Nexans S.A. (NEX) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

[Interpreted] Ladies and gentlemen, and dear shareholders, I'm delighted to welcome you here for the first assembly I'm holding as the President of this Board of Nexans, and I thank you very much for following up on this conference on the Internet, in line with the very special conditions of this year in compliance with the emergency measures adopted by the government to prevent the spreading of COVID-19, in particular, the Ordinance 2020-321 dated 25th of March 2020, and bylaw 2020-418 of the 10th of April 2020. This assembly will take place in camera and without the presence of our shareholders who are normally authorized. To assist with me, we have the General Manager, Christopher Guérin; the Financial Manager, Jean-Christophe Juillard; and Nino Cusimano, who's our Legal Director and our General Secretary. I would also like to greet all our Board members who are looking at this through the transmission as well as all the auditors whose speech has been recorded. The COVID-19 pandemic is having a huge impact on millions of people and on world economy. It's without precedence, as you know. In this very disturbed period, in compliance with the Board, the Executive Committee had set up early February of a monitoring system to ensure that our employees and that our commercial, industrial and financial activities would be followed so that we could follow-up on our business production and our commitments to our customers, in close contact with the instructions of the authorities in the countries that we operate in. On behalf of the Board members, I'd like to congratulate Chris and his team for all the work that he has done to manage this crisis. The general management and the managerial team have been on the field working with the employees, and I'd like to thank them all very much for their commitment. At all levels, our teams have worked nonstop to ensure the continuity of operations to serve our customers and maintain the group's engagements vis-à-vis its stakeholders. Production activity has been maintained thanks to an excellent dialogue between the various workers of our various countries, and this just shows the sense of responsibility and honor that we have in our group. It also is an indication of how closely welded and committed we are. In this particularly difficult period, I would really like to underline this fact. During this general assembly, we will be commenting on our performances, 2019, which was also marked by the implementation of the New Nexans plan, which was implemented by the smaller Executive Committee of 11 people and shared with great discipline and passion by Christopher Guérin, our Director General. We will be sharing our present situation in the general context of uncertainty and of the world economy as it is. We would also like to change the composition of our Board, and there are 2 new people coming, Jane Basson and Sylvie Jéhanno, who will be very useful to us in the recovery of our group. And before we begin the session, I would really like to thank the 2 members of the Board whose terms of offices are ending now. To begin with, Colette Lewiner, who's been with Nexans ever since 2004 and who had contributed her great experience and maturity to our exceptional networks and our ecosystem. Thank you very much for all your involvement and all the precious work. I'd also like to thank Fanny Letier, who has been Director of Nexans since 2014, been with us in very difficult times and also helped us develop this very committed and very close Board. Now after these few words, I'd like to declare the General Assembly of Shareholders of Nexans open, meeting as both an ordinary and extraordinary general assembly. I would also like to remind you that you may not exceptionally vote directly during this meeting. Your votes were already recorded right up to 3:00 p.m. yesterday, and we will be announcing the results of all the resolutions at the end of this session. Details will be available online following the end of this replay. All documents related to this assembly, particularly the convening brochure and the universal recorded documentation, is available and downloadable on Internet. Now as President of this Board, it is for me to now constitute this assembly. Normally, it is for the scrutineer to ensure that there are 2 shareholders who have the largest number of votes in Nexans and Bpifrance. And because of these exceptional circumstances, it will be Christopher Guérin and I myself who will be playing this role. I also suggest that we select Nino Cusimano as the Secretary. I'd like to remind you that this assembly has met on the first convocation. The quorum has been reached because we are at 82.406%. And as a result, the bureau finds that the mixed general assembly may now study the items on the agenda part of its jurisdiction going from resolutions 1 to 14 for the general -- ordinary general assembly and for resolutions 15 and 24 for the extraordinary general assembly. This is how we shall proceed. First, we will go through the normal formalities. And then you'll see a video called Nexans' living history, which will give us the history of this group. Chris Guérin will then make a presentation of the present situation related to the pandemic. He will also mention the more remarkable points and results of these past years. He will also tell us what is expected from the group in 2020. Jean-Christophe Juillard, who will then give us comments on the financial results of 2019 and the turnover for the first quarter of 2020. Then Ragnhild Katteland, who's Executive Vice President of the Subsea & Land Systems, will make a presentation of our news when it comes to energy transition. And then finally, we will talk about governance, about our candidates to the Board as well as compensations, with a recorded video of Anne Lebel, who is our lead independent Corporate Officer. And we'll also, in the tradition of the group, include 2 short introductory videos of our 2 new candidates for directorship, after which we will also be taking into account the presentation of our auditors, which was previously recorded. And finally, Nino Cusimano will share the vote's results. So far, our company has not received any special requirements for resolution or for any addition to the items on the agenda. We will answer questions -- written questions following this session. Now I'd like to invite Nino Cusimano to remind us of all the documents that have been registered with the present assembly.

[Interpreted] Now the -- all the documents required by the general assembly were made available for the shareholders on the Internet site of our company. In particular, you'll find the reports of the Board of Directors going from Pages 19 to 162 and 270 following the universal [indiscernible] document of registration. Now as usual, we shall not read it. Thank you. Now let me give the floor to Christopher Guérin.

[Interpreted] Thank you, dear shareholders. I do hope that you are in good health. This world, which is being really affected by coronavirus, it is extremely important that we stay -- to show this film tracing the history of the group and reminding us of our roots. Okay, you're going to see a short version, and a longer version will be available in the days to come with the managers emblematic of the group, among which Colette and [ Giles ], as well the first CEO of the Nexans' history, [indiscernible]. I worked with him during many years, and we owe a lot to him. So let's watch the video now. [Presentation]

[Interpreted] okay. So thank you again to all teams Nexans, and you're going to see and discover this film, it lasts about 15 minutes, and you will see all the managers of Nexans. So it's a wonderful initiative. People need to have milestones, and we have our milestones as well. Before reviewing the highlights of 2019, let me come to the current environment and the management by Nexans to protect our teams and all stakeholders while continuing the production of our businesses, of our plants and of our procurement, of our supply chains. The Nexans committee has been managing the crisis since January. Of course, this was strengthened during the weeks because of the pandemic. And since the 15th of January, we already put into place a daily review, thanks to Julien Hueber, a member of the executive committee, based in Shanghai, and he kept us updated every day and he's been giving updated every day. And 3 months later, none of our 900 employees in China has been contaminated, and all our operations since the beginning of April are working and up and running. As you see on this slide, the crisis management is based on 5 main pillars. The first one is the protection of our workforce. We put safety protocols on all our sites, between 50 and 100 actions. Stabilization of the supply chain and business continuities, engagement as well, 3,000 customers and 90% of our revenues, and we secured those 3,000 customers through our supply chain and in terms of commercial follow-up. The financial resilience test, stress test, liquidity, Jean-Christophe will come back to it, and the modeling of what could be the world segment after segment by the end of 2021, our image. And of course, thanks to the support of the governing Board. We have a review every 3 weeks on the crisis situation. Thanks to our rigorous internal control process, thanks to our identify, anticipation actions through our Chinese colleagues and thanks to management in the field, plus the engagement of the employees and the excellent social dialogue, the group has deployed has measures throughout the units. And 90% of the production sites of the group are up and running throughout the world. As you see on this slide, we also made a number of decisions during those last few weeks to make sure that our operations are sustainable and to show social cohesion, because we hear a lot about working from home, but not everyone is working from home, and the industry is at work. A bonus EUR 750 per month has been granted for the frontliners, the production and logistic teams. In order to show social cohesion, I had a pay cut by 30% and minus 15% for the largest wages of the group, and I would like to thank the members of the Board of Governors who did the same. On the 24th of March, further through the crisis of COVID disease, we suspended the guidance, and an update of our targets will be done as soon as the situation has stabilized. Our sites are running. We did not experience any major disruptions due to shortage or due to the supply chain or local blockage, no disruption. I'm very proud of the Nexans teams, and I would like to show you those few pictures, and to us those pictures show the solidarity we experienced within our teams in the last few months across the world. And you have to know that since February, we have sent, thanks to our Chinese teams who put at our disposal 15 people dedicated to send face masks and gloves, 1 million of masks and gloves were received throughout the world. And we had some countries having a shortage, like France, for face masks, as you know, and we made a donation of about -- between 300,000 and 500,000 masks to hospitals and so on, and a donation of 50,000 masks to the hospital Georges-Pompidou in Paris right at the peak of the shortage. So efforts, impressive efforts were made. We supported all customers linked to the medical field in securing deliveries round the clock. And we put into place specific protocols for the CapEx being achieved in the plant of Charleston in South Carolina, so that the Norwegian teams and the American teams may work remotely, but -- while putting into place the CapEx planned for April. And as you see here, the reopening of the head office, we are at the present time at the Head Office of Nexans, and 130 people have joined us since the 11th of May, so the lifting of the lockdown. Okay. Back to the highlights, 2019. The industrial ambition has been understood with the renewed trust of our incumbent shareholders and new shareholders, small and large. All shareholders believe in this new chapter, new section, which we mention in this film. We want Nexans to be a flagship -- French flagship in the energy transition. So we have to walk our talk. And our world needs more electricity. Our world needs a new deal, green new deal, and Nexans made a major step with a record backlog for high voltage -- subsea high voltage, EUR 1.8 billion for the backlog, dedicated to energy transition, the green energy transition. Allow me, and I would like to highlight this, this is important for me. Allow me to thank Henrik Poulsen, the CEO of the Ørsted company and the whole management team for their trust. Ørsted is the global leader with a market share of over 60% in the sea -- in the offshore wind energy. It is going to be multiplied by 3 by 2030, and the wind farms offshore should be about 85% -- up to 85% of the CapEx program. Ørsted and Nexans have reviewed the way of working together in a more inclusive way with a common objective in order to work in full trust over a long period of time. And it's not a contract, it's a common commitment. We committed ourselves to achieving this energy transition. It's a long-term contract, right up to 2027, to connect all wind farms of the Eastern Coast of the United States. The value of this contract may go up to EUR 1.2 billion. It is quite historical for Nexans for the segment of wires and cables. And if companies like Nexans and Ørsted review and redesign the way of working in an inclusive way in a win-win mode with a common goal around the energy transition, then we altogether have a chance to reduce the climatic global warming down to 1.5. If you look at the statistics in 2020, due to the COVID and to the lockdown measures and the stoppage of economy, the request for electricity -- the supply of electricity will decrease by 5% in the world at the end of 2020 and the CO2 emissions by 8% to 10%. And of course, it's a positive change, which is okay, but it will be reached at the detriment of many people and people affected by the coronavirus. We have to change this health crisis for a greener world, and we should not replicate the models of the past. So along this line, Nexans commits itself to turn neutral -- carbon-neutral by 2030, and we multiply this new approach. We want to have a customer supplier approach, innovative and more inclusive. As you know, we have developed our own program called SHIFT, which has -- made of the best practices that companies have in private equity. Now this program has worked really well in South America, in North America and in Asia with fantastic results. I'll come back to this in the light of this present crisis. It's even more important for us that this methodology of recovering our company that be based on cash, on profit, and we are now reengineering our model. It's extremely important given the present crisis. So now building a new Nexans requires a change in mentality, of culture, and I was lucky that just prior to this crisis, I went to visit 20 different countries across the world, and I spoke to nearly 3,000 employees of Nexans. I also found that the team was extremely galvanized, very energetic and extremely united to restore the image of our leadership as Nexans. So now our commitment in the Nexans model is to become even more sound and stronger in the next 10 years, and that shall further strengthen the modelization of our project and improve our execution of risk management. Now if you like, we will share some financial results with you. As you know, for several years, I've been working with this company, and I do believe that it was in 2019 for the first time, as far as I remember, that activities altogether, at the same time, showed growth, showed profitability. As you can see up here on this slide, our building and construction plus energy distribution has shown an improvement of more than 27%. Now Industry & Solutions showed an improvement of 23%, and that is thanks to very good growth in Asia, particularly China. Telecom & Data show an upturn, thanks to the use of fiber optics, and that gives us plus 16%. And with high voltage projects, this is the flower of our industry, and this is thanks to energy transition. So it's been an excellent year. And we were, of course, doing really well prior to the advent of this pandemic, and we were perfectly in line with our results. As you can see up here on this slide, our EBITDA is at EUR 413 million as opposed to EUR 325 million -- EUR 375 million. So the ROCE is, of course, at 18%. Return on capital employed at 11.1%, and free cash flow, which is positive, of plus EUR 25 million. So now Jean-Christophe, you will come back to all this in greater detail. Now the Nordlink project, which is a major step in energy transition. Let me give you some concrete examples of this. In 2019, we finalized the laying of the subsea cable linking Germany to Norway. Now the idea was to put in these 275 kilometers of cable to enable Germany to send its extra -- surplus green energies produced by solar, wind and hydro power towards Norway, and Norway was to send its entire energy from its hydroelectric farms to Germany. So now these kind of connections are increasing all over the world. To give you an idea, you will see on this slide, this sector laid 10,000 kilometers of cables in these last 10 years. Now what do we see up here on this slide? Here, you have a list of all the projects under execution and upcoming. They represent 16,000 on subsea cables to be laid in the coming months. And here, this just represents energy transition, the connections between countries in order to have a regular exchange of energy and transmission of energy. What else do you see on this slide? You find that the backlog that you have here, in the little green square, of Nexans, and all our units working in subsea and in high voltage have been working nonstop since the end of 2019. Even the Charleston plant will now be reconverted to make just subsea cables for wind farms, offshore and onshore. So this is a perfect history that is now taking place concerning energy transition. So I'll let Ragnhild Katteland give you greater details concerning all this. She joined this team in Nexans, and so she is in charge of this project. Now our main achievements in 2019, as you know, that the idea was to get to EUR 219 million. And we had a reengineering project, which began and which is in line with the group, and it is in line with what we said. So there's a reduction of direct costs. A lot of work has been done on industrial performance and in purchases and the complete reengineering and resizing of what we did compared to the past in terms of investments. Now where do we stand concerning our aims as far as cost reduction is concerned, EUR 210 million. We have actually achieved EUR 75 million of cost reduction in the course of 2019. So we are slightly ahead of our program. If you look at the SHIFT program in greater detail, as you know, I had introduced it to you during our project 2019, 2020. So it is the circumstances of all entities, some of them are in blue, and so they are cash producers. And then you have others, other businesses, other activities, which are essentially cash burners, and they are losing money. So we shall be now working in greater detail with them, with more than 60 people working on the transformation of these given activities. So this program is ahead of time, and it is taking place perfectly well, and it has been greatly amplified in 2020. And end of 2021, we should get to EUR 100 million. But already, we were at EUR 40 million of our EBITDA, and this is thanks to the SHIFT program, and virtually EUR 60 million are required for working capital. So a lot of work has been done in CSR as well. So the idea is to be carbon-neutral by 2030. What I really wish to emphasize over here is that apart from the ratings and apart from all these annual reports, what I'd like to do is implement a virtual system, and that is why we have launched the 3P: planet, people, profit program. Now each entity, every quarter, will be rated on its monitoring of energy consumption, water, gas, electricity, keeping in mind this production output, plus waste disposal. So they'll be scoring every quarter of all our entities in terms of carbon imprint. Now when it comes to people, the second P, the teams we have, we are also measuring the rate of absentia -- absenteeism, sorry, and also about safety in our teams, whether we are actually following the protocol for safety. And we would like us now to adopt the right gestures and the right way of doing things. Now of course, this should not be considered separately, it should be integrated. And that is why today, each entity is being scored on the quality of its actions and its actions for the planet and for whatever else it is doing and its contribution -- financial contribution. Now talking of finance. I'd like to give the floor to Jean-Christophe. Jean-Christophe?

[Interpreted] Thank you, Chris. As Chris said a few minutes ago, 2019 is characterized by a strong performance across all businesses of the group. Sales amounted to EUR 6.7 billion, EUR 4.6 billion at constant metal cost. Organic growth, 4.5%, mainly driven by High Voltage and Building & Territory. The margin rate remained stable with a positive price effect on cables, offset by volume growth in metallurgy with lower margins. Indirect costs are down by EUR 30 million thanks to the numerous savings initiatives launched in the group from the beginning of 2019. EBITDA, the gross operating income, amounts -- amounted to EUR 413 million, including an IFRS 16 adjustment of EUR 29 million, a 18% increase compared to the 2018. All business segments contributed, if you see on the slides. On the graph on the right-hand side, EUR 124 million of contributions for all our businesses, especially Building & Territory and the High Voltage as well with a contribution of EUR 44 million and EUR 36 million of additional EBITDA, and it was compensated partially by inflation and exceptional items of 2018. EBITDA as a percentage of sales at 9%; excluding IFRS 16 impact in 2019, it is 8.4%, up plus 100 basis points compared to 2018. The operating margin rate increased to 5.4% of sales. If we look at this progress of the EBITDA in 2019 of 18%, let me recall the objective, which is based on 3 pillars. The first one, cost reduction, EUR 210 million over 3 years. EUR 75 million on this graph were achieved in 2019, so in line with the linear growth of this cost reduction. The second pillar was the transformation with the SHIFT program mentioned by Chris, EUR 100 million expected over 3 years, EUR 40 million achieved for 2019 on its own. So we are slightly ahead of schedule as to SHIFT for 2019. The third pillar is the selective growth in some of our strategic markets, especially high voltage, subsea and telecom, and we had a growth of EUR 12 million on this pillar for the EBITDA growth. So completely in line with our history with good 2019 year on 3 pillars and slightly ahead for the SHIFT. Growth in volume due to the economic environment for 2019, EUR 28 million coming mainly in the first half of 2019 from the building business, Building & Territory. And exceptional items for 2018, EUR 32 million, mainly due to the closing of pension plan for the Executive Committee and [ currex ] impact on the evaluation of copper. Let's have a look at the net income of the group. Net income, negative EUR 118 million, 2019, mainly due to 2 factors. The first one, reorganization charges, significant ones followed to the restructuring plan announced and initiated in 2019. And the second one is an increase in the antitrust provision by EUR 20 million. If we look in detail at the reorganization cost, EUR 251 million, this is the breakdown: EUR 201 million of reorganization costs for the New Nexans plan announced in January 2019 and started to be deployed from September 2019; and EUR 50 million for the year -- and EUR 50 million of restructuring cost for other plans, mainly in Asia, North and South America, which are similar to 2018 and are part of the restructuring cost, the recurring restructuring cost. Those reorganization costs are significant, but they are fully in line with our expectations for 2019, no over cost. The other cost, EUR 9 million, were due to [indiscernible], offset by a reversal of an asset impairment provision of our factory at Charleston in South Carolina with the Ørsted contract and a provision, as I said, which is an additional one, an antitrust provision of EUR 19 million. Net financial expenses amounted to EUR 63 million in 2019 compared to EUR 56 million in 2018. The cost of debt fell by EUR 9 million, but this decrease was more than offset by an unfavorable currency effect. Income tax expense remained stable, EUR 44 million, reflecting the fact that the reorganization costs did not generate any tax benefit. An important point for this financial year of 2019 is the control of our net debt. It remained stable. EUR 129 million of restructuring cash outflow. This disbursement is 40 billion -- EUR 40 million, sorry, has been pushed back to 2020. And EUR 238 million of CapEx amount due to the new vessel being built for our Subsea business, the new Aurora boat, EUR 55 million, and for an equivalent amount, EUR 60 million, the transformation of our plant in Charleston to convert it from land to Subsea segments of business. In spite of the significant impact on cash, the net debt remained stable thanks to the generation, as you can see on this graph, of over EUR 350 million of operating cash and through the improvement of working capital of EUR 75 million. So in conclusion, a positive free cash flow, EUR 25 million over the year, which is above expectations due to the factors explained above, these exceptional items of cash disbursement. As a result, net debt-to-EBITDA ratio improved, if we exclude the IFRS 16 impacts, so going from 1x to 0.9x in 2019. Let's have a look at major point of the year, the improvement in operating working capital, which mainly accounts for this improvement of the operating cash flow for 2019. You see that on the graph, the requirement for the operating working capital is getting better, from 12.4% (sic) [ 12.6% ] in December 2018 to 11.9% in 2019, thanks to strong actions on inventory reduction and better management of trade receivables, all these through the SHIFT transformation program rolled out across the Nexans Group. Improvement of the working capital comes from the high voltage subsea business because we had very positive cash profile projects and down payments received, but also the cable business thanks to the SHIFT plan. A consequence of this improvement of cash position and the EBITDA for 2018, the consequence is a solid improvement of the ROCE, return on capital employed. ROCE improves in 2019 from 9% to 11.6% before IFRS 16 impacts. The strong improvement is mainly from the growth in operating margin in 2019. Capital employed increased slightly due to higher CapEx I just described previously, especially in the Subsea business with the new vessel and the Charleston factory in South Carolina. IFRS 16 increased capital employed, and the capital employed is 11.5% -- 11.6% at the end of the financial year, which is a good performance compared to 2018. Let’s have a look at the financial position and the balance sheet. The financial position is solid. Fixed assets increased, mainly due to investments I described previously in the high voltage subsea and the IFRS 16 impact. Working capital requirement, we mentioned it, an improvement, mainly thanks to SHIFT, a improvement by EUR 91 million. Provisions increased by EUR 161 million versus 2018, mainly due to reorganization provisions and the additional antitrust provision. If we look at our various ratios, significant ratios for the debt, the interest-to-EBITDA ratio decreased by 9% due to lower interest expenses following the redemption of a bond loan, a convertible one, EUR 275 million at the beginning of 2019 and the lower interest rate refinancing of the 2018 bond loan and the EBITDA growth. The gearing ratio increased by 38% due to the IFRS 16 impact on the net debt and the lower equity due to the loss -- the net loss on 2019. There remains, however, significant room for maneuver in relation to the limits of the commitments. And the last ratio is the debt ratio, increasing due to the IFRS adjustment on net debt, but significant room as well for maneuver with a limit of 3.2. So no problem regarding the covenants of the group. This is it for the consolidated financial statements 2019 of Nexans Group. I'm going now to briefly describe you the financial statements of Nexans S.A., the parent company of the Nexans Group, acting as a holding company, as you know. Operating income includes head office expenses not reinvoiced to subsidiaries. It represents a loss of minus EUR 36 million in 2019 versus minus EUR 18 million in 2018. This deterioration is covered by the increase in dividends received from subsidiaries recorded as financial expenses. Net income positive, EUR 23 million in 2019 versus a EUR 6 million gain in 2018. This increase was mainly due to the improvement in net financial expense reflecting the receipt of dividends from subsidiaries, EUR 85 million in 2019 versus EUR 56 million in 2018. Financial debt is EUR 819 million, a reduction of EUR 246 million compared to 2018. Nexans S.A. carries group bond loans, and on the 2nd of January 2019, the group effectively redeemed the Ocean bond loan at its maturity date and paid out EUR 276 million in cash, including the coupon. This is it for the financial statements of the group and Nexans S.A. for 2019. I'm going now to move to the sales of the first quarter of 2020, which is [ specific ] here -- a bit complicated here. If we look at the consolidated sales of the group for the first quarter, in spite of the COVID-19 crisis starting to impact Nexans across businesses in mid-March, the consolidated sales in the first quarter did not suffer, as you can see here on the slide, with an organic growth being stable, minus 0.01% of -- compared to the first quarter of 2019, stability. January and February were strong in most of the group businesses, offsetting the first effect of the COVID crisis arriving in China end of January, beginning of February, and then in Europe and rest of the world from March. All European businesses of Nexans except for High Voltage, protected by its solid backlog and the location of its main plant in European -- North European areas less impacted by the COVID than Central Europe, so all activities were impacted except for the Subsea and Land High Voltage. Building & Territory, minus 6% -- well, 5.5% precisely. After a very good start of the year, partial closures of sites took place in Europe from March and then in the U.S. Industry & Solutions, minus 6%, strongly impacted mainly in the automotive business, harnesses, mainly. It accounts for about 10% of the sales of the group, and harness was impacted in March very strongly with the closure of the plants of our main customers in Germany. And our business in the robotic field as well, it was impacted too, because it is related to the automotive industry. Aerospace was impacted as well. Nexans being one of the largest suppliers of Airbus, Airbus closed down the assembly sites across Europe quickly. Telecom & Data suffered a sharp slowdown in March, minus 10% for the quarter, as you can see, mainly due to the stoppage of the deployment of the fiber optic cables in Europe and also in the rest of the other geographies of the group. And as I said, the high voltage segment saw strong growth in sales, 56% compared to last year, thanks to strong activity in the subsea business with favorable phasing. At the beginning of 2019, the growth was low. It was a problem of phasing and the duration of contracts. But in 2020, very good phasing for the long-term projects of the subsea segment, hence strong growth of sales in the first quarter. And for the land business, the restructuring plan was completed at the end of 2019, and 2020 sees again production in line with our expectations with [ Charlevoix ], just a single site, and the production of contracts in the pipeline. So compared to last year, a strong growth as well. Let me finish my presentation with the cash position of the group. This is of course very important given the current crisis. As you can see on the slide, on the 31st of March, the cash position of Nexans is significant, above EUR 1 billion for the cash position, with EUR 600 million reserves in our revolving credit facility and about EUR 430 million of available cash. If I take for more deteriorated division, and if I withdraw EUR 100 million of vendor -- for vendor financing, especially for copper, then the cash position amounts to EUR 930 million as per the 31st of March. EUR 65 million of credit facility are unused, and group is in the process of obtaining a state-guaranteed loan of EUR 280 million. As you can see, the cash position of the group, therefore, is about EUR 1.3 billion. It is reassuring, of course, given the current situation, and it would allow us -- it will allow us to last if this crisis was to start again at the end of the year and continue in 2021. Let me finish with the various covenants. This cash level, of course, allow us to keep good headroom in relation to limits with regard to our debt ratio and the gearing.

[Interpreted] Right. Thank you very much. As you can see, Nexans is very well armed to face this crisis. We have very sound results in 2019, and we have all the liquidity required for 2020 and 2021. Plus our Nexans team is in crisis mode and is reviewing all its models to face up to the world today with COVID-19. And now one little page on energy transitions. Now you'll be seeing a video by Ragnhild Katteland, and she joined us to replace Vincent Dessale, who was promoted as COO for the group. So Ragnhild is now the Executive Vice President of our Subsea & Land systems in the business group. And in this short video, she will speak to us about the latest news of Nexans in our energy transition.

I hope you and your loved ones are doing okay. My name is Ragnhild Katteland, I'm leading the Subsea & Land Systems business group. I have a technical background and had my first working day in this company already back in January 1993. Since then, I've had many different position, but always in Oslo. I took over as CEO for Nexans Norway in September last year, and joined the ex-com Chris Guerin's team beginning this year, when I was appointed the EVP for SLS business group, replacing Vincent Dessale, whom I've been working with for the last 7 years. Today, I'm very pleased to be allowed to present to you 3 important projects for our business group and also for Nexans. First project I wanted you to have some information about is the North Sea Link project. This is a large interconnected project, connecting Norway and U.K., allowing for renewable energy exchange of power from hydro water plants in Norway and power from offshore wind parks in U.K. It's a project of the -- at the core of the Nexans strategy to support the energy transition for a greener world. The project is ongoing as per project schedule despite the COVID-19 virus. Manufacturing is being done in our plant in Halden and as -- has been doing for the last year. And we are currently mobilized at site in Suldal, Norway, for the laying of the onshore cables and the subsea cables in the Suldal Lake. Later this year, we will start the laying of the submarine cables in the Fjord and towards U.K. from our cable-laying vessel, Skagerrak, and the project will be completed already next year in 2021. Moving to our second important project. To support these very challenging offshore laying activities in the many years to come, we are investing in a new cable laying vessel, Aurora. This will be a state-of-the-art cable-laying vessel, featuring all the cable tools in our experience from Skagerrak, but improved even more by adding new technical solutions and today's best know-how. She will comprise a turntable allowing for 10,000 tonnes of cable. The turntable will be possible to split, allowing the laying of 2 cables at the same time. The hull of Aurora is now fully assembled at the yard CRIST in Poland, as you see on this photo. End of this month, she will be towed to Ulstein yard in Norway, where she will be for the next year for outfitting and finalization. Nexans Aurora is already included in our installation plans from May 2021, and our first mission will be to go to our Charleston plant in U.S. to pick up the first length of the subsea export cable for the Seagreen project in U.K. The Seagreen project is an offshore wind farm project in the heart, again, of our strategy to support the green energy transition. The third and last project I would really like you to have some insights from today is the conversion of the Charleston plant from a pure onshore high voltage cable plant to a subsea high voltage cable plant. The work is currently ongoing. There has been and still are some huge challenges related to these works due to the COVID-19 and all the travel bans and restrictions imposed by the countries, but it goes ahead as more or less as planned. A lot of the machinery is coming from European suppliers, and the know-how and support is all in Halden. The teams in Charleston and in Halden have been forward-looking and have set up all kinds of virtual solutions to be able to follow up and monitor the installation and progress. On April 17, one major milestone was achieved when we started the conductor stranding for a subsea high voltage cable. When finished next year, this cable is the first export cable for the offshore wind park, Seagreen. The cable will be picked up and installed by our new pride, Nexans Aurora. We certainly have some challenging and very exciting times ahead of us. I would like to close this presentation by wishing you and your loved ones a good and healthy year. Please stay safe. Thank you.

[Interpreted] Very interesting. Now we propose that we move to governance and compensation, and we shall share of video by Anne Lebel, who is an independent Lead Director, Chairwoman of the Appointments, Compensation and Corporate Governance Committee. And she will speak to us about governance in Nexans, the compensation of corporate officers, and she will also share with us some candidates that will be joining us in this committee.

[Interpreted] So dear shareholders, good afternoon. Let me now share with you all the work that we have done in this Compensation Corporate Governance Committee since the last general assembly meeting, and then we'll submit it to your vote. So this is the composition of our team. Here, on the -- you have the present composition and to which we will be making certain changes, which I will be sharing with you in a few minutes. Now in line with the recommendations of AFEP MEDEF, this committee is made up mostly of independent, 60% of shareholders, in addition to the other shareholders. Now the certain changes have been made to this vote. Firstly, given the multiplicity and several subjects being treated and also based on the good practices noted in other groups, we shall be dividing this group into 2 different committees. There'll be on the one hand the Appointment and Corporate Governance Committee, and another one on just compensation. And we shall be welcoming within the compensation committee, we will have Angéline Afanoukoé, who will be representing the employees, and this is in line with the expectations made by some of our Directors during the annual evaluation of the committee and also in conformity with recommendation of the AFEP MEDEF on this subject. Apart from that, we'll be having 2 members, if you confirm them in your vote. On the one hand, we've got Colette Lewiner, who has now finished her mandate, and she did not wish to renew it. I would like to thank her on behalf of the committee for her wonderful commitment to these -- to the Nexans in the last 4 mandates, plus all the expertise she shared with us. We'll be submitting to you the appointment of Jane Basson as a member of the Compensation Committee. Apart from that, Fanny Letier informed us that she would be resigning as a Director because it was no longer fitting with her professional obligations. I would also like to thank Fanny for her very strong involvement and continue with -- for all the work that she did for us. Sylvie Jéhanno, whose appointment has now been submitted to your vote, will also become a member of these 2 committees as well as of the Audit Committee. So now let me tell you about the work that we carried out in 2019. So in 2019, we worked on governance, the composition of the committee and on compensation. I will give you all these details of compensation when we make a presentation of the resolutions on this subject. Now as far as the composition of the committee is concerned and the appointments, so we had Mr. Jean Mouton at the end of 2019 after the general assembly as President of the Committee in line with the selection procedure. We have also renewed a certain number of mandates. Two were presented for renewal, and you will be required to give your vote on 2 appointments, Jane Basson and Sylvie Jéhanno, to replace Colette Lewiner and Fanny Letier. We carried out all this work keeping in mind the basic balancing principles of the committee in size, independence, diversity of profiles and experience. In terms of compensation, apart from certain recurring subjects, I'd like to underline 2 points that I'd like to touch upon. Improvement of long-term compensation systems, very important to retain talent and to which we've also introduced CSR performance in addition to the stock exchange performance and economic performance systems. And then the readjustment of our compensation policy in the face of this given health crisis. And then as we did in the preceding years, we shall also be assessing the work and the functioning of this organization. This time, we shall be doing it internally, and the reports were shared by the members of the committee and led to the development of an action plan that we have now implemented. And now let me talk to you about the independence of our members. As you can see over here, 63.5% of our Board members are independent, and this is based on very objective analysis that we carried out. And as we also have an independent lead member. Plus we have a separate function for the President of this committee. Let me now share with you the resolutions that we have submitted to your vote. And this was particularly for Kathleen Wantz-O'Rourke and Marie-Cécile de Fougières. And then the appointment of 2 new officers, Jane Basson and Sylvie Jéhanno, replacing, respectively, Colette Lewiner and Fanny Letier. Next, we will talk about the 2019 compensation of our corporate officers in line with the modification -- the changes made by the PACTE law, now the compensation policy of 2020 for corporate officers and different elements that make it up, plus all the adjustments made in the context of COVID-19. This also concerns the long-term compensation policy and its components. And finally, certain mandatory amendments made in compliance with the PACTE law, particularly concerning Resolutions 3 and [ 2, 5 ] resolutions. Now as far as renewals and appointments are concerned, to begin with, we would like to propose the renewal of the mandate of Kathleen Wantz-O'Rourke, who has been a Corporate Officer of Nexans since 2016. She is an independent Board member, and she brings her very strong and powerful experience in international fields, diversified functions and financial legal transformation functions, plus her -- profound knowledge of industry in energy and other transport industry. The second one is Marie-Cécile de Fougières, who is a not independent Director, representing the employee shareholders of Nexans. So she has been Director ever since 2016, and she has occupied different posts also at Nexans. She will be renewed for a year, that's what we propose, in line with the time required for the compliance with PACTE law in terms of the appointment of directors representing employee shareholders. Now the next one is our appointment of Jane Basson, who will now become an independent corporate Officer after this AG. Now she has a lot of international experience in the field of industry and transport and expertise in different fields like telecommunications, human resources and operational and cultural transformation change guidance. Now I suggest that we see a video by Jane on her presentation.

I'm Jane Basson, raised in South Africa, France and the U.K., with a degree in journalism and business administration. I worked for various law firms and the business and industry advisory committee to the OECD, before joining Airbus in 2000. And as Airbus evolved from a largely state-owned conglomerate to a publicly listed and integrated business, I've held various roles, always somehow related to strategic transformation. As Head of Internal Communications, I was heavily involved in our last major restructuring program, Power8. I was Head of Leadership Development and Cultural Change in HR, and I was Chief of Staff to our former CEO, working on international strategy, innovation, digital transformation and compliance. Today, I'm Chief of Staff to the Chief Operating Officer of Airbus and Head of People Empowerment and Operations, where we began a major transformation of Airbus' industrial setup last year. I'm also the Senior Ethics and Compliance Representative for Operations, and now with COVID-19, responsible for crisis response. I would be truly honored to join Nexans' Board. First, the company is on an exciting path to reinvent itself to grow and to build a more sustainable world, and that's a purpose that many companies struggle to live up to, and it's one that I find very inspiring. I was immediately attracted to Nexans' proud industrial DNA, to its technology and innovation and to its multitalented workforce. Maybe a less tangible motivation, but in my discussions with the Chairman, with other Board members and especially with the CEO, I got a strong sense of the values that underpin this company and they're values I share and will be proud to uphold. I've dedicated most of my career to transformation in a high-tech industrial company that has many similarities with Nexans, be it on the technical side, to enhance competitiveness, free cash flow, EBIT; or on the human side, to align and engage stakeholders. Hopefully, I can put any pertinent parallels to good use in this Board. I believe I'm a creative strategic thinker, but I'm well-grounded in operational pragmatism. I thrive in a multicultural environment where a diverse points of view are well represented. And I believe that this drives better business outcomes, especially in companies with a global customer base in multiple geographies. I would hope to contribute to effective team dynamics on this Board, and I look forward to serving the best interests of Nexans' stakeholders.

[Interpreted] Now Sylvie will be joining us as an independent lead Director. And she was a Director General of Dalkia, and she will be with us as a manager. And she has a very in-depth knowledge of the energy sector. So I suggest that we listen to her.

[Foreign Language].

[Interpreted] This is representation of the resolution relating the compensation of Corporate Officers, Resolution 7; and Executive Directors, Resolutions 8 to 10 for 2019. For Directors, EUR 549,014 were -- was paid to all Directors in accordance with the items of compensation for 2019 included in the registration document of 2018 and incorporating the changes made by the PACTE act, since we are talking about compensation paid to Directors and no longer Directors fees. Individual details shown on this slide. The Director compensation policy is being voted on for the first time [ in Europe ] following the adoption of the PACTE act. Until then, it was only presented in the corporate governance report. Concerning the compensation paid in 2019 to the Chairman of the Board, Resolution 8 and 9, in view of the change of chairmanship after the 2019 Annual General Meeting. Resolution 8 relates to the compensation paid to Chodron de Courcel for 2019. It's a fixed compensation. Here, a pro rata from January to May 15, a sum of EUR 92,628. Resolution 9 relates to the fixed compensation paid to Jean Mouton, Chairman of the Board since May 15, pro rata of the annual fixed compensation to which is added the portion of compensation for his position as Censor prior to May 15. Resolution 10 relates to items of compensation allocated for 2019 to Chris Guérin as CEO of Nexans. In accordance with the items of compensation policy presented in 2019, Christopher Guérin receives a fixed compensation of EUR 600,000, an annual variable compensation based on the set of criteria relating to collective performance for 60% and individual performance for 40%. This annual variable compensation represents 100% of the target fixed compensation and may vary depending on the achievement of the criteria between 0 and 150% of the target. Collective criteria for 2019 were 50% on ROCE, as you say, return on capital employed; 50% on EBITDA. The collective portion for 2019 represents an amount of EUR 442,800, i.e., 82% of the maximum amount. The individual criteria for 2019 were precisely defined: engagement of the new team, management and implementation of operational efficiency projects, completion of transformation initiatives and improvement of the company's CSR profile. The individual portion, as noted by the Board, amounts to EUR 333,600, 92.7% of the maximum. The total amount of annual variable compensation for 2019 amounts to EUR 776,400, 86.3% of the maximum, and will be paid at the end of this general meeting to your CEO in the event of a favorable vote. In addition to these items, Christopher Guérin also benefits from the long-term compensation plan, and as such from a grant of 28,000 shares, the definitive acquisition of which is subject to the performance of the TSR and the creation of value for the company, the EVA indicator, operating margin minus 10% of capital employed. Finally, Chris Guérin benefits from -- benefits in kind for an amount of EUR 3,985, a defined contribution pension plan to EUR 140,000 of contribution, in addition to termination indemnity and a noncompete clause, a provident fund, health plan and unemployment insurance. I come to the presentation of the resolutions relating to the compensation policy for corporate officers for 2020. Three resolutions. First one, Directors' compensation, Resolution #11, no change. It's a fixed compensation to which is added a variable portion linked to attendance at meetings. Compensation of the Chairman of the Board, Resolution 12, fixed compensation, also unchanged. Resolution #13, the compensation of the CEO, a compensation comprising a fixed component, unchanged; variable short-term and variable long-term components, both unchanged; and commitments like retirement, unemployment, severance pay and so on. The items of compensation are analyzed in comparison with other companies of the SBS 120. In addition, as regards to compensation of the CEO, the system is structured in such a way as to establish a clear link between performance and compensation, both on the basis of collective company and individual performance. We also wanted to report on the adjustments made to the compensation of the company's corporate officers and executives in the current crisis. These items are summarized here. For corporate officers and senior executives, we're going to have a 30% reduction in the compensation over the April-May 2020 period. For the Comex members of Nexans, it's a reduction by 15% and -- on -- over the same period, and the same reduction, but on a voluntary basis, for top managers of the company will be applied over the same period. We have also introduced a flexibility clause, allowing us to adapt our compensation policy, if necessary, in the event of exceptional events, in line with the recommendations, of course, with AFEP MEDEF. The last item of our compensation policy is the long-term compensation policy. Two resolutions. The first, Resolution 16, relates to the application of the provisions of the long-term plan for the senior executives of the group with a view to allocating shares in 2021. The request for a maximum limit of 300,000 shares, unchanged from the previous years. What is changing are the performance conditions. There are 3, against 2 previously: the stock exchange performance, TSR; the economic performance; and the introduction of a CSR performance criterion based on the CSR road map of Nexans. The second, Resolution 17, relates to the request of a maximum budget of 50,000 shares for high-potential managers. This limit is the same as in previous years. Finally, 5 resolutions relating to amendments to the company's bylaws. Resolutions 18, 19 and 20 relate to the compliance of items of governance, and more specifically the appointment of the director representing employee shareholders and the thresholds for appointing the Director representing employees, and then the formulation of the compensation of the Directors. Resolution 20 relates to giving the Board the possibility to adopt certain decisions by written consultation. Resolution 23 relates to the Chairman's statutory age limit, which we would like to raise from 68 to 72 in accordance with what is observed in most SBF 120 companies. Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders. I now reach the end of this presentation. I would like to thank you for your attention.

Now we shall be listening to the reading of reports from the auditors by Isabelle Sapet from the Mazars Firm and Edouard Demarcq of PricewaterhouseCoopers firm. They will be presenting reports related to the ordinary general assembly concerning the annual and consolidated accounts for the year 2019 and other reports particularly related to related-party agreements and commitments, as well as those related to the extraordinary general assembly relating to the operations on capital and the authorization of the granting of free and performance shares.

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. We have 3 reports that we would like to share with you and 3 reports for the extraordinary general meeting. Now these reports were made available to you as well on our site, and we would like to share them with you, a synthesis of these reports. And also we'd like to confirm our independence. Now concerning the consolidated financial statements, going from Pages 219 to -- 241 to Page 245. We have certified these consolidated accounts without any reserved. We certified that the consolidated -- particularly the -- an observation of the notes 1A and 3 to the consolidated financial statements, which set out the impact of the changes in accounting method of the first-time adoption of IFRS 16 leases and IFRS 23 on certain tax positions. We have also identified the following key audit matters. We have no [ observation ] on these matter, and we certify the presence of the nonfinancial performance statement. We -- now corporate financial statements, which go from Pages 204 to -- 264 to 267. And we have certified these are a true and fair view of the assets and liabilities of the financial position of the company, the valuation of shares in subsidiaries and affiliates, antitrust investigations and disputes. We have no comments to make on the management report, on the information on payment terms and the corporation governance report. We certify the accuracy and fairness of the information provided in accordance with the provisions of French Commercial Code on the compensation and benefits paid to corporate officers and commitments made in their favor. And now these are related to the related party agreements and commitments, which you have on Pages 292 and 293 of the reference document. And we are here to communicate, on the basis of the information that was provided to you, the features and modalities that were essential for these agreements and that we discovered during the course of our assignment without having to make any comments on their necessity. Now for the agreements that were submitted to the approval of the general assembly, there was absolutely no convention that was approved in 2019. And for the general assembly, it concerns the letter of engagement of -- a commitment letter, the amendment to the revolving credit facility of the banks of the 14th of November 2015. And then the placement agent agreement for negotiable commercial paper financing program with Natixis. This information letters detail concerning these related-party agreements and commitments figure in our report and enable us to give -- share it to -- for you. Now when it comes to the extraordinary part of the general assembly, we have 3 reports on 3 different resolutions and which would have an impact on your paid up capital. So these resolutions were carried out with the diligence that we require -- felt necessary in line with our professional doctrine. So we have no comments on the terms and conditions of the proposed transactions. So ladies and gentlemen, that was the summary of our reports. Thank you very much for your attention.

Thank you. I suggest that we answer all the questions of our shareholders that we received just prior to this assembly. So we shall read them out to you, and perhaps Chris will have some answers.

Now this is an individual shareholder: "How do you plan the upturn of activity in Nexans in the factories and the offices after COVID-19? Thank you for your answer, [ Jan Gonci ]."

Now as I told you, given we maintained all the very strict confinement conditions, virtually all our production sites and all our logistics sites are still running at 90% of their full capacity. And today, what we are doing is we are synchronizing production with the customer demand. So it is quite clear that early May, some sites will be closed because demand in certain sectors, particularly when it comes to building in France, which fell by 80% in France, is very low. And so as a result, we have to synchronize production downward. And for 1 or 2 weeks, maybe some sites will be closed, but on the whole, the production sites are running. Of course, we've got more than 200,000 people who are doing a lot of tele work, and I must thank them for it. They're working on secured lines, with all sorts of cyberattacks that can take place today, and those are extremely important, particularly in April. And the IT team did some considerable work. Today, we're at the headquarters. We are about 130 people out of 400. Now of course, all the barrier gestures have been used everywhere in all sites in Nexans since February. Everything is going smoothly. I forgot to tell you, and maybe I didn't mention it to you, but we have 26 employees in the world who've tested positive to COVID-19. Fortunately, none in hospital. And this is -- out of a total of 26,000, 60 others have tested positively and who are now at home. So all the right gestures were used to ensure the reduction of contamination. There's perfect health, safety and security everywhere at the French headquarters. It's open today since the 11th of May, and it is still in line with the national regulations.

Right. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chris. So this takes me to the second question: "I am a shareholder of Nexans and a former employee of the group. I'd like to ask the following question of our leaders and directors. I noticed with satisfaction that there's a fairly good resistance of our share price despite the difficult circumstances. What do you think will be -- the cable market likely to be? And in what conditions? What'll be its plus points and risks in these very special circumstances? This crisis, has it led to a change in your strategic plan? And also will it lead to consolidation of the sector?"

Excellent question and full of common sense. Let me see. Now how is the market going to recover? How do we see recovery? As opposed to other groups who are talking a lot about an improvement on the market which is going to be very powerful, we did a financial modeling, which was slightly different. And let me explain our system to you. In fact, we took statistics of the last known pandemic, which was in 1968. And at the time, it was called the Hong Kong Flu, which led to thousands of deaths in the entire world. So we looked at the health statistics connected to this pandemics. And at the time, there were 2 or 3 waves of contamination that took place. So we picked these stats. What we learned from, in fact, the pandemic of 1968 is that the second wave of contamination normally happens 20 to 60 days after the first wave. Now we are not doctors or specialists in this field, but we cross-checked against the economic crisis of 2008. And when you cross-check the two, the risk of the second wave -- and that's why Julien Hueber, our correspondent at the Executive Committee in Shanghai, shares weekly news about the second risk in China, because China is way ahead in terms of the development of this pandemic -- so the second wave should take place early May and end of July. So the issue is going to be the magnitude of this second wave. And it'll be the second wave which will also determine the strength of any kind of economic recovery. Now of course, we are present in several sections. We are there in public utilities, telecoms, energy, building. Now, of course, certain sectors of the economy will take -- go through very slow -- painstakingly slow recovery. Now if you look at the automotive system, which represents a huge percentage of our group's turnover, there's going to be in recession, right up to 2020, 2021. And unfortunately, even for Airbus account and aeronautics field, there will be a recession. Other sectors have proven to be quite resistant, and that is for energy transmission and distribution. In 2009 we noticed -- and 2019, it was one of the most resilient in the crisis. The demand remained the same. And I think fundamentally, it will remain stable because most major electricity operators will have to renew their cables in their grids, grids which will be more and more obsolete and given to wear and tear. So what'll happen in the electric field is what is happening to telecom. Telecom is doing fairly well. Now because of confinement measures, the operators lack electricians and technicians to lay these electric cables, and we have the same system in our -- for us. Now we are replacing copper with fiber optics to have better transmission, and it's exactly the same thing with the electricity transmission. So we need to replace the old cables in virtually all the cities in the world, and which have been buried and laid underground in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, by a new generation of cables which will have a higher capacity and a greater amount of bandwidth going through them as compared to the past. So we believe demand will be very high. Now when it comes to renewables, renewables are really booming. There will be no stop in the backlog. So the demand is extremely powerful. In fact, we believe there's going to be an upsurge in demand when it comes to energy transition, and so greater demand for renewables. Now for building, building market. Of course, there's a lot of demand for energy efficiency. And generally, this is strongly related to the economic situation of each country, but it should pick up. So if I were to summarize, we believe that there's going to be a double-digit -- double-V or a W kind of recovery. After the first wave, we will have some kind of recovery. And depending on the second wave of contamination and how badly it hits us, it will once again slow down, lead to deceleration of economy, and it's likely to be in the second half of 2021, and it's only then that the economy may show signs of picking up. Now of course, these are just models and they have to be checked. One might make a mistake. We do hope that the second wave will be extremely weak and that the economy will recover. Now has it led us to change our strategic plan? No, I wouldn't say so. In fact, we have just stepped up on it. We have accelerated. We are now reviewing and streamlining our portfolio with a view to providing better service and more solutions to our customers. So on the contrary, we shall keep on with our strategic plan. Will it lead to greater consolidation in the sector? I can't really tell you. But even as I'm speaking to you, it's quite obvious that firms and companies that were going through a lot of financial stress last year and for several years were really reeling under the COVID pandemic. And they are likely to suffer even more in the next 12 months. Yes, Nexans may be a consolidator in the market, but Nexans is there particularly for energy transition. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Chris. Let's move on to the third question. So let me start with the first one, which is in English: "Now the changes that were made in the last 12 months, what percentage could be attributed to what is likely to be structural and long lasting?" Well, Jean-Christophe?

I don't really have a percentage in mind. But quite clearly, it's extremely high, virtually 100% or 90% of all changes that were made since 2019 as part of our plan in the New Nexans plan. We talked to you about SHIFT. Now SHIFT is an in-depth reengineering of our customer portfolio and product, and we've been deploying SHIFT right through 2019. We shall continue doing it in 2020 and '21. All the group units will be going through SHIFT. And once again, that -- I repeat, it is an in-depth reengineering of our entire way of working, of our approach to business, our products, and our key partners and customers. Now of course, the aim is to be long-lasting and continue along these same lines. It's not likely to be a short-term impact. Now the second part is about cost reduction and transformation through our cost structure, adjustment to markets, products and our customers and also to our geographies. We are a global group, but we are also a local group. And right from 2:30 onwards, you've been listening to it today. What have we done? We launched the European plan last year in 2019, and that led to the shutting down of certain sites. And it also led to the departure from our head office in France and in other offices in France of a certain number of employees. And now these were, of course, long-term changes, and it is to help our group to maintain its profile and its role in the economy as a leader in its sector. We worked on greater simplification of our processes in our organization, on -- and managerial costs were reviewed and limited to a large extent, in order to be more active and efficient. So all this in-depth change that was made in the group was meant for long-term impact, and in order to make Nexans more resilient and stronger. And now, as you just heard from Chris, because of the crisis, we shall push further in this direction. What we did in 2019 has, in fact, helped us to brave the storm today much more than it ever did in the past. So all these structural organizational changes will have a long-lasting impact. And without them, we wouldn't have been able to get through this crisis so easily. Thank you.

Thank you so much for this answer, which was very complete. Now the second question of this shareholder is: "Congratulations for your handling of the COVID crisis. Thank you for all the preventive measures that were undertaken and implemented and which thus limited the impact on employees and business. Thank you. So what are your top priorities of the team after the crisis in the second half of 2020?"

Well, I shall certainly share your thanks with the entire team of Nexans. I congratulate them also for their role in this crisis management. And all the health -- preventive health measures were undertaken by all the members of the team. And I'd really like to thank you all, all of you who contributed, be it the factory managers or our trade union leaders, and also all the managers, who were not enjoying themselves in their country houses, but were in the field. So now what are our future priorities? What we are trying to build is on the basis of the model that we had set up in Ørsted, in other words, a new relationship with our customers. Certainly, we'll work with a fewer number of customers. Let me give you an example. We -- our 3,000 first customers represent 90% of our turnover, but we have 17,000 customers in the world. So 14,000 represent 10%. So with 3,000 what we would like to do, I hope, is to have a new relationship between customers and suppliers. We will stop working as a mere supplier: "I shall try and sell more expensive and you buyer will buy at a cheaper rate." We'll stop that game. The model that we have tried to set up with the Ørsted company, which was after a very -- a lot of thinking for a long-term contract, which was very inclusive, and it was to see how to integrate costs, and find, in fact, the right breakeven point, the right costs -- right economic costs. Of course, we all have our own profitability and benefit goal. And then, of course, for instance, it has also to be keeping in mind the labor; we had certain agreements in the U.S. where we had to lay off 100 employees. Now Charleston is the only factory in the world where we have the making of cables on the American soil. And I'm talking about offshore wind farms and onshore wind farms. There's no other company that's able to do it. We are the only ones who can do it. And that also prevents Ørsted from buying its cables from thousands of kilometers away in Europe and bring them over. So we have to find the right cost in terms of employment and economic costs. Our aim also, as you heard earlier on in 2018, is to get away from this commodity trap. We do know that the world requires more and more cable because we need more and more electricity, but the aim is of course to meet our customers' demands. They want more system. They want more solutions. They want more services. They want us to reengineer and review our engineering approach and order to improve our logistics approach, with a view to helping them to improve their values -- added -- their added value. So now it's for the Nexans teams to use all this power. There are 600 people, for instance, working in R&D in Nexans the world over. So use this, all this gray matter, to the service of our customers. More digital, we are setting up a connecting -- connected system now between customers and suppliers all over the world. And we also have people, profit, planet always in mind, environment, the positive impact on employees and society, et cetera. So that's going to be an excellent program for Nexans. And as the Chinese say, we must change this into an opportunity, not a crisis. And I think we have all the resources to do so.

Thank you, Chris. I suggest we move on to the results of the vote on the resolutions. Nino.

This is the result of the vote. We'll start with the ordinary general meeting, and we'll see the extraordinary meeting afterwards. You see the votes here and the resolutions on your screen. And the detail of the vote will be available on the website at the end of this meeting. The first resolution was the approval of the Nexans financial statements for 2019. Resolution is approved. Second resolution is the approval of the consolidated financial statements 2019; second resolution approved. Third one, allocation of the Nexans income 2019, approved. Fourth resolution, renewal of the term of office of Kathleen Wantz-O'Rourke, approved. Fifth resolution, the appointment of Jane Basson as a Director. The fifth resolution is approved. Resolution number 6, appointment of Sylvie Jehanno as a Director, approved. Seventh resolution, approval of the information relating to the compensation of Nexans Directors and Executive Directors for 2019. The seventh resolution is approved. Eighth resolution, approval of the compensation items for 2019 for the Chairman of the Board of Directors, Georges Chodron de Courcel, till the 15th of May, it's approved. Resolution number 9, approval of the compensation items of Jean Mouton, Chairman of the Board of Directors since May 15 of 2019; it's approved. Resolution number 10, approval of the compensation items of Christopher Guérin for 2019, CEO. Resolution number 10 is approved. Number 11, approval of the compensation policy for the members of the Board of Directors for 2020. Resolution number 11 is approved. Then the twelfth one, approval of the compensation policy for the Chairman of the Board of Directors for 2020, approved. Number 13, approval of the compensation policy for the CEO for the financial year 2020; number 13 approved. Number 14, approval to buy back company's share. It's approved as well. Next slide, please. And then this is the approval for, at the Extraordinary General meeting, resolution number 15, authorization to reduce the company's share capital by cancellation of its own shares. Resolution number 15 is approved. Number 16, authorization to grant performance shares in 2021 in an amount not to exceed 300,000 shares, has been adopted. Number 17, authorization to grant free shares in 2021 in an amount not to exceed 50,000 shares; it's approved. Then number 18, amendment of article 12a of the company's bylaws, appointment of the director representing employee shareholders, the modalities; and it's approved. Resolution number 19, renewal of Marie-Cecile de Fougieres as Director representing the employee shareholders for 1-year term; approved. Okay. Resolution number 20, amendment of Article 12b of the company's bylaws by amending the thresholds relating to the appointment of the director representing employees; approved. And number 21, amendment of Article 13 of the company's bylaws in order to allow the Board of Directors to adopt certain decisions by written consultation, has been approved. Number 22, amendment of Articles 15 and 18 of the company's bylaws regarding the Directors' and Censors' compensation in order to remove the reference to Directors' fees to be in compliance with the PACTE law, so we delete the reference to Director fees; it's approved. Number 23, amendment of Article 19 of the company's bylaws relating to the statutory age limit of the Chairman of the Board of Directors to be set at 72 years old; approved. Last slide. Resolution number 24, but this is for the ordinary shareholders' meeting this time. And as usual, it is the 24th resolution on [ Paris ] to carry out formalities. And it's approved.

Thank you, Nino. Okay. So the agenda having been exhausted, I will bring the meeting to a close. I would like to thank all shareholders to have attended this shareholders meeting remotely, the members of the Directors, the governing Boards, the colleagues. And we'll meet again next year on the 12th of May, 2021. Have a nice evening. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]