Sodexo S.A. (SW) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning. Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Sodexo First Half Fiscal 2021 Results Conference Call. I advise you that this conference is being recorded today, on Thursday, April 1, 2021. I would now like to hand the conference over to the Sodexo team. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our first half fiscal 2021 results call. On the call today, as usual, we have Denis Machuel, our CEO; and Marc Rolland, our CFO. If you haven't already done so, the slides and press releases are available at sodexo.com, and you'll be able to access this call on our website for the next 12 months. The call is being recorded, but may not be reproduced or transmitted without our consent. Please get back to the IR team if you have any further questions after the call. I remind you that the next announcement will be the 9-month numbers on July 1. I now turn the call over to Denis. Denis?

Thank you, Virginia, and good morning, everyone. I hope you're well. Thanks for being with us today. I'm pleased to be able to announce some much better numbers than we expected at the beginning of the period and much better than the second half last year. We're definitely on our way to recovery. I suggest we turn directly to Slide 5. You'll see that the group's organic revenue decline was 21.7%, in line with our assumptions. The underlying operating margin was 3.1%, much better than our assumptions. On-site Services was down 22.2% with a margin of 2.9% and Benefits & Rewards was down 8.1% with a margin of 23.6%. In the next slide, let's look at our growth KPIs. Retention was down 30 basis points. But if you exclude the loss of the very large Transforming Rehabilitation contract in the U.K., where the government has decided to in-house all the rehabilitation services, our retention rate was actually up 20 basis points, which is pretty solid. Comparable unit growth was down 22.7%, clearly impacted by loss of food volumes due to COVID, whereas FM volumes remained steady. Development was slightly down 10 basis points at 2.8% and also solid. I'll remind you that this is above the levels of first half 2017 and 2018 and in line with first half 2019 and 2020. And when you look a bit further into the details, I see an encouraging sales dynamic. Firstly, I'm really pleased to highlight the improved situation in Healthcare North America. The teams have worked hard. It's been very difficult, but the results are there. We have an 80 basis points improvement in retention, a 60 basis points improvement in development. And the pipeline is being built up progressively. It is currently 5%, above the level of fiscal '19 year-end pre-COVID. However, as the teams know, we still have more to do to get the ratios back up to where they need to be. More generally, I'm also pleased to say that there has been a real improvement in discipline in our signings across all segments, with an increase in average expected margins of 40 basis points on new signings; the lost contracts have margins, which are 150 basis points below the contracts lost last year; and even more importantly, we have 140 basis points improvement in mobilization margins, which is a sure sign that execution is improving. Finally, on the subject of sales dynamic, our pipeline is currently 18% above fiscal year '19 year-end. More than half of it is food, and 1/4 of the opportunities are from first time outsourcing, which is twice as much at the end of fiscal '19. So I think it's an encouraging start to the year in terms of development. Now on to Slide 8, the transformation of our food at work. I remind you of what we said during our Investor Day in November. We are taking a modular 360 degrees approach, depending upon the habits of our clients and consumers and our available services in each country or region. For example, we are not present in BRS in all countries. Depending upon also the type of client, the approach will be very different, whether it is a factory in the middle of the countryside or an office building in or outside a large city. And of course, it will depend upon the culture and HR policy of each company that we serve. We are focused on our 3 big countries, U.S., U.K. and France, and on our 3 future big countries, Brazil, China and India. And what we are absolutely focused on is affordable, healthy and sustainable food options. This transformation has been part of our journey since 2018. As you can see, over the last 3 to 4 years, we have invested in projects in preparation of this transformation. We have acquired some of the building blocks, such as the healthy modern Good Eating company in the U.K.; the alterfoodists delivery services of FoodChéri in France; the technological blocks in China with Meican, principally for On-site; and in India with Zeta, principally for BRS; and much more recently, Fooditude and nourish, which are pantry services with cloud kitchens. These blocks have helped us to launch Seazon in France, a unique offer of delivered fresh meals on a weekly basis to anywhere in France due to a chilled delivery service provided by the French food service. FoodChéri has expanded into several big cities. We have launched Enjoy in France, Deli Express in Brazil, Good Eating delivery in the U.K. and now Good Eating in the U.S. And all this has been accompanied by a substantial amount of digital data management and IT investments to optimize our tools and capture and digitalize consumer relationships and payments. This is how we create, design and progressively implement our comprehensive food-at-work approach. And this puts the client and the consumer needs at the heart of the offers by providing the different services blocks from the traditional on-site arrangements to on-site convenience throughout the day, to deal on payment cards and delivery at home or on-site and all the click and collect and Click & Delivery services. The integration of all our services creates an include any client, anywhere concept, which is highly appreciated by our consumers, of course, and also by many clients, particularly when they partly or totally finance the program to support their own employee value proposition. Now what you see in the slide is what has been chosen by the global headquarters of a prestigious tech client for a 360 degrees offer, precisely thanks to all the different blocks that we can make available. Today, the almost 4,000 consumers in France have one single app with a full array of services, the 360 branded canteen offers of the 2 restaurants; a convenience food court, providing lots of food options such as Asian, vegetarian, street food, pasta; the second food court, which will be upgraded to our new EV brand at a later stage; and meal pass cards for those that are working from home. Fully deployed, employees will be able to use their meal cards to order FoodChéri, and when they're working from home, Seazon. With this offer, an employee can eat what, when and where he or she wants at lunch time. And now before I pass you on to Marc, I just wanted to highlight once again the modular approach that we have, depending on the client needs, the country solutions and the culture. We just won a great contract in India to scale up Amazon's employee experience in the country with digital benefits offer. It is for more than 100,000 employees and for a period of 3 years effective January 2021. This is a very exciting win for us with 100% virtual card; one unique app, which provides delivery options on-site and at home through a seamless digital journey and secure payments via the Sodexo-Zeta app. And now Marc, over to you for the detail of the financial performance of the first half.

Thank you, Denis, and good morning, everyone. I'm very pleased to be here with you this morning. As usual, you will find the alternative performance measures definition in Appendix 9, along with some information to help you with your modeling in Appendix 7. In Slide 14, I would like to highlight the very strict financial management by food expertise throughout the COVID crisis. We've had an exceptional first half free cash flow, and this is due to strong cash collections, better-than-expected underlying operating profit and much lower CapEx. But also the exceptional outflows were much lower than expected, and I should provide more detail in a minute. As a result, we have generated EUR 237 million of free cash flow in the first half, which is a record for what is usually a neutral to negative semester. Our net debt of EUR 1.7 billion is now lower than what it was in February and August last year. Our CapEx came out at EUR 86 million or 1% of revenues versus the more normal rate of between 2% and 2.5%. There are 2 major reasons behind this. First, clients are in [ no areas ] to execute their CapEx project given the current environment, and so much of it has been delayed. And second, as part of the renewal of our contract, we had a response of the [ fire right state ] of the Tokyo Olympics. We expect CapEx to be higher in H2 and closer to the more normal range of 2% to 2.5%. We are on track to deliver our EUR 350 million GET program. So far, we have booked EUR 264 million of costs that generated EUR 85 million of savings. The negotiation in Europe has taken a bit longer than expected, so some of the cash out has been pushed back into the second half. With all this, we have a very resilient balance sheet. At the end of the first half, we had EUR 5.3 billion of liquidity, a gearing of 57% and a net debt ratio of 3.8 turns. This level of ratio is due to the temporarily low level of the rolling 12-month EBITDA rather than the debt level. I shall come back also to this later. Let's now have a look at the P&L performance for the first half 2021. As you will expect, the year-on-year performance is badly affected by the pandemic. Since I'm sure you remember that it started to spread worldwide at the beginning of our second half last year. So revenue amounted to EUR 8.6 billion, down minus 26.5% or 21.7%, excluding the currency effect and also organically since the contribution of acquisition was negligible during the period. The good news is that we have turned the corner in terms of profitability with an underlying operating profit margin of 3.1%, down 280 bps or 250 bps excluding the currency mix effect, but a lot better than the minus 1.9% margin in the second half last year. I shall come back to the analysis of this performance by activity and segment later. I heard that the 3.1% is in fact 3.3% at constant rates compared to our guidance of at least 2.5%. Our other operating income and expenses were also up significantly to EUR 128 million, reflecting the cost of the GET restructuring program. I shall also come back to this in the next slide. Financial expenses fell to EUR 50 million as we benefit from an average gross debt cost of 1.6% at the end of the period, having reimbursed the USPP in H2 last year. The tax charge came out at EUR 53 million. The effective tax rate amounts to 63%, strongly affected by the nonrecognition of deferred tax assets in France due to the lack of prospect of short-term recoverability. Excluding the tax impact of the other income and expenses, the underlying effective tax rate is still high and will have been 40% against 29.3% in H1 fiscal year '20. As a result, the group's net profit was a positive EUR 33 million. Stripping out all the exceptional elements, net of tax, the underlying net profit was EUR 128 million. Now I would like to come back on the other income and expenses on Slide 16. As we indicated in November, we've been actively executing our GET program with a further EUR 107 million of restructuring compared to EUR 158 million in H2 fiscal 2020. All other elements reported in OIE are very similar to the prior years. So let's focus on GET for a few minutes. As you may remember, we decided on the one hand to be proactive and to adjust our on-site labor cost to anticipate the expected help of furlough programs. This measures our margin perspective. On the other hand, we are also working on reduction of our SG&A, which is advancing well. Currently, we are just a couple of months behind schedule in Continental Europe due to prolonged negotiation with the employee representatives. So today, we have booked EUR 264 million of costs in total since the program started, and we have another EUR 85 million to come in the second half of this year, which will complete the program. So far, EUR 123 million of these costs have already been cashed out today. But because of the delays in Europe, there is about 7 months again to come out in H2 and a further EUR 69 million next year. With all of this, we have generated already EUR 85 million of savings to date, of which approximately 60% are from on-site cost reduction and about 40% upside for [ exchanging ]. So I now want to explain how we managed to achieve an exceptional free cash flow in the first half. First, we had a pretty reasonable operating cash flow of EUR 405 million given the second [ instance ]. Then we had an exceptional positive change in working capital during the period. And finally, CapEx, as I have already said, was very low. As a result, our free cash flow was positive for the first half of EUR 237 million. And the good news is that it was positive for both On-site as well as BRS. In terms of the other flows, we limited acquisition and share buyback to an absolute minimum, and we did not pay a dividend on our fiscal 2020 earnings. As a result, our net debt has been reduced by EUR 187 million since August 31. On Slide 19, I wanted to highlight what happened relative to what we have indicated will happen. Our recurring free cash flow for H1 was a positive EUR 277 million. This was much better than the minus EUR 100 million outflow expected. Some of it came from better-than-expected [indiscernible] as explained, but the bulk came from a much stronger working capital, our teams have worked very hard on client conditions and the BRS flow was also higher due to slower reimbursement as a result of restaurant closures in Europe. Then some of the [indiscernible] came because of client CapEx delayed into H2. When we look at the expected nonrecurring elements, the restructuring cash outflow was less than expected due to the delay that I have already mentioned in the European negotiation, and they will come more significantly in H2. Because of the prolongation of the pandemic, the government support have also been maintained longer and for larger amounts than we thought. And in fact, we had a positive impact of EUR 62 million in H1, but this will reverse in H2. As far as the Tokyo Games are concerned, our contract has been renewed, and we've had less client [ reformed ] than we expected originally. Although there could be more later, we believe that the cash out in H2 will be now predominantly the operational cost linked to the event. As a result of all this, the exceptional elements are well below expectation at only minus EUR 40 million. I want to be clear that you should expect that much of the first half shortfall of minus EUR 210 million of cash out will actually come out in the second half. A few elements to highlight. The operating cash levels are higher than in August by EUR 200 million. Net debt is lower by EUR 187 million as you saw in the cash flow slide relative to August, but it's also fallen relative to February '20 pre-COVID by nearly EUR 400 million. Gearing is at 57% compared to 60% -- to 67% in August, even though it is up relative to February last year. Our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio, on the other hand, has increased to 3.8 turns from 1.3 turns a year ago due to the weakness of our rolling 12 months underlying EBITDA with the past 12 months being all pandemic months. I would like to highlight the effects of the COVID crisis on our rolling 12 months underlying EBITDA in Slide 21. Already, for full year 2020, the underlying 12-month EBITDA was down by 44%. Now at the end of February, the 12-month rolling EBITDA has had another step-down, although smaller in value than in the previous period. As a result, we believe that with peak -- the peak is our net debt ratio at the end of February. We now expect the full ratio to improve gradually. Let's turn to the review of operations. The first half fiscal 2021revenues remained very impacted by the COVID pandemic. H1 revenue was EUR 8.6 billion, down to 26.5% at published. Currencies accounted for 4.8% of this. In particular, the dollar and the real. There was no scope effect at all, so organic growth was minus 21.7%, of which On-site Services were down 22.2% or 21.6%, excluding the Rugby, and Benefits & Rewards down 8.1%. So let's look at the On-site business, starting with Business & Administrations. In H1, B&A organic growth was 26% down, a slight improvement on H2, which was at minus 29.2%. North America was down 46%. While Government & Agencies as well as Energy & Resources both performed well, Corporate Services was still impacted by office closures with food services down significantly and with little quarter-on-quarter improvement. In Sports & Leisure, sites were still largely closed. In Europe, sales were down minus 28.9% organically or minus 26.8% excluding the Rugby. This compares with 31.6% in H2 last year. The second quarter was slightly better than the first, and we improved in all subsegments except in Corporate Services impacted by the second wave of lockdowns from November. Facility management services and global accounts continued to be more resilient in this environment. In Asia Pacific, LatAm, Middle East and Africa, organic growth was plus 0.4%, thanks to a return growth in the second quarter. Energy & Resources continued to generate solid growth, but lower than in the previous quarters as demand for extra COVID-related services subsided, particularly in Australia. China and LatAm remained very strong across the board, somewhat offset by India, which is still severely impacted by the pandemic. Healthcare & Seniors remained much more resilient than the other segments, with a limited organic decline of minus 2.1%, a marked improvement from the minus 11.1% in H2 last year. Organic decline in North America was minus 9.8%, improving very progressively quarter-on-quarter and again the 14.6% decline in H2. There was a progressive improvement in patient revenues, but with no sign of improvements in retail sales. Cross-selling was very solid, and as Denis pointed out earlier, an encouraging sales dynamic. In Europe, organic growth in the first half was plus 12.7% and plus 15.5% in Q2 against the decline of 3.9% in H2 last year. This performance reflects the strong contribution from the ramping up of the COVID-19 Rapid Testing Centers contract in the U.K. This contract is expected to remain strong in the next few months. However, patient food services and retail sales are still impacted by lower level of elective surgery across the region due to the successive COVID-19 waves. Seniors activity is improving progressively. In Asia Pacific, LatAm, Middle East and Africa, the 3.6% organic decline was better than in H2 last year and improved in the second quarter at minus 2.8% with a return to growth in China, again a significantly COVID-impacted comparable base last year. Education revenue was down 31.9%, a lot better than the minus 47.2% in H2 last year. North America at minus 39.7% remains very impacted by the pandemic. Universities are suffering from low meal volumes due to less students on site and a less start of the academic year and weakness in the environments. There was also some further weakness in Q2 due to the late start of the spring semester, representing 14 days less in our second quarter. Schools are progressively reopening, but the majority remained close for most of the period. However, emergency programs are still in place. In Europe, the organic decline was minus 8.3% with most countries open for most of the period, even though there was some erosion in volumes due to delayed opening in Q1 and occasional class closures in Q2. The second quarter trend also deteriorated slightly due to the second wave closures of U.K. schools. Even though there was a significant improvement in Asia Pacific, LatAm, Middle East and Africa in H1 at minus 15% relative to the minus 45.3% in H2 last year, India remained very weak and was not yet compensated by the progressive reopening in China, where the volume in international schools are still low. Underlying profit for On-site Services recovered half of the drop of H2 fiscal '20 to reach EUR 235 million and a margin of 2.9%. The improved level of margin was mainly due to strict cost control, significant contracts for negotiation, prolonged [ trial ] scheme and the first result of the restructuring program. So if we go into each segment, B&A returned to profit with a margin at 0.4% in spite of Sports & Leisure still generating a loss due to the very significant decline in activity and its incompressible residual costs. The other segments were all positive with Government & Agencies and Energy & Resources actually increasing their margin percentage versus last year. Healthcare & Seniors remained much more stable during this crisis and recovered back over the H1 fiscal '20 level by 10 basis points with an improvement in each region. This solid performance is a result of strong execution on staffing and food cost in a particular difficult environment and a positive contribution from net new business and cross-selling. Education comes back to a positive 4.3% from a big loss in H2 last year. However, I remind you that this reflects the seasonality of the business more than anything else. Please remember that all the profit is made in the first half, and the second half tends to be around breakeven. So despite the contract renegotiation, we still have a big gap of 410 bps or 400 bps at constant rate. Now let's turn to BRS. In the first half, employee benefits revenue were down 8.4% organically compared to plus 0.2% in issue volume. This is a significant improvement relative to the second half fiscal '20 trend, even with the slowdown in merchant reimbursement from November due to lockdowns in Europe weighed on the Q2. Services diversification was down 7.2%, linked to the continued difficulty in the health and wellness and mobility markets in most countries due to the closure of more sports facilities and the lack of business travel. Fuel & Fleet provided more resilience. Public Benefits are up strongly in all regions. The trend was significantly better in the second quarter, down only minus 3.9% due to a return or so to growth in incentive and recognition. There was a big improvement in Europe, Asia and U.S.A. in H1, down only 7% against 18% in the H2 last year. It was due to a much improved performance in Q1 as restaurants reopened and reimbursements caught up with issue volumes. However, since November, this has reversed itself again due to the second wave of lockdown. Looking at Latin America, sales declined minus 10.1% or so much better than H2 last year. Overall, issue volumes and reimbursement volumes were stable in the region. Revenues in Brazil are still impacted by a highly competitive environment while the effect of the decline in interest rate is now subsiding from quarter-to-quarter. The momentum in the rest of the region remained solid, except in Chile, still significantly impacted by the pandemic. In this slide, you can see that operating revenues are down by 7.4%, and that financial revenues have fallen more significantly due to lower interest rates almost everywhere and in particular to the decline in Brazilian interest rates. However, given that the rates have stabilized from quarter-to-quarter, the decline is easing as the comparative figures become less challenging. BRS underlying operating profit and margin are recovering from the lows since second half last year. This performance is a result of lower production costs linked to the increasing share of digital, the first result of the restructuring program and strict control of SG&A costs. However, the currency impact remains very significantly because of the effect on the business mix of the weakness in the real. I thank you for your attention. I now hand you back to Denis for the outlook.

Thank you, Marc. So let's turn to the outlook now. As far as the H2 assumptions are concerned, I want to say that I'm absolutely confident that we will see a rapid recovery once vaccination is fully deployed. However, in the short term, the situation remains volatile, particularly in Europe, with the arrival of new waves of the pandemic. As a result, we expect little improvement in the quarter-on-quarter trends through to the fiscal year-end in August. On the other hand, as we lap the start of the pandemic last year, as we continue to renegotiate our contracts to ensure the best possible level of profitability, as we execute our restructuring and as we activate all government support available, for the second half of fiscal year 2021, we expect an organic growth of between plus 10% and plus 15%; an underlying operating margin of around 3.1% at constant rate with the traditional seasonality gap between the first half and the second half margins, offset by the cost containment and restructuring; and an annual cash conversion of more than 100%. I am fully convinced that pent-up demand will ensure a strong pickup in all segments and activities once the pandemic is over. We have also learned a lot during this period. We have the capacity to put our services together into offers, which are really helping our clients today to adapt to the crisis situation in the short term and, more fundamentally, help them redesign critical elements of their value proposition for their employees, for their patients, medical staffs, people, students, et cetera, and bring efficiencies in the ways of working of our clients. We are winning contracts with our joint On-site and BRS offers. We are winning contracts with our vital spaces offers. There is definitely a positive momentum ahead of us. This is exciting. Our organization is totally mobilized, and I strongly believe that we will fully benefit from all of this. And I can assure you that our teams are extremely active in the field with our clients to promote all these services, and I want to thank our teams for their engagements. So looking further out on the basis that the pandemic will be over by 2021 calendar year-end, the group aims to return to sustained growth and to rapidly increase the underlying operating margin back over the pre-COVID level. I now open the call to your questions. Operator, can we please take the first question.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Bilal Aziz from UBS.

Three for me, please. Just firstly, just a clarification on the second half volume-related guidance. And as for the first half, does that range account for potentially new lockdowns such as in France overnight? Just that clarification. Number two, just on the margins within the second half, please. I appreciate this is an abnormal year, but how should we think about the seasonality in your margins versus your typical 50 to 100 bps? I believe your guidance suggests savings of about EUR 60 million in the second half. So does that suggest less of a seasonal impact? Or is there anything else which is offsetting that? And lastly, on first-time outsourcing, you flagged the pipeline accelerating. Perhaps can you break that down between some of your verticals, so FM, Education and Healthcare, please?

All right. So in terms of -- thanks for the question. In terms of the volumes, we've given a range of plus 10% and plus 15%, and it includes what we know at this stage. We had some announcements, for example, in schools in France last night, but this is -- this was somehow anticipated. So this is within the range that we've given in the percent, plus 10%, 15% for the second half. In terms of the margins...

Yes, in terms of margin, we -- first, we fundamentally state that we have renegotiated a number of contracts and some of our contracts -- more of our contracts today than in the past are [ costless ] contract. So they are -- they protect our margin better even when the volumes are down. The second thing also is that we have a strong ramp-up of the selling program into H2. And we were not expecting at this time of the year to be benefiting also from furlough, but I think we will be benefiting from some furlough in H2 like we did in H1. And the volumes, as we said, we're not expecting the volumes of H2 to be much higher than H1, but they will be similar to H1, and that will also support the margin.

And in terms of the pipeline, yes, we have a better pipeline than last year. It's definitely improving. The first-time outsourcing part is also improving, not yet at the level we want it to be, but it's improving. And I would say it's across the board in the different segments, and also it's quite balanced between food and FM. So we have -- I would qualify our pipeline as healthy. As you know, we've worked a lot on the targeting. You've got some information on the discipline in signings. So all this, I think, will contribute to some, I think, strong top line moving forward.

Your next question comes from the line of Jamie Rollo from Morgan Stanley.

I think that's me. Three questions along similar veins to the previous ones, please. First, on the sales guidance. If my math is right, that's a decline of about 16% to 20% on the second half of '19. So yes, a small improvement, it seems like. If you could just sort of break down where you expect that by geography and industry and maybe if you could talk about perhaps what you're seeing in the U.S. in the most recent weeks, if there's any improvement there. Secondly, on the margin guidance. As you say, seasonally, you're normally -- well, I think it's near 100 basis points lower in the second half than the first half. So essentially flat guidance suggests you're sort of maybe 100 basis points better, but that does sound like a slowdown in the pace of underlying momentum. And yet you said you've got further contract negotiation gains further, et cetera. So I'm just wondering whether there really is an underlying slowdown even adjusting for seasonality. And actually, if you could also give the Q1, Q2 margin split, that would be really helpful. And then just finally, on the sales dynamics. Are you seeing enough to give you confidence that your net sales wins or your development can actually accelerate coming out of this? Or are we still looking at a similar growth rate to pre-COVID?

Thank you for your questions. In terms of the said guidance, yes, you're pretty right in terms of how you compare with 2019. I would say we don't see any, as we said, major improvements in the next months due to several factors. As we know, Europe is a bit slow due to the pandemic and lockdowns happening here or there. We expect the U.S. to recover more likely from summer onwards because we'll see people progressively as vaccination really spread and it's really deployed, and we see that very positively. But by the time everything is done, it's going to be summer time. So it's -- we see the recovery. We expect a strong recovery in the U.S., but probably more towards the beginning of next fiscal year. Same thing, the school season will stop quite soon, and nothing will change in the universities. Even summer camps are still a big question mark over the summer. So while we are extremely positive in terms of how we can really pick up the volumes from the beginning of next year, we don't expect some major changes in the second half. Sports & Leisure, there will be some pickup also in the U.S. However, our portfolio in Sports & Leisure is more skewed towards convention centers and through sports. So again, it's going to be a bit more in '22 than the main things happening in this -- until this summer. That's how I would see the trend. What we know is when the full population is vaccinated, I mean things are really recovering. We have very good numbers. For example, in Israel, in our Benefits & Rewards activity in March, now the whole population in Israel is vaccinated, and we have very strong increase in volumes compared to pre-COVID. So that's very encouraging. On the margins, Marc?

I'm not clear what you're seeing, it suggests it's going well. What we are seeing is that contrary to a normal year because of the contract negotiations we've had, the contracts are not reacting exactly as they were historically, especially in Education. So the slope is less. We were not expecting much benefit from furlough in H1, and we did. And we believe now that there will also be some furlough impact in H2, which will be lower in H2 than in H1, but there will be some. And the savings program, as you've seen, the numbers are ramping up. So there will be more savings in H2 than there will be in H1. And based on our hypothesis, the volume in H2 will be very similar to the volume in H1, and that also bring some extra revenues. And some of our segments and activities are very revenue-sensitive. For instance, Sports & Leisure, today, we have incompressible costs. You had a little bit of revenue that helped significantly the margin immediately. So it's also a question of mix and where do you see more revenue. And we see more revenue in Sports & Leisure. Definitely, it's something to be a boom, but we are expecting -- we are heading, just so we are expecting Sports & Leisure to ramp up and see some benefits. And we are also expecting universities in August to ramp up significantly. So all of this has an impact on the margin, which allowed us to say that we see similar level of margin in H2 than in H1, and that's why we are saying around 3.1% for H2. We are not giving the Q1, Q2 split. But as you know, there is a little seasonality. Q2 was a little lower than Q1.

In terms of how we can accelerate growth, yes, I think definitely my ambition is to actually see, as we get out of COVID, really have growth rates that reach and then go over the rate that we had pre-COVID. I focused the organization a lot on, of course, the sales dynamic and retention and also the good balance between the growth and the profitability. I think we have a much better discipline, it was highlighted earlier. So we've reinforced our offers. We've digitized our business. We see it helps us capture more of the consumer revenues. So I'm confident. We are all hands on deck on retention because this is critical. We've done pretty well during the crisis, sanitary crisis. So yes, my ambition is definitely to have growth rates post-COVID that are above pre-COVID rates.

Okay. I think I have most of the answers. Just coming back on the second half sales guidance. You both keep saying there's no major change, no change in volume H1 to H2, but I think your guidance does imply an improvement. Are you saying that's all going to be in Q4, so the Q3 run rate will still be down maybe 21% and then sort of much better than that in Q4?

Well, you can assume that. Given also the seasonality, we can also expect, once you get towards the real end of Q4, if schools will start well in the U.S. and universities, we can have a -- in Sports & Leisure, we can have an encouraging end of Q4, but it's going to be towards the end of Q4.

The difficulty is that it's a matter of weeks. And August, July, these are supposed to be strong in our model. So if it sits by 1 week or anticipate by 1 week, you can have some volatility here. So that's why we gave a range because we don't control the vaccination and the reopening of everything. So -- but where we are confident that [ some ] is building up. That's quite important. Yes.

Your next question comes from the line of Jaafar Mestari from Exane.

I've got three questions, if that's okay. So firstly, coming back on this point about seasonality in margins. Historically, the delta in group margins, if I'm correct, has been almost entirely driven by just the Education segment, which has pronounced seasonality. So if we look at segments that are less seasonal, like business and industry, do you think you'd be able to show sequential margin improvement in B&I into H2? Secondly, still on margins. I guess, how does it work from here? What's the sequence to better margins in the medium term? And in particular, can you see margins improve as soon as revenue starts to improve? Or will there be a lag? Is there a cap on margins on some of your now renegotiated cost plus contracts? Do you need to formally move these contracts individually to P&L to see the margins improve? Or will there be an automatic improvement? And just lastly, on your performance by subsector. You've talked a little bit about how Sports & Leisure, the fabric of your portfolio there is a bit more conventions, so a little bit less crew sports. But there's another subsegment where I was a little bit surprised to actually see universities within Education deteriorating between Q2 and Q1. Is it just a matter of weeks and months because you don't have much in that base? Did you see significantly better trends with a later opening in universities? Or is there anything else in that sequential deterioration, please?

As you -- on your first question, as you saw when the volumes were down, our margins are revenue-sensitive, which flows through -- which were double digit. And so 20%, 25% when it was coming down. We believe that the same thing will happen when it's coming up, so our models are revenue-sensitive. Now we will have to reconvert some of our contracts from cost plus to P&L to fully benefit from the ramping up. If they remain cost plus, it will slow the ramping up. But those contracts will come back to P&L in due time. So we are very revenue-sensitive now to increase the margin, and that's why I think we are confident in the coming year with more volumes for the margins to increase.

Okay. So in terms of Sports & Leisure, yes, I spoke about this. In terms of universities, yes, the deterioration between Q2 and Q1 is just linked to a delay in the -- in the opening after the spring semester that has been delayed. So there's no major change in terms of -- on the market. Universities have adapted to the pandemic, and there has been 14 days in Q2 delay, which has impacted the numbers. But there's nothing structural that had happened that would explain further deterioration of the market conditions there. I strongly believe, back to your earlier question, that sequence of revenue coming up with margins coming up as well and, of course, as volumes will pick up, we will get back to the margins. The gross margin has held really strong during the crisis. And Marc mentioned that we renegotiated some contracts. We really purchased them back. Some terms and conditions will be -- will leverage also some learnings of the crisis in a positive way. So yes, I'm confident in our capacity to increase margins moving forward, really.

And maybe apologies if it wasn't 100% clear. I just had a first question on the segment margins. I appreciate there is significant seasonality at the group level. But if I look at the last 4 years, it's almost entirely because of the Education segment. So B&I has higher margins in H2 in '16, '17, '18, '19. So with that in mind, would you assume you're actually able to show a sequential improvement in B&I margins into H2, please?

Yes. Sorry, I mean, I skipped part of the first question. Yes, the slowdown in margin is mostly linked to Education historically. What we see historically is that the Corporate Services margin are relatively stable from one semester to the next. And here, it's really a question of volume and when the food service volume will pick up. So right now, I mean, we are not expecting a big ramp-up of the margins in Corporate Services from H1 to H2 because it all depends as to when our other consumers getting back into the food service site. And we are seeing it progressively going up. But with the new lockdowns across Europe, it's been very rocky. So yes, the confidence that the margin will increase in Corporate Services there, it's all a question as to when are the volumes picking up in food service. But historically, the margin in Corporate services was relatively flat from one semester to the other.

And your next question comes from the line of Leo Carrington from Crédit Suisse.

Three questions for me, please. Firstly, on the retention rate. Obviously, underlying improvement, but is there any impact, any tailwinds from delays to tendering processes due to the pandemic? Maybe as a related question, CapEx was very low. Is this perhaps connected to the higher retention rate, and therefore, maybe temporary? Secondly, there's the interplay between better gross margins in newly signed contracts and the GET program. To what extent are the better margins in the new business due to pricing? Or is this rather the cost-avoid infections? And then lastly, just to elaborate on the previous questions on the global pipeline. What are the specific drivers behind the improvement? Is it smaller competitors under pressure, therefore, business coming to you? Is it generally better outsourcing environment? And how would we expect this to flow through to contract wins in terms of timing?

So in terms of -- thank you. In terms of retention, yes, we don't see any particular tailwinds during the pandemic. So I think we've had -- we basically had very good activity with our clients. So we could say that, that will -- that can help support our retention, yes. But we're very, very cautious. Of course, we've demonstrated great, great service, outstanding service to our clients. And this -- we want to be -- this retention has been a critical element of our focus, and I'm really confident that we'll continue to be solid on this one. CapEx that has been delayed is not a risk in terms of retention. We bring some CapEx to the clients. We'll be excellent for very good reasons to the pandemic. So yes, I think that's not an issue at all. In terms of GET, Marc?

Yes, the -- I'm not sure I understand the question completely right. But the GET program is a cost-reduction program. The renegotiation of contracts were not part of GET, they were part of the normal life. So the GET program is really taking labor out of sites and increase productivity on site and adapting the labor to the revenue and to the new offer during the pandemic and post-pandemic. So it is one of the cost management program. The renegotiation is what we did a few times now to adapt the service levels, to adapt the pricing, to adapt the structure of the commercial arrangements with the client. So GET is cost reduction.

And now in terms of the global pipeline that you mentioned, I think there are several elements. We see -- yes, we see a bit a bit more of first-time outsourcing. As I said, it's probably a mix of some clients or some prospects really thinking about that it was hard to operate during COVID. There's more and more pressure to operate complex services. And so first-time outsourcing can mean a lot for prospects to ease their way of operating. We also have put a lot of focus on our sales force to that type of clients. So I think the targeting that we've put influences, of course, our pipeline. I must say that we put a lot of efforts, even pre-COVID, on our sales force. We're trying. We've recruited good people. We put a lot of focus on the quality of our sales, on the targeting on how we target, how we bid, how we mobilize this. So I think that's -- all this contributes to the healthcare pipeline that we have today than before.

Okay. If I might just on that second question on gross margins. I was really just looking at the comment that new signature gross margins were up 40 basis points, whether that was purely an improvement in quality and improvement in mix or if you're also factoring in some of the cost savings into that metric.

No, when we said that we are improving margins of new signature is really fundamentally our offer are stronger and better priced than they were a few quarters, and it continues to work. So we continuously work on the offer and the pricing.

And the targeting because when you target the right clients with the right terms, you end up with better margins.

And your next question comes from the line of Richard Clarke from Bernstein.

Three if I may. I'm just wondering, your commentary that you expect or hope that the pandemic will be over by the beginning of calendar year 2022, on the basis of maybe your conversations with clients, your experiences in Israel, how long between that date and the sort of return to normal volumes or return to kind of long-term volumes would you expect? Second question, you kind of put the phrase out there, pent-up demand. Are there any segments where you think there's a possibility that you can actually recapture any of the lost volumes through this pandemic, maybe in healthcare or in sports, if there's a strong sports calendar coming up in a couple of years? And then last question, maybe a little bit more per se, but just wondering about the interaction between Benefits & Rewards and working from home. My understanding is if you're working from home, you're not necessarily entitled to the same level of sort of vouchering as if you're working in the office. So how is the -- how do you expect Benefits & Rewards to kind of interact with increased flexible working?

Right. Thanks, Richard. Well, the rate at which we can get back to previous volumes is still a bit of a question mark. Of course, we get back to these volumes, of course. When exactly which -- it's hard to have a precise vision today on this as the pattern of behaviors of our clients will evolve. What I'm sure is that in all our segments, including Corporate Services with the impact of work from home, we can get back progressively to the levels of pre-COVID or even above that. We know -- and that will answer your question on work from home. We know that there's a part of a switch of our volumes in -- of our food volumes. But first, and we mentioned that in the Investor Day, we can sell more FM. Our vital spaces offer, which is a comprehensive offer that reinvents the workplace, is getting very good traction. And as clients want people to go back to the office, they reinvent -- many of them want to reinvent the workplace. So we have lots of opportunities there. Healthcare volumes will come back. Sports & Leisure volumes will actually come back and probably come back quickly in sports and progressively in convention centers. So I'm very confident that we -- of course, we go above pre-COVID volumes. When exactly? It's hard to say. Same thing for the margins, as we said. We can recover the margins back over the pre-COVID-19 margins. In terms of Benefits & Rewards and working from home, this is -- of course, this is very linked to the HR policies that our plans will put in place. What we know, overall, we've estimated that companies, more or less, on average, will end at 2 days working from home on average. Of course, it depends upon the industry. On average, that's what we estimate. How many clients will decide to accompany their employees with that kind of benefits of vouchers when work from home is still hard to say. We are getting good traction in our integrated offer. I mentioned that we've signed 20 clients on the fully integrated offer, TPC, the one that we described for this tech client, so -- in France. So we're getting good traction. But it's too early to say where exactly we will land on what clients will decide to give to their employees. We don't see a massive swap from the canteen to the voucher. This is not happening. It's just that we are adjusting the volumes on our canteens and restaurants and getting good traction on vouchers, hard to know where exactly we'll land.

Okay. That makes sense. Maybe if I can just ask a quick follow-up on the sports. Just any commentary on the Olympics this year. It sounds like it's going to go ahead, but with no international fans. And what impact that will have on your kind of H2 numbers?

Right. Well, yes, it's still a bit early to say because of uncertainties. We know that there won't be any foreigners in -- for the Olympics. We have, of course, renegotiated the terms of our contract with the -- with Tokyo 2021. It's still -- again, it's still very volatile. We don't know exactly what sanitary protocols they put in place. That will impact, of course, our volumes in our hospitality packages. So we've reshuffled the T&Cs of our -- of course, of our contracts. I think a bit too early to evaluate what exactly you can expect in terms of volumes, right? Marc, I don't know if you want to...

Well, we were expecting more than EUR 100 million of revenue in Tokyo 2020. Currently, as you can see on the cash flow slide, we have EUR 420 million. We reimbursed EUR 54 million altogether. So we still have about EUR 60 million of sales cash in, but we don't believe we will make more than that. We believe we'll make probably a little less than that because there will be some cancellations of events and so forth. But currently, we have a contract which allows us to provide hospitality on site. And so it will be much lower than what we were expecting, but if it happens, we will be there. Yes. I mean we were in that condition.

Absolutely. And we're already -- we're not expecting a massive inflow of international clients anyway because we knew that we will be [ 95% ] of Japanese plans. So yes, it's true. The sanitary protocols that will be put in place and that we'll have -- and as we know more in the coming months will tell us the volumes that we can have. Too early to say.

[Operator Instructions] And your next question comes from the line of Vicki Stern from Barclays.

Yes, Vicki Stern. Just firstly, you talked about the health care improvements in the U.S. in terms of signing space retention. Could you just give us an update on U.S. Education? What's the situation there on both and certainly on your expectations around retention going forward? And actually related to that, any thoughts on the structural change potential for Education? You obviously talked at length around your views on work from home, but just keen to know what your thoughts are on the Education sector, any long-term impact. Secondly, around furlough, can you just call out how much help you actually got during first half and what your expectations at this stage would be for second half government support? And then finally, on cannibalization. Just if you do see that transition from switching from sale in a canteen to more being spent on vouchers, just what's the sort of net impact on your profit from that from an individual meal sale? Obviously, I guess you take less. But just any sort of help around that.

Yes. Thanks, Vicki. So yes, we see some improvements in health care. I want to say that in health care, we still have to be very, very cautious. We're -- it's a tough race on that market. There's some consolidation of store systems that make the segments, by nature, very competitive. So we're cautious. We stand here, we're stronger, but we're also very cautious. In terms of the U.S. Education, I think we have 1 or 2 large contracts that we're extremely active on at the moment in terms of retention. The -- in terms of schools, I don't see any major change, I think, apart from the closing of the schools in North America. When they reopen, they reopen and we get the volumes back. And I don't see any structural changes. In terms of universities, the big question is the level of the balance between what's going to be online and what's going to be on campus. Definitely, we know that the on-campus offer will get traction. Particularly, we anticipate that when people are vaccinated, they want to go back to campus. So all the surveys that we do for universities, for our clients and also our students, they want a campus life. So the -- all the efforts that we put in reinventing our offer is to really provide extensive food offers. We put robots in place. We have announced a partnership with HelloFresh to capture some additional of the student wallet, provide additional offers, reinvent meal plans. So we're extremely active to be as compelling as possible for our students. So I'm confident in terms of -- on this segment to be very solid, very accretive in terms of margin, and it's a strong segment. In terms of furlough...

No, we don't give numbers for furlough. But what I can tell you is that, H1, we received -- I think it's about 3x less than we had in H2 last year. So it's significantly less than the year before, and it will be roughly 3x less in H2 also. So it will almost -- it will still be present in H2 this year, but it will really be vanishing. And the main places where we get furlough or support is in Continental Europe. I mean, the European countries have been extensive gradually significantly their programs, and we benefited from some of it. With the announcement yesterday, we will benefit from some furlough in schools, too. I mean, the people, we are not going to be working in France in April. We will benefit from furlough. But it's significantly less, but it's still there and it still contributes. On your last question, the -- obviously, when you switch -- if you purely switch a meal from On-site to BRS, you have an impact on the revenue, a EUR 10 meal in On-site becomes a EUR 10 BV in BRS. And then the revenue depends on the mix revenue. And obviously, the mix revenue could be ranging from 5% to 7%. Obviously, you see the impact on revenue. When it comes to margin and flow-through, the flow-through of the next travel in BRS is quite high. So the margin is actually extremely high, while the flow-through of the meal On-site is not that high. It's still there, but it's -- so in terms of revenue, we will be losing. If you switch one to one in terms of margin rate, there is a boost. And in terms of margin volume setting, yes, it may be a little less, but the margin percentage is much higher.

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. Please continue.

Thank you very much. So I want to, again, thank you for your questions, listening to us. As you -- I think understood today, we are really on a very strong recovery phase. H2 will be more or less, I'd say, in line with H1, but really preparing for the acceleration for next fiscal year. The teams are extremely active. The margins are solid and will build up progressively. I'm very, very positive in terms of how we will surge from the crisis, the sanitary crisis and build a very, very solid business moving forward. So thanks a lot. Take care. Stay safe, and thanks for having been with us today.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Thank you, everyone. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you all for participating. You may all disconnect.