Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Air Liquide first half 2024 results conference call. All participants are currently in listen-only mode until we conduct a question and answer session, and instructions will be given at that time. I would now like to hand over to the Air Liquide team. Please begin your meeting, and I'll be standing by.
Good morning, everyone. This is Aude Rodriguez, Head of Investor Relations. Thank you very much for attending the call today. François Jackow and Jérôme Pelletan will present the first half 2024 performance. For the Q&A session, they will be joined by Pascal Vinet, Executive VP overseeing the Europe Industry and the Africa, Middle East hub, the industrial merchants activity and group safety. Adam Peters, Group VP, CEO of Air Liquide North America, is on the phone with us from the U.S. In the agenda, our next announcement is on October 23, for our third quarter review. Let me now hand you over to François.
Thank you very much, Aude, and good morning, everyone. It is my pleasure to be with you today to share the highlights of the first semester of 2024. In few words, we demonstrated great resilience, delivered a strong performance, and we continue to build the future. The first half set of results demonstrate our capacity to be extremely resilient in soft markets, while we are gaining momentum on three fronts. First, the improvement of our financial performance. Second, concrete major announcements confirming the strong investment potential looking forward, and there is clearly more to come. Third, we are gaining momentum in our commitment to perform, not only with stronger efficiencies this semester, +13% versus last year, but also several structural efficiency initiatives. I will come back to each of these points in the following slides. Let's move to Slide 4.
To start with, we demonstrated our ability to continue to grow in soft markets. Few comments here. First, the solid comparable sales growth of 3% needs to be qualified this semester due to Argentina's devaluation. Nonetheless, even excluding this effect, the sales growth is positive in soft markets. So when I say soft markets, since, as you can see from most of the macro indicators, there is no clear signs of strong pickup in the volume. Clearly, what we see is slightly higher sales growth in Q2, around +1% globally versus Q1. This is in line with the sequential improvement we mentioned in the last calls. We are getting more and more of positive signals regarding low levels of inventory, ADVANCE orders, but it is probably still too early to confirm the real pickup in demand.
All in all, once again, very resilient top line, improving sequentially. Regarding the profitability, we achieved a strong year margin improvement, + 100 basis points, and even + 110 basis points for Gas & Services , excluding energy pass-through. This is an acceleration compared to our updated trajectory for 2024, 2025. The fact that we are over-delivering shows our strong focus on execution in terms of efficiency, pricing, and portfolio management, regardless of the macroeconomic condition. Also, the recurring return on capital employed, ROCE, continues to improve at 10.7%, and despite adding higher investments under construction, not contributing yet to the results. As a reminder, ROCE remains the main financial KPI of our industry.
Again, this strong performance was achieved despite an adverse environment, once again demonstrating the resilience of our business model and the unwavering commitment of our teams, whom I would like to thank here very much. At the same time, we continue to build the future, as illustrated by the investment backlog exceeding EUR 4 billion. Let's keep in mind, as Jérôme will explain, that this backlog is conservative, as we are, for example, only accounting for EUR 120 million out of the $850 million of the Baytown ExxonMobil project. I also want to highlight that we are fully in line with our CO2 trajectory, and more than 40% of our portfolio of project opportunities is directly linked to the energy transition. On Slide 5, our recent announcement on major projects have confirmed the investment potential. Starting with the ExxonMobil.
As a reminder, this flagship project is a great illustration of how hydrogen can enable decarbonization of the industry. The vast size of the hydrogen production by ExxonMobil required Air Liquide to develop the largest oxygen production platform in the Americas, with the added benefit of being low-carbon oxygen, two-thirds less CO2 footprint than current production. This project of EUR 850 million marks the largest industrial CapEx in the history of Air Liquide. Also, with our air gas footprint, we will leverage the number one position of our industrial Merchant distribution network and marketing capabilities to sell significant volumes of argon and air gases. Despite its size, let's be clear, we view this as a standard core business project with a long-term LI contract, monthly fee, and take-or-pay clauses, and meeting our return on investment criteria.
Air Liquide will also get access to significant volume of low carbon hydrogen, which will unlock opportunities to service customers through our extensive pipeline and storage facilities. Being selected for this project by a tier one partner is a tremendous success and a key milestone for the group. Electronics is another key growth driver for the group, as illustrated by the Micron project supported by the U.S. CHIPS Act. It's a major signing with a long-term partner leading artificial intelligence solutions. We will supply an ultra-pure carrier gases solution through a long-term contract, and we will invest more than $250 million. This is a very large-scale plan for Electronics business. Innovation was a key element of differentiation, including a higher energy efficiency. Once again, we have also been able to develop synergies with industrial Merchants through our Airgas platform.
A key focus was also to develop a sustainable solution with an optimized land footprint and 100% use of renewable electricity within the next 5 years. This is a major win for a mega project plant to develop electronic business in the U.S., where we see continuous growth momentum. Project development is also progressing well in Europe. In France, we are developing solutions to decarbonize hard-to-abate industries, such as cement and lime production in the Dunkerque Basin. The D'Artagnan project, I hope you like the name, has taken a major step forward, receiving a grant for more than EUR 160 million from the European Union. This marks an essential milestone towards the implementation of the capture and sequestration business, supported by the infrastructure needed to reduce CO2 emission in France and in Europe.
This being said, let's keep in mind that the vast majority of our investment decision this semester were directed towards more traditional projects, allowing us to maintain a solid and balanced portfolio of growth. The Aurubis announcement that you have seen yesterday is an illustration of those. These three projects exemplify Air Liquide's leadership in energy transition and Electronics. These new investments will drive accelerated growth beyond 2025, the next strategic period following our current ADVANCE plan. Moving to Slide 6, I would like to come back to the recently announced simplified organization of the group as an illustration of our sustained commitment to performance. This new organization, by removing existing management layers, aims at fostering agility, improving efficiency, accelerating decision-making, and leveraging the company's scale to deliver competitive advantage. In addition, a single world group industrial direction will be created, replacing the matrix industrial organization by business lines.
The objective is to leverage our know-how and optimize the group industrial processes, ensuring higher standards of safety, quality, reliability, and efficiency for our customers. Regarding global and corporate functions, such as IT and procurement, we are structuring the services to the operation by leveraging our scale and expertise, and also by being more prescriptive, engaging directly with operations for more efficient integration. This simplified organization should enable us to better serve our customers and patients, while boosting further the level of engagement of our teams to deliver enhanced value. The streamlining of our organization is one, of course, among several other initiatives to boost efficiency. On Slide 7, I would like to outline that the strong financial performance also reflects significant progress in our sustainable roadmap.
We are making progress in the modernization and electrification of our assets, in the deployment of carbon capture solutions, like, for example, to decarbonize the Air Liquide largest hydrogen production unit in Europe, and we signed new long-term sourcing contract for renewable electricity. In addition to reducing Air Liquide's emissions, our projects will enable the decrease of CO2 emissions of our customers, with two recent examples mentioned here. As noted on the slide, Air Liquide also successfully issued a EUR 500 million green bond in very favorable conditions to finance energy transition efforts. All in all, impressive progress towards furthering our commitment to sustainability. Slide 8 outlines the key takeaways of this first semester.
By actively deploying the ADVANCE strategic plan, we have been able to deliver resilient comparable sales growth, a significant 100 basis points OIR margin improvement, the signing of major projects in energy transition and Electronics, two of our main growth drivers, and the launch of structural efficiency projects. To conclude, I am on Slide 9. While we are gaining momentum this semester, we are demonstrating that we can deliver margin improvement at a faster pace than our initial 2024/2025 upgraded trajectory. With this, we have confidence in our ability to deliver on our commitments in terms of performance for 2024, as well as on our previously announced enhanced ADVANCE objectives of doubling the initial margin improvement ambition by 2025. Thank you very much for your attention. I will now ask Jérôme to present the details of our financial performance in H1.
Thank you, François, and good morning, everyone. We will now review our numbers in more detail. Coming back to the first half. Now on page eleven, you can see that group sales have been resilient overall on a comparable basis, meaning excluding scope, energy pass-through, and FX. There are no significant scope effects in the first half. Gas and services sales for H1 achieved a +2.6% increase versus last year. Turning to much smaller segments, Engineering & Construction sales have increased by +10% in H1. Order intake has increased to EUR 557 million year to date, with third-party sales representing 20% of it. Global Markets & Technologies are down -2% due to the divestiture of our aerospace and defense activity, while order intake, which is a solid EUR 416 million.
So overall, group sales are up +2.6% on a comparable basis for the first half, while published sales are down -4.3% as a consequence of the continued energy price decrease during the semester. That translate into a -3.5% energy pass-through effect, which, as you know, has no impact on the operating income value. We also take into account a negative FX effect at -3.4%, mainly due to Argentina devaluation over the period. For information, the contribution, as said by François, from Argentina on the +2.6% group comparable sales is +2.1% in H1. To be noted, Argentina has no impact on published sales.
Finally, specific to Q2, comparable growth is at +3.1%, sequentially improving after +2.1% in Q1. Let's now review the activity for each of our main geographies. My comments will be mainly related to Q2. I'm now on page 12. So you can see that after an already strong Q1, sales in the Americas have grown in all business lines to reach a +10% overall growth on a comp basis. That includes +6% from Argentina, basically, mainly because the impact of hyperinflation is, of course, not offset by the devaluation when you exclude the currency impact. Large Industries benefited from a major startup as well as ramp-ups contribution. Base volumes have been growing and were strong overall in North America, both in hydrogen and in air gases, while we face some customer turnarounds in LATAM.
In Merchant, sales have been driven by strong pricing effect at +8.1% year-on-year, supported by active pricing management and campaign at Airgas, which is 50% pricing impact, and in Argentina, 40% of pricing impact to counter local hyperinflation. Gas volume at Airgas has been resilient overall, excluding outputs. Growth in healthcare has been sharp, supported by solid volumes in high pricing in proximity care in the U.S., with, again, strong pricing in LATAM, especially in Argentina. Finally, Electronics sales have been strong, supported by growing carrier gases and record equipment and installations activity, while materials remain low. In Europe now, sales are slightly down, with continued strong growth in healthcare. In Large Industry in Europe, demand from customer in steel and refining was overall stable, while hydrogen volume to chemical production slightly improved on a low basis.
In addition, as we communicated in Q1, comparable sales were adversely affected by the sale of a cogen unit in Germany in Q1. In Merchant, sales have been impacted, as explained in Q1, by a decrease in price in bulk due to the energy indexation in our contract, in the context of the sharp decline in energy prices. On the other hand, excluding this energy component, pricing has stayed positive and strong, offsetting almost all of the indexation impact. Volume remains soft, but improved sequentially, as we anticipated. Finally, Healthcare growth was again very solid at +4%. Sales have been supported by strong Healthcare activity, notably in diabetes and sleep apnea, with an increased number of patients. Growth in medical gases remains solid, with a sustained price effect in response to inflation. In Q2, on page 13, activity in Asia has been soft overall.
In Large Industries, sales and volume remained affected by customer turnaround, especially in China. On the positive side, the activity benefited from a major hydrogen startup in China in March. That fully contributed this quarter. Sales in Industrial Merchant have been slightly negative, impacted in China by helium.... Activity excluding helium has been soft in China, especially in Bulk, but strong in Packaged Gases. The rest of Asia experienced improving volume with a positive pricing effect, but slowing down. Electronics sales are getting back to positive, with growing sales in Carrier Gases and in Advanced Materials. Specialty Materials remain soft, but showing sequential improvement. In Africa, Middle East, we have seen again, strong growth in our business line. In Large Industries, the activity was sustained with solid hydrogen volume in Saudi Arabia and air gases volume in Egypt.
Merchant growth was solid, thanks to a strong price, pricing at +10% and robust volumes in bulk and packaged gases. I will now comment on our Q2 activity by business line and now on page 14. In Merchant, we continue to see solid pricing, albeit on top of +8.6% versus last year. Volumes overall are still soft. Pricing is still strong, especially in the Americas, while slightly decreasing in Europe for the reason I explained earlier. Markets such as aeronautics in the U.S., automotive, and fabrication in Europe and Asia are posting volume growth. In Large Industry, activity also still low, has stabilized on a sequential basis. Activity has been impacted by turnaround, and also, as I mentioned, the sale of a cogen unit in Europe. 2 startups have positively contributed in China and in the U.S.
From a market standpoint, chemicals have improved in the U.S. and in Europe, while steel has been soft and refining more contrasted. Page 15. Electronics is back to positive, with solid contribution from startup and ramp-up. Advanced materials have improved. Equipment and installation have been at record level in the U.S., while overall specialty materials have been low. Finally, in Healthcare, we still have strong and well-balanced growth in all segments, with high pricing and volume decrease. Home care, home care, sorry, was again, very robust, with home therapies growing, especially diabetes and sleep apnea. In med gas activity, sales growth was solid, with pricing addressing inflation in Americas and in Europe with solid volume and pricing.
On page 16, the success of our performance improvement has been again demonstrated, by our operating margin being up by a significant + 100 basis points, excluding the impact of the energy pass-through effect. OIR for Gas & Services , the OIR is + 100 basis points. You can see, getting to the detail, that purchases have decreased following the decline of energy prices, mainly in Europe, while personnel expense and other costs have increased lower than inflation. Depreciation is well contained. This again has resulted in a group operating margin at 19.4%, with Gas & Services at 21.2%. Again, a significant + 100 basis point increase, excluding the impact of the energy pass-through. To be clear, there is no impact from Argentina here. This margin improvement illustrates again, our commitment to deliver an acceleration in performance.
On page 17, this margin improvement is supported, as said by François, by our structural margin improvement plan that continues to deliver based on 3 pillars. First, iron pricing is still solid, despite, as you see, high comparable basis. We have also significantly ramped up our efficiencies in H1 to reach EUR 233 million, at +13% versus last year. We are ahead of our annual target, with an acceleration for transformation program, as said by François, while procurement and industrial efficiencies continue to deliver. Portfolio management has been further pursued. We closed 9 bolt-on acquisitions over the period and executed 3 divestitures, with a continued focus on strategy, profitable, and margin accretive opportunity. As François highlighted, we remain deeply focused on margin improvement, working on all possible levels.
As you can see on page 18, our pricing action continued to deliver, as pricing remains strong in Americas and in Africa, Middle East, to reach +4.7% overall in Q2. As I said previously, the decline in pricing of our bulk activity in Europe was expected because it's very much linked to the energy cost decrease due to the indexation. However, we experienced continued accretive margin contribution, and in Asia, pricing would be slightly positive, excluding helium. Let us now review quickly the bottom lines of the P&L on page 19. Non-recurring operating expense, which correspond mainly to restructuring costs, stand at - EUR 87 million in 2024, versus + EUR 33 million last year, which, as you know, in 2023, including a + EUR 173 million capital gain before tax on the Hydrogenics stake sales.
Net financial costs are stable, despite the high interest rate environment, due to a reduction of net debt, given our strong cash flow, and also thanks to our efficient financial policy, with this high share of fixed rate funding, with a cost of debt around 3%. On an effective tax rate standpoint, our ratio is quite flat, around 23.6%, thanks to non-recurring item in H1 2024. As you can see, net profit growth is -2%, which is a very good performance, considering the very high comparable basis last year, following the divestiture of Hydrogenics, which take into account the +EUR 157 million post-tax capital gain. Recurring net profit, excluding FX, is significantly up, at +5% if we exclude Argentina.
As you see, I have highlighted the main impact of Argentina, and for second term transparency, can refer to the appendix of the presentation, and the separate management report, where we have disclosed a summary of the impacts of Argentina. On page 20 now, as I mentioned before, cash flow has been strong, 24% of sales. Net debt is down minus EUR 0.4 billion versus June last year, after our CapEx and dividend payment, and our gearing is now at 35% adjusted for the dividend payment seasonality effect. As you can see, recurring ROCE continues to ramp up, illustrating the success of our strategy. ROCE is, as you know, very significant KPI in our industry, and to make it clear again, there is no impact from Argentina on these metrics. Page 22, 22, sorry.
The 12-month portfolio of opportunity below 1 year, as disclosed, is at a record level of EUR 4 billion, including the initial impact of the major ExxonMobil project in Texas, as François said earlier. This portfolio is very well balanced between energy transition, Electronics, and traditional business. Our industrial and financial investment decision for the semester, which is solid level of EUR 1.6 billion, including EUR 120 million for the ExxonMobil project disclosed a few weeks ago. Finally, our investment backlog remains very strong at EUR 4.1 billion, well balanced by geography and by project. I am now on page 23.
As you can see, we achieved EUR 108 million exactly sales contribution from start-up and ramp-up during the first half, and we expect to reach a full year start-up and ramp-up contribution to sales of about between EUR 230 million and EUR 250 million this year. This is a bit lower than our initial expectation, mainly due to the slower ramp-up of projects in a subdued environment and few projects started being delayed to 2025. There is, however, no cancellation, as the impact is only in delay in the contribution. Indeed, for 2025, we are confident that this contribution of project will deliver more than EUR 250 million. On page 24, as François mentioned in his introduction, we confirm our guidance set in February. We are very much grateful.
Thank you very much for your attention, and we'll now open the Q&A session. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Jérôme.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Once again, please press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Thank you. We are now going to proceed with our first question. The questions come from the line of Martin Roediger from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please ask your question.
Yes, good morning, and thanks for taking my three questions. Regarding the performance in Asia, EBIT margin in Asia was down by 40 basis points, reported and minus 50 basis points excluding energy passthrough effects. What is the reason for this margin decline? Secondly, in your press release, you say that sales in large industries benefited, among other reasons, from the stronger demand from chemical customers in Europe and the U.S. in the second quarter. I understand this is driven by hydrogen volumes in both regions, and here I have a clarification question. Is the reason for that just lower comps, or do you see any improving momentum at your chemical customers, despite the fact that there is no broad-based economic recovery? And the third question is related to your decarbonization projects.
You mentioned the EUR 160 million grant from the European Union for the D'Artagnan project. I have a more general question. When you receive any subsidies, either from the European Union or from other governments, will you book them as other operating income in your P&L, or will you treat them as a cash item without effect on your P&L? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Martin, and good morning. So you have three question. I will ask Jérôme to talk about the margin in Asia, and then your question on Large Industry both in Europe and US, I think Pascal and Adam will comment on that. And finally, Jérôme will come back on the accounting treatment of the subsidies. So, Jérôme-
Yeah.
Do you want to speak about margin in Asia?
Okay, your point is right, Martin. Good to hear you. Basically, you know, we have a negative impact on comparison to last year, but this is very much due to one-off effect that we accounted for in March last year, of customer indemnity payment, as we disclosed last year. So that is very much a one-off effect, a non-recurring effect. And basically, when you look, you retreat this specific one-off the efficiencies, and the margin is still very strong in Asia also this year.
And I think it's important to notice that the underlying business in Asia is doing well overall. So one-off effect in Asia. Regarding Large Industries, maybe Pascal, you want to comment on what we see and the kind of signals we are seeing, the different segments in Europe?
Okay, thank you...
... So Martin, on the large industries in Europe, again, if we exclude the Cogen effect that Jérôme mentioned, sales are up, and that's due, and you, you said it well, to an improved chemical market. For us, we see improved hydrogen volumes in the chemical market, both in Benelux and in Germany, where we have significant volumes. So that's the reason why our LI, our large industries business is performing better. On the other fronts, the refining market that we see in Europe is flat, but at solid levels, and the steel market remains quite soft, pretty flattish as well.
Thank you very much, Pascal. Adam, can you give us some color on what we see in the U.S. in Large Industry?
Yes, absolutely, François. Thank you, Martin, for the question. So if we look at U.S. large industries, what we see is a nice improvement in terms of overall sales growth and overall volumes in large industries, in hydrogen as well as in oxygen. Some of this is lower turnaround effect from our customers, and some of it is just overall recovery, some of it affected from the startup mentioned earlier by François and Jérôme.
Thank you very much. Do you have any signs looking forward, or what do you expect, Adam?
Yes. So overall, we expect that the second half of the year will continue improvement. If you look at the past couple of quarters, and what we see in Q2, Q2 is actually a nice rebound in the U.S. in terms of overall, growth in Large Industries. We saw a nice, above mid-single digit, growth in sales in Large Industries in the U.S. in Q2, and I would expect that, to continue in the second half of the year.
Thank you very much. Jérôme, can you clarify how we treat the grants, for example, from the European Union?
Yeah, of course. That's a very good question, Martin. So, the accounting and methodology is the same, and it's quite, I would say, prudent. We are not treating them as the cash item in the P&L, of course. We are basically, I would say, making that with CapEx, treating like CapEx, so there is an impact in balance sheet, but not as an immediate cash gain in the P&L. That's all.
All right. Thank you very much, Jérôme. Next question, please.
Sure. We are now going to proceed with our next question. The question comes from the line of Chetan Udeshi from J.P. Morgan. Please ask your question.
Yeah. Hi, thank you. I have two questions. First, thanks for breaking out the impact from Argentina, price changes in your numbers. It's quite useful. I'm just curious, why is the earnings impact from Argentina on EBIT 4%, which is almost double the impact on revenue, which is 2%? Just can you maybe help us understand that? The second question I had was, on the startup contribution. I understand, you know, there has been some delays, but I'm just curious why for 2025 you're still seeing more than EUR 250 million?
Because if I look at your startup contribution over the last four years, it essentially just stayed at these levels of EUR 250 million ±, despite the backlog having gone up over that four-year period by almost EUR 1 billion-EUR 1.5 billion. So why is the backlog conversion taking so long? I know, you know, things are dependent on subsidies, et cetera, but it just feels like it's taking much longer. I mean, next year, in theory, should have been much bigger in startup, but it doesn't seem like that's necessarily gonna happen. So just curious. Thank you.
Thank you very much. I will ask Jérôme to speak about Argentina, but maybe just one comment. I think clearly the Argentina business is a small business overall, which is managed well. We wanted to have a full transparency on the impact so that you understand, and you understand also, of course, that the underlying business is performing very well. So, to clarify that one more time, Jérôme.
Thank you, Chetan. Thank you for your comment. We try to be, you're right, totally transparent on that. So, also mention the, I would say, the marginal impact for the group in terms of size of Argentina, it's quite well managed. We manage well, I would say, to pass through the devaluation and manage hyperinflation. Just to remind a thing, which is quite clear. In as published figures, hyperinflation, which is having +280% roughly impact during the first half, is roughly compensated by the similar effect on devaluation, 250%, which is, of course, Chetan, neutralizing the impact on group years. But if you exclude the effects, it create a bias, because you get the full impact of hyperinflation with no offset from devaluation.
So that's why we are basically excluding effects. The impact of Argentina on group year is amplified four times bigger than as published figure in H1. So, as we mentioned, we are provided with all the figures excluding Argentina. I just want to highlight again, there is no impact on the strong 100 basis point operating margin improvement in H1, which again demonstrate our continued focus on performance and execution. And just to come back on the, on difference between sales and maybe it is very much the fact that, you know, it's a FX effect which is, the impact of the FX, which is very much explaining the difference. And the fact that, again, the BIAS is having a four times impact on both items. That's basically where we stand.
Thank you, Jérôme. I will comment on your point on the startup, so you have seen that we do expect a little less startup for this year, compared to what we initially had in mind. It's minor at the scale of the group, of course. And as mentioned by Jérôme, it's mostly delayed either in the startup date or in the ramp-up rate, which in the current market I think we can understand. We do expect that as the demand will ramp up for our customer, they will accelerate of course, the ramp up of those plans.
Regarding what we see looking forward, as mentioned, since this is mostly a delay of existing facilities which are being built, and that we have a pipeline also of projects coming online, with all of them having a take-or-pay base, for example, we are quite confident that the startup contribution for next year is going to be above EUR 250 million. You had also a comment about, I mean, the size of the backlog, and the contribution of the backlog. I think you have to keep in mind what we have in the backlog. We have been putting larger projects, as we mentioned, energy transition projects, which typically take a little bit more time than the traditional project to be completed.
We talked about that before, with the engineering phase and then construction. So it's normal that this backlog is taking a little bit more time to precipitate. And also depending on how you, I mean, the type of projects between the Electronics, between the Airgas project and the hydrogen project, the sales contribution is different. All in all, we are very confident that this backlog will continue to deliver sales contribution. Let's be careful, and that's also the learning of the past few years. I mean, the energy impact is quite could be quite significant on the sales number. So what is important to look at is the EBITDA contribution and the OIR contribution of those projects.
All those projects are good projects, contributing a good return to the portfolio of Air Liquide. Next question, please?
We are now going to proceed with our next question. The question come from the line of, Jean-Luc Romain from CIC Market Solutions. Please ask your question.
Good morning. In the reorganization that you announced, of the simplification of the organization, what's the cost associated with that, and what's the benefit you expect by, say, 2025 or 2026?
Jean-Luc, good morning, and thank you very much for the question. I will ask Jérôme to talk about the cost, and I will talk about the benefits. Jérôme, it's a good start, no?
Yeah, of course. No, but you know, for the reorganization, we have made this announcement that we can come maybe later in the detail. But what basically we consider as one of the level to continue to deliver on our margin improvement, I would say, roadmap. So we will not disclose a specific KPI for this. It's one of the KPI. No, it's one of the tool of the action that we are basically setting up in order to deliver the margin improvement. So that basically is the way we can comment on that.
Is there a specific cost?
Well, there will be costs, but you know, again, I would be a little bit evasive on that, Jean-Luc, because we cannot communicate on the cost, because, you know, I would say obviously that needs to go through a social process, as we go. So I will circle.
Understood.
All right. Regarding the benefit, I think it's absolutely clear, this simplification of the organization will serve the performance of Air Liquide. First with our customers, to make sure that we are agile, easy to interact, and we are providing the best of Air Liquide to any customer. So that's of course a key driver. This simplification will also help us to be more efficient in the way we are delivering our services to our customer and our patients. So I think it's quite important, and it will contribute to the performance of the group.
But also I would say, to the satisfaction of our employees, because by putting together and leveraging the scale of Air Liquide, we will do things better in a more efficient way. So all in all, it's fully aligned with the ADVANCE objective. It's clear that there are several initiatives which will contribute, which are structural initiatives. We mentioned that we are decreasing the level of management layer, so that should, for example, speed up the decision making and reinforce the empowerment of our team. We are also creating one single industrial direction for the group, as opposed to having one industrial direction in every business line as we have today.
We will be able to leverage the scale, of course, and leverage the expertise, and also are centralizing and managing globally some some functions that we have been managing locally until now, like IT and procurement. And you see clearly, I mean, the type of benefit we can drive by by doing that. So this is fully aligned. Again, we contribute to the objective of advance for 2024, 2025. But based on what I just mentioned, you should expect contribution after 2025, because again, those are structural improvement initiatives.
Thank you.
Next question, please?
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Once again, please press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Thank you. We are now going to take our next question. And the question's come from the line of Peter Clark from Bernstein. Please ask your question.
Yes, good morning, everyone. I've got three actually. Price, efficiencies, and volume. On the pricing, obviously, Airgas, it's still accelerating, up 4% against 3% in the first quarter. Europe, you're flat underlying 6%, and I presume you're gonna say that you're pretty confident with local inflation, that you've still got the momentum on price, so I was gonna ask that one. On the efficiencies, just trying to get a feel now for how much of the gross is actually hitting the bottom line. I'm assuming it's starting to go up as you take a stronger look at the efficiencies, the inflation environment does get a little bit better. So I'm just wondering on the efficiency, particularly with taking out things like the matrix form there.
And then finally, on the volumes, the industrial Merchant volumes were down 2% in the second quarter, very similar to the first quarter. You have got softer comps in the second half, but I'm assuming you're not really seeing a great deal on the ground for volume improvement, so the second half industrial Merchant volumes might still be slightly down year-on-year, but maybe I'm wrong on that, so maybe you could answer. Thank you.
Good morning, Peter. Thank you very much for your three questions. I will ask Pascal to talk about the price and, of course for Europe, but since you have the IM global view, you will expand also on what we see in other geographies. Jérôme, you will comment on the efficiency, please? And Pascal, maybe you come back on the volume on IM after. So pricing, Pascal, what do we see?
So on pricing, I think, Peter, you got it perfectly right. We see higher pricing in the Americas, driven by Airgas. Why? Because Airgas had a successful pricing campaign last March, that has been bringing benefits in Q2, so that's why we have this a sequential improvement between Q1 and Q2. The second big piece is the strong underlying pricing in Europe, that we have seen again in Q2, and that we had already in Q1.
I think reading the pricing in Europe from Q1- Q2, the difference going from -1.9 to -0.5, is due to a lower impact of the energy indexes in our bulk business. But the most important piece is that the underlying pricing globally on our IM business in Europe stays at +6%, and that's a very, very good achievement from our teams focusing on value creation and smart pricing. For the rest of the world, I would say it's more neutral. We have a very positive pricing in Africa, Middle East, India. We have a neutral pricing in Asia.
Positive underlying pricing, but a bit of pricing decrease in China on the helium business that is contributing the wrong way, I would say. But overall, very good in the Americas, especially in Airgas. Strong underlying in EU, which makes a big difference, and neutral in Asia due to pluses and minuses that are small in overall value.
Thank you very much, Pascal-
Word on the outlook,
Of course.
Because there was a, there was another question. I would say, outlook remains quite positive on the pricing for IM worldwide. We don't see things changing radically. It may moderate a little bit with inflation moderating, but we see things continuing for Airgas and for Europe the way it's going, with again a lower impact of energy indexes in the coming months because of the comparison to energy prices a year ago.
All in all, we do expect positive contribution of pricing for the full year of 2024 globally. Jérôme, yes, efficiencies.
Yeah. Thank you, Peter. So basically, you mentioned on efficiency was a very good number, +13% in H1 versus last year, EUR 233 million. Ahead of our, I would say annual target, which is EUR 400 million, so that's good news. In terms of metrics, I would say that, you know, we are basically increasing, affecting a higher part of the cost base, 2.3% on H1 2023 versus 1.9% last year, so it's basic one metric that we could discuss. But overall, what we can say is that all our levers in efficiencies are basically delivering. Industrial efficiencies are accelerating.
Procurement, you know, one of the decision that has been made, you know, into, I would say, the program that François mentioned, is to help very much verticalize the procurement function in order to tackle the bigger contract with the suppliers at global level. So it's very much contributing as well, and, it's only the beginning. And we have also, as we said, transformation program. You know them, you know we have also accelerated our business service center program in low-cost country, and we are also, of course, adding, more to come in terms of restructuring and, and transformation. So that's basically—but, you know, I would say that the value of the cost base, is higher than, what we tackled last year. That's basically the metrics we can have.
Thank you very much, Jérôme. Pascal, for the IM volume globally, comments please?
Outlook is slightly positive, I would say. We expect Europe at this stage to be reasonably stable compared to what we have seen in the past quarters. In China, if we exclude helium, we see positive volumes. We have seen in the last quarter +12% on our package gas volumes, so that's very good news for us, and is a positive thing for the months to come. Now, in the U.S., since Airgas is the very big part we have in our industrial Merchant business, we see potentially positive news.
If interest rates are coming down, immediately there will be an impact on our hardgoods business, but coming from there, on our global business as well. So, let's see what happens with the interest rates in the U.S., that can be good news.
Thank you very much, Pascal. I think we have one last question. No? Ah, okay, the last question has disappeared. All right. Well, so this means that this will now conclude this session. Thank you very much, all, for your questions. To summarize, we delivered again a strong performance in the first half, while being able to prepare future growth through successful development of major projects. This clearly demonstrate the resilience of our business model, and also our ability to create value for our customers. In the months to come, we will remain focused on execution, including implementation of our simplified organization and structural efficiency projects, to deliver our ADVANCE midterm objectives. Of course, in terms of growth, return on capital employed, and CO2 emissions reduction, and overall, create value for our shareholders.
With this, I wish all of you an enjoyable summer break and great Olympic Games for all of you. Thank you very much.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.