Lagardere SA (MMB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

I believe we are going to start. We have a few people waiting in the lobby outside, but it's past 9, and we have a lot to cover. We have great news for 2024 and the future. So we're going to start. First and foremost, welcome, ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders. Welcome to Casino de Paris that you should be familiar with. And I'd like to congratulate Jérôme Langlet, who is the Manager of this venue. You'll see in a minute through what I'll say and also through what [ Grégoire Castaing ] will say, 2024 was a very good year. I'd like to pay tribute to the Executive Committee of the group. Usually, we have fewer people, especially at Casino de Paris, but we have a large stage. So I'll ask them to come on stage, Constance Benqué, Dag Rasmussen, Jean-Christophe Thiery, who will also be at the helm of the Louis Hachette assembly; Maxime Saada, Vice President of the Group, and I asked him to give us a presentation later on, on the strong ties between the multimedia world, Canal and our group; Pauline Hauwel, who you should know by now, who is going to take the floor later on to officially kick off this assembly; Grégoire Castaing, our new Deputy Director -- Financial Deputy Director. And I would like to thank the Board members. We have Véronique Morali, Head of the Audit Committee; Virginie Banet, in charge of Remuneration, Compensation and CSR Committee; and we also have a few other people here in the room. I can't really see you because you're in the dark, but I'd like to thank you. I'd like also to thank Laura Carrere as well as the employee representatives, the 2 employee representatives who are always very present in the Board meeting, but also outside of the Board meeting. Where are you, Valérie? There you are. Arnaud de Puyfontaine, also where are you? I know you're going through a lot right now, but I know it's very courageous of him to be here with us. He was -- he attended the Vivendi Board meeting yesterday. Also we have Yannick Bolloré, who is here to represent our -- who is our main shareholder. And upon my request, because it's important to say it, he will take the floor across different activities of the Bolloré Group. We'll see it with others, but we'll see it with Maxime Saada later on, on the multimedia here. This is also why the group came together. We also have President Sarkozy, who's here as an author as well today. We know that beyond 20,000 political copies sold, it's already a success. So -- and he has reached more than 100,000. So he is a very successful author. But he was a great conductor and has brought peace to this group, especially in a tough geopolitical and economic context. So again, thank you so much, dear Nicolas, for being with us, also being by our side. And I would like to thank someone who isn't here, 2 new members who may join hopefully, who will probably join the Board. I'm speaking of Mrs. Valérie Hortefeux and Michèle Reiser. I hope that you will attend the next Board meeting. And before I give the floor to Pauline, I would like also to thank everyone on watching us on lagardere.fr online on the website because we have just as many people in the room as well as following us remotely. I'd like to thank Mr. Vincent Bolloré. I know he's following us remotely. He keeps protecting the Lagardère Group so we can continue to develop, to grow and to empower itself in total freedom. I want Vincent to know that we will always be by his side every time he is attacked, especially by cowardly people. And we will continue to defend freedom of expression. He will never be alone in this fight. I'm happy that this is said now, and I'll give the floor to Pauline. And then I will take the floor for a presentation with Maxime Saada. Pauline, over to you.

Thank you, Arnaud. Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, we are kicking off this Extraordinary and Ordinary General Assembly. The CEO of Lagardère SA, Arnaud Lagardère, will be facilitating it. We will have 2 tellers with the Louis Hachette Group company and the Vivendi SE company, represented by [ François Laroze ] sitting in the front row. I will be the Secretary of this General Assembly. I'll give you the attendance figures, but they're not definitive. I will share with you the definitive figures before the vote of the resolutions. At this stage, we have, for the ordinary part of the quorum, we have 1,657 people who have partaken in the vote, 132,000 shares. And for the extraordinary part, 1,600 shareholders represented for 196 million votes. And we have, therefore, reached the quorum of 20% in the ordinary assembly and 25% in the extraordinary assembly. All of the documents that must have been -- that have been sent to the attendees were sent in due time. On April 11, the invitations were sent to the statutory auditors, the financial resolutions submitted to the general assembly for vote, information about sustainability as well were sent. The invitation brochure and universal registration document present the assembly we'll have to take decisions based on the agenda. There are 37 resolutions, and they're on Page 26 of the resolution. There are 23 points that are the prerogative of the Ordinary General Assembly and the rest are for the Extraordinary General Assembly. For the ordinary, once we have Resolution 1 and 2 approval of the 2024 yearly and consolidated accounts; #3, the dividends; #4, approval of the statutory auditors on regulated resolutions; approval of the 2025 remuneration; 11 and 12, Jean-Christophe Thiery and Arnaud Lagardère becoming shareholders; 14 and 15, Mrs. Hortefeux and Mrs. Reiser to become board -- independent Board members; Valérie Bernis, Fatima Fikree, Yannick Bolloré, Nicolas Sarkozy, Arnaud de Puyfontaine, renewal of their term; 21, approval for the Board to work on the shares of the company, then increase of the capital; and 37, power of attorney. For the extraordinary resolutions, there are 14 of them. There are different authorizations to give to the Board of Directors, for instance, the priority allocation of shares; the issuance of real estate securities; Resolution 32 is the authorization for the Board to reduce social capital through cancellations; 33 is free shares based on performance; and the last one is the modification of different statutory. Arnaud Lagardère now will take the floor to talk about the 2024 performance. Then we'll have a performance on the sustainable performance by the Head of CSR. Then we'll have a presentation on the governance of the different committees and the Board of Directors by Virginie Banet. We'll have a presentation and then a Q&A session for 30 minutes, and then we will vote on the 37 resolutions.

Thank you, Pauline. We had to do this to be compliant. And we have great news this year because I told you that 2024 -- the 2024 performance have already been -- has already been published. And I'm going to talk also about the 2025 strategy. And I know that the first quarter of 2025 will be commented by Grégoire later on, but this is all very positive. About the performance of the group in 2024, I wanted to show you the breakdown of the revenue, both in terms of geography, but also, as you can see here, France accounts for less than 25%, a little over 20%. There are different reasons. First and foremost, the fact that we can't do much more for publishing, for instance, because there's a regulation that doesn't allow us to do more. And we are trying to find growth wherever it is, and it's mainly in Europe outside of France, unfortunately, in the U.S. and in Canada. We are an English-speaking group for more than 30% of our activities if we add the U.K. to it. The breakdown hasn't changed much over the past few years, but it continues to be outside of France, really. The revenue is mainly thanks to Travel Retail, as you can see, for more than half of it; and Publishing, 1/3. You can see huge growth where it's up 14%, revenue of 8.5%. This is on a like-for-like basis. So we removed the acquisitions that we've done over 1 year to the next. So this is not taken into account. Here, you have the 33,000 people that make up the group. And you can clearly see that in France, we are -- France only accounts for 17% of the headcount, in line with the revenue, mainly outside of Europe. And on the American continent, you here you have the breakdown. We are a feminist group -- or rather, we have a lot of women. Let's not be ambiguous. The women that compose the group, but not only here because they're women, but mainly because they're talented women, people who contribute to -- positively to the development of the group, and I really want them to know that. We also have a breakdown that we wanted to show you. Since 2019, so 1 year prior to COVID -- 1 year prior COVID, so you had Publishing, and you see the growth that we've had on year-on-year. We've been saying for 20 years that publishing is over, that it's dead, but it continues to grow. And that's good news, and it will continue to grow. I will talk about it in a minute. But you can clearly see that in terms of crisis, Publishing does quite well. This was the year after COVID. And here, we've reached a threshold. We're above EUR 300 million in -- of operating results. This is outstanding. This is thanks to the size of our group, but also to the -- thanks to the team. As for Travel Retail, it's slightly different because, of course, Travel Retail was hardly hit by COVID. There were locations that we were still paying for, but we didn't have any clients there. Hence, the drastic drop of our revenue that you can see here. But we're catching up little by little, first, because we've made a lot of efforts; but also because air traffic has recovered. So the world after that would never be the same as the world before COVID, but it's actually better for us. As for the performance, you'd see we've had a major gap, EUR 353 million result -- losses in results. That's quite a lot even though that was offset by Publishing somewhat. But Dag and his team have done an incredible job. And we see that we've reached profitability again. Here, you see the margin, 5.3%, and operating results that's unprecedented. So you can see that when you're recovering, sometimes you get back up on your feet and you do better than before. And this is my favorite slide here that shows you that over a very long period, if you remove the tough years of COVID, 2020, 2021, the group has never stopped being profitable in terms of operating results and that now we've reached a new level, record results that were reached in 2023. And I hope that we will beat this record again in 2025. So well done to the women and the men that make up this group. These are incredible results. This is an incredible performance. And now we're going to talk about the positioning and achievements that we want to reach for the coming years. First, there's an integration within the Louis Hachette Group, which is significant. Here, you have the breakdown of the group as it is right now. And of course, we -- if you have questions, we'd be happy to answer them on this. But we have a majority shareholder, and that's great for us. That's fine. We're happy with it. Louis Hachette Group owns 66.53% of the capital of this. And within the Louis Hachette Group, you have this breakdown with the Bolloré family that owns 31%, and myself. And in December, as Jean-Christophe Thiery -- as soon as Louis Hachette Group was listed to Euronext Growth, I decided I wanted to transfer my shares from the Lagardère Group to the Louis Hachette Group, not because I'm not interested in the Lagardère Group, but rather because the strategy of the group lies in the Louis Hachette Group. As you can see here, we believe that this is a more consistent set of activities. Not only do you have Louis Hachette, but you also have Prisma, you have Publishing, Lagardère Travel Retail, Press and Multimedia. The road map hasn't changed. It's the exact same one. Of course, we're going to continue to improve the operating performance. We are going to continue to manage -- to continue to improve the management and the generation of cash. This is about the survival of the group lies. And I said it already last year, but it's not so much in the DNA of the Lagardère Group, but more in the Bolloré Group. It's about survival, especially in such tough times. And that's why Grégoire has done a lot of efforts in 2024 to leverage the group. But of course, we don't want to die here. We want to make sure that the group continues to grow. So once we've stabilized or at least reach a debt level that is reasonable, which I think will be the case by the end of this fiscal year 2025, we should go back to a more aggressive activity on acquisitions. However, we haven't wasted any time. We've already started making a few acquisitions here and there. And if you look at what have been happening on the publishing and travel retail market that we realized that we didn't really miss any major opportunities. So no regrets on the strategy. I will now take the different branches one by one. Publishing, very quickly, you already have these slides on the website if you want to take a look at them. But just like the rest of the group, really, we are -- 1/3 of the group is French, but mainly English speaking if you add the U.S. and the U.K., mainly English speaking. Why? Of course, English is the main language in the world. So of course, we're more represented in English-speaking countries than in France, even though France is our foundation and it's an important country for us. We are a general literature group, very general literature in the U.K. and the U.S., not so much in France because we're now very diversified in different fields, including illustrated books and school books, which is a historical part of our group, and leaflets with 7,600 employees. And in the global ranking in European and French rankings, we're very well ranked. A lot of publishing houses, now is the time to thank them. I talked about the best-selling group of President Sarkozy with [ Faye ], who's had a lot of successes in 2024 and that will continue in 2025 with Jordan Bardella or de Villiers, Calmann-Lévy. As always, [ Quelqu'un d'autre ] by Musso, huge authors, best-selling authors that we like, especially for Musso. Every time he publishes something, he sells more than 500,000 copies, and he's the #1 author in France. And we have also other best-selling books in the U.K. and in the U.S. that I'll mentioned in a minute. I've mentioned a few best-selling books, some have won prizes. We've won 200 literary prizes, 80 in France. It's not only about the Femina or the Goncourt or the Renaudot prizes, even though they're the most prestigious ones. There are a lot of other prizes, high-schooler prizes. Every year, we win between 150 to 200 prizes; sometimes some years, even more than 200. And literary prizes are not only about prestige, but it's also a purely commercial aspect because it will sell these books and for the backlist of the same authors. We've done a lot. We've diversified a lot of activity in the these past few years, including with Board Games, as you can see here. It's still small right now, but it is a driving force for Publishing. We've announced the acquisition of 999 in the Netherlands, which is a board games group that is going to give even more momentum. As for the strategy of the group, it hasn't changed much even though the market is slightly shifting. First, we're very offensive, very aggressive because this is a fixed-cost industry. Any acquisition has a marginal boost that is important for the rest of the other activities. So we're always looking out for acquisitions. Now we're careful. But as soon as there's a good opportunity to seize, we do it, in France especially because we have the distribution activity, and I see that [ Philippe de Villiers ] in the room because he's in charge of it, but that allows us to have marginal growth for the revenue. But for the performance, that is really significant. And we also know that we need to create and innovate, and I'm talking about coloring books here. I know that coloring books sounds childish, but just like leaflets, it's an important driver for growth. We also have audiobooks, so books that you can listen to. And this is growing a lot in the U.S. because, as you know, there are people who travel a lot and who drive their car, who take trains. And instead of reading books, they listen to books. And in France, it's also growing. There's a real momentum, and we're going to continue to invest massively in audiobooks. We are also going to contribute to the development of AI, not in a creative way because we believe that our authors have enough natural intelligence to sell tools -- to sell books. But we know that these are tools that can help in terms of marketing, presentation, and we cannot neglect this and we should not miss this AI train. And finally, and then I will give the floor to Maxime Saada, but we hear a lot about studies and there are different studies that tell us that people don't read as much. But that's not true for everyone. We see that young female teenagers read more and more books. Seniors have more time and read more. And generally speaking, general literature suffers because we have few readers. So we need to find levers to continue to grow outside of publishing per se, but it will remain an important tool for growth. But like I said, we are going to continue to work on board games, and we are going to look on synergies as well and audiobooks. And this is multimedia ecosystem where -- and I assume you're all subscribed to Canal+ and you're probably going to myCANAL or other platform such as Netflix. You will probably come across some of our authors, including English-speaking authors, Elin Hilderbrand is one of them, because there are a lot of TV shows or films that are derived from their works. But I've asked Maxime Saada to work on this with the Canal teams, and we will probably give you the result of this working group during the next general assembly. Because I believe that part of the future of the Hachette Group is also -- lies also on these platforms. Maxime, over to you. Thank you for being here.

Thank you, Arnaud. A very -- firstly, to explain why we believe that there's a real opportunity for the Lagardère Group. Would you mind sharing the slide, please? There you go. First and foremost, this is a multimedia production market that is growing significantly. And right now, you see the expenditures and investment in content for 2024. This is not an exhaustive slide. You have the main players, $36 million that Disney invests every year in content. For $150 billion, significant growth. As I said, you have the figure for Netflix, it was $7 billion in 2016. Obviously, these investments are translated by an increase in volumes. Of course, there was a break with the strike in Hollywood in 2023. But you see that between 2019 and 2022, the number of shows -- original scripted script shows in the U.S. has been multiplied by 3. So the market is exponentially growing. And of course, we're looking for stories and authors to use, knowing that every time a film is derived from a book, it's the best -- it's a huge hit. Oppenheimer, $1 billion revenue globally; Wonka with Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Hunger Games that continues with the latest film. And you can clearly see that the share of films derived from books in the U.S. and in France account for 50% of the cinema revenue. So this confirms the role of Lagardère and Louis Hachette and the role that we should play in France, 30% of cinema tickets that are sold, 30% additional tickets sold for films that are derived from books. So we can see how popular this is. And if you look at the prizes, it's true for the César, but also Oscars. When you have a film that is derived from a book, they get more prizes, 21% in -- for César and across different categories. So documentary is -- 3% of the documentaries in France come -- derived from a book; and 56%, comics. And this shows you that films that are derived from books are not only huge hits in theaters, but also win a lot of prizes. And when you look at the impact of shows and films on book sales because this is very buoyant for Hachette, and here again, you can see the slide now, it's a little bit complicated slide, but what you can see is that for 1/3 of films derived from books, you almost double the sales of the original book. And 10% of these adaptations, you have a huge volume increase. And it's always really significant. The impact that it has sold is very significant. We used to have books of this and we also got series, and we also have the impact on sales. And we are doing very well. Actually, this is the case. Again, I just wanted to share an illustration of what this looks like. When things go well and when we have a good big-screen adaptation of a book, which is something that Lagardère will be tapping into and continue to tap into over the course of the upcoming years. [Presentation]

That's what happens when things go well. And I would just like to take [indiscernible]. Thank you for your words. When we think about intellectual property, how much intellectual property do we have that Hachette could actually give rise to something like this? It's about finding those diamonds in the rough. I don't need to remind you that we have a plethora of authors. We are third-biggest publishing house in the world, which means that we have -- we are spoilt for choice when it comes to talented authors. I don't want to say that we're not doing anything. We have so many big-screen adaptations of the works that are coming out of Hachette. I've got a couple of examples. We've got series, cinemas, the biggest hit of last year was on Sambre in France. And one of the biggest cinema successes in 2024 was Wicked, which obviously is an adaptation as well. So we've had lots of work that has been done by our team. We have the new Asterix that will be coming out on Netflix and which will be such a hit, not only in France, but also in other regions of the world. Why? Because the animated series is something that has been pulled off. And as you can imagine, we actively work with the Canal+ teams as well as the Hachette teams on a whole number of different adaptations. I'm not going to go through them one by one this morning because, unfortunately, time is of the essence, but we have a dozen or so of projects between the Canal+ and also the Lagardère Group. The main subjects that are causes of concern, obviously, are the upcoming live-action film for Asterix. And this will be the biggest project on our year on both sides. But as was mentioned earlier by Arnaud, this is something that should not just be limited to Canal+. We can think further. We spoke about Netflix or even Michael Connelly for the Bosch series. It's one of the biggest hits on Amazon. Canal is going to also be looking at that. And as we mentioned as well, and Canal has done this, we want to have links with the biggest global platforms so that we can make the most of the $150 billion that I mentioned earlier. So why are we thinking, Jean-Christophe, Arnaud and I, why do we believe that there is potential in this subject that I reminded you earlier? We were able to triple our figures between 2013 and 2022 with a number of original series across the period. And if we look at the revenue for France alone generated by the group for adaptations, screen adaptations, we didn't follow the same dynamic, which means that we kind of missed the trick. And however, this also means that there is untapped potential, which is why over the course of the upcoming months and weeks, we are going to double our efforts prior to sharing our next projects with you.

Thank you very much, Maxime. Thank you. Thank you. I thought it was very important for us to share this with you because it is a breath of fresh air, it's projects for the group, for Hachette. And Jean-Christophe Thiery is with me with one of the biggest challenges for the upcoming year. As you know, things are not always easy because sometimes we've got agents in the way of the authors who say, yes, but actually, the sum of the part is important -- more important than the individual. We don't believe that that's the case, but we believe that we'll be able to convince them to come over to our side. Why? Because we are an international group. We have international standing that goes above and beyond the French borders, giving visibility and also power that our competitors simply don't have in France. It's not for nothing that we've been able to do them. Let's now move on to Travel Retail, the -- which was created maybe 15 years ago. Just a quick anecdote, this was one of the positions that were -- one of the suggestions that were made by [indiscernible]. Dag obviously was still with us, but Dag was very positive with regards to the business line that was going to be developed. And sometimes, we've got very uncanny synergies. And actually, in a previous life that I had, when I was on ADS' Board, I used to see a lot of airlines and a lot of airports coming through. And we could really feel that there was a need, not only for airlines, but also airports, to completely change these hubs that were hubs for transport to lifestyle hubs so that when a passenger comes to an airport, when sometimes you're waiting for a plane and sometimes you're there 2 hours before your flight, it's about offering them an experience. This is not only a need, but actually financially speaking, it was something that made sense. We saw that the state was starting to plug in money into these huge hubs. And then these hubs, once again, they're regional centers that are trying to attract a number of flights, either with direct flights or also transit, for example, if you're trying to get from Europe to Asia, Asia into Europe, it's that port of entry into the American continent and the European continent. Here, we realized that there was really something that we could tap into as well. Therefore, we went all guns blazing because we -- all guns blazing. Why? Because to be honest with you, we have no competence in the matter at all. We started from scratch. And thanks to Dag and his talent, because he was the one who was able to pioneer this role, we were able to become the second-biggest player in the world where the results speak for themselves and that you can see on the screen. Travel Retail is above all an international business. And when you can see the spread on our revenue, I'm just going to -- here we go, trying to find my clicker. We can see that actually in France, it's not holding that big of a part because airport and transitions are being built every day. We've got 2 big partnerships in France with the Aéroports de Paris, so the Paris Airport, as well as the SNCF, the National Railway System. We obviously had to bid for these tenders. That's the rules of the game. And we were able to draw up good agreements with both players, even though we're not the majority shareholder and we don't have full control of operations. However, what we do have is management of the team. If I were to continue now, we have had a couple of things outside of the Aéroports de Paris, especially here in the Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. It's one of the biggest airports in the world with billions that have been invested both by the region and the Dutch state. This means that it's an important aviation hub, which was maybe left one side for a few years, but now they're coming back, which is going to be important for our development. This is essential for the strategy to develop our European market. We're very happy with the investments made in Italy. We know that a lot of our shareholders weren't behind us, if you know what I mean. It was -- we were criticized for having spent too much money, but actually, this is our biggest contributor in Europe now. In addition, this is a country that is exploding, that is doing extremely well on an economic standpoint. Maybe we're talking about a stroke of luck. But I think that actually, it's Dag and his very talented team that have been able to drive us through. We are seeing scores that are absolutely exceptional coming from Italy. We are continuing to develop, and this means that this is a huge success for us. But there is lots of innovation as well that we're seeing so that the customer experience, as you mentioned in your own terms, are also profitable for the customers. Let's continue -- we're going to be continuing with an active network expansion policy. Dag is Mr. More. He always wants more. He always wants more. He's got a hungry appetite, but Dag obviously is very, very honest with us and with himself. And he will also say that actually, in 2024, we were able to have the biggest amount in our history from a CapEx point of view. This is going to be even better this year, which means that we're going to have the mission to reduce debt, all the while ensuring that the developments continue to take place. With an explosion of investment in these airports, either for their renovations, either for building new, we're seeing huge projects in the Middle East, in Asia, big parts of the American airports that are quite old and decrepit are going to be renovated, and we've got a wonderful cost that we can pay as well. Here, we can talk about AI. AI is something that is important. We see this in all of the different presentations. I imagine that Dag has a lot of ideas. I find myself a little bit lost when it comes to talking about AI. Yannick comes and talks to us about this. Havas is a lot more on the board than we are, that we've understood that AI is important. And all you see, we are using it and we will use it. I know that sometimes it can be quite a tedious subject to talk about, but we are keeping our eye on it. We also have other activities that we'd like to talk about. Other activities sounds a little bit progressive, but it's not at all. I would like to thank [indiscernible], who is with us. He is the one that manages Paris Racing. So what we can say? We've got 4 different centers. We've got Lagardère News. We've got Lagardère Radio. Our shareholders accepted to split the 2. So we've got Europe 1 that is something that is completely different now so that our company doesn't have an issue with this. And thank God that we did this. Why? Because obviously, there are lots of different constraints that come with it, but development is well underway. The Head of Europe 1, Constance, and is also here with us can attest to this. We've got the 4 different activities. We've got -- that they're relatively profitable. I will start with News. The Lagardère News is working for us, thanks to the Elle licenses. We don't own the magazines anymore, but we do have royalties, thanks to the sales of the magazines across the world. And Constance, so you will have also been able to develop this thanks to your skill set. We've got different Elle products as well that are sold. It is extremely profitable, and it's carrying Lagardère News. This allows us to also finance the other press outlets, and I will speak about this earlier (sic) [ later ]. This branch is very profitable, but Lagardère Radio is suffering a little bit. We've seen that during the last waves that started from the beginning or the middle of last year, we saw an increase or an improvement. I think that this is thanks to the consistency that we're seeing across the currents amongst the different mainstream radio stations. We tended to be a little bit too lost, and now we've been able to really be all singing from the same song sheet. Our friends and cousins, if you will, from CNews are helping us a lot. We ask them to help us. And the relationship between what we're calling CNews to CNews started in 2011. This is when Jean-Pierre had the wonderful idea to create the Le Journal du Dimanche, and this was done in partnership with JD. The partnership is something that has been very long-lasting over the course of the last decade or more than a decade actually. Therefore, it went without saying that we wanted to continue this partnership with our -- with CNews. I just want to also talk about [indiscernible] for Europe. This was thanks to me. I started sending him texts in 2018 saying, I really like what you're doing. I really like listening to you on CNews. Why don't you come over to us? And he's finally done [indiscernible] obviously has stayed at -- or rather that she's got another package of programs on CNews and Lagardère Radio. We need this partnership. This partnership is helping us to keep the flame, thanks to all of the different programs that I've mentioned. And I can continue with Live Entertainment. We've got an exceptional year for 2024. A little bit like Travel Retail, after COVID, people needed to get out. They needed to get out of their houses. And Live Entertainment is something that was booming. Lagardère Paris Racing, which is this jewel in the crown in Bois de Boulogne, and [indiscernible] is looking after this. This is about brushing shoulders with the elite, but also it's putting practice available to all. It's working very well together. It is a concession that comes from the town hall of Paris. And we are delighted to say that we are also contributing to the budget of the Paris because it is extremely profitable. That in a nutshell, everything that you can see here, we have had 2 -- the launch of 2 new press titles, Le JDNews and JDMag, and this was after the sale of Paris Match. We can see excellent sales. JDD is doing very well despite the fact that we've got new competition coming in from the [indiscernible]. We've still got the same issues that I mentioned that you know about. Distribution can sometimes be a little bit difficult in regions. And the news kiosks are not always open on a Sunday in some of the countryside points of sales, which is why we're thinking about a digital version. I spoke about recovery with sharp audience growth. I would like to say well done, Jérôme, for everything that you've been doing. And Lagardère Paris Racing, I think that we're going to have to maybe kick things up a notch now. We've got big ideas in place. We've got the know-how. We've got a brand that works. And therefore, I think that we could see where we can push the limits to. How can we go further than just the one venue in the Bois de Boulogne? Why not look at other regions in France and in partnership with other countries or where we can open other Lagardère Paris Racing venues? This could be in the U.K., in the Middle East. We have a number of requests coming in. In conclusion, I would like to say, and we will see this afternoon as well with Jean-Christophe Thiery, we are looking at an exciting new page in our history, thanks to our integration with Louis Hachette Group. I can only say this time and time again, the partnership, the marriage, if you will, the coupling with the Bolloré Group is wonderful for our teams on a personal note as well, but especially for our teams. And you can ask them yourselves, they would tell you as much. We are delighted and we are proud to be part of this group. I can talk on behalf of the 33 (sic) [ 33,000 ] employees, we are proud. I said this to start, we are proud of our partnership with a group that is independent, that is linked to no lobbying with the freedom of speech, freedom of expression, absolutely, and hold the employees, and this is completely different from other groups that find themselves maybe pigeonholed. We have the unwavering support. We are looking for this support. Why? Because we need it. It is essential to us. This marriage, if you will, was not done for nothing. And I would like to congratulate the 33,000 men and women working for the Lagardère Group. All of this is thanks to them. It's thanks to their talent. It's thanks to their hard work, thanks to their skills. And without them -- because obviously, our raw material is creativity and talent. Without our employees, we will not be hitting these results. So I am so proud to say that 2024 was an exceptional year and maybe 2025 will be even better. My fingers are crossed. Thank you very much. And I will give the floor to Grégoire Castaing.

Ladies and gentlemen, members of the Board of Directors, shareholders, I am pleased to present the excellent results achieved by your group in 2024. For the first time, once again, we've got wonderful results for the year. Let's begin with the group's key financial indicators for 2024. And as you can see on the screen, our revenue reached a record level of nearly EUR 9 billion for the 2024 financial year, representing growth of 8.5%. On a comparable basis to 2023, we were able to increase our recurring EBIT by EUR 73 million, which means an increase of 14%. And our net income group share also rose by 17% to EUR 168 million. But the most significant progress that we've seen and that was a priority for this year is that of free cash flow with a generation of cash -- a cash generation, rather, that is a record for 2024 of EUR 423 million, which means a significant progress of EUR 162 million compared to 2023. If we now look at revenue growth in more detail, growth represented an additional EUR 861 million compared with 2023, 8.5% if we look at the comparable data. If we were to look from left to right, you could see that we have not been impacted by exchange rate this year. We also had the contribution of a couple of scope effects, especially with acquisitions that were made in 2023. We have Marché in Germany, Costa Coffee, Tastes on the Fly in the United States. And last element that I would like to talk about is organic growth. Organic growth was wonderful, generating more than EUR 700 million in additional revenue. And I also want to underline that for organic growth, we've got the all 3 branches that contributed to this. If we now look at the recurring EBIT, which is our indicator. As I mentioned, we are at 400 -- we are looking at additional operating profit of EUR 73 million generated in 2024. But what's also important is to look at the contribution equally of our 2 main branches. We've got Travel Retail and Publishing, which contributed almost equally to the standard performance with wonderful performance coming from Travel Retail if we compare this to 2023. Let's now focus on the priorities that I mentioned earlier, so cash generation for the Lagardère Group for 2024. And we can see that, as I mentioned, we have a record cash generation with EUR 518 million in total for 2024 for cash operations and investments. And this record level was thanks to growth that I mentioned earlier, but also very strict discipline for our other external growth operations is allowing us to improve in contribution. We've moved from down EUR 74 million to up EUR 518 million in 2024. It is also important to underline, as you can see here, that going above and beyond just this performance, which is wonderful performance, all of the branches have contributed positively to this result for 2024, which was not the case in 2023. It was only Publishing that was contributing positively to cash generation. Cash generation has enabled us to rapidly reduce our debt. Obviously, you can find the EUR 518 million that I've just spoken about for free cash flow and acquisitions of new assets. And then you can see that we also had EUR 154 million in dividends, so EUR 0.65 dividend for Lagardère SA and also dividends for our minority shareholders as well for EUR 62 million. For interest and financial charges are still quite high, EUR 176 million. And this explains why we want to reduce debt so that we're able to lighten this. Globally speaking, 2024 allowed us, as you can see, from EUR 2.43 billion to EUR 1.85 billion at the end of 2024. We had great -- we've had great results this year. We've been able to significantly reduce our debt. And therefore, we've also been able to reduce our debt ratio, so debt/EBITDA, which has moved, as you can see, from 3x to 2.4x. This is wonderful performance for our debt ratio. It's actually better than we had thought for at the beginning of the year. This reduction in debt was a priority and allowed us, as you can see, to have a very healthy financial position at the end of the year. On the asset side, you can see that we've got leasing rights related to our concessions on Travel Retail, and this represents visibility of our activity for better security for the future. We've also got the acquisitions of contracts and other fixed assets that have been confirmed for 2024. And there have been no assets that have been impaired or depreciated over the course of last year, which is also wonderful news. And we've also got the noncurrent liabilities. We've got lease liabilities also related to Travel Retail concessions. And we have -- and when we think about our financial debt, for the most part, this has been refinanced in spring, which is why it is now mostly in our balance sheet. For equity, equity has got a lot better, as you can see here on the screen, at [ EUR 73 million ]. We find the same amount here on this slide with a few explanations that go above and beyond the operational operating performances. So you have net financial expenses, up 42% because of the increased interest rates and debt ratio in 2023, which is why it's so important for us to deleverage. It was important in 2024 and it still is for 2024 -- or '25 rather. Interest rates on rental fees mainly related to Travel Retail. And here, you have the taxes paid in the U.S. and in Europe. And if you deduce the minority interest, the net result is EUR 168 million, up 17% compared to last year. To conclude this presentation on the financial performance, I'd like to remind you of the fact that the resolution is an ordinary dividend of EUR 95 million for an amount of EUR 0.67 per share, up 3% compared to the previous year. This amount will be EUR 31 million. If you approve this dividend, it will be paid on May 5. And the decision will be approved tomorrow on April 30. Now let's take a look at the stock exchange. It went -- the share price went from 18 -- 308% -- or EUR 38 in January to 20%, up 10% over the full year. On February 13, we published our performance and the stock price went up within the next 2 days. But because of the current macroeconomic context and the different -- and the state of the different markets, it's gone down afterwards. If we look at the share price, if we include the dividends that were paid over the year and, again, the great economic performance I've just presented, you see that the increase is actually 14% over the year. And I'd like to conclude this presentation by talking about the first quarter revenue that was published in Feb -- on last Friday, rather. And let's start with Lagardère Publishing. As you can see on this slide, Lagardère Publishing maintains a high level of activity for the first quarter 2025, up 8%, 4.8% on a like-for-like basis, great momentum across our different geographies. This momentum is very strong in the U.K. where our best-selling book sold really well, Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros, the third volume of the trilogy that is actually above and beyond our expectations for the first 3 weeks of the year. In the U.S., the first quarter was quite good with then Publishing being integrated and the continuous sales of Freida McFadden book or call it [ mover ] book. We continue to diversify. And we've announced last week the acquisition of 999 Games, a leader, as Arnaud has mentioned, in board games in the Netherlands and in Belgium. This acquisition is in line with [ Skyjora ] team and great successes for 2024, and it's going to be very much in line with that. Now let's take a look at Travel Retail. As you can see, Lagardère Travel Retail has a robust revenue of its revenue, up 5% and 3.9% on a like-for-like basis after a year 2024 that was a record year, as mentioned before. Despite a slowdown at the beginning of the year that we had already anticipated, especially for Northern Asia, we are currently restructuring our activities as announced at the end of 2024. In Europe, we still have a strong growth, particularly robust for the beginning of the year, especially in urban such as Roma, Prague, Warsaw, amongst others. And the priority this year, as Arnaud mentioned, is the opening up of Amsterdam that should be operational in June. It will be very important for our activities. Finally, our activities of the first quarter, these other activities are up 4% year-over year -- over the quarter, rather, on a like-for-like basis. This means that we're excluding the sale of Paris Match last year. This is mainly thanks to the Europe 1 audience that was really good and that continues to grow in this beginning of the year. And we have the JDNews that is a real success and that is really contributing to our revenue for the beginning of the year. To summarize, for the first quarter, in total, we've generated almost EUR 2 billion in revenue over the first 3 months of the year. As you can see, sustained growth up 5% in published performance. And on a like-for-like basis, all of our activities are growing for the first quarter. So this is great news. I'll conclude with one slide. To add to what Arnaud has said here, this is the breakdown -- global breakdown of our revenue by the end -- at the end of March. The group has a portfolio of activities that is quite well balanced. You're very diversified in your geographies, as you can see. And on top of the great performance that I've just mentioned, these are major assets for the future. Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, thank you for your attention.

We're applauding not only the performance but also Grégoire himself. You may be surprised not to see Sophie Stabile, who used to present the results last year. She's fighting as hard as she can against a terrible illness. And last summer, I'd asked our referenced shareholder to help and take over. And once again, it was Maxime. Grégoire is now part of our team, and he's exceptional. He's great. Technically speaking, on a human standpoint also, he's great. He understands everything. So he's taken over. And it's also difficult for him to give this presentation. It's a first for him. So I'd like to thank him for that. Pauline, let's continue.

Céline Soubranne, Head of CSR, to join us on stage to talk about the strategy and actions rolled out in 2024.

Thank you, Pauline. Hello, everyone. 2024 for CSR and sustainable development, there was a new European regulation, which you must have heard of, the CSRD regulation. And we had to comply with it, and we've published our extra financial report based on this new standard. But of course, I'm not going to talk about regulation right now. I'd rather in the coming minutes talk about how the Lagardère teams are using and integrating the social and environmental challenges into our activities in order to develop opportunities for our different shareholders. The #1 commitment is what we do as employer for our employees. We develop people. We ensure employability of our teams. We work on wellbeing at work. And as Arnaud has mentioned, we have 60% women in the group. And we're happy because this year, in executive position, we have a very high level of female people -- of women. This year, we've worked really hard also to take action on all forms of discrimination or inappropriate behavior. We have, for instance, launched a training course on the prevention of moral or sexual harassment. And 81% of our employees have attended this training. We also want to limit the environmental footprint of our products and services. We have a -- we want to decarbonize our activities. We won the Amsterdam call for tender, for instance. This is something that was scrutinized where during the call-for-tender process won by Lagardère Travel Retail, but it's also the case for our client distributors such as Publishing rather and all the companies that buy advertisements. And clearly, Scope 1, Scope 2 and 3 partial carbon emission strategies have borne fruit. We want to optimize our energy consumption in our buildings and business level. This is all down 32%. And we also now published our whole Scope 3. Since 2024, we've completed our annual carbon reporting by publishing more Scope 3 data. So -- and we want to reduce the Scope 2 carbon emissions by 30% by 2030. We work on circular economy where we want to avoid waste. We have this waste reduction program for Travel Retail, in particular with food waste and plastic pollution. And Lagardère Publishing has strong commitment by 2030 in publishing and distribution. We want to reduce by 50% our plastic use, especially single-use plastic. And we want to also use plastic bottles. We know that this is unavoidable for airport safety reasons, but we want to reduce those made from virgin plastic. Hachette Livre has also a strong commitment, and this was already mentioned by Arnaud. We see that in our society, we want to make sure that people continue to read, continue to consume books. And Lagardère Publishing has been working really hard to develop other alternatives such as audiobooks and make sure that new books are available for people with disabilities or who have learning issues. I'd like to also mention the free podcasts that Europe 1 is making available, including ones on history, literature, arts. And this is a great way also to make culture available to everyone. And of course, we have our foundations that support reading education through books, the foundation -- the Hachette Foundation. We have 17 new projects that were supported again this year financially in this regard. We also have a fourth commitment around ethical governance and sustainable governance. We have rolled out a large-scale training this year to prevent corruption. 81% of our employees have taken the dedicated training course. We also have pursued -- we have high-risk activities and we're operating in countries, where circumstances are not the same in Europe and in France. So we are securing our value chain. And we have great results because our rankings in CDP and Sustainalytics that our scoring agencies has scored us really well and this is something that investors are scrutinizing. I'd like to thank the teams. It was a very dense year. Thank you so much to everyone. We've showcased once again that we have the capacity to create value for the group and for the company and the societies with CSR.

Well done. This is a fight that you're fighting every day, and I know that it becomes -- is becoming quite constraining for companies. And the documents that you need to work on, on a daily basis is huge. I'd like to go back to something that I hope you did not misinterpret. Jean-Christophe, feel free to correct me, and you too, Maxime. But when I say that reading rates are down, the truth is that good books always find their readers. This is the one thing that you should understand. But it probably means that there are too many books that are published. Too many books published, that's the first thing. Secondly, as soon as we see that amongst the youth, especially young girls, young female teenagers, reading is growing thanks to romantic books. And we are one of the leaders, and this is very positive. And the second thing that is even more positive that Maxime has just reminded me of is the fact that, yes, reading among the elderly people or from the ages 50 to 55, read -- this is a segment that is growing. And because there are people who tend to live longer, this again is good news. And this is a readership that we have that is going to end up being a driver for growth. So what I said is not negative on reading and readership, but it's just that it's changed. This is a market that's changed drastically. And we need to adapt, and we are adapting to it in a great way, and Maxime himself is doing it with Jean-Christophe, we're doing everything that we can. But just remember that good books will find their readers and a lot of readers. And we see it every day, just like good products will always find good clients. This is a general rule that applies also to books. Apologies for this sidenote, but again I thought it was important to mention it. Pauline, over to you again.

And I'll give the floor to Virginie Banet for the different committees in 2024.

Thank you, Pauline. Dear shareholders, I'd like to talk about the governance of the company. I'll go over this really quickly. The Board -- I don't know if we have a slide. The structure of the governance is the -- we haven't changed anything in 2024. We still have a Board with 2 permanent committees, the Audit Committee that is headed by Véronique Morali and the Remuneration and CSR Committee that I am heading, the Board of Directors, including 11 members, 2 of which are employee representatives. We have 55.5% representatives, independent and women members, higher than the legal threshold, higher than the AFEP-MEDEF thresholds. I'd like to mention that represents the two different committees, CSR Remuneration and Nomination Committee. There was a change in 2024 with Arnaud de Puyfontaine, who's joined the committee, which is now comprised of 6 members, including 4 independent members, as defined by the AFEP-MEDEF code. The commitment met -- the committee met 7 times in 2024, with a demonstrate of 100%. During the two plenary meetings held with members of the Audit Committee, we examined the and monitored the CSR and CSRD issues. Let's now move to the next slide on the Audit Committee. In 2024, there was no changes made to this committee, 75% independence rate. It met 5 times with a 96.5% attendance rate. And now I'd like to talk about the changes in governance that are going to be submitted for approval. We have several resolutions here. First and almost, we submit for your approval the appointment of Valérie Hortefeux and Michèle Reiser as independent directors for a 4-year term. Their respective biographies are shown on the screen, and you can also find them on Page 40 and 41 of the notice of invitation. These two appointments will replace the Laura Carrere and myself, which will expire at the close of this Annual General Meeting. I would like also to submit resolutions 15 to 20, where we are asking to renew the following directors' terms of office -- or terms: Yannick Bolloré for 4 years; Mrs. Véronique Morali and Arnaud de Puyfontaine and Nicolas Sarkozy for a 3-year term; and Valérie Bernis and Fatima Fikree for 2-year term. The goal of these proposed renewals are staggered, and it is staggered because we wanted it to be in line with good governance observed on the market. I'd like now to present the main work carried out by the Board of Directors in 2024. During 2024, the Board met 12 times with different regular duties, including examining the annual and-half yearly financial statements with Grégoire approving the budget, the setting of the compensation of corporate offices. In addition to the traditional tasks of the Board, we've also had to work on different strategic issues. First, the refinancing, as mentioned by Grégoire Castaing. The Board has paid attention to the nearly EUR 2 billion refinancing operation finalized in June 2024. And we monitored the proposed partial demerger of Vivendi and the creation of the new Lagardère Louis Hachette Group and the sale of Paris Match magazine to LVMH in October 2024; and finally, the implementation of the CRD directive and the adoption of the transition plan for a company. In this regard, we wanted to be really pragmatic in order to concile the regulatory requirements and the inclusion of operational constraints that are extremely heavy. As Arnaud has mentioned, the Board has also adopted the group's transition plan. As for the Appointment, Remuneration and CSR Committee, if we start with governance, the committee has reviewed the composition of the committee, the self-assessment of the committee -- of the Board. The committee has identified two ways to improve the Board with new Board members that would be added who have expertise on climate issues, cybersecurity. And this is what the self-assessment has highlighted, the necessity to add people with expertise in cybersecurity, AI and climate issues as well as biodiversity. The committee has also examined the remuneration to be paid to corporate officers and determined the new remuneration policies. And you will find documents on the universal registration document. As for the CSR, the committee has worked in particular and monitored the implementation of the CSRD directive. And during 2024, the CSR department has addressed the committee, in particular, to present the monitoring of the CSR strategy of the group. Thank you very much. I'm giving the floor back.

Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, the Audit Committee that meets frequently, as you may have heard, meets in a peaceful environment. I'd like to thank Grégoire Castaing, the financial team, the audit teams, the risk management teams that are helping us in this rigorous work that we carry out with a lot of rigor because we have to pay attention to everything. We're really focused. And the team always, always deliver and always answer the questions that we ask and always follow up on the points that we ask them to follow up on. Of course, we work on recurring activities such as review of accounts, financial commitments. We look at the risk mapping because this is something that always changes and evolves depending on the activities. And recently, we've assessed the tax policy in detail because this is a very diversified group, and we need to have a consistent vision. We also look at the operational efficiency plan, and the group is really -- helps with Vivendi, and Vivendi's DNA includes operational efficiency. And other branches often give us presentations on the plans that aim at optimizing the organization, the structure, the costs in order to work on procurement, logistics, to make sure that we have a group that is as lean as possible. And we also work on IT and information systems, cyber attacks, data protection, especially given the diversity of the group that has a lot of autonomy. Especially in Publishing, we needed to harmonize and comply with the commitment and pool some of our activities. And it's not always easy in a very international and autonomous group to ensure the efficiency of the information systems and IT systems in the context of multiple cyber risks. And we met for the first time to follow up on the CSRD directive with a joint session with the CSR Committee. I'm not going to reinvent the wheel, but we first wanted to understand what this was about because it's great to show the CSR policy. But if you look at it from the audit perspective and risk management perspective, you need to talk to the different auditors. And that is when you start looking at dual materiality, what the European tax policy is and what it means for the groups. So we've tried to pull with the CSR team. And I'd like to thank the CSR team. They were really patient with us, and they were extremely patient and they've explained in a very kind way. And I think that everyone understood that it was really important for everyone to comply with this new regulation. The first sustainable report -- sustainability report was finalized in March this year. And with the auditors, we also had fruitful discussions, Mazars was in charge of collection and certification of information with regards to sustainability. And we challenged them a lot to make sure that, just like Virginie was saying, that they respect the balance between the regulatory requirements and the fine line that we want to follow because the group wants to comply but not do more, especially in a time where everything is evolving. And auditors are scrutinizing everything that we're doing, and we wanted to work hand in hand, and we did it hand in hand. And we've found this balance.

Thank you, Virginie. Yes -- thank you, Véronique, rather. Yes, you can give her a round of applause. I wanted to actually address the Virginie, so it makes sense that I called you. Virginie has told you with a lot of elegance that she is not a candidate for a new term. Laura Carrere isn't either. I'd like to really thank you, Virginie. She's been with the Lagardère Group for a few years now. And I know she's worked with the investors and the group strategy as a whole. She left and she came back. She's leaving again. And I am sure she'll be back at one point. I don't know how, I don't know when, but I'm sure she'll be back. And I'd like to thank you on behalf of everyone in the group for everything that you've done for the Lagardère Group as an employee, but also as part of the Board. Thank you very much, Virginie as Board member. Simon Beillevaire for the Mazars firm. The content will be onscreen, but you also have the brochure available.

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. I will be presenting the audited report, working on Deloitte and Mazars. These are reports that we've been able to draw up for the financial year 2024. They've been made available to you. And I will therefore just be giving you a summary of this. There are 9 reports in total. We've got our reports on the annual financial statements, reports on the consolidated financial statements and other on the regulated agreements, reports on the certification of sustainability information. And then we have 5 reports with regards to the extraordinary aspects of the general meeting. I will begin with our reports on the annual accounts, which is the subject of the first resolution. These accounts have been prepared in accordance with French accounting principles, and we considered the evaluation of equity securities to be a key point of the audit. And based on our audit, we certify the company's annual accounts without reservation or observation. With regard to the consolidated financial statements, our reports highlight two key points of the audit. The first concerns the valuation of goodwill given the significance of management's judgment and the uncertainties inherent in the assumptions used; the second relates to the estimation of returns taken into account in the recognition of revenue within the Lagardère Publishing division given the significance of the estimated amount of return and the significance of the estimates used in the calculation. In conclusion of our works, we have issued an unqualified audit opinion on your group's financial statements as presented. If we now move on to the fourth resolution, we have issued a report on regulated agreements during the past financial year. No new regulated agreements were authorized or entered into by your Board of Directors. The agreements that you approved in previous financial years and that have been continued into 2024 have been mentioned in the report. We have also issued a report on sustainability information contained in the management report. The report is a limited assurance report. We would like to draw your attention onto the paragraph 2 that specifies the context that is linked to the first application of CSRD. If we now talk about the extraordinary part of your meeting, we have two reports concerning the emission of shares and various securities. Our global delegation or comprehensive delegation report is linked to the new law of the 13th of June, 2024. We don't have any reservations or absolutions to formulate at this point. The report on the authorization to allocate bonus shares, there are two of them, and this is for a period of 38 months. We don't have any reservations or comments. And we have also issued a report of the proposed capital reduction. Once again, there are no observations. Ladies and gentlemen, shareholders, thank you very much for listening to me.

And we're getting to the end now. Let's move to the questions. I don't know if we've got any questions. We've got written questions as well that they've already been written and answered upon the website. Are there any questions in the room?

Mr. Chair, the different economic uncertainties, especially if we think about the customs laws that have been put into place by Trump and the criminal activity of Putin in Ukraine, we've got different contestation activities that have been taken with regards to the politicization of different media outlets and publishing houses. The social interest the economic interest of a group such as Lagardère should only be economic and not look at activism or politics. Therefore, Mr. Chair, how are you going to ensure that you keep political neutrality as well as economic secularism within our group because this is going to be key if we want to keep the cohesion between our 33,000 employees, our authors and also respect of each of the group's shareholders?

Thank you very much for your question. I was expecting this. So when it comes to neutrality, political neutrality, this is something that has been assured. The only thing that is important to us is freedom of expression in all our different business lines, not just for the radio, but also for our newspapers and for our recent press. Therefore, I'm not going to spend too much time on this because, for us, it is a daily reality that we have on a daily basis each day. You're saying that you are -- we have a shareholder that is -- and shareholders that's fully our shareholders. And at the end, we -- I just wanted to remind you that if we think about the book that was written by Mr. [indiscernible], this was part of the group's success -- economic success. Therefore, the contract is also -- the only editorial line here is to be there for the French people. That's not what we've changed, but maybe the French have changed. And we can maybe ask him the question. And this is what we're doing with a certain sense of pride. I'm not going to spend too much time on this now. I don't know if Constanzo, Jean-Christophe have anything to add, they can -- they're saying no, so I think that's it from us now, but thank you very much for your questions.

Yes. Sorry, there was a question on customs, [indiscernible] customs as you mentioned. I sent a question and answer, especially for the American market.

We're not impacted that much, but I will let you know why.

We can't hear you, and that's such a shame.

Can you hear me now? We are not actually impacted this year with the different customs because they are different -- we've got different contracts that will guarantee pricing. We're not really sure what the sustainability of the decisions that have been taken will be. We will look at the economic environment. We don't think that we are really concerned by this.

Next question and next answer. Are there any other questions in the room? I know that there were quite a few of them, the written questions. Any questions in the room? Yes, go ahead.

I am an individual shareholder. I had several questions, if I may. You are present in Travel Retail. You've got an important shareholder, I guess, that is not part of the Board from the LVMH. Are these issues that you think could be merged? Or do you think these two actors could work together? And is there a reason that LVMH doesn't want to be part of the Board? Is it because they don't want to have information for Travel Retail? And then I have another question of your annual report. Page 370 specify the different progression, different evolutions for the shareholders of the group. I think that it's a shame that for Vivendi, you said that there are other shareholders because Vivendi on the 31st of December had a little bit more than 5%, and I think that it will be important for us to share that with us. They're actually above 5% now. And also, what is your situation, Mr. Arnaud Lagardère? Because you, in 2024, went to have different thresholds. I have understood that you have actually put in your own money and moved this from Lagardère to Hachette. Will there only be one listed company and that will be Hachette? Why do you have two listed companies? And I haven't really understood -- understand the answer that was given yesterday. Why does Vivendi still have 5% of Lagardère shares? And the last point, this is resolution 18, I believe. You've got the renewal of the Remuneration Committee. This is Page [ 15 ] now. It is indicated that for the members of the Board, you need to have an absence of I think contempt for any public sanctions, fraud, financial issues, but if we think about the Remuneration Committee, do you think that it's a good idea to have this proposal being put forward? And this is one of the -- is this something that you've been looking at? So have you really looked into the matter?

Thank you very much for your questions. You started off well -- you didn't start off very well, but I'm still going to answer. So for I don't know, Dag, maybe you can talk about the DFS activities that are slightly different to our own activities? And Mr. Bernard Arnault, I guess, he didn't want to be represented within the Board, it's not because he didn't want to have special information or anything like that. And this isn't linked to DFS or an eventual interest in Travel Retail -- or not Travel Retail. It's not up for sale. We have spoken about this. There have been a lot of leaks and a lot questions asked. We've got 2 different branches here. We are looking at economic cycles as well for COVID. There are no projects. We are not looking to disclose the Travel Retail. Obviously, let's never say never. We don't know what tomorrow will have in store for us, but this is not on the agenda for the moment.

We've got the group strategy that are completely different. And we're focused on travel with 80% of activities in the airport. We've got the downtown Duty Free. They've got different positions in Paris and in China as well. We mostly focused on different regions. We don't really see the interest in grouping the two together because their strategies are completely different.

So in theory and strategically, do we think that there is an interest in having the two speaking to one another? That's already the case, obviously. Do we also think that there would be additional interest? I'm not sure. And as you know, Bernard Arnault, he has different strategies that are very long-term strategy. And I'm not sure what he wants to disclose a part of this. This is the parts of the pipeline. Even if the business is wonderful, there can be difficulties, just as we've had difficulty. But it is still a good -- it's still good that it's part of our pipeline. Pauline, maybe you can take the floor and talk about Vivendi.

Yes, absolutely. On the 31st of December, it was just below 5%. And these documents that have been formatted, we are following the European regulation and we are disclosing individually the observations that are above the thresholds that are legal. This led to a publication of a press release, and we spoke about the participations in the different documents that we've given to you. Why Vivendi still has this position linked to the disposal rights, why? Because from a public tender that was launched in 2022, there was an additional branch looking at the different disposal rights for shareholders who wanted to get rid of their shares. And this is something that Vivendi is also part of. They're not mobile assets that have been transferred to Hachette Group or anything like that.

And I think that's it for Vivendi. Yes, there's nothing to add. So if we look at the end, and I don't like it as much as the beginning, you mentioned 100% of the -- it's 150 or 200, if we think about Mr. Sarkozy. He's there for everything, and there is no counter indication communication as to why Mr. Sarkozy could not be part of the group. These can be different charges against them, have been contested, and he is essential to the group. I've said this, and I'm not saying this because he's my friend, I'm saying this because he is -- has always been there for the hard times and there have been so many of them. We never know what tomorrow -- he's essential to the group, really essential to the group. And I often think that we're in the same boat, and it's important for me to have him with us. And I think that it's the same thing with the other shareholders. You can obviously ask them the question if you want, but that's how I feel. The question that you are seeing is something that hasn't been brought up at the Board because it is not a relevant question. Are there any other question? Yes. I'm forgetting everything that's important as well. So no, but I thought that the future of the group was going through the Louis Hachette Group. And I thought that this was an opportunity -- very interesting opportunity for us, economically speaking or financially speaking. And I think about Mr. Sarkozy once again. He says that the river is always loyal to its source when going to the sea, which means that we are now linked to the Bolloré Group, even if they're not a majority shareholder, and they don't behave as a majority shareholder. But we are linked. We can see this in our synergies, our economic synergies, to men and women as well. I personally am really happy with working with this team and has completely changed me. Therefore, this is -- and at the same time, I wanted to be as close as possible with this. If I think about the -- you've spoken about mergers, what could be -- the future mergers be. And if you were to ask me the questions, I'm 100% focused on the activities of the group, and I'm not focused on this type of -- once again, if you have anything to add, please feel free. Are there any other questions? We're actually on time, which is very rare for us, especially because I actually took a lot more time. No other questions? Because there were lots of written questions, and maybe we can go to the next part, please.

Yes, absolutely, let's go on to the votes -- for the official quorum, and this has slightly changed since the beginning of the general meeting because we are looking at 83.3% for ordinary and 1,700 participating in vote. We're looking at 83%. You can see the different details on the screen. And then for the Extraordinary General Meeting, we've got once again, [ 1,604 ] shareholders. I believe that we have a film just to explain how this is going to work. And we can share this before going on to the voting. [Presentation]

Let's vote for the resolutions. The first resolution is the approval of the financial statements. Voting is open. [Voting]

Resolution adopted at 99.99%. Second resolution is the approval of the consolidated financial statements. So voting is open. [Voting]

Voting closed. Resolution adopted, 99.99%. Third resolution, allocation of the company's earnings and dividend payments. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting closed. Resolution adopted, 99.99%. Fourth resolution, approval of the statutory auditors' special reports on related party agreements. Voting open. [Voting]

Voting closed. Resolution adopted, 99.36%. Fifth resolution, approval of the information disclosed pursuant to Article L. 22-10-9 of the French Commercial Code concerning the remuneration of corporate officers. Voting open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. Resolution adopted, 99.99%. Sixth resolution, approval of the components remuneration and benefits paid during or allocated in respect of 2024 to Arnaud Lagardère. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. Resolution adopted, 99.3%. Seventh resolution, approval of the components of remuneration and benefits paid during or allocated in respect to 2024 for Jean-Christophe Thiery. Voting is open. [Voting]

Vote is closed. Resolution adopted, 99.97%. Eighth resolution now, approval of the components of remuneration and benefits paid during or allocated in respect of 2024 to Pierre Leroy, Deputy Chief Executive Officer. Votes open. [Voting]

Vote is closed. Resolution adopted, 99.97%. Ninth resolution, approval of the 2025 remuneration policy of the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Voting open. [Voting]

Votes closed. Adopted, 99.71%. Tenth resolution, approval of the 2025 remuneration policy for the members of the Board of Directors. Voting is open. [Voting]

Votes closed. Resolution adopted, 99.99%. Eleventh resolution, ratification of the co-optation of Jean-Christophe Thiery as the director. Voting is now open. [Voting]

Votes is closed. Resolution adopted, 99.98%. Twelfth resolution, ratification and the co-optation of Arnaud Lagardère as a Director. [Voting]

Vote is closed. Adopted, 99.76%. Thirteenth resolution, the appointment of Valérie Hortefeux as a Director for a 4-year term. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. Adopted, 99.97%. Welcome onboard. Welcome onboard, Valérie. Fourteenth resolution, the appointment of Michèle Reiser as a Director for a 4-year term. [Voting]

Voting is closed. Adopted, welcome, Michèle, 99.99%. Fifteenth resolution, reappointment of Yannick Bolloré as a Director for a 4-year term. The vote is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. Adopted, 99.73%.

Okay. So people don't want him.

Sixteenth resolution, reappointment of Véronique Morali as a Director for a 3-year term. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. Adopted, 99.6%. Seventeenth resolution, reappointment of the Arnaud de Puyfontaine as a Director for a 3-year term. Voting open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. Adopted 99.34%. Eighteenth resolution, renewal of the term of Nicolas Sarkozy for a 3-year term. Voting is open for the reappointment of Nicolas Sarkozy as a Director for a 3-year term. [Voting]

Voting is closed. Adopted at 99.29%. Nineteenth resolution, reappointment of Valérie Bernis as a Director for a 2-year term. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. Adopted, 99.99%. Twentieth resolution, reappointment of Fatima Fikree as a Director for a 2-year term. Voting is open. [Voting]

Voting is closed. Adopted, 99.98%. Twenty-first resolution, authorization for the Board of Directors to trade in the company's shares for 18 months. Voting is open. [Voting]

Vote is closed. Adopted at 99.99%. Twenty-second resolution, renewal of financial authorizations. Vote is open, for a 26-month authorization for the Board of Directors to issue debt securities giving immediate or future access to the share capital of the company, subsidiaries and/or entity with a EUR 1.5 billion ceiling on the debt securities issued. [Voting]

Voting is closed. Adopted, 99.97%. Twenty-third resolution, 26-month authorization for the Board of Directors to issue, with preemptive subscription rights, ordinary shares of the company and/or securities giving immediate or future access to the company's share capital and/or carrying immediate or future rights to the allocation of debt securities, subject to ceilings of EUR 280 million of increases in share capital and EUR 1.5 billion for debt securities issued. Vote is open. [Voting]

Vote is closed. Adopted at 99.98%. Twenty-fourth resolution, 26-month authorization for the Board of Directors to issue by way of a public offer, other than these referred to in section 1 of Article L. 411-2, the French Monetary and Financial Code without preemptive subscription rights with a priority right for at least 5 trading days, ordinary shares of the company and/or securities giving immediate or future access to the company's share capital and/or carrying immediate or future rights to the allocation of debt securities. Voting open. [Voting]

Vote is closed. Adopted at 99.93%. Twenty-fifth resolution, 26-month authorization of the Board of Directors to issue by way of public offer, without preemptive subscription rights and without a priority right. Vote is open. [Voting]

Vote is closed. Adopted, 99.68%. Twenty-sixth resolution, 26-month authorization for the Board of Directors to issue by way of a private placement as referred to in section 1 of Article L. 411-2 of the French Monetary and Financial Code without preemptive subscription rights. Vote is open. [Voting]

Vote is closed. Resolution adopted at 99.78%. Twenty-seventh resolution, authorization for the Board of Directors to issue additional securities in the event an issue is oversubscribed, subject to the applicable ceilings. Vote is open. [Voting]

Vote is closed. Adopted, 99.73%. Twenty-eighth resolution, 26-month authorization for the Board of Directors to issue without preemptive subscription rights –, ordinary shares of the company and/or securities giving immediate or future access to the company's share capital and/or carrying immediate or future rights to the allocation of debt securities as consideration for securities tendered as part of a public exchange offer or a contribution in kind. Vote is open. [Voting]

Vote is closed. Adopted, 99.98%. Twenty-ninth resolution, overall ceilings of EUR 85 million, EUR 320 million and EUR 1.5 billion on the total amounts of capital increases and issues of debt securities resulting from the authorizations in the preceding resolutions. Vote is open. [Voting]

Vote is closed. Adopted, 99.94%. Thirtieth resolution, 26-month authorization for the Board of Directors to increase the company's share capital by capitalizing reserves, profits and share premiums and issuing new shares and/or increasing the par value of existing shares. Vote is open. [Voting]

Vote is closed. Adopted at 99.99%. Thirty-first resolution, 26-month authorization for the Board of Directors to issue, without preemptive subscription rights, ordinary shares of the company and/or securities, giving access to the company's share capital to employees under corporate savings schemes, provided that such issues do not represent more than 0.5% of the outstanding share capital in any given year. Vote is open. [Voting]

Vote is closed. Adopted at 99.98%. Thirty-second resolution, full year authorization to be given to the Board of Directors to reduce the share capital by canceling all or some of the shares purchased by the company under share buyback programs. Vote is open. [Voting]

Vote is closed. Adopted at 99.99%. Thirty-third resolution, 38-month authorization for the Board of Directors to award free performance shares to employees and senior executives of the company and related companies or groups. Vote is open. [Voting]

Vote is closed. Adopted at 99.98%. Thirty-fourth resolution, 38-month authorization for the Board of Directors to award free shares to employees and senior executives of the company and of related companies or groups. Vote is open. [Voting]

Vote is closed. Adopted at 99.98%. Thirty-fifth resolution, ratification to amend made by the Board of Directors to Articles 12 and 17, the Articles of Association in accordance with applicable regulations. Vote is open. [Voting]

Vote is closed. Adopted at 99.99%. Thirty-sixth resolution. Update to the company's Articles of Association. [Voting]

The vote is closed. Adopted at 99.55%. Finally thirty-seventh and last resolution, powers for formalities. Vote is open. [Voting]

The vote is closed. Adopted at 99.99%.

Thank you, Pauline. This is the end of our assembly. It's 11:11. We'll stop here. We will see you again next year. Thank you everyone for your trust. Thank you. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]