Hello everyone. On behalf of Saham Capital Bourse, we welcome you to the Label Vie 2025 full year earnings call. My name is Karim Barhoum, equity analyst, and I'll be your moderator for today. This conference call should last approximately one hour, starting with a management presentation, followed by a Q&A session. The earning release and today's presentation are both available on the company's IR website. You could either submit your questions through the chat box or raise your hand to speak. Please note that this presentation will be recorded. The replay will also be available on the website. We are delighted to be joined by three presenters, Ms. Naoual Ben Amar, CEO of Label Vie Group, Mr. Hamza Bennani, CFO, and Mr. Soufiane Dada, Head of IR. Without further ado, I will leave the floor to Mr.
Soufiane Dada, Head of IR at Label Vie, to start the earnings call. Soufiane?
Hello, everyone. First of all, I'd like to thank you for your time. I suggest we start with the macroeconomic context with our CFO, Hamza Bennani.
Thank you, Karim. Thank you so much for organizing this call. Without further ado, let's maybe start with the, with our summary with the, of today's presentation. We will start today with our macroeconomics, clear view about our macroeconomics, and then discuss about the highlights of the year before moving on, to the financial results, and then, give you a brief overview of the outlook. Without further ado, Regarding the macroeconomics, after 2 years of declining consumer confidence, we saw an enhancement of that consumer confidence index, starting the year 2025. That which has resulted in improvement of almost 11 points compared to the levels of 2024.
The recovery is continuing , and as we can see, the GDP has also been, has also known a sharp increase, overall compared to 2024 numbers, finishing at an approximation of 4.8% increase versus 3% of 2024. According to several statistics, we expect GDP to be around the 4.6% level, thanks to an improvement of consumer spending and driven by also quite an unusual agricultural season. Moving on to the next slide. Let's address the highlights and the key achievements of 2025.
Regarding our development, this year, we're able to add 18% of additional floor space, which is an exceptional year for Label Vie, which counts a net number of 55,300 square meters of additional sales area, which was opened across all the formats of activity. The biggest increase was concerning Supeco with 20,000 square meters , representing 13 stores which have been added this year , which is a record number. It's also a record number for the hypermarket also format, which new 3 stores which have opened. We'll discuss them later on with 13,000. Which brings a total networks of 16 stores, hypermarkets as of today. The Carrefour Market and Carrefour Express new 6 and 5 openings this year.
We're ending the Atacadão new 4 additional stores for a 23 store network as of 2025. Today, Label Vie S.A. at the end of December counts 411 stores or 362, 363,000 sq. m of additional space. We can move on the geographical distribution network. We're continuing to increase our footprint throughout Morocco with 4 new cities which have opened, which are in the east and in the south of Morocco. These are mostly empty white spaces where there is no other modern retailer over there.
We can count those southern cities like Guelmim and Laâyoune, for example, which don't have for a lot of them a presence of any modern player. This big also, the also big highlight is also the opening of Supeco outside the great Casablanca. Supeco is now established in the corridor of Rabat-Salé Kenitra, which is one of the main consumption hub in Morocco, with an increased as well geographical presence, which is expected throughout 2026 as well. Moving on to the next slide. A quick focus here on the Carrefour hypermarket presence in Casablanca. We opened the year as...
We opened 3 stores, one in Almaz, in the southern part of Casablanca, one in Zenata, which is the north end of Casablanca, and one in Ain Sebaa, in a mall which is anchored right in the middle of the city, in an industrial area that is now gentrifying , with high density area. Those are 3 format that we opened, 3 stores that we opened within 1-month period between November and December of last year. Quite a good traction so far since the opening. We also did the bond issue of MAD 1.5 billion this year.
That's through our private placement with qualified investors aimed at optimizing our financing cost. As you can see, from there, our, we have been optimizing every year our cost of financing through the use of bonds, which has a spread which is decreasing every year. We're optimizing through through the bonds versus the midterm loans with higher interest rates. We have the two types of tranches, one with 5 years, one with 7 years. We've been releasing it with an average rate of 3.06. A quick word maybe on our CSR ESG achievements of the year. I'll let our GM, Ms. Naoual Ben Amar present it.
Hi, everybody. A quick update on this topic. We continue our work to reduce the food waste, and we reduced 50 tons of food saved in our stores. The waste management has been a good priority for our stores this year also. We managed to improve our reduction by 11%. We continue to invest heavily on the development of our people. We managed to reach approximately 7,600 people on the training part to make sure that they increase their technical skills mostly, but also soft skills to continue to grow in the company .
We managed to get through new partnership because we continue to team up with many universities and school to continue to drive our recruitment from a good source through the Moroccan regions. Energy efficiency, we managed to get 5% improvement versus our plan, and we continue to work heavily on the inclusion in our employment. We continue to have our activity, and we managed to integrate 100 new people coming from different horizons on that aspect. We continue also our work to be present for the Moroccan community, and we managed to get 50,000 food product donation through the part that they needed for the last year. Next.
A quick word now on the operational and financial achievement for the year.
Important to recognize that we managed to get about 13% improvement on our revenue. We managed to get our space increased by 18%. This has been driven mostly by our frequency in the stores. We managed to get 93 million transactions in our stores as a visit, 22% more than last year. In our EBIT, we managed to get 10% more, with MAD 1 billion 5 thousand EBITDA, MAD 1 million 5 thousand 5 hundred, MAD 5 thousand 7, MAD 557, and with an increase also for our net income with 6%, while investing MAD 1.2 billion dirham CapEx and continue to improve our financial results the same performance like last year, while not getting any one-off in our base.
If we have a look by business unit, the hypermarket managed to get a sales growth by about 10%, while the organic growth is 4% and we have a number of stores is 16%. When I go to the supermarket, we managed to grow the top line by 6.7%, driven mainly by the opening that happened in 2024 and 75, 0.5 on the organic part of the business. When we go to the proximity express stores, we managed to grow this business unit by 15.4%, while the organic is +10.5%, and we continue to grow our number of stores, so it's 75 stores on that business unit.
Supeco, what we have to recognize is we managed to get MAD 400 million this year and an additional more than MAD 280 million more than the last year. We continue the expansion. Our stores move to 280 stores this year. We continue our plan to expand on the soft discount. When you go to the Atacadão, strong performance +16.8% growth versus last year with an organic growth of +4.8% and our stores now is 23 stores overall over Morocco. This brings the total performance to MAD 15.8 billion with +13.7% on the organic sales with total sales with an organic sales at +3.5%. You can go.
If we go by business unit, if I go to the Carrefour hypermarket, as you can see, the +4% and the +9.8%, you can see that the half year 2 was higher than half year 1, driven by first very solid performance on the fresh products. We continue to be destination for our consumer on the fresh part. We increase also the penetration and the weight for the promotional activity without impacting the bottom line with our program to optimize the investment and to get it more efficient while increasing the penetration. The continue of the growth of the e-commerce and the loyalty program that's helping us to also reinforce our organic but also our total growth.
Also we this year we have seen a very good performance on the non-food categories that really drive the frequency on the stores. If I go to the supermarket business, +0.5 on the organic sales, +6.7 total sales that has been driven by the MAD 285 million that comes from the opening. This business unit is really under pressure from the from the competition around each stores, from our proximity, competition proximity, the discount for our discount, the competition also for on the discount. It's a very heavy competition on the supermarket while we continue to drive the growth on 0.5 despite the challenges. The...
You can see, the half year 2 also is coming greater than the half year 1. The trend is very reassuring that we are on trend to continue growing. Also, fresh also was very good. This performance is also driven with a very high level of frequency. We have seen also a decline in average basket size . Everything has been really driven by the frequency on our numbers. When I came to the Express, we managed to get a 10.5 organic growth, and another 5% incremental on the opening that bring the business unit at +15.4, as you can see. The second also half is greater than the first one. We continue to revamp our concept.
The work we have done is bringing really confidence on our recruitment on that concept. We are increasing the number of consumers, and we managed to get a strong service and assortment that really help us to be more solid versus consumers. Supeco, what is important is what I have been telling in the beginning, is the half year 2 when we have seen the most impact, part of the opening that is happening on the last 2024 and also what we have opened on half year 1. We continue increase the business between period as we are going steadily on opening stores every single month.
This concept, what I can tell that is under control from a top and bottom line, we are in line with what we have put as a business plan. We are very confident that this business will continue to grow steadily, but also to answer the needs from its role, which is protecting the Label'Vie from the bottom line on the consumption, but also to continue to be playing its role on our profit portfolio. When I came to Atacadão, the opening was great, and it's accelerating the top line, but also bringing 4.8 in a market that didn't manage to get even more than 1% from a consumption point of view, I'm talking about traditional trade, is amazing.
We continue to have a strong concept that continue to drive the top line. When we go through the analysis of the concept, when you go to the big stores, it's really performing. When you go to the semi-rural cities also, it was a very strong performance. This proves that our choice of opening the in semi-rural but also continue to project on the new big city new stores, it's working and our numbers are proving it.
Moving on to the contribution by format, we see that Atacadão is the largest contributor in terms of retail sales, top line in term, MAD 883 million total, out of the MAD 1.9 billion that have been added from 2024 numbers. Atacadão is followed right after by the contribution of the hypermarket format by MAD 343 million, due to that strong performance on a like-for-like basis, as well as the 2024 openings which have been contributed to the overall. As a quick recall, 2024 saw an opening of a store in Beni Mellal.
Carrefour Market also saw a strong contribution of MAD 300 million coming mainly from the 2024 openings, as the openings that were performed last year have been occurring mostly at the end of the year. Supeco right after, with the 133 stores which have opened, plus the 2024 figures have accounted for MAD 291 million. In terms of contribution of EBITDA, the gross margin has added about MAD 423 million, while the OpEx has actually.
Decreased
... yeah, decreased or shrunk basically our EBITDA by 278. That has resulted in an EBITDA of 1.5 or MAD 557 million total, which is actually quite a big performance, with a strong actually change in the mix of the formats of activity. We have seen it earlier. The contribution of the Atacadão and the Supeco formats has been significant in 2025 compared to their historical level. While the contribution of the Carrefour Market and the Carrefour Express, and as well as the hypermarket, is decreasing this year. The financial result is also stable compared to last year, which saw a one-off event last year.
We had a cash out of 49% stake of Terramis, our REIT OPCI in 2024, which hasn't been the case in 2025. Despite that one-off, the financial result is quite strong, and it's mainly due to the optimization of the cost of financing as well as several income as well from dividends as well as other financial income which were performed throughout the year. Moving on to the P&L, you will have it in our presentation, but we can skip that slide.
Regarding balance sheet, we ended 2025 with 40 days in terms of treasury overall, with net financing debt of MAD 6.3 billion, representing about 142 days. More importantly, a net gearing which is quite stabilized at 54% overall versus the 53% last year. Without further ado, let's speak about the outlook for this year and the next ones.
Let me remind ourselves that we are in a course of realizing MAD 28 billion dirhams with an EBITDA of MAD 9.3 billion while investing MAD 5.3 billion and opening an additional 77 stores between 2024 and 2028, while preserving all our profitability ratio and financial balance. Let me perhaps show where we are versus this ambition. If I take the stores that we realized over 2025 and I travel with it until 2028, you can see that 80% of our plan is secured today. Which is a MAD 22.4 billion dirhams that comes from this existing 411 stores. What is missing is the 20%.
The 20% is 5.4, realizing it in 3 years, we see it a very... We are confident to manage it because we still have a good plan to open. We still have also the performance that will be coming from all the plan that we have in place from an optimization, productivity plan, our plan to on the opening stores by format, and also all the fundamentals that we are putting in place to secure a sustainable growth over time. We see ourselves, in place, so we are half-time. Within half-time, we have 80% of the vision, secured. We still have to concretize the last 20 that we have the 3 years to manage it in.
In summary, for 2026, we will continue to accelerate from our the same strategy. Continue to grow our organic stores, continue also to open on the 5 format, continue with the same vision we have put on 2028 on our EBITDA margin and the board has proposed MAD 120, which is 8.5 higher than the last year for dividends. This is it from our side, and let's open up for your question. We are at your disposal to answer your question.
Thank you, Miss Nawal. We're open for questions. Please feel free to write your questions in the chat or raise your hands to speak directly. Thank you.
Check it out. Check.
I think there is a first question from Mr. Mark Lawrence. What is the 2026 outlook for the Moroccan consumer? What are you seeing in terms of footfall and LFLs so far this year?
The Moroccan consumer.
I think the confidence is growing in Morocco when we have political everybody is happy. This is the first thing from an emotional point of view. In numbers, we project 4.6% GDP growth , we think that it will be impacting mostly the food part on our business. We feel confident on the numbers that the government has shared, the start is already a good start. Expecting to get to have a good macroeconomics help to get more consumption in Morocco.
Okay. Thank you.
Maybe there is a question or regarding the cash flow, if I may.
Yes. Go ahead, please.
The cash flow, definitely we reached a quite significant level of cash flow of CapEx in 2025 due to the sharp increase in or acceleration in development, as well as actually assets which ended their securitization. In addition to the CapEx that was actually spent in 2025, we had also an additional almost MAD 500 million worth of assets which ended the securitization, which will be re-securitized this year. Which may explain the negative cash flow in 2025. The outlook is definitely gonna be different for 2026 due to that re-securitization for a higher amount.
'Cause we're gonna add all the assets which were completed last year and the year before within securitization fund, which gonna be roughly about 30% higher, so a level of almost MAD 700 million worth of CapEx. Plus also a CapEx which will be slightly lower. Now I presented earlier the 40,000 square meters of additional sales space that we need every year versus the 55,000 that we have completed in 2025. We are also expecting a level of CapEx which is gonna be slightly lower this year to end a year with a top line of between 10% or between 10% and 15% higher top line as well as a total sales area increase.
Let me perhaps answer the question of the discounter. Let me remind an important element. Morocco is 20% modern trade and 80% traditional trade. When you take Supeco and you take Atacadão, 100% of consumption is coming from traditional trade. It's a kind of conversion or structuring a way that traditional trade is consuming. This is Atacadão, it's converting for us the potential from traditional trade that we were not reaching with the other format. Supeco is a model between, that is trying to educate the consumer that they are partially or fully consuming from traditional trade to move to a different level.
If I take my vision of 2028, the MAD 28 billion, what we have put as a assumption, so half of the consumption will come from recovering market share from the existing, and half of it will come from converting traditional trade through the other part of our strategy of multi-format. Are we limiting things? No. The only thing that we are doing, we are trying to answer the need of the consumer wherever is consuming. We'll put with our plan whatever is needed from a store point of view slash format point of view to answer the need of the consumer. No limit from our side. Perhaps one important point that Hamza didn't cover of the cash flow. We have this average that you have seen as the cash flow is going through many seasonalities.
The seasonality of the end of the year, there is two element. We buy as we open the store at the end of the year, so we buy for the store what we didn't yet sell because of this end of the year opening. Also because of Ramadan is moving now to 20 February, we buy always many categories before much before Ramadan. It's impacting that has been bought on December that you can. That is a move versus last year that happened in January last year, and it's happening in December this year. These two element is mostly largely compensating the variation that you can see. If you analyze our number of cash flow days, it's variating pending on the seasonality.
On average, it's on track, and it's always 2, 3 days around 30 days. Plus, minus 3 days. I see any data you can share on market share trend? How is BIM doing? BIM is doing very well. we continue to win share . I don't have the last numbers, but I have the numbers of November. We managed to win 1.5 share point over the last 12-month rolling. BIM is now, I think, 16% or 17%. We are about 38% without counting Atacadão. I'm talking B2C business. While the largest losing on this equation is Marjane. They lost 2.5. We are resistant to what is happening.
Discount is really going to get more market share, and we continue to develop our strategy that is working and protecting our business while continue to grow market share on the B2C. The B2B is incremental to the region. If I put it like an approximately, we are the number one by far, and we are more than 50% total sales on the non-alimentary on the total volume of modern trade.
We have a question over the microphone. Please, you may go.
We take microphone and there is many two questions.
Yeah. Hello, Wissam Abu Shaba, Africa.
Sorry, go ahead.
Can you hear me?
Yes.
Can you hear me?
Yes.
Hello, Wissam Abu Shaba, Africa. I have 3 questions. First question is regarding growth. Can you give us an idea of the normative level of like-for-like growth for the group? If it's a GDP plus something or minus something. Can you give us an idea on growth? Can you also come back on the different levels of like-for-like growth per segment? The express was at a level much higher than the other ones, if there's an explanation for that. I have a question regarding e-commerce. Can you give us an idea of the mix?
I mean, what represents e-commerce in the total mix of the revenue of the group? One question regarding EBITDA margins. You made 9.5% this year, so you're targeting 9.3% for 2028. Also, what kind of level of margin, EBITDA margins we have per segment? If there are some potential, I mean, earning surprise regarding the level of the EBITDA margin by 2028. Thanks.
Let's go to the organic growth for our group. Have shared 3.5% that the total organic growth that realized 2025 versus 2024. This is your first question. Let me go to your second question. Sophia, the second question?
Yeah. No, no. My question is to have an idea of the normative level of growth.
In Morocco, we expect.
Yes. No, no. GDP-
GDP, yes. I think between one-
Sorry.
Between one and two. We don't have the real numbers, but the numbers we're getting from our big suppliers on the category we are playing, it's between one and two. With this 3.5%, we definitely grow share. This is the reconciliation we have.
The food, but I think.
...our list of suppliers.
I mean, my question is to know, I mean, is it something that we can have like for the next years, 3.5% like-for-like growth? Can we expect more than that for the next years?
We hope more.
Okay. All right. My second question was regarding the e-commerce business.
In the B2C business, the e-commerce is about, I think, 3.5%-4%. This is the total business of our e-commerce. On the B2C part, excluding Atacadão, if I exclude the Atacadão top line, and I put the e-commerce on the total business is 3.5%-4%. I don't have the exact number by the end of the year.
Okay.
Maybe you could.
Okay. Do you have also.
The Express?
Yes.
Was it your question regarding the Express as well, right? Wissam.
Yes, exactly, yes.
Yeah. Express, the 10.5 resulted from a lot of efficiency at the store level in order to improve the offer of the stores, but also the pricing strategy of those of those formats, which some of them saw, let's say, some other BIM open nearby. Hence, we adjusted the prices of some sensitive goods, so which has resulted in increased traffic and volume across those formats of stores, which have led to that 10.5%, which is quite exceptional indeed.
We correct the Four Ps to make sure that we continue to be neck to neck to the competition, and to continue to grow, and we add more services. We review our plan on the services we are offering to the consumer to create differentiation versus competition. Those two choices work very well and bring a very nice top line growth.
regarding the EBITDA question?
And, and, and regarding-
Yeah, go ahead.
Sorry, Hamza. Just regarding the Express business, I mean, this like-for-like growth would be, I mean, a reason for you or something that could help to see like more openings of Express in the next years?
We will be opening more stores, but let me remind the strategy. We are trying. We have a system on the back office to really study every single opening and for every single format. The most important thing I have.
Excuse me.
Sorry?
We can't hear you. I think there is a problem with the microphone.
You can't hear? Okay. I'm sorry. Can you hear me now?
Yes, yes. Much better.
It's better.
Okay. What I'm trying to explain that every store opening is a study to tell ourselves what is the best format for this place. We will be opening based on the consumer profile that it need to be opening. Sometimes we need 2 format in the same area, sometimes we need 3 format, sometimes we need 1 format. We are doing a lot of data in the back office to optimize our opening and to continue to grow. Our plan, yes, we will still continue to open on the Express wherever there is need. Yes, we will be continue to expand on the format, and the plan is to expand on the fifth formats.
Thank you.
I think we covered all your question. I will go to the written question to try to answer.
There's. Sorry.
Sorry.
There's only one question regarding EBITDA. The question regarding EBITDA margin.
We can.
The EBITDA where the question was, what's the level basically going into in 2028? Well, we forecasted a 9.3%, which was the level in 2024. We found that this is going to be reasonable or attainable, reachable, thanks to the,
Program
volume which has which is increasing every year, but also to the all the synergy and economies of scale which are gonna be performed throughout the year. going forward-
Thank you.
The 9.3% is a level that we feel confident to sustain despite the high number of new stores as well as the mixed format, which is also in the favor today of the discount format.
Thank you.
Volume and mix, we are managing this mix between volume and pricing, and we are putting a plan every week to readjust and to push to make sure that we have a positive equation. Sometimes we will have to push for volume because we need to win more marketplace. Sometimes we have to do the both. We are. It's not a coincidence. We have deflation in some categories, we have inflation in some categories, and we have all necessary activity system to manage this equation to make sure that it's not impacting our margin and also our volume. I don't know if it answers your question. Could you please provide some insight into... Both evolve the right... In some format, back office... Back margin, in some front margin.
We are putting both them to create more margin for the to create more value for the different formats. We have a separate plan for each one to create the incrementality pending the format. Target of 226 opening stores. We are targeting +10% to 15% additional surface for 2026.
Yes, the presentation is available on our website and has all the details, if needed.
I think there is one more question at the end. What is the normalized EBITDA margin for Supeco, longer term given? Yeah.
Yes.
Go ahead.
Thanks for the question. Yes, regarding Supeco, we are in a format that is quite new. Today the weight of the new stores is quite significant. A store normalizes anywhere between two and three years. With our increased volume, we should definitely expect a better EBITDA margin. As I recall, BIM was actually loss-making for eight or nine years until it reached.
No, 15 years. 15 years in Morocco.
Until it reached the 600 or 700 stores of today. The big advantage as a quick recall for Label'Vie is that all the central function and central office is actually shared with the rest of the business units. Hence, Supeco can be profitable much quicker, and is already profitable. This is the great news with only 200 stores. We are expecting a normalization year after year. This is gonna be steady across the format, as next year we're expecting a higher number of stores to be opened versus the 130 stores which have opened in 2025.
If there are no further questions, this would conclude the call. Thank you everyone for attending, Label Vie 2025, earnings call. The replay of this conference will be available on the group's financial communications website. Thank you, Ms. Nawal, Mr. Hamza, and Mr. Soufiane. Thank you, everyone.
Thank you.
Thank you, Karim.
Thank you, Karim, so much. Thank you, Saham Capital Bourse.
Thank you.
... hosting this call.
Thank you everybody for.
Thank you.
attention and your question, and hope we see you in person in the next round with us on the next earning. Thank you so much.
Bye. Thank you.
Thank you.