Teleperformance SE (TEP) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Dear shareholders, 2019 was another record year for Teleperformance, both in revenue and results. But today, COVID-19 has put the world upside down. In supporting our clients all around the world, TP was first impacted in China. This helped us to be proactive in designing and implementing our strategic response based on two pillars: First, to protect our employees, their health and safety; second, to protect the business by ensuring continuity of services. In the course of March and April, we succeeded in converting more than 80% of our active workforce into work from home. And so allowing for ample social distancing for the 20% who are still working in the centers. As we were able to maintain our quality of service, we received many accolades from our clients. So all in all, in H1 2020, TP radically transformed itself while continuing to grow organically and to remain profitable. We will update our full year guidance end of July with the results of first half. But we still impact to deliver a very solid year of growth and profitability even if impacted by the COVID-19 and the cost of transformation. Finally, 42 years after its creation, TP has been promoted to the CAC 40, the major index of Paris Stock Exchange for large capitalization. We owe this success to the enthusiasm, to the professionalism, to the dedication of our managers and employees as well as the loyalty of our clients, business partners and shareholders. So thank you all. [Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] [indiscernible] held from the headquarters in the presence of the only people who are here to fulfill their missions, Ariane Bucaille, who represents Deloitte & Associes, the auditor. No admission or card has been delivered. Bailiff, [ Mr. Rafael Perot ], also here to witness that the things are correctly. And our meeting is being broadcast directly through the Internet. So I suggest that we open the meeting and constitute the bureau of our assembly. I would like to thank Mrs. Christine Ernult and Sonia Cheurfa for having accepted to fill in the [indiscernible ]. Mrs. Sonia Cheurfa will act as secretary for this meeting. According to the rule of the centralizer for this meeting, the shareholders that are either present or have voted by correspondence come to a total of 40,552,386 shares and 42,551,135 shares are the extraordinary part of this meeting, 72.45%. So we have the forum, both for the extraordinary and ordinary parts of this meeting. So the joint assembly -- meeting can now validly deliberate, and we can start our meeting. I'm now going to give the floor to Sonia Cheurfa.

[Interpreted] Good morning. Meeting is convening upon the first convocation, launched on the 16th of April 2020, and then publications to the bylaw on the 20th of May and 10th of June 2020. And [indiscernible] 10th of June in compliance with the rules and legal dispositions, this was set up on the Internet sites of Teleperformance. And there is a file, which is entitled Bureau with the presentations of the resolution, what has been published on the BALO, the official announcement, the brochure for the communication, the universal registration document for 2019. And the corporate governance stated on 18th of May 2020. And all of the shareholders who have requests that have received these documents and information. The meeting is asked to deliberate on 31 regulations, 15 ordinary, 16 extraordinary, and the text can be found on Pages 30 and following of the brochure, which is available on Teleperformance Internet, Teleperformance Investor Relations General Meeting. I shall present a short -- briefly these resolutions before we announce the result of event.

[Interpreted] So we now come to the presentation of the exciting figures for this year. Let's have a reminder that the company which is the leader in integrated digital solutions. It's definitely the leader, employing more than 330,000 employees in more than 460 campuses and serves more than 80 countries, more 1, 000 clients on more than 170 markets. And further, recently, we have been listed on the CAC quarante with 265 languages. I wanted to add the evolution of the group over the last few years to show you where the group has come from. It was created in 1978 by Daniel Julien with very few employees in France, then it skipped various stages to organic growth in Europe, in the United States, in Asia, Latin America, to represent today the group that it is, i.e., 330,000 employees, close to EUR 13 billion in capitalization and a market which is more and more digital and more and more detailed and in depth. Very briefly, this is the history of Teleperformance that you should bear in mind to truly understand how we have evolved today. Today, we have a management team, which is held by Mr. Julien, and that comprises 8 people in the Executive Committee. Mr. Bhupender Singh, who is in charge of Transformation; Jeff Balagna and Agustin Grisanti, who are Co-Directors of Operations; Scott Klein in the United States; and Mr. Dupuy, Commercial Development also in the United States. Now on the central functions, we have Ms. Leigh Ryan, who's in the United States of America. So this team has 8 people. We have 21 members in the large committee present throughout the Board and also there are more than 45 managers that constitute the crisis management committee. What are the results for 2019? Let's quickly look at these figures that we -- have already been made public. As you know, it's the first year of the publication of IFRS 16. I'm not going to go into the detail. But I think what we need to bear in mind when we look at 2019 is a major growth for the group. It has grown by more than 20% in published figures and close to 11% in organic growth, which is a remarkable performance. To this organic growth can be associated an improvement of profitability. We're now at 14.3% in operational EBITA. And this is the current EBITDA, and for the first time, the group is hitting the EUR 400 million, which is significantly high. These are the 3 things you should bear in mind: Growth, profitable growth, both from the standpoint of operations and gross profitability. Now the client portfolio, a lot of you are familiar with our clients. What is important is to bear in mind these 3 clients, with diversification is, by far, the greatest. So the clientele is very wide, [ good in nature ], through its activity. So the number of countries is presented. Therefore, it is very widespread by its geographical scattering. We see that 50% of the group turnover is present in digital economy. Our activity is diversified, wide and promising for the future. Now if we go to the more detailed results. We also see that the turnover has improved by close to 21%, with operational results increasing by 27%, which are the -- carried out in the group in order to offer better and better solutions to its kind. The figure is quite identical in terms of operations. When we look at nonrecurrent expenditures, which also show the operational performance for the past year. Now the net result, this is where we see the EUR 400 million, [ EUR 222 million ] for the financial charges, the [indiscernible] service bond down because, of course, the degradation of this results from the implementation of IFRS, that the group has kept control over these expenses to start the investment that remains. At the same time, there was an improvement of the tax rate due to [ very conservative ] reduction of corporate tax [ lender ]. So this means that out of EUR 400 million, i.e., EUR 6.80 per share with an increase of 27% compared to the previous year. If you can dwell 2 seconds on cash assets, we see that the cash generated business is greater, EUR 320 million for last year, when, in fact, the major investments were carried out. Now there is also a variation of the need in running costs or funds, which were revised at the beginning of 2020. One quick word on the financial structure beyond the purely accounting aspect, we see that there has been a deleveraging of close to EUR 100 million, even if the figure of the debt does increase because of the rental, et cetera. But the structure of the group remains extremely precise with a ratio of EBITDA, which is to the tune of 2 and a reduction of deleveraging [ a sector group ], which is growing and which is deleveraging at the same time. The group has decided to maintain the dividend that has been planned for distribution, i.e., 26.3% in growth, with an identical rate for the last 6 to 7 years. The group had an excellent results in 2019, and we don't think that 2020 is a source of worry, which would lead to reducing this dividend. So the group has decided to maintain the level of the dividend, i.e. EUR 2.40 in progression by 26.3%. What is done in view of the world health process, what about the turnover for the first quarter? Daniel Julien explained our priority a moment ago, 3 of them, and they are very clear. Protect our team doing two things by making sure that the health standards are complied with in 80 countries where we are present and of course, depending on the various countries that we work with and ask people to work remotely. As Daniel Julien said, 80% of the staff switched over, which is quite an achievement in such a short period of time. So protect our team, protect jobs and making sure that corporate activity can continue. 90% of our [ client's content remote work ]. [indiscernible] in governance in different countries who helped us in achieving it. Last thing, protect the group and enhance its financial solidity. Well, a program has been set up for this environment, which, of course, has been reduced because of the cost due to the implementation of, let's say, new activity. Obviously, when you work from home, just in terms of certain number of costs and savings. We opened up a new line of credit, so that the group may avail itself of EUR 1.5 billion in case the situation has deteriorated. Standard & Poor's confirmed a rating at BBB-. So much for a reaction to the crisis, which deserves to be hailed in this extremely difficult environment as we're still working. A few word as to the first quarter figure. Obviously, the impact overall on March, but there's still a growth of 6.2%, with very quick growth in January, February and the profitability in March because of the crisis. In total, EUR 1.352 billion were on-site to deploy and during the first quarter compared to EUR 1.271 billion last year. One of the important things to note is that Core Services and D.I.B.S has grown by 6.8%, helped by a great growth in Ibero-LatAm when India focused its efforts on resources, which were limited on the most profitable contracts. So there are a certain number of contracts that were not profitable and hence, the reduction here. Then there are 2 activities, online interpreting, which has grown considerably throughout the quarter, have more than made up for the disappearance, especially after March. And after that, the GLS activities, which were important in terms of profitability, but also in terms of turnover, which you deliver or help a certain number of governments in delivering a certain number of leases. This came to a grinding halt, of course, at the time people were house locked. Now as far as those results are concerned, they are, of course, quite excellent given the circumstances. As Daniel Julien was saying, the negative impact of the crisis will, of course, be felt during the first half of the year and, of course, essentially in the second quarter. This being said, the commercial momentum is pretty dynamic. And so we continue to quench to a certain numbers of sales and finish our clients what has helped them to be ahead of their competitors. Now there is no -- there are no financial objectives for 2020 at this stage. When we present the accounts at the end of July, you'll have a better picture. But I think we are well placed to tackle the second half of the year. [ Interestingly ], we see that activities have already started up again with existing clients and new potential clients after that we have gained during the crisis. A few words of our commitment in social and environmental activity that was dealt with the year. We do 3 things. And we want to be of course, a reference across the world to create lasting value for our clients. We want to be the preferred employer for the -- for our workers, the 300,000 workers. There's no point in being in a business if you're working against your own staff. Of course, working with the staff is part of our DNA, and it's our business. So we want to be a preferred employer, but not only we want to be the preferred interface for all the potential clients. And to do so, we want to have -- we must have a very clear and strong sense of ethics over the course of our business across the world. The group also will be a force for good by working on 2 main things, supporting local jobs and local development and, of course, promote sustainable use of natural resources. What are our performance indicators then for CSR in 2019? Preferred employer on the market. Well, our results, I think, deserve to be restated, and they're very satisfactory. 70% of our staff work in a subsidiary, which is certified as a best employer or best place to work, which is significant. 99.3% of our employees are paid above the living wage, which is obviously more than just a basic salary or the minimum wage. We want to make sure here that the wages we pay enable our staff to have a decent life where according to their local circumstances, and 82% of our employees have open-ended contracts and 69% of managers come from in-house promotions. 92% of our employees have some kind of health coverage and 98% of our staff are covered by the early warning system by the, let's call it, whistle blowing system that can describe unethical behavior. So, so much for 2019, and I'll tell you more about what our goals for the future are. We are a stakeholder in diversity and inclusion. We have 49% of women in our staff, so almost a perfect equality, 43% of women -- 43% of the management jobs are filled by women and 24% in the senior management of the group. 70,000 are impact workers coming from vulnerable population. I like to mention maybe two examples, there are others, but maybe the most visible one is hiring so many Venezuelan refugees in Colombia and also the significant number of disabled workers we have. What's our impact on local communities? Well, we created 25,000 net jobs in 2019. I think it's worth remembering. It's significant. Also, let me remind you that any direct job at Teleperformance has a direct impact on the local community with a 2.4 -- times 2.4 multiplier effect. That's why you can see in most subsidiaries, we've looked at this and $1 spent by us in any country will, in fact, lead to $2.4 being spent generally. And almost EUR 5 million were raised for charities by our organizer in our staff in 2019. As Mr. Julien said, when we joined Citizen of the Planet, we have been very much committed to working against the global warming, reducing the carbon footprint and 10% of our energy sources come from renewable. So we've spoken about environment, gender equality and being the preferred employer. So that's what you see here, and this is true across the board, in Latin America, in India, in the Middle East, Asia Pacific, the English-speaking world. Basically, 17%, as I said, of our staff work in a subsidiaries certified as the Best Place to Work. And we got a Great Place to Work award 74 times across 22 countries. And confirms diversity, inclusion and gender equality, let me just say that we wanted to increase the share of women in management and senior management jobs. What we call TP Women was launched in 2019 to diversify the jobs and ensure diversification across at every level of the business, promote women, establish a network of men and women to support equal opportunities for men and women and develop a culture of leadership and mentoring for women. As for the environmental footprint, as I said earlier, our main concern is electricity consumption as for indeed that, I think, accounts for a significant share of our carbon footprint. We decided in 2019 to start reducing our carbon footprint and include -- increase, sorry, our -- the share of renewables in the energy mix. Not to mention, of course, all the awards that we got for governance or environmental behavior. You can see here that we got the [ best marks ] from MSCI, very good work recognition for Ethibel, on Verego or EcoVadis, not to mention FTSE4Good. We will go on working along those lines. Briefly, let me mention the share -- the performance of the shares and shareholders. Here, you have the share price over the last year. It's gone up 53%, even though on the variation for CAC was pretty stable. Shareholdership, not much of a change here. We almost -- 100% of our shares are of the free floats. We've joined the CAC quarante since mid-June this year, and we had an international makeup that really echoes the business. About half of our shareholders come from the English-speaking world and the other half is evenly divided, more or less, between France and the rest of the world. And we're starting to see the first few Asian investors. Let me now give the floor to Sonia Cheurfa, who will tell you more about group governance and compensation policy.

[Interpreted] Thank you, Olivier. Let me give you a summary of the governance. And also remind you that the report of the Board on corporate governance is in the universal registration document for 2019 at Pages 93 and following. And also on the report dated 18th of May 2020 on corporate governance. So you'll find here everything related to the compensation policy and two, the compensation paid to the corporate offices, including those on which we will be voting today. Let me just mention the following. The Board of Teleperformance is made up 14 members, including 6 women, people from 6 nationalities. Most of the directors are independent, 9 directors are recognized as such. And the Board is made up of well-recognized professionals from various areas. Patrick Thomas is the Lead Independent Director. A report of what he has done in 2019 is also included in the universal registration document. Your assembly is being called upon to renew the mandates and the terms of offices of 5 directors under Resolutions 11 to 15. Most of these are independent directors and have experience and accounts for a lot of international expertise. Moreover, 2 additional directors representing the staff will be appointed in 2020. And this stems from the statutory amendment coming from Resolution 22. In 2019, the Board met on 6 occasions, including a 5-day seminar reviewing this operational strategy. Attendance rate was 98%. Let me not repeat what the Board has done over the year. I will just refer you to Page 121 of the French version of the universal registration document. The Board has 2 specialized committees: the audit, risk and the compliance committee and the [indiscernible] committee. Most of them -- both of them mainly made up of independent directors and are chaired by independent directors. You will also find information in that respect in the universal registration document. Let me now move on to the compensation and the compensation policy as it was implemented on the basis of your decisions and the policy for 2020 as prepared. That's for 2019. Under the so-called global ex-post voting, the principles and the philosophy of -- and the approach of Teleperformance is to be found in great detail in the documents circulated for the assembly. Resolution 5 aims at approving and endorsing this policy for compensation for 2019 for the company officers, so the directors, the CEO and the Deputy CEO. As confirmed the conversation for 2019 of the Chairman and CEO, any compensation paid was paid in accordance with the policy adopted by the assembly of 9th of May 2019. Performance shares allocated on condition of performance by the CEO was, in fact, lower than what had been enabled and authorized by the assembly last year. Moreover, Mr. Julien has decided to pay 20% of his variable compensation on the 2019, should it be approved, to a charity going by the name Feed the Children, which supports children and their families who are affected by malnutrition or other disasters, including COVID-19. That confirms the compensation for the Deputy CEO of 2019. That was paid out in accordance with the policies adopted on the 9th of May 2019 by the previous assembly. You are called upon under Resolution 7 to approve that. Which brings me now to 2020. Resolution 8, relating to the 2020 policy, the remuneration policy and compensation policy for directors. It remains -- the approach from May is unchanged as you have a EUR 1 million maximum envelope as agreed on the 9th of May 2019, which will be paid out under -- according to the following principles: Fixed compensation depending on the attendance and membership of the Board and all committees; then specific fixed compensation related to the position of lead independent director; then compensation -- the variable compensation according to attendance and systems covered to a turn; and fourthly, no remuneration for the CEO or other directors paid under working contracts elsewhere. You'll find the details in the governance report. Resolution 9 aims at endorsing the compensation policy for 2020 as applicable to the Chairman and CEO. I'll just remind you that these numbers are maximum possible numbers. The actual variable compensation and long-term compensation will depend on the principles agreed to by the Board. Indeed, you will remember that the group had published the expected levels of compliance of the health crisis, completely called into question this approach and it will be reexamined later. We will be adjusting those once the numbers for the first half year will be posted at the last -- at the end of July, as Mr. -- as we said earlier. Lastly, the 10th resolution aims at approving the remunerations and compensation policy for the deputy CEO. There, again, the principles are unchanged. The deputy CEO is and remains CFO. And as is the case for the CEO, the numbers are maximum numbers and the variable compensation for this year and for long-term will later be adopted by the Board.

Thank you, Sonia. Let's now give the floor to Mrs. Bucaille of Deloitte & Associes, who's our statutory auditor. Can you give us a more about the accounts?

[Interpreted] Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, members of the shareholder assembly, we report back on the FY 2019. Let me tell you more about our -- first of all, our reports for the ordinary shareholders meeting and further reports for the extraordinary work. These reports are available in the universal registration document, which you will have found on the Internet. And I will just therefore give you a summary. Reports on the accounts. Our main purpose was to get an assurance of the consolidated statements and the annual statements. Compliance and Deloitte and KPMG have worked together and covered the companies within the consolidation area. This was submitted to the Audit Committee. We met with them regularly and also submitted to the Board, namely, the Board of the 20th of February. We certify, without reservation, the accounts for the financial year ending on 31st of December 2019, they are honest and regular and give a clear indication of the state of the group at that date. If we look at this into greater detail, look at the consolidated statements, we looked, of course, at the accounting principles. Yes, there are two key items. So first of all, the valuation of goodwill, given their significance in the balance sheet of the group and also an assessment of what management has assumed relating to goodwill. The second item was a first assessment of the initial recourse to IFRS 16 because it was being used for the first time. We consider that this was a significant part of our audit, given the size and number of such rental leases and their impact on the accounts. As in terms of the annual statements, so there's only one item relating to the valuation of shareholdings because, indeed, this is significant in the parent company accounts. The assessment of the hypotheses and assumptions made by senior management in this respect is significant. Our reports also mentioned specific obligations and reports as you can see relating to the documents that have been submitted, namely, the management report and we have no specific comment there. We also issued a report on related party agreements. We have not been informed of any such agreements signed during the financial year. We have not either been notified of such agreements that would have been signed in previous fiscal years, which would been still ongoing. Under the extraordinary shareholders meeting, your meeting is called upon to grant authority to issue share and other -- and act on the capital -- the share capital of the company. The first question relates to the issuance of shares with preferential rights, and those are the Resolutions 17, 18, 19 and 20, for which we have no specific comments to make relating to the price of these shares nor to the calculation and computation seeing as this has not been [ surpassed ]. Nor have we anything to say about the cancellation of preferential subscription rights seeing as the rules have not yet been finalized. And one last report under Resolution 21, still under the extraordinary report relating to the issuance of shares and/or stock relating to company savings, we have nothing to say here seeing as the actual modalities have not yet been set. We will be issuing additional reports if and when this is required. Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much.

[Interpreted] Thank you, Madam. Before we turn to the results of the votes on resolutions, let me state that 12 questions were received from the forum for [indiscernible] for our shareholders who are very keen to look at the environment, certain government forecast. The answers have been given under the item general assembly or have shareholders meeting. But I'm sure that you have the...

[Interpreted] Yes. [ I would indicate that the ] tax of the regulation is on the agenda of meeting on the site. The quorum is 72.45% of double vote is linked to shares that have been held for at least 4 years as far as the majority were also conservative. The majority were for ordinary resolutions, 1 to 16, and 2/3 for the extraordinary part of the meeting, 17 to 21. Given the legal provisions and regulations to apply the votes and results were actually stopped last night, and now I'm going to give you the results that were then fetched. The first resolution [ have the approval ] of the annual account. The first and second resolution for the ordinary accounts, well, the first one were 99.95%, the second one, 99.92% for the approval of the accounts are the same. Third one, allocation had the result and granting of a dividend of EUR 2.4. The coupon will be discussed on the 2nd of July and payment will be done on the 6th of July, adopted 99.28%. Fourth resolution. As it happens to take into account the absence of new regulated agreement. As we were told a moment ago, this is the case, adopted 99.99%. Fifth resolution aims at approval of information under Article L.225-37-3 of the commercial code for all of the officers of the company, adopted 96.44%. Sixth resolution. Approval of the remuneration which is paid -- that has been paid or attributed to Mr. Daniel Julien, CEO in 2019, adopted 93.21%. Seventh resolution. Approval of the remuneration, whatever the nature paid out in 2019, for -- under that year for Mr. Olivier Rigaudy, Deputy CEO, 93.95% approval. Eighth, approval of the remuneration policy for 2020 of the directors, adopted to the tune of 99.93%. Ninth resolution, approval of the remuneration applicable to the CEO for 2020, adopted to the tune of 94.41%. 10th resolution, approval of the remuneration applicable to the Deputy CEO in 2020, approved 94.49%. 11th resolution, renewal of the term of Mrs. Christobel Selecky for 3 years, adopted 96.73%. 12th, renewal of the term of Mrs. Angela Maria Sierra-Moreno as director for 3 years, adopted 96.73%. 13th resolution, renewal of the term of Mr. Jean Guez for a period of 3 years, adopted 87.01%. 14th, renewal of the terms of Bernard Canetti for a period of 2 years, approved 92.36%. 15th, renewal of term of director, Mr. Philippe Dominati for the period of 2 years, adopted 94.28%. 16th, authorizing the Board in buying back shares of the company for a period of 18 months within the limit of 10% of the equity and a maximum price of EUR 350, and of course, compliance with the [ code ] regulation. This will put an end to the authorization that had been given to the Board on the 1st of October 2019, adopted 98.99%. 17th resolution is delegation of competence to the Board in order to issue shares or securities with preferential rights for subscribers, adopted to the tune of 94.94%. 18th resolution, the delegation of authority to be given to the Board to issue shares or securities that are nominal without preferential right of subscription to the shareholders, with a possibility of granting a priority delay through a public offer or remuneration with a public offer, approved to the tune of 93.14%. 19th resolution. Delegation of authority to the Board to issue shares or securities, giving access to the capital to an offer as per L.411-2 of the Monetary and Financial Code, approved 90.48%. 20th resolution, [indiscernible] to the Board to increase the number of issuances that could be implemented under Resolution 17, 18, 19. This is adopted to the tune of 83.46%. So 21st resolution, delegation of authorities for the increase of capital to the benefit of the people benefiting from savings -- corporate savings plan, adopted 90.5% (sic) [ 90.05% ]. 22nd, modification of Article 14 of bylaws in order to [indiscernible] the directors representing employee, adopted 98.43%. 23rd, highlight Article 11.2 of the bylaws with the provisions of Article L233.7 (sic) [ L.233-7 ] of the Commercial Code, approved 96.66%. 24th resolution, modifying Article 13 of the bylaws concerning the identification of shareholders in compliance for the provisions of Article L.228-2 of the Commercial Code, which was approved to tune of 99%. 25th resolution, modifying Paragraph 8 and 9 of Article 14 of the bylaws relating to the obligation to hold shares made upon the directors so that it complies with L.225-109 of the Commercial Code and European rule 596, approved 99%. 26th and 27th resolution, aiming at modifying Articles 20 and 27 to the bylaws concerning the remuneration of corporate officers to comply with provisions of L.225-37-2 and L.225-45 of the Commercial Code are both adopted with a score of 99%. 28th resolution, harmonizing Article 21 of the bylaws concerning agreement between the company and the corporate officers or shareholders that are confirmative with the Commercial Code, 100% approval. 29th resolution, modifying Article 23 of the bylaws concerning the delay for converting that general meeting so that they comply with Article R.225-69 of the Commercial Code, adopted to the tune of 99%. 30th resolution, given the recertification of the Commercial Code, which is planned for 2020 to take into account the modification that might be -- have to be taken account. This was rejected to the tune of 6.13% (sic) [ 60.13% ]. Finally, 31st resolution, granting the necessary authorities in order to accomplish the formalities following this meeting, adopted 100%.

[Interpreted] Thank you, Sonia. Thank you, all of you, for taking part in this a bit special meeting. I'm going to declare the meeting adjourned, hoping that we meet physically next year for the traditional type of shareholders meeting. Thank you all. [Portions of this transcript that are marked [Interpreted] were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]