Safran SA (SAF) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone. I am pleased to welcome you to Safran's First Quarter 2023 call, and I am here with our CFO, Pascal Bantegnie. Let us go straight to Page 4 with a summary of our talking points. Air traffic recovery continues in the narrowbody segment, narrowbody ASK and CFM flight cycles are back to their pre-COVID level in Q1 2023. Revenue growth is solid, up by 25% on an organic basis, driven by all activities, notably services in all divisions and LEAP deliveries. Asset portfolio management is moving on. Closing for Aubert & Duval is expected this Friday and will contribute under the equity accounting methods to Propulsion division from May onwards. Q1 trends are strong. Growth rate is in line with our full year outlook. We can, therefore, reaffirm our guidance. I'm now on Slide 5. Narrowbody ASK are back to pre-COVID levels for the first quarter of 2023, fired by the recovery in China with the lift of travel restriction mid-December 2022. CFM cycles are also back to their 2019 level and even already above this level in North America and China. Europe has almost recovered precrisis level. The only geographical area still lagging a little bit is Asia Pacific, excluding China, which reached around 80% of their 2019 level. Narrowbody air traffic recovery observed in Q1 2023 does indeed support our assumption for full year 2023. On Slide 6, let me share with you some of our main business achievements during the quarter. CFM delivered 366 LEAP engines in Q1. We are on track with our target to increase deliveries by 50% in 2023. This is encouraging given the persistent supply chain difficulties. We signed some agreements in services, a key element to Safran growth. On engines, we are building up third-party maintenance capability for LEAP, which is part of our strategy, with 2 new agreements with independent MRO providers in America and in Asia. They will then have full capability to offer services on LEAP. On LEAP-1A nacelles, we entered as well into new -- 2 new license agreements. On helicopter engines, we signed 2 new support by theater contract to support our Makila and Arriel engines. In the Defense business, we have developed alongside French Navy Commandos, a new resilient PNT system. PNT stands for position, navigation and timing systems, the NAVKITE, building on Orolia capabilities, this company that we have purchased 1 year ago, which allows the transmission of trusted position navigation and timing data to ensure mission continuity. In Safran seats, commercial momentum is continuing. We signed a number of new contracts for business class and premium economy seats in Middle East as well as in Asia. Last but not least, Safran is the #1 in patent applications in France in 2022 according to the French National Institute of Industrial Properties. On Slide 7, let me give you a quick overview of Safran's Q1 sales for 2023. We enjoy a strong plus 25% organic growth in Q1 compared to Q1 2022, in line with our full year 2023 outlook. All of Safran's division contributed to this performance. Services performed very well in all divisions, and in particular, in civil aftermarket, which -- civil propulsion aftermarket, which grew by 38% year-on-year in U.S. dollars and by 7% compared to Q4 2022. Civil aftermarket is benefiting from the recovery in narrowbody traffic pre-crisis levels and from airlines readiness plan for the summer season. OE performance was strong as well, driven by a step-up in LEAP deliveries. Let me now hand over to Pascal for more details on Q1 then.

Thank you, Olivier, and good morning, everyone. Starting as usual with FX on Slide 9. Euro-dollar largely traded range bound this quarter with the $1.10 level providing care resistance on a move higher. This level provides additional opportunities to hedge at attractive rates. 2027 now exhibits $10.2 billion of hedging out of an estimated net exposure of $14 billion. On average, Q1 '23 spot rate compares favorably to Q1 '22 providing a positive impact on sales. For 2023, our hedge rate target remains at $1.13 per euro, which is a $0.02 improvement from 2022. Turning now to Q1 '23 revenues on Page 10. We benefited from solid organic growth of 25%, which is more or less an additional EUR 1 billion of sales, supporting our full year guidance. Reported revenue of EUR 5.266 billion highlights an even greater growth rate of 29% when adding the positive currency impact. Before going through more details by activities, service activities were up 31%, of which 28% was organic, and the performance was strong across all divisions. OE was up 28%, 22% organic, notably driven by the ramp-up in the LEAP OE deliveries. Change in scope reflects the divestment of Arresting System and Pioneer Aerospace and the acquisition of Orolia, all in 2022. This change in scope impacts the Equipment & Defense division. On Slide 11, Q1 revenue per activity, starting with propulsion at EUR 2.7 billion of revenue, up 35% organic. First, OE was up 49% organic increase in the LEAP deliveries, 53% growth year-over-year and even a sequential increase of 13% despite the persistence of supply chain difficulties. In military, we enjoyed 5 additional deliveries of M88 engines coming up at 17 units, and helicopter turbines deliveries were slightly up. On the service side, for all propulsion, it was up 27% organically, mostly driven by civil aftermarket. The civil aftermarket is up 38.1%, driven mostly by spare part sales for CFM56 engines. Spare parts for high thrust engines as well as services grew at a good 2-digit rate, but still lower than the growth we experienced on CFM56 spare parts. Civil aftermarket growth also resulted from higher-than-expected revenue of LEAP RPFH contracts. And as a reminder, there is no margin recognition for these contracts up to 2025. Services in helicopter turbines and military aircraft engines were also up in Q1 '23. Now about equipment with revenues almost of EUR 2 billion, up 10% organic. OE revenue was flat, constrained by industry-wide supply chain difficulties and by downwards revised demands by air-framers. Services were up 25% organic on all activities, and I would mention notably nacelles, carbon brakes and aero systems. Our defense activities were flattish in the quarter. Notably, we had some drop in the [indiscernible] deliveries. Aircraft Interiors came at EUR 584 million, up 38% organic. OE revenue was up 32%. Most of that increase is coming from cabin with a notable increase in cargo and catering. As a reminder, this activity is for divestment, and it will be divested within this quarter. And also, the growth is coming from toilets in A320 and A350. Service revenue was up 51% organically, driven by spare parts and by cabin. Back to you, Olivier.

To conclude on Slide 13, we remain vigilant on supply chain difficulties, but we are fully confident in our efforts to offset inflation and to meet our financial objectives for 2023. I thank you for your attention. I would like also to take the opportunity of this call to warmly thank Cécilia Matissart, for her engagement and professionalism during all these years, and wish her every success in her new position as ArianeGroup Chief Strategist. I promise she will be busy and stands ready to get launched to space as soon as tomorrow. Countdown has begun. I thank you for your attention. And now Pascal and I will be pleased to answer your questions.

[Operator Instructions ] The first question is from Daniela Costa of Goldman Sachs.

Congratulations, Cécilia, for the new role. Just have 2 questions. First, it sounds like your sort of narrowbody traffic already like tracking in 2019. Your mix also in terms of like where civil aftermarket seems kind of ahead of maybe where guidance is. Can you maybe elaborate why you're not upgrading guidance at this stage? Sort of what are the risks ahead that prevent you from doing so at this point? And then the second point, sort of the buyback for the convertible. You plan to finish that, I guess, in the beginning of June. Could we sort of look forward for -- how should we think about cash shareholders -- cash to shareholders after that? I think you've alluded in the past of the potential to do more and things seem to be going quite well in the beginning of the year. So wondering if that could be the trigger point and also an extension.

Good morning, Daniela. I'll take the 2 questions. First, true, we have a very good start of the year, starting with Q1, notably in civil aftermarket with 38.1% growth. This year is expected to be front-end loaded in terms of aftermarket with significant better growth in the first half than the second. So do not extrapolate the Q1 performance for the full year. And as I say, Q1 performance also reflects the growing share of the RPFH LEAP contracts, which come at no margin by construction. Beyond civil aftermarket, again, we have a strong start, but we have not yet communicated on any EBIT or free cash flow figures. So when we publish our first half results at the end of July will be a time to either confirm or change the full year guidance. But it's really too early in the year to make such a move. On the buyback, true that we will end up for a current program by mid of June, having repurchased more or less 9.4 million shares in order to offset the potential dilution of the convert. So as we always say, it will be timed either in July or October to rediscuss that topic first with the Board. And as soon as we have a green light from the Board, we can rediscuss that issue -- with that -- not the issue, but that's the point with you and investors.

The next question is from Ian Douglas-Pennant of UBS.

Yes, Ian Pennant, UBS. Firstly, on the LEAP LTSA surprise upside, what is the driver in your belief of what is driving that performance, the underlying driver? Secondly, could you give us an updated commentary on the state of the supply chain, please? One of your competitors this morning is citing difficulties in the supply chain as their reason not to increase guidance. So maybe you could comment on whether things are getting worse for you? And then I can follow up with something else, if I've got time.

Yes. On -- yes, we've communicated on the fact that the growth of the LEAP services contract is -- has been an element of the civil aftermarket growth, which is meaningful. This is driven by what we have already elaborated on for the results, the Q4 results of last year. The fact that we -- the LEAP is behaving as expected in normal environment, but the time on wing is below expectation in harsh environment. As a consequence of that, basically, we are facing harsh environment, some early removals of engines, which is driving cost and therefore, revenues per construction because we are under IFRS accounting. So this is the reason why, basically, it does impact our civil aftermarket revenues. But I remind you that we have taken, let's say, a cautious approach in that respect as we have decided not to account for any profit on our RPFH contract until 2025. So those are basically additional revenues, which do impact our aftermarket key indicator, but it has no margin impact. On supply chain. On supply chain, yes, indeed, supply chain is still our #1 watch item and our #1 focus. As we have already said various times, our teams are fighting every day to get parts. We believe supply chain are going to be persistent all along 2023 and probably also in 2024. Our suppliers are struggling in recruiting people. The 2 main road blocks are people recruitment and also raw materials. We are fighting on raw materials, be it steel, metallic materials such as steel, nickel, titanium, aluminum as well as chemicals such as resins. So yes, it is still basically hampering a little bit our everyday performance. But I have to say, and this is a good news, on the engine side, we are not pacing at all, the aircraft assembly lines in both sides of the Atlantic, we are not pacing the aircraft assembly lines.

Could I just follow up on the LEAP margin question? Is my understanding correct that you're able to -- according to your auditors, you're able to book a breakeven on the LEAP engines until 2025 because you believe that these programs are likely to be breakeven throughout their lifetime. Is that the accounting requirements, or are you permitted to hold the expectation of booking a higher profit later in the contracts last time?

On LTSA contracts, we already said during the Capital Market Day in December '21, that we will be cautious. We won't recognize any margin on LEAP LTSA contracts until 2026 because we have not yet seen any full shop visit at this point in time as we speak. The first shop visits will start to materialize this year. And we want to have sufficient experience in terms of, let's say, performing maybe a site and shop visit before we start to recognize margins, and make sure that we fully understand the cost of the shop visits before we start to -- the country-wise, recognizing any margin. We don't want to experience any catch down in the future and being too optimistic today. So we are on the cautious side. So this is why when we have additional cost as it is in Q1, we will recognize revenue as per the incurred cost. So it inflates civil aftermarket indicators, but it comes with no margin.

The next question is from Robert Stallard of Vertical Research.

First of all, Cécilia, all the best in your new position. And then just a couple of questions from me. First of all, Olivier, you noted that narrowbody ASKs are back at 2019 levels in the first quarter. What's your expectation for ASK growth on narrowbodies for the rest of the year? And then secondly, I was wondering if you could elaborate on what happened in nacelles in the quarter and why they were having some issues?

What is your second question?

Second question is what? Issues on what?

Nacelles, you noted that nacelles were down in the quarter. I wonder what is going on with that.

Okay. On narrowbody ASK, as we've mentioned, we have recovered the pre-crisis level now. So as we've caught up basically following the pandemic, we are back to normal situation. So basically, the growth going forward, basically, we should be back to sort of normal growth. We'll see. If there's still going to be some catch-up during the year. I don't know probably too early to say. For sure, airlines want to get ready for a summer season that will be strong, and that's good news. But you should -- basically, you should expect for the years to come, growth to return to, let's say, a sort of normal space -- normal pace. Your question relating to nacelle is not too much nacelle, because the nacelle growth is really driven by -- also by the engine, in fact. Most of our nacelle business is related to let's say, the A320 followed by LEAP. So this is on the rest of the overall equipment branch, where, yes indeed, our OE growth has not been significant in Q1. It has basically been more or less stable versus last year. And this is really the consequence of 2 things. First, supply chain issues are more prevalent today on the overall equipment than on the engine on one side. But we have taken into account also the fact that the airframers have revised down their demand. So this is one of the reasons why there has been almost no growth on the OE side of the equipment because the airframers have revised down their demand.

Okay, just a follow-up. Can you say which programs that was on in terms of the OEM revision?

Well, I won't be too specific on that. I would just like to say, basically, on the LEAP side, we are exposed to both FMS. On the equipment side, we are more focused on Airbus.

The next question is from Olivier Brochet of Redburn.

Good morning, Olivier and Pascal, and best of luck, Cécilia with your new role. I have a few questions, if I may, please. First of all, could you be a bit more specific on the growth in military and helicopter within propulsion and how sustainable it is for the rest of the year? Second, in Interiors, cabin was very strong. How helpful is that for the breakeven and the recovery of that business? And third, what are you seeing in terms of costs, whether this is salaries and non-salaries now that we are, I would say, almost done with months and before of the year, please?

On the military side, be it for the fighters or helicopters, the growth has not been significant in Q1 2023 versus Q1 2022. But the long-term prospect, our medium to long-term prospects are, as you know, extremely good due to the momentum on the Rafale export contracts. But in Q1, basically, we've been more or less stable versus last year. The fact is that the military budgets are increasing everywhere in the world, as you know, in the U.S., of course, but also a significant increase in Europe over the years to come, and this is good news for us. On Interiors, it's too early to elaborate on the EBIT side. I think end of July is going to be the good time for that. We've -- basically, yes, we've seen a strong growth, especially on the cabin side. We've seen a strong growth on the aftermarket side. But specifically on seats, basically, when we look at the number of business class seats that have been sold and delivered in Q1 2023 versus Q1 2022, there has been no growth. On cost, nothing new. And inflation, Pascal?

Yes. In inflation, Olivier, I can only repeat what we've said during the last call. Inflation is set to have a negative impact overall of about 3 points of EBIT margin, which we will be offsetting through escalation, productivity, cost control. FX is also one way to mitigate inflation. And the usual suspects are always the same: Raw materials, energy, salaries, inflation coming from the supply chain. So no change in terms of inflation. And as you know, most of our energy cost was already hedged for 2023. So whatever is the market price you see on your Bloomberg screen, it has no impact in 2023.

Thanks, Pascal. But in terms of the salary negotiations, how did it go compared to your expectations?

It went as per acquisition in France and outside of France. So what we had factored in, in our budget, is exactly what we ended up in terms of the negotiation. To give you an example, in France, we ended up with 5% salary increase.

Yes. This is more or less comparable to our peers.

The next question is from George Zhao of Bernstein.

Could you quantify the impact of the LEAP RPFH on civil aftermarket? What would the 38% growth have been without the added impact of the early removal work? Or asked another way, how much of the civil aftermarket today comes from LEAP? And second question, just wanted to get your thoughts on margin cadence for H1 versus H2, considering we're going to need a much stronger LEAP ramp-up in H2, some normalization of spare engine deliveries, tougher civil aftermarket comps. Should we expect H1 to be stronger than H2 for margins this year?

Okay. So we don't want to be misunderstood on the strength of civil aftermarket in Q1. Most of the growth is coming from the spare part sales in CFM56. Share visits were up compared to Q1 2022. Revenue per share visit was up. It does include the escalation we had on the first of November of a bit more than 10%. And we've seen a positive trend as well on the work scope. Still below Q3, Q4 level, but still a good trend. So most of the growth is coming from the CFM56, which is excellent news. The only point we were making and I won't quantify LEAP RPFH, but it's true that we were surprised by the contribution of LEAP RPFH contracts into our revenue for civil aftermarket. So it's not meaningful, but still it's one element of understanding of our good performance for the ISC. Still without LEAP RPFH, it would have been an excellent performance in Q1.

Absolutely. So focusing on CFM56, basically, we are on the good side.

On margin guidance, we never communicated on a split between H1 and H2, but you would expect, I would say, improvement in EBIT margin in H1 compared to H1 last year, as well in H2 compared to H2 last year. So at this point in time, it's true that we have different mixes. You've mentioned that the LEAP engine ramp-up should be stronger in H2, true, and it has a negative mix effect. As well as the spare LEAP engines are much stronger in H1 than they will be in H2, which is also a negative mix margin effect. But all in all, because Safran is not all about civil aftermarket and LEAP, I would expect good improvement in H1 as well as in H2.

The next question is from Ben Heelan of Bank of America.

I hope everybody is well. So the first one I wanted to come back on Robert's question on the nacelles because I was confused, because you said that you tied that -- the nacelle issues were largely tied to and your exposure was LEAP. But in proportion, you're seeing LEAP deliveries up 50% plus and you're not seeing that flow through to nacelles. So I'm a little bit confused about the difference between the 2 there? So if you can maybe talk about that in a little bit more detail. Then secondly, I think you mentioned in the prepared remarks as well that you planned on having the disposals in interiors completed in Q2. Could you remind us how significant that is from a revenue perspective for the remainder of the year? And then also Aubert & Duval coming into the mix for propulsion accounted in equity. Is that going to be a positive contribution? Is it going to be negative contribution? And could you just give us some color around that?

Ben, I will take the first one. No, no, don't be confused. When we said the OE equipment, the OE side or the equipment branch has enjoyed almost no growth in Q1 2023 versus Q1 2022. That's what we said. The equipment branch basically embraces not only nacelle, but also landing gears, fuel systems, wiring, electric equipment. So there's a whole avionics. So there's a whole spectrum of equipment there. What I said is when you look at the nacelle per se, the nacelle growth in Q1 2023 is as strong as our propulsion growth, okay? Globally, it is. But when I look at the equipment branch overall, basically what we say is we've been hampered by supply chain issues that are more prevalent in the equipment side. But also, and this is important, by the fact that our airframers clients have revised their demand down.

Ben, on your second question on interiors, so we are about to close the divestment of the cargo and catering activities, which fall into Safran cabin. To give you an order of magnitude, this activity is worth a bit more than EUR 100 million of revenue on a full year basis. And they have a positive EBIT margin, I would say, in the mid-teens. So it gives you an order of magnitude in terms of the performance of that activity. On Aubert & Duval, from the 1st of May, we will recognize 1/3 of the net income of Aubert & Duval, so under the equity method. Remember that we will held 1/3 of the company, together with Airbus and TKO, so 1/3 for Safran, 1/3 TKO and 1/3 for Airbus. You would expect a negative contribution because so far, Aubert & Duval is a loss-making activity that we will work along with time. But you would expect some negative contribution for 2023.

Okay, great. And then just a follow-up, Olivier, on your answer there. I mean do you expect the OE for equipment to grow this year? Or should we be assuming that flat is the outcome for 2023 from an OE perspective?

A bit early to tell, Ben. But so far, it has been flattish in Q1. We won't expect too much growth, at least on the equipment side. Defense could be a different dynamic, but on the equipment side, so far, I would say, flat to up.

Yes. On the OE side, once again, on the OE side, yes?

Yes.

The next question is from Tristan Sanson of BNP Paribas Exane.

Yes, congrats to Cécilia for the new challenge. So three quick questions on my side. The first one, can you provide a quick update on where you stand on the development of a redesign of the engines to compete for half environment? Or how close are we for -- to maturity here? What are the type of solutions that are pursued and the lead time to roll them up in service? The second question is on A220 slides, emergency slides. So you provide the shipments in the notes of your slide show, assuming the lowest levels since mid-2020. But I wanted to understand, is it a reflection about what you said about persisting supply chain difficulties in outside propulsion, or is it a reflection of the reduction in orders from the OEMs that you were talking about, or is just quarterly volatility? But some color would be helpful. And finally, I wanted to get a clarification on what you said, Pascal, about work scope. Do I understand when that the work scope trajectory for the full year in your CFM56 aftermarket activity is neutral, but it's a tailwind in H1 and it's going to be a head to headwind in H2 because Q3 and Q4 were particular region in work scope, is that correct? Thanks for your comments.

Tristan, on the engine -- the deep engine design work to improve, let's say, the time on wing. So we are working, as you can imagine, intensively on that with our partner GE. So we have a plan. I don't -- I will not elaborate too much on the precise dates, but it is clear that we have improvement steps, so it's going to be through improvement steps over the 2 to 3 years to come. We're working on the HPT blades, especially. So the time on wing will gradually increase over use with the new engine that we are going to deliver. And as you can imagine, as for all those engines that basically are going to be removed for what we call a quick term maintenance, we will retrofit the blades with the new types of blades, improved. So it's going to be a big plan over the 2 to 3 next years to come.

Tristan, on your second question, when we look at the quantities that we provide on Slide 16 of the deck, you will notice that in some equipment, quantities were down Q1 '23 compared to Q1 '22. It's clearly the combination of 2 factors, as we say in the press release. First, as a persistence of some supply chain difficulties. So we have what we call a late backlog that we need to clear before the end of this year. And the second reason for that is the revised demand from air framers. So I would expect because we were discussing sales, shipments in the sales to be up in '23 compared to '22, but not as strong as we would have expected, some months ago due to the revised demand from air framers. On your third question on the work scope.

If I may, you didn't comment on the emergency slide, it's the same as asset or what?

Emergency Slide is within the Safran Aerosystems. It's down 30% in Q1 compared to Q1 last year. Here, again, there is some quarter volatility, some supply chain difficulties. But we would expect some growth year-over-year, okay? Now on your third question about work scope. What I did say is that work scope was a positive in Q1 year-over-year. Still, it was below what we've seen in Q3 and Q4 last year, okay? And on a full year basis, what we said back in February is that work scope should more or less be flat year-over-year because we already achieved work scope, which is at the 2019 level. So we see no reason why this should significantly increase from there.

Okay. That's clear. Thank you.

Maybe a question of clarity on the nacelle one. In terms of number of units, yes, there is a decrease versus Q1 2022. But basically a part of those A320neo nacelle that has been -- it's not -- it's LEAP nacelle is driven also by the sale of the spare engines. So there has been a positive impact on the OE side for nacelle due to the front-end loaded delivery of spare engines in Q1. We have some equipment that are provided by our nacelle business for our spare engine, because that this is some parts and equipment to accompany the delivery of spare engines.

The next question is from Chloe Lemarie of Jefferies.

I have a couple, please. The first one is on the 737 MAX situation and the potential impact on LEAP deliveries. So how long do you think a delivery pause could start to jeopardize the 50% delivery growth that you have for the year? The second one is still on the LEAP RPFH contract. I just wanted to see if you could maybe scale the share of those payments that you would now expect to record through the P&L versus simply through the free cash flow for this year?

Chloe, I will take the first one. So yes, you have heard basically the Boeing comments on the 737 MAX and the issue with Spirit, that have been communicated, was it 2 weeks ago? Basically, I have to refer to what Boeing said. It will create -- for sure, it will create a disturbance on the assembly line of the MAX, as Boeing has said, because there is some retrofit work that has to be done on all the aircraft that are currently in LEAP and not delivered. But Boeing said, it would not impact the volume of deliveries for this year. So what I can tell you is that it has no impact on our pace of LEAP deliveries to Boeing. So no change for us. We move on with LEAP deliveries to Boeing as planned.

The LEAP RPFH, again, I will not quantify the revenue that is coming from that portion of the business. It is a growing portion, but I will not quantify. Regarding cash, our EUR 2.5 billion of free cash flow guidance for the year already includes the portion of cash coming from the fly by the year contracts, so no change at this point in time with that respect.

The next question is from Zafar Khan of Societe Generale.

I have two questions, please. The first one is on aircraft interiors. And I'm very grateful that in the report and accounts for the full year, you give divisional free cash flow because -- very helpful. And perhaps if you did it in the presentation as well, that would be even more helpful. So I've been looking at that. And what I've noted is the aircraft interiors free cash flow in '22, it was almost EUR 1 billion out -- sorry, EUR 0.5 billion outflow. It was near enough EUR 200 million outflow in '21 and close to EUR 400 million outflow in 2022. So over the 3 years, it's -- that business has bled over EUR 1 billion of cash. Can you please help me understand the '22 cash out of EUR 483 million? I mean that was close to the statutory EBIT, but that had 300-something of a write-down, so clearly that wasn't a cash item. Can you please help me understand that? And then projecting forward to '23, how that EUR 483 million outflow will [indiscernible] as we go through this year. And just slightly more medium-term outlook for the cash performance of the Interiors business. So that's the first question. Sorry, it's a little bit long-winded. The second one is just looking for some clarification on the LEAP revenue flight hours. Now obviously, we've got cash, you've got revenue recognition, we got EBIT and you've been very clear about the EBIT. That's going to be 0 until 2026, I think, is what you're saying. Revenue, obviously, recognizing more of it because things are coming off a bit sooner. Which leaves the cash receipts, which is obviously going to creditors. I know you don't want to give any sort of firm numbers, but can you help us just in terms of quantum for this in '22, so we can just get some idea of how that is impacting the guidance that you've given and the cash flow that you achieved last year?

Good morning, Zafar. On Aircraft Interiors, when you compile the cash burn we had in that branch of activity since 2019 because we acquired that activity late 2018, so far, we burned more or less EUR 1 billion, of which, as you say, nearly EUR 500 million last year in 2022, this is mainly due to the operating losses that we experienced in that business plus some working capital movements. Typically, the supply chain difficulties have a direct impact on inventory, so we have strong inventories. We have been unable to deliver a number of equipment on the OE side, but as well on the spare part sales. So we were stuck -- and we are stuck with a strong inventory level in Aircraft Interiors until we can deliver or late backlog with our customers. So I won't discuss the cash for 2023, just to confirm that we would expect continued cash burn in '23 to a lesser extent that what we had in '22. But still negative cash in '23.

And when might that turn positive? In terms of the medium term.

First, we need to be back to the black in terms of EBIT, which we would expect in 2023. There you need to differentiate the situation at Cabin and Seats. As Olivier said earlier in the call, the situation at seats remains quite tough, notably in terms of engineering cost to run. So again, there should be some cash burn in '23 in Interiors. But as soon as we can recover on the EBIT side, and if we have a positive working cap movements, then we should be positive, but not in '23 for sure. On the LEAP, on your second question, as you say, we do recognize revenue today, which translates into the civil aftermarket index, and we do recognize the cash and no EBIT. And again, I will not quantify either '22 or '23 numbers with that respect. We'll maybe take the last question, if any.

The last question is from Christophe Menard of Deutsche Bank.

I have 3 quick ones. The first one is on Aubert & Duval. You mentioned the net income and the equity account, but there on this entity, how will it be funded? Will you fund that CapEx? Or it will be entirely funded by Aubert & Duval? That's the first question. The second question is on the CFM56 strong momentum in Q1. Is there any disproportionate impact from green time, i.e., engine coming, I mean, needing some maintenance after extensive use of green time during COVID, and are you seeing this in the trend? And the last question is on Ariane I. mean congratulations to Cécilia for the position. But there have been many changes at the helm of Ariane. What is the outlook in terms of profitability in the coming years, given quite obviously, the current constraints? Can you elaborate a bit more on this, please?

I'll take this off, I will take the first 2, maybe. On Aubert & Duval we have elaborated, as you can imagine, a business plan for the years to come relating to Aubert & Duval. So there's going to be a significant amount of CapEx and investment to be done in the years to come. So we are talking 3-digit numbers for CapEx. So it's going to be -- I mean it's going to be funded by the free shareholders of Aubert & Duval, simple as that. So it's going to be funded 1/3 by us, 1/3 by Airbus and 1/3 by ACE Management, TKO. So 1/3 each.

We have not yet decided if it was in the form of equity or loans. So it's a discussion we will have in the coming days.

But obviously, there's going to be a cash burn, let's say, in the first years to come because we need to invest to recover the performance. On CFM56 and green time, I would say that the green time basically leverage is more or less over. I mean basically, this potential has been exhausted, has been consumed, if you wish, by the airlines. And so we don't expect to see any additional in-time effects in 2023. Do we see the famous catch-up of -- of, let's say, this green time leverage that has [indiscernible] in 2020, 2021, 2022? It's too early to say for this year.

On your third question about ArianeGroup. Remember that Ariane Group is a combination of a commercial business, notably Ariane 5 and soon Ariane 6, but also a defense business, about half and half, 50%, 50% for each of them. Last year, and you can see that in our 2022 accounts, we benefited from a positive contribution from Ariane Group despite all the issues they faced in the commercial side of the activity with Vega, with SOEs and with the delay in Ariane 6. As far as I can remember, it was EUR 22 million positive contribution coming from 50% share of the net income of Ariane Group, so still under the equity method. So for 2023, we continue to expect, and this is a budget, to -- we continue to expect a positive contribution from Ariane Group in '23. Thank you all, and thank you again to Cécilia. I guess she's done something like 25 earnings call, 2 Capital Markets Day. So it was a lot of work and she performed very well. So good luck for your next steps, Cécilia.

Thank you, Olivier.

Thank you. Bye-bye.

Thank you. Bye-bye.