Lagardere SA (MMB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

This is being broadcast, as you know, live on our website. So we will have just as many people watching and listening than the people in this room, which belongs to us. And let's get started. Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Dear shareholders, and welcome to this General Assembly for 2024. I would like to say hello to some other people in the room before I give the floor to Pauline. I want to thank those who came, those from Vivendi. I won't mention them all. But I would like to mention 2 because these are people that I interact with and work with since November 21, Michel Sibony, in charge of performance within Vivendi and also us now. So he's in charge of quite a few things, costs, but not only I want to highlight this. And with Michel, we have some very honest, efficient and productive relationships. He's in the room. Thank you for being here. François Laroze as well, Financial Director of the Vivendi Group, and I spend even more time with them reviewing the budget still since November 21, reviewing the budget, monthly control, et cetera. And I really appreciate our relationship with François, who's a very strict character, and that's also very positive for us. And I'm sure this will help us make great progress together. So I'm very happy with this collaboration, even more than that because we're now a team and we're together. I also like to thank the members of the Board of directors, including the employee representatives, Marie and Pascal. I know you're in the room. Sorry, you're in the front row. Welcome to you. I also want to thank Arnaud de Puyfontaine, who's been here from day 1. He's the most frustrated out of us because not only was he there when he couldn't speak much but even since November 21, there are certain aspects of the group, which he knows very well that's publishing, where he cannot speak or act for now. I would also like to say hello. Finally and most importantly, President, Mr. Sarkozy, who's always in first line to defend the interests of the Lagardere Group, and he also wrote a bestseller in '23 published [indiscernible]. So he contributed even further to make sure that the accounts we'll present are particularly good. So thank you, Dear Nicolas for being here. Somebody is absent, and I would also like to recognize them, just like Nicolas because with myself, we were the ones who prepare the arrival of Vivendi, that's Vincent Bollore. Of course, I want Lagardere to be another success for him and his group. And if I may say a personal, no, I think that one of the greatest successes of Vincent are his children. I liked when people said that about my father, they didn't say it so often, but it's really exceptional, and I'm happy to say it in front of Yannick, who's chairing the surveillance group of Vivendi and we really owe him the efficiency of this operation. I'm very happy to work with Yannick. You, of course, have the skills, but also the kindness that we need, and it's not always easy when you're in the storm. Vincent Bollore is also very well surrounded. Has a great team. And if I'm saying this is for our friend, Maxime Saada, who's on stage. He's the Vice President of the Lagardere Group. And we spend a lot of time together. And I'll say a few words later on to answer some questions, if any, on industrial synergies, which will be crucial to us in the coming years with the group that he perfectly manages and that he helped bounce back in an exceptional manner. So thank you, Maxime. So thank you so much for being here. On stage, we have from the right to the left Virginie Banet, who chairs the Appointment and Compensation Committee and the CSR Committee; Veronique Morali, who is in charge of the Auditing Committee; Pauline Hauwel, who you know very well. She is the General Secretary of the group. And of course, Sophie Stabile, who is the Director of Finance. Somebody might be missing, you might say somebody who's been here for years, Pierre Leroy, who after 54 or 55 years for [indiscernible] those who know him or knew him and then for Jean-Luc Lagardère and myself and he has decided to have another life, a new life. And we're thinking of him, we're going to miss him. I'm going to miss him very much, but he won't be too far from the group, hopefully. And I hope we'll always still will benefit from his advice, his kindness, his intelligence and his negotiation skills with the unions, with the authors as he did at [indiscernible], we miss you, and I'm saying this in the name of all the people in the room and those listening. Pauline, I'm going to let you open the administrative part of the assembly and then I'll speak again.

Thank you, Arnaud. Hello, ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, with this ordinary general assembly chaired by Mr. Arnaud Lagardere as the CEO of Lagardere SA, the 2 present shareholders with the largest number of shares that is Vivendi represented by Mr. François Laroze, Director of Society and Lagardere Capital represented by Mr. Arnaud Lagardere. And as per appointed by the bureau, I will be the Secretary of the assembly. I will provide the temporary figures for the participation. 2,044 shareholders are present in person and online. This -- and I think this will show on screen 130,000-plus shares, the quorum, so much more than the 20% legal quorum, the general assembly can deliberate. All of the documents were provided to the shareholders. As per the legal obligations, they are on the bureau of the assembly. That is the meeting notice on March 6, '24 convocation in April -- convocation letters to the auditors, the 3 reports as per the auditors and an independent organization of our extra financial performance, the required information as per are to call highest remunerations. The convocation for sure and the universal recording document. The assembly is called upon deliberation on the agenda sent. That is also included in the brochure, which you can access through your voting pad and I will do a summary of it as it shows on screen. Resolutions 1 and 2 on the approval of yearly consolidated accounts for 2023. Resolution #3, allocation of social results and distribution of dividends. Resolution 4, approval of a regulated convention MoU around the autonomization of the radio department implemented in '23. Resolution 5, ratification of co-optation of Yannick Bolloré as administrator or director rather. Resolution 6 to 11 on voting policies for '24 for the general management and compensation provided in '24 to the Board of Directors and General Management. Resolution #12, authorization to give to the Board to operate on the shares of the company for buyback programs. Resolutions 13 and 14 to appoint Deloitte and Mazars as auditors to certify information in terms of sustainability in the implementation of the CSRD regulation. And Resolution 15 for proxies for formalities. As Arnaud said, the assembly will start with a little video of the activities of the group. Mr. Lagardere will present the strategy of the group; Mrs. Sophie Stabile, Financial Director, will present the accounts for '23. And we'll get a presentation of the sustainable development strategy by Celine Soubranne, Director of CSR. This presentation will also follow a short video of the actions taken in '23. And finally, a presentation of governance and the Board's activities presented by Virginie Banet and Véronique Morali. And the auditors of Lagardere SA in the front row will present their 3 reports. Then we'll move to a Q&A session for about 30 minutes and then voting on the 15 resolutions. Thank you for your attention. And I'll give the floor back to Arnaud.

Before I speak, we have a little video, so we're going to show it now. It's a short video, don't worry. [Presentation]

In my presentation, I will also be the spokesperson of [indiscernible], who manages publishing with me, I guess, consent from traveling. So I can see them. I can give them the floor in [indiscernible] for the pricing and [indiscernible], who's in charge of the venues, live venues. So let's start we'll have 3 parts. The first one is crucial, of course, because it will be the pace of the group. And I will explain our expectations and Vivendi's expectations, of course. So this is the breakdown of the capital as per today. As you know, we'll have the EUR 24.10 option for next year, which will probably change the breakdown of the capital, but this is the information. It's very clear after moving from an anonymous company and the sponsorship, we are now a family company, and we're part of the Bollore family, which is even more flattering to me. So what will we do together and what benefits we'll use from this operation. First of all, accelerating development. We don't do this only for financial purpose, but rather industrial one. And we want to leverage as much as possible the assets, human assets, technology and financial assets of the Vivendi Group to accelerate our development. We're not only here to work as per usual, but to do even more. Strengthen our accounts because the financial strengths of Vivendi and its cash position will be crucial because it will help us in negotiating with the banks first. And of course, when you have enough weight and strength, when you negotiate, you are perceived differently, of course. Improving performance is also crucial through a size effect, of course, for example, when you buy paper at Vivendi between us 2, Michel Sibony, will intervene, of course, and even more efficiency because we'll have even more weight for paper sellers, which will benefit everybody. Even more importantly, because we haven't mentioned it yet because we were not allowed to do it. These are the industrial synergies. Maxime Saada, will say a few words about this in the Q&A session, but this is also crucial to us. It could be for Prisma and also, and most importantly, Canal+, but I don't want to mention that yet. We have many projects in the pipeline since November 21, 2023. And this will be an asset to us to attract authors to have a different life for them and for everything, we'll get to develop with them. And then improving the cash transformation rate. This is crucial. It's really at heart of the Vivendi strategy and Bollore strategy. And I don't want to be too tough on us, but this is an aspect that the Lagardere Group to have throughout its history, we didn't leave it on the site, but it was not a priority. The priority was market shares was to have great visibility throughout the world, but we didn't focus as much on cash as Vivendi or Bollore. So it's a slight change in the culture in a way, which will do great to us, I must say. And earlier I mentioned the impact of François Laroze. He will be crucial. During the Q&A session, I'll come back to that because there are questions about Vivendi, but these are our expectations for Vivendi and what Vivendi expects for the next year and so there's a lot of work. But without the synergies, these are the figures for 2023. And once again, they're quite exceptional in an environment that is good for Travel Retail, but not so good and actually more and more difficult on publishing and radio. 14% increase in turnover and 19% of the operational result, which means greater margins compared to last year. And this is a record number, which never happened before in its current scope, but also before which means beyond Publishing and Travel Retail. For each branch, there is a contribution with Publishing first plus 2% in turnover when the market is not improving. And as you can see here, and we could come back to the previous years, we were between EUR 200 million and EUR 250 million operational results. The year was exceptional for us. Netflix was not the only one who benefited from this, we've really gone up, and we managed to stabilize at EUR 300 million way beyond the previous years, thanks to all our efforts and also to additional results who joined us. And unlike what the studies say they partly stated at least. The results are historical and once again, congratulations to everybody. For Travel Retail, it's even more exceptional. Not only traffic is back, that's for sure, but it's not yet back at the same level as 2019, but we're way beyond the 2019 figures. And this is due to the work to adapt since the COVID crisis. You can see the losses here in the operational results, EUR 245 million here. So not only do we benefit from this growth, but we even do better than the market. This is what we call a positive bounce back. This is due to great managers. So Dan, you can congratulate your teams. So these are the consolidated figures. But once we went beyond the 461 from 2009 and 2010, I cannot tell you more because as you know, the budget is not public, but I fear for our haters that this is going to continue to improve. I can also tell you and I think Sophie will mention that in a moment, this year will be even better. It's better during the first quarter. This morning, we published our statement with total turnover, we did not communicate on the operational result, but the increase is plus 9%, mainly due to Travel Retail. So what but also to Publishing. And let me tell you that this figure is quite exceptional for Publishing, and it's not usual for the first quarter because these months, especially January, are often the most difficult ones. On a market that is decreasing strongly in France. Stephanie, you can correct me, but I think it's minus 5% or 7%, depending on the segment. And we've maintained our position maybe because we were lucky, but also talented to have the right new publishing, the costs and to adapt to a market that is no longer in great growth for Travel Retail, it's still a great moment. So congratulations and for news, it's flat. You know that radio is struggling. So the market is very difficult on the decrease for everybody, except for [indiscernible] you saw the ratings. We were criticized a lot about our great blue lady, so we can be very happy with this increase. We'll stay bumble, you'll see. I hope it will continue. But at least we can say that there seems to be a change in what our competitors think about [indiscernible]. So congratulations, [indiscernible] For publishing now. It is a great debate. Stephanie, being #2 or #3, we might be #3. The first ones are the Germans on the Mark's Penguin. They've been #1 for a while. This #2 could be Pearson, but they mainly work on education in the U.S., which is a very specific market that we're not present in. And there's a debate between those 3 spots. So I decided to be #2, which is our actually -- actual position. As you know, in France, we're really strong. We got crystacized for this. We're also strong in the U.K., in Spain and in the U.S., maybe not enough, but we will definitely remedy this if we have great opportunities because that's what's really crucial. And the first publisher of magazines, I always say because we started from scratch, we didn't make any acquisitions. And for leaflets, it's a very profitable market, not always easy, but you see our position. Some might regret it, but the French language is not the main language for publishing. It's often English. And when you add this together, you see the result. We are mainly a literature group. We try to develop elsewhere. It doesn't mean that we don't believe in the literature, but also because there are other aspects making asset grow elsewhere than in general literature. What we call others, for example, board games, Isabella I see that you're here. Thank you. Illustrated publishing, which is a great success of [indiscernible] with leaflets. And of course, asterisk, which made us so happy last year. Unfortunately, it's only once every 2 years. We published 15,000 books per year. So this really shows how much we love books, but sometimes too much love can be a downer, and that's why we need to think about the number of books we need to publish every year. Sometimes, we think that actually we've got too many books that are being published and maybe we should be concentrating or focusing on a limited range. This is something that we're going to be looking at and maybe we'll be reducing the reference, which obviously has nothing to do with the fact that [indiscernible] is going to continue with the exponential growth that we're seeing. It's a beautiful group that we're seeing within [indiscernible]. So obviously, you know this part better than I do. We've got everything. We have got [indiscernible], which is a comic book. We also had Captive, Captive which was a phenomenal with more than 1 million copies being sold worldwide. This actually came from TikTok. So you can see actually TikTok made BookTok, which we've got a young Algerian, he was able to win over not a young women. I don't know she's absolutely hit it out the park, which means we need to be very open minded by the types of authors. We probably would have never had these types of authors before, but our teams are being revolutionary and as I mentioned earlier, because I think it's important for us to get ourselves pat on the back when we can. We also can talk about lethal combo, which is the best seller from my friend Nicolas Sarkozy. It's very difficult for political personalities to actually have their books flying off the shelf. We've also got the business plans [indiscernible] as well very important too as I mentioned, board games earlier and board games for under Isabel's careful what we're going to continue to invest in this. We do have synergies with what we're doing, obviously, otherwise, we wouldn't do them. Because we were actually relatively surprised with just how well board games did and COVID helped a lot with this. And we were also very pleasantly surprised to see that we really took the right actions so certainly but surely, and I actually would not be surprised to see us kicking things up the notch and over the course of upcoming years, podcast and audio but also increasing. Actually, they're doing a lot better than e -- that's Kindle or e-readers. We have invested in this and obviously it goes without saying it's important for everyone to talk about is not only for our employees, but for our authors. We are conscious of CSR [indiscernible] is the first publishing house in the world who looked at their carbon footprint. And actually, it's very flattering, but I imagine we'll have a little bit on this later on, just a summary of what I've just said to you. We've got the slides that are available on our website. We are growing. We're growing in a flat market, and we are going to make the most of our international development. And we are going to be looking at literature, why because next time you'll tell me -- I'll tell you guys is better than I can. We need in this digital ecosystem stories, stories because stories are important. This is what we can see, what we can hear and what we learn about the Travel Retail. Travel Retail, we are in bad position. Bad position we've had exceptional work in Travel Retail. These are figures that are relatively significant. As you can see on the screen were 17% in France. So it's not the most important regional business line but it is a foundation for us, and it's at the heart of what we're doing. We are French. We are French people, and we will stay a French people. I would also like to thank the Bollore Group because we have the ambition and we are here to stay French because this is essential which was -- it doesn't mean that we won't be able to develop elsewhere in the world, as you can see on the screen. These pie charts is very unique. We have had a lot of debate with Dag in the past. This has always -- it's always been difficult for us to recognize and I am humble in this. It's always been a strength for us from a strategic point of view, that Dag and his teams wanted to be balanced across all of the big business firm for Travel Retail. We are unique. We are maybe less so now, unfortunately, because our competitors, our opponents actually saw that it was a very virtuous equivalent. So we've got an airport, airports like to have the -- airports rather like to have their fingers in many place which allowed us to develop, but it also means that the bandwagon that our competitors can jump on to. We've got important operations in 2023. We had lots of different costs to tender. And actually, there will be even more in 2024. We will be looking at disposals, but also in new, of course, the tender for new airports who also want to develop their offering. And as you can see, you feel this, when we travel, I imagine they're more like shopping centers than transport hubs, which is something that suits us. Obviously, I'm not going to go through them one by one but knowing that we are on standby, and we will have a lot more in the future over the course of this year. We are going to be applying and responding to many cost tender. We're looking at growth. We're chugging along. Obviously, we know that it's important for us to think about money that we're injecting on CapEx that we need to invest. We are in an expansion phase and we need to find that middle ground that is maybe easier said than done. Sometimes the fact that we need to develop ourselves but also we don't want to create too much frustration within the travel retail team so that they're able to see that the shareholders are behind them, and they're going to help them to develop further. We want to be exemplary from a carbon point of view. Obviously, that goes without saying because we're talking about aviation. And as you know, sometimes, and this is wrong there are misconceptions with regards to businesses, not our own businesses that are highly polluting therefore, we're trying to be as exemplary as we can for other activities. Now it's not nice to say this in this fashion because obviously, we love everyone as much as we do. But you can see we have these 4 different area. We've got the news hub for magazines, which is Elle. Elle is actually more than just a simple magazine because we've got licenses, licenses that are being created by Grossmont and this is actually highly profitable. That's allowing us to finance news and you have another part is with the authorization of Vivendi because we went through the Board. We wanted to be part of a shareholding partnership. We wanted to look at so that we could be in line with Icom and this actually reassured Icom, which allowed for this shared structure, which means -- which doesn't mean that we can't have other synergies with the Canal Group. I would also like to say that the first agreement that was made between Lagardere and Canal is from 2011. It was with IT, it was a huge date, a historic date for us. This is a friendship. It's not just a working relationship, but a friendship that has been in place for a number of years, therefore, we want to continue with this. And it goes without saying for different entertainment, live entertainment news. I know that during COVID Lagardere was not having the best time, but actually, the trajectory is the same for Travel Retail. Obviously, the figures aren't of the same magnitude and the same density that actually, once again, they're chugging away very nicely. We've seen a bounce back that has been absolutely exceptional. For those of you who want to entertain yourselves, it's a [indiscernible] I understand that as the buyer has been. But we do have something that is still left from our sporting activities, which we have been negotiating with this town hall or the city of Paris, we do have a license for this type of activity. I know that there are lots of people who like going. And it is a very, very profitable. We have a couple of ideas to develop and perhaps to make more international for the brand and also for then they have the largest markets has been able to implement once again, [indiscernible]. Amongst all of these different operations I'm not going to go through them one by one. I think that by 2023, the outcome endeavor was the most important because we never know what could happen in these types of situations, where we're renegotiating. This is something that can really turn out anyway, and we are very happy with the way that things have panned out as I've seen. And there we wanted to hide this partnership that we could have had with -- we don't want to hide rather this partnership with Vivendi, which is maybe something that people were thinking and you can see a number of other operations that we're able to undergo. So live entertainment was very quickly, as I mentioned earlier, I'm not going to come back to this. Perhaps, do you all remember that [indiscernible] is wonderful. It wasn't easy, and I know not all of the different live entertainment is we're able to bounce back. So it's not sitting at home. Sitting on your laurels that you're going to be able to do that. And I just want to conclude with these couple of points. I would just like to remind you. Obviously, that we've had historical and exceptional results, a reminder because if I'm not the one thing there's no one else is going to say this. So I am saying it. I'm going to shout this loud and clear from the rooftop. We are going to continue with this therefore I'm going to [indiscernible] because normally we should be able to continue to grow not only our turnover but also recurring EBIT for 2024. Well, it's going to be a determining factor and what's going to allow us to kick things up a notch with even better performance is not only the place that Vivendi has with but also the support, the support, the vision, the support to the different activities that Vivendi like with us that they're supporting that they like. And also from what I have understood, this came as no surprise to me. I think that we've been living together now for 4 or 5 months, and I can say that we have not been disappointed in this life. So obviously, we had a couple of teasing issues, Vivendi friends they look at industrial performance and maybe we've got a little less leeway than before, but I recognize this especially when it comes to the different cash aspects that need to be water tight in the next years. Therefore, we are extremely happy to be -- for this new marriage. And this will be my conclusion. We are looking to once again kick things of a natural expansion. When I speak about expansion for growth for results, I don't forget about the 30 employees from the group because we are a group that doesn't have any industrial goods. We don't have any patents. Our capital is human capital. It's you guys, it's all the men and women working for Lagardere, mostly women in this group, and we obviously -- I think that we are so lucky to have this workforce, and I hope that we'll be able to attract even more people. Let's move on to the more concrete update. Let's move on to the figures and the results just to show you that everything that I have mentioned really holds water, and this is exceptional, exceptional for us. So Sophie, the floor is yours.

Thank you very much, Arnaud. My dear shareholders and members of Board of Directors, ladies and gentlemen, I'm delighted to present to you the excellent results achieved by our group in 2023, driven by historic performance of its main business segment as specified by Arnaud Lagardere. I propose that we break down our business by division before looking back at the main financial highlights of the past year. The group sales figures were actually published this morning for the first quarter of 2024 and confirm argument in 2023, Lagardere publishing it's sales growth of 2.2% on a reported basis and 1.9% on a like-for-like basis to a level of activity reaching EUR 2.8 billion. This performance reflects the division's ability to draw on the diversity of its portfolios to secure best sellers as well as capturing new trends on social media. If we have a look at the geographic regions now, we observed an acceleration in France with a growth of 6.1%. And this thanks to a particular sustained pace publication changing [indiscernible] mainly with [ esthetics ], but also best sellers, for example, [indiscernible] in the United Kingdom now. I can't see the image anymore says the speaker. In the United Kingdom [indiscernible] 17.9%, thanks to strong a momentum in the Education segment, driven by educational reform. And the United States and Canada accounted for 29% of sales compared to 32% in 2022. This decline is mainly due to a tighter market and the absence of best sellers in between because we had a lot more in 2022, remind, in 2022, we had quite [indiscernible] James Patterson. And we also had the [indiscernible] that were very high performing. Also, the ability, opportunity has been maintained and again the publishing is probably [indiscernible] preparing EBIT before is remaining at a high level of [indiscernible] with 7%, which is close to record that was a significant improvement [indiscernible] with breakouts up to 2019, pre-COVID, where we're now going 2% of margin. Maintaining a high level of recurring EBIT has been [indiscernible] on ongoing operational efforts of our team. And I would like to thank them for their actions that made it possible to offset inflationary pressure on production, transport and personnel costs. Thanks to the continued [indiscernible] management. Moving now to Travel Retail. This year as Arnaud showed, this was a successful year pulling Travel Retail. We had Retail Travel come back to [indiscernible] that was basically since 2019 by 75% of the overall traffic. We got the division sales reaching an all-time high of over EUR 5 billion, about 27% on our [indiscernible] 4.4% on a like-to-like basis. Retail Travel, we also will benefit from an improvement of air traffic across all ends in the EMEA region, which is up 26 basis points and also in [indiscernible] with an increase of 52.1%. That is an improvement in travel, a great [indiscernible] was also driven by other activities, for example, [indiscernible] and acquisition -- 3 acquisitions that we will make in Germany. And on the slide in the United States segment now accounts. 27% of the investor activity on the back of 22% in 2022. For profitability historical [indiscernible] of the current EBIT, we've spent [indiscernible] the margin of 4.9%. The exceptional performance was a possible main move by enter sales in all regions [indiscernible] so forth and efficiency has generated like a weak performance and [indiscernible] in recurring EBIT in 2022. And the remarkable commitment of our teams, and we would like to thank once again. For the other activities [indiscernible] 3.2% in the like-for-like basis, a number of factors stand that, [indiscernible] audience levels and press print as well advertising revenue for 2022. Offset by [indiscernible] license and also great activity that we have seen Lagardere entertainment which had a huge growth 2022. [indiscernible] I guess improvement was EUR 4 million. We have a slide compared [indiscernible] financial items that have [indiscernible] including a higher financing cost due to higher interest rate. High level of tax due to [indiscernible] on to the cash flow. We've got good dynamic and of course, cash flow [indiscernible], which increased from EUR 524 million to EUR 611 million. We also had an increase in CapEx with [indiscernible] group's future development. And we have our last element linked to our M&A strategy, it's got EUR 223 million with just acquisition [indiscernible]. for Travel Retail [indiscernible] as stronger than the past period. Now I move on to the debt. We have seen an increase of EUR 2.1 million at the end of December 2023, EUR 1.7 million at the end of 2022. Significant many years M&A activity that I've already mentioned. However, the gearing ratio remains below 3x at the end of December. Let's move on to the dividend [indiscernible] this year that we invested both in Travel Retail for our shop network as well as acquisitions in the United States [indiscernible] future result. We are now seeking to reduce our debt given interest rates, again, this backdrop, we are proposing a payout of [ 65 ] a share for 2022 which you will be asked to approve in a moment. Now on to news release of fiscal 2024 up against a backdrop [indiscernible] risen by EUR 8 million like in the publishing managed to maintain a high level of activity, up 0.8% on a historically high pace with of comparison. And this thanks to success of best sellers in the United States and in the United Kingdom. If we move on to Travel Retail, 2022 also for this first quarter, we have a dynamic growth. Of course, the majority of geographical weakness and we've got 13.6% compared to the third quarter of 2023 growth was particularly strong in the EMEA region and relatively favorable in [indiscernible]. For other activity, we have growth that is actually stable at 0.1% [indiscernible] entertainment of the new businesses. Just you can be proud of your [ response ] in 2023 and the free enrollment in the first quarter of 2024 together with one the great development on our experienced business lines. I would like to thank you for your attention.

Thank you very much, Sophie. Thank you so much. I know that you're not in the hot seat as much on the operating the comments. But should we continue.

Yes, before giving the floor to [ Sevan ], who is the Director of [indiscernible], who'll be joining us on stage present [indiscernible]. We would like to invite you to [indiscernible] by way of introduction you can see what we will do in 2024. [Presentation]

Hello, everyone. So we take an outlook of all the actions taken in 2023 in terms of CSR. And I'm going to give you a snapshot of the strategic pillars of the actions that we will continue to take in 2024. The first pillar is to limit the environmental footprint of products and services. Of course, as soon as we talk about the environment, we think about the climate. Lagardere has committed to decarbonize its activities in a very ambitious way. The objective is to reduce our CO2 emissions by 30% by 2030, which requires to implement optimization measures to reduce our energy consumption in our facilities. And in transportation, and we will continue to steer this trajectory doing what we call our Scope 3 carbon reporting, which will include all the energy consumption for our products and services. This is a regulatory obligation. But as per what Arnaud said, it's also a criteria to give calls for tenders in the airports and stations. Another pillar of the environmental policy is the circular economy. Asset Publishing has developed a great program. Since 2021, the objective is to reduce plastic use by 25% both to produce books and also in the logistics chain. Lagardere Travel Retail is also doing a similar action with a very important program to reduce food waste in its restaurants branch, and we are going to extend this program to reduce waste to travel essential and duty-free segments. So this is for circular economy. We continue to develop. And the second pillar of our strategy, and I'm sure those who regularly come to the general assembly know it, we want to place humans at the heart of our strategy. I'm not going to provide all the details of the actions. We've seen quite a good snapshot in the video. But I would like to highlight a result we're particularly proud of, and Arnaud Lagardere highlighted it earlier, that is the place of women within the company. We have met our criteria to feminize the top X. We have reached 46%, and we want to reach 47% next year, and we want to thank our HR managers who develop this working space, which is inclusive. A third pillar of the strategy is also to share the social and cultural diversity of our activities in the media, publishing, live events, we want to ensure access to knowledge and entertainment to all. For example, people who are disabled. This is why all the new books published by Lagardere are accessible. And since we are at the fully [indiscernible] we have made great efforts and innovated Lagardere Entertainment has created a guide for those who have autistic disorders, so that they can enjoy fully the live events. And we've also shared knowledge and entertainment by fighting those who are struggling with literacy. We want to promote reading, and we started this in '22 with about 20 programs impacting more than dozens of thousands of beneficiaries. We have the Jean-Luc Lagardere Foundation, which has been working for more than 20 years in this. It's very well known. And finally, the Lagardere News and radio actions, I wanted to highlight that we have a new indicator this year to track production of radio shows that are so-called green shows, which aim at raising awareness around the climate and the environmental transition. We're tracking this with a new indicator with the radios, which adds up to what we were already tracking on the written media. So this is it for the social and cultural diversity in our activities. And I will conclude with the fourth pillar which might be the foundation of what I just presented, that is governance, responsible and ethical governance. Our directors have strengthened their work to prepare for the new European standards for extra financial reporting. We continue to consider the fight against the corruption as a priority. And this year, we've launched a new training aimed at all of our employees, so about 80% of the employees by 2026. Finally, we continue to secure our value chain by rolling out a social and environmental assessment of our so-called at-risk suppliers. We are already assessing half of them, and we will reach 80% in 2026. As a conclusion, I want to say that our managers are determined. The teams are very much mobilized in the field. All positions are involved, CSR, HR, operations, finance, procurement, in order to continue to develop the growth of our activities, a sustainable and inclusive growth. Thank you for your attention.

Yes, I'm going to give the floor to Virginie Banet of CSR Compensation and Apartment Committee, so she can present the work of her committee.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, shareholders. Your assembly must give its opinion on 3 resolutions about governance. I'll start with the first one, ratifying the cooptation of Yannick Bollore as a Director. The Board on December 8 after [indiscernible] leaving decided to appoint or coopt Yannick Bollore. Beyond the fact that this is reducing the average age of the Board, which is good, thanks to his knowledge in the media, he has a very international experience and a great knowledge of CSR-related topics and innovation, which is AI, which will have a great role in our business. So we're asking you to ratify this co-option. As for Resolutions 13 and 14, that is the appointment of auditors to certify information around sustainability. As part of the new extra financial reporting, which you've all heard that is CSRD aiming at strengthening the quality and comparability of sustainability reporting, we are going to publish our first report in 2025 and we need auditors or independent third-party organizations to certify. And in March, the Board decided after the recommendation of the Audit Committee and Appointment Committee to appoint the auditors of the company who's currently in charge of certifying accounts. We are asking you to vote on the appointment of Deloitte for 3 years and Mazar for 2 years. I'm now going to briefly talk about the governance of your company, which you already know because it hasn't changed much. We have 3 committees, 2 standing committees, appointment, CSR and audit and an ad hoc committee as part of the public purchase offer. The Board still has 11 directors, including several employees. And as Arnaud Legado said, they have a crucial role as part of our discussions. The feminization rate is at 55%. And this is higher than the Afep-MEDEF requirement. As for the work of the Board, we met 11x. The attendance rate is 99%, which is exceptionally high. We of course, worked on strategic and financial issues with accounts, financial report and universal recording. In terms of governance, 2 things, cooption of Yannick Bollore and appointment of Arnaud de Puyfontaine as part of the compensation appointment and CSR Committee. We also worked on compensations. This was an important topic during our meetings. Since we are proposing a new compensation policy for 2024 in order to be in line with best practices and demands of agencies. Increase of the fixed remuneration of the General Director, which had not changed since 2009. In addition, we have proposing a change of the criteria for the variable compensation in order to avoid compensation effects between those different criteria, with a maximum of 150% of the fixed remuneration, which was 200 before. The Board has also decided to create a new performance free shares system, and it's important because the Board believes it's good that the employees can be shareholders if they want to. In 2023, a decision was made to extend the free shares program to all of the employees of the group with a plan called we share Lagardère, which allowed to get 5 years of free shares if you've been working for more than 2 years in the group and working at least 50% at the time. In terms of sustainable development, we worked on the CSRD-directive. We'll come back to that later. And of course, the Board worked on the project to get the Vivendi and Lagardère group together and to implement the autonomization project for the radio branch. Regarding the compensation appointment and CSR committee, which I share, there are 6 members. You can see them on screen. We met 6x. The attendance rate was 100%. Different interventions from Pauline Hauwel, [indiscernible] the Sustainable Development Director and employee representatives of the branches and CSR representatives of the branches. For the first time, we had plenary audit and CSR meetings due to the implementation of the new CSRD standards. Regarding the work of the committee -- in terms of governance, I won't come back to the members, but we can highlight the rate of independence and attendance, which is higher than the average of the SBF 120, which is a good thing. This was highlighted earlier, but it's very important. The specificity of the Lagardère Group. Today, we have 55% women of in the Board, 43% in the executive committee and 45% at the highest management level, which is high and we hope it will be even higher next year. The committee also did a self-assessment of the board. Last year, we reached out to a third party. This year, we did it independently. Out of this assessment, it came out that the organization is positive and quite a diverse range of skills. 2 areas of improvement might be spending more time on analyzing the competition with benchmark studies and on the digital and AI issues. Another aspect was to question the Ad Hoc Committee created as part of the Vivendi operation. Regarding the compensation, I won't come back to that. But just as a reminder, all the details are in chapter 3 of the universal recording document, which is available to you. In terms of sustainable development, which we're working hard on, given the new European standards. We followed up on the compliance work with the CSRD directive. In order to fully understand the standards to track the analysis of double materiality for those who know and in order to find the priorities, these standards will be very time-consuming for the teams in order to get a report by 2025. Given how technical those CSR issues are even further now with the new standard, we wondered whether it will be necessary to train the directors on this topic. We are discussing this within the Board to see who -- what kind of training the members would like to get. This is the end of my presentation. I hope I wasn't too long, and I'm going to give the floor to Véronique Morali.

Thank you, Virginie. Hello. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, shareholders. I'm delighted to present to you some slightly less glamor work than what you heard so far from the Audit and Ad hoc Committee. First of all, the members, as you can see, hasn't changed, Virginie Banet, Valerie Bernis, Fatima Fikree and myself. I won't give the average age of the committee. Despite what Virginie said, but the committee met 6 times. The attendance rate is 96%, which is very positive. The meetings of the committee take place in the presence of the General Secretary of the group, the auditors, of course, financial management, accounting management, internal audit, risk control, compliance, IT system, management control and all these committees take place in a fully independent manner because we have a 75 independence rate within the members of the committee. As Virginie said, we now have common meetings with the Appointment and CSR Committee because the audit committee is now responsible for this as per the European taxonomy and the implementation of the CSRD standard. So this is a new joint approach that we now have in the presence of [indiscernible], of course, who's guiding this work. The activity of the Audit Committee 2023 it's quite traditional. As you can see on screen, reviewing consolidated and social accounts, quarterly accounts, the financial reports, yearly reports, financial information, drafting process, cash forecasts and what we call also cash pooling, compensation of auditors, which is always too high, but we strongly negotiated, summary of analysis, financial engagement reports and everything around reviewing the budget, yearly budget and plans over several years. As for internal control and auditing and safety, we constantly review risk management, internal control, self-assessment campaigns that Virginie Banet just mentioned. And of course, internal auditing activities, audit plans with the management of any areas of improvement and a very important topic, safety of IT systems in the group, including cyber security, which is very important here and everywhere else. The plenary with the appointment committee, I mentioned it and of course, once a year, we review the tax policy, legal litigations, assistant needs in 2022, which also continued in 2023. We have also specifically reviewed the infrastructure transformation plan for Hachette Publishing France, which led to several decisions mentioned by Arnaud Lagardère. This is it for the Audit Committee. Now the Ad hoc Committee, we've mentioned it. It's a more temporary committee. It was implemented in December 2021 when the operation with Vivendi started. President Sarkozy, Pascal Jouen, staff representative, [indiscernible] did not get a voting right, but he was present during all the committees, Valrie Bernis and myself. The committee met twice during the year 2023 in order to review the project to take over control of Vivendi and the whole process with the European Committee, which led to the final closing on November 21, 2023. We also guided the work of the Ad Hoc Committee on the transformation of Lagardère into a sponsorship company as part of the discussions with the Arcom in order to autonomize the radio branch and put it under the exclusive control of Arnaud Lagardère. I'm done with the presentation of the activity of those 2 committees. Yes, you can give them a round of applause. Thank you. I'm now going to give the floor to Mr. Simon Beillevaire, representing the auditors.

Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, I'm happy to present in the name of the auditors, Deloitte and Mazars, the reports that we have created for the year 2023. They are available to you, and I can summarize them for you. There are 3 reports. One on the yearly accounts, one on the consolidated accounts and one on the regulated conventions. I will start with the yearly accounts for the first resolution. They are prepared based on account -- French accounting principles. And we thought that the participation or shareholding system were at the heart of the audit. As a conclusion, we certify the yearly accounts of the company without reservation or comment. Regarding the consolidated accounts, based on the IFRS standard, there are 2 key areas in the audit. First of all, the assessment of acquisition gaps given how important it is to management and uncertainties to the estimates and assumptions. The second one is about the assessment of return in recognizing the turnover within the Lagardère Publishing branch, given how high those returns are assessed. As a conclusion, we have established a certification report without reservations on the consolidated accounts of the group. Finally, regarding the fourth resolution of your general assembly, we have made a report on regulated conventions. A new one was created and was approved by your Board. That is the protocol for Lagardère Radio SA. The point is to autonomize the radio branch of the group. The agreements approved during the previous year and that continued in 2023 are also included in the report.

Ladies and gentlemen, shareholders, thank you for your attention. And before we move on to the Q&A session with the room. I want to tell you that we have received 2 written questions from 2 shareholders. The answers were provided in writing and available on the website in the General Assembly section. Yes. And out of the 2 written questions, there's a lot, of course, but there's also underlying topics, which are crucial to us. That is the industrial synergies that we can expect with the Vivendi assets, and I'll give the floor to Maxime about this. He's much better positioned to answer those questions. Over to you, Maxime.

Thank you, Arnaud. You mentioned a few earlier with Lagardère news, of course, and everything we do with the Europa teams or the [indiscernible] and match teams. We had Pascal Praud joining et vous and the success of et vous, which had the greatest rating increase so thanks to [indiscernible] and not just Pascal Praud because 95% of the slots have increased in our rating. So that's great. Most of what we will get to do together will be around assets. There has been a production increase that tripled especially in cinema and series with the arrival of great American platforms such as Netflix or Disney. And just to give you an idea of the weight of literature in there, 42% of the greatest successes of American box office were adaptations of books, and it's 44% in France. So half of the cinema successes are adaptations of books. The [indiscernible] asset book is one of the greatest successes in Cinema in France soon on Canal+ and a French series, which was a great success, was also a book. [indiscernible], it's also a book adaptation, the greatest success is Tokyo vice, also an adaptation. The greatest success of Canal studios is Paddington, which, of course, is an adaptation, the biggest movies of STUDIOCANAL selected for the Cannes festival are adaptations of book [indiscernible] and these are not just books because earlier you talked about board games, and we're about to launch on Canal+ a new series, which is a game adapted from [indiscernible] a very well-known board game, and that will be one of the greatest launches in September. So this is not the kind of thing you can do overnight. We've been actively working under your management and under the control of Stephanie Ferron and the asset management to see what we could develop in the future as franchise we've identified one about the [indiscernible] with an adaptation with [indiscernible] and the STUDIOCANAL are filming it now. I'm sure it will be a great success. And we have a huge series of developments on IP with, as you said earlier, the idea is that authors are talents at Canal+ we've been working with talent from the cinema industry, directors, authors, actors, actresses for a very long time. And we want to see what we can offer to those talents and how we can optimize the potential of Vivendi and its activities to make great proposals to those authors and talents who are unique, and this will help us to have the capacity to develop TV production with [indiscernible] but also to attract new authors thanks to this unique proposal. And this is the Lagardère assembly I can only talk about Lagardère, but I'm sure you'll do that in your assembly at [indiscernible] on Monday, but you can really see the potential [indiscernible]. It's a huge potential. And as we often say with Maxime to our teams, this is in the social interest of both companies and I can actually see that this is a very rare development strategy outside of our main industry, which is literature. Of course, there are board games, but this is extremely powerful. And we're lucky enough that our mother company is a global leader. So it's only positive for us. And once again, I said it earlier, I'm spending a lot of time with Maxime and the asset publishing teams because this is one of the keys of the transformation of the Lagardère Group. It's another step. We're not just slightly improving. We're improving a lot. Thank you, Maxime. I know you spend a lot of time on this, and it's crucial to us. Q&A session and then we'll conclude.

So can we have a [indiscernible] cannot contain himself [indiscernible] on its way to you. Thank you very much. I think that we've got an issue [indiscernible] we have about 530,000 shares within Lagardère and of course I've actually been to quite a few AGMs and I'd like to congratulate the Board, and I would like to congratulate all of the different teams and the employees, the policy [indiscernible] 2023, but also for the revenue that you [indiscernible] this morning. I have 3 questions to you, Mr. Lagardère and 1 question for [indiscernible]. My first question is with regards to travel retail. And I would like you to talk to us about the trajectory for activity for 2024. How are you anticipating this? Maybe you speak about this morning, but you can talk about 2024, what 2024 will have in store of retail. Maybe you can talk about the Olympic Games as well as this a factor that you think will have an impact on our activity. That was my first question. The second is the following [indiscernible]. I think that there is a disposal that is underway. The price has not yet been unveiled, but maybe you could qualify or quantify the disposal price that you're looking for? That's my second question. My third question is a question that is about the level of the share price. We saw that the results for 2022 were the best in 15 years. So even if as you reminded us that we have been increasing over the course of past few years, what about the value of the share price? And Mr. Lagardère, how do you feel about the fact that we're looking at a share price of EUR 20 per share. And for the Lagardère Group, if you would like to maybe give the floor back to Mr. [indiscernible] Mr. Saada, I have a question which is the following. So since the 21st of November, what have you found in -- so when you opened the bonnet, if we may [indiscernible], when you had a look at the engine, what were you surprised about? What did you find? And what are the different areas of improvement that you have been able to identify. We're not just talking about cash conversion because cash conversion has been mentioned, but maybe you guys can tell us about where you think that improvements -- improvement can be made. Thank you very much to Mr. Lagardère. So what are the different answers that you mean to give to my questions.

Okay. So yes, I can see thank you very much for your congratulations. And obviously, all of the different teams that are watching, I'm sure, will be delighted. We know that it's very well deserved and Lagardère [indiscernible] 2024, if I can ask any moment to add anything obviously, the trajectory is always ascending. It's still ascending because we've got positive air traffic despite the fact that we've had a couple of issues in Asia, but generally speaking, it's quite positive because we've had efforts that are made from a cost perspective also with [indiscernible]. Why? Because we've understood that the COVID crisis was away for us to maybe look at a clean slate, look at how we can change some of our modules [indiscernible]. Even though our strength is also the fact that we're quite decentralized because this allows each country to react quicker and fast and stronger. We are very optimistic about where travel retail is going. I don't see any negative points here, apart from maybe from Asia, as I quickly mentioned before, but I think let's not count our chickens before they have hatched. The Olympic games. So we actually asked this question to like I said that is going to be wonderful and [indiscernible] it's not going to be that wonderful. I think it's going to be -- obviously, it's not nice to say is because of the -- [indiscernible] Olympic games an ideal step, but I think it will be more of an issue than anything else. I'm not sure that people are going to come and consume, they are going to the Olympic Games, no, it's not really [indiscernible] something that's exceptional. In fact, it's probably something that's more of a hindrance I would say, even negative for us that [indiscernible] the following Olympic games on home soil and [indiscernible] the offer that was put forward by the [indiscernible] is underway, and the Board will be looking at this. The price will only be unveiled if there is -- we signed on the dotted line. And [indiscernible] is not really happening [indiscernible]. Just the fact that we're having to look at this, I don't know. It's not something that we like doing. But we're not here to do things that we like doing. We also want to ensure that we're doing best by our shareholders. Therefore, we owe it to you guys to examine or look at the offer and we will share the result, we don't exactly know when if this will be before summer, after summer, but professionally speaking, we're doing everything we should be doing [indiscernible], and we'll see where this will lead and what the consequences would be. [indiscernible] to your last question. Your penultimate question in regards to the share price. We're never satisfied with the price, especially at the moment. We are working on this. It is, of course, a concern for our teams. It's obviously of course a concern for [indiscernible] because this will have [indiscernible]. And we think that we actually -- we've been capped, I think, at EUR 20, but we think that the share price should be higher. If I did have a silver bullet, I would implement this, but I don't think that we deserve this. I think we deserve more so don't think that we're not thinking about this. We are willing to do everything we can, and we hope that in the future, this will increase. So your last question, I'll give the floor very quickly to Maxime and Yannick as well, who will be talking quickly about this with regards to what they discovered under the bonnet, if I want to use the same analogy that you gave Maxime. So when you open that bonnet, what did you find underneath.

I was very impressed when I opened the bonnet by how you guys managed to bounce back after COVID. The figures speaks for themselves. It is a group with exceptional strength with remarkable performance, especially after COVID, did a lot better than their competitors and is a real global group. Yes, maybe we can have a -- thank you very much, [indiscernible]. Thank you for your questions, and thank you for everything you said. Yes, it was a wonderful discovery for us. We've been waiting to be able to talk about this for a couple of months because the first -- when we started buying shares in March of 2020, I think it was the 30th of March 2020. I remember the date because actually it was the date at which we received the regulations for the first 10% of the [indiscernible] Universal Music Group. And obviously, it's a period that we all remember March 2020, everything was at a standstill. This entertainment venue as which others will close if we needed to be very courageous and brave to say, okay, are going to support Arnaud, we're going to support Arnaud's Group in a battle or a struggle that seemed epic at that time. And when I look at the situation, 3.5 years down the road, in November 2021, we got the authorization from Brussels. And we were able to sign once again on that dotted line, and it was a wonderful surprise. I'm not going to come back to the figures. These figures have been commented on. They are excellent. We're talking about publishing, but it has hit over that EUR 300 million, COVID was exceptional. Well, it's not just Netflix or Canal+ so that we're able to make the most of lockdown. Travel Retail, which for us was kind of discovery because we haven't worked in this before. We've been able to brush shoulders with [indiscernible] saying that they bounced back after COVID would be an understatement given the superior results. This opened many doors and such. All of the different discussions which aren't simple between the shareholders and the directions of this brand. And what is the level of cash are we going to plug in so that we can continue with consolidates in this sector as you can see that is looking to completely reinvent itself, but with wonderful perspective. We're also very surprised and doesn't need a surprise to see different assets in the Media division and incredible assets. Media outlets that we know in France. Here, we are in an emblematic entertainment venue. We've also got Lagardère [indiscernible] have been one of the lucky few. I've been a member for the longest time, actually, far longer than I care to share. We've got great prospects for these branches. But what really took me aback [indiscernible] on it was the quality of the team, Arnaud Lagardère has spoken about human capital with [indiscernible], we have exactly the same take with the men and women of the Lagardère Group that are making the group what it is. And not just in the cultural or sales sector. But actually, the teams are highly qualitative. [indiscernible] is not trying to take ownership of the results in 2022, 2023 because actually, we weren't allowed to get involved at all. Therefore, it is all on you. It's all on your teams. And just for Arnaud, Arnaud and I have had known each other for 10 years, but not as well as we know each other now. It was quite frustrating because we weren't allowed to talk to each other, but I've got to know not only the human being who was very kind, very caring, very smart with exceptional qualities, especially when it comes to public speaking, but he is also the leader of a business that is highly performing, which is the Lagardère Group. In every sense of the term. And his contribution to the group is major. When it comes to the success over the course of the past few years, but also the upcoming success for the Lagardère Group and all of its shareholders. Thank you for listening.

So after -- maybe we can all go home. Let's finish on a high. Yannick, and I obviously can only echo what you said about me so yourself. I just want to answer the question for yes, when we opened [indiscernible] much longer, but the fact that we're looking at this offer is because we've got a very important French actor, which is the [indiscernible] family, they're going to -- they fly the French flag high. It will be a family run business and it is essential for us. Therefore, we are having a look at this with particular attention and obviously, the figures will also be the ones that maybe help us make that decision. We could have had lots of different acquirers. So we're happy that we have a French acquirer although we would have a French acquirer [indiscernible] just for you and then I will give you this.

So I will try to [indiscernible] question, I guess. The thing is pretty easy to understand. So [indiscernible] dividends may hurt some stars in many ways, but the outcome seems wise, not all we can claim should be given [indiscernible] that would be hazardous [indiscernible] right surmise. Each role looks useful for [indiscernible] for a strong -- sorry, [indiscernible] mess of former heavy bills. Let us, however, as for secured sales, I think both, of course, can merge in one price. Please tell us quick about your plans [indiscernible], so we can follow with serenity ever again, but provide your skills. Yet we hope you will do nothing silly, our ambitions are probably the same [indiscernible], let's understand your game.

[indiscernible] Is that right? Was this a poet that you wrote or a poem that you write, there were couple of [indiscernible]. Thank you very much for your question. I'm going to be very clear in my response. I don't know if that was the question. Was it a poem? What was it? Maybe we'll take as that, it was a work of literary art. Okay, nothing to add. It wasn't the language that was an issue. It was okay, I understand you're upset about the dividends. Yes. Okay. You said about the dividends. There's a very simple reason for this. You know that the group is in debt. And it is not unreasonable debt. Once again, I spoke about this earlier, we mentioned the fact that we need to be very rigorous and the fact that [indiscernible]. Therefore, we thought it would be more reasonable to take the approach that we have for dividends. Even though I'm a victim -- just as you are. We thought it was a lot more reasonable to cut the dividends in half so that we could maybe increase this in the future and as our results increase, the cash transformation increase as well. Yes, I understand you are upset. I'm sharing you are upset but [indiscernible] share my hope this far, and I hope that we'll get back to normal dividend distribution, but it's really. Madam, did you have a question here? I can't hear unfortunately. We had a question #1 earlier. so we had a question #3 as well. I just wanted to talk about [indiscernible] match. Why do you not want to keep it. The same thing because when you have an offer, we present it to the Board. And I can't -- not look at this. Once again, the name the reputation of the buyer, also needs to come into play. Therefore, if you're asking me would you prefer to sell or keep obviously, I prefer to keep it. However, there comes a time that when we have offers. And when I noted this asset, it's a historical asset -- but if we're leaving it in good hands, hands that we can trust both for us and for the magazine and if the price makes sense, then we have to siege in a certain sense, okay. I can't say anymore, especially because we're still analyzing the offer, but we will get to this in due course. There was another question. Number #1 over there. I am an individual shareholder. Thank you very much for organizing the event, I just had a -- we have Wi-Fi. This is [indiscernible], but we can't add access because it would have been a good idea for us to be able to fact check. Okay. Obviously, I had a couple of other points as well maybe for Radio. We know that we are a shared partnership the Lagardère Group has been a fortress in the past, so I don't understand why we haven't created a foundation. Maybe you can give us a little bit more information because I don't understand it's like a golden parachute here. We -- so what I've understood, you could use this shareholder, I don't understand why you chose this, and then I want to talk about the Lagardère management resolution for. Maybe you can walk us through this type of functioning. And the last question is more of a comment with regards to [indiscernible] the way that [indiscernible] match has been presented, I imagine that it's a done deal. Gala was meant to be sold because it had to be sold because of what the European Commission said. And then I don't understand maybe a couple of months later [indiscernible] by much. So why didn't we keep Gala and [indiscernible]. I can't speak further, but [indiscernible] could have disposed -- not disposed of Gala then they would have done, but they were -- the hand was forced by -- by the European Commission because I imagine we're put into the same segment, but I cannot speak on behalf of the [indiscernible] can also do it, but I don't think it was fair, but that's the way that they did this. So I think that it's something that is, yes, a shame. I agree with you. And once again, I'm not going to repeat what I've already said about [indiscernible] match because like you I regret this, maybe I would regret the disposal as well. but there are things that we can't come back on. Okay. So when you talk about -- I'm not saying that I'm here up until 2027 for the shareholder structure, but this belongs to the shareholders. Nothing has changed from an economic standpoint. I'm not getting any additional money. The idea was just to allow for the whole of the group the day where this was accepted to not put [indiscernible] in danger, should not have this authorization where we would go back to auction. I think that the strategy has paid off and [indiscernible] well. And now the group is under the control of [indiscernible] but we are -- and they are the shareholders, the owners rather of the [indiscernible] assets. I'm not going to go [indiscernible] with the assets. Okay. So this with a [indiscernible] and so the second question for [indiscernible] what was your point that the management shouldn't still be in place, is that right? Yes, we have a certain number of the Executive Board. We modified or simplified rather than structure last year. Why because the effects [indiscernible] company whether list all as the elements of remuneration and there isn't any margin taken? And from a cost point of view, it's exactly the same thing. These costs were part of the group. And actually, this gives more transparency why? Because in addition to all of the information that is given as a reference point, the isolated amount of this invoicing is communicated. Every single year, we've also got due diligence that is conducted by the Audit Committee and our auditors, and as presented to you during the AGM. Maybe if we could just talk about the Radio. The operation has been structured. And we've got absolute financial neutrality. This is why we've got just in -- we could have looked at foundations, yes, but it was an idea that was retained because we don't want to move away from the group study. The group is going to continue to -- from a capital point of view, the radio cut as well as all of the different financial flows. It's the legal control that has been changed [indiscernible] who is in-charge of the authorization of the radio with the different structures and synergies that have been implemented by [indiscernible]. All of this has been implemented with Acram and also with the Ad Hoc Committee and independent experts. We have a report that is publicly available on this website and this operation is being waited upon today. It's been submitted for your approval. Therefore, I think that all of the different rules has been followed. There was also a third question that I did write down. Yes, the Wi-Fi. Yes, was it a question or was it a comment. Okay, Wi-Fi.

Number 2, number 4. Mr. Chair in a context, looking at macroeconomic inflation, our group needs to be resilient. We've got 30,000 employees with individual shareholders and when looking [indiscernible] with economy. And so I think about publishing now, how could we maintain the diversity because our millions of readers are congratulating us for. So for different profitability [indiscernible]. We have had exponential growth in the number of publications on that to into consideration in different dimensions [indiscernible] market. This would be a risky wager. And I also think about how we can make this sustainable, the fact that we want to standardize production in order to get rid of useless cost without looking at impact for earnings, [indiscernible] our ecosystem and taking away creativity, motivation and call trust of the different actors that are contributing to our current success. In addition, the fact that we've got a double jurisdiction, that means that we need to understand exactly what's going on. And we also want to look at the fact that we have been a return of the [indiscernible]. It would be a shame that the different authors [indiscernible]. Therefore, we look at all of these different challenges, are you able to reassure the different members of our group as well as [indiscernible] that all will be okay.

Yes, I can. Obviously, yes I can, and you're absolutely right to talk about [indiscernible], which will be essential to us. And we are going to, I think, over the course of the upcoming weeks, we will be looking at a number of different announcements that will be made for the replacement of [indiscernible], as you know he has left us, but left amicably, you're also right to mention diversity and [indiscernible] diversity, which means that nobody should be left behind. And this is exactly what we're going to do [indiscernible] absolutely nobody is left behind. The cost, I understand what you're saying here, believe me, I often talk about this with [indiscernible], we are very, very concentrated on this. Once again, we have a lot of work to be done. We need to know where we're putting the clicker because a book is not a product, but it is a work. We are working in different fields, very particular that you know more than I do and Maxime [indiscernible] different requirements that we have, this is why we're here. We also need to be very careful with regards to where we're putting [indiscernible], which doesn't mean on the flip side that we're not able to look at different progress that has been made to ensure that we can be high performing and more profitable so that we're not having an impact, a negative impact on the quality of our work. Having a negative impact on our authors or our publishers either. And that I am very well aware of. You can be reassured, be reassured, rest assured that everyone is in the same basket and then everyone will be able to find their way. Thank you very much. And I can see that you are a connoisseur of the business. We'll take a couple more questions before wrapping things up.

I want to continue by talking about the interest in [indiscernible]. And I think -- could we also talk about Travel Retail? Because duty-free in airports have a lot of LVMH products and [indiscernible] or are we looking to [indiscernible] Travel Retail. And my question, we know that [indiscernible] lost its wings last year. Do you think that if the [indiscernible] was to be put up for sale, that we would perhaps be able to purchase this so that we could have a wonderful synergy between [indiscernible].

so for Travel Retail, I think, obviously [indiscernible] me to answer this question. I'm not sure that they would be looking [indiscernible]. I think that they already have a big shareholder and I don't think that it's a strategic [indiscernible] for LVMH, but obviously, it's not up to me to note the decision for them. [indiscernible] yes, we could have a mass effect. I don't like to think that because it's almost as if I'm bastardizing what we do, but the size could help us. I don't know whether the first [indiscernible] today would be to. Okay, let's make the most of the fact that they're in a tricky situation, but I can't really say anything [indiscernible] for the moment. If they were looking for an acquirer, then yes, we would have a look at what they had to offer like everyone else. I just wanted to correct something that was said earlier because I actually said the wrong name [indiscernible] I think we are severely over time, but actually to answer the question that was mentioned, it was [indiscernible], who were working with [indiscernible] but actually the Director of Sales, which is Mr. [indiscernible], who is independent, sorry, I got that wrong [indiscernible]. It is him and only him who will be reporting to [indiscernible] and who will be looking at what we can and cannot do, sorry it was my mistake. And I apologize for that. Are there any other questions? I think this will be the last question. And if they are answering the questions we're going to move on. Okay. no further questions. No further questions. Okay. Okay. He put his hand up, but that was a mistake. [indiscernible] auction here. Thank you very much for your questions. Let's move on to [indiscernible] you have the floor.

Thank you very much. I'm going to give you the definitive numbers for the quorum at 2,130 shareholders who are waiting even in person. We've got a [indiscernible] 92% and 161,514,484 votes. Before going to the vote, I would just like to share 1 last film to explain the tablet is available to you. [Foreign Language]

So we are going to start the vote with resolution #1. Resolution #1, approval of yearly accounts of the year ending on December 31, 2023. The vote is open. The resolution is approved at 99.99%. Resolution #2, approval of the consolidated account of the year ending on December 31, 2023. The vote is open. Vote is closed. Approved at 99.99%. Resolution #3, allocation of the social results and distribution of a dividend. The vote is open. Vote is closed. Approved 99.99%. Resolution #4, approval of regulated agreement for Article L22538 of the commercial code. Vote is open. Vote is closed. Approved at 99.97%. Let me clarify that Mr. Arnaud Lagardère did not participate directly or indirectly to this vote since he is directly involved. Resolution #5, ratification of cooption of Mr. Yannick Bollore as a director. Vote is open. Vote is closed. Approved 99.98%. Congratulations. Resolution #6, approval of the information provided in L22109 of the commercial code for compensation. Vote is open. Vote is closed. Approved 99.97%. Resolution #8, approval of compensation and benefits provided during the year 2023, [indiscernible] sorry, that was Arnaud Lagardère for Resolution #7. Vote is opened. Vote is close. Approved at 99.96%. Resolution #8, approval of compensation and benefits provided during the year 2023. Mr. [indiscernible], Vice General Director. Vote is open. Vote is closed. Approved at 99.60%. Resolution #9, approval of the compensation policy 2024 for the CEO. Vote is opened. Approved at 99.58%. Resolution #10, approval of the compensation policy 2024 for the Managing Director. Vote is open. Vote is closed. Approved at 99.95%. Resolution #11, approval of the compensation policy for 2024 of the member of the Board of Directors. Vote is open. Closed. Approved at 99.97%. Authorization to the Board for 18 months to operate on the shares of the company. Vote is open. Vote is closed. Approved at 99.99%. Resolution #13, appointment of Deloitte and associate as auditors to certify the information in terms of sustainability. Vote is open. Vote is closed. Approved at 99.99%. Resolution #14, appointment of Mazars as auditors to certify sustainability information. Vote is open. Approved at 99.99%. Final resolution #15 proxy. Vote is open. Approved at 99.99%. I just wanted to dedicate this assembly to the most loyal and tenacious member of the company, [indiscernible], we miss him very dearly. See you soon next year. Thank you, everybody. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]