Good morning. This is an unusual time for me, and for Besma and Jean-Jacques at my side. I'm not sure this is a very pleasant time. We're going to make this as pleasant as possible. We're going to be giving you information. This is an important time for the group. It's our annual shareholders' meeting for Accor Group. We were to meet on April 30th. We decided toward mid-April we wouldn't be able to hold the AGM in the usual fashion. Therefore, the board decided, the board of directors decided we'd postpone slightly and get everything ready so that we could then organize this without meeting together physically. So we wanted to organize this event to be able to dialogue with our big and small shareholders, so we postponed this into 30th June. That's today.
Unfortunately, which has also been the case for many other corporations, we have had to organize this AGM behind closed doors, so we do not have an audience here today. That's why I say it's not particularly pleasant. We don't have the human warmth here. We'll try to speak warmly, though. We very much apologize that you couldn't attend, but for health reasons, that was the situation. It was impossible for us to actually meet physically. We wouldn't have wanted to have people attending here and having to wear masks, and discussions wouldn't have been possible, and so forth. So I do, again, apologize. We certainly stand by this choice of ours. We very much hope we'll be meeting with you very soon, as of next year, in a very much improved situation so we can actually get together beforehand, and during, and after, and so forth.
I would like to call to order this AGM and hand the floor to Besma.
Thank you. Sébastien , ladies and gentlemen, shareholders, good morning. Welcome to this shareholders' meeting. As Sebastian said, it's so unusual due to the health crisis that's forced us to hold this behind closed doors without you being physically present. Therefore, we've only been able to vote remotely in advance of this AGM before 3:00 P.M. yesterday. We, therefore, know the outcome of the votes, and I will give you the outcome of the votes during the AGM before we move on to the question-answer session so that we can maintain dialogue with our shareholders in the current situation. We've set up the requisite equipment so that you can take part. First of all, we're broadcasting this AGM live.
Furthermore, opened a dedicated hub through which the shareholders can ask their questions in writing live. The bureau will spend the last 30 minutes of this AGM fielding questions that have been sent in before the AGM or that are asked live. Mr. Sébastien Bazin will chair the AGM. I, myself, will serve as secretary to this AGM. Considering the way we've organized this shareholders' meeting and in compliance with the decree published 10 April 2020, along with Mr. Jean-Jacques Morin, I will also act as teller. We will be tellers. Ordinarily, it's shareholders that are in attendance that serve as tellers that have a large number of shares. We upstream got the quorum. I can say the final quorum is 73.6%. Therefore, we can deliberate both in the ordinary and the extraordinary session. I'd like to very quickly now go through some of the legal formalities.
This AGM was convened and duly published in the legal gazette published on 8 May and 12 June 2020. An invitation was also published in the La Loi gazette on 12th June 2020. All of the documents and reports which are submitted to the AGM, which must be made available to the shareholders, have indeed been made available to the shareholders on the company's website. We would suggest, therefore, that we not read these out verbatim. The documents which the shareholders are allowed to communicate on have been held available to you at the corporate head office during the previous two weeks before this AGM. These were also sent out to any shareholders that requested to receive these as I finish this, recalling the agenda for our AGM.
Items under the ordinary session are as follows: approval of the parent company consolidated financial statements for the year ending 2019, appropriation of profits for 2019, renewal of terms in office of Mr. Bazin and Madame Knobloch, and appointment of Mr. Bruno Pavlovsky as directors, approval of a related party agreement, ratification, if need be, of reappointment of the statutory auditors, approval of the report on compensation for all the company officers for the year ending 2019, voting on compensation elements paid during or granted by virtue of the year ending 2019 to the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, vote on the Chairman and CEO's compensation policy for 2020, vote on compensation policy for the directors for year ending 2020.
Authorization for the board of directors to trade in company shares, authorization to the board of directors to issue free share warrants to be given to shareholders in the event of a public takeover bid for the company, and lastly, powers to carry out formalities. Items under the extraordinary AGM now: authorization to the board of directors to do capital increases without preemptive subscription rights, with no preemptive subscription rights for members of a company savings plan, and lastly, changes in the remits and the bylaws. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Besma. Now, I'd like to give the floor to Jean-Jacques Morin, the Deputy CEO and CFO, to talk us through the financials of 2019.
Bonjour à tous. Good morning, everybody. I have the great pleasure of dealing with the group's results, even though, as Sebastian has told you, these are very particular circumstances, but we'll do better next year. Let me give you the key figures to begin with. This chart really sums up 2019. First of all, the main trends. RevPAR was up 1.7%, which is a good performance given the complex geopolitical environment in 2019. Not that this year will be any simpler, but in actual fact, in all regions, we expanded except in Asia. The other remarkable point is that we'd set ourselves the target of having a hotel portfolio up 5% over the year, but at the end of 2019, our growth was 5.1%. This is important in our business to be constantly able to add hotels to our portfolio. So we delivered on that particular objective in 2019.
Now, when you translate this into financial performance, first of all, what we see is that revenue exceeded the EUR 4 billion mark, at EUR 4.049 billion. On a like-for-like basis, it was up 3.8%. EBITDA, which is how this revenue actually converts into profits, was up to EUR 825 million, up 5.9% again on a like-for-like basis. The final key performance indicator is how this EBITDA converts into cash. The cash conversion rate between EBITDA and the free cash flow, or recurring free cash flow, was 77%. You may recall that the goal we set ourselves was a 70% conversion rate. So all our main KPIs were better than what we had targeted.
So how does all this lead to a return to shareholders? Last year, we returned EUR 783 million to shareholders. That's dividends and share buybacks. By comparison, 2018, it was EUR 650 million. So in the two years following the Booster project, which was the transformation of our business model and roadmap in order to become what we refer to as asset light, well, over those two periods, the return to shareholders was very substantial. 2020 will be a different animal. Given what we know about COVID-19, we are managing very carefully. In fact, the board of directors has decided to keep the group's liquidity by withdrawing the proposed dividend in respect of 2019 and by suspending the additional share buybacks planned in 2019. That was a EUR 700 million project. That's what happened. They're the key figures for 2019. Let me now give you more details.
One of the key points, one of the cornerstones of our performance, is expansion. In other words, we use the attractiveness of our brand to expand the portfolio of hotels. We've actually exceeded 5,000 hotels under management. That's 740,000 rooms. In the second column, what you'll see is that in 2019, we almost opened a hotel every day. We opened 45,000 new rooms. As for the hotels we signed, well, we signed a new hotel every 16 hours, which means that we have signed up 510 hotels in 2019. That's the equivalent of 76,000 hotels. This means that we now have a pipeline as the hotels and rooms will be opening for the next five years, which is 30% of our existing portfolio. Now, that in our business is a very, very good proportion, a very good ratio. So again, these were records that we achieved in 2019, record expansion.
Let's take a closer look at the figures. How does this convert into revenue? I told you about EUR 4.09 billion, which is up 4.8% on a like-for-like basis. Now, the difference between 3.8% and 16% is the acquisitions made in 2018 following on the Booster project. That's how we reused the group's liquidity after the proceeds of the Booster project. This had a significant impact on our scope of consolidation. Hence the difference between the two figures. Now, here we have an analysis of revenue by segment, our main businesses. Most of our portfolio, 96% in fact, is not owned by us. We don't own the hotels themselves. It's what we call hotel services, in which what we do is we act as franchisees and managers of hotels. This is our core business and of course, the goal of the Booster project.
The second line of business is hotel assets. That's the remaining 4%, which we continue to own or lease, as the case may be. This is mainly a business in Australia known as Mantra. And of course, we have another line of business called new activities. These are activities relating to hospitality. Now, this includes business such as renting residences, concierge, or digital services that we provide to hotels. Let me now put figures on that for you. I've described the segments, but what you'll see is that hotel services was up 4.6% on a like-for-like basis. Very good performance given RevPAR was only up 1.7%. Hotel assets were up 2.9%, and new activities were up 3.8%. I think the more interesting slide is the next one, which will show you how this revenue converts into EBITDA.
In hotel services, you see that our EBITDA, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization, rose 5.8% on a like-for-like basis. Again, good performance by comparison with the RevPAR growth of 1.7% I mentioned earlier. Hotel assets disappointed slightly because our profitability decreased. It decreased by 7.3%. This was mainly due to Mantra and Australia. Insofar as the Australian market wasn't very supportive, if I can put it that way. In fact, it disimproved the overall situation. There was also a very deep banking crisis that had an impact on the Australian economy, just, I think, adding to the trade wars between America and China. And of course, the bushfires at the end of the year didn't help. Difficult year for Australia, and that's clearly reflected in these figures.
Even though, as you can see, the reported growth is impressive at 40%, that is due to the change in the scope of consolidations subsequent to the acquisition of Mantra and Mövenpick.
New businesses were almost balanced at EUR -2 million and almost broke even at EUR -2 million in 2019. We see in Q4 we broke even. This is why profitability over the year is very close to zero. A lot of work on Onefinestay and John Paul and a number of other new businesses. Profitability and growth should be in double digits. And this is how we get from EBITDA to net income. Just a few words. First of all, our operating income, depreciation, amortization, and provisions, which increased from a little over EUR 200 million-EUR 328 million due to two factors. First of all, a change in accounting rules. I'm sure you'll have heard of the IFRS 16, which is how we carry lease commitments on the balance sheet. And because of this, we carry more depreciation because you have an asset and a debt on the balance sheet.
As the asset depreciates, you have to carry an impairment charge, which gets higher. There's also the Mantra effect and Mantra and Mövenpick , which were the owned assets and leases. The second important point is when you look at EBIT, two impacts the performance of Huazhu. First of all, our hospitality partner in China. We had a 10% stake at the start of 2019 in Huazhu. Last year in China, RevPAR was negative. It wasn't good because of the trade war between China and the U.S.A. This is carried on our accounts, on our partners' accounts in the form of this equity method. Now, AccorInvest is the resulting company from our asset-light roadmap. This is where the assets are housed or carried. In 2018, we sold the bulk of the 65% of these assets.
This is now an independent company that we consolidate in the form of using the equity method. There's a 55% stake remaining that is carried by the equity method. And of course, it's much more expensive to fund than when it was part of AccorHotels . Insofar as AccorHotels has a much greater ability to fund its own operations. And of course, less interest expense. Finally, we have a number of capital gains. We dispose of our 5% stake in Huazhu, and we carried an impairment charge on Australia for Mantra, as a result of which we have a number of non-recurring items. A substantial variation from EUR -400 million to almost EUR +200 million. Net income from EUR 2.2 billion was down to EUR 464 million.
The EUR 2.2 billion, remember, this was due to the disposal last year of a large stake in AccorInvest, which generated almost EUR 2.5 billion non-recurring. One slide on cash where you see the EUR 430 million in free cash flow, EUR 434 million, the dividends. You'll also find the impact of IFRS 16. This is lease commitments, EUR 978 million on the balance sheet. This is probably the biggest single item and the one I wanted to underscore on this slide. Quick update on our business in Q1. Q1 was a good quarter, as you can imagine. Our RevPAR was down 25%, in fact, down 62% in March. You'll see that in the industry on the whole, figures were much more severe in Q1 and in April and May. This has led to a drop in revenue of almost 17%.
Of course, in times of crisis, really, it's all about how you manage the crisis. This is where you see our savings schemes, what we've done to improve this unprecedented situation, not just by reducing central costs and our efforts in terms of marketing, distribution, IT. And of course, the downsizing of CapEx over the period. The point I'd like to single out to finish, it's a very positive one, is that we managed the financial situation very well. Our balance sheet is very strong. In May, we had EUR 4 billion in liquidities, which will enable us to hold out for 40 months, all things being equal. We even reinforced the situation by taking out an additional EUR 560 million revolving credit facility. So we have a very strong balance sheet and should be able to weather the storm. Thank you.
Thank you, Jean-Jacques. Thank you. Now, to step back for a moment, back from the figures as such. Here you can see a slide as of end of April. The red portions you see here, red bubbles, are areas where the coronavirus had begun, in all likelihood, I don't know, in January, February in China, and very quickly, it spread from China westward and unfortunately then spread out throughout the European continent and then the North American continent, and then went from north to south, north to the U.S. and Canada, towards, unfortunately, a great presence in Brazil currently. Why are we showing you this map? Because we focus on it every single week. It's been the case since the beginning of March until today. Unfortunately, these red bubbles, well, fortunately, have begun disappearing in Europe but appearing in other countries and other locations worldwide.
And sometimes these bubbles are getting bigger in other areas of the world. As of the end of March, beginning of April, we were at a loss. It had happened so suddenly, so abruptly. It was quite violent, major impacts. So we had to ascertain the impact this would have on our sector, number of international travelers. If we look at the seven-year period here, the hotel tourism industry has been blessed. I would still say today it's been blessed, this sector, hospitality. But for the first time, you can see this on the chart. Look at the last 20-year period, starting in 2000. This ranges up to 2020 on the screen. You can notice two things from this chart. Some of you will remember quite well the 2003 crisis due to the SARS epidemic, pandemic that happened at that time and had an impact on the U.S. and Europe.
And we see it actually had a low impact on our sector and was quite considerable rebound the next year. 2004 went well above the 2002 figures the following year. The second crisis was an enormous one, very abrupt. The Euro as a currency almost disappeared. This was 2008, 2009. It was a systemic liquidity crunch, global banking crisis. This was also quite violent. Many people who had savings wanted to withdraw the liquidity from their banks. We tend to forget what happened back then. And look what happened in our sector, tourism and hospitality. Yes, there was an impact. But the impact on international travel was only 4% downturn. Then, as you can see, right as of the next year, 2010, and then subsequently, things went back up. There was a real rebound.
We can see these RevPAR recoveries, where there's a quick downturn and an equally quick upturn. Look at us today, though. Look at 2020. This isn't a systemic crisis. It's a completely different crisis. It's a health crisis. And look at this absolute plummet, this collapse. And we don't know if the 440 million will be reached, but we're not just talking about a 2 percentage point drop like in 2003 or a drop by 4% in 2009. We're talking about a 65% drop today for a simple reason. Some 90 countries organized lockdowns, shut their borders. And in our industry, you need three things to operate. You need freedom of movement of persons. You need booming tourism, and you need lots of business travelers. We can say since about mid-March up until about two weeks ago, those three things weren't happening. They're the prerequisites for our industry.
They're coming back gradually. I would never have thought in just 12 months' time we could lose over a billion in international travelers. And we don't know what this is going to look like in 2021. It's fairly unlikely the curve will go back up to where it was in the last couple of years. We just have to accept this fact. It's been abrupt. Accor, as Jean-Jacques said, is perfectly in a position to cope with this plummet and this time of difficulty. But we must be cautious. We must look at things clearly and not only be able to contend with this, but also adapt and adjust to the time of crisis. Therefore, various decisions were made by the board of directors of your company. The first one, and this was a fairly infrequent time, the last 10 days of March, between 20th March and March 30th.
At that time, we realized the crisis was a major one. The pandemic was a major one in southern Europe. It hadn't hit France quite as hard at the time, but it certainly was hitting Italy and Spain at that time. So toward the end of March, the board of directors with your company's management decided to make a decision that was also fairly abrupt and maybe unfair to those who were affected by it. They decided that 220,000 employees were furloughed from our company out of 300-some thousand. Now, you know we were following measures by local governments, but they weren't the same in all countries as they were in many European countries and North America.
When you ask someone to stop working, to not come back to work at a hotel that's been shut as of 1st April, a lot of employees ended up hard hit financially and in human respect as well, often at a loss to deal with the problems health-related and even food-related and caring for their children. When the decisions were made end of March, your board of directors decided to suspend the dividend, which had been confirmed just two months previously end of January 2019. Not just suspend the dividend because we had to be extremely cautious. At that time, all we were seeing was the very beginning of the pandemic, and nobody knew how serious it would become. At the same time, we didn't want to just not assist those 220,000 employees.
The decision was 25% of the dividend, which wasn't being paid out, around EUR 70 million, would be earmarked for a dedicated fund, a separate fund if need be. The fund will be made available. Money is made available to all of these employees who are in a difficult situation or might not have access to healthcare. This will be funding to help make up for any loss of medical coverage and provide assistance to people who are in extreme need, give them the financial resources to feed their families. We're not talking about an additional sort of bonus, additional pay packet. You'll see Besma's predecessor speaking about this remarkable gentleman who just in three weeks' time was able to take on this task, and I would say it's both distress and relief.
I mean, distress because we have had to set all of this up under great pressure, and we see the scale of the duress, and we realize we had to act. But we feel relief at the same time because it's been a wonderful initiative. There was this time of distress, and we've been able to assist. I hope Accor has been able to make its contribution. We'll hear from Jean-Jacques Morin, who will be explaining this Heartist Fund to you now.
On a 3,000 hôtels, plus de 3,000 hôtels sur 5,000 qui sont fermés. On a 90 pays en confinement sur les 110 où on exerce nos activités.
Et dans ce contexte de crise exceptionnelle, le conseil d'administration décide, du coup, en abandonnant la distribution d'un dividende, de donner du sens à cet abandon et de consacrer un quart de ce dividende, EUR 70 millions, à la constitution d'un fonds, le fonds ALL Heartist . C'est un fonds qui est fondamentalement destiné à venir en aide à des personnes. Trois types de bénéficiaires. En premier lieu, nos collaborateurs, ceux qu'on appelle nos Heartists. Ensuite, les partenaires individuels avec lesquels on est en relation d'affaires. Et les frontliners, c'est-à-dire ceux qui, en première ligne, luttent contre le virus. Ce fonds, il vient en aide à deux titres. D'abord, pour ceux de nos collaborateurs qui n'y auraient pas accès, leur permettre de se faire soigner contre le Covid. Et puis aussi et surtout pour ceux de nos collaborateurs qui sont en situation de détresse, de détresse financière.
Alors, c'est un fonds pour lequel on a adopté des critères simples, rigoureux mais simples, des critères de gouvernance, des critères d'éligibilité, qui sont les mêmes pour le groupe dans le monde entier. Et donc, des critères uniformes, des équipes locales qui mettent en œuvre le fonds. Et au bout de trois mois, ce qu'on peut dire, c'est que ça fonctionne très, très bien. On a créé le fonds en trois semaines, c'est-à-dire qu'en trois semaines, on a arrêté la gouvernance, on a arrêté les critères, on a défini les catégories de bénéficiaires. Et trois semaines au niveau d'un groupe comme le nôtre dans 110 pays, c'est un effort de mobilisation assez extraordinaire. Aujourd'hui, c'est 14,000 collaborateurs qui ont déjà été aidés, plusieurs millions EUR qui ont été engagés. L'ambition du fonds, c'est d'être là dans la durée.
On a ce qu'il faut en termes de ressources, en termes d'équipes pour faire fonctionner ce fonds sur le moyen terme, sur le long terme, jusqu'à la fin de l'année, au cours de l'année 2021, quand nos collaborateurs en auront besoin. Je crois que la particularité de ce fonds, c'est d'être exactement dans le prolongement de l'ADN d'Accor. Notre raison d'être, c'est d'accueillir, c'est de prendre soin. Et par ce fonds, on exprime en fait cette raison d'être en prenant soin de nos collaborateurs, en étant avec eux pour ceux d'entre eux qui ont besoin de nous. Je crois que le mot de la fin, c'est celui de fierté. C'est la fierté que le groupe tout entier, et quand je dis tout entier, ce sont les actionnaires, le conseil d'administration, les collaborateurs, les directeurs d'hôtels, les propriétaires d'hôtels.
Donc, c'est ce groupe tout entier qui s'est mobilisé, qui est mobilisé pour venir en aide à nos collaborateurs, à ceux qui sont dans le besoin, et pour l'être maintenant et dans la durée. Voilà.
The message in François' eyes, the pride he felt, and I can repeat it here. You can't imagine. You can't imagine what this fund has really triggered off in Accor. Amongst everyone, all the people throughout Accor, there's a real feeling of belonging, of having served a purpose, being useful, having helped out. We've all brought this forward. I've just shown you a small portion of this video. We're talking about hundreds of letters we've gotten from people. I didn't know their names or faces, and they're writing us these letters, really powerful messages, so I don't know what we'll do with all those letters. We're not going to be disclosing them, certainly.
But it just is an extra bit. It gives us more energy, more excitement for this industry, something we've loved so much for the 70 years in this industry. It's great to have these examples to show how we are really taking care of others and paying attention to others. It's our sense of value in this group. It's an initiative that came very naturally. Therefore, it was very easy to set up. We've worked with healthcare providers. We've worked with battered women. We've assisted various people during these tough times. We're very genuine here. There's no doubt about it. This has helped us get through the crisis, weather this time of crisis, send out positive signals. It's been a special time. We needed this extra energy to weather the period, a time when we could have felt very alone. Let's continue. We haven't finished yet. Now is June 30th.
And here we can see the RevPAR. You may have forgotten about the RevPAR. It's just a multiplication of two indexes, by far the most important ones for us. One index is the average price per room day that you charge. And the second indicator is the occupancy rate of the hotel. You multiply the average price of the room by the occupancy rate. You get the RevPAR. On the left-hand side, you can glean a lot of information. That was not the information I'd like to see. Firstly, you can see a decline in our activity from February through March. Everything falls apart, collapses. You can see China, which had suffered before us in February, March, was the first to start a rebound. Bottom line, - 90%. That means you've lost 90% of your activity.
You can see China actually started ticking upward quite quickly since mid-March to reach around + 50%, though in the past 10 days, this has shifted slightly, declined somewhat, so it's not growing, ticking upward as quick as it had been in the past six weeks, then in the U.S., surprisingly enough, though they've been hit, hard hit by this pandemic, which is becoming more and more virulent in North America. Nevertheless, they've shown resilience to the epidemic, at least in the hospitality sector. There was the low point, which was lower than in Europe, and for a few weeks, they've started seeing a turnaround. It's not wonderful, but they went from - 80% to - 60%. Then you can see Europe, wonderful Europe, which reached a trough, - 90%, which means there was basically no one in our hotels. Most of them were shut.
Wow, it was tough for us to get things back on track now after the end of the lockdown since the last, what, three, four-week period. The main thing, travelers right now today are looking first and foremost for seasonal rentals in houses or apartments so that they can come in contact with as few people as possible for health purposes. Next, we see people who are interested in outdoor camping, being out of doors. On the right-hand side here, we can see more specifics on Europe, looking specifically at the U.K., Germany, and France. Now here, Germany, is this a lesson to be drawn? I hope so. In blue, we can see that Germany, since the end of their lockdown, has seen an upturn, much more than in France, where we're still flatlining, -90%. Things will get better.
We have reason to hope positive signs for this summertime, July, August. We can't draw hasty conclusions yet, but I just wanted to share this info with you. For those of you who think that we've overcome it all, well, yes, certainly, we've gone through the lowest point, but we have no idea how long it will take for us to really get back on track. We've set up all the necessary resources to get a rebound as fast and as strong as possible. There are various stages in the process when you want to get people to want to stay in your hotels. A first stage in the process, we spent a lot of time on this, Accor, as many other in the hospitality industry, many other peers. You work with local governments and authorities to set up a timetable for reopening, a health protocol.
There's also assistance provided and so forth by all governments, all the main governments in developed countries. So together, you rebuild a code of procedures, a timeline to make sure you're in sync and you do what's necessary. This was done in April and May. Very transparent, great communication at every level. Second stage, you've got to provide evidence. It's great to have a timetable. It's great to have a protocol. It's great to have all the people at cafes, restaurants, and hotels working together in the whole industry. But you've also got to have people who check that the protocol is adhered to and enforced.
There have got to be stickers, for instance, in the rooms, explaining before you go into your room, you must use some. You open the door, and the door has a sticker on it that shows the door has been opened and that it was sealed before it was opened. It was cleaned and sealed beforehand. So you've got the whole customer passage that's now been specified so people can know that they're in clean premises. We're calling this ALLSAFE , the ALLSAFE label. Now, the All is the name of our loyalty program, and ALLSAFE is the label for this health safety program we've rolled out. We want to go even further. This initiative had been started well ahead of COVID. This didn't happen because of the pandemic. But together with a partner, the AXA Group, we're proud to be working together with them on this.
With AXA, we want to also provide further evidence and assistance for all of our global customers worldwide, regardless of where they may be, so that within two hours' time, they can receive medical assistance if need be through the whole network of AXA doctors worldwide. So if you have a small problem or before a small medical problem becomes bigger, you can get an answer from a doctor. This has been being rolled out, and this has been very well received. Is it enough? I hope it is. You'll be amazed to see this ongoing process. This will help continue making people want to come to our hotels, want to travel, and don't feel nervous about traveling. We're wanting them to travel to us and get them out on the road. Last slide I'd like to show you. It's pretty tough when you read it carefully.
This is the result of two very different times. This is the first time I mentioned it to you. That was the time between the end of February and May 11th, when we had lockdowns in France and throughout Europe. It was a time of urgency, emergency. It was a time we had to adapt. We had to accept the tough reality. We had to make decisions. Very often, during the two-and-a-half-month period, there were decisions that were sort of like rituals. Boards of directors met every week for over 2.5 months because we needed to communicate between management and the board of directors. We wanted to discuss what we were experiencing. This enabled us to make many different decisions correctly, appropriately, adapting to the crisis as need be and very naturally with the results, which I believe have been positive. Then there's a second time, which is now.
It's been since the end of lockdown. It's not a time of urgency, but a time for reflection, for thinking things through, for wondering about questions, to ask ourselves, "What has the crisis taught us? How should we reinvent the group? If there were to be another crisis, what lessons could we use from this one during the new crisis? Do we have the right methods, the right teams, the right customers, the right tools? Do we innovate enough?" and so forth. Lots of questions we've been asking. These, of course, were questions we were looking to previously. The executive committee and the board of directors in January talked this through before the crisis. We were already thinking through these points, though. One sentence sums everything up. We transformed this group in its economic and business model. The business model is now asset-light. We're not yet a fully asset-light company.
There's a big difference between a business model and an organization. We now have to quickly organize our organization, make sure it's completely in line with the model we established three years ago. These three elements here, yes. Our organizational costs are too stiff. They're too fixed. Set costs. They don't vary as revenue varies. We have to address the cost structure and adapt it to the market ups and downs. Yes, we learned a lot about ourselves and the cost-cutting plan, an extraordinarily drastic cost-cutting plan. Yes, we have to keep some sort of portion of savings. We'll need this in future years. We've got to increase our margins. Profitability of the group benefits everybody, benefits employees and our customers and our shareholders, and then lastly, you always learn during times of crisis.
And the last point here, Bertrand Piccard, European astronaut, who said something quite wonderful, I thought, saying, "The crisis you accept becomes an adventure." And that's what we're now shifting over into. An adventure. We're experiencing an adventure. Like any adventure, you're better off afterwards, and we will be a stronger group after this, strengthened. I believe now I'd like to hand over to Besma. Yes, over to you.
Thank you. I'm going to talk to you about governance. After today's AGM, the board of directors will comprise 12 directors, including two directors representing the employees, and six women and five independent directors. As you know, this year, the terms of Sébastien Bazin and Madame Knobloch will expire at the end of today's AGM, but you will be asked to renew them. We're also asking you to co-opt the new independent director, Bruno Pavlovsky, who is the head of fashion at Chanel, who has a short video to introduce himself.
Bonjour. Je suis très honoré et très heureux d'être parmi vous aujourd'hui. J'ai 30 ans d'expérience chez Chanel, principalement au service de la mode. Alors, la mode, vous le savez, c'est la haute couture, c'est le prêt-à-porter, c'est les accessoires. C'est l'excellence des savoir-faire. C'est aussi un héritage culturel assez unique, français, parisien, qui aujourd'hui, plus que jamais, incarne le luxe partout à travers le monde. La mode s'incarne aussi, bien sûr, par la création. Mon job consiste à accompagner la direction artistique, aujourd'hui Virginie Viard, hier Karl Lagerfeld, leurs équipes, des ateliers jusque dans les boutiques, en passant par les manufactures, à affirmer cette énergie de la création, énergie tellement importante pour séduire nos clientes.
Enfin, la mode, évidemment, c'est des milliers, des centaines de milliers de clientes à travers le monde. Ces clientes sont exigeantes. On doit les séduire en permanence, mais en même temps, on doit respecter la relation qu'elles ont envie d'avoir avec la marque, relation qui doit être équilibrée, à la fois intime et exigeante. Et le digital nous permet aujourd'hui de révolutionner cette relation. Ça nous ouvre des perspectives forcément hyper intéressantes pour les années qui viennent. Ma nomination en tant qu'administrateur me permettra de vous apporter mon expérience, mon éclairage sur ces sujets si particuliers. J'en prends juste la main deux minutes. If I could just take over two seconds here. I know it wasn't planned, and I hope he's listening, and even if he's not, I'll see him over lunch.
So concerning Bruno Pavlovsky, whom I didn't know only nine months ago, as you know, the Accor Group has a little over 40% of its business in the world of upscale and luxury hotels, which wasn't the case 10 years ago. It was closer to 10%. So there's been a quantum leap in the meantime, and now we are largely dependent on a number of lifestyle and luxury brands. So through its nominations committee, the board of directors realized that we needed this. And when we diagnosed our own skills, we realized that we needed somebody with different insight, with experience in this segment. So Bruno not only fitted the bill and agreed that some of you may or may not know, he will be talking to you next year.
The Chanel brand, I think if you were to take just the two or three luxury brands in the world with the strongest growth while protecting a brand like a jewel, accompanying it financially, industrially, accompanying all the craftsmen behind the brand, you see that in terms of corporate social responsibility. Bruno will help us make another quantum leap, not just in terms of brands, but the sustainability of brands and our presence in the whole world of luxury hospitality. So I'd like to thank Bruno and say just how happy I am that he's joining us. I apologize for this brief digression. It was just a short commercial spot for Bruno. Besma.
I want to continue with the board of directors' work during the year. In 2019, the board met nine times with an average attendance rate of 90%. During the year, the Board reviewed the group's strategy and adopted decisions concerning the normal course of our business. In particular, the Board authorized the disposal of an 85.8% stake in Orbis to AccorInvest, Huazhu, and a deal with Paris Saint-Germain. In 2019, the Board also reviewed the financial structure of the company and authorized the pursuit of the share buyback program. Now, the board of directors works with four committees. First of all, the Audit, Compliance, and Risk Committee, which met four times with an average attendance rate of 92%. This committee, in particular, worked on the board of directors' deliberations concerning the annual and interim accounts and followed up the implementation of the group's compliance plan.
The Commitments Committee, whose meetings are open to all directors, reviewed and recommended in the course of its five meetings the various proposed acquisitions and disposals, particularly the disposal of Orbis, and the average attendance rate of its members was 86%. The International Strategy Committee met twice with an attendance rate of 100%. At these two meetings, the International Strategy Committee dealt with international topical affairs, geopolitical changes that had taken place in various parts of the world, and the impact they have on the group's activities. Finally, the Nominations, Compensation, and CSR Committee met five times in 2019 with an average attendance rate of 88%. This committee is chaired by Sophie Gasperment, who's recorded a video to tell you about her committee's work in the field of compensation in particular.
Chers actionnaires, je suis très heureuse de vous retrouver, même si les circonstances un peu particulières nous empêchent d'être tous ensemble présents dans la même salle, et j'espère que vous avez traversé ces derniers mois le mieux possible. Cette année encore, je souhaite vous faire part des résultats des travaux du comité des nominations, rémunérations et RSE, ainsi que de ceux du conseil d'administration en ce qui concerne la rémunération de votre président directeur général. Je propose de vous présenter, pour votre approbation, d'une part, la rémunération due ou attribuée à Monsieur Sébastien Bazin au titre de l'année 2019, c'est-à-dire le Say on Pay ex post, et d'autre part, la politique de rémunération du président directeur général pour l'année 2020, le Say on Pay ex ante. Comme vous le savez, à défaut de votre approbation, ce seraient les principes de rémunération de l'année précédente qui viendraient à s'appliquer.
Par ailleurs, il vous est également proposé cette année, par les résolutions 9 et 12, d'approuver le rapport sur les rémunérations de l'ensemble des mandataires sociaux, en ce compris les administrateurs, pour l'année 2019, ainsi que la politique de rémunération des administrateurs, c'est-à-dire le montant global des jetons de présence et les principes de répartition pour l'année 2020. En ce qui concerne donc, tout d'abord, la rémunération de Monsieur Bazin. Sa rémunération fixe annuelle est restée identique à celle des deux années précédentes, c'est-à-dire EUR 950 000 . Sa rémunération variable s'est élevée à EUR 1 126 113 , représentant 90% du montant de référence d' EUR 1 250 000 . Nous avons précisé les détails des niveaux d'atteinte de chacune des conditions de performance dans les documents qui ont été mis en ligne à votre intention sur le site internet de la société.
Pour rappel, cette rémunération variable ne sera versée qu'après la l'Assemblée et sous réserve de votre approbation. Dans la perspective du renouvellement pour trois ans du mandat de président directeur général de Monsieur Bazin, qui vous est proposé aujourd'hui, le conseil a procédé à une revue détaillée des éléments qui composent la rémunération de Monsieur Bazin et a recommandé au conseil de la faire évoluer. Après avoir examiné les pratiques de marché, tant pour les sociétés du CAC 40 que pour les pairs hôteliers, le comité a proposé de ne modifier ni la rémunération fixe ni la rémunération variable, mais il a souhaité en revanche revoir la part que représente la rémunération long terme dans la rémunération globale. Ainsi, sur recommandation du comité, le conseil a décidé de porter le montant maximum d'actions de performance que Monsieur Bazin peut recevoir à 250% de sa rémunération fixe.
Ces actions de performance dont il bénéficie dans le cadre de la politique générale mise en place au niveau du groupe sont soumises à des critères de performance portant sur les niveaux d'atteinte du niveau d'EBITDA, du free cash flow et du TSR du groupe par rapport à l'évolution de l'indice STOXX Europe 600 Travel & Leisure. Pour cette année, étant donné la crise sans précédent que nous traversons et son impact considérable sur le groupe, un certain nombre d'ajustements de rémunération ont été décidés spécifiquement sur cette année 2020. Tout d'abord, votre conseil a décidé que pour les actions de performance, il fallait remplacer les deux critères internes habituels, l'EBITDA et le free cash flow, par un critère plus pertinent de discipline et d'économie de coût.
Toujours dans ce contexte de crise, Monsieur Bazin a, lui, proposé au conseil, qu'il a accepté, de réduire la part fixe de sa rémunération de 25% pour toute la durée pendant laquelle les collaborateurs du groupe resteront au chômage partiel et d'affecter le solde non versé de cette rémunération au fonds ALL Heartist , dont François Pinon vous a présenté les actions et l'apport. Dans le même esprit de solidarité, le conseil a par ailleurs renoncé à 20% des jetons de présence annuels au titre de l'exercice 2020 afin de pouvoir venir abonder le fonds. Enfin, je voudrais revenir sur le plan de co-investissement dont la mise en place avait été envisagée et qui était d'ailleurs mentionnée dans les documents mis à disposition en mars 2020.
Pour mémoire, le conseil d'administration, lors de sa séance du 19 février 2020, avait décidé la mise en place d'un plan de co-investissement similaire à celle du plan de co-investissement de 2017 et qui devait être proposé à environ 150 cadres clés du groupe. Mais dans le contexte de crise que nous traversons et que nous connaissons tous, le conseil d'administration a estimé que cette approche n'était plus appropriée. C'est la raison pour laquelle, comme vous avez pu le constater, le texte des résolutions soumises à votre approbation aujourd'hui ne comporte plus de résolutions permettant ce type de plan.
Avant de vous quitter, je voudrais témoigner de l'implication totale et sans relâche de votre président directeur général et de ses équipes pour contribuer à la mobilisation contre l'épidémie, pour relever les défis majeurs que cette crise crée pour tous les acteurs du secteur, en ayant toujours en tête le souci de celles et ceux qui, au quotidien, font d'Accor un groupe absolument unique. Mesdames, Messieurs, chers actionnaires, merci, portez-vous bien et à l'année prochaine en personne cette fois-ci. Nous vous invitons maintenant à écouter.
Now, let's hear the video from Mr. Cédric Hassler, who was speaking on behalf of the statutory auditors. He'll be talking to you about all of the reports to be submitted to the AGM Ordinary and Extraordinary General Meeting .
Bonjour. Au nom du collège des commissaires aux comptes, Ernst & Young et PricewaterhouseCoopers, il m'incombe de vous rendre compte de notre mission au titre de l'exercice clos le 31 décembre 2019. Nos rapports sur les comptes annuels et consolidés, ainsi que notre rapport sur les conventions réglementées, ont été mis à votre disposition dans le document d'enregistrement universel, appelé aussi URD, au titre de l'exercice 2019. Je vous propose donc, comme le veut l'usage de cette assemblée et en particulier dans le contexte spécial de cette année, de vous en résumer les principaux termes. Tout d'abord, notre rapport sur les comptes annuels d'Accor SA, qui figure aux pages 399 à 402 de l'URD. Ils sont préparés selon les principes comptables français et nous avons certifié les comptes sans réserve ni observation.
Nous avons considéré que l'évaluation des titres de participation constituait un point clé de notre audit et avons ainsi décrit dans le rapport les diligences spécifiques que nous avons mises en œuvre sur ce point. En ce qui concerne notre rapport sur les comptes consolidés du groupe, qui sont eux préparés selon le référentiel international IFRS tel qu'adopté par l'Union européenne et qui se trouve aux pages 358 à 361 de l'URD, nous avons certifié ces comptes sans réserve et avec une observation relative à la première application des normes IFRS 16 sur les contrats de location et IFRIC 23, qui traite des incertitudes relatives aux traitements fiscaux. Nous avons considéré comme point clé de notre audit des comptes consolidés les trois éléments suivants, qui comprennent des estimations significatives de la direction. Tout d'abord, l'évaluation des actifs incorporels.
Ensuite, le traitement et la présentation comptable des actifs et passifs destinés à être cédés et des activités non poursuivies. Et enfin, les impacts liés à la première application de la norme IFRS 16 relative aux contrats de location. Nous vous rappelons que l'objectif fondamental de notre mission est d'obtenir une assurance raisonnable sur la sincérité, la régularité et l'image fidèle des comptes et que ceux-ci ne comportent pas d'anomalies significatives. Notre approche est adaptée aux activités et aux différents métiers du groupe, ainsi qu'à son organisation internationale. Nous nous attachons à vérifier tant les opérations courantes que les événements particuliers et avons mis en œuvre nos diligences conformément aux normes professionnelles applicables en France. Nous nous sommes également assurés que le rapport de gestion comprenait bien les informations requises par la loi.
Enfin, pour ce qui concerne notre rapport sur les conventions réglementées, qui se trouve aux pages 268 et 269 de l'URD, nous vous indiquons qu'il nous a été donné avis d'une nouvelle convention conclue avec le Paris Saint-Germain au cours de l'exercice écoulé, par laquelle votre société devient le partenaire principal du club. Par ailleurs, la convention portant sur l'accord de partenariat avec la société Katara Hospitality en vue de la création d'un fonds d'investissement dédié à l'hôtellerie en Afrique, convention déjà autorisée par l'assemblée du 30 avril 2019, s'est poursuivie au cours de l'exercice écoulé. Enfin, au titre de la partie extraordinaire de cette assemblée générale, nous avons émis deux rapports qui ont été mis à votre disposition dans la brochure de convocation à la présente assemblée, en pages 60 et 61.
Ces rapports portent sur deux résolutions autorisant des opérations susceptibles d'avoir une incidence sur le capital de votre société, à savoir l'émission d'actions ordinaires et d'autres titres de capital donnant accès au capital aux salariés, et l'émission de bons de souscription d'actions en cas d'offre publique visant la société. Ces rapports ne comportent pas de mentions ou d'observations particulières. Nous établirons des rapports complémentaires le cas échéant lors de l'utilisation de ces autorisations par votre conseil d'administration. Mesdames et Messieurs les actionnaires, je vous remercie de votre attention. Je vais maintenant vous présenter les résolutions.
I'm now going to present the resolutions put before you for approval and the results of the voting that took place yesterday up to 3:00 P.M. We will then move on to questions and answers. Before that, let me recall how many.
1,815 took place with a total of almost 9 million out of the 260 million or over 260 million shares with voting rights. The final quorum was therefore 73.604% in terms of the number of shares, as you know. Registered shares that were registered for over two years have double voting rights. I'd also like to remind that since the law simplifying, clarifying, and updating corporate law in July 2019, the majority required to approve decisions by the ordinary and extraordinary general shareholders' meeting is calculated on the basis of shares expressed by shareholders present or represented. Abstentions and blank votes are no longer counted as negative and do not figure in the calculation.
Finally, we propose that the Bureau be dispensed with reading the extensive text for each resolution given the amount of time we have available on the internet and the fact that you have all this information available via the internet and in the reports. First resolution concerns approval of the statutory accounts for 2019, which was approved. The second resolution concerned approval of the consolidated financial statements for 2019, and it too was approved. The third resolution concerns the allocation of earnings for 2019 entirely paid into reserves as no dividend is paid out. This resolution was also approved. The fourth resolution concerns the renewal of Sébastien Bazin term of office for a three-year period expiring at the end of the AGM in 2023. The resolution was approved.
The fifth resolution concerns the re-election of Iris Knobloch for a three-year term of office expiring at the end of the AGM voting on the accounts for 2022. This resolution was also approved. The sixth resolution concerns the election of Bruno Pavlovsky as a director for a three-year term of office expiring at the end of the AGM deliberating on the accounts for 2022. I'd like to remind you that all information concerning members of the board whose term of office is renewed or otherwise is presented in the notice of meeting and on our website. All that information is available. The seventh resolution concerns the approval of a related party agreement with SASP Paris Saint-Germain concerns sponsorship for the club. This resolution was approved. The eighth resolution concerns ratification, if required, of Ernst & Young as statutory auditors, Ernst & Young and others.
This was because of a clerical error that was entered in the 12th resolution that has since been rectified, and the resolution has been approved. The ninth resolution asks you to approve the report on compensation for all executive directors, including directors, in respect of the period ended December 31st, 2019, and as presented to you in the Universal Registration Document. This resolution was approved. The tenth resolution concerns approval of the compensation of the fixed variable and exceptional items of the total compensation and advantages of all types paid in respect of 2019 to the Chairman and CEO, Sébastien Bazin. This tenth resolution was also approved. The eleventh resolution asks you to approve the Chairman and CEO's, or I should say, the compensation policy for the CEO's compensation in 2020. This was approved.
The twelfth resolution concerns the compensation policy for directors in respect of 2020, again as set forth in the 2020 URD. Again, this was approved. The thirteenth resolution concerns an authorization, the one you give every year to your board to trade in the company's shares up to a maximum of 10% of the share capital. The resolution was carried. The fourteenth resolution concerns or asks you to approve the board of directors to carry out an increase in share capital without preferential subscription rights for employee savings schemes. This resolution was approved. The fifteenth resolution concerns the amendment of articles 12 and 15 of the company's articles of incorporation in order to adapt them to the recent developments in the commercial code. This consists in reducing the threshold above which the board of directors must have two directors representing employees.
That threshold is now at eight rather than 12 beforehand, and the second amendment enables the board of directors, if it so wishes, to take certain decisions by written consultation. This resolution was approved. The sixteenth resolution asks you to authorize the board of directors to issue equity warrants to be distributed free of charge to employees in the event of a takeover bid on the company. This was approved. And finally, the seventeenth and final resolution concerns powers for authorities, and the 17th resolution was also approved. All resolutions have been approved, and I'd like to thank you for your attention. We can now move on to the Q&A session.
Thank you very much, Ms. Boumaza . In the Q&A session, we'll be moving through this in an efficient fashion. Now, first set of questions in writing. Many of them came in great detail.
We've got a lot of questions on CSR from an organization called the Forum for Responsible Investment. It's a questionnaire which they sent us. Certainly, we answered that questionnaire in detail. It's already been posted on the Accor Group's website, so you can see, among others, that question and the answers we've given. Then a second set of questions. They're less detailed, therefore easier to discuss. I'll go through some of these and answer these live. There's a third set of questions which are what we're calling the chat. For those of you who've been listening and who'd like to ask a question, you can do this via the chat that comes into our website, and Sébastien Valentin, who's to my right here in front of me, will look through these questions and select a few of them for us to be able to answer these live for you.
First of all, though, pertaining to the first set of questions, those that come from individual shareholders, we've got a first question coming from Mr. Mathieu Drapey. He asks three questions. He said, "First of all, how can we know the number of shares that each member of the board of directors holds?" I'll answer Mr. Drapey. All you need to do is go to the website and look at the registration document for the Accor Group, and you can find by name each board of director. Remember, they must all have at least 1,000 shares. Many of them have a lot more than the minimum of 1,000 shares. Second question. Now, this one's slightly longer. The question has to do with Accor's strategy. It says, "Is Accor's strategy free and independent?" The context of his question is as follows. This helps us understand.
It says here, "Why, the deputy secretary for financial affairs for the Ministry of Finance of Qatar, is he a member of the board of directors of the Accor company? Presence of Mr. Aziz Aluthman Fakhroo, the representative at the Accor board of directors. Does this make the Accor company dependent on Qatar? Are you considering a strategy to regain your independence? What is that strategy?" Well, the question certainly is acceptable to be asked, though it's not true. The board of directors is completely and fully independent. Over half of its members are as they're called independent directors as per the AFEP-MEDEF code. I mentioned Bruno and his endeavors. He has done a beautiful job. All of our directors have made major contributions to the board, very distinctive contributions. We saw this during the time of crisis. We stood together at the board, and we moved forward together.
This was very beneficial. It's a great thing that we're all different with our own different ways of doing things and ways of thinking. So yes, the board of directors for quite some time precisely has different members that are complementary members, and we therefore are able to look very carefully at the decisions before they're made. Often, very frankly, difficult questions asked about the company's strategy, about the ways and means of implementing its strategy, such as our independence and so forth, shareholders' policies, political independence, international strategic questions have often arisen. Some board members come in bringing a vantage point that's quite broad. So, sir, I can say to you, certainly have no fear whatsoever. All decisions made by the board of directors are independent, enabling the company clearly to be fully free and independent of any shareholder, whomever.
Mr. Aziz Aluthman knows hospitality very well and the world of tourism very, very well. He makes very precious contributions to many subjects. Question number three for Mr. Drapey: What is the Accor company's commercial strategy going to be for 2020? It's quite straightforward. It's the logical follow-up on what we've been doing for the past five, six years, i.e., we're identifying and addressing our brand and making our brand distinctive, showing how it's different from other brands and our different family brands to be going their own way and being distinctive. We're delivering on our promise. This is beneficial to our customers. If there were to be some change in 2020, you're referring to this. Today, we have to focus our commercial strategy much more on domestic travel, domestic travel much more than international, as I said about an hour ago. Unfortunately, though, it's going to go back upward.
We're losing a billion international. We've lost about a billion international travelers. 75% of our business, though, is domestic or European, and the borders are reopened in Europe. So we can say that many targeted actions are being taken to win over the domestic travelers and the travelers that are closer to home. Now, another question for Mr. Drapey as well. It says follows. An improvement in Accor's customer service, will it be taking place in 2020? This gentleman had some difficulties with the customer service, particularly located in North Africa. As he with the loyalty card, it wasn't received. The online services in France were able to fix the problem that wasn't fixed in North Africa, says he. In our answer, we say to you, sir, we very much apologize if you feel that this was a problem.
To explain what happened is, at the time, your loyalty card was to be renewed. That's when we were launching the new loyalty program, ALL. So it took about a month and a half. When we weren't renewing previous cards, they didn't have the new logo, the new loyalty card called Accor Limitless. So we do apologize. Our North African services are just as efficient as all the other departments we have worldwide, and of course, we'll be keeping local services to benefit the local customers. Another question from another shareholder, Marcel Chassagnier is his name. He asks, "In spite of the health situation, why not maintain a reduced dividend to be paid out in the form of new shares?" Answer: We could have. We discussed this, as I mentioned. We talked about this end of March when the decision was made by the board of directors.
We wanted the decision to be crystal clear and have a clear impact so that we could say clearly to the community of investors that this was the time to keep on hand the cash that we have. We didn't know how difficult the crisis would be. So for the sake of caution and to ensure the sustainability of the group, we decided to not pay a dividend and not any new shares. We certainly hope, I mean, French law could authorize a payment of dividend in shares. That's not authorized right now. We have to comply with legislation, which is saying we have to either pay in cash or in shares. It's up to you to opt for cash or share payment of a dividend. If we could just pay in shares, conceivably that could help say yes to the question you've asked, but unfortunately not possible.
Another question from Mr. Fabien de Favre, also an individual shareholder, asking whether you're thinking about giving access to various levels of status for the Accor card, taking into account whether you're a bearer-registered shareholder. We consider this every year, how we could let individual shareholders reap some benefits under our loyalty program. Every year, we hear that we shouldn't mix things up. We shouldn't mix up the status of being a shareholder. If you want to be a shareholder of the group, it's because I hope you see an economic advantage in being a shareholder because you want to stand at our side in this major corporation. We, unless several years ago, did help speed up the status process.
If you want to be an individual shareholder and you make a request and you've been a shareholder for several years, you can automatically get the gold status for a twelve-month period. If you've got the status but you don't travel, you're not a loyal customer. In spite of the fact, you may well be a loyal shareholder. Both are equally valid, but you have twelve months to have the gold status and add to it. And this is what we do, and this is how we do it, and I hope that's satisfactory to you.
One final question. I'd have been disappointed if you hadn't asked a question. It's from Roger Tran, who attends a lot of AGM, who wrote me a very long letter, a four-page letter. Mr. Tran, if you can hear me, this is for you. You said you are an ordinary shareholder, which you're not.
You're a well-known shareholder and a very responsible, legitimate shareholder. Your question is as follows. Why did you organize this AGM behind closed doors? And you'll regret that. What did you tell me? Is this a lack of courage or transparency? I think you don't know me well, Mr. Tran. Yet I thought we knew one another for quite some time. We spent some time before, during, and after our AGMs. We answer your questions, but simply no, we're not trying to avoid you on the contrary. These are decisions that have been taken because we've been responsible. I did not want to have a dialogue with two meters away from you wearing a mask. It just didn't seem to be the right time. Come and see me as others have. My door is always open to you as it is to all shareholders.
So I think it was the best decision. I can assure you that it was taken entirely for health reasons, to protect one and all. But yes, you are entitled to meet me and the members of our board whenever you wish. We hope to see you next year or beforehand if you prefer. As for the rest, well, the answers are to be found on our website. Sébastien Valentin, what have we got? We have two questions. Well, if there are only two, we will take both of them. First question is, what savings efforts do you intend to make sustainable? That is indeed a good question. I told you that there were two important aspects. First of all, we need our costs to be more variable.
In other words, to be able to align them with the economic activity, whether it's good or bad. We have too many fixed costs.
The second reason is that a number of decisions have been taken over the last couple of months that I think need to endure. A number of things have been done for the benefit of our owners, clients, guests that are not recognized. Let's say we're not paid for these services. I think from time to time, we have to give up on certain ideas if nobody's prepared to bear the cost. I think what services we provide, if they're not prepared to pay for these services, well, first of all, maybe we should abandon these services because they're not creating value for anybody. I'll be much more specific about this on the 4th of August, which is the date we've chosen to announce the half-yearly results.
So on the 4th of August, we'll probably give you the first half results, but also allow time for those of you who'd like to attend to do a Q&A session, what we call an investor call. And on the 4th of August, along with my two colleagues here, we'll be much clearer about the amounts involved, the type of reorganization we'd like to implement, and the type of reorganization that we wanted even before COVID-19 ever arrived. This is because we have an asset-light economic model that we have yet to implement. We are not yet an asset-light company, despite our policy and strategy. So we wanted the model to be implemented before we could actually adjust. The second question is, given the current share price, wouldn't it be a good idea to buy back shares at a low cost? The answer is yes.
Yes, I'd be the first to deplore the share price, which is a reflection of the lower level of business, but let's be consistent. We decided that we must preserve our cash at all costs. Cash is one of our great strengths, particularly by comparison with our peers in the hospitality sector. We have the means to withstand a crisis of even 40 months, which won't be the case. This is not the right time to use our cash, given the current circumstances, even though from an investment point of view, it would seem to be a good idea to buy back our shares. We apologize. We bought back 300 million shares in January and February, but not now. We have other priorities. We have a third question. The th ird question is longer.
Do you not think that your employees in head offices, which are only working 50% of the time on average with these substantial decreases in wages, will not be able to pick up as the hotel business picks up in France and Europe? They cannot continue to work at 50%. So here again, this is a very understandable question, very legitimate question. I'm going to answer with my guts, I think. In the current circumstances, and we haven't got much visibility about how the recovery will take place, when it will take place, or what the effects of the recovery will be. In the current circumstances, it's probably, I think, urgent for people to remain furloughed, if only partially, because quite simply, the important thing for me now is that we want guests back in our hotels.
If they're not in our hotels, then we have no service or no reason to offer them services. So we may be three or four weeks behind the recovery, but I'd sooner be a few weeks behind the recovery than two months ahead of it. Unfortunately, the crisis is difficult to read into, and all we can be is maybe less audacious than we've been over the last three or four years. We must be cautious. As you know, we've taken a lot of initiatives to avoid people being in distress, and in many cases, governments are also providing various forms of compensation. True that the 80% government guarantee or 84% guarantee is what the government is guaranteeing. We add an additional 6% to bring it up to 90%, but a lot of people do not receive 100% of their wages or didn't anyway.
That was the case up to the end of May, but though that changed slightly, I apologize. I would be delighted if everybody were to return to work, but the level of business would not warrant that just now. Sébastien, we have two other questions from the consultative committee, advisory committee. First of all, what are the consequences of COVID-19? Have they made you rethink any of your structural concepts? Probably yes. As regards to concepts, are we going to challenge the brands?
No. Well, I'm not sure I know exactly what is meant by concept in this instance, but there are no taboos here. The first period was the emergency period. Since mid-May, it's been a lot about thinking, putting our heads together. We've been talking and thinking a lot with the board of directors and our management. It's all about resource allocation for the various activities in the group.
We have 12 brands that account for 85% of our business, and we have 20 of our 110 countries that also represent 85% of our business. So one of our priorities will be to allocate the bulk of our costs where revenue is highest. That's not to say we should overlook other countries or other brands. It's just that we must reorganize ourselves somewhat. At the very start of confinement, Chairman Sébastien Bazin was in the press and on TV announcing that the Accor Group was putting part of its means at its disposal to help medical staff and to help accommodate patients. This was at the very start of a very long critical period. What was the extent and success of this generous proposition, which came very early and was very unique at a time when everybody was defending their own benefits? Well, two types of response.
The management of the company reacted extremely well. We convinced them within about 10 minutes, and 300 hotels in France were made available. There's an organization called CoviSan with AP-HP, whereby we dedicated a number of premises that were closed that we reopened to accommodate a certain number of COVID patients, to isolate them, to protect them from their own families. They didn't need to be hospitalized, but this helped relieve hospitals. So this entire service was managed by the AP-HP. So wonderful response. Another side of my answer is that this wasn't taken up to any great extent by the AP-HP because there weren't enough tests around and not enough people were identified as being carriers. Those who were, who had symptoms in 90% of cases, people preferred to stay at home or isolate themselves in their own homes or away from their families. That was their decision.
There's no obligation for them to accept accommodation in our hotel. So all the better if that was to be the case. However, we weren't there. We made ourselves available, and that's the important thing. I think Sophie said twice in one of our videos, if we haven't said it even more often, the most important thing is that people were safe and that they are in good health, that they're close to their families, that they look after their health, first of all, then their families, and only thirdly, Accor. That's the message we've been putting out since early February. Look after yourselves first before you think about your job or your business, and we'll look after you if needs be to ensure that we get you back among us as soon as possible. That's it. Is that it? We're finished?
As I said at the start, this isn't an easy exercise. It's not the one I enjoy most. But in all events, thanks to those of you who have joined us by telephone. I don't know if you were numerous or not. In all events, it's an important meeting, one that we find indispensable, and we look forward to seeing you in person next year. In the meantime, you can come to the head office of your company, come and meet us and talk with us. Thank you all for being with us, and look forward to seeing you next year. Have a nice day.