Pluxee N.V. (PLX) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning. Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Pluxee Third Quarter 2025 Fiscal Results Presentation. [Operator Instructions] I advise you that this conference is being recorded today on Thursday, July 3, 2025. At this time, I would like to hand the conference over to Ms. Pauline Bireaud. Please go ahead, madam, Head of Investor Relations.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for our Pluxee Third Quarter Fiscal 2025 Revenue Call. And I hope you are all ready to start the summer season. So I'm Pauline, Head of Investor Relations for Pluxee. So today, I'm joined with our CEO, Aurelien Sonet, CFO, Stephane Lhopiteau. And so before we begin, let me walk you through today's agenda. So Aurelien will start with the highlights and the key figures for the third quarter of fiscal 2025 with an overview of our business performance highlighting some of our key achievements of the quarter, and Stephane will then take you through our financial performance in detail. Before Aurelien comes back to conclude on our outlook for fiscal 2025 and 2026. And with that, I will hand over to Aurelien.

Thank you, Pauline, and good morning, everyone. I'm very pleased to be with you today to see the key achievements and milestones that Pluxee delivered in the third quarter of fiscal 2025. Let's start with our key highlights on the next slide. Q3 marked another solid quarter. We maintained a strong focus on execution and continue to consistently deploy our strategic road map across the group. Let's start with revenue growth. Performance came in line with expectations both across regions and business segments, confirming the strength and resilience of our balanced business model, fueled by multiple growth drivers. On the commercial front, momentum remained strong. Our sales engine has continued to deliver. We are seeing a steady pace of new client wins and a sustained net retention rate above 100%. This reflects not only the attractiveness and relevance of our solutions, but also the strength of the relationships that we have built with our clients. Now on the execution of our M&A road map. First, we are pleased to announce the signing in Romania of the acquisition of MyBenefits, a fast-growing company recognized for its innovative technology that supports flexible and personalized employee benefit solutions. We are also making solid progress on the integration of Cobee in Spain and Benefício Fácil in Brazil. Lastly, the strategic partnership with Santander is now running at full speed. We see strong commercial traction and encouraging results from our joint go-to-market approach. So all in all, the performance delivered in the first 9 months makes us confident in delivering on our financial and strategic objective for fiscal 2025. Let's now look at our revenues performance in the next slide. In the third quarter, total revenues reached EUR 310 million, reflecting a solid plus 11.1% organic growth, in line with expectations. This performance was driven by a robust trend in operating revenue and slightly stronger-than-expected float revenue despite a progressive deceleration quarter after quarter. Over the first 9 months of fiscal 2025, total revenue amounted to EUR 945 million, up plus 10.9% organically. The performance delivered so far demonstrates our ability to generate consistent top line growth while navigating and absorbing quarter-to-quarter volatility across geographies. So this puts us on track to deliver on our low double-digit organic growth target for the full year. Let's now turn to our commercial trajectory, which continued to show strong momentum in the third quarter. Starting with new development. Over the first 9 months of the fiscal year, we signed EUR 1.1 billion in annualized business volume, in line with our full year target of EUR 1.3 billion. This strong performance reflects the relevance of our client value proposition and the effective execution of our go-to-market strategy across countries with SMEs remaining a key growth driver. Moving on to net retention. It came in at 101%, consistently above the 100% target by fiscal 2026. This figure excludes the one-off impact from the purchasing power program launched in Belgium at the end of calendar 2023. I will come back later on the various drivers of the net retention. For now, I just wanted to highlight the contribution of the additional increase in face value over the first 9 months, representing approximately EUR 900 million, in line with the trend of last year. Altogether, this means that we have already delivered close to 75% of our EUR 3 billion cumulative objective for fiscal year 2024 to 2026. Now let's take a closer look at some concrete examples of how our commercial strategy is translating into strong delivery on the ground. In the third quarter, we have remained very active on the new client acquisition front, thanks to a combination of direct sales execution and the contribution of our strategic partnership. While some mid- to large-sized clients may have shown a tendency towards slightly longer decision-making cycle, business momentum has remained strong with new client wins reaching EUR 1.1 billion over the first 9 months, as previously mentioned. So now let me share 2 concrete examples, starting with Brazil, where we made great progress in rolling out our exclusive distribution agreement with Santander. First, all integration and transition phases have been successfully executed and the volume migration is now fully complete. Second, the collaboration is running at full speed with the share of Santander sales teams having sold the Pluxee solution rising from 14% to more than 20% in just 1 quarter. And finally, we are seeing a strong commercial ramp-up, particularly through joint key account wins and deeper SME penetration, further reinforcing our market leadership in the country. Now in India, our consultative selling approach has continued to gain strong traction, powered by our compelling multi-benefit offering and disciplined commercial execution. As a result, we secured key B2B wins, adding over 35,000 new end users to our platform in a single quarter, which has allowed us to further expand our presence in this large and fast-growing market. Let's now focus on our net retention rate. Our solid business performance is also reflected in our net retention rate, which remains above 100%, excluding the PPP program in Belgium. This is supported by, first, I mean, our high client retention with a notable 20 basis points improvement year-on-year; and second, our effective client portfolio management, driven by a robust trend of increasing face value over the first 9 months. This strong performance enabled us to more than offset the impact of the macroeconomic environment on our end-user portfolio growth, particularly in Continental Europe and Mexico. To illustrate the importance of strong client engagement, let me share the example of our long-standing relationship with SKODA in Czech Republic. Since the very beginning of the contract in 2019, we've been constantly by our client side, which has enabled us to unlock significant cross-sell and upsell opportunities. In response to SKODA's employee retention challenges, we have progressively implemented a broader benefit structure to address the evolving employee needs. This includes solutions such as culture, travel, pharmacy and even more recently, maternity support, while also advising the company on an attractive annual contribution per employee. Over the past 6 years, we have multiplied annual business volume by more than 40x. And today, over 37,000 active users benefit from our tailor multi-benefit solution. This client journey is a great reflection of how we continue to grow and innovate alongside our clients, adapting our solutions to meet their evolving needs over time. So to sum up, Q3 marked another quarter of solid commercial momentum and top line growth, keeping the group firmly on track to achieve its full year target. And with this, I will now hand over to Stephane to walk us through the financial figures.

Thank you, Aurelien, and good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to be with you today to present in more details our top line performance for Q3 '25, starting with the business volumes issued on Page #11. In Q3 '25, total business volume issued or BVI reached EUR 5.7 billion, bringing the cumulative figure for the first 9 months to EUR 18.8 billion. Focusing first on Employee Benefits, we recorded a plus 6.7% organic growth in Q3 and a plus 7.8% over the first 9 months or plus 9.0% if we exclude the one-off effect related to the purchasing power program in Belgium. As expected, Employee Benefits BVI growth remained geographically more weighted towards Latin America and Rest of the World, while Continental Europe showed contrasted dynamics. If Southern Europe stood out with strong commercial traction, this was tempered, as Aurelien mentioned, by the impact of macroeconomic headwinds, notably on end users portfolio growth in some other European countries. Looking now at other products and services, which temporarily weighed on BVI growth this quarter. This line of service BVI reached EUR 1.2 billion in Q3 and EUR 4.7 billion over the first 9 months compared to EUR 1.4 billion and EUR 4.5 billion, respectively, in fiscal '24. Momentum in Public Benefit was restored, particularly in Latin America following the recovery of a large contract in Chile, but this was temporarily offset by phasing effects in ordering from 2 major contracts in Belgium and Romania. Let's now take a closer look at the key drivers behind the growth in Employee Benefits BVI over the first 9 months on Slide #12. As we just saw on the previous page, Employee Benefits BVI increased from EUR 13.8 billion to EUR 14.2 billion, representing a gain of approximately EUR 400 million over the first 9 months of the fiscal year. The plus 7.8% organic growth in Employee Benefits BVI was driven by a combination of factors. First, net retention contributed around EUR 200 million, supported by both strong client loyalties and higher average face value across regions. This growth was fully offset by the base effect from the last year one-off purchasing power program in Belgium. Second, new client wins added up to EUR 1.1 billion over the first 9 months, reflecting Pluxee's solid development trend, particularly among SMEs. The BVI bridge disclosed on the page also includes a positive scope effect of EUR 500 million coming from the integration of the recently closed deals and a negative impact of currency fluctuation, mainly related to Brazil, Turkey and Mexico. This continued BVI positive momentum has translated into total revenues growth on Page #13. In Q3 '25, total revenues reached EUR 310 million, up plus 11.1% organically and plus 4.3% on a reported basis. This brings our 9-month performance to plus 10.9% on an organic growth basis and plus 6.2% reported. Q3 '25 was indeed impacted by adverse currency effect, which brought a minus 10.3% impact on our total revenues reported growth, primarily due to the currency depreciation of the Brazilian real and the Turkish lira. While our float revenue natural hedge, which usually offsets negative currency effects through higher interest rates has worked at full strength in Brazil this quarter. This has not yet been the case in Turkey, but it is expected to start playing out from Q4 onwards now that interest rates have been raised again in Turkey. Such negative foreign exchange impacts were partially compensated by a plus 3% scope effect, mainly related to the acquisition of Ben as part of the partnership with Santander in Brazil and to the acquisition of Cobee in Spain and Benefício Fácil, in Brazil. Excluding these currency and scope effects, total revenue organic performance in Q3 was driven by: first, solid low double-digit growth in operating revenue, reaching EUR 217 million, up plus 11.1% organically, supported notably by the easing of base effects in Employee Benefits as faced in Q2 '25. And second, slightly stronger-than-expected float revenue, reaching EUR 39 million, up plus 10.8% organically. While this low double-digit organic growth of total revenues was more regionally balanced than in Q2, Latin America and Rest of the World continued to stand out as key contributors as we will see later in the presentation. Before that, I would like to take you through the underlying trends behind operating revenue by line of service on Page 14. As just mentioned, we recorded EUR 270 million in operating revenue in Q3 '25, reflecting a plus 11.1% organic growth. This momentum was primarily driven by Employee Benefits, which delivered plus 12.8% organic growth this quarter, resulted from a robust trend in business volume, combined with an improving take-up rate year-on-year in line with fiscal '24 full year level. Operating revenue in Other Products and Services showed a minor improvement in Q3, reaching EUR 36 million reported, up plus 0.5% organically. The positive trend in public benefit programs, notably supported by the regaining of a large public benefit contract in Chile was partly compensated by the ongoing portfolio rationalization in the U.K. and the U.S. Beyond this performance by line of business, let's now turn to geographic mix and explore how operating revenue organic growth was achieved across regions on Slide #15. As expected, operating revenue organic growth in Q3 and over the first 9 months of fiscal '25 was more weighted towards Latin America and the Rest of the World. Starting with Latin America, Q3 '25 organic growth reached plus 13.6%, slightly increasing compared to Q2 and a clear improvement compared to Q1. This performance reflects notably the strong commercial execution in Brazil, further supported by the Santander partnership now operating at full speed and the recovery of a major public benefit contract in Chile. Meanwhile, Mexico's economic environment continued to face pressure stemming from the impact of U.S. economic policies. Overall, this performance is fully aligned with the trend we previously highlighted, and we expect momentum in LatAm to continue in the coming quarters. Moving to Continental Europe. Q3 25 organic growth reached plus 8.8%, marking a rebound after plus 1.8% in Q2, in line with our anticipation. That said, we anticipate base effects to impact again the fourth quarter given that Q4 '24 operating revenue growth reached plus 12.7% last year in the region. This should be considered when evaluating Continental Europe's growth outlook for Q4 alongside the softening of macroeconomic conditions in the region. Lastly, in Rest of the World, Q3 '25 organic growth reached plus 11.0%, primarily driven by strong business volume momentum in countries such as Turkey, India or the Philippines. Turkey remains a key growth contributor, but the country is also facing increasing base effect due to the exceptionally high growth achieved in the recent years. Lastly, we have also continued over the quarter, the repositioning of our business towards core employee engagement solution in the U.K. and the U.S. Overall, in terms of operating revenue for all regions and after a strong performance in Q3, we anticipate a softer Q4. In fact, the pattern of organic growth between Q3 and Q4 is expected to mirror the phasing observed between Q1 and Q2 in the first half of the current fiscal year. Before I hand it back to Aurelien, I have also one last page about the still strong Float revenue dynamics on Page #16. In Q3 '25, Float revenue grew slightly ahead of expectations, increasing by plus 10.8% organically to reach EUR 39 million. Over the quarter, Float revenue organic growth was fueled by a larger Float baseline on the balance sheet, supported by the continued increase in business volume issued and by an overall stronger investment yield year-on-year. Looking at the first 9 months, Float revenue has reached EUR 123 million, growing plus 14.3% organically. As expected, the organic growth pace has gradually leveled off compared to fiscal '24 and compared to the first 2 quarters of this year. That's mainly because interest rates peaked last year in most of our markets, especially in Continental Europe. That said, we continue to benefit overall from higher rates in some countries, especially in Brazil and Turkey as well as from agile and disciplined investment strategy tailored to local conditions. As a consequence, we now expect Float revenue organic growth to land in the low double-digit territory for the full year. And now I will hand over to Aurelien for the final outlook section combining our expectation in both operating and Float revenue trends.

Thank you, Stephane. In summary, so this quarter's performance confirms that we are on track to achieve our full year ambitions. As such, we are confident in reiterating our fiscal 2025 key financial objectives, which are: first, low double-digit total revenue organic growth; and second, plus 150 basis points of recurring EBITDA margin expansion calculated at constant fiscal 2024 exchange rates. In addition, we keep our fiscal 2026 financial objectives unchanged. Now to conclude, I would say that in an environment increasingly marked by macroeconomic challenges, our performance this quarter and more broadly over the past 9 months highlights the resilience of our business model, supported by recurring revenue streams, a broad geographic footprint and a disciplined execution of our strategy. And with that, we are now with Stephane, happy to take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Andre Juillard of Deutsche Bank.

Congratulations for the solid revenues. First question about regulation. Could you give us some more visibility on what is going on in France with the recent announcement and where we are in Brazil? Second question, could you give us some more color about the dynamic on SMEs and big corporates, and give us maybe slightly more visibility on the weight of these 2 segments? And third question about M&A. You announced this morning the acquisition of a company in Romania. Could you give us some more color about the weight in terms of revenues, profitability of the recent acquisitions you've been doing? And quantify maybe the spending on M&A you've been doing this year? And maybe give us some more color about what you plan to do in terms of deleveraging?

Thank you, Andre Juillard, for your 3 questions. I will start with the regulation to give you an update. So with France first. So last week, the Minister, Véronique Louwagie, announced the main measures for the meal benefits reform. So first, at Pluxee, we have welcomed the government's road map. We believe that it does support the modernization of the system by, I mean, better aligning the practices and the expectation of the key stakeholders and starting with merchants and employees, while still preserving the core purpose of the meal voucher, which is to enable employees to enjoy a healthy meal during the break. So coming on the main measures that were part of the announcement. So there is a full digitization by January '27. The continued eligibility of I would qualify as non-immediately consumable food products -- and on this topic, we will continue to engage with governments in order to try and introduce a dual spending limit that could be differentiated by merchant category, and it would be a way for us to help restore a good balance between supermarkets and restaurants. Another strong measure is the implementation of the transparency charter that will provide merchants with a common framework to clearly understand and compare the cost associated to the transaction. So that's -- I mean, the main measure contained in the announcement. In terms of political calendar, so for the moment, there is no clarity on the legislative vehicle nor the calendar for adoption. But what was said is that the draft of law could be submitted to the parliament either this fall -- or between this fall and next spring. So this is for France. Now Brazil, just to remind you, over the last months, the macro environment in Brazil has been marked by reemerging higher level of inflation. And in this context, it puts the Lula's u government under a strong pressure to find solution to reduce the food inflation and the access to food for consumers. So we -- in this context, we remain in constant dialogue with the government to discuss ways to enhance the employee benefit system in Brazil that could definitely contribute to address this challenge. And our main common objective, both for the government and issuers such as Pluxee, is really to ensure the sustainability of the system over the long term. So to be more precise on the interoperability and portability topic, the decree required for the implementation is still pending. And as you know, we are actively engaged in ongoing discussions to establish the appropriate framework. But for the moment, nothing was announced. And regarding possible other measures, we are constantly monitoring the situation, as we speak. So this is for the regulatory part. In terms of development, you were asking about the development to give you a bit more of color. So first, with the EUR 1.1 billion over the 9 months, our new client wins have remained very strong. And given the robust pipeline that we've developed, we think that we are well on track to reach our target of over EUR 1.3 billion of new business on fiscal year '25. And interestingly enough, this momentum has been partly driven by an increasing contribution from SME, and this is true across markets. And so far, so after 9 months, we have already surpassed the 30% target that we set for fiscal year 2026. And regarding mid- to large accounts, as I mentioned, we've seen some lengthening in the signing process in certain geographies that we associate to macro-related caution. But again, the overall pace of winning remains robust. Regarding M&A and the impact from the MyBenefits acquisition, Stephane, and the total envelope.

So the MyBenefits acquisition in Romania is a little bit like what we did with Benefício Fácil in Brazil. So this is a bolt-on acquisition with a company that we have been partnered with for some years, so a company that we know very well, which means that the integration of this company, we have been able to anticipate for it. This company is going to bring us a scalable tech asset, which is going to help us to reinforce the personalized experience of our consumer in -- our new clients in Romania. It's going to be a highly synergistic acquisition. We are talking here about a few million, so in terms of stakes, financial stakes. So this is really a bolt-on and a few million of additional revenue, but with strong synergies and this acquisition is going to be accretive to the EBITDA margin starting the first year. Very, very much like what we did with Benefício Fácil a few weeks ago in Brazil.

And in terms of deleveraging, considering that you have a comfortable cash net position?

In terms of what you said? In terms of...

The deleveraging?

You mean in terms of credit metrics?

No. I mean the use of cash you have on your balance sheet. Could you consider some bigger acquisitions and/or some return to shareholders, to be clear?

We have -- sorry. So we have a strong potential M&A pipeline, but still keeping a very disciplined and targeted approach. And there might be some additional bolt-on or maybe a little bit of bigger size acquisition considered going forward, but nothing that is to be announced shortly. So we'll see. But we are still working on this lever. This M&A lever for us is important. This is a key complement to organic growth, being able to seize M&A opportunities so that we can then accelerate further inorganic growth going forward, thanks to synergies. So yes, we have a strong pipeline of potential acquisition of different size.

The next question is from Pravin Gondhale of Barclays.

Firstly, on the net retention rate, it was 101% at Q3 compared to 103% at full year last year. Can you just help explain the moving parts of this gradual decline in retention apart from -- I understand a part of that is coming from face value; revisions, which have moderated, but the other 2 parts, which is cross-selling and then client churn. Can you just explain how that has trended over the first 9 months? And then secondly, you just suggested on Brazil regulation that topic of interoperability and portability. It's still pending. Can you please confirm that it's still under discussion or it's just been sort of pushed back a bit given the other priorities the government has?

So regarding maybe your second question, indeed, I think that the political agenda in Brazil has been a bit challenged recently, but for measures that are nothing to see with our business. But I think discussions are still ongoing. I mean, anyway, it's not a pushback to any time. We are still expecting a decision in the coming weeks, hopefully. And regarding your question on the net retention performance, again, I mean, I would like to insist on the weight of the end user portfolio growth in this performance because -- and you said it, the net retention remains solid. But it's fair to say that the end user portfolio growth has been gradually weakening, showing for the first time this quarter, a slight overall negative contribution, albeit it's very limited in absolute terms. And when we look more precisely on the trend, I would say that these trends mainly reflect the deterioration of the macroeconomic environment in certain Continental Europe, as mentioned by Stephane, for instance, France and Romania, where I mean, we see corporates, some corporates starting to freeze recruitment and adopting a more cautious approach to hiring. And we have a very similar situation that emerged in Mexico a bit earlier, where ongoing U.S. trade policy continues to weigh on the manufacturing sector. But nonetheless, the improved client loyalty, the strong upward trend in face value growth and the continued resilience of our end user portfolio growth in countries such as Brazil and Southern Europe have more than offset the negative impact from the end user portfolio contraction elsewhere.

The next question is from Estelle Weingrod of JPMorgan.

One question on Other Products and Services. You mentioned both temporary phasing effects in ordering from 2 contracts in Belgium and Romania, but also some sort of business repositioning in the U.K. and the U.S. Could you just clarify a little more exactly between the 2, what's happening for Other and also the expected time frame for that? Would you mind just giving us also maybe a split, I mean, within your 3.6% scope this quarter, the split between the 3 recent acquisitions?

Stephane, do you want to take...

So on Other Products and Services, I don't know, Estelle if your question was just on the second part. So I'm going to elaborate a little bit on the 2 phasing effects first and then go into the details for the U.S. and U.K. So the phasing effects we are referring to in Belgium and Romania related to -- in Belgium, one program on which we received significant orders earlier in the year. So this means that for Q3, the ordering was lower compared to the year before because we had a significant upside in Q2. Then the other contract is one contract in Romania for which the ordering is postponed to a later period either in this year or in the next year and with potentially lower amount. In the U.S. and the U.K., so we are -- these are countries which are more on reward and recognition solution than the pure employee benefits as we deliver them in many countries. And we are now refocusing more on pure core engagement solution for our clients rather than seeing that we are more closer to pure reward solution. And so this led us to exit a few contracts, which weighed a little bit on the organic growth. And at the same time, we also made the decision to change the management team. So these are 2 countries where the country managing directors were changed in the last weeks. And then regarding the 3.6% scope effect in the quarter. So these are fully related to the acquisition we have referred to, with the acquisition of Ben as part of the Santander partnership in Brazil being the biggest one, followed then by Cobee and Benefício Fácil is -- will be recorded as part of scope effect in the coming quarters because right now, in Q3, it was not -- it was a very small, very small part of the scope effect. So mainly 2/3 of it is related to the Santander, small 1/3 to Cobee and the rest related to Benefício Fácil.

The next question is from Hannes Leitner of Jefferies.

I got a couple of questions as well. Maybe just because you made this acquisition in Romania, and it seems like a small bolt-on acquisition. Maybe you can remind us how big your business is there in Romania. And then a couple of other questions are in -- you talked about M&A already, but maybe you can just like talk about what appetite for larger M&A you have? Or should we continue to think that you will do a series of small bolt-on acquisitions? And then a question on the take-up rate. Take-up rate had been improving throughout last year and kind of, I think, expectations were that it will then level out. Where do you see take-up rate progressing from here? That's maybe a follow-up then.

Thank you, Hannes. Stephane, do you want to...

So we don't disclose. I'm sorry about this, but we don't disclose the size of our countries. We don't communicate, but I can tell you that Romania is a big country for us. We are -- we have a leadership position in these countries. So this is important for us to reinforce this leadership position with this kind of highly synergistic acquisition like the one we are making with MyBenefits. So leading with your second question regarding M&A, of course, we might consider at some point some large M&A. As I was saying, our M&A potential pipeline is strong with many things we are looking at, but in a very disciplined way. We -- the objective remains the same and with a strong focus to be able to complement and extend our offering with engagement solution for our clients, while we are already very strong in terms of employee benefits that engagement solution to support our clients, retaining, getting strong commitment from our employees is an important focus for us. And then in terms of take rate, so this take rate has improved a little bit versus the year before. So year-on-year for the first 9 months, we are delivering a plus 19 basis points improvement. If you look at our take-up rate over the last years, over the last 4 to 3 years, we have improved it a little bit, but on the back of improvement of client commission; while at the same time, over this 4 to 3 years period, the merchant commission has been slightly reduced. So this is really by improving overall the client commission that we've been able to increase it to something to close to 5%. And we are considering that this is a fair rate, taking into account all the value we bring to clients, consumer and, of course, merchants, so we don't intend to increase it. Now there are some potential mix effect depending on the mix of our products. For example, you have in mind that our take-up rate is higher for gift than for meal and food, for example. And so depending on the weight of our business and the way our product offering is going to evolve over time, so there might have some additional impact on this take-up rate. But we don't have a target to increase the take-up rate as it is, we consider it fair right now.

Okay. And just maybe a follow-up here, on looking at FY '26, you maintained the margin target this year, you upgraded it and the upgrade was probably mostly on better Float expectations. Now Float for -- to get to your low double-digit growth for Float means actually Q4 will drop to probably low to mid-single-digit Float growth. How should we think about next year in terms of the margin progression and the moving parts between the different businesses?

We are confirming today our objective for next year. This is true that in terms of Float revenue, we are in a global environment in the world where interest rates are going down. Now there are other engine in order to improve the Float, which is -- in order to improve the Float revenue, which is the Float baseline on the balance sheet. So we expect to go on delivering some growth in terms of business volume in the coming years with all the growth engine that Aurelien have gone through in the previous question. So we'll see. But so far, our target remains the same, and we'll come back to you with further details when we release our full year numbers in the end of October for more details about what is going to happen next year.

And maybe just to add because, of course, we -- I mean, we are not immune against the macroeconomic context, but our model is quite resilient. And this is because we leverage a combination of key strengths. And I would mention our diversified footprint, both geographically, we are present in 29 countries. The nature of our client portfolio, we are serving public, private clients, small, mid and large-sized clients as well as the broad exposure by sector of this client portfolio. We benefit from multiple growth drivers, and we do have this natural hedge against inflation through the increase of the face value and the currently risk through the Float revenue. And last but not least, the essential nature of our solutions because for clients, it remains key to retain and attract talent, especially in times of economic slowdown. So that's why also it makes us confident.

The next question is from Julien Richer of Kepler.

A couple of ones for me, if I may. The first one, if you can come back on the comments you made on Q4 being softer than Q3. If I understand it correctly, you said that the difference might be more or less similar to the one you posted in Q1 and Q2, I mean, Q2 being lower than Q1. If it is the same magnitude, it means that Q4 will be around 4% growth. So just want to confirm that and have your view on what is going to happen in 2026 because the exit rate of this year will be high single digit and not double digit? And the second thing, maybe I missed it or did not understand it correctly, but can you please give us a bit additional color in the Float revenue evolution for next year based on the situation you are seeing today?

So regarding the exit rate for the next year, so I think -- so first of all, this is -- I mean, we -- I said it, the Q4 growth on operating revenue is going to be softer compared to what we delivered in Q3. And if you look at the difference between Q1 and Q2, yes, this is likely to be in the same order of magnitude in terms of operating revenue in between Q3 and Q4. I'm talking about operating revenue, total operating revenue for the group. Now it's not going to be as low as you are saying. If you do the math, you will notice that the difference doesn't give rise to such a low number. Then on this growth, I would like also to point out something that you should consider when you all the analysts are working on your expectation in terms of delivery for the full year. This is the impact of the foreign exchange fluctuation. So we are currently facing strong headwinds in this field, which is due to Brazil, and this has lasted for a few months now, and there has been a new change in Turkey. In this respect, we are going to be able to benefit from -- and this is linked to the second part of your question. We are going to be able to benefit from higher interest rates in these 2 countries. In Brazil, it took a bit of time before the Selic rate was increased by the local authorities. The current Selic rate is up to 15%. If you look at it, a few months ago, it was a little bit higher than 10%. So we have been able to benefit from a strong increase in the Selic rate. And this is also what happened very recently in Turkey, even though it took some time from the Turkish authorities to decide to increase again the rates, but the rates have been increased. And so you should consider when you look at the fiscal year '26 outlook that in terms of Float revenue, of course, we might -- we suffer and we have to face situation where the interest rates are decreased by the local authorities. There are other countries like Brazil and Turkey, where the rates are increasing. And we are also benefiting from our disciplined and agile strategy. In the last years, we have extended the maturity of our investment, which now is reaching something close to 11 months in average at the time of the subscription or 7 months in terms of residual length of maturity. And so this means that we benefit from the yield of this portfolio every time there are some changes in the market. And again, so this Float revenue will be supported in the next year by this existing portfolio of investment.

So on fiscal year '25, just to conclude, so all in all, and as Stephane explained, we expect a pattern of organic growth between Q3 and Q4 to mirror the phasing observed between Q1 and Q2. Still, we remain fully confident in achieving our full year total revenue organic growth guidance.

The next question comes from Justin Forsythe of UBS.

A few questions here for me. So I just wanted to circle back on the point around Europe operating revenue growth in the quarter. So thinking about the number, I know you had the really hard comparison in fiscal 2Q there. So it seems like what is that, about a 5-point acceleration despite a kind of much easier comparison. Just to be clear on exactly what the impacts within Europe are is the 2 contracts that you spoke about in other products and then a bit of employment weakness in France. Is there something else there? Because I think you talked about offsets on the other direction, but in other geographies. And then maybe how we should think about Europe growth going forward in the context of all these moving pieces. And I think you also noted a higher comparison base in 4Q as well. I wanted to talk a little bit about the France regulation as well being proposed. So I guess my curiosity here is this seems to be taking quite a while. I mean this was initially raised with the prior government, the Macron government back in 2023. This government has been in place for, what, now over a year. It seems like we're talking about now getting into 2026. I guess I'm curious why this seems to be taking so long. None of these proposals seem to be all that new. And do you think there's an appreciation the challenges that this uncertainty brings to businesses in the voucher space? And one further question on the dynamics there. I think it calls for the abolishment of the CNTR, that central voucher agency. Do you expect that to have any impact on the way that you engage with the broader voucher scheme in France?

So I will start with the French regulation, and thanks for your series of questions. So regarding the French regulation, I mean, actually, I mean, the government has not been put in place 1 year back. It's much more recent started -- I mean, this new government started in January. So they've been working actively to come out with their list of measures that they shared last week. Again, we are welcoming this move because it's a positive move. Do they realize that, I mean, it brings uncertainty as long as we don't have the reform being passed. I guess so. But after they need to go through the political process, which means that a law needs to be voted by the parliament. So it has to be presented to the parliament. And the parliament has many -- they do have a quite busy backlog of bills to be discussed and approved. So that's why it's taking time. But the -- again, I think that the French government is moving quite actively in order to come out with a final bill that will be passed as soon as possible. Regarding the impact on Europe, maybe, Stephane, you want to take this one?

So the acceleration of the growth in Continental Europe in Q3 compared to Q2 is due to some impact on Q2 and not on Q3. So this is really what happened in Q2 at the time of the release of our H1 numbers. I think we explained that in Q2, we had to face 2 main effects in Continental Europe, but there was the impact of this purchasing power program in Belgium the year before, which had generated -- this was a one-off. This has generated strong growth in Q2 of fiscal year '24, so making the comparison base very high for Q2 '25. And we also had a very strong gift campaign in '24. So raising the bar quite high. This gift campaign has been successful again in the Q2 of fiscal year '25. But to generate even more growth, that was really a challenge. And we had also other program, for example, Prima Bonus in Austria or Social Plus in Romania, which were with stronger volumes in '24 than in '25 and, again, in Q2. So Q3 of this year is with less impact. The impact I was referring to and that you pointed out, which are these phasing effects are more related to the business volume issue than revenue. And I don't want to go into too many details. But when I was referring to one program in Belgium, so what happened is that there was a change in regulation in Belgium in the year-ed -- in the calendar year-end, so in the end of calendar year '24, which was a reduction of the potential of the tax benefit from the Belgian citizens when they use what is called the Titres-Service. And so this is a benefit that is available in Belgium. And the tax benefit related to this benefit was reduced. So this led many of the Belgian citizens to order a big amount before the year-end. But this has no impact on the revenue because the related revenue is spread all over the next month. So this had a phasing impact on the ordering and on the business volume issued. If you look at our balance sheet at the end of H1, you might see the impact because this led to a significant increase in the voucher in circulation by something close to EUR 500 million. And at the same time, because we didn't have the cash in immediately, there is a significant amount by EUR 500 million in the receivable.

Yes. Got it. Sorry, I just -- I think that's super helpful. I guess what I'm trying to understand is it looks like on a 2-year basis, this is effectively the lowest growth of 2025 thus far organically in operating revenue in Europe in 3Q. And I think you were talking about some impacts to hiring and such that was maybe also serving to offset there. So just trying to think of -- and we've seen the growth rate kind of fluctuate in quite a volatile fashion across the year in Continental Europe going back 2 years really. So just trying to think about the jumping off point for 4Q, taking into consideration the challenging comp that you mentioned in 4Q.

Justin, as we said, the -- we expect Latin America and Rest of the World to keep on driving more the growth of Pluxee in the coming months, so it was the case. I mean, we expected it already a few quarters ago. So we do expect that this trend will pursue again in the coming months. And regarding the CNTR because I did not -- sorry, I mean, I didn't get the question straight ahead. So indeed, I mean, one of the plan of the French government would be to evolve the governance of the system. Today, it is done through a public agency called Commission Nationale des Titres Restaurant. What will be the future of this entity, we don't know, but we consider it's good to keep an independent body helping us to ensure the right operation and the right governance of this so important system for the French employees.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Sabrina Blanc of Bernstein.

Yes. I have 2 questions from my part. The first one is regarding the partnership with Santander. Can you provide a bit more color on how it goes and if you have any figures that you can share with us? And the second question is regarding, I would say, the cross-selling between meal voucher and the other employee benefits products. Could we have also an idea of the development and how you are happy with that?

Yes. So thank you, Sabrina, for your question. So regarding the partnership with Santander, so we said it during the presentation. So the -- I mean, the integration phase is now behind us. I mean all volumes from Santanders were migrated on the Pluxee platform with a very high level of satisfaction from Santander's clients. And it's fair to say that the feedback as well from Santander sales engines have been very positive. So that's why, I mean, it's a good driver. It's a good incentive, I mean, to have them now sell our Pluxee solution. One number, I mean, that I'm pleased to share is the number of sales agents that have already signed one Pluxee contract, and it's more than 20%. And remember that Santander has a sales team of above 4,000 people. So it's -- I mean, looking at the size of our sales team, the dedicated Pluxee sales team, I mean, it's a big extension, and that's why we are confident in the future. So we are on track with the initial plans that we had. And what I'd like to add is that we are signing both some very large clients but we are also taking advantage of the huge SME portfolio to further penetrate this segment. And regarding the cross-selling contribution and the performance in cross-selling, it's a steady performance. We don't see yet the full acceleration, but this is what we expect in -- for the years to come.

The last question is from Pavan Daswani of Citigroup.

I've got a couple. Firstly, I appreciate the color on the phasing of Q4 operating revenue growth. How should we think about the drivers of growth to accelerate back to kind of low double digits in 2026? And then secondly, on Italy, I appreciate it's a relatively small exposure, but could you provide an update on the renegotiation process ahead of the CCAP please?

Okay. Regarding Italy, so first, let me remind you that our meal and food business represents less than 3% of our total financial aggregate there. So as you know, the amendment capping the merchant commission at 5% came into effect for all new merchant contracts in January this year, and it will be applicable for our existing merchant network starting September 1, so meaning in almost 2 months. And we are currently in the middle of our client renegotiation campaign. So early feedback has been positive with rebalancing already underway on certain accounts. So it should -- and it will help us mitigate the impact of this regulatory change, knowing that we said it and that we don't anticipate any impact on our ability to meet our financial objective for fiscal year '25 and '26 at group level. And regarding the drivers to accelerate the double-digit growth, a bit of color. Again, when you look at the performance of Q3 and over the past 9 months, when you exclude the one-off effects, our BVI growth continued to show healthy growth in Latin America and Rest of the World. And this relies on a robust development trend in new client acquisition. And this is across regions, Europe, Continental Europe, Latin America and Rest of the World. Again, it does contribute to EUR 1.1 billion with a notable increase from SME. We also benefit from the solid net retention that continued to stand above 100%. And this is thanks to the combination of reduced churn rate, robust additional increase in face value that allows us to offset the recent end user portfolio evolution. And last but not least, the M&A deals are helping us to deliver a progressive contribution through synergies and scope effect. So that's why we remain confident in our growth outlook as reflected in the objective fiscal year '26 that we have reaffirmed today. So thank you, Pavan. Thanks a lot. So to wrap up, I'd like to highlight again that Q3 has been a solid quarter, both in terms of business momentum and financial performance. We are on track to deliver our strategic and financial objectives, which supports our reiteration of guidance for both fiscal 2025 and 2026. And now with that, I wish you a very good day and look forward to connecting again at the end of October for the release of our full year results.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over, and you may disconnect your telephones.