Earnings Call: H2 2015

Feb 18, 2016

Come on, join me, Jean-Jacques. Have no fears. Come and join me on stage. I see you've felled your jacket, too. Okay, that's what leadership is all about. Good morning. Is everybody well? Not a lot of feedback there. We're going to spend maybe somewhere between 45 minutes and an hour and a half together. This is going to be an important moment of time when we will be able to talk with one another. For the first 35 minutes or so, we will give you the information as briskly and as smoothly as we can, and we'll then give you the opportunity to raise your questions. We know this by heart. If we're here, it's because the reason we're here is that we want to get feedback from you. There are a number of things to be said about 2015 over and beyond the figures. The first thing I'd like to say is that throughout the year, the environment was very, very turbulent and very different from one country to another. We achieved strong growth in the Middle East, good solid growth throughout the north of Europe, good in Asia Pacific, a difficult period in France, given a certain number of events that I'll comment in a few minutes. A difficult year in Brazil. But in that broader environment, we succeeded in keeping our course and grasping a number of opportunities over and beyond the macroeconomic environment. The geopolitical situation was complex and very tense, a lot of conflict throughout the world. We had the terrorist attacks in France in January and in November, which had no uncertain impact on France as a tourist destination. We had to be cautious, agile, and understand what we were tackling. We had abundant liquidities, low interest rates, so you won't be surprised to hear that in the course of 2015, we sold a lot more than we actually bought because it was a period of time when there were a lot of buyers. We grasped those opportunities in terms of yield, especially with the low yield assets in the hotel business. We looked at opportunities in the M&A sector, hence the acquisition of Fairmont Raffles. Of course, more importantly, we did what we said we'd do. We deployed the digital plan, we sought out a number of loyal clients, and we had a good think about the areas we should be venturing into. Fastbooking. Fastbooking is a marketplace that isn't for tutors at all. This is one of these areas where we need to take initiatives, just like this morning's initiative you will have heard about, acquisition of a stake in two digital platforms called Oasis and Squarebreak. This is just the starting point, and I think you'll be increasingly comfortable about these initiatives we're taking because they're well thought out. Not just well thought out, they've been well quantified. We know where we're heading, even in a complex environment with a lot of volatility and turbulence. Despite all that, Accor knows exactly what its results are going to be for 2016 and 2017 because we've been putting the bricks together since I met you in November last. This is something we've been planning for three years now. It's the same rationale. 2 and a half years down the road, we're still thinking along the same lines. The figures here, I am going to go through these fairly quickly. The results are good. I would even say they are very good in terms of margin and in terms of funds from operations. We have good leeway. As for the strategic operations, I told you about Fastbooking. It is absolutely essential to have a marketplace. You do not go from 700 to 3,000 hotels just like that. This means that we have a great development potential for future clients who will be joining us in our marketplace. Fairmont Raffles, I am going to elaborate on that in a few minutes. Huazhu. Huazhu, we have done what we said we would do. We have decided to do exactly what we said, and a year and a half later, we have closed the deal. Everything is now in place. Concerning management, you will have seen in the short film. I apologize for Jean-Jacques. Apologize to Jean-Jacques. You saw Amir Nahai, who joined us as head of F&B and purchasing. I do not know if he is in the room here today, Amir, but he has brought new blood, plenty of intelligence. Arantxa Balson, who is our head of HR, who has given us backbone and a whole strategy on how to revolutionize the group's corporate culture while keeping our DNA, our values. We do need to challenge ourselves frequently if we are to adapt to the world of the future. Again, we can talk about this in the course of the Q&A. My ideas are perfectly clear-cut. They may not be correct, but they are well thought out. The third person who joined us on the executive committee is the person to my left. You are used to Sophie Stabile. If you liked Sophie, you are going to like Jean-Jacques just as much. He is different, as you can see. He does not look the same at all, but he is just as efficient as Sophie Stabile so please be kind with him. He has only been here four months, but as he is a smart guy and works very hard, he is well prepared to deal with your questions. In all events, again, a new approach, a new way of seeing things. He does things differently to Sophie. He has his contribution to the strength of this group. Key takeaways, revenue over EUR 5.58 billion. I am not going to dwell on the figures. I think you know them already. HotelServices, volume of business is up understandably because the pipeline is expanding. You see, before you even raise a question, let me say it straight away, we must improve the margin in HotelServices, not just to improve it, but to grow it. These results have been too flat for the last three or four years. This is why we are taking all these initiatives with the marketplace, with our development, and with digital. HotelInvest is a wonderful division. It was simple enough to set up, more difficult to execute, but the architecture is terribly simple. John Ozinga, who is here, you can congratulate him. You can congratulate him because he has done a great job in executing the plan. He too, has a lot of backbone. He knows exactly what remains to be done in 2016 and 2017, and you can be convinced that he will execute that with the same success as he has had over the last two years. Cash flow is the consequence of what we have been doing in HotelServices and HotelInvest. In this volatile environment, it is important to have the foundations of which to establish the business and to provide us with the leeway that we need to move forward. A few words on the digital plan. We will spend some time on this in June when we talk about our interim results. I want to share with you what we will have been doing over the last 18 months. Remember, it is only a year old because it was launched in January of 2015. They are the same eight teams that we told you about, the same eight programs, EUR 225 million. You know what? It is the exact same people who are involved. Vivek Badrinath is head of the digital plan. Just one thing I will say, four of these concern clients, our guests, one for employees, one for our partners, franchisees, one for our IT system, and one which is very much a data program. Again, a number of newcomers who have joined us to help us decipher this data and get the essentials out of them. Now, a few words about mobile first. One of the big upheavals in, or upheavals are always big, I suppose, is the use of mobile phones by each and every one of us. With a total audience of the total web audience, 45% of our web audience is in mobile. This is up from 37% last year and 25% two years ago. That means that we know that this year's 45% will become two-thirds very rapidly, which means that as the world is becoming increasingly mobile-driven, the African continent, by the way, is a big challenge in terms of network equipment. They are using more and more mobile phones in Africa, meaning that through smartphones, we need to roll out a lot of applications to ensure that our guests use mobile phones. We need to be able to record a number of things, tourist guides, online booking, access to the media and press. You do it yourselves in your lives. We need to do it in hotels. It requires a lot of means, a lot of agility. So upgraded applications. Now, we have recruited about 100 people over the last 10 months entirely to focus on the digital plan. These are experts from outside the group who have joined us to put this digital plan into practice. Now, one of the upshots of this is the very sharp increase in the number of cardholders. Now, via the card, they can use a lot of these applications, and the rate of use of applications rose by 40% last year, and that is only the beginning. The number of card club members rose from 18 to 25 million, which is more than twice what we did last year because the previous growth was 4 million a year. So we have doubled that growth in the last year, up 7 million. Now, that has very clear-cut consequences. In late November in 2013, I told you that one of the big challenges for this group was to be on an equal footing with what others were doing, particularly our American counterparts who have over 50 million cardholders. Some of as many as 80 million, but they all have 50 million plus cardholders, but active cardholders. So what proportion of the revenue does that account for? In the U.S., it is over 50% of the revenue. In some cases, more than 50%. We have increased from 24% to 28%. Two years ago, we were well below the 20% mark. We're going to get there to 50%. Why is that important? Because everything we do has correlations to other things we do inside the group. It's important to have 28%, 35%, 50% of revenue generated by cardholders because over 90% of club members reserve or book their rooms directly on our site. Because if they were to use online travel agencies or OTAs, they would not be able to use their miles or benefits. The more cardholders you have, the less dependent you are on these high growth OTAs. It's very important, and the acquisition costs are very low. It also improves our understanding of our guests through data acquisition. The better we know them, the more we can meet their requirements and provide them with the services they want. OnlyOn is an additional service that we provide. We provide on our channels to give us a competitive advantage in terms of price to our cardholders. Let's dwell on this just a second. Something very important happened here in 2015. We worked very hard on this to ensure that we would prevail, we and the independent hotels. What we did was we succeeded in putting the church back in the middle of the village in terms of our dealings with the OTAs, the Booking, and Expedias of this world. We succeeded in doing two things in France and in Germany. You may remember that for a number of years, we had to give the OTAs our best guaranteed price. This was one of the things they could claim. They could be sure to claim that they were offering the best price. That's no longer true because we can have on our own website the best price for our cardholders. The second thing is that they always had to have a claim on the last room available. That's no longer true. I do not see why I should give the last available room to an online travel agency. It's now to be found on our website. I'm saying this at the same time. This is not a battle against Expedia, Booking, or anybody else, or even Airbnb, and I'm sure we'll talk about them. All these platforms have their strengths, their concepts, their ability to grow and develop. In fact, they are all Accor's partners in our whole approach to clients. If we were to simplify them to the extreme, that would be it. Of course, we're pleased to have guests come from Expedia and Booking. What I don't want is that when they come via Expedia or Booking, I don't want them to come back through Booking or Expedia. I pay the commission for them once. When we've had a guest, we need to be able to show our guests by giving them a card, by showing them that if they use our booking service next time around, they will have a number of advantages and benefits that they do not have when they book through the OTAs. This is growth that we're going to achieve together, not against one another. On the group's development, we are very, very good at developing the group, better than we've ever been. I told you that we used to open a hotel every two days. It's not true anymore. We're actually opening two hotels every three days in the world. That's great clout. In the hotel business worldwide, I think we have more clout than anybody else, insofar as we are opening more hotels than anybody else. We always compare ourselves with our American counterparts. 75% of the U.S. pipeline is located in America. That is where they dominate, but they are not as agile as we are. They cannot open as many hotels as we can in Asia Pacific, in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, or Europe. Nobody else is as agile as we are because we have been doing this for the last 45 years, because we have the people in development, because we have the brands, and because we have the expertise. 92% of our hotels are asset-light. I know a number of you will be very happy about that, and we will continue to open quite a number of asset-light hotels. This is because 70% of our development is outside of Europe, even though this year, surprisingly, France accounted for 11% of our development. In fact, Northern Europe was 19%. As 90% of HotelInvest is located in Europe and Europe alone, well, necessarily, HotelInvest is not our privileged partner or preferred partner outside of Europe, and it should not be. Luxury and upscale, well, you will not be surprised that 28% of our hotel openings are in the luxury and upscale segment. Yet this segment only represents 15% of the group's business before the acquisition of Fairmont Raffles, which will probably increase the figure from 15% to about 30%. Sofitel, Pullman, and MGallery were going to expand more rapidly than the average in terms of revenue. HotelInvest, I have already mentioned briefly. There was a figure I gave you at the end of 2013 or early 2014. I gave you two figures, in fact. I said, "Look, we are beginning with 1,400 hotels, and of these 1,400, about 200 that were fully owned and 1,200 that had variable or fixed rent." I told you what I wanted was greater legibility, clarity, greater transparency on the quality of our portfolio. The goal was to reduce the number of leased hotels, particularly to discontinue hotels that were losing money, to increase the proportion of fully owned hotels, reduce the total number from 1,400. Year after year, I think at the end of last year, we were at 1,280. We have reduced the number of leased hotels, increased the proportion of owned hotels. The value of the portfolio was about EUR 4 billion at the time. It is about EUR 7 billion now. We have increased our margins, we have improved cash flow, and we have improved quality and the location of these assets. I am going to give you a figure. At the end of this transformation, we should have about 75% of the profitability of HotelInvest coming from fully owned hotels. At the time, it was less than 50%. At the end of 2015, 61% of our net operating income came from owned hotels, and we are heading for 75%. We just need to take the right amount of time, not to make the mistake of overpaying certain assets. For a year and a half, we give you the valuations. They are independently valued by independent experts who come year on year to visit one-third of the portfolio on a rotating basis. Every three years, they have seen all our hotels. They know these hotels as well as we do. You can be virtually certain of the value of this portfolio, at least the market value of these assets. Fairmont Raffles Hotels International, FRHI. $2.9 billion. That is the acquisition cost at the time of the announcement last November. We are very proud of this acquisition. We are very proud of it because we are very happy with it. This is an additional brick in terms of strength and clout, the ability to do business and provide service to our clients. It is an excellent deal paid at a, we call it the market price. Was it expensive? We may have different thoughts on that. What I will tell you is that the price we agreed upon is well-quantified, and it was perfectly well-structured, that price. It was structured as follows, $900 million in cash, $2 billion in paper. 46.7 million shares will be issued. Is there an adjustment clause on the number of shares depending on the value? The answer is no, there is no adjustment clause. Did we ensure that it was not adjustable? Yes, we did. So of the $2.9 billion at the time, we are not talking about $2.9 billion anymore, and the multiples are not the same. Simply because when you are in the position that I am in, you have to be capable of anticipating what is going to happen in the markets. Had the markets been bullish, we would have paid more. What that means is that the hotel industry was okay. The markets were bearish, okay. The price would have been adjusted automatically, otherwise. What about the Qataris and Saudis? Are they unhappy about the fall of the share price? Like me, they are very disappointed. Are they furious? No. Are they still here? Yes, they are. They are just as eager to continue to work with us together. We are going to build this group. We are going to generate the synergy. We have quantified the synergy at $70 million. Believe me, there is plenty of synergy there. The integration is going very well between our respective staffs. This gives us access to a very important territory called North America. Also, access to very powerful brands with huge development capacity. As for the integration, while we are not sleeping on our merits, we are not resting on our laurels. Two phases. The first one from the 9th of January up to the start of this year, up to the kickoff, where we spent a lot of time in-house saying, "Okay, we have announced it. We can now talk to our colleagues about this deal and tell them why. Why these brands? Why North America? Why these guests? Why is all this important?" From the start of January, all our colleagues have been perfectly aware of this initiative. We now have a group with the head of Asia Pacific, Michael Issenberg, and Stephen Denske from Northern Europe, who are both in Toronto, who spend 80% of their time working with the staff of Fairmont Raffles, who have three different cultures, and that is very important to bear in mind. That is one of the great strengths of this group. You have the Raffles organization, which is in Singapore. That is based in Singapore because that is where Raffles began back in 1872. Then you have Swissôtel, which is based in Zurich. Then the Fairmont deal, which is based in Toronto. So you have three different cultures combining in this group. So we have about 40 different cultures in Accor. So they have three, we have 40. Frankly, we are well up to it. Our first cousins in Asia are talking with the Canadians and between the Canadians and Europeans, and we all understand one another, especially with the Saudi and Qatari shareholders. We also have spent a lot of time together. The teams are working together. They're all eager. We're eager. They're eager. The owners of these hotels are extremely happy that their hotels are joining a group with distribution capacity that is much higher than what they had with Fairmont Raffles. We're not just confident, we're also very happy about this deal. For those of you who have doubts, I've met our main shareholders. I can tell you that they are very, very happy about this deal. All that remains for us to do is to get the green light from the antitrust authorities. When we have that, we will simply execute the plan, which is going to be one great adventure, but also proof of the fact that Accor Group will be one of the two or three world leaders in this category. A category in which we were not established because we didn't have the brands and because we didn't have sufficient expertise. We've just acquired all that. Huazhu, a few minutes briefly. Huazhu was one great idea. I can say that because it wasn't my own idea, so I'm not being egocentric here saying that. The Chinese market has evolved in the last 5 or 10, 3 years. Numbers 2, 3, 4 are all Chinese. These four groups didn't exist 10 years ago. This is a market that's a huge market, that will be the biggest outbound market in the whole world in terms of guests and international guests and travelers. There are 120 million Chinese guests traveling the world of the 1.3 billion guests worldwide. The U.S. have 150 million. You and I know these 150 million will probably be 200 million or more in 3 or 4 years. We need to be in the Chinese market, and we could not go it alone. Certainly not in a hostile way with four very dominant players in the market. We had to join forces with one of them. That's what we did with Huazhu. We've given Huazhu a master franchise for our economic sector with a master franchise for AccorHotels, for Mercure, ibis hotels, and ibis. I've become a member of the board of the Huazhu Group, and they are working with us in our development. This is one great entrepreneur, and we're closer than ever before. We really have a good understanding of what we can do together. His entire focus is on his Chinese market that he is developing faster than anybody else. Through our stake in their China Lodging, we are reaping the full benefits of what's happening in China. I'm now going to give the floor to Jean-Jacques to talk to you about the figures, and I'll come back to talk to you about other matters a little bit later on. Merci, Sébastien. Thank you, Sébastien. Good morning to you all. I'm delighted to be with you this morning for my first results presentation since I arrived in the company in November. All the happier because the results are very solid, so easy to present, and of course, clearly demonstrate that we have the right strategy and the means available to implement it. The key financials for 2015, a reflection of all the factors of our news. Revenue up 2.9% on the like-for-like, showing that the business is trending well on most of our major markets. Against this backdrop, group EBIT comes in at EUR 65 million in the middle of the range that we confirmed. EBIT margin reaches 11.9%, so EBIT margin at record levels really demonstrates the rapid rollout of our transformation plan. Recurring free cash flow comes in at a record level of EUR 341 million. The group's financial situation is extremely sound with credit ratios that are constantly improving. As Sébastien pointed out, a net cash positive, first time in the history of the group. This gives us comfort in terms of our investment grade status, which is one of the group's priorities. On the basis of this, the board has decided to propose at the upcoming shareholders meeting the payment of a dividend of EUR 1 for 2015. That's an increase of 5% over last year. On revenue, as I said, revenues up 2.9% like-for-like, which is in fact a figure of EUR 5.581 billion. HotelServices revenue EUR 1.3 billion, up 6.2% like-for-like. The performance for HotelInvest is up 1.9% like-for-like in constant currencies, partly due to the stronger exposure of HotelInvest to France. More about that later. Expansion had a positive effect of 1.2% on revenue. Asset disposals weighed in the other direction for 3% of revenue, as you saw in Sébastien's presentation, with over 100 assets restructured by HotelInvest during the year. Currency effects are favorable, very favorable for H1, 2.7 of revenue and stable in the second half. But the overall effect for the year is of 1.2% favorable due to pound sterling. Total revenue on a reported basis is up 2.3%. Let's look in greater detail by region and business revenue performance of NCEE and MMEA. In the regions in Asia-Pacific, very satisfactory with increases between 5% and 8%. Big driver of our performance for this year, these markets. Situation is more contrasted in France, as you know, with the attacks in Q4. These impacted heavily, particularly HotelInvest. It's more present in Paris. As in the first half, the decrease of 3.7 like-for-like of the Americas, essentially linked to the political, economic situation in Brazil. Other countries in the area are up. As regards HotelInvest, the increase is driven by NCEE and MMEAs as for the rest of the group, with the activity particularly sustained in the U.K. and Germany. Interestingly, an uptick in Southern Europe that was impacted adversely. For information in the MMEA, HotelInvest is primarily exposed to Southern Europe, whereas HotelServices is more present in Africa, Middle East. Turning now to the P&L for HotelServices and HotelInvest, these results reflect the implementation of our strategic plan and its acceleration. EBITDAR comes in at 1.780. EBIT margin reaches a record level, 11.9%. In fact, if we restate the EBIT margin for the weight of the digital plan, we'd reach a margin of 13.6 for the group. Just for your information, the corporate and interco column combines the items of elimination of fees between HotelInvest, HotelServices, and the headquarters' P&L. If we look more closely at EBITDAR, saw that it was stable at EUR 1.772 billion. The EBITDAR margin is down 60 basis points on a reported basis and down 80 basis points like-for-like. What explains this? Firstly, operations are good. Up EUR 36 million reflects the good operational momentum that we described. Situation in Brazil, conversely in Brazil, as shown on the slide, is costing us EUR 29 million. That's 40 basis points. French market, that accounts for EUR 26 million. That's also 40 basis points on the margin. The OpEx for the digital plan, EUR 32 million, that's an impact of 60 basis points. The EBITDAR margin after the efforts made on digital is flat. Change in scopes, there are two opposite effects. The currencies, the pound, essentially, but not just pound sterling, and also the deals done in 2015 on the Moor Park, Accor and Tritax portfolios that we acquired in 2014, the full restructuring of this portfolio, that's the HotelInvest strategy. Moving now, just to step back how this performance is reflected, we clearly see on this chart that speaks for itself, constant uptick in the group profitability, both in value and percentage terms. Several factors driving this level of profitability. EBIT, firstly, business is trending well on our major markets, and particularly, as I explained, in Europe, and that offset the more challenging situation in France and Brazil. Second key point, and that we quantify some 60 basis points of the year-on-year growth of the group's profitability, is the transformation of HotelInvest. For information, we benefited from a positive accounting effect of EUR 6 million, reclassifying assets held for sale. Hotels in the property company in partnership with Eurazeo, we stopped amortizing that in the second half. That's full disclosure. Turning now to the 2015 EBIT by region and business. EBIT in France down 10% with the development that accentuated in Q4. NCEE going from 269 to 369 for the group. RevPARs holding up well, and of course, the turnaround of HotelInvest, we see there the benefits of buying the assets of Moor Park, Accor, Tritax. The Americas, 80% impacted by Brazil and the situation that we're all familiar with of the economic and political context of Brazil. Other regions trending well. Another key point, after several years of crisis, we see that MMEA is picking up back in the black. If we now detail the HotelServices KPI, P&L, and cash flow, business volume reaches EUR 12.9 billion. As Sébastien said, that's significant year-on-year growth. The revenue, EUR 1.3 billion. Another interesting point, the fees paid by HotelInvest to HotelServices go from 47% in 2014 to 40% in 2015, another way of reflecting the expansion policy, which, as Sébastien said, 92% asset-light. EBITDAR margin restated for sales, market, and digital funds and loyalty programs, which is the small box on this slide, continues to grow at 49.8%. That's a benchmark followed by our U.S. peers and represents a good benchmark of the HotelServices operational performance. Cash flow generation satisfactory, 77%. A point is change in CapEx may, on the face of it, seem weak given what we're saying about digital, but it's because 2014 includes key spending for IT and the loyalty program with the revamping of Le Club AccorHotels. Just to give you a more granular vision of the digital plan. You have on the left the original plan, and on the right, the current plan where we're tracking on the EUR 85 million cash that we were going to spend 2015. We only spent EUR 78, so we're tracking well. The difference is just a carryover year-on-year. HotelServices 2015 P&L, management franchise business, EBITDA margin remains satisfactory above 50%, which is our target. Slight dip in the margin year-on-year is due to the adjustment of the fees structure between HotelInvest and HotelServices for France. That's what we announced at the start of the year, accounted for about EUR 8 million. Sales, marketing, and digital business. You'll come back. Don't go away. I feel lonely. Sales, marketing, digital business, logically impacted by the plan that we saw on the previous slide. Other activities, trending well, generating EUR 51 million. On to HotelInvest. A very eventful year in terms of transformation for HotelInvest. EBITDA margin up to 29.6%, which really reflects the quality of the group and the operational know-how. That's the mic. EBIT going from EUR 292 million to EUR 378 million in 2015. The EBIT margin up 180 basis points to 7.8%. Need to recall that last year it grew 220 basis points. So I think reflects everything we're trying to explain about HotelInvest. CapEx, flat development CapEx slightly down, but mainly sort of calendar out of certain projects, and we're set to return to a level of some EUR 200 million 2016 in line with the previous years' figures. Cash flow generation up sharply, and we see the box top right, the figure that Sébastien mentioned of contribution of owned hotels to NOI, we see the increase. In fact, we don't. First year, 2012, the figure we should see is 50%, and the last year, 2015, the figure should be 61%. That's the figure that Sébastien mentioned in his presentation. Turning now to the performance of HotelInvest by type of lease or ownership. We see a strong performance of owned hotels, which adds some EUR 60 million to the bottom line of EBIT, and that's a reflection of good business level in Europe outside France. Integration of the portfolios acquired in 2014, Moor Park, AXA, Tritax, and technically discontinued amortization of hotels ceded to the new entity created in partnership with Eurazeo. That's what we announced in January. Fixed lease hotels benefiting from the Southern Europe momentum with revenue that's up and lease by definition stable, so rising profitability. More mixed bag for variable leases. These variable leases are essentially located in France and in Paris, and so were fully impacted by the events in Q4. So all in all, in the year, HotelInvest generated EUR 378 million EBIT, slightly higher than that of HotelServices. For information, that EBIT reached EUR 197 million in 2013. All this reflected a reduction in the total number of hotels, 1,288 for the end of the year and should be of the order of 1,200 once the franchise back deal planned for June is closed. Continued increase of the gross asset value, EUR 6.9 billion from EUR 6.3 billion a year ago as Seb indicated. We now have three independent appraisers, BNP Paribas, Jones Lang, and Cushman, and reflects the underlying value of HotelInvest. The fact that we recently sold 28 hotels and 85 business franchises for EUR 146 reflects their GAV, demonstrates the relevance of this KPI. France and Brazil portfolios that are less valued than in previous GAVs. ROI comes in at 9.5%. Rest of the P&L, EBIT net profits on this chart, just two points I'd like to flag. Financial expense sharply up by EUR 18 million. That's the link to the increase of gross debt, and also the fact that available cash is generating far less because of the declining interest rate environment. Tax down in absolute terms, which is primarily due to one-offs in 2015 that have a tax impact. In fact, the key point is the current tax rate is 28%, stays at 28%. That's the guidance that we've always given. Earning per share. Hang on. You can look at the photographs too, because those of you who've never visited Bangkok, this is one of our hotels in Bangkok, the Muse MGallery Hotel. That's absolutely divine. Don't you want to go there when you see this? Sorry about those of you on the webcast. In a business, whether a product, I mean, numbers. Not just numbers. Take a look at the shots, too, because they give you a foretaste of what we're doing. Okay, back to the numbers, if you don't mind. Each to his own thing. Cash flow, EBITDA, FFO, recurring free cash flow, record levels reflecting the group's good operational performance 2015. All in all, the conversion of EBITDA to cash is at 35% up over 2014. In the absence of major acquisitions, 2015 net debt is trending very positively. As we said, last July, the group was net seller 2015 with EUR 357 million of asset disposals, essentially in H1 and the resale of 35 hotels acquired from Moor Park, AXA, and Tritax. There's also sound WCR management of EUR 70 million leaves us a debt net of EUR 354 million variation. Just a slide on the balance sheet. The group's net debt becomes net cash positive of EUR 194 million. Net cash available, cash at group, EUR 3 billion, and we have an undrawn credit line of EUR 1.8 billion maturing in. So continued to optimize the maturity at cost of debt. Average maturity and duration, 4.6 years. We were, as we see, at 3.2 in 2010. At a cost that's gone from 6.4% down to 2.89%, constantly improving, leveraging market conditions. Financial situation is increasingly solid in line with the group commitment to maintain its investment grade status. Once again, in 2015, we're going to strengthen the group's resources to implement its strategy. On the basis of all this, and as proposed by the board, we'll be proposing to the shareholders meeting 22nd of April, the payment of a dividend of EUR 1 per share. That's a 51% payout ratio, slightly above the 50% traditionally paid since the demerger of the services stock. So at least one figure that I can memorize in this presentation. That's a good thing about that. As for 2013, 2014, this dividend can be received 50% in stock with a 5% discount. Thanks for listening. Back to Sébastien. Merci beaucoup, Jean-Jacques. Thank you very much, Jean-Jacques. I would like to take this opportunity to say something I did not say earlier on, possibly because she is not here, but I hope she is following us wherever she is. The figures for 2015 are attributable to a lot of people in the group, but they are also a consequence of Sophie Stabile's lengthy nine years with us. Jean-Jacques has simply inherited the better parts, maybe the lesser parts, too. But another person here in the room. Warm thanks to Sophie Stabile. Another person in the room is Céline Dupuy, who is somebody behind the scenes. Those of you who do not know Céline, she is Sophie's number two. She has become Jean-Jacques' number two. But even pregnant, I mean, really pregnant, she is here today. I did not want her to come, but she is here. So these good results are really attributable to a lot of very important people in the group. A few words about our priorities. The good news, I want this to be perfectly clear to everybody, is that the priorities are the same as last year. Indeed, the same as in 2014. As we are not complete idiots, in each of our priorities, as time goes on, we acquire more expertise and greater comfort. Within these priorities, we are not changing them, but what we are doing is we have a finer vision, a much deeper vision of what each of these priorities will be. This is to show that we reap the benefits. The first of these is the restructuring of HotelInvest. Jean knows where he is headed. We still need time, we need greater agility, we still need means. But the negotiations are underway to ensure that we reach our destination. Secondly, regarding the digital plan, the eight programs are unchanged. They are the same eight programs, but over and beyond these eight programs, I should say, we have done two new things. First of all, in June The first booking launch with the launch of this marketplace. The second dates from this morning. In this digital world, we have to open our eyes to see who's doing what, how, at what speed, with what means, where, on the basis of what offering, what products, using what technology, and for whom is this intended. It must be guest-centric. This is really our driving force. We must ensure that the client is at the heart of our concerns. The two deals I'm going to talk to you about, Oasis and Squarebreak, actually feed into the digital plan. The digital plan has opened our eyes to a whole series of areas that we want to become involved in. I'll come back to that in a second. The third area is our development discipline, the brands, the territories that we've been talking about for the last few years. Fairmont Raffles is part of this expansion. Fairmont Raffles is also the consequence of a greater awareness of the most buoyant sectors, the sectors in which we must invest, and must invest with what brands, with what partners. In that third priority, you will find the Fairmont Raffles deal. How do we improve performance? This is number 4. We talked about F&B last year. Good, because we're going to take this initiative to the limit. Year after year, you will see that our performance in F&B will be better and better. Germany alone last year, we grew our EBIT in F&B by EUR 6 million. I can say that once again, when I give you information like that, when I refer to people that are here, they've come for you, not for me. Laurent Picheral is here in the room, on the first row here. Laurent is in charge of Central Europe, and it's Laurent who's the driving force behind all of this, particularly in catering or F&B. Please go and see Laurent. Before I forget, because my own number two from the very start who's been with me through thick and thin, this is Sven Boinet. Please take time with Sven Boinet. None of this would have happened if Sven hadn't been here to make it all meaningful and to bring it all together. The fifth priority is our managerial culture. Arantxa isn't here. She's in Toronto. But believe me, we will succeed in completely transforming this group if we become aware together of a change in operational processes, the identity of our talents, the need to be mobile and agile. This is why we have our Shadow Comex. I will talk to you about it in the Q&A session if you like. You'll have read about it in the press, I'm sure. Our Shadow Comex. Yes, there are seven young people. Yes, there are six boys, some girls. Yes, they're under 35. Yes, they're going to have access to all the privileged information and will give us their opinion on what we should do. But the fact that they're under 35 years of age, because we are 35, 45, 50, 60 years of age, that doesn't mean that the young people aren't as good. We're just different. We have a different vision of things. The older members have maybe greater wisdom, more hindsight, not more intelligence. But I don't want any confrontation between the two. I want the younger people who have probably a better understanding of tomorrow's world. I want that understanding to benefit us. People who are not under 25 or who are under 25 should be challengers and should help us understand how to adapt this to the various initiatives we take. Everybody has a role to play in the group. It is not a matter of opposing generations, on the contrary, nor is it a matter of focusing entirely on young people, which would also be a mistake. A few words about the two acquisitions. They are not particularly important in terms of price. For those of you who are going to ask how much, I am afraid I will not be answering that question. These are two different deals. Oasis is an American company that developed in Buenos Aires in 2009. It is currently based in Miami that has 1,500 properties in its platform. These are large apartments, very much upmarket, sometimes villas. These are properties that are made available to a certain number of clients, 70% of whom are B2B clients, business clients. Average stay, 22 days. This is your typical expat spending 2 to 3 months abroad, staying in this apartment for a time before moving in, as a lot of business people do, consultants and bankers, who all need what we call a more upmarket and broader, bigger accommodation than in hotels. 70% of our clients are B&B, but on average, the stay at Accor is 1.9 days. It is less than 2. This is a very good add-on for a different type of guest for whom we can offer something that we have not had available for them up to now. This will be made available through Oasis. They are in 17 different locations throughout the world and are expanding rapidly. This is what we call scaling up. Accor is becoming an industrial partner who will help the Oasis team to expand more rapidly into more locations in their segment, which is essentially a B2B segment with an average stay of over 20 days. Something completely different now, Squarebreak. Squarebreak is French, based in Paris. Started up in 2013. Three founding members who are exceptional people. One comes from design, the other from technology, and the third from commerce. They launched this in 2013, starting from a very simple idea. Let us go and look at holiday homes. We go to the Atlantic, Mediterranean. They have 220 properties, which they have users to whom they provide very sophisticated services, really tailored services. Here again, it was important for us to help these three young people by taking a 48% stake in the company. They are going to expand much more rapidly with us, and a lot of our guests are interested in this type of service. These are two different initiatives, different size, different people, different countries, different segments. Very different deals, but two areas in which I want the group to venture for greater exposure. We will take part in their board of directors, but we will not just take a part, we will contribute because we know exactly what they need. This is why they wanted an industrial partner alongside them, somebody eager to take part in this adventure alongside them. Two slides to wrap up. The first of these, and fear not, these are neither my not like me at all to be in any way anxious. However, the group, the entire group, myself included, will always think that the glass is half full rather than half empty. That is part of what we do, and that is probably part of our genetic encoding. We are not pioneers, though we had two pioneering founding fathers, Dubrule and Pélisson. Invariably, we think of the glass as being half full. As pioneers, as competitors, we need to be lucid. This is why I have been talking to you about this for the last two years or so. When you look at the world around us, it is important to understand that, okay, there is economic slowdown in Brazil, undeniably. In China, possibly. Though I am among those who feel that Chinese mainland and Chinese economy are doing everything it takes to migrate from an economy that was dependent on public investment in infrastructure to a consumer economy. It takes time. It takes time when you have a population that size, and it takes time when there is such a big change between rural and urban environments. They know exactly where they are heading, and I think we would probably all be surprised. We can expect four difficult years, but don't bet against China. I certainly wouldn't. Oil. Of course, the price of oil has an impact on what is happening in the world. You will see that oil has an impact on airline companies, but it also has an impact on low-cost companies who, in turn, have an impact on the tourist industry, which is good. So low oil prices actually benefit us. Inflation is indeed very low. Quantitative easing will continue in all likelihood. Okay, we have elections coming up in a number of territories. It is going to make life difficult, so we can expect a lot of people to wait and see. Of course, there is the geopolitical environment with its conflicts, terrorist movements, and Zika, and what have you. Except that even in this world, this volatile, complex world, even despite everything I have mentioned, just look at what we have in our sector. The first thing is that in 2016, the calendar works in our favor. In France in particular. Fewer bank holidays in May. We have the Euro, the football championship that will be held in Paris. The first quarter will probably be a difficult quarter in France, but after the first quarter, I think we can expect a good year in France. A lot of trade fairs, with the exception of the first quarter in Germany in particular, with the Olympic Games in Brazil. We have done what it takes to adapt to the difficult environment in Brazil. The tourist sector is really a great sector to be in. It is very rare that we have a sector with as much visibility over the next 10 years. I think industry will grow by 3%-4% per annum over the next decade, as it grew by 3%-4% over the last 10 years. 1.35 billion travelers. That is going to increase. It will be one out of every seven people will travel. So 50% of those people, where do they travel to? Well, they go to Europe. What is the foremost destination in the world of France? 85 million out of 1.35 billion. Who is the biggest operator in Europe and by far? Accor. There you are. We in Europe have 350,000 rooms. More than our numbers 2, 3, and 4 combined. Nobody can eat into our market share in Europe, which is constantly growing. Which is constantly growing, and yet we are the main beneficiary of 50% of global tourism, which is rising by 50% a year. That's exactly why you have all these digital platforms aiming at this sector because they understand, just like me, that this is a growth sector. Because they too have understood that the hotel sector will only see its offering grow by 1.5% to 2% a year. It's difficult to build in profit. It takes time. This is why you have 1.5% to 2% growth of the supply, which does not meet the growing demand. This is why we are in this particular niche that we're in. Except that in this niche, this has an impact on us, and we have to be very careful. I talked about positives too in the regulatory field. What we've succeeded in doing with Booking and Expedia will also benefit us. Life is becoming simpler. Of course, I talked about the benefit or the advantages of low oil prices on airline companies as well. 2014 was a record year. 2015 broke the record established in 2014, and 2016 will probably be yet another record year where we will exceed what we achieved in 2015. I don't know many companies in the world that can make that claim with as much conviction as we can. Of course, the size of the group with all the talent we have, the strength of our brands, the initiatives we've taken, the quality of the people operating this group. Because of all this, 2016 will be a good group. In all events, we will make it a good year. That's it. Okay, your turn. Time for your questions, which we will try to answer. Okay, get the ball rolling. Laurence Bouchard. I'm Laurence Bouchard. First of all, congratulations for your results. It was a particularly difficult environment you were operating in, but on a very down-to-earth basis. What about the first few weeks of 2016, particularly in France? What about the occupancy rates? I know you have a scenario drawn up for Brazil. I think we can expect the economy to slow down again in 2016, maybe to a lesser extent, there are a number of major events. But what is your scenario? How do you see 2016 in terms of, especially with the sharp downturn in hotel investments in Brazil last year? How important is our Chinese guests? You've closed the deal with Huazhu, but what about the first months since the closing of the deal? What about the merging of the loyalty programs? France is the number two destination for Chinese tourists. How is that developing? One final question, and I apologize for harping back on France and Paris in particular. What about your dealings with Airbnb and the harmonization of rules and regulations? Also, the two stakes you've acquired. What's the perspective and how do you see these two investments developing? It's just as well you were first to take the floor. That's about eight or nine questions at least. No, I'm going to let Jean-Jacques answer your question about the first few weeks of the year, and then I'll see if I can deal with the other questions. Jean-Jacques, if you would. Okay. In France, we ended up last year with a RevPAR of approximately 0%, but the phasing wasn't linear in any way. In November, we were down 4%. In December, we were down 7%. That's all included, own or now, fully owned, managed, leased, all combined. Obviously, we were penalized by November 13th. Obviously, COP21 worked in our favor, but December was very similar to the second fortnight of November in terms of revenue. What we've seen since then is a situation that has picked up, but the situation remains very fragile. As for any guidance, well, as you know, we only give you guidance later in the year, so we're not going to make any exception to that rule. What we have seen, however, is that a situation that has bottomed out and has a very difficult month of December, and of course, January has improved, and February will be better than January, and so on. Now, you heard what I said to you earlier on, and I said so intentionally. Yes, 2016 will probably be a record year. Yes, the situation will improve in respect of all our initiatives. Yes, as I've said in December, the terrorist attacks in November, December, the cancellation of three flights out of four from Japan since December 15th. It's going to take two, three, four months before things become normal, about get back to normal once again. The first quarter is going to be a difficult quarter because it's the upshot of what happened in November. But we've much better visibility than we've had in recent years. This is going to go on improving, getting better and better. Let's not jump the gun. As for Brazil, GDP down 4% last year. The markets expected minus 1.5, minus 2, so it's negative growth, much sharper than expected, and will probably continue along the same vein or maybe even worse this year. People thought it was going to last two years. It's not. It's going to last longer given the political environment. Three things I should say on that point is, first of all, maybe somewhat surprisingly, because it's nothing to do with the economic situation. We changed our management team mid-year last year in Brazil with a new Head of Operations called Patrick Mendes, a young man who had been in Brazil for four or five years already, and took over from Roland de Bonadona who'd been there for 20 years, a great man. With the few youth and different vision of things are such that Patrick Mendes adapted the way he manages his staff. They've really taken a commando approach to adapt to the very turbulent situation in Brazil. Of course, at the end of the year, he unified a number of initiatives to jointly manage a number of hotels. The second important thing is that these Olympic Games in Rio are a very important impact, and remember, we have 220 hotels in Rio de Janeiro. When you talk about our clout in Europe, well, we're by far the biggest operator in Rio de Janeiro, and we can expect Olympic Games to attract a lot of guests, and we will be the main beneficiaries. Thirdly, as is always the case in these markets, when times get tough, when the hotel business is very fragmented, it's probably a good time for us to grasp a number of opportunities. Probably a good time for us to consolidate our market share in Brazil, particularly by acquiring a number of independent hotels that have come knocking on our doors for franchises and management contracts. Don't be surprised. We've been in Brazil for 38 years. We know the market like the back of our hands. We're not going to withdraw from Brazil. On the contrary. As Churchill said, it's when times are calamitous that we have opportunities to grasp. Well, there is a calamity in Brazil. We'll be there, and we will continue to be there in the medium term. China. Huazhu, things are going very well, as I said. Everything is up and running. We'll be opening up about 40 entities next year under our own brands. Remember, this gentleman opens 600 hotels a year in China, just the Huazhu Group. The Huazhu Group alone. We have connected up our 25 million cardholders. He has 50 million. All of a sudden, we have 75 million cardholders or loyalty cardholders, thanks to Huazhu. And you're right, France is the second favorite destination in China. 98% of Chinese travelers remain in Asia-Pacific. Only 10% venture beyond. That's fine because the main beneficiary is Accor in Asia-Pacific, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, and so on and so forth. But here we can offer them points for our hotels in Asia. Airbnb, Oasis, Squarebreak. Are they an answer? The last two an answer to Airbnb, the answer is no. I have no intention of confronting Airbnb. I do not want to set up an online travel agency. We are just extremely determined. Our investment in the two platforms are evidence of this. We are intent on the fact that the market is evolving in such a way that growth will come through these main or secondary residences. This market is evolving. You see a number of operators becoming leaders in small niches and highly specific or targeted locations with a very different, distinctive type of service. But Accor could become, why not, a leader in these niches, in these areas, with the type of services required. Now, we may have missed the first wave, the second, even the third wave. Well, we're not going to miss the fourth. Enough is enough. We're going to get involved, but we are going to become involved in segments that are upscale segments, all with services associated. If not, we would not be getting involved. We are not a distribution platform. We are a catering group, a hotel group, and we can export a lot of what we do for the greater benefit of these clients, even though they may not be with us, Accor, they may be elsewhere. Jo? Hi. From Natixis. Three questions, if I may. The first, you are anticipating for 2016 a sharp upturn in operating performance. Just want to confirm that that is based on the EBIT level that you published in 2015, excluding Fairmont. That is my first question. Secondly, can you give us some detail on the gross asset value up EUR 200 million, just to know how it can improve in such a way in spite of the challenging performance over the last two months of the year in France? And some color on Jin Jiang, took 5%, 6% of the capital. Do you have regular discussions with that shareholder? How do you view things, and what is the goal of Jin Jiang midterm, Accor? Please look, see if the gross asset value, if we have got it. Otherwise, we will hand out. John, come up here. Go on. Tell us about the GAV off the hoof. Go on, you give us the numbers. If you have any other questions for those in the room, they will like that, too. So fire away on Germany or culture. Feel free. Did not take any notes. I have not prepared an answer, so it will be frank and upfront. No, EUR 200 million vary on several effects. The first is, of course, the reduction in the number of hotels. So there is an automatic effect, the dilution in the value. So we factored in, of course, the asset exit. Second impact, the asset buybacks. We bought back some assets. That obviously pushes up the value. Third effect, some positive Forex effects to the tune of EUR 30 million, EUR 40 million that impact the results. And lastly, the expectations of hotel results 2015, plus the outlook into 2016, 2017, and 2018 that the experts factor in for the GAV. So all in all, we arrive at a variance of EUR 200 million on the value. Final point, hotel openings. For every opening, obviously, we increase the value of GAV because we do not factor in hotels under construction. Pretty good. Anything else to add? On 2015 EBITDA, of course, we do not include anything from Fairmont. EUR 665 million of Fairmont not included, and we will spend time with many of you. Sébastien Valentin is here, who has also worked long and hard for things to be ready to give you the pro formas, how the 2016 figures must include Fairmont for half a year because we plan, hopefully, the acquisition of Fairmont at the latest by the end of June 2016. 2016, yeah, not 2015. Jin Jiang, Chinese company, 75% owned by Shanghai Municipality. That is today the leading Chinese group because they are merging their brands, Jin Jiang, with 7 Days Inn company called Plateno. So today they have about what? 5,500, 6,000 hotels in China. We know them well. They are led by a very smart gentleman, Chairman Yu, whom I saw a fortnight ago in Shanghai as I visited our other partners and people in China. So I have seen him at least 15 times. He has a very good view of the global market, and he wants to be the dominant player on his territory that he has managed to achieve over the past 12 months. He also acquired Louvre Hotels 15 months ago. He has a firm belief that the transformation of Accor will be a success, that he has good knowledge of Accor in terms of market share and strengths. So for a year and a half now, he has been saying that he wants to embark on the adventure, buy some stock, and since I am your faithful representative, every time I say he wants to buy stock, he is welcome. I would say the same thing to him that I would say to any of you. It is part of my job. So he has acquired 6% of Accor stock. Where does he want to go? I do not know. What is sure is that he did it fully transparently, that I am talking to him, that I do not know if he wants to go beyond 10%, probably look at market terms and conditions, and best thing is call him. It is pretty good. All the experts in my business in the know want to provide positive proof that they believe in the adventure are welcome as far as I am concerned. Wait. Thank you. Good morning. Tim Ramskill from Credit Suisse. I have got three questions, please. The first, Sébastien, you talked about the HotelServices margins and how you wanted to see those improve, and also you have excluded or you have commented on how the digital plan has impacted margins. My understanding is the digital plan and those costs are likely to remain in the medium term. So can you just give us some thoughts on the progression of the margin there going forwards? Second question is around Fairmont. When you announced the deal a couple of months ago, you talked about an expectation of 15% ongoing underlying growth for that business. Does that still stand given a more uncertain environment? Then the third question is, in January, you announced this new franchised structure in which you have got a stake. What is your long-term plans and thinking around that vehicle, please? On the HS margin for digital plan, you have an OpEx number of roughly EUR 32 million to EUR 35 million being spent on the digital plan. Remember, we have like a EUR 70 million, EUR 75 million, kind of a bulk number of which half of it is CapEx, half of it is OpEx. That is for 2015. It is going to be a bit larger for 2016. So it probably has a 300 basis point impact on HS, digital plan only. Where you may be right, and I guess where you are right is, of course, it is going to be the case for 2016, less of the case for 2017, unless we further develop new initiatives and therefore spend more in digital, which is likely to be the case because we are not going to be ending the digital plan under only those eight thematics. The one thing which is why I have been talking to you on a need for me and for you to know better about it and to have a greater granularity on information is we need to make maybe a digital day, but we need to basically have a rendezvous all together with Vivek Badrinath, top-notch, and basically proving to you that what has been spent so far has been wisely spent and is expected to achieve so much better margin or revenues through those initiatives. Because we are not throwing money into the toilet here. We are investing for further growth. I have been telling you some of it is defensive, some of it is offensive. But I need you, I mean, I owe to you, sorry, those granularity. I do not want to give it to you ahead of 12 months passing. It is too early to do it today because we started investing basically the 1st of March of 2015, which means being only in like nine months. So I want those 12 months to be passing in order to have that meeting all together. You will have it. I need it for me and why not sharing it with the outside world because we are convinced that it is going to be producing a lot of actually direct revenues. The one proof we are giving to you, it is not coincidental that, I guess, you have been bolstering loyalty program, further bolstering the task system integration. A lot of actually green lights are coming through digital plan initiatives, but I want to see how does it contribute to the margin or bottom line. But that one I will get back to you. On Fairmont Raffles, the gross, yes, we are keeping the 15% basically underlying gross as a business, which you know Fairmont Raffles is an asset-light initiative. It is going to be boosted, and that is part of the 15%, by the new openings of Fairmont Raffles. Remember, I guess I told you, 35 hotels are currently under development, new management contract as well. Very comfortable on that numbers and it appears that, again, the 2015 numbers are better than expected, better than I expected under my own assumption. I'll disclose that to you when we finish the closing. But no bad surprises to the contrary. On the franchise structure, are you referring to Fastbooking? No. It was with Nova. Nova, sorry. Yes, sorry. 85. The Nova initiative is really the reflection of we've been selling a number of different hotels under sell and franchise back in between one or two hotels each time, and maybe five at the bulk to one guy. Every time you sell a hotel on to a franchisee, you have a different franchise contract, different negotiations on inheriting the personnel. It's a nightmare. It is traumatizing for the people and is difficult to close, and you have to replicate it with different culture, different people, different jurisdiction. We decided last year, why don't we make it a vehicle? Why don't we lodge into one single entity those hotels that we know needs to be franchised back that we're not going to be keeping because it's not strategic enough. Regrouping those is we started with 45 hotels. One day there was 85 hotels. Every month was passing, we've been adding one or two or five hotels to that list and therefore said, "Those hotel we don't own the bricks. Why don't we buy the bricks back from Foncière des Murs, from AXA, from Invesco?" Knowing perfectly that those hotels we're going to be buying is going to be put in that new entities that we've been creating. We totally pre-structured, architectured the size, the financing, the equity, CapEx needed, management moving away from Accor, going to this entity. Top-notch management, wanted to be entrepreneur, wanted to basically be there with private equity investors. Discussed it with the guys closest to us, i.e., Eurazeo and others. Eurazeo said that, I guess, they're going to jump in. Fairness opinion is going to be given. So it's all market. We're not making any profit on the price at which we buy the bricks back from Foncière des Murs, Invesco. It is exactly the same pricing. I guess I'm transferring over to that new entity that we called Nova. What's going to be interesting to watch for you and for me, and probably discomforting, is on that initiative you're going to see EUR 100 million of CapEx, which is already pre-planned, who's going to be injected into those properties. And we believe that those properties are going to be further boosted by EBIT margin because that CapEx that we did not spend as a group. And maybe we should have actually been thinking of spending that CapEx at the time, but it was broken down between the bricks with one guy, the fund commercial with the other guy, so it was probably unfeasible. It is one initiatives. Could we go further? Yes. Do they have any rights to have priority on further assets to be sold? No. But I wanted to keep 30% of that entity, and at the end it could be 20% if it was to be syndicated. But it is a proof that that company will grow, will have significant return, and we're going to be there for them as a co-participant. I've done that in my life for 17 years. It is a very good example. And for the people, you're regrouping a lot of people under one entity for common future in different territories between Germany, Holland, Spain, and France. I thought it was a smart move and much more efficient in terms of speed and in terms of certitude of closing. Question by email. I put them in English because they're in English. Luis from Morgan Stanley. First question is the statement, and Sébastien, said actually this morning that a priority for 2016 is to plan complete HotelInvest transformation plan. So you're going to like this. Does this mean it will be ready to be fully separated by the end of the year? Question two, what sort of revenue contribution could we expect from the marketplace? Question three, would you expect HotelServices, sales, marketing, and digital to reach break even in the coming years or to reach back break even in the coming years? Let's start with three, two, then one. The sales and marketing digital dividend, should it be break even? Answer is yes. Oh, yes. It was break even last year before we actually put the marketing in, the digital in. It is marginally negative in the 2015 number. Likely to remain marginally negative in the 2016 because of the scale of the amount needed for this year. Remember, we spent EUR 75 million last year in digital plan. We're going to be spending EUR 85 million in 2016. Of which, again, 35 being OpEx and the rest being CapEx. So it's going to take 12-24 months to get it back to breakeven. But the objective is we need to go back to breakeven, and we will. Which means we are going to need to have a lot of pedagogy with our franchisees and owners for them to understand why should they participate in the cost of that digital plan, because they are the direct beneficiary of all those undertakings. On the marketplace, we started launching the commercial aspects of it on the 1st of October. Only a couple of months been passing. October, November, December, 3 months passing until December, and we reached 500 hotel plus within only 3 months on that platform. Here we are today, over 700 hotels in mid-February. Remember that we are targeting 3,000 hotels in the next, I think it is 2 years. It is going very smoothly, very rapidly in terms of people wanting to be distributed by accorhotels.com. The one thing we need to be better at is the time it takes to connect an independent hotel to the accorhotels.com platform is too long. It is probably over 60 days, and it should be done in basically 3 weeks. It is not a question of technology. Let you understand, the reason why it takes a bit of time is because we need to be hyper disciplined on cybersecurity. We cannot have independent hotels not being fully fireproof and basically not injecting any virus into this 13 billion machine that which represents Accor today. But in terms of contribution, too soon, and again, it is exactly a digital plan. I will give you those numbers when 12 months, 18 months will be passing. Premature after only 4 months, to get into those numbers. Mr. Vaughan, on HotelServices, and I am sure you are listening or you are watching me wherever you are, and I may see you tonight or tomorrow morning in London. I am going to tell you exactly what I have said over the last 2 and a half years, which I know give it to many, but I do not want to change my position because I do not need to. I have been saying that, I guess, HotelInvest transformation is going to be taking a minimum of 3 years. I have been saying that it should be completed in the next now 12 to 18 months because John is being very good at basically implementing at the right speed what is there to be undertaken. I am also being saying that when you transform a company once, you are not going to be doing twice because you just cannot replicate again what you have done successfully for 3 years passing. Coming 12 months, 18 months from today, when HotelInvest will be an impeccable, well-run, cashflow producing, great yield comparable to the U.S. suite, then we are going to be assessing where is the market value of Accor and where do we trade at. Either we trade at a normal multiples when people apply multiple for HotelInvest and multiple for HotelServices, and we do not suffer from any discount. That means market understand and actually are very comfortable having two feets, and two feets being run separately, but very much complementary to each other. We are going to be keeping HotelInvest, keeping HotelServices because they are indeed complementaries and because market accepts it. Other scenario, we would have finished the job. We will be suffering from a discount because the market does not want those two companies or those two entities to be joined together. Then, and only at that point, will I address this issue on responding to you. But as a CEO, and I know you do not want to hear that, I am saying that I am actually a great believer that those two entities, properly run, property valued, have no reasons to be separated. But I am adding, I am the CEO of this company. I am not the owner of this company. And as a CEO, I am going to be listening to those who own this company. Cannot be much clearer. Bonjour, Andre Juliard, Kepler. Andre Juliard from Kepler Cheuvreux. I have several questions. First concerns your non-Accor-branded hotels that you have committed to distribute on marketplace. If you could give us an update on how many independent hotels you have integrated on the platform and how demand is fairing. My second question concerns the Accor brands and branding. You have told us about this morning's two acquisitions that are in peripheral businesses, as you have said. How will the Accor brand add value to these add-ons? How do you implement these brands and the acquisition of Mama Shelter and others? Do you intend to continue to roll out the brands and products? And what about the positioning of the Accor Group and its brands in general? Okay, on your first question, apparently, you were asleep five minutes ago. Let me remind you of what the question was. The Fastbooking platform has signed up 500 hotels by the end of December. There are currently 700 hotels that have signed up, and we are targeting 3,000 hotels. Sven, when was the objective? I know we are going to go for 8,000 in five years' time, but the first 3,000, that is our first target. We have set ourselves a deadline of the end of next year. Sorry, the summer of next year. We only take one out of 20. There's much more demand than we accept. There's a matter of location, it's a matter of management, segments too, or sometimes there's too much, how to put, competition with hotels we're already managing or leasing. Now, another very important thing here. Fastbooking is operating perfectly with our franchisee system. What we are looking at is marketplaces where we need to increase footfall, increase traffic. We're not working against our franchisees, on the contrary. We're working in good harmony here. So it's working. It's going exactly to plan. The only thing is that it takes a lot of time, a lot of technology, as I told you about IT and protection in particular. Now, your question on brands is really top-notch. It's a great question because we haven't talked about it, very remiss of me, but this issue of branding is at the very heart of all our initiatives. That's not fortuitous either. accorhotels.com is now the single portal through which people discover our brands. We've kept our brands on novotel.com and so on, but the actual growth of accor.com is twice as high as the growth rate of our specific brands. Quite simply because it's easier to feed into and because AccorHotels benefits most from mobile access. You're not going to have 17 different applications for 17 brands on your mobile phone. You'll have one. We're making life easier for you with accorhotels.com. That means that we have to give AccorHotels greater visibility and credibility, much more so than it has at present. This is why we've become involved in AccorHotels Arena. This is why we've taken a number of digital initiatives to invest in the brand. This is why you'll find AccorHotels in a lot of digital places, in all our hotels worldwide, in fact. So it's a task for the long haul. This is why a certain number of you have been asking how come our new head office in Issy-les-Moulineaux is empty. We'll be moving there on the 7th of May, just opposite TF1 Bouygues Telecom. The strength of the brand at the top of that building and the Bernaches is huge. 700,000 cars that pass by every day. 700,000. So we have to be proud, me first and foremost, that the brand and the Bernaches imprint themselves in people's minds. It's a must-do, but it will be part of each and every one of our initiatives. It's also the reason that we've taken these initiatives with Squarebreak and Oasis, because they are working alongside a brand, a network with great distribution capacity. But it's very important for them to be able to say that they are working with the reference player in the sector, AccorHotels. It's just the starting point of a good, interesting story. In our marketing budget and our digital budget, we have a subsection that is earmarked for AccorHotels. The brand AccorHotels. Everybody want a cup of coffee? I have a feeling it's time for a coffee break. Mr. Valentin, you are the gentleman watching the emails and whatever's coming over the web. Technical issues you can put to Mr. Valentin. Well, in that case, that means that we haven't been too bad at making our presentation and answering your questions. Thank you all for being here, being with us in one way or another. You can join us for a cup of coffee next door. Thank you. Bye.