SEB SA (SK) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, shareholders, good morning, and welcome to the [indiscernible] for your company's General Meeting. I'm very happy to see you here in this symbolic location. We're very well off here. I'd like to point out that the meeting will be broadcast live and will be available as a recorded version on the Group's website. I shall be chairing the meeting, as usual, accompanied by Stanislas de Gramont, who's CEO, who you all know well, Olivier Casanova, who's the Executive VP in charge of Finance; Philippe Sumeire, Secretary to the Board of Directors and General Counsel, and who will be joining us a bit later on the stage, and Cathy Pianon, who is Executive Vice President in charge of Public Affairs and Communication. We would like to great and thank the directors present who are here in the first row. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for being here. The members of the General Management Committee, who are just behind and the Executive Committee and all of the group employees attending the meeting today. I'm happy to see you here today. Thank you so much. I'd also like to thank our statutory auditors for their presence Eric Ropert from KPMG and Deloitte, Sara Righenzi from KPMG as well. Thank you for your presence. Ladies and gentlemen, this meeting is for you. It is a privileged moment for information in exchange with your Group's management bodies. We will begin this scheme with the presentation of the results for the 2023 financial year as well as the first quarter of 2024, and then we'll -- followed by a presentation of the group's development strategy based on 3 components: innovation, obviously, in our Consumer business, the development of our Professional division, and CSR. We'll also be taking a look at the PFAS, then we will look back over the key events in Corporate Governance in '23 as well as the composition of the Board and its committees. We will give you information on the resolutions on which you will be asked to vote. And after a summary of the statutory auditors' reports, we will answer any questions you may have. I would like to inform you that the written questions from our shareholders have been received in advance of this meeting as authorized by law. They have been answered and are available on our website. We will conclude this meeting by voting on the resolutions set out in the noting of meeting --Notice of Meeting brochure. The Notice of Meeting published in the Bulletin des Annonces Légales et Obligatoires and in the document, the Universal Registration Document 2023. The Notice of Meeting relating to this combined General Meeting was published in the French bulletin des Annonces Légales et Obligatoires on 15th of March 2024. Notice of the combined general meeting was published on April 22, 2024, in the Bulletin des Annonces Légales et Obligatoires and in the [ La Tribune de Léon, Legal Gazette. ] Registered shareholders and the statutory auditors were duly notified by letter of the meeting. I'd like to point out that [indiscernible] is present to the room to make sure that the meeting run smoothly. It is now time to elect the officers of the meeting that I will be sharing. I call up on the 2 members of the assembly present and representing the larger shares of votes, and I ask them to serve as tellers. Mr. Damarys Braida who represents VENELLE INVESTISSEMENT and Mrs. Caroline Chevalley in the first row presenting GÉNÉRACTION. Ladies, would you please accept? Yes? Thank you so much. Thank you for accepting these functions. In addition, Philippe Sumeire will also act as Secretary to the meeting. I have, as usual, the documents in front of me all the documents required by the regulations in force. In addition, all prior documents have been sent or made available to shareholders through the shareholder services and on the company's website in accordance with legal and regulatory requirements. And before we open, I would like to say that you have been welcomed by an association called [indiscernible]. And I'm so happy to see them here today. This is an association, which supports the foundation for very long time. And they provide employment to persons who are affected by [indiscernible]. Very happy to have them here at the General Assembly that you're able to meet them. They've done a wonderful job, and we're very proud to have them here. Before we open the meeting, I'd like to go into the actual organization of the Q&A session.

Yes, Mr. Chair. Hi, everyone. Just one point about organization as regards to the questions. We think there might be a lot of questions. And to facilitate this process, we have planned on 3 points here. 3 points where we would like to thank you to review to take the microphone and ask your questions, and you're going to introduce yourselves as well, as to try to stay disciplined about how much speak. Please start with just one question. If we have enough time, obviously, the people that have other questions can ask them. But this is really to enable everyone to express themselves with one question. And for people with limited mobility, please let it be known, if you have a question to ask our teams will be coming to hand you the mic directly where you are.

Thank you, Philippe.

I'll hand back over so we can announce the quorum. The provisional quorum. The number of voting shares in the general assemblies, general meetings, 54,486,000, we have a bit more 396,000 because there are shares that held by the company. The quorum required is very low. It's basically 25%, and we're way over that because we have 47 million shares present, which represents 71 million voting rights with more than 5,000 shareholders, which is exceptional. So we already used to have very high quorum, more than 88% present in the assembly out of a total, I think that we have actually gone past that. So the general meeting can take place validly and the presence rate is quite extraordinary.

Thank you, Philippe. You have on the screen, I believe the plan of the meeting. So we're going to start about performance. The PFAS, and I will hand over right away to Stanislas de Gramont to talk to us about the wonderful performance in 2023 and in the first quarter of this year.

Thank you, Thierry and the shareholders. I'm going to do this in tandem with Olivier Casanova. And without further ado, I'll be getting into the review for 2024. 2024, the group got back to interesting growth rates and profitable growth. A few figures to start. Sales stood a bit over EUR 8 billion, EUR 7.9 billion, but especially with a growth of 5.3% like-for-like compared to '22, and I'll get back to this. This produced an operating result standing at EUR 726 million or up by EUR 6 million -- EUR 600 million, up 17% compared to '22. And an operating margin of 9.1%, so it's up by significantly compared to 2022. For net profit, up EUR 70 million or 22% compared to 2022, standing at EUR 386 million. I think it's the second biggest in history and net financial debt will get back to with the net financial debt, which stands at EUR 1.769 billion, that's a decrease of EUR 204 million compared to the end of '22, which leverage of 1.8x EBITDA, and the dividend, we're offering is EUR 2.62 per share, and I think we'll get back to that as well. Now we look in detail in terms of our performance. We said at the beginning of last year in the assembly in '22, there's a gradual increase in sales, exposing the organic growth. This is what we've been observing since the second quarter in 2023. You can see in this curve, the quarterly performance from 1 quarter to the next, 1 year to the next, between -- since the first quarter in '22, right up until the fourth quarter in '24, you can see the performance of the group was negative until the first quarter in 2023, and it was positive between 7% and 9% in the next 3 consecutive quarters in '23. So sales are picking up very dynamically. Now I was talking about organic growth and the currency effect. This wasn't done on purpose but the organic growth stood at 5.3% with EUR 420 million plus negative currency affect for EUR 420 million, that's due to very volatile currencies in Turkey or Egypt or the Ruble as well, the Chinese Yuan and the American Dollar. And the scope effect linked to the acquisitions during the year are roughly EUR 46 million or 0.6% positive. So that's thanks to the innovation and very dynamic acquisition policies of the Group. Now when we talk about major categories, our business is now comprised of Professional Activities and Consumer Activities. Now Professional Activities are strongly up by 26.5% like-for-like, which validates the choice made in 2017 to go Professional to acquire WMF company because Professional Coffee represents fully 90% of that activity and that activity has produced exceptional results as you can see, almost $1 billion of business in '23. But what's notable is that the Consumer activity has also got back to growth, plus almost 3%, and 3.2% like-for-like slightly down from the published results. Now if we go down and drill down into the Professional equities. In Professional activities, everything was good in '23 is a record year for Professional Coffee, because as you will see, the Professional development strategy, we had a lot of geographical expansion. That's our first market is China and U.S. and Germany have relayed that growth significantly in 2023. Another good news is the success in rolling out large contracts and an ongoing. There are a lot of coffee shops and convenience stores, that buy 8,000, 10,000 or 20,000 machines in the year. And also, there are smaller -- on the solid scales, there are individual points of sale. So we have a customer portfolio which is extremely balanced geographically and in terms of the structure of customers as well. And through acquisition of San Marco, we've added to our technological offer because we now with WMF, and we have full automatic coffee machines. We have American filter coffee and so market provides access to Italian technology with traditional Barista machines. Now Consumer, back to performance in '23, especially in the second and third quarter, this activity was strongly supported in all regions, mainly through the steady stream of product launches in most of our categories. A very strong contribution from most emerging markets, basically the other EMEA countries and Central America, and emerging countries are very strongly back in the consumer markets and a return to organic growth in most mature markets, which was spread out through 2023 and to conclude the modest and remarkable growth in China. China has posted a positive result in context, which was very frankly, negative. So I was saying a return -- talking about a return to growth and in sales growth in all regions and starting in the second half year. This is the way it happened. You see the first bar is the performance in terms of sales in the first half of the year 2023 compared to '22. And then you have the performance of sales in the second half year. And you can see in North America, the first half year was negative, as expected. However, it bounced back in the second half, it was plus 6% in North America. The same happened in Western Europe. The first half year was negative, minus 3.7%, and the second half year was up 2.2%. Here again, this recovery was more general and it carried over to other mature countries. It's worth mentioning because we can -- we were wondering about that several times. In terms of emerging nations, you have Latin America went from a first half year, which was basically flat, and the second half year was up 21%. In the other EMEA countries, Europe, Middle East, Africa, sorry for the acronym, Central and Eastern Europe were up by 28%, 20% and 25%. And China, as I was saying, the second half year was positive, standing at 1.8%, in the first half it was flat. And the only negative point is Other Asia, where the performance in Japan was very handicapped by the devaluation of the yen, which is still affecting us 2023 in other Asian countries as well. So '23 in sales was characterized by a recovery. This was expected, and it happened between 7% and 9% growth in the second half year, and that growth happened in most of our geographical areas. I'm going to hand over to Olivier who's going to explain to us what this translates into in terms of financial results.

Hi everybody. As you will have understood, the results of our activity stand at EUR 726 million, up EUR 166 million plus 17%. Now as a reminder, the Group expectations, which was shared with shareholders and the financial markets was plus 10%. So in fact, we definitely exceeded because we stand at plus 17%. The operating margin stands at 9.1%, up by 130 basis points. We're back to the same dynamics as Stanislas mentioned about organic growth. Here, you see the comparison on the right with operating margins per quarter since '22 and '23, and you can see in the first half quarter, we were below '22. And starting in the second quarter, we're right back a clear recovery with higher than the previous year. So this is the result of the good performance of the professional, which contributed very strongly to the Group results but it's also a recovery of consumer goods. So we're happy about the emerging nations, but also in Western Europe, and we're expecting obviously this recovery to continue in '24. Now let's move on to a closer look at the next slide. Thank you. If we break this down, this growth in ORfa by nature. Here you have this going forward by the growth in volume as our same in Professional and in Consumer. There is a strong effect of positive price mix, notably the model mix, which reflects all of the efforts that have been done in terms of innovation. Then there was a decrease in sales cost. We had to reduce the cost of sales in raw materials and buying components and finished products but also in Maritime Freight costs. All this made it possible to increase investments to support the design of new products and increase in commercial expenses to support development of direct sales, in particular, online sales, but also brick-and-mortar sales. And at last, administrative costs, which reflects the change in scope. There have been some investments in IT to develop certain activities. And lastly, there is some change in the bonuses were paid out in the group. And lastly, you have an important, as you can see, a ForEx effect and, here, this is due to the effect on countries that have been -- had their currency devalued. This is the larger compensated by the price increases we put across in these countries. So that's our pricing power. But this is also -- and so far as the dollar and renminbi concerned, there are a very positive effect of hedging, not quite so much in 2023, and this discrepancy is found in that minus EUR 166 million. Now let's move on to substantial free cash flow generation. This is very significant standing at EUR 805 million over the year, which reflects, on the one hand, the positive effect in working capital requirements and due to decrease in inventory. And also their investments are slightly below the historical values. This has been a transition year. There are significant investments in the previous years with the new warehouse, and this year, in '24, there will be investments as well that are bit higher with a new warehouse in [indiscernible] and the investments announced in China to support the development of Professional Coffee machines. Taxes were slightly up. So you can see the normal amount was 25%. We used to benefit from the activation of significant reductions in tax in Germany. And the cost of financial debt is up minus 77%. And the cost of risk is being translated gradually into financing -- the rhythm of refinancing. So generation of free cash was very high, EUR 105 million. Now what is this -- what's the impact on reducing net debt? That's the green line. It's 805 -- minus EUR 805 million in free cash flow. You can see the dividends standing at EUR 195 million. In fact, it's EUR 140 million for shareholders in SEB and also EUR 55 million for support shareholders because we continue to pay dividends, and sustained rate for support. And a lot of that has been brought back in to the parent company. We also have an important effect linked to acquisitions, the ones we announced from this Pacojet and La San Marco and acquisition from SEB Alliance, and also share buybacks. Now this was mainly for 75% share buybacks for support, which are buying their own shares back. And the other factors, restructuring and others linked in litigation. So the net debt is EUR 1.769 billion. The level is quite comfortable with the ratio of 8x in terms of EBITDA. Now let's stand back and take a look with a more broad focus. We can see that since the acquisition of WMF in 2017, the group generated EUR 3 billion in cash -- free cash flow, which is a huge amount. We can note that in this period, since we acquired WMF, the average cash flow on an annual basis, 1.7x the 5-year period, which preceded WMF so we are in very good levels of cash flow. We see that the cash flow ensure the payout of shareholders with almost EUR 800 million in dividends paid out to shareholders in the SEB Group but also then made it possible to support ambitious growth through EUR 900 million in acquisition. So all of this made it. It was also possible to decrease our debt by EUR 600 million since the acquisition of WMF. So very clear reduction in debt. In the next page, significant reduction in debt since the WMF acquisition. You see it illustrated here. There was a peak after the acquisition of WMF, which was almost 3x. But then there was a gradual and substantial almost 1.8x by the end of '23. One word to say that the results of the SEB group is a very solid balance sheet, very solid due to this very comfortable ratio. But we also have a financial security, which is enjoyable because we were working for the last 12 months to improve the profile of our debt and average maturity of debt over 1 year, which is higher than 4 years. So the average maturity is very high. In the last financing since the beginning of the year demonstrates very strongly, we're very strongly supported by our banking partners with the signature of a new banking from our [ relationship ] bank is almost EUR 500 million line of credit and exceptional support from a group of investors over a 12-year period, which shows once again the huge amount of confidence that we enjoy from our financial partners. And all of these fundings are as usual, very much in order. So let's talk about the first half year results. Sales standing at EUR 1.893 billion. So this is 7.3% organic like-for-like compared to Q1 2023. That's higher than 5%. EUR 111 million ORfA, up 70.1% compared to Q1 2023. So this has translated to a margin of 5.8%. So it's up by 2.2 basis points compared to last year. With the financial debt, the net debt standing at almost the same level as at the end of '23, slightly better than the same period the previous year. So a word about robust organic sales growth. So this is a good organic growth in the fourth quarter stood at 5% or almost 5%. In addition to very good performance of the Professional activity, we also have even stronger participation in this organic growth on the part of the consumer goods. The currency effect still is -- remains significant. We have to remember that the decrease in ForEx was in the first half year of the previous year. So we're expecting a very significant currency effect in the rest of the year but this should be spread out over the second half year. The scope effect was at 0.7%. Now if we look at the performance in our major areas of activity. In Professional, still very strong growth, standing at 18.5% like-for-like. I'll get back to that, and a growth of 5.8% in Consumer. That's also a very good performance. So let's take a closer look at Professional. The growth is still very strong, and it's even more remarkable because the first quarter of the previous years was a basis of comparison, which is quite high. Now this is drawn forward by the very good performance in China, and in Germany and Italy as well. It was also drawn forward by our ongoing activities with all of our customers in average size or smaller size through to fix of note -- fact of note. We're continuing international expansion of this activity. Now in this quarter, we notably had enjoyed small but promising successes in Mexico, Taiwan, Malaysia and in Eastern Europe, with a wider customer base in our key chains in China. So there are key chains in China, and we have been working on developing that activity. So we're talking about 18.7%, which is quite important in terms of this growth. So we're phasing development of some contracts in China, and we're expecting that rollout phasing of larger contracts will be beneficial in the first half of the year. Now about Consumer markets and TCB was 5.8%. This is the deployment of new products with gains in group market share in small electric -- with human domestic equipment. We see that we're back to growth in a significant number of countries. I've got to be back to that in the next slide. And one also may note very good performance in France. France is growing again. Organic growth, excluding loyalty program effect, we have an 8% growth. Finally, the Foreign Exchange impact is obviously burdening the consumer market, there is a continued effect first quarter of next year. Now on the left-hand side of the graph, we are showing the green columns showing the 20 biggest countries started growing. First quarter -- first semester, 6 countries amongst -- the most the biggest so 20 countries in the [ group are ] growing. Last year, we moved to 14 countries in the first quarter this year, 17 countries. The 3 countries that are not growing or Japan. As Stanislas was saying, Japan has been impacted by the slow economic activity and also the fact that their currency has been weakened. We also have great Britain. The market for small household equipment is not doing too well. There's a lot of competition. And finally, Germany is one of the nongrowing countries. We have started a new unified organization in the first quarter, and we have reasons to believe that we're going to be back to the -- all the product dynamics that we're used to in the quarters. Now on the right side of the slide, you have the breakdown. The growth broken down depending on the business units. Very strong growth with regard to home and personal care -- sorry, steam, equipment, fans and vacuum cleaners. Also relatively strong growth in the other two business units. Kitchen, cooking, electrical appliances, air fryers, especially rice cookers and coffee -- automatic coffee machines, and finally, also cookware. Regardless of the type of coating, all types of coatings are present in frying pans and also knives. And finally, regarding profitability, ORfA operating results from activity is EUR 118 million, so up 70% versus Q1 2023. And here, we can see the impact of -- are the measures taken on the commercial, the trade dynamic. We have a positive volume effect and also a product mix effect declining cost of goods sold is also observed. And we have increased our costs throughout 2023, and we can read the results in Q1 2024. And there will be another decrease in the costs, not quite so much. And we have finally the negative FX impact, as expected, partly offset by price effect. Now just to remind you the Q1 performance, is only a slight part -- a small part in the year performance depending on the year, we have between 10% and 15%. So we should not come to any hasty conclusions regarding the rest of the year. The first quarter is less important in recent years, especially with the Chinese market evolution. A few years ago, the Chinese New Year event was the big event but it's changing now. And because online sales have grown 18th June, 11th of November have become important events. The first quarter a few years ago was 40% of the annual group's results. And now the fourth quarter seems to be taking the lead. So relative importance of the first quarter with regard to China.

Thank you, Olivier. Just a few words regarding 2024 perspective, the outlook, Q1 is not very representative. We confirm what we have said so far. What we said when we disclosed the year result in February, we expect a relatively stable economic context. The geopolitical one is not quite so sure. Good resilience in consumer markets, and we believe that professional markets will continue with their risk development. Therefore, regarding -- with regard to sales, we can confirm, as we have seen this during Q1, that we are generally going back to growth in mature countries, gradual year-round recovery in China. We see that we started the year with a good dynamic in emerging markets. So this is promising. Especially considering that we still have a penalizing currency environment. The Egyptian currency, the Turkey currency, for instance. And finally, we believe that we will have continued growth in Professional appliances on a high comparison market base. We would like -- we have informed the markets that in 2024, we are going towards recovering and operating margin close to 10%, which is normally at historical level.

Thank you very much, Stanislas, and Olivier for sharing the 2023 results and Q1 2024 results. So we can talk about the group strategy, 3 chapters. For instance, by way of introduction, our midterm ambitions, which we have been pursuing for several years now. And in December, when we did the Investor Day, we said that our midterm ambition was a growth in excess of 5%. I'm talking about organic growth like-for-like. Tcpc in French. You will see in the next slide that this is what we normally achieve. And the operational margin should go towards 11%, especially considering our professional activity. And if we combine these two elements, this will lead us to marked free cash flow generation. And if you look at the past, we understand where we started from in 2013 until 2023. Organic growth for sales was [ 46.8. ] So progressively increasing, except for COVID years, 2020, especially. 2021 was a very good year and then COVID strike back again. In 2023 is the year where we recover an organic growth in excess of 5%. and as we said earlier, we are very much planning on continuing that way. Regarding our operational margin, we have been saying for years that we believe that the margin should be approximately 10%. And if it's slightly lower than that, now well, we are taking medicines. And if it increases, we invest again to ensure that growth continues. And we are aiming at getting close to 11% thanks to our professional activity and the cash flow, which was EUR 200 million and then EUR 300 million, EUR 400 million over the years. And now we're talking more than EUR 500 million. In average, there are stock variations but inventory variations, but usually cash flow increases every year, which ensures a good long-term vision. Now the consequence is growth profitability. But in order to achieve this, we have to consider the consumer strategy. This is one of our peers innovative products. So we're innovating products all the time. And Stanislas is going to bore you in a few minutes talking about some product families, and you will understand what it means, although most of you probably are familiar with the item. And we constantly open new product categories so that we have a broader offer to meet our consumers' needs and expectations. And finally, geographic expansion in mature markets and in -- mostly in the emerging markets where we have a huge reservoir of customers because growth in emerging markets, it's directly connected to GBP per inhabitant and all those countries are growing and the population wants to invest. A quick reminder regarding consumer activities because it gets you an order of magnitude, EUR 90 billion, approximately across the world, which means EUR 25 billion for cooking, cookware, pans and skillets, plastic boxes, cooking ware. And this is a huge market on which we are by far the leader, electrical cooking appliances. And Finally, home and consumer care, EUR 30 billion, the -- especially vacuum cleaners, where we are. So for Professional market. We started in the Professional division late 2016, December 2016, by end we would like to leverage the success. And I'll provide a few examples later regarding acquisitions, which we carried out to improve our product offer and our geographic expansion. In the meantime, we decided to go for professional cookware and looking appliances because we believe this is a very interesting and promising market. Out of the EUR 75 billion, EUR 3 billion are in coffee, EUR 12 billion in cookware, and it means we have huge opportunities and we're going to do for the professional market what we did for the consumer market and the coffee machine market, acquisitions and organic growth, both being fueled by permanent productization and international expansion. So we're going to continue along the same lines, both divisions, professional and the customer with the traditional recipe that consists in developing very strong brands. If we add the age of each brands, we actually have more than 3,000 years in total. Our brands sometimes that are only known locally but sometimes they are internationally acknowledged such as Tefal and Moulinex. And our latest acquisition, which only joined us 1 month ago, Lacanche. Lacanche is actually a brand that was -- that started existing before the French evolution in 1763. So we now have jewel that has more than 200 years of existence. We're proud of this, they recently joined us, I would say, a few words later. We have -- we are more present on the world than anybody else. We are present in all 5 continents, and have continued innovating for decades. And by far, we have the largest mix of products compared with our competitors. We are looking at some competitors who are very focused on 1 or 2 families of products. I mean, you know exactly one referring to for vacuum cleaners appliances but no one else has such a wide portfolio as ours. And we believe that is a huge advantage over the long run. There are fashions. You see sometimes, the washing machines are fashionable and then all of a sudden, they are not quite so much. But now we have a very powerful execution, trade execution strategy and we thought, do we want to deliver all the channels or focus on some channels? And we said, okay, we'll deliver to all the channels because the consumers have tried it either by online, on the net, on the web, through platforms or networks, but they also might want to buy from shops, supermarkets. We want to be everywhere, so that the consumer can find us everywhere, they see us everywhere. 100% of the people who buy from us have come across the product in the shop. So we are an industrial company. We're proud of it. We have 44 industrial sites across the world, 14 of which in France, 14 in industry that was mostly delocalized, but yet we still rely on our French factories, and we are defending our French factories because we're proud of them. I believe that our knowledge is -- we have acquired quite a lot of knowledge regarding external growth, and we have 25 acquisitions in the last 15 years. And Stanislas will talk about this later but we really, really want to be a leader regarding CSR, corporate responsibility and environmental responsibility. I mean it runs in our blood. Our DNA is repairing household appliances, [indiscernible] was in the repairing household appliances. And we come from the repairing background and we still have spare parts in France. We have not delocalized them. We've been criticized for it and our people are thanking us that we did this. So we are -- we have spare parts to repair the machines and the appliances. And very proud that we're being thank and congratulate. Stanislas, regarding the consumer market?

Yes. It all started with the group's mission, improving life for our consumers and helping people live a better life across the world. And this is precisely the mission that has been guiding our product development policy guarding our activity and this is the mission, the task that matches our consumers' priorities and wishes and expectations, especially the middle classes because they're very happy to consume our products. They want premium appliances. They want to improve the daily lives, they want appliances that will help them improve their life. I will not go over all the innovations because we're talking 400 to 1,000 products every year. Innovation is a permanent flow, a repeated flow across all the business units. We have more than 300 people working in strategic marketing, more than 300 now because we've made some acquisitions, and they're all working on product development on a daily basis. We invest 4% of our turnover in research and development, and strategic marketing. And I will give you just a few examples to illustrate in a non-exhaustive way, our innovation policy. I will start with the historic category linen care. Now in a category that seems easy, looking for clothing and garments, there are several needs. One need is last minute use. Total delegation to the appliance and looking for a correct but not perfect result. And we have developed machines that can help remove the wrinkles, Pure Pop & Care For You for you. we have machines that look like a cupboard a machine in which you place 3 garments. And in minutes, they are as well, almost as well ironed as with a steam iron. And also we have a historic need of people looking for an impeccable result with premium equipment, either steam or steam force irons, and we can innovate on performance. We can improve systems to remove [indiscernible] and we have innovation, [indiscernible] innovation or technological innovations. And finally, the third topic that has been increasingly coming to the forefront, are eco-friendly solutions. We have developed eco design irons, which meet more stringent specifications in their eco-design. And I'm talking about these 3 subjects because by being present across the categories for linen care, we can actually reinforce our international leadership, 30% market share. And Thierry was saying that our market was decreasing slightly. And in 2023, it's a figure -- a 2-digit increase. Now a small observation because we've been told again and again that we are very much holding onto PTFE but I'll come back to that. We're present in all the category of pans and Gillette or we're present for PTFE, the aluminum, stainless stell or ceramics, we're present everywhere. And we are every develop -- developing everywhere because for each of these materials, we find there is a huge -- a different use and a different type of consumer, and we want to meet all our consumers' needs. Across the market through the different technologies and different kinds of products they're looking for. Regarding cookware, as we call them, we have market. Core products for China, Colombia. We have 3 premium brands, which come on top of Tefal, Lagostina which originates from Italy, WMF from Germany, and it has become almost [indiscernible]. We have developed innovation with the Ingenio system with removable handle. And it's one of our best sellers. It's expanding very much. It was only France few years ago, now it's been launched in other countries. And Ingenio is developing very fast. It's an across-the-board technology that can be used with all categories of products. Another category of products not well, not quite so known in France but very well known in China. Rice cookers. Rice cookers are a huge market in China. Last year, we sold more than 15 million units on -- across China. It's a category of products with a very wide range in terms of prices. We talk from -- we start from CNY 300, EUR 40, up to CNY 2,400, which is EUR 300. So in all the categories, there is room for innovation. There is room for better, higher range products. And for rice cookers, innovation means trying to find a healthier way and the faster way to cook rice. In the -- also cooking system, the way the machine heats up the water, also the shape of the machine, whether it's round of square, it means a more homogeneous heat, and therefore, a rice that is better cooked. And we French people eat rice sometimes but Chinese people eat rice twice a day, and the way the rice is cooked, matters a lot to them. There are also innovations that are following the Chinese society evolution. In China, there are increasingly single-parent families or students or people living alone. So we're working on smaller formats. We're working on different programs for the machines. And even for a mature category such as rice cookers we still find ways to innovate and develop our sales. 7% growth in China in 2022, like a very mature category of product, which means, yes, we have found an opportunity to reinforce our leadership. And I'd like you to watch this little video for rice cookers. [Presentation]

Let's move on to another category relatively new for us versatile vacuum cleaners. Category that we penetrated like 10, 12 years ago. And it was needed initially until 2019, 2020, 2021. But for the last 2, 3, maybe 4 years, we finally found a way. We have -- it's a very competitive range of products. We have products from EUR 150 to more than EUR 500 in our range. But it's a continued effort in time. And this helps us now claim the second position for Western Europe on the market. We have registered very good success in Eastern Europe. We are either #1 or #2 in many countries. And we -- sales have grown 10% a in 2023. So it's a very good performance. It took time to take off but now it's flying. And I'd like you to discover the latest addition to the range, the Rowenta vacuum cleaner. [Presentation]

So you see, it's a stories, categories, where we had to take a break and we're back with the air fryers. We developed this category with Actifry, it became a world success. Now we've obviously, to our air fryers. We didn't know how to react initially. 3, 4 years ago, we went back into the fight, and we are not developing our air fryers with different kinds of offers, different price levels. And again, a short video for you to discover the air fryers and the new products coming on the market, which are going to be a breakthrough. And just to give you an idea of the prices, we're talking about 7 million air fryers sold in 2023 across the world. The offer is -- can be found in 50 countries, and in 2023, the sales have doubled in Europe, except for great Britain. And we're talking about a category that did not exist in China a few years ago, is now developing in China, providing support to develop air fryers in their own Shaoxing factory. And finally, the Cookeo saga because small cooking appliances have started with the Cookeo cooker in 2012, and now we have an international presence across many countries, as you can see on the slide, the Cookeo machine is more sophisticated. It's connected. It has its in-built recipes, it can weigh the products and consumers who own a entry range Cookeo also by the top of the range, 499 Cookeos because they can add the air fryer cover, which increases the versatility. So as a consequence, because I could talk about this for ages but to cut to the chase, the consequence can be observed in the 2023 to over EUR 2.5 billion sales with products that have been launched in 2021. And we would like to repeat that innovation is at the heart of our performance and development activity. And I believe that these examples and these figures are simply speaking volumes about this.

Thank you, Stanislas. A few words about the professional market. Start at EUR 15 billion. Those the drinks, which are cold drinks as well [indiscernible], there is a cooking and hotel equipment. Early with WMF have been since 2017. Now this is a very big market and significant growth. This is in development activity, whether it be HoReCa, out-of-home restaurants outside of the home. And restaurants and drinks, very interesting business because we're not in an activity towards the final customer. There's people that are -- so the return on investment is very fast. Where there be from Starbucks. We already have -- we sell -- thing is with our machines they never break. The motors are very strong and the margins are great. They good for them, they good for us. It's good with everybody is happy. And it's recurring because there's a services side to it. We need to go to check and make sure that those machines never break down. So there are maintenance contracts, which are very interesting as well. So all of that end-to-end means that this is grow -- a strong growth, and very profitable as well with operating margins, which are greater than 15%, generally. So it's very interesting. And that's why we've decided to go for it and to make an important sector of the group for us. I'm not going to go back on this on the next slide, which I commented on already but I just want to give you our strategy. We have, at the beginning, entered by the Professional Coffee machines by buying WMF, which immediately gave us a #1 position in fully automatic machines in the world. As you can see, the machines here. The ones you have in the major hotel chains. And we have 500,000 machines and 30 million cups of coffee prepared every day by our machines. So this is a position, which is significant. We have two brands, our German brand, WMF made [indiscernible] and Swiss brand [indiscernible]. These are 1 of the businesses where the major brands are still manufactured in Europe, in Switzerland and in Germany. So we're in very strong positions. The position we have developed geographically. We've bought WMF [indiscernible] at the end of 2016, and sales in Europe were lower than 30%. Now we're more than 50% is what we're selling, very strong development in the U.S. and in China. Two enormous geographical areas as Stanislas was saying earlier, what's interesting is it coffee even tea type countries such as India and China where tea is prevalent, is a very strong development of coffee. They continue to drink tea at home or in the office but they go to Starbucks or elsewhere to meet their friends and then they can have coffee. It's working very well. And coffee is not our kind of coffee. They also have fruit juice, they have cold recipes as well, which have nothing to do with the ones that we drink in Europe. But our business is to adapt to consumers. And in effect, buying [indiscernible], which is the #2 in the U.S. market after WMF, there in Los Angeles and a more recent purchase of [indiscernible] near Venice, they make traditional Italian coffee-making machines, which we're going to be developing as well, obviously. So we have this organic development strategy. Why? Because we have broader needs after having served hotels and restaurants and so forth in Starbucks and others. We also have a strong development in offices, in proximity stores, convenience stores, grocery, restaurant chains, which are strongly developing and they need different machines for offices. For offices or lawyers -- law offices, we have like 200 coffees a day in these places. So need smaller machines that take up less room that are cheaper. So we now have the product range for that. We bought -- we've taken a applied in China to produce that for the Chinese market and for the rest of the world but you also need all price ranges. So our intention is to go more into professional to cover all possible uses and all types of products. And more recently, we have a real will to develop in professional areas and semi-professional areas since we have -- you can see in this slide, we have 2 categories. We've got beverages. You get WMF, Schaerer, Curtis, Lan San Marco, cold drinks as Zummo, which is a Spanish company. And then in Professional cooking, we've had these for a long time Tefal. It's a brand that's been sold in many, many restaurants. We have WMF as well and All-Clad, which we bought in 2004, that is made in the U.S.A., a very, very top of the line used in all major restaurants in the world. Then WMF, we also acquired Pacojet in 2023 in Swiss. And what specific leadership position in Europe and the last acquisition was Charvet, that's a [indiscernible] like Group with 2 brands, 2 major markets brands. Semi-pro is Charvet, well known by all professionals, and that's really going in through the big door into professional cooking. So the market, obviously, our strategy is to develop further in these products. So we're playing on both synergies amongst all of these different companies. So the synergies for innovation because we have teams that can help companies who are small to give them better resources and also some health commercial like these are big countries, there are other countries where these can be developed. Now they are based in Burgundy. It's roughly about an hour away from [indiscernible] with another plant in [indiscernible] which is near in the [indiscernible] region, another [indiscernible] company. About 2 million in sales present in 45 countries around the world. There are several brands such as Charvet so forth and other less well known. And we wanted to show a bit of a video about their products. Let's have a look together. [Presentation]

These are all technologies that we have perfectly. We know perfectly well. We're very comfortable with these new acquisitions, and that's going to help us grow. And the last aspect of the CSR strategy, Stanislas.

Everything starts -- and for many years, the group is a pioneer in CSR. It started around the year 2000, where that role didn't exist. So it's something that is really well-anchored now. We're doing 2 things today to talk about where we stand about what we've done in terms of the trajectory that we defined in 2018, from 2018 to 2023. So we're going to report back on that. And then touch upon what we're going to be doing in the future. So from 2018 to 2023, we have a positive return on this roadmap. We had 4 pillars with 20 KPIs, quantitative KPIs. We sort of 119% achievement of those KPIs. So we're way ahead of the trajectory that we had initially decided upon. So 4 pillars, the first of which is people matter, 102%, having to do with gender equality, secured health and safety in the workplace. I'll get back to that. The second is about climate action, low -- so the carbon plan, low carbon and eco-packaging. The third pillar is about circular revolution. So basically, this has to do with the recycled plastics in France, use of recycled plastic and repairability, which is a very important issue that we've been working on for a long time in our electricals. And also sustainable innovation. We're working in depth in this area on all product innovation processes to make sure that all of the products that we produce can be more virtuous year after year. So not getting into the details of the major changes that we've implemented in 2018 to '23. The first indicator has to do with diversity in the percentage of women in management, the percentage of men compared to women in jobs in the company. I'm doing the best I can. We're talking about ratios. So the proportion of women managers is 38% in 2018, and there's 42% of staff. And we're almost equal now in 43% of staff are women and 42% of managers are women. So we have a bit of work to do in key positions, but we are working on it. The second major success in this -- the policy is the sharp reduction in lost time accidents. This is standard measurement. The total recordable injury rate per million were 1.6 in -- I'm sorry, 2.6 in 2018. We went down to 1.5 in 2020, and we're stating only 0.7% at 2023. So these -- this is a very good performance indeed. And our Board members have operational experience in major -- and bounce right back by '23 standing at 48%. We have basically almost met the whole goal. And the last point is a reduction in scopes 1 and 2 that we did. The ambition was 15% in scope 3. Now these are emissions from the CO2 products. So we've done 19% of reduction at constant country mix. We only did 9% of the total because the weight of China is very significant [indiscernible]. On the roadmap for 2024-2030, which will be on certain areas was acting for all, acting responsibly and ethically, acting as a leader of the circular economy and acting for nature. So we're eternally finalizing these various approaches from 2024 through 2030. Here again, we're setting objectives, which are quite aggressive and quantified. We'll be communicating on the trajectory in CSR in the second quarter in 2024 to all of our stakeholders. That's what I had to say about our CSR policies.

Thank you, Stanislas. Thank you so much. If there are any questions, we can get back to that during the Q&A. Now we're going to be having a look at PFAS. Cathy Pianon, who is in charge of Public Affairs and Communications, who will be taking the floor. She'll be next to the Chair.

We're going to show you a few slides and maybe show you a couple of films. And we'll get back to any questions you may have for us during the Q&A. I don't know if you can read this, but what you see -- you heard about these products. There are a lot of PFAS. There are pesticides, there's fire extinguisher, the paint to this -- there's all kinds of impermeable clothing and so forth. They're sort of everywhere. So the next slide, there's more than 15,000 different components, different -- which have -- that can be anti-adhesive, heat resistant and so forth. All of these are broadly used since 1940 in many industries. So I think what's very important and needs to be said at this point, because we've heard a lot of things said, a lot of crazy things said, is that there are 2 types of PFAS. There are PFAS of concern by their very nature, their cellular nature, their molecular structure, they can be dangerous, and those are PFAS of concern. And then there are polymers, the PTFE, which is what we use for our anti-adhesive coatings. These are well-known as being not dangerous. Why? It's very simple. Nothing to do, the structure -- the molecular structure is totally different. If you look at what's concerning are small molecules, and the PFAS are water soluble. The others are not. The PFAS of concern are volatile, and polymers are not volatile. PFAS of concern are bioavailable. They're not bioavailable for polymers. And bioacumulative, they're not bioaccumulative with polymers. PFAS of concern are mobile, and polymers are not mobile. And PFAS of concern are toxic, and polymers are not toxic. Why? For very simple reasons. They're measured by science and have been measured for years. There is something called the molecular weight. PFAS of concern have a very low molecular weight. So molecular mass is very low. And the organism that handles safety, food safety, the French, the European health agency in Europe, the EFSA, has considered that up to 1,000 units of measurement are deltas. Delta one delta is the number of grams divided by 10 to the power of -- to the 23rd power. And Europe considers that up to 1,000 is dangerous, up to 1,500, just to be safe. And a lot of PFAS of concern, the PFOA, has been prohibited since 2020 in France. There's 440. The PFAS is 407. The polymers, including PTFE, which is what we use, is more than millions, more than 1 million in terms of that and tens of millions to the consultation requested by the European Union, which concluded last September. Because Cathy can talk about that in a minute. She's continuing to look into that. We've already said that, obviously, we have to stop with PFAS of concern. We obviously are -- is a source of -- for all of us, for all of our health. So that can't change because these are molecular structures, physics. We can't say tomorrow, it's going to have -- we're going to have a different result. We -- a triangle is not square. So we have -- people have to stop saying any old thing. Many things have said and written, which are totally false, and that's not good. Now the studies show that -- innocuous. Since the 1940s, PTFA of -- there are a lot of publications and studies. More than 90 studies have been published run by regulating authorities. There's the BFR, which is German, the Food and Drug Administration, the FDA, the World Health Organization, the OECD, the American Cancer Society, all of those have been running studies. Here's a list out of the 90, and what's interesting here is to see 2 things. The first thing is that the first studies date back to the '69 (sic) [ 1979 ] in the World Health Organization. But we're not talking about studies that are old. In 2024, the American Cancer Society published a PTFE about culinary devices. So it doesn't concern any professionals in our industrials. These are scientists that are running these studies, not us. And I think it's very important to know that. And I just wanted to go over before I hand over to Cathy, that our priority has always been, obviously, and is still the health of our staff and our consumers. Health has always been a priority right from the first questions [ at a grid ] about PFOA, which the PFOA has been prohibited since 2020. We stopped in 2012. We started changing out in 2003, 17 years before it became mandatory, 17 years before to take the time to study and not do like everybody who waited til the last minute to replace PFOA by something else, which has been accused of any old thing. We've never done that. So this is considered as being absolutely without danger. As soon as the first questions arose in 2003, we did test and we looked into to remediate. So PFOAs were totally stopped. Under the -- by the hospital at Grenoble and not by any analysis were any traces found either in urine or other samples. So this is strictly controlled by independent laboratories. And they analyze everything to make sure that there are no hazardous materials in the absence of any problematic things. So all necessary securities are in place. We repeat that we are obviously sensitive to health of our staff and our consumers. I think that Tefal, for the sense of '60s, had to build -- make 2 billion frying pans, probably more than anybody else in the world. We've already always used the right kind of coating, which are secure for our consumers. Now this we're talking about this more in Europe now, kind of suddenly -- and I'm going to let Cathy explain a few things about that to you.

Thank you. About the consultation, what happened in France, we'll talk about that a bit later. Europe kicked off an initiative for consultation, a possible prohibition of all PFAS, which was an initiative of 5 European countries, including Germany, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands. There was a proposal for restriction, which were submitted on the European level because there is a mechanism which is quite a full featured in February '23 with an opening of the consultation. There's a window of 6 months so that anybody who wanted to contribute and feedback could submit comments. This could take the form of a professional association, a company or a private individual. Because when the closure -- when it was closed in '23, there's 6,500 responses total, which I've never seen before in the urban level on anything, even on plastics. About those 6,500 contributions, there were 1,500 that were from private individuals, notably Swedish because Sweden had called via online. They asked their people online to contribute individually. And companies, including SEB, we responded in September. You still have the possibility, when you respond, to do it anonymously or openly and transparently. That was what we chose to do in the 10th of September to do a response to the consultation transparently in the name of the SEB Group. And the first lines of what we handed back in '23 were the SEB Group is in favor of regulation of PFAS that are of concern with the distinction for those that are not of concern, where we have never had a restriction in all of the PFAS, but only the ones that are hazardous. So we answered, and there was an evaluation period. There were 2 committees to -- you have one committee about chemical risks, which will be looking at a study on chemical risks of all PFAS. But -- now this is the first because Norwegians made to look at it substance by substance under a [ reach ]. Now here, the idea is to group them together. We see 15,000 or 12,000, I'm not really sure yet, but all the PFAS, which is -- this is made to be studied molecule by molecule. So we have 2 committees. One is looking at chemical risk and the other is looking at social and environmental risk, the sort of globally environmental. They're going to be looking at what was handed back and to make a decision and then to make a proposal. In terms of the European Parliament for their recommendation, so where we stand now is the contributions were such that things are a bit late because I wanted to look at everything. I think that in principle during the first -- in 2024 because it's by sector, there are kitchen utensils, for example, which are -- have a study of chemical risk involved for those products. And the proposal of the commission after the evaluation could take place. I think it's by 2025. That's the proposal of the commission. But the new composition of the European Council, as you know, there are elections that are going to be held June in all European countries. So subsequent to that, the proposal will be submitted to a vote at the European Parliament with what will be decided because for the --we don't know what's going to be decided or what's going to be on the vote. So each time if you take what's been said to date, and I'll get back to this about certain positions that have taken countries that -- on the initiative of that proposal, the period of transition will be between 3 and 12 years. So clearly, in computers and aviation, you have PTFEs, and the transition period is 12 years because even -- to do the hydrogen plan and many things on the European level will require. If these products disappear, the green deal and a certain number of other things and projects and computers, quantum computers would be affected. So the period of 12 years is already was on the table, and we wonder in medication. You've got Prozac which contains this type of substance as well. So the project is going to move. If you look on the next slide, just to give you some details. Now the proposal was decided by the OECD based on the OECD definition. And the entity noted that the definition was not relevant for regulatory purposes. So that introduces a certain level of uncertainty. It's Great Britain and Japan makes the distinction in the framework of Brexit. United Kingdom are doing their own [ reach ] approach. Indeed, in Great Britain, they are starting to put together the differentiation between polymer and nonpolymer. Germany, after signing the European restriction proposal, the German government has reversed course in the interest of avoiding excessive regulation. We're going to have to look at this on a case-by-case basis, they say, to be careful about different uses and take precautions. But -- and the day before yesterday, the Breton committee on -- have proposed, it can confirm that the commission was going to have exemptions. And we're starting to have a second look at what we're going to be enacting on the European level. So the very detailed response provided the day before yesterday. So, so much for the countries and their position. We move on to the next slide. We're going to talk about France. Recently, unprecedented efforts by our unions to defend our expertise. The ecologist and the National Assembly, there was a projected law involving 4 sectors: cosmetics, ski wax, textiles, and I think it's important to remember that about kitchen utensils worldwide, including with our competitors, we represent 0.5% of worldwide pieces. In terms of volume, it's significant to give -- bear it in mind. So the proposal arrived at the National Assembly in the framework of niche activities, and everyone can propose tax that can be discussed. So this arrived in February 2024 with a vote in the Sustainable Development Commission on the text. And then during a plenary session of the National Assembly in the 4th of April, between the 2, it had a few modifications. We're drawing certain kitchen utensil and some for textiles as well. But I said this earlier, but the time of -- the things you're sitting on today have been treated with PFAS, so in terms of air mobility and so forth as well. So introduction of a clause which is a mechanism that was required by the few, which could've been operated on at any time. The 4th of April, with kitchen utensils, the director came out. Yesterday, in the SDA Committee and the Senate because in the framework of working in the 2 chambers have worked on the first text and the Senate passed it as well and the Sustainable Development Commission, even though there were different amendments that were submitted for kitchen utensils were not reintroduced and the safeguard clause was gotten rid of for the vote in the plenary, which will take place on shortly. This is a short summary of the trend observed over the last few years -- the few weeks, sorry. I just wanted to lay the emphasis on our group's position because it's been heated debate in the social media, in the press. And I just wanted to give you a quick overview of where we stand and what our positions are. We're going to show you 2 short videos.

Sorry. I forgot the microphone. Two short videos. And I understand -- I mean, you need to understand what this is all about because you're shareholders. The first video is about the demonstration that took place the day before the vote in the French assembly. We interviewed somebody called Bernard Accoyer. For those of you who don't know him, Bernard Accoyer is a physician, and he was the mayor of Annecy-le-Vieux. And he was the Chairman of the National -- the French parliament for years. So he is very familiar with anything relating to laws and build a law. And we would like to show you this short video. [Presentation]

So it was very interesting to hear what the former Chairman of the French Parliament had to say. And I would like to show you another video, Stanislas de Gramont, our CEO, went to meet the Rumilly factory teams, and I would like to show you the video of what happened when they met. And with the Tefal CEO, so they met the Rumilly workers. And I think that this video is very interesting. [Presentation]

Thank you very much for this contribution.

So if you have any questions, we will answer them later. But again, we have a website on tefal.fr with all the documents regarding the innocuity of polymers and the history on how we use polymers to coat our pans. If you'd like to find out more about this subject, you can log on to the website.

And again, I would like to repeat that the health and safety of our workers and our consumers will and will always be our priorities. It's always been our priority. The SEB Group supports the project to ban dangerous PFAS, but not all PFAS. And we will continue diversifying our offer in order to meet the expectations of our consumers. And I affirm we are available to answer any questions during the Q&A session. So right, thank you very much. I'd like to move on to the more legal part of our general assembly before we move on to the Q&A session. We will talk about capital, the share price, dividends. Share capital breakdown 31st of December 2023, no marked variations versus 31st of December 2022. Free float is 40.5%. Family concerted voting block, you will see on the screen. We also have next to the family, our historical shareholders, Peugeot Invest, FSP, BPIFRANCE, 31st of December 2023, no major variation versus 2022. One major variation early 2024 because after 20 years of presence in the SEB Capital, Peugeot Invest had decided to change their portfolio. I would like to thank them for their unrelenting loyalty. 20 years is a very long time. Probably after a while, they just want to look elsewhere and change the content of their portfolio. It did have a small effect on our shareholders because Peugeot Invest, having been our [indiscernible] investors after 20 years, right came up to 533.9 of the voting rights. Two more slides regarding the share price as of January 2023, up 42.5% versus 1st of January 2023. The [ SBF 100] has gone up 22.3%. And if we look over the 15 years, we see that SEB's progression is 366% and the SBF 120 is 115.1% -- 150.1%, meaning that the total share return is 13% per year. We could do better, but it's not too bad. Finally, how are the -- how is the financial community judging us? Especially for some investors who have been following us for years and who talk to our people in charge of financial communication on a regular basis. There are 12 financial analysts who know us really well. 11 say, recommended by, 1 Equitas recommends to hold. So there's a potential for growth of 17% versus the current share price. Some analysts -- most analysts seem to trust us. Dividend trend over the long run. The Board met in late February and decided to submit to today's general assembly, a EUR 2.62 dividend per share, and there is also the loyalty bonus for shares that have been held for more than 2 years, limited 2.5% of the capital, which means we have an average annual growth since 2009 of 7% per year. And you probably aware that our group's dividend policy was not to give a magical payout, but rather to have a dividend that increases year after year. And that's exactly what we have achieved since 1975 with the exception of 2019. But we know very well that the President of the Republic at the time asked us to decrease the dividend by 30% to take in consideration the [ PGF ] plan at the time. But otherwise, we've always managed to at least keep our dividends on the same level or even increase them. But they've never been lowered since 1975. That's as far as I wanted to tell you regarding the capital. I'd like to give the floor to Philippe Sumeire for anything pertaining to governance.

Governance. Board composition, March 1, 2024. Why March 1? Well, because as you just heard, Peugeot Invest just exited our capital, and therefore, their Director resigned from the Board. There have been a few changes in 2023 and 2024. BPIFRANCE sent a new permanent representative, Mrs. [ Gairard ] was replaced by Mr. Guillaume Mortelier who's with us today. And Peugeot Invest, the Director resigned from the Board, and the Board went from 16 members to 14 members. This is the current composition: 4 independent directors, 2 directors representing the employees, who have been elected by the French works council and 1 by European works council, 1 director representing the workers, the [ SEB A Fund ] and 6 representing the family, and they hold 41% of the voting rights. Now the Board, although there are now 14 members, is still in compliance with the MEDEF code 1/3 of independent directors, 36%. We have 45% of ladies, which means that we comply also with that code. And the average age is 55 years. So it's a relatively young Board. I will not go over the figures that you can now see on the slide, expect for the -- except for the number of meetings. Because that's obviously what you're interested in, what the council or what the Board does. Do we work? Does the board work? There have been 7 meetings in 2023, slightly less than usually. Normally, we hold between 8 and 10 meetings, but there were less exceptional items that we needed to address. And regarding the shareholding -- the presence rate, it's 97%, and that is due to a very simple reason. Some independent directors also sit on other Boards. And therefore, when the meetings are imposed, such as the accounts disclosure meetings, accounts approval meeting, well, there might be several meetings at the same time in several companies. And that's the only reason why we don't have a 100% attendance rate, but only 96.5% attendance rate. We move to the Board itself -- the committees, sorry. We have 3 committees, 2 very old, created in 1991, the Audit and Compliance Committee, the Governance and Compensation Committee, although they may have changed slightly in the name, and the new committee that was created in 2022, the Strategy and CSR Committee. Please note that these committees, the Audit and Compliance Committee is composed 75% of independent directors, in compliance with the legal regulations in the AFEP code. They made 5x. There has been a progressive increase in the number of meetings because they have more work do. And especially now with the new CSR criteria, they will have more work but there is a lot to do with compliance in general. The Governance and Compensation Committee, which is in charge of appointing the Board members and also in charge of approving compensation for managers and directors, this committee is 50% of independent directors. For a mechanical quite simple reason, the family members are divided in 2 groups, and they both want to be represented in this committee. And the meet -- they have met 6x, which is a higher number. They have -- the 50% independent director, we will see this when we go over this year's nomination. But they've also worked on governance, compensation, nomination -- appointments. And finally, the Strategy and CSR Committee is the latest addition created in January '22. They met for the first time in 2023, sorry, late 2022, they met for the first time, and they also met in 2023. And this committee is chaired by Thierry de La Tour d'Artaise, our CEO. And there are 6 members, actually 5 because Jérôme Lescure recently resigned. The representative of Peugeot Invest recently left, and they have 50% independent directors. They meet 3 times a year to discuss the CSR policy. We have recently discussed a new policy which was decided by -- set up by the subcommittee, but they also go over the acquisition strategy and strategic orientations. Every year, they go over the conclusions of the business units and continents regarding the product offer. Let's move on to the board evaluation. I would like to dwell on this item for a few minutes. I believe it's worth the effort. For those of you who are familiar with our work, every year, we conduct a board assessment. Now the Board is assessed internally, and the Chairman of the committee thought that maybe it was time we moved to an external evaluation with an external company. So in 2023, the CGR decided to work on this external assessment, which was conducted according to the rules. There was a ban for the call for tenders. We looked at different companies. And then finally, the committee, the -- chose a company. There was an exchange of questionnaires and individual answers and [ annual results ] from each director and an individual interview between the directors and the consultant. And finally, following this, the consultant provided conclusions to the Governance and Compensation Committee first and then to the whole Board. And we summarize the report because it was very dense. I mean, they were long questionnaires. But really, in a nutshell, the valuation showed, first of all, that there was a very strong relationship between the Board and the management team, especially considering that the Board recognizes that the difference between the CEO and the General Manager is working really well. They work well together, although they are 2 different people. And also the way business was conducted and the involvement in the Board strategy was important. At every Board meeting, we go over the economic performances, the activities, the income, and the Board is directly involved. And also, they observed that all 3 committees work in a very dynamic way under the guidance of their respective Chairs, chairperson, and that is something that the auditors observed. Also, they said that there was room for improvement. They said that maybe the individual skills could be improved for the directors because this is a highly regulated environment. There has been a training for CSR rules and regulations for our Board directors, but we are facing a very difficult environment, which leads to a lot of anxiety, and people really need to improve their competencies and skills. Something else they highlighted and that's something the directors have worked and the committee chair people are working on. The fact that they need to cooperate more on the CSR-related items because this is really an across-the-board kind of item, and they all have something to do. For instance, the Governance and Compensation Committee has to say something about free share attributions, and the Board and the Governance and Compensation Committee will continue working as far as the management team composition is concerned. So this is what I had to say regarding governance. Can -- may I continue?

Yes.

A few more words before we vote on the resolutions. We will be showing you the resolutions on the screen. You received a notice to invite you to this general assembly plus an addendum. We have the current regular resolutions and also some extraordinary ones. Regarding the extraordinary ones, the financial delegations have been voted for 26 months. So last year, we didn't have to go over them. But this year, we do, and next year, there will be less resolutions to adopt because they will not be included. Now something this year, which is specific, we need to appoint auditors on sustainability. This is imposed by the CSRD directive, whereby we need to have auditors regarding sustainability. And for the 2024 accounts, which need to take in consideration the sustainability criteria for CSR purposes, this will be done in 2025 based on the 2024 accounts. Therefore, the law imposes that we appoint auditors this year to certify our sustainability strategy. The Board decided to go for the following option. We will ask our current auditors to accept this task. And because they have the necessary skills and human resources, if they have the necessary skills and human resources to do it, and the contract will go on for 3 years. So that is until the end of their terms of reference. Now regarding the resolution projects that we received, we have A, B and C resolutions. I'd like to say just a few words very quickly. And then maybe whoever wrote those resolutions might want to take the floor during the Q&A session. We have an addendum, as I said. We're looking at 3 projects, one, to appoint Mr. Pascal Girardot as Director. He is present. He is the FÉDÉRACTIVE Chairman, a group of shareholders, 7.2% of our capital. Second resolutions, we have 2 statutory changes to set the maximum age for a director at the age of 72 years. Status are based on the law, and the rule that we apply so far is that only 1/3 of the directors can be older than 70. So we should not exceed 1/3. But our current average age is 55, so no danger there. Another change to introduce, to limit the CEO's age from 75 to 72 years of age. Now this was studied in April, and the board recommends to reject these resolutions, not to approve them. I will not go over the explanations, which can be found on the slide. But one, the Board believes that FÉDÉRACTIVE is actually doing more harm than good for the Board's functioning, and the previous attempts to be appointed as a Board member has -- have been rejected. And regarding the age limitation, again, this is not relevant because we have a fairly young Board, and we also would like to avoid that Thierry is no longer in a capacity to sit on the Board, and we would like to have more perspective over the future by not limiting the age. So we move on to the first resolution. Resolution #4 was -skip the one on the income. We -- you're familiar with those. The resolution to renew Mr. Thierry de La Tour d'Artaise's appointment, yes, he's a chartered accountant, and he's been with us for 30 years. And he's been the CEO for 22 years and as of July 2022 is the Chairman of the Board. Now to renew the FSP. To a reference, based on life insurance, they want to support growing companies over the long run, and that's the reason why they joined our capital in 2013. And at the time, Mrs. Catherine Pourre was chosen as the director to represent them. She is an independent director. She is neither working for FSP, neither paid by FSP. She's an independent director. She has extensive experience in the world of finance. She used to be a chartered accountant and an auditor. Then she joined Cap Gemini. And finally, she was the Unibail-Rodamco Finance Director. So we recommend that she -- that we renew the reappoint FSP and Mrs. Catherine Pourre to represent FSP. Then we have 2 more appointments from the family. First of all, the investment company that groups together all of the shareholders, which is roughly 20% of capital. This company is directed by Damarys Braida, who's present here. She is a Board member and has since 1990. She's been a Board member of the group, and she has had a career in L'Oréal. Lastly, an appointment because Mr. Jérôme Lescure expires at this general assembly, and the committee suggest that we appoint Mr. Francois Mirallié, who has been heard by the CGR and who's a candidate. He is supported by the Board. He is deploying from the École des Mines in Paris and the Wharton's Advanced Management Program. He has experienced in -- he was Senior Vice President of SATS and works for the Singapore company, called STATS -- or SATS, who works in airfreight. We will then move on to the package of resolutions having to do with compensation, from 8 to 13. Very quickly, 8 is the policy of compensation of corporate officers, 9 -- and is 2023. In other words, it's proposed to approve what was presented in 2023 as a proposal that was implemented in '23. And that is the case. Since the fixed portion of the salary of the chair was explained at the time was ex ante, so I'm not going to spend too much time on that. In the same way for the General Director, this is a bit more complicated because he benefits from a fixed compensation and a variable compensation pay and the long-term compensation subject now for 2023. And what was approved in 2022 for 2023, it was -- he executed it. And you can see it's displayed here. There's nothing new really. I think we can move quickly on that, up a bit later, right? And then for 2024, this is ex ante. The compensation proposed is subject to your vote. Insofar as the Chairman is concerned, it's a fixed compensation, which is displayed. There's no variable or performance shares and compensation as a director because you have the basic tokens and you have the President of the CSR and Strategy committees. For the General Director, the Chief Executive Officer in this slide, we're going to see how the compensation -- variable compensation is calculated. It's kind of the same every year. The structure of the variable part of pay for the CEO is comprised both of quantitative criteria for 75% for the variable part, and for 25% more qualitative criteria linked to individual performance and collective performance of the Executive Committee. As to the quantitative, it's still the same thing. It's both objectives of terms of sales goals and operating result from activity, and CSR criteria for 15% has been applied since 2018. And this is quantified in terms of work-related accidents, minimum social laxity and carbon emissions. About the directors' policy, we have the allocation of performance shares is going from 12,000 to 13,000, which is based on criteria that we are aware annually, the objectives of sales and ORfA. And what's new is CSR criteria for 20% of performance, free shares, and this has to do with 3 areas that you can see illustrated in the table. Now these are new factors in long-term compensation. So it used to be annual. But now the criteria here are not the same as those that are set for the annual bonus. And lastly, the next resolution 13 I think, has to do with Board compensation. Now in this slide, this is still the CEO, where we're going over how the fixed part of pay and the variable part of pay and the long-term commitments that they benefit from. Same as it's always been since 2018. So there's nothing new there. I won't spend any more time. But just to remind you that his fixed compensation was reviewed by the Board to go from EUR 825,000 up to EUR 900,000. That's for the fixed part of pay. And the compensation policy for directors, this has not changed, that the envelope is still the same. And the breakdown is still the same with the fixed and variable portions linked to presence at the board meetings. I'll jump over that. I think nothing has changed. Since '22, we have not modified those terms. Your board and the assembly have not modified that those envelopes. And to conclude, the extraordinary portion, you have financial authorizations and delegations or emitting powers, which are the same as what were proposed in 2022, yes, and for a duration of 26 months. In other words, the first, you have capital increases with [ PS ] with a limit of 10% of share capital. The 19 and 20 is a capital increase, either by public offering or private investment, so the preemptive right to purchase in the same limits of 10% of capital, and the issuing of all shares or share equivalents with waiver of the preemptive right to purchase. But there can be, due to other types of contributions, 5% of capital limit. We also indicate that these authorizations are limited globally, that's on 22, for the use of these without DPS. And lastly, there's a capital increase through capitalization of retained earnings, profit premiums and additional paid-in capital. This is the usual thing and 2 other more classical resolutions, such as salary shareholders. I finished with the presentation of the resolutions.

Thank you for this marathon. Now before we move on to the Q&A, I'm going to hand over to our statutory auditor, Mr. Bertrand Boisselier from Deloitte, who's going to be going over the report from the statutory auditors.

Thank you, Mr. General Director, ladies and gentlemen, shareholders, hello. I have the pleasure of presenting in a summary and the name of the college of statutory auditors, Deloitte and KPMG, the report that we have drawn up together for you. The report is in the documents that have been remitted to you. The report that we have are as follows: the report on the annual financial statements of this year, the report on the consolidated financial statements and the 4 special reports on regulated agreements plan for your extraordinary meeting. I'm going to present now the main points of the report on annual and consolidated accounts. Given that our purpose in accordance with the French accounting rules and principles to have a reasonable and fair view of the company's operating results and -- it does not have any anomalies. A report on annual accounts of company presented on Page 366 to 370 of the Universal Registration Document, we certify that the financial statements, with respect to the French accounting rules and principles, are regular and have given a fair and true value of the company's operating results for the fiscal year just entered and its financial position, assets, of liabilities at the end of that date. We also have talked in our report about the key audit matters relative to the valuation of investments in subsidiaries. We have no remarks as regards to the manager report, other documents relating to the company's financial standing or the corporate governance. Lastly, we concluded the presentation of the annual accounts that we performed and the presentation of the financial statements respect to all significant aspects the format -- the unique European format. Insofar as the consolidated accounts, the report is presented on Page 340 to 344 of the Universal Registration Document. We certify that the financial statements in accordance with the IFRS standards as adopted by the European Union are sincere and fair view of the result of operations for the fiscal year just ended and other financial position and assets and liabilities of the consolidated group of persons and entities at that date. We have presented in our report, the key points of the relative audit. The assessment of the recoverable amount of goodwill and trademarks with indefinite useful lives and measurement and recognition of provisions for deferred rebates. No remarks on the group's management report are made as to the sincerity and exactness of these informations. Lastly, we concluded the presentation of consolidated financial statements are presented based on the work we performed, the presentation of the financial statements included in the annual report that complies in all material aspects for the single European electronic format. Our report on regulated agreement is presented on pages -- on Page 408, next slide please, of the Universal Registration Document. We have not been advised of any new agreements authorized or entered into the past years. So there were no agreement approved in prior years that remain enforced during the fiscal year that just ended. Lastly, in conjunction with the operations on capital transactions are envisaged, we have 4 reports. The first report is the 18 to 20 resolution on the delegation of authority for a period of 26 months and, in respect of ceiling defined in Resolution 22, to issue shares in terms of -- in absence of definitive conditions of any issuance. We do not issue any opinion about the means of determining the issue price of securities nor about the proposal of removing the subscription rights. We will issue, if necessary, the actual use -- at the time of actual use of these delegations. We have 3 other reports in 17th resolution of general assembly on the delegation of authority for a period of 26 months to cancel up to 10% of share capital per 24-month period. Secondly, in Resolution 24, on the authorization for a period of 14 months to award existing performance shares to employees and/or senior managers. And Resolution 25, delegation of the authority for a period of 26 months to decide to issue ordinary shares and other various securities restricted to members of a company savings scheme. Within these 3 reports, we also have some specific. We have no observations. We could -- if we actually use these allegations, we will establish a new report. This is the summary of the various reports that we entered into for the fiscal year 2023. Thank you for your attention.

Thanks to all of the college for this report. Now we're going to be starting the Q&A session. There are 3 points of questions. We're going to ask, if possible, to express your idea shortly and -- so that we can handle as many questions as possible. We are a bit late. We're running a bit late. Can we turn on the lights, please, in the room? So that people -- we can see you. Can someone note the point? I'd like the 3 people who -- so we can see the points. Could we -- miss, do you have point 1? The one -- point 1 is here, 2 is here and 3 is here. Okay, we see you. Point 1, we'll be handing over to the gentleman dressed in red who has the microphone. There we go.

Thank you. I'd like to congratulate you on your presentation, more particularly in the crisis management that you explained for which you demonstrated an enormous facility to get through the crisis with the cooperation of personnel. So it's -- everybody needs to be congratulated in this respect, more particularly, Madame Pianon, who succeeded particularly well.

Thank you for this tribute.

I am user of Tefal frying pan 2 [indiscernible] and -- which has a particularity in the actual -- there are some deformities and the stainless steel because it makes it possible to cook without any fat. And for some types of cooking, it's a really complementary to the normal Tefal frying pans. In addition, I must congratulate your services. I had a Krups coffee maker and a Rowenta vacuum cleaner. And in both cases, I could observe the year commitments in terms of sustainability and length of life with our regulations, but you didn't wait for the regulation to apply that -- is to have a sustainable company. Charvet, I have a question about Charvet. Do you sell through the channel of the major houses such as [ Origin ] and [ Rochef ]. And the last question, which isn't really a question. I tasted coffee by a manufacturer, a competitor. Our percolators, whose name starts with a [ 2 ] and I found the taste test on the Paris [indiscernible] de France, which is a great way of getting directly in contact with the users in the public. Thank you for your response.

Thank you so much. I'd like to thank you for your comments, both concerning the [indiscernible] and I agree with the image you have of our kitchen [indiscernible]. Now perhaps about the professional Charvet. Charvet is really a specialist in hotel kitchens and restaurants, and they sell mainly directly. And there is a Charvet service, which is there to set things up on a one-by-one basis in Saudi Arabia or elsewhere. But this is really via direct sales of Charvet teams to the buyer in the restauration industry. About the rest of repairability, I'll perhaps hand over to Stanislas.

Well, thank you so much for your tribute and your information and the sampling of the coffee as well. We've been very active in developing coffee machines for the public. It's a very -- developing very well. We've sought for several years, for 2 or 3 years, a different generations of products, which have better and better performance, and we've ramped up our market share in France and elsewhere in Europe. And on the others, I take your point about the use of the stainless steel frying pan, and that reinforces the necessity and the importance of having multi-material product ranges to respond to all needs of consumers. There's not only one way of cooking, and there's not only one recipe. And so we are -- it's important to respond to consumer needs, and thank you for your loyalty and for your wonderful comments about our products. Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

I would like to present the resolutions presented by Fédéractive. Initially, I would say that all of those who see a conflict of persons, they're wrong, in what I'm about to say. I'm acting with Fédéractive and exclusively in the social industry of SEB. SEB is a beautiful company. But the situation is concerning. And I'd like to alert shareholders about this. I am Pascal Girardot from the Fédéractive [Indiscernible]. Fédéractive is also a company that I run. It joins together members of the funding group, 7.2% of capital of SEB and 9.5% of the voting rights, it's the second biggest shareholder. It's a minority shareholder involved and independent. Thierry de La Tour d'Artaise, Fédéractive and our associates have never entered in the pact in concert founded by Thierry de La Tour d'Artaise. I've already been seated on the Board as a representative of Fédéractive for 2016, 2017 and the members of the Compensation Committee. I'd like to have a new mandate of an administrator to continue to have the voice of Fédéractive expressed in the Board to participate in its work. My approach is justified after the departure of the only board member of my current who was asked to retire because she was stopped from doing her job, and that was really -- as a problem in some governance. I note that in the presentation that you made about governance, you did not mention her resignation, I'm surprised about that. There are also 4 other topics that I'm concerned about, particularly Fédéractive repeats the alert on the decrease in the product and the sales in Western Europe and North America, which has already been cited in the Board on October '23, but has not been followed up on. This corresponds to an absence of [Indiscernible] for growth, both in terms of innovation and breakaway technologies and the acquisition of structuring types such as VMF support. Secondly, Fédéractive appreciates the evolution in activity in the stock market prices via the following reading. The mass market is slowing down in traditional markets in Western Europe and in North America, and it's growing in the emerging markets in Asia -- except for Asia. So organic growth over 5 years on the one hand and the changes in the stock market prices. And secondly, in the value of the mass market activities. Thirdly, are in favor of [Indiscernible]. China, with Supor and other Asian countries have entered into stagnation that is persistent geopolitical change of China, which is worrying for the market. It worries the market. And that weighs on the stock market prices, given the participation of support in SEB and the professional activity mainly represented by professional coffee is strongly up, has been weakened by the acquisition at a very high price and dispersed small activities, which are difficult to integrate. Thirdly, after the management of SEB has been opposed to the preservation of employment in public health and environment, kitchen utensils have been excluded from the law that could institute the provision of PFAS. Fédéractive alerts those who see a victory there. This is a victory which could cost a lot to the SEB Group in terms of our image and reputation. Fourth, Fédéractive defends the liberty of all shareholders to share their analysis about the risks and measures of correction to be taken. When I receive a member of the management committee an open criticism, I'm surprised because the approaches have been cautioned by the management of SEB that does not react whereas they have a copy of several messages, Fédéractive response and alerts the AMF. About the age limit. Fédéractive proposed an age limit of Board members at 72 years old. And of the chair 72 years and 67 when their General Manager. We are [Indiscernible] a calendar of succession rather than leaving that prerogative to the Board. It is useful to limit the power of the Board to my way of thinking. That's my -- I finish.

We're going to respond to you. The first thing is that it's not true, but you've been saying this for a long time, you decided to leave the Board. You can say what you like. I'm telling you one thing that all of our lawyers and ourselves have observed that first point. Your second point about the assessment of the results about stagnation of China and absolute horror of what's going on in the mass market, I'll let you share, but our group -- what I suggest that you do because these are people that are very respectable. Why don't you go buy some [indiscernible] if you want, if you think it's better? Please go for it. I think that Stanislas can remind us of this with respect to our shareholders, we are extremely transparent and indicate that all of the actions that we've undertaken to ensure the growth over the long haul and the improvement of profitability, if you don't believe in our model, I don't know what you're doing in this room. We're going to continue to do that as long as our shareholders that are in this room, and for whom I have a great deal of respect as long as they continue to respect our actions, Stanislas?

It's good to go back over the facts. It's good to alert us in the areas of poor performance. You refer to the profitability of Western Europe, but you don't have the data because we don't publish that data. I'm astonished at your analysis. The other point and as that was said earlier about the change in the stock market listings over the last analysts which all recommend buying SEB shares. And if you look to very in-depth and the least we can say is that your assessment is kind of unusual in the respect of comparison with all of the financial opinions that have been expressed about our group. And when you make comments that are relevant and linked to the activity of the group, we wish to deal with those. We have demonstrated over the last 10 months, our ability to improve the cash flow and having to do with the working capital requirements. So we have demonstrated our ability to move towards a recovery, both in Western Europe and North America. And we've -- and in product innovation, we have demonstrated our ability over the last 10 months to engage in a recovery in professional coffee. And whether you like it or not, the new acquisitions do not necessarily create a huge growth now, but they are relays for 5 or 10 years down the road for professional. And this 7 or 8 years ago, we bought WFF to develop professional coffee activity, and we're bearing the fruit now from that previous purchase. So we're analyzing with the management team with a lot of attention, all of these criticisms, and I think the your analysis and the conclusions you have partially -- is partial. And I proposed my opinions on what we have -- the data that we have and that we keep track of. We're going to keep our current heading which has been validated by the Board in terms of the strategy and in our business approach. That's what I have to answer. I will know, about the small acquisitions, you've been on the board for a long time. So most acquisitions we made were small at the time weren't they? And that's what we always do. And we try to get companies when they're small for 1 simple reason. When they're small, they're cheaper. And when they -- once they develop better off being with us than when they're expensive, and there are companies that are already mature and which provide us a world leadership position these days. I'd like to remind you that when we bought Supor in China, big our position. You cited that you saw EUR 335 million is a price we paid, nothing to do with WMF. It was at least EUR 150 million in sales in China. Today, this company does more than EUR 2 billion of sales in China, and the valuation in the Shenzhen stock market is more than EUR 5 billion. I think that that's not a bad deal. You can give us teach us courses on acquisitions, but I think for our shareholders, it's not a bad deal, and the nuggets that we're able to identify and that we buy, we try to get them into the group, as I was saying, as quickly as we possibly can where they can deploy about PFAS. We said everything, obviously, both in terms of the health of our staff and the health of our public consumers. I have nothing to add to what was said you consider that we're taking risk. We need to take classes in physics. There are many things, a molecule is a molecule and they don't change overnight. But you can't get anything big through a key hole. That's not going to change. About the last point, I will say one thing. When you say that a person from the general management committee answered you, I say one thing. I support that person. And I think that all of the management committee and the executive committee and all of the members of staff support that person, and they're right to support that person. And what you have done and what you don't say is that you have bought advertising space for weeks to criticize SEB, you have written and disseminated information outside of the company when these people from the management committee respond to you by letter to you personally, you answer by calling the AMF, I find that surprising, especially, you communicate that to the press. We know that. So someone who's playing around with private information and disseminating that publicly, person that are now doing that, I have my internal support.

I think there's another question here.

Shareholders, Mr. General Director, Mr. Chair. I'm a journalist from [indiscernible]. I'm a journalist as well [Indiscernible] chief investigation journalist [indiscernible]. I have 1 SEB share. Mr. Chair, Mr. General Director, looking at you straight in the eyes, can you tell that the coating -- of Tefal coatings are safe for the environment? [indiscernible] manufacturing Tefal using PFAS. The whole family of PFASs are pollutants and they are eternal pollutants. These are chemical modules that are responsible for cancers and serious disease -- there's a scientific consensus about this PFAS, so ones that you use there are PTFE that you've indicated, but there's also [Indiscernible] and 6:2 FTS, there are 3, and according to the [Indiscernible] and the government services, your Tefal [Indiscernible] was rejected, 572 nanograms of PFAS per liter of water in '23. That's 5x more Mr. Director, Mr. Chair, than the European standard allows for drinking water. The PTFE ensure that, that does not represent a data for human health. That's what you're saying. Nonetheless, [Indiscernible] who's not anyone, he's the Director of Research at the scientific research company. This is a wrong vision of reality. He said that to the [AFP], nonetheless you know the recipe of -- recipes of what you're not using, you can use stainless steel. You already manufacture a stainless steel without PFAS. So my question is really why the SEB continue to use eternal pollutants. And why can't they distinguish as you say you do between PFASs, which are not concerning and those that are more concerning, why does the SEB use the PFASs at all, as these are eternal pollutants because there are other solutions.

Thank you. I think we'll give Cathy a chance to start answering. Maybe we'll add to her answer if need be.

Well, it will allow me to shed light on a number of things. You are mentioning the statements made by researchers who do not have all the info regarding [Indiscernible] one correction will be made -- there is something called [Indiscernible] that we have no control over regarding the pollutions that you're mentioning. If you look at the map for [Indiscernible], the total amount of PFASs since 2022 because we've looked for 50 PFASs. We've researched 50 PFASs where the prescription is 20. What you are referring to is a mistake, which is not under our control. You're talking about the 6.2 CF, we don't use it. We didn't interrupt you when you asked your question. So please let us speak when we provide an answer. This is what we call a contradictory discussion, obviously difficult with social media and so-called scientists. On TikTok -- not because you're a member of the CNRS means that you're knowledgeable on all subjects. And when you say the PFASs -- all PFASs are dangerous without any distinction, it raises a question on your intellectual honesty. And if you look at other researches, including [indiscernible] NGO that has been attacking us. I would like all the shareholders to see that this gentleman is taping the discussion. Well, general assembly is broadcast and it's available on the website. So no problem that will be a double podcast. If you'll allow me to answer, maybe I will be able to do so. I'm clearly saying that Mr. [Indiscernible] made a statement saying that the pans were safe. Well, anything that you don't agree with is false, so that's one way of doing journalism. We met in [Indiscernible], all the journalists who officially asked to be interviewed and not those who said they were not allowed to any information. I talked to [indiscernible] we had people from [Le Parisien]. We had various press representatives. So don't tell me that we're not talking or doing anything and that we don't provide information. I mean, your placing yourself as a victim, but it's easy. It's very boring to repeat always again and again the same things and take always the same stance. Even [indiscernible], who is the founder of [indiscernible] that asked petitions to be signed. He says he's been sending 40,000 e-mails to the members of Parliament to have the law applied. But he -- in an article by [Le Parisien] they wrote an article, and we have it available for you because we expected you to attend today. So exposing a research like Mr. [indiscernible], to all the world authorities is not a very good way to proceed. Mr. [indiscernible] said, it was dangerous. And then he [Indiscernible] back and said PTFE is not dangerous, is not harmful. So we have allowed you to speak, we have provided explanation. You are blatantly lying when you say that PFASs are all harmful, OECD has declared that PFASs are a category and that we should not call all PFASs eternal pollutants. We dont' use [6.2 CS], was researched. We researched 50 PFAS where the obligation is only 20%. So we expose ourselves monetarily regarding the pollutants rejected from our processing plant. We comply with the drinking water obligations. And for a very long time, we actually released water that was cleaner than the water available in the French households. And there are 7 or 8 other companies who have been pointed at [indiscernible] as possible sources of pollution because we're talking about aquifers here, and we're not the only people sending water in the aquifers. But obviously, it's easier to accuse a big company than a small one.