding Switzerland and the partnership with Manor, we developed until mid-'22 the project, as we consider it together, a development project aiming at installing shop-in-shop in several Swiss regions. In view of the performance, we decided with Manor to focus the activity on 17 shop-in-shops at the end of the first half year 2023, mainly located in French speaking Switzerland, an area where the Fnac brand is already well known with 9 own stores already established, reinforcing our position in a reference -- as a reference player in the region. Finally, we've just announced a project to restructure the iconic Fnac store in Madrid opened in '92 in the Plaza Rio, right in the middle of Madrid. So that the inhabitance of Madrid will have a better shopping experience in line with the new expectations geared towards service and leisure. Overall, we aim to have 100% profitable network of stores by 2025, and we are well on our way. I have spoken to you about our products, stores, our employees, but Fnac Darty is above all its customers. The proof is the importance we attach to customer satisfaction within the Group and to all the actions we implement every day to meet it. For example, customer satisfaction measured by the NPS will be above 16.22. We are very proud of this performance, as it has risen sharply by 8 points since the launch of our everyday plan in '21. We are also capitalizing on our solid base of loyal customers with more than 11 million committed customers. This is a major and differentiating assets. And it is one of the pillars on which we are building the future of our Group. With more than 7 million Fnac members in France, we've just launched Fnac & Moi, My Fnac, a new relationship base with our customers. This loyalty program enhancement is aimed at all our Fnac member and subscriber customers with no time limit. This service includes, for example, a loyalty fund or kitty to reward the most responsible behavior of our customers, for instance, buying a second life product, choosing click-and-collect delivery or repairing a product via the Group's aftersales service. This service also includes a partner pass for year-round discounts in over 90 stores, partner stores. So moving towards informed, responsible and sustainable consumption is what our customers are asking for, and it is our responsibility to respond. In terms of innovation and quality of customer relations, Darty Max is an example I'm very proud of and the success of which is confirmed each year. Darty Max is over 800,000 subscribers by the end of '22, with a target of 2 million subscribers by the end of '25, a very high level of customer satisfaction with over 6 million products covered by the repair service. High-value customers with 50% higher recurrence of purchase than a standard customer and an average basket of 50% higher. With Darty Max, we create a relationship of trust and transparency with our customers. This new service also offers support for the maintenance and upkeep of our customers' domestic appliances, customized advice via video is offered in order to prevent the risk of breakdowns and to better use their appliances, thus extending their life. This increase is their commitment, and it is our vision of the distribution of tomorrow. Beyond being a referenced player, we aim at becoming a subscription operator committed to its customers. Our [ reason for that ] is based on several access. First, enabling informed choices. It's in the DNA of our 2 brands, which have invested in customer advice since their creation. In 2022, we improved our sustainability score through better product selection and working with manufacturers to improve quality. So in addition, we also wished to accentuate durability, sustainability of our prices and our spare parts. So giving special attention for the Group to maintain a balance between economy and repairs. And of course, we shall continue to publish a lot of information to provide our customers with better advice as we do with Labo Fnac and we've been doing that for over 50 years. So this is innovation that we are offering and independent tests are making us a reference with our stakeholders, partners and customers. Repairing was a reference for our model, and we are at 1.7 million repaired products in 2019, and we shall reach 2.3 million units. We are preparing the future of this model for repair, and we are moving fast. We are investing a lot to train our technicians. We have opened since 2019, 41 tech academies and that have already received 500 people coming for training more than half recruited on a permanent contract basis following their own training and reception of diplomas. We were the first retailers to open up own training center for training repair technicians in [indiscernible] and to train apprentices coming from all horizons, professional reinsertion and retraining. Other openings will follow covering in 2023, going from [indiscernible]. Now concerning the future, infrastructure is also very essential. We have inaugurated a new site at Tours Val de Loire, which is the biggest site for repairs in the West France. And we've opened a new service center near Chilly-Mazarin covering 10,000 square meters and with an ability to repair 220,000 appliances per year. This includes a major warehouse for spare parts with 40,000 references and a repair space, including a shop floor for training. As you will find, a repairing product is a major focus for our development, particularly for circular responsible and local economy. Our offer second life meet these eco-responsible concerns that are growing in our customers. But it's not just a provision of second choice. It includes the same guarantees of quality and conditions of delivery, service operations and guarantees as for new products and of course, at very attractive prices. To begin with, we have started with the virtual strategy of sourcing products within our ecosystem with our customers, B2C and B2B and with our suppliers, major partners and reconditioning all our products are concerning a second life arm from telephony and IT equipment. In all the volumes of the second life product has gone up by plus 34% in 2022. And on the marketplace, nearly 1 in 3 sales is a secondhand product, and this is essentially thanks to books. And we shall continue on this dynamic pace in 2023. Now in conclusion with this first part, I'd like to share our commitments concerning climate being responsible also means investing in energy sobriety. And we are expecting a drop of 15% of electric consumption in France by 2024 as compared to 2022. This aim is included in the variable remuneration that we have signed up with all our employees in 2022. This was the Ecowatt commitment chart, concerning down to earth actions. For instance, modernization of all our stores with LED lighting and centralized management systems for buildings, which would be less energy consuming. We shall be investing EUR 20 million in the next 2 years. And a large part of our CapEx will be consecrated towards these stores. Besides we've signed up with Valeco, an agreement to increase green energy for our Group. And this will be enforced as of this summer, and we shall use solar energy. These measures are part and parcel of our commitments for Horizon 2030 validated by the SBTI, that is 50% of reduction of CO2 emissions within scopes 1 and 2 and a drop of 22% of emissions related to the use of sold products. There you go. This brings me to the end of the first part. And now let me give the floor to Jean-Brieuc, who will give you the details concerning our financial results. I'll come back to the conclusion later.

Well, thank you very much, Enrique. Good morning, everybody. I suggest that we take a look at the operational performance level of the Group within each geographical area before we finish with the financial performance. Let's first begin with Slide 16, and turnover -- and the gross margin. As Enrique said, we are at EUR 7.9 billion, which is a drop of just 1.2% of data published and of 1.9% of comparable data. And this is against a background of much tension in purchasing power and high inflation after a 2021 year, which was a record year. In the course of the second semester, particular -- which was very important for Group, Fnac Darty came up with good sales, particularly with excellent sales events, back-to-school and Black Friday. The sales events targeted 4 private individuals at premium products. In -- on the other hand, sales in December were down, and that led to a drop in total of the total semester of minus EUR 57 million compared to 2021. And the Group, however, has shown a level of sales, which is greater in 2019 pro forma by plus 7%. If you look at the distribution channels, these sales have been pulled forth by sales that were normally found with customers coming back to stores after nearly 2 years of restrictions. Sales onlines as far as they were concerned were pretty normal after 2 years of -- stabilized after 2 years of great strength. This return to normal and the trend in the market compared to, say, that in e-commerce for 2022. On this point of view, the sale of -- technical products online is down by 19%, but an increase of 3% in 2019. It's one of the plus points of Darty and its omnichannel channels that it has maintained a high level of 50% online. Let me now talk about each area. We'll start with the France and Switzerland. It's showing a very good sales of just a drop of minus 2.1% comparable to the last year. In France, however, the Bank of France data tells us that Darty is outperforming sales in general. Switzerland, on the other hand, is taking advantage of sales taking place in the shop-in-shops of Fnacs that are in the major managed stores, particularly those in the French-speaking Switzerland. If you look at this category of products, the changes are more contrasted. In effect, volume sales -- or sales volumes in IT equipment, electrical appliances suffered in the context of a flat consumption by households and in -- the base comparison for the last 2 years in terms of equipment from households. Apart from that, there is increase, thanks to Darty Max and the coming back and forth of ticketing. Nature & Decouvertes has also increased sales compared to the year before. The period during which the store were still closed in the first semester. Now let's talk about the Iberian Peninsula. In this area, this was the only one to show growth in 2021 and '22, a 2.1% increase. And this is essentially due to Portugal with excellent sales in stores and in virtually all product categories. Spain showed a drop in a competitive environment, which is still quite good. After a slower recovery in certain areas of the Group, the Group is -- which is related to a slow withdrawal of health restrictions. Iberian Peninsula in 2022 went back to its 2019 pro forma sales. Let's go on to Belgium, Luxembourg. Here, the sales are down by 4.7% to data comparable of the earlier year. This is essentially for 2 reasons; a drop in volumes of sales in electrical appliances and technical products on a very high comparative basis. From this point of view, electrical appliances represent 1/3 of sales as opposed to 21% for the rest of the Group. And secondly, a very high inflationary rate of 10% on an average in Belgium. On the other hand, services continue to show good dynamics and particularly [indiscernible] and subscription for repairs equivalent to Darty Max and which was launched in Belgium in 2021. And compared to 2019 pro forma, this area is showing a growth of plus 3.6% in sales. And finally, in last May, Fnac opened its third store in Brussels in the shopping center of Woluwe. Fnac here now has 14 stores in the Belgium and Luxembourg area. Let me now talk about the gross margin. As in line -- as announced, Fnac Darty has managed to maintain its gross margin, thanks to its positioning on premium products, and therefore, it can easily pass on increase of prices to customers. And -- it has chosen also to have all its main sales events by talking of just these premium products, and thus, the Group has shown an increase of EUR 36 million as compared to 2021. The rate of -- the rate has also gone up by 80 basis points compared to 2021 to 30.3%, and which brings us back to its 2019 performance. Now outside of the dilutive technical effect of franchisees, which was minus 15% on the 2022 basis. The increase of plus 95 basis points is 50%, thanks to a product mix, which is, thanks to excellent performance of sales in stores and particularly editorial product. And now thanks to a very good programming, very diversified -- ticketing has gone back to its earlier levels of performance before the -- with the health restrictions going down. Now here, you'll see that operational costs reached EUR 2.179 billion in 2022, plus 3.6% compared to 2021. In this swift hike in inflation, Group has shown its operational agility once more right through the year to limit the impact of inflation, which is at its highest ever as compared to earlier years. We have certain performance plans now that we have set up in our various management so that we've been able to make up for the inflation for the whole year. Plus there's a 40% increase in the payroll mass, which went up by 3%, and this is essentially due to the historical. The impact in the past of the closing down of certain stores in the first semester of 2021 related to the health crisis and the average increase in 2022 of wages to account for the increased inflation. Lastly, exceptional purchasing power bonus, which was paid out in 2022, nearly to 80% of employees are worth nearly EUR 7 million. Apart from that, the increase in costs concerning the expenses, operational expenses for deployment of new activities. So we have opened 14 new shop-in-shops in the first half year, and therefore, that brings us to 27 total shop-in-shops and Fnac in Manor. Let's move on to the other items of the income statement, Slide 18. EUR 231 million in '22, down by -- the rate is 2.9% for the year, the operating margins. The decline in the current operating income mainly comes from the France Switzerland region, which, nevertheless, has an operating margin of 3.1% accretive at the Group level. The Iberian Peninsula, so it's current operating income increased by plus EUR 6 million compared to '21 with a margin rate of 2.3%, thanks to solid commercial execution and good cost control. Belgium and Luxembourg region posted a decline of the recurring income -- current operating income of minus EUR 4 million. This decline linked to the impact of inflation high in this region. The noncurrent items amounted to minus EUR 27 million in '22 compared to minus EUR 10 million in '21. This difference is mainly due to exceptional expenses related to the restructuring of the real estate portfolio, including the closure of the Fnac Italy 2 store at the end of the first half year. Operating income is therefore EUR 204 million compared to EUR 260 million in '21. Net income from continuing operations Group share amounts to EUR 100 million in '22 after taking into account noncurrent items, stable financial expenses over the year, minus EUR 45 million and a tax charge of minus EUR 54 million. This latter is logically down by minus EUR 20 million compared to last year, in line with the drop in the Group's reserves. Therefore, the effective tax rate is almost stable compared to 21%. Net income from discontinued operations, minus EUR 132 million, as the Group announced on the 17th of November in the context of the litigation relating to the disposal of COMET in 2012, Fnac Darty was ordered to pay an amount of EUR 129 million. This amount includes GBP 89.6 million of repayment plus GBP 22.3 million of interest and legal accounts, 2.6 million in legal fees in connection with this litigation. As announced, the Group has appealed this decision. As such, the court indicated that it's aimed to enter the appeal on the grounds that had been granted by the High Court by the 12th of July 23. As a result, the consolidated net result Group share will be minus EUR 28 million in '22 compared to EUR 16 million in '21. Slide 19. Free cash flow from operations end of December. The free cash flow from operations, excluding IFRS 16, is minus EUR 30 million in '22 compared to EUR 170 million in '21. This significant decline is -- can be explained by the following factors. 1/3 of the variance is linked to a decrease in cash flow in connection with the decrease in operating profit over the year. A variation in working capital requirement, which explains most of the gap with a level far from the normative levels recorded so far with, on the one hand, fewer receipts were recorded at the end of the year due to a significantly lower-than-expected level of sales in December. More disbursements were recorded at the beginning of the year in connection with an activity that had been particularly strong at the end of '21. Inventory levels remained under control, increasing by only 3% due to less activity than anticipated at the end of the year. Over the year, the inventory turnover rate remained at the level usually seen in previous years. Finally, free cash flow this year includes operating investments of EUR 131 million, up EUR 15 million compared to last year. This level is, however, in line with the level previously communicated to the market. These 3 elements, cash flow from operations, change in the working capital requirement and investments explained the decline in cash flow recorded by Fnac Darty in '22. The Group is already working to return to a level of free cash flow from 2023, more in line with the levels of the previous years and thus being able to achieve its objective over the period '21, '24. Slide 20. Net financial debt, excluding IFRS 16, EUR 5 million, 31st of December '22 compared to a net cash position of EUR 247 million, 37 -- December '21. As you can see from the graph on the screen, the variation in financial debt is mainly explained by 2 points. Firstly, the free operating cash flow of minus EUR 30 million I've just explained to you. Secondly, the disbursement of the full amount related to the litigation concerning the sale of Comet by The Kesa Group in 2012, well before the acquisition of Darty by Fnac. As already pointed out, because of the decision of the Higher Court, the Group was ordered to pay EUR 131 million, including the amount of the award interest, the litigation interest cost of proceedings legal fees. Then you have dividends of EUR 2 per share paid to the shareholders in 2022 in respect to the '21 results. And finally, the interest paid of EUR 28 million, stable compared to the amount disbursed last year. Finally, a few words about our financial structure on Slide 21. The Group has, at the end of '22 a shareholders' equity of EUR 1.5 billion and a net cash position and equivalent of EUR 932 million. On top of that, you have EUR 500 million RCF credit line undrawn at the end of '22, the maturity of which has been extended, the Group has still an option to extend it to March 2028. Furthermore, as you can see from the graph on the screen, the next major repayment date is 2024. As such, the Group has wanted well upstream to secure the refinancing of this next major repayment of the EUR 300 million bond maturing in May 2024. Therefore, the Group put into place a delayed drawn term loan of EUR 300 million. This facility can be drawn down only once to pay only the bond maturing in 2024, and we'll have a maturity of 3 years if drawn down with an option to extend for 2 years. With this option, the Group can maintain its current bond line anti-maturity while benefiting from the low initial annual coupon of 1.875%, thus securing its level of financial cost. In addition, as at of 31st December '22, the covenants relating to the financing were all met. Finally, the Group is rated by the rating agencies, Standard & Poor's score ratings and Moody's, which in the first half of 2022 signed the ratings, BB+, BBB, and BA2, respectively, all 3 with a stable outlook. I will now hand over to Enrique to conclude this presentation with some elements of the outlook and the shareholder return policy for 2022.

Thank you very much, Jean-Brieuc. And to conclude on Slide 23, we have -- we are more agile and competitive. Of course, the market context is still uncertain and the level of inflation is still high at the beginning of the year. Also for the first half of '23, we expect to see a slight decline in sales due to a context of sluggish consumption coupled with sharp rise in cost. Inflation is expected to peak at the end of the first year as anticipated by the latest [ incident ] forecast. On the other hand, for the second half year, we anticipate better market conditions with more favorable historical data, level of inflation that could be lower than the first half year and which would probably gradually return to a more normative level of around 3% towards '24, '25. Above all, we know that we can rely on our strengths. The full engagement of our employees to continue to outperform the markets, our positioning centered on the premium products, allowing us to differentiate ourselves from players' position more on the entry level. The growing contribution of services, in particular, Darty Max, enabling us to build customer loyalty over the long term and maintaining our margin level as well as possible. For the year 2023, we are going to increase the price reduction plans, and we are expecting it to be twice as higher than the earlier years to limit as much as possible the impact of price increase. The Group will also improve its efforts to reduce energy consumption and gain in more agility in certain stores by looking closely at how to reduce the opening hours of certain stores, worked on logistic cost optimization and negotiate whenever possible concerning rent, particularly for all the leases that are reaching maturity. Secondly, control our cash. As Jean-Brieuc just said, this would be with a strict monitoring of our purchases and procurement of goods and we shall maintain a strict level and control of our stock, so with good rotation. Thirdly, we shall also be very attentive as to operational investments, and that is why we are keeping aside a maximum of EUR 120 million for 2023. Now let's just talk about energy and energy costs for 2023. That's a major element at stake. Now on the right side, you can see the sharing of our energy sources for the Group for 2023. As in the earlier years, 50% of 2023 volumes will be in line with the RN, which is the regulated energy -- nuclear energy prices, and that would be at EUR 42 per megawatt hour. 10% come from the agreement that we signed up with Valeco for solar energy and which will be enforced as of mid-2023. And the rates would be lower than EUR 90 per megawatt hour. The remaining 40% will come from the price of the market, which has gone up a lot. We have a cover, which covers us up to 2024 with Solvay and which has completely changed that way of doing. We are, of course, asking for total repairs and financial prejudice as a result. We were forced to sign up with another exposure agreement with another supplier just when the prices were at the highest. On the whole, we expect that energy costs will be up plus EUR 30 million or EUR 50 million with a greater impact in the first half year compared to the second half year. Besides, we've also got a revolving moving cover strategy for the whole year to cover these prices. Now concerning our aims for 2023, we expect our current operational income to be just slightly lower, around EUR 200 million, and that is -- that shows the full mobilization of the Group and all its employees to limit the impact of a price increase on the income ex not including energy cost that I just mentioned to you. We find that our income is in line with the progress that was expected in 2022. The drop will be more pronounced in the first half year and keeping in mind the seasonal activity and the cost of our -- and the weight of traditional costs. However, what's important is, that we have confirmed our cash -- free cash flow -- operational free cash flow aim at about 500 million, which is a total for the period of 2021, '24 at a total of 240 million up to 2025. Now in conclusion, and our policy of payout to our payholder and is a commitment that we had undertaken during launching the everyday strategic plan, and we confirm our policy of a payout of dividend of 38%, and that would be EUR 1.4 per share, which would be paid out in cash or in shares depending on the choice of the shareholders. So this concludes my presentation. I thank you very much for your attention. And before you ask your questions, maybe some news about the Group. Now quite obviously, as we read, and I'm sure you have heard the latest news that was released by the press in terms of our shareholders and the new projects and the new concentrations. So it was a lot in terms of news. So what I'd like to share with you and before we talk about -- taking your questions, we are not confirming any of this news. And I don't know where all these rumors and information comes from. However, if you just take a step back, the consolidation in our sector, the way we were with the coming together of Fnac Darty is -- still makes sense. The Group has really made a success of this consolidation. As a result, we are now pretty solid the way we are. And once again, we can play a very active role for our next consolidation. Now we are available for all your questions, if you so desire.

Well, we've got our first question that is coming in. Can you give us details of the categories in those where there's a drop in volumes?

As we said, you heard in the early part of the presentation, it's really household appliances, which are showing the greatest drop and technical products like televisions and computers. So quite logically, these are the products. There was the greatest increase, if you like, in sales during the COVID years and so quite obviously, now it's stabilizing.

So as we said, household appliances, however, we saw that there was a recovery in cultural products, telephony, which made up for some of the loss, but that's changing, too. Now second question. Thank you very much. Give us the details of the quality of your stock? We have a very healthy level of stock. So at the end of the year, it was slightly higher because we were expecting a better performance in December. And this volume was pretty quickly absorbed by the sales in January and all the sales events. We are quite happy that our rotation rate is extremely high, and the renewal rate is also fairly high. And today, we don't really have any problems with quality of our stocks, so no of availability as such. It's really much better now with the stabilization of our supplier chains, plus that means we've got a better cover and better availability. Now here's a new question coming up. Negative growth in 2023. And do you feel that sales have improved between January and February?

I can't say much about the first quarter, and that is why we're going to have a next meeting in the end of April. And in the first quarter, we are not looking at it on a monthly basis because the early part of the year, January is always the sales year. February normally is a slow month because it's just after sales and also because it's a shorter month. So I think it will be in the coming months that we'll give you all these details.

Yes, it's interesting that even in this period that we have been anticipating, particularly this drop in consumption, there is a sort of logic that we follow concerning our resilience. And you can see that in the proof of our results at the end of the year, particularly in December. You saw what happened with the war in March when the activity continued to be very good. And this was probably because of the value effect rather than the volume effect that prevailed. However, activity was at a good level. Let's not forget that the Group is -- has a base of about EUR 7.4 billion, and that was before COVID and now we are at EUR 8 billion, and we have consolidated this space since 2021. Now there's a new question, and I think this is about energy. So who's going to replace Solvay Energy to provide you with energy?

It's the ENGIE Group.

It's the ENGIE Group that will replace them. As we had said, at the end of the year, we were amid to find a new partner to guarantee our energy supply. Now in France, as you know, there is -- it's mandatory to have a supplier to have access to regulated energy. And this contract was breached, and that's why we had to find a new partner. So when did you know that this contract will no longer be honored? Well, we just found out about it at the end of the year. There were changes in conditions to guarantee the right to this access to historical energy, in nuclear energy at the same price, and this came over in 2022. Jean-Brieuc, one question for you. What about the free cash flow in 2023?

We expect a first half year downgraded in terms of operating income, current operating income compared to last year, especially because of a declining figure and high cost. During the first half year, we'll have the full impact of the inflation cost of last year. Last year, during the first half year, we were at the beginning of the inflation, plus the inflation effect of the half year. And the sales will be rather down. So that's why there will be a decline, an expected decline in the current operating income during the first half year. The effect will come from the cost and the sales. And for the second part of the question, the free cash flow, we'll see over the year, I'm not going to give you any guidance as to the free cash flow for the half year.

Another question. Vivendi announced the selling of its own publishing subsidiary Editis to be able to take over asset. What is your opinion on this transaction, and it would be the best scenario for Fnac Darty? This transaction is in progress. We're not going to comment on it. We always said that we are very sensitive to the fact that the editorial world has a major shareholders able to invest in the future of this Group to secure the diversity, the editorial diversity and to have the industrial strengths. So we -- well, we have no specific comment on this transaction, and we'll work very closely with both. I'm sure. New question, the recruitment of new subscribers to Darty Max seems to slow down the objective of 2 million subscribers in 2025, is it still attainable? Yes, of course. Thank you for this question. It is attainable. We are on the right track. We have not slown down. It's already 800,000 subscribers and we are very satisfied with the rate of subscribers. And we also see that the satisfaction score is on the increase. The churn rate is extremely low, and it means that it will keep consolidating and the spontaneous awareness is increasing. We have a lot of requests and in all channels in our Fnac stores. We started selling that through our partners that are partners like Sofinco and others. They will start offering the Darty Max offer. So this plus all the franchise and owned stores will enable us to have this objective of 2 million subscribers in 2025. We have a new question. Could you please tell us the structure volume and price on the top line of 2022? Can you anticipate the price rise in 2023? The price rise is rather modest. It all depends on the categories, of course, the cumbersome products, consuming more transportation costs were more impacted than small prices. It varies between 10% and 100%. Some categories have not really increased or slightly increased in price. On average, it would be between 5% and 10%. And the volumes, as I said, it varies. It depends on the categories. We have sales revenue of EUR 8 billion. And so we have to see each category, each category to have an average. For 2023, the price rise will be more limited in 2023, and we start seeing later on a decline in inflation for the second half year. And then the transport -- long distance transportation costs will also decrease later on in the year. So if all this is confirmed, our prices will be normalized at the end of the year. A new question. The services like Darty Max started to get bigger and bigger, could you -- how much do they contribute to the sales and the margin?

Well, there are 2 points to be kept in mind. The program as such, Darty Max and what we're getting for subscriptions, and you can calculate them, 2/3 of our network is with the cheaper products, which is at EUR 10 TTC per month. So that's about EUR 120 per year per customer. And then to answer the rest of your question, you'll get to see what -- how much it contributes to this turnover margin. I cannot give you, unfortunately, it's extremely profitable, and this activity more than makes up for the stopping of the guarantee extension because we've stopped that, which has dropped ever since we started with Darty Max. Anyway, this is great. But what's really important is that this part, which is so profitable, and thank you very much to all the assets, all our employees and the 2,500 technicians who've really launched it, but what's also important is the customer behavior, and that brings us additional turnover because these customers of Darty Max, they buy products which are more expensive and they buy them more often. So you've got a very profitable product plus you've got customer behavior, which takes you towards more premium products and more stable prices. So it's a win-win situation with Darty Max.

Christian? Could you tell us -- get -- economize even more on your financial costs?

Well, unfortunately, the answer is going to be no. And today, in terms of financial costs, the Group -- and I'm not including -- I'm not talking about corporate tax. We are paying 7%. We are paying 7% tax. And given the market today, it's going to be complicated. We'll have to work on indebtedness, particularly. And what's more, as he said, talk about external growth, which should make up more for this cost plus give us added value for our dividends and shareholders. I think we've completely rationalized our costs and in term, we've secured them because there's no major outstanding paybacks to 2026. Reimbursement, that is.

Let me review more questions -- seconds for more questions. It's coming. Can you remind us which products are covered by Darty Max? And which is the best formula? This is a new customer. Well, thank you, Darty Max has 3 kinds of formula. There's the Maxi, it -- which is essentially for household appliances, and then there's an extension of warranty for smaller electrical products at EUR 14 and multimedia, it's EUR 19.99, EUR 19.99. And as Jean-Brieuc just said, that covers 2/3 of our total quantities. Anyway, these formulae were launched after we launched the plan. So now we've got new customers coming in for premium plus all the existing customers who would like the first formula and now they're gradually moving up towards Formula 2 and 3 as well, and that's an excellent thing. Let me just emphasize that Darty Max is a huge success, as you saw, it's about 800,000 subscribers for just this year. And we are moving towards a model which is likely to be more reliable. Customers very satisfied and who are likely to spend more at the Fnac, because when you're a Darty Max customer, all products bought from us are naturally covered by this guarantee. So once you've got your subscription, there's really no reason to go elsewhere and buy elsewhere. So we get more customers. They feel secure, thanks to the quality of service provided by our teams. That's very important. And that's why we are hiring on certain platforms that are good. And once we get our customers, we are moving them upwards in our portfolio of products. So that means they'll spend more. So this will be consolidating our turnover. And plus, I do hope so that we shall be able to pay less for the ownership costs of these new customers. So these are the plus points of this program. 800,000 is a big number. And you can imagine that at 2 million subscribers, it will completely change the profile that we have of our way of working with our customers and customer loyalty and customer profitability plus our teams. Now I'm interesting. We started this business also in Belgium with Darty Max, but this -- it has started in Belgium where we can provide all of the entire range of products. Now other countries are also expecting us to provide this service, and we hope that we'll be able to do it in the coming months. This, I think, brings us to the end of our Q&A session, and I'd like to thank you all very much for listening in and for all your questions. And let's fix our next appointment soon for our next financial results. So thank you very much, [indiscernible] and all of you. Thank you. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]