Valeo SE (FR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, thank you for coming to this shareholders' meeting, and I wish you welcome. This meeting is convened by the Board of Directors following a publication in the notice of meeting at -- on Bulletin des Annonces Légales Obligatoires on 31st March 2023 and the convening notice in the same bulletin and [indiscernible] Parisienne on 28th April 2023. The general meeting is live streamed on the company's website. And like every year, it will be video recorded and the video will be available on the Shareholders Meeting page of our websites. I will chair the meeting this year as Chairman of the Board. I have with me, Christophe Perillat, CEO of the Group; Robert Charvier, CFO; and Eric Antoine Fredette, Chief Counsel and COO. Members of the Board are also sitting on the front row in the room. The statutory auditors also present. And I would also point out that we are very glad to welcome a few journalists amongst us. I will now move on to the appointment of the Bureau of the General Meeting. Our tellers are the 2 members of the meeting who have the highest number of votes and who accepted this function. According to the list of Société Générale, the 2 shareholders with the highest number of votes in their own name, or by proxy, who said that they accepted this position as teller respectively, Amundi and BNP Paribas Asset Management. So I will invite their respective representatives, Ms. Orsolya Gal and Ms. [indiscernible], to join us on stage. It's now done, thank you. Now the bureau proposes to appoint Mr. Eric Antoine Fredette as Secretary of the meeting, and I will give him the floor so that it gives us the temporary quorum of the general meeting, and he gives us the agenda.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, the Société Générale, the centralizing institution in charge of organizing the meeting informed the members of the bureau of the bureau of the temporary quorum. After examining the attendance list certified by the members of the bureau, it turns out that the shareholders present, represented, who voted by mail or by vote access have 184,122,000 shares out of the 242,554,878 shares with voting rights. And so this is a quorum of 75.91%, which is high. The bureau also approved a vote on tablets. Now the meeting has convened over a quarter of shares with voting rights is validly convened and it can validly decide on all matters of the agenda, both for the ordinary and the extraordinary part. This meeting, thus convened is here to decide on the agenda, which appears on screen, and which is also in the convening notice. I suggest that I will not read all of the agenda. Regarding the general meeting documents, they were made available on the desk of the meeting, and they are also available on the website of this company. Mr. Chairman, you have the floor again.

Thank you. All documents and information set forth by applicable regulations were communicated or made available to shareholders according to the conditions and in the due deadlines as set forth by the law. Ladies and gentlemen, it is with very pride that I'm chairing this meeting for the first time. We will have an opportunity to present and discuss about the 2022 results about our prospects, about our strategy, including for the climate, our governance and, of course, our resolutions. As you know, in 2022, we changed the organization of our governance with, on the one hand, the implementation of a split functions of Chairman and CEO, that happened in 2022, with the appointment of Mr. Perillat on the same date as Chief Executive Officer, a role that he assumed with remarkable leadership. The appointment of a Chairman of the Board with Jacques Aschenbroich and myself since the first of January 2023, a responsibility that I'm assuming with great pride and honor. The quality of this transition process in line with the commitments made by the group was done in a very professional, rigorous and transparent manner to ensure change without discontinuity. I would like to warmheartedly and friendly give a warm hearted and friendly thanks to my predecessor, Jacques Aschenbroich, who, over the past 14 years helped Valeo turn into a determinedly international group, deeply innovative and at the core of the challenges of sustainable mobility and end out with highly professional governance. One of my missions will be to preserve the wonderful asset that is the robustness of our governance. In this respect, I shall strive to maintain the efficient workings of our Board of Directors which is exemplary in the diversity of backgrounds, the gender diversity and independence of its members. This Board was renewed again during the fiscal year '22 with the quotation as Independent Director of Alexandre Dayon, who is bringing to the Board recognized expertise in the areas of digital, information systems and, more generally, new technologies. The decoration as Independent Director of Stéphanie Frachet. Stéphanie has over 20 years' experience in finance and private equity, and she was on our board -- she's been on our board since June 2019 as permanent representative of Bpifrance Participations, with a remarkable contribution. The appointment as permanent representative of BPI France participations of Alexandre Ossola as a replacement for Stéphanie Frachet as the Head of the mid-cap and Automotive future fund at Bpifrance Participations, Alexandre has in-depth knowledge of the automotive sector, and he has 20 years' experience in private equity and mergers and acquisitions. During this meeting, you will be asked to you confirm the cooperation of Alexandre Dayon and Stéphanie Frachet, and to reappoint for 4 years, Stéphanie Frachet as well as Patrick Sayer, who is here, who is, moreover, the Chairman of our Strategic Committee. These confirmations and appointments, reappointments if you so decide, will help your board to leverage their utmost and very valuable expertise. Another major change that is noteworthy that we are very glad of is that in 2024, next year, we'll have an opportunity to welcome a third employee representative as Director on our Board. More precisely, this director will represent shareholder employees. And so you'll be asked this year on the Resolution 29 to decide on the statutory procedure to appoint this director. And then next year, to decide on the candidate who will have been designated after the selection procedure that is subject to your approval. This additional representation of employees on the Board is the outcome of a proactive share ownership policy by the group, a long-standing policy, which has a bigger and bigger echo within the company. This policy results in the implementation since 2016 of offers reserved to employees, the aim of which is to recognize and value the commitment of employees associating them to the results of the group. Now employee share ownership accounts for over 4.11% of our share capital and over half, 54%, of employees are shareholders. Our belief about that is intact. And so we intend to continue to grow employee share ownership within Valeo. Thus, with Mr. Grzegorz Szelag and Eric Poton, 2 directors representing employees already on the Board will have as early as next year, the benefit of the participation of 3 representatives from the company within our governance. Now to conclude on this company's governance, I can tell you that this is doing very well. As part of our regular assessment of the workings of the Board of Directors, an assessment that I supervised this year, the outcome that came out of it was unanimous, with a working of the Board deemed very satisfactory, of course, with a few areas of improvement, which will be monitored as early as this year. Throughout my functions, I shall strive to maintain this high level of quality and the working of the Board with the constant quality engagement discussion, reflection and listening. In cooperation with Christophe Perillat, your Chief Executive Officer, the Board will continue to approve the main strategic directions of the company, see to it that they are put in place and be the guarantor by Valeo -- of Valeo's respect of its obligations and commitments. The Board is particularly careful to -- about the fact that Valeo is still a benchmark in terms of environment, social responsibility and governance. Véronique Weill, the Head of the Governance and Social Responsibility Committee, will come back over that during her presentation, but the group is in marching order vis-a-vis the ambitious goals that it set itself as part of its carbon neutrality plan that we call CAP 50. In line with the best practice on the market, a detailed presentation of the group's climate strategy will be given to you as well as about the associated action plans to reach the goals that were set during the presentation made by Geoffrey Bouquot, the Head of Strategy and Research and Development. And finally, the quality of the value creation trajectory is a central aspect of the group's strategy and the Move Up plan that was presented on 25 February 2022. It is noteworthy that the commitments on this plan were met in the first year of implementation against a very difficult backdrop marked by high inflation, the shortage in electronic components, which is still ongoing, and the various lockdowns in China, and the war in Ukraine. Valeo was able to meet its goals in the way that it announced during the presentation of the strategic plan by strongly accelerating in the electrification and ADAS systems, driver assist systems. I would also like to point out that in this difficult context, thanks to the relentless work, and it's not an empty word though, it is a reality. Through relentless work of its employees, Valeo was able to deliver all of its clients without any interruptions, which shows how reliable our group is. Christophe Perillat and Robert Charvier will give details about our 2022 results and those of 2023. Against this backdrop, this Board decided to pay out a dividend of EUR 0.38 per share for the fiscal year 2022. This resolution, the #3, will be subject to your approval during this meeting. Before I give the floor to Véronique Weill, the Chair of the Remuneration and the Governance Appointments and Social Responsibility committees, I would like to thank very sincerely all of the group's employees for their engagement and the utmost quality of their work. Véronique, over to you.

Good afternoon, everyone. Dear shareholders, it is as Chair of the Compensation Committee on the one hand and the Governance Appointments and Corporate Social Responsibility on the other hand, that I am speaking to you today. Previously, I was a member of these committees, and it is now my honor to be Chair of these committees since January 1, 2023, replacing Gilles Michel . Following on with the President's intervention, I'd like to also stress that the current composition of the Board with its diversity of profiles and experiences as well as a rate of independence far higher than the recommendations of the AFEP-MEDEF code gives it all of the assets to fully understand the current and future challenges of the group. I would like to discuss with you the work of the Governance Appointments and Corporate Social Responsibility Committee in regards to social responsibility and sustainable development. Those are subjects that occupy a very important role in the group strategy. I'd like to remind you that in accordance with the best practices, those subjects are moderated within the committee by Ms. Ulrike Steinhorst, who is Director in charge of our CSR issues. This organization enables us to have a rigorous, efficient and technical follow -- monitoring of these subjects. As you know, social and environmental responsibility cover many subjects, including climate and diversity. When it comes to climate, we have monitored the implementation of the CAP 50 plan and its ambitious targets as it was presented on February 4, 2021. As indicated by the President -- the group's climate strategy will be the subject of a specific presentation during this assembly. I would like to mention that the group is working on these subjects in an exemplary fashion with great professionalism. As of today, the group has exceeded its targets by reducing its emissions by 4.4 metric tons equivalent CO2 compared to 2019, which is a drop in 9%. Beyond climate, the implementation of diversity and inclusion policy, which is a key element of Valeo's culture, is a subject which we fervently encourage and monitor closely. With regards to gender diversity, the percentage of women in the group as a whole is 31.8%. The group is -- does plan to continue its efforts with regard to the presence of women in the various management committees, which covers the group's 300 most important executive positions, in 2019, Valeo set it's -- the ambitious objective of doubling the presence of women on their boards to moving from 16% on January 1, 2020 to 32% at the end of 2030. As of the end of December 2022, that rate was 20.65%. That progress was made possible thanks in particular to the identification and promotion of in-house female talent, but we need to do even more. As part of our work, we have thus ensured that the relevance of the actions implemented by management to continue that effort will be undertaken, and our -- and we will reach our value -- our goals. Valeo also stands out for its commitment to professional equality between women and men. As a pioneer this approach, Valeo decided in March 2019 to expand the professional equality index between women and men, which is mandatory in French, to all of the countries where it operates. Based on 5 indicators, the index measures weighted differences in pay, in increases and in promotions. In order to strengthen the continuous monitoring of this index by country, the group has developed a tool for calculating results as at all levels, including sites, countries and clusters. The group's progress in this regard is constant. And in 2022, the group's average was 87.9 out of 100, which is an increase of 0.7 points year-to-year. Valeo has set itself an objective of achieving an average result of 88 out of 100 in 2023 and 90 over 100 in 2025. We believe that this is a very ambitious and positive approach. Convinced of the importance of diversity in nonfinancial and financial results, the Board decided once again this year to include diversity within the management bodies as well as the result of the professional index. Between men and women in the calculation of this -- of compensation, both variable and long term for the CEO. I will come back to the compensation in a minute. But first, I'd like to stress that reaching the ambitious objectives that the gold has set itself in terms of ESG has been made possible, thanks to the constant involvement of all of the group's employees. For several years now, and I'd like to thank those employees, our teams have enabled the group's extra financial performance to be recognized by the main rating agencies and we have maintained our position as the highest rated automotive supplier by several of those agencies. Valeo's presence in the CAC 40 ESG, which brings together the 40 companies that have demonstrated the best practices for an environmental, social and governance point of view, testifies to the quality of the group's commitments. As Chair of the Compensation Committee, I would now like to discuss the compensation of the corporate officers. I'd like to make 3 comments on that subject. First of all, the Chief Executive Officer's compensation policy for 2023 is in line with the one that you approved in 2022 at 92.25% with ceilings for fixed variable and long-term compensation remaining unchanged. Second, the annual and long-term variable compensation for the CEO for 2023 will be subject to the same performance criteria as those set out for the -- in the 2022 policy with only one small change, the EBITDA criteria has been replaced by EBIT criteria in line with the move-up strategy and with the fact that this criteria is monitored more closely by Financial Committee. And finally, the resolution which allows the allocation of free and performance shares is expiring. And a new resolution is being submitted to you for approval during this meeting. Please note that the ceilings are in line with those in the 2021 resolution, which you approved by 97.11%. The structure of the plan is described in the Board's report is also in line with that of 2021, with just a few adjustments aimed at enhancing the attractiveness of the scheme for beneficiaries. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attention.

Thank you very much, Véronique. Now I'd like to give the floor to Thierry Moulonguet, who is Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee.

Good afternoon. everyone. At the end of the 2022 financial year, the Audit and Risk Committee was composed of 6 members, all of them independent under the Board's rules of procedure, with the exception of the director representing employees. The company that -- complies with the provisions of the AFEP-MEDEF Code relating to the share of independent directors on the Audit and Risk Committee. In addition, all current members of the committee have accounting and financial skills through their training and professional experience. The company -- the committee met 6 times with a 100% turnout rate. The committee has a very broad mission that covers, in particular, the monitoring of the audit of accounts, accounting methods, significant off balance risk -- and off-balance sheet risk and commitments and accounting and financial treatment of the acquisition and disposal operations for over EUR 50 million. This mission also extends to the monitoring of the effectiveness of risk management and internal control systems, including regarding compliance as well as monitoring the work carried by the internal audit team. In order to carry out its mission, the committee has -- It was in contact with the general management, the financial department, legal department and the ethics and compliance department as well as the company's statutory auditors. And I greet them very warmly today. More specifically, in 2022, committee heard Anita Leibenguth, Director of Finance and Treasury, Jean-Louis Barsac, who is Chief Tax Officer; Stéphane Bollinger, Director of Insurance; and Lionel Monteiller, who is Director of Internal Audit, Internal Control and Risk Management, on the results of internal control self-assessment campaigns, the results of internal auditing and risk mapping. The -- and you will be very pleased of the -- with the quality of the work by those members which made it possible to identify new risks. The committee also discussed issues relating to the governments of information systems with Christophe Jouvray, who is the Director of Systems. Cybersecurity was reviewed twice with Florent Halbot , the group's Head of Information Systems Security in particular, with regard to the recruitment plan for the teams dedicated to the activity, which required reinforcement and the implementation of the plan for new incident detection tools. Particular attention was paid to the prevention of theft and leakage for research and development technical data. We also looked at various incidents which occurred in the industrial environment in order to draw the necessary lessons for Valeo. The Director of Ethics and Compliance spoke to the committee to present the various programs implemented to address the main risks related to compliance, particularly the data protection program. The committee also looked at the financing policy for the group and the levers for free cash flow generation and debt control implementation. And all of these tools exist in order to ensure that liquidity management is adapted to the current context of rising interest rates. The Director of Accounting also presented the accounting impacts of the takeover of the Valeo Siemens high-voltage activity. And finally, the committee examined the compliance of projects and R&D processes. This is something that I discussed last year already. We monitored several specific audits carried out since 2021 and the action plans, which are meant to improve the current situation. And this is something that is ongoing and was discussed with the Director of Research and Strategy. Many other subjects were also dealt with by the Audit and Risk Committee, and you'll find more details in the universal registration document, which you have received. Overall, as Chairman of the committee, I can confirm that the work of the Audit and Risk Committee was in line with the goals entrusted to it during the year that the group has efficient and professional teams and that the general principles of ethics and compliance of site protection and risk management meet high standards. In addition, at no time was the Audit and Risk Committee required to make any reservations on the corporate and consolidated financial statements or on the half year documents as submitted. Thank you very much for your attention.

Thank you, Thierry. Now we're going to go on to the management presentations, and I'd like to leave the floor -- give the floor to the CEO of Valeo, Mr. Christophe Perillat.

Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders. As you know, the automotive sector and, more broadly, the mobility sector has begun the greatest transformation in the history of the industry. And your company, thanks to the efforts made over the past 10 years is now ideally positioned to benefit from those changes. Remember, this transformation must enable us to respond to absolutely essential challenges. First of all, decarbonization of mobility through the acceleration of vehicle electrification and, secondly, improving safety through acceleration of driving assistance systems. The electrification and ADAS markets are at the dawn of a very long period of hyper growth. In 2035, electrification will represent for Valeo a market of EUR 200 billion. This will be an increase of 6.5-fold since 2021. The market for driving assistance systems will reach EUR 120 billion, increased 8-fold since 2021. Already in 2022, the acceleration of electrification was confirmed with over EUR 7 million totally electric vehicles sold worldwide. That's an increase of nearly 60% year-on-year. This represents already over 11% of the world market. In China, nearly 22% of the cars sold in 2022 were electric in Europe, that figure is 14% in the U.S., just under 6%. The acceleration of driving assistance has also been confirmed. The first vehicles capable of reaching Level 3 autonomy are arriving on the market. As you can see on the screen right now in this video, this video was made on Mercedes EQS. And as you may know, these vehicles, especially the Mercedes, are equipped with Valeo's LiDAR. Above all, advanced driving assistance systems are being more and more -- becoming more and more popular. In 2022, 55% of new cars were equipped with these systems. There are many different types of cameras and Valeo is one of the leading manufacturers in the world of those cameras. And that will continue to grow by about 50% between now in 2025. By 2030, they will have doubled. Regulations, of course, also act as an accelerator. Starting in July 2024, all new vehicles marketed in the European Union will be required to be equipped with active safety systems, like automatic emergency braking, cruise control, or drowsiness detection and attention warnings. At the same time, Robotaxis are booming, whether it be in China, in the U.S. or in Dubai, Jerusalem, Singapore. A growing number of cities have already set up fleets of Robotaxis. For Valeo, this transformation is a huge opportunity. We have been preparing for it for a long time, and conscientiously. All of our strategic choices, all of our R&D, all of our investments have been designed and directed in that way. To make Valeo even stronger technologically, more operationally efficient and financially sounder, last year, we launched our Move Up plan, a strategic plan covering the period 2022-2025. We then announced that we are fully focused on the 4 sustainable mobility trends that will be driving growth in the future. for our sector for the upcoming years. Electrification and driving assistance systems, which I just mentioned with tremendous growth prospects. But also the reinvention of the Interior Eexperience and Lighting Everywhere. These are 2 trends that will benefit very directly to -- from the rise of Electrification and driving assistance. This -- Valeo position is, as you understand ideally. And we are very little exposed to the products, specifically related to internal combustion engines. Those products represented only 11% of our sales in 2021 and will we represent less than 4% in 2030. Another major development worthy of being highlighted, our technologies are now finding applications beyond the automobile sector, including in new forms of mobility and smart city infrastructures. Ultimately, these activities could represent as high as 10% of our sales. I'd also like to emphasize another important point. Our strategic ideal positioning as part of a more global approach to excellence in terms of social environmental responsibility. Through our technologies, we are indeed an essential contributor to the advent of cleaner and safer automobiles. Geoffrey Bouquot, the R&D and Strategy Director will be talking about that more in detail in a few minutes and about the colossal transformation that we've undertaken to achieve carbon neutrality across our entire value chain. Moreover, the ESG commitment goes far beyond decarbonization. This is why Valeo, as Véronique Weill recalled, is widely recognized by agencies and nonfinancial indices as a reference player in ESG. With Move Up, Valeo has clearly stated its ambition to sharply accelerate, particularly in electrification and driver assistance in order to take advantage of the future hypergrowth on those markets. So what have we done since we announced the Move Up plan? First of all, we've been working on electrification. We've integrated 100% of Valeo Siemens eAutomotive in Valeo, creating a champion of electric mobility. Our sales in high-voltage electrification has increased by 32% in 2022. We reached our target of EUR 4 billion in orders in high-voltage electric propulsion for the period of 2021, '22. 7 months -- and did that by June, which was 7 months ahead of schedule. 2/3 of the orders of our propulsion systems and 2/3 of the orders of thermal systems are related to high-voltage electrified vehicles, which just goes to show the extent of our repositioning. In terms of driving assistance systems, our sales increased by 29% in 2022. And our order intake ADAS in 2022 still represents 3x our ADAS original equipment sales. And some of these orders are particularly strategic. For example, the contracts that we signed with BMW to supply the ADAS domain controller, sensors and software for parking and low-speed maneuvering, which we will be doing for the next generation of the BMW Neue Klasse platform. I'm also referring here to the first contract for our third-generation LiDAR signed with Stellantis to equip several of their models and allow them to reach Level 3 autonomy. Our activities in reinventing the interior experience and lighting has also been very dynamic. We booked no less than EUR 3.2 billion in orders related to the reinvention of the into your experience in 2022. In terms of lighting, we took our first orders for front lighting and logos. We have formed strategic partnerships for Illuminated grids with SRG Global and Nimbus. And in the field of interior lighting, we have a partnership with Motherson. 2022 was a very important year. The first year for implementation of our move-up plan, a year of strong acceleration as we had announced. In a particularly difficult context, marked in particular by very high inflation, the shortage of electronic components, lock down measures in China and the conflict in Ukraine, we nonetheless achieved all the financial objectives that we had set for ourselves in 2022. And I'd like to take this opportunity, of course, to highlight the unwavering commitment of employees throughout the year, and I'd like to thank them. Our sales exceeded the symbolic -- excuse me, EUR 20 billion mark for the first time, and we reached the high end of the range we'd set for ourselves. Our EBITDA reached 12%, and operating margin 3.2%. Our free cash flow generation, EUR 388 million, exceeding our target of EUR 320 million. And we also recorded a record level of orders at EUR 32.6 billion, up 48%. And I'd also like to point out that these are very profitable orders with a margin significantly higher than what we targeted in for 2025 in our move-up plan, which means that we can further improve our margin beyond 2025. So you can see that despite a very difficult context we have achieved what we announced, and we are now perfectly in line with our defined trajectory. The acceleration that you saw in 2022 has been confirmed since the beginning of 2023. Valeo got off to a very good start with the first quarter revenue up 15% compared to the previous year at EUR 5.5 billion. And this growth was once again driven by electrification and driving assistance. Our sales in high-voltage electric propulsion increased by 69% and in ADAS by 21%. Our strong commercial momentum also continues. In electrification, in just 4 months, we recorded around EUR 4 billion in orders in orders -- in order intake in high-voltage electric propulsion. So we are perfectly in line to reach our goal of EUR 4 billion in sales in that area in 2030. These are -- these orders related in particular to the latest technologies, the 800-volt technologies and they concern all regions, Europe, of course, Asia, of course, but also North America. As for ADAS, we've also had some very good success stories. Our rise in LiDAR continues, and we recently announced that 2 new major contracts for our third generation LiDAR were signed, one with an Asian manufacturer and another with a leading American Robotaxi company. Those LiDAR orders now amount to more than EUR 1 billion. And you've probably heard about our joint announcement yesterday with Renault. We signed a major partnership with Renault in the essential field rather -- it's a rather technical term, it's software-defined vehicle. In other words, we are their ADAS partner. And as part of that partnership, Valeo, we're providing 3 types of technology. The high-performance computers, HPCs, the heart, which are the very heart of all of the driving strategy controls for the ADAS systems. But also zone controllers for more efficient power management in the cars. We will also provide a complete set of sensors for ADAS. and finally, Valeo will be bringing to Renault along with other very prestigious partners like Google and Qualcomm. We will be giving our expertise as a world leader in embedded software by providing software modules, particularly for automatic parking functions. So this Renault partnership shows once again that we -- Valeo is a key leader in ADAS systems. In addition, I'd like to highlight the dynamism of our aftermarket business. We really love this activity. It's very profitable. 6% growth in Q1 2022 after growth at constant scope and exchange rates in 2022, our performance in this area has been recognized among our 3 main worldwide customers, which gave -- from whom we received awards. Here, I'm talking about Nexus, AD International and TEMOT. In 2023, overall, our objectives include sales between EUR 22 billion and EUR 23 billion, operating margin between 3.2% and 4% with a significant improvement in our profitability on a pro forma basis, going from 0.8 to 1.6 compared to 2022. The EBITDA of between 11.5% and 12.3%, also up. And free cash flow of more than EUR 320 million, also significantly up compared to EUR 205 million in 2022. And you can see that we are clearly on the right track to achieve what we announced in our Move Up plan. In 2005, when the Electrification and ADAS markets continue to accelerate further, Valeo will be even stronger technologically, operationally and financially. And we will be even better positioned to take advantage of a very long period of hyper growth on these markets. Our clearly stated ambition is to reach EUR 40 billion in sales by 2030. As you can see, the ongoing and future transformation of the auto and mobility sector, this major transformation, the most important since its birth, represents a tremendous opportunity for Valeo and you can count on us to fully grasp it. As you know, Valeo is 100 years old this year. Over the past 100 years, women and men of Valeo have Contributed to writing some of the most beautiful pages in the history of the automobiles industry. At a time when the automotive sector is undergoing the biggest transformation in its history, Valeo is perfectly prepared. We are ready. Your company is now exactly where it needs to be in order to be one of the big winners in this transformation. So once again, thank you, dear shareholders, for your confidence, for your trust and your support in pursuing this very great adventure. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Christophe. Before we move on to the presentation of the financial statement in 2022 and the first quarter sales results of 2023 by Robert Charvier, I'd like to remind you that the details of those accounts and the report of the auditors committee are also available in the universal registration document and also available on the website. So as is our usual tradition, we would like to ask that the Board and the accountants be dispensed with reading that.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, regarding the results for the year 2022. I'm sorry. Regarding the results for the fiscal year 2022. First of all, I would like to point out the fact that these results were obtained in a particularly disrupted environment. It was particularly disrupted and marked on the one hand by the shortage of electronic components. This shortage of electronic components that had started emerging in 2021, continued in the first half of the year 2022. It showed signs of improvement in the second half. Yet, of course, it had a negative impact on worldwide automotive production. This environment was also marked by lockdowns in China because of a resurgence of COVID in the second half -- second quarter of the year 2022. The environment was marked by the war in Ukraine, which also resulted in disruption in components used for automotive production in Europe and also a very strong increase in the price of energy, in particular of gas. These various items had highly limited -- limiting effects on worldwide automotive production, which reached 82.4% -- 82.4 million vehicles with an increase over the years 2020 and 2021. But you can see on this graph that in 2022, we were far from the worldwide automotive output in 2019, which was the last year before the COVID crisis. Lastly, inflation was particularly high in the year 2022. It's manifested in an increase in the price of commodities, in particular, copper, aluminum and steel, also the price of energy, the increase in the cost of transport. And this inflation also resulted in an increase in wage over costs. Therefore, the results for this fiscal year, after price increases to clients in order to limit the impact of price increases. This inflation resulted, however, in our results into net over costs on commodities assessed at EUR 200 million and wage over cost, which are assessed at around EUR 60 million. During the fiscal year 2022, as Christophe Perillat explained, the group was able and received from its clients orders for EUR 32.6 billion. This is a very significant increase over the performance of 2021 because our order intake grew by 48%. What is important is that this EUR 32.6 billion in order intake were marked by 3 things. First of all, if you look at the orders received from thermal systems and propulsion systems, you can see that 2/3 of these orders are related to vehicle electrifications. And that shows the deep seeded change in the nature of our business, of our industrial and commercial activity. And if you look at the order intake related to driver assistance systems, ADASs, you can see that the order intake for 2022 grew 3-fold compared to the order intake for the year 2021. And lastly, as Christophe Perillat pointed out, and this is major, all of these EUR 32.6 billion worth of orders, carry with them improved profitability compared to the previous years. And this will enable us to go beyond from the years 2025 and '26 onwards to go above and beyond the profitability that we are expecting as part of our move-up plan. And this is based on strong financial discipline at the moment of pricing in our bids for calls for tenders and request for proposals, and this is very important for Valeo's future. The sales for 2022, Christophe Perillat already commented on that, a 9% growth on a like-for-like basis and at constant 4x, slightly over EUR 20 billion in turnover. Valeo, for the very first time, exceeded the threshold of EUR 20 billion. And if you look at the original equipment sales, that's plus 10%, 3 percentage points of overperformance. And so this means that our growth for original equipment overperformed the total industry volume growth by 3 points. And this is even 5 percentage points. If you look at the growth of our business is in a high voltage after we took control of Valeo Siemens on the first of July 2022. And finally, our replacement activities for nearly EUR 2.3 billion grew by 9% after a very strong increase in the year 2021. Against this backdrop, the Valeo group had 3.2% of operating margin and our dwell on the fact that this operating margin includes over costs related to inflation that in 2022, we were not able to pass on to our clients the impact is roughly EUR 200 million. And this operating margin also includes wage-over cost for roughly EUR 60 million. The operating margin of equity affiliates is positive, and this includes an accounting one-off related to the revaluation of shares that we had in Valeo Siemens before its acquisition, before we took control of it. And that's a favorable impact of EUR 181 million. The group's cost of debt at EUR 131 million increased by 118%. Of course, this is a very significant increase. It is, on the one hand, the consequence of the integration of the control of Valeo Siemens from the first of July onwards. And this reflected in an increase in the group's debt slightly over EUR 700 million. And the increase in the cost of debt is also the consequence of the very strong increase in interest rates that we were faced with throughout the 2022 and finally, the net income of the group reached EUR 230 million, 1.1% of sales. This includes a tax burden of EUR 214 million, an effective tax rate of 37%. And it also includes an impairment for all of our Russian assets, we decided at the end of the first half of the year to fully impair all of our assets, our factories in Russia, and that's a cost of EUR 43 million. Now if you look at how the free cash flow was generated over the period 2022, you can see that the working capital requirements for the group had a positive effect on free cash flow generation for EUR 99 million. After, in 2021, we observed a highly negative impact of more than EUR 460 million. The year 2021 was marked by very strong disruptions in the global logistics chain, especially disruptions on maritime freight and also with severe disruptions in our own factories because of the shortage of electronic components. As Christophe Perillat said, we were always able to deliver all of our orders to our clients, and this was the results. This happened because of a high cost in inventory and also because they have the electronic component shortage that resulted in stop and go work in all factories, which was very widespread in our factories that deteriorated all of our logistics flows. Regarding investment flows and CapEx, you can see that for 2022, our CapEx increased by EUR 180 million compared to the year '21. On the one hand, this is the consequence of an increase in investment capacity investments that we started in order to be able to prepare growth in future years, growth in 2023 and subsequent years. And this is also the outcome of an increase in our capitalized R&D costs. This increase is the direct consequence in the direct consequence of the increase in our order intake that I mentioned a minute ago. In total, we delivered EUR 388 million in free cash flow, which is slightly higher than our guidance because for the year '22, our free cash flow goal was EUR 320 million. Regarding the balance sheet equilibria, at the end of the year '22, we had a net debt -- net financial debt over EBITDA ratio of 1.67x, which is in line with the Move Up plan. In the Move Up plan, you'll remember that we set a goal for this ratio of 1.7x at the end of 2022. At the end of 2022, we had a gearing debt over equity of 105%. And I'll remind you that the Valeo Group has a Baa3 rating at Moody's with negative outlook and also a BB+ rating at Standard & Poors with a stable outlook. You'll remember that in February 2022, during the move-up presentation, we indicated that we had decided to dispose of nonstrategic assets for an amount of roughly EUR 500 million. Where are we with this asset disposal -- nonstrategic asset disposal plan? At present, we have a set of 3 assets that account for EUR 80 million, for which we have agreements in place with buyers, and these agreements will materialize very shortly. And so they should result in a positive cash flow of EUR 80 million in the forthcoming weeks. We have a second set of assets for which we have advanced discussions. We are not yet at the stage of final agreements, but we are very close to that. And all these assets account for EUR 120 million that should normally unwind. The disposal should be unwound for the most part in the year 2023. And then we've identified, as we speak, assets so that we can reach that EUR 500 million goal. For this third batch of assets, we've made a decision to initiate disposal processes for some of these assets and for the remainder, we're still waiting for an improvement in market conditions. The aim, of course, is to find the best value for these asset disposals, but these assets are particularly well identified. And as we speak, we are currently monitoring the market and we will launch disposal processes in due course. The Board of Directors in this context has proposed a resolution for the payout of a dividend of EUR 0.38 per share. This amount of EUR 0.38 is a slight increase. Last year, you voted for a EUR 0.35 dividend and for the results of 2020, you voted for a dividend of EUR 0.30 per action -- per share. Now moving on to the first quarter of 2023. As you know, we published our sales figures at the end of April regarding the first quarter. Sales were EUR 5.482 billion, an increase of 15% compared to Q1 '22. And when you think on the like-for-like and constant ForEx basis, if you restate the 2023 data to take into account the acquisition of the high-voltage activity of Valeo Siemens, that means a 13% improvement. And if you look at the growth in global production of vehicles, that's an overperformance of 7 percentage points. And our aftermarket sales kept growing at 6% on a like-for-like basis and at constant ForEx. Now if you look at sales by area of business. First of all, you can see that the ADAS business that includes driver assistance systems, this area posted 17% in sales -- 17% increase in sales. And if you look at ADAS, more specifically, you can see that growth for Q1 was 21%, which is an overperformance over automotive production of 15 percentage points. Now if you look at the Powertrain hub, Powertrains is the hub that on the first of July 2022, integrated to high-voltage business of Valeo Siemens. You can see that growth there was 20% for original equipment. That's a 14 percentage points overperformance. And if you look more precisely at the sales of high-voltage electrification systems for vehicle propulsion, Sales growth was 69% compared to the same quarter the previous year. Thermal Systems, their growth was 8% like-for-like in constant ForEx and visibility systems had growth in line with the automotive production growth. But for this business, we're expecting an acceleration in sales growth from the second half of this year with the start of production of a certain number of significant contracts that are going to bolster growth for sales in this business. In total our guidance was commented on by Christophe Perillat in his presentation. We are confirming our goals. Sales between EUR 22 million and EUR 23 million, operating margin between 4.2% -- 3.2% and 4% to be compared with an adjusted 2022 result, if you adjust it for the integration of Valeo Siemens, as if we had integrated Valeo Siemens on the 1st of January 2022 compared to 2.4%. EBITDA margin between 11.5% and 12.3%. And free cash flow, over EUR 320 million, a significant improvement over the adjusted free cash flow for 2022, which was EUR 205 million. So we confirmed these goals for the year '23, and I think that this is a major point. And I would like to thank you for your attention.

Thank you, Christophe. I will now give the floor -- thank you, Robert. I will now give the floor to Geoffrey Bouquot, Head of Strategy and R&D, who will explain to us the climate strategy of value as well as the associated action plans to reach the goals that we set.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, sustainable development and CO2 emissions reduction have been central to our strategy for over 10 years. This is an outcome of a long-term vision, a commitment of all our employees and long-term investment. And that enables your company to be the global leader in the electrification of all forms of mobility. Valeo is fully involved in a strong sustainable development policy. We are a member of the global compact of the UN have been since 2005. And in this respect, the company has supported this initiative and contributes to 7 sustainable development goals of the UN. First of all, the fight against climate change, of course, responsible production and consumption, sustainable cities, innovation and gender equality. These commitments and goals are supported by a sustainable development policy organized around 4 pillars. First of all, innovation, Valeo has invested over EUR 10 billion in the last 10 years, as we said before, to design products that contribute to CO2 emissions reductions. The outcome of these investments now made Valeo a leader in electrification. Over 20% of sales are eligible to the EU taxonomy. And in total, over 60% of sales stem from products that help reduce CO2 emissions. Valeo is a global player in research and development over 21 research centers, 44 development centers and over 20,000 people are working in this network. Your company has been for many years, the first filer of patents in France. The second pillar is environmental eco-efficiency. Valeo strives to reduce its energy consumption and its carbon footprint. This is the purpose of the CAP 50 plan. And also this environmental commitment is not just about CO2, but also water management, reducing commodity consumption and reducing waste via our circular economy policy that I'll also explain in a minute. The third pillar is, of course, represented by our employees with 4 very clear goals: health and safety, diversity, training and quality of life at work. And finally, our last pillar is based on our societal commitments. First of all, a commitment made with local communities in which we have footholds in all regions of the world. This commitment is based on the vision developed by this company based in eco-systemic view of sustainable development. We can only have sustainable growth if we include the whole value chain. So at Valeo, we are determined to shoulder a part of the responsibility and act proactively to reduce our carbon footprint. We made a very strong commitment, an ambitious one to reach carbon neutrality by 2050 and to halve our impact by 2030. This is what we've called the CAP 50 plan by 2030 against the backdrop of the growth, very strong growth in our business that was mentioned. Our CO2 emissions will decline by 45% versus 2019, 45% in value. This is not just our own activities, but also that includes the whole value chain, including our suppliers, our operational activities and the final use of our products. The level of ambition of CAP 50 was defined by following the CO2 emissions reduction trajectories and the references of the SBTI initiative that validated all our goals on all our emission scopes by 2030, our plan is in line with the necessary reduction in CO2 emissions so that we can keep global warming at 1.5 degrees. We will continue to roll out our plan, and we continue to roll it out in 2022 successfully because we've met our goals, and we've already met our goals for 2025 by reducing our emissions by 9%. I will get into the details of all scopes for the results 2022, starting with Scopes 1 and 2, which are all the direct and indirect gas emissions for our industrial sites. Our goal is to reduce them by 75% by 2030. For a group that has 183 factories in over nearly 31 countries this means a major transformation to achieve this ambitious goal. Valeo decided to allocate EUR 400 million in investment by 2030. And in 2022, EUR 35 million in investments were initiated. To reach this goal, our ambition is to bring our sites to the best energy performance. To date, we have 40% of our sites that are Certified ISO 50001. The reduction in greenhouse gas emissions related to our factories also goes through an improvement in energy efficiency, the elimination of gas and more generally the use of all fossil fuels in our industrial processes or in our internal logistics activities. Reducing our industrial emissions also goes through the purchase of low carbon energy. That's already 40% of the energy procured in 2022, and we want to reach 80% of low carbon energy by 2030. In total, for Scopes 1 and 2, our CO2 emissions already declined by 39%, as you can see on the slide, compared to 2019. So we are already very close to the 2025 goal of 41% reduction. Valeo is striving to roll all of these actions out on all our sites worldwide. And as you could see, amongst some of the examples that you'll see, these are examples in China, Korea, Poland or France. This first slide shows one example, one concrete action in our plant in Daegu in Korea to reduce emissions with the repair in compressed air leaks. We could give you other examples like the use of inverters for energy efficiency. On the next slide here, in Nanjing in China. Another example on heat recovery on compressors or also on all of our plants in Chatellerault here in France on heat recovery. As you could see, the best way to save energy is to avoid using it. Of course, once you've said that, you need to limit direct and indirect emissions. And for that, we'll have several levers. First of all, we can use low-carbon energy that we procure to power our sites. The aim is 80% by 2030. And we're also trying to produce low carbon energy directly on our sites with the fitting of PV panels, as you can see on these 2 examples in China and Malaysia. Moving on now to Scope 3, upstream -- sorry, if it's a technical term, that includes the greenhouse gas emissions generated before the production phase for us. That's the extraction and processing of commodities that we use the production by our suppliers, but also transport and logistics to Valeo sites. By 2030, our commitment is to reduce by 15%, 15% of our emissions on the scope. We're on the right track because we've already exceeded our 2025 goal by reducing the CO2 emissions related to Scope 3 by 18%. And low carbon goals should be shared by all people from our clients to our suppliers. So we are supporting the low carbon transition of our own suppliers, and we are also inviting them to grow and develop new products, new materials, new solutions. To illustrate that, I would like to show you a few recent achievements from last year, very conclusive one, so that we can use bio-sourced plastic materials directly in our products. Here, the challenge to talk more about engineering is to use as many as of these bio-sourced materials as we can whilst keeping the same properties or even improving the properties of the final products. In details, this is the first example. These are radiator boxes for which we replaced oil based plastics with castor oil plastics and then the seeds are turned into oil, and we use this oil to make 50% of bio-sourced plastics. And these materials are integrated into parts that were validated after very critical testing by our main clients, big carmakers. Another example here is in headlights. Here, we're going to use a wood derivative lignin and we'll use a chemical process so that we can have 75% of bio-sourced plastics. Last example here, we're replacing feedstocks such as glass fiber or [ talcum ]. We're placing them with natural fibers like hemp, flax or miscanthus for recycled plastic materials. And so structural parts -- thermal blocks can be fully bio-sourced and keep their mechanical properties that we want to have. Now I would like to come back to our commitments in terms of Scope 3 downstream. Here, these are the greenhouse gas emissions related to the use of Valeo's technologies once they're embedded into vehicles and until the end of their lives. By 2030, our commitment is to reduce by 15% emissions related to the final use of our products. And this reduction should reach 50% if you include avoided emissions, thanks to new technologies for the whole value chain. Thanks to the efforts of all of Valeo's employees we already reached our goal for 2025 by reducing our Scope 3 emissions by 8% versus 2019 for the downstream to reduce the impact of our products we're using several levers. Here, I'm going to show you 3 examples. First of all generalized use of LED technologies in our headlight technology so that we can reduce by 40% CO2 emissions compared to halogen lights. A second example, the one in the middle, stemming from our partnership with [ Renault ]. Last year, we announced that we would develop, and we are codeveloping and we -- by 2027, with [ Renault ] will produce a [indiscernible] volt electric motor at the best level of performance without any rare earth materials. The carbon footprint of these engines and motors will be reduced by over 30% because of the absence of REMs. Last example, on the right, the use of a new material called Organosheet, which is very interesting because it has a unique combination of resistance, flexibility and weight because the use of Organosheet to replace aluminum will reduce CO2 emissions by 50%. So there you have it, our carbon footprint is on the right track. And you can see that our plan is rolled out successfully. The next challenge is that of better circularity in our industry with better resource preservation. So let's talk about the circular economy. We need to see it there are industries going to optimize resource consumption using their scarcity, reducing -- reducing materials, water and waste. This is the same priority to reach this goal. In 2023, we launched a plan called 4Rs. First, our robust design, recycling, remanufacturing and repairing. This program aims to accelerate our refurbishment of defective damage products. This is based on better collection systems for parts and then better repair via industrial processes that ensure the same level of quality as a new part. Now we're going to expand this refurbishment range, especially in electrical and electronic systems with new vehicles that have new technologies in them. As an example from the second half of 2023 onwards, we'll start remanufacturing front cameras that are necessary for development of ADAS. Now we refurbished 1 million products per year. By 2030, we shall double this volume of remanufactured products. The work done by all employees of Valeo helped position the company amongst the best equipments manufacturers in the automotive sector in terms of nonfinancial performance. In 2022, Valeo got an A rating by the CDP, the common disclosure project and the best rating by nonfinancial rating agencies like MSCI, Moody's, SAM or Sustainalytics. Valeo is also the best represented equipments manufacturer in these indices. These excellent results are evidence of the importance given to transparency and the quality of disclosure that you can find in the universal registration document. What's more, it is based on our ability to address all challenges with objective and specific policies and governance at the best international standards. The CAP 50 plan is underway, and this company is using virtuous elements so that it will offer today and tomorrow, the necessary technologies for more sustainable mobility. Thank you.

Thank you, Geoffrey for this interesting and substantial presentation. Now I'll ask Mr. Jean-Marc Deslandes of the Mazars Firm to introduce the most relevant parts of their reports on behalf of the college of auditors.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders. It is my pleasure to present on behalf of Mazars and EY, the various reports that we prepared for this general meeting. For the ordinary part, we produced our 3 usual reports, 2 certification reports on the accounts and the 1 on regulated third-party agreements. I'll remind you that the fundamental objective of our mission is to get reasonable assurances about the absence of significant anomalies and therefore, to certify the truthfulness and fairness of the accounts. Our work was regularly presented to the general management of this company to its Audit Committee and to the Board of Directors. In our report on the consolidated accounts, we certified that the accounts established under the IFRS reference are true and fair. Our opinion is based on 3 key audit points. The impairment test on goodwill, the valuation of Valeo Siemens eAutomotive and the specific quality risks. For each of these items, our report details our assessment of the risk and the answer that we provided. Once more, we have no observations to make on the information given in the management's report on the consolidated accounts. We also unreservedly certified the 2022 statutory accounts of Valeo SE according to the French accounting principles. The key audit points of the annual accounts is about the assessment of participatory shares and associated claims and risk provisions. On affiliates, we also checked the information given in the management's report and the other documents that we're giving you. They call for no observations, and we certified that the information given on the remuneration and benefits and commitments given to the corporate officers is true and fair. In our special report on third-party conventions, we said that we were not notified of any new conventions and agreements to be subject to your approval and no previous agreements were continued. For the extraordinary part of the general meeting, we produced 4 reports on the authorizations and delegations given to the Board to issue shares and/or securities with or without preferential rights to award free or future -- existing or future free shares and to cancel treasury shares to reduce capital. We have no observations on these various operations that are following the provisions of the Code of Commerce. If applicable, we shall produce additional reports if these delegations are used by this Board. Thank you for your attention and for your trust.

[Interpreted] Thank you, Mr. Auditor. Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, thank you for your attention. And now I'd like to open the discussion time, if you allow me, and as usual, I would suggest to -- in order to make sure that as many people as possible can speak and that the debate be very fluid -- that I would like to speak for no more than -- to be very concise and only 2 questions.

Thank you for your presentation on CAP 50. Your other -- the other companies in your sector have goals in Scope 1, 2 and 3 and there are generally 2 types of investments which are profitable. I'm not trying to question your goals, I'm just making the distinction between goals which are profitable and those are not. You talked about EUR 400 million in investments, so could you give us an idea of which investments will be most profitable and which would be less directly profitable?

Thank you for this question. It's a very interesting question, indeed. We did think about that when we defined the investment plan for EUR 400 million. And our concern is that these investments are very tightly controlled investment and costs. We were afraid that Robert and his team could might ban these investments that would be necessary to -- in order to meet the CAP 50 goals and that they wouldn't enable us to do the investments that we wouldn't have enough profitability. So we came up with the idea of 2 types of investments. One that type is judged by its profitability like any type of investment. And then the CAP 50 investments, which may not have a profitability, good profitability rate, but could have a good yield in regards to our CAP 50 plan. So we defined goals not in regards to profitability, but a cost per ton of CO2. Now that was before the crisis in the war in Ukraine. Since then, the price of energy has increased. And each CAP 50 investment is profitable. So what we thought was an issue before the price of energy went up, we came up with a system which could approve investments, which would not have a traditional profitability and the other types of investment that would, and in fact, the 2 types of investments have emerged because the price of energy has improved -- has increased. And so these -- both types of investment correspond to both types of growth. Thank you.

We have a gentleman in the back of the...

I'm an individual shareholder. Mr. Chair, you announced some good news at the end -- at the beginning. You said that the company next year will have a director of representative of employees. And you suggested that we complete the Article 15 -- 14 that director will be elected and that candidate should be someone from -- would give this person a different legitimacy because you would be voted differently. According to our Article 14, there's a system that's a little bit different. You suggested that there could be no candidate. Now either that means that there will be no candidacy, which would be surprising for that sort of position as an Employee Director or the bar of the number of signatures necessary is too high for a candidate to be approved. And in that case, the election would lead to a different situation. So I have 3 questions. First of all, the members with shares are elected based on 1 share equals 1 vote. Second question, are representatives of management would they have deliberative votes at that election? And I'd like to add a third question, given that hypothesis, what happens with represented -- representation of those who have free shares over beyond and beyond the validity of the system.

Okay. This is a rather technical question. I think I'd like to come back to the way in which the appointment method for Employee Director. And in that case, there's no legal restrictions or requirements on the way that this would be these people would be elected. This is a rather new subject. So this is something that we've been thinking about. And our thought process has led to this proposal, which is designed to be practical, fair and includes various potential scenarios. So if there were no candidates that would seem the least probable scenario, but we have to take it into -- to think about that possibility. And in that case, indeed, once again, we don't believe that's probable. But because we do need a representative, we thought about applying [indiscernible] naming someone and because that represents the greatest number of employees. The second -- answer to the second question is no. And what about representation for employee shareholders who have free shares? Well, in fact, they would be just part of the general framework. And your first question, I'm not sure I actually understood it. It had to do with the FCB shares, whether there's -- there would be 1 vote or -- I think, yes, 1 share equals 1 vote. So the answer is yes, to that question.

I have a question regarding recruitment. You need a lot of engineers and a lot of gray matter and there's some tension in regards to engineers. There are a lot of young women who don't like industry and so they are moving towards other types of engineering rather than mechanics. Is it difficult for you to recruit talent? And is there tension in regards to wages, are those engineers recruited in China, which is a major hub? Is in the innovation hub moving towards Asia?

Thank you for that excellent question. Yes, indeed, Valeo is all about gray matter. That's -- our future depends on gray matter. So that's an essential question. Thank you for your question.

No, we do not recruit in 1 geographic zone rather than another. The move-up plan that I present as a growth plan and that growth plan is based on all of our geographic zones. We will grow in China, but we're also going to show growth in Europe and now in North America. And so it's in all of those geographic zones that we will need to recruit gray matter and recruit talent and skills in China. Yes, in Europe as well and of course, in North America, too. Is there a tension on the market? Yes, there's tension in regards to some specific professions, which are important for Valeo, for example, software. 1/3 of our Valeo engineers are IT engineers, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence and power electronics. So those are the main professions where things are, yes, a bit tight. So what do we do to try and recruit to attract the best. I think we try mostly to tell them who we are and what we do. And what we do is invent mobility of the future. Valeo, your company is currently inventing the mobility of the future, cleaner mobility and safer mobility. And those are the main societal objectives that are central to young peoples search for meaning and ways of working. And we can answer, we can respond to those needs. Yes, we are here to invent cleaner and safer mobility. And based on those values and that meaning that we try to give to what we do, we do manage to recruit excellent quality talent in all regions of the world. Regarding salaries, yes, of course, there is tension there too. We try to recruit according to market salaries. So we adapt, and we've done that in some countries and some professions. It depends on the geographic zones and our policy is to adapt to the local markets as they exist currently. I forgot to inform you that we have received a written question from a shareholder, and the answer can be found on the website for the -- for today's general meeting.

Is there -- I believe there's a question at the back of the room and then on the other side as well, sir?

Mr. Chair, you have worked for many companies, particularly in China. And I would like to know how you protect your knowledge from Chinese competitors? They're very, very skilled at stealing information.

Thank you, Mr. [ Lazar ]. I know that you are very familiar with China and that your question is very relevant, too. Well, our society is -- our company's policy is very clear. As you know, we devote a lot of -- a lot to research and development. You know that we believe that research and development are an asset just like corporate development. Why should we protect our factories? Why should we defend a parameter around our factories? And why not protect our intellectual property in the same way? You heard that we spend more in R&D than we do an investment in actual machines. So the company actually does defend our intellectual property. That's why we have like for a lot of patents. And our policy is not just to apply for patents in France, but it will imply in France, in Germany, in North America and China and to spread to broaden the coverage of our patents to countries where it would make sense for China -- for Valeo. And of course, in China because it makes sense for Valeo to extend the coverage of our patency. Each company has a different policy. In aeronautics, for example, you don't defend your patents globally because a plane always land somewhere or another. So you could if a plane lands in Europe, then you defend your patents in Europe. If we go -- if we're working in China or in North America or Europe, we need to protect those patents by expanding our coverage. And we do that by also act in any time we see a breach in those patents. And we do not hesitate to sue, and we have recently sued a company in China and one.

I have a question regarding [ LiFar ] when you sell the system globally or is it made of Valeo components? And second question, you talked about infrastructure, and you said that it would -- that the infrastructures would represent eventually 10%. And I didn't really understand what would be covered by that.

You're talking about the LiDAR, right, not [ LiFar ], right? So what is our market share on that? Excluding China, our market share is close to 100%. We started with LiDAR in R&D 12 or 13 years ago because we believed that LIDAR would be the founding -- the cornerstone of our level of -- Level 3. And you see how we believe already 12 or 13 years ago, we knew that the Level 3 range would be -- was coming. So we've been working on LiDAR for 12 years. We have -- there are 200,000 LiDARs on the market right now. So we -- that represents about 99% of the market share. So of course, we won't maintain that level of market shares. But we do believe that the third generation of LiDARs, which we've just brought out to our customers, has the qualities and the performance level necessary to enable us to maintain a market share of over 50% over the long term. So we firmly believe in the performance and the experience that we have acquired, and we believe in our ability to defend our market share when LiDAR starts becoming more popular in terms of number of vehicles equipped. Regarding the 10% now. As you heard, Valeo has some incredible technology, particularly electrification technology. And that technology is used in the automobile sector. We've been an automobile equipment company for 100 years but the automobile market is limited. It's been capped. A few years ago, people believed that people, there would be 100 million automobiles per year. And in fact, we never -- we never got that far. And in fact, we've gone from about 97% in 1987 to 1997 to 82% -- EUR 82 million last year. So we are working on accelerating electrification in order to increase the content of Valeo components per car. But I think that we can do things differently. When the number of cars are restricted, that means that there are other types of mobility that are growing and growing significantly. You can see that in all the streets, in every city in the world. Mobility is no longer just a question of automobile mobility. There are a lot of forms of multiple forms of micro mobility, which are coming up with 2 wheels, 3 wheels, 4 wheels. These new forms of mobility need electric motors. They need chargers, they need products that we have developed for the automobile sector. So we believe that our technologies above and beyond the automobile market will be used in markets that are parallel to the automobile market and we believe that this will lead it to a lot of success. So those the 10% that we mentioned corresponds to our goal in the development of markets parallel to the automobile market, where our performance, our experience and our skills that we've proven in the automobile industry will be exported outside of the automobile industry. When will we reach that 10%? I don't know. We talked about EUR 250 million in sales in 2030. So relatively soon. We are electrifying bicycles, as you know. Motorcycles are becoming electric. In India, there are electric rickshaws, and we've won contracts for electrifying rickshaws. There's the 4-wheeled Citroën City vehicle. So 3 wheels, 4 wheels, 2 wheels. We believe that these are parallel markets that are parallel to the automobile market. On the other hand, there are activities that we are not looking at currently. We're not looking at flying vehicles. So we are looking at the cooling systems for data centers and maybe lighting systems as well. So we're looking at markets that are parallel to the automobile markets that will help us to continue accelerate our growth using the technology that we've already developed. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, if there are no other questions, and I suggest that we close the debate aspect of this meeting, and that we start looking at the resolutions. Unless there is a request from a shareholder, we will not read all of the entire text of the resolutions. Before I give the floor over to Eric Antoine Fredette, who will be moderating this vote session. We are going to show you a video which explains how the voting tablets work. [Presentation]

To vote on this, you have been given a tablet. That tablet is personal and is only useful during this meeting. When we announced the vote of our resolution, the window opens up automatically on a tablet, even if the tablet is in sleep mode. Nothing easier to vote. Click on the button that corresponds to your choice voting for, abstention or against. Then click on okay to validate your choice. Once you have validated that vote, you cannot modify it. Please do not forget to give your tablet back when you leave the room. Eric Antoine, over to you.

Thank you Mr Chair. First of all, regarding the quorum, the number of shares registered for representing shareholders voting directly through proxy or [indiscernible] represents 75.92% of capital. So I suggest that we now move on to the voting of the resolutions, which have been suggested for this ordinary shareholders' meeting. First resolution, the vote is open. [Voting]